Battle of Britain (6 page)

“Peter, isn't it?” I said. He didn't reply. He just stood there staring at me. Mum came out of the kitchen.

“It's all right Peter,” she said. “It's only Harry. Are you going to say hello?” But instead of saying hello, he turned on his heels and ran as fast as his little legs would take him up the stairs.

“He's still very shaken by all this,” said Mum.

“It's good of you to take him in, Mum.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “Anyway, sit yourself down and relax. It's so lovely to see you.” She gave me one of her bear-hugs. I swear she could crush an ox. “Your father will be back soon,” she called from the kitchen. “And you look tired!”

I was tired, too. I flopped down in the armchair and closed my eyes. Then I realized Peter was standing in the doorway.

“You fly Spitfires, don'tcha?”

“That I do,” I said. Peter walked a little closer.

“Shot down many Jerries?” he said.

“A few,” I said.

“I'd like to be a Spitfire pilot, I really would.”

“It's not as much fun as it probably seems,” I said. “So how do you like living in the country?”

“It's great. All the fresh air an' that.”

“Your parents must be glad to know you're safe, out of harm's way? With all the bombing I mean.”

“Yeah,” he said. “They're getting bombed every bleedin' night, they are.”

“Not sure my mother would approve of the language, old chap,” I said.

“She's a nice lady, your muvver,” he said. “Kind an' that.”

“She is. You must be missing yours,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “An' me dad, too. 'E says them Jews are in the shelters all day.”

“Does he now,” I said frowning.

“Yeah,” he carried on. “Says they're all cowards an' all this is their fault. 'E says we shouldn't be fightin' Hitler at all, we shouldn't—” And then I just saw red. I suddenly thought of Lenny and what had happened to him fighting for the likes of this boy. It seemed a waste and it made me mad.

“Why you little. . .” I grabbed him by his jumper and pinned him against the wall. He was gasping and clawing at my wrists and his feet were six inches off the ground.

“Stop it! Stop that at once!” yelled my mother coming out from the kitchen. I let go and he dropped to the floor, slumped against the wall and the skirting board. I just stood there. I looked at Mum and I looked down at Peter. They both looked terrified. Terrified of me.

My mother darted forward and pulled the boy away to the other side of the room shielding him from me like I was a rabid dog. Now she looked angry.

“What do you think you're doing?” she shouted. “He's a boy! He's just a boy!”

“You didn't hear him.” I muttered. “You didn't hear what he was saying!”

“
He's just a boy!
” she yelled again.

My mother turned her back on me and comforted Peter, who stared out from behind her arm in absolute terror. I turned on my heels and left the room; left the house and the garden, walked up over the back fields to Hunter's Hill.

I sat on the fence that borders the copse. What was happening to me? I looked down at my hands. I felt ashamed of myself. The whole thing with Lenny, the constant tension, the exhaustion – it was getting to me far more than I'd realized.

I looked up. Housemartins hunted for insects around the oaks and beeches. I'd never noticed before how much like fighters they were as they wheeled about together. It looked like a dogfight up there.

Two land girls were walking across the meadow below, talking and giggling. A farmer was feeding his horse in the shade of a huge ash tree. Suddenly Dad was standing next to me.

“Look Dad, I'm sorry about Peter. I was an ass, I'm sorry. But you should have heard what he said. . .”

“I think I can guess,” said Dad. “His father is a Fascist, a Mosley supporter. By rights he ought to be in prison. Peter is just parroting his father's prejudices.”

“Even so. How can you let him get away with that?”

“Look, do you think I only treat people I like?” said Dad. “There'd be fewer people round here if that was true, I can tell you. We don't get to choose who needs our help.”

“I suppose not.” I said with a shrug.

“And I've got news for you, son. You're in the same boat.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“You're fighting for everyone, not just the people you know; not just the people you like. You don't get to choose, either.” He grinned at me. “It's a pain isn't it?”

“Yes it is,” I said, grinning back.

“And you'll apologize to Peter, won't you?” he said.

“Yes, I suppose so,” I said.

“Good lad. Shall we head back?”

“I'll follow you down. I just want a few minutes.” Dad nodded and walked off down the hill.

My mother was standing in the kitchen washing up some cups and saucers. She didn't look round when I came to the door.

“I'm sorry, Mum,” I said.

“So am I, dear,” she said. She turned to face me with a weak smile.

“Just a bit tense at the moment,” I said. “Things getting me down a bit.”

“Then why won't you talk to me about them?”

“You'd only worry,” I said.

“I worry anyway,” she said. “Talk to me.”

