B for Buster

by Iain Lawrence

  I spent the days in the pigeon loft as the rain went on and on. I wondered sometimes if it would ever stop, if we hadn’t dropped so many bombs that we’d wrecked the whole sad planet. That was what had happened in Buck Rogers; it made sense it could happen again.

  Around the huts, the bit of grass became such a muddy wallow that the erks packed away their cricket bats and wicket things. But the Canadians didn’t give up their baseball. They played the same wild game they always had, a sort of tackle baseball that was even wilder in the mud. They turned themselves into clots of earth, into black snowmen that were often heaped in piles among the bases.

  At night the sergeants’ mess filled to bursting, a dangerous place to be. The twisted airscrew that might have slashed me to ribbons became a giant spinner that was hurled around the room in a lunatic’s version of pitch-and-toss. Then the big leather sofa got so badly wounded in a crashing round of Tank that Ratty fetched a pistol and put it out of its misery. Six sergeants bore it up on their shoulders and carried it outside. They dug a massive grave behind the hut, and Buzz played taps on a pocket-comb kazoo as they lowered it down in the rain.

  The war went on—it always did—from the South Pacific to the Russian steppes. But it didn’t affect our little bit of Yorkshire. At the Four-Forty-Two, the only battles were waged within ourselves. Lofty and the rest went from one feverish game to another. If they weren’t getting drunk, they were getting sober; but I wasn’t a part of any of it.

  I was becoming more and more like Bert, always alone except at the pigeon loft. I spent more time talking to pigeons than I did to people. I collected little treats for Percy, and made a game of letting him choose which pocket they were in. He looked at me, his head tilting, then pecked at one of my pockets. Four or five times a day we played the game, and he never failed to get it right.

  I was at the loft, near the end of the week, when Fletcher-Dodge came to see the pigeons. The sun was setting when Percy suddenly snapped to attention, and in through the door came the CO, with a black umbrella that frightened the birds silly. They flapped away as he squeezed it through the door; they squawked while he shook off the rain and closed it.

  His buttons were polished, his badges shining. He squinted and frowned at me, as though trying to figure out where we’d met. “What do you do here?” he asked.

  Bert answered for me. “Sir, ’e ’elps with the pigeons.”

  “Good show,” said Fletcher-Dodge. Below his mustache, his teeth grinned crookedly. “I say, that’s jolly dee.”

  His red face and perfect clothes made him seem foolish, like a character from a music hall. He tapped his umbrella on the floor and shouted at Bert. “Pigeoneer! Any eggs today?”

  “No, sir,” said Bert.

  “Blast! That’s a bother.” The CO made a puttering sound with his lips. “I was counting on you, Pigeoneer.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, sir,” said Bert.

  Fletcher-Dodge set off on a circuit round the loft, tapping his umbrella at the nesting boxes, prodding at the straw. I watched him poke and trundle round, not knowing why he was there. Bert watched him, too, avoiding my eye.

  “This is a shower,” said the CO. “An absolute shower. I was expecting better, Pigeoneer.”

  Bert nodded. “Sir, I’m trying.”

  “Beastly things. They’re a miserable lot.” Fletcher-Dodge swept the pigeons away with his umbrella. When he looked up, I was right in front of him with Percy on my shoulder. “Now that’s a wizzo bird,” he said. “I should like to see more like that, Pigeoneer.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bert.

  “He’s jolly dee.”

  I was quite pleased, but Bert was miserable. His head drooped lower and lower until the CO—with a “Cheerio, then!”—opened his umbrella and went out through the door. Then Bert shook his head at me. “Do you see what he’s up to, sir?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Why, ’e wants to eat them, sir.”

  “The pigeons?”

  “Yes,” cried Bert. “Eggs ’e wants. Or squabs or birds. It doesn’t matter to him.”

  “But they’re not his pigeons,” I said. “He can’t eat them, can he?”

  “Who am I to say what the CO can do?” asked Bert. “But ’e won’t. No, sir, not on my watch ’e won’t.”

  Bert turned away and pulled the birds from their nesting boxes. “’E’s a ’orrible little man,” he said. “I know ’is type, sir. You won’t ever see ’im fly nothing but a desk. If that swaggering pigeon-eater ever goes on an op, you’ll ’ave nothing to worry about, sir. ’E won’t ever risk ’is own skin, that one.”

