Ghosts of the Empire Page 2

  Mick O’Regan would now stay home, stay alive. And keep his family fed.

  It had been a bad line when Mick had put the call through to Sydney to break the good news and his dear old dad had to keep breaking off to blow his nose.

  Just a bit of a sniffle, son… Mick knew the old boy was teary again. Just a bit of a sniffle… Though this time with tears of joy.

  *

  On final approach to Evans Head, Mick had sensed the mood of the Anson’s human cargo lifting a degree as they looked down and saw their new posting was not only right by the beach but one that seemed to go on forever. Over the final hours of the flight, the earth below them had changed: To the inland horizon all was now lush green, far to the north a range of mountains dominated by the most striking solitary peak.

  After landing, Mick stowed his gear in the arched iron ‘Nissen’ hut where he’d be barracked for the next six months – ugly looking things, Mick thought, and one after the other after the other. He was then administratively processed at Personnel – a large khaki tent he heard referred to as ‘The Circus’, after which he was directed to stand at attention on a hot asphalt parade ground with newly arrived LACs. One poor bloke fainted during the sweltering hour it took before the final of about thirty new arrivals could be processed and take his place on parade. With an ‘ At-ten-SHUN! ’ from a Drill Sergeant, the base Commanding Officer then appeared, stepped onto a wooden box before them and began his address: a brittle-faced Wing Commander around his late-20s, pilot’s wings on his tunic. His voice was brittle too…

  ‘Here you will be trained as the bomber crews of the near future. If you at all wish to see that near future, do precisely as your instructors instruct you – starting now. That is all.’

  The parade dismissed, Mick walked to the hangars and closely round one of the aircraft he’d now be piloting, one of a long line of them stretching to the far end of this air base by the sea.

  The Bombing and Gunnery School flew Fairey Battles, a large, slow, single-engined ‘light bomber’. About twice the size of the Tiger Moth, no wood and canvas here, the aircraft before which Mick stood was a long, all-metal, low-winged monoplane seating a crew of three – pilot, bomb-aimer, gunner. Mick had caught the word on the Fairey Battle – everybody had: They’d been obsolescent at the outbreak of war and were now relegated to ‘Training Purposes Only’ – possibly as the British Royal Air Force crews flying them over German lines in the opening hours of the war had been so smartly massacred. She was a nice enough aeroplane to fly, so went the word. Just not against the Enemy.

  Hearing the drone, Mick looked up as, in a ‘V’-shaped formation at a few hundred feet, three Battles lumbered slowly, slowly overhead. He watched them go, then looked back earthwards, and considered this craft that for so many just like him had been a deathtrap… There’d been a turn-up for the books just a year ago, of course, when the ‘Battle of Britain’ had seen the German bombers and fighters beaten back by the newer RAF types, Spitfires and Hurricanes. ‘Spits’ and ‘Hurries’, Mick conceded, the latest fighter aircraft that every man and his dog wanted to fly but which he’d never see now – not unless they sent a few out to Australia for training purposes.

  But that was the plan, he reminded himself: He wasn’t headed away anywhere. Only training and sending other blokes. As for his own chance at survival now, he’d earnt it fair and bloody square. There’d be risks ahead of him, no error – grave risks. Except no further north than Northern New South Wales, where, as far as Mick O’Regan was concerned, he had his work cut out for him: He not only had to learn to fly this piece of junk before which he now stood but well enough to train other blokes to fly it. So as maybe to stay alive long enough for their chance at One in Three.

  *

  Wing Commander John Hurst took the next of the many personnel files in his In tray, centred it on his desk, and opened it. He considered the small photograph neatly glued to its allotted place on the first page, the standard head-shot, perfectly aligned within the rectangular box top right of the form like all the others.

  Yes. O’Regan. Irish good looks, and something decent between his ears, apparently: Basic academic education. Carpenter by trade. Rated Exceptional.

  One of the lucky ones…

  The file notes on O’Regan, M., however, betrayed his remarkable achievement as the result of anything but luck: The report that followed him from 3EFTS noted him as a phenomenally hard worker, according to one instructor there, one of the hardest they’d ever seen… In any case, he was indeed now one of a fortunate few: lined up for an honourable and effective war service here in Evans Head. Instructing.

