The Last Enemy Richard Hillary (7 page)

I landed considerably mortified and prepared for some withering comments. Kilmartin climbed out of his machine with a sly grin at the corner of his mouth.

‘Do you feel as dead as you should?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘I meant you to. Now I’ll give you a few tips for the next time.’

He told me then of the uselessness of all aerobatics in actual combat. Their only value was to give a pilot a feeling of mastery over his machine in any position, upright or inverted. To do a loop was to present a slow-moving sitting target to your opponent, who need only raise the nose of his machine slightly to keep you permanently in his sights. A slow roll was little better. For complete evasion the two most effective methods were a half roll and a controlled spin—especially if you had been hit, for it gave an impression of being out of control. For the rest it was a question of turning inside your opponent (sometimes pulling up and above him, the more effectively to dive down again), of thinking quickly and clearly, of seizing every opportunity and firing at once, and of a quick break-away. All this and more he impressed upon me, and I did my best to carry it out on my subsequent flights. These were less one-sided, but then I never flew with him again.

On these dogfights we would also practise beam attacks, probably the most effective and certainly the most difficult means of bringing down an enemy machine. The attacking Spitfire would overhaul his target, well out to the side and about 500 feet or so above. When same little way ahead he would bank and turn in, to let the other machine come through his sights almost at right angles, and with a double deflection (twice the diameter of his sights) he would let go in a long burst. He thus opened fire in front of the enemy’s nose and raked him all the way down the side where he had the least protection and the smallest field of fire, while himself presenting a very small and awkwardly moving target for the gunners. He could then drop in behind and deliver another attack from the rear.

But my clearest memory of the course was the bridge. It was across the Severn and linked England to Wales. It was a narrow bridge with close-set arches and it was the occasion of a long-brewing quarrel for Noel and me.

Noel, Peter Howes, and I had been together now for some time and were beginning to get on one another’s nerves. There was soon to be a parting of the ways. It happened at the very end of our training, when we were about to join our Squadrons, and was to have consequences which none of us could foresee, which all three of us vaguely sensed, but yet could do nothing to stop. With Howes it took the form of withdrawing into himself, of saying little and of avoiding our company. For Noel and me, fundamentally closer together and considerably quicker-tempered, it could not end like that. There had to be a show-down: the bridge provided it.

Noel, low-flying down the Severn, came to the bridge and flew under it. He came back and told me. From then on the bridge fascinated and frightened me. I had to fly under it. I said as much to Peter Pease. He gave me a long quizzical stare.

‘Richard,’ he said, ‘from now on a lot of people are going to fly under that bridge. From a flying point of view it proves nothing: it’s extremely stupid. From a personal point of view it can only be of value if you don’t tell anybody about it.’

He was right of course.

To fly under the bridge now simply to come back and say that I had done so would be sheer exhibitionism. It would prove nothing. Yet I knew I would fly under it. I had to for my own satisfaction, just as many years before I had had to stand on a 25-foot board above a swimming-pool until I dived off.

There was a strongish wind blowing and as I came down to a few feet above the river I saw that I had on quite an amount of drift. The span of the arch looked depressingly narrow; I considered pulling up but forced myself to hold the stick steady. For a moment I thought I was going to hit with the port wing, and then I was through.

It was later in the Mess and we were playing billiards when Noel asked me if I had done it. By now we could not even play billiards without the game developing into a silently bitter struggle for supremacy. As Noel nearly always won, he could not have chosen a worse moment to speak.

‘Well, did you?’ he asked.

I played a deliberate shot and didn’t answer.

He laughed.

‘Surely our little winged wonder isn’t getting soft? I was expecting to hear how narrowly you missed death.’

I put down my cue.

‘Listen, Noel,’ I said. ‘For months you’ve been smugly satisfied that you’re a better pilot than I am, and just because I soloed before you here you have to go off and make a bloody fool of yourself under some bridge just to prove that you’re still a hell of a pilot. You make me sick.’

He looked at me bitterly.

‘Well, little Lord Fauntleroy, this is a new angle. And from you, the biggest line-shooter I’ve ever known. All right. Stick around the hangars cadging extra flights and crawling to the instructors. Maybe they’ll give you a good assessment yet.’ And with that he slammed red into a corner pocket to win the game and I stalked out of the room and slammed the door.

Next day Squadron vacancies were announced. I walked down to the Adjutant’s office with Peter Pease and Colin Pinckney. 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron had three vacancies. It was out of the battle area (the first battle over Dover had already been fought), but it was a Spitfire Squadron and we could all three go together. We put our names down.

