Battle of Britain Page 14

  In the Mess later that evening, the CO showed up briefly, had a quick drink, then disappeared.

  ‘I hope he’s going to say something other than rat-a-tat,’ said Pip.

  ‘He’s making a very clear point, though, isn’t he?’ said Colin Bishop.

  No one answered him. Pip blew four perfect smoke rings.

  ‘What I want to know,’ said Mike, ‘is where the devil he’s come from?’

  ‘Ask Uncle,’ said Pip. ‘He’ll know.’

  ‘Ah. Well,’ said Reynolds as the others gathered around him. ‘Learned to fly on his parents’ farm, apparently. Applied to Cranwell and was accepted. Passed out in ’34, then almost immediately went out to Aden. Couple of years there, then back here, where he became an instructor.’ By all accounts, the adj told them, he’d been an excellent instructor, but that wasn’t all. He’d been in France too, knocking down a number of planes, and had already been given a DFC. ‘So he knows his stuff all right.’

  Archie looked across at Ted and saw him wink.

  Soon after, they headed back to their room. ‘I’m still smiling about that trick on the CO,’ said Ted.

  ‘I was convinced you were going to say, “rat-a-tat,”’ said Archie, laughing, ‘and I was so hoping you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’m not that much of a fool. If I’d done that, he’d have probably given me the chop there and then. Still, we proved a point, didn’t we?’

  ‘I’d like to think so, yes.’

  They were still chatting as they walked down the long corridor that led to their room. When they reached it, they saw a folded note under the door.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Ted, bending down and pulling it clear.

  He unfolded it and immediately his expression changed. ‘Oh, blast,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ said Archie. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Here,’ said Ted, passing it to him.

  There was just one line: See me in my office at 4.3 a.m. sharp. S/Ldr S. MacIntyre.

  ‘We’re for it, then, Ted.’

  Ted patted him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Yes, Archie,’ he said. ‘I think we probably are.’

  14

  The New CO

  Since the squadron was expected to be at readiness by 5 a.m., it was a daily occurrence for the pilots to be woken at four. It was midsummer and already starting to get light, and so long as there was light, the squadron was expected to fly.

  Archie was greeted with a mug of sweet tea, but no sooner was he awake than he remembered with a dull ache in the pit of his stomach that in half an hour he and Ted were expected to report to the new CO. It reminded him of the time he had been caught breaking out of his dormitory at night. He and his friend Dougal had run down the fire escape, across the school yard and to the cricket pitches, where they had peed on the square; it was a school tradition, a rite of passage. But they had been caught by one of the matrons as they tried to sneak back in, and then the headmaster had been summoned.

  ‘See me outside my study in the morning,’ they’d been told, leaving them with a night in which to ponder their punishment. That time they had both been given two strokes of the cane. My God, how that had hurt. Two crimson weals had appeared, one on each cheek of their buttocks, and when Archie had tried to sit down, waves of pain had coursed through his entire body. A few days later, the weals turned purple, then greenish yellow. It had taken nearly two weeks for the marks to disappear altogether.

  But that had been when he was twelve. He wondered now what had possessed him and Ted to try to take on the new CO on his very first day. Causing trouble did not come naturally; instinctively, he preferred to toe the line.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ said Ted, a weak smile on his face. ‘Bit of a dressing down, that’s all.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Archie.

  At 4.30 a.m. they were standing outside the door of the CO’s office. Ted looked at Archie, then knocked.

  ‘Come!’ came the voice.

  Gingerly, they opened the door, walked up to the desk and saluted.

  MacIntyre waved his hand. ‘All right, all right,’ he said, then leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. ‘How old are you two? Nineteen?’

  They nodded.

  ‘And you joined the squadron in April.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Ted. ‘Back in the autumn of 1938, sir. During our first term at Durham University.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the weekend fliers – a few trips in a Tiger Moth, then dinner and drinks afterwards – yes, I know the kind of thing. You, Tyler, had your civilian licence, which, let’s face it, they give to anyone who can take off and land, and you, Jackson, had about twenty hours before they packed you off to training. So, apart from a bit of larking about in the auxiliary squadron, which, frankly, barely counts, you joined the permanent wartime squadron in April. Right?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ they said in unison.

