A Swift Encounter

By Christopher Mathews                         
                  

Isaack is such a clumsy, hand-me-down sort of a name, left over from a great uncle who died long ago.  But, almost as soon as he could remember he chose the name Jack. Jack Swift the explorer, Jack Swift the mountaineer, or best of all Jack Swift the pilot. He was fascinated with flying and would sit for hours watching the starlings like smoke above the treetops rhythmically forming and breaking their hypnotic murmuration.

Swallows, martins and swifts gathered waiting for just the right moment to leave home. His mother had shown him the swifts which flew around the garden and through the thin fringe of trees, skimming the lake behind his house.

“Just like you, Jack Swift, my little bird.” He longed to fly like that and often could be seen running with arms outstretched lost in a world of his own.

His father taught engineering in the town where Jack was born, but he hardly remembered the Fenlands of Cambridge now. Mr Swift had been seconded to a university in Germany in 1928 when Jack was just seven.

Jack felt it rather than understood it, that gloomy approach like a thunderstorm on the distant horizon which creeps into every conversation. But what is politics to a carefree 7-year-old? He found a new language difficult at first but soon made friends as he settled into a new life in a small university town in Germany. Most important to him was the fact that their house backed onto Woodlands and down to rivers and eventually a beautiful lake. Unlike the open Fenlands, this was a world of hills and forests, heavy with the scent of pine resin and leaf mold. Jack had not lost his love of flight. By night he could hear the soft hooting of owls, and by day the woods were alive with bird song.  His father gave him a pair of binoculars through which he could see the nesting birds. And here he learned for the first time that, in the bird world, like the human, there are those who oppress and feed on the weak. Among his school friends, only Hans shared his passion for birds. Jack’s surname was Swift, and Han’s surname was Martin. On ropes they would fly through the treetops which overhung the river, letting go and landing with a great splash in the water. But, for one brief moment, they knew the joy of being a bird in flight.

As the adult world outside became darker, so the two boys’ friendship grew. Hans became the brother Jack never had, and the wood became a safe place to escape into. They made treetop Hides, their own secret language of bird calls and drawings in chalk on a tree or a wall where they had each been. The thin pointed winged outline of a swift for Jack, and the fantail of a martin for Hans. Soon the town was covered with these strange drawings, but Jack and Hans understood their meaning.

Birds can tell when a storm is approaching. So too Jack knew that there was trouble, he felt it at school. Bullies seemed to grow more confident strutting around picking on the weak. One day Hans told him that his father had made him join the black shirted Boy Scouts and could no longer be his friend.

“It will make a man of you,” Herr Martin told his son,

 For some reason, Jack was never asked to join.

The storm eventually broke in the early hours of the morning. His mother scooped him up out of bed. Her gentle words and smile could not conceal the fear in her eyes. His father could not speak. Taking no possessions, they crept quietly out through the back door, on through the familiar garden, and into the dark and silent wood. They were greeted by men carrying dark lanterns, giving brisk direct instructions. To Jack, German is such a harsh and threatening sounding language, even if spoken kindly. They were taken deeper into the forest than Jack had ever been, occasionally they were met by other families who wore the same fearful expression. Some carrying small crying children others with worried elderly grandparents. Eventually, they arrived through the wood into what looked like a disused railway goods yard. Jack could hear the distant screeching of train wheels and the click-clack of rusty wagons. Small knots of people gathered under the pale gloomy gaslights waiting for instructions. Jack and his family were bundled into an old cattle wagon, it had an abandoned smell of neglect. A knot of a dozen pail frightened faces stared at him through the gloom. He sat on a straw bale held between the tight grip of his mother and father. Candlelight made ghastly shadows danced grotesquely on the wagon walls behind them. The last thing he saw was his forest through a crack in the rough wooden walls.  Rocked by the gentle motion of the wagon, fretful sleep overtook him.

Hours later he was surrounded by the faces of his fellow passengers bathed with a red light of the morning sun. But gone was his forest. He was now rumbling through snow covered mountain passes, this was Switzerland, and had he known it, freedom and safety.

