Piece of Cake (62 page)

“Good for you, join the club, have a drink.” Flash threw out his dregs without looking and hit Patterson. “Two pints, love!” he shouted at the Naafi girl.

“Tea's finished, dear,” she called. “All gone.”

Flash stared. His face went stiff. He dragged the revolver from his flying-boot and advanced on the Naafi wagon. “Treachery!” he shouted. “Stab in the back!” Cattermole stuck out a foot and tripped him. The revolver went flying. Flash hit the ground with a thump and did not move. “That's right, old boy,” Cattermole said. “You have a nice rest or I'll break your legs.”

“I can easily make some more tea,” the Naafi girl said. “No trouble.”

“Good idea,” Barton told her. “Make lots. Flip, there's something I want to show you.”

Moran pried himself off the ground. One leg had gone to sleep; he limped heavily and stumbled a couple of times. They walked around the corner of a bedding store. Stacked against the wall was
a heap of rusty corrugated iron. Moran kicked it. “Certainly,” he said. “Put an engine on it and I'll fly the bastard. Where's the stick?”

“Something's got to be done,” Barton said. He was still angry from being shouted at in the basement.

“Fully aerobatic, is it?” Moran asked. He began poking at the heap.

“Listen!” Barton grabbed him by the shoulder. “Shut up about that. You've got to do something about Fitz or there's going to be trouble.”

That was wrong. Barton knew it as soon as he did it. Wrong to tell him to shut up. Wrong to order. And fatal to tag what sounded like a threat on the end. Moran looked at him with a kind of weary disgust, like a bouncer eyeing a drunk. “Fitz is in ‘B' flight,” he said, “which is none of your damn business.”

“Don't be such a fool. It doesn't matter which flight he's in—”

“Have you taken over the entire squadron again? Supreme commander, are you, like the last time? And a glorious shambles that was. Go and play in your own backyard. There's enough to keep you busy there with lunatics like Flash wanting to kill the CO.”

“Flash is my business, and anyway he's doped to the eyeballs. What worries me—”

“Cattermole, then. If you can't shut him up I swear I'll flatten the bastard.”

“Damn you to bloody hell, Moran,” Barton said desperately, “will you shut your great Irish gob and listen? I'm telling you the squadron's going down the pan and all you can—”

“I'm in charge of ‘B' flight. You don't give me orders, Barton. If I have to go to hell I'd sooner go my way than yours.”

Barton sat on the corrugated iron and put his head in his hands. “Christ on crutches,” he muttered. “What a way to run a war.”

When they went back Flash Gordon was stretched out facedown on his parachute. CH3 was chatting with the Naafi girl. The others were sitting in a circle with their heads together.

“What's the big conference?” Barton asked.

“Nothing,” Fitz said.

“Please yourself,” Barton said.

“We were telling dirty stories,” Patterson said.

“Not very funny, by the look of you.”

“We didn't get to the punch-line,” Cox said.

Barton suspected mockery. “Tell me,” he said stiffly. “See if I laugh.”

Fitz glanced at the others. “Okay. The punch-line is ‘Close ranks.'” He sat on his heels and stared at Barton. A nervous twitch kept making his mouth start to grin.

Barton felt baffled, excluded from their private joke, but he had to say something. “Look, things could be worse,” he said. “We've had some bad luck, that's all.”

“People make their own luck,” Cox said flatly.

“If you must know,” Cattermole said, “we have been discussing the best way to bump off the CO.” Moran stopped cleaning his nails and raised his head. “That's not a funny joke,” he said, “with or without a punch-line. We'll have no more of that stupid talk.”

“Screw his fucking head off,” Flash Gordon muttered.

“Close ranks!” Fitz declared. He raised a clenched fist, and then spoiled the effect by tittering. Nobody else laughed. Barton turned away in disgust and saw Skull coming bouncing and rattling over the grass on a bicycle. He came to summon them to a briefing in the mess.

It was very similar to the earlier briefing, with Sedan substituted for Maastricht. Rex announced that the Battle groundcrews were working flat-out on the damaged Hurricanes and expected to have them operational within the hour. The other piece of good news was that, in recognition of the great courage and resolution shown during the Maastricht show, the squadron had again been awarded the place of honor in another vital mission. Air Commodore Bletchley would explain.

