AIR MARSHAL HERMANN GOERING, July 31, 1940: "And the German air force dominates the North Sea and the English Channel."
"Here comes Jerry," a cheerful voice called out and then we knew that we were in for it. I was standing aft by the gun turret. There were two good guns there. Two men, one named North and one named Simpson, crouched behind the guns, grinning with pleasure. They had once been fishermen. Well, actually, this trawler we were on had once been a fisherman, too. But now it had been converted into an armed trawler and it was nursing a convoy through the Channel.
There were twenty-seven of us in all, and one destroyer. We had just entered the Straits and we were off Margate. It was North who had called out, "Here comes Jerry."
No orders came from our captain. He was standing on the bridge, smoking his pipe. He didn't have to give orders. Every man knew what to do. It was a beautiful afternoon. The sky was blue and friendly-looking and the few clouds that hung against it hardly moved.
We could see the French coast quite clearly to the left. We could see the English coast, of course, to the right, and I knew that just a mile or so back of the coast there were airdromes and that now pilots were hurrying into their Spitfires. The whole machinery used to protect this convoy was swinging into motion.
We steamed on, making six knots only, for the slowest ship always sets the pace. Then we heard the German airplanes. They were very high, and at first we couldn't see them. Then the helping sun hurled its rays against the German planes, and the rays flashed and shimmered as they hit the smooth body surfaces. So we were able to locate them. When airplanes fly low they are dark and black. When they fly high they are silver and almost transparent. There were six of them and they were at least 20,000 feet high. They were directly overhead, which is where I like to see German bombers. When they are directly overhead they can't hit you.
When a plane going three hundred miles an hour drops a bomb, instead of falling straight down, the bomb travels in the direction of the plane for some little distance. When a plane directly overhead at sufficient height releases a bomb, the bomb will fall about half a mile away from you. So you always like to see the airplanes directly overhead. The danger is past then for the moment.
North was cursing softly. These planes were too high. But the shore batteries opened up now. The blue sky was suddenly miraculously studded with small puffs of cotton. But they were far below the Germans. Then our destroyer fired a few shots and, strangely, they left black puffs in the sky. They were using a different kind of explosive. Then we heard the loveliest sound in the world---the high, singing note of the Rolls-Royce motors of the Spitfires. The Germans wheeled sharply toward France.
The Spitfires appeared, twelve of them, buzzing angrily because their prey had escaped. They circled twice and then turned for home, their motors wailing dejectedly. Serenely, we steamed on, twenty-seven little ships.
My trawler led the convoy. I went to the bridge and stood by the captain. He had given me the run of the ship. "I've got just three things to ask," he had said when I came aboard. "Always wear your tin hat; always wear your Mae West and then," he added, grinning, "when the sun is over the yardarm always report to the messroom."
I didn't know what the last one meant at first. I soon learned. At eleven that morning I was on deck. The first officer grabbed my arm.
"The sun is over the yardarm," he said. "Come on below, can't keep the captain waiting." We went below. The captain and four of his officers were there.
His fifth officer was on the bridge. The captain poured the gin. It's gin and water or gin and bitters for His Majesty's Royal Navy at eleven o'clock every morning. It is a mild gin and although there are no restrictions no one has more than two or three. The officers in His Majesty's Navy are taught to handle drinks as they are taught to chart a course or to tie knots. They are not the hardest group of drinkers in the world but they are certainly the best. This eleven o'clock ritual replaces afternoon tea in the navy. Tea is still sacred to the R.A.F. and to the army, but when the sun is over the yardarm it's gin and water for the navy.
"The worst experience I ever had was years ago in the submarine 167." The captain had been with submarines most of his life. "It was pretty awful. The bloody cook thought he'd give us some cabbage. The smell of that cabbage cooking was the worst thing I've ever smelled. It took days to get the smell out of the ship. After that it became a regulation never to cook cabbage in a sub."
A sailor came into the messroom. "Enemy aircraft approaching," he said.
Unhurriedly the captain rose and we left the room. I went to the bridge again. The Channel is full of mine fields. The captain grinned and pointed to a buoy. It's name was Hope. A good omen, that.
We were opposite Ramsgate now, about ten miles of the Channel behind us. In the distance we could see the immaculate white cliffs of Dover rising steeply, cleanly from the sea. German planes were off Dover. We heard them and then we saw them. They were a bit lower this time, fifteen of them.
"Come on, Jerry," the captain said, thinking aloud. "We're ready for you."
I looked back once. Our convoy was strung out in a straight line, twenty-seven of us. Then the Dover guns began to fire. We heard them faintly. As the airplanes came closer, other guns on the shore picked them up. The white puffs were quite close to them. Then once more the Spitfires came. Their motors were singing joyously this time. The Germans didn't turn tail. If anyone tells you that the German pilots are cowards tell him he's nuts. They aren't nearly as well trained as the English pilots but they are brave. Silver streaks flashed across the sky, Spitfires diving and then zooming upward. The bombers tried to keep their formation, leaving the fighting to their escort of Messerschmitts.
Our guns swung into action. There were two on the bridge, each a double gun. They barked angrily. Our heavier guns aft were in action too, their slim noses pointing skyward. Our destroyer was firing and then most of the firing stopped. The Spitfires had closed in, and the sky was a jumble of German and English planes, whirling and writhing. They were bits of silver mercury crisscrossing the blue of the sky. The bombers were half a mile away now. This was the danger point. They dropped their bombs. They were being hurried and harried by the persistent Spitfires. The bombs fell short. One fell a hundred yards away, throwing up a huge cascade of water.
The bombers had had enough. They turned towards France. Spitfires and Messerschmitts flashed in and out of the clouds, playing a game of hide-and-seek, with death the referee. Then a burst of black smoke came out of the tail of a Heinkel bomber. The airplane dove, leaving an ugly black trail behind it. It dove slowly, or it may be that it just seemed slowly. A thousand feet above the water it recovered and straightened out. It limped toward France and then suddenly it came apart. It wasn't a live, pulsing thing any more; it was a shattered piece of junk and it dropped like a stone.
The Germans were in full flight now. They were almost over French territory. The Spitfires were finished. They turned for home. Through my glasses I watched the retreating German airplanes. One of them faltered, seeming to lift its nose high in the air, and dark smoke started coming from its motor. Two tiny specks dropped from the airplane and then something white billowed above each speck. The airplane dove gently into the Channel. The two men who had bailed out floated down slowly into the Channel but near the French shore. Through my glasses I saw a plane coming from the shore. It was flying very low. It was a flying boat sent out to pick the two pilots up. It landed and presumably rescued them. Then it took off and returned home.
We steamed steadily on, still twenty-seven of us. It was dusk now and we were opposite Hell's Corner.
That's where you turn just before you reach Dover. Here and there masts stuck up, reminders that this wasn't a parlor game we were playing. In the early stages of the war the magnetic mines did a lot of damage. Now all ships have a gadget that immunizes them against magnetic mines. I looked around with my glasses.
It was dusk now and the dying sun was painting the waters of the Channel with a magic brush. Here the water would be a deep purple, here a burnished copper, here a flaming gold. Every sunset you see is the finest sunset you've ever seen. No two are alike.
Even the London papers call it Hell's Corner. It is the most dangerous ten-mile stretch in the world. Once upon a time the boats of fishermen dotted the water and girls like Gertrude Ederle swam through the water from Cap Gris-Nez to Dover. But now it is Hell's Corner. Looking across to the French coast, you could see both Boulogne and Calais. That's where the big twelve-inch guns were. That's where they had been a few days ago.
