Читать книгу Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse - Len Deighton - Страница 17

The River Ouse bisects pathfinder country. To the north of the river, acres of the ancient forestlands darken the road with shadow, but suddenly through a gap in the trees the far horizon is glimpsed across the dead-flat peaty land that slopes down towards the south-west. Rain draining off the airfields could make the sleepy, almost motionless, Ouse into a torrent that overflooded its banks and filled the shady lanes with deep mud even in high summer. For there were many airfields, or, put another way, just one airfield, and over it the winged monsters slid, as once went the pterodactyls that are still found fossilized in the nearby chalk quarries.

The day was half gone. The machines were ready and the Daily Inspection Forms initialled. The drone of circuiting bombers had not ceased since early morning. Creaking Door got the green light from control and Lambert’s right hand pushed the throttles gently forward as he had a thousand times. He kept the port ones slightly ahead to correct the swing. Behind his shoulder he felt young Battersby leaning against him to let him know he was there. He brought the tail up quickly. There was that exhilarating feeling of the back of the seat pushing hard against the spine as five thousand horsepower gripped the air and fifty thousand pounds of aeroplane teetered on tiptoe before relinquishing the last touch of spinning tyres on runway. Battersby took the throttles, sliding his hand under the pilot’s as before him Micky Murphy had done for fifteen NFTs and the fifteen operations that followed them. Now Lambert needed both hands to haul back upon the control column and force the dark nose up through the horizon. Lambert gave the rudder bar an extra touch, for Battersby hadn’t kept the port throttles quite far enough ahead.

Cohen was calling out the air-speeds from his indicator beside the navigation desk: 95, 100, 105, and then suddenly Creaking Door was airborne. Battersby had seen the rudderbar movement and corrected the throttles precisely.

‘Climbing power,’ chanted Lambert.

‘Climbing power,’ Battersby answered.

‘Wheels up.’

‘Wheels up.’

There was only sky. The horizon had dropped out of sight like a spent hoop.

‘Flaps up.’

‘Flaps up.’ Battersby closed the flaps and there was a grinding sound as they slid back into the wings.

‘Cruising power.’ Battersby didn’t move the throttles with the considerate slowness that an airline check captain would approve. He altered their position with an abrupt indifference that slowed the forward speed with a jerk and changed the roar to a lower tone.

The nose dropped a trifle. The Lancaster assumed its flying stance.

‘Just one round the garden,’ said Lambert. It was a way of telling Cohen that he wouldn’t need fixes or navigation for the short trip.

There was a click as a microphone was switched on. ‘It’s meat pie,’ said Digby from the front turret. He should have been behind Lambert on take-off but he preferred to be in front and Lambert didn’t mind. ‘But late lunches will probably have potato cheese.’

‘Skipper,’ said Binty Jones from the top turret, ‘is that glycol on the port inner?’

Lambert looked out. He was fond of this aeroplane. Seen through this aged Perspex, the world was not bright and new but ancient and yellowed like parchment. Polished a thousand times, the windows had become a delicate optical system that edged the landscape with haloes and made of the sun a bundle of gold wire. He looked at the engine-covers. Battered by riggers’ feet and chunks of ice, there was around each panel screw a white calligraphic crosshatching of screwdriver scratches. From the exhaust dampers came a blue feather-like jet of flame. Its heat had baked the oil spill upon the cowlings. Like antique enamelware the dark-brown stains shone with a patina of deep reds and rich greens. Above the exhaust pipes upon the matt paint of the engine-cover there was one shiny patch. It was catching the bright afternoon sunlight and gleaming like a newly minted penny. Battersby also glanced at it briefly, then turned back to his panel. He was determined to do his job by the book, better than Murphy even.

‘Fuel pumps of all tanks off,’ reported Battersby. ‘No warning lights.’

‘A coolant leak can be real big trouble,’ said Binty, always a Jeremiah.

‘What do you think, engineer?’ asked Lambert.

‘It’s just an oily footmark,’ said Battersby. ‘I saw the rigger do it. I should have had it wiped, I’m sorry.’ He didn’t turn away from his panel.

