Damned Good Show (38 page)

“What do the bomber crews think of this?” Butt asked.

“The subject doesn't arise. We always give them a specific target.”

“I see. Perhaps you don't want to damage
their
morale.”

“What's important is we can't afford to upset the Americans. They still think we should bomb by daylight, to spare the civilians.” Champion looked inside the coffee pot. “Idealism runs riot in America as long as it's not their aircraft getting shot down.” He topped up their cups. “So when our crews are being briefed for an op, we use the phrase ‘industrial center.' It sounds like a factory but it covers the whole town.”

“And what you're saying is that not a bomb is wasted?”

Champion was pleased. Butt had grasped the concept very quickly. “We have a motto in Bomber Command,” he said. “‘Profitable target, in profitable surroundings.' We're turning it into a fine art.”

“My goodness,” Butt said. “That puts a whole new slant on things.”

“It puts the fear of death into German civilians,” Champion said. “Morale is a very fragile commodity when Fritz hears the scream of a four-thousand-pound high-capacity blast bomb.”

“A fearsome weapon,” Butt agreed.

“The Prime Minister takes the credit. ‘Devastate the Nazi homeland.' Isn't that what he said a year ago?” When Butt gave an inscrutable smile, Champion made an apologetic gesture. “Or so I'm told. That statement was highly confidential. Officially, I know nothing. Of course you mustn't comment, and I should never have mentioned it. All the same, we're doing just what he wanted, aren't we? There I go again. Pay no attention, David.”

“Thank you for lunch, Ralph,” Butt said. “I'm learning all the time.”

After the Essen raid, Gilchrist and his crew got to bed at dawn. The Wingco never even considered sending C-Charlie to Bremen. If Rollo Blazer wanted to film this op, it would be in another Wimpy, and by good luck Flying Officer Polly Lomas was fit again. His cracked wrist had healed; he would fly Q-Queenie. He was twenty-one but looked nineteen, had a bright smile and spoke good Home Counties English. Duff and Rafferty agreed that Lomas would take Blazer.

Rollo found Lomas standing next to Queenie at dispersal.

“Hard though I try, I cannot love this airplane,” Lomas said. “Admire and respect, yes. But look at her: she's podgy. She resembles a pregnant sofa, doesn't she?”

“Never seen one,” Rollo said.

“She's a tough old cow, I don't dispute that. She's brought me home with scads and scads of fabric shot away and the wind whistling through her bones. Are you superstitious?”

“Um … depends.”

“This is the third Queenie the squadron's had in three months. Some crews think the letter Q must be bad luck. Doesn't bother me. I'll tell you what does make me wonder. Wimpys have this famous geodesic design, this basketweave framework, and everyone says that's what makes the kite so amazingly strong. So why won't she spin? Nobody's ever spun a Wimpy. And survived, that is.”

Rollo looked at the pregnant sofa and imagined it spinning, and
looked away. “Who would want to spin her?” he asked.

“Me for one. Over Hamburg, we got coned. I tried every stunt I knew. Couldn't escape the cone. Spinning would probably have made matters worse, but what the hell, if intelligence doesn't work, try stupidity.”

“So how did you get away?”

“Luck. And Mackenzie.” Lomas took a little wooden figure of a kilted highlander from his pocket. “I never fly without Mackenzie.”

“I thought you weren't superstitious.”

“Mackenzie's an each-way bet. Can't do any harm.”

Rollo should have gained strength from Lomas's breezy optimism. Instead, he trudged away, feeling suddenly drained of energy. He intended to walk back to his married quarters, but he soon knew it was too far. He changed direction, heading for the Mess, and stumbled as he turned. His legs were unreliable. His knees seemed to wish to fold the wrong way. His muscles were made of string. He didn't feel his face hit the ground, and so didn't know how lucky he was that it was grass and not tarmac.

The Tannoy summoned Mrs. Blazer to the MO's office.

“He's not going to die. Not today, anyway,” the MO told her. “But he's semiconscious at best, so he can't answer my questions. Has he ever fainted before?”

“Only once, that I know of,” Kate said. “During the Blitz. We were filming a big fire and a cloud of smoke came down on us and he passed out. Not for long, just a minute or so. I think he choked on the smoke.”