So I filled her in about Lenny. She wanted to cry, I could tell, but she stopped herself. When I'd finished she came over and kissed me on the cheek like she used to do when I was a little boy.

“How's Peter?” I asked.

“A little bruised. A little frightened. He'll be all right. But he's not as tough as he'd like to seem. This is hard for him.”

“That doesn't give him the right to—”

“No,” she said. “It doesn't. He's wrong and we tell him he's wrong. And maybe, just maybe, we can change his mind. I hope so.” She paused and adjusted some flowers in a vase on the table. “Or, of course, we could just strangle him and have done with it.”

I smiled. “Point taken, Mum,” I said. “I'll try not to throttle him again.”

“You'll do better than that, young man. You can take him to the pictures.”

“But, Mum. . .”

“Never mind ‘But, Mum'.
Pinocchio
is on at the Plaza. You know – the new Walt Disney film. Mrs Harris says it's marvellous.”

“But,
Mum
. . .”

“Go on,” she said, pushing me through the door towards the stairs. “It'll do you good. If you hurry, you'll make the next show.”

I shrugged and began to climb the stairs, knowing full well that I was never going to get out of it. I stood in the doorway of the bedroom and Peter lay playing with a toy Spit and a toy Me109. He pretended that he hadn't heard me.

On the floor was a copy of
Picture Post
. The cover showed a mother hugging her young son, both looking terrified. The headline was “THE EAST END AT WAR:
Two of Hitler's enemies
.”

“Peter?” I said.

“Yeah?” he said without looking up.

“Look, sport,” I said. “Sorry about before, you know. Uncalled for.”

Peter carried on playing with his toy planes. I almost walked away. There seemed no way he was going to go anywhere with me. But I owed it to Mum to give it a shot.

“Who's winning?” I said, watching the pretend dogfight.

“The Spit of course,” he said without turning round. “Spits are the best.”

“Me109s can fly higher.”

“Spits can fly faster and turn quicker.”

I smiled. “I say, fancy coming to the flicks with me to see
Pinocchio
?”

I'd hardly finished speaking when he was off his bed, barging past me and bounding down the stairs.

“Come on!” he shouted. “Or we'll miss the start!”

We didn't miss the start. When we were going to our seats, a couple of people shook me by the hand and a couple more patted me on the shoulder. Everyone loved the RAF now.

There was a newsreel showing Londoners getting on with it in spite of the bombers. It was pretty corny stuff, but it went down well and there were plenty of cheers at the mention of the “boys of the RAF” and plenty of boos every time the Germans were mentioned. It was like being at a panto.

Well, I have to say Mrs Harris was right for a change. It was pretty first rate, actually. Amazing to think that it was just a lot of drawings we were looking at, although I did think it was all a bit typical that while we were being blasted to Hell and back, the Yanks were making cartoons!

There was this terrific bit where a huge whale called Monstro was chasing Pinocchio and his father. Well, when that whale was bearing down on them, Peter squeezed up against me and peeped over my coat sleeves, grabbing my arm and jumping every time the whale made a move. Mum was right – Peter wasn't half as tough as he made out.

And when Jiminy Cricket sang “When You Wish Upon A Star” I thought the whole cinema was going to burst into tears. I felt a little tearful myself. Embarrassing really. I suppose we all had a lot to wish for.

 

“Here,” I said, the next time I visited Lenny. “I brought you some books. I got them from that old secondhand place near the station. They looked dull so I thought you'd probably like them.”

“Thanks,” said Lenny. “You didn't have to waste your money on me, you know.”

“What else am I going to spend it on?”

“Thought by now you'd be dating one of those WAAFs you're always talking about.”

“No,” I said. “Not while all this is going on.”

“Live for today, old chap,” he said. “You don't know what's going to happen.” He glanced down at his leg.

“I know,” I said. “But I don't want to think about anyone when I'm up there. I don't want to be careful. Being too careful is as bad as being careless. You just have to do what feels right, regardless. Otherwise you get. . . Sorry, Lenny, listen to me going on. . .”

“Don't worry about it. Honestly. I don't want you feeling sorry for me, Harry. I won't have it.” I smiled. He smiled back, a little weakly.

“So,” I said. “Are they treating you well? Any good-looking nurses?”

“Not bad,” he said. “On both counts.” Another weak smile. “How are things back at base? Are they managing without me?”

“Just about, just about.”

“They're fixing me up with a desk job, you know.”

“That's great. A brainbox like you should be running the show, not being a donkey like the rest of us.”

