Frank taxied to Dispersal, revved the engine to clear it, then switched everything off and sat motionless, savouring the silence before the ground crew clambered up around him. His head still rang with noise and vibration and he could smell the hot fumes, but for half a minute the healing balm of silence spread from within, like consciousness of grace. Even the shouts and exclamations of the mechanics, startlingly clear after the distortions of the radio, did not at first dispel it.
He had picked up the Dodger on the way back, finding him limping along at 230 knots and 15,000 feet, a tell-tale thin dark vapour-line of burnt oil behind. Frank was at 20,000 feet and just within sight of the coast of France. He approached the Dodger in a long shallow dive, well off to his right so as not to alarm him. When he was parallel and sure of being seen and identified, he moved in close. There were no flames but the Dodger’s engine cowling was streaked with oil and holed near the rear. He flew level, however, and his prop was regular. Not wanting to give their position away by breaking radio silence, Frank tipped his wings and held up his thumb, wriggling it from vertical to horizontal. The Dodger’s goggled face grinned and he held his thumb up. Frank dropped back and climbed to 17,000 feet, playing guardian angel all the way back to the Kent coast. By the time they reached the airfield the Dodger’s oil vapour was thickening ominously and he was feathering his engine. He turned it off and glided down to a perfect landing.
Roused by the ground crew, Frank unharnessed himself and pushed back his cockpit canopy. For a few seconds more he still carried the silence within him, like a full glass of water. Always, even after a successful mission with reason to celebrate – another kill – he was reluctant to re-engage, to spill the water. And always, the moment the glass was smashed, he thought no more of it.
A tractor was towing the Dodger’s plane off the end of the runway, fire engine and ambulance in attendance. Frank could just make out the Dodger’s squat shape and characteristic gesticulations. Uninjured, evidently. That was no surprise; it was possible to imagine the Dodger not existing at all but impossible to imagine a lesser, maimed or disabled Dodger. It seemed his body could barely contain his energy. Like him or loathe him, he filled a room, was a quick and adept pilot, daring in combat to the point of foolhardiness, impulsive and unpredictable. He owed his nickname to his ability to dodge trouble both in the air and on the station, where he often sailed pretty close to the wind. Frank envied him his confidence and was pleased to have been able to shepherd him home.
In the debrief afterwards the Dodger was exuberant. ‘Did you get him? Did you get the bastard who got me?’
‘I got him. The film will confirm. But I got him.’
The Dodger slapped him on the shoulder, his grin showing nearly all his large, widely spaced teeth.
‘Good old Moose. First I knew of it was a bloody great bang and I could see bugger all, oil all over my goggles, half my instruments gone. Talk about flying blind, all I could do was heave up and away till the fog cleared. Marvel I didn’t fly into anyone. Christ knows what happened to the bastard I was chasing. Sure I hit him. Did anyone see?’
Tim, the lanky Kiwi, thought he might have seen him go down but couldn’t be sure. Nor was anyone else. The squadron hadn’t lost anyone and had accounted for two Focke-Wulfs, including Frank’s, plus a possible, so the atmosphere was cheerful. The Typhoons had suffered badly, though, losing two to flak, another to the Focke-Wulfs and a fourth caught by the explosion of the third. It was too often the way with low-level attacks on defended targets: they might work but they were always costly. Someone thought another Typhoon had fallen prey to two Focke-Wulfs near the end of the scrap but someone else reckoned he had intercepted them, allowing it to escape. An argument began.
