Ghosts of the Empire Page 4

  With the earth a whopping four miles below, Mick recalled the classroom blackboard.

  LIGHTHEADED SENSATION. DIZZINESS. REDUCED VISION. EUPHORIA.

  Right now he was feeling no small amount of concern that he felt decidedly ‘Euphoric’ – from the sheer thrill of the moment or from oxygen deprivation, he couldn’t rightly tell which.

  ‘How we doing?’ came Curran’s voice through the intercom.

  ‘Fine, I think, sir,’ Mick returned, doing his utmost to sound merely business-like.

  ‘How’s the oxygen mask feel?’

  Mick couldn’t help it. He was feeling too happy. ‘Like a big fat leather thing on my face, sir.’ He heard Curran chuckling in the headphones.

  ‘Just remember to breathe through it, that’s all. Okay. You have control. …She’s all yours.’

  This Mick had not expected.

  ‘Tony…’

  ‘You’re only young once, Mick.’ The voice was smiling. ‘Go ahead. You have control.’

  In its forward cockpit, Mick clasped the stick of the ‘dual control’ Wirraway in his right hand, the throttle in his left, placed a boot in each rudder stirrup, and responded as per procedure.

  ‘I have control.’

  ‘How do you feel now?’ put Curran.

  ‘Scared shitless, sir.’

  ‘Good. Oh, and Mick…’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘There’s one thing you’ve forgotten.’

  Mick’s heart near seized.

  ‘…Enjoy it. You’re doing fine.’

  ‘Thanks, Tony.’

  ‘Right. Maintain this altitude precisely, curve us round in a wide banking port turn full circle. Let’s have some fun looking at the vapour trail.’

  Mick flew quite serenely into the curve.

  October

  When it rained on the Far North Coast of New South Wales, it bucketed.

  Hence Mick’s ‘Passing-Out’ Parade was held inside one of the largest hangars hurriedly cleared and cleaned, its corrugated iron structure throwing the sound of the ceremonial marching band into the oddest metallic reverberations. In three ‘Flights’ of twelve, Mick’s course filed in best blues, shouldered rifles and peaked caps for the first time past the Union Jack, the Royal Australian Air Force Flag, the Australian Flag and the CO as bells, whistles, brass and drums bounced and clattered round the walls. Until finally the band threw in the towel…

  ‘Pilot Officer Michael O’Regan.’

  Barely catching it under the roaring deluge on the hangar roof, Mick marched forward, stopped at attention before the CO, saluted. Hurst pinned Mick’s ‘wings’ to the left chest of his tunic, shook his hand, instead of Sergeant’s stripes on Mick’s tunic forearms a thin white band on each cuff.

  ‘Congratulations, Pilot Officer,’ smiled Hurst.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Finest new instructor we’ve seen in some time.’

  ‘Second to Curran, I’m sure, sir,’ Mick grinned.

  ‘Oh, eminently so.’ Hurst grinned back. ‘Glad to have you with us, Michael.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Mick stepped back. Saluted. About-faced. And the next name was called.

  *

  A dark grey blanket of cloud had drawn halfway back across the sky to reveal a sunset washed supremely clear by the rain. The graduation party now stood outside on the wet asphalt apron, the band playing Pack Up Your Troubles from just inside the hangar door.

  As Mick chatted in a clutch of graduates, there came a call from over his shoulder.

  ‘Hey Pilot Officer O’Regan sir!’

  He turned to see Max Finney and Rog Doherty trudging towards him across the apron in full flying kit: leather helmets, boots, yellow ‘Mae West’ life-jackets, miscellaneous gear and their usual smiles. As they arrived they saluted him. Mick returned the salute, though a little off balance: ‘Sir’, no longer ‘Sarge’.

  ‘Congratulations, sir.’ They each shook his hand.

  ‘Thanks, guys,’ he smiled. ‘I hear you’ve a bit of a trip this evening.’

  ‘It’s the biggie,’ winced Doherty.

  Mick had seen the roster: Tonight was one of their final tests, and their toughest of the course so far: a long-range night flight – 300 miles north over the Border Ranges and into Queensland, ‘target’, the coastal town of Bundaberg.

  ‘Don’t worry, Rog,’ said Mick. ‘Pilot Officer Curran flying you?’

  ‘That he is.’