“Thanks Harry. I'll be glad of the work. Too much time to think here, if you know what I mean.” I nodded and put my hand on his shoulder. He turned away.

“Hey,” I said. “We've got a film crew coming to the base – you know, one of those Ministry of Information set-ups.”

“That's something I would like to see,” laughed Lenny.

“Less of the giggling,” I said. “Who knows. When all this is over I just may have a career as a movie star waiting for me.”

Then a nurse came in with some food on a tray.

“Visiting time's over, I'm afraid.” I got up.

“Sorry. I'll leave you to it, then,” I said.

“What do you think, Nurse,” said Lenny. “Can you see him in the movies?” She looked me up and down as she was leaving.

“Comedies maybe,” she said, and disappeared through the door.

 

I rang Edith when I got back. She was having a pretty rough time of it, by all accounts. She sounded older.

She asked me how Lenny was – Mum and Dad had told her about him in their last letter. I said I had taken some books in for him. She asked what they were and I said the only one I could remember was
Moby Dick
because it had a picture of a whale on it. I suppose I had whales on the brain after
Pinocchio
.

“Oh no!” she said. “You idiot!”

“What do you mean?” I asked, a bit taken aback.

“
Moby Dick
, you twit! Captain Ahab! Captain Ahab!”

“Sorry, sis. What are you talking about?” She sighed a very big sigh.

“You don't have a clue, do you? Don't you ever read a book? Captain Ahab in
Moby Dick
only has one leg, you chump. The other is bitten off by a whale!”

“Oh no,” I said. “What am I going to do? I. . . I. . . Oh no, Edith. What an idiot!”

But when I spoke to Lenny on the phone he could hardly stop laughing. He said it had cheered him up no end. He said only I could have done something
that
stupid.

“Glad to have been of service,” I said. And he collapsed into laughter all over again.

 

 

The film crew arrived on the 5th October. It was a lark at first. All the attention was pretty head-swelling, I have to admit. We were like a bunch of school kids, clowning about. The director got rather cross actually and the CO came and tore a strip off us.

Well, all thoughts of Hollywood soon went out of my head. It was tedious in the extreme. The whole process was painfully slow. If this is what movie stars go through every day, then they can keep it, they really can.

The chaps from the film crew briefed us about what they were going to do and what they wanted us to do. It was all incredibly simple, but they still felt the need to tell us over and over again as if we were idiots or something.

They spent an age rearranging furniture and waiting for the light to be just right and so forth. One chap pointed out that he usually played a few hands of pontoon with some of the others, but the director said that chess would give a better impression.

All this nonsense was bad enough, but the filming itself was even worse. No sooner had the director yelled “Action!” than he yelled “Cut!” One minute he didn't like the way someone was standing, the next he didn't like the chair someone was sitting in.

One of the chaps had to pretend to be asleep until he heard the siren and then jump up and dash for his Spit. The director made the poor fellow do it over and over again. First he said he didn't look asleep. He said he looked like he was pretending.

“I am pretending!” the pilot said.

Then the director said he didn't look startled enough. Then he didn't like the way he ran. Eventually the chap snapped, and when he had been asked to do it for the umpteenth time, he jumped up from his bunk and yelled, “I hope you're not going to ask me to do it again when I ditch into the Channel!”

Then it was my go. In the next scene we had to sit around playing chess and whatever and then when he gave us the shout of “Go!” we had to run like crazy for our aircraft. I was right in front, looking very thoughtful, holding a knight, just ready to move.

“Go!” he shouted, and off we went.

“No, no, no!” he shouted, and brought us all back. He had his head in his hands and was groaning.

“Some of you are grinning. This is serious. This is for morale. This is for your folks back home. Now, let's do it properly, shall we?” We all shuffled back to our positions. “And . . . action!”

I picked up my knight again and tried to look even more thoughtful than before. Then the siren went off. We jumped up. I knocked the chess table over with my knee. Papers were thrown down, pipes dropped, half-finished cups of tea left on the ground.

“No, no, no!” the director shouted, apparently. He thought we were too over-the-top this time. In fact he was so busy trying to call us back that he missed filming us taking off. This was a real scramble.

When we got back, the crews met us and set to work on patching up the aircraft. I had a jagged hole in the port wing, and the airmen looked cross with me as usual, for giving them even more work to do. The film crew were still there. The director ran over to me as we walked away from the plane.

“I know this is going to seem a liberty, but we have to get back to the footage we were shooting. The light's changing all the time. . .”

“You're persistent, I'll say that for you,” I said.