  ‘So you’ve still got a lot to learn, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  MacIntyre leaned forward. ‘Right. This is both a pat on the back and a warning. The point of yesterday’s evening sortie was to see how well the squadron flew together once there was a bit of cloud and sun. It’s all very well flying in beautiful neat formations, but it doesn’t work the moment you’re in a cloud bank. So what do you do?’

  ‘Avoid clouds?’ said Ted.

  ‘If possible, yes.’

  ‘And don’t fly quite so close together, sir,’ said Archie.

  ‘Yes, again. Actually, what you two did was the best course of action. Fly up-sun, watch, then dive down with the advantage of height and sun. So from that point of view, well done.’

  Archie felt himself relax, but it was short-lived.

  ‘However,’ MacIntyre continued, ‘in doing so, you disobeyed my orders. I told you all to follow me, didn’t I? I wanted to make the point about how disorientating cloud is, and –’

  ‘But we know that, sir,’ interrupted Ted, ‘that’s why we avoid –’

  ‘Be quiet!’ MacIntyre glared at him. ‘I wanted to make the point about the shortcomings of the vic formation, to get this bunch thinking outside the conventions of normal RAF fighter doctrine. But you two decided not to play ball. You felt you had to try to score points, to show me that you’re two pretty damn confident pilots, who know a thing or two about flying. I know you’ve both got confirmed kills to your names, and you can both obviously handle your aircraft nicely. One, or perhaps both, of you has excellent eyesight, a tremendous asset. But we’re not a bunch of individuals here, we’re a team. It’s not about amassing personal scores, it’s about defeating the enemy. Helping one another. I’ve no place for individuals here, or pilots who are overconfident and think they know it all. In my experience, overconfidence gets people killed.’ He paused and eyed them both; his dark eyes seemed to bore into them. Archie guessed he was only in his mid-twenties, but somehow he appeared an age older.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you play by my rules, not yours, all right? This squadron is in a mess. Morale is poor and no one knows what they’re doing. God knows how much time we’ve got, but it isn’t going to be much and there is a lot to do. I want you to help not hinder me, all right? Play ball, and we’ll all get along just fine. Cross me, and I’ll have you run out of this squadron before you can say bandit. And that’s no idle threat. Clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. Now get going. Scram.’

  Back out in the corridor, neither spoke until they were well clear of MacIntyre’s office, then eventually Ted said, ‘Well, that could have been worse.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ agreed Archie, ‘although I can’t say I enjoyed being threatened with the chop.’

  Ted waved a hand impatiently. ‘Just hot air. He’s not going to sack us. He needs us. He said as much.’

  ‘I get the impression he means what he says.’

  ‘You worry too much, Archie. Come on, that’s the end of it. We got a rap on the knuckles, but we kept our honour. I’
d say that’s a pretty fair exchange.’ He slapped him lightly on the back. ‘Let’s forget about it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Archie. ‘I’ll try.’

  Squadron Leader MacIntyre took out more pilots that morning, but not Ted or Archie. Then at midday, he called the entire squadron together in the Mess – both pilots and ground crew.

  ‘I thought we were supposed to be at readiness,’ Ted whispered to Archie.

  Archie shrugged. ‘I get the feeling the CO can fix things like that.’

  The CO sat on the bar, twirling a snooker cue between his fingers while he waited for everyone to arrive. He had laid his cap down beside him, but as soon as everyone appeared to be there, he stood up and took off his jacket, very deliberately rolling up each of his shirtsleeves in turn. The massed gathering – some sixteen pilots and over thirty ground crew – watched this procedure in curious silence.

