Jory - Lost in the flames : a World War II RAF bomber command novel

The route out took them over the Dutch coast and then suddenly they were on the run-in to the target, the master bomber overhead, guiding them in, Jacob in the nose, fussing over the bomb-sight and the selector switches, the target looming beneath him, edging itself inside him now, eating him away, the way it always did. Then Charlie breathing out adjustments to the course, his voice down the intercom like a ghost, Ralph responding in word and action, adjusting B-Beautys path, setting his fear aside until the bombing run was over, Roland hurling out bundles of foil strips to scramble the German radar, searchlights lamping up the sky, light flak tracing slow-motion streams of red and green, accelerating as it passed. Then a plane struck away off to starboard, a little lick of flame along the fuselage becoming a stream then a deluge, the flares inside the belly of the pathfinder igniting, dripping bright gobs of light, the plane dipping away, bleeding red and green fluorescence from its guts, spinning down like a Catherine wheel, and Jacob in the front of Beauty, concentrating now, the target coming near, then the aiming point in his sights and he is suddenly cold, and his flares are going down, Christmas trees of cascading light, and the bombs drop away and the plane lifts then settles, freed at last of its bombs. Ralph banks them away as a torrent of flares from other pathfinders goes down, then the intense white light of fighter flares bursting apart the night with their glare, and Beauty is fleeing headlong now, racing towards the darkness, Ralphs hands shaking violently upon the control wheel, flak bursting beneath, then Jacob coming up from the nose and taking the controls as Ralph goes back to the rest-bed, looking back as he goes, guilty and wrong but forgiven all the same, and Jacob is guiding Beauty now, loving her, taking her away from the target, that thing he never wants to see, slipping away beneath him now, another bad glow in the memory and he is leaving it behind.

But then a judder, a ripping sound, like gravel, gravel on a corrugated metal roof, explosive shells raking along the underside, the rear gunner shot to pieces, a leg ripped off at the knee, wind raging around his shattered guns, and Jim silent too in the other turret, slumped in his harness, all but dead, his heart spraying his life away, wasting it all over the ribs of the fuselage, blood hissing on the searing metal of the burning plane as a torrent of flame is sucked down its steel tunnel to where the other gunner sits already burnt black. And then another shrieking pass by the Ju-88, incendiary shells ripping through the mid-section, the wireless set bursting into flames, George bursting apart at the seams as the cannon shells tear through the fuselage, in and out of him, up again into the night through the shattered metal above his head, his blood soaking Charlies desk, turning the maps and charts blood-black in the light of the flames, the angle-poise lamp throwing its bulb now towards the roof, Charlie on the floor with his oxygen tube around his neck, struggling to throw it off, and Ralph rising from the rest-bed and crawling through slime towards the cockpit where Jacob and Roland struggle to hold Beauty level as she tosses her head and throws her reins and demands to be allowed to let herself fall, tired of the whip, tired of fighting through the fire and the night just to go out again the next day, trailing her mane of fire behind her, shuddering now, shaking again as more shells rip into her guts and another fighter homes in on the blaze and pumps more death inside her, strips of Window cascading up through the cabin in the rush of air that pours in through her wounds as she fills up with smoke.

Weve had it, lads! shouts Jacob over the intercom. Bale out! Bale out! And get out quick!

Ralph is in the cockpit now, looking up at Jacob from his place on the floor, then standing and staring at him as the foil strips swirl around and glycol from the tank in the nose sprays about and Jacob shouts at him repeatedly.

Get out! he shouts. Fucking get out!