long since lost this enthusiasm for wireless, he hadn’t the slightest interest. He was still trying to work out some means of avoiding the posting when the telephone rang. It was Willie Hatto.
Like Dicken a veteran of the earlier war, Group Captain William Wymarck Wombwell Hatto had also had his career blighted by Diplock. With an American, Walt Foote, they had formed an anarchical trio that existed chiefly for the derision of pompous or downright bad senior officers, chiefly Diplock and his mentor, St Aubyn. Because his father, Lord Hooe, sat in the House of Lords and he had brothers in the Foreign Office and the Church, Hatto had been harder to hold down but even he had only recently managed to struggle up to group captain.
‘The balloon’s due to go up,’ he said at once. ‘The Germans have gone into Poland. Have you heard?’
‘I guessed. I’ve just received a letter telling me to report to Shawbury. As a bloody signals officer!’
Hatto gave a hoot of laughter. ‘That old wireless certificate of yours!’
‘I’ve been on the telephone to the Air Ministry and asked for a squadron. The bastards informed me that owing to my advanced age and the new techniques of fighting, such a posting’s out of the question and I have to be a good boy and attend to the job they’ve picked out for me.’
Hatto laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘The CO at Shawbury’s Cuthbert Orr and he’s all right. And, look, I’m at the Air Ministry at the moment with my own department. I’ll find you a job. We could do with someone with some sense. The place’s in a panic because the bloody politicians are delaying carrying out their promise to declare war and while we’re sitting with our thumbs in our bums the Germans are wiping the floor with the Poles. If they don’t wake up, the Luftwaffe will be first off the mark and bomb us in the first minute after the declaration and the Navy’s worried sick that the German fleet will nip out while we’re still at peace and place its ships across our trade routes.’
Almost the first person Dicken met at Shawbury was Flight-Sergeant Handiside, who as a corporal had first welcomed Dicken to the RFC in 1915. He was wearing civvies and looked stouter than Dicken remembered.
‘Hello, sir,’ he said with a grin. ‘They recalled you, too?’
Cuthbert Orr, who had been Dicken’s CO in India and China, was as burly and ebullient as ever. His moustache and eyebrows were sprinkled with grey now but he was itching to get into the fighting and he welcomed Dicken warmly. He, too, had crossed the path of what he called the Unholy Duo.
‘I see that pill, St Aubyn, and his lapdog, Diplock, have sorted themselves out a couple of cushy jobs at the Air House,’ he said at once. ‘Still, they never produced much between them in the way of guts.’
To man the station’s ground defence weapons – mostly ancient Lewis guns on tripods – were a large number of recalled soldiers who had rushed after the Munich fiasco and Chamberlain’s promise of ‘Peace in our time’ to take advantage of the Government’s offer of increased pensions, never dreaming that they’d ever be called up. They were mostly in their late fifties and sixties and moved torpidly about, some of them even using sticks, one actually using two sticks. They wore ungaitered trousers and khaki sidecaps unadorned by any badge so that they looked like elderly convicts and they had long since forgotten what they’d ever learned and were mostly already trying to wangle their discharge.
‘Just another example of the Government’s hurried thinking,’ Orr pointed out dryly. ‘Now that the weather’s turning cold, the poor old buggers are going down like flies.’
The war started officially for Britain two days later. It was a Sunday and, as he listened to the Prime Minister’s gloomy tones, Dicken found his attitude was less one of worry than of relief, a feeling that ‘Oh, well, now at least we can get on with
Like Dicken a veteran of the earlier war, Group Captain William Wymarck Wombwell Hatto had also had his career blighted by Diplock. With an American, Walt Foote, they had formed an anarchical trio that existed chiefly for the derision of pompous or downright bad senior officers, chiefly Diplock and his mentor, St Aubyn. Because his father, Lord Hooe, sat in the House of Lords and he had brothers in the Foreign Office and the Church, Hatto had been harder to hold down but even he had only recently managed to struggle up to group captain.
‘The balloon’s due to go up,’ he said at once. ‘The Germans have gone into Poland. Have you heard?’
‘I guessed. I’ve just received a letter telling me to report to Shawbury. As a bloody signals officer!’
Hatto gave a hoot of laughter. ‘That old wireless certificate of yours!’
‘I’ve been on the telephone to the Air Ministry and asked for a squadron. The bastards informed me that owing to my advanced age and the new techniques of fighting, such a posting’s out of the question and I have to be a good boy and attend to the job they’ve picked out for me.’
Hatto laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘The CO at Shawbury’s Cuthbert Orr and he’s all right. And, look, I’m at the Air Ministry at the moment with my own department. I’ll find you a job. We could do with someone with some sense. The place’s in a panic because the bloody politicians are delaying carrying out their promise to declare war and while we’re sitting with our thumbs in our bums the Germans are wiping the floor with the Poles. If they don’t wake up, the Luftwaffe will be first off the mark and bomb us in the first minute after the declaration and the Navy’s worried sick that the German fleet will nip out while we’re still at peace and place its ships across our trade routes.’
Almost the first person Dicken met at Shawbury was Flight-Sergeant Handiside, who as a corporal had first welcomed Dicken to the RFC in 1915. He was wearing civvies and looked stouter than Dicken remembered.
‘Hello, sir,’ he said with a grin. ‘They recalled you, too?’
Cuthbert Orr, who had been Dicken’s CO in India and China, was as burly and ebullient as ever. His moustache and eyebrows were sprinkled with grey now but he was itching to get into the fighting and he welcomed Dicken warmly. He, too, had crossed the path of what he called the Unholy Duo.
‘I see that pill, St Aubyn, and his lapdog, Diplock, have sorted themselves out a couple of cushy jobs at the Air House,’ he said at once. ‘Still, they never produced much between them in the way of guts.’
To man the station’s ground defence weapons – mostly ancient Lewis guns on tripods – were a large number of recalled soldiers who had rushed after the Munich fiasco and Chamberlain’s promise of ‘Peace in our time’ to take advantage of the Government’s offer of increased pensions, never dreaming that they’d ever be called up. They were mostly in their late fifties and sixties and moved torpidly about, some of them even using sticks, one actually using two sticks. They wore ungaitered trousers and khaki sidecaps unadorned by any badge so that they looked like elderly convicts and they had long since forgotten what they’d ever learned and were mostly already trying to wangle their discharge.
‘Just another example of the Government’s hurried thinking,’ Orr pointed out dryly. ‘Now that the weather’s turning cold, the poor old buggers are going down like flies.’
The war started officially for Britain two days later. It was a Sunday and, as he listened to the Prime Minister’s gloomy tones, Dicken found his attitude was less one of worry than of relief, a feeling that ‘Oh, well, now at least we can get on with
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