Free The Last Enemy Richard Hillary by Richard Hillary

left knee.
    ‘Get off my cap, blast you!’ I shouted, thus destroying the silence and bringing down on my head a storm of invective, from which I gathered that none of us was seriously hurt. It turned out that we hadn’t even a scratch. ‘It looks,’ said Howes, ‘as though Fate doesn’t want us to go out this way. Maybe we have a more exciting death in store for us.’ Looking back, unpleasantly prophetic words.
    A day or so later all leave was cancelled, no one was allowed further than half an hour’s call from the aerodrome, and the invasion scare was on. An order came that all officers were to carry side arms, and at the station armoury I was issued with an antiquated short-nosed Forty-five and six soft-lead bullets. I appealed to the armament sergeant.
    ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘but that’s the regulation. Just content yourself with six Jerries, sir.’
    That in itself would not have been so bad if only the ammunition fitted, which I soon found it did not. With only six bullets there was little temptation to waste any of them practising, but one day by low cunning I managed to get myself another twelve and loosed off. The first round fired but the second jammed. I had .455 bullets for a .45 revolver.
    The Government’s appeal to the people to stay put and not to evacuate, printed on the front page of every newspaper, roused England to the imminence of disaster. It could actually happen. England’s green and pleasant land might at any moment wake to the noise, of thundering tanks, to the sight of an army dropping from the skies, and to the realization that it was too late.
    In Government departments, city offices, and warehouses, in farms, schools, and universities, the civilian population of England woke up. It was their war. From seventeen to seventy they came forward for the Home Guard. If they had no arms—and usually they hadn’t—they drilled with brooms. The spirit was there, but the arms and the organization were not.
    At Old Sarum we had completed our six weeks and were ready for drafting to our Squadrons. Then the inevitable happened, though at that time it seemed more like a miracle. It started as a rumour, but when the whole Course was called together and the chief instructor rose to his feet, rumour became reality.
    Owing to the sudden collapse of France and our own consequent vulnerability it had been decided that a number of us were to go to Fighter Squadrons. The Air Ministry had ordered fifteen to be transferred. We each looked at our neighbour as though he were suddenly an enemy. There were twenty of us, and the five who were to continue in Army Cooperation were to be drawn from a hat. It was my worst moment of the war, and I speak for all the others.
    Bill Aitken and Peter Pease were both drawn, together with three others. The rest of us almost groaned with relief. But it seemed hard on Peter, though he made no complaint. It would mean his separation from Colin and the loss of a potentially great fighter pilot.
    For Bill it did not matter: he was older, that type of flying appealed to him, and he was admirably suited for it. I think he was not too disappointed. The fighter pilots were to go to an Operational Training Unit in Gloucestershire close to the Welsh border, for a fortnight. Then our training would be complete and we would be drafted to Fighter Squadrons.
    Of us all, I think Noel was the most elated. His face wore a permanent fixed grin which nothing could wipe off.
    ‘Spitfires at last,’ he kept repeating.
    ‘Spitfires or Hurricanes,’ I said meanly.
    He continued to grin.
    ‘Don’t give a damn. They’re both good enough for me.’
    We were to leave at once. At the last moment one other man was required and Peter Pease was selected; so it was in a contented frame of mind that we set off.
    To our delight our instructors were No. 1 Squadron, back from France and being given a rest. There is little need for me to say much about them, for through Noel Monk’s account in