Digby. ‘I’ve got the calculations to do. I should be told.’
‘It’s a five-tank job: 2,154 gallons,’ said Lambert.
Squinting into the hot sun coming through the nose panel Digby nodded. Lambert continued, ‘The whole Squadron is bombing the shit out of Adelaide.’
They all heard Binty’s catcall of joy even without his intercom. ‘That’s the one, Skipper,’ said Flash Gordon from the rear gun turret.
‘You pom bastards,’ said Digby cheerfully.
‘Sticky beak,’ said Lambert. It was one of Digby’s favourite insults.
Jimmy Grimm hunched lower at his table under the racks of radio equipment and grinned. He was sending the favourite operator’s test signal: ‘Best bent wire best bent wire best bent wire’. Who knows who first invented this strange phrase with its jazz-like rhythms, known to RAF operators and Luftwaffe monitoring services alike?
Lambert began a gentle turn. Under the banked wing the green countryside tipped slowly forward like a child’s soup plate waiting for a spoon. The Great North Road was black with traffic: long military convoys and civilian lorries lumbered slowly down England’s ancient spine.
Lambert looked at the dazzling blurs made by the air-screws and superimposed them as he juggled the throttles. Watching the stroboscopic effect enabled him to synchronize the engines. Lambert noticed that Battersby was looking at him. He grinned. Then he ruined the harmony and pointed to the throttles for Battersby to try.
Binty heard the motors go out of synch suddenly and said, ‘What’s the matter with the motors?’
‘Nothing,’ said Lambert. ‘Battersby is handling the controls.’
‘Then let me off,’ said Binty.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Lambert. ‘It’s better that he should know as much as possible.’ There was a fearful silence.
North-west of Huntingdon the countryside changed suddenly. No more weatherboard houses and thatched cottages, now yellow-brick dwellings and rusty sheds. Windswept allotments full of caterpillar-nibbled cabbages, shallots, wire fences and old cars propped on wooden blocks until petrol supplies returned. Here the fields were brightly coloured: light yellow, gold, green potato fields and bright blue ones full of cabbages.
Round came the flat angular fens and the Ouse through which had waded Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Danish Vikings too had plundered this land and left their names upon the map. The circle of Bourn airfield came into sight and around it the hovering flies that would be with them tonight.
Godmanchester: unmistakable, two Roman roads like spokes in its central hub.
‘Another Lanc ahead,’ said Digby. It crabbed along, the wind pushing it askew. It was not of their squadron. Nor was it a training flight from Upwood OTU or Woolfox Lodge. Lambert looked at the strange Lancaster. He tried to see it anew as though he had never seen a Lancaster bomber before. It was a brooding machine; thirty tons of it. Even counting motors and turrets as one and excluding nuts, bolts and rivets there were fifty-five thousand separate parts. Over three miles of electrical wiring, generators enough to light a hotel, hydraulics enough to lift a bridge, radio powerful enough to talk to a town on the far side of Europe, fuel capacity enough to take it to such a town, and bomb-load enough to destroy it.
Lambert held his speed. It was just enough to close distance inch by inch. Is this the view a fighter pilot will have just before pressing the button that will blow them all into eternity? Tonight? The prim red, white and blue roundels on the plane ahead were symbols of Britain. Its brown-and-green upper surface was a formalized version of the land, ploughed and verdant, over which it flew. Like primitive voodoo objects the brightly painted aircraft defied the enemy, and upon them were painted the little formalized yellow bombs, or symbols of aeroplanes destroyed, that showed how powerful was the magic they could work.
Lambert had seen enough of the other Lanc. He had got too close for comfort. Lambert moved the control column and adjusted the throttles and pitch control. Creaking Door lifted like a showjumper, leaving the other plane far below. That was better. Even a sneeze from a nervous gunner was enough to send a bomber into violent evasive aerobatics and like most pilots he feared mid-air collision more than flak and night fighters put together.
Stop climbing. Straight and level while he saw where he was. Six or seven miles away to starboard the countryside lapped around Cambridge, a ramshackle rash of workers’ dwellings and speculators’ suburbia. In its centre, lush with green courts and beflowered backs, the great university, its spires grinning like dragons’ teeth daring the untutored to seek admittance. Beyond this citadel the countryside turned green again and there were more airfields. Below him passed RAF Oakington, Lancasters dotted along its perimeter. Gentle turn. Warley somewhere off to port lost to sight amongst the fenland. He saw the other Lanc turn that way. This was the flying Lambert liked, in the clear light of a fine summer’s day. This was how he’d fancied it would be on the day he’d volunteered.
Lambert was flying straight and level now. No compass needed, for below him, glinting in the sun like a twenty-mile-long steel needle, was the man-made Bedford River.
‘Lambert’s compass, I call it.’ The voice startled Lambert. Kosh Cohen was at his elbow, sitting on Battersby’s folding seat and staring out of the window like a day tripper.
Lambert smiled.
‘You always come over here, Skip,’ said Cohen. ‘Is this where you’re going to live after the war?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Lambert. ‘Your toys OK?’
Cohen nodded.
‘Let’s go and get some lunch,’ said Lambert and he let the nose dip. Cohen folded back the seat and returned to his dark curtained booth. Since Lambert was flying by visual landmarks there was little for Cohen to do. He had sorted his maps and given the Gee and H2S the routine test. Although it was notoriously prone to technical failures, he was proud of the top-secret radar set that showed him the ground through fog, mist, cloud or darkness like some god bringing wrath to a sinful Babylon. Only ‘selected crews’ had the new equipment.
Lambert’s voice came over the intercom asking each crewman if their equipment was in order. Cohen pushed the mask to his mouth to answer yes into the microphone. On his first two operations he had vomited before the aircraft had even crossed the English coast. Apart from the humiliation, it meant that Creaking Door had to lose precious height so that he could clean himself up before clamping the oxygen mask back to his face for the rest of the trip. Now he knew the smell of fear, for it lingered in his face mask and was a constant reminder of the dangers of being too imaginative. He sharpened pencils and prepared the elastic strap that held pencils, rulers and protractors from flying loose during violent evasive action. He looked at the topmost map and read to himself the names of Channel ports. He had passed through them on holiday before the war. He switched his microphone on. ‘Batters,’ said Cohen on impulse. There was no answer for a moment, then the engineer answered, ‘Engineer here, who is it?’
‘Kosh, Batters. What mob was your brother in at Dunkirk?’
There was no reply for some time. Cohen was debating whether to call again when Battersby answered.
‘I made that up, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘My brother is in a reserved occupation, an electricity sub-station.’ There was a stunned silence over the crew intercom. Then Battersby said anxiously, ‘You weren’t thinking of telling Mr Sweet?’
‘No,’ said Cohen. ‘I wasn’t.’
Lambert could see Warley Fen straight ahead. The mile-long runways were distinct on the landscape like a black Chinagraph cross scrawled upon a coloured map. Lambert took a quick look round to be sure there were no other aircraft in the circuit. High above them he saw a thin streak of a condensation trail in the upper atmosphere. The aeroplane making it was just a speck.
‘Look at him go,’ said Cohen. Lambert guessed he was standing under the astrodome. He was like a kid on an outing whenever