Darkest Hour
James Holland
Chapter 1
A little after half past ten in the morning, Thursday, 9 May 1940. Already it was warm, with blue skies and large white cumulus clouds; a perfect early summer's day, in fact. It was also quite warm inside the tight confines of the Hurricane's cockpit, even fifteen thousand feet above the English Channel, and Squadron Leader Charlie Lyell was wishing he hadn't worn his thick sheepskin Irvin over his RAF tunic but the air had seemed fresh and crisp when he'd walked across the dew-sodden grass to his plane just over half an hour before. Now, as he led his flight of three in a wide arc to begin the return leg of their patrol line, the sun gleamed through the Perspex of his canopy, hot on his head. A line of sweat ran from his left temple and under the elastic at the edge of his flying goggles.
Nevertheless, it was the perfect day for flying, he thought. It was so clear that he could see for a hundred miles and more. As they completed the turn to head southwards again, there, stretching away from them, was the mouth of the Medway, shipping heading towards and out of London. Southern England - Kent and Sussex - lay unfolded like a rug from his starboard side, a soft, green, undulating patchwork, while away to his port was the Pas de Calais and the immensity of France. Somewhere down there were the massed French armies and the lads of the British Expeditionary Force. He smiled to himself. Rather you than me.
Lyell glanced at his altimeter, fuel gauge and oil pressure. All fine, and still well over half a tank of fuel left. The air-speed indicator showed they were maintaining a steady 240 miles per hour cruising speed. He turned his head to check the skies were clear behind him, then back to see that Robson and Walker were still tight in either side of him, tucked in behind his wings. Good.
Suddenly something away to his right caught his eye - a flash of sunlight on metal - and at the same moment he heard Robson, on his starboard wing, exclaim through the VHF headset, 'Down there - look! Sorry, sir, I mean, this is Red Two, Bandit at two o'clock.'
'Yes, all right, Red Two,' said Lyell. He hoped he sounded calm, a hint of a reprimand in his voice, even though he was conscious that his heart had begun to race and his body had tensed. He peered down and - yes! - there it was, some five thousand feet below, he guessed, and perhaps a mile or so ahead. It was typical of Robson to assume it was an enemy plane - they all wanted the squadron's first kill - but the plain truth was that most aircraft buzzing around the English coast were British, not German. Even so.
'This is Red One,' he called, over the R/T. 'We'll close in.' At least the sun, already high, was behind them, shielding them as they investigated. Lyell pushed open the throttle and watched the altimeter fall. His body was pressed back against the seat, and he tightened his hand involuntarily around the grip of the control column. A few seconds later and he could already see the aircraft ahead more clearly. It appeared to have twin tail fins but, then, so did a Whitley or a Hampden. The brightness was too great to distinguish the details of the paint scheme or symbols on the wings and fuselage.
Ahead loomed a huge tower of white cloud and together they shaved the edge of it, so that Lyell fleetingly lost sight of the plane before it appeared again and then, in a moment when it hung in the shadow of the cloud, he saw the unmistakable black crosses. His heart lurched. Christ, he thought, this is bloody well it.
Pushing open the throttle even wider, he closed in on what he could now see was a Dornier. It appeared not to have spotted them yet, but as he was only around seven hundred yards behind and a thousand feet above, Lyell checked that Robson and Walker were still close to him before he said, 'Line astern - go!' Still the enemy plane continued on its way, oblivious to the danger behind it. Lyell turned his head to see Robson and Walker now directly behind him.
Taking a deep breath, he flicked the firing button to 'on' for the first time ever in a real combat situation, then said into his mouthpiece, 'Number One Attack - go!' Opening the throttle wide he dived down on the Dornier. As it grew bigger by the second, he pressed his thumb down hard on the gun button and felt the Hurricane judder as his eight machine-guns opened fire. Lines of tracer and wavy threads of smoke hurtled through the sky but, to his frustration, fell short of the enemy plane. Cursing, he pulled back on the stick, but already he knew he had misjudged his attack. Seconds, that was all it had taken, but now the Dornier seemed to be filling his screen and he knew that if he did not take avoiding action immediately, they would collide. He pushed the stick to his left and the Hurricane flipped onto its side to scythe past the port wing of the Dornier, just as a rip of fire cut across him. He could hear machine-guns clattering, Robson and Walker shouting through the airwaves - all radio discipline gone - and saw tracer fizzing through the air, and then he was away, circling, climbing and scanning the skies, trying to pinpoint the enemy again.
Lyell swore, then heard a rasp of static and Robson's voice. 'Bastard's hit me!' he said.
'Are you all right, Red Two?' Lyell asked, peering about desperately for the Dornier and conscious that several enemy bullets had torn into his own fuselage.
'Yes, but my Hurri's not. I'm losing altitude.'
'I've got you, Robbo.' Walker this time.
Damn, damn, damn, thought Lyell, then spotted the Dornier again, a mile or so ahead, flying south-west once more. 'The bloody nerve,' he muttered. 'Red Two, turn straight back for Manston. Red Three, you guide him in.'
'What about you, sir?' asked Walker.
'I'm going after Jerry. Over.' Damn him. Damn them all, thought Lyell. He glanced at his instruments. Everything looked all right; the plane was still flying well enough - it was as though he had not been hit at all - but the fuel gauge showed he was less than half full now. It was a shock to see how much he had used in that brief burst of action. Well, bollocks to him, thought Lyell. He was damned if some Boche bomber was going to make a fool of him or his squadron. Applying an extra six pounds of boost he climbed five hundred feet and turned towards the Dornier.
He was soon catching up and, making sure the sun was behind him again, waited until the German plane began to fill his gunsight. Then, at a little over four hundred yards, distance, he pressed down on the gun button. Again, the Hurricane juddered with the recoil and Lyell was jolted in his seat despite the tightness of his harness. Lines of tracer and smoke snaked ahead, but the bullets were dropping away beneath the Dornier. Lyell pulled back slightly on the stick and continued pressing hard on the gun button. His machine-guns blazed, and his tracer lines looked to be hitting the German plane perfectly, but still it flew on. It was as though his bullets were having no effect.
'Bloody die, will you?' muttered Lyell. Then tracer was curling towards him from the Dornier's rear-gunner, seeming slow at first, then accelerating past, whizzing across his port wing.
'For God's sake,' said Lyell, ducking his head.
Suddenly the Dornier wobbled, belched smoke, turned and dived out of Lyell's line of fire. 'Got you!' said Lyell, then pushed the stick to his left and followed the enemy down. Not far below and away from them there was a larger bank of cloud. So that was the enemy's plan - to hide. In moments, the Dornier was flitting between puffs of outlying cloud, all signs of black smoke gone, but Lyell was gaining rapidly, the Merlin engine screaming, the airframe shaking, as he hurtled towards the enemy and opened fire again.