They had shelled a convoy here off Hell's Corner a week before. I had watched the shelling from the high vantage point of Shakespeare Cliff. From there I saw the huge orange bursts of flame shoot upward and heard the dull boom a second later and then, thirty seconds after that, saw the shells land, throwing up tremendous cascades of water.
We steamed into the water off Hell's Corner and waited. Were German gunners now plotting the course of those twelve-inch shells? We were only making two knots now because the tide was soggy and heavy against us. We should be an easy target and yet those guns were twenty-two miles away. The dusk deepened a little and Dover, flanked by its white cliffs, brightly green at the top, looked like a toy village with its red gabled roofs and its two tall white church steeples. We waited.
I walked aft to the rear-gun turret and climbed into it with North and Simpson, who had once been fishermen. We were all a little nervous. Actual danger never scares you much; the anticipation of danger does. We waited.
"This is a lucky ship," North said. "We have a lucky captain and I'm a very lucky bloke myself. Got a little lucky piece here. Look at it."
He showed me a small silver medal with the picture of a saint upon it.
"That's lucky," he said complacently. "I found it years ago. That medal brings you luck at sea."
There was an inscription in French on the medal. I read it. "Do you understand French?" I asked North. He said that he didn't. I handed him back the medal. What was the use of telling him that this was a medal dedicated to St. Bernard and that the French inscription said that St. Bernard was the patron saint of skiing? The good saint probably felt a bit out of place in a gun turret on a trawler crawling through the Channel.
We steamed on, and it was very quiet. It seemed as though the world had stopped breathing until we got safely through. No orange glare burst over the French coast. I walked back to the bridge.
"For three nights the R.A.F. lads have been over there trying to find those big guns," the captain said. "They've been dropping a lot of bombs. It might be that they've destroyed the guns." There was a rather hurt note in his voice. Other convoys had been shelled, why not his?
We steamed on and gradually we all relaxed. That was it, the R.A.F. bombers had silenced the big guns. The sun hesitated reluctantly and then plunged down behind the towering heights of Shakespeare Cliff. Darkness, our ally, had come to help us.
We steamed on steadily, twenty-seven of us. The little trawlers and the little merchant ships raised their black smoke impudently. A slight breeze had sprung up.
Far ahead, four foam-flecked white specks appeared. They grew larger and now we saw them to be four small, fast ships. They were to be with us during the night. From the stern of them flew the red-and-white flag of Poland. They are the fastest thing afloat carrying guns. At top speed they can hit well over forty knots. They carry depth charges and anti-aircraft guns. We expected to be attacked during the night by the German E boats---fast, 103-foot ships something like American Coast Guard Cutters except that they carry torpedoes. The little motor torpedo boats can throw a smoke screen around a convoy. The darkness grew, and the little Polish boats disappeared, but now and then we could hear their powerful Isotta-Fraschini motors. There was only a small chunk of moon showing but the night was studded with stars. A message came through to the captain from the wireless room. He handed it to me. "German aircraft shadowing bacon convoy." The captain laughed. "Bacon convoy indeed. That's the code word today for us. Why bacon? Well, the fishermen often use bacon for bait hereabouts. That's what we are, bait. I hope they'll try to swallow us."
Far above we heard the drone of planes, and then the English coast blazed with light. We were opposite Dover. A hundred white shafts of light pierced the darkness. From the bridge it looked like a bouquet of searchlights. Now and then an airplane would fly into the beam and then a dozen other beams would move like lightning, trying to hold it. Then the antiaircraft guns would belch. These raiders were probably on their way to London. There were lots of them crossing now. It was just nine o'clock. I hoped they'd hit London at nine-twenty. We had a nightly pool in London as to what time they'd come over. I had drawn nine-twenty this week, a good hour. The whole coast was ablaze with the prying fingers of light, but the Germans were flying very high.
Now we heard more planes over us. The noise moved toward the French coast. These were British. bombers en route to somewhere in Germany. Searchlights appeared from Boulogne and from Calais. We couldn't hear the German guns but we could see the red-and-purple tracer bullets knifing upward, cutting across the dead white of the searchlight beams. Then a British plane dropped a flare, and for a moment a mound of golden light flared. Then as it began to die, a fierce, angry burst of flame shot into the air. A bomb had landed, then another and still another. This would be about where those big guns were located. The still night air carried the double-barreled sound of the bombs exploding. A big bomb makes a throaty "wumph-wumph" sound.
We sailed along, showing no lights, hugging the friendly darkness of the Channel water, hugging the English waters of the Channel. We sailed along, still twenty-seven of us.
For an hour the searchlights on both shores kept poking inquisitive fingers into the night. Then gradually they died out and we had the Channel to ourselves. A man wearing earphones stood on the bridge. He was in charge of the anti-submarine detection instruments. His instruments showed that submarines were near. We would know exactly where the submarines were and we'd hustle over there and drop our depth bombs. We were out of the Straits now, and dawn found us out of sight of land. This was submarine territory. The men leaned over their guns, scanning the skies and the sea. No one had slept; you don't sleep on trawlers.
It was golden dawn and the sun bathed the little ships, gleaming brightly on their gray sides. We steamed on steadily, hitting seven knots now, for the tide was helping us. No boats appeared. No submarine came. The hours passed quietly and the crew looked disappointed. They'd had little opportunity to do their stuff. Then in the distance we saw land. It grew and it grew, and the captain smiled. "Pompey," he said.
No naval man ever calls Portsmouth by its real name. Portsmouth has always been, is now and always will be, "Pompey" with the accent on the first syllable. This was our port. The beaches of Portsmouth gleamed whitely. We steamed into the harbor.
Our little trawler led the way proudly. The others followed. They seemed a little self-conscious but quite pleased with themselves. Twenty-seven of us had started. Twenty-seven of us had arrived safely.
The captain said, "Sorry we couldn't give you more excitement. But it was a pleasant trip, wasn't it? The Channel behaved pretty well. And now, m'lad, you'll notice that the sun is over the yardarm."
We went into the messroom. We poured our gin and water. "God bless you," the captain said. It was his stock toast. Then he said, "What do you think of our little Channel?"
I raised my glass. "I think enough of it to drink to it. Here's to Churchill's Channel."
Air Marshal Hermann Goering, July 31, 1940: "And the German air force dominates the North Sea and the English Channel."
THE BIG WHITLEY, one of England's largest bombing planes, looked harmless enough. She dozed there in the sun, her grotesque camouflage making her look like some weird but not particularly vicious prehistoric animal. Old Brownie and I walked under the belly of the bomber. In another three hours Old Brownie was going to climb into the airplane, fly far into Germany and then drop 3,600 pounds of bombs. Old Brownie had very fair hair, very large, gentle, blue eyes and a wisp of a blond moustache, and he wore a slightly apologetic air. He was one of the veterans of this group. That's why they called him Old Brownie. Actually Brownie was just twenty-three.
It was shady and cool under the big monster. The ground crew had just finished "bombing up" the planes. The bombs were lying in two parallel rows. Some were 500-pound bombs, others were 250. They were freshly painted a bright yellow and they looked innocent enough. Brownie explained to me how they would be released. They could be dropped in "sticks" of six or individually. Brownie slapped one of the 500-pound bombs on its fat rump. "Want to send a message to any friends in Germany?" he asked.
I took out a soft pencil and wrote on the bright yellow side of the 500-pound bomb, "with love and kisses" and then under that I signed my name.
"That'll bring you luck, Brownie," I said, and Brownie laughed. We climbed up into the plane and Brownie showed me where he sat. It was a cozy little nest. Ahead of and below the pilot's cubbyhole was another little cubicle. The man who dropped the bombs made this his home. He would lie there on a sliding wooden panel and from there he could look ahead and below. He had a gun there and his bomb sights and a row of buttons to release the bombs. Sometimes he would release them and sometimes the pilot would.
