Winter stopped toying with storms of rain and sleet, and got down to serious business.
For three days and nights the sky dumped snow. It fell thickly, with a stiff westerly wind always bringing up fresh supplies. It fell so fast that one man with a shovel could not keep fifty yards of pathway open. By the second day, the drifts were chest-high, the airfield was cut off, and the mess was obliged to use tinned milk. By the third day the electricity and telephone lines were down and the mess was candle-lit. Snow coated the windows on the exposed side of the house, darkening the interior even more. Periodically, masses of snow lost their grip on the roof and tumbled thunderously to the ground. Log fires blazed night and day. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. Boredom became acute. On the third afternoon Moke Miller came into the anteroom and announced that Sticky Stickwell was reading a book. This was not believed. Miller led the rest of the squadron to the library. “See!” he said.
“Is this wise, Sticky?” asked Cattermole. “You know what the doctors said.”
“What?”
“Too much reading turns your eyeballs hairy.”
“That’s not funny. You’d think I’d never read a book before.”
“Have you?” asked Fitz.
“Of course I have. It was very interesting. It had a green cover, just like this one. This one is very interesting, too.”
“In your experience, as a reader of green-covered books,” said Flip Moran, “would you say they tend to be on the interesting side?”
“Piss off,” Stickwell said.
“He’s non-committal,” Mother Cox told Moran. “I’ve seen it happen before in cases like this.”
“Stupid sods,” Stickwell muttered.
“Did you hear that? Alliteration!” Moran exclaimed. “The poor devil’s alliterating already.”
“Well, he’ll just have to clean it up afterward,” Cattermole said. They trooped back to the anteroom. “What’s alliteration?” Miller asked Fitz. “Dunno,” Fitz said, “but you get it from books.”
The fourth day was windless and dazzlingly bright. Rex had every man in the unit shoveling snow, and by midafternoon the driveway leading to the road was open. The pilots retired to the bar and compared their blisters. There was much talk of visiting Rheims or even Paris as soon as the snowplows cleared the road. By nightfall it was snowing hard again. Skull and Kellaway went out onto the terrace before dinner. The air was like a pillowfight. “Funny stuff, French snow,” said Kellaway. “Not a bit like English snow.”
“Hmm.” Skull made no comment. Kellaway was a good chap, and remarkably adept at persuading drunks to go to bed, but he would sentimentalize so.
“Just look at it! Typical. Never knows when to stop.”
“I expect it’s the same in Germany,” Skull said.
“Worse. Much worse. They haven’t got the Gulf Stream, you see.”
“Neither have we.”
“Yes we have. It comes up past the Scilly Isles. Daffodils, early potatoes. I know, I went there for holidays.”
“This is France, uncle.”
“You’re telling me! Just look at it. God knows the weather was bad enough in ’14–’18 … What a country! They’ve simply got no idea.”
“I thought you rather liked the French.”
“Wouldn’t give you tuppence for the lot of them. Come on in, I’m freezing.”
In fact it was getting much colder. After a week of sporadic snowstorms the temperature stayed below freezing and the sky had the chill gray of hammered lead. Micky Marriott improvised a snowplow on the front of a three-ton truck and bashed a path to the airfield, by which time the truck’s clutch was burned out. He kept a few groundcrew in the hangars around the clock, warming up the engines every few hours to keep the oil fluid. But there was no chance of any flying.
Rex made the best of it: he sent two men on leave—Patterson and Miller—and he took a week’s leave himself. “Try and keep them occupied,” he said to Barton and Moran as he got into his car. “I don’t want the squadron putting up any blacks while I’m away, especially with the frogs.”
The flight commanders went inside. “The old man’s away for a week,” Barton announced.
“Whoopee!” Cattermole said. “Now we can get down to some steady raping and looting, with a spot of arson to keep the cold out.”
Barton turned on him. “Listen, you,” he said, aiming a forefinger like a gun. “Any playing silly-buggers and you won’t know what’s hit you.”
Cattermole stared. “It was a joke, Fanny,” he said.
The rest of the squadron watched, hoping for an exciting bust-up to enliven the gray morning.
“Bloody silly joke,” Barton said. “Just keep your peculiar sense of humor to yourself for the next seven days.”
As the flight commanders went out, Cattermole slumped in his armchair until he slid off the seat and collapsed on the floor. “Crushed and humiliated,” he said.
“Well, what did you expect, you great oaf?” Mother Cox asked.
“Fanny hasn’t forgotten those carthorses,” Stickwell said. “Also the secret Polish phrase-book.”
“Jag tycker om det!” cried Flash Gordon. It was always good for a laugh.
“I’ve forgotten what that means,” Stickwell said.
“Old Cherokee proverb,” CH3 told him. “It means: a prune is a plum that thinks too much.”
“Look here, you squalid crew.” Cattermole stood up and scowled. “I want you to be on your best behavior while Rex is away.” He kicked Fitzgerald on the leg. “D’you hear me?” He threw a small leather pouf at Cox. “No mucking about! Fanny and Flip expect us to behave nicely, so …” He tipped CH3 out of his chair. “… so we mustn’t disappoint them. Got that?”
“What d’you mean, a prune is a plum that thinks too much?” Sticky asked the American, who lay where he fell, quite relaxed. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does if you’re a prune,” Flash Gordon said.
“Think about it,” CH3 said lazily.
“No fear,” Sticky said. “I don’t want to end up all wrinkled.”
“Remember!” Cattermole said. “I’ve warned you.”
The flight commanders went to see the adjutant. “Well, they can’t get into much trouble here, can they?” Kellaway said.
“What about when they’re not here?” Fanny said. “We can’t keep them confined to camp all week.”
“I don’t suppose you could send them on a tour of inspection of the Maginot Line?” Flip suggested. “A walking tour.”
“Tell you what I can do.” Kellaway fumbled through a heap of papers, and found a letter. “Invitation from a local vineyards. Trip round the works, lunch with the boss, sampling in the cellars.”
“They’d like that, the swine.”
Fanny nodded. “Knowing them, they won’t be able to crawl for two days afterward. Got anything else, adj?”
“Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can drum up.”
The tour of the vineyards was a great success. Next day the pilots were suitably subdued when they visited an anti-aircraft regiment near Châlons; they were even quieter after the soldiers had demonstrated the quick-firing capability of their batteries. Sticky Stickwell, who had been slow to move away, was still slightly deaf the following day, when they went down a coalmine for no particular reason except that it was a large mine and would take a lot of walking through. After that came a snowstorm, which filled a day, and then there was an official visit to Strasbourg.
The city was deserted. It faced the German frontier, and at the outbreak of war the entire population of two hundred thousand had been moved out. As they drove through it, the Hornet pilots saw an occasional gendarme or military policeman patrolling the bare streets; otherwise nothing: even the pigeons seemed to have gone.
They went to a French army strongpoint on the Rhine; and a hundred yards away, on the opposite bank, they saw their first German soldiers. They were kicking a football about. One of them headed the ball and knocked his helmet off. Laughter came gently but clearly across the hustling black waters.
“This is all very chummy,” Kellaway said to the French officer who was their guide.
“It is absurd. Ridiculous. Last month they put up a big banner: C’est à votre attaque seul que nous riposterons!”
“Come again?” said Flash Gordon.
Skull said: “We won’t fight if you won’t.”
“What did you do?” asked Kellaway.
“We used that.” The Frenchman nodded at a black van with the huge horn of a loudspeaker on top. “Selections from Mein Kampf. How Hitler planned to annihilate France.”
“Ah-ha! Jolly clever. I bet that shut them up.”
“No, it was a mistake. Now they have their own loudspeaker. You will hear.”