  Then, still twirling the cue, MacIntyre began. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever come across a group of men so inadequately placed to be a front-line fighter squadron,’ he told them. ‘You’re a miserable, ignorant bunch. I wanted all of you in here because bad morale seeps down from the very top to the very bottom, and, let’s face it, you lot have hit rock bottom. Ten of you here are, according to what I’ve been told, experienced pilots, but you could have fooled me. You lost nearly half your number over Dunkirk, but you don’t seem to have learned anything. Instead, you’re moping about, feeling sorry for your mates who got the chop and waiting to be killed yourselves. As for the new pilots, I don’t know what you’ve been taught, but you are quite simply not ready to fly in combat. If I sent you up against the Jerries today, I’d put a lot of money on not one of you coming back.’

  There was a slight murmur from the back and one of the pilots coughed.

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’ said MacIntyre. ‘Did someone say something?’ Silence. ‘If you’ve got anything to say,’ he said, ‘say it now, and we can go outside and fight it out. This is your last chance.’ He looked around the room, staring at each of the pilots in turn. ‘No? No one want to challenge me?’ His eyes glared brightly, and his forearms flexed as he gripped the cue tightly with both hands. The room remained deathly quiet.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Right, first of all, let’s talk about what’s gone wrong, and if you want to say something, put up your hand. This is – was – an auxiliary squadron. Most of you know each other, you come from the same part of the world, and your mummies and daddies left you with enough money so you could indulge in a little bit of weekend flying. All jolly good fun, and you felt a bit superior and a bit elite and a bit above everyone else. Then the war comes along, so of course you want to do your bit and you sign on the dotted line and become full-time pilots. Everything carries on much as normal until Jerry decides it’s time to liven things up a bit and you are suddenly a part of the action. But although you’ve all learned your six methods of attack, the reality is very different from the training. For starters, there’s rarely one target, but lots, so which do you go for? Secondly, the target does not fly straight and level, but darts all over the place, so your perfect formation flying is suddenly completely useless. So you panic a bit and end up shooting at the nearest thing you see, following it as it dives out of your way and forgetting there might be any number of enemy planes behind you. How many of you who flew over Dunkirk followed a plane down?’ A pause, the pilots looking at each other guiltily, then a reluctant show of hands.

  ‘And why did you do that?’ No one answered. ‘I heard that the last CO got himself shot down doing just that. Now I’m sure he was a fine fellow, but he left you lot in the lurch a bit, didn’t he?’ Again, no one answered. ‘Follow your enemy down, and you immediately lose the crucial advantage of height and speed and are no longer any use in that particular sortie. Did it ever occur to any of you to sit down and talk about what happened over Dunkirk?’ No answer. ‘No,’ said MacIntyre, ‘I didn’t think so.’ He paced up and down the length of the bar, his cue still in his hands. ‘Clearly, most of you know how to handle an aeroplane, but being a reasonable pilot does not make you a reasonable fighter pilot.’

  He laid down his cue, then gave them a list of golden rules, much the same, Archie noted, as those Group Captain Tyler had given him and Ted a month earlier. They were, Archie now knew, good rules – crucial rules, in fact.

  ‘And never, and I mean never,’ repeated MacIntyre, ‘follow a plane down. A quick burst of your guns, then get out of there. Another target will come along, believe me.

  ‘So far, the Germans don’t seem to want to come out and play, which is very fortunate for you. God knows how long we’ve got, but we need to work bloody hard right now. I don’t care what anyone in the Air Ministry says, the standard command attacks are useless and a complete waste of time.’ There was a murmur and turning of heads at this.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes – I know the theory: the more of you that attack in one go, the bigger the punch – but it doesn’t work like that. Surprise is everything in air fighting, so I want you all to forget you ever knew them. Second, you’re all going to get your guns resynchronized. What have you got them set on at the moment? Four hundred and fifty yards, as prescribed by the Air Ministry?’

  A few nods.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Ted. ‘I’ve got mine at a hundred and fifty yards.’

  MacIntyre nodded. ‘That’s more like it. No more than two hundred yards at any rate. Let me tell you this: your chances of shooting anything down at more than four hundred yards is slight. The .303 Browning is a pea-shooter. Our machines need cannons like Jerry has, but since we don’t have them, we’ve got to make the best of what we’ve got. If you get in close, your bullets will be more effective and your target will be bigger and therefore twice as easy to shoot down. If they’re more effective, you won’t need to fire so many to do the job. And if you don’t fire so many at one chap, you won’t stay so long exposing yourself to being attacked in turn, and you’ll have more bullets to shoot at another target. So from now on, synchronize your guns at between one hundred and fifty and two hundred yards. All right?’ He looked around at them all. ‘It’s common sense, really.

