‘Marjorie, could you ask Ingrid to pop home.’
The wives had barely seen their husbands for three weeks. Some had talked amongst themselves, pooling the snippets of information their husbands had felt able to share, speculating on what was being planned. A support network of sorts had grown up. The squadron commanders’ wives tried to look after those of the squadron officers. The men were told that what they were training for was top secret, but most tried to prepare their wives as best they could. It was all over the newspapers, after all. It didn’t take a genius to work out what was going on.
The strangest thing was saying goodbye. Monty just couldn’t shake off a nagging feeling that he might never see Ingrid again. As he turned to walk to the car, he thought of his father going to fight in the Second World War. The old man must have felt the same sensations as he left to join his warship. He was going to war. Monty pulled the car door shut and headed into the station to join his crew.
‘We have a 90 per cent chance of getting one bomb on the runway and a 60 per cent chance of two,’ began Michael Beetham. To help explain the art of runway cutting and ballistic bombs to the Prime Minister and her War Cabinet, he illustrated his briefing with a flip chart and maps, carefully explaining why trying to fly a bomber along the length of the runway would be a mistake. The Chief of the Air Staff told them that in an ideal world he’d like ten or a hundred Vulcans over Stanley, but it couldn’t be done. One Vulcan, he stressed to them, was all that resources allowed. And even that depended on the success of a hugely complicated series of in-flight refuellings. It was vital that the politicians’ expectations were realistic.
‘That’s all we can do, but it’s worth doing,’ he concluded.
Like the Prime Minister, John Nott was supportive of the effort, all for giving it a go, but the prospect of success, he thought, sounded rather touch and go.
Beetham left with the authority to deploy the Vulcans to Ascension, 4,000 miles closer to their target, but still only halfway there.
Monty’s crew was waiting for him in the Ops Room.
‘Right, boys,’ he greeted them.
‘What exactly are we doing?’ asked Nav Plotter Dick Arnott, speaking for all of them.
‘D’know, Dick, I’m waiting to see the Station Commander.’
There was no time to speculate further, before the hyperactive Scotsman was sitting in Laycock’s office with Air Commodore Tony Carver, Air Vice-Marshal Mike Knight’s chief of staff from Bawtry. Carver came straight to the point, while Laycock listened in. His brain whirring, Monty tried to force himself to listen.
‘Your crew has not been selected for the first mission.’
That got Monty’s attention. Shit, he thought. The disappointment was instant. He didn’t think he’d ever get another chance. And I’m flying the Vulcan better than I ever have in my life. He couldn’t just let it go.
‘Come on, sir, we’re as good as the rest of them,’ he argued.
‘Maybe, but because of the nature of your personality—’
Monty cut him off. ‘Is this another way of saying I’m a stroppy bastard, sir?’ he asked, sure somehow that his ill-judged intervention the previous evening had influenced the decision.
‘Yes,’ Carver told him, which didn’t exactly put the bomber pilot’s mind at rest. The truth was, though, that Monty was the right man for the job long before he’d stood up for himself and the rest of the crews in front of the Chief of the Air Staff. A ‘stroppy bastard’ was exactly what Carver and Laycock were after. Monty was like a terrier. Throw him a problem, Laycock had told 1 Group, and he won’t let go. He’ll keep fighting until it’s sorted out.
‘We want you to go down and get everything ready to go,’ Carver explained.
‘All right,’ Monty accepted, coming to terms with the idea. ‘You mean we’re going to run the set-up? What authority have I got?’
‘My authority,’ Carver replied. ‘You’ve got to get yourselves to Brize Norton. They’re holding an aeroplane for you and your crew. You’ll be in Ascension tonight.’
As he left, Monty put to Carver the question that really mattered to him: ‘Will we be flying later on, sir?’ he asked, still hoping that he’d get a chance to fly the Vulcan in anger.
‘I don’t know.’
It didn’t offer much ground for optimism.
John Reeve and Martin Withers were discussing Monty’s departure when they were called in to the Station Commander’s office. Both of them assumed that Monty had been chosen to fly the mission. They stood side by side in front of John Laycock’s desk, the window to their right providing wide views of the north side of the airfield. Laycock told them that the mission was on. Waddington had been asked to forward-deploy two Vulcans to Ascension. Monty’s crew were already on their way to Brize. The Vulcans would be launching one raid on Stanley airfield in the near future. He told them there might also be more to follow. And then he surprised them both.
‘One or other of you two will do the attack.’
It was not what either of them was expecting to hear.
Laycock continued: ‘Would either of you like to volunteer?’
Withers, expecting Reeve to snatch the opportunity, attempted to make the whole process more straightforward: ‘My father told me never to volunteer for anything, so…’ he joked, sidestepped and turned to face Reeve, gesturing towards him with open palms, ‘over to you, John!’
Reeve, to Withers’ surprise, given his raised arm the previous night, said that he couldn’t volunteer without talking to his crew. But he wasn’t given that chance. In the absence of a volunteer, Laycock gave them his decision. He and Simon Baldwin had already made up their minds. In Mick Cooper and Jim Vinales, Reeve’s crew had the most experienced navigation and bombing team, and in Reeve himself it had a captain whose unsinkable confidence and ‘can do’ attitude had been manifest throughout training. He’d been unfazed by whatever was thrown at him. Mistaken for a gung-ho attitude in some quarters, Reeve’s no-nonsense temperament had, initially, given some around Waddington pause for thought about his suitability, but Laycock was in no doubt now. In any case, Reeve was the senior of the two captains. The Reeve crew was Primary. Martin Withers would be flying reserve.
As the decision was absorbed, Monty’s men were boarding a Hawker-Siddeley Andover CC2 of the RAF’s Queen’s Flight. With them was Squadron Leader Mel James, flying out as boss of the Vulcan engineering detachment with five of his advance guard of technicians. This felt important, thought Monty. It was a short hop to Brize, the hub of the RAF’s epic logistic operation to and from Ascension. From there, they’d be flown to Wideawake. Nav Plotter Dick Arnott boarded the elegantly liveried red and blue VIP transport with a dangerous look on his face – one only too familiar to the rest of the crew. As he cast an eye around the twin-turboprop’s bespoke interior, he caught the attention of the steward.
‘Is this the plane that Margaret Thatcher flies on?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
Monty felt a sense of dread at what might come next.
‘Where does she sit then?’ Arnott carried on.
The steward innocently pointed out the seat and Arnott walked over to it.
‘Dick, you’re not going to do this!’ Monty tried to stop him. ‘You’re not!’ But it was hopeless.
As he got close, Arnott stooped down towards the Prime Minister’s chair, then performed an unpleasantly close inspection of the seat’s fabric before claiming it as his own. Next they were served tea and sandwiches. Surreal, thought Monty. It was going to be a very strange day.