B for Buster (16 page)

“Here?” I nodded at the floor. “Right here?”

“Yes, sir. First thing 'e did, sir, was drive down 'ere in that big 'earse. With 'is little stick, all 'is buttons polished. You should 'ave seen Percy, sir.” Bert shook off the birds. He stood with his neck thrust out, bent forward with his arms tight at his sides and his elbows pulled back like wings. I smiled at his picture of Percy striking a puffed-out pose at the sight of all the red man's brass and stripes and bars. “Fletcher-Dodge came right through that door, sir. Said 'e wanted to see the pigeons, sir, and didn't I think, ‘Now 'ere's a pleasant change'?” Bert sighed sadly. “Uncle Joe—bless him— never came to see the pigeons, sir.”

“I know.”

“Fletcher-Dodge, 'e looked in the nesting boxes. 'E looked in every one.” Bert pecked his head around to show me how the CO had looked. “Then 'e asked 'ow the breeding was going, and 'e told me to step it up, sir.”

“That's good,” I said.

“I don't know. I don't see it, sir,” said Bert, his head shaking. “This war will finish pigeons, like the last war finished 'orses. They're on their way out already, sir. Won't be long until there's no use for pigeons, then they'll be gone; their sun will set. The big Lancs, sir, they don't carry pigeons.”

“I didn't know that,” I said.

“It's true, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Don't need them, sir. It's . . .” He paused, looking anguished.

“It's what?” I asked.

He sighed. “Your wireless, sir. It's your wireless that's replacing the pigeons.”

“How?”

“The boffins keep making them better, sir. The Lancs have a portable that goes in the life raft. If you can transmit from the life raft you don't need a pigeon, sir.”

“Are we going to convert to Lancs?” I asked.

“Sooner or later,” said Bert.

“What will happen to the pigeons?”

“I don't know, sir,” he said. “Not exactly. I suppose they'll go 'ome, sir—the ones that 'ave a 'ome. Back to their lofts 'ere and there. And the others, sir? The poor things?” He looked down at the birds that milled on the floor. Then he shook a fist at the roof and shouted, “Damn you!” loudly enough to set the pigeons rustling.

“Why are you shouting at God?” I asked.

“At God?” He laughed, then clamped his hand over his mouth. “I'm sorry, sir. But I'd never raise my voice to God, sir. I get angry at
'im
!”

“Who?”

“Bomber 'Arris,” he snarled.

The chief of air command. Dirty Bert's “man upstairs” really was a man.

“'E doesn't care,” said Bert. “Sitting down there in High Wycombe; 'e doesn't even
think
about the pigeons, sir.” Bert reached up to a shelf above me. He took down his little tin of suet, and I realized how close I was already to flying again. “The brave little birds. I just wish I knew what will 'appen to them, sir. It doesn't matter what becomes of me, but I can't sleep when I think about the pigeons.”

I felt ashamed that I hadn't even wondered what would happen to old Bert. “Where will
you
go?” I asked.

“Wherever they send me, sir,” said Bert. “Somewhere terrible, I'm sure.”

He pried the lid from the tin, then pulled out a twisted old spoon that he clanked on the rim.

The birds swarmed up to his shoulders and his arms again, and to the roosts above him. They flapped and whirred through the loft, and Bert laughed like a boy. But Percy didn't move from my hands. He only watched the other birds as the little halo gleamed in his eye.

“What's wrong with Percy?” I asked, shouting over the clamor of the pigeons.

“Nothing, sir,” said Bert. “'E knows 'e won't be getting suet, so 'e doesn't bother asking.”

The others weren't as smart. They whirled around the tin like a cloud of giant bees, until Bert had to guard it in the crook of his arm and fend off the birds with his huge right hand. But he never stopped laughing as he doled out the suet to the pigeons that were on for the night. There were only four of them, and I watched him feed big dollops to the first three, then look around for fat little Gilbert. “Where are you, my pet?” he said. “Gibby!” He clanked the suet tin again.

