Winds of War (71 page)

“Ah, lovely. Lovely!”

The telephone rang.

“Well!” she laughed harshly. “Uxbridge, no doubt screaming for their little fugitive from duty. Possibly inviting me to a court-martial.”

She returned after a moment with a puzzled face. “It seems to be for you.”

“Who?”

“Wouldn’t say. Sounded important and impatient.”

General Tillet said, “Ah. Henry. Jolly good. Your friend Fearing suggested I try you here. Ah, you do recall, don’t you, when you paid a little morning call a couple of weeks ago on a portly old gentleman, he mentioned that you might want to go along on a little expedition that was in the works? A trip to familiar foreign scenes?”

A tingle ran down Victor Henry’s spine. “I remember.”

“Well, the trip seems to be on. I’m to meet you tonight when this nuisance stops, to give you the details, if you’re interested. - I say, are you there, Henry?”

“Yes. General. Will you be going on the trip?”

“Me? Good God, dear chap, no. I’m a timid old fellow, quite unsuited for the rigors of travel. Besides, I haven’t been asked.”

“When is the trip?”

“I gather they’ll be leaving tomorrow, some time.”

“Can I call you back?”

“I’m supposed to pass your answer along within the hour.”

“I’ll call you back very soon.”

“Jolly good.”

“Tell me this. Do you think I should go?”

“Why, since you ask, I think you’d be insane. Damned hot where they’re going. Worst time of year. You have to be very fond of that kind of scenery. Can’t say I am.”

“Are you at the same number?”

“No.” Tillet gave him another number. “I’m sitting here and waiting.”

As he came out on the balcony, she turned to him, her face alight. “They’ve got two more. Our night fighters must be up. At least we’re getting some of our own back.”

Pug peered out at the fantastic show - the fires, the searchlight beams, the sky-climbing pillars of red and yellow smoke over the lampless city. “I gave you some good advice in Washington. Or you thought it was good advice.”

“Yes, indeed.” Her eyes searched his. “Who telephoned you?”

“Come inside. I’ll take that drink now.”

They sat in two armchairs near the open french windows to the balcony. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, holding the glass in his cupped hands. “Pamela, the RAF will be bombing Berlin tomorrow night and it seems I’m invited along as an observer.”

The girl’s face in the shadowy light went taut. She took her lower lip in her teeth, and looked at him so. It was not an attractive expression. Her eyes were round as an owl’s. “I see. Shall you go?”

“That’s what I’m wondering. I think it’s a goddamned idiotic notion, and General Tillet agrees, but meantime he’s reported the invitation. I’ve got to accept it or duck it.”

“Strange they’d ask you. You’re not Air Force.”

“Your Prime Minister mentioned it in passing when I saw him. He apparently has a good memory.”

“Do you want my opinion?”

“That’s what I’m asking for.”

“Decline. Quickly, firmly, and finally.”

“All right, why?”

“It’s not your business. It’s especially not the business of America’s naval attaché in Berlin.”

“True.”

“Your chances of returning are something like three out of five. It’s miserably unfair to your wife.”

“That was my first thought.” Pug paused, looking out of the balcony doors. In the night the A.A. snapped and thumped, and searchlights swayed blue fingers across the blackness. “Still, your Prime Minister thinks there’d be some purpose in my going.”

Pamela Tudsbury flipped her hand in a quick irritated gesture. “Oh, rot. Winnie is a perpetual undergraduate about combat. He probably wishes he could go himself, and imagines everyone’s like him. He got himself unnecessarily captured in South Africa long ago. Why, in May and June he flew over to France time after time, got in the hair of the generals, and skittered around the front making a frightful nuisance of himself. He’s a great man, but that’s one of his many weaknesses.”

Victor Henry lit a cigarette and took deep puffs, turning the match packet round and round in his fingers. “Well, I’m supposed to call General Tillet pretty damn quick. I’d better do that.” He reached for the telephone.

She said quickly, “Wait a minute. What are you going to say?”

“I’m going to accept.”

Pamela drew a sharp noisy breath, and said, “Why did you ask my opinion, then?”

“I thought you might voice a good objection that hadn’t occurred to me.”

“You gave the best objection yourself, it’s idiotic.”

“I’m not positive. My job is intelligence. This is an extraordinary opportunity. There’s also a taunt in it, Pamela. The U.S. Navy’s out of the war, and I’m here to see how you’re taking it. Question, how will I take it? It’s hard to duck that one.”