  Mick looked down the apron to the Avro Anson in which they’d be flying away short minutes from now, a leather helmeted figure in its cockpit window. Mick raised an arm, a gloved hand in the window motioning back. Mick faced Doherty again. ‘Look, Tony Curran’s an excellent pilot. Best there is. You’ll be fine, son.’

  Finney smiled. ‘Sure we will.’

  ‘As for your gunner here,’ Mick grim-faced, ‘well, he couldn’t hit a barn door but that’s beside the point.’

  The three of them laughed as one, the Anson’s engines starting up.

  ‘You just be free this time tomorrow, sir,’ strained Finney over the noise. ‘We’ll have a few beers for this most illogical promotion of yours.’

  ‘My shout, mate,’ returned Mick. ‘Our usual table at 6.’

  Finney sided Doherty an exasperated look. ‘Oh dear oh dear,’ he proclaimed, raising his voice a notch higher for the closest graduates: ‘We say 18-hundred Hours, not 6 o-bloody- clock… Will somebody please scrub this new officer? There’s been a most dreadful mistake…’

  Mick laughed with the crowd, though persisted above it: ‘ Correction, Leading Aircraftman: Your shout.’ More laughter.

  As he watched the pair head happily away, Mick considered the night that lay ahead of them: For a long-range flight like this there’d be a trainee navigator aboard with Rog and Max acting as his observers and vitally so; whoever the nav was he would need all the help he could get from whatever visual and radio fixes they could scrape for him, each a speck of gold in getting them to such a distant target in the dark: an introduction to the desperate crew teamwork of the long night flights with Bomber Command that they were headed towards.

  He now saw them climb up into the Anson, and its escape hatch pull shut. A bastard of an exercise, but it was supposed to be. They’d pass it, be back for a few more like it then one last flight with Mick and they’d graduate with wings, albeit single ones.

  The Anson revved up full for a moment, then throttled back, ground crew pulling its wheel-chocks away. Nudging forward in the early evening light, it began a confidently quick taxi – unmistakably Tony Curran at the controls – turning away from the graduation crowd and on towards the south end of the field.

  As he watched it go, Mick said it to himself: One in Three.

  One.

  In Three.

  He thought too much of them for that…

  They’d get back from Bundaberg. Some time tomorrow. Yet if they passed their final few flights, which they would, they’d end up flying to towns in Germany from which they would almost certainly not come back.

  From the far south end of the field, he could hear the Anson. It was turning about, straightening, and now put on power. Though seeming stationary at this distance, it’d be moving now, getting faster, steadily building to lift-off speed.

  He could scrub them. Rog and Max. He could. It’d shock the hell out of them. Scrubbed. Finished with flying forever. Depress the hell out of both of them too. But they’d get over that… And in just a few years’ time be Roger Doherty, Professor of Mathematics, Max Finney, revered family doctor.

  The Anson was growing larger now, engines blarring, though taking its time to lift off – heavy with its load of fuel for the long trip – but there it went: wheels off the ground – ‘unstuck’ was the term – just a few feet in the air, coming on fast now, 300 yards. Louder, closer, wheels retracting, 200 yards, and still Curran hardly lifted – Christ that boy had balls. Wheels up, a few extra feet of lift, his wingspan tilted subtly right.

/>   Mick still had one more flight with Rog and Max. He was still their primary instructor. And now an officer. He could make sure they lived.

  To a man, the graduation party ducked as the Anson howled directly over them, all eyes following as it powered away, lifting further now to the north horizon, Mount Warning out to the left. As it headed away in the evening light from the west, its wingspan waggled…

  Slowly.

  Unmistakably.

  Left – right – left – right.

  ‘Cheeky bastard,’ smiled Mick.

  CHAPTER THREE

  At 0900 Hours the following day, Mick was showing two new LACs over the Battle’s cockpit positions and flight controls – ‘the taps’ as they were referred to – when Warrant Officer Bolton appeared by the wing.

  ‘Pilot Officer O’Regan to the CO, please.’

