Читать книгу Combined Operations - Percy Francis Westerman - Страница 6

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His principal duty performed, David backed slowly out of his “padded cell”. He had no idea till then how cramped and cold he was. He had experienced no thrill of exultation when he had released the heavy lethal cargo; and now that that had been done, all he worried about was how long it would take to get home. That was, in his opinion, the boring part of the operation—having little or nothing to do but watch his comrades, who as a rule were fully occupied.

As he stood up in the alleyway, holding on with one hand, for the bomber seemed to be making a bumpy passage, he was conscious of a back-draught of very cold air.

“Had a puncture?” he inquired of the navigator.

Nigel Holt, bending over the map clipped to the table in front of him, looked up.

“Yes, and no repair outfit, my lad!” he replied. “Better look round and see what’s the damage. I’m busy.”

The navigator switched back his attention to his task—that of setting course for home.

David, now more aware of the unusual vibration, ascended the three broad steps. As he glanced into the wireless compartment on his right, he was astonished to find Sergeant O’Hara sitting sideways and looking ghostly white. The headphones he had been wearing had slipped off and were dangling by their flexible cords over the edge of a table. The transmitting set looked as if its face had been punched out—which indeed was the case.

“Copped it!” exclaimed the wounded sergeant laconically.

“Where?”

“Arm and shoulder. Sure I feel the one but not the other.”

“Let’s see,” said the Welshman briskly. “I’ll have to rip your coat off.”

“That’ll be up agin the Government,” rejoined O’Hara, with an effort towards humour. “Seven pound ten they cost. No, let it stop. It’ll be mighty cold. I think the bleeding’s stopped.”

Then he began to lean forward. Had not Price caught him he would have toppled on to the floor.

Lowering the now unconscious man into a recumbent position, David went to seek assistance. There were, so far as he knew, only two of the crew who might be available: the navigator and the engineer.

He encountered the latter as the Yorkshireman was backing through the oval aperture between the fuselage and the interior of the starboard wing.

“Nay, ba gum!” replied Holroyd. “Wi’ oil-pressure gauge down to nowt? Happen engine’ll seize up any moment now, if Ah can’t fix things up like.”

Clearly there was no help to be obtained from him. It was a case of the lives of all the crew against one; for although the Halifax might limp home on even only two engines, one out of action would be a terrific handicap if she were attacked by enemy fighters.

Nigel Holt, on hearing of O’Hara’s condition, set aside his navigating instruments and accompanied David to the unconscious man.

They removed his harness and cut away his fleece-lined leather jacket. The fleece of both arms was soaked in blood. The wound in the shoulder had already staunched itself, but the one in the arm was pumping blood, indicating that an artery had been cut.

Skilfully Holt applied a tourniquet and then first-aid bandages. The tourniquet had to be watched lest the pressure proved too much and applied for too long a time. Then they lifted the wounded man on to a bunk provided for casualties and covered him with electrically heated blankets.

While this was in progress O’Hara opened his eyes.

“Begorra, it’s giving me gip!” he exclaimed. “Sure, it’s worse I am than before!”

“You’ll feel easier very soon,” declared David encouragingly. “Another two hours and you’ll be nice and comfortable in hospital!”

He spoke optimistically. In his own mind he knew that, owing to the reduced speed, it would be considerably more than a couple of hours before the bomber touched down.

Leaving the navigator with the patient, David made his way to the captain and reported what had happened.

“I guessed the radio had packed up,” replied Derek. “Couldn’t even get anyone on the intercom. How is he?”

“In considerable pain. Do you think he ought to have a shot of morphia?”

“Good heavens, man, no!” declared Derek emphatically. “Supposing we had to bale out? We could launch him overboard, and even though he’s wounded he’d be able to pull the rip-cord. But if he’s under morphia he wouldn’t stand a dog’s chance. No; no morphia under any circumstances! I’m frightfully sorry for O’Hara, but there it is!”

David was turning away when the skipper called him back.

“Be as quick as you can,” he said. “I’ll want you as messenger now that I can’t call up any of the gunners. We’ll probably find Me’s or F.W.s waiting for us, and there’s precious little cloud cover.”

“Have you sighted any yet?”

“No; and don’t want to! All I’ve seen are our Lancasters, the last wave over Berlin, and they were well away to the nor’ard.”

David began to make his way back to his patient. On the way he noticed that there was no one in the “adastral”. The engineer was still busy trying to coax the sluggish engine to pick up after he had succeeded in getting the oil-pressure feed approaching normal.

“Might as well have a look-see!” he decided, intending to take a brief survey. After all, so far as he was concerned, he had been flying blind from the moment he left the bomb-aimer’s compartment.

Almost at the first glance he caught sight of three dark objects just clear of the full glare of the sun. A couple of seconds later they became invisible because they had taken up a position against which R.A.F. flying personnel are repeatedly warned: “Beware of the Hun in the sun!”

Without direct means of communication with the pilot, David hurried to give Derek the information.

“Right!” exclaimed the pilot tersely. “I’ve spotted the blighters!”

