Lack of Moral Fibre

RAF NYDN Centre, Torquay

November 1943

“Pilot Officer Christopher Moran?”

The orderly clerk still addressed him with his rank, Kit noted, wondering for how long. “Yes,” he answered.

“You’re in room 24.” The clerk turned to remove a key from the wooden pigeonholes behind him. He handed Kit the key across the reception desk without looking him in the eye.

People had been avoiding eye-contact with him ever since he’d been posted away from the squadron. The station commander told him to depart as rapidly and discreetly as possible, while his squadron leader reinforced that message with instructions not to say good-bye to any of his comrades. His orders were to report “immediately” to this mysteriously designated NYDN center.

It was, however, disorienting to be in what had evidently been a hotel. Although now outfitted with RAF standard-issue furnishings, remnants of its former glory lingered in the ceiling-mouldings and gracious, bay windows. If it hadn’t been sleeting, there might even have been a view down to Torbay in the distance. Instead, visibility was so bad that everything beyond the windows was just a blurry white and grey. The backdrop highlighted the gloomy interior. The lobby furniture was run down, and four years of war had marked the inhabitants, too. Unremittingly dressed in Air Force blue, their averted faces were strained and prematurely lined.

Kit took the key, shouldered his kitbag, and found his way up two flights of stairs to room 24. While the lobby had been overheated, the hall was bitterly cold. He unlocked the door and found himself in a modest room with two twin beds. He was taken aback to find one of the beds already occupied by a man wrapped in blankets.

“Sorry! I must have the wrong room!” Kit started to back out.

“No,” a voice rose from the bed. “They double us up like this.”

“Oh, of course,” Kit nodded to himself. Why hadn’t he expected that? He’d expected far worse. He entered the room and closed the door behind him before introducing himself. “I’m Christopher Moran, but I go by Kit.”

“Oliver Huckle, and if you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk.” His roommate rolled over, offering his back.

“Fine by me,” Kit muttered. He didn’t particularly want to talk himself. He tossed his kitbag on the vacant bed and started unpacking his things. He’d done this countless times on countless RAF Stations for almost four years now. This was just one more move, one more posting. Except it wasn’t.

Kit went to the window. Sleet pelted the glass, making a high ticking sound before melting and slithering down the slick surface. His breath rapidly steamed up the inside. Kit raised an index finger to write in the condensation: LMF. Lack of Moral Fibre.

Everyone knew what happened to aircrew who “earned” that label. They were publicly stripped of their flying badges, their rank insignia, and any ribbons they may have been awarded. Officers were officially court-martialled and lost their commissions. They were shipped off to do menial work, transferred to the infantry, or discharged to work in the coal mines. Their records were stamped in large letters: “LMF” or “W” for “Waverer.” Their discharge papers stated the same thing, ensuring problems with civilian employment for the rest of their lives.

Everyone knew of someone who had disappeared down this road to infamy, although no one ever saw them again. What Kit hadn’t known about were the NYDN centres, the gateway to LFM hell.

***

“Pilot Officer Moran?” The Wing Commander looked up from the file on his desk and then stood and held out his hand as he came around his desk. “My name is Grace, Ralph Grace.”

Kit’s eyes flickered to his insignia as they shook hands. Greace was a doctor and his hands were icy cold. But then so were Kit’s. They didn’t go in for much heat at this establishment.

“Have a seat. Would you like some tea?” The doctor asked amiably.

“Not really, thank you, sir,” Kit warily eased himself down into the comfortable arm chair the doctor had indicated. He was not feeling well; he’d hardly slept. His thoughts and nightmares would have been enough to keep him awake, but it hadn’t helped that his roommate shouted in his sleep.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Grace insisted. “I just want to chat with you a bit, go over your case, be sure I’ve got the facts straight.”

“Yes, sir,” Kit hesitated and then ventured to ask. “Are you a trick cyclist, sir?”

“A psychiatrist? Yes, I have a degree in psychiatry.”

“Is this a hospital?”

