Piece of Cake

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Piece of Cake Page 21

by Derek Robinson


  “I don’t see what difference that makes,” Miller said. He dealt three cards each. “Strewth, what a junkyard.” Patterson, on his left, had not touched his cards. “Broken your arm?” Miller said.

  “I’m playing this hand blind.” Patterson bet five francs. “Blind brag. Now it’s double to stay in.”

  The others grumbled and bet. One by one they dropped out as Patterson raised the stakes, until only Miller remained. Miller’s tongue polished his upper lip while he studied his cards. “No fear,” he said, and threw them in.

  Patterson took his winnings. He scraped the cards together. “Aren’t you going to see what you had?” Gordon asked.

  Patterson shrugged, and shuffled the pack.

  “Don’t you care?” Fitzgerald said.

  Patterson cut and dealt. “What difference would it make?” he said.

  “You might shit yourself with shock,” Miller said. “Then at least we’d get some value for our money.”

  Starr’s shadow raced him for the bridge. After a day of clouded skies the sun had broken through and its angled rays flooded the countryside with light. The sunlight came from behind his left shoulder. It was perfect for low flying: every detail in the landscape was picked out with utter clarity, the colors were vivid, there was no glare; he could judge depth and distance perfectly.

  The Hurricane was behaving beautifully. It was strolling along at two hundred and ten, leaning in and out of the bends of the Moselle, sinking gradually from fifty to forty to thirty feet as Thionville came nearer. Power cables passed overhead, a long way up, no danger there. Starr kept his racing shadow in the corner of his eye as a guide to height while he studied the advancing bridge. It looked quite low: big and strong but surprisingly flat: not much space beneath, not even under the center span. If Moggy and Pip hadn’t done it he’d have said there wasn’t room. Optical illusion, obviously.

  The illusion persisted. He dropped to ten feet to make more space. The river blurred, the white concrete mass reared up, and the skin on the back of his neck crawled. It couldn’t be done.

  His shadow hit the bridge an instant before he rushed into the gap, still desperate for space. The Hurricane dipped again. Starr’s hand trembled. The prop thrashed the surface and the radiator-scoop under the belly rammed into the river like a bucket. Starr yelled and snatched the column back but the scoop dragged the nose hard down and the propeller made an explosion of foam. Starr was hurled onto his straps. His head smashed against the instrument panel. The Hurricane fought its way into the sunlight, nose-down, half-covered in spray, and soon exhausted itself. People on the bridge saw its tail rise slowly and slide out of sight, hurried on by the current. The river smoothed its surface. The echoes died. More people ran over to look, but there was nothing to see.

  Sticky Stickwell tried to step from the bookshelf to the mantelpiece but his legs were too short. “It’s not fair,” he complained. A cushion just missed his head. He climbed higher up the bookshelf, jumped, and landed, wobbling hard, on the mantelpiece. A cushion struck him and he fell off. “Knickers!” he cried.

  “Your turn, Mother,” Cattermole said. Patterson collected the cushions.

  “A” flight had finished testing its aircraft and “B” flight had been released early. They had returned to the mess to find Stickwell and Flip Moran back from leave. Now they were all in the anteroom, playing the squadron’s new game. It was simple and dangerous, just right for fighter pilots. One man tried to circle the walls of the room without touching the floor while the others bombarded him with cushions.

  Mother Cox began on the mantelpiece. He stretched his legs to the bookshelves, and shuffled along them to the window, ignoring a shower of cushions. He made quick time along a windowsill, a radiator, and another windowsill, and reached the door.

  “Now he’s in trouble,” Fitzgerald said, but Cox had planned his route. He reached down and opened the door a couple of inches. As cushions thudded against him, he carefully stood on the doorknob and gripped the top of the frame. A gentle push would now swing the door wide and put him within easy reach of a sideboard.

  Fanny Barton thrust open the door and Mother Cox went flying. The rest of the squadron stumbled about, doubled-up with laughter.

  Barton closed the door and leaned against it. He didn’t feel angry or impatient; he didn’t feel anything, really, except a dull wish that they would shut up.

  Eventually they did stop laughing. “You can’t stay there, Fanny,” Miller said. “You’re blocking the course.”

  Barton raised his hand, palm outward. “Can you all be quiet for a minute?” he asked.

  “If it’s in a bad cause,” Cattermole said.

  “Well, Dicky Starr’s bought it,” Barton said. “Is that bad enough?”

  They moved to the bar. Pip Patterson bought a round of drinks. “Don’t go mad,” Flip Moran told him. “Keep half-a-crown for the wreath.” Patterson, not looking at him, said: “It’s only brag winnings.”

