Damned Good Show (23 page)

“Bloody winds,” the navigator said. By then he was in the nose, squinting through the bombsight. His tiny sparks were still wandering.

Later the RAF called it debriefing. In 1941 it was interrogation. The station commander and the CO attended but the Intelligence Officer did the work.

Skull stood behind Bins and watched him work. The first crew home was J-Jig, at 0120. After more than six hours in the air they were both weary and chirpy, glad to get a mug of coffee with a slug of rum in it.

The first questions were the crucial ones. “Did you reach Mannheim?” Yes. “Did you identify the target?” The navigator (and bomb-aimer) said it was as plain as day. “Did you bomb the target?” Absolutely. Right on the nose. Piece of cake. “I saw the bombs go in,” said the rear gunner. “Bull's-eye.” Bins wanted more detail: time on target, color of explosions, any secondary explosions, any fires,
color of fires … Then he whizzed through a dozen items: flak, fighters, searchlights, sightings of other bombers going down, decoy fires, any technical problems, weather, winds …

“Predicted winds were wrong,” the pilot said. “We got blown east until we got a fix on the Rhine south of Mainz. Then it was easy.”

They were restless. Bacon and eggs waited: best meal of the day. Bins said, “Anything else I should know? No? Thanks. Well done.”

“Damn good show,” the group captain said.

Bins took care of M-Mother, then F-Fox and E-Easy. Everyone was pleased: all the Wellingtons had landed. The crews of B-Baker and R-Robert came in together. There was a rush to get to Bins' table. B-Baker won. R-Robert went to an empty table and dragged out the chairs as noisily as possible. “Shop!” the pilot called. He pounded the table.

“You know the drill,” Bins said to Skull. “Keep it brief, make it snappy.” He gave him an interrogation form.

Gilchrist didn't wait to be questioned. “Found Mannheim. Recognized the target. Bombed the AP.” Skull looked puzzled. “The what?” he asked. “Aiming Point,” the pilot said. The others put on expressions of comic disbelief: the bloody IO didn't know what an AP was! “Rear gunner saw our bombs straddle the target,” Gilchrist said.

“Two d's in ‘straddle,'” the rear gunner said.

“You're very kind,” Skull said.

“No fighters. Usual flak. Nothing special at all,” Gilchrist said. “Whole trip was a doddle.” Some of the crew were standing up.

“I suppose the Rhine helped,” Skull said. “It runs dead straight out of Mannheim for about two miles, is that right? The perfect landmark.”

“Perfect,” the navigator said. He was feeling much better. “Coming out, we flew straight up the Rhine.”

“Interesting.” Skull made a note. “And the oil tanks beside the river: were they on fire?”

“Not half. Burning like blazes.”

“Flames reflected in the water?”

“That's right.”

The crew of B-Baker were clumping out of the hut.

“I'll finish off here,” Bins said. “Anything else you want to tell me? No? Thanks. Well done.”

“Damn good show,” the group captain said. Gilchrist and his men hurried out. Rafferty and Duff followed them, leaving the Intelligence Officers to write up the operational report.

“Don't gossip with the chaps,” Bins told Skull. “Ask your questions, get the gen,
finish.”

“I wasn't gossiping.”

“I heard you chattering about flames reflected in the Rhine. Nobody gives a damn. The chaps want their meal. God knows they've earned it.”

“I was curious to know if they remembered seeing burning oil tanks alongside the river north of Mannheim, that's all.”

Bins put down his fountain-pen and looked at him. “There are no oil tanks on the Rhine north of Mannheim.”

“R-Robert saw them burning like blazes.”

Bins found a bit of blotting paper and cleaned the nib. He drew a perfect circle to make sure it worked. “Look,” he said. “First day on the squadron and you've put up three large blacks. For Christ's sake don't do any more damage. This job is tricky enough already.”

“Shall I make us some cocoa? At RAF Feck my cocoa-making was highly commended.”

While Skull made cocoa, Bins found R-Robert's report and obliterated the bit about burning oil tanks. In the margin he wrote
Irrelevant jocular remarks
, and initialed it.

S-Sugar was the oldest Wellington on 409 Squadron.

