A night to remember: part 2
WE set off around the perimeter track on our bikes and already the bowsers, heavy with fuel, are approaching the aircraft to fill up their tanks with thousands of gallons of 100 octane fuel. Following them come the trains of bomb trolleys being towed by tractors. We try to find out what the fuel and bomb loads are, and from that, get some idea of what the target might be, but it's not very conclusive. We shall just have to wait until we get to briefing to find out.
Back at the mess the smell of food being cooked is a bit hard to take and I would rather go to the bar for a stiff drink but I need to keep off the booze in order to keep a clear head for tonight. Just take a deep breath and go into the dining room and try to do justice to the steak and kidney pie and mash and boiled cabbage, oh dear!
More banter and jokes around the table helps to renew the flagging appetite and the meal begins to seem quite appetising and with a full stomach I might be able to manage a little sleep this afternoon. I really should try, because it will probably be near dawn tomorrow before I have a chance to sleep again. Oh dear, I wonder what will happen between now and then? I wonder if there will be a "then"?
Back in our corrugated iron nissen hut all is surprisingly quiet, maybe everyone is trying to get some sleep. It's pleasantly warm with the sun shining on the corrugated iron roof, sometimes it can get unbearably hot, and sometimes damned cold. I can hear the birds singing outside and the low drone of Merlin engines being run up on the other side of the village. It has a comforting sound, powerful and warm and reliable as I drift off ...
The noises in the next room wake me, it's just before four o'clock and I've been asleep for an hour and a half and I'm feeling drowsy and comfortable and then I remember, that damned sinking feeling hits my stomach again. Briefing is at seven thirty, which leaves just two and a half hours before we get our pre-ops meal of egg and bacon.
It’s just a short walk down a gravel path to the Mess in the warm August afternoon sunshine and somewhere behind all the nissen huts further up on the hill a tractor is working in one of the fields and its muted engine noise joins in with the bird song and the warm air is full of the heavy smell of new mown grass. Life seems so good and you wouldn't think there was a bloody war on but for the increasing noise of activity from the airfield on the other side of the village. I wish I didn't have to fly tonight.