“Haven’t they painted something on that wall?” Mother Cox pointed across the river.
“It says: La France aux Français,” the officer told him.
“Funny thing for a Hun to say.”
“They’re trying to foment distrust,” Skull explained. “Implying that we British are meddling in French affairs.”
“We have made our response,” the French officer said. He showed them a wall on which was painted La Pologne aux Polonais!
“I thought that was a sort of a dance,” Fitzgerald said.
“It is,” CH3 said. “France for the French, Poland for the foxtrot Get it?”
“Ah.” Fitzgerald nodded doubtfully. “Yes.”
“Very French. Very sardonic.”
“I suppose so.” Fitz forced a brief, suspicious smile.
“Jag tycker om det,” Flash Gordon said brightly, but nobody laughed.
“Here they come,” said the French officer gloomily. “Punctual as usual.”
A company of German troops marched out and faced the French bank. At a signal, they waved. Another signal: they stopped. “Ten seconds of friendship,” the Frenchman said. “Now they sing.” At once the soldiers sang, their voices enormously amplified by a loudspeaker van twice as big as the French one.
“I can’t stomach that,” Kellaway complained. “Let’s see about lunch, eh?”
They went back to the cars. Before they got in, Barton counted heads. One man was missing: Stickwell. “Go and find him, Moggy,” Moran said.
“No fear. He’s nothing to do with me.”
“We can’t go without him.”
“Yes, we can. Wonderful opportunity.”
“Sticky!” Fitzgerald shouted. “Where are you, Sticky?”
No answer.
“I expect he’s gone to the pictures,” Cattermole said. “He’s very keen on the pictures. Come on, I’m hungry.”
A voice suddenly boomed at them like an angry god. “This is the BBC Home Service. Here are the latest cricket scores. Middlesex, 418 for 3; Surrey, 26 all out. Not much of an innings from Surrey but what the hell can you expect from the dump where Moggy lives? Bugger-all. Next: Somerset, 418 for 9 …”
“I’ll break his bloody neck,” Fanny Barton said. “Come on.”
The voice went on, harsh and thunderous and ceaseless. It competed with the German choir and won.
“… who is wanted by the police for indecent exposure. Uncle Kellaway is eighty-three years old and wears a red wig. Now for some gardening news. This is the time to prune your peas, or pee on your prunes, please yourself, I don’t give a damn …”
They tracked down the French loudspeaker van. It was parked behind a timberyard.
“Stickwell! Shut up!” Barton shouted as he advanced.
“… No news from Africa, where things look black, but the weather forecast shows a deep depression surrounding Fanny Barton, who’s just coming into the straight and making a late burst, yes, it’s Fanny Barton out in front and as they come to the post it’s Fanny Barton …” The van jumped forward and accelerated away. “… it’s-Fanny Barton finishing second!” the loudspeaker bellowed triumphantly, “and the rest are nowhere!” The van disappeared around the corner, still shouting.
When they got back to the cars, Stickwell was sitting in a back seat, pretending to read a French newspaper. The van was not to be seen. “Where on earth have you been?” he said. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Moran laughed, and even Barton had to yield a sour smile. In fact everyone found it funny, except Cattermole. “Very juvenile,” he said stonily. “Rather like writing on lavatory walls.”
“What’s that, Moggy?” Stickwell asked blandly.
“You’re a mental runt. You’ve no guts. That’s why you’re such a pygmy. Guts all fell out.”
Stickwell clutched his stomach with such sudden anxiety that the others all laughed again.
Cattermole was unusually silent throughout lunch. Moran watched him and turned to Barton. “Moggy’s sulking,” he murmured. “He doesn’t like playing second fiddle, especially to Sticky.”
To everyone’s surprise, Rex was quite amused by the incident. “I bet the frogs were livid,” he said.
“They kicked up a bit of a stink,” the adjutant said. “They claim that Sticky bust their loudspeaker.”
“Typical. Snotty lot, the French.”
“Unfortunately they don’t seem willing to let it rest.”
“Hmm.” Rex walked to the window. A light snow was falling, gently blotting out the footprints and the tire-tracks. “I’m not having them in here, breathing garlic into people’s faces … What’s the airfield like? How’s Micky Marriott getting on?”
“It’s still unfit for flying, sir,” Barton said. “He needs to plow out a strip at least sixty feet wide and he hasn’t got half that.”
“So we can’t fly for what, five days? A week?”
“Unless it thaws, sir.”
“It won’t thaw,” the adjutant said confidently.
“Hmm.” Rex breathed on the window and waited to see a patch of frost melt outside. “I’m very pleased to find the squadron so full of enterprise and initiative. That’s the sort of thing I like to encourage. I think I’ll send the flights on a survival test. Into the Vosges. For a week.” He breathed again, a long and thoughtful exhalation. “Yes … That should stymie the frogs. And give the chaps something to occupy them, too.” He turned, smiling. “You can go along with them if you like, adj.”
“No fear,” said Kellaway comfortably.
“It’ll be awfully quiet without you,” Rex said to his flight commanders. “I must get Skull to find me a good book. The exercise starts tonight.”
The pilots assembled in the library for briefing. Because Moke Miller had not yet returned from leave, CH3 was switched to “B” flight to make the numbers equal. Rex’s instructions were simple. They would be taken by lorry to the Vosges and dropped, separately, in remote spots, each with only a hundred francs and enough rations for twenty-four hours. No map, no compass. Their task was to survive for one week on their own resources. Only one restriction: no criminal behavior. Any questions?
Glum silence.
“Oh, one other detail,” Rex said. “There may be a few companies of French mountain troops out looking for you. With dogs. I understand they’re inclined to be rather ill-mannered, so don’t stand any nonsense from them.”
“This is all your fault,” Cox said to Stickwell.
“What? Me?” Stickwell spread his arms and put on a look of amazed innocence. “Honest, sir, I never done nuffink, sir.” He was like a depraved schoolboy.
“No. You’re too stupid,” said Cattermole. “You’re also too gutless.”
“Hey, hey! Steady on,” Flip Moran said. “There’s no need for that, now.”
Cattermole stood with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, scowling at the carpet. “I can’t stand fakers, that’s all.”
“What the hell difference does it make, anyway?” Flash Gordon said. There was a heap of winter clothing on the table. He tossed a balaclava at Stickwell. “Try that for size.”
It was still gently snowing that night when they left.
The halt in flying also checked the quarrel between CH3 and Rex. Nothing more was said about close-formation flying or combat tactics, but it was obvious to everyone that the argument wasn’t over. Soon they would be flying again, and what then? A showdown, presumably. There was a general expectation that Rex would cut CH3 down to size. CH3 was usually friendly enough, although a bit inclined to spike people with deadpan remarks, but on the subject of flying he was a pain in the ass. He knew everything; he’d done it all; he wouldn’t stand for any difference of opinion. He didn’t discuss: he stated. And that got up everyone’s nose.
“As you know, sir, it wasn’t my idea to have him here in the first place,” Rex said. He was walking in the grounds with Air Commodore Bletchley; Reilly zigzagged in front. “What makes it worse is that he really doesn’t care whether he stays or goes.”
“He’s told you this?”
“Not me personally. But he’s made it clear to others that he expects to go. So he should, of course. Anyone else would have gone, long ago.”
“I see.” They passed a dozen airmen with shovels, widening the path. Bletchley said: “What doesn’t he like?”
“Everything. He doesn’t like the way we fly. He doesn’t like our battle tactics. He doesn’t even like the color of the airplanes, would you believe. Come to that, he doesn’t think much of the Hurricane itself.”
“Doesn’t he, by God? He’s off his rocker there.”
“He wants to change the guns. In fact he wants to change a lot of things. Fortunately he hasn’t been able to influence my pilots. He’s become such a crashing bore that they simply change the subject.”