“Not exactly. It’s a centre where we attempt to diagnosis your condition prior to determining a course of action. NYDN stands for Not Yet Diagnosed Nervous. If we determine that you have a psychiatric condition, you will be referred to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. If not, there are a variety of other options.”

“I see.” Court-martial, public humiliation, the infantry, the mines….

“So,” the doctor settled himself behind his desk again and took up the file. “You volunteered for service in September 1939. You were mustered for training as a fitter because you were apprenticed to an engineering firm in civilian life. Promoted to LAC in June 1940, you served with 56 (Hurricane) Squadron, were commended and promoted to corporal in September 1941. You transferred to 109 (Mosquito) Squadron in January 1942. You volunteered for Air Crew in August 1942 and on completing training as a Flight Engineer you were promoted to Sergeant and assigned to 626 (Lancaster) Squadron. You completed one complete tour of operations in March 1943, you were awarded the DFM and granted an immediate commission. Thereafter, you served in Training Command until October. You had flown six missions on your second tour….” His voice faded away and he looked up at Kit. He was not avoiding Kit’s eyes; he was looking at him piercingly.

Kit waited.

“Do you want to tell me about your decision to stop flying?”

Kit drew a deep breath. “Do the records show that I flew all but six missions with the same skipper, navigator and bomb aimer?”

“No. Do you want to expand on that?”

Kit shrugged and looked out of the window. Visibility was as bad as yesterday, though today it was fog rather than sleet.

The doctor looked down at his records. “I see your skipper was Flight Lieutenant Donald Selkirk. It says here that ‘despite being mortally wounded, Selkirk successfully landed the badly damaged Lancaster at RAF Hawkinge following the raid on Berlin of November 22/23.”

“You could put it like that,” Kit retorted, an edge on his voice like spark in the cold room.

The doctor looked at him with attentive eyes. “Were you close to Flight Lieutenant Selkirk?”

*** RAF Heavy Conversion Unit, October 1942

Kit didn’t think this “crewing up” was working. It was so typically British —completely disorganised, haphazard and subjective. It was a perfect example of British “muddling through” and “hoping for the best.” Men at the Heavy Conversion Unit were here to train on the heavy, four-engine bombers they would fly on operations. None of them had yet been on operations, and pilots had never had responsibility for a crew before. To make matters worse, a select few of them had been granted commissions, while the bulk of them were sergeants. Yet somehow, informally, just by chatting and doing a little flying together, they were supposed to “sort themselves” into crews of seven with a pilot, navigator, flight engineer, bomb-aimer, radio operator and two gunners each. Many crews had already formed tentatively at an Operational Training Unit during training on medium bombers, but flight engineers and mid-upper gunners came straight to the HCU and had to match up with crews here.

It didn’t help that there had been two serious accidents that had killed a total of twelve men in the past week. One of those killed had been the likable young Sergeant Pilot whom Kit had favoured as his own skipper. The accident had been put down to “pilot error” and had wiped out the entire crew. So much for his assessment of pilots! Yet, he hadn’t warmed to any of the others.

Kit turned his back on the pub lounge to order another pint at the bar, acutely aware that he was still an ‘odd fish’ — or rather neither fish nor fowl. Another man squeezed his way to the bar beside him, and a melodic, faintly Scottish voice asked at his elbow. “You’re Kit Moran, aren’t you?”

Kit looked over surprised and was discomfited to see that the man beside him was one of the three commissioned pilots. He answered guardedly, “yes, sir.”

“Forget the ‘sir.’ We’re off duty. I’m Don Selkirk,” the pilot officer held out his hand and it would have been rude not to shake it. Kit was wary all the same. The one thing he hadn’t thought about was a commissioned pilot; he didn’t like the idea of rank cutting a fissure through a crew whose members depended entirely on each other.

The pilot officer was slender, dark haired but fair-skinned with grey-blue eyes and the kind of good looks one associated with the British aristocracy. He was also markedly older than most of them; Kit guessed he was already 25 or 26. “Have you decided whose crew you want to join yet?” He asked casually, while signalling for another drink.