Lambert looked at the mark again: it was the shape of a rubber toe. He tapped Battersby on the arm so that he looked round. Lambert grinned at him. The white-faced engineer was relieved not to be reprimanded.

‘That generator behaving, Batters?

‘Perfectly, Skipper.’

Digby was full-length in the nose watching the sunny landscape slide under him. He switched on his intercom. ‘Skipper, did they tell you what it’s going to be tonight?’ As always when Digby was trying to wheedle something his accent had become more nasal, drawing each word to its fullest possible extent like soft chewing-gum.

‘Yes, thanks,’ said Lambert. He leaned to his right and bent his head low to watch Digby’s reaction.

‘Come on, Skipper,’ said Digby looking back to him. ‘Give us the gen.’

‘It’s Hamburg,’ volunteered Jimmy Grimm the wireless operator. ‘The Orderly Room WAAF told me. The blonde job’.

‘Big deal,’ said Binty scornfully from the upper turret. ‘Who told her, the Groupie last night in bed?’

‘Skip,’ coaxed Digby. ‘I’ve got the calculations to do. I should be told.’

‘It’s a five-tank job: 2,154 gallons,’ said Lambert.

Squinting into the hot sun coming through the nose panel Digby nodded. Lambert continued, ‘The whole Squadron is bombing the shit out of Adelaide.’

They all heard Binty’s catcall of joy even without his intercom. ‘That’s the one, Skipper,’ said Flash Gordon from the rear gun turret.

‘You pom bastards,’ said Digby cheerfully.

‘Sticky beak,’ said Lambert. It was one of Digby’s favourite insults.

Jimmy Grimm hunched lower at his table under the racks of radio equipment and grinned. He was sending the favourite operator’s test signal: ‘Best bent wire best bent wire best bent wire’. Who knows who first invented this strange phrase with its jazz-like rhythms, known to RAF operators and Luftwaffe monitoring services alike?

Lambert began a gentle turn. Under the banked wing the green countryside tipped slowly forward like a child’s soup plate waiting for a spoon. The Great North Road was black with traffic: long military convoys and civilian lorries lumbered slowly down England’s ancient spine.

Lambert looked at the dazzling blurs made by the air-screws and superimposed them as he juggled the throttles. Watching the stroboscopic effect enabled him to synchronize the engines. Lambert noticed that Battersby was looking at him. He grinned. Then he ruined the harmony and pointed to the throttles for Battersby to try.

Binty heard the motors go out of synch suddenly and said, ‘What’s the matter with the motors?’

‘Nothing,’ said Lambert. ‘Battersby is handling the controls.’

‘Then let me off,’ said Binty.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Lambert. ‘It’s better that he should know as much as possible.’ There was a fearful silence.

North-west of Huntingdon the countryside changed suddenly. No more weatherboard houses and thatched cottages, now yellow-brick dwellings and rusty sheds. Windswept allotments full of caterpillar-nibbled cabbages, shallots, wire fences and old cars propped on wooden blocks until petrol supplies returned. Here the fields were brightly coloured: light yellow, gold, green potato fields and bright blue ones full of cabbages.

Round came the flat angular fens and the Ouse through which had waded Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Danish Vikings too had plundered this land and left their names upon the map. The circle of Bourn airfield came into sight and around it the hovering flies that would be with them tonight.

Godmanchester: unmistakable, two Roman roads like spokes in its central hub.

‘Another Lanc ahead,’ said Digby. It crabbed along, the wind pushing it askew. It was not of their squadron. Nor was it a training flight from Upwood OTU or Woolfox Lodge. Lambert looked at the strange Lancaster. He tried to see it anew as though he had never seen a Lancaster bomber before. It was a brooding machine; thirty tons of it. Even counting motors and turrets as one and excluding nuts, bolts and rivets there were fifty-five thousand separate parts. Over three miles of electrical wiring, generators enough to light a hotel, hydraulics enough to lift a bridge, radio powerful enough to talk to a town on the far side of Europe, fuel capacity enough to take it to such a town, and bomb-load enough to destroy it.