“I gather he didn’t make himself too popular by going all sniffy with Jacky Bellamy about your Dornier.”
“Ludicrous. It’s one thing to bitch and bind after things go wrong, but this chap was pooh-poohing the squadron’s first success! I mean, really …”
“He reckoned it was a fluke, or something.”
“What concerned me slightly was whether she might listen to him. You know: two Americans. I had a little chat.”
“So she told me. You convinced her.”
“Good.”
“Yes, we need that woman. Seen her latest piece?”
“No?”
“Oh, it’s first-rate. She wrote up the military funeral you gave the Jerry crew. Brotherhood of the sky, generous victors, clean-cut English youth pay tribute to a gallant foe, that sort of thing. We came out of it steeped in Christian decency. Went down a treat in Washington, I’m told. I’ll send you a copy.”
They watched Reilly flounder in the snow, trying to chase a squirrel. “Daft dog,” Rex said fondly. They climbed the steps to the terrace and went inside.
Sherry.
“Cheers. Well, Rex, what’s to be done?”
“Since he’s determined to be chopped, sir—cheers—I shall have to chop him, shan’t I?”
“If you do, will he be discreet about it?”
“No. Probably not.”
“No. In any case that sort of thing always gets out and people always get it wrong. Stuffy English squadron cold-shoulders unorthodox Yank, that sort of thing. Could do great harm.”
“But that’s absurd. We all know—”
“It doesn’t matter what we know, Rex. We need American help to fight this war, or so I’m told, although why that should be I can’t understand, they certainly weren’t much use last time, not until it was too late anyway …” Bletchley took a mouthful of sherry, worked it around his teeth, and swallowed. “Hart stays. Look at it this way: he’s the price you pay for Jacky Bellamy’s articles. What you must do is make sure he shoots down a Jerry as soon as possible. Then she’ll really have something to write about.”
Rex nodded sombrely. “Frankly, sir, what gets on my tit is his rotten formation-flying. It’s quite deliberate. I honestly don’t see how I can tolerate that. It’s not fair on the rest of the squadron.”
“There’s a simple answer. Don’t take him with you.”
Rex raised an eyebrow.
“Let him fly on his own. I’ll get you a new pilot to replace him, plus an extra Hurricane. Then Hart can fly his own patrols. I can send you a bit of bumf to cover it, if you’d like.”
Rex examined the idea from all sides.
“It might look better,” he said, “if it had a name.”
“All right. Let’s call him your Reconnaissance Liaison Unit.”
Rex nodded. “That’ll do nicely. Thank you, sir. He’s not a bad pilot, you know. He just doesn’t fit in. Reconnaissance Liaison. Good. Perfect.”
Not much snow fell during the week of the survival exercise but the air was cold and it grew steadily colder, with a wind that came hunting out of the northeast as if it had an old score to settle. The adjutant could not remember such a cold winter. He went for a stroll one evening and felt the bodywarmth being sucked from his face and hands and neck. Ten minutes of that was enough. He went in and stood with his back to the fire and wondered how they were getting on.
Stickwell was the first to give up.
He arrived in a taxi on the Wednesday afternoon, sneezing hard and slightly burned about the right foot, which had been too near his campfire when he dozed off. There were also some fingers that looked frostbitten.
Kellaway had to pay the driver. It came to nearly two thousand francs. “Where on earth have you come from, Sticky?” he asked. “Christ knows, uncle,” Stickwell said hoarsely. “It might have been Bulgaria. Or maybe Belgium. It began with a B, anyway. They weren’t very nice.” He sneezed. “Kept telling me to bugger off. So I did.” As he hobbled inside, clutching the adjutant’s arm, Reilly snarled at him. “They all do that,” he said. “Just ’cus I pinched one of their bones, they all gang up on me. Rotten stinking lousy greedy filthy brutes.”
Rex came down the stairs. “You didn’t last the course,” he said. “That means you’re dead.”
“Yes, sir.” Stickwell wiped his dripping nose on his stained sleeve. “I thought being dead would be more fun.” He sneezed again.
“Poor show.”
Next day a French army ambulance brought in Cattermole. He said he had cholera; they said he had food poisoning. On Friday, Mother Cox was delivered by the gendarmerie: a charge of arson was being considered. “They’ve got it all wrong, adj,” Cox said earnestly. “It wasn’t really a barn, it was a sort of a hen-house, and it wasn’t any use to anyone, you could tell …” He was followed by Pip Patterson, also in a taxi; he was crippled with chilblains. Fanny Barton was the only member of “A” flight to walk home. He limped up the driveway on Saturday morning, intact but exhausted and twelve pounds lighter.
“No sign of anyone from ‘B’ flight,” Kellaway said to Skull. “That’s funny.”
“Perhaps they all got captured by French mountain troops.”
“No, Rex invented them. I expect Flip’s trudging around in circles somewhere. He was always hopeless at navigation.”
Sunday passed. Skull telephoned several hospitals and préfectures in and around the Vosges. Nothing. Rex began to look worried. “We can’t afford to be caught at half-strength,” he said. “What if the snow goes? ‘A’ flight’s in no shape to fly.”
On Monday morning, the extra pilot promised by Bletchley arrived. His name was Dutton; David Dutton: tall, heavy-shouldered, with a bushy ginger mustache. Kellaway took him into the mess and introduced him. The pilots did not move from the armchairs in which they lay sprawled.
“Hello,” Dutton said.
“Don’t be so sure,” Cattermole said, not looking up.
“I beg your pardon?”
“If you’re a replacement,” Stickwell began. He paused to cough wheezily. “Who are you replacing?”
“Whom,” Cox muttered.
“No idea,” Dutton said.
“I’m dead,” Patterson said feebly. “Replace me.” His eyes closed.
Fanny Barton was slowly waking up. “Hello,” he mumbled.
“This is Dutton,” Kellaway told him.
Barton blinked, and drifted off again. Silence, apart from slow breathing.
“They’ve had rather a rough week,” Kellaway explained.
“Yes?”
More silence. Cox settled deeper in his chair. “Whom,” he whispered to himself.
“Well,” Dutton said, “Perhaps I’d better …” A prolonged blast on a two-tone car horn interrupted him. He followed the adjutant to the window. On the forecourt was a green Bentley Continental tourer, with the top down. “‘B’ flight’s back!” Kellaway announced. Nobody answered.
A minute later, Flip Moran crashed into the room, followed by Fitzgerald and Gordon, each fighting to beat the other through the door. Then came CH3, playing a small accordion. “Scramble, scramble!” Moran shouted. “Everyone outside for lifeboat drill! There’s a war on, you know!” Fitzgerald and Gordon rushed around, tipping armchairs. Cattermole swore grimly. Moran blew shrill blasts on a whistle. They all looked tanned, fit and smartly uniformed. “Where on earth have you been?” Kellaway asked. CH3 sounded a confused but happy chord. As the accordion wheezed shut, a flap on the top sprang open and a little cuckoo popped out. “Switzerland,” CH3 said. “You missed a treat, adj.”
“Switzerland,” Rex said heavily.
“B” flight was in his office, together with Kellaway and Skull. The skies had cleared and the room was awash with sunlight.
“Explain,” he said to Moran.
“There’s not a lot to tell, sir. As soon as we met up we—”
“Wait. You all met up? How? You were dropped at least ten miles apart.”
“Smoke signals. CH3 lit a fire and made smoke signals. We all headed for them.”
Rex sniffed, and looked sideways at CH3. “Red Indian lore, no doubt.”
“I saw it in the movies, sir.”
“Then we found a village,” Moran said. “We pooled our cash and took a taxi to the nearest town. Épinal. Then we caught a train to Geneva.”
