The Service Police took Rollo and Kate to RAF Coney Garth and put them in the guardroom. They were given mugs of tea while the Duty Officer was found. He was a sprog pilot officer, totally out of his depth when shown identity documents allegedly from the Crown Film Unit. “You should have been notified,” Rollo told him. “We expected to be expected.”
“I have no orders concerning you.”
He went away, consulted the adjutant, and spent an hour on the phone to London. He finally tracked down Blake Gunnery, who called Air Commodore Russell. “Another cock-up,” Russell said. After a decent interval, lengthy signals from Air Ministry clattered out of the teleprinter at RAF Coney Garth, and the civilians were released.
“A word of advice,” the Duty Officer said. “Don’t make jokes to RAF policemen. Security is no laughing matter in Bomber Command.”
“Can I have my car back?” Rollo asked. “All our film gear is in it.”
“That’s up to the group captain.” The Duty Officer knew from the adjutant that Rafferty had returned in a thoroughly bad temper. “And he’s unavailable at present.”
He drove them to the officers’ quarters. “Mr. Blazer’s room is here. Miss Kelly is staying at the Waafery.” This startled her. “All the Waafs live over there.” He pointed to a distant cluster of pine trees. “The policy is strict separation. Rather a long walk, I’m afraid. A bicycle is useful.”
“Oh no. That’s impossible,” she said. “We work as a team, you see. We’ve never been separated since the day we married.” She ruffled Rollo’s hair. “Happiest day of his life,” she told the Duty Officer. “I have to keep reminding him.”
“What lies you do tell,” Rollo said.
The Duty Officer looked at his clipboard. “Mr. Blazer and Miss Kelly. That’s my information.”
“I keep my maiden name for professional purposes. Haven’t you got married quarters? A place this size …” her left hand fluttered, the one with the wedding ring.
Recently, Bomber Command had decided that aircrew wives should not live on the base; it divided their husbands’ attention: bad for morale. The Duty Officer took Rollo and Kate to married quarters and installed them in a house. Rollo looked out of an upper window. Nothing was happening; the aerodrome was a desert. “Is it always as quiet as this?” he asked.
“Good God, no. Ops have been scrubbed. The chaps have gone to town. Newmarket, Bury St. Edmunds. I’ll get your suitcases sent over. You can have dinner in the Ladies’ Room adjoining the Mess. I’m afraid the Mess is strictly men-only.” He left.
She was testing the springs of a creaky double bed. “You may kiss the bride,” she said.
“A word of advice. Don’t say it unless you mean it.” They sat on opposite sides of the bed and looked at each other. He thought: Why risk it? She thought: Do I mean it? She said: “Nobody knows what they mean until they hear how it sounds.”
He blinked three times. She knew what that meant: he didn’t understand and he was too tired and hungry to think more about it. “You were pretty slick with that wedding ring,” he said.
“I carry it for protection. It scares away wolves.”
His scalp itched a little, and he touched the scar, for luck. “You think you’re smart,” he said. “Well, I’ve got news for you. You are smart.” He stood up. That was enough for one evening.
They had dinner in the Ladies’ Room, alone, and went to the camp cinema. Most seats were empty. They sat near the MO, who seemed half-asleep. While they waited for the lights to go down, Rollo introduced himself and Kate. “Pretty dull today, wasn’t it?” he said. “We’re in the film business. Came here looking for action.”
“I’m in the piles business.” The MO spoke blankly. “I don’t need to look. Aircrew come to me. All that sitting. Hours and hours.” His eyelids closed, and then flickered open. “Any time you want to film piles, I’ll show you the best in Bomber Command.”
The film turned out to be a dull comedy. Rollo and Kate left halfway through. By ten they were in bed and asleep like any old married couple.
Next morning, Rafferty felt much better. After all, he’d torn a large strip off that carping old pongo, Barriton. The sun shone. He’d had a signal from Air Ministry that bucked him up, no end. He got Air Commodore Russell on the blower and confirmed it: 409 had been chosen to star in a film.
He’d served with Charlie on the Northwest Frontier of India, dropping bombs on fanatical tribesmen to teach them not to get bolshy with the British Raj. “We had some bloody good fun in the Khyber Pass, didn’t we?” he said.
“You and I put the wind up the Fakir of Ipi, all right. What a frightful blighter he was. Thought he was safe in his mountain stronghold.”
“Nobody was safe when you were around, Charlie. Man, woman or mountain goat.” They laughed until it hurt.
“This cinema-thing,” Russell said. “Get it right, Tiny. There could be bags of kudos in it.”
“You know 409, Charles. Bull’s-eye every time.”
Rafferty asked the Wingco to pop in, and gave him the good news. “Feather in the cap, eh? They could have picked any squadron in the Command, and they chose yours. Once in a blue moon, Air Ministry gets it right. Congratulations, Pug.”
