Piece of Cake (32 page)

A signal came, advising the imminent arrival of an American war correspondent; but the correspondent did not arrive. “Jake Bellamy,” the adjutant said to Skull. “I don't think the CO will take to that name, somehow.” He filed the signal and said nothing; Rex, he thought, needed a little more time to recover his poise.

In fact the cock-ups and confusion of the past few days were being steadily put straight. Dicky Starr was dug up and reinterred in an unimpeachably Protestant cemetery in Metz, after which the adjutant called on the village priest to apologize. They exchanged statements, each in his own language, neither understanding the other. The adjutant was cheery, the priest increasingly stiff and stuffy. Kellaway soon lost patience. “If you ask me it's all bosh, tosh and drivel,” he said as he got up to go. “In the last show we just bunged the body in the nearest boneyard. Nobody asked to see the chap's membership card. He'd snuffed it, that was good enough. Well, you've got a buckshee hole now, haven't you? Lucky feller. What are you going to do with it? Hide it in the crypt, or raffle it for Christmas?” The priest slammed the door.

There was no inquiry into the giant half-swastika: Baggy Bletchley was told about it and when he returned to Rheims he took
care of the complaints and queries. There was an inquiry into the loss of the two Hurricanes, but it was brief and its findings blamed nobody: other Hurricane squadrons had reported similar accidents, and bigger chocks were being issued.

Replacement aircraft were quickly ferried in. The weather was patchy, with snow showers in the hills, but the squadron trained every day. Micky Marriott solved the problem of switching off the smoke flares and the locals got used to the sight of giant stripes decorating the sky.

Hart replaced Starr as Fanny Barton's wingman in Yellow Section. It took him a day to adjust to the Hurricane; after that he quickly mastered the formation maneuvers, flew skillfully, kept position tightly. Rex had no cause for complaint. On the ground, he ignored Hart as much as possible. This was easy, because Hart was rapidly accepted by the rest of the squadron. His was a fresh face, a pleasant voice and an unconventional mind. “Moggy,” Kellaway said in the mess on the day he arrived, “I'd like you to meet Christopher Hart the Third, from America.”

“How do you do?” Cattermole shook his hand. “The third, eh? I myself am loosely related to Edward the Seventh of England.”

“Who isn't, these days?” Hart said.

“King Edward,” Cattermole said. “Not just a good potato but a damn fine cigar.”

“When you put it like that,” Hart said, “I begin to see the resemblance.”

“What are those two talking about?” Miller asked.

“Moggy's potty,” Fitzgerald said. “Ever since Dicky knocked him over coming downstairs and he landed on his head. Potty.”

Gordon said brightly: “The average adult human brain weighs three pounds.”

“Three pounds,” Moran said. “Would that be before or after cooking?”

“Flip, I'd like you to meet Christopher Hart the Third,” the adjutant said. “From America.”

“My uncle Fergus had a boat called the Kate McGrath the Fourth,” Moran said, shaking hands, “but it sank.”

“That's nothing,” Patterson said. “My father had a prize bull called Maxwell Bugleboy the Seventh, but the beast died.”

“And what happened to the bull?” Moran asked.

“Funny thing about names,” Stickwell said. “I used to drink in a pub called the Henry the Eighth.”

“That's not very funny,” Patterson said.

“Ah, but I was sick in the carpark.”

“Make a note of that,” Cattermole told Hart. “Being sick in a carpark represents Sticky's finest piece of marksmanship so far.”

“It wasn't in the middle of the carpark,” Stickwell said.

“Never mind. Nobody's perfect.”

“As a matter of fact, most of it went over the fence and into somebody's back garden. I made rather a mess of his dwarf geraniums.”

Hart said: “You've got to be pretty accurate to hit dwarf geraniums. It's not as if they were petunias or begonias.”

“There was a stiff breeze, too,” Stickwell said. “I had to aim-off for wind.”

“Frankly, old boy, I think you deserved a gong for that,” Kellaway said.

“Perhaps a small gong,” Stickwell agreed.

“A dwarf gong,” said Hart.

“Christopher Hart the Third is extremely intelligent,” Stickwell said, “for an American.”