“Fritz,” Bletchley said, “has outsmarted himself. He's managed to do the impossible: he's got an armored column through the Ardennes and over the river Meuse into France. The French are not amused, and intend to biff Fritz extremely hard. Fritz, of course, is very pleased with himself. However, his attack is an arrowhead without an arrow behind it. The Ardennes is appalling terrain. No supply column could cross it in less than a week. So Fritz has cut himself off from his support. Fritz is on his own. Our bombers will now isolate him completely by pulverizing his bridgehead at Sedan. Every available Battle and Blenheim is
joining in the attack. Your job: keep the sky clear for them. With a little bit of luck, Fritz will shortly discover that he has stuck his neck out too far and cut his own head off.”

“Any questions?” Rex said.

“Flak,” Moran said.

“Minimal,” Bletchley said; and was surprised when they laughed.

“Fighters?” Cox said.

“Bound to be a few, but nothing you can't handle.” They laughed again, more coarsely, and Bletchley looked at Rex for explanation; but Rex just smiled.

“The usual formation, I suppose,” Fitzgerald said.

“Of course,” Rex said.

Nobody laughed at that. Bletchley was puzzled, and slightly offended.

The pilots had left the mess, and Rex was talking to Bletchley, when Rex began to feel faint. His legs were rubbery and his face was clammy with sweat. Bletchley took his arm and, with the help of a mess servant, walked him to the sickbay.

“I'm not surprised,” the doctor said. Rex's face was the color of wet cement.

“Look, old boy,” Bletchley said, “you've done one show today. Let somebody else lead this one.”

Rex shook his head: a single, feeble movement.

“Is he fit to fly?” Bletchley asked.

“He isn't fit to breathe.”

Rex touched his fingers to his mouth. “Pills,” he whispered. Bletchley looked at the doctor. “Too slow,” the doctor said. “Besides, they don't make a Lazarus pill; not yet, anyway. I can give him a shot of something to get him on his feet. The only question is: how strong is his heart?” Bletchley shrugged.

The doctor loaded the syringe and prepared Rex's arm. Five minutes later Rex was on his feet. The doctor put on a stethoscope and listened to his heart. “Ravel's
Bolero,”
he told Bletchley.

“By the way, how's Miller?” Rex asked.

The doctor went to a washbasin in the corner of the room and began soaping his hands. “Miller,” he said. “I wouldn't worry about Miller if I were you.”

Bletchley had a job to keep up with Rex when they got outside. He was glad to see Jacky Bellamy approaching: conversation might
slow him down. “Greetings, scribe!” Rex shouted. “How goes the battle?”

“Isn't that my question?” She looked depressed and discouraged, which made Rex feel even brighter by contrast. “What did you think of Maastricht?” she asked him.

“Lively. Quite lively. We enjoyed good sport.”

“How thrilling.” The sarcasm escaped before she could stop it. “What was the score?”

“Ah, now that's asking!” Rex chuckled. He felt slightly drunk. Pain hovered around him like an aura: it was there but it couldn't touch him. Not yet, anyway. “Trade secret, old girl. I can tell you that we definitely drew blood.”

“At a price, I gather.”

“Oh well … You can't make sauerkraut without chopping cabbage, can you?”

She looked from Rex to Bletchley.

“Figure of speech,” Bletchley said. “Got all you need now?”

“Yes. No. How is morale?”

“Oh, morale's fine,” Rex said. “Top-class. All the chaps are itching to do battle.”

“But didn't Maastricht—”

“Maastricht was a wizard show,” Rex said cheerfully. “Piece of cake. Everything is absolutely tickety-boo.”

“Tickety-what?”

“Boo,” Bletchley said. “Or as you would say, Hubba-hubba.”

The pilots were standing around, watching the final checks being made to their machines, when Skull arrived. “Got something for you,” Fitzgerald said, and handed him a letter. “For Mary. In case I turn into a pumpkin.”

Skull nodded. “I've been doing some telephoning. Apparently this isn't the first raid on Sedan. Several squadrons have had a go already. Bombers
and
fighters.”

“You're becoming a terrible skeptic,” Moran said. “You weren't like this when you joined us. War has depraved you, so it has.”

“They say the flak's worse than Maastricht and the 109's are thick as tarts at Piccadilly Circus.”

“You see?” Moran said. “Thoroughly corrupted.”