  But how to keep him here? simmered Hurst. How to anchor him right here as a first-rate instructor? Who might just aid Hurst in his singular task here at 1BAGS: that of keeping people alive.

  Hurst had requested his current posting as Commanding Officer at Evans Head… Somewhat taken aback by how readily his request had been granted, he discovered soon after his arrival at 1BAGS that the CO into whose shoes he was stepping had been most royally shafted: Evidently his superiors at RAAF Central Area Headquarters in Sydney had installed the chap at 1BAGS then directed him to lower its trainee fatality rate ‘ or else’. Hurst was a ‘short service’ commissioned officer – for the Duration, as it were. Yet even he was aware of the reputation of the upper echelons of the ‘permanent’ RAAF – the ‘desk-flyers’ of Point Piper – as a bunch of ruthless bastards. Still, initially Hurst had assumed it a bad joke when he heard that his predecessor, having been deemed after six months to have failed in his task, had been demoted from Wing Commander back to Squadron Leader and shipped off to England to fly combat operations for RAF Bomber Command – presumeably, with some of the poor sods whose CO he’d been at Evans Head. At least, the ones who’d survived six months of an aircraft loss rate of about one every other week.

  Hurst’s enquiries as to what measures his predecessor had taken to address this fatality rate had produced a recurring theme: ‘Motivational parade addresses’. Checking the dates of these, Hurst found that, in the chap’s final month as CO, the loss rate of Fairey Battles had actually increased, with no fewer than three lost in one dreadful week… According to the files, one had crashed on landing, one had dived into a sugar-cane field – straight down from high altitude at a staggering rate of knots, according to the Volunteer Defence personnel who’d witnessed it: Evidently from such remains as they found – at the bottom of a brand-new 50-foot crater – the pilot and two crew members of the aircraft had been indistinguishable from each other. The third aircraft had simply gone ‘Missing’.

  As things stood, and with a one-way ticket to Bomber Command the likely price of his own failure, Hurst could see one possible path to his own salvation and one only: Do anything in his power to keep the very best young flying instructors staying well and truly put at Evans Head; in doing so he would lift flying standards and maybe, just maybe, turn things around.

  How many of them had Hurst seen seduced away already by the Holy Grail? Fighter Pilot. The prize posting. Apparently irresistible to them. Glory itself.

  Lemmings, the lot of them.

  Hurst looked at the file photograph again.

  Leading Aircraftman O’Regan.

  How to keep him here?

  Answer: Start paying a working class boy more money than he’s known before. Promote him quicker than normal: Sergeant even before graduation, the sooner the better. Come October, pin his Wings on him, commission him Pilot Officer. More money. In six months or so, promote him again, make him Flying Officer. But keep him there. Keep him beneath the radar. Keep him at Evans Head.

  Hurst considered the photograph once more. He said it aloud, though very quietly: ‘Stay the grey man, Michael …For God’s sake stay the grey man.’

  Hurst closed the file, passed it to his Out tray, and reached for the next. As he did so, an image came to him, and not for the first time over the past days and nights: an image in his mind just like a photograph ev
ery time. Each time in sharper focus, and with more and more horrible detail…

  His very own mental picture of the pilot and two crew members of the high-speed crash – indistinguishable from each other in death… Arms, legs, even eyes all interchangeable this way and that. All caked in the alluvial mud of the sugar-cane field that, from fifty feet underground, hadn’t seen the light of day in a thousand years.

  In his month so far of command at Evans Head, Hurst had spoken to quite a few new trainee aircrew – at the local town pub was best; where they were off-duty, relaxed and speaking freely. As he’d chatted with them, Hurst discovered something he hadn’t expected: One problem it seemed he wouldn’t be having to deal with as base commander was that of ‘Morale’; it was high. Very high. They were all intelligent young chaps, the ones he’d spoken to, some exceedingly so. And they all seemed quite aware of the fatalities of previous months – even joking about 1BAGS being a ‘ crash-course’. So much laughter in them. So many smiles. So primed for duty. To a man.

