Piece of Cake (57 page)

The bus never came. She went home, unpacked half the stuff in her suitcase, changed her shoes to a heavier pair, drank a pint of milk, and set off to walk to Nancy.

After a while the road joined a bigger road and she saw her first refugees: a ragged column of families on foot, pushing handcarts or plodding beside horses that pulled over-loaded wagons. For the first hour or two she walked past them. But as the sun went down she tired. She merged with the procession and trudged at its pace. The suitcase strained her arm and banged her knee and made her fingers ache. Eventually a man let her rest it on the tailgate of his wagon.

Boy Lloyd's Hurricane refused to start, which was why only six aircraft took off.

Rex led them, close-echeloned to port, toward the northeast to patrol the area St. Dizier-Joinville-Bar-le-Duc. The heat had manufactured cumulus clouds: they towered from five thousand feet to eight or ten thousand, and they were still climbing. A squadron could pass by on the other side of one and never be seen. From time to time the ops officer called up Jester squadron with news of trade, but nothing was seen for the first half-hour. Rex went up to fifteen thousand, then eighteen thousand. They were on oxygen. A little crowd of Me-109's passed overhead, at least a mile
above, looking no bigger than flies. “Nothing to do with us,” Rex said. “Close up.”

Cumulus was coming up everywhere now, boiling into the sky in swelling white mounds, heaped upon each other. It was like flying over the Alps.

The R/T crackled and delivered a long message with a sound like someone crushing matchboxes.

“God knows what that was all about,” Rex told them. “But it's not happening up here so it must be down there.”

He put them in sections astern. They slid swiftly but cautiously between the overblown white cliffs and came out near Joinville as it was being bombed. A dozen Heinkels were going in, unhurriedly, one after the other. They might have been on a training exercise. Miller, at Red Three, noticed one Heinkel edge right a bit, then left a touch, hold steady for a moment and then curve away. He began counting, and at ten he saw the stick of bombs begin racing across the little town. Gray molehills of destruction sprang up. By then the next Heinkel was finding its place.

Rex put them in line astern and they fell on the bombers as if this too were all part of the training exercise. The Hurricanes' speed was nearly double that of the Heinkels, and they used it to weave in and out of the circle, firing brief bursts, swerving away and cutting back for the next target. It was magnificently exhilarating stuff. Miller felt washed clean of fear. Each of the hulking, slab-winged bombers had five guns and although they blazed continuously he knew they couldn't hit him, he was far too fast. But he could hit them! In fact he missed as many as he hit, but with six Hurricanes skating around the circle the Heinkels were bound to suffer and Flash Gordon at the tail found himself potting at planes that were trailing smoke or shedding bits or dragging themselves in peculiar attitudes, with half their undercarriage flopping about.

The attack was over in forty seconds. By then, the bombers had huddled together and the fighters were out of ammunition. One Heinkel crashed into a street and blew up. Cox saw it happen. He saw the burning plane tumble like a falling leaf. He could just make out the moving speckles that were people running, scattering as if blown outward by an explosion that had not yet happened. Then came the crash and the flash, and he looked away.

“Regroup,” Rex said. “Sections in vic.” They came together, each man looking for signs of damage to his plane. Most had the odd bullethole, and Flash Gordon's windscreen was thoroughly starred, but that was all. “Sections close astern,” Rex said. “Close up.” Far to the east, a Heinkel was falling out of formation and shedding its crew. The parachutes appeared out of nothing like little conjuring tricks.

Everyone felt very pleased on the way back to Mailly, but whenever Fitz looked across at Flash to exchange a grin of congratulation, Flash was twisting his head, squinting behind and above. No ammo, Fitz remembered. A bad time to get jumped. He too searched the sky. It became damn hard work, with Rex nagging them to keep closed-up, and the cumulus filling the sky with hiding places. Fitz developed a routine: check wingtips, look right, behind, above, below, check wingtips, look left, behind, above, below … His shirt collar chafed. His eyes were tired. Fourth patrol of the day, wasn't it? Fourth or fifth? He started counting them and got confused with yesterday's sorties. Check wingtips. Look right.
“Break left!”
Flash shouted, and Fitz stared at him stupidly for an instant until a furious hammering blasted sparks all over his engine cowling and the Hurricane lurched. The prop vanished, hurled into infinity, and the engine howled with a fury of excess energy. Boiling white glycol washed back over the canopy and filled the cockpit with its stench. Fitz broke left.

