The other three-inch had also ceased firing. There was only the roar of battle overhead and the dull thuds of the bombs falling on clay soil. For the first time since the action started I realised that my shirt was wet with sweat, yet I did not feel warm. In fact, I did not feel anything. I could have had my arm blown off and I wouldn’t have noticed it. I understood then why men continue to fight at the height of battle though mortally wounded. I could have done the same then. It wouldn’t have been heroism. I am not a heroic person. It was just that I had no feelings, recorded no impressions. I saw the hangar blazing where the Jerry had crashed, with the foam squad and other fire-fighters working to put it out. I saw half the officers’ mess was blown in and one of the barrack blocks by the square was just a shell. I noticed that there were few bombs on the flying field, but that the surrounds had been well plastered. I just noticed these things. I did not think about them. I made no move to help Helson, who was still lying on the cinder floor of the pit, blood oozing from a cut on his forehead. No-one moved to help him.
These observations took but a second. And then we heard the ominous sound — the whine of fast-flying aircraft low to the south. It grew in an instant to a roar that drowned the sounds above us. And then they were there, like magic, over the hangars. Strung out in a single line, they came fast and low — so low that I saw one of them lift his port wing to overtop the wireless mast by the main gates. They were not more than thirty feet above the barrack blocks as they laid their eggs. Wing tip to wing tip they seemed to be. I saw the bombs cascade from beneath their fuselages.
Sharply came Langdon’s order: ‘Fire!’
The gun cracked. And at the same moment the whole camp seemed to lift in a pall of smoke and high-thrown masonry and earth. The remains of the half-demolished barrack block appeared to rise into the air, blasted into a thousand pieces. At the same time there was a roar like thunder. And against these black spouts of smoke and buildings that had risen like a solid wall across the camp the ‘planes showed silver as they roared towards us through the hot sunlight. They seemed huge. Dorniers they were — Dornier 215’s. I recognised the hammer head. They seemed to fill the whole sky. And amongst them a great puff of black smoke. Two of them rocked violently as our shrapnel smashed into them. But still they came on.
The gun cracked again and then again. The other three-inch was firing too. But it had no effect. They were already too near for the fuse we were using. They had split up now. Breaking into two formations in line astern, they swept up each side of the landing field. Suddenly I was frightened. It was the first time I had felt frightened. For I knew in that instant, suddenly, what had been clear to my subconscious for some time: they were going for the ground defences. Not only the ground defences, but the personnel of the aerodrome as a whole. The bulk of the hangars stood clear and solid and undamaged against the pall of smoke and flame that was rolling over what had been the barrack blocks, the Naafi and the canteen. Yet I still stood there, fascinated, as the ‘planes swept down on us.
A bomb fell close to Gun Ops. and another by a Hispano pit. A brick and concrete pill-box only fifty yards from us was hit. One second it was standing there, just as it had been a fortnight back, and the next it had disintegrated into a pile of rubble spewed callously into the air. And then the first ‘plane was upon us. At point-blank range Langdon gave the order to fire, in the desperate hope that we should score a direct hit. I suppose we missed. At any rate it swept unfalteringly over us, its great wing span casting a shadow over the pit that seemed to me like the shadow of death. I could see the pilot, sitting woodenly in his cockpit. I saw his teeth bared and thought how it must take nerve to do what he was doing.
And as it swept past a little line of jumping sand ran along the top of the parapet. The rear gunner was firing at us. I ducked. But just before I ducked I saw the Bofors on our side of the ‘drome open fire on the ‘plane. Its little flaming oranges streamed towards it. And then one hit and another, bursting along the fuselage. The great ‘plane staggered and then crumpled up and plunged towards the earth. I didn’t see it crash. By this time the next plane was
over us and the rear gunner was pumping a stream of bullets into the pit. Something struck the back of my tin hat, jerking my head forward so that for a second I felt my neck must have been broken. I heard it whine into the air. Then I was crouching down against the parapet for protection. Bullets sprayed along the cinder floor and punctured the sandbags in perfect symmetrical lines. Above the din I could hear the clang and whine as they hit the gun and ricocheted off.
And all the time Langdon stood erect and the layers remained on their seats and Micky continued to fire. It was fuse one now, and the noise of the charge seemed to be followed almost immediately by the burst of the shell. Hood was fusing the shells, crouched close to the ground, and the ammunition numbers ran up to the gun with them, bent almost double.
Incredible it seems, looking back, but only one man was hit — it was a lad called Strang, and he only had his hand torn by a ricochet. Yet as each ‘plane swept over us, little darts of flame that were tracer bullets streaked into the pit. None, thank God, struck any of the open ammunition lockers.
Once Langdon shouted. A second later a piece of metal fell into the pit. One of our shells had burst very close to a ‘plane. I sensed the stagger of the machine as its shadow crossed the pit.
From my crouched position I caught a glimpse of a Hurricane diving practically vertically on to the hangars. I thought it was going to crash. But it flattened out and came down on the tail of the sixth Dornier. The sound of its eight guns could be heard for a second above the din. The stabs of fire from their muzzles were visible even in the glare of the sun. It looked like one of those little war toys made in Japan that have a flint spark. I glimpsed the lettering on the fuselage — TZ05. Nightingale’s plane! And my heart warmed to that daring piece of flying.
Automatically I had counted the ‘planes as they came over. It was the fifth that we had damaged. And close on its tail as it went over us came the sound of the next one. And then something hit the parapet opposite me, covering me with loose sand and spilling the shells from a locker on to the floor of the pit. And as the parapet collapsed the ‘plane passed directly over us, so low that if I had jumped up I felt certain I could have touched its wings.
And as the noise of it died away to the north, firing ceased and everything was strangely quiet. I looked up at the cloudless blue of the sky. The dive attack was over, and all that remained of it was a ragged formation of ‘planes heading south-eastwards, nose-down for home. And then in the unnatural quiet we heard a new sound — the crackle of flames.
I got to my feet and gazed round. Thorby looked a shambles. The whole camp to the south of the landing field was enveloped in smoke. Through it I could see the hangars, still largely intact. But the other buildings were broken and battered shells from which great tongues of flame leapt up clear against the background of black smoke. And between the camp and our pit stretched a profusion of bomb craters, like old mole hills.
There was no doubt about it: they had gone for personnel, not for the field itself or even the aircraft, of which, as it happened, there quite a number in the hangars waiting to be serviced.
Heaven knows how many planes that German squadron had lost. We heard later that it was one of their crack squadrons. It had to be. It was a crazy, beautiful piece of flying. They must have known that Thorby was well defended before they undertook the flight. It would need nerve to take on such a job in cold blood. There was one down at the north end of the flying field, a crumpled wreck. And another had plunged into the scrub near the remains of the one we had brought down the other night; it was burning furiously. Others, too, must have been hit. And then the rest had to get home in the face of our fighters without height.