The Crew (3 page)

The leading bomber had reached the end of the peri track. When the red light from the controller's caravan winked to green, it rolled forward onto the
start of the main runway and swung round into the wind to face the flarepath lights. The engines howled and faded and the Lancaster hovered for a moment before she leaped forward with a mighty roar. She passed the waving group, engines bellowing. The tail lifted and further on down the runway the elephant rose slowly and majestically into the air, to become an eagle.

Catherine watched the first one climb away, red and green wingtip lights fading into the distance, and then turned back to the second, already in position at the end of the runway. One aircraft would take off every ninety seconds.

The sprog crew's rear gunner waved back as he went by. They were in S-Sugar, the ropey kite. She hoped they'd make it.

Charlie had seen the people waving to him and he'd held up his gloved hand awkwardly in reply, wondering if that was the right thing to do. They were distant shapes now, grey blobs getting smaller by the second as the bomber raced on, carrying him down the runway. The tail was already off the ground and he could feel it swinging; he prayed the skipper would keep her straight. They'd got six fifteen-hundred pound sea mines on board, and that morning one of the ground crew had told him a horror story about another new crew who'd gone careering off the runway when they were trying to take off, all loaded-up for their first – and last – op. The Lanc always wanted to go left, apparently, and once you got a bad swing with a heavy load, you'd more or less had it.

So far as he could tell, though, the lights flashing past looked at the proper angle to the tail. He kept
his eyes fixed on them until, suddenly, they dropped away beneath and he knew they were airborne. The dark roof and chimneys of the farmhouse at the edge of the drome went by below, and he and his Brownings were pointing downwards to earth as they climbed. The flarepath became little pinpricks of light and RAF Beningby disappeared from view. He wriggled around on the seat pad to get more comfortable. It was a bit like being packed in a glass suitcase. The metal doors behind him formed a back rest, the control column, with hand grips and triggers, was between his legs. If he stooped his head a little, the gun sight lay immediately in front of his face. With the illumination switched on, he could see the red circle with a dot in the middle superimposed on the dark landscape below.

He reached down with his right hand for the lever and unlocked the turret on its rotating ring so he could swing round, searching the skies above and each side and below him. He was the eyes in the back of the crew's head. They'd been taught that over and over in training. He had to keep a constant look-out for anything and everything behind and report to the skipper instantly. And if it was an emergency, with a fighter suddenly attacking from the rear, he had to tell the skipper which way to turn fast to get away and not muddle starboard and port because he was facing backwards. You had to think fast and get it right. It was a big responsibility and he worried about it a lot. He must hold his ammo if the fighter was out of range, but if it came near he had to give it everything he'd got. Luckily, he was a good shot. It had come naturally to him in the training and, unlike Bert, his eyesight was perfect: like a cat in the dark. Bert could see all
round from his turret, on top in the middle of the kite, but he hadn't got such a good view of what was happening at the rear, and none of them could see the blind spot right underneath without the pilot rocking the wings.

Charlie found it a bit nervy, not to be able to see anything forward. All he could do was listen to what the rest of them were saying about what was happening up front and hope for the best. He could hear them talking to each other over the intercom now: short, crackling exchanges in his headphones. The skipper's drawling Yank accent, Jock's Scottish, Piers's posh one, Stew's Aussie, Harry's Yorkshire, and Bert's chirpy cockney. Easy to tell which was which without them saying, though they nearly always did. You had to be quite sure who was talking so there were no mistakes.

He didn't understand why people kept on telling him horror stories. Maybe because they thought he was the kind to frighten easily. He
was
windy at times, but he wasn't going to show it if he could help it. Still, that take-off story had rattled him and when they were getting into the crew bus to go out to dispersal he'd gone and picked his parachute up by the release handle so it had come undone all over the place. They'd had to hang about while he went and got another, and he'd felt a right noddy. Then one of the other crew in the bus had leaned across, grinning, and asked if he could have his egg if he didn't come back. It was a joke, of course, and he'd managed a laugh with everyone else, but inside he'd felt a bit queasy.