  ‘And another thing. We’re going to get rid of tight vics. The Germans don’t use them and they don’t for a reason. You spend too much time concentrating on keeping a nice, tight formation and not enough on looking around the sky. So we’re going to loosen up a bit, and fly at slightly different heights. Trust me, you’ll much prefer this way.

  ‘Right,’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘We’re going to train all day, every day, in flights and individually, and you’re all going to learn very quickly, or else, I’m afraid, you’re going to get yourselves killed. I’m sorry about your friends, but you must put their deaths to one side now. Feeling miserable about it won’t help them and it certainly won’t help you. And you, Winters, I don’t want to see you wearing your Irvin again, all right? You can’t possibly see behind you properly with that bloody great collar of fur. It’s better to freeze your bollocks off than get a cannon shell up your arse.’ Pip, picking a strand of tobacco from his mouth, glared back at the CO.

  ‘Right,’ said MacIntyre, whacking the cue on top of the bar, ‘I want to see you lot liven up a bit. Where’s your damn fighting spirit? Let’s start thinking about avenging those dead colleagues, and making sure we can take on anything the Germans throw at us. Clear?’ No one replied, so he said again, ‘Clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the mumbled reply.

  ‘What about being at readiness all the time, sir?’ asked Mike Drummond.

  ‘Forget about that,’ said MacIntyre. ‘I’ve sorted it. We’re moving out of here soon, in any case. There’s no point being at readiness if you lot aren’t ready to take on the enemy. While there’s nothing doing with the Luftwaffe, we’re going to train. A much better use of our time than sitting on our arses at dispersal.’

  Archie had felt buoyed up by MacIntyre’s talk, just as he had had his confidence lifted by Group Ca
ptain Tyler’s advice after that first sortie over Dunkirk. As the CO said, it was all common sense, really. For the next couple of days, they trained hard, just as MacIntyre had promised. Taking off, they would fly to between ten and fifteen thousand feet, then in turns make attacks, head on, from the side, from beneath, from above, from out of the sun – all against the CO, who manfully coped with the erratic performance of the rest of his pilots.

  ‘Your neck should ache like hell,’ MacIntyre told them. ‘If it doesn’t, you haven’t been watching hard enough.’

  Nor was it just the pilots who needed working on. Over in France, the CO had learned lessons the Air Ministry had not, and so ordered the ground crew to re-equip all their Spitfires with armour plating behind each of the pilots’ seats and to somehow find a number of rear-view car mirrors which were to be bolted on to the outside of the canopy.

  ‘You should have heard him,’ Reynolds told Archie, Ted and some of the other pilots in the Mess. ‘He said, “The ones we’ve been given are too small. No good to anyone.’’ Well, Chiefy Butterworth scratched his head and said, “Where are we supposed to get them from, sir?” and the skipper says, “Use your imagination. A scrapyard for the armour plating and steal the mirrors.” I mean, priceless, isn’t it?’

  ‘And Chiefy’s got them, you know,’ said Mike. ‘They’ve started fixing them already.’

  Reynolds chuckled. ‘You can say what you like about him,’ he said, ‘but Mac’s certainly changing things around here.’

  ‘But why aren’t we doing anything?’ said Ted. ‘Why are we waiting for the Luftwaffe? We should be going over there and shooting up these new airfields of theirs while there’s a chance.’

  ‘You can if you like, Ted,’ said Colin Bishop, ‘but I’m quite happy waiting. The longer Jerry leaves it, the better, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Pip.

  ‘I admire your zeal, Ted,’ said Reynolds, ‘but concentrate on training, eh? The Huns will be here soon enough, you know.’

  But later, just as Archie was about to drop off to sleep, Ted said, ‘I’ve got a plan.’