African Sky (23 page)

Paul pulled back on the control column, levelling for a second, and saw a flash of glowing tracer stream past his cockpit. Will was half standing behind him. He pushed the Lancaster into a right turn this time, and caught a glimpse of the single-engine fighter as it flashed past them. As the enemy aircraft moved ahead of them the front turret opened up.

‘Think I hit him!' cried the exultant gunner.

Their luck was in. Probably an inexperienced pilot. Paul was low now, down to three thousand feet, and while his evasive tactics had helped them lose the night-fighter for the moment, four hungry searchlights, their operators surely having seen the aerial gunfight, now hunted him.

‘Nearly over the target. Shit, they've got us, skip,' the bomb aimer swore, his gloved hand over his eyes to shield them from the piercing glare.

Bursts of smoke and shrapnel erupted around them as the antiaircraft gunners below followed the searchlight's guiding beam. A second, then third, beam found them, locking them, painting the black belly of the bomber brilliant white. The flak batteries found their range.

‘Steady,' the bomb aimer said, his voice quaking.

This was the worst time of any mission, Paul thought. On the final run-in, coned by searchlights, just waiting for the flak to hit them. If he threw the Lancaster into a tight turn now they might miss the target by a mile, and the trip would have been for nothing. As always, it was still a tempting thought.

‘Left, left,' cooed the bomb aimer, correcting their course. ‘Steady.'

White-hot chunks of shrapnel from a nearby burst peppered the aircraft, making a sound like hail on a tin roof. Cannon shells sailed around them as more and more German guns took advantage of the searchlight operators' skill and luck.

‘Fuck!' Will cried behind him as the Lancaster was rocked by a nearby explosion.

Paul wrestled with the control column. It had felt like a giant had swotted them and sent them sliding sideways.

Acrid, chemical-smelling smoke filled the fuselage.

‘Bombs gone!' yelled the bomb aimer.

The Lancaster rose of its own accord, suddenly relieved of its deadly cargo. The leap caught the searchlight operators unawares and, for a moment, they were in blissful but confused darkness. Paul dove hard to starboard and took them down so low that the bomber was buffeted by the hot air rising from the fires below. He turned west, towards England, and didn't level out until they were little more than church-steeple height over the German countryside.

‘Bomb bay doors aren't closing, skip,' Will said into his intercom. On terra firma they were mates, equals; in the air, Paul was always the boss. Will's job, as flight engineer, was to monitor continually all the working parts of the Lancaster – engines, hydraulics and other moving parts, to ensure all was performing as it should. ‘Shit. Hydraulics are gone. Try the flaps, skip.'

‘No good,' Paul replied. ‘Must have been bleeding out since the flak burst. It's been all right up until now. Bomb aimer, check the bomb bay and make sure we at least got rid of everything.'

‘Roger, skip.'

The smoke had cleared inside now, blown out through the scores of holes drilled by the shrapnel and, while he waited for the bomb aimer's report, he said: ‘Let's hear it. Everybody all right?'

One by one all the crew reported in. Thank God, Paul mouthed, the crew were all alive as well. All he had to do was get them back in one piece.

‘Um, skip, bad news,' the bomb aimer said.

‘How bad?' Bryant asked into his intercom.

‘Could be better. We've got a cluster of incendiaries still on board.'

‘Shit,' Bryant said. ‘We'll try to drop them over the water.'

‘Roger, skip.'

The crew stayed silent as they crossed into occupied Holland, still searching the starlit skies for black night-fighters. Bryant skirted some light flak and soon they were over the coast. They weren't out of trouble yet, though, not by a long shot.

Once over the water, Bryant told the bomb aimer to try to drop the incendiaries.

‘No go, skip,' Mac said.

‘I don't like the idea of landing with a cluster of bloody fire bombs on board, but there's nothing else we can do,' Paul said.

Unable to operate the flaps because of the lack of hydraulic pressure, he kept the Lancaster at the same altitude until, at last, they crossed the English coast.

‘All right, Will, give me some air.'

