Piece of Cake

by Derek Robinson

  “Tighten up, everyone,” the Ram said. “Stop wasting space.”

  The squadron inched together. Pip Patterson, flying as Yellow Three, had to watch his section leader on his right and also keep an eye on Red Two, ahead to his left. Both planes were so close he could count the rivets in the cockpit panels. Fanny Barton was Yellow Leader and he kept a straight enough course, but Moggy Cattermole was forever straying sideways. Patterson’s hands were sweating. His ears buzzed and popped; they didn’t like battle climbs, and every time they popped, a shower of tiny specks flickered across his eyes. He hated Moggy Cattermole’s bad flying. If Moggy drifted out any further, Pip would have to fall back to miss him. Green Section was just behind. Pip had once seen the tailplane of a Hurricane after it had been chewed up by a propeller. It was a mess. The propeller hadn’t been much good for anything, either. How the hell did you get down—three miles down—with a smashed rudder? Or a bust prop? Or—if bloody Moggy hit you and knocked you back into Blue Two—with both?

  “Sections line astern,” the Ram announced. “Flights echelon port. Go!”

  He held his position and watched closely for blunders. Green Section swung away to its left, clearing the air behind him. Red Two dropped into the space behind his tail, Red Three fell in behind Red Two. Yellow Section followed, each aircraft keeping slightly below the one in front in order to miss its wash. Now “A” flight was in line astern and completely invisible to the Ram. He studied “B” flight. They were almost in formation, weaving snake like as an adjustment worked its way through, then settling into a straight line. Not bad, not bad at all. “Shambles,” he told them. “Sloppy, scruffy, slow. Wake up! Squadron in vic. Sections astern. Go!” The section wingmen swung out, reformed vics, closed up. He looked across at the twin arrowheads of “B” flight. “Wake me when you’ve finished,” he said. “And remind me to give you something for your arthritis. Squadron in vic, sections echelon starboard. Go!”

  The Ram drilled his squadron intensively for the next half-hour, often changing course as he changed formation, sometimes changing altitude too, and always nagging at them to tighten up, sharpen up, get a move on. It was relentlessly demanding work, but the knowledge that a single misunderstanding could mean a collision completely overcame fatigue; at the end even Cattermole felt clearheaded.

  “We can’t have a battle climb without a battle,” the Ram announced. “Lacking enemy aircraft, we shall make do with cloud formations, which even you should be able to hit.” He led the squadron down in a series of plunging power-dives, each culminating in a mock-attack that led to a steep, turning climb and a rapid change of formation to set up the next power-dive. They finished within sight of the airfield. The Ram put them into sections line astern and took them into the circuit.

  All the way down he had been thinking about whom to chop. Cattermole, obviously. And Stickwell, of course. Cox? Yes, Cox had asked for it. Miller, too. That made four. Chopping four ought to shake up the rest more than somewhat, he thought.

  Halfway around the circuit. Speed: 160 and falling. Undercarriage selector lever to “down.” Usual hydraulic whining. Double clunk as the wheels lock. Green light on. All correct.

  The big question was: when to chop? Sooner the better, obviously. But with the international situation so tricky the squadron couldn’t be left below strength. Not even for a day.

  Speed: 135 and falling. Height: seven hundred feet. Slide the hood open and lock it. Nice bit of breeze. Downwind leg. Turn to port. Nice view of the rest of the squadron all strung out, descending. Good plane, the Hurricane. Tough, fast, chunky. And lethal. Blast any bloody Heinkel or Junkers to hell and gone in ten seconds. Five, even. Flaps down. Final approach.

  Well, they would all play in this game of rugger, anyway, chopped or not. Do them good. Got to be fit to fight.

  Over the barbed wire. Usual crowd waiting to watch the squadron land: groundcrew, fire tender, bloodwagon. And the adjutant, standing over there at the side all on his own. Funny how you could recognize people by the way they stood …

  Maybe four was too many. Three might do. Give Cox another chance. Yes.

  Down. Down. Gently down. All power off … now! Up comes the nose and onward she floats, sinking, sinking, until bump, rumble and squeak, she touches the ground and runs.

