The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall

Author:Robert Westall [Robert Westall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-08-24T23:00:00+00:00

8

Frost lay on the branches, and froze Clogger's breath on the eyepiece of the telescope. He wiped it angrily with his glove. But it was impossible to be really unhappy on such an evening. The sky was a dimming blue from horizon to horizon. The January evenings were beginning to draw out. Clogger consulted the gold watch-and-chain that the lookouts always carried in their top pockets. Five o'clock. Fifteen minutes more in the Crow's Nest. He scanned the horizon with the telescope again. He was shivering so much that the horizon jumped around like a kangaroo.

Then he sucked in his breath. There was a dot, low over the waves. He lost it, and couldn't find it again. A stream of frightful Glaswegian words escaped his lips. When he finally spotted it again, it was nearer. He could see it had two engines.

"Captain, sir?" Chas's head emerged from a loophole.

"Plane, sir. Twin-engined, flying low."

"Scarper!" shouted Chas. "Gun out!" They whipped the silver fabric off the gun, and pushed the muzzle past Clogger as he scrambled in.

"Ey, watch it. I don't want a hole where ma dinner is!"

Chas gripped the gun and peered down the gun sight.

"Lower the fence!" Cem undid a knotted rope and the section of fence fell away, revealing the view over the bay. There was nothing in sight.

"Oh, no! Another false alarm! Clogger, you been at your uncle's whisky again?"

"There was something. Ah tell ye. It's too far off to see wi'out the telescope yet. Wait."

And soon, there it was: a British plane, a Blenheim? Chas's eyes watered with the strain of looking. It was very low for a British plane. But perhaps it was damaged?

No. The propellers had that same queer windmill look. It was gliding in, with its engines shut off. It was black. It was him. And, as before, it would pass right overhead.

He lined up the sights on it. It grew bigger and bigger. Wait, wait. Finger on the curving trigger.

"Go on!" said Cem, and nudged him.

There was a flash and a roar. Something hit Chas in the chest, much harder than Boddser Brown's fist. He fell over backward, pulling the gun with him. He lay on the ground with the thing still punching away at his chest. Wood splinters and soil rained down. He stared aghast at a gaping hole in the roof; through which he saw the German plane, crosses and all, pass as in a dream. It looked completely unharmed.

The tremendous banging of the gun ceased. Cem stared at the enormous hole in the roof.

"Cor blimey."

The stream of bullets from the machine gun missed the German fighter by miles. But it startled the pilot so much he put the plane into a near-vertical climb, and nearly stalled. While he was battling to regain control, he was spotted by a lone pompom gunner on the Bank Top, who had been seeing to his gun sight. Long lines of red stitching followed the fighter up the sky.

More pompoms opened up. One blew off the fighter's wing-tip and that seemed to drive the pilot mad.

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