Piece of Cake

by Derek Robinson

  Kellaway took out his pipe and squinted into the bowl. “What filthy luck,” he grunted.

  “It does look very much as if something rather awful has happened,” said Skull.

  “Well, it was nothing whatever to do with us” Barton said defiantly. “Now can we please get on with this spare-parts problem? I want—”

  “The fact is, there have been no German aircraft at all over England today,” Skull said.

  Barton could stand it no longer. He jumped to his feet. “How the hell do you know?” he cried. “What about all those hostile plots they picked up—five plus, ten plus, twenty plus? Where did they come from, if not from bloody Germany?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Skull said. “What I can tell you is that according to Group our tracking stations saw no trace of any of those plots returning across the North Sea toward Germany. Not one. And, as I have said, no German aircraft has been seen to fall. None.”

  “They just flew round and round in circles and disappeared up their own tail-pipes, did they?”

  “Mistakes do happen,” Kellaway said. “I remember—”

  “Save it,” Barton snapped. “I haven’t got time.” But he had nothing further to say, either. There was a painful silence while he stood and glowered at the adjutant’s empty chair, and listened to the creak of the windowframes in the wind, and the distant pecking of a typewriter, and the coming and going of footsteps in the corridor. One set of footsteps came all the way to the office. The door opened and a man in civilian clothes looked in. He was about thirty, and he was wearing a soft brown hat, tweed hacking-jacket, tattersall waistcoat and dark gray slacks. Barton’s immediate reaction was: National Farmers Union, get rid of the bastard. “Hornet squadron?” the man said. He had a brisk, cheerful voice and a confident expression. Kellaway nodded. “Good,” the man said. “I’m Squadron Leader Rex, and I’m your new commanding officer.”

  Kellaway made the introductions. Rex shook hands. “Thank you for holding the fort till I got here,” he said to Barton. “I expect it’s all been plain sailing, has it?”

  “No, sir. For one thing, we’ve got a serious spare-parts problem.” He found Marriott’s list and gave it to Rex. “Only nine aircraft are operational.”

  “Oh-oh! That won’t do. Okay. Thanks. Anything else?”

  “Well, we’re still stuck with the inquiry into the previous CO’s death. They’ve asked us for a whole load of information, I mean stuff that’s going to take a hell of a lot of digging out … It’s all down here, you see.”

  Rex took the sheet of paper and dropped it into a waste bin. “We can forget that. Anything else?”

  Barton looked from the bin to Rex and back again. “Forget it,” he said. “I see. All right. Well … There’s also been a bit of a dust-up with some local farmers. We’ve had a summons, formal letters of complaint and so on.”

  Rex accepted these too and dropped them in the bin. “Not important. Any more?”

  Barton took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. These Anglo-Polish things. Glossaries. They came by dispatch-rider yesterday from Air Ministry. We had orders to memorize them within twenty-four hours, but I’m sorry to say the rest of the squadron simply hasn’t cooperated. In fact it’s worse than that, far worse. I mean, just look at these test papers …”

  Rex took the entire bundle, weighed it thoughtfully in his hands, glanced at Barton, and let it fall into the bin, which was now so full that some of the glossaries spilled out. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you,” he said.

  “But sir, I’ve signed for those,” Barton protested. “I mean, damn it all, they’re secret.”

  “I’m sure they are. Almost everything is, these days. Especially when it comes out of Air Ministry. Even their toilet paper is covered by the Official Secrets Act. That’s in case someone discovers that half the Air Staff has the runs. Which as a matter of fact they do, right now.”

  Barton was bewildered. “You mean to say all that stuff is … is useless?”

  “It’s just not important.”

  “It’s also not Polish,” Skull remarked. He had picked up one of the glossaries and was leafing through it. “As far as I can tell, these foreign phrases are Swedish. Tack-tack, thank you. I’m sure that’s Swedish. God morgon, good morning. Yes, it’s Swedish. Well, well.”

  “Someone at Air Ministry got confused, I expect,” Rex said. “Poland, Sweden, Ruritania, Patagonia, it’s all the same to them. Talking of confusion, I take it you’ve heard about the poor old Blenheim?”

