Storm at Sunset Read online

  STORM AT SUNSET

  Ian Hall

  © Ian Hall 2017

  Ian Hall has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2017.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Author’s Note

  For more information about Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher, please visit www.endeavourpress.com

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  CHAPTER 1

  “Come on, let’s get off.” The young airman took his girl’s hand and made to get up. “We can walk faster than this old crate’s moving.” They clattered down the stairs and pushed past the others on the double-decker’s platform before jumping down onto the pavement.

  Right enough, their journey from the suburbs had grown slower and slower as their bus, like all the other road traffic around it, had become increasingly snarled up in the mass of walkers spilling out from the pavements and across the roadways. The driver had spent the last ten minutes leaning out of his cab berating the crowds of pedestrians, but he was fighting a losing battle. This bus would not, it seemed certain, be making any meaningful progress in the near future.

  Freed from their stationary transport, the man and his partner continued on foot through central London towards the general area of Trafalgar Square. As they pressed on they became more and more aware of the swell of sound from what seemed like colossal crowds ahead. At first a distant hum as from beehives on a summer’s day, the volume steadily increased as they got closer. It came in waves; high buildings would muffle the sound; then as they passed ends of streets or the empty spaces and ruins which marked the sites where shops had been flattened by bombs, the noise would come through. The man was put in mind of rising and diminishing roars from a distant football ground as play surged from end to end. Highbury; White Hart Lane; he remembered those walls of sound from his childhood in north London. Clinging tightly to each other’s hands, the two of them skipped and dodged along the increasingly choked pavements, stepping into the roadway from time to time as crowds of revellers slowed their progress. They had no idea how close they’d be able to get to the centre of the throng, but like the rest of their fellow Londoners they’d get as near to Trafalgar Square as they could.

  As the couple reached Oxford Circus and turned down Regent Street, the glow of light ahead from Piccadilly Circus lit up the night sky above the great shops, and the hubbub rose another few decibels. It was an atmosphere not felt in the capital for many a year; the excitement around them had an almost frenzied air of disbelief. The lights were back on in London after five and a half years of wartime blackout.

  The date was 8th May, 1945 and it was ‘VE’ Day – Victory in Europe. Four days previously, Field Marshal Montgomery had accepted the surrender of German forces on Luneburg Heath. There would be no more bombs, no more blackout. Church bells, which for the previous few years might have signalled invasion, were ringing in celebration.

  Earlier in the day the King and Queen had appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to greet the London crowds. They themselves had contributed richly by sharing their people’s five years of privations, and now monarchs and subjects tasted the sweetness of victory together.

  Mister Churchill had broadcast from the balcony of a government building in Whitehall. The inspirational wartime leader had found his customarily appropriate words of inspiration, paying tribute to those who had “fought valiantly on land, at sea and in the air …” But the wise old man had added a cautionary follow-on: “We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad.”

  Perhaps not everybody amongst the cheering crowds had registered the full significance of the prime minister’s last words, but the sentiment certainly touched a deep nerve with our particular young couple as they approached the heart of London’s west end. Aircraftman Arthur Brownlow and his wife Joy had listened to the earlier broadcast at home on their wireless set, he on leave from his RAF bomber station in Lincolnshire. There, the pace of operations had decreased sharply over the preceding weeks, and he and his comrades had begun to look forward to demobilisation.

  But Arthur was only a year into his tour of RAF duty, and both he and Joy had known deep down that longer-serving men would be demobbed first. Thus it had not altogether been a surprise to learn that VE day would not be the end of Brownlow’s war. The timing of the message confirming this had been unfortunate, coming as it had on that celebratory morning – but the telegram’s contents had been predictable. He was posted to a Wiltshire station to convert to transport aircraft, following which he was ordered to proceed in less than a month to the Far East to join a squadron in the final push against the Japanese.

  A disappointment in some senses to both of them, but Arthur was nevertheless willing – keen, even – to do his duty. He had a background understanding of what the war in the Far East was about, and was aware that hundreds of thousands of British and Empire men had been fighting there for years in appalling conditions alongside their American cousins. But seen from a range of several thousand miles, that conflict had seemed less than tangible. Now, for him, it would become a reality, and Brownlow’s imminent involvement had worked throughout the day on his mind.

  As he’d churned over his limited knowledge of the distant foe, a gnawing awareness of another factor had come increasingly to the fore. This was that, as he proceeded on draft, he would be heading in entirely the wrong direction. By the time he started his eastward journey, tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of servicemen would be heading westwards towards Britain from continental Europe. To be demobilised. To reclaim their civilian jobs. To make up for lost time with the wives and sweethearts from whom they’d been parted for so long. Faced in his imagination with this tide of returning humanity about to take his place, Arthur felt an increasing apprehension. A sense, even, of injustice.