  From the wing-root, Mick saluted down to Bolton, ‘Sir,’ turned to the LACs, ‘You blokes strap in, memorize y’taps, close your eyes and identify them by feel. When I come back I’ll test you.’ He jumped down onto grass and strode away with Bolton.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ Bolton said as they walked rather quickly along, ‘but you’re not supposed to address me as “sir” anymore; you’re my superior officer now. As I’m a Warrant Officer, the correct form of address is “Mr Bolton”. Now I call you “sir”. And you’re not supposed to salute me either; I salute you and you return it. But, as you’re not wearing your forage cap, sir, I can’t salute you, can I: When I salute you I’m not saluting you personally, I’m saluting the crown of the King on your cap. …Just in case you’ve missed it, sir, the crown on the Royal Australian Air Force wings patch now on your cap, which you’re not wearing, though you should be, even when attired in coveralls. Sir.’ Bolton shook his head as they went, chuckling. ‘Jesus, son, haven’t you learnt anything yet?’

  Mick grinned. ‘Mister Bolton. I’ll thank you to dispense with that crudely informal tone or I’ll put you on Report.’

  ‘That’s more like it, sir,’ smiled Bolton, a brand-new spring in his step.

  ‘And thanks,’ returned Mick. ‘Number 1 Service Dress for the CO?’

  ‘No, I’d say not but get your cap on; he’s rather too pressed for time today. Best of luck, sir.’

  As the Warrant Officer veered off to some other business, Mick wondered the reason for the man’s parting wish.

  *

  Mick marched, halted, saluted, removed cap, struck attention.

  ‘Sir. Pilot Officer O’Regan reporting.’

  ‘Stand easy, Michael,’ said Hurst. ‘In fact, you’d better have a seat.’

  Mick pulled one up, sat. Hurst continued.

  ‘Curran is overdue.’

  Mick swallowed. ‘How long overdue, sir?’

  ‘Over an hour. It’s no huge cause for alarm as yet…’ Hurst consulted a slip of paper before him. ‘…Made Bundaberg last night, dummy bombing mission spot-on, landed at the base there, stayed over. 0600 Hours this morning they took off again, all according to the flight plan.’ He consulted a separate slip of paper. ‘After which they made their scheduled radio check-in. But not the next one. And there’ve been no sightings since then, or radar contacts for that matter. If you ask me it sounds like young Finney’s radio set has gone on the blink.’ He aligned the papers to one side, peered up at Mick. ‘It happens.’

  Mick hadn’t flown the Bundaberg run, though had landed at the next nearest base outside Brisbane many times… ‘Any word from Amberley, sir?’

  ‘Nothing. But they may very well have landed at a smaller field, indeed, in a field… You’re a city boy, aren’t you.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, the thing is they could at this very moment be walking to the nearest town whose post office or police station will contain the single telephone for miles. It’s happened in the past: One crew forced down took half a day to get to the nearest town on foot, where they were finally rescued in the pub… So, once again, no huge cause for alarm.’ Hurst paused. ‘As yet… It is, indeed, pardon the pun, up in the air. But Curran’s one of the best pilots 1BAGS has ever had and the young nav’s supposed to be right out of the top drawer – What’s his name again?’

  ‘I never met him, sir…’ Mick sat forward slightly. ‘If they’re still airborne, sir, how much longer does their fuel give them?’

  Hurst separated the papers, ran his finger down one, tapped it, checked his watch. ‘Till a few minutes ago…’ He looked up at Mick again. ‘So there it is: They’re overdue. But that’s not why I offered you the seat.’

  ‘No, sir?’

  ‘No. Not in itself… The thing is, Michael, this week Number 2 Service Flying Training School at Wagga were filling their part of an RAF Fighter Command quota for new pilots to continue training, as per usual, at Advanced Flying Units in either Canada or the United Kingdom. But one of the Wagga pilots set to go was killed the other day, and, no surprise, young Curran here jumped at the vacancy. They accepted him. Thus he was due to sail, his number down with a pre-embarkation lot in Sydney: security quarantine before boarding one of the convoys out of the Harbour – Obviously things don’t get any more secret… The point is, Michael, Tony Curran was due to fly down to Sydney,’ Hurst consulted his watch again, ‘well… about now. But Tony’s not here, is he… I signed off on the form saying we’d be sending someone. No Tony. And I still have to send someone. And that someone, as it’s a Fighter Command quota being filled, has to have experience on Wirraways. Which, Michael, is what you’ve got. Wagga will ask. And I can’t say you don’t; it’s on your file.’ Hurst opened one on the desk before him, read briefly. ‘Five hours’ experience. With your “exceptional” rating, Wagga will read five hundred. And so will Fighter Command. So there you go. Literally, I’m afraid.’ He closed the file, looked squarely at Mick.