Lambert held his speed. It was just enough to close distance inch by inch. Is this the view a fighter pilot will have just before pressing the button that will blow them all into eternity? Tonight? The prim red, white and blue roundels on the plane ahead were symbols of Britain. Its brown-and-green upper surface was a formalized version of the land, ploughed and verdant, over which it flew. Like primitive voodoo objects the brightly painted aircraft defied the enemy, and upon them were painted the little formalized yellow bombs, or symbols of aeroplanes destroyed, that showed how powerful was the magic they could work.

Lambert had seen enough of the other Lanc. He had got too close for comfort. Lambert moved the control column and adjusted the throttles and pitch control. Creaking Door lifted like a showjumper, leaving the other plane far below. That was better. Even a sneeze from a nervous gunner was enough to send a bomber into violent evasive aerobatics and like most pilots he feared mid-air collision more than flak and night fighters put together.

Stop climbing. Straight and level while he saw where he was. Six or seven miles away to starboard the countryside lapped around Cambridge, a ramshackle rash of workers’ dwellings and speculators’ suburbia. In its centre, lush with green courts and beflowered backs, the great university, its spires grinning like dragons’ teeth daring the untutored to seek admittance. Beyond this citadel the countryside turned green again and there were more airfields. Below him passed RAF Oakington, Lancasters dotted along its perimeter. Gentle turn. Warley somewhere off to port lost to sight amongst the fenland. He saw the other Lanc turn that way. This was the flying Lambert liked, in the clear light of a fine summer’s day. This was how he’d fancied it would be on the day he’d volunteered.

Lambert was flying straight and level now. No compass needed, for below him, glinting in the sun like a twenty-mile-long steel needle, was the man-made Bedford River.

‘Lambert’s compass, I call it.’ The voice startled Lambert. Kosh Cohen was at his elbow, sitting on Battersby’s folding seat and staring out of the window like a day tripper.

Lambert smiled.

‘You always come over here, Skip,’ said Cohen. ‘Is this where you’re going to live after the war?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Lambert. ‘Your toys OK?’

Cohen nodded.

‘Let’s go and get some lunch,’ said Lambert and he let the nose dip. Cohen folded back the seat and returned to his dark curtained booth. Since Lambert was flying by visual landmarks there was little for Cohen to do. He had sorted his maps and given the Gee and H2S the routine test. Although it was notoriously prone to technical failures, he was proud of the top-secret radar set that showed him the ground through fog, mist, cloud or darkness like some god bringing wrath to a sinful Babylon. Only ‘selected crews’ had the new equipment.

Lambert’s voice came over the intercom asking each crewman if their equipment was in order. Cohen pushed the mask to his mouth to answer yes into the microphone. On his first two operations he had vomited before the aircraft had even crossed the English coast. Apart from the humiliation, it meant that Creaking Door had to lose precious height so that he could clean himself up before clamping the oxygen mask back to his face for the rest of the trip. Now he knew the smell of fear, for it lingered in his face mask and was a constant reminder of the dangers of being too imaginative. He sharpened pencils and prepared the elastic strap that held pencils, rulers and protractors from flying loose during violent evasive action. He looked at the topmost map and read to himself the names of Channel ports. He had passed through them on holiday before the war. He switched his microphone on. ‘Batters,’ said Cohen on impulse. There was no answer for a moment, then the engineer answered, ‘Engineer here, who is it?’

‘Kosh, Batters. What mob was your brother in at Dunkirk?’

There was no reply for some time. Cohen was debating whether to call again when Battersby answered.

‘I made that up, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘My brother is in a reserved occupation, an electricity sub-station.’ There was a stunned silence over the crew intercom. Then Battersby said anxiously, ‘You weren’t thinking of telling Mr Sweet?’

‘No,’ said Cohen. ‘I wasn’t.’

Lambert could see Warley Fen straight ahead. The mile-long runways were distinct on the landscape like a black Chinagraph cross scrawled upon a coloured map. Lambert took a quick look round to be sure there were no other aircraft in the circuit. High above them he saw a thin streak of a condensation trail in the upper atmosphere. The aeroplane making it was just a speck.

‘Look at him go,’ said Cohen. Lambert guessed he was standing under the astrodome. He was like a kid on an outing whenever they were in the air.