“Thank you, sir. A film, you say. For training purposes?”
“No, no, no. A real film. It’ll be shown in the cinema, Pug! In every bally cinema in the land. In the world, probably.”
“Except Germany, sir.”
“Don’t bet on it, old boy. I’m sure the Luftwaffe will want to see it. I think it’s time we met these movie-makers, don’t you?”
Rafferty asked his secretary to find them. She was Sergeant Felicity Parks, without doubt the prettiest Waaf on the base. Rank had its privileges.
Rafferty was surprised to find that the Crown film crew consisted of two.
“I’m cameraman, writer and director,” Rollo said. “She records sound and corrects my spelling and makes the sandwiches.”
“Very economical,” Rafferty said.
“You don’t need a mob to shoot a film. Hollywood thinks you do, but everyone in Hollywood wears jodhpurs and cravats.” Blazer was in a faded brown corduroy suit. Kate was in gray slacks and an old navy peajacket. “We’ll melt into the background, group captain. You won’t even know we’re here.”
“I doubt that … Well, here’s the set-up. Strictly speaking, I look after two squadrons, but one operates from a satellite field down the road. They fly old Fairey Battles which tow target drogues for trainee gunners to shoot at, deadly dull. Don’t bother with them. Here we have 409 Squadron with Wellingtons, led by Wing Commander Duff. A crack outfit, if I say so.” He pointed to a large board on the wall behind his desk. It listed the names of German cities, beginning with Wilhelmshaven. A second board was already half-full. “409’s score-card. Tomorrow there should be another name. Bomber Command hasn’t rested since the day war was declared.”
Rollo read, and was impressed. “Is there any town you haven’t hit? Stuttgart, Berlin, Magdeburg, Stettin, Hamm, Osnabruck … Berlin again. You really like Bremen and Hamburg, don’t you? Also Kiel and Cologne and Hanover and …” He gave up.
“It’s fair to say that 409 has made its mark,” Pug Duff said. His modesty was enormous. “And not just in the Third Reich. We attack French targets too: Lorient, Boulogne, Brest. Some of the boys even popped over to Italy, once. Bombed Turin.” It sounded like a bank-holiday excursion. “Enough about us. Tell me your plans.”
“We’re here to catch the action,” Rollo said. “Film the flying, capture the guts and the gallantry. The idea is to show people exactly what Bomber Command does. No actors. Real airmen. No glamour, no ballyhoo, no propaganda. Just the real thing. We want to film the truth as it happens. Couldn’t be simpler.”
“Can I get something straight?” Kate asked. “A wing commander is a squadron commander?”
“Correct,” Duff said.
“So what does a squadron leader do?”
“A squadron leader is a flight commander.”
“Satisfied now?” Rollo said to her.
“It’s how Bomber Command operates,” Rafferty said. “We’re big business. RAF Coney Garth is more than a mile square. Airfield, a thousand yards long. Personnel total twelve hundred.”
“It’s going to be tough to squeeze all that into the frame,” Rollo said. “Perhaps we could start by taking a look around the station. Get an overall impression.”
Rafferty agreed. “Jolly good idea. We’ll lay on a guide.”
“Unfortunately I have business to attend to,” Duff said. “Let me see …I think Flying Officer Lomas is free this morning.”
Handshakes all round. The visitors went away with Sergeant Felicity Banks to find Lomas.
Rafferty was in good spirits. “They seem to know their business, don’t they? And they don’t want to interfere with your duties, which is nice. I can’t see any problems, can you?”
“Piece of cake, sir.”
Flying Officer Lomas was a lanky, bony six-footer, aged twenty-two. He was nicknamed Polly, because he had a nose like a parrot. His right arm was in a sling.
“Enemy action?” Rollo asked.
“In a manner of speaking. Playing rugger in the Mess, with a cushion for a ball Got trodden on by Beef Benton, stupid elot. Cracked a wrist.”
He showed them around the station; a great number of brick buildings linked by asphalt paths.
“Tell me something,” Kate said. “What’s the worst part about bombing Germany? The absolute worst?”
“Weather. Winds, cold, fog.”
Rollo glanced at Kate. “That’s going to look damn dull on the screen,” he said.
“Most bomber ops are dull,” Lomas said. “Fly there, bomb the target, fly home. Six hours in the air and you end up with a numb bum. Would you like to see the airfield?”
RAF Coney Garth was restlessly busy. There was always a Wellington warming up or taking off, or cruising around the circuit, or landing. Groundcrew came and went, on bikes, in vans or trucks. The Tannoy never ran out of information. “Ops tonight, am I right?” Rollo said. “Tell me what’s happening.”
Lomas laughed, and looked away. “All terribly hush-hush, I’m afraid. Do you know Ginger Rogers? Working in films must be jolly interesting.”