  His romance with Joy had been a typical, whirlwind, wartime affair, their emotions heightened by the spice of combat as well as by uncertainty over their future. They’d been married while he’d been on a weekend pass and, until this current two-week leave period, their 48-hour honeymoon had been the longest time they’d ever spent together. Now he – they – were faced with a parting of unknown duration.

  But all that was for the future, and for now they put consideration of it aside. On this late spring evening they were determined not to spoil the moment by missing out on the unique atmosphere of VE night, and they pressed onwards towards Trafalgar Square with renewed energy. Eventuall
y, their persistence rewarded, they elbowed and levered their way into the vast throng surrounding the great column and stone lions. And there, under the stern, one-eyed gaze of Admiral Lord Nelson, they partied late into the night with the teeming London crowds – drinking beer, dancing, kissing strangers, singing and throwing their hats in the air.

  ****

  The party in the officers’ mess at RAF Chilbolton, near Andover in Hampshire, was in full and tumultuous swing on that same May evening as Pilot Officer Keith Smith and his course mates enjoyed VE Day, taking the opportunity again to celebrate the completion of their Hurricane conversion course. Nineteen years old, fresh-faced and with a mop of blond curls, Keith would in the usual run of things have been one year into his degree course at one of England’s finer universities. But like the majority of his like-minded contemporaries he’d joined up from the Officer Training Corps and had been lucky enough to have been selected for pilot training. Having been brought up on the exploits of his Battle of Britain forbears, he’d been over the moon at being given the chance to fly.

  The course had graduated just ten days earlier as the final intake to the operational training unit before it closed its doors. By 1945 the Hawker Hurricane had, to a great extent, been superseded by its stablemates the Typhoon and Tempest. Almost five years had elapsed since its heyday in the Battle of Britain, and the basic Hurricane was by now outclassed as a fighter-interceptor. As the war had progressed aircraft evolution had been rapid and the likes of the clear-weather Hurricane had been supplemented by radar-equipped fighters. And the supremacy of the big, supercharged piston engines was approaching its end, with small numbers of jets already beginning to make their mark on the aerial conflict.

  Junior new entrants were out of the running for such exciting new aircraft, but Keith and his fellows were far from discouraged, being thrilled by the mere chance to fly an icon. And neither, with equipment spread desperately thinly in the world-wide conflict, were the staffs likely to throw away an aircraft which could still do a job. The Hurricane had proved very amenable to adaptation as a ground-attack aircraft, and ‘Hurribombers’ remained in plentiful service in the various theatres of war. The aircraft still had a role to play, and one single-seater was as glamorous as the next for university undergraduates eager to do their bit as pilots.

  Those who survived would complete their degrees when peace returned, although for now their academic ambition was left to simmer on the back burner. But even through the haze of alcohol on that VE evening, one or two of them remained sufficiently compos mentis to wonder what effect the end of the war in Europe would have on their future prospects. They knew that the conflict was still raging in the Far East, but had no clear idea of what Hurricane involvement, if any, remained in that distant theatre. And the more astute of them were vaguely aware that the capitulation of Germany could well have a knock-on effect on their Japanese allies. Would VE day swiftly be followed by a similar end to hostilities in the eastern hemisphere?

  To some extent they hoped not. While they shared the public’s general wish for peace, their pilot training had seemed interminable. They had waited a long time to get to this stage, and now the majority of them hoped and prayed that their chances of seeing aerial combat would not be scuppered by what they saw as this premature end to the war in Europe. They were well aware that no postings had been forthcoming at the completion of their course, and had scarcely been reassured by the information that ‘… future pilot requirements were being evaluated in the light of strategic events …’ So they waited, kicking their heels. They had no way of knowing what their futures held. But, never ones to miss a party, they celebrated in the meantime.

  CHAPTER 2

  Some four thousand miles to the south east, the tropical sun set quickly on a muddy airstrip hacked out of Burmese swamp and jungle. A handful of airmen were working feverishly to connect up the last remaining fuel and electrical lines to the new engine they had just installed in the Dakota transport aircraft which stood under the jungle canopy on the edge of the strip.

  New engine? Well, a different engine, anyway. New to this particular airframe, certainly, but undoubtedly one with many flying hours already under its belt.

  “Finding a new engine? A chance would be a fine thing!” muttered the corporal leading the team, wondering how long this particular Twin Wasp radial would last this time. It had failed three days ago in another aircraft, which had barely limped home on its one remaining engine. Following that the powerplant had been removed and then repaired in the tented area which passed for the engine bay at RAF Ramree Island. But the fitters were short of spares and tools. Here, in the distant jungle of the Far Eastern front line, they were conscious of being at the end of a very long supply chain. Often there simply was no spare part, and the only solution was to rob a bit from another aircraft that was grounded for unrelated reasons.