‘It’s the Met flight, on his way to look at the weather over our target,’ said Digby.

They looked up at the dot. ‘With that sort of altitude,’ said Lambert, ‘a man could live for ever.’

At 32,000 feet the Spitfire had begun to spin a white feathery trail in the thin moist air. The pilot watched the trail in his mirror and put the stick forward. The highly polished Spitfire Mk XI responded with a shallow dive. The altimeter needle moved slowly backwards until, as suddenly as it began, the white trail ended. Immediately the pilot corrected his plane into straight and level flight. This was his optimum safety height for today. No enemy could bounce him from above without leaving a telltale trail. Now he need only watch the air below. He checked the notepad and pencils strapped to his knee for the tenth time. He settled back comfortably and ran a finger round his collar; the cockpit was very warm. Few men had seen the world from this height. Few men knew that it was only a layer cake: a rich-green England base with a layer of light-green ocean on it, then Holland, brownish and flecked with clouds along the coastline. Then the distant horizon, perhaps as far as two hundred miles away, disappearing into white mist like whipped cream. Upon it blue sky was heaped until it could hold no more. To the Ruhr and back would take the Spitfire only ninety-two minutes. He’d have time for a game of tennis before tea.

In the thirteenth century East Anglian wool merchants had brought back from the Low Countries wealth, brickmakers, architects and a taste for fine Dutch houses. There were many houses as well preserved as Warley Manor, with its distinctive curved gables and fine pantiles. Before the war it had been the home of a Conservative Member of Parliament. Art students had regularly come to sketch it. They had sat on the lawn shaded by the ancient elm trees, and had tea and cucumber sandwiches in the Terrace Room. Now it was the Officers’ Mess of RAF Station Warley Fen. The Terrace Room was furnished with long polished tables. Between the tables white-jacketed airmen moved carefully, setting the lunch plates with white linen napkins and gleaming glassware. Through the folding doors from the anteroom came the cheerful shouts of young commissioned aircrew, and a gramophone record of Al Bowlly was playing gently in the background. The sunlight made patterns on the carpet and the glass doors had been opened to let the tobacco-smoke escape.

There were sixteen Lancaster bombers at Warley Fen. Each one had a crew of seven. Of these one hundred and twelve operational crewmen, eighty-eight were sergeants. (The Sergeants’ Mess was a series of corrugated iron huts interjoined.)

The remaining twenty-four flyers were officers; they shared this mess with another forty-eight officers ranging from the Padre to the Dental Officer, plus some WAAF officers like Section Officer Maisie Holroyd. She was a plump thirty-eight-year-old woman who had spent eight years running a cheap ‘meat and two veg’ dining-rooms in Exeter. At Warley Fen she was the Catering Officer and even the people who found the present food unappetizing agreed that she did a better job than any of her male predecessors.

The non-operational officers were mostly middle-aged. They wore medals from the First World War and inter-war campaign ribbons from Arabia and India and a very high percentage had pilot’s wings on their tunics. Of the twenty-four operational flyers, thirteen were born in Britain. The others were three Canadians, four Australians, two Rhodesians, and two Americans who still had not transferred to the USAAF. Seven officers wore the striped ribbon of the DFC, including Flight Lieutenant Sweet of B Flight.

Had he been asked what his talents were, Flight Lieutenant Sweet would not have put flying a bomber anywhere near the top of his list. Nor, which would have surprised his fellow airmen even more, would he have claimed to be a popular leader of men. Sweet felt himself particularly well fitted to be a planner of air strategy. Some of his boyhood ambitions had come to nought, for instance his desire to be six foot tall and his ambition to be head boy. In addition, there was his dream of winning the hundred yards’ sprint and being Captain of the Southern Counties Public School Cricket Eleven, but these were lesser hopes.