On their way back he met a young pilot officer, as ruddy as a plowboy. “This is Harry Chester,” Lomas said. “Not a bad golfer. Completely hopeless in a Wimpy.” They chatted. Chester glanced at Kate as often as he dared.
“You look like the dangerous sort,” she said. “What’s the most dangerous thing you’ve come across in 409?”
Chester grinned. “Oh, riding the Grand National, without a doubt. It’s a game we play in the Mess on Guest Nights and suchlike. You put a sofa on its back and ride into it on a bicycle, flat out, so you go flying over the top. Whoever flies furthest wins. Damned hairy! Good fun, though.”
They thanked Lomas and Chester, and said goodbye.
“They won’t talk,” Rollo said. “Why won’t they talk? We’re not the enemy.”
“And we’re not members of their club,” Kate said. “We don’t belong here. That’s why.”
“Well, it’s not bloody good enough.”
The business that Pug Duff had to attend to involved a fight.
Every aircrew officer had a number of airmen whose conduct and welfare were his concern. In Flight Lieutenant Silk’s case the men were in the Motor Transport Section. One of them, LAC Piggott, had allegedly caused an affray in the guardroom while signing out of camp. Now Piggott and Silk were in front of Wing Commander Duff, who was trying to decide whether or not this was a court-martial offense. He was reading Piggott’s statement. “You say you entered the guardroom and the SP on duty, Corporal Black, declared,
‘Hello, Manky Piggott, you Welsh bastard. How much petrol you stole today?’ Is that correct?”
“Sir.”
“So you hit him.”
“He poked me with his pencil, sir.”
“So you hit him.”
“I hit him back, sir. He poked me first. Self-defense, sir.”
“He’s got a fractured jaw.”
“Slipped an” fell, sir. Bashed “is face on the floor.”
Duff clenched his teeth. He looked at Silk. “Extreme provocation and defamation, sir,” Silk said. “Piggott isn’t Welsh, he’s Scottish. And the term ‘manky’: highly offensive, sir.”
“It means scruffy, dirty, squalid. That’s what Piggott is. You’re known as Manky Piggott from end to end of this camp, aren’t you?” Piggott couldn’t find a helpful answer, so he stayed silent. Duff massaged his brow. Airmen must not hit policemen. Corporal Black was all mouth and no brain. Piggott was a good mechanic, and Coney Garth was short of mechanics. Policemen were two a penny. What mattered most? Operational efficiency. He looked up.
“Many things have gone wrong this morning, Piggott. Things your manky brain never even considers. For instance, I’ve got three Wimpys unserviceable. Last night, they could fly. Today: no damn good. I’ve just heard that Group wants volunteers for some new cloak-and-dagger squadron. Bang goes my best crew, I expect. All our bombsights have got to be re-calibrated, yet again. There’s food poisoning in the Sergeants’ Mess, for God’s sake. Those bloody silly moles are back, digging holes in the flare-path. There’s a funeral for Pilot Officer Diamond and the rest of S-Sugar to be arranged. And you’re in trouble once more. Not a happy list, is it?”
“No, sir.” Piggott sounded genuinely worried.
“Then consider yourself extremely fortunate. Loss of pay and confined to camp for twenty-eight days. Next time: the glasshouse.”
Piggott saluted and marched out, well satisfied.
“Bloody idiots.” Duff threw the papers into his out-tray. “That includes you, Silko. You’re still running your petrol swindle, aren’t you?”
“Not a swindle, Pug. Bloody good value.”
“Bloody quick cremation. One day some sprog PO will fill his Austin Seven with hundred-octane juice and go out in a blaze of glory.”
“I had the Frazer-Nash converted. She loves aviation gas.”
“I don’t care. Look: do me a favor and remember that the Waafs’ letters are censored. All women lie, I know, but… What do they see in you? You’re bloody scruffy, Silko.”
“Scruffy, but not manky.”
“Can’t you leave the poor girls alone?”
“That’s rich, coming from you. Don’t forget I knew you in Elementary Flying Training. You humped anything that would lie still for five minutes.”
“Ancient history. Beat it, I’ve got work to do.”
“Three minutes, sometimes. Is it true you’ve got the lead in this MGM epic?”
“What epic? It hasn’t been officially announced yet.” Duff couldn’t disguise the satisfaction in his voice.
“Everyone knows,” Silk said. “Security here is a disgrace.”
In the afternoon, Rollo and Kate separated. Rollo tried to talk to the mechanics, with no success. If he looked in a hangar, a flight sergeant with a spanner ordered him away. He wasn’t allowed anywhere near a bomber on the perimeter. “There’s a flap on,” a fitter told him. “Don’t hang about. A prop might chop your head off.”
Kate went elsewhere and sought out unemployed aircrew who might like to go for a walk and discuss ops. After a couple of hours she returned to married quarters. Rollo was in an armchair, rubbing his scar with the eraser end of a pencil, and scowling at a foolscap pad. “Any luck?” he said.