Years later back in England a scholarship gave him an opportunity to go to university to study physics. But his real passion was to learn to fly, and his college had a flight school. It is true most of their planes were clapped-out veterans of the Great War. Just patched canvas and sticks held together with string. But the thrill of exhilaration was wonderful. The childhood memory of being a bird came flooding back to him, but now it was real. The airplane responded to his very thoughts. Flying came naturally to him as if inside Jack had always been a bird.

But finally, the dark storm clouds he first felt in Germany spread over all of Europe and threatened England. 

The King’s call came at last as everyone knew it would. In his final year immediately after exams, he signed up to join the RAF. He and several others were shipped off to Scotland to be trained. Flying over the forests and locks was so reminiscent of his time in Germany, bringing back the joy of his childhood.

“Whatever happened to Hans, did he ever think of me?”

His natural ability made him perfectly suited as a fighter pilot. After gaining his wings he was posted to the east coast of England.

Although he had the ability, he did not have the temperament. He lacked the sense of invulnerability, that doubtful gift of youth, that mix of skill and folly that drives the daredevil, the risktaker of a fighter ace. The Spitfire is the kite for these short-lived heroes.

The Hawker Hurricane was a sturdy, reliable machine that could take appalling punishment and still get you home.

His first combat mission was escorting Lancaster bombers. It was an utter disaster, within minutes of taking off they were ambushed by a group of Messerschmitt 109s, every RAF pilot’s worst fear. His wing commander was shot down almost immediately.

“Enemy aircraft encountered at…” …followed by radio silence. Jack and most of the others were too inexperienced to organise a proper counterattack. Two Lancasters and half the Hurricanes were shot down over the Channel.  But he was a fast learner and did not lose his head.

But that day, the joy of flying died in Jack Swift.

On his next mission, it was replaced by the instinct to survive. But Jack was not a killer, if he shot down the enemy, he hoped they bailed out in time.

Pilots were not encouraged to paint mascots on their planes, but of course, they did. The base commander understood that:

“Chaps need every bit of luck they can get, and if putting a lucky charm on the side of their plane helps, then so be it.” Most painted famous pin-ups or sharks’ teeth and some comic heroes. But Jack painted the symbol of his childhood, a swift.

Fighter pilots who survived, particularly those who could keep their heads in a dogfight far too soon became the senior flyers the younger pilots looked up to.

He was leading his squadron in another bomber escort mission when he was attacked by three 109s coming out of the sun, one descending from above and two below preventing him from diving.  Hurricanes are good planes but slower than the 109, a pilot’s only hope was to go into a steep dive, and an experienced 109 pilot knew it. A burst of gunfire ripped through one wing and the fuselage just behind him, as the planes engaged in the elaborate and graceful dance only shared by birds.

He managed to shoot down one and another cut away to engage a Lancaster, but the one who bore down on him out of the sun was a brilliant pilot. He was right behind him, closer than flying in tight formation. Bullets whistled past him ripping canvas and splintering wood. Whatever Jack did he could not shake him off. Finally, his engine caught fire. Losing speed and altitude, this was an encounter he could not win. If he was lucky, he could ditch in the sea off Clacton. It was a miracle he was not killed by bullets as again the 109 circled round in a blur, coming in for the final death blow. But suddenly there was silence. His engine was still. He was now gliding in a slow descent, the 109 had stopped firing, it was right behind him, and it could not miss. But still, he did not fire.  Time behaves very strangely when flying, and seconds stretched on into what felt like minutes. Old fighter pilots say that they “lived far more in those few seconds of flight than at any time in their lives since.” And still, the 109 did not fire. Jack was now over land, skimming the treetops and peaceful village rooftops of Essex.

“Don’t attempt a crash landing with the undercarriage down!” he was told in his flight training. And still, the 109 did not fire. Jack chose a field to lay his plane to rest. And still the 109 did not fire.

Seconds before he hit the ground the 109 banked tightly right in front of him, and there blazing in the morning sun, painted on the wings was the image of a martin.

© Christopher Mathews – June 2023