“Look, I've got my job to do, just like you. It may not be quite so glamorous. . .”

“Glamorous,” I said. “Is that what it is?”

“Yes,” he said, “As a matter of fact, I think it is.”

“Not long ago this place was being bombed. I wonder how glamorous you'd have found that?”

“Listen, sonny,” he said, walking a little closer. “I'm based in London. You may have heard on the wireless that we've had a few bombs of our own. I take it you've heard of the Blitz?”

I came very close to thumping him there and then.

“I'm sorry,” I said, “but I have work to do. I have a Combat Report to file. . .”

“My job is important too, you know, whatever you may think,” he said. “We might not get the credit, like you chaps, but we can't all be Spitfire pilots, now can we? Now, I have your CO's assurance that you will give me every assistance. And that's an order, by the way.”

“OK,” I said with a shrug, walking back to where the other chaps were milling about. “What do you want?”

“OK then,” he said. “I need you to do the chess scene again. Where's the blond-haired chap you were playing?”

“I'm sorry, but he can't join us, I'm afraid,” I said.

“Can't,” said the director with a sneer. “Can't or won't?”

“Can't. He bought it half an hour ago.”

“Bought it? Oh, you mean. . .” He looked at the other pilots who were sharing a joke as they walked to debriefing. Then he looked back at me.

“Now,” I said. “If you'll excuse me. I have that Combat Report to get in.”

 

I was chatting to one of the WAAFs from the Ops Room at the entrance to the base. I'd seen her a few times, but we'd never spoken. Her name was Harriet. “Definitely
not
Hattie,” she said. I liked her. I liked her a lot. Despite the fact that she'd nearly run me over on her way in. . .

She had green eyes. I'd never met anyone with green eyes before. I couldn't stop looking at them. I was trying to think of some way of asking her out, but somehow I never managed to get round to the right set of words.

Just then a Hurricane flew low over the base. It banked round and came in to land, but it was wobbling around all over the place.

“He's not going to make it,” I said. The Hurricane shot over us at tree height, over the perimeter fence and into the field beyond.

“Hop in,” said Harriet. “Let's go and see if he's OK.”

I jumped in and she drove like the clappers in the direction we'd seen the Hurricane come down. She'd have made a decent pilot, I reckon. By the time we arrived at the scene, the locals were already there.

The Hurricane had taken a few branches off a willow and pancaked into a field, coming to a halt next to a hump-backed barn. The pilot seemed to be OK, but I could hear him shouting and something didn't feel quite right.

“I think it might be better if you stayed here, just for the minute,” I said. I got out of the car and trotted over. A Home Guard with pebble glasses swung round and pointed his peashooter at me. He looked about a hundred years old.

“Woah, tiger,” I said, putting my hands up and smiling at him. “I'm on your side!”

He scowled and looked a little disappointed not to be able to shoot me. But he turned away to point his rifle at the pilot who was climbing out of the cockpit and shouting a stream of what were obviously swear words.

When he finally became aware of the crowd around the plane, pointing rifles and pitchforks at him, he smiled. But when no smiles came back he scowled angrily and began to climb down from his plane. He tried to brush a pitchfork away as he walked forward but the farmhand holding it shoved it towards him.

“Stay right where you are, Fritz!” yelled another of the Home Guard.

“Fritz?” yelled the pilot angrily. “You call me German?”

He was going to get shot for sure, so I pushed my way to the front.

“He's not German! Can't you recognize a Hurricane when you see one?”

“How do we know it's not a trick?” shouted one of the farmhands. “You hear about stuff like that.”

“He's not English!” yelled another. “How come a Jerry's flyin' a Hurricane?”

“He's Polish, you idiot! He's on our side!”

“Don't you call me an idiot!”

“Useless Poles!” said the farmhand nearest to me. “If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be in this mess.”

“How do you work that out?” I said.

“If those cowards had stood up for themselves, none of this would have started.” The Polish pilot lurched forward and it took all my strength to stop him from grabbing the farmhand. “You call me coward, you English pig? I kill you with my bare hands! I kill you with bare hands!” As he lurched forward, pitchforks were levelled and rifles aimed.

“OK, OK!” I yelled. “Let's all calm down, shall we?”

“He threatened to kill me,” said the farmhand. “You 'eard 'im, Bill, didn't you? Little so-and-so wanted to murder me.”

“No, he didn't,” I said, turning to the pilot and making a “let's just humour them and get out of here” kind of face. He spat out another stream of Polish.

“What's he saying? What's he saying? Speaka the English, mate!”