“What's the time?” Barton asked. “I ought to go and see how Moke is, before we go.”

“No need,” Skull said.

There were a few seconds of bitter silence. “Oh well,” Cox said. “Probably for the best, in the circs.”

Rex came striding toward them, waving his gloves. “All set, everyone?”

“Heard about Moke, sir?” Barton asked.

“Yes indeed. The doctors say there's nothing to worry about … Right, let's go.” He headed for his Hurricane.

“God give me strength,” Fitzgerald said.

“Remember the punch-line,” Cattermole said. “Close ranks.”

It was about a hundred miles from Amifontaine to Sedan. The wind that had blown the bank of cloud across their path as they flew north now began to blow it away. Soon Rex was able to pick up landmarks: Cambrai, Le Cateau, St. Quentin off to his right, Maubeuge away to his left: names that had a comfortingly familiar ring: he had known them well as a boy, sticking little paper flags in a big map of the Western Front. There had been no official maps at Amifontaine so he had borrowed somebody's Michelin guide. From Cambrai and Le Cateau route nationale 39 led to La Capelle which had a six-way crossroads. It showed up clearly. He was dead on course.

The squadron was in vic formation, sections astern. Rex was at the point, flanked by Cox and Cattermole. Barton flew behind him with Patterson and Gordon on either side. Moran led the ass-end section with Fitzgerald and CH3, but in fact CH3 kept his distance and flew a continuous weaving pattern. That was a little bit sloppy, but Rex didn't really care. Whatever magic juice the doc had pumped into his arm made him feel remarkably happy. He was alert and keen and very ready for action. Some of the dressings on his back seemed to have come adrift when he heaved himself into the cockpit, and his shirt felt strangely slippery with what must be blood, but that only strengthened his sense of accomplishment and well-being. It was a fine late afternoon. Everywhere he looked he saw colors of an extraordinary beauty and brilliance. It was going to be a splendid evening.

Rex set a keen pace. After thirty minutes they crossed the first hills and forests of the Ardennes, and they picked up the Meuse, looking as looped and twisted as a fallen strand of wool. Rex turned
south and followed it. In the distance he could see black smoke and the faint flicker of shellfire. Sedan. “Close up,” he said. “Nice and tight.”

He saw the bombs burst before he saw the bombers. Hornet squadron was at eight thousand feet, and the bombers were at least a mile below. The sudden fountains of earth caught the setting sun and stood briefly golden on one side. He hunted for the bombers and found them, ten or a dozen, looked like Blenheims. At once he looked up and searched for enemy fighters, and he found them too, a great pack of 109's arriving from the east at about fifteen thousand feet; had to be 109's, there weren't that many Hurricanes in Europe. By God, what a scrap this was going to be! He checked the bombers again, hoping they had finished and were going home, and they were, but as they banked the sun lit up the crosses on their wings and they were Junkers 88's, not Blenheims. So those bombs had fallen on the wrong side of the bridgehead. Those bombs had killed Allied troops. What evil. What savagery. What filth.

Rex felt the clear, pure rage of a Crusader knight. He was washed clean of fear or pain or worry. He was indestructible. They could kill him but they could not destroy him! “Bandits below,” he called. “Eighty-eights at three o'clock. Going down, chaps. Let's get 'em.” It was the first time he had said
chaps
in an order. He thrust the stick forward and fell on the enemy. “Close ranks,” someone said, and Rex fell alone.

“Close ranks!” the voice repeated. Immediately the formation tightened. Cox and Cattermole edged in to fill Rex's space. Patterson slid half-under Barton's left wing, Gordon eased over Barton's right wingtip. Fitzgerald crowded Moran. The flight commanders were so boxed-in they could do nothing but fly straight and level.

Rex, plunging through the mile of empty sky, heard none of their shouts and curses: someone else's transmission switch was open, blocking the channel. If he had heard, he would not have turned away. This was his mission, his crusade: to smite the ungodly! To biff Fritz extremely hard!
Bring me my bow of burning gold
, he sang to himself.
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet!

The bombers saw him coming. Their gunners raked his path
with crossfire. At four hundred yards he squeezed his gun-button and experienced a jolt of exultation as the Hurricane kicked and trembled and his shining streams of death raged across the formation, ceasing only when he sliced between a pair of 88's.