She had taken a lot of knocks: slashed by shrapnel, wrenched by storm-force winds, dumped on bumpy runways by pilots who were ten feet higher than they planned to be. Also baked, soaked and frozen by the British weather as she sat at dispersal. But Wellingtons were designed to take punishment. She was still strong enough to haul a load of bombs to Berlin, provided all her bits worked.

When a new crew arrived at RAF Coney Garth, Pug Duff gave them S-Sugar and told the pilot, Jeremy Diamond, aged twenty-one,
ex-medical student, that he had two weeks in which to knock his crew into shape. “Fly all the hours God gives,” Pug said. “Don't wait for sunshine. Good weather teaches you nothing. Learn in the rain.”

Diamond did just that. After a week, he took off and flew east, on a navigation exercise plus bombing practice. Over the North Sea the weather turned foul.

The radio was receiving yards of harsh static and nothing else. The demons of cumulo-nimbus bounced the bomber until the navigator was too sick to do his job. Diamond climbed until he was above the weather, at nine thousand. He turned back, reached the coast and found the bombing range. Nine thousand was far too high. He went down until the navigator said he could see the targets through the bomb-sight. Diamond didn't believe him, the nav sounded weak, maybe he was still sick; so Diamond banked the Wimpy so that he could look down and see for himself. Just as he banked, the nav said, “Bombs gone.” Which meant the bombs had swung sideways with the Wimpy. Too late now.

Diamond turned north, hoping to escape the weather, but the weather went north, too. He tried to climb above it, and the wings iced up. The more he climbed, the worse the ice, until the Wimpy was laboring. He had to go back down into the muck. The port engine packed up and now he couldn't maintain height even if he wanted to. He was searching for a hole in the cloud when he scraped the top of a Yorkshire hill that should have been thirty miles away, and he terrified himself. Ten seconds later he flew into another, bigger hill.

New boys began at the bottom. The sprog crew got the worst kite. Why waste a good Wimpy when you could waste a duff one? It was only common sense.

Rain was still falling next day. It fell on RAF Coney Garth as the adjutant showed the station commander an order from Group. The order directed Rafferty to arrange an appropriate visit, without delay, to a civilian who had been accidentally bombed.

“You go and see the fellow,” Rafferty said.

“No fear,” the adjutant said. “Not my pigeon, sir.”

“Be a sport, Douglas. You're awfully good at this sort of thing. Honeyed tongue, and so on.”

“Honey's on ration, sir. So is tongue, come to that.”

“Every bloody thing's on ration. Except bleating civilians.”

In his flying days, Rafferty's nickname had been Tiny. Now his presence was even more massive. He was afraid of very few things, but one was angry civilians. “Why don't we send Pug?” he suggested. “It's his squadron. I'm just the bally caretaker here.”

“Squadron's on ops tonight.”

“Send Bellamy, then. He's not flying.”

“Bellamy's giving the briefing.” The adjutant paused, and played his ace. “It seems this chap is a former MP, sir.”

Rafferty gave in. “I'm not going alone,” he said.

“Well, Skull's available. Used to be a Cambridge don. Never lost for words, although I can't say I understand them all.”

Rafferty perked up. “Skull can do all the talking. I'll just …” The adjutant shook his head. “Well, I'm damn well not going to apologize.” Rafferty muttered. “Sod 'em all.”

They went in his official car. An airman drove. Skull had brought a file. “The complainant is Major-General Count Blanco de Colossal-Howitzer-Bombardment, sir,” he began. Rafferty stared. Skull said. “I cannot tell a lie, sir. I made that up.”

“Drop the ‘sir,' Skull. And the jokes. Who is this blasted civilian?”

“Brigadier Piers Barriton, MC. Used to drive racing cars. Tory MP for ten years. A widower. Owns a farm with a large sanctuary for sea birds. He claims that both the farm and the sanctuary were bombed.”

“We'll see about that.”

“The brigadier has one other passion. Fly-fishing.”

“Boring bloody nonsense.”

“True. But as we have some time, you might like to know the difference between a March Brown, a Greenwell's Glory and a Tupp's Indispensable.”

“Damn-fool names. All right, fire away.”

Brigadier Barriton met them at the front door of his farmhouse. He was in his sixties, angular, slightly hunched, with cropped white hair. Two dogs sat on the doorstep: orderlies awaiting orders. Rafferty introduced himself and Skull. The brigadier did not offer to shake hands. “You'll want to see the bombs,” he said. His voice held
a trace of Scottish Highlands. A trace of granite.