“You’re reading too much into it. What would your President say to this? Did he send you here to risk getting killed?”

“After the fact he’d congratulate me.”

“If you returned to be congratulated.”

As he reached for the telephone again, Pamela Tudsbury said, “I shall wind up with Fred Fearing. Or his equivalent.” That stopped the motion of Pug’s arm. She said, “I’m in dead earnest. I miss Ted horribly. I shall not be able to endure missing you. I’m
much
more attached to you than you realize. And I’m not at all moral, you know. You have very wrong ideas about me.”

The seams in his face were sharp and deep as he peered at the angry girl. The thumping of his heart made speech difficult. “It isn’t very moral to hit below the belt, I’ll say that.”

“You don’t understand me. Not in the least. On the
Bremen
you took me for a schoolgirl, and you’ve never really changed. Your wife has somehow kept you remarkably innocent for twenty-five years.”

Victor Henry said, “Pam, I honestly don’t think I was born to be shot down over Berlin in a British bomber. I’ll see you when I get back.”

He telephoned Tillet, while the girl stared at him with wide angry eyes. “Ass!” she said. “
Ass
!”

Chapter 33

A youngster in greasy coveralls poked his head through the open door. “Sir, the briefing’s begun in B flight crew room.”

“Coming,” said Pug, struggling with unfamiliar tubes, clasps, and straps. The flying suit was too big. It had not been laundered or otherwise cleaned in a long time, and smelled of stale sweat, grease, and tobacco. Quickly Pug pulled on three pairs of socks and thrust his feet into fleece-lined boots, also too big.

“What do I do with these?” Pug gestured at the raincoat and tweed suit he had folded on a chair.

“They’ll be right there when you get back, sir.”

Their eyes met. In that glance was complete mutual recognition that, for no very good reason, Pug was going out to risk death. The young man looked sorry for him, and also wryly amused at the Yank officer’s predicament. Pug said, “What’s your name?”

“Aircraftsman Horton, sir.”

“Well, Aircraftsman Horton, we seem to be about the same size. If I forget to pick up that suit or something, it’s yours.”

“Why, thank you, sir.” The young man’s grin became broad and sincere. “That’s very fine tweed.”

Several dozen men in flying clothes slouched in the room, their pallid faces attentive to the wing commander who motioned the American to a chair. He was talking about the primary and secondary targets in Berlin, using a long pointer at a gray, grainy aerial picture of the German capital blown up on a large screen. Victor Henry had driven or walked past both targets often. One was a power plant, the other the main gasworks of Berlin. It made him feel decidedly odd to discern, in the Grunewald area, the lake beside which the Rosenthal house stood.

“All right, let’s have the opposition map.”

Another slide of Berlin flashed on the screen, marked with red and orange symbols, and the officer discussed anti-aircraft positions and searchlight belts. The fliers listened to the dull droning voice raptly.

“Lights.”

Bare lamps in the ceiling blazed up. The bomber crews blinked and shifted in their chairs. Rolled up, the screen uncovered a green-and-brown map of Europe, and over it a sign in large red block letters: IT IS BETTER TO KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND LET PEOPLE THINK YOU’RE A FOOL, THAN TO OPEN IT AND REMOVE ALL DOUBT.

“All right, that’s about it. Berlin will be on the alert after all the stuff they’ve been dumping on London, so look alive.” The wing commander leaned his pointer against the wall, put hands on hips, and changed to an offhand tone: “Remember to be careful of the moon. Don’t fly directly into it, you’ll look like a cat on a Christmas card. When you’ve done your stuff, get your photographs, shove the nose down, and pedal home downhill as fast as you can. Keep your pistols loaded and have those photo-flash bombs handy. Work fast, the flak will be heavy. Incidentally, our American observer will be flying in F for Freddie. He’s Admiral Victor Henry, one of the least prudent officers in the United States Navy.”

Faces turned to Pug, who cleared his throat. “Sir, maybe I’ll be entitled to the field promotion when I get back, but I’m only Captain Henry.”

“The promotion stands for this mission,” said the wing commander with a laugh. “You deserve it!”

He went out. After a silence a boy’s voice behind Pug piped, “Anybody who’d go on a ruddy mission like this when he ruddy well doesn’t have to, should be in a ruddy loony bin.”

A short skinny flier with heavy, crinkling black hair and bloodshot little eyes approached him, holding out a paper box crudely tied with red ribbon. “Admiral, a little token of welcome from the squadron.”