A pair of 109's hurled themselves at him. All he saw was their huge and horrifying silhouette, magnifying like a punch in the face. Then they went over him and vanished. Already his Hurricane was losing strength, feeling sluggish, dropping its nose. Flames poured from his exhaust stubs, raging alongside the fuel tank that lay beyond the instrument panel. “Get out of there, you stupid sod,” somebody shouted into his ears. Now, who was that? “Fitz, you fuckin' idiot, get out!” Ah yes: Moran. Well, he should know. Fitz reached up and heaved open the canopy. Glycol sprayed his face. Bugger this for a lark. He took the pin from his straps, unclipped the oxygen tube, jerked the radio lead out. The engine was still screaming its head off so he stopped it. Now to depart. He stood up and the air pressure shoved him down. He got his head out and it pinned his shoulders to the back of the cockpit. Through the smoke and spray he saw the horizon and realized he was diving
at some considerable speed. He tried to kick himself free and accidentally slammed a boot against the control column. The Hurricane performed a slow roll and he fell out. After that it was easy. Hanging from his parachute, he had the curious pleasure of watching his airplane blow itself up in mid-air.

Patterson opened the tent-flap and looked in. “Uncle tells me you've gone stone-deaf,” he said.

“Sort of,” CH3 said.

He was stripped to his shorts and lying on a camp bed. Patterson came in, followed by Boy Lloyd. “What happened?” Patterson asked. “Come down too fast?”

“Shut the door, Pip. Keep the flies out.”

“He's not deaf at all,” Lloyd said. “It's a swindle.”

“What's the game?” Patterson asked.

“Allergy.” CH3 yawned, and banged his feet together to frighten the flies exploring his toes. “I'm allergic to orders to fly, at the tail of a tight formation. Any time anyone orders me to do that, I go stone-deaf. Peculiar, isn't it?”

“Bloody weird.”

“How d'you know what the order says,” Lloyd demanded, “if you go deaf as soon as you start to hear it?”

“Can't hear you,” CH3 said loudly. “You'll have to speak up.”

“Told you it was a swindle,” Lloyd said. “Christ, I could do with a beer.” He sat on the ground with his back against a pole. “I could do with a beer and a bath and a beautiful bed, with or without a popsy. I don't mind …” His voice trailed away. His eyes closed.

Patterson still stood, looking down at the American. “Look, a joke's a joke,” he said, “but if you don't fly tail-end Charlie then somebody else has to. Somebody else is doing your job up there.”

“Worse than that. Somebody else is probably getting killed up there.”

Lloyd opened his eyes.

“Look how many tail-end Charlies have been jumped already,” CH3 said. “All because Rex makes everyone keep tight formation. I'm not going to get killed to satisfy the CO's love of ceremonial drill.”

“But that's the proper formation,” Lloyd said. “It's official.”

“Can't hear you,” CH3 said.

“Everyone flies like that,” Patterson said. “Not just us.”

“The
Luftwaffe
doesn't.”

“Balls,” Lloyd said. “You're dodging the column. You've got twitch.” He sat up. “Things begin to get a bit hairy and you decide you don't like it. Can you hear that?”

There was an awkward silence. CH3 watched a fly crawl up his chest. He crept his hands together, clapped, killed it.

Mother Cox opened the tent door. “They're coming back,” he said.

Everyone went out to watch. Cox had binoculars, and he studied the Hurricanes as they made their approach. “Who's missing?” Patterson asked. Cox double-checked, to be absolutely sure. “Looks like Fitz,” he said at last. “What was Fitz? Blue Two, wasn't he?”

“Somewhere at the tail,” Patterson said. Their voices were carefully empty. They watched Rex's machine touch down and judder over the lumpy field. Cox turned to CH3. “Tell me,” he said. “Where did you get the armor plating for the back of your cockpit?”

The RAF chaplain buried Trevelyan, Nugent and McPhee in a small cemetery on the edge of Mailly-le-Camp at sunset.

All the available officers attended, and there was an abbreviated firing-party: just two airmen with rifles.