Patrick held up his hand. ‘Cut it. Leave it to film and body count. We’ll find out later.’ There was immediate silence. They sat on their fold-up chairs, looking at him. He was seated at the table with the station intelligence officer. The wing commander was elsewhere. ‘Now, before you all cut along for nosh, one more thing.’ He lit another cigarette, taking his time. Patrick never hurried, never raised his voice, never needed to. He spoke with a calm assurance that was assumed by those with no experience of it to be due to his Eton schooling. He was known to miss nothing and to pull no punches, but was never less than polite. ‘We nearly lost two pilots today through basic errors, errors you all know to avoid. Dodger, because you were too intent on your prey even after he was obviously hit and out of it. You didn’t look behind you. It’s basic, elementary. You’d have hit the ground before he did – if he did – if Frank hadn’t saved your bacon. And Frank, right at the start because you were hanging around sight-seeing, looking at the pretty pictures on the ground instead of looking out for Jerry. You should have seen those 190s before I did. They came from your side and damn nearly caught us all napping. Save daydreaming for your fishing and keep your eyes peeled, all the time. That applies to everyone.’ He looked at the young faces around him, silent and solemn now. ‘Apart from that, well done everybody. It was a good score and we gave the Typhoons time to do a proper job on the airfield, which they did, poor buggers. A good show. Well done.’
There was bacon and eggs in the mess, smelling better than it looked or tasted. The Dodger sat next to Frank, held up his single thin rasher and snorted like a pig. ‘You saved mine. Guess you’re entitled to this.’ His Mancunian voice carried along the table, prompting dismissive remarks about the bacon.
‘Keep it on account,’ said Frank. ‘Save mine next time.’
The Dodger held his rasher up to the light. ‘So bloody thin it’s transparent, look. Like fag paper. Rizla Red, that’s all it is.’
Afterwards, the Dodger, Tim and a couple of others remained at the table and resumed their analysis of the scrap. Frank took his tea over to the armchairs, where Patrick was reading a paper. ‘I should have given you my bacon,’ he said. He so respected Patrick, so wanted to please him, that he was often nervous about speaking to him. ‘You saved mine.’
Patrick shook his head and proffered his cigarettes. ‘You’ll do the same for me.’
‘Sorry that I—’
Don’t be.’ He held up his lighter for Frank. ‘Why don’t you push off for the rest of the day? Go fishing. You like fishing, don’t you? No more ops planned. We’re stood down. The other lot are on standby. Take Roddy’s bike.’
Roddy had gone down during a scrap over Calais a few days before, spinning helplessly with half his port wing shot away. His possessions had been cleared from their hut with the usual prompt and discreet efficiency but his bike was still outside.
‘Have it,’ continued Patrick, ‘have it as yours. It wasn’t really his, anyway. He inherited from Ian. Or maybe what’s-his-name – Bruce, the South African. Before your time, anyway.’ He exhaled forcefully. ‘Not that there’s much for a fly-fisher here in Kent, is there?’
‘A few. Brown trout. Nothing big but just enough for a bit of sport.’
‘We should move the squadron to Hampshire. You’d have the Avon, then. Mainly coarse fish but there are some decent trout to be had on mayfly. Even a few salmon below Fordingbridge. Better still the Test, of course. Beautiful river, the most perfect chalk stream.’
Patrick’s range of accomplishments never ceased to surprise. He had learned to fly at Oxford, won a blue as a half-miler and seemed to know a bevy of senior generals, admirals and air marshals.
‘I didn’t know you fished.’
‘Used to. Get back to it one day. Can’t think of anything better than a day on the Test, right now.’ Patrick yawned. ‘Well done this morning, anyway.’
‘Sorry again about the sight-seeing.’
‘We all do it. Need each other to remind ourselves. It’ll be me next time. Just make sure you tell me. Go and catch a fish.’
On his way out of the mess Frank saw a letter from his mother on the round table in the entrance, obvious immediately by its Canadian stamp and her hand. It was a short account of home, the farm, his father, his brothers and sisters, the puppy he hadn’t seen, nothing of herself and at the end a brief but telling wish that all was well with him. It was clear she hadn’t got his last, sent some time – weeks, perhaps, he had lost track – ago. Her restraint was eloquent of her concern and reproach. He pushed the letter into his tunic pocket, intending to reply that evening. He would fish first.