Читать книгу Combined Operations - Percy Francis Westerman - Страница 8

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Derek was the first to leave the aircraft. He had two clean-cut objects immediately in his mind: to obtain medical assistance for the two wounded members of the crew, and to find out where he was in order to telephone to base and report on the more or less successful landing.

Two men were already hurrying towards the stationary Halifax. One, whom Derek rightly guessed to be the farmer, was tall, somewhat rugged-faced, and spoke in a soft though educated voice. Used to the bucolic inhabitants of the county popularly known as “Silly Sussex”, who, in his experience, rarely gave a straight answer to a straight question, Derek was agreeably surprised at the conciseness and directness of his replies.

“Where are we, please?”

“At Drungewick, six miles from Billingshurst and eight from Horsham.”

“Then Flintfold is the nearest R.A.F. station. Have you a telephone?”

“Yes, use it by all means.”

“We’ve two wounded men on board. I want to telephone for an ambulance. There isn’t a stretcher anywhere near here?”

“What’s wrong with a couple of stout hurdles?” asked the farmer practically.

These were quickly forthcoming, but not before David had given Mick O’Hara an opium pill, now that there was no longer any question of having to bale out.

They had very little difficulty in getting the two casualties out of the fuselage. Both were placed carefully on the hurdles and covered with blankets. With the aid of the farmer and his men they were carried into the house.

O’Hara’s wounds had already been dressed, but when Derek saw the state the New Zealander was in he had a nasty shock. The shell splinter had cut a gash about six inches in length horizontally across his forehead, laying bare the frontal bone.

It looked pretty ghastly. His comrades almost took it for granted that the wound would prove fatal.

The first-aid chest, removed from the aircraft, was again brought into service; but it seemed that little could be done for the man until the arrival of the ambulance with a medical officer.

While they were waiting, Derek rang up base, demanding an urgent priority call. It took nine minutes before he got through.

“That you, Cattisbourne Station?”

“Orderly officer speaking!”

“Splendid: it’s Brighouse, I recognized your voice. ‘S for Sylvia’ has touched down at Drungewick. ... No, not Brunswick—Drungewick in Sussex. Can’t give you the map reference, but it’s eight miles west of Horsham. Can you send a tender to collect the crew?”

“Crash-landing, old son?”

“No jolly fear,” replied the pilot indignantly. “A good and proper three-point landing in a field little larger than a football ground, if you want to know. That’s where she’s jammed, but we caught it coming back. We are reported overdue and missing, I take it?”

“Were,” amended the orderly officer. “The Royal Observer Corps reported you coming in and flying low, twenty minutes or half an hour ago. So if you thought you were catching us on the hop it’s a flop! Righto, I’ll arrange for transport to fetch you. It should arrive at 1800. Meanwhile, be good!”

“How did the other fellows get on?”

“Every aircraft except yours returned, and the crews have mopped up most of the whisky. We managed to save a bottle for your crowd, when they roll up. Well, cheerio, see you later!”

Pilot-officer Brighouse, the orderly officer of the day, rang off. He was having a pretty busy time.

“Gosh!” exclaimed Derek. “The blighter wouldn’t wait to be informed of our casualties, and he didn’t give me a chance to tell him we’d downed a F.W. 190.”

“Not one but two,” added David.

“I thought you didn’t see it crash. Did it?” asked Derek hopefully.

“Yes, Tredgold and Macey both saw it hit the ground and explode.”

The uninjured members of the bomber’s crew were now attacking their rations. They hadn’t eaten either on the way out or on the homeward run. For one thing, they were too keyed up to bother about such mundane things as food; for another, experience had taught them to conserve their rations until they were over the English coast, the reason being that if they had to abandon aircraft over the Channel and take to their rubber dinghy, they wouldn’t be without food for at least forty-eight hours. By that time they would either be picked up or they would never be found.

Then the R.A.F. ambulance from Flintfold arrived. With it was a doctor in the uniform of a squadron-leader, and three orderlies. A tender followed with another surgeon and more hospital attendants.

“You’ve made quite a sound job of this man,” declared the senior M.O. after giving O’Hara an examination. “He’d better be placed in the ambulance straight away.”

Evershot’s wound required more attention. Derek and his companions didn’t see what was being done to him—perhaps it was just as well!—but in about ten minutes both doctors stood up, straightened their backs, and asked for hot water to wash their hands.

“Do you think he’ll pull through?” asked Derek anxiously.

“Why not?” rejoined the senior doctor. “Nelson did!”

“What’s Nelson got to do with it?” thought Derek. “In any case, he didn’t survive the Battle of Trafalgar.”

Catching sight of the puzzled expression on Dundas’s face, the M.O. proceeded to enlighten him on that point.

“I was referring to the Battle of the Nile. During the action Nelson received a wound very similar to this man’s. A strip of skin fell over both eyes. It looked pretty serious to those of the crew who saw it. The report got round that the admiral was mortally wounded, and for a while he was also under that impression. When the French flagship—l’Orient—blew up, Nelson left the cockpit and, to the surprise and relief of his crew, appeared again on the quarter-deck and gave instructions for boats to be lowered to save survivors from the French ship. Nelson recovered from that wound in a little over a month. I expect this man will be up and about in less than that time.”

“That’s good!” declared Derek.

“Unless there are complications that I cannot at present detect,” continued the M.O. “To explain in terms that a layman can understand: the brain, though protected by the frontal bone, isn’t damaged, but there is a possibility that the bone itself might be affected by the shock. However, time will tell.”