In front and to the left of Will's panel was a knob that operated an emergency supply of compressed air, contained in two bottles. If the hydraulics were inoperable, as was the case now, the bottled air was blasted through lines in order to perform the same operations. This would automatically force the landing gear down, and supply enough pressure through the lines to operate the flaps. Will pulled the knob, and they felt the Lancaster's speed drop. ‘Done, skip.'

‘Check the landing gear, Will,' Bryant said.

‘Shit, it's not our night, skip. One down, one half down – not locked. The flak must have damaged the struts as well as the hydraulics.'

Paul heard the note of fear in his friend's voice, and felt his heart pound in his chest. He took a moment to consider the situation. The landing gear was inoperable, and they had a cluster of fire bombs stuck on board. He gave his orders. ‘All right, here's the drill. We're going to Woodbridge.'

They all knew the place, as did every crew in bomber command.
Woodbridge was a three-mile-long strip of cleared ground on the Sussex coast, lit by a continuous line of parallel petrol-fuelled burners, designed to provide an all-weather emergency landing ground which, through the heat its burners gave off, would also dissipate heavy fog. The system was named after the group that set it up, the Fog Investigation Dispersal Organisation, or FIDO.

Woodbridge was a graveyard of bombers. Because of its length, aircraft too shot-up to land safely were also diverted there to take their chances. There was silence on board P-Popsy.

Paul continued his orders. ‘I'll radio Woodbridge on approach and take us to two thousand feet. When I give the order, every man will bail out. And that's an order. Once you're all accounted for, I'll bring the kite down. We'll meet on the ground and then it's my shout at the first pub we can find.'

Again, there was silence as each of the six crewmen contemplated his fate. While none of them relished the thought of a night parachute jump, they all knew that the skipper was giving them the best chance they had at survival, and that the odds were not good that Bryant would survive a crash landing.

‘Point her at the sea and jump out as well, skip,' Will suggested.

‘I thought about that, Will,' he said over the intercom, for all of them to hear. ‘I'd have to put her in a steep dive, otherwise the old girl might carry on until she ran dry or, worse still, maybe hit one of our ships. I don't want to bail out in a dive – I'd end up getting caught on the tail plane.' His fear was valid. It was a fault with the otherwise well-designed bomber that the only quick way out of the cockpit was through a removable Perspex panel over the pilot's head. Too many pilots had thought they were jumping to safety, only to be killed by a collision with the vertical tail fins when they bailed out. ‘I'm taking her down.'

Bryant radioed Woodbridge as they closed on the field. He overflew the twin lines of flaming markers below and put the Lancaster into a slow turn. ‘All right, fellas. Places, everyone. Sound off!'

One by one they confirmed their readiness to jump. Mac, the bomb aimer, said, ‘Skip, why don't you think again about bailing out and—'

‘Enough, Mac. I couldn't live with myself if old Popsy took out a fishing boat or veered off and landed on a farmhouse. I'll see you in the pub, mate.'

Paul turned and glanced at Will. Something was wrong. He held his oxygen mask aside, so the others wouldn't hear, and yelled, above the engine noise, ‘Where the fuck is your parachute?'

‘I'm staying with you,' Will called, grinning wildly.

‘No, you bloody well are not. Get your parachute on. Now!'

‘No!'

Bryant shook his head. ‘I don't need you here in the cockpit.'

‘I know, Paul,' Will yelled, laying a hand on the pilot's shoulder. ‘Truth is I'm pissing myself at the thought of jumping. I'd rather take my chances on a pancake landing, with you.'

Bryant looked into Will's face and saw that it was deathly white. He hadn't expected the depth of his friend's fear of parachuting. ‘Jump, Will. That's an order!'

‘With respect, stick your order up your arse, sir.'

He brought the Lancaster out of its turn and headed straight and level at two thousand feet towards the start of Woodbridge's seemingly endless runway. ‘Right-o, everyone . . . ten seconds. Now! Bail out! Bail out.'

‘There they go,' Will said. ‘I count three, four; no, five chutes, Paul, they're all away safe.'

Paul radioed Woodbridge and told him all of his crew, minus the flight engineer and himself, had exited the aircraft.

‘Roger P-Peter,' an anonymous English female voice replied, using the Lancaster's proper designation, rather than the crew's unofficial name for their Lancaster. ‘Crash wagons will pick them up and once they're all accounted for we'll give clearance to land.'