“Well, there was no smoke today. Has he ever mentioned diabetes? Vertigo? Low blood sugar?”

“No. None of those. Look: you examined him a couple of days ago. Didn't he tell you everything?”

“Men lie,” the MO said.

“Oh.” She felt helpless. Since they came to Coney Garth she had prepared herself to meet injury, bloodshed, men lost in action. But Rollo had simply collapsed in the open air. “Haven't you got some idea what's wrong?” she asked. “What are his …?” She couldn't find the word. “You know.”

“Symptoms. His temperature's high, he's got abdominal pain, there are shivering fits and some other signs that might indicate food poisoning. But…”

“Toast and coffee. That's all he had for breakfast.”

“Yes. I checked with the Mess. And nobody else has gone down with food poisoning. There's another possibility. I can't prove it, but I suspect the dental extraction is behind all this.”

“That damn tooth,” Kate said.

“Not the tooth itself. However, there might have been an abscess in the tissues near the tooth. Maybe the extraction exposed the abscess. If it burst, and some of the pus escaped into the stomach …” The MO shrugged.

“It would be like food poisoning?”

“Rather worse, I imagine.”

“Can you do anything for him?”

“The best solution is for his digestive system to pass this revolting matter in the normal fashion, as soon as possible. So we'll purge his bowels. By this time tomorrow his innards should be empty and the patient well on the way to recovery.”

“What if that doesn't work?”

“I've just had an idea. Why don't you pop down the corridor and have a chat with Skull? He's getting bored. I think he'll be fit for duty soon.”

Kate went off to see Skull. The MO telephoned Group Captain Rafferty. “Mr. Blazer is in a stable condition, sir,” he reported.

“Good. When I heard about him, my first thought was he'd got a bad case of twitch. He was due to go on ops tonight, with Q-Queenie. Wouldn't be the first chap to develop galloping cold feet, would he?”

“True, sir. But Mr. Blazer is genuinely sick.”

“I see. Well, keep me informed.”

In the evening, Skull was wandering about Sick Quarters in search of company and conversation, when he stopped at an open door. Rollo Blazer was in bed. “Hello,” he said. “What happened to you?”

Rollo whispered: “Wrath of God.”

Skull went closer and saw that Rollo's face was as white as paper. “I say … Did you go on ops?”

“Did I?” Only Rollo's lips moved. “No. Not me.”

Skull took the temperature chart from the bed-rail and examined it. “You've been up and down like a kangaroo.” He replaced the
chart. “Not that I have any experience of kangaroos.”

He had nothing more to say, but it seemed discourteous to leave. He sat on the only chair. Rollo lay as still as a stone. Once, his eyes flickered toward Skull, but the effort was too much and they stopped trying. “You went on ops,” he whispered.

“Yes, that's true. I did.” Skull realized that he was speaking strongly, as if it made up for Rollo's feeble voice. “We went to Essen. Not a nice place. Other than that, I can't seem to remember anything of interest. Dreadfully cold, Germany, I do remember that. People said it would be hot, but my recollection is of extreme cold.” By now, Rollo's eyelids were almost closed. “Well, I mustn't trespass on your hospitality any further,” Skull said. He left, treading softly.

By 1941 all Wellingtons had self-sealing fuel tanks. If a bullet holed a tank, escaping petrol reacted with an inner layer of rubber compound that lined the tank, the compound rapidly expanded, the hole was plugged. But nothing could seal a hole the size of a pumpkin.

Over Bremen, Q-Queenie got bracketed by heavy flak that tossed her about like a boy in a blanket. All the wing tanks were ripped open and the undercarriage came down. Soon the engines were coughing, and with the added drag of the wheels, Polly Lomas had to descend. He caught sight of moonlight glistening on concrete and was sure it was a stretch of autobahn. He made an excellent landing on what turned out to be a runway in a Luftwaffe airfield. The crew set Queenie on fire, as orders required, and the blaze brought German guards at high speed. Within minutes, Lomas and his men were in the bag.

At Coney Garth, D-Dog was the last Wimpy to return. Bins asked the usual questions and was relieved when Silk seemed to agree that they had bombed Bremen. “Did you definitely hit the target?” he asked. Silk said: “We did better than that. We hit two breweries and the naval officers' brothel.” Everyone laughed. Even Bins smiled as he wrote:
Target definitely hit.
“Damned good show,” Rafferty said.

