LITMIR.BIZ

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was fifteen minutes past midnight, BDST, when the first of the Lancasters moved. Last-minute urination took place before the crews were buttoned into their clothes and settled into the seats they would occupy for several hours. A full bladder, or even worse, wind, could cause pain at high altitudes. Quickly gobbled beans on toast could have a man writhing with pain at a moment when he was most needed. Ponderously the bombers rumbled round the peri track. Some were in a hurry to beat the queue that would form at the southern end of the runway.

      As soon as Lambert’s Creaking Door moved, The Volkswagen followed. Fleming kept its tail in view as the planes crawled past the dim blue perimeter lights. What greater disaster could strike them now than that he should put a wheel into the soft-going beyond the lights and hold up the whole Squadron? He touched the brakes as they came to the corner by the Ramsey road. A Hillman van had parked there with its headlights on or else Fleming might well have turned too wide and clipped his wingtip against the fence. Lambert’s tail-light moved again. Some of the other bomb aimers were shining a signalling lamp from the nose to help light the way but Lambert preferred to have his eyes accustomed to the darkness. Each Lancaster announced its arrival at the runway by flashing its code letter to Control. At the answering green light the take-off run commenced and the next plane crawled into position.

      Lambert glanced towards the crowd of ground crew that were waving from the edge of the runway. Old hands, young girls, and even the NAAFI women were there. Even when it was raining they came to see the bombers away. Lambert felt grateful to them.

      ‘Big crowd tonight,’ said Binty.

      ‘Your harem,’ said Kosh.

      ‘Ah,’ said Binty.

      John Munro had detailed the take-off pattern. Moving from their pans on to the peri track the bombers lined up on both sides of the runway’s end. No sooner had one plane got a green than the next one was signalling its code letter. A bored officer in Flying Control logged each take-off and phoned them to the Operations Room where, on a wall-size blackboard divided into rectangles, was entered each pilot’s name, code letter, take-off time, and time of return. There was also a space for remarks.

      Each of the bombers was loaded far beyond peacetime safety limits and getting them into the air was no easy matter. Lambert drove up an invisible ramp as steady as a rock and as perfect as a theorem. Then came Fleming, a slight swerve before unsticking, for this was the first time he’d flown with a full bomb-load.

      You could recognize any of Tommy Carter’s take-offs: too much throttle, stick back too early, and undercarriage retracted before he was over Witch Fen. This night he swung badly too. Angry, and new to this factory-fresh aeroplane, he’d applied too much rudder. Halfway down the runway he was already askew, pointing at the Control Tower and travelling too fast to stop before the main road. He knew he was going off the hard runway only when its white marker lights came racing under him like tracer shells. Beyond that there was earth, damned soft earth after last night’s rain. He heaved desperately on the stick with one hand and tried to push the starboard outer’s throttle forward to correct the swing. He felt one wheel plop off the sharp edge of tarmac. Gallacher braced himself against the bulkhead and cursed.

      Tommy wasn’t flying the aircraft any longer, he was fighting it.

      ‘Panic boost,’ he shouted. They might have been his last words except that the propellers hung upon the cold air like fingertips to a crevice. For long seconds he gained no altitude but skimmed the grass with only inches clearing his tyres. Then slowly and dutifully Joe for King the Second sniffed the air.

      In the Control Tower the Duty Officer, the Group Captain, and a Flying Control WAAF stood transfixed at the sight of a complex alloy parcel packed with high explosive, phosphorus, fuel, and magnesium being steered directly towards them at a hundred miles an hour. No one moved until the aeroplane roared across the top of the tower, clearing the railing by inches, shaking its foundations and taking an aerial with it.

      Tapper Collins always stayed in the nose for take-offs and landings, even though it was against regulations.

      ‘I saw the bloody bomb aimer,’ whispered the Group Captain, scarcely able to believe it. ‘I saw the bloody bomb aimer’s face.’

      And Tapper had seen them too: white petrified staring blobs flashing past not more than thirty feet under him.

      ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Tapper. ‘I thought you’d left something behind.’

      ‘Bit of a swing,’ explained Tommy.

      ‘Bit of a swing?’ said Tapper. ‘We’ve got the bleeding Groupie’s hairpiece tangled in the undercart.’

      ‘You don’t have to bloody sit there,’ snapped Tommy. ‘It was your idea.’

      ‘I could have touched him,’ said Tapper. ‘Could have reached out and tweaked the silly old blighter’s hooter.’

      One after another the giant planes climbed into the darkness and disappeared. The coloured wingtip lights thundered over the misty, alcohol-laden Hillman that Singleton and his girlfriend had borrowed for the evening. They stopped cuddling until the last plane – Munro’s own D for Dog – took off. As the sound of it faded away the countryside became silent.

      ‘It’s funny when the planes are away. It’s sort of lonely,’ said the girl.

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I don’t know. You get used to those big planes everywhere you look. Last month when they were all diverted to Yorkshire because of the fog it seemed funny to see the aerodrome in daylight all empty. And there was hardly anyone around in the sections either.’

      ‘I wouldn’t mind them being diverted for a few days. It’d make my life a bit easier, I’ll tell you,’ said Singleton.

      ‘I wonder if they’ll all come back,’ said the girl.

      ‘It’s a gamble, isn’t it?’

      ‘They’ve been lucky lately.’

      ‘Able bought it last week, U Uncle the week before, and that Flight Sergeant Lambert brought back a dead navigator three trips ago.’

      ‘I’m glad you ain’t in one of ’em, Bert.’

      ‘I could have been a gunner, but my feet let me down.’

      ‘I couldn’t bear it, Bert. Give me another kiss.’

      They kissed for a few minutes then Singleton said, ‘Were you frightened tonight?’

      ‘No, of course not.’

      ‘Go on, you were.’

      ‘A bit.’

      ‘It’s exciting, isn’t it, knowing you might get nicked. But I spend it too easy, that’s my trouble.’

      The girl laughed.

      ‘You know what I’d like to do one night. Now this might surprise you, Beryl. I’d like to get hold of some tyres or petrol. That’s where the real money is.’

      ‘Or booze,’ said the girl.

      ‘You would think that, because you have no experience of crime,’ said the Mess waiter. ‘Booze is locked up and counted. Only a mug goes after booze.’

      ‘Whatever you say, Bert.’

      ‘I told you I was a villain, didn’t I?’ he warned. ‘Don’t keep giggling, Beryl.’

      The girl was tempted to tell him how many times she had been in trouble with the law and of the final house-breaking escapade that had sent her to Borstal, but wisely she smiled and said nothing.

      Lambert knew the way from Warley to the coastal assembly points as he did the one from his billet to the Mess. Usually he flew straight to the assembly point using a course based upon the Met man’s estimate of the wind. Cohen then faked in the Gee fixes from that point back to Warley. From there onwards Cohen did real Gee fixes. Tonight Lambert knew the wind was wrong from the moment he

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