Dogfight

Autumn was rolling nearer and so were the Nazis. It was August 1940, and the damn Gerrys were still on our doorstep, the only thing preventing them from seizing Great Britain was the English Channel and us. We were the Royal Air Force. Swimming through the air in our stubborn Supermarine Spitfires, we were at one with our fighters. We were roaring through our skies, preparing ourselves for battle.

Earlier our superiors had been informed of several Gerry bombers, being escorted by the Luftwaffe, making their way across our channel. Enemy bombers were a rare catch, the sneaky buggers usually killed at night. We were browsing the wispy clouds and catching glimpses of Ashford. This was the beautiful part of our country – the pastoral fields slotting into a beautiful chessboard that fell over the hills. The woods were in full green and cottages and farms were sprinkled around the countryside. We would be over Dover in less than a minute. My hand clenched around the joystick and I got that familiar feeling in my gut. My eyes travelled over the hive of controls and rested on a tattered and furrowed photo. Ella beamed at me through the crinkles and stains of the grey photograph and in that moment all of my trepidation was blown aside. The shore had crawled into sight. We leapt up fifty feet, the colder breeze slipping inside my uniform. We always assailed with the sun behind us – this blinded the enemy and gave us yet another advantage. My eyes found their way back to the picture of Ella. I hadn’t seen her for weeks; the war had been an obstacle in our marriage for over three years. Every few days I was up in the skies dog fighting whilst she laboured on the women’s front.  I was going to battle for King and country but more essentially I was protecting Ella. Gerry bombers, like the ones I was to ambush, targeted factories. Whilst I swept over the chalk white cliffs in a fighter, Ella was assembling aircraft in a factory.

A deathly calm dropped over the channel. Each of us pilots drew back into ourselves.  Most prayed; we all knew a few of us would be shot to ribbons, but each secretly hoped and believed it would be the other guy. The sea draught drifted up my nose and cleared my thoughts. All I could hear was the growling of my spitfire and the whistling of the sea wind as we soared hundreds of feet above the vast mirror-like sea. My suntanned coffee-coloured seat shook slightly with the Rolls-Royce Merlin 45 engine. I remembered the anticipation before my first dogfight. I had vomited all over my lap and into my leather black-buffed boots. However once in the heat of the battle I quickly learnt that fear did you no favour – fear got your cockpit washed in blood. You killed or got killed. However, despite my anti-fear attitude, my insides still revolved with anxiety. This was to be my twenty sixth dog fight. Worries grew in my head, what if I was getting too old or too cocky? I started to panic, eyes darting around the controls, checking the speed, checking the altitude, checking my seat belt and fastening my parachute. Ella caught my eye. The creased photo comforted me, her gentle smile warming me. This was how I wanted to die, protecting Great Britain and giving my life for Ella’s. I savoured that thought, would this get me to heaven? I relaxed my gloved thumb on the trigger of my spitfire’s four machine guns and two cannons. On the other hand I was murdering fellow humans. I dismissed that thought – fighting would save lives and besides, I couldn’t turn back now. I took a long hard breath and slowly raised my eyes.

Twenty, thirty enemy planes hummed into view like a swarm of dark insects. The Luftwaffe were in arrowhead formation, with the bulkier bombers hiding in the centre. Anger boiled in me. I leant forward and set my eyes on a target. Now they were closer I could make out the iron cross and the swastika, Nazi-German insignias. These tattoos fuelled my patriotic anger as I chose my quarry. I took one last glance at Ella and dove the fighter into the enemy.

They didn’t see us coming. We tore down on the Nazis, slashing wings and piercing engines. My thumb pressed hard on the upper button, releasing the four machine guns on my enemy. I chased after him, guns flaming. I slid my thumb downwards onto the centre button. My two cannons joined the combat. He tried to flee, to escape my rain of bullets, but I was too swift. We spitfires were the greyhounds of they skies. Bullets thumped into my victim. A line of black smoke trailed out of his engine. I calmed my guns. In the few seconds that followed there was a silence. The rotor blades seemed to twirl in slow motion like an elegant ballet. I didn’t dare to breath. The clouds stared onwards in curiously. For those seconds there was nothing else. It felt as if the dogfight had been paused, along with the war. All there was in the world was the vast sea and the Gerry floating twenty feet ahead of me. Then his engine exploded. My spitfire jolted with the shock of it and I twisted away, flames licking at my left wing. The burning skeleton plummeted into the water and was swallowed up by the English Channel. I curled back towards the battle and saw one of my comrades spiralling downwards, his right wing in flaming shreds. I pounced after the guilty Gerry who had killed him. I was hovering above him like a hawk, contemplating his every move. I swooped down on him, driving bullets into his swastika painted tail. He began to weave left and right. I did the same. I fell into mimicking his every swerves and turns. My prey pulled upwards and flew vertically up into the clouds while I hunted him closely. I cooled my weapons and took a calm aim. I slammed down the cannon button with the enemy perfectly in my crosshair. There was a crunch and the cannons jammed. I cursed and rattled off my machine guns. My bullets took a satisfactory bite out of his wing. The unbalanced weight threw him into a tailspin. There was no escaping a tailspin. Satisfaction swelled in me as he whirled uncontrollably into the sea. I coiled round and found myself charging on a collision course with another Luftwaffe fighter. He shot at me. I patiently aimed while bullets zipped and ricocheted around me. The Nazi aircraft thundered ever closer. His cockpit bobbed into my crosshair. I freed my machine guns. The bullets shattered his cockpit. Red shards of the windscreen showered downwards and blood splashed everywhere. The corpse of a pilot slumped onto his joystick and sent the plane down. I pulled upwards and felt the dead fighter knock against my undercarriage.

I tilted my fighter towards the ongoing battle. My spitfire shook violently. I stroked my finger over the maze of dials – searching for a fault. My fighter slowed down and began to cough. He dragged himself across the air while I gradually began to panic. I sniffed. The distinct smell of oil drifted up my nose as he made a guttering groan. I flipped my seatbelt off and slid back the plastic roof of the cockpit. I pulled my goggles down and looked down. The sea was nearly a kilometre away. I snatched up my cherished photograph of Ella and stood in my seat.  I gave my spitfire one last pat and hurled myself into the skies.

The wind was bitter. It slapped my clothes against my body and blasted up my nose. The sound of my spitfire spluttering his last breaths was gradually overcome by the crescendo of wind that screamed past my ears. I plunged downwards faster and faster, the salty wind engulfing my senses and parching my throat. The speed became immense. I tried to roll round to face the above battle, and I lost control. I was tumbling wildly through the saline air, glimpses of cloud, water and sky blurring past my eyes. My hands hauled themselves slowly up my torso – groping for the parachute’s release cord. Where the bloody hell was it? I felt the ocean spray on my cheeks and terror gripped my heart. If I hit the water surface at this speed it would break every part of me. My right hand bumped into the release cord and jerked it. My body swivelled as the broad white parachute spread open its wings. I glided downwards timidly, a calm breeze stroking my face. The still sea rippled lightly with the pattern of waves. I parted with my parachute and it descended into the dark. I thanked my lifejacket and started my long, soaked swim back.

©Harold Stone 2007