  The four men waited for each other to answer. Then Barton, not looking at him, said: “That rather depends, sir. What have you heard?”

  “It was a technical fault.” Rex took out his car keys and spun them on his finger. “Part of our tracking system went on the blink and began seeing double. It was supposed to be plotting aircraft out to sea, but this afternoon for some reason it began picking up stuff that was actually flying behind it, inland. The echoes got reflected or something; anyway, stuff that was over land showed up on the screen as if it was over the North Sea. I assume you understand the basic principles of all this black magic?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Neither do I,” he said. “Anyway, the upshot was, Group saw an unidentified plot on the table, heading this way from Germany, so they scrambled a section of Blenheims to intercept it. Unfortunately this boss-eyed tracking station kept seeing double and so those Blenheims showed up on its screen as another raid coming in from the sea. Consequently, Group scrambled more fighters. Consequently, up popped another raid, so there had to be yet another scramble, and thus it went on until in due course somebody bumped into somebody else and, alas, it all ended in tears.”

  “The eye sees what it expects,” Skull said. “A not-infrequent phenomenon.”

  “And the weather didn’t help,” Rex said. “Low cloud, bad visibility. Also the Blenheim does look remarkably like a Junkers 88, especially—”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Barton said. “We got shot-up too, you know, and we weren’t flying Blenheims.”

  “No, but you were attacking them. No doubt someone else saw you do it and jumped to the conclusion that you were a bunch of Me-109’s.”

  “The Hurricane,” said Skull, “does look remarkably like the Messerschmitt 109, from some angles.”

  “You’re bloody knowledgeable all of a sudden,” Barton growled.

  “I base my observations on your own experience,” Skull said evenly. “After all, you pursued a Hurricane and sought to destroy it.”

  “This is all just airy-fairy theory,” Barton insisted. “Nobody has any real evidence to back it up. For all you know, there were three Junkers 88’s swanning around up there this afternoon. All right, so nobody on the ground saw them. So what? They probably crashed miles out to sea! Who knows? You’ve said yourself the tracking station was on the blink, so why—”

  “Because,” Rex interrupted firmly. “Because I’ve talked on the phone to the CO of the Blenheim squadron. His chaps wrote down the identification letters they saw on the fighters that attacked them. I’ve got the letters here.” He handed Barton a scrap of paper. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s nobody’s fault.”

  Barton glanced at the paper and crushed it in his fist. No matter how tightly he squeezed, he could not stop the trembling. “It’s all very well for you,” he said. He was swallowing repeatedly.

  “Don’t destroy that bit of paper,” Rex said sharply. “There’s a name on the back. It’s the CO of the Blenheim squadron. They’re based at Manston. Take a plane and nip over there now and apologize.” He put his arm around Barton’s shoulder and steered him to the door. “Get back here as soon as you can,” he said. “I’m going to need you. We’re off to France tomorrow.”

  Rex watched Barton go, closed the door, and leaned against it. “Well, now,” he said.

  “France.” Kellaway prodded the overflowing waste bin with his foot. “So that’s why none of this stuff matters any more.”

&nbs
p; “I have a feeling I’ve forgotten something,” Rex said.

  “Spare parts,” Marriott prompted.

  “Of course! Stupid of me. What’s the problem?” Marriott described the problem. “Bloody forms,” Rex said. “There’s the real enemy. How far is it to this unhelpful dump, anyway?”

  “About thirty miles, sir.”

  “Right. Adj: I need two large trucks and a dozen men with rifles, please. It’s a funny thing,” he said to Marriott. “About this time of day I always feel like killing someone.”

  The trucks came back two hours later, heavy with booty. Marriott had them unloaded immediately, and the ground crews got to work on their aircraft.

  “Did you have to shoot anyone, sir?” Kellaway asked Rex.

  “No, it was very dull. Nobody was prepared to fight except the duty officer, and he wore glasses, so we locked him in the lavatory.”

  “There’s bound to be hell to pay, though, isn’t there? Eventually?”