“Money?”
“CH3 telephoned his bank in New York. They cabled some dollars to a bank in Épinal. That took a few hours, of course.”
“We went to the pictures,” Flash Gordon said. “Greta Garbo. Very nice.”
“Arrived Geneva on Tuesday,” Moran went on. “Then we—”
“How? How did you get into Switzerland without passports?”
“I had my US passport,” CH3 said. “My uncle happens to be at the American embassy in Berne, and he fixed things for the others.”
“His uncle happens to be the ambassador,” Fitzgerald told Skull. Skull nodded wisely. Rex had turned away.
“We bought the Bentley in Geneva and drove to Chamonix and skied for the rest of the week,” Moran said. “Then we came back.”
“Jolly good hotel,” Fitz said. “Lots of popsies, damn good band, bar never closed. Super.”
“All paid for in dollars, I take it,” Rex said.
“The skiing’s probably better at Gstaad,” CH3 said, “but we couldn’t get through: the pass was closed.”
“What appalling luck,” Rex said. “My heart aches for you.”
“Still, we had a smashing time in Chamonix,” Gordon said. “The Swiss are—”
“That wasn’t the object of the exercise though, was it?” Rex demanded. “I sent you on a survival scheme in the Vosges, not a popsy-party in Switzerland.”
“You didn’t tell us not to go to Switzerland, sir,” Moran said.
“You knew very well what was intended.”
“I know what the orders were, sir. You said our task was to survive for one week. How or where we did it was left to us.”
“Rubbish. You didn’t solve the problem, you ran away from it.”
“If I may say so, they exercised a certain strategic nous,” Skull remarked. “Supposing the Vosges to be full of nominally hostile troops, the best course was to move into a safer area. Why, after all, face the enemy on his terms?”
“Because the real thing doesn’t work like that!” Rex barked. “You’ve got to take war as it comes, not as you’d prefer it! You can’t dodge risk because it’s … it’s … it’s inconvenient.”
“Then the terms of the exercise should have said so,” Moran declared stolidly.
“They did. The spirit of the test was perfectly obvious. You were to survive on your own resources.”
“I used my resources,” CH3 said.
“And they helped you spend them.” Rex waved dismissively at the others.
“I take it we were meant to cooperate,” Moran said.
“Besides, it wasn’t all plain sailing,” Fitzgerald added. “I had to haggle like mad with the bloke who owned the Bentley.”
“Oh, get out.”
“B” flight went away.
“The trouble with the rich,” said Rex, “is they think they can buy their way out of everything.”
“You should know,” Skull said.
Rex was taken aback. He slapped some files together and banged them into a tray. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“Well, by any normal standard your family is extremely rich, isn’t it? All those factories. Corsets and so on,” Skull told Kellaway.
“Foundation garments,” Rex said. “And I’d rather it wasn’t generally known, if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t blame you,” Kellaway said.
“It’s not a question of snobbery. I don’t give a damn whether the factories make knickers or nutcrackers. I just don’t want people thinking I’m a soft touch, that’s all.”
“Then why do you pay half of everyone’s mess bill?” Skull asked.
“Because I choose to. Hornet squadron means a lot to me. I like to think that we set the standard in Fighter Command. I like to think we’re something special, in the air and on the ground.”
“We are,” Kellaway said loyally.
On the way downstairs, Rex said: “What’s he going to do when he meets a flock of Messerschmitt 110’s? Cable his bankers in New York?”
“You’re taking it personally,” Skull said. “You should concede that they exhibited considerable initiative, and accept that fact.”
“They dodged,” Rex said. “Well, they won’t dodge again, I can assure you of that.”
The windows in the summerhouse were made of stained glass. At night the colors died, but the hurricane lamp hanging from a beam was just strong enough to pick out the reds, the blues and the greens. There was an oil-heater beside the door. Hot air trembled above it and lifted specks of dust in a helpless rush toward the roof. The place smelled of paraffin and old apples and hay. The hay was underneath a sheet of canvas, and the canvas was underneath Nicole and Flash.
He felt hot. He put his arms outside the blankets and stretched. His left hand touched a pile of apples, so he took one and ate it, quietly. He was still hot. He opened the blankets and let the air get at his body. Nicole groaned when she felt the draft, so he re-arranged the blankets. She snuggled into them like an animal making its nest, and gave a little grunt of contentment.
After a moment she opened her eyes.
“Flash …” Her voice was still croaky with sleep. “Why haven’t you tell me … told me … that you go away … for a week?”
“I didn’t have a chance, Nicole. It all happened very suddenly, you see. Would you like an apple?”
“You could have send me … sent to me … a letter.”
“No time, my love. All very urgent, you see. Action stations, emergency, all hands to the pumps.” He took a last bite. “Besides, I’m not much good at letters.”
“Where did you go?”
“Can’t tell you, I’m afraid.” He looked for somewhere to put the core, and finally stood it on top of an empty wine-bottle. “Top secret.”
Nicole pressed her face into the blankets. “You disappear during a week,” she said, muffled. “I think you never, never see me again.”
“Yes, well, that’s war for you, isn’t it?” The top of her back was exposed and he ran a fingernail down her spine. She shivered. “England expects, and so into the valley of the shadow of death ride the six hundred …” He rubbed his arms, which were developing goosepimples; and that jogged his memory. “Hey! Just remembered. I bought you something.”
He jumped up and fetched a book from his greatcoat pocket. “The Miracle of Human Biology, by a bloke called Braine. It’s in English, I got it in Geneva. It says—”
“Genève? En Suisse?”
“Yes. Only you’re not supposed to know that, sweety. Better forget it. All fearfully hush-hush, you see.” Flash squatted on the blankets, his feet tucked under him. The hurricane lamp picked out the ripple of his ribcage. It gilded his narrow shoulders and his slim flanks but left his front in darkness. Nicole, watching him, thought he could he any age from fifteen upward: he was so completely unmarked, so light and free. He seems more natural with his clothes off, she thought, and then told herself: Well naturally, of course he does, you idiot … “There’s a very interesting bit about why people blush,” Flash said, flipping the pages. “Do you blush, Nicky? I used to blush all the time. He says—”
She reached out and plucked the book from his hands. “I don’t care what he says. Ce n’est pas important.”
“Oh.” He linked his hands on the top of his head and rocked on his heels. “Well, qu’est-ce que c’est … um … important?”
“Nous sommes importants.” She wriggled out of the blankets, and something in the pit of his stomach lurched. He stopped rocking. Steady on, Gordon, he told himself. You’ll do yourself a damage if you go on like this …
“Listen, Flash,” she said. “Perhaps you go away again next week, yes?”
“No. Well, it’s possible. I mean, the way I see it—”
“I don’t like to be left alone. It makes me very unhappy.”
“Oh, me too.” He gripped his left big toe with his right, and made them wrestle. “I agree, it’s a shocking bind. But that’s war for you, isn’t it? Not much anyone can do.”
“There is one thing we can do.”
“What’s that?”
“The same as lots of other people do.”
“We’ve already done that. I can probably manage another helping, if that’s what—”
“Flash listen. It’s different for you. You have your squadron, your friends, your flying. But I am alone. When you go away … You could be transferred tomorrow and then … Don’t you: understand? I’m no good alone. I’m afraid.”
“Get yourself a dog. Nice labrador.”
She hit him with the book.
“You’ve gone and broken it,” he said, rubbing his arm.
“Good! Good! I break all your arms! I break your legs! I break your head, your stupid English head!”
“Not me, you idiot. You’ve broken the book.”
She hit him with it again. Torn pages fluttered.