‘Roger,' he said.

A short while later the WAAF radioed him, confirming all five members of the crew were safe and on board a truck. ‘They'll see you on the ground. Good luck, P-Peter, and God speed.'

Despite his fear and the adrenaline that now coursed through his
veins at the thought of the dangerous landing, the simple blessing touched him. ‘Maybe I'll see you, too,' he said.

There was a pause, and she replied: ‘Please stick with official wireless procedure, P-Peter. But in answer to your last . . . yes, that would be nice.'

Will punched him on the arm and gave him a thumbs-up. ‘Two to go after this one, Paul,' he yelled into his ear.

Paul knew his chances of walking away from a belly landing in a Lancaster were not good. Coming in with incendiaries on board reduced the odds to something in the vicinity of a million to one, he reckoned. ‘When we land, you go out first, Will, through the cockpit roof.'

‘Don't be ridiculous. I'd have to climb over you and put my foot in your lap to get out. The hatch is above your head. You get out and I'll be on your tail so close you'll think I've turned queer,' Will replied over the intercom.

Will was right. ‘All right, but remember, we'll only have a few seconds if those incendiaries decide to cook off.'

‘You don't need to tell me.'

‘Strap in and brace yourself. Here goes nothing.'

Will clapped him on the shoulder then returned to his seat, behind Bryant.

Bryant mentally went through the checks for an emergency landing. He tugged on the restraint straps holding him into his seat until they were so tight it was hard for him to breathe.

He brought the kite down and pulled back on the throttle levers, cutting the power and airspeed to a hundred and thirty miles per hour. The gas burners that illuminated the emergency runway gave off enough heat to create an artificial thermal and the Lancaster, as heavy as she was, rode the hot air for a while, as if reluctant to come back to earth.

When he was about twenty feet off the runway, Paul pulled back on the stick, bringing the nose up. The airspeed dropped and the big aircraft started to stall, just as the tail wheel touched. The Lancaster
settled and, for a heartbeat, rested on her one locked undercarriage wheel. However, once the massive weight settled on the damaged right wheel, Paul felt the wing sink towards the concrete.

He held his breath and prepared for impact. A shower of sparks fan-tailed up as the wingtip touched the runway. ‘Brace!' he yelled. As the forces of friction started to take hold, the Lancaster began swinging to the right. The forward speed increased the severity of the turn, and Paul and Will were flung violently in the opposite direction as the Lancaster slewed to the right, off the wide runway.

The sparks and sickening sound of tearing metal gave way to the thuds of propeller blades tearing into mud and turf as the big aeroplane bounced and skidded on and on.

Paul pulled the fire extinguisher switches as the aircraft finally half rolled, half skidded to a halt. They should, hopefully, control any blaze in the engine bays, but the real danger was from the incendiaries in the belly of the stricken aircraft. He was vaguely aware of a flashing light beside him as the crash wagons chased him along the edge of the runway.

And then it was over. The silence came as a shock to him, and he shook his head to try to clear the fog of fear, relief, confusion and adrenaline.

‘Paul! Paul! Get up, man. Get going,' Will called from behind him.

Paul tried to move, then remembered his restraint straps. He released the buckle and opened the emergency hatch above him. He smelled smoke and fuel somewhere, and heard the ping-pinging of tortured hot metal contracting.

All right, mate?' he asked, turning to check on Will. Will's face looked even whiter than before.

‘I'm fine, now get the bloody hell out of here. I'm right behind you.'

Bryant grabbed the metal frame of the cockpit and heaved himself out. The damp English air had never smelled better. He slid down the side of the cockpit and onto the wing. He looked over his shoulder and saw Will, kneeling in the pilot's seat, and waving. ‘Run! Run, Paul, I'm coming!'

He needed no further urging, now that he was sure Will was all
right. He slid off the wing and ran towards the flashing red lights. He covered about seventy yards and then slowed and glanced back, fully expecting to see Will Freeman gaining on him.

An ambulance pulled up beside him. ‘Where's the other man?' an airman yelled at him.

‘I don't –'