At getting no sense the seaplanes broke station, zoomed up steeply and ahead. What did the sky look like to them? They saw a victim, prime and squat, a lumbering tortoise sent for their enjoyment, with all the heavens a playpen. The scene gave me the horrors, until an order came from Nash. ‘Sit in the mid-upper, Sparks, and see what you can do.’
Hindsight mellows, time distorts, so how can the reality be grasped as it was in the act? Only first impressions count. Sickness in the guts fled when I moved. I saw little. Nash waited till the plane was a few hundred yards away, then opened up. The attack came from astern. They thought we had put coloured sticks in the turrets instead of Brownings. ‘Otherwise how could they be so daft?’ Appleyard called. We spoke to ourselves. The plane lifted, smoke like shite-hawk feathers rippling the sky. A pale belly sheered up the side of our tailplane, a full view of two floats before slipping to starboard and down to the sea.
‘One gone,’ said Nash. ‘But there’s the other, so don’t put your finger back in yet.’ Was it bagatelle or skittles? Don’t ask, said Bennett. The sky was empty, and not my turn to have a go, and a sense of solitude made me sweat. My hands shook, eyes wanting to close. There was something in my eye, but was it fear? The plane came at speed. Time slowed so that he was in my sights as he weaved side on in an attempt to unstitch us from stem to stern. My heart crashed into him as I fired the two guns.
‘Cut the bad language.’
Appleyard tried, and the plane slid out of his sights. I sent another burst. He fell away early, not mad enough to die.
‘Hold your fire,’ said Nash. ‘I’ll get the gold-lover.’
He came from the north, a quarter turn to put his gunner in line. ‘I see him,’ said Appleyard. ‘And would you believe it? He’s blue-eyed, blond and wearing a yellow scarf.’
‘Don’t care if he’s in his underpants,’ said Nash. Bullets ripped the fuselage. They were throwing pebbles. I didn’t know where they struck, but hoped the radio wasn’t hit. I tasted ashy rage at the thought. Blowing bubbles, said Nash. Spite will get you nowhere. As the plane wheeled the length of the flying boat he fired from side-on. The plane continued south.
‘Going home with a cat up his arse,’ Nash mumbled.
Bennett kept his unflinching course. ‘Call the roll.’
‘OK, Skipper. You all right?’
‘Nose shipped a few.’
‘Sparks?’
‘Sir!’
‘Salute when you speak to me!’
‘Hi-di-hi!’
‘Ho-di-ho!’
There was a pause while levity sank away.
‘Appleyard?’
Nash sounded weary: ‘After action I’m knackered. Like an orgy – done in, for ever and ever, though it’s nothing a good kip or a fried egg won’t cure. Have a dekko, Sparks, there’s a good lad.’
I knocked on all protuberances. The plane roared steadily, gaining height, but only by the mile. Take ten years before we need oxygen, but I felt light-headed at the thought that we had seen the last of the Nemesis and its bluebottle-seaplanes. Well, don’t be so sure. Life’s full of nasty surprises. They must have been discouraged, anyhow, by one down and the other damaged. I wanted to return to my wireless in case I learned something new.
Appleyard’s turret was spattered with holes, and a mess of blood poured from his stomach. I was fixed by a paralysis that would enable me to remember, and then tell about it. He began screaming that he didn’t want to die, and because I couldn’t save him, I willed him to.
Nash opened a field dressing. To staunch the flow, he said, would be like trying to patch a burst dam with a postage stamp. Which might be something you can do in Holland, he added, his face flour-white, the lines deeply accentuated, but not here.
18
The reek of petrol and oil seemed to put up the temperature. Haggard from turning the nose-gunner’s body into the sea, Nash said that one of the tanks might have sprung a leak. That last raking did damage. It was certain, however, that Bennett’s high octane optimism hadn’t yet started to spill out. Perhaps it was better so, because in the end only his press-on-regardless spirit might save us.
I clung to the refuge of my wireless station. The magic-eye would be the last glowing item before we went into the dark. Unless I could contract to homunculus proportions, assume salamander-like properties, take on the role of a phoenix and get between the valves of the transmitter, it would be a dark I would never come out of. As long as I didn’t think of it I was not afraid, yet I resented being unable to dwell on matters for that reason.
Everything seemed so certain that I felt as if I were on a conveyor belt, but such thoughts insisted on being cold shouldered by my fingers flicking the various switches in spite of myself and to no real purpose, though my ears were listening for any tinkle of hope. The seaplanes must have radioed their base ship, for the wireless operator on board sent a message which he knew I must receive. ‘TELL CAPTAIN PROCEEDS SHARED BETWEEN YOUR FORCE AND WE STOP SAFE CONDUCT GUARANTEED TO YOUR GALLANT CREW STOP TERMS HONOURABLY KEPT IF YOU RETURN.’
‘Gee,’ said Nash, ‘let’s throw the oboe out of the window and contact the consul!’
I passed the half-full bottle of whisky. ‘Calm down. Have a drink.’
He imitated Tommy Handley’s side-kick to perfection. ‘Don’t mind if I do!’
‘Sing a song of sixpence,’ Bennett chimed in, ‘and let’s live forever.’ Knowing our kite to be damaged, the Nemesis was steaming north in the hope of being close when we came down. Our lives in danger, we would send an SOS with the ditching position conveniently attached. If the Aldebaran sank and the gold with it, and we were picked up by them from our dinghy, we would be killed. That much was implicit in their telegram. Bennett read the signal and said nothing, his mood like a yo-yo.
On my way to the set I looked at the port inner. There was a haze around the exhaust which is sometimes seen in hot weather. The shimmer attracted me when I hadn’t expected to see anything at all. I was wary of pointing it out to Bennett. To tell him he should stop hoping was not worth the risk of a bullet. His face showed no threat, but his fixed pose daunted me. By his stillness he seemed to be in touch with more than either I or Nash could imagine. It was a mistake to think so. He wasn’t. If he didn’t wish for information he would have to be force-fed. But I was wrong. As a pilot he had more senses than a cat in a snake pit. ‘Sparks, get down to the panel and read me the oil temperature gauges, and the oil pressure gauges. Also the fuel contents gauges while you’re about it. Routine stuff.’
We were near the woolly corrugations at five thousand feet, but no longer climbing. Because none of us should lack information on our plight, I copied the readings for Nash as well.
Bennett waved me away. ‘Read them again in ten minutes.’
The same gunmetal glaze from the starboard inner tallied with the figures. Oil pressure was low in both engines. The angle between our longitudinal heading and the ceiling of cloud increased. Divergence was subtle, but we were going down. Nash sat on the bunk, and when I showed him the signal from the ship, and the engine data, he said: ‘The old man won’t turn back. He’ll ditch first.’
‘Isn’t that the last thing we want?’ I leaned against the bulkhead. The plane was no safer than a packing case. ‘We’ll keep half the loot if we turn. Otherwise we get nothing.’