  When speaking with them, though, Hurst found he couldn’t stop bringing to mind his mental picture of the three young airmen all smashed, all meshed together in the mud. And even as the ghastly scene haunted him, something else was beginning to: None of these young chaps, not one that Hurst had spoken to so far, seemed to harbour the remotest thought that such a fate was ever going to befall him personally.

  Oh, it could happen, alright – They weren’t stupid… It’s just that it was going to happen to someone else.

  Never to them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  August 1941

  Directly above the town of Evans Head, Mick flew nor-nor-east, the Pacific Ocean out to starboard, forward through the windshield of the Battle’s enclosed canopy a line of beach curving for miles ahead. He scanned to port, a late afternoon glint off the Richmond River, inland a patchwork of thick bush scrub and sugar-cane fields, then rolling green ridges to the horizon. He peered forward again, and rechecked the instrument panel dials: altitude 1000 feet, speed 200 mph – just shy of the Battle’s max.

  The town now passed beneath. The base closely down ahead in Mick’s vision, its hangars and huts disappeared below, passing out to port its four separate airstrips in their geometric criss-cross pattern.

  Every single thing he could see – which a few months back he’d have called a road, a river, a mountain – was now just an aid to navigation, every landmark a cherished indicator of position, and so of safety: Prominent in the far distance ahead was the coastal hump of Lennox Head, in the extreme distance the mountaintop headland of some place called Byron Bay. Squinting hard, he thought he could just make out the white lighthouse on its summit. To the north-west stretched the awesome Border Ranges far up the coast, there the unmistakable peak of Mount Warning. But straight ahead now and steadily approaching was the ‘Target’ for the afternoon’s exercise.

  The riverside village of Ballina.

  Mick had flown this training mission many times over the past few months. Today, in the Battle’s long single-file cockpit behind him sat a new trainee bomb-aimer, behind him a new air gunner, this pair’s first go at it.

  Since he’d first flown the aircraft back in May – and ‘solo’ from the first – the best thing Mick could find to say about the Fairey Battle was that it was stable. Indeed, it must have provided the most beautifully stable target for nimble, state-of-the-art German Luftwaffe fighters at the beginning of the war. Yes, the Battle had the same Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engine as the new Spitfires and Hurricanes. But it was too long, wide, big and heavy even with the Merlin’s 1030 horsepower to be anything else than ‘stable’ for its crew of three and 1000-pound bomb-load. No error, the pilots of the German Messerschmitt Bf109s, with their top speed of close to 400 mph, must have been delighted with the Fairey Battle.

  In the ear-cup headphones of Mick’s leather flying helmet, the Battle gunner’s voice now crackled, the young bloke doing his level best not to sound deeply worried.

  ‘Bandit at 7 o’clock high. Bandit at 7 o’clock high. About a mile and coming in fast. Stand by for evasive manoeuvres. …Stand by.’

  Mick just sighed; the new bloke wouldn’t hear it over the Battle’s riotous noise. Evasive manoeuvres? As pilot of the bomber, Mick was not about to do anything except follow Standing Orders – any deviation from which could get him ‘scrubbed’: removed from the Trainee Instructor Program – and Standing Orders were to fly dead steady, straight and level on approach to target regardless of attack from ground or air. On the wages Mick was now sending home, he’d happily fly straight and level to bloody Brisbane: They’d just made him Sergeant. He spoke into the intercom now, evenly but firmly.

  ‘Just concentrate on y’bandit. Remember. It’s deflection shooting: He’ll approach and go past real quick. When you open fire, don’t aim at him, aim a tad above him till he’s real close, as he’s passing aim just ahead of him. Wait, I repeat, wait till he’s in range, then call “Guns”. Follow procedure, son, you’ll do just fine.’

  Ballina was close ahead now, just across the river that flowed left to right and out through the twin stone breakwater to the ocean. The bomb-aimer transmitted on cue…

  ‘Five seconds to target. Stand by. Steady…’

  The gunner’s voice was now urgent in the headphones.

  ‘Guns – guns – guns – guns – guns!’

  Mick saw, heard the yellow Wirraway flash past left – Christ, he’d been close – the single engine fighter-trainer now in a shallow dive ahead port, already banking inland and fast back around to the south. Just as the bomb-aimer’s voice crackled again.

  ‘Bombs gone.’

  ‘Brisbane-ho,’ said Mick.

