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  They got five of our twelve Hurricanes in that battle. One of our pilots baled out and was saved. Four were killed. Among the dead was the great Pat Pattle, all his lucky lives used up at last. And Flight-Lieutenant Timber Woods, the second most experienced pilot in the squadron, was also among those killed. Greek observers on the ground as well as our own people on the airstrip saw the five Hurricanes going down in smoke, but they also saw something else. They saw twenty-two Messerschmitts shot down during that battle, although none of us ever knew who got what.

  So we now had seven half-serviceable Hurricanes left in Greece, and with these we were expected to give air cover to the entire British Expeditionary Force which was about to be evacuated along the coast. The whole thing was a ridiculous farce.

  I wandered over to my tent. There was a canvas washbasin outside the tent, one of those folding things that stand on three wooden legs, and David Coke was bending over it, sloshing water on his face. He was naked except for a small towel round his waist and his skin was very white.

  ‘So you made it,’ he said, not looking up.

  ‘So did you,’ I said.

  ‘It was a bloody miracle,’ he said. ‘I’m shaking all over. What happens next?’

  ‘I think we’re going to get killed,’ I said.

  ‘So do I,’ he said. ‘You can have the basin in a moment. I left a bit of water in the jug just in case you happened to come back.’

  The Last Day But One

  But the twentieth of April was not over yet.

  I was standing quite naked beside the three-legged basin outside the tent with David Coke trying to wash off some of the sweat of battle when boom bang woomph wham rat-tat-tat-tat-tat a tremendous explosion of noises slammed into us overhead with a rattle of machine-guns and a roar of engines. I jumped and David jumped and looking up we saw a long line of Messerschmitt 109s coming straight at us very fast and low with guns blazing. We threw ourselves flat on the grass and waited for the worst.

  I had never been ground-strafed before and I can promise you it is not a nice experience, especially when they catch you out in the open with your pants down. You lie there watching the bullets running through the grass and kicking up chunks of turf all around you and unless there is a deep ditch nearby there is nothing you can do to protect yourself. The 109s were coming at us in line astern, one after the other, skimming just over the tents, and as each one roared past overhead I could feel the wind of its slipstream on my naked back. I remember twisting my head sideways to watch them and I could see the pilots sitting upright in their cockpits, black helmets on and khaki-coloured oxygen masks over their noses and mouths, and one pilot was sporting a bright yellow scarf around his neck tucked neatly into his open shirt. They wore no goggles and once or twice I caught a glimpse of a pair of German eyes bright with concentration and staring directly ahead.

  ‘We’ve had it now!’ David was shouting. ‘They’ll get every one of our planes!’

  ‘To hell with the planes!’ I shouted back. ‘What about us?’

  ‘They’re after the Hurricanes,’ David shouted. ‘They’ll pick them off one by one. You watch.’

  The Germans knew that the few planes we had left in Greece had just landed after a battle and were now refuelling, which is the classic moment for a ground-strafe. But what they did not know was that our airfield defences consisted of no more than a single Bofors gun tucked away somewhere in the rocks behind our tents. Most front-line aerodromes in those days were heavily protected against low-level attacks and because of this no pilot enjoyed going on a ground-strafe. I did some of it myself later on and I didn’t like it one bit. You are flying so fast and so low that if you happen to get hit there is very little you can do to save yourself. The Germans couldn’t know we had only one wretched gun to protect the whole aerodrome so they played it safe and made just that one swift pass over our field and then beat it for home.

  They had disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived, and when they had gone the silence across our flying field was amazing. I wondered for a moment whether perhaps everyone had been killed except David and me. We stood up and surveyed the scene. Then several voices began shouting for stretchers and over by the Ops Hut I could see someone with blood on his clothes being helped towards the doctor’s tent. But the surprise of the moment was that our single Bofors gun had actually managed to hit one of the Messerschmitts. We could see him across the aerodrome about forty feet up with black smoke and orange flames pouring from his engine. He was gliding in silently for an attempted landing, and David and I stood watching him as he made a steep turn in towards the field.

  ‘That poor sod will be roasted alive if he doesn’t hurry,’ David said.

  The plane hit the ground on its belly with a fearful scrunch of tearing metal and it slid on for about thirty yards before stopping. I saw several of our people running out to help the pilot and someone had a red fire-extinguisher in his hand and then they were out of sight in the black smoke and trying to get the German out of the plane. When we saw them again they were hauling him by his arms away from the fire and then a pick-up truck drove out and they put him in the back.

  But what of our own planes? We could see them in the distance scattered around the perimeter of the airfield at their dispersal points and not one of them was burning.

  ‘They were in such a bloody hurry I think they’ve missed them altogether,’ David said.

  ‘I think so, too,’ I said.

  Then the Duty Officer was running between the tents and shouting, ‘All pilots to their aircraft! All aircraft to scramble at once! Hurry up there! Get a move on!’ He ran past David and me shouting, ‘Get your clothes on, you two! Get out there at the double and get your planes in the air!’

  It was common practice for a second wave of ground-strafers to come in and attack soon after the first, and the CO rightly wanted our planes in the air before they arrived. David and I flung on shirts and shorts and shoes and dashed towards our Hurricanes, and as I ran I was wondering whether my own plane was even capable of taking off again so soon after the last battle. Less than one hour had gone by since I had landed. When I reached the Hurricane, there were three airmen fussing around the fuselage, including our Flight-Sergeant rigger.

  ‘Have you repaired the rudder?’ I shouted at him.

  ‘We’ve put a new wire in,’ the Flight-Sergeant said. ‘It was cut clean through.’

  ‘Is she refuelled and rearmed?’

  ‘All ready for you,’ the Flight-Sergeant said.

  I gave the plane a quick once over. It was remarkable what they had managed to do in so little time. Bullet holes had been stopped up and torn metal had been flattened out and cracks had been filled and there were little patches of red canvas over all eight of the gun ports on the leading edges of the wings, showing that the guns had been serviced and rearmed. I climbed into the cockpit and the Flight-Sergeant came up on to the wing to help me strap in. ‘You want to be careful out there now,’ he said. ‘They’re swarming like gnats all over the sky.’

  ‘You’d better be careful yourself,’ I said. ‘I’d rather be in the air than down here next time they come in.’

  He gave me a friendly pat on the back and then slid the hood closed over my head.

  It was astonishing that the ground-strafers had not hit a single one of our Hurricanes, and all seven of us got safely up into the air and circled the flying field for about an hour. We were hoping now that they would come back again then we could swoop on them from above and the whole thing would have been a piece of cake. They did not return and down we went once more and landed.

  But the twentieth of April was still not over.

  I went up twice more during that afternoon, both times to tangle with the clouds of Ju 88s that were bombing the shipping over Piraeus, and by the time evening came I was a very tired young man.

  That night we were told (and by we I mean the seven remaining pilots in the squadron) that at first light the next morning we were to take o