Noel decided to go to Northolt to 609 Squadron to fly Hurricanes, and Peter Howes to Hornchurch to 54 Squadron.

The following day we left. I was to drive up with Peter Pease and we were to make an early start. I piled my luggage into his car and prepared to climb in after it. Then I hesitated and turned back. I found Noel packing. He got up as I came in. We were both embarrassed. I held out my hand.

‘Good-bye and good luck,’ I said.

‘Good-bye, Dick,’ he said. ‘We’ve drifted rather a long way apart lately. I’m sorry. Don’t let’s either of us drift up to Heaven. That’s all.’

While he was speaking Peter Howes had come in to say good-bye too. ‘You two needn’t worry,’ he said. ‘You both have the luck of the devil. If the long-haired boys are to be broken up, I have a hunch that I’ll be the first to go.’ We both told him not to be a fool and agreed to meet, all three of us, in three months’ time in London.

They came out to the car.

‘Take care of yourself,’ said Peter Howes.

‘Your courage amazes me,’ said Noel. ‘Going back to that bloody awful country, and voluntarily!’

I waved and then Peter Pease and I were round the corner and on our way. I sat silent most of the way to London, confused by a number of disturbing emotions.

4

The World of Peter Pease

We had two days in which to get to Edinburgh and we spent one night in London, a London still unscarred and carefree, before driving up to Yorkshire, where we intended to break our journey at the Peases’.

Peter drove fast and well, without any of the sudden bursts of acceleration which characterize most fast drivers. For some reason I was surprised. Upright in his seat, his existence was concentrated in his hands on the wheel and in the sole of his foot on the accelerator. There was little traffic on the roads and as we moved out into the open country all nature seemed to sing with the rhythm of the tires on the hot asphalt. Gradually the countryside turned from a soft green warmth to a gaunt bleakness. I was a little depressed, for we had heard a rumour that Scottish Squadrons would not cross the Border. To kick our heels in Scotland with the war at last about to break in the South was not my idea of a design for living. Peter was unruffled and satisfied that we should be in the thick of it before many weeks were past, but with every mile my depression deepened.

‘God, how I hate the North,’ I said, ‘the country, the climate, the people; all craggy, dour, and shut-in. I can go south to France, Italy, or where you will and feel perfectly at home; but north of Oxford I’m in a foreign country.’

Peter laughed. ‘That’s because at heart you’re a man of the capital. You live in London, and you understand it and like it and like the people; but you get up to Manchester or Birmingham and you see their ugliness with unprejudiced eyes. It appals you. I don’t blame you, it appals me too; but then so does ugliness in London. I’m not prejudiced in London’s favour, as you are.’

‘Oh, no, it’s not only the towns, it’s the country too. What could you have more beautiful than Buckinghamshire—or if it’s not beautiful, it’s warm and attractive, which is much more important. But as for this—’ I waved my hand vaguely out of the window, where the Black Country stretched out wet and dreary on either side.

Peter nodded. ‘Yes, it looks pretty ghastly, doesn’t it? Yet it all fits in. The people who live here love the grime and the stench and the living conditions. They’ve never known anything else and it’s a part of them. That’s why they’ll fight this war to the end rather than surrender one inch of it.’

I thought for a moment I was going to get him into an argument about the war, but as soon as he saw what I was after he steered the conversation politely away and it was not for another six weeks that I was to break down his silence.

We arrived in time for dinner, and the crunch of the tires on the drive as we swung through the gates prepared me for the comfortably substantial house in front of which we drew at up. Colin Pinckney arrived half an hour later, having driven up in a more leisurely manner, and we went in to dinner. The Peases were a devoted family and Peter’s parents quite obviously adored him. In that quiet dining-room with just the five of us gathered round the table it occurred to me that if Peter were killed, it would be important—not only to his family, but indeed for me, as the deaths of the majority of my friends many of whom I knew better could not be. I was confused and disturbed by this.

After dinner Lady Pease was discussing an offer she had had to send one of her boys, now at Eton, to America, an offer which she had turned down. She felt that it was a bad precedent for well-to-do children to be sent abroad and a very bad preparation for life in a post-war England. I agreed with her. I thought of the surprising number of men in responsible positions who seemed determined to get their wives and children out of the country. I didn’t quite understand it. The natural reason would be that they didn’t want them hurt, but I wasn’t sure that that was the whole of it. I didn’t believe that a man with something important to do in this war wanted the responsibility of a wife, more especially if he loved her. She was a distracting liability and he would be far happier with her out of the way. Then he could concentrate his whole mind on his job without having to wonder the whole time whether she was safe. All he needed was the purely physical satisfaction of some woman, and that he could get anywhere.