  “Or to salvage a piece from a wrecked kite,” the corporal chuckled to himself. There were certainly plenty of those around. “Those bloody useless young pilots. They’d ruin the most perfect repair with their ham-fisted flying!”

  It was true that the squadron’s equipment was in a parlous state. Make do and mend had been the watchword for many a year in this ‘forgotten’ theatre of operations, and it was not for nothing that a couple of blacksmiths were included amongst the squadron’s complement. No part available? Then there was no point in sitting waiting for one to materialise; the blacksmiths would set to with raw materials, fire and hammers to make or modify one.

  Now they were installing this repaired unit in yet another aircraft, and the fading rays of the setting sun glistened on their sweaty, grease-streaked torsos as they levered and tightened the last few items into place. Their working uniforms comprised only dirty khaki shorts and tattered boots, and their precarious work platform was improvised from bamboo lashed to the roof of a battered Jeep. The jungle canopy under which they laboured doubled as a kind of shelter from the torrential monsoon downpours and a form of primitive camouflage, offering some slight protection from the occasional marauding Japanese bomber. The sturdy jungle branches also provided mountings for the makeshift system of pulleys with which they had earlier hoisted out the damaged engine and manoeuvred in the new unit.

  Now, as the corporal stepped back and admired his team’s handiwork, he wiped away a smear of grease from the cowling with a rag, which if anything left the offending patch dirtier than ever.

  “Well done, lads. We’ll just fill up the fluids, give her a quick run, and then with luck we’ll still be in time for a spot of tea.”

  “Oi – Chota!” A voice came from out of the gloom below. “How’re you getting on there? Mac wants everybody in the canteen in half an hour. He’s got something to say.” The shift sergeant was rounding up his dispersed workers.

  Chota’s nickname, in common with many on the squadron, derived from the smatterings of local dialect the boys had acquired during their travels. ‘Little man’: with his diminutive stature he had spent his life answering to all sorts of silly names, and ‘Chota’ was, at least as far as he was concerned, much better than the usual ‘Lofty’.

  “We’re doing all right, sarge, but we’ve got to give this kite a run before we pack up. It’s needed on the line first thing tomorrow, isn’t it?”

  “Of course. As always! But you must be at the briefing. Can you wrap things up here in, say, twenty minutes?”

  “See what we can do, sarge. Cyril, pass that wrench.” The airmen set to with renewed urgency, and as the last light faded from the western horizon the final piece of cowling was buttoned into place. In the dingy beam cast by a couple of storm lanterns dangling from the overhead undergrowth, a myriad jungle insects swarmed. The lads cleared away the debris of their tool kit and dragged the improvised platforms towards the edge of the clearing.

  “Okay, boys, let’s get the bugger forward a few feet so that we can start her up.” They leant their shoulders against the big tail-dragger’s main undercarriage legs
, and inched the ungainly bulk across the tattered matting and out into the open. An airman plugged the external power lead from the trolley-acc into the side of the Dak’s nose, and Chota waved the boys back away from the props.

  “Brakes on, Joe?” This to the airman peering down from high up through the open cockpit side-screen.

  A nod in return from Joe as he finished priming the cylinders. “All set, corp.”

  The starter whined as it wound up the flywheel.

  “Mesh!”

  A series of coughs and hiccups together with smoking clouds of unburnt fuel accompanied the old radial’s initial, reluctant revolutions before, with a roar, it cranked into life. Joe let it warm up for a while until the gauges were indicating in the green, then opened up. Blast from the big, three-bladed prop swept the trees behind into maelstrom. Magneto drops, further systems checks, and five minutes later nods of satisfaction.

  The job was done and they cleared away. Stopping only to sign off the maintenance log in the engineering office, they set of at a jog for the canteen. They got there as the shift sergeant was calling the noisy assembly to order, and slipped in to the back of the mess hall.

  The canteen was the only room on the base large enough to accommodate the complete assembly – although to describe it as a ‘room’ was stretching a point. It comprised a series of elderly, well-worn and grubby marquees, knitted together and floored with duckboards. It was lit by storm lanterns, which at that time of day were attracting the winged creatures of the night. Now and then one of the thousands of assorted insects swarming around the lights would get too close to a flaring mantle and touch it. A sharp hiss, and the unlucky victim would come down with a bang on the damp floor, like a fighter spinning down over Kent in the Battle of Britain. But, as with the Spitfires of Fighter Command, there would always be more to take his place.