  Yes, chop three. If not today at least tomorrow. But why not send for replacements now, immediately? Of course, good idea! They might even arrive tonight, with luck. Why not indeed? Yes, definitely. Got to get the old adj cracking on that straight away. Where was the old adj?

  The Ram let the Hurricane run off most of its speed, and then used the brakes to swing the nose from side to side until he found him. Kellaway was still standing on his own, near the perimeter fence. The Ram turned toward him and gave the engine a hint of throttle. As long as the massive, uprearing nose of the Hurricane blotted out the adjutant’s figure, he knew that he was heading the right way. The Ram taxied briskly across the grass, rehearsing in his mind the orders that would send the adjutant hurrying to the telephone: Listen, I’ve decided to chop three of these useless buggers and I want you to—

  With a jolt that made his teeth click, the Hurricane’s wheels hit a slit-trench and the plane tripped itself up. The nose dug hard into the turf, its momentum hoisted the fuselage like a heavy flagpole, and the Ram found himself hanging in his straps, looking down the cowling at fragments of propeller sticking out of the grass.

  He swore, savagely. He was not hurt, was not even stunned; but he was acutely aware of how foolish he must look. The rest of the squadron was coming in to land. It was imperative that he get out of this humiliating position at once. The last thing he wanted was to be rescued, manhandled to safety by the men he commanded. He could hear people shouting. There was no time to lose.

  He disconnected the radio and oxygen leads, released his safety-straps, and got his feet onto the instrument panel. After that it was a matter of swinging his legs over the side and dropping to the ground.

  The radio lead was a damn nuisance. It kept knocking him in the face. He flung it away but it bounced back and hit him in the eye.

  A patient man would have ignored it, or tied it to something. The Ram grabbed it and hung from it. He had maneuvered all of his body except an arm and a foot outside the cockpit, when the radio lead popped out of its socket. The Ram’s free hand scrabbled uselessly at the Perspex canopy.

  It was a drop of only ten feet; but the Ram was a heavy man in full flying-kit plus parachute, and he landed on the back of his head. The impact snapped the third and fourth cervical vertebrae.

  Before he fell, groundcrew were running toward him with ladders. Hector Ramsay could never wait. It was the death of him.

  The adjutant was on the telephone when Fanny Barton came into his office.

  “Well, see if you can give me a couple of minutes with him, would you?” he said. He covered the mouthpiece and whispered: “Air Ministry. Frightfully busy. Flap on.” Fanny sat on the edge of the desk. He was still in flying overalls and boots.

  “Ah, good morning, sir,” Kellaway said. “It’s about the CO, Squadron Leader Ramsay … I’m afraid he’s dead, sir. A flying accident. He fell out of his Hurricane …” Kellaway swung his feet onto the desk and listened to the voice from Air Ministry. “Oh no, nothing wrong with his parachute, sir. You needn’t …” He listened some more, picking his teeth with a matchstick. “Well, to be strictly accurate, sir, he wasn’t technically airborne at the time …” Kellaway listened, and rolled his eyes at Barton. “Put that way, sir,” he said, “you’re right, it wasn’t a flying accident at all … Mmm …” Kellaway heaved a sigh. “Damned if I know what I’d call it, sir. But call it what you will, it’s still a broken neck, isn’t it, and …”

  Barton heard angry words being spoken. Eventually Kellaway replaced the telephone. “He wants to know where we think he’s going to find another CO on a Sunday morning. Do we think Air Ministry is some kind of domestic employment agency? Would we like half-a-
dozen housemaids and a couple of butlers? Don’t we realize the balloon is about to go up?”

  “Is it?” Barton asked.

  Kellaway looked at his watch. “Come on,” he said. “The Prime Minister’s going to say something on the wireless in ten minutes. By the way, Fanny: you’re senior man, so you’re in charge of the squadron for the time being.”

  They walked from the administrative block to the officers’ mess. It was a calm, quiet morning. Swallows and housemartins flashed and flickered between the buildings. The bells of Kingsmere church sounded clear but small. Their miniature clamor ended and a single bell began to toll.

  “Poor old Ram,” Barton said.

  “I canceled the rugger match, by the way.”

  “Yes, of course … It’s so peculiar that he turned off and taxied into that trench. I wonder why?”