His desire to be a strategist had not diminished with time as had the desire to be a professional cricketer, nor had it become unreal like his hopes of being six foot tall. The war would continue for at least ten more years, Sweet had decided. There was time enough for this ambition. When we had conquered the Germans the Japs would be next on the list, and look how long the Chinks had spent trying to hold them off: since 1931. After that we’d probably have to put the Russians in their place. It was going to be a long war and Sweet had decided to spend the greater part of it on the staff side: making decisions, formulating plans, forging strategy. These were the things of which wars were made. Naturally a young ambitious staff officer would have had a dangerous war behind him and a couple of gongs. These would be his credentials, his way of making the old-timers listen to reason. Two tours of bombers, DFC and bar and a job at High Wycombe: this was Sweet’s ambition.

He could handle a bit of schoolboy German and French. Next he’d learn some Russkie or Jap, or perhaps even Mandarin. He bought two whiskies and walked across to the solemn-faced Education Officer, an elderly schoolteacher who had joined the station only that week. Education officers were often called ‘schoolmasters’, and never more aptly, for this bespectacled pilot officer had, until ten weeks before, been teaching History and Languages at a secondary school in Harwich.

‘How are you finding things, sir?’ said Sweet deferentially.

‘Splendid,’ said the Education Officer, wondering why he should have been sought out by this gay young hero.

‘Wizard,’ nodded Sweet. ‘That’s wizard. My name’s Sweet, Flight commander B Flight. Look, sir, I would appreciate your advice. Considering the way the world is going – the war and everything, you know – I’d like to hear a broader view than we’ – quick look round – ‘get in the Mess.’

The Education Officer looked at Sweet with interest. It was quite amazing that these boys – in spite of their rank badges and medals – were only a year or two older than his sixth form back in Harwich. Younger in a way, for the war had prevented their minds expanding in the normal manner. They thought of nothing but the technical skills of their job. Most of them failed to realize how narrow and uncommercial those skills were. After the war the poor devils would suffer when they started looking for a job, just as he had, as a young infantry officer, after the previous war. A brilliant first year at Oxford with its crowning achievement a commission in a yeomanry regiment. My God, what a fool!

It goes without saying we are all proud of the sacrifices you have made, Captain, and the decoration you won, but when there are so many men after so few jobs, it would be irresponsible and unfair to our shareholders to take anyone without experience or even a degree.

He had gone out and joined the Peace Pledge Union. ‘I remember war, and I will never support or sanction another.’ And yet here he was supporting another, with these curious young men. How different they were from the chaps he soldiered with in 1914. Half these kids hadn’t even got their matriculation exam. He was amazed at the superficial nature of their conversation: flying, booze-ups and bints. Even their cynicism was ingenuous. He said, ‘I’d be glad to help if I can.’

‘It’s not really for me,’ said Sweet. ‘It’s for my cousin. He’s a pretty clever chap. No degree, but he could get one at any time, just like that.’ Sweet clicked his fingers. ‘He was asking me a few questions the other day. He thinks my advice is worth taking. Can’t think why.’ Sweet laughed. ‘He’s in the Army, he stands a good chance of a job on staff. They are putting together the real brains now to start planning the invasion.’

‘Really,’ said the Education Officer.

‘Yes. This chap will be a brigadier in no time at all. Anyway this fellow …’

‘Your cousin.’

‘What?’ said Sweet. ‘Oh yes, my cousin. He’s got German and French pretty well buttoned up and he’s thinking of having a crack at the old Russian or the old Jap. What do you think would be best? Perhaps Mandarin? I mean, you can’t tell the way it might go. What would you have advised the chap to study?’

‘He’d do best to concentrate still on his French and German. Conversational practice. Vocabulary building, perhaps working solely with military books.’ Sweet was looking rather blank. The EO felt that he was expected to continue. ‘He should try translating some of the Manuscrit de mil huit cent treize by Baron Fain, who was Secretary of Napoleon’s Cabinet. Or there’s Danilewski’s Denkwürdigkeiten aus dem Kriege 1813; I translated a piece of that once to pass the time away in France. Then for the Battle of Waterloo there’s the famous Documents inedits by the Duc d’Elchingen …’

‘If I want to read about our victory at the Battle of Waterloo,’ said Sweet, ‘I don’t need any French blighter to tell me about it.’ He laughed ironically.