Now, at the Peases’, on the way to bed, I asked Colin if be thought that were true. ‘To a certain extent,’ he replied, ‘but like all your generalizations it doesn’t by any means apply universally. For example, how do you fit in all these hurried war marriages with your theory?’

‘I admit they don’t seem to fit into the picture at first, but I think we can explain them. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, and again this is one of my generalizations, but it’s been almost entirely the little men who have got married.’

‘What do you mean,’ he asked, ‘the little men?’

‘Well, as far as I can see, in the Army, and certainly in all Squadrons, it’s been the nonentity, the fellow who was unsure of himself, standing drinks, always laughing and singing songs in the Mess, trying to be one of the chaps and never quite succeeding. He doesn’t feel himself accepted by the others and somehow he’s got to prove himself so he does it by marrying some poor, clinging little girl, giving her a child to justify his manhood and then getting killed. She’s left with ?90 a year, and I hope, a pleasant memory.’

But Colin, muttering about cynics and how late it was, was already on his way to bed.

Early next morning we were on our way. It was cold in Edinburgh and the damp mist lay heavy on the streets. We drove straight out to the aerodrome at Turnhouse and reported to our CO., Squadron Leader Denholm (known by the Squadron as Uncle George). From him we learned that the Squadron was operating further north, ‘A’ Flight from Dyce and ‘B’ Flight from Montrose. There was one Spitfire replacement to be flown up to Dyce; Colin got the job and so it came about that Peter and I drove up together to join ‘B’ Flight at Montrose.

The aerodrome lay just beyond the town and stretched parallel to the sea, one edge of the landing field merging into the dunes. For a few miles around the country was flat, but mountain peaks reared abruptly into the sky, forming a purple backdrop for the aerodrome.

The first person to greet us in the Mess was Michael Judd, whom neither of us had seen since our initial training. He was an instructor. He took us down to the Dispersal Point to introduce us to the Squadron. Montrose was primarily an F.T.S. where future pilots crowded the air in Miles Masters. As the only possible enemy raids must come from Norway, half a Squadron was considered sufficient for its protection.

At our Dispersal Point at the north-west corner of the aerodrome there were three wooden huts. One of these was the Flight Commander’s office; another was reserved for the R.T. equipment and technicians; the third, divided into two, was for the pilots and ground crew respectively. It was into this third hut that Michael led us.

From the ceiling hung several models of German aircraft, on the back wall by the stove were pasted seductive creatures by Petty, and on a table in the middle of the room a gramophone was playing, propped at a drunken angle on a pile of old books and magazines. In a corner there was another table on which there were a couple of telephones operated by a corporal. Two beds standing against the longer walls, and several old chairs, completed the furniture.

As we came in, half a dozen heads were turned towards the door and Rushmer, the Flight Commander, came forward to greet us. Like the others, he wore a Mae West and no tunic. Known by everyone as Rusty on account of his dull-red hair, he had a shy manner and a friendly smile. Peter, I could see, sensed a kindred spirit at once. Rusty never ordered things to be done; he merely suggested that it might be a good idea if they were done, and they always were. He had a bland manner and an ability tacitly to ignore anything which he did not wish to hear, which protected him alike from outside interference from his superiors and from too frequent suggestions from his junior officers on how to run the Flight. Rusty had been with the Squadron since before the war: he was a Flight Lieutenant, and in action always led the Red Section. As 603 was an Auxiliary Squadron, all the older members were people with civilian occupations who before the war had flown for pleasure.

Blue Section Leader Larry Cunningham had also been with the Squadron for some time. He was a Scotsman, tall and thin, without Rusty’s charm, but with plenty of experience.

Then there was Brian Carbury, a New Zealander who had started in 41 Squadron. He was six-foot-four, with crinkly hair and a roving eye. He greeted us warmly and suggested an immediate adjournment to the Mess for drinks. Before the war he had been a shoe salesman in New Zealand. Sick of the job, he had come to England and taken a short service commission. He was now a Flying Officer. There was little distinctive about him on the ground, but he was to prove the Squadron’s greatest asset in the air.