Then his laugh died away. “Oh, crikey,” he said. “What's the matter?” I asked.

He was looking down at the nesting boxes. “Gibby doesn't want 'is suet, sir.” The swarm of birds moved with him, across the loft toward the nesting boxes. His coveralls were clotted with white splotches.

I could see Gilbert cowering in the box as the mass of pigeons flew back and forth. His feathers were ruffled, his eyes rolling. His beak was open, and he pecked at Bert's hand when the pigeoneer reached toward him.

“Oh, crikey,” said Bert again. “'E doesn't want to go. 'E's frightened, sir.”

The pigeon was crying in a strange, croaky voice. I saw absolute terror in his eyes, and that fear seemed to leap from him to me.
“They always know when their number's up,”
the pigeoneer had told me.

I tossed Percy away and ran from the loft. I saw him tumbling down in a feathery heap on the floor, but I just plowed past him and fled to the sunshine.

Bert came after me. He seemed surprised that I hadn't kept running, that I was just standing a couple of yards from the door. He said, “Gilbert's only a bird. They don't
always
know, sir.”

“Well, I'm not flying,” I said. “I'm never going again.”

“You've got no say in it, sir.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” I said. “I'll just refuse to go. What's the worst that can happen?”

Bert looked down at me. “You don't want to know, sir,” he said very solemnly. “You don't want to even think about that.”

“You know someone who refused to fly,” I said.

“Who told you so?”

“What happened to him? Just tell me what happened,” I said.

The pigeoneer turned his back. I shouted at him, “You tell me that!”

“Well, sir,” he said, looking up at the sky. “'E wouldn't get in the kite one day. This fellow, 'e just stood at the door and said 'e wouldn't get in. The pilot told him, ‘Get in.' 'E said, ‘No.' The pilot fetched the CO. The CO said, ‘Get in.' 'E said, ‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.' The CO—”

“But what happened?” I shouted. “What do they do to someone like that?”

Bert turned to face me again. His hands went up to his throat, and his thick fingers fumbled with his buttons. He opened one, then the next and the next, all without a word. Then he pulled his filthy coveralls apart, and I saw his tunic underneath. He tugged the coveralls from his arms, and let them flop from his waist.

I stared at him, amazed. There were patches on the blue where badges and ribbons had been. I could see the holes where thread had held them on. There had been a chevron on his arm, a wing at his breast, thick stripes around his cuffs. Bert had been an officer once. He had been an airman.

“They 'umiliate you, sir,” he said.

His eyes were blinking quickly. He was red with shame, as though he stood absolutely naked.

“What happened?” I said.

“I was a navigator, sir,” said Bert. “On the
White
Knight.
”

The
White Knight.
I remembered the wreck on the Yorkshire hill, the painted knight with his visor open. “You crashed,” I said.

“No, sir.” He started pulling on his coveralls again.

“I saw the target pictures, sir. At the briefing. They were 'ouses, sir. Not factories. Just rows and rows of 'ouses. I saw that picture, sir, and decided right then that I wouldn't take us there to drop our bombs on 'ouses, sir.”

He had his coveralls half on, and was shrugging them up to his shoulders. “The CO was furious, sir. If 'e'd had a gun, I think 'e would 'ave shot me on the spot.”

“How many ops had you flown?” I asked.

“Twenty-nine, sir,” he said.

“You had only one more to make thirty.”

He nodded. “After thirty I was going to become an instructor.”

“Why didn't you do it?” I asked. “Just one more op.”

“Why, sir? To teach other boys 'ow to drop their bombs on 'ouses? Not me, sir.” He started on his buttons, his head turned down. “No, sir, I wouldn't do that. So I didn't go flying.”

“But the
White Knight,
” I said. “It
did
crash.”

“But I wasn't on it,” said Bert. “They sent a sprog in my place, sir. I imagine 'e lost 'is way coming 'ome, and 'e was killed for that. They all were, sir. Even Captain Flint, and I didn't know then what a good bird 'e was. I didn't appreciate pigeons then, sir.”