‘But for your cousin …’

‘Oh, my cousin doesn’t need that sort of thing,’ said Sweet. ‘He thinks internationally: Russkie or Jap. Perhaps you don’t think internationally.’

‘I’m afraid I never do,’ said the Education Officer.

‘My cousin always does,’ said Sweet. ‘So do I. Look here, sir, I know that in the first war the trenches in France were full of poets and all that, but because chaps beat the Mess up once a week, de-bag some poor blighter and have a little horse-play you mustn’t think that they are a lot of shallow-minded musclemen. I mean, these chaps do their bit; some win a gong or two by luck or judgement.’ Sweet smiled. ‘But that doesn’t mean that when the shouting’s over they can’t enjoy some good poetry and music and sit down and try and think what the world really means to the common man.’

‘I don’t jump to conclusions,’ said the Education Officer. ‘As it is I’m rather proud to be sharing a Mess with so many interesting young men.’

‘Nice of you to say so, sir.’

The Station commander was standing alone near the cupboardful of Squadron silver. Sweet thought he was counting it. The Mess Sergeant thought he was trying to see if the rearmost cups were polished. Actually he was trying to decide if the Command swimming trophy was solid silver or only plated. Sweet turned back to the Education Officer. ‘There’s an operational matter I must speak about with the Stationmaster.’

The Education Officer followed Sweet’s gaze. ‘Oh certainly,’ he said. ‘Don’t let me hold up the war.’ He sniffed burned fat and watery cabbage and decided that he wasn’t hungry. He missed his wife’s home cooking more than he’d thought he would. What good was he doing here?

‘And thanks awfully,’ said Sweet as he moved among the earnest young drinkers around the bar. The light through the glass doors gave them haloes of sunshine. Sweet addressed the Groupie directly. ‘All alone, sir? Have I pestered you about my collection for the village children’s party?’

‘Hello, young Sweet, yes, you had a quid from me last week.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Your team going to knock spots off those Besteridge chaps on Saturday?’

‘I think so, sir. Mind you, Flight Sergeant Lambert is going up to London on a pass. I was rather counting on his slow bowling. Two of their team played for their county before the war to say nothing of this professional they’ve got. But Lambert’s set on taking his wife up to London. He says he doesn’t like playing for the Air Force.’

‘Bad show that, but I’m sure you’ll win, Sweet. I’m going to stonewall for you. Anyway, I’ve got ten bob on us.’ They both laughed and the Groupie bought Sweet a small beer.

Sweet said, ‘There’s a story, sir, that you scored a century for 3 Group before the war.’

‘That’s true enough. I also played for Fighter Command one year. Before I got this touch of arthritis, or whatever the quack says it is, I was quite a sought-after bat.’

‘That’s what I heard.’

‘Oh come along, Sweet, I’m sure I’ve bored you with the story of my batting at Sandhurst … when the umpire tried to catch the ball …’ and the Groupie was launched into his reminiscences.

Several officers moved aside, for the Group Captain’s stories about his cricket prowess were familiar to most of the Mess. His narrative was laced with monosyllabic four-letter Anglo-Saxon words which helped the Group Captain to establish a democratic camaraderie with his virile young officers. This, at any rate, was his theory. For this reason the Mess still had male waiters and barmen when most others had airwomen doing these jobs. The Groupie finished his anecdote flushed and happy. He said, ‘If your team win on Saturday the chances are the AOC will invite you for dinner.’

‘Yes, I’d heard he does that.’

‘Give you a chance to tell him your theories about staff planning and strategy,’ the Groupie said chuckling.

Sweet bowed his head modestly. Groupie said, ‘But you’re a Flight commander now, Sweet. You’re finding out a thing or two about running a unit, eh?’

‘In a small way of business,’ admitted Sweet modestly. ‘But I must say I had no idea of the amount of paperwork necessary just to get an aeroplane into the air.’

The Groupie gave a short ironic laugh. ‘Now you are finding out where the real war is being fought, laddie. Saturation bombing of airfields with Air Ministry bumf, memos, requests and bloody nonsense, each prepared in triplicate and filed under waste paper, what?’

Sweet smiled at the Group Captain to indicate how much he shared his contempt for chairborne warriors. ‘Especially when all a chap wants to do is get to grips with the damned Huns, sir.’

