A ‘Bug’ on the Drive

by B. Umble.

I attended one of those preparatory schools that was designed to ‘Make a Man’ out of one at the tender age of six.

The junior school took pupils for two years and prepared them for the senior school when one should automatically have become a boarder or would have done under normal circumstances, but there was a war on-the Second World War-and things were not in any way, normal.

In the early stages of the war some of my fellow pupils were evacuated to Canada and the USA, some to Bath in Somerset. The Somerset pupils returned home, however, within some six weeks of their departure because the school that had agreed to take them en masse was of the ‘wrong’ religion, it was not C of E and this fact was obviously deemed to be more important than their supposed safety. Most of us had stayed where we were.

These were exciting times for youngsters the year being 1940.

One memorable morning in the summer of 1940, at ‘break time’ some of the juniors were collected together and given the great honour and privilege of rolling the cricket square. This area was treated as hallowed ground and was always roped off when not being played upon during school cricket matches.

On this occasion we formed our crocodile and were then marched off by one of the more elderly masters to the cricket field where we gathered around the roller, tugged it out of it’s parking place and pushed/pulled it over the selected, beautifully prepared wicket which would be used the following day by our First Eleven in order to thrash some visiting team and so carry the school to glory! That was the general idea although it did not always work out quite as planned of course.
The rolling done and the roller returned to it’s parking space we were told by our elderly master, who had been brought out of retirement to replace one of the younger men now in the services, to make our way back to the junior school-slowly-so that he would be able to catch up and be seen to have charge of us when we arrived back at our part of the school.

The main school buildings consisted of a very large manor house converted to a school around the turn of the century. It was an impressive, grand looking building in every way but the juniors had to make do with the conversion of the stables block entered through an archway opening onto the old coach square or quadrangle. We did have certain advantages however as we never had far to go to reach the centres of activity. The school chapel formed one side of the quadrangle and the gymnasium another. The classrooms and changing rooms formed the other two sides. The indoor heated swimming pool and the squash courts were within a stones throw of our ‘stable block’. The main school was probably no more than four hundred yards away if one walked through the wooded area but a good deal further if one followed the gravel drives which served each building.

The sweeping gravel drive in front of the main school’s front door had, on this day, a small blue ‘Bug’ sitting upon it and what was more, horror upon horror, the ‘Bug’ was in the exact place where our headmaster parked his car, another one of those sacrosanct areas within the school grounds. Visiting parents would never dare to park their cars within twenty feet of the headmaster’s parking space for fear of having their offspring immediately expelled! We marvelled at the ‘Bug’ a small two seater, highly polished blue, open sports Bugatti that appeared to us to be the most beautiful car we had ever seen. The speedometer went up to 120mph-incredible stuff-could 120mph possibly be true?

Our elderly master caught up with us without difficulty as we were gathered around the ‘Bug’ but then faced the problem of trying to get us moving again back to the classroom, our original destination.

We plied him with questions as to the car’s ownership and what speed it would do and why didn’t everyone have one of those instead of the boring old saloons in which our parents felt fit to drive? I think he was as puzzled as were we ourselves especially as it was parked right on the headmaster’s parking place.

The answer to our questions came at lunchtime. We had filed in to the dining room and stood by our places awaiting the arrival of the headmaster and his wife who would sit at the ‘Headmaster’s Table’ along with some of the more senior members of his staff. This was a daily ritual and all done in silence-no talking before the sweet course had been served a rule strictly adhered to for one did not wish to be banished to the corridor to ‘stand against the wall’ and therefore miss one’s lunch.
The tension was rising as we were; naturally as all schoolboys always are, ravenously hungry. The dining room door opened and in stepped the headmaster’s wife followed by the headmaster. The door started to close but then reopened to its full extent once more. A tall figure in Royal Air Force blue stepped in to the dining room closely following the headmaster. Could this be the owner of the ‘Bug’? Did he not know the terrible sin he had committed by parking his ‘Bug’ where he had parked it? Was he now to be allowed to take luncheon with the headmaster? I think the assembled company were aghast at that very minute.

Suddenly a ragged cheer broke out, some of the more senior boys had recognised the uniform, as had we all, but being closer to the action they had also realised that the wearer of the Royal Air Force uniform had been awarded his ‘School Colours’ probably given to him by Winston Churchill or HM King George VI, in person we fancied. The cheer rose to a crescendo and even the master ‘in charge’ of our table was applauding.