“For God’s sake! What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Now she was crying. Within seconds the tears were running down her cheeks and splashing on her breasts. Flash had never seen anyone cry so much, so fast. He was alarmed but he was also intrigued, and made a mental note: female tear-ducts. “What’s wrong with labradors?” he said. “Very chummy dogs.”
“You, you’re a stupid! You don’t think, you don’t feel, you have no heart …” She went off into a stream of tear-stained, hiccuping, incomprehensible French.
“Well, I’m sorry I’m a stupid,” he said. He put his arms around her and to his surprise she came willingly, eagerly. “It’s not my fault. I happen to come from a very long line of stupids. You may not believe this, but my family is descended from an original Norman stupid. His name was Sir Gordon de Stupid. If you want pure stupid breeding, you couldn’t do better than us.”
“I want. I want very much.”
“Ah.” Suddenly he understood, and the shock of discovery startled him. “You actually want … I mean the idea is that you and I … Are you sure? It’s a jolly big step, you know.”
She said something incoherent to his chest, but it sounded happy and affirmative.
“Yes. I see. Well, why didn’t you say so, in the first place? You could’ve saved all this fuss.” They lay down, still in each other’s arms. Flash found a part of the book under his ear, and fished it out. “Here it is!” he said. “Braine on blushing. Lie still while I read it to you.”
“I know all that stuff.”
“Ah, but this is about English blushing. It’s in a class of its own. Listen …” The important thing, Fitz told himself as he walked to the front door, the only thing that matters, the thing that matters more than anything else, is not to worry about it.
He swung the knocker. His stomach was as tight as a washboard.
Relax completely and forget it. Otherwise you make yourself your own worst enemy. Just let nature take its course.
Mary Blandin opened the door and gave him such a happy smile that he swayed slightly. They kissed, briefly, and he went in.
You have nothing to fear but fear itself, Fitz thought sternly. Where had he read that? In one of the sex manuals he bought in Switzerland? No …
“I missed you a lot,” she said.
“Me too. I kept wishing I had a photograph.”
“So did I. We ought to take some.”
“With or without clothes?”
“I don’t mind. Which would you prefer?”
“I think I’ll compromise. I’d like you in Wellington boots and white gloves.”
“All right, and I’ll have you in spats and a black mask.”
The thought of it made him anxious. “I brought you these,” he said. They were gramophone records, from Geneva.
“How marvelous! Paul Whiteman, Count Basie, Henry Hall … You are kind.”
He told her about the survival exercise, while she cooked apple pancakes. CH3 interested her. “I’d like to meet him, one day,” she said.
“Why not? Mind you, he’s a funny chap. Very charming and clever and all that, but a bit ruthless. Not much give-and-take.”
“You value a bit of give-and-take, do you?”
For a moment he thought she was teasing him, and the pulse in his head hammered a little. “I don’t know,” he said. “We all fly together, so we ought to trust each other. The trouble with CH3 is he’s got his own way of doing everything. That’s no good, is it? If you join a squadron, you join it.”
“Perhaps it’s because he’s always had too much money.”
“Maybe. Maybe he thinks he’s entitled to everything.”
They ate, and argued cheerfully about the rights and wrongs of inherited wealth. Fitz drank quite a lot of wine, which Mary noticed, and he noticed that she noticed it. That’s nothing to worry about, he told himself.
Later, they pushed the table into a corner and danced to the new records. Fitz was a good dancer. They slow-foxtrotted with his strong right arm guiding her, and he began to enjoy himself. She was lithe, and light on her feet, and she responded willingly. He was in command!
While he was re-winding the gramophone she turned off the lights, leaving only the glow of the fire, and went to her bedroom. She came back wearing a sleeveless silk dress that gleamed like ivory in the firelight. They danced again: Blue Skies, Tea for Two, You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To. She put both arms around his neck. “Mary,” he murmured. “You’re not wearing anything under that dress, are you?”
“It took you an awful long time to find out, Fitz.”
“Well, the light’s not very good.”
He took the silk in his fingertips and raised it to her shoulders. Now her skin gleamed like ivory. She curled her head out of the dress. He let it fall, and they walked to the bedroom. He was trembling, his heartbeat seemed to have an irregular wallop in it, he lost two buttons getting his shirt off; but as soon as he slid between the sheets and his hand touched her side, he knew it was no good. They hugged eagerly and kissed greedily, but there was a part of him that wasn’t having any.
“Poor Fitz,” she said after a while.
“I’m not poor, I’m penniless.”
“Never mind. One day we’ll both be rich.”
“Not a hope. I think my assets have been frozen.”
“Never mind, dear. I expect it’s like riding a bicycle. One day, all of a sudden, it’ll come naturally.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“That’s terrible news. It took me four whole years to learn how to ride a bike.”
“You couldn’t have been really trying.”
“I kept falling off.”
“No danger of that here. I’ll keep a tight grip on you.”
Eventually he got dressed, and they played the rest of the gramophone records until Flash Gordon bipped his horn outside. It was only when he was going out that Fitz saw the broken window in the front door. It had been roughly patched with plywood. “What happened here?” he asked.
“Oh … Nothing important. We’ve got some unpleasant characters in the village. They don’t approve of the British.” She pointed to a yellow crayon scribble on the door: Merde anglaise.
“Good God! That’s awful.”
“I agree, dear. The colors don’t match.” Flash was revving his engine. “Go on, it’s freezing.”
Fitz was dreading the routine inquiry he got from Flash about what sort of evening he’d had, but tonight he was spared it. Flash had big news. “Guess what!” he said, rear wheels spinning on the packed snow.
“What?”
“Nicole wants to have a baby.”
“Really? What on earth for?”
“Dunno. Why not? Perfectly natural thing for a woman to want, I’d have thought.”
“Yes, but … Are you sure? I mean, doesn’t she want to get married first?”
Flash was about to say: No, she didn’t say anything about that, when he got an urgent warning signal from a remote corner of his brain; and he remained silent while he rapidly reviewed recent events. Marriage? Was that what she’d been driving at? Marriage. Ah. Not just babies. Marriage too. “Yes, I expect so,” he said casually, but his mind was still being bombarded with violent images of vicars and organs and confetti and bloody bridesmaids and blurred photographs in the local paper. Christ Almighty! Marriage!
“Well, that’s nice,” Fitz said. “Congratulations, Flash. I hope you’ll both be very happy.”
“Piece of cake,” Flash said; and saw it in his mind’s eye, a colossal great slice of wedding cake, the size of a barn door, all covered in icing; and him eating it, forever and ever and ever. Shit. Too late now. He’d said yes.
The long-range weather forecast indicated little change. Rex sent Cox and Fitzgerald on leave.
For a couple of seconds, Fitz considered not going. He was worried about Mary’s safety: the smashed window, the scribbled obscenity. She lived alone. Perhaps he had brought this hatred upon her, by visiting her so often. There was anti-British feeling in the area; others had noticed it. Rex saw him hesitate. “It might be now or never, Fitz,” he said.
“I’ll go.” There was his family to think of, too.
“Truck leaves in ten minutes,” the adjutant told him. “There’s a plane from Rheims with some spare space. Catch that and you’ll be in London tonight.”
Fitzgerald packed fast and ran downstairs with his bag. He met Cattermole returning from squash, very content after beating the new man, Dutton. “Moggy,” Fitzgerald said. “Do me a favor? I’m off on leave. Would you keep an eye on Mary? Pop in occasionally, make sure she’s okay? I’m a bit worried. She’s on her own, you see.”
“Of course I will!” Cattermole said heartily. “You go off and enjoy yourself and think no more about it. I’ll see she’s all right.”
“You’re a gent,” said Fitzgerald gratefully, and ran for the truck.