It wasn't really the idea of dying that worried him, so much as the way it might happen. None of the possibilities was very comforting, except being blown to little bits, because then you wouldn't know a thing
about it. The thought of having to bail out was almost more terrifying than anything else. He wasn't too good with heights and the idea of throwing himself into space . . . well, he wasn't sure he'd be able to do it. Whatever happened, he'd be on his own unless he could make it all the way up to the nose escape hatch, which wasn't very likely. Nobody envied him being in the coldest and loneliest place on the kite, but the cold wasn't too bad with his electrically heated suit, and he could hear the others and they could hear him.

In training they'd been told that rear gunners were one of the most important members of the crew, and he had nearly twice as much ammo as the other two turrets put together to prove it. So he was proud of being Tail-End Charlie. And if it came to dying, what really mattered, to his way of thinking, was whether the cause was worth it. He thought it was.

That was out of his poetry book. By Wordsworth. He repeated the words to himself often. Some of them had to die to stop Hitler.
We must be free or die. Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

He wished Mum could understand, but the only thing she could really see was that she might lose him. He knew that would be hard because he was all she had, but it couldn't be helped. She'd never said a cross word when he'd gone off to the recruiting office and lied to them about his age, but he'd heard her crying in her bedroom and he'd felt very bad about it.

It was dark now – darkness and engine noise and vibration, all around him. The skipper's voice spoke suddenly in his ears: ‘Pilot to rear gunner. OK back there, Charlie?'

He pressed his mike switch down carefully, still not easy with speaking out over the intercom. ‘OK, skipper.'

He went on searching the night skies.

They dropped the mines in what Van hoped were the waters off St Nazaire, Stew letting them go at three-second intervals. For once Piers had sounded sure about their position, but that might not mean a damn thing. There was no flak and no enemy fighters; nobody seemed to be taking any notice of them at all. He had a feeling that it was never going to be this easy again.

They flew back over the Channel and crossed the English coast at what should have been Portsmouth but was probably somewhere else, because later they turned out to be at least fifty miles off course. Piers was frightfully sorry about it, as usual, and eventually got them back to Beningby after a circular tour of Lincolnshire. Van managed a reasonable landing with only a couple of bounces, and they were ferried back from dispersal in the crew bus. He sat in front beside the WAAF driver, a jolly, red-cheeked girl who made bright conversation about the weather as though they were taking a pleasure drive out in the country. Apparently it was going to be a nice day, or what passed for one. The smell of dew-damp grass reached him pleasantly through the half-open window. He wondered just exactly where they had dropped the mines.

Catherine saw the sprog crew come into the debriefing room. All the other crews had already gone off for their breakfast and for a while she'd been afraid that they'd bought it on their first op. She watched them gather round a table: two pilot officers and five sergeants. They'd yet to do a really dicey trip, so they hadn't that dazed look she knew so well. That would come later. A fairly typical crew, except that someone had told her the pilot was an American. He'd be the tall fair one with the wings, chewing gum. The other officer, also fair-haired and wearing a navigator's badge, looked very English and very anxious. The bomb aimer was a stocky, aggressive Australian in the royal blue of the RAAF, and the flight engineer with the reddish hair and dour expression was probably Scottish. The two gunners were the smallest and youngest-looking of the crew, one of them scarcely more than a boy. The wireless operator, a big man, was obviously considerably older than the rest.

They were behaving like most crews at the start of their tour: like a group of virtual strangers with nothing much in common. Because it was their first op, they would try to answer all the de-briefing questions conscientiously in every detail. Later, they'd learn to rattle through it as quickly as possible and escape to their eggs and bacon and their sleep. If they lasted that long. Some said the first op was the diciest of all, and they'd survived it. Still, it had only been St Nazaire.