“I say: why did you join the Royal Air Force?” Mother Cox inquired.

“Because of the polo,” Hart said.

“But we don't play polo.”

“Right.”

Moran said: “What we do instead is we slide downstairs on brass trays at breakneck speed.”

“That's almost polo,” Hart said. “Nobody's going to notice the difference.”

Later they introduced him to the Cresta Run. More trays had been acquired, so now “A” and “B” flights could race each other down the double staircase. Hart did well: he beat Moke Miller by several feet. At some point during the races he got his nickname. The novelty of Christopher Hart the Third had worn off. Someone shortened it to CH3, and CH3 he remained.

“I wish I could teach you something,” Flash Gordon said.

They lay in each other's arms, snug in a cocoon of blankets.

Above them the roof of the summerhouse was lost in shadow. The smoky glow from the hurricane lamp reached no higher than the windows. Occasionally it showed up a snowflake, caught on the glass for a few seconds and then blown away.

“Tu
m'apprends l'anglais,”
Nicole murmured.

“Rubbish.”

“C'est vrai. Tu m'apprends I'argot anglais et … et des blagues.”

“Blagues?
I never taught you any
blagues.
What are
blagues!”

“Jokes.” She curled her legs around his.

“Oh, well … I suppose so. It's not much, compared to what you've taught me about the human body and so on. Like what happens when you blink, the way the fluid over your eye gets wiped off and runs down a little hole into your nose. I'd never have worked that out for myself. Not in a million years.”

Nicole nodded without opening her eyes.

“Clever little arrangement, that,” Flash said. “I suppose it's the reason why your nose is underneath your eyes.” He squinted at his own nose, as if to test the theory. “Anyway, I haven't told you anything half as useful as that.” He was feeling very grateful to her. He wanted her to know how deeply appreciative he was. “Have I?”

“Alors
…” She made her head more comfortable. “Tell me something, if you like. Some good English.”

“I wish I could. I don't know any … Hang on. There's a bit of Shakespeare they made us learn at school.” Nicole smiled. Flash cleared his throat. “Now all the youth of England are on fire, and silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies: now thrive the armorers, and something something something in the breast of every man: they sell the pasture now to buy the horse; something the something of all something … Damn.” He shrugged. “I never could remember it all.”

She linked her hands behind him. “It sounds nice,” she said. “What does it mean?”

“It means the balloon's gone up. Everyone's off to war. It's from Henry the Fifth, where he decides to go and wallop the frogs at Agincourt, and—”

“That butcher!” Nicole thrust herself away from him and sat up. “Invader! Bloody killer!”

“Look out, Nicole, you're making a terrible draft.”

“Your Henry was a brute, a
cochon, un tyran, unbarbare!”

“Who says?” Flash was enjoying the view of her splendid breasts. “I think you're just a bad loser. After all we beat you fair and square. The fact is—”

“The fact is you English invaded France. What right had Henry and his greedy army to walk all over France?”

“Dunno.” Flash took his eyes off her breasts and was surprised by the anger on her face. “I expect we—”

“You were as bad as the
boche,
you English. If I had lived then, I should have defended France
contre la tyrannie de l'Angleterre. Moi, une femme!”

“Just like Joan of Arc,” Flash said, and knew at once it was the wrong thing.

“Oui! Comme Jeanne d'Arc!
Who was born near here!” Nicole flung off the blanket and stood up. “Killed by you English,
n'est-ce-pas?
Killed by the fire!
Une martyre pour la France!”
She seized her clothes and strode out, leaving the door wide open. The hurricane lamp flickered. Flash shivered.
Bloody women,
he thought.
Just when you're ready for second helpings they go off the deep end.
There was a box of apples nearby. He took one and munched it.

At the other end of the village, Fitz had just stepped out of a hot bath and was drying himself. The hot bath was something of a gamble: he knew it had an effect on your performance because someone had told him so, but he couldn't remember which way it was supposed to work. Surely the important thing was to feel completely relaxed. He stopped toweling and examined his state of being. Was he relaxed? It was hard to tell. He examined himself again, more rigorously, searching for causes of anxiety, signs of tension. There was nothing to worry about; nothing. So why where his toes curling?