‘That’s it,’ exclaimed the Groupie enthusiastically. ‘I’m employed to kill Huns, and by God, my squadron will kill more Huns of all shapes, colours, sizes and sexes than any other in this man’s air force or I’ll know the reason why.’ The Groupie smiled and self-deprecatingly added, ‘At least, that’s what I’ve told Air Ministry a few times, eh?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Sweet. ‘In fact, on this matter of killing Huns there’s something you could help with … I say, I’m sorry to talk shop and all that …’

‘Now then,’ said the Groupie. ‘You know my views about those bloody squadrons where they taboo shoptalk in the Mess.’

‘Well, on this business of killing Huns, sir. There’s a pilot – a damn good chap, experienced, decorated and all that, a good NCO – but he told me that he thinks our bombing attacks are “just old-fashioned murder of working-class families”.’

‘Confounded fifth columnist!’

‘Yes, sir, I knew you’d be annoyed, but that’s not all. This war, he says, is just the continuation of capitalism by other means.’

‘That’s Karl Marx he’s quoting.’

‘Yes. It’s a misquote of Clausewitz actually, sir.’

‘It’s a bloody disgrace. A chap on my station you say?’

‘Flight Sergeant Lambert, sir. It might be just a touch of the jitters, mind you.’

The Groupie’s face changed. ‘Lambert again, eh. Still, he’s got a good record, hasn’t he? And we’ve got to remember that Karl Marx is on our side now. Got to hand it to the Russkies, Sweet, they’ve put up a jolly good show lately. This Stalingrad business could be the turning-point of the war.’

‘I only thought, sir … knowing your views on killing Huns.’

‘You did right, laddie. I’m a Hun-killer, as you well know, only way to get the war won. I’ll be looking into it. If he’s going to lose his nerve for killing Huns it will be better to put the chap on to something he can manage.’ The Mess waiter caught the Groupie’s eye. He nodded. ‘Cleaning our latrines, for instance.’

‘I thought you’d better know, sir.’

‘Quite right,’ said the Groupie. ‘But then you usually are, young Sweet, but don’t say I said so, what?’ They both smiled.

‘Oh, by the by, sir. Perhaps you’ve heard about this little experiment I’m doing on one of the rear turrets.’

‘I heard something about it. What are the details?’

‘Well, it came to me one morning when I opened the window in order to see more clearly …’

In the hall a corporal struck the gong; its soft sound echoed through the old house. ‘Come along, gentlemen, let the prisoners eat a hearty lunch.’ The Groupie always said that at lunchtime. In the evenings he said ‘hearty dinner’.

He turned back to Sweet. ‘I saw you talking to our new schoolmaster. Nice chap, isn’t he?’

‘Indeed he is, sir. A very good type indeed, sir.’

‘And gives the Mess a bit of style having a VC here, what?’

‘VC, sir?’

‘The schoolmaster my boy, Pilot Officer Pearson, VC. Don’t tell me you didn’t make a beeline for that purple ribbon. Everyone does. Nineteen-seventeen; killed twelve Huns with a sword and dozens more with hand grenades, held a section of Boche trench for two hours until reinforcements arrived. Fascinating, what? Seeing an officially accredited hero in the flesh.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Sweet, trying to remember what he had said, ‘but let me tell you about this silly little idea I’ve had about the Perspex in rear turrets …’

The Lanc that Lambert had followed came in to land on Warley Fen’s main runway. There were no squadron letters or call signs, no bombs painted on its side, no pet names. There were no guns in the turrets nor gunners to man them. There was not even an engineer to help with the fuel changeovers or assist with the controls. It made a perfect landing and obeyed the tower’s instructions with a care that was unusual. A Hillman car sped out to the bomber and waited while the pilot checked through the procedures with the ground crew and the Engineer Leader. The engineer officer was Sandy Sanderson, a slim-hipped Lothario who had bet ten shillings that he’d have lunch with the ferry pilot. He lost. The pilot, a twenty-year-old brunette in the uniform of the Air Transport Auxiliary, declined with a knowing smile. Is it dangerous, her mother had once asked her? Only after you land, Mother. As well as flying the four-motor aircraft entirely alone she had eaten three cheese sandwiches while doing so. By missing lunch she would have time to get back to the storage unit and deliver another aircraft before finishing work for the day.

