“Would anyone like to see a picture of Brest?”
Loud laughter.
The group captain is large, rubicund, kindly; he looks like a sea-dog, from the days of other armadas, dressed in R.A.F. uniform. Intelligence room is not really very full; it looks like a class-room from which a few faces are missing. The air-crews that are to be briefed sit in rows, facing a white screen on a wall. Many are already wearing flying-kit — sheepskin boots, heavy cream sweaters under their blue battle dresses. Here and there a navigator has a torch, perhaps two, tucked in the top of his boots. At the back of the room stands the epidiascope, an apparatus for projecting pictures, and on the walls are many maps. The light of the winter afternoon is pale and the electric lights are on.
“All right. Let’s have a look at the weather,” the group captain says. “Can you draw the curtains?”
The curtains are drawn; in the darker room, even now not completely dark, the light of the projector comes on. Across the screen, ringed with chalky contours of mauve and pink and green, there is now a map of England, the Netherlands, and of France a little south of the occupied zone.
The Met official has a wooden pointer in his hand. He is young, a decent fellow; but because he is dressed as a civilian, in blue serge, he looks out of place. He begins to give us his little meteorological lesson, but I cannot tell if anyone is listening. Perhaps not. There is a difference between weather on paper, at two in the afternoon, and weather at eighteen thousand, in a Stirling, at ten at night.
“We are still in the centre of an anti-cyclone. The weather will be clear until you reach the coast. There will be a little light rain over the sea, but it will clear before you reach the target. Eight tenths cloud at first, clearing to five tenths. Base about five thousand. Coming back, conditions will be about the same. Except that there may be ground fog at base.”
Loud laughter.
They are all old friends: Brest, the target there, the cloud, the drizzle, and naturally the fog at base. We have been to Brest so many times that it occurs to us that after the war conducted tours to Brest, in comfort of course, would be what is known as a remunerative proposition. Worth thinking about anyhow; since we may even come to that.
“I think that’s about all,” the Met official says.
“Will somebody draw the curtains?”
The curtains are drawn back; the pale winter light streams in on coloured maps, white walls, white faces.
“The Wing Commander has something to say.”
The Wing Commander is standing at the side of the room; we turn instinctively to look at him. Except for his eyes, which look old, diffused, distant, he looks quite young. If ever there was a tough one this is the man: cold, slightly ironical, calm except for his hands, which he keeps putting in and out of his pockets; the master of tactics, whose only difficulty is the tactical handling of words.
“Sergeant O’Brien will lead the first formation. You will take off at 17.30 hours. Billington, you will follow at 17.45.” As he talks he develops a slight habit of nervousness, looking down at his shoes and then up again. Sometimes he pauses, not knowing quite what to say. “And when you come back — if you come back —”
Loud laughter.
This too is an old joke, one at which, for various reasons, all must laugh very heartily. When the laughter has died away the Wing Commander finishes speaking. “Don’t let them do to you what they did last time. Watch that. Remember that lesson.”
No loud laughter this time. Everyone remembers what they did to us last time.
In a moment the Wing Commander has finished speaking. He turns to read a signal brought up to him by an orderly. There is a short hush. But the orderly goes; the signal is not read out.
“Is that all, Wing Commander?” the group captain says.
“That’s all, sir. Thank you.”
“Any questions?”
Nobody speaks. The air-crews sit with their hands between their knees, holding their caps, like small boys ready to rush out of school. It is something like the end of a lantern lecture in childhood, long ago: the pointer travelling across the map, the strange countries, the laughter, the lesson, the silence, the eagerness to go.
“No questions? Thank you, then,” the group captain says. “Have a good trip.”
We file out, crowding in the doorway, down the stairs. There is a muffled tramp of flying boots on concrete, many voices, more laughter. I look into the faces of the crews for a sign of tension, expectation, courage, great events, but the W.A.A.F. orderly coming upstairs, trying to be dignified, trying not to laugh but laughing at last, is the only thing reflected there.
“As you see,” says Williams, as we walk back to the mess, lifting our eyes instinctively to the windy sky, “a very dull affair.”