Fanny Barton discussed with Kellaway and Skull the matter of Cattermole’s hostility toward Stickwell. What made it puzzling, he said, was the fact that they used to be the best of friends. Now, all of a sudden, Moggy seemed to hate and despise him. He really was quite vindictive. Kellaway said it was just boredom. That was Kellaway’s standard explanation for anything peculiar or pointless that pilots did. “No action, you see,” he said. “No Huns to hunt, no Boche to bag. You can’t expect them to keep it bottled up.” Barton pointed out that they weren’t all being bloody; just Moggy, and only to Sticky.
Skull put it down to post-adolescent instability. “Say again?” said the adjutant. It was a familiar experience at university, Skull explained. Young men often developed friendships of a certain intensity, and sometimes there was a reaction, equally strong, in the opposite direction which … “This is Fighter Command,” Kellaway interrupted. “Not a lot of pansies with silk hankies stuffed up their sleeves.” Skull was not discouraged. Fighter pilots, he pointed out, were young men with a strong romantic streak, highly competitive, obliged to lead a largely monastic life, and therefore … “Drivel!” barked the adjutant. “Bosh, tosh and poppycock!” Skull smiled, and said no more. Barton wondered what was the best thing to do. “Get ’em back into action, old boy,” Kellaway said briskly. “It works like a dose of salts. I’ve seen it time and time again.” Barton nodded. Micky Marriott had three snowplows whacking away at the drifts that rolled across the airfield like ocean swells; but it would be a few days yet. And meanwhile Moggy never missed a chance to needle his former friend. “God knows what pleasure he gets out of it,” Barton muttered. “The pleasure of destructiveness,” Skull suggested. “That is, after all, Cattermole’s raison d’être, isn’t it?” Kellaway scoffed: “Raisin pudding!” Barton went away, little the wiser.
CH3 had a very short meeting with his commanding officer.
“Reconnaissance Liaison Unit,” he said. “Does that mean I liaise with reconnaissance or vice versa?”
“Please yourself.”
“And have I your permission to modify my Hurricane?”
“No.”
“One last question, sir. What the hell is going on?”
“It’s called the phony war,” said Rex. “If you don’t understand it, I can’t explain it to you.”
Cattermole borrowed a motorcycle and went to visit Mary Blandin. He took a small present with him: a book of Irish poetry that he had found on Flip Moran’s bedside table. She was surprised to see him, and amused by Fitz’s concern for her, and touched by the gift. She made coffee, and they talked about Fitz. “He’s very conscientious, isn’t he?” Cattermole said. “In some ways older than his years, in some ways younger … D’you find that?”
She thought, and nodded. “He does get awfully anxious at times.”
Cattermole smiled inquiringly.
“Nothing special,” she said. “Just little things. But he takes them so seriously.”
“It’s a good fault, Mrs. Blandin.”
“Oh, please! Call me Mary.”
“May I? Thank you. And you must call me Lance. Everyone else does … No, he’s a very hardworking chap, is young Fitz. It was one of the things that first impressed me when he joined my flight.”
“He’s in your flight?”
“I’m his flight commander, yes.”
“My goodness. I’m honored.”
“On the contrary, Mary, I’m privileged. You’ve no idea what a pleasure it is to escape the responsibilities of command and enjoy the company of a beautiful woman.”
That brought the color to her cheeks. “I’m afraid I live a very sort of unexciting life, compared with yours, Lance.”
“You underrate yourself,” he murmured, “enormously.”
Cattermole stayed for only half an hour. On the way out he saw the broken pane and the scribble. “It’s some kind of greasy crayon,” Mary said. “It won’t wash off.”
“Wait here.” He went to the motorbike and dipped his handkerchief in the petrol tank. The crayon dissolved and vanished in a couple of wipes.
“You’re brilliant. I would never have thought of that.” A combination of frosty air and gratitude made her eyes sparkle. “Now you’ve ruined your handkerchief. Give it here, I’ll wash it out.” She took it before he could argue.
“You’re very kind. You also make uncommonly good coffee, and in all respects you are a truly delightful person. Goodnight.” He stooped and kissed her on the cheek.
The machine started at the first thrust of his leg. She watched him speed away, changing gear briskly, until the taillight vanished.
He came back the following night to collect his handkerchief. There was a fresh obscenity scribbled on the door. This time she gave him a rag to dip in the petrol tank.
“Mary, who is treating you in this frightful way?” he asked gently, when they were inside.
“Someone in the village. You can’t be a schoolteacher without offending parents, I’m afraid.”
She made coffee and they talked about the village children, about her own childhood, about parts of England that they both knew. Cattermole could be a very good listener when he chose, and Mary found herself remembering incidents and anecdotes from long ago, all of which he found vastly interesting and entertaining. His attention was so flattering that she began to feel guilty. “I wonder what Fitz is up to at this very moment?” she said suddenly.
“Oh, heaven knows.” Then he chuckled in a way that made her look. “One thing’s certain: he won’t be writing long letters every day.”
“Does he usually?”
“Not usually, Mary: infallibly. I’ve often wondered what the deuce he finds to say to …” Cattermole shrugged. “…whoeverit-is.”
She smiled, briefly. “It can’t be easy.”
“I’ve no doubt young Fitz is on the spree, painting the town pink, drinking the bars dry, and reminding society that nobody’s daughter is safe when a fighter pilot’s loose. At least, that’s what he’ll tell us when he comes back.”
“He’s a very good dancer.” It was the only safe thing she could think to say.
“Is he really? D’you like dancing? You should. You have the figure for it.”
Mary found the records from Geneva while Cattermole wound up the gramophone. As they danced he tested his observations, and found that he was right. She had a very good figure indeed.
Next night there was yet another abusive scribble for him to clean off the front door. “Persistent blighters, aren’t they?” he said.
“Yes. I’m at school all day, so it’s easy for them.”
“Have you told the police?”
“The French police? I don’t need to. The village bobby is very anti-British. If the spelling weren’t so good, I might think he was doing this.”
“You’re very brave about it, Mary.”
“Oh, well. I haven’t much choice. Anyway, dirty words can’t hurt me.” But she was very glad to see Cattermole. All day she had been wondering if she would come home to more filth on her front door, and when she had seen it she had been afraid, and had slammed the door behind her and given herself a big drink, fast. Cattermole was tall and strong and very reassuring. She felt able to relax and to seem as brave as he thought she was.
They were roasting chestnuts at the open fire when it happened. He had brought some wine, a Sylvaner, and they were trying to find words to describe its taste and color. “No, Mary, you’re quite wrong,” he said. “Not winter sunshine. And certainly not fields of golden buttercups.”
“I wasn’t serious about the buttercups.”
“That’s a relief. For a moment I feared you were turning into the Fairy Queen.”
“Oh. Would that be so bad?”
“Catastrophic, my sweet. I have it on the evidence of my governess, who was the third biggest liar north of the Tweed, that fairy queens slide down moonbeams.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Depends what you mean by fun.” He rescued a smoking chestnut. “That’s how pixies are born, you know.”
“What? By sliding down moonbeams?”
He nodded. “Harley Street is quite unanimous.”
“Well, they’re all wrong. Everyone knows that pixies are made by rubbing two rainbows together.”
Cattermole made a little show of spilling his wine. “That,” he said, “is by far the most erotic statement I have heard all week.”
She smiled with cheerful pleasure; it was a long time since she had so amused and impressed a man. “Anyway, I still think it’s like winter sunshine,” she said.
“No. I’ll tell you what it is.” He topped up his glass and looked at her through the wine. “It’s you, in that absolutely stunning dress.”