“Yes and no. I met three lonely lads. One poor boy just lost his mum. Died of injuries she got in the Blitz. I held his hand. The other two said flying is boring and did I feel like a quick roll in the hay? Not in so many words, of course.”
“Bastards. I hope you told them you’re happily married.”
“My poor feet.” She sat on the floor and rested against his legs. “You’re so innocent, Rollo. They want their mothers. Haven’t you ever read Freud?”
He waved Freud away. “I don’t want to know about it. Go and see the MO, he’ll give you some special double-strength vulcanized condoms made out of Russian tractor tires. I’ve got a script.”
She took the pad and read. “Bombs,” she said. “More bombs.” She turned a page. “Oh, look: another bomb.”
“Use your imagination, Kate. 409 is all about bombing, okay, so we tell the story from the bomb’s point of view. It arrives at the base, overhears scraps of conversation, all about the next op. The big day comes, it’s towed out to a Wimpy, someone chalks a message on it, ‘To Hitler from 409’ or something, and we take off. Finally: climax! Picture this: a black screen slowly opening, dividing in half. We’re in the bomb bay. Looking past our bomb, at Germany, miles below. It falls.” He whistled down the scale. “Bombs gone! We watch, and watch, until bang! Target erupts. Doors close. End of film.”
“End of career, more likely.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It stinks. Nobody loves a bomb, Rollo. Nothing interesting happens in a bomb dump. This tells me zero about 409. Where are the people? Twelve hundred people here, and you show me a bomb.”
“You’re a cruel, cruel woman.” He tore up the script. “AH right. You want people, I’ll give you people. That sergeant Waaf, Felicity Somebody, she’s got to be in this film. I see her in the Operations Room, sitting by the phone, waiting for the last Wellington to return. Courage personified.”
“She’s not Ops. She’s Admin,” Kate said.
“She’s stunning. And nobody will know the difference.”
Rollo met the Wingco in his office. “Problem,” he said. “This film isn’t about things or places, it’s about people. But every time we try to talk to your people, they clam up.”
“Oh dear.”
“Frankly, I could get more information out of a bomb.”
“Well, that won’t do.”
“We need them to tell us what it’s like to do their job. I mean, really like. All the details, good and bad. So we’ll have something to build a framework with.”
“Aircrew are a modest lot, Mr. Blazer. It’s not done to brag in the RAF. Makes chaps uncomfortable. Still, leave it to me. I’ll sort something out.”
Duff sent for his two flight commanders and explained the need for complete cooperation with the film crew. “This movie is to be absolutely honest,” he said. “Nothing phony. They want to know exactly what it’s like to be on a bomber squadron. As it’s a film, I suppose they want action. A few gory details wouldn’t do any harm.”
“They’ll wet their knickers if they hear the truth,” said Squadron Leader Pratten. He was Australian: chunky, balding, with a deeply corrugated forehead.
Duff said, “Well, I wet my knickers often enough when we were bombing those invasion barges last summer.”
The other squadron leader was a tall Cornishman called Hazard, a permanently serious man who only removed his pipe in order to eat or sleep. “It’s not easy to get the boys to talk,” he said. “You know how they feel about shooting a line.”
“Nobody else will be present. All I want is the truth, and bags of it.”
“Even if it hurts?” Pratten said.
“The truth always hurts.”
Next morning, the Wingco told Rollo that a few aircrew had agreed to discuss some of their memorable experiences. Rollo was delighted. “AH in total confidence,” Duff said. Rollo put his hand on his heart.
They used a quiet office, empty except for a few chairs. “Coffee and biscuits have been organized,” Duff said; and left.
The first man was a flight-lieutenant pilot, nothing special to look at, medium build, forgettable face. He said, “I’m told you’re interested in the sort of stuff one never hears on the BBC or reads in the papers. Well, I saw this happen. Over Munster. Heavy flak, very concentrated, you could smell it. The searchlights found a Wimpy, not from 409, and they coned it.” His hands made a cone shape, fingertips touching. “So all the flak batteries plastered it and soon it was on fire.” The more he spoke, the softer his voice. “I was counting the parachutes. Bins always wants to know. Somebody came out of the top, probably the nav, maybe the wireless op. Anyway, he smashed straight into the tail. The Wimpy has a very high tail-fin, you’ve seen it, I expect. Tall and sharp. Then the pilot got out. Exit in the cockpit roof. Not easy, with all that clobber we wear, but he got out. Now he’s in the slipstream, a hundred and fifty miles an hour and it blows him against the radio mast. The poor bastard is hooked around the mast. And the speed’s going up because his Wimpy’s going down. If he gets off the mast, the tail’s waiting.” The flight lieutenant stood up. “And all as bright as day” He nodded goodbye and went.
“He didn’t finish,” Rollo said.
“He told us all he knew,” Kate said.