Back of Brownie was a chair for his co-pilot and a small desk where he did his navigation. This bombing group flew only at night, and on dark nights proper navigation was pretty important. Behind the co-pilot there was a space for the wireless operator. Then we walked back through the long plane fuselage. There were flares and flare chutes and other paraphernalia of the bomber trade neatly arranged there.
In the very rear was the gun turret. This made the Whitley one of the best of all bombers. The Whitley had a real sting in its tail: four guns that shot 4,000 rounds a minute. The turret revolved so that you could sight a Messerschmitt above you or on either side of you.
We climbed down from the step and Brownie looked at his watch. It was time for getting final instructions. We walked past the other nine planes that were to take part in tonight's raid and went into, a building on which there was a sign, "Operations."
Upstairs there was a large room with about sixty chairs and desks in it. There was a blackboard on the front wall and a large desk on a raised platform. It looked like any other schoolroom. It was called the "Briefing" room. Behind the desk, looking at maps, were two men: the squadron leader in charge of tonight's raid and the intelligence officer.
The pilots and wireless operators and gunners and observers looked a bit astonished when we walked in. It was the first time a civilian had ever been permitted in the "Briefing" room.
The wing commander stood up and said, "Here are your instructions for tonight. You all have target maps in front of you. The primary target is an airplane factory at (we can't mention the names of targets or give the full names of pilots). We don't know much about the defenses around the primary target. When you get there, use your own judgment. You'll see by your maps that it is about seven hundred miles from here. The weather should be good all the way. If you can't find the primary target or if the visibility is bad when you reach it, your second primary target will be -----. You know all about that."
There was a stirring in the room and faint smiles appeared on the faces of the boys. I knew about that secondary target too. It was in the Ruhr, which is full of oil tanks and munition factories. In the army they talk of a place that is to be stormed as an "objective" but in the R.A.F. it is always the "target".
"You know what to expect there," the wing commander continued. "Now you should be over your primary target at midnight, or a few minutes afterward. If you find the target, drop your bombs and give us a signal that you are okay and are returning. If you go to the secondary target be careful not to bomb northeast of it. That is a residential section. Be very careful to avoid that. Incidentally, you will carry pennies with you. Drop them if possible over residential sections."
"Pennies" today was the code word for pamphlets. Millions of pamphlets were being dropped over Germany every night.
Now the intelligence officer said a few words. He told what he knew of both targets and what defenses the boys would be up against. This seemed to bore the fifty silent lads in uniforms. There were just fifty of them, five to each of the ten bombers.
"Incidentally, on the way back," the intelligence officer said, "watch out for small lights near any of the Channel ports. If you aren't being teased too much when you are over them have a look and see what they are. Any questions?"
"What is the moon tonight and how much light will we have?" a pilot asked.
"Quarter moon," the intelligence officer said. "Daylight will come at about 4.30 A.M. You must leave your target by one to be clear of enemy territory before daylight."
There were no more questions and, like youngsters in any classroom, the boys piled out of the door. It was teatime now. We went to the officers' quarters and tables were piled with bread, butter, cakes and large pots of tea. Brownie and the tall Scotsman named Pete and chunky little Red and I sat and talked and I was the only one thinking of the perilous night ahead. After tea the men went to study maps in the chartroom.
Two hours of this and it was dinner-time. The whole group assembled in the clubroom for cocktails. They sat around smoking, laughing, having sherry, beer, whiskey or Martinis and it was all very pleasant. The O.C. (officer commanding) entered and everyone stiffened for a moment and then, when he smiled, everyone relaxed. The R.A.F. officers are all too busy to bother with useless formalities. They are very close to their men. It was a pleasant dinner. These boys seemed completely indifferent to what faced them soon. Either that or completely confident. Then they drifted away to change clothes.
The ten planes were being warmed up. It was almost eight but the sun sets very late in England in the summer. I walked with Brownie to his plane.
"Wish you were coming along," Old Brownie said cheerfully. "Looks like a nice night."
The setting sun was just casually putting an end to a beautiful day. The clouds were very high and there was practically no breeze. All twenty motors (the Whitley is two-motored) were humming now. I walked with tall Pete to his airplane. Pete looks like Gary Cooper, lanky, amiable, slow-talking.
"Wish I had a book to take along," he said.
In my pocket I had a paper-bound detective story called The Green Diamond Mystery. I gave it to him, but wondered when he'd get time to read it.
"I'll let the kid fly for the first few hours," he said.
"Have a good trip," I told him, "write to me every day."
He grinned and climbed up the tiny ladder into the huge plane. They were all giving the motors a final blast at full throttle. Then the huge, dozing earth-bound planes suddenly became live, mobile things. They didn't look lazy and unwieldy now as they trundled around into the wind. After fifty feet their tails lifted and after 200 yards their wheels raised. One by one, they lifted themselves into the air, at two-minute intervals. In the air they looked slim and full of eager vitality. They circled once and then surely, swiftly they soared away and soon even the sound of their motors died.
The airdrome seemed strangely quiet now and lonely as a college campus looks and feels in vacationtime. Some of us played cards for a while and then several pilots who weren't working tonight took me to the local pub in a near-by town. We talked of many things, sitting around there, but we didn't talk about the ten pilots and their crews who were now gradually approaching enemy territory. I couldn't think of anything else. I could imagine Pete reading his detective story, stopping every few minutes for a quick check with his crew. I could imagine Old Brownie and Alec sitting there casually, lightly fingering the controls, looking at a dozen instruments at once.
Time passed very slowly. We went back to the airdrome. Everything was pitch-black. The dying moon, having only one quarter of its life left, was giving little light to a blacked-out world. It was bright enough inside of "Operations." Then I went into the holy of holies, the Operations room. This was the heart of the airdrome. Here were the wireless and the telephones and maps, and now and then the wing commander would make marks on the maps.
The clock moved slowly. Once the yellow signal was given, meaning that an unidentified aircraft was in the neighborhood. Other reports came in. On a map we followed its course, wondering whether it was an enemy bomber. Then the word came that it was an English training plane. England is so full of defending fighting planes that it has become hazardous to train bombers at night. They are no sooner in the air than they find a Spitfire or a Hurricane nosing inquisitively against them. There is always the danger that the bomber might be mistaken for a Heinkel or a Dornier. Now most of the training is done either in Canada or over France.
It was a little after midnight and now reports began to come in. The pilots of our bombers had reached the target; had found it; had dropped their bombs; had started home. Pete checked in with his one word "Okay." So did Alec and so did Red. There was a chart on the table and) as word came from the radio room, the squadron commander would check them off, one by one. By one o'clock nine of them had checked in and were now on their way home.
But we hadn't heard from Brownie yet. No one mentioned it. We listened to a German radio maintained for the amusement of German pilots. It was good music. At ten-minute intervals, over and through this music, would come three staccato dashes, repeated three times. This was a German beacon. The music was just to keep the pilots awake. The Germans use beacons a lot and the R.A.F. know where each is located and sometimes use them too.
Officers who had left orders to be called at two o'clock drifted into the room. They looked at the chart. Everyone was all right but Brownie. Still no one mentioned it. I had only met Brownie twenty-four hours before but now I felt sick with worry.
Someone brought in tea. We drank it and talked about a speech Churchill had made the day before.
I was visualizing long fingers of white light reaching up for Brownie, covering him with light. I imagined him trying to swerve away from it and meeting another long finger coming through the sky, I saw him desperately trying to get into the merciful blanket of a cloud and I saw the tracer bullets go up after him and pom-pom guns, and then the heavy stuff battering the sides of his plane.