She was wearing the sleeveless silk dress, the color of old ivory. For a long moment she simply sat and enjoyed his admiration. Something banged like a big firework and the room seemed to explode inwards with a crash of glass and shattered wood. The curtains billowed violently and on the opposite wall a picture was suddenly ripped across; it jumped and hung slewed. Mary was knocked flat by Cattermole’s diving body. “Keep still!” he shouted; but she had no choice: he was lying on top of her. He was holding the bottle of Sylvaner, and she could feel the wine soaking through her dress. The last fragment of glass tinkled. He rolled off her and ran across the room. The lights went out. He was back, helping her up. “Keep your head down,” he said. They scuttled into the bedroom and sprawled on the floor. “Better,” he said. “Nice stone walls. I think that was a shotgun. You’re not hurt? Good. Stay there.”
“For God’s sake don’t go!” She forbade herself to cry. It was only shock. Be sensible: control yourself. She found herself crying, sobbing for breath, all control gone. There was a muffled thud as Cattermole dragged everything off the bed, mattress and all. Then he was back, lifting her onto the heap. “Keep below window-level,” he said. Her arms were around him, and they lay together until she had exhausted her tears.
“You’re soaking wet.”
“Wine.”
“That’s no good. Better take it off.”
“Yes.”
But she did nothing, so he unbuttoned the dress and peeled it away. Surprise, surprise, he thought. He sat on the edge of the mattress and untied his shoes, carefully, so as not to get the laces knotted. Half a minute later he was in bed, and she was curling her arms around him. “Don’t go, don’t go,” she whispered. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “Quite the reverse.”
Stickwell raised the revolver, aimed, fired. The explosion ripped out the calm of the day, and the recoil flung his hand upward. He brought it down and fired again, teeth clenched and eyes squeezed half-shut.
His fourth shot hit an ear.
“That’s better, Sticky,” Flip Moran said.
“Really? I didn’t see anything.”
“Yes. You got an ear.”
They walked over to the targets, a row of statues set up in a corner of the kitchen garden behind the chateau. Moran pointed to the missing ear. “See?”
“Damn. I wasn’t aiming at that chap. I was after the next-but-one.”
“You don’t say?” Moran’s thick black mustache twitched. “My stars, Sticky, you’re an awful dangerous man with a gun, and that’s a fact.”
“It’s not funny, Flip. I told you, I can’t shoot to save my life. Well, that doesn’t worry me, I don’t care what Moggy says, I’m not afraid of getting killed, I can face that. But I ought to be able to do something before I snuff it, oughtn’t I?” He spun the revolver on his finger.
Moran took it from him and applied the safety-catch. “This proves nothing, this thing,” he said.
“What about the Dornier? I missed the Dornier completely.”
“That didn’t matter.”
“It mattered to me, Flip. The trouble is my eyes seem to go funny when I try to shoot someone down. They keep blinking. That’s no good, is it? It happened at the Battle of Southend Sands. I couldn’t even hit a bloody Blenheim!”
“Just as well.”
“Not the point, though, is it?” Stickwell picked up a chunk of the ear and tried to replace it on the statue’s head, but it fell off. “I sometimes think Moggy’s right,” he said. “I’m not cut out to be a fighter pilot. All my family have funny eyes, you know.”
“Moggy knows nothing. The man’s a bag of wind.”
“Uncle George is totally blind. Can’t see a damn thing.”
“Ah, just wait, Sticky. One of these days you’ll stuff a Jerry all on your own, and after that you’ll wonder what the fuss was all about.”
“I hope you’re right,” Stickwell said gloomily. “I’ve got to do something about it, anyway.” He took back the revolver, and began practicing quick draws from his canvas holster. “He keeps on about it, I don’t know why …” On his third attempt he dropped the gun. “We used to be quite good pals, but now he can’t stand the sight of me. I don’t understand it.”
A heavy growl had been chewing at the tranquility of the day: engines getting tested. Now the growl, like an animal baring its teeth, became a roar, and the roar fed on itself and grew fiercer. “Hello, hello,” Moran said. They turned to face the sound, and before long a Hurricane sprang into view and thundered directly over the chateau. “Micky’s got the field open,” Stickwell said. “Terrific. Now we can go out to play.” The Hurricane came back and flew all around the grounds of the chateau in a near-vertical turn. “That’s Flash,” Moran said. “He’s full of old buck now he’s got himself engaged, isn’t he?”
Cox and Fitzgerald came back from leave to find the squadron in a state of keen excitement. On two consecutive days, enemy aircraft had been found and attacked. In all, three Dornier 17’s and six Heinkel 111’s had been involved, including one glorious occasion when the entire squadron had come across a formation of three Heinkels and chased it twenty miles, starting at eighteen thousand feet and ending at ground level with the German aircraft jinking furiously as they raced over the frontier.
“Krautland’s still out-of-bounds,” Moke Miller told Cox and Fitzgerald, “so we had to let them go. Pity, really. Another mile and—”
“My kite got slightly stitched-up by one of their gunners,” Pip Patterson said. “Dumbo got a packet of flak through a wing.”
“Dumbo?” Cox said.
“Dutton. And Sticky came back with half a mile of telephone wire wrapped around his tail-wheel.”
“Cracking good fun,” Miller said. “Have a good leave?”
“Ate too much,” said Fitzgerald.
“Got taken to the opera,” said Cox.
“You poor buggers. Anyway, there should be plenty more sport tomorrow. The Hun seems to be up to something.”
That night, Fitzgerald went to see Mary Blandin. He went alone; he didn’t tell Flash that he was going; he slipped away quietly after dinner. On the way there, he wondered about this secrecy. What was he ashamed of? Nothing. But he was afraid of something, he had to admit that. The dread of failure followed him like a bad shadow. If nobody else knew, did that make the failure any the less? Rubbish! Thus, despising himself already, Fitz went up to Mary’s cottage and banged on the door of a dark and empty house.
He knew it was empty as soon as he swung the knocker. No crack of light around the blackout curtains. No smoke from the chimney. The windows shuttered, in fact.
He stood in the starry night and listened to his breath making smoke-plumes in the freezing air. After the first sense of shock there was a certain relief. At least he was spared having to make yet another limp excuse.
There was an estaminet down the road. He went off and bought himself a drink, thinking: She might have sent me a note. No consideration.
The year ended with a fine flurry of action. “A” flight got sent to investigate an unidentified aircraft reported between Bar-le-Duc and Toul, climbed to 25,000 feet and found a Dornier 17. They chased it for thirty miles and shot it down in flames near Lunéville. “B” flight when on patrol came across a Heinkel circling St. Mihiel, apparently lost. They put one engine out of action and killed the upper gunner, at which point the German pilot put the plane into a vertical dive. He pulled out, very skillfully, at low level and tried to land on a small civilian airfield, but the bomber’s remaining engine kept dragging it sideways and he flew into a wood. There was a large explosion and many trees caught fire. When Moran landed, his windscreen was smeared with blood: the blood of the Heinkel’s upper gunner.
Jacky Bellamy happened to be in the control tower when “A” flight got the Dornier. She was able to follow the entire sequence of events, from the sighting to the kill, by listening to Rex’s comments and commands given over the R/T. She wrote it all down. It was a good story for her: the quiet calm on the ground contrasting with the crisp, crackling aggression five miles in the sky; the long chase; the total victory. She saw CH3 in the mess that evening and mentioned it.
“I’m pleased you’re pleased,” he said.
“I take it that means you’re not wildly impressed.”
“Should I be? The odds were six to one. Why did they have to chase it so far before they destroyed it?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“The tactics were wrong. They obviously didn’t achieve any surprise.”
“Tactics again.” She wrinkled her nose, and that offended him and he began to turn away, so she said quickly: “Anyway, you can’t always guarantee surprise, can you?”