Next was a wireless op, not yet nineteen, with two scraps of toilet paper on his chin where he’d cut himself shaving, not having practiced much. He had a lopsided grin to match his bent teeth.
“Over the target, see,” he said. “Can’t remember where, they all look the bloody same to me. Doesn’t matter, anyway. Nobody can see the ground, too much haze. Must have been the Ruhr. Skipper says, drop a flare, so I plopped one down the flare-chute and the bloody thing gets stuck! And ignites! That’s half a million candle-power! I’m blinded, I’m choking on smoke, Jerry can’t believe his luck, he’s chucking flak at us with both hands, and the crew’s screaming at me to do something.” He found the memory very funny.
“You’re here, so you must have done something,” Rollo said.
“Yeah. I put my leg in the chute and stamped down hard. That shifted the bugger. Nearly chopped off the family jewels, too. Long chute, short legs, goodbye goolies!”
“But you got back all right,” Kate said.
“Some of us did. The rear gunner bought it. Lump of shell cut his head off.”
He was followed by a sergeant pilot with the ribbon of a DFM. “Short and sweet. We were doing an NFT. Night-Flying Test,” he said before they could ask. “The port prop fell off. Whole airscrew just flew away, still spinning. Quite pretty. The manufacturers tell you a Wellington can fly with one dead engine but unfortunately nobody had told that airplane and she flew like a brick. Thank God the rear gunner saw an airfield, about the size of a cricket pitch. A small cricket pitch. I managed to put her down first time, just as well, because there wasn’t going to be a second. Hit a Tiger Moth, flattened it. Wiped out the undercarriage on a wall. Carried on at speed across a plowed field. Starboard wingtip just missed a farmer on a tractor. Matter of inches. Finally stopped. We all jumped out quick, and when I looked back he was still plowing!” He shook his head. “I dream about that farmer sometimes. Silly sod.”
He was replaced by a rear gunner with an untidy scar which wandered from his left ear to the corner of his mouth. The rest of his face was handsome.
“I’d better explain about the doors.” He had a soft Irish accent. “When you get into the rear turret, you shut the doors behind you. They’re like those bat-wing doors you see in westerns, only they’re steel and they fill the space altogether. It’s to stop any cannon shells flying up the fuselage, if a night fighter catches us. Anyway, we’d bombed Kiel, we were always bombing Kiel in them days, and on our way home, crossing Holland, the flak got us and knocked the bejesus out of us and damaged the doors so they wouldn’t open. Now I’m trapped. My parachute’s in a container on the other side of the doors, there’s no room for it in the turret. Intercom’s dead. For all I know the rest of the crew are dead too, and George is flying the kite. The autopilot?” They nodded; they’d heard of George. “Nobody was dead,” he said. “The wireless op got the fire ax and chopped the door down. Took him an hour. Now we’re over England. The Wimpy’s shaking like a wet dog. The pilot says bale out, so we jump. Never jumped before. It’s as black as sin. Rough landing, but it didn’t kill me, unlike some. Then I’m captured by a Home Guard who wants to shoot me for being a Jerry, or a member of the IRA, he doesn’t care which. I got taken to a railway station, put on a train to London, crossed London by Tube, took two trains to get here, and everywhere—everywhere—the RTOs, that’s Rail Transport Officers, wanted to see my travel warrant. One long argument. No warrant, no travel, they said. And when I got here the Equipment Officer said I’d have to pay for losing my parachute.”
They waited. “And did you?” Rollo asked.
“I told him I’d kill him first, and he seemed to lose interest.”
Men came and went for the rest of the morning. A pilot described a near head-on collision with a Ju 88 over the North Sea: a quarter of a million cubic miles of air to play with, and two machines chose the same spot. “Just think,” he said. “If we’d hit, nobody would ever have known. Except us, of course.” A navigator spoke of what he called “the unspeakable”: ditching in the sea. There was a ditching drill but pilots never discussed it; obviously they couldn’t practice it, and it would never happen to them. Same with the dinghy drill. Crews weren’t interested. The RAF had an air-sea rescue system but first of all they had to find you. While they were looking, you were sitting in your little rubber dinghy, and if the kite had been shot-up, chances were the dinghy had holes in it. If you weren’t found soon, you wouldn’t last long. “Soaked to the skin, freezing cold, scared stiff,” he said. “The North Sea just sucks the life out of you.”
“You’ve done it,” Rollo said: “You know.”
He nodded. “No fuel, both engines quit together. Stroke of luck: the moon came out, so the pilot could see the waves. You’ve got to ditch toward the waves, tail-down, or you sink like a stone. We got into the dinghy okay. Fifty miles off-shore, I reckoned. The predicted winds were all to cock, as usual. We were only five miles from England. By dawn we were on the beach, got blown there. Minefields everywhere, but we didn’t know, we walked past them. God looks after idiots and aircrew. Well, sometimes.”