“Not yet,” Kit admitted.

“What would you say to joining my crew?” Selkirk asked with a mild smile.

“I hadn’t thought about it. Can you give me a reason why I should?” Kit countered cautiously. He really did not want a commissioned skipper.

“Well, I’ve managed to secure the best navigator on the course, Sailor Hart,” Selkirk nodded in the direction of a burly, blond and good-tempered Flight Sergeant who every knew had been Second Mate in the Merchant Navy before joining the RAF. He too was a good four years older than the others and already married. He was a steady, cheerful and unquestionably a well-qualified navigator. That was a good argument, Kit admitted to himself.

Selkirk continued, “Furthermore, if you join my crew, you’ll be getting two pilots for the price of one because Teddy Hamed has agreed to be my bomb aimer and he has 62 flying hours. The only reason he didn’t get his wings was because he failed the ground exams.” Again, Selkirk nodded across the room to where Hamed was sitting with Hart, clearly engaged in a lively conversation.

Kit knew about Hamed as well. He hailed from South Shields and had a strong Georgie accent. Short and dark, his father was a Yemeni stoker with the Merchant Navy, which maybe explained why ‘Sailor’ Hart had taken a liking to the lad. Kit knew he’d first trained as a rigger, but had been assigned to Training Command where he’d talked his way into a cockpit. He’s shown such aptitude that he’d been allowed to re-muster for pilot training, only his spotty formal education had caught up with him on the ground exams. It surprised Kit that an officer like Selkirk would deem the cocky, half-Arab lad from the slums of Tynside an asset, but it spoke well for the officer.

Kit considered Selkirk more critically now. He could not deny that he liked the fact that Selkirk was arguing the value of joining his crew on the strength of his crew rather than himself. “Who’s your radio operator?” Kit asked.

“Leslie Vernon,” Selkirk replied, adding,“and Bobby Pickett’s my rear gunner.” Moran knew them both as they were sergeants like himself and they messed together. He didn’t know much about Vernon, who seemed a quiet, introverted type, but Pickett was a Canadian with a reputation as a crack shot.

“Look,” Selkirk didn’t give Kit the chance to ask another question. “We’ve been given 48 hours on account of the weather and my parents live only three and a half hours away. My crew and I are going to go for a visit. Why don’t you join us? You don’t have to commit to the crew just yet. Just come along and see how we get on, eh?”

Kit had nowhere else to go at such short notice, so he agreed.

Ashcroft Park, the Selkirk residence, was imposing: a huge, stone manor, several hundred years old and set in stately grounds. It was stuffed with antiques, an art gallery of portraits depicting Selkirk ancestors, and other works of art including a grandiose panorama depicting the Battle of Waterloo — where one of Selkirk’s forefathers had fought with distinction, of course.

Yet the cold formality of the setting was offset by the warmth of the reception. Selkirk’s father was a retired colonel with a hearty laugh and a jovial manner, who quickly set the young men at ease. He welcomed all of “Don’s friends” with a glass of whisky, while Mrs Selkirk offered smiles and expressed her delight at “finally meeting” Don’s crew. When Kit and Teddy came down to dinner in battle dress to find the Selkirks in dinner jackets and the ladies in evening gowns, Mrs. Selkirk melted the awkwardness by apologising for her thoughtlessness. “We forgot you had no notice and couldn’t pack properly.”

But the real breakthrough came the next day when Colonel Selkirk took them hunting. Pickett bagged three pheasants, cementing his reputation as a marksmen, but Kit caused a greater sensation by bringing down a bird himself — and then admitting it was his first partridge. While the others were exuberantly congratulating him, the canny Colonel Selkirk made the connection between Kit’s ease and skill with the gun and his dearth of partridges. With a sly smile he asked, “Just what game did you hunt then?”

“Mostly gazelles, sir,” Kit answered.

“Gazelles?” The others exclaimed confused.

“And the odd ostrich.”

“Ostrich?”