Another from overseas was Hugh Stapleton, a South African. He hoped to return after the war and run an orange farm. He too was over six feet tall, thick-set, with a mass of blond hair which he never brushed. He was twenty and married, with a rough savoir-faire beyond his years, acquired from an early unprotected acquaintance with life. He was always losing buttons off his uniform and had a pair of patched trousers which the rest of the Squadron swore he slept in. He was completely slap-happy and known as ‘Stapme’ because of his predilection for Popeye in the Daily Mirror, his favourite literature.

Pilot Officer Berry, commonly known as Raspberry, came from Hull. He was short and stocky, with a ruddy complexion and a mouth that was always grinning or coming out with some broad Yorkshire witticism impossible to answer. Above that mouth, surprisingly, sprouted a heavy black moustache, which induced me to call him the organgrinder. His reply to this was always unprintable but very much to the point. Even on the blackest days he radiated an infectious good-humour. His aggressive spirit chafed at the Squadrons present inactivity and he was always the first to hear any rumour of our moving south.

‘Bubble’ Waterston was twenty-four, but he looked eighteen, with his short-cropped hair and open face. He too had been with the Squadron for some time before the war. He had been studying in Scotland for an engineering degree. He had great curiosity about anything mechanical, and was always tinkering with the engine of his car. His unquestioning acceptance of everyone and his unconscious charm made him the most popular member of the Squadron.

Then there was Boulter, with jutting ears framing the face of an intelligent ferret, always sleepy and in bed snoring when off duty; ‘Broody’ Benson, nineteen years old, a fine pilot and possessed of only one idea, to shoot down Huns, more Huns, and then still more Huns; Don MacDonald who had been in the Cambridge Squadron and had an elder brother in ‘A’ Flight at Dyce; and finally Pip Cardell, the most recent addition to the Squadron before our arrival, still bewildered, excited, and a little lost.

For the first week or so, Peter and I were not to be operational. We would have a chance to utilize the Squadron’s comparative inactivity to acquaint ourselves thoroughly with the flying idiosyncrasies of the others.

All that we had on duty at a time was one Readiness Section of three machines: the rest of the Squadron were either available (ready to take off within half an hour of a call) or released (allowed off the aerodrome). With a full complement of pilots, it was nearly always possible for two of us to get up into the hills for a couple of days a week, where we shot grouse. The same system applied to ‘A’ Flight at Dyce.

At this time the Germans were sending over single raiders from Norway, and with six Spitfires between Dyce and Montrose there was little difficulty in shooting them down. Operations would ring through, the corporal at the telephone in the pilots’ room would call out, ‘Red Section scramble base,’ one of us would fire a red Very light to clear the air of all training aircraft, and within a couple of minutes three machines would be in the air climbing rapidly. The leader, in constant radio touch with the ground, would be given a course on which to fly to intercept the enemy. So good was the ground control that it was not infrequent to make an interception forty miles out to sea. The Section would then carry out a copybook attack; the bomber would come down in the sea, and her crew, if still alive, would push off in a rubber boat, waving frantically. The Section would radio back the derelicts’ position, turn for home, and that would be that.

On one occasion, when I was still not operational, I was flying up the coast when I heard Operations order our Blue Section into the air and start radioing the bomber’s position. I should have returned to the base; but instead I grabbed my map and pin-pointed its position—about four miles south of me and heading out to sea. Without reporting my intention, I set off after it, delighted at the prospect of returning and nonchalantly announcing its destruction single-handed.

It was a cloudy day and a fair guess that the enemy machine would be flying just in the bottom of the cloud base. Up to this minute I had behaved fairly rationally, but I now began a series of slow climbs and dives in and out of the clouds in search of my quarry. Finding nothing, I turned back and landed, to discover that two minutes earlier the enemy machine had flown right across the aerodrome at 1000 feet. It was not until Brian Carbury landed with his Section and inquired sweetly whether I’d had fun that I learned how nearly I had been killed. Having received no notice of any other friendly aircraft, and seeing a machine popping in and out of the clouds, he had put his Section into ‘line astern’ and had been about to open fire when he recognized me as a Spitfire.

Next day Rusty made both Peter and me operational. ‘I think it will be safer for the others,’ he explained apologetically.

My first assignment, though not exciting, was for me particularly interesting. It meant flying down to Oxford. I had not been back since the war began and I was curious to see how different it would all seem now.

Noel had been there recently to see his family and had written to me: ‘Richard, whatever you do, don’t go back. It would take a book to explain how it’s changed; but to sum it up in one sentence—in the Randolph Bar there is a notice saying: “No unaccompanied ladies will be served with drinks.”’