Ross was in the entrance hall when James walked into the mess.
“Hello, Tiny. I hear The Polish Passion-wagon got bowled over by bomb blast last night.”
“Oh, you’ve heard already, have you? The Queen Bee’s been going round looking very smug. For once, there were no W.A.A.F. involved. And the miscreants are suffering. Tad’s in Sick Quarters with a sprained back and Big’s down with a heavy cold: what else can you expect if you’ve got to plod through snowdrifts up to your balls, with no trousers on? They were about a mile from camp. Bloody awful bombing.”
“I heard about 33’s workshop being knocked down.”
“Yes, bad show. Anyway, come and have a drink: there’s good news, too.”
“The squadron’s posted!”
“That’s right.”
“Really?”
“Dallingfield.”
“Wizard. That does deserve a drink or six.”
“And how is the beautiful Nicole?”
“She sent her greetings.”
“Thanks. By the way, I rang up about an hour ago to find out how Roger’s doing: I knew you probably wouldn’t be able to keep in touch.”
“Good of you, Tiny. What’s the gen?”
“He’s doing well.”
“I’d like to get up to King’s Lynn before we leave here.”
“Not a chance, old boy: you’re in command of the advance party; going day after tomorrow. And you’ll be up to your neck in work here all tomorrow.”
Dallingfield was on the Sussex coast. It sounded as though there would be no more Fighter Nights for the squadron. With the spring about to break, either the enemy would resume his daytime raids or Fighter Command would greatly increase the scale of the offensive operations it had started in December.
James arranged for one of the junior pilots on his flight to drive his 1935 M.G. to their new base and took himself off in a Spitfire.
The return to day fighting entailed some basic changes from the squadron’s operations in the first fourteen months of the war, before it went to Nesborough.
To begin with, the standard fighter formation had been changed from threes to pairs, which were more flexible. This was a tactic which the Germans had learned when they sent a contingent of the Luftwaffe to Spain in 1936 to fight on Franco’s side in the Civil War which continued into 1939. They had used it effectively in 1939 and 1940 against the R.A.F., which had learned a salutary lesson. Two pairs often operated together in what was known, in the R.A.F., as a “finger four”.
Instead of defensive patrols - although convoy patrols continued - and scrambles to intercept enemy raids as their main activity, the fighter squadrons were now carrying the fight to the enemy. In December 1940 a pair of Spitfires had first ventured across the Channel to shoot up the Luftwaffe airfield at Le Touquet and destroy aircraft on the ground. Three weeks later, another innovation was first tried. It was known as a Circus and consisted of a small number of bombers escorted by a large number of fighters. On the first occasion, it comprised one squadron of Blenheims and nine squadrons of Spitfires and Hurricanes. The objective was to force the Luftwaffe fighters to come up and attack the bombers. This meant not only that the British fighters then had the opportunity to shoot the Messerschmitts down, but also that the enemy was compelled to keep a large fighter force in France.
There was a new series of Messerschmitt 109, the F, which had two fifteen-millimetre and one twenty-millimetre cannon, a ceiling of 38000 ft and a speed of 390 m.p.h.: which made it more formidable even than the 109E.
There were two other Spitfire squadrons at Dallingfield; and a night-fighting Beaufighter squadron, as part of the wing, on a satellite airfield two miles away. This had been built in the last few months on what had been farmland. There were a few Nissen huts to house workshops and accommodate a small number of men. The bulk of the Beaufighter squadron’s troops and all the officers lived at Dallingfield, where the main workshops and hangar also were. Three-ton lorries took them to and fro.
Two weeks after his squadron had arrived at its new base, Squadron Leader Addison came into the crew room with the deliberately measured stride he affected when he was about to make a portentous announcement. His pilots knew the symptoms well: they heard his slow tread on the cinder path and heads turned towards the door. They saw his tightly compressed lips, as though it were hard for him to restrain a grin of pleasure at the news he had in store. They watched him look quickly around, silently gathering their attention. It was always the same when Walter Addison had something good to pass on.