He waited up until it was impossible for Q-Queenie to be in the air. No distress signal. No reports from other airfields. Nothing from the Observer Corps. “Let's turn in.” he said to Bellamy.

“Yes, sir. Just as well Mr. Blazer didn't go with Lomas, isn't it? The chaps are becoming a bit leery of this film business. They think Blazer's turning into a Jonah.”

“Superstition,” Rafferty said. “It's as bad as fact.” He went to bed.

Kate slept poorly, worried about Rollo. She wasted her anxiety. Late in the morning she got a message: Rollo was awake and insisting on seeing her. She found him sitting up in bed, eating scrambled white of egg and drinking sweet tea from a pint mug. “What have I missed?” he asked.

“My God, you look awful. You look as if you've risen from the grave on a wet Wednesday in Stepney”

“Do I? Well, I've risen, that's the main thing.” There was nothing in his voice but faint impatience. “Come on, what have I missed?”

“Not a damn thing. The squadron got the day off today, so the crews are out playing cricket, and I've washed my hair.” She said nothing about the Bremen raid. No point in upsetting him.

“Q-Queenie,” he said. “Got the chop, didn't she?” His flat voice made it sound even worse.

“For God's sake.” Kate was angry, and she walked away from him. “You knew what you missed, so why ask?”

“Skull told me.”

“Of course he did. Intelligence knows everything.”

“The MO told Skull.”

“All in a day's work,” she said. “Just another crew gone west. I'm beginning to hate this job.”

Rollo was eating steadily, and watching her. “Can't quit now,” he said. “Think of the première.”

“Yeah. Rollo's not dead, so it's all very funny” She went out.

“Be ready tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow I'll be in action.”

He was wrong. He recovered his strength remarkably quickly, but the MO made him stay in Sick Quarters for another day. Even so, he didn't miss anything. In the morning, 409 was on standby for Gardening at Rotterdam; then the target was changed to Brest; and at four p.m. the whole operation was scrubbed. Much waiting; no trade. There were many days like that.

Silk went to his room and wrote a note to Zoë which turned into a very long letter. He re-read the pages and despaired. What a lot of cock. The jokes were obvious, the emotions were cheap, and self-pity leaked between the lines. It was lust disguised as sentimentality. He tore the letter into small pieces, threw them into a waste basket, distrusted his batman and flushed the bits down the toilet.

He slept for an hour and took a shower. The evening looked beautiful. He saw vast, unlimited quantities of clean air and a honey-colored sky getting ready to perform its grand finale, the stunning sunset. He skipped dinner and went for a walk with his golf club around the perimeter track. He reached the dispersal bays and he was halfway through his usual game, which involved chipping the ball over each Wimpy in turn, when Pug Duff drove by and stopped. “Get in!” he shouted.

Silk played his shot and walked over to the car. “British Museum, cabby,” he said, “and drive like the wind.” He got in.

They went to the furthest corner of the field. “Finest mushrooms in Suffolk,” Duff said. The grass was thickly dotted with them, as white as plates. “You're lucky I got enough bacon for two.”

He had also brought a Primus stove, a frying pan, six sausages, half a loaf, and four bottles of beer. They cooked the bacon and sausages, and fried the mushrooms in the fat. By now it was dusk. Swallows zigzagged overhead, making flying look easy. Duff dragged the back seat from the car and they sat and ate out of the frying pan.

“Do you often do this?” Silk asked.

“Only when I can't stand the sight of the bloody squadron any longer.”

“I never expected you to make Wingco, Pug. Not with those puny little legs of yours. How can you kick people up the ass?”

“I take a running jump. And since we're opening our hearts, I never thought I'd find you in the awkward squad. Everybody's out of step
except our Silko, isn't that right?”

Silk drank some beer, and wiped his lips.

“You make life bloody difficult for me,” Duff said. “It's hellish hard work trying to boost morale when you come back and tell everyone the squadron just bombed Zurich.”

“I would never say that. I might say
we missed
Zurich.”

“Morale is crucial. And you keep chipping away at it.”