  The adjutant shrugged. “Peculiar things happen. I remember once a chap was sitting on his tractor mowing the aerodrome when a plane taxied past and the wingtip cut his head off. Sheared it off at the neck, clean as you like. Tractor went on, mowing away, and the pilot took off. Didn’t know what he’d done. Wouldn’t believe it when he landed, thought we were pulling his leg. We had to show him the head. Chap called Blackmore, Nigger Blackmore. He wasn’t a nigger, of course; that was just what we called him.” They walked in silence for a while. “No reason why a nigger couldn’t fly a plane, I suppose,” the adjutant remarked. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “I’ve just realized,” Barton said. “I shall have to appoint someone acting flight commander.”

  “Yes. And you’ll have to write to the Ram’s next-of-kin, too.”

  Barton hadn’t thought of that, and he didn’t fancy the idea. “What on earth am I going to say?” he asked.

  “Tell them he died while leading his squadron in circumstances of unusual hazard,” Kellaway said. “Tell them he exhibited a complete disregard for his own personal safety.” They went up the steps of the mess.

  Nothing much happened at Kingsmere on the rest of the first day of the Second World War. The squadron—like every other unit of the Royal Air Force—was placed on alert. There were a couple of false alarms, but no attack came. The pilots hung about the mess and grew bored. There was a general feeling of relief that at last the decision to fight had been made, but there was no exultation. This was partly because the Ram’s death had left them in the lurch: just when they needed some leadership, their leader was no more. Yet nobody mourned him. Nobody really missed him. It was as if his shingles had recurred and he had gone back to hospital in Torquay, instead of into the station mortuary.

  Fanny Barton put Sticky Stickwell in command of “A” flight and made Pip Patterson Yellow Leader. It was the obvious thing to do: Stickwell had more flying time than the others. All the same, Barton worried about it. He worried about the lack of action, too. Every hour he telephoned Group operations room.

  “Still no plots on the table, old boy,” Group said.

  “Not much of a war, is it? My chaps are bored rigid.”

  “Give the Hun a chance. It’s a long way from Germany, you know. Anyone at your end doing the Sunday Times crossword, by any chance?”

  “They’re all outside, playing cricket.”

  “Pity. Three down’s got me really stumped.”

  Barton joined Flip Moran, who was leaning out of a window. “Bad news,” Barton told him. “Group ops are having trouble with the crossword.”

  Moran grunted. Together they watched as Fitz Fitzgerald, clumsy in flying-boots, ran up and lobbed a tennisball at Moke Miller, who flailed and missed.

  “I keep thinking I ought to be doing something,” Barton said.

  “You are. You’re waiting.”

  “I mean, as squadron commander.”

  “You’re in charge of the waiting.” Moran’s Ulster accent was rich and slow, and touched with mockery. “That’s a heavy responsibility, Fanny. It’s not everyone could make a success of it.”

  Fitz bowled again. This time Moke slashed at the ball and sliced it straight at Pip Patterson, who was standing drowsing in the warmth. He dropped the catch.

  “I wonder what sort of a show we’ll put up,” Fanny said. “I mean, we’re not exactly crack flyers, are we?”

  “If you want my opinion,” Moran said, “I expect the entire squadron to be shot down and killed within thirty seconds of encountering the enemy. Death will be instantaneous, so there will be no unnecessary suffering. Does that reassure you?”

  “Not really.” Barton scratched his head on the windowframe. “If we’re all killed, who’ll write up the squadron log?”

  “You’re right. I’d better stay behind.”

  “You wouldn’t mind, Flip?”

  “Not at all. How d’you spell ‘massacre,’ by the way?”

  “Two q’s and a small f.”

  “Ah. And there was me thinking it had a p in it. What a comfort it is to have an educated commanding officer.”