Pug opened the box and took out a roll of toilet paper. He glanced around at the expectant white amused faces. “I’m touched. But I don’t think I’ll be needing this, inasmuch as I’m already scared shitless.”

He got a good laugh. The little flier offered his hand. “Come along with me, Admiral. I’m Peters, the sergeant navigator of F for Freddie.” He took him to a row of lockers and gave the American his parachute, showing him how to clip it to his chest. He also handed him a paper sack with his ration.

“Now you don’t wear your chute. That’s a good chute. You just stow it where it’ll be handy in a hurry. It’s hard enough moving around inside the Wimpy, you’ll find, without that thing on. Now you’ll want to meet the pilots. They’re Flight Lieutenant Killian and Sergeant Pilot Johnson. Tiny, we call the sergeant.”

He conducted Victor Henry to a small room where the two pilots were studying and marking up maps of Berlin. The lieutenant, who had the furrowed brow and neat little moustache of an assistant bank manager, was using a magnifying glass. Sergeant Tiny Johnson, booted feet on the desk, was holding the map up and glaring at it. “Hullo! Brassed off, I am, Admiral,” he said, when Peters introduced Victor Henry. “Ruddy well brassed off.” He was a large fellow with a ham face and thick lips.

“Pack it up, Tiny,” said the first pilot.

“Brassed off, I say. A nine-hour sweat just for us. While those twerps in all the other squadrons go for a quick one on the Channel coast to hit the invasion barges, and then home for tea, mother. I’ve been over Berlin. I don’t like it.”

“You’ve never stopped boasting about being over Berlin,” said the skipper, drawing lines on the map.

“Rottenest moment of my life,” said the sergeant, with a rolling side glance at Victor Henry. “Ruddiest thickest flak you ever saw. Masses of searchlights turning the night into day.” He got up yawning. “Brassed off, that’s what I am, mates. Brassed off. You’re a brave man, Admiral.”

He went out.

“Tiny’s a good pilot,” said the first pilot in upper-class tones, tucking the map into a canvas pouch. “He does talk a lot.”

The six men of the F for Freddie crew gathered under a naked light in a hallway for a last word from Flight Lieutenant Killian, reading notes on a clipboard. Aside from the theatrical-looking flying suits and life vests, they seemed like any half-dozen young men off any London street. The wireless operator was thin and somewhat ratty; the rear gunner was a fresh-faced boy - almost a child, thought Pug thought - on his first operational flight; the pimply front gunner vulgarly worked chewing gum in long jaws. Only their nervy, apprehensive, adventurous, and cheerful look was unusual.

The warm night was studded with summer stars: Vega, Deneb, Altair, Arcturus - the old navigation aids reliably twinkling away. The senior pilot went aboard the plane. The crew lounged on the grass nearby.

“F for Freddie,” said the sergeant pilot, giving the fuselage a loud affectionate slap. “Been through many a long sweat, Admiral.”

This was how Pug found out that a Wellington bomber had a skin of fabric. The slapped cloth sounded just like what it was. He was used to his Navy’s metal aircraft. It never occurred to him that the British could use fabric planes as attack bombers, and this piece of intelligence had not come his way, for he was not an aviator. Victor Henry could still have walked away from the flight, but he felt as compelled to enter this cloth plane and fly over Berlin as a murderer is to climb a gallows to be hanged. In the sweet-smelling quiet night, plaintive birdsongs rose here and there, richly warbling and rolling.

“Ever heard nightingales before?” said Tiny Johnson.

“No, I never have.”

“Well, Admiral, you’re hearing nightingales.”

Far down the field, one plane after another coughed and began to roar, shooting out flames in the darkness. A truck rolled up to F for Freddie. A mechanic plugged a cable into its fuselage. The motors caught and turned over, spitting smoke and fire, as other planes trundled to a dimly lit runway and thundered up and away into gauzy blue moonlight. Soon only F for Freddie was left, its crew still lying on the grass, its spinning motors cherry red. All at once the engines shut off.

Pug heard nightingales again.

“Eh? What now?” said Tiny. “Don’t tell me we’ve been scrubbed, due to some splendid, lovely engine trouble?”

Mechanics came trotting out and worked rapidly on one engine, with many a vile cheerful curse, their tools clanking musically in the open air. Twenty minutes after the other planes left, F for Freddie took off and flew out over the North Sea.