“All right, forget tactics. Just think about six fighters attacking one bomber continuously over a thirty-mile stretch. Something’s got to be wrong with the gunnery.”
“You mean the guns jammed, or something?”
“No. I mean most of the shots missed. For a start, the guns are harmonized wrongly. They’re aimed so as to make the bullet-streams converge at a point four hundred yards ahead of the aircraft. That’s no good.”
“Why?”
“It’s too far. Four hundred yards is nearly a quarter of a mile. D’you know what sort of target a Dornier 17 presents at a range of a quarter of a mile? It looks like a matchstick.”
“Yes, but surely that’s only the beginning of the attack. You keep firing, you get closer, the thing gets bigger, so—”
“So now the bullet-streams are converging way beyond the target. You’ve lost your lethal density. You’re spraying shots all around the area, instead of focusing your fire on one vital spot.”
“I see.” She thought about it. “So why do they harmonize at four hundred, then?”
“Because they reckon the average RAF fighter pilot’s such a lousy shot that if he had to come in close and fire a short burst, he’d miss. This way, he can stand off and fire a long burst and miss.”
“They didn’t all miss today.”
“Look,” he said patiently. “You asked me and I told you. If it’s not what your readers want, I can’t help that.”
She went to see Rex.
“Well, of course, he wasn’t there, was he?” Rex said. “I suppose if you’re not there, thirty miles sounds a lot, but believe me when you’re covering five or six miles a minute, it goes by in a flash … Did he mention the Dornier’s speed? No, I thought not. Racy customer, the Dornier, especially going downhill, which this one was, since he had a vast amount of height to spare. That meant we had a flat-out tail-chase. What did he tell you about the guns?”
“Wrongly harmonized.”
“No, the Dornier’s guns.”
“Oh. Nothing.”
“Really.” Rex tugged gently at an eyebrow. “Well, nothing is not an adequate description, I’m afraid. Four machineguns, two of them rear-facing—one dorsal, one ventral, so the field-of-fire is very well calculated. Unlike us, these gunners don’t have to fly their crates. They can concentrate exclusively on destroying us. Hence I was not too anxious to offer them an easy target, which takes me to the question of gun-harmonization. What was his complaint, again?”
“The harmonized range is too great.”
“This squadron, like every squadron in Fighter Command, uses the Dowding Spread. You’ve met Air Chief Marshal Dowding?”
“No, but I know he’s C-in-C Fighter Command.”
“A fine officer and a true gentleman. I had the honor to attend a meeting where he analyzed the thinking behind the Dowding Spread. He made three crucial points. One: an enemy bomber is a relatively big target. Two: the bullet pattern created by the Dowding Spread is big enough to compensate for pilot error. Some error is inevitable in air fighting, and by using a heavy spray rather than a jet, one is more likely to splash the enemy. Third: a range of four hundred yards places the fighter outside the effective defensive fire of the bomber.”
“Makes sense.”
“We think so. And there are several German crews who would agree, if they could speak.”
She went back to the mess. “I checked it out with Squadron Leader Rex,” she said to CH3. “He explained everything, he answered all your objections, and I have to say his version makes a lot more sense than yours.”
He cocked his head. “I’m surprised at you. I thought the first thing they taught you at journalism school was never to believe anything official.”
“It’s not that easy. Sometimes it’s just as stupid to disbelieve everything simply because it’s official. I reckon this is one of those times.”
“Reckon away. Go ahead and write it. I should care.”
Mother Cox looked up from an Illustrated London News. “For goodness sake!” he said. “What’s he been binding about now? Doesn’t he like the way we part our hair?”
Moke Miller immediately took out a comb and parted his hair in the middle. It made him look foolish, and for a few days everyone else copied him. As a result the squadron resembled a bunch of 1920’s danceband musicians. “You will tell us if we’ve got it wrong, won’t you?” Miller asked. CH3 smiled and said nothing.
Fitzgerald visited the cottage twice more, and then asked Cattermole if he knew where Mary was.
“Not the foggiest. Gone away for Christmas, I expect.”
“Was she all right when you saw her?”
“Couldn’t have been better, Fitz. First-class.”
“Nothing worrying her, then.”
“When I left her,” Cattermole said, “she seemed very contented.”
“Good. Thanks for looking after her, Moggy.”
“What else are friends for?”
Dumbo Dutton was a burly, amiable young man whose only claim to fame was that he owned a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, bought in Paris on his way to join the squadron. He was reading it in the anteroom after lunch, and making occasional gasps and soft whistles for the benefit of the others, when Rex tapped him on the shoulder and said they were going flying. A couple of aspects of his close-formation drill needed a bit of polishing.
They went above the weather, exchanging a dead snowscape for a fresh, bright world of sunshine. The air was astonishingly clear: Dutton saw mountain peaks to the south, and realized they must be Swiss Alps. The sky was a soft, pale blue at the horizon, deepening as he looked up until it became indigo overhead. As he kept turning his head it faded to turquoise and then, beyond the sun, to a shining buttermilk. He had seen nothing like it outside the cinema.
They flew for nearly an hour. Rex was pleased, and said so, which made Dutton happy.
They dropped down through the clouds and circled the airfield. It all looked smudged and grubby: the sun was nearly down; the light was flat and listless. Rex landed first. Dutton made a wide circuit to give Rex plenty of time to clear the runway, and then made his approach. Now undercarriage down. He tugged the selector lever and it wouldn’t move. Damn. He heaved hard but it seemed locked. “Wake up, Dumbo!” he said aloud, remembered the thumbcatch, squeezed and pulled. Down went the undercarriage, thud-thud, two green lights, but as he lowered the flaps he realized he’d drifted away from the runway while he had his little panic, and now the plowed-out strip was off to his left.
He sideslipped and suddenly realized, as he glanced down at the blank stretches of snow, that he was quite low. It was hard to judge height in this gray, gutless light, but really this was too low, in fact far too low! He gave the engine a bucketful of throttle and hauled back the stick to go round again. The Hurricane seesawed, stalled and, its propeller thrashing furiously at the end of the bellowing Merlin, spun awkwardly.
Rex was taxiing when he saw the Hurricane land on its tail just inside the perimeter fence. It bounced like a pogo-stick and went a clear forty feet in the air. He saw its wings in silhouette like the arms of a gymnast attempting a cartwheel. Then it whacked its nose into the runway with a bang that penetrated his own engineroar, and everything either folded up or flew off or bounced away.
By then Rex had his machine turned around and he was racing it back up the strip. Sparks were sizzling around Dutton’s cockpit from fractured electrical leads when he reached the crash, and the air stank so much of petrol that he was coughing and choking as he wrestled and struggled with the hood. All around, chunks of hot metal sizzled in the snow. He kicked out a Perspex panel, got both hands around a torn metal frame, and heaved. The hood fell off. The instrument panel was half-buried in Dutton’s crumpled body and colored cables were smoking and sparking everywhere. Rex got Dutton under the arms. He bent at the knees and straightened so powerfully that both the pilot and the dashboard came free. He ran with them, away from the stench of fuel. It was only when he laid them down that he saw that Dutton had no legs. At that moment a wing-tank went up with a whoosh of flame, and the fire-truck and bloodwagon arrived.
Later, the adjutant took Skull to Dutton’s room. “You might as well learn how to do this,” he said. They went through the belongings. “Read all his letters. Anything unpleasant, chuck it on the fire.” They packed his clothes in his suitcase and found a packet of contraceptive sheaths under his socks. “That goes out, straight away,” Kellaway grunted.
Flash Gordon appeared in the doorway. “Dumbo said I could have it when he was finished,” he said. Skull stared.
“On the dressing-table,” Kellaway said.