  Toward the end of the afternoon an elderly, jovial wing commander arrived. He was making a tour of all Fighter Command bases, lecturing on the German bomber threat. Hitler, he told the pilots, was expected to launch an aerial knock-out blow against England. This meant against London, since the nearest German airfields were three or four hundred miles away and therefore out of range of the rest of England, but in any case London was so exposed and vulnerable that it was the obvious target. The Air Staff reckoned that Germany had at least sixteen hundred long-range bombers available and that this force (if they all got through) could drop about seven hundred tons of bombs on the capital every day for a fortnight. Now that was an awful lot of bombs, the wing commander pointed out, and just to give some idea of what it would mean in human terms, calculations had shown that in the first six months, this scale of bomber attack would kill six hundred thousand people and injure twice that number, not to mention the damage to buildings and things, which would be colossal, of course. “So you see why we’re all depending on you chaps,” he said, smiling warmly.

  Afterward, he asked if there were any questions.

  Moggy Cattermole raised his hand. “Have you any advice, sir,” he said, “on the best way to tackle the Hun?” He spoke in a mock-heroic tone of voice, and Fanny Barton flashed him a warning look, but the wing commander was only too willing to answer.

  “A leopard doesn’t change his spots,” he said. “Your typical German was a bully and a brute in the Great War, and he’s a bully and a brute now. Like all bullies, he’s a coward at heart.” Flip Moran shut his eyes. “So take the fight to him,” the wing commander urged. “Go in with all guns blazing, that’s what we used to do. You’ll find the average Hun hasn’t much taste for hot lead.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Moggy. “Hot lead,” he whispered loudly, “that’s the stuff to give ’em.”

  The adjutant led their visitor away for a drink, but there was to be no alcohol for the squadron as long as daylight lasted. The Group controller kept them at readiness until dusk, and then released them with a warning to be available again at dawn. It had been a long day. For Cattermole, Stickwell, Patterson and Cox it had been two long days and a long night. “Feel like a beer at the Squirt?” Stickwell asked, yawning. The Squirt was their local pub, The Fountain. Cox shook his head. Patterson thought about it. Cattermole said: “Not if it means walking there and back. D’you know, I think I might get an early night for once.”

  Nobody else wanted to go to the Squirt; for one thing, it had just started to rain. Cattermole went off to bed. The other three hung about for a while, too tired to make up their minds, and then wandered off to bed as well.

  An hour later an airman banged on their doors and announced that the CO wanted them in his office immediately. They were still groggy with sleep when they got there. Barton was sitting at his desk. The adjutant stood behind him. “For God’s sake, Fanny,” Stickwell grumbled, slumping into a chair. “Can’t a chap ever get a decent night’s rest?”

  “Stand up
,” Barton ordered sharply.

  “Oh, don’t be so bloody officious,” Stickwell muttered, and did not move.

  “Flying Officer Stickwell,” Barton said, “I have given you an order.”

  At once Pip Patterson took his hands out of his pockets. The atmosphere, he noticed, was cold and hard. The adjutant was watching very carefully, and Fanny Barton had a look on his face that said You tread on my toe and I’ll break both your legs. “Sticky, you idiot, get up,” Pip whispered.

  “Bollocks,” Stickwell said, with all the force and intelligence of a three-year-old child. He was still stupid with sleep.

  “Come on, Sticky,” Mother Cox said irritably. “Do as he says.”

  “Why should I? I can hear just as well sitting down, in fact I can hear a damn sight better—Hey!” Stickwell shouted as Cattermole grabbed him and yanked him upright. The chair fell over.

  “Two reasons,” Moggy said. “One: he’s the CO. Two: you’re on active service.”

  “All right! let go my hair.”

  “And three,” Pip said righteously, “if we stand, you stand.”

  “Okay, for Christ’s sake!” Stickwell glared at Fanny Barton. “I’m up. We’re all up. What d’you want?”

  Barton half-closed one eye and looked at him.

  Stickwell straightened his rumpled tunic, rubbed his left elbow, and smoothed back his hair. Nobody spoke. He eased his collar and did up a stray button. At last he met Barton’s gaze. “What d’you want, sir?” he asked.

  Barton opened the half-closed eye. “I want you to take those horses back where you found them,” he said. “And I want you to do it now.”

  Rain pattered against the window.

  “We’ll never find that field again, sir,” Cox said gloomily. “Not in the middle of the night.”

  “Oh yes you will. You are commissioned officers in a squadron of Fighter Command in the Royal Air Force. You are not a bunch of hooligans living off the land and stealing whatever you fancy. You’ll find the horses loaded on a lorry at the main gate. That’s all.”