“Fighter Command have come up with a new appointment, Wing Leader, to command all the fighter wings. Sailor Malan’s going to take over at Biggin Hill, Douglas Bader’s getting Tangmere; and we’re getting Tug Wilson.”
There was a spontaneous, if ragged, cheer.
With their new Wing Leader, the Dallingfield Wing had their introduction to yet two more forms of aggressive diversion planned for the spring and summer.
Wing Commander Wilson, his pipe emitting puffs of smoke with the rapidity of a steam locomotive, perched on a table on a dais in the Station Headquarters conference room. He looked down at his assembled pilots from the three day squadrons.
“For those of you who’ve just come from O.T.U, I’ll explain first of all what we’ll be doing when we go on a Circus.” He did so. “And when we aren’t doing those we’ll be on Sweeps and Rhubarbs. On a Sweep I’ll be taking two or all three squadrons over France, each squadron at a different altitude, to see what we can find. A sort of pot luck. We’ll be looking for any airborne Huns who happen to be stooging around, whether they’re bombers or fighters. And when we find them, we’ll shoot them down. Initially, the object will not be to destroy them on the ground. We want to get them into the air and deal with them up there, where we belong.
“Rhubarbs are a different matter. We’ll be going out in pairs, when cloud base is low - say, no higher than a thousand feet - to shoot up Jerry airfields: aircraft, fuel dumps, ammunition and bomb dumps, M.T. vehicles, buildings... anything and everything. For a spot of variety, we’ll shoot up trains and military road traffic to liven things up a bit and keep the enemy on the hop. He’ll never know when a brace of Spits is likely to appear out of cloud with no warning and kill him... wreck his parked aeroplanes, his railway engines and road convoys.
“We’ll also be nipping over in twos and fours to catch him unawares in the air. It won’t always be Sweeps and Circuses. He must never know what to expect. We’re ideally positioned here to give the enemy a hell of a bad time: better than Biggin or Tangmere. So we’re going to take full advantage of it.”
On the way out, James said quietly to Ross “And that, we hope, is the end of Fighter Nights once and for all.”
“Let the Beaufighter boys do it all.”
There was some congestion as sixty-odd pilots made their way downstairs behind the wing commander and three squadron leaders. Downstairs, looking round for the other members of his flight, James saw and heard two familiar figures in conversation with a pair of W.A.A.F. who looked no more than eighteen years old and were showing signs of being amused, impressed, pleased and flattered.
“We have car. You like go dancink Eastbourne, yes?”
He raised his voice. “Big.”
His two Poles turned startled faces.
He crooked his finger.
There was some brief and rapid mumbling, a nodding of heads by the girls, as they parted company.
“They’ve got their second wind pretty rapidly,” James commented to Ross. He led the way out of the building.
“Now look here, you two, no cradle-snatching.” They looked stunned.
“All right, I know you don’t know the expression: you’d better learn it. It means going around with girls who are much too young for you. I’m no prude, but that’s something I bloody well won’t put up with.”
“I am not understandink ‘prude’. But they are likink to dance...”
“Maybe. But not
to end up with horizontal dancing on the back seat of your passion wagon... or the front seat as well, to judge by events a few weeks ago.”
Brzk creased his narrow brow. “Horizontal dancink?”
Uwodzicielski, who was a bit brighter, said impatiently “Horyzontalny.”
They thought it over. Then Big looked enlightened.
“Tak, tak, I undertand what you meanink.”
“Look, those two kids have probably never been away from home on their own before... no further than to the seaside with their family... and that’s never far from anywhere in this country. You’re too strong meat for them...”
“Stronk meat?”
James’s anger showed beyond any mistake in his expression and his tone.