She watched them lighting cigarettes and drinking their cocoa. The wireless op was filling a pipe and poking at it with a match, the Aussie bomb aimer tipping back his chair perilously on its hind legs. She
watched the navigator lean forward earnestly to answer a question from the intelligence officer, the dark-haired gunner speak up with a cheeky grin and the very young-looking gunner smother a tired yawn. Then the skipper glanced across the room in her direction and she turned back to her papers and picked up her pen.

‘I'm afraid it's been empty for some time, Mrs Banks. It's rather damp.' The estate agent stood aside to let Dorothy into the cottage and she stepped past him into the dark front room.

She could smell the damp and see mildewy patches of it all along the bottom of the walls. Still, there was a nice fireplace with a good-sized grate, and if she could get a fire going and dry the place out, it would help. The few bits of furniture weren't up to much, but a good clean could work wonders. She followed the man into the kitchen at the back of the cottage. The range was thick with rust, the cupboards lined with old and yellowed newspaper. In the lean-to scullery beyond, there was a stone sink containing several dead spiders, some dead woodlice and a bath full of logs. A narrow wooden staircase, hidden behind a latched door, led to two bedrooms upstairs, with iron bedsteads and rickety chests of drawers. They clumped downstairs again.

‘I'm sorry it's not in better order, Mrs Banks. I'd like to have been able to show you something more attractive, but it's all we have to let on our books in that price range at the moment, and you said it had to be in this exact area.'

He was looking at her in a worried sort of way, as though he hoped she wouldn't take the cottage. But
she could see that she could make something of the place, with a bit of work, and she wasn't afraid of that. She moved over to the sitting-room window. The sill was littered with dead flies and bluebottles, the glass clouded with grime. She rubbed at it with her fingertips, clearing a patch.

The bomber station lay on the other side of the road, and if it hadn't been for the hedge she might have been able to see the runway. She could hear the sound of engines rumbling like distant thunder. The thunder grew louder and a big plane rose suddenly into view. As it climbed, she could see the black-painted underside of its body and wings. The window pane shook beneath her fingers. When the roar had died away, the estate agent apologized again.

‘I'm afraid you'd get quite a lot of noise. Beningby is very close . . . the RAF bomber station.'

‘Yes, I know,' she said. ‘That's why I wanted to be here.'

‘Oh?' He looked at her, puzzled.

‘My son's just been posted there. He's a rear gunner. In the Lancasters.'

He looked even more puzzled. ‘Forgive me for being personal, Mrs Banks, but you don't seem nearly old enough.'

‘I was only seventeen when he was born.'

He smiled. ‘That explains it. Well, I'm sure he'll be glad to have you near him.'

‘He doesn't know yet. I haven't told him.' She hesitated. ‘To tell the truth, I'm a bit worried he'll think I'm fussing. That it might embarrass him with the others . . .'

‘I wouldn't worry too much, Mrs Banks. Anyone would understand. But won't it make it rather hard
for you? To be so close? To see it all going on. Wouldn't it be better to stay at home?'

She shook her head. ‘I'd sooner be here and have more of a chance of seeing him . . . while I can. We live in Kent, you see. It's a long way away.'

‘How does your husband feel?'

‘I'm a widow. He died a long time ago. Charlie was our only child. He's all I've got.'

He said gravely, ‘I know how you must feel. But are you quite sure you're doing what's best for
you
?'

‘I don't care about myself,' she told him. ‘I only care about Charlie. And I'll take the cottage.'

Peter was waiting for her at the bar of The White Hind. Catherine threaded a way through the RAF uniforms, past the beer swillers and the line-shooters . . . 
came back looking like a colander . . . could've stepped out and walked on the bloody flak . . . can't have been me, old boy. I was over Bremen at the time
 . . .

‘The usual?' Peter asked when she finally reached him. He leaned across the counter and ordered the shandy. They clinked glasses. ‘Another one chalked up,' he said. He'd been to Stuttgart the night before and two of the other Lancs hadn't come back. He wouldn't mention that, of course. It wasn't done to talk about the losses and the dead comrades. You pressed on regardless.