Finally, order was restored and to a certain extent, a return to normality was achieved.
The sweet course was served-talking was now permitted. Speculation was rife. The inane chatter became louder and louder. The headmaster banged his specially reinforced spoon on the table and immediate silence followed this command. He stood up and so too, of course, did we but he bade us sit down. He introduced his guest giving, as was often the case when ‘Old Boys’ visited the school, a brief history of the career of the ‘OB’ in question starting from the time he had left the school to the present day. The headmaster concluded this short synopsis by informing us that he had persuaded his visitor to give a short talk based on his exploits in the Royal Air Force from the outbreak of war. This talk would be short by necessity as his visitor had to return to his squadron later that afternoon. We were to assemble in the gymnasium sitting in class order upon the floor starting with the junior school to the front and then the more senior boys to the rear.

All the school’s pupils arrived in the gymnasium ahead of time. The stage was set-a real hero was expected and he was going to talk to us. The stage was also set literally, for the gymnasium was home to and doubled as the school theatre. The curtains were drawn back to their full extent. Chairs were positioned on the stage. One or two of the masters had already taken their allotted positions sitting there glowering at our noisy entry.

We heard ‘Our Hero’ arrive in his ‘Bug’ the exhaust note warning of his approach. He obviously had, from the noises we could hear, driven into the quadrangle completed a high speed 180º turn and parked the ‘Bug’ outside the chapel door under the archway.

One could hear a pin drop. Suddenly from the rear of the stage the ‘official party’ emerged led by the headmaster and family, matrons, masters, and one or two artisan support staff. All took their places.

‘Our Hero’ appeared from the side of the stage and was immediately greeted by cheering and clapping. He appeared embarrassed and slightly unsure of himself at this welcome and had the trapdoor in the stage opened at that very moment I suspect he would have ‘baled out’ then and there.

He was introduced once more.

He stood there staring at us and we staring at him. He walked over to the conveniently positioned blackboard resting on an easel, took up a piece of chalk but wrote not a word. He put the chalk down and finally spoke. ‘I am a fighter pilot’ we cheered madly. ‘I fly the Super Marine Spitfire’ he said. Cheers rang out once again for we all knew that the Spitfire was the best aircraft in the world and one had to be a super hero to fly it. He came to another halt wondering what to say next?

One abiding memory was of his hesitancy at this point. He asked if we wanted to know about the ‘Spit’. Of course we did.

Suddenly he was into his subject. His hands danced before him as he described manoeuvres in battle and in flying. He told us of the run up to the present situation and the French campaign and the supposed battles yet too come-only a few days away as it happened-and compared the Messerschmitt 109 to Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane, the Messerschmitt 110 to our fighters and the Bristol Blenheim. How fast can you fly? We wanted to know. How high? How many Germans have you shot down? How fast will your car go? one lad asked. The ‘Bug’ had been forgotten for the moment but we all wanted the answer to that one.

We listened enraptured to stories of the ‘Hun’ in the sun and how they always seemed to have the advantage of height and all the time he was speaking his hands ‘flew’ the story.
Have you ever been frightened? ‘Our Hero’ shocked us to the core with his reply to this totally superfluous question by some nincompoop at the back of the hall-
‘ALL THE TIME’ he said.
Absolute silence for some few seconds greeted this remark followed by uproarious laughter at his claim. ‘Our Hero’ was amused by the response but pointed out that ‘fear’ mainly of failure and of letting down the team, in a greater or lesser degree is what keeps a fighter pilot alert and alive. He compared the feeling one might experience at the school boxing championships while waiting for your bout. You know you are going to win, but? Once in the ring and once in action all feelings of apprehension, nervousness, ’fear’-leave you. ‘We are simply too busy trying to shoot down or punch the enemy as hard as possible without getting punched in return to have any other thoughts but the job in hand’ he told us.

We immediately understood.

He had given a ‘Jerry’ 109 a squirt or a Heinkel 111 a long burst and seen the rear gunner slump over his gun-dead we hoped-but he would not be drawn on the subject. We knew of course that our chaps were never hurt or injured and only on very rare occasions did their aircraft receive a scratch. Our chaps were far too good for the hated Germans and the Spitfire was supreme and totally indestructible.

‘Our Hero’ looked at his watch. ‘Time to go’ he announced.

We moaned and we groaned and we pleaded but he had to go. ‘Duty calls’ he said. At that the headmaster took charge once more and thanked our speaker. We gave him three cheers several times over. We could not bear to see him go. As a last resort he stood up and made a promise that he would return in a few weeks time-he gave an approximate date but being wartime he could not give an exact date. Further more he would also bring one or two of his fellow squadron pilots with him.

We filed out of the gymnasium and back to our classrooms but this meant that we had to walk through the archway and pass the ‘Bug’. The headmaster was shaking ‘Our Hero’ by the hand and at the same time wishing him luck.