  Bert worked himself into such a fit that he went off for a walk. He left me alone with the pigeons, and the rain came down and the darkness settled. Hours passed, but he didn’t return.

  I guessed it was nearly midnight when I heard the Morris outside. Through a window I saw its hooded headlights veering down the runway, glowing in the rain. They reminded me of searchlights swinging up from the ground, and I felt a twitch of fear as they turned right at me. I heard voices shouting as the car rushed along. The muffler popped; the tires squealed.

  I took a lantern from its hook and went outside.

  “Left, left!” someone cried. “Corkscrew left!” and the car spun sideways. There must have been a whole crew aboard, with all the bellowing and laughter. The headlights disappeared, then reappeared, as the car slewed in a circle. Gears clashed and the motor spluttered and someone shouted, “Bomb doors open!”

  Something dark and gangly separated from the Morris and tumbled across the ground. “Bombs gone!” cried a voice, and others laughed as the car accelerated. It went racing back toward the huts.

  The dark mass on the ground picked itself up and came toward me. It was Lofty, smearing mud from his jacket. “Thank God they slowed down, the silly buggers,” he said. “They pitched me off the running board.”

  He was staggering a bit, but not from his landing. Somehow he was still holding a bottle of beer. He tipped it up, but found it empty. Then he belched and said, “You’re missing the party, Kid.”

  “There’ll be another one tomorrow,” I said.

  “Maybe not. We might be on.”

  Up went the bottle; he’d forgotten already that it was empty. Then he peered through the neck. “U/S,” he said, tossing it away. He staggered up to the pigeon loft, leaned against it, fitting his fingers through the wire mesh. I held up my lantern, and the pigeons twitched and blinked.

  “What do you see in these birds?” asked Lofty.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  Lofty was so much taller than me that I could lean in toward the wire below his outstretched arm. I looked at the birds inside, their eyes glowing.

  “God, they reek.” He sniffed. “Or is that you? Kid, you stink of birds.”

  Lofty banged on the bars; he thumped and rattled at the mesh. Half the pigeons rose in a startled mass, bubbling up in gray and brown, little downy feathers flying.

  “Don’t do that!” I shouted.

  He only laughed, loudly enough to keep the pigeons in a whirring cloud. His hand fell from the wire and landed on my shoulder with a mighty slap. “Kid,” he said, “I think you should spend more time with the other birds.”

  “What birds?” I asked.

  “The two-legged ones.”

  I frowned. “They’re all two-legged, Lofty.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess they are.” He snickered to himself. “The two-breasted ones, I mean. There’s a couple of WAAFs at the party who’d like to get their feathers stroked.”

  I was glad for the darkness as I felt myself blush. The WAAFs, in their pretty blue suits, scared me nearly as much as the ops had ever done.

  “Come on,” he said. “You can navigate for me.”

  “I want to stay here for a while,” I said.

  “Very well.” He took a breath that nearly toppled him sideways. “I’ll go on instruments, then.”

  He headed off, stumbling on t
he wet ground. I couldn’t let him go alone, not after he’d come all that way to see me. He was my pilot, after all; I owed him a bit of care. “Hang on,” I said.

  I put the lantern back inside, blew it out, and said so long to Percy. Then I walked away with Lofty through the rain, letting him bump against me to keep him on the beam. He didn’t talk at first; he was far too busy just staying upright.

  When we were nearly at the huts, he stopped. His feet stopped first, and then the rest of him, reeling in a circle like a Happy Valley searchlight. “Kak,” he said. “Hey, Kakky?”

  “Yes?” I said.

  “What’s the matter with us, huh? Don’t you like us, Kakky?”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “You’re always by yourself. Here or there with your ruddy birds. Why don’t you hang around us anymore?”

  He was drunk. And what drunks said didn’t matter for anything.

  “We need you, Kak.” He turned toward me, wobbling, and put his hands on my shoulders. “We’re a crew,” he said. “Me and you and Ratty and the rest. We’ve got to stick together, Kid. We have to stick together, or all of us are lost.”