Nobody paid much attention to the chaplain's handling of the funeral service. His professional mingling of regret and admiration seemed remote from the sweaty reality of that day. What's more it was hard not to look at the sunset. The western sky was alive with huge, sweeping arcs of color in a dozen shades of lemon and butter-yellow and pink. They throbbed with a greater purity and energy than any colors on earth. As the chaplain delivered his lines, Skull nudged CH3. “Decor by God,” he murmured. CH3 gave the sunset a long look. “Showing off again,” he said. Skull suppressed a snort of amusement. Rex glared.

When they got back to the aerodrome, the adjutant was waiting with a bundle of messages. All the code words and radio frequencies had been changed. Fitz had turned up, undamaged. Three replacement Hurricanes were on their way. No new pilots were available.
The Area HQ ops officer wanted Rex to call him, urgently. Baggy Bletchley was expected to arrive about midnight.

“And where's the ear-doctor?” Rex asked.

“Damn. I forgot to tell you. He was here but he couldn't wait. I told him you were—”

“Get another.”

“Tonight, sir?”

“Now.”

Kellaway took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Very good, sif. Would you like a bite to eat? There's some rather nice stew.” Rex nodded, but Kellaway could tell that he was thinking of something else. “You won't forget about writing to the next-of-kin, will you, sir? Tomorrow might be rather busy.”

“That doctor. Why didn't he stay?”

“Oh … you know how it is. Lots of other patients.”

“Bloody quacks. Never around when you want one.”

Kellaway looked at him, carefully. “Something quite short will do,” he said. “Just a note, really.”

“Did you say stew? I'm not giving Bletchley stew …” Reilly came bounding over, wild with pleasure at finding his master again, but Rex ignored the dog. Kellaway had never seen that happen before. “Tell you what, adj. You draft something, I'll sign it.”

They walked to the wooden hut. The flies had vanished with the sun; the grass was wet with dew. Reilly plodded alongside, aware of the seriousness of the occasion.

“You know, uncle: a team can have only one skipper. Some of them don't seem to realize that.”

All around the airfield, lamps flickered where groundcrews were servicing the Hurricanes. Kellaway said: “It's been a long hard day, sir, and you've done damn well.”

“It's not for my benefit. It's for the good of the squadron. One team, one skipper. That's the way it has to be.”

“Nobody questions that for a minute” Kellaway said. “Not for a single minute.”

They went into the hut.

Nobody wanted stew. Everyone wanted booze.

They got back into the truck that had done the funeral-run and went into Mailly-le-Camp. A cafe on the square was crowded but
as soon as they saw the uniforms, the customers made room at a table.

“Vin rouge”
Flash Gordon said to the owner.
“Omelets. Pommes de terre frites. Pain.”
The man counted the party: eight. He went away, calling out orders.

“Well done, Flash,” Moran said. “Now get the kinks out of my neck and I'll make you an air vice-marshal.”

“I can't afford to have kinks, not on eleven shillings a day,” Miller said. “But I got some cheap cuts of meat from this bleeding awful RAF-issue collar.”

“Me too,” said Patterson, and there was a general grumble of agreement. “Rubbed bloody raw,” Lloyd said. Cox yawned and massaged his neck. “It's all this twisting and turning,” he said, “and no proper lubrication … Where's the booze, Flash?”

“Patience.” Cattermole raised a restraining hand. “This is a five-star establishment. All drink is freshly made for each customer. I just saw the proprietor take his socks off.”

“In a proper five-star boozer,” Moran complained, “the man would keep his socks
on
.” But at that point bottles and glasses arrived. The pilots came alive, drank deeply, and slumped again. Fitzgerald smacked his lips. “Fruity,” he murmured. “A good athlete's foot, but not a great athlete's foot.”

“Talking of athletes,” Moran said, “what exactly happened to Fanny?”

“Christ knows,” Miller said, “but his kite got blown to bits. Silly bugger hopped into the middle of that gaggle of Dorniers and of course they clobbered him with their crossfire.”

“I saw a parachute,” Fitzgerald said, “but it might have been a Jerry.”

A little girl brought two platters of bread and a slab of butter. They were reaching for the food before it touched the table.

“After today, I must say I'm not frightfully keen on Dorniers,” Cox said. “Not in large quantities. How did you cope in Spain, CH3?”