By the time the English coast came into view (“Thank you, Lord,” he heard Norman say) they were almost running on empty and there wasn’t much more fuel to be coaxed out of the tanks. George had spent the last few hours fixing the wireless and managed to put out a “darkie” call for an emergency landing but everywhere seemed to have closed up shop for the night. They were so low over land now that when they flew over a railway line they could see a train snaking below, the red-hot glow from the firebox of the engine escaping from its blackout shields. He didn’t fancy their chances of parachuting successfully from this height and told them to assume crash positions, which meant not much more than bracing themselves against anything handy, but then at the last minute a coolly competent female voice at Scampton gave them permission to land and Norman said, “We can do it, skipper,” and they did, more, Teddy thought, by wishing it to be so than by any skill on his part. If seven minds working as one could fly an aircraft on willpower alone then they did. Six minds, it turned out.
They didn’t quite manage to make it to the runway. Lacking hydraulics Teddy couldn’t use the flaps and the undercarriage wouldn’t come down so they made a wheels-up landing at 150 mph, overshooting the runway, smashing through the perimeter hedge, careering into a field, bouncing over a road, almost clipping the gable-end of a row of farm cottages before slewing through another hedge and ploughing up a field in which they finally slithered to a juddering, bone-shaking stop. Several of the crew were propelled into the forward bulkhead so that, bruised and battered, it took them a while to clamber up the ladder out of the upper escape hatch. The aircraft had immediately filled with acrid smoke and Teddy, standing at the foot of the ladder to shepherd them out, urged them to be “as quick as you can, lads.” He counted them out. Two missing, one of whom was Kenny. No sign of the mid-upper either.
When Teddy finally got out he could see that the rear-turret was still attached but the rest of the aircraft was pretty much in pieces. J-Jig had left a trail behind her—wheels, wings, engines, fuel tanks, like a wanton woman divesting herself of clothing. What was left of the fuselage was on fire and he found his dazed crew gathered around the rear-turret where Kenny seemed to be trapped, Keith yelling at him, “Get out, you stupid bugger!” although he clearly couldn’t as the doors of the turret were jammed and wouldn’t rotate.
Oh, ye gods, Teddy thought, was there to be no end to this nightmare op? Would it be just one horror followed by another? Yes, he supposed, for wasn’t that what war was?
The fuselage was burning fiercely now behind Kenny, and Teddy thought with horror of the belts of ammunition that fed the guns and wondered how long before the fire found them. Kenny was screaming his head off, expletives that later even Keith said he had never heard before. Were they all going to have to watch him burn to death?
There was a small panel in the turret where the Perspex had been removed to give the rear-gunner a clearer view (as well as freezing him half to death) and they began to exhort Kenny to try to climb through this tiny aperture. He had already managed to divest himself of his bulky heated suit but was still encumbered by his uniform.
Once, on a trip to the zoo in London, Teddy had seen an octopus squeeze itself through an impossibly small hole, a party trick that the keeper was keen to demonstrate to small boys. But the octopus had not been hampered by a battledress jacket and bulky flying boots and neither was it in possession of a skeleton. But if anyone could perform this Houdini-like trick it was their little rat-like rear-gunner.
He managed to get his head out and started to wriggle his shoulders through. Teddy imagined it was rather like being born, although he was hazy about the mechanics of that act. Once Kenny had manoeuvred his shoulders through the gap they grabbed hold of him and pulled and pulled, everyone yelling their heads off, until suddenly he simply popped out like a cork from a bottle or Jonah being vomited up by the whale. But then, to their alarm, instead of immediately jumping down he disentangled himself from their grasp and reached his head and an arm back through the hole into the turret, emerging triumphantly a second later, bearing aloft one tatty and very lucky black cat.
Then they all ran like hell to get away from the remains of the aircraft, which a minute later exploded, bright tongues of white flame licking the dawn sky, thanks to the oxygen bottles, followed by a nasty popping and spattering from the ammunition belts.
And that was the end of poor J-Jig who, workhorse that she was, had carried them to hell and back in her stinking, oily belly.
“She was a good kite,” Keith said, performing the eulogy. She was, they all agreed.
“RIP,” Kenny said.
The occupants of the cottages had had a rude awakening, but a nice motherly woman brought out a tray with mugs of tea on it. The farmer appeared and castigated them for destroying his cabbages and was himself chastised by the motherly woman, by which time a truck from Scampton had pulled up to give them a lift back to the station, where they were given breakfast and then had to wait for transport back to their own squadron.