A wireless op had a story about Pranging Irons. These were bits of scrap metal that crews dropped on Germany. He personally dismantled an old motorbike and dropped it, piece by piece. Also two bricks and a rusty chamber-pot. “A jerry for the Jerries,” he explained.
“D’you think they got the point?” Kate asked.
“Hope so. It had ‘Made in England’ on it.”
When he left, Rollo said, “Maybe we can use that. Nice bit of light relief.”
“It’s pathetic. He’s like a schoolboy blowing a raspberry.”
“Well, most of them were schoolboys not so long ago.”
“He’s dropped the jerry. It’s gone. What are you going to do? Buy another?”
“I might.”
“Yeah? What happened to truth? Not changing anything?”
“This is the truth. We’d just be underlining it.”
A pilot came in and talked about low flying: strictly forbidden and everyone did it, often on NFTs. If he came back from Germany and got diverted to another field because of fog, he always returned to Coney Garth next day at treetop level. Hedgetop level. He had a wireless op who’d got chopped from the pilots course. Mouthy. Cocky. Pain in the ass. “I put him in the front gunner’s position, in the nose.” The pilot said. “Then I flew really low. Flew below the trees. Flew into a damned great quarry. He saw the rock face coming straight at him. Then—throttles open, stick back, up and away. I’m told his underpants were not a pretty sight.”
Rollo thanked him, and saw him to the door.
“You could use that,” Kate suggested. “Very dramatic”
“He’s totally mad,” Rollo said. “What’s your excuse?”
There were more experiences: the sergeant pilot who ate a dodgy pre-op meal of savory mince and had the squits all the way to Hanover and back, along with his crew; the rear gunner who fired off all his ammunition at a twisting, dodging night fighter until he realized it was the Wimpy’s moon-shadow on cloud; the wireless op who had been posted to 409 from a squadron where two bombers had been shot down by RAF night fighters; and others. The last man to appear was Flight Lieutenant Silk.
They were impressed by the age of his uniform and his genial attitude. “I bet you know Hedy Lemarr,” he said.
“Never had the pleasure,” Rollo said.
“Damn. I bet someone five bob you did.”
“I suppose I could lie.”
“Tell you what. You lie for me and I’ll lie for you. I’ll tell you about a pilot called Sam Blackett who reckoned that it was safest to fly where the flak was thickest.”
“Was he right?” Freddy asked.
“Apparently not. Damn! That was supposed to be a lie.” Silk hooked a spare chair with a foot, dragged it nearer, and rested his feet on it. “I’ve got Cary Grant’s autograph, you know.”
“This has been a strange morning,” Rollo said. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“Oh, believe it all. I’m sure it’s true. Why should these chaps invent anything?” Silk was serious. “The facts are horrible enough.”
“But we can’t use them. My notes are a catalog of disaster. This can’t be the story of Bomber Command, can it?”
“It’s just Pug Duff’s little joke. I trained with Pug, we got our wings together, he’s a bit tight-assed since they gave him a squadron but he means well. He doesn’t want you to turn 409 into a bunch of farts with handlebar mustaches. Types who say ‘Wizard prang’ and give a chivalrous salute to the dying Hun as his Messerschmitt goes down in flames. Pug can’t stand horseshit. Bullshit is different, there’s always bullshit in the RAF, but horseshit is waste, it’s killing crews for nothing. We pick up these dreadful terms from visiting Yanks.”
“Yanks?” Kate asked.
“American air force officers. They attend briefings from time to time, in civvies of course. Awfully decent types. Never chew tobacco. We’ve got a Jamaican gunner in ‘B’ Flight and so far the Yanks haven’t tried to lynch him at all. Awfully decent.”
“Look, Mr. Silk,” Rollo said, “I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, and I don’t see how I can make a film about 409. It’s too big, too complicated, too technical. Have you any advice?”
“Get in a kite,” Silk said. “Go on an op.” He shook hands with them and strolled out.
“Why are you looking like that?” Kate said. “It’s the obvious thing to do. It’s been obvious to me ever since we got here.”
“Hey, just wait a damn minute. Blake Gunnery never said anything about going on an op. Harry Frobisher never told me—”
“You don’t like flying, do you?”
“It’s just not …” Rollo searched for the right phrase, and failed to find it. “It’s not my cup of tea,” he said. That sounded feeble.
“Well, how the hell did you expect to get shots of these Wimpys bombing Germany?” Kate demanded.
“There are ways and means.” That sounded even more feeble. “For a start, I could easily show one of the crew how to use the camera. It’s not difficult. And they can’t be busy all the time. It would just take them a couple of minutes and—”
“Cobblers! That really is horseshit.” They glared at each other.
“All right,” Rollo said. He was pink with rage. “If that’s what you want, if that’s what’ll make you bloody happy, then I’ll fly on a goddam op. I’ll film the lousy raid. Try and stop me.”