“I grew up in Africa, sir,” Kit explained. “My father’s with the colonial service. He’s in Nigeria now.”

It forged an unexpected bond. Colonel Selkirk asked Kit to come down to dinner fifteen minutes earlier that evening, and at Kit’s appearance he ushered him into his personal study adorned with a zebra rug and a lionskin sofa. He took out a photo album filled with his safari pictures. “There’s something about Africa!” Colonel Selkirk exclaimed nostalgically. “I was only there a year, but it cast a spell on me. I’d go back in an instant.” He gazed out of the darkened window as he remembered. “The silhouette of the acacia trees against the violet sky at dusk, the shades of orange and gold at dawn, the chattering of the monkeys and the dry, warm wind….” He turned back to his photos, lost in memories, then shook himself loose to ask Kit. “Where has your father served?”

“I was born in South Africa, sir, but spent most of my boyhood in Kenya. My father moved to Nigeria just before I left school….” He let his voice fade, certain that his apprenticeship would earn him no particular laurels with the Selkirks.

“And your father’s still there?”

“Yes, sir, he’s Regional Commissioner for Calibar.”

“Calibar, eh? Do you get back to visit often?”

“Not since the war started, sir.”

“Sisters and brothers?”

“One sister, sir. She’s at boarding school in Cape Town.”

“It must be very hard on your parents, having you both so far away. Mrs. Selkirk and I hate to go more than a month without seeing Don. Thank goodness, Margaret comes home every weekend. With Don going on ops soon, I fear we’ll be seeing far less of him. I hope you’ll feel that this is your home away from home. You’re welcome to come as often as you can — with or without Don.”

When the 48 hours were up and they reported back to the OTU, there was no question in Kit’s mind but that he was part of Selkirk’s crew. It felt like having a family again for the first time since he’d left Africa. With Don and the Selkirks, Kit felt that he had finally found a refuge from the noise, the herd, and the compulsion for conformity. Like a vessel that had been blown off-course, Kit felt he had weathered a storm and found a safe harbour at last.

*** DYDN Center Torquay, November 1943

There were two telephone booths in the lobby of the NYDN centre. Kit closed himself inside one and put a call through to Ashcroft Park. The Butler answered, and Kit recognized his voice from many visits. “Mr. Crowther? It’s me Kit.”

“Mr. Moran?” Crowther sounded surprised, almost shocked. Surely, he couldn’t already have heard about the LMF posting already?

“Yes, I’d like a word with Mrs. Selkirk, please.”

“Mrs Selkirk is in mourning, sir. She is not taking phone calls.”

“Please tell her who it is and that there’s something I’d like to tell her.”

“I shall make inquiries, sir. One moment.”

It seemed to take a long time, but finally Kit heard muttering and then Colonel Selkirk was on the other end of the line. “Moran?”

“Yes, Colonel, I wanted to—”

“Is it true you’ve been posted LMF?” An outraged voice demanded on the other end of the line. Before Kit could answer, the colonel continued indignantly. “I called the station to find out if you were all right and hoping you could give me more details regarding Don’s last flight. You can’t imagine my astonishment —no, my shock — to hear you had turned lily-livered and refused to fly ops!”

“Sir, I’d like to explain about that, but not over the telephone. I feel this is something best said face to face—”

“Absolutely not! Selkirks do not socialize with cowards, Mr Moran. It’s bad enough that you’re yellow, but now, after Don has made the ultimate sacrifice? No, absolutely not! The sight of you would be offensive. Can’t you see that you are dishonouring everything Don lived and died for? You demean his memory by scorning his sacrifice. I won’t have you in this house ever again, and I don’t want you contacting Mrs Selkirk either. She is understandably distraught, the sight of you basking in your survival-through-desertion would be to much!”

Kit recognised that it was hopeless. The sense of belonging and support had been an illusion. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into the torrent of indignation. “I would have liked to explain….” Colonel Selkirk wasn’t listening. Kit replaced the receiver and listlessly turned away. There was no safe harbour, and his last lifeline had been severed. He was foundering.