“I’m telling you to leave them alone. Understand? If you can’t do without women, don’t muck about with the innocent. Go and find someone who knows a lot more about life. There are plenty of them around, God knows.”
The Poles looked crestfallen and contrite and trudged at his heels.
I’m a blasted prig, James was angrily telling himself, for sneering at them because they can’t do without women. I’ve never even tried to be celibate. But at least, I draw the line at that sort of thing.
*
The nursing sister who had the serene beauty of Loretta Young and the galvanic crispness of a steel hauser that had been charged with a high voltage current, came through the door, as usual, as though she ran on rails. She looked down at Roger with an expression which combined sympathy with doubt. There was a note of interrogation in her voice.
“You have a visitor. But you don’t have to see anyone unless you really feel up to it.”
Roger, propped up, half-sitting, against his pillows, a book lying face-down on the blanket, turned listlessly towards her.
“Who is it, Sister?”
“A lady friend.”
Did he detect an underlying sarcasm? He wondered why, for he knew whom it must be.
“Daphne... Corporal Palmer?”
“Yes. She’s come a long way, Roger.”
“I’d like to see her.”
He doesn’t sound it, thought Sister.
“Would you like me to tell her she can stay only a quarter of an hour?”
“No, thanks, Sister. I don’t think she’ll stay long, anyway.”
No? If ever I saw a human leech, she is it. But Sister glided out without any facial signs of her thoughts.
The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things... The line ran through Roger’s mind. He had had several letters from Daphne but answered none. He had been bracing himself for this encounter. There were not many things to talk about; just one.
Daphne came in, smiling brightly. In those years of deprivation there were no grapes or oranges for her to bring him. She held a roll of magazines in one hand and a half-pound tin of boiled sweets in the other.
She ran to the bed, dropped her burden and leaned over Roger to kiss him. It was a long kiss to which he reacted not at all. He felt so weak and so dispirited that he had known no more sexual urge than a eunuch for the past three weeks.
She drew back, looking worried.
“What’s the matter, Roger darling?”
It was not a question to which he wished to offer any reply.
“Hello, Daphne. Thank you for coming.”
She was scrutinising him, her brow puckered, her eyes worried.
“When you didn’t answer my letters, I knew you must be more ill than they’d let on. Every time I telephone they say ‘as well as can be expected’ or `satisfactory’. I asked them once, ‘as well as who expects?’ but they hung up.”
“It’s a long way for you to come.”
“I told you in my first letter, I came straight away but they wouldn’t let me see you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Roger, what’s the matter?” She smiled: bravely was the adjective which she hoped would come to his mind. “Mummy sent me some sweet coupons and I got you these.” She held up the tin of fruit drops.
“Thank you. Very good of your mother.”
“And I brought you these.” She showed him John O’London’s, Horizon, Men Only, Strand, Punch.
“You shouldn’t have. Thank you.”
She darted her head forward and put her lips to his again. He remained impassive.
“Gosh, you must be feeling ropey!” This time it was her bright smile that she tried. “If that doesn’t perk you up.” She had tried to force the tip of her tongue past his closed lips and failed. She did not feel at all bright or particularly sympathetic. She felt resentful.
“Creamy’s in the room across the passage. I’ve asked them to put us in together. They say in a day or two.”
“Roger, I’m going to pop in and see Creamy before I leave. I’ve brought him a Razzle and a packet of cigarettes.” She sounded reproving. “But I want to talk about you.” She smiled timidly. “Don’t you love me anymore?”
He became aware for the first time that she was holding his hand. He looked away from her, out of the window. There was nothing to see but the bare top branches of a sycamore tree.
“Roger!”
She tugged at his hand.
He rolled his head back in her direction.
“I don’t think you love me anymore.” Her smile was teasing.
“Did I say I did?”
Tears came into her eyes. Genuine, unbidden ones. “Roger! Oh, Roger.”
She released his hand and fished for her handkerchief, dabbed it to her eyes.