  I didn’t like him being so close that he could hit me before I could move.

  “Oh, cripes! I forgot,” he said. His right hand lifted from my shoulder, and I cringed. But he only thumped himself on the head, knocking himself into a funny little dance that ended when he tripped and fell. He lay in the mud, giggling. “I pranged,” he said. “My undercarriage collapsed.”

  I hated drunks.

  “I forgot to tell you,” he said. “What I came to see you for.”

  “What?” I said.

  “I got some gen. It’s hot.”

  Lofty held up his hand. He was like a long beetle lying on the ground. “Help me up!” he said. “Pull my chocks away.”

  I took his hand, and pulled, but he didn’t come very easily. He rose only halfway before his fingers—wet and slick—popped from mine, and he dropped back on the grass.

  “Once more,” he said, and I tried again. He kicked and struggled. “Boosters on!”

  I got him up, and we nearly fell together. His arms and legs were muddy, his cap still somehow on his head. All I wanted was to get rid of him, to get back to the loft and the birds.

  “So what’s the news?” I said. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He laughed again. “We’re getting rid of Buster, Kid.”

  “Really?”

  Lofty nodded. “That’s the pukka gen.”

  It had to be true if it was pukka gen. That was the most reliable news there was. “But why?” I asked.

  “We’re getting Lancs,” he said.

  I almost let him fall. He grabbed for my arms to steady himself. “We’re converting soon,” he said. “A week or two at the most. The first one will be here any day.”

  “But I don’t want to change,” I said. “I don’t want to fly a Lancaster.”

  “Are you nuts?” he asked. “Why not?”

  “They don’t carry pigeons,” I said.

  Lofty groaned. He shook his head and pulled his hands away. “You’re hopeless, Kak,” he said. “You really are a twit. You’ve got those birds on the brain.”

  “But we need Percy,” I said.

  “Aw, go on.” He gave me a push that didn’t shift me at all but sent him reeling sideways. He staggered to a stop and slowly straightened. “Go back to your pigeons,” he said. “That’s where you belong, I guess.”

  CHAPTER 19

  IT WAS THE NINTH of August when we flew again. The skies cleared and the moon was in its last quarter, and three kites were sent off. Of course Buster was one of them. We wouldn’t be “driving the train” exactly, but we’d be close to the head of the stream. There would be a bunch of kites, then old Buster and G for George and V for Victor; then the rest of the stream would be spread behind us for mile after mile after mile.

  No one was keen on the target. We were going to Mannheim, way down by the bulge of France, in the valley of the winding Rhine. “Wheezy jeezy,” Ratty said. “Can’t we ever bomb something close to home?” Old Pop said, “We only pay the piper; we never call the tune.”

  For most of the sergeants it was just another night on the ground, and the party kept rolling on. In the mess, they stood amid the wreckage and sang about Happy Valley, about the flak and the blinding searchlights. For me it was hard enough to sit outside and listen. It seemed so strange that we were flying off across half of black Europe while the others were carousing. I didn’t understand how Ratty and Lofty and Buzz could join the party. But there they were, in the last hour before the op, surely the only ones not drinking. I could tell it was Ratty banging away on the piano; I heard his funny squeak that filled in for each missing note when he hit the empty key.

  It was especially hard to be alone that evening. I kept thinking of the Lancasters, and what changes they would bring for me and the pigeons and Bert. A movie played endlessly in my mind: the birds screaming as they were slaughtered; Fletcher-Dodge grinning over his roasted pigeon; the loft sitting empty and forgotten. I knew I couldn’t cope without my little friend.

  The singing from the mess grew louder. The voices howled like mournful dogs.

  “There was flak, flak

  Bags of bloody flak

  In the valley of the Ruhr.”

  And then others chimed in for the chorus:

  “My eyes are dim, I cannot see,

  The searchlights they are blinding me.”

  A sergeant came out of the mess and walked right past me, as though I wasn’t there. It made me remember how I had seen Donny Lee in almost the same place, and I turned cold at the thought that I was joining that lonely world of the dead men. I got up and went through the door.