It was four o'clock now. I walked out onto the field. A faint dawn was showing in the east but above it was cloudless. A wind from the west brought a chill with it. Then faintly I heard the sound of a motor. It became a roar and then the plane came into view. It was flying low and its lights showed brightly through the thinning night. Green lights, the "Come on in" signal, blinked from the field and the big ship landed. It taxied to its hangar. Figures climbed down and I walked to meet them. Tall, lanky, Pete the Scotsman had landed safely.
"You can have this book back," he said. "I guessed who did it in the first ten pages."
"How was the trip? Any trouble?"
"No, they threw some stuff at us but it wasn't bad. Damn cold though at sixteen thousand feet---fifteen below."
Another plane was approaching and then another. While one landed, another circled. Two more approached. The chickens were coming home to roost. But what of Brownie? One by one they landed. The crews walked straight to the Operations room to report everything that had happened. I went back and listened.
Pete said, "We found the target at 12:05. There were cumulus clouds at four thousand that were breaking. I dropped the one 'stick' and then went back and dropped the rest. The clouds thickened and I turned f or home. Listen---about those lights over the Channel. I had a good look at them. That's. phosphorescence, I think. It's shallow in there and it may be that the light from the moon hits the rocks on the bottom and that light is reflected."
Alec reported, "Found the target. The clouds were getting thick. Dropped two sticks but couldn't see result."
Red reported, "Never could find the target. Too many clouds. Went to the secondary target. They got a lot of new light stuff there and plenty of searchlights. I dropped a couple of flares. I guess they figured it was me going down in flames and the searchlights all went out. It was easy to pick out the target then. I dropped my bombs and saw a big explosion. Hit it, I guess."
Questions were asked. I listened, keeping one eye on the door. Then it opened and a fair-haired lad with large blue eyes and slightly apologetic look walked in. It was Brownie.
"You scared us," I told him. "We never got your report."
He looked blank. "I forgot all about the damn thing," he said. "Now I'll catch it."
The wing commander looked up, saw Brownie and then wrote, "All aircraft returned safely." Brownie gave his report casually as the others had. Then we all went to the mess for bacon and eggs and hot tea. Nine crews were there joking, kidding one another.
England is a country that produces a great many old fools who somehow find their way to high places.
England doesn't produce many young fools. These kids weren't fools. They'd done a great job tonight and they knew it but they weren't going to get serious about it.
"Say, I got a scare just before reaching the target," Alec said to Red. "A big aircraft came out of a cloud not two hundred yards away. I told the boys to watch it. I was hoping it was a Heinkel. It looked like one. And who was it? It was Red."
"Yeah, I saw you, too," Red said, munching some bacon.
"Where's Eddie?" someone asked.
"He'll be right along," someone else said.
"Bet he'll have a swell story," Brownie laughed. "He'll say, 'There I was, at twenty thousand feet, hanging by my knees to the rudder bar. There I was right up there in the sky with a feel of ice on my wings and twenty Messerschmitts around me. I got them, one by one, and then went down and dropped my bombs on a Dornier factory. The flames shot a thousand feet in the air.' "
Eddie walked in then, a big, tousled-haired kid who was twenty, two months ago. He looked very unhappy.
"I could not find the main target," he said dejectedly.
"Did you bring your bombs back?" Red asked.
"No," Eddie said casually, "I dropped them on the secondary target. I looked around and found five big oil tanks. I dropped my bombs on them and say, you should have seen those flames! They were…"
"They were two thousand feet high," Brownie said.
Eddie looked hurt and ordered bacon and eggs. Brownie and I walked outside. It was six-thirty now and a brilliant dawn was touching the ugly hangars, making them almost beautiful.
Brownie yawned, "How about some shut-eye? This has been a long day for you."
"Sure," I said sarcastically, "a long, tough day. How far did you fly tonight?"
"About 1,500 miles," Brownie said.
"That's more than halfway from here to New York," I said.
"That's a flight I wouldn't want to make," Brownie said. "All over water? Not me. This was a cinch compared to that. I'll see you later. How about Pete and you and me going into town tomorrow? We'll have the night off."
I said, "Sure, that'll be swell," and then I went to bed.
THE BANSHEE WAS WAILING and it sounded eerie in the dusk. It trailed away but the echo of it hung in the air which was heavy with the weight of the darkness. There were nearly a thousand of us standing there. We were in front of the Camden Town subway station. An iron gate had been stretched across the entrance. Two policemen guarded it. "There's no room below," they repeated again and again. "Not room for another person."
Camden Town is the workers' section of London, The Camden Town subway station was eighty feet below the street. Since late afternoon families had been going into the subway. They had thermos bottles filled with hot tea; they had paper bags of food; they had toys to quiet the children. Those who arrived first were now sleeping below safe, because there was eighty feet of earth and concrete between them and the street surface.
Then faintly we heard the drone of German planes. The air barrage began. Some of the guns were close and you tried to shake the noise of them out of your head. Whenever there was a lull you could hear the so-familiar hum of bombers above. Nearly a thousand of us huddled there in the darkness. A bomb fell. We heard the fiendish whistle of it as it dropped from a plane perhaps 20,000 feet above us. Its high-pitched scream grew more piercing and then it landed. It fell a block away. The concussion of it made us sway as one person. The policeman opened the gates. "Better to be in here and crowded than be out there getting hurt," he said gruffly. It was only professional gruffness; his eyes were dark with worry.
Men, women, children filed in quietly, patiently. There was no fear on a single face. A few babies who had been awakened by the noise began to whimper a little. We climbed downstairs to the subway platform. The concrete stairs were crowded. You had to step over people. The platform was packed with people lying on the concrete. Some were playing cards.
This is how thousands of families live at night in London---far under the ground. Usually the working man of the family arrives home about five-thirty. He'll find some hot mutton in the stove being kept warm---if the gas main in his section hasn't been destroyed. He'll find tea on the stove too. But his wife and children have long since left for the safety of the subways. It is first come first served and they went early. When Pop finishes his meal he joins them. They've saved a place for him. It may be cold down there and the air sticky with the feel of hundreds of people packed closely together---but it's safe. He and his family accept their lot philosophically. This is a new world and they adapt themselves to it.
A man with an accordion came in and was greeted with friendly banter. He played "Tomorrow is a Lovely Day," "There'll Always be an England," and even the kids joined in the singing. Then he played the most popular song of the day, "The Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square." Several "incidents" had occurred in Berkeley Square during the past month and the accordion player commemorated them by singing his version of the song calling it "A screaming bomb fell in Berkeley Square." They all laughed at that. All but me. I lived in Berkeley Square.
It was getting late now. The subway dwellers impose a nine o'clock curfew on themselves. The accordion player pillowed his head on the accordion. A heavy quiet settled over the reclining forms.
The guns and the bombs seemed far away. A train pulled in. Those who were asleep never woke, for noise is so much part of our existence in London these nights that it is only quiet which disturbs us because it seems unnatural. Londoners are quick to adapt themselves to a new environment. Today more than half of London sleeps underground in public shelters, in subways, in cellars. Every office building has its own shelter and thousands of workers remain in them all night.
I got on a subway train. I stopped at each station and always it was the same. These people were adapting themselves to a new way of life. Many of the women wore heavy slacks. Stores now advertise "shelter slacks" or "siren suits." I went out as far as Hampstead. Hampstead is a section where fairly well off people live in fine detached houses. But tonight these families were sleeping on the concrete of the subway platforms and stairs. It was difficult to get off the train. Before I could step on the platform a woman had to move her sleeping child. I picked my way over a thousand sleeping forms before getting to the stairs. I chatted with one family.