“I said you are ignorant son-of-a-dwarf and I will be happy to teach you some manners.”

“Oh brother,” I sighed.

The farmhand grabbed a pitchfork from a man nearby and very nearly harpooned us both with it. He was coming in for another go when a gun went off and everyone turned round. It was the old Home Guard chap I'd passed on the way in.

“Let's save it for the Germans, eh boys?” he said.

Everyone held their ground for a few minutes and then they all stepped back a little. The farmhand stuck his pitchfork in the ground and stared off into the distance.

“Having fun, boys?” said Harriet, sauntering over from the car. “Anyone for a lift?”

The Polish pilot smiled. “I would be delighted,” he said.

 

After he had been debriefed and he phoned his base to tell them he was safe, the Polish pilot joined me in the mess. I bought him a drink and we sat down in the corner away from the rest of the lads.

“Gorka,” he said, shaking my hand. “Waldemar Gorka.”

“Harry Woods,” I said. I asked him how he came to be flying a Hurricane so far from home. He looked down at the table, as if he was talking to his glass. He took a deep breath.

“I join flying club at university and learn to fly,” he said. “Then I join Polish Air Force. Then I think, ‘This is fantastic. This is my life now!'” I nodded and smiled again, but his expression turned grim as he went on. “Then Germans come. Russians come. We do our best, but it is not good enough.”

“At end of September I get out. I say goodbye to mother, to father, to my little brother. I want to stay and fight, but father say that there is no use. I would be killed for sure. He is right. I kiss them goodbye. My mother kisses me here –” he pointed to his forehead – “and says she will pray for me. She makes sign of cross and I go.”

“I fly my plane to Romania. Romanians are friends but Germans already there. Gestapo already rounding up Jews. Romanians arrest us but guards let us go. I get to Italy, then France and then England. Tell them I am flyer. They train me on Hurricanes. They make me pilot. So here I am.”

“And your parents? Your brother?”

“Dead. All dead,” he said, taking another drink. I didn't know what to say.

“I'm sorry,” I said finally. “It makes me feel even worse about what happened back there with the farm lad. What with you fighting for England after everything that's happened to you.”

“I don't fight for England,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I fight for
Poland
! I fight in RAF only because English give me plane, give me bullets. Bullets to kill Germans. To kill them like they kill my people.” He was wild-eyed now and leaned closer to me to whisper in my face. “Know what I think when they bomb London?” I shook my head. “I think ‘Good! Let them see what war is like!'” I looked away. He calmed a little. “How about you? What you fight for, English? King and Country?”

I shook my head. “Someone else asked me that a long time ago,” I said smiling. “Then I said I was fighting for my family. Down here, I'd still stay the same thing . . . but up there, I'm not thinking of anyone but me. Up there I'm just fighting for my life, nothing more than that.”

He nodded. “Look, English, I sorry if I don't talk like you gentlemen of RAF. I am Polish. Understand?” I smiled weakly and nodded my head, although I didn't really understand at all. How could I?

“Don't apologize for farmer. He think I am German. He want to kill me because I am German. If German pilot lands near me I shoot him dead, and they do the same to me. This I understand.” He drained his drink and asked for another. “I hear about German pilot they shot down. He picked up by Home Guard. They take him to pub and buy him drink before taking him in! They buy him drink!”

I laughed. I hadn't the heart to tell him we'd had a German pilot in the mess only the week before when he'd baled out near the base. “We are a funny lot, I suppose,” I said. But he didn't laugh.

“Look, war is not cricket match. I hear English pilot talk about dogfight being like – how do you call. . .?” He made a fencing motion in the air.

“Like a fencing match? Like a duel?”

“A duel, yes,” he said. Then he banged his fist on the counter. “It is
not
like duel. It is like knife fight in back alley. You dodge your enemy, you avoid his attack, you see your chance, you stick him in guts and run. In. Out. Is it not true?”

“Well,” I said, laughing. “I've heard it described more poetically, but you're right, people do talk a lot of rot about jousting and the like. It never feels like that to me. Mostly it's just staying alive.”

“And shooting down Germans,” he added.

“And shooting down Germans,” I agreed, but I couldn't quite compete with his thirst for German blood.

I liked him, though. Admired him too, I suppose. He was a tough nut, that's for sure. For all my months of experience, I felt a kid again next to him.

“Look, I make you a deal,” he said. “I fight for you freedom. I fight to keep England free – free for the cricket – free from German dogs. Then we free Poland. No Germans, no Russians – we kick them all out, OK? We free my country. We drink to Poland!”