  Buzz was sitting on the piano bench beside Ratty. Lofty was in his favorite corner, reading a paper that was crinkled by his fists. Pop wasn’t there, but it didn’t surprise me. He always spent the moments before an op lying on his bed, holding the crucifix, talking to a photograph.

  I found a chair that still had four legs, turned it upright, and sat by myself near the door. The cigarette smoke was as thick as the clouds over Hamburg, and I squinted through it, with my eyes burning. I watched Ratty’s hands slide along the keyboard. I tried not to think about pigeons.

  From outside came the clatter of the Morris. The car came closer, then stopped by the hut with the bang of a backfire. Shoes pounded up the steps, and through the door came the pilot of G for George, the fellow who owned the Morris then. He went straight across the mess, straight to the piano, and stepped in front of Ratty. The music stopped; the singing stopped.

  In the silence someone coughed. The pilot looked around the mess and asked, “Who wants the bus?”

  He didn’t say it the way that Donny Lee had done. He sounded desperate and frightened. He shook the keys; he held them up. “Who wants the damned bus?” he shouted. “Anyone can have it.”

  There was no rush for the keys. No one even answered.

  “Doesn’t anybody want the thing?” said the pilot. “Doesn’t anybody want it?”

  The mess was absolutely silent except for his voice. There was no rattle of bottles, no scuffing of feet. There was only a faint jingle as the keys trembled in his fingers.

  The pilot looked again around the room, all around at every face, then sort of sighed and sagged. His hand came down. His eyes darkened and his brows lowered, and he marched across the room to the blackboard on the wall. He stared at the names on the Morris list, all the smudged-away names, and then his and then Lofty’s. He turned toward the corner. “Lofty,” he said.

  He had to say it again before Lofty seemed to hear him. Then the newspaper tilted down, folding backward over itself.

  Lofty looked as calm as ever, and I felt a happy twinge to think that he was my skipper, the best of the bunch. “Hmm?” he said. “What’s that, old boy?”

  The pilot swallowed. “You want the bus?” he s
aid. “You can have it now.”

  “Thanks, old boy,” said Lofty, more British now than Fletcher-Dodge.

  Buzz stood up from the piano bench. He looked frightened, ready to shout at Lofty. But Lofty didn’t even look toward him as he folded the paper on his lap. “Thanks awfully,” he said. “But no, I’ll wait my turn.”

  The pilot stared at him.

  “Cheers, though. Ta very much, old boy.” Lofty slowly picked up his paper. He shook it open in front of his face with a snap that made the poor pilot blink.

  The fellow looked miserable. He turned around, scanning the faces, and an expression of rage came over him. “Well, it’s not mine. Not anymore,” he said, his teeth gritted. “I’m rid of the damned thing.”

  He put the keys on the nail; he snatched up the chalk brush. He touched it to the board, beside his name. His hand quivered as he held it there.

  But in the end, he didn’t rub out his name. I supposed he just couldn’t do it; I didn’t think that I could have done it either, if I had been him. I couldn’t have added my own smudge to the other smudged-out names of dead men.

  He put down the brush, and chalk flurried around him in a white cloud. Then he turned and left the mess, weaving round two broken chairs, his feet drumming on the floor.

  “I shouldn’t worry, old boy,” said Lofty from behind his paper. “It’s only a lot of names, you know. Everyone’s on a list, after all. I say, we’ll all get our tickets; it’s just a matter of time.”

  That was an odd thing to come from him, and it put a damper on the party. The singers moved apart, and the room emptied by half. Buzz and Ratty left, then Lofty himself, and he smiled at me as he passed. “Come on, Kid,” he said. “It’s a long way to Germany. We’d better get moving.”

  We changed into flying clothes, got our chutes and gear. I went behind the others, from one hut to the next, hardly a part of the crew. Again we were all being punished for what I had done, and I kept myself away to save them the bother of driving me off.

  I got my pigeon box from Bert, and made sure that Percy was inside it. For the first time, the pigeoneer shook my hand. “Good luck to you, sir,” he said. “’Appy ’unting, as we used to say.” His fingers wrapped right around my hand, so that he held me just as my mom had held me when I was a tiny boy. “No worries, sir,” he said. “Just think of Percy and ’is eye-sign.”