“I didn’t, you know.”
That is true, her memory reminded her.
“Well, I love you.”
She took her handkerchief away and looked at him with defiance.
He said nothing for several seconds.
“I’m... flattered that you do, Daphne... gratified...”
“Flattered? Gratified?” Her voice rose in indignation. “Is that all you can say? I love you, Roger.” There was an appeal in the way she gazed at him now.
Roger felt as weak as though he had just been hauled out of the dinghy. The debilitating effect of double pneumonia and the pain of his wounded and broken leg had robbed him of over a stone in weight. His emotions had equally been put on the rack. Tommy Thompson, who had put his trust in him, was dead. Ginger Pike was still missing: there was no report of his having been taken prisoner. Squadron Leader Eastman had also ditched; he and his crew had died. He wondered why Wing Commander Dean had not flown down to see him; and guessed that he, too, was wounded or dead.
Tears began to run down Roger’s cheeks.
Daphne dried them with her handkerchief. He pushed her hand away.
“You’d better go now.”
His voice came in a whisper. He shut his eyes.
“You don’t love me,” she said flatly.
He opened his eyes and they exchanged a long look charged with pain and grief. He gave no sign of what his answer was to the accusation. She waited for him to nod or shake his head. He stared at her fixedly.
She got up.
“Goodbye, Roger. I’ll come again... write to me... please, Roger?”
There was still neither assent nor dissent from him.
At the door she paused, looked at the magazines lying on his bed and at the tin of sweets on his bedside locker, then at him. She turned quickly and left him.
Well! What sent her flouncing out like that? Sister wondered. She went to Roger’s room.
His eyes were shut and when he heard the door his hand went up swiftly to rub a handkerchief over them. “All right, Roger?”
He nodded.
From habit, she bustled up to tug his sheet and blanket about, smooth the pillows.
“I’ll send you in a cup of tea.” He did not need to open his eyes to know that she was smiling her encouraging professional smile. “I don’t know why we spoil you like this.” There was an incongruous coyness in her tone. It was as though, thought Roger, a champion dressage mare wer
e to appear in a circus ring with a sequined bareback rider in a tutu on her back.
He opened his eyes as she was at the door. He had never noticed her legs particularly; they had, he observed, a cheeky shapeliness.
She turned around, as though she had intuited that she was under his scrutiny.
He had, on the other hand, never failed to be impressed by her bust. Hitherto he had registered merely that it was large and well-shaped; whether by nature or artifice, he could not tell. Now he noticed that it bounced as she turned and for the first time appeared to him not as one generous protrusion under her starched apron, but as two separate and distinct and thoroughly delightful breasts.
There was still no flicker of sexual reaction but a feeling of peacefulness and liberation stole over him.
The next time she came into his room, some hours later before going off duty, he was reading Punch. He looked up and smiled
“You’re beautiful, Sister... wizard legs...”
He was on the verge of falling asleep and his voice was a drowsy murmur.
“My word, the sooner we move Sergeant Devonshire in with you, the sooner I’ll feel safe.”
Roger barely heard her. The magazine slipped from his fingers. He slept. When he dreamed, it was, for the first time in many weeks, not a nightmare.
*
Group Captain Brand brought two others of the squadron to see them: a pilot with whom Roger was particularly friendly and Devonshire’s mate, a flight sergeant air gunner.
The group captain, his heavy face expressing admiration and his voice a discordant archness, glanced at Sister Yerby, who had ushered them in - it was a gesture of deference for his rank - and said “Well, Hallowes, no wonder you’ve made such a good recovery; and no doubt you’re in no hurry to leave.”
Roger and Agnes Yerby exchanged a look. She winked at him. It jolted him as though she had prodded him with a lancet.
He switched his eyes back to his station commander.
“Yes, sir. I haven’t had much news of the squadron, sir: everyone’s being very cagey.”
The Daedalus Quartet Box Set Page 30