The archway and the quadrangle reverberated to the sound of the ‘Bug’s’ engine and exhaust as he found a gear and sped off along the drive. We stood there until we could hear him no longer.
Classes were a little bit tame after the excitement of the previous proceedings and I do not think that there was one boy who had been in our gymnasium that afternoon who would not have changed places with him given the opportunity and a miracle. Our heads were in the clouds, we were knocking ‘seven bells’ out of any German we could find, and we were indulging ourselves in a fantasy world of killing, not to put too fine a point on it!

The school holidays were over. An air battle of epic proportions had been taking place over our very heads and some unspeakable German bounder had dropped a small bomb on our squash courts, we discovered on our return to school. We had watched our ‘First Eleven’ beating their ‘First Eleven’ at every twist, turn and contrail. We even felt that we had taken part and were still taking part in those momentous events. We never had a single doubt as to the outcome of the battle-we were quite simply- winning hands down.

We would now be able to share our experiences with ‘Our Hero’ when he returned as he had promised that he would return. We would again see the beautiful blue ‘Bug’ too.

Our excitement began to mount as the days and weeks rolled by. The headmaster reminded us that ‘Our Hero’ would be returning shortly and that arrangements were being made but the date could not yet be confirmed. We did not need a reminder we needed the date as many of us had made our own calendars and had scratched through each passing day but not knowing how many days before the big event.

Finally the date was announced and we were told that we might also invite our parents to attend if they so wished. Now we knew the date our ‘calendars’ became of vital importance to us.
We had prepared masses of questions for ‘Our Hero’ to answer. We had made models of the Spitfire out of any scraps of wood we were able to glean from ‘Carps,’ the school carpenter. The majority of these creations bore no relation to any known flying machine but they were true Spitfire models to us and we were proud of our efforts.

We went about our daily routines wishing the time away. One morning I was dragged out of class and told to report to the school chapel for an extra choir practice. Along with my fellow choristers we disliked pre-lunch time choir practices because we were often late for lunch and were far too hungry to bother much about singing. On this day we were too excited to sing at all for tomorrow was the ‘Big Day’ the return of ‘Our Hero’ and possibly some of his friends and of course the ‘Bug’.

I met the other members of the choir outside the chapel door under the archway. Our choir master arrived looking somewhat flustered. We trooped in and took our positions. The practice went reasonably well, as I remember, although the music was unfamiliar. We were then sent off to lunch arriving very late but to our surprise special arrangements had been made for us so we missed nothing. We were all very suspicious, of course, because a change in routine usually augured some kind of disaster as far as we were concerned. We had been given no information or reason for our extra choir practice but then tomorrow was the ‘Big Day’ and we were too excited at the prospect of the ‘Bug’ and ‘Our Hero’ returning to bother too much about the why’s and wherefores of the situation.

The following morning the choir was again required to report to the chapel. I arrived at the door of the chapel, which on this occasion was open. Thinking that I might be late although being in the junior school I had but a few yards to walk to reach the archway and the chapel door, I breezed in. Just short of the altar a group of uniformed men were fussing around a large, polished wooden box mounted on trestles. The trestles appeared incongruous and ugly in their plain and unlovely wood. Two uniformed men draped a flag, the Royal Air Force flag over the box and then arranged some flowers, a sword and most poignant of all a Royal Air Force service hat upon the flag. One of their number gave a quiet order. The men formed into two ranks stood for a moment facing the altar bowed their heads in unison, about turned and walked slowly towards me. I realised at this moment that other members of the choir had also arrived and were standing in the aisle. We made way for the uniformed men and followed them outside. A large blue car had pulled up and parked in the archway on the spot reserved in our minds for the ‘Bug’. We tried to converse with the men but they climbed into the car and were driven away. One or two other vehicles, which had been parked, further along the drive followed them. Sorrowfully we realised that

‘OUR HERO’ HAD RETURNED.

The small group of choristers stood there, totally bewildered by that which they had seen. A kind of panic gripped us. We were not on the verge of hysteria; there were no tears just utter disbelief. We knew it was ‘Our Hero’ in the coffin, the kindly sergeant had more or less confirmed that much before being driven away.

The choir master arrived looking even more flustered than on the previous day. We were shepherded away from the chapel arriving in the tennis courts area. The choir practice had been cancelled we were told because it had been decided that we would not be required at the actual funeral service to be held later in the week.

An announcement was made by the headmaster during lunch that day that everything would carry on as normal and that sometimes things like this happened in war time. The Roll of Honour was updated sometime later in the term and indeed was added to on a number of occasions throughout the war years. Our chapel was used as a chapel of rest too for other ‘Old Boys’ unfortunate enough to fall in the line of duty during those exciting but horrendous times.

I am ashamed to admit that to this very day I cannot now remember our ‘Old Boy’s’ name neither do I wish to know for he is always remembered as ‘Our Hero’.