“Don’t make me responsible,” she told him. “You took on this job, not me. If you think you can film 409 without flying, then do it. But don’t blame me if it’s a turkey”
“I just don’t see the point in getting killed, that’s all.”
She let him have the last word; they both knew it was only noise. They said little until they were on their way to the Ladies’ Room for lunch, and they paused to watch a Wellington take off. “Someone told me that thing weighs fifteen tons,” Rollo said. “God never meant fifteen tons to fly.” The Wellington came unstuck and climbed and tucked its wheels away. “It’s like making Big Ben fly,” he said. “It’s not natural.”
Late that afternoon, when all the NFTs had been done and the crews had been briefed and the Wimpys bombed up, the op was scrubbed. It left a sour taste of anticlimax. Poor show.
Rafferty used his authority and got Mr. and Mrs. Blazer out of the Ladies’ Room and into the Officers’ Mess. He headed off any objections by declaring Kate to be an honorary man. They were also permitted to attend briefings.
Rollo said nothing to anyone about taking part in an op. He decided to sleep on it, and reach a definite decision next day. He slept badly and woke up, hot and sweaty, at four in the morning. Once, when he was a small boy, he had tried to walk along the top rail of a wooden fence, and slipped, and fallen astride the narrow plank. The agony had so drenched his body that for a while he gave up hope of life. Now he felt the same despair.
At breakfast, Kate found a place among some pilots. Rollo sat opposite Skull. “I’m thinking of going on an op,” he said. “First time, for me. Never flown in a plane. I expect you’ve been up dozens of times.”
“Once,” Skull said. “Frightful experience.”
“Ah.” Rollo waited, but Skull had nothing to add. “I thought I ought to find out what it’s like,” he said. “After all, it’s the reason we’re all here.”
“Not all of us,” Skull said. “You’re free to leave. You can go back to London any time you like.”
Briefly, their eyes met; then Rollo looked away. He was comparing the hell of going up in a Wellington with the purgatory of going back to share a flat with Miriam. Not much to choose between them.
He was still undecided when he tried to see the Wingco and was told he’d have to wait. Urgent meeting in progress. “Is the squadron on ops tonight?” he asked, and got a polite smile in return. Bloody silly question.
Duff had called a meeting with his Flight Commanders, the Engineer Officer and the Intelligence Officers. Rafferty attended too.
Duff began speaking quietly, but his left shoulder was hunched in a way that everyone recognized. Somebody had pulled the Wingco’s chain.
Air Ministry, he said, had ordered—and Command had confirmed—that, as soon as possible, cameras must be installed in all bomber aircraft to record the strike of bombs. Hitherto only a very few Wimpys had carried cameras: the ones with the best crews. That was acceptable. Now every kite had to bring back pictures. “They don’t trust us,” he said. “They’re happy to send us hundreds of miles over Germany through flak as thick as pigshit, but they don’t trust us to report the results. They think they know better. They sit in their fat fucking offices, drinking sweet tea, and pass judgment on my crews, based on a lot of fuzzy snaps.” He gave himself the luxury of hammering that word.
“The boys won’t like it,” Hazard said. “They’ll think they’re being spied on.”
“Of course they’re being spied on,” Pratten said. “Why install a camera unless you don’t trust the crew?”
Group Captain Rafferty belched softly and pressed his stomach. “Let’s get all our ducks in a row before we start shooting.” He slipped a peppermint into his mouth. “I take it you have no objection to reconnaissance photographs of the target being taken next day”
“No objection, sir, and no faith in the outcome,” Duff said. “The pilot’s too high and his camera’s too small.”
“They got some very clear pictures of invasion barges in the Channel ports a year ago,” Skull said.
“Easy. A blind man with a box Brownie could’ve done it,” Duff sneered. “But send the buggers to a hot spot like Hamburg or Cologne or Dortmund …” He shook his head.
“You don’t see much detail from fifteen thousand,” Hazard said, “and fifteen thou is where you’d better be. Or more.”
“Show us your snaps, Bins,” Rafferty said. “I know you’re itching to.”
Bins passed around some ten-by-twelve prints. “A bit dated, but they prove the point. Vertical photography doesn’t always reveal much. A building could be gutted by incendiaries but if the roof hasn’t collapsed, it looks intact.”
The Engineer Officer was examining the dates stamped on the backs of the prints. “My God, these are ancient. They must have been taken with the Old F.24 camera, eight-inch lens. Nowadays the photo-recce kites use a new camera. It’s got a twenty-inch lens.”
“So what?” Duff said. “The bigger the camera, the greater the error.” This astonished the Engineer Officer. He looked at Rafferty, who offered him a peppermint. “I’ll tell you what really gets on my left tit,” Duff said. “Air bloody Ministry not only doesn’t trust my crews, it doesn’t even trust Bomber Command with its own pictures! The Photo Reconnaissance Unit is in Coastal Command!”