"You get used to it," the woman said. "Of course the air is bad, but at least we know that we're safe. I wish Millie would hurry home, though."
Wherever she and her family slept was "home" to her. Millie, a slim, bright-eyed girl finally came. With her was a young man in army uniform.
"This is my fiancé," she introduced him. "It's his first day of leave." "Never thought I'd spend my leave in the underground," he laughed.
The night wore on. It grew cold and sometimes people stirred uneasily. Some still read newspapers in the dim light. Those who had tea shared it with those who didn't. Two policemen were on watch. They kept walking up and down through the crowd. Their chief concern was to see that restless children didn't roll off the platform on to the tracks below.
"What time do you turn them out?" I asked.
"Turn them out? I'd like to see anyone try to turn them out. They usually leave when the 'all clear' sounds."
All year the Government has been building brick shelters. The streets and sidewalks are lined with them. They are about seven feet high. The people don't like them. They prefer to live underground. In these brick shelters you can hear the bombs screaming, you hear them exploding, you hear the constant roar of the guns. Since the nightly blitz began we have learned one thing---if you don't hear them they don't exist. In even a shallow underground shelter which probably wouldn't help at. all if a bomb fell close, the sound is deadened and you feel a sense of security.
The brick shelters are deserted these nights. The Government in the beginning disapproved strongly of using the subways as shelters. The people and the police calmly ignored the Government's attitude. Herbert Morrison was made Minister of Home Security. Morrison grows in stature each day, He gets things done. There was a new subway line under construction. On his first day in office Morrison opened it to the public.
I came out of the stagnant atmosphere of the subway for a breath of fresh air. The streets of course were deserted. It is virtually impossible to get a cab at night in London and subways stop at ten o'clock. If you go out at night you walk. I walked a few blocks. It was very dark. The guns were firing at a terrific rate. Apparently most of the roofs in this section were slate roofs because when the spent shrapnel fell on them there was a sharp crack as though someone were firing a rifle. There was too much stuff going up and then coming down so I ducked into a pub.
"The shelter's down that way," a barman said. "Everyone's down there."
The basement had been converted into a shelter. At one end perhaps twenty people slept soundly. I went to the other end where a bar had been improvised. Three men were playing darts.
"Good shelter this," I said. "At least you can't hear the blasted Jerry," one of the men said cheerily. "My old woman and the kids have been asleep down the other end for two hours. We sleep here every night."
We had a glass of beer and I teamed with one of the men against the other two and we won. They had to pay for the beer.
"Getting like moles we are," one of them laughed. "Living underground like bloody moles. But it ain't bad."
I went out in the night again. It was much quieter. London is a ghost town at night. You never meet anyone on the street. Now and then the fire engines or ambulances would roar by. You never see them because they carry only the smallest sidelights. The street intersections bother you at night. You never know when you've reached the curb. Then you constantly bump into lamp posts or mail boxes. Walking around London at night hardly comes under the head of good clean fun.
I reached the more familiar region of Fleet Street. I went into the Daily Express building. The last edition had been put to bed and sixty feet below the ground the huge presses were rolling. Reporters, desk men, rewrite men, sat about, some dozing, some playing cards. They'd stay here until daylight or until the "all clear" sounded. Like everyone else they too lived many hours each day underground.
Upstairs Christiansen, wearing a tin hat, sat at his desk looking over the last edition which had just come from the presses. He pointed at the headline ---"London has quiet night."
"They only set two fires all night,"' he explained when I asked what had been quiet about the night. Just then a big bomb fell not too far away. The windows rattled but didn't break.
"That's a fine headline," I told him. "Oh, sure, a great headline. A quiet night, hey?"
He just looked hurt. I walked on down Fleet Street and into the Strand. I stopped at the Savoy Hotel to see how people slept there at night. The Savoy has an elaborate shelter. There is a doctor on duty twenty-four hours a day. Several members of the hotel staff took nursing courses and they stand by. They have built a miniature hospital complete even to a small operating table. It was quiet here. People who live in the West End hotels have it a bit easier than those who sleep in the subway shelters. The cots are comfortable; there is a canteen open all night and there is always a drink within reach. The East End has to get through an air raid on pale ale. The West End can afford whiskey.
You meet the strangest people in the shelters. I walked to Claridge's. I walked through their shelter---huge, roomy, well-heated. I met a reporter whom I knew and we chatted for a while.
"Not so loud," he whispered. "You'll wake the Queen." He jerked his thumb towards the corner.
"What Queen?" I asked. "Queen Wilhelmina," he said. "She sleeps over there. And Prince Bernhardt has the cot next to mine."
I walked to another expensive West End hotel. This too had a magnificent underground shelter and more than two hundred people were sleeping there. Here was the lovely Lady Diana Cooper and there, shedding his ministerial cares, was Duff Cooper himself. Some of England's wealthiest and most influential people slept here. Beyond the actual shelter was what had been in peace-time the women's Turkish bath. Now alas, it was tenanted only by males, the most prominent of whom was Lord Halifax. But they were all comfortable and the air conditioning was good and there was tea and whiskey and sandwiches should anyone awake. There were nurses to take care of and quiet the children. It was very pleasant.
From there to the Piccadilly Circus subway station was only a step. Piccadilly Circus is the Times Square of London; it is the largest subway station in the city. A policeman on duty said there were nearly three thousand people asleep down below. I walked down; there was no air conditioning here; no nurses; no hot canteen. The platform and the stairs were jammed with what in the dim light looked to be shapeless untidy bundles.
I walked home. It had been a long night but I had seen something the world hadn't seen for thousands of years. I had seen a city asleep in caves under the ground---modern caves to be sure, but caves none the less. It hadn't been a pleasant night.
I heated a can of chile con carne. I ate that and drank a bottle of beer and made believe that I was in Carrizozo, New Mexico.
BILL ADAMS is a printer who makes about twenty-eight dollars a week. Bill lives in a small house in a suburb of London. On Sunday night Bill has the same supper that several million other Englishmen have. He has cold beef, tomatoes, boiled potatoes and handpicked onions. Just as he was about to sit down to dinner last Sunday the telephone rang. A voice said, "This is the office of the Minister of Labour. Hold on."
Then in a moment there came a voice that Bill Adams knew well. It was a voice with a strong Westcountry accent, a voice belonging to the second most powerful man in England.
The voice said apologetically, "Bill, this is Ernie. Could I come around for a bit of supper?"
"Sure, Ernie, come along," Bill Adams said heartily. And then he went to the kitchen to tell the Missus to slice another tomato. Ernie likes tomatoes.
Within a few minutes his Majesty's Minister of Labour entered the house. He sat down wearily, for though it was Sunday he had put in fourteen hours of work that day.
Bill Adams said, "You look tired, Ernie. Tell me just one thing. Are you on top of the job, have you got it in hand?"
Ernie Bevin nodded thoughtfully. "I think so, Bill. I really think so. There is only one thing that bothers me, Bill, I seldom get a chance to see the boys. They keep me working pretty hard, Bill."
Bill Adams told the story in his local pub a couple of days later and I heard it there. He and Ernie Bevin are old friends. Bill said that Ernie hadn't changed a bit since he had become a Minister of the Crown. Good people don't change, Bill Adams said. People like Ernie Bevin and his pal Dan Williams and Herbert Morrison. No, good people don't change. And, mark you, Ernie Bevin is a good man, Bill Adams added to his friends in the local pub.
