Battle of Britain (7 page)

“To Poland,” I said. “To freedom.”

“To freedom!”

 

I arranged to meet and talk to Lenny about the desk job he'd been given. We met up in St James Park in London. He was already there when I arrived and I saw him standing, looking off towards Whitehall. He was wearing his new leg. If you didn't know, you'd never have guessed. Only I
did
know.

“I've brought some of the gang with me, if that's all right?” Lenny turned round, startled slightly from his thoughts, and then his face mellowed and finally cracked into a grin as they all walked up behind me.

“Good grief!” he said. “You're all still alive! Those Germans must be getting slow.”

They all came in to ruffle his hair and punch his shoulder. One of the chaps jostled him a little too roughly, and for one awful moment it looked like he was going to fall over. Everyone went quiet as Lenny managed to stay upright.

“Not as steady on my pins as I used to be,” said Lenny with a grin.

“So, Lenny,” said one of the chaps. “How did you get on with those nurses, then? We all know what nurses are like.”

“Hey – watch your mouth,” I said, laughing. “My sister's a nurse.”

“Whoops! Sorry, Woody. Don't happen to have her number do you?” I thumped him in the shoulder.

“Ow! That hurt, you oaf! That's my bowling arm, too.”

“You can't bowl to save your life,” said Lenny.

“True. True. So anyway how are you, you old misery?”

“Missing you all dreadfully, of course,” he said with a sarcastic raise of one eyebrow.

“Of course. Goes without saying, old chap.”

And then we were off. We were more like a group of students than a group of seasoned fighters. The sun shone and golden leaves occasionally fluttered down. As I looked across at them smiling and joking, we all seemed young again.

We stayed quite a long time. I think we were all reluctant to be the first to talk about leaving. Someone produced a hip flask of whisky – something he'd bought on the black market – and tiny glasses were pulled from jacket pockets, with spares for Lenny and me. We waited for a policeman to walk past and then we poured a tot into each glass.

“Absent friends!” said somebody. We raised our glasses and clinked them together.

“Absent friends!” I drank a mouthful and spat it out. Everyone did the same. It was vile!

It really was time to move off then. Lenny shook everyone's hand and he looked almost like his old self. I told him to take care of himself and he told me to do the same. Then, as each man left, he absent-mindedly patted Lenny on the shoulder, just as they used to.

 

The immediate threat of invasion was gone now, but things were scarcely any easier. We had made the Germans think twice about daylight bombing raids, but that didn't stop them bombing London every night.

At the end of October, we were patrolling along the Thames estuary when I flew over London from the east. It was quite a sight. All across the city there were bombed-out buildings, roofless, with black and hollow windows and walls all scorched and pock marked. Piles of rubble filled the streets.

We were heading back when the Messerschmitts jumped us. They tore down like hawks, scattering us. It was mayhem. The Spit to starboard crumpled in on itself and went down in flames.

They seemed to be everywhere but no matter what I did I couldn't get a clear view of them. That same feeling of frustration, of helplessness. The same feeling of wanting to puke that I'd had since my first patrol.

I told myself to be calm. “Come on, come on,” I said, “get on with it. You've done this a hundred times before,” as if saying it would make it all right. As if anyone could ever get
used
to this.

It was like standing on a cliff with just your heels touching, leaning out, fear holding you back, Death pulling you on – and we looked over that cliff every day. Every day. Maybe it was only luck that saved you from falling. And maybe my luck was running out.

Suddenly there was a bomber right in front of me. “Pull up! Pull up, you idiot!” I yelled, and my hands obeyed, yanking back on the stick in the nick of time. “Idiot. Idiot,” I muttered to myself. “Get a grip!”

Then a dull thud and bump. I was hit. And I never even saw the plane that hit me. I just felt a jolt – and then two more – then a teeth-clenching pain seared through my right leg. I could see daylight through the floor of the cockpit. I could feel cold air rushing past me.

I decided to make a dash for base, but the plane wouldn't respond. The R/T was dead and whistled in my ear. I was losing altitude rapidly and I now could smell burning. Glycol fumes were leaking into the cockpit.