  ‘What’s that, Sarge?’ came the bomb-aimer.

  ‘Nothing. Hang on. An’ I mean hang on.’

  Mick banked them into the tightest, steepest starboard diving bank the Battle had in it short of popping rivets: Through nor-east on the compass, east, ocean scrolling in front, sou-east, Mick flattened out a mere 50 feet above the beach, and tore them southwards directly down it. Free of Standing Orders now, at this height the Wirraway couldn’t quite as easily dummy-shoot them to pieces on their way home.

  A few moments into their flight down the beach, the bomb-aimer was in Mick’s headphones once again, still recovering, by the sound of it, from the violent g-forces of the turn.

  ‘Shortest… shortest course home, Sarge… just a bit inland. Over the scrub.’

  Mick took his time responding. ‘What colour are we painted, Airman?’

  ‘Training yellow.’

  ‘What colour is sand, Airman?’ No reply, Mick let the pause extend. ‘What am I doing, Airman?’

  ‘Using initiative when permissable, Sarge.’

  ‘You’ll go far, son.’

  Breaking surf on their left, scrub to their right, Mick sped them long and low down the curve of shadowy sand.

  *

  Mick had been warned.

  ‘Under no circumstances whatever make a sound until invited to speak. Chest out like a rock. And try not to breathe.’

  This had been the advice of the Warrant Officer who’d issued the Summons. Bolton was a career man in early middle-age. Portly and tough, word had it he was a decent enough type.

  ‘…Number 1 Service Dress and may God have mercy on your soul. If you believe in one, I’d advise you to pray on the way over. You have precisely three minutes.’

  ‘The CO?’ Mick craned as he fumbled with a shoelace. ‘Did they say what for?!’

  The man’s instant volume was shattering. ‘WHAT – FOR, SIR!!!’

  Mick jogged to the Headquarters Nissen hut, pausing to pat down his uniform on the step outside. Only the third time he’d worn it since Initial Training, No.1 Service Dress – also called ‘Best Blues’ – meant a dark blue belted gabardine tunic and trousers, matching forage cap, sky blue collared shirt with black tie and highly polished black shoes. It still felt strange; the first proper ‘suit’ he’d ever w
orn. Brushing one shoe on the back of a trouser leg, he palmed sweat off his brow, readjusted the cap, entered the hut, reported and was then instructed by a Flying Officer, a Flight Lieutenant, then a Squadron Leader in rapid succession as to precisely what he would now do.

  As ordered, he waited for the word, entered the enclosed office at the far end of the hut, quickly and silently closed the door behind him, marched two paces forward, halted at the prescribed spot before the trestle table serving as the CO’s desk, saluted, removed his cap to the under-arm position, and remained at attention.

  ‘Sir. Sergeant O’Regan reporting.’

  The Wing Commander let him remain that way. Sat back. And appraised. When Hurst finally spoke, his voice was low and unhurried.

  ‘Michael… My job, while this war lasts, is to turn out bomber crews to go away and fight it. Your job is to help me turn out as many as possible. Needless to say, the war won’t last forever: It can’t; Hitler’s just taken on Russia. Ever read any Tolstoy?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Hurst grinned mildly. ‘Neither have I.’ It promptly faded. ‘But you and I don’t have to read War and Peace to know that Hitler will lose in Russia just as Napoleon did. For the simple reason that there’s just too many Russians and the winter’s too long and too cold. It’ll take a few years, certainly, but he’ll lose against them in the end. As Australians, our job is to help the Brits to help the Russians win in as few years as possible. If the Americans ever come in, we’ll be helping them instead – all the better, all the quicker, War Over.’ He stopped to light a cigarette. ‘Play your cards right until it is, Michael, and you could return to civilian life as an airline pilot.’ Hurst blew a cloud of smoke, his eyes narrowing at Mick. ‘For Australian National Airways… Can you imagine that? More money than you’ve ever dreamt of and everything else that goes with it… Hell, you could even fly for that Qantas Empire mob – if they’re still in business by then…’ He ashed the cigarette, then looked up intently at Mick. ‘New South Wales Government Railways carpenter to Qantas pilot.’ He smiled. ‘Some career jump, eh?’