Today England is saying that Ernest Bevin is a good man. I think it is very likely that tomorrow England may say that Ernest Bevin is a great man. Not all of England likes Bevin. The muddlers don't like him because he cuts right through the lovely red tape that they and their ancestors have taken so many years to wind about the machinery of governmental operation. The old-school-tie boys don't like Ernie Bevin because his rugged, devastating honesty and his admitted keen intelligence mock everything that they and their class deem sacred. Bevin stopped going to school when he was eleven, but today he is the smartest practical economist in England. The Communists, of course, don't like him because he kicked them out of his trade union years ago. But the man in the street loves Ernie Bevin.
The man in the street likes Bevin because he thinks that Bevin is going to make this a people's war, a war fought by the people and for the benefit of the people, not a war fought by one class for the benefit of one class.
The outsider, as he calls himself, is no respecter of school ties or tradition. The man in the street listens with intense excitement to the magnificent speeches of Winston Churchill and the man in the street wants to believe in the Prime Minister. But, asks the man in the street, is Churchill going to realize that this war belongs to the Ernie Bevins of England, not to the old gang to whom Churchill so far has been true?
Why, asks the man in the street, did 71-year-old Neville Chamberlain hold a position in the Government until a month before his death? The man made every conceivable blunder possible for a diplomat to make. Instead of giving his country guns he gave England widows. Lord Halifax, the dignified and dreary Foreign Secretary, is still in the Cabinet. Never once did he raise his voice to dissuade his former chief from perpetrating the gigantic mistakes of the past. Sir Kingsley Wood, the little man who wasn't there, is still governing the Exchequer. Sir Kingsley, who during the peaceful days of autumn, 1939, made soporific speeches lulling the nation into sleepy quiescence and into the belief that airplane production was in every way satisfactory, is still a powerful minister. And dismal Sir Samuel Hoare, who is called Soapy Sam in Fleet Street, is the inept advocate of England's cause in Spain.
There is so much that is progressive and magnificent about Mr. Churchill's Cabinet that the man in the street hates to see it held back by the legacies of failure whom Churchill still tolerates. The man in the street is proud of dynamic Herbert Morrison, Minister of Supply, and of Lord Beaverbrook, who is making up for past sins so vigorously. It was he who contributed to the inertia and complacency of the nation by crying loudly, "There will be no war." But when it came he rolled up his sleeves, and now his great personal courage, his tenacity and his mental capacities are devoted heartily to the nation's welfare. The man in the street admires the idealism and enthusiasm of Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for War. And then there is Bevin. Bevin, of them all, speaks with the voice of the man in the street. Bevin is their advocate. He too wants to make this a people's war.
Ernest Bevin was born in the Somersetshire village of Winsford fifty-nine years ago. He quit school at the age of eleven to work on a farm. His first salary was sixpence (ten cents) a week. Work on the farm gave him a magnificent physique but little else. He was still in his teens when he went to Bristol to drive a streetcar. Then he switched to driving a truck. At twenty his salary was ten shillings a week (two dollars) plus commissions, an average of three dollars more. His joy was to sell mineral water and soft drinks to the Bristol pubs. The pub in England is the poor man's club to a far greater extent than it is in America. The man in the street goes to his pub every night for a glass or two of beer and a game of darts,, and he goes to air his political views and to hear the views of his neighbor. Pub people liked young Ernie Bevin and they liked the vigorous way he expressed himself on political questions. There was a vacancy on the city council and Dan Williams and other pals persuaded him to stand for the office. His opponent was a huge longshoreman. One night Bevin was driving his truck, delivering his cases of mineral water to a water-front pub. He heard his opponent making a speech on a dock and he drove his horse-drawn wagon closer.
"Who is Bevin?" the longshoreman sneered. "An outsider from the country. He is no good, he is a. . ."
Bevin listened. He had never before heard invective directed against himself. A slow rage filled his big frame. He got down from the wagon. He forced his way through the crowd. Without a word he reached for the big longshoreman. Then he hit him. When the man got up Bevin knocked him down again. Then Bevin picked him up and threw him into the river. Bevin looked around to see if any wished to take up the man's cause. There was no one who did. Luckily there was a scow tied to the dock and the men on it managed to drag the miserable longshoreman out of the water before he drowned. Luckily, because had he drowned Bevin would not now be Minister of Labour.
That method of direct approach, of solving problems the direct way, has always characterized Bevin, He hates red tape and silly regulations, he hates insincerity and pompousness. As a matter of fact he hates politics.
His fight with the longshoreman had a rather unhappy sequence. Running on the Labour Party ticket, which in 1908 was considered a radical, crackpot movement, he was beaten. He was beaten, but his fine showing thoroughly scared the gang in power. They decided to get rid of him. They passed the word around to the Bristol pubs that Ernest Bevin should be blacklisted. For weeks he could not sell one bottle of mineral water. He went to his boss and tried to quit his job.
"I'm not making any money for you," he said "You've been paying me ten bob a week for nothing."
"I'll be the judge of that," his boss growled. "Don't let them lick you, Ernie. Keep at it."
Bevin has always had the knack of attracting people to him. It wasn't long before he became interested in labor unions, always called trade unions in England. He became a minor official in the dockers' union and soon attracted the attention of Ben Tillett, who was to English labor what Sam Gompers was to American labor. It wasn't long before he became Tillett's right-hand man, his "trouble shooter."
But it wasn't until 1920 that the name of Bevin meant anything. Then he made a speech. The transport workers' union was miserably paid and worked miserable hours. A court of inquiry to discuss their pleas was held and Bevin made an eleven-hour speech on the men's claims for more pay and better working conditions. The case he put was masterly and unanswerable. The men won every point and the name of Bevin went all around England. The man in the street finally had a real advocate. Since then Bevin has devoted his life to the cause of labor. Eventually he became the leader of the transport and general workers' union, the largest union in the world.
A dozen times during the past decades he crossed swords with Winston Churchill. He opposed some of Churchill's policies when the latter was in the War Office. Again when Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer Bevin fought against him. Honors were about even and both men came out of these skirmishes with mutual respect and admiration. But it was still a shock to the old gang when Churchill made Bevin Minister of Labour in his cabinet. Bevin didn't know the rules, they wailed. He was he was just an outsider.
Bevin is big, burly, and he has the thick neck of a bull. And yet when you sit in his office at Montagu House, the ex-ducal mansion that is now the Ministry of Labour, his voice is curiously soft and occasionally his eyes twinkle behind his heavy horn-rimmed glasses. He is too busy to grant interviews. He'll let you sit in his office and he'll chat with you and discuss the problems that face him, but it is all "off the record." He thinks that this is no time for speeches or interviews. There is too much work to be done.
Bevin has a terrific capacity for work. He seldom leaves the Ministry before midnight. Recently his wife wailed disconsolately, "If Ernie sleeps until after 5.30 in the morning he thinks he has wasted half his day."
A few months ago Bevin was given powers never before held by any man in any democratic government. He was given complete power over the jobs held by civilian workers in England. It is up to him and him alone to decide what industries are essential and what ones are superfluous. Actually Bevin could go to Waterloo station tonight, enter a train and say to the first man he met: "What is your job, what are you doing?"
The man might say, "I am a tea taster," or "I am an interior decorator."
Bevin could say, "That isn't helping to win the war. Report tomorrow at Hyde Park with a pick and shovel. We need you to dig trenches."
He could go into a fashionable West End bar, find out what every man there did for a living and then immediately send them to more useful jobs. He can decide on working hours for every man in England and it is he who settles their wages. There is no appeal. And yet to date there has not been one complaint. Bevin has shifted thousands of workers from less useful jobs into munition factories and other essential industries. He has told employers that there can be no cutting of wages. And employers have such confidence in his fairness that not one has written a letter to The Times.