  What Hurst saw was a young man sitting very still, torso poised upright on his chair, eyes fixed as if contemplating some spot ahead of him on the floor: aside from blinking eyelids, a statue. The expression on his face was strange indeed, as if mid the shock of disbelief from a powerful slap, yet a shock already melting away, something steeling in his eyes. Acceptance? Or was this simply how a young man looked in the moment he saw his whole future no longer necessarily stretching out in front of him?

  Naught but regret in his voice, Hurst spoke again.

  ‘I told you not to fuck it up. Didn’t I.’

  He watched O’Regan’s eyes now lift to meet his own. O’Regan didn’t speak in reply, didn’t nod. His eyes, however, said, ‘Yes… You did.’

  Mick was thinking about his family. It was quite simple really… Now he would keep them fed by staying alive against an enemy. And the money he could send them would increase with his rise through the commissioned ranks that had, a moment ago, become his firm ambition. They said promotion came faster on operational service, didn’t they. Then so be it. Going to RAF Fighter Command now, unless the Flying Ability Rating in his file was complete bullshit, they’d give him a Spitfire. Which he would almost certainly fly well. Well enough to keep himself alive by killing some poor bastard German each time he flew it.

  ‘It’s out of my hands, Michael,’ said Hurst. ‘Look, Curran, Finney, Doherty and what’s-his-name could walk in the door any minute now. But until they do, you’d better get packed.’ He checked his watch a final time. ‘You’ve got ten minutes; the Anson for Sydney’s fuelling now.’ He paused a moment. ‘Michael, I’d like to say how profoundly sorry I will be to lose you, but I’d better just say “dismissed”; you’re in a rush, my friend.’

  Mick stood, donned his cap, came to attention, saluted. The return salute never came: Hurst had moved to stand, leant forward across his desk, arm outstretched. They shook hands.

  Mick exited. Hurst closed his file. And passed it to the Out tray.

  *

  Warrant Officer Bolton said he’d already organised an eagle-eye lookout for any sign of the overdue party: an incoming aircraft, an army truck, a commande
ered automobile on approach, a radio signal, phone-call, anything. In the meantime he’d organised the two LACs Mick had been instructing to pack the Pilot Officer’s gear – and immaculate, like, or he’d wring their stupid necks.

  In the heat of rapid departure, Mick buttoned his shirt, fumbled with his neck-tie in the locker mirror, buttoned his service tunic half expecting Doherty and Finney really just might walk in the door. But they didn’t. Forage cap on, a bead of sweat ran down the side of his face just as the LACs dropped a large tin trunk on the floor with a bang.

  ‘What the fuck is this?!’ released Mick.

  ‘Officer’s trunk, sir,’ replied one of the LACs. ‘Standard issue, sir.’ The LAC unclipped and opened the lid, revealing what looked like camping gear.

  Bolton stepped in. ‘You could well end up in North Africa, sir. If you do you’ll be grateful for this lot.’ The LAC clipped it shut again, and shot away with the other to a final task. The instant they were busy again, Bolton spoke quietly to Mick. ‘Begging sir’s pardon but it’s not the form to swear in front of the Other Ranks… A word of advice, sir: They’ve just commissioned you with the status of an officer and a gentleman; best start conducting yourself like one.’

  Mick nodded. ‘Thank you, Mr Bolton. I’ll do m’best.’

  ‘I know y’will, son.’

  ‘No word from Curran?’

  ‘None, sir.’

  The LACs brought over Mick’s duffle bag. ‘All set then, sir,’ puffed one.

  ‘Thank you, Airman.’ Mick turned back to Bolton. ‘But you’ll send word to me in Sydney…’

  ‘’Fraid not, sir: You’ll be in quarantine at Bradfield Park. Lock-down, sir: no signals in or out afore you board ship.’

  Mick paused a moment, looked to the open doorway of the hut, then turned back to them. ‘Right then. Let’s go.’ He leant down to the duffle bag, Bolton interceding, slinging it over his own shoulder, the LACs each taking a handle of the trunk. As they passed through the hut doorway, the Anson’s engines coughed to life a short distance ahead across the grass. Mick peered left and right as they filed out to it: No aircraft on approach, no truck or car, no ragged foursome crossing the field. Just green grass and a clear blue morning sky.