“No, no, please, please. . .” Panic shot through me as I realized the fuel tank might be about to blow. “Please, please. . .”

Then a voice said, “Bale out!” and then again – “Bale out!” But I just sat there staring at the control panel and at the flames that had begun to appear behind it. “Bale out!” a voice screamed in my ear.
My
voice.

This time I took notice. I slid back the cockpit cover, relieved – very relieved – that it slid back so easily, and then I undid my harness and climbed out, remembering at the last second to disengage my oxygen and radio.

I was out, free of my aircraft, tumbling wildly in the air – there was the sky, there was my plane arcing away on a streamer of black smoke, there was the sky again, there was my plane crashing into the sea. I pulled the ripcord.

I was jerked back by the parachute as air punched into it, opening it up to mushroom above me. I swung there like a puppet, winded and gasping for breath. I looked down at my leg. It felt like a bear was gnawing on it but it was still in one piece. For now anyway.

Dogfights growled on above me as I drifted down. As I spun gently, dizzyingly, back and forth, I caught glimpses of the English coast, then the French, then England again. I could hear sirens wailing in the distance, the boom and thud of anti-aircraft fire. I could see the cliffs and the downland beyond. And I could see the huge empty expanse of cold grey water towards which I was heading.

Then I heard it – right behind me. A weird noise droning and roaring and screaming behind me. An Me109 diving towards me with guns blazing, twinkling like stars, clattering like hail on a tin roof.

There was nothing I could do. Nowhere I could go. Shells whistled past me on either side. A kind of weird calm came over me. I thought of Mum and Dad, and Edith, and Lenny. I thought about Waldemar and my lovely green-eyed WAAF. All in those seconds. I just thought, OK then. If this is it, OK. Maybe my turn had finally come.

But then the Messerschmitt shuddered and twitched and banked away. The pilot had no chance. I saw flames light up the cockpit like a lantern and it spun round out of control. Then there was an explosion and it broke up into a dozen pieces, falling like meteors against the cliffs.

I had hardly taken this in before I realized I had to get my parachute off and fast. I had to release it just before I hit the sea otherwise it would drag me under. I gave the release mechanism a ninety-degree twist and then a hefty thump. Nothing happened.

And then smack – I hit the water. The calmness I'd felt in the face of being shot had left me completely now as I struggled to save myself from drowning. I wasn't going to die a sailor's death – not if I could help it. I hit and tugged and swore and finally the chute came loose and drifted away like a huge jellyfish.

All I had to do now was inflate my lifejacket and hope that someone saw me land and was coming to pick me up. The water was freezing. I could feel my legs going numb and it felt good because it meant I didn't feel the pain any more.

I looked up and the blue sky was scribbled all over with chalk-white vapour trails. In the distance I could hear the hum and buzz of engines, the rattle of gunfire. Again, it occurred to me that this was it for me, that I had swapped the sudden death the Messerschmitt offered, for the far worse fate of slowly freezing in the October sea.

Suddenly, an Me109 tore out of the east, diagonally downwards, belching black smoke. It spluttered and whined and drifted inland to crash out of sight. Then I realized that the pilot had baled out. And he was heading my way. . .

The Jerry pilot landed about a hundred yards away from me and made a much better job of getting out of his parachute. He bobbed in and out of view behind the grey waves, and he seemed to be drifting towards me.

I didn't know what to do at first. I could hardly carry on ignoring him, as we were the only things out here but haddock. And anyway, maybe we were both going to die here. Maybe he was going to be the last person I saw in my life.

“Hello!” I shouted, immediately feeling a little foolish.

“Hello!” he shouted back. “Are you hurt?”

“A little, yes!” I shouted. “How about you?”

“A little, also! You are Spitfire?”

“Yes. And you? You're a 109 pilot?”

“Yes. The Spitfire is good plane?”

“It is. The 109's pretty good, though.”

“Pretty good. Yes.”