I might add that I learn about England by spending my time at a Royal Air Force mess, spending my time on the beach at Dover with the army men, spending my time with local defense volunteers in places like Sevenoaks in Kent or a dozen places like it, spending my time in the pubs of rural England. In these places you hear England talking. Twice a week I go to the House of Commons but that is like going to the United States Senate. For the most part you hear politicians talk in these sacrosanct halls. But you don't hear England talk. I hear England talk every day.
I know the men Bevin has worked with all his life. I can't quote Bevin because he has made an ironclad rule that he won't be quoted. But I spend evenings with his best friends. I play darts with them and have my pint of beer with them. I hear them talk about Bevin.
"There will be no defeatism in our Cabinet while Ernie is there," one of them chuckles. "You know Ernie is the only man in England who can call a general strike. I know if Ernie said the word nine millions of us would quit working tomorrow. That's a weapon Ernie has over the lads in the Cabinet. There will be no Pétain in our Cabinet. If one crops up Ernie will say, 'Well, gents, the general strike starts tomorrow. How do you like that?' Well, they wouldn't like that, so there won't be any of that French stuff in our Cabinet."
That's what Ernie Bevin's friends say, about 9,000,000 of them. They know that Ernie will never use this terrific power he has unless he feels that it is for England's benefit. He will probably never use it, but the weak sisters in the Cabinet are afraid of this power. They respect Ernie Bevin even when they don't like him. Only a half-wit would not respect Ernie Bevin. And it is comforting to know if you are interested in the English cause, as I am for one, that he is in Churchill's Cabinet. He is a very tough man, a very tough man indeed and very patriotic too. He happens to love this country called England.
You can live in the fashionable West End of London and never live in England. To know England you must go into the local pubs of London and Liverpool and Manchester. You must drop into the country pubs of Kent and Surrey and play darts and have your pint of bitter and keep your ears, open. There you hear the voice of England. There you hear praise of Churchill, the leader, but always there is the undercurrent of wholehearted admiration for Bevin.
Today Bevin is Minister of Labour. Tomorrow I am sure that he will be Vice-Premier and thus be in name what he is in fact, the second most important man in England. And the day after tomorrow? The voice of England whispers, "How can they keep Ernie down? Mark ye well, he'll be our next Prime Minister."
FIRST THERE'S EDDY DUCHIN. I mean for me. I'd rather hear Eddy Duchin play the piano than hear anyone else in the world play the piano. But Tim Clayton comes second. I live in a very large apartment house and Tim Clayton and his band play in the restaurant, which is below the street level. I usually have dinner there and listen to Tim Clayton and his band.
Tim looks like Paul Whiteman, which is no distinction, but Tim is just as grand a guy as Paul is, and that is a very definite distinction.
Tim has a relief band in the restaurant which gives him a chance to sit with me now and then and have a drink. Last night I had dinner alone and when I was through Tim sat down and had a drink and then he thought he'd go outside and have a look at things. He came back ten minutes later looking anxious.
"It's bad tonight." He shook his head. "Worst night we've had. Some of them are falling very near. And those heavy anti-aircraft guns are making a hell of a noise."
He looked around the crowded room. It was midnight. Half the men present were in uniform: officers on leave. Everyone was fairly gay; as gay as we can get in London these days.
"These chaps on leave, now," Tim said slowly. "Pity they can't have their few hours in peace. Down here you don't hear the bombs unless they're very close and you don't hear the guns. But they're getting closer. I tell you, suppose I play loud as hell? Even if they fall close they can't hear them then. I'll play 'Stormy Weather,"' Tim added.
"Not loud enough, Tim," I told him. "Play 'Begin the Beguine.' Give it lots of brass."
Tim slid onto the piano seat and his lads deftly replaced the members of the relief band. The music never stopped. Then Tim started "Begin the Beguine." Cole Porter, who wrote it, would have screamed with horror. Tim played it as though it were a Sousa march. Maybe it wasn't good but it was loud.
The dance floor was crowded now and men were laughing and girls were smiling with their eyes., Faintly, because we were below the street surface and because of the music, I heard the horrible "crump" sound of bombs falling. They weren't far away. But here in the night club none had a thought for bombs.
Tim played a popular song and the whole band sang it---but loud. Tim played for an hour and his relief band appeared.
It was just one o'clock. I walked through the air raid shelter to the elevator. It used to be the cellar, and the walls are still whitewashed. There were eighty people there asleep on mattresses. A heavy door cut off the restaurant from the shelter. Faintly you could hear the music. You could hear the antiaircraft fire much more clearly. It was almost continuous. The light was dim and I picked my way carefully over sleeping forms. One very small, very white-haired and very old lady was sitting up knitting. When I saw what she was knitting, I gave her a startled look. She smiled and shook her head, "My daughter is going to have a baby soon," she said.
"If it is a girl I hope she won't call it Siren," I told her.
Hundreds of girls are going to curse the air raids we are having now. Every time a girl is born during an air raid proud parents name her Siren. I walked through the shelter to the far end. There is a service elevator there which goes through to the roof. It was quite dark and then I heard a throaty growl. I looked around and discovered it came from a brown cocker spaniel.
I said, "Don't growl at me or I'll slug you." Then the dog whined a little. I asked him if he wanted to go out. He yelped happily. The woman who owned him was asleep and she had the leash tied around her wrist. I reached down and untied the leash from her wrist. He kept making small, whimpering noises. I said, "Shut up, you dope. If she wakes up she'll think I am stealing you."
He shut up all right. The dog and I got into the elevator and went to the roof. During air raids you aren't supposed to be on the streets or on a roof. But 1 had a key made for the door leading to my roof and I go there when it's a good air raid because it is, quite a show. And then I honestly think you're as safe on a roof as anywhere. If a bomb scores a direct hit and you're in a vault in the Bank of England a hundred feet below the ground you are going to be killed. No air raid shelter is proof against a direct hit by a big bomb. Bomb fragments kill people and sometimes anti-aircraft bullets dropping kill people. That is what air-raid shelters are for.
My apartment house is ten stories high. If a bomb fell in the street, bomb fragments could not reach the roof. I like my roof during an air raid; I get nervous cooped up in a shelter with a hundred other people. People get afraid in an air raid. We all get afraid. Only a half-wit wouldn't be afraid. When you are alone on a roof you aren't quite so afraid. When you are with a hundred other people who are afraid, their fear somehow emanates from them and the cumulative fear of them all is somehow communicated to you.
Up on the roof I never feel very much afraid because I make believe it's all a show put on for my benefit by Billy Rose. I make believe the searchlights are something that Grover Whalen thought up to make London more attractive at night. I make believe that the obscene tearing roar of the bombs is a Fourth of July celebration and my nieces and nephews are firing off Roman candles and firecrackers. That's how you keep sane in wartime. If you accepted the reality of it you'd go mad.
The dog and I got to the roof. I said, "What's your name, pal?" He cocked his head at me and smiled. If you have ever owned a brown cocker you know they can smile. I tried a dozen names but he didn't respond; he just sat there smiling. Then I said, "Come here, Sweetheart." And he bounded into my arms and that was pretty nice.
We were alone on the roof. It is a very big roof about a hundred yards square. Sweetheart wanted to play. He charged a chimney, growled at it, worried it and then came back to me. He wasn't a bit afraid. That was rather amazing.
I was staying at a farm in Kent last week end. Bombs fell near us. There were sixty cows in the meadow. When they heard the noise of the bombs exploding they stampeded. They ran as fast as they could until they hit a fence and then they turned and ran back. A bull doesn't get scared. A bull gets mad. When he hears the bombs he lowers his head and charges until he hits something. At this farm they keep the bull in a stall all day. He cost a thousand dollars and it would be silly to let him kill himself charging into a tree. But cows get scared.