The for’ard air-gunner seemed to have sensed the danger, so David hurried back to warn the midship and rear gunners.

They had already spotted the approaching aircraft and had identified them as F.W. 190’s. They had fanned out and, possessing the advantage of a hundred miles per hour speed over the Halifax, were about to attack from three widely separated directions.

Deciding that he’d like to see something of the scrap—it was a rotten business being cooped up and unable to know what was happening—he returned to the observation dome above and in the rear of the pilot’s “office”. If things took a turn for the worse it would be only a matter of seconds for him to nip back to O’Hara and dump him overboard, should the order be given to abandon aircraft. David didn’t think it would be. He had complete confidence in the Halifax and those who handled and fought her; but, all the same, if luck should happen to be on the side of the old Hun, then it would be better to be prepared for emergencies.

He thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t given the wounded sergeant any morphia and that he had refixed his parachute harness.

The German approaching on the starboard side opened fire. He was below the Halifax, but still five hundred yards off—a favourable position so far as the Boche was concerned for delivering an attack.

The midship gunner was ready for him. Waiting until he was well within range, Evershot opened up. He knew that he’d have less than ten seconds before the enemy plane dived underneath, and then the British air-gunner would be unable to depress his weapons sufficiently. That meant that the huge bomber would be easy meat.

“Why doesn’t he fire?” was the thought that ran through Price’s mind as he divided his attention between the midship gun position and the rapidly approaching Hun. He seemed oblivious of the fact that Jerry was blazing away and that he was standing with his head and shoulders above the roof of the fuselage and only some splinter-proof, but not bullet-proof, glass between him and the attacking aircraft.

Machine-gun bullets were mushrooming harmlessly against the armoured parts of the Halifax’s fuselage; some were penetrating where there was no such protection. There were cannon-shells, too, giving out that peculiar sharp crack as the explosive charges went off.

Then—seemingly at long last, although it was a matter of seconds—the “Warm-’Un” opened fire, but it was none the less effective for that!

With a terrific flash that momentarily seemed to outvie the glare of the January sun the Hun exploded in mid-air. The disintegration was practically instantaneous. At one moment the Nazi aircraft was in full flight towards her would-be victim, with all her for’ard guns blazing away. At the next there was nothing but the shattered wings and a still fiercely burning petrol-tank falling earthwards. What happened to the engines the observers didn’t know.

“We’ve got her, look you!” shouted David.

No one heard him. It wouldn’t have mattered if one had; in that case he wouldn’t be “ticked off” by his companions for lapsing into the Welsh vernacular!

The midship gunner, without an instant’s delay, so swift was the tempo of the aerial combat, trained his power-operated turret round so that the guns could be brought to bear upon Hun number two.

Even so, he was just too late, for the rear gunner, getting the F.W. 190 dead in his sights, let him have a long burst.

The enemy aircraft didn’t blow up. It banked steeply with smoke and flames pouring from both engines. Then, unaccountably, unless the pilot had been killed or seriously wounded, it attempted to climb. It failed.

Then commenced the sickening dive to earth. Three men jumped for it. The parachute harness of one became entangled in the tail member. The flames mercifully hid him from David Price’s sight.

The others, dropping clear, pulled their respective rip-cords. The envelopes distended and bore the airmen comparatively slowly to the ground.

“They’ll live to fly and fight again,” thought the Welshman. “If they’d been us and we were baling out, it’s ten to one the blighters would have followed us down and machine-gunned us.”

By this time the third Hun, warned by the fate of the others, had turned and was legging it for his base, followed by an ineffectual burst from Pug Macey’s guns to speed him on his way.

“Did you see the second Hun hit the deck?” inquired Derek when David, having left his perch of observation, reported to his captain.

“No, sir!”

“Pity!” continued Derek. “Taking fire doesn’t necessarily mean that the Boche plane is done in. ... And we’re in for a spot of bother too!”

“How?”

“Two engines packed up. Aileron wires shot away and—but that’s enough to get on with.”

“Where are we now?” asked David.

“Just across the frontier of Hunland proper,” replied the skipper. “That doesn’t mean we’re out of danger. But we’re getting back somehow,” he concluded with slow and deliberate emphasis.

“We’ve downed two, any old way!”

“Two?” echoed Derek. “Hanged if I saw the second. It crashed all right?”

“Couldn’t say,” admitted David. “She was smoking badly when she passed out of my line of vision. But why F.W. 190’s?”

“Goodness knows,” replied the captain. “Short of fighters, I expect, so they have to bring these up. They didn’t do their job badly,” he added. “We’re in a bit of a mess.”

At that moment Sergeant Holroyd appeared, smothered in oil and with streaks of blood on his face and hands.

“Copped it, Sergeant?” asked Derek.

“Nowt to make song about, sir,” was the reply. “What does matter is there’s a great hole in port petrol-tank, as big as ma fist. Wi’ luck we may get across; without luck Ah reckon we’re fair flummoxed. How far have we to do, sir?”

“Three hundred and fifty miles.”

“Three fifty, ba gum! Happen we’ll finish in t’ drink then!”