  “Well … they’ve got to catch us first. I told them I was CO of a Sunderland flyingboat squadron, based on the Isle of Skye. And we’ll be in frog-land tomorrow. What happens the day after that is neither here nor there. Come and have a drink, adj.”

  The morning was magnificent: an English September day at its best. It looked, felt and tasted like the start of a new and glorious age. The sky was hugely blue, the clean, cool blue of tropical water, with a thin drift of herringbone clouds sketched in to give it a greater sense of depth. It was nine o’clock; the air was still chill in the shadows but pleasantly warm in the sunshine. The turf had a crisp bounce underfoot; birds flew and sang as if they had never heard of Poland. It was a day when nothing seemed impossible.

  Squadron Leader Rex walked quickly across the airfield toward his pilots. Rex always walked quickly. One of the first things Kellaway had noticed about him was that he had only two speeds: fast, and stopped. Now Rex’s dog was trotting briskly at his heels and even Kellaway and Skull had to skip occasionally to keep up with him.

  “Good morning!” Rex called. “I hope nobody had beans for breakfast, we don’t need a tailwind today.” He dumped his parachute on the wing of the nearest plane. “You are all trained and expert pilots, officers and gentlemen, so there’s nothing I can tell you about flying the Hurricane except that if you crash it and kill yourself, your next-of-kin will be sold into slavery to defray the cost of replacement. However, there are three things you should know about France. One is that the French are a nation of appalling alcoholics. If anyone offers you a drink, take it; you’ll be doing him a favor. The second is that French women are staggeringly beautiful. When they ask you into bed, take your boots off first. If you enjoy it, take your hat off afterward. It’s important to observe correct form. You are ambassadors for your country, remember. The third thing to know is the French suffer from the strange delusion that they invented flying. Some of them think they’re Napoleon too. They’re all a bit loopy, in fact. Very few speak English, so obviously the rest can’t be making much of an effort to be normal. That’s their loss. But we can set them an example. We can show them who really invented flying, who makes the finest fighter aircraft in the world, and who flies them the best. This, by the way, is Reilly, the squadron mascot.” He clipped a leash to the dog’s collar and handed it to the adjutant. “Reilly’s mother was a labrador but, as you can see, he’s got a streak of collie in him. Let that be a lesson to you. Always keep a sharp lookout, or you might receive an unexpected poke, with regrettable consequences. Right. Everyone ready? Off we go.”

  They dispersed, and Fitzgerald found himself walking near Moran. “Bright spark, isn’t he?” he said.

  “Indeed, the man is positively incandescent.” Moran made it sound like a medical condition. “I just wonder how long before he burns out his filament.”

  “Oh, come on. Give the chap his due. He got Micky Marriott his spares, didn’t he?”

  “Certainly. That’s why we’re leaving so early, in order to stay one jump ahead of the law.”

  Fitzgerald laughed. “You’re a great comfort, Flip. Until I began talking to you I thought the sun was shining, but now I see it’s actually pissing down.”

  Moran grunted. “I’ll say this for him. He’s a big improvement on the fellah before him. But then he would have to be, wouldn’t he?”

  “Fanny did his best.”

  “That was exactly the trouble,” Moran said, and headed for his Hurricane.

  Fanny Barton was the only pilot not flying that morning. He had come back from Manston the night before suffering from headache and earache. By the time he found Rex he was also developing a sore throat. He couldn’t hear clearly or speak easily, so his report was very brief. He went early to bed. The symptoms were still as bad in the morning and when the squadron took off he was stretched out in the sickbay with all the curtains drawn and a pillow pressed against each ear to try to seal out the raucous racket. The windowframes stopped rattling, the glass stopped buzzing, the din faded to nothing. Barton relaxed and gazed at the dim, gray-white ceiling.

  He was haunted by the memory of the CO of the Blenheim squadron. The man had been so utterly, hopelessly perplexed. Not angry, not bitter, not grief-stricken; just baffled by Barton’s attempt to explain. He had stood with his shoulders hunched and his hands jammed into his pockets, staring into Barton’s face, searching for more than Barton had to give. The man heard, he understood, but it just wasn’t enough; the explanation didn’t match the tragedy. In the end Barton had to give up. He said goodbye and flew home, but the image traveled with him, trapped in his aching head.