I should have thought about what was going through his mind, all the terrible memories I must have raised. If our positions had been reversed, that's what
he
would have done. But I only cared about myself, just as Fletcher-Dodge had told me. I only worried about “my own sorry self.”

I said, “What happened next?”

“They made my life a misery, sir. They made it a living 'ell.”

“But they made you a pigeoneer,” I said.

“Only in the end, sir. And only Uncle Joe. 'E took pity on me, sir, because we'd flown together once.”

I didn't care how it had happened, or how long it had taken. I only saw that Bert was safe and happy. “I'll do the same thing,” I told him. “I'll refuse to fly. And then I can be like you, Bert.”

He smiled, but little tears came into his eyes. He smiled and cried together. “Oh, no, sir,” he said. “You don't want to be like me, sir. I won't
let
you be like me.”

“But I
can't
go flying,” I told him. “I just can't go tonight.”

His lip was quivering, his eyes blinking. “I know what you need,” he said. “I've got just the ticket, sir.”

CHAPTER 17

HE GAVE ME PERCY, that bright little bird. He gave me his closest friend, and grinned as he did it.

“But Percy's a breeder,” I said. “You told me you can't risk losing him.”

“We won't lose 'im,” said Bert. “Not if you're with 'im, sir. You look after Percy, and 'e'll look after you.”

Bert knelt on the floor as I held the pigeon. “Remember, sir, 'e's got the eye-sign. No matter what 'appens, 'e'll always get back. Just put your trust in Percy, sir.”

It amazed me that he would give me the best bird in the loft, his favorite of the bunch, and that he would do it with a smile. But maybe the most amazing thing of all was that I
believed
that Percy would save me.

I looked into the bird's dark eyes, at the halo of sparkling stars, and I
did
believe it. There was a strength inside him that seemed to pulse through my hands. I felt his heart beating, his little breast heaving, and something passed from him to me. I knew what the Green Lantern had felt the first time he had touched his ring to the magical lantern. I just
knew
that I was safe, that I was suddenly strong and unbeatable.

Bert closed his hands around mine. His fingers encased them, and wrapped Percy double. “Now you'll 'ave to remember,” he said, “that it will all be new to 'im, sir. Percy's never 'eard the flak, 'e's never even flown in a bomber. So you'll 'ave to watch out for 'im, sir, and 'elp 'im through it, the first time or two.”

“All right,” I said. “I'll try.”

“If you get frightened, don't let 'im see it, or 'e'll get frightened, too.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And never fear, sir, never fear; Percy will keep you safe.” I closed my eyes and tightened my hands. The heat from Percy's belly warmed my fingers. His pulse sent fire through me.

Bert put a message cylinder onto Percy's leg, fastening it to the metal ring. He got one of the metal boxes ready, and padded it with straw. And last, he took the pigeon, to put him in the box. He held Percy up to his face for a moment, the pigeon's head against his lips. He whispered something as he stroked the stripes across a wing.

Maybe I was only desperate, clinging to the very end of my tether. But I believed what Bert told me, and I put all my trust in Percy. He didn't let me down.

Across the North Sea and all the way to Germany, I tossed Window through the chute. I kept the pigeon box beside me, and after every toss I put my hand inside to make sure that Percy's little heart was beating. I counted the faint flutters that trembled through his feathers.

When we reached the coast I went back to my wireless, carting the box along as though I was some sort of refugee wandering through the kite with all my belongings. I strapped it down and looked inside.

For once I worried more about another than I did about myself. When I found Percy twitching in his box I worried that he was dreaming terrible things, whatever nightmares a bird might have. When I found him asleep I worried that the thin air had knocked him out, and that he would never wake up again. Whenever I started to quiver or sweat I thought of Percy and forced a calmness into myself. I shoved my fears away, and whispered to him, “Don't be scared. We're going to be all right.”