There were always new modifications on the planes coming from factories, and this group, like most of the others, had special requirements that had to be incorporated. Wing Commander Munro and Sandy didn’t finish their ground inspection until ten minutes to three.

It was a quarter past three when they hurried up the steps of the Mess. Munro had missed lunch and would make do with spam sandwiches and a glass of lemonade. Not that there was any harm in having a glass of beer at lunchtime even when they were on Battle Order but he felt that he should be marginally more abstemious than his men. Sandy drank lemonade too.

Munro was a wealthy, desiccated landowner with a fragile manner and little or no sense of humour. In 1941 he had been injured in the leg by flak. There were three or four splinters still hiding somewhere in his ankle. For a time he had needed a walking-stick and even though he had stopped limping ages ago he had never relinquished the walking-stick. He marched around the aerodrome brandishing it like a laird striding through the heather. He was a tall slender man with a lined face and a stubby moustache. His closely trimmed hair was grey at the temples and although most of the men flying that night would be wearing white roll-neck sweaters and stained battledress, Munro was never seen on duty in anything other than his well-tailored barathea with his hand-made shoes polished like patent leather. Like his civilian worsteds and tweeds, Munro’s uniforms had a patina that only years of valeting can bestow. The elbows and cuffs were reinforced with patches of soft brown leather and there was a special pocket where he kept a box of Swan Vesta matches. He reached into it and carefully lit his pipe, even though it seemed to be burning well. Often at meetings and briefings this gave him a moment’s pause in the conversation. It was, like many of his mannerisms, an old man’s habit. He was thirty-five years old and yet few people would have guessed him to be younger than forty-five. This would not have surprised Wing Commander Munro. He preferred to look forty-five. Munro had been an officer since 1932, although he had spent a year of peacetime as a civilian. His wife Sarah was running the whole estate now. It was a beastly war for her: extra acres under cultivation but many of the staff in the Army. She was looking so much older.

There was a letter waiting for him in the rack. It was written in bold good-humoured handwriting, on a sheet torn from an accounts book.

Darling,

How can I thank you for the magnificent handbag? It arrived on my birthday which represented a brilliant piece of Munro organization. I don’t think I’d like to see London at the present time. From your description it sounds like an international madhouse. I like the way you are always telling me to never trust strangers and yet you are really absurdly generous with those unregenerate ruffians from the old squadron whenever you meet them (which usually means whenever you enter a public-house). Perhaps you should grow a large moustache again at that!

The beans are going to be magnificent; aren’t you clever? You must be here to taste the first of them. Those dashed aphis are all over the roses as usual and they just drink up the spray, belch, and call for more. The strawberries are doing very well and tomorrow I’m jam-making with cook. I’ll send you a pot of it.

Now you mustn’t worry about us. We both know that it will take a few years for Peter to build his strength up to that of other children but he has fresh air and there is plenty of milk here still. If he went to Canada who would give him the love that we give him, and what is more important?

You remember how short of breath he was when you were on leave at Christmas? Now he is just as bad again. It’s pitiful to hear him at night and I want to breathe for him, the darling. He’s so good about it all and Dr Crawford says that it must be painful for him sometimes.

We miss you darling but you must worry only about bringing yourself home to us safe and well. Save your concerns for yourself and your men. Here all is well apart from Peter and for him it’s simply time and rest and fresh air. I would not have told you anything of this but you made me promise. I will see you some time soon. Take care my darling, do take care. From your untidy slut of a farmhouse wife and dung-spreader-in-chief at 2 AM and the accounts not complete.

Love,

SARAH

‘That girl and her cheese sandwiches,’ said Munro.

‘Yes, sir?’ said Sandy, looking up and suddenly alert.

‘Not a bad idea that.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Eating in the air.’

Munro carefully folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. He took a gold propelling pencil from his pocket and listed upon its back the things he must do before briefing time.