When the cows stampeded, my host swore softly under his breath. "No milk tonight," he said. "When they get scared their milk is no good. It turns acid." Horses get scared, too. But dogs don't get very scared. My little brown cocker wasn't scared. Maybe he was but he wasn't showing it. So we watched the show and it was a good show-wired for sound.
We were high. There were searchlights on all four sides of us. I counted 132 and then gave it up. Their white fingers cut through the night, disturbing the night which was meant for sleep.
A parachute flare filled the night. It lit perhaps a thousand feet from the ground. I stood there and found that I was saying, "Go out. Go out."
It didn't go out. It lit up half the city. It drifted down slowly, seemingly getting brighter. Now I could see Parliament; I could see St. Paul's Cathedral; I could see the outlines of the Ministry of Information Building. I was sweating a little and even Sweetheart was quite expectant. Above was the incessant "whoom-whoom" of the German planes. They desynchronize their motors so that it seems as though they breathe. They go "whoom" and then they hesitate and then they go "whoom" again. If their two motors are perfectly synchronized, the searchlights and the guns which work "by ear" could find their exact location.
Sweetheart and I waited. Then it came. The first one was so loud that the noise of it made me sway a, little. The second was only slightly less loud. The flare died out and now a small red glow appeared. Those bombs had found a target. The glow grew sullenly, reluctantly, but it kept growing and now it wasn't a glow any more. It was a fire.
The night was full of noise. They were dropping more bombs. Two other fires appeared. They were big fires. Sweetheart and I stood on the roof watching the fires---watching a part of a civilization being destroyed. I looked at my watch. It was 2:30. Then I realized I could tell the time because the fires had lighted the sky. I looked over the city. Six million people were down there---practically none of them asleep. I imagined white-faced women in air-raid shelters; I imagined tight-lipped men beside them clenching their fists, swearing softly and impotently. There is no defense against death from the night.
I stayed an hour. There were three big fires. Sweetheart was asleep. A spent machine-gun bullet or a bit of shrapnel hit the roof. Then another hit. I thought it was time to retire. Sweetheart didn't want to leave.
"Death is for suckers," I told Sweetheart. "Let's get out of here."
I took him down below and told the elevator man to tie him up to his owner. I went to my apartment. I have two beds there and Arthur Christiansen was asleep in one and Bill Stoneman was asleep in the other. That was all right. Neither of them had slept for two days. But Ed Beattie and Bob Low were helping themselves to drinks.
"I might as well live in the Pennsylvania Station," I said bitterly.
"You've run out of ice,"Beattie said complacently.
"There's no soda," Low said. "What kind of hospitality is that?"
We sat down and argued about this and that. We talked about the chances of getting hit by a bomb and we all agreed that if it had your name on it you can't duck it and if it hasn't your name on it you're all right. We all feel that way.
Then it came. The noise of it filled the room and hung there. We looked at one another in surprise. Our building had actually been hit. It seemed incredible. I opened the door. The corridor was hazy with smoke. Everything was very quiet now. We decided to go into the street to watch. "Let's not wake them," I suggested. "We'll tell them about it in the morning."
They thought that was a swell idea. We laughed at the thought of England's most brilliant editor and one of America's greatest reporters sleeping through a bombing. We went into the street. Lansdowne House where I live is very big. The bomb had fallen on the roof of an extension. The place was burning merrily. The bomb had fallen perhaps four minutes ago but already the auxiliary fire fighters were on hand. Except for the blaze there was no other light and there was no confusion.
"Evacuate the building," their chief said curtly and half a dozen guard men ran inside. That made us mad. It would spoil our joke on Chris and Bill. Then Beattie said, "You know I never thought of it but it might have been dangerous, leaving them there."
I looked at him in amazement. Then I realized what fools we had been. We get so in the habit of thinking objectively of being mere spectators that we can't accept the fact that in a siege like we are undergoing now we, too, might get hurt. We were a little ashamed of ourselves. Chris and Stoneman came out with bathrobes over their pajamas.
"We didn't want to disturb you fellows," I told them lamely. "We knew you needed your sleep."
They just glared. I said that Chris was the most brilliant editor in England. He proved it now. When he was awakened by the home-guard men pounding on his door the room was full of smoke. But Chris is a practical man. Automatically he put on my bathrobe, grabbed a bottle of my whiskey, woke up Stoneman and hurried to the street. He held the bottle out to us and we felt ashamed of ourselves. We hadn't thought of the whiskey. Maybe that's why we are just reporters and Chris is an editor.
The regular fire department had arrived. They worked quietly and quickly. Within thirty seconds four streams of water were playing on the fire. It was four o'clock now. Ladders were against the building and firemen were carrying hose. People from the apartment house came out in pajamas and bathrobes, some half-dressed, some carrying sleeping children, some carrying dogs. They stood there on the sidewalks watching the firemen work. Home-guards were all over, keeping people back so that they couldn't interfere with the workers. Home-guard men went from group to group.
"There is a hotel half a block from here," they said. "There is a shelter there, and mattresses for everybody. Please go there."
The strangely clad army obeyed. The blaze was well under control. The bomb had fallen half an hour ago. In that time a large apartment house had been evacuated, shelters had been found for everyone and what might have been a dangerous fire was practically extinguished. England's civilian army had won another victory.
It was chilly now, and we were thankful to Chris. for his thoughtfulness. Stoneman and Beattie went to their offices. This was too good a story not to file right away. There are no cabs in London at night during an air raid. They had to walk.
The dawn came to London now. She was a welcome visitor. It had been a long night. Some fools say that London is an ugly city. They have never seen London at dawn. It was a bright, cheery dawn that did everything but sing. German bombers don't bother us at dawn. London had had a beating during the night but in the dawn we saw no scars.
The firemen rolled up their hose. The home-guard men said cheerfully to one another, "How about a spot of tea?"
The fire was out. Two apartments had been smashed. A dozen windows had been broken. No one had been hurt. We went back into the house. Everything was normal. The telephone girl was still there. The elevator was working. Everyone was smiling and content.
"If that's the best old Jerry can do, we got nothing to worry about," the elevator man said.
The wail of the sirens cut through the dawn. This was the official "all clear" signal. In a few hours we'd hear the German radio. We'd hear, "London was bombed last night by the German air force. More than twenty terrific fires were caused by bombs exploding. Several important military objectives were destroyed. There were several thousand casualties and there was a terrific panic among the people. Half of London is in ruins."
My apartment is near the roof. I pulled away the black curtains we use to keep any light from showing. I can see half the city from my window. Not a single spiral of smoke was rising anywhere. Chris phoned the Express to find out what damage had been done. We learned that there had been five hundred bombers over the city. The damage? They had scored a direct hit on a boys' school, and a great many children who slept there at night had been killed. They had hit a hospital and thirty women had been killed. They had destroyed a ware-house containing silk and another filled with tea. In all they had killed about five hundred civilians. But civilian lives don't count today. A civilization is at stake.
Now looking over the city at dawn, you could almost see London shake the debris out of her hair. You could see the gallant city looking not down at its scarred streets and its mangled dead but upward toward the sun. It was a new day. London would face it calmly.
The telephone rang. It was Clayton.
"The boys and I are having a little poker game downstairs," said Tim cheerfully. "How about joining us?"
"This is a fine time to play poker," I told him. "Any time is a time to play poker," Tim said. "You have talked me into it, sonny boy," I said. He was right, of course. We had all been gambling with our lives all night. It might be fun to gamble with cards.