We crossed the target at eighteen thousand feet, with the night fighters above us and the flak all around. We rolled and pitched, and the air filled with the smells of gunpowder and smoke. And I did get frightened; I couldn't help it.

Percy stirred in the box. Maybe it was the sound of the battle, or maybe my fear, but something upset him. He bashed himself against the corners. His beak opened, and fluttered, and I was glad that the thunder of our engines hid the sounds he made.

I opened the door and took him out. I
snatched
him out, and held him as we pitched along through the flak and the boiling air. He nestled into my hands, soothed as I squeezed him. I wedged myself into my place as the bomber banked and turned. I held the little bird as tightly as I dared, knowing that if I could keep him safe, he would save
me.

Will took over in the nose. Beside the twinkling lights of his Mickey Mouse display, he guided us along as searchlights splashed across us. The flak and flaming onions came up in a storm. A night fighter shrieked past our tail, and our guns opened up with their startling chatter.

But Percy stayed quiet. His little heart thudding, his feet gripping my fingers, he lay in the darkness.

“Left, left,” said Will. “Steaaady.” Then he cried, “Bombs gone!” and old
Buster
leapt in the sky.

I kept Percy in my jacket as I dropped the photoflash, as I came back to send my signal off, as we wheeled around and turned for home. When Hamburg was far behind us, I lifted him to my shoulder. I let him ride there as we droned north across Germany, across the sea, and over England. I leaned against the fuselage to let him look out the window. It was pitch-black out there, but I imagined that he could see everything in a strange world of black and white, and that he was thinking how great it was to fly at a hundred and fifty miles an hour without even flapping his wings.

We flew one circuit round the airfield, then went in for our landing. Will, in the second dickey seat, pulled the throttles back.

“Flaps down thirty,” said Lofty.

“Flaps thirty, okay,” answered Will.

Buster
trembled as the hydraulics hummed.

“Hello, Skipper,” said Pop. “Port tank two—sixty gallons; starboard tank two—sixty-three.”

“Roger,” said Lofty. “Landing gear down.”

“Landing gear down, okay,” said Will.

They talked in low, comforting voices, as though they hadn't been shrieking and shouting at each other only an hour or two before. I imagined doctors talked like that around an operating table.

Percy watched the fields go by. His feet shifted on my shoulder, the tiny claws plucking at my jacket.

“Seven hundred feet. Speed one-three-five,” said Will.

“Propeller speed twenty-four hundred.”

“Okay.” The engines slowed. “Two hundred feet, Skipper. Speed one-two-five.”

“Full flaps.”

“Flaps down, okay.”

We touched the ground and hurtled down the runway with the brakes squealing underneath me. Percy stiffened to attention as we passed the tower and the huts. Then we wheeled off to the right, taxiing along, and I told him, “You did it! Your first op.”

I carried him from my kite on my shoulder. I didn't care how the others joked, each calling me Captain Kid or Captain Kak, thinking he was so clever. Even Sergeant Piper got in on the act. “
Arrr,
must have been a rough crossing, Cap'n!” he cried as I stepped down. “Your parrot's gone gray as a ghost.”

I didn't let Percy fly back to the loft. It wasn't yet daylight, but I worried about hawks. So he rode in the truck, like part of the crew, and I carried him down to see Bert. He got the sort of welcome from the pigeoneer that I imagined most boys got from their fathers after a long adventure. I didn't really know, as the best
I'd
ever gotten was a cold stare and a drunken mumble, but it seemed right when Bert nearly cried to see Percy come home.

He kissed the bird. “Oh, 'e's fit as a fiddle,” he said. “You've done well for 'im, sir.”

“Thank you,” I said.

We returned to Happy Valley the next night, and it seemed almost easy after Hamburg. Only
A for Apple
didn't come home. They copped it over Remscheid, and the mid-upper gunner was erased from the Morris list. Only two names remained on the blackboard. If the pilot of
G for George
bought the farm, Lofty would get the bus. But the thought that we were so close to having the Morris didn't terrify me anymore. I believed that Percy would protect us even from a chop list.