Dawn of Hope

DAWN OF HOPE The Spitfire Mavericks Thrillers Series Book One D. R. Bailey I would like to dedicate this book to my very best lifelong friend, Angus. We met on our first day at secondary school in 1970 and have remained friends ever since. We spent our school days around each other’s houses and getting into scrapes. We’ve shared good times and bad. I well remember dragging him, long-suffering, to a nightclub after one particular break-up with my then girlfriend. To his credit, he came and kept me out of trouble. I’d say we caused a few ruckuses in our time, and we even played in bands together, a pastime he still pursues to this day. He was a bit of a ladies’ man if truth be told, so I was more than happy to see him finally get married to a lovely girl and have three great kids. As life has gone on, inevitably, we went our separate ways and have seen much less of each other as the years have gone by. In my mind, our friendship remains undiminished for all of that. One thing I recall is his great love of Spitfires, and he even managed to achieve his great ambition of flying in one. I hope that by dedicating this book to him, in some small way it validates the great value I place upon our friendship over all these years, and all the great times we spent in each other’s company. Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN A NOTE TO THE READER ALSO BY D R BAILEY CHAPTER ONE August, 1940 South-East England I was flying as part of Squadron 696 above the cloud cover at twenty thousand feet when the bandits came out of the sun. “Break, break! Red section, break,” I shouted over the radio as my section split left and right. Three ME109s buzzed down like angry wasps. I banked hard left. My Spitfire responded nicely, as it always did, and I climbed straight up, hoping to come over the top and behind the raiders. Our target of a dozen or so Heinkel bombers was now forgotten as yet another dogfight ensued. As I pulled out of the loop, I saw one of the Messerschmitts was a sitting duck. With safety flicked off, I fired and felt the Browning guns kick into life. The burst went wide and the 109 banked right to avoid me. I gave chase, with one eye on the two pilots in my section, one of whom was being pursued. “Jonty, there’s one on your tail,” I said frantically, still trying to run down my own quarry. “I know, Scottish, but it’s OK, I’ve got this,” Pilot Officer Jonty Butterworth said with his usual insouciance, as if he was merely taking a stroll in the park. A fleeting thought that one day this attitude would get him killed crossed my mind, and I spun my craft while the 109 tried to outfly me. He passed across my sights once more. I fired and missed again, swearing under my breath. “I told you, he couldn’t hit a barn door, Jonty.” It was Pilot Officer Willie Cooper, the other third of my section and a New Zealander on secondment. “Shut it, Kiwi, and watch your back,” I laughed. The 109 suddenly seemed to accelerate away and disappeared from my line of vision. “Damn!” I swore. In the meantime, Jonty was still weaving to avoid the Messerschmitt, which was taking potshots at him. Jonty was a skilful pilot and the 109 was unable to draw a bead enough to actually hit him. “Where’s the third one?” I said as I turned to try and go to Jonty’s assistance. “He’s here.” Willie screamed past in front of me with another ME109 in hot pursuit. “I told you to watch your bloody back!” I shouted, still heading for Jonty’s bandit. “Yeah, I know, but where’s the fun in that?” From the corner of my eye, I could see Willie climbing ever higher. I left him to it and zeroed in on Jonty’s 109, who seemed oblivious to my approach. He was about to cross my line of vision and I fired again, hoping he’d fly into a hail of bullets. To my immense satisfaction, he did, and smoke began to pour from his engine. “Thanks, Skipper,” said Jonty, pulling out of a steep evasive dive. Willie appeared again out of nowhere, seemingly unscathed. “Where’s your bandit, Kiwi?” I asked him as he settled in on my wing. “Lost him.” “Fine, let’s rejoin the squadron and get after the Heinkels.” Jonty arrived on my other wing, and I altered course to our original heading. “’Twas in my trusty Spitfire, victoriously I flew, as yet another bandit, was shot down from the blue.” “Shut up, Jonty,” Willie and I said together. Jonty was well known for his verses, which he made up and liked to recite when drunk in the mess or at the local pub. Naturally, we would rib him about it. “Philistines,” he laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you the full version later.” “I can hardly wait,” said Willie, somewhat acidly. “You Kiwis just don’t appreciate fine literature.” “Oh, I do, I read Lady Chatterley’s Lover from cover to cover…” “That’s hardly in the same class as…” Another voice broke into this banter. “Red Leader, where the hell have you been?” Flight Lieutenant Brent Judd’s clipped tones came over the radio. He was in charge of Blue Section and, while we were in the air, the squadron as a whole. Today flights A and B were up with two sections in each: Blue, Red, Yellow and Green making twelve Spitfires in total. Lieutenant Judd was a bit of a tartar in the air, a stickler for the rules. Rules were there to be broken as far as I