The further they walked, the muddier it got. The visitors had not thought to bring gumboots. The fields were flat and there was little to be said about them. Rafferty gave up trying to keep his trouser legs clean and he plodded behind the brigadier. Skull's attempts at conversation got nowhere. “Wonderful skies in these parts, sir,” he said. “Do you paint, at all?” Barriton shook his head. “Neither do I,” Skull said sympathetically.

Rain had passed, but the sky was overcast and Rafferty could see a squall heading their way.

The first bomb was lying on a sack. Rafferty recognized 409 Squadron's colors. All their practice bombs were painted yellow, with a red fin. Still, the brig didn't know that, did he? “This is a job for the experts,” he said. “It may well be German.”

“I doubt that.” Barriton rolled it over with his foot. Stenciled down one side was 409 SQDN HOT SHOTS. “It struck that Dutch barn yonder. Went through the roof and made a mess of a ton of turnips. The other bombs are widely scattered.”

“You will be compensated in full,” Rafferty said.

“Tell that to my breeding gulls.” He set off again.

It was half a mile to the sanctuary. Rafferty and Skull looked at sea-birds circling mudflats, creeks and stretches of reed, with the gray North Sea beyond. Soon a thin rain began to fall. “It's taken me ten years to persuade those particular birds to nest here,” Barriton said, “and now you go and bomb them.”

Rafferty was more interested in the black squall racing toward them. Young Diamond must have run into weather like this. Foul, turning worse. “Accident,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

“You think I'm making too much of this,” Barriton said. “Well, I fought the Hun and I know one thing. Germany will not be beaten by accident.”

Nobody spoke on the way back.

By the time they reached the car, the group captain's feet were squelching inside his shoes; but that was not what angered him. Rain dripped from his nose as he watched the brigadier shut the dogs in a shed, and turn and stand, waiting for his visitors to go.

“Sir!” Rafferty said. It was so explosive that he paused to control his feelings. “Sir… I came here to apologize for a mistake, and I've done so. But I will not apologize for the hazards of war. Nor will I allow
you or anyone to belittle the men I'm proud to lead. War is dangerous. Accidents happen. Brave men die. No doubt you knew a few.”

“More than a few.”

Rafferty gestured at the wet horizon. “You love your sea-birds, sir. Bully for you. I love my aircrew. Some of them disturbed your birds. The birds may come back. But the crew of that bomber will never come back. That's all I have to say, sir.” He was about to leave when Skull stopped him. Barriton had opened the farmhouse door and was standing aside, waiting for them to enter.

Rafferty sat in the kitchen, near a coal-burning stove as big as a sideboard, and watched his stockinged feet steam. Barriton gave them towels, and made tea. Rafferty was silent; Skull talked easily. He noticed Peter Fleming's
Brazilian Adventure
on a bookshelf, and praised it, which led to piranha fish, and to scorpions, and desert travel, and crusader castles. Barriton had something to say about them all. One topic led to another. “Fame is over-rated, if you ask me,” Skull said. He picked up a tin of St. Bruno tobacco. “Everyone's heard of St. Bruno, but who was he? Come to that, who was the great Greenwell?”

Barriton's face changed; the boy in the man showed through. “Do you fish?” he asked.

“Not as often as the group captain.”

Rafferty cleared his throat, and tried to remember the difference between a March Brown and a Tupps' Indispensable. Barriton said: “Take a look at my Greenwells. There's no decent trout fishing in East Anglia, so fly-tying is the next best thing.” He was opening drawers and pulling out trays lined with yellow felt. Trout flies were lined up like gems in a jeweler's. “What d'you think of that one, group captain?”

“My goodness,” Rafferty said. “That's something. That really is something.”

“I hope that makes him happy,” Rafferty said. They were in the car, heading home. “These trousers will never be the same again.”

“You handled him beautifully.”

“Bloody retired pongo. Bloody blimp. Bloody has-been MP. Never flown in his life and he's got the brass gall to be sniffy about our training methods.”

“He's a lonely old man.”

“Lucky for him. If he'd been younger I'd have flattened him. Men like that haven't got the faintest idea what Bomber Command's about.”