“When did a flying-boat last bomb Berlin?” Hazard asked. Their laughter encouraged him. He waggled his pipe.
“Forget Coastal. Forget their PRU.” Duff tore one of the prints into scraps. “Only one thing matters here. Operational efficiency. Christ knows the bombing run is hairy enough, holding her straight and level until you can stuff the nose down and vanish. Well, now we can’t. Now we’ve all got to remain straight and level, and drop the photo-flash and wait and wait until the bombs explode and the flash goes off. Then we can vanish.”
“I’ve seen my bombs explode,” Pratten said. “Flames and smoke, flames and smoke. What more is a photograph going to show?”
“Tell your crews that a camera has one eye and no brain. They have two eyes and great experience. I’ll take their word over a twenty-inch lens any day of the week.”
The meeting ended. Duff was still hunched and frowning when Rollo Blazer was shown in. “I’ve got to film an op,” Rollo said. “I’ve got to fly in a Wimpy on a raid.”
“Why not?” Duff said. “Air Ministry is very keen on taking cameras on raids. There’s an op tonight, Bremen. We often go to Bremen. Very juicy target. You’ll see lots of flak.”
Rollo felt a great surge of relief. Now it was all out of his hands. He was part of the machinery of Bomber Command. It would send him to Bremen and, God willing, bring him back again, and nothing would be required of him except to shoot film and do as he was told. He felt fit and strong and surprisingly brave. “Good show,” he said.
Duff was picking up his telephone when he remembered something. “I take it you passed your medical,” he said.
“Medical? I don’t need a medical. Fit as a flea, me.”
“No medical?” Duff replaced the phone. “You’re not going to tell me that Crown Films sent you here, to go on ops, without a medical examination?”
“It was all a bit rushed, I’m afraid. Does it matter?” Rollo saw Duff’s lips compressed into a thin line and knew that it mattered a lot.
He met Kate in the anteroom and said he wouldn’t be allowed to fly until he passed a comprehensive medical. “It seems that altitude does bizarre things to the human body,” he said. “They’re afraid I might break wind and blow my boots off and kill someone.”
“You’re very chirpy, all of a sudden.”
“Why not? It’s only a matter of life and death.”
Rollo went to Sick Quarters at two o’clock, and he was still there at three.
The MO began with his medical history. Any trouble with the heart? The bowels? Throat? Lungs? Respiration in general? Any difficulty in breathing? Persistent coughing? Problems with the nasal passages?
“I had croup when I was a kid,” Rollo said. “Highly dramatic, it was. The doctor fainted when he saw me.”
“Croup, you say.” The MO thought about it. “Croup. Have you got your tonsils?”
“Damn. I left them in Tunbridge Wells. I was only six at the time. Kids are so careless. If I’d known you wanted them—”
“Be quiet.” The MO used a tongue-depressor and peered down Rollo’s throat. “My Christ, that’s a mess. What did they use, garden shears?” He looked at Rollo’s tongue. “Texture and color remind me of my bedroom carpet. Take your clothes off.”
“All of them?”
“Should I brace myself for some hideous abnormality?”
Rollo stripped. His chest disappointed the MO. “Breathe in. Out. In, and take a deep breath and hold it. A deep breath, I said … Good God, is that the best you can do?”
“It’s kept me alive so far.”
“I said hold it.”
“I can’t talk and hold my breath.”
“Then shut up.”
“I’ll shut up when you stop asking questions.”
“Take a deep breath and hold it while I count to thirty.”
Rollo collapsed at fourteen. The MO took his pulse and blood pressure. “You have the cardio-pulmonary system of a ten-year-old boy,” he said.
“Then give it back to the little sod,” Rollo wheezed.
“Goodness, how droll. Are you sure you’ve never had rheumatic fever? Fainting fits? Breathlessness? Palpitations?”
“The worst thing that happened to me was the Blitz. I survived that, didn’t I?”
“Give me a sample of urine. After that we’ll put you on the tread mill, and then you can blow up a few balloons. If you’re still conscious, we’ll get down to some serious tests.”
At the end of an hour Rollo got dressed. The MO sat at his desk, hunched over his notes. “Give it to me straight, doc,” Rollo said. “Will I ever play the violin again?” The MO didn’t look up, didn’t smile, didn’t respond. The silence lengthened and Rollo wished he’d kept his mouth shut. He could hear his pulse throbbing. It didn’t sound strong. Or steady.
“Well, you’re not fit for aircrew duties,” the MO said.
“I’m not going to carry out aircrew duties.”
“I’m aware of that. What concerns me is how your somewhat battered system would respond to conditions of minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit at, say, twelve thousand feet, for several hours.” He reached a decision. “I need a second opinion. I’m sending you to an RAF aircrew assessment center. They have specialist equipment. Not far from here. Tomorrow morning, probably”