  Skull and the adjutant stood on the edge of the field and watched the squadron gradually assume formation as it began a wide circuit.

  “How do we get to France?” Skull asked.

  “A couple of troop-carriers are coming to take us. Bombays, probably.”

  “Yes?” Skull bent down and picked a daisy. “Bombays … Are they … I mean, can they … The thing is, I’ve never flown before.”

  “Don’t do that, Reilly!” Kellaway said, tugging at the leash. “Why must dogs always sniff one’s crotch?”

  “How safe is it?” Skull asked.

  “Oh, it’s not dangerous unless they bite, but that’s—”

  “No, no. Flying. How safe is flying?”

  “Oh, that.” Kellaway scratched the dog’s head. “Well, it’s perfectly safe, isn’t it, Reilly? As long as nothing goes wrong.”

  “But how often does something go wrong?”

  “I’ve never bothered to keep score. It doesn’t really matter, does it? Once is enough, if it happens to you. I mean to say, the accidents that happen to other people don’t count.”

  “They count to them, surely.”

  The adjutant took out his pipe and rapped it against his heel. “That’s their silly lookout, isn’t it?”

  Skull gave him a baffled glance. Kellaway turned away to watch the squadron, now in sections astern—four arrowheads, snugly arranged behind each other—swooping in a fast, shallow dive over the airfield, the leader waggling his wings in farewell. The two men waved. The formation angled up and climbed away, leaving a pulse of thunder and a trail of smoke. “They make it look so damnably easy,” Skull said.

  In the sickbay, Barton lay facedown, his head throbbing like an ancient refrigerator, and willed the noise to go away and leave him alone.

  The doors of the dining room of the Hotel Lafayette swung open and Squadron Leader Rex strolled in at the head of Hornet squadron. They moved with all the ease and self-assurance of young men who are proud of their uniform, sure of each other, and well primed with drinks bought by someone else.

  The diners stopped talking and turned to look. Several applauded. When a girl wearing a creamy rose in her black hair threw a kiss, Moggy Cattermole caught it like a cricketer, one arm flung high, and she laughed. By now some of the diners were standing to applaud. Rex made a little detour to shake hands with one of them, and the applause redoubled. The head wai
ter came forward. Rex shook hands with him too, and they chatted while the pilots took their seats at a large oval table. “Fighting fit, merci bien, Georges,” Rex said. “Et vous? Still fort et brillant, like good champagne? I always tell my friends, plus ça change, plus c’est le même Georges …”

  Dinner began. The Lafayette was one of the three best hotels in Le Touquet and in 1939 its food was the best of all. After the first two courses had been served and eaten and his glass refilled, Moke Miller turned to Flip Moran and said: “Before I enjoy myself too much, Flip, tell me whether or not I can afford all this.”

  Moran gave him a grim smile. “What if I said you can’t?”

  “Just have to get plastered and forget it, I suppose.”

  “Put your mind at rest, then.”

  “Really? Marvelous! I’ll get plastered on that.”

  “Your new boss arranged this shindig,” Moran said. “Therefore it shouldn’t appear on anybody’s mess bill. It bloody well better not appear on mine, that I can tell you.”

  “Got a hilariously funny story to tell you, Flip,” Sticky Stickwell announced over the talk. “This’ll test your sense of humor, which some of us think you haven’t got much of, not that it’s really your fault because after all you can’t help being a thick Irish bog-trotter, can you?”

  “Stickwell’s pissed already,” Moran said. “You can tell by the way he keeps poking the celery into his ear.”

  “Manners, Sticky!” Patterson said sharply. “Remember where you are, for God’s sake. The correct form with celery is to stuff it up your nose. Isn’t that right, sir?”

  “Quite right,” Rex said. “And for an encore you stuff it up your neighbor’s nose.”

  “Ah, but,” Stickwell said. “I have these very small, aristocratic nostrils. See? So that lets me out.”

  “What’s this funny joke, then?” Miller asked.

  “In any case, radishes are what you stick in your ear, not celery,” Patterson said. “And sometimes rhubarb for afters.”