Some sorts of food were supposed to do the trick. Oysters, especially. Not easy to get oysters in Lorraine in November. On the other hand, other types of food were supposed to take the starch out of you. Cheese: which side was cheese on? He'd had rather a lot of cheese at lunch. What if cheese made you sluggish? Like thick engine-oil making it hard to start the Merlin in cold weather?

Perhaps the weather made a difference.

Or the moon.

He wished there was a book that told you all about this. You'd think someone would write a book. If only there was something you could sort of rub on yourself, just to get the equipment warmed-up and generally pointed in the right direction … He opened Mary's bathroom cabinet and sniffed the contents of various jars and bottles. One liquid had a pleasant scent of lemons. Hadn't he read somewhere once that lemons put lead in your pencil?

He twitched his nose and glanced down at the equipment. Jesus, it certainly looked as if it needed encouragement. It looked as if it was trying to hide behind itself. Lemons. Or was it melons?

He put the bottle back in the cabinet. Relax completely: that was the main thing. Well, he
was
relaxed: totally, utterly, absolutely relaxed. He wiped the mist off the mirror, smiled confidently at himself, and went out, curling his toes against the carpet.

Flash picked him up, as usual, a couple of hours later. “Have a good time?” he asked as they drove away.

“Oh, the usual,” Fitz said. There was a long pause before he asked: “How about you? Learn anything new?”

Flash laughed, but not much. “I learned you can't win 'em all,” he said.

Fitz grunted, and looked out of his side-window. “I could have told you that,” he said.

Fanny Barton saw it first: a bird, wheeling between two clumps of trees about a mile away, to the west of the aerodrome. A big bird, a heron or perhaps a buzzard. The squadron had just landed after a final rehearsal for the Armistice Day display and the pilots were straggling across the field. It had been a good rehearsal; everyone was pleased; even Rex was laughing at something Sticky was saying. Fanny couldn't make out the words. His ears were still buzzing. He looked at the clouds, trying to guess tomorrow's weather. There seemed to be a bit of everything up there. He took a deep breath, and his ears popped. Noise came at him as if he had thrown open a window: shouts, the clump of boots, an engine's growl. He looked for the bird. It was still there but bigger and thicker and flying more boldly than any bird. Fanny stopped. “Hey, look at that,” he said. Nobody heard him. The silhouette swelled, the growl deepened. “Hey!” he shouted. “Aircraft!” Everyone
stopped. The machine seemed to get very much faster as it got nearer: within seconds it was streaking toward them, dipping to twenty feet, its propeller disc shimmering, the growl becoming a huge, hoarse shout: a Messerschmitt 109, pearl-gray underneath, green on top, and going a damn sight faster than any Hurricane could travel. Everyone ducked as the fighter seemed to vault over them, smashing them with a storm of noise. Then it was gone. By the time they had straightened up and turned, the German was halfway to the perimeter, climbing like a rocket.

“Bloody cheek!” said Rex.

Cattermole took out his revolver, aimed carefully, and fired. The Messerschmitt, once again no bigger than a bird, flew steadily eastward. “I think I winged him,” Cattermole said.

“He dropped something,” Fitzgerald shouted.

They gathered around the object. “Better not touch it,” Mother Cox advised.

“Don't be bloody silly,” Stickwell said. “It's an old jerry, that's all.” He turned it over with his foot. It was indeed an enamel chamber-pot, much dented and scarred. “Made in England,” he said.

“Well I'm damned!” Flash Gordon's voice had gone up several tones. “Why on earth did he do that?”

“It's an insult,” Patterson said. “This means war.”

“It means they're as bored as we are,” Rex said. “Personally, I think this is a very encouraging sign. Now they're starting to come out to play. You watch: we'll get some real sport soon.”

They kicked the jerry across the field, playing football, and then hung it on the wall of the crewroom. Flip Moran and CH3 were the last to leave. “What do you make of it?” Flip asked him.

“That 109 could have killed us all if he'd had a mind to,” CH3 said.

Flip combed his hair. “I noticed you were the only one to hit the deck.” He put his cap on. “Very smartly,” he said.