The cold had numbed the pain in my leg, but I knew that if we stayed here much longer, the cold would numb the rest of me too and I'd be a goner. Suddenly, being hit by the Messerschmitt's guns seemed appealingly fast and final.

“It is cold, is it not?” said the German, as if he read my thoughts.

“Yes. Very,” I said.

“Are we to die then, Englishman?”

“No!” I shouted.

“Good,” he shouted back. “I am not ready to die.”

“Who is?” I shouted.

Then I heard the drone of an engine over my shoulder. I turned to see a fishing boat heading for us. I whooped and shouted and waved and shouted and so did the German.

“Over here! Over here!” I yelled. The boat came in close and they hauled me up and on to the deck.

“You'd better get out of those wet things or you'll catch your death,” said one of the crew, tossing me a blanket. “How's that wound?” The trouser leg was chewed up and bloody.

“OK, I think,” I said, struggling to get out of my flying suit. But out of the water, it started to hurt like hell again.

“Let's go get your friend, there,” said the skipper. The boat pulled up alongside the German pilot.

“
Danke, danke!
” he shouted as they reached for him.

“He's German!” yelled one of them.

“I'm not having any Jerry in my boat,” said the skipper. “The fish can have 'im if they want 'im. Let 'im drown!”

The boat started to turn for shore, with the German flailing and yelling.

“No!” I shouted, surprising myself, and everyone else, with the violence in my voice. “Pick him up!”

They all turned to face me.

“And why the hell should I? Murdering swine that they are. A minute ago 'e was trying to kill you!”

“I know,” I said. “I know that. But we can't just let him drown. We have to be different. If we're going to be as bad as the Nazis then what's the point? If we leave him there, then
what are we fighting for
? If we're just the same as them, then what are we fighting for?”

They all looked at me. A flag fluttered at the top of the mast and the boat creaked and groaned in the swell. The German's cries for help grew fainter.

“OK,” said the skipper with a sigh. “Fish 'im out.”

The boat turned again and they hauled the German out, though with a lot less care than they had with me. Even so, the crewman who had thrown me a blanket did the same with the German and he duly stripped and wrapped himself up, wincing at some injury to his side.

Someone appeared with a mug of tea and a shot of brandy. We both sat there in silence as the engine chugged and gulls hung in the breeze around us, crying like children. My leg throbbed and I didn't dare look for fear of what I'd see.

“Blasted Nazis,” said one of the crew.

“I am not a Nazi,” said the pilot. “I am just a German. I love my country.”

“Then why didn't you stay there, you swine?” shouted another man. The German looked away, down at the deck, but the man leaned closer and continued. “Look at all this,” he said with a wild wave of his hand that took in me, the dogfight above and the whole splintered and bloody world. “Look at it! Don't tell me you love your country, or so help me I'll throw you back in!”

The skipper came over and pulled him away.

“You'll have to forgive us,” he said to the German. “We haven't forgotten what it was like picking soldiers off the beach at Dunkirk, with you cowards trying to kill us all for doing it. Most likely we'll never forget it. I don't think I'll ever get the smell of that beach out of this boat.”

“I am sorry,” said the German.

“Shut up,” said the skipper coldly, “Or I'll throw you back in myself.”

They left us alone. I could think of nothing to say and so I kept quiet. The German looked away from me and out to sea.

“I flew raids at Dunkirk,” he said suddenly. “We fighters gave protection to the Heinkels bombing the beaches and the waiting ships. On 1 June it was different. We flew in low, guns blasting.”

It was 1 June when I had shot down the 110. It was odd to think we were all there that day – these fishermen, the German and me.

“As you came in you could see the men below, the lines of men, run for their lives, running for the cover of the dunes. I saw a man turn, and freeze, like a rabbit. As he turned I saw the light glint on his spectacles. Can you believe that? I was so low I saw that, and I saw the shells bursting in the sand in a line towards him.”

“The men, they ran for the dunes. But if they stayed in the dunes they could not get off the beach and so they had to come back to their lines and queue for the boats and ships offshore. They came back and so did we. Black smoke rose up everywhere, from burning ships and bombed-out buildings.”