Derek wondered, and so did the remaining members of the bomber’s crew, whether they would ever set eyes on Sergeant Mick O’Hara again, still more whether he would be able to take part with them in subsequent offensive operations against the enemy.

They had been a team—a well-trained, efficient crowd who understood each other and knew the true sense of comradeship. In all probability they would have Evershot back before very long, but “S for Sylvia” would be made fit for service before then. That meant there would have to be another wireless operator and another air-gunner. They might be, and probably would be, keen and efficient but, as Nigel Holt observed, it wouldn’t be the old gang!

With the departure of the ambulance Derek and his crew felt rather at a loose end, while they were waiting for transport to take them back to Cattisbourne Aerodrome.

They offered to give the farmer a hand, but either he didn’t care to trust his tractors in the hands of men used to Merlin engines or he thought they should be resting and sleeping after their exertions. For him it was a fairly slack time of year; too early for ploughing and sowing, since most of the ground was stiff and sticky owing to abnormal rains.

To fill in the time Derek and his crew paid a visit to their grounded aircraft, for grounded she most certainly was. Until she was partly dismantled and towed back to her base for repairs, renewals and overhaul, “S for Sylvia” was as completely earth-bound as the proverbial pig; although, to confound yet another old-time proverb, pigs have flown in aircraft.

They counted sixty-four holes, large and small, mostly clean-cut ones caused by machine-gun bullets. Looking at the damage, the crew marvelled that there hadn’t been heavier casualties and that the aircraft had got back.

“As a matter of fact, you fellows, we had flak most of the way,” said Derek. “Most of the stuff burst well below us; so I didn’t trouble to tell you at the time. Our tightest corner was when the shore batteries opened up.”

“I thought they were bound to get us, sir,” declared Macey. “In the rear cockpit it seemed as if they were concentrating on me! Think we can borrow a paint-brush and a pot of paint, sir?”

“What on earth for?”

“Just to put a pair of swastikas on the old bus, sir.”

“But our ‘kills’ haven’t been confirmed.”

“They will be, sir,” rejoined the air-gunner confidently. “Mr. Price says he didn’t see the second F.W. come down, but Tredgold and I saw her hit the ground. All I can say is I shouldn’t like to have been aboard, because she blew up good and proper.”

“We’d better leave the swastika stuff,” decided Derek. “It means only waiting till the briefing officer has seen us.... Ha! This sounds like the tender!”

Bidding farewell to their temporary host, the remaining crew boarded the vehicle, Derek and Nigel sitting with the driver.

“Find the place all right?” asked Derek.

“Yes, sir. Got a bit flummoxed when I asked the natives. Don’t know what you think about these signposts being removed, sir; but it strikes me it’s doing Jerry a good turn instead of a bad one.”

“Wasting our petrol by taking vehicles miles out of their way and stopping with engines running to ask for directions. Yes, I suppose there must be thousands of gallons of juice and hundreds of working hours wasted over that. Any news on the wireless?”

“Not ’arf there ain’t, sir,” replied the driver, keeping a sharp look-out ahead all the time he spoke. “Ginger Peake—you’ll know him, sir, he’s in No. 3 Flight—well, Ginger tunes-in to a Hun station. He speaks the language like a native, him having been on Cook’s staff in Berlin for ten years. So he translated: sort of running commentary like. They started off, just before one one o o, with a hymn tune, which was rather strange, I think, sir.”

“Quite,” agreed Derek, tactfully refraining from mentioning that “Deutschland über Alles” and “Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore Him” are set to the same tune.

“Then they gave out that Field-Marshal Goering would commence his speech in a few minutes. He just didn’t. We could hear the ‘cookies’ going off, so we knew the lads were busy. And we didn’t lose one aircraft, seeing as you fetched back. What’s more, we’ve sent another lot of bombers to Berlin this afternoon.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated Derek. “And how did they get on?”

“Don’t know yet, sir,” was the reply. “None of them went from Cattisbourne. But two trips to Berlin in one day and by daylight; that’ll give the old Boche something more than a headache! ... Ah, now we’re on a clear road. I know where we are now, so I’ll step on it!”

Although the vehicle was supposed to be “governed” so that the maximum speed should not exceed forty miles per hour, the R.A.F. driver certainly got another fifteen or twenty out of her.

By this time Derek was feeling dog-tired. It had been a long, arduous day with excitement and the sense of responsibility to keep him keyed up.

He fell asleep, only to awake with a start to find that he was leaning against the driver’s shoulder and that Holt, breathing heavily, was slumbering with his head resting on his—Derek’s—shoulder.

“It’s all right, sir,” declared the man cheerfully. “You just carry on an’ have a kip. I won’t put the whole caboosh into the ditch!”

People on the road, if they had time to glance at the swiftly moving vehicle, would have registered surprise at the sight of two men in flying kit lolling sideways as if they were drunk and incapable.

They weren’t drunk although, fast asleep, they might well be incapable. So sound did Derek slumber that it seemed to him that he hadn’t closed his eyes for more than a minute when the driver nudged him with his shoulder.

“Here we are, sir!” he announced. “Eighty miles in one hour and forty minutes. Not so dusty, sir!”

Derek pulled himself together and managed to collect his wits in time to return the salute of the sentry on the gate.

He had been twelve hours away from “base”, and what a lot had happened in that time!