  The drinks were handed around and everyone waited for Fanny Barton. “Cheers,” Barton said, making the word curt and unemotional. They drank. Barton saw Flip Moran’s glance; it held a hint of approval. The correct tone had been set.

  There was nothing to be said: Barton had already told them all he knew. Starr had been overdue, no flap, probably forced-landed somewhere. Kellaway began phoning the nearby airfields. Then Area HQ rang up. Thionville police had reported a Hurricane in their bit of the Moselle. On the bottom. Identification letters noted by eyewitnesses. End of story.

  Moke Miller took a handful of peanuts from a dish on the bar.

  “Hungry?” Cox said.

  Miller ate. “Life goes on,” he mumbled.

  “Funny you should say that,” Flash Gordon remarked. “I bet none of you knows how long the average human hair lives.”

  They waited. “This had better be hilarious, Flash,” said Stickwell.

  “Three years,” Gordon told them. Still they waited. “I mean each hair on your body has a lifespan of between two and four years,” he said. Miller munched his peanuts. “Not many people know that,” Gordon added.

  “And what happens to it after that?” Fitzgerald asked.

  “Oh, it dies and falls out. Then another hair grows.”

  “Pardon me while I sit down,” Moran said. He perched on a bar-stool. “This is all too frenzied for my poor brain.”

  “Ah, but the really interesting thing is that each hair is a different age to the hair next to it.” Gordon smiled in harmless triumph. “That way, they don’t all fall out at once.”

  “With a roar like thunder,” Cattermole said. “Awakening the baby and frightening the horses in the street.”

  “Where did you get all this drivel, Flash?” Miller demanded.

  “It’s not drivel, it’s true. My girl friend Nicole told me. She’s got a university degree in biology.”

  “Ah, but that’s French biology,” Stickwell said. “Frogs aren’t made like you and me. Their kidneys are covered in mustard. I should know; I just had some on the train.”

  “Don’t talk tripe,” Gordon muttered, annoyed.

  “And their tripe is stuffed with prunes. Most uncomfortable, don’t you think?”

  “Time for my bath,” Cattermole said. He went out.

  “Anyway, I bet you haven’t got the faintest idea how fast your toenails grow,” Gordon declared. “And where would you be without toenails? Ever stopped to think about that?” Nobody answered.

  Patterson finished his beer and went upstairs. He went to his room, stretched out on his bed, but got up after a few seconds. He brushed his hair and examined his fingernails. One nail was ragged; he filed it smooth. A coin lay on the bed; it had slipped from his pocket. He picked it up and took out the rest of his change and counted it. It was French money, light and silvery, unlike the heavy British coinage, and when he’d counted it he still didn’t feel it was worth anything. The house was very quiet. He held his breath and listened. Nothing.

 
He decided to have a bath. He took his towel and walked along the corridor, past Cattermole’s room. It was empty. So were the bathrooms. He saw light coming from a doorway at the end of the corridor: Starr’s room.

  Cattermole was in there, searching the wardrobe.

  “What’s the game?” Patterson asked.

  “It’s no game, laddy. It’s business. Little Dicky owed me eight hundred and seventy-five francs. Remember?” Cattermole shut the wardrobe and began rummaging in a chest of drawers.

  “You can’t possibly collect that bet.”

  “No? Watch and see. I won, and the stuff’s no good to him any more, is it?” Cattermole dumped handkerchiefs and socks on the top. “I hope the twerp didn’t take his wallet up with him,” he grumbled. “That’s strictly against orders, that is … Ah!” He found it under some shirts.

  “My God …” Patterson tasted bile, and had to swallow. “You rotten sod, Moggy.”

  “Four, five, six hundred francs. Damn. Oh, and fifty. Six-fifty. Not enough. Hang on, what’s this? A fiver! A genuine English fiver … What’s that worth?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  “Say … eight hundred francs. Pip, have you got change of a hundred francs? No? Too bad. I’ll just have to owe him a couple of bob.” Cattermole pushed the notes into his pocket, tossed the wallet into the drawer, swept the clothing on top of it and banged the drawer shut with a swing of his hips. He flicked the light off and walked away, leaving Patterson in the dark. “Piece of cake, Pip!” he called in a high, mocking voice.

  Patterson sank until he was squatting on his haunches. If you had any guts, he told himself, you’d go after that bastard and smash his face in. To his surprise he found that he was crying.

  The night spat rain, and the drops made long black streaks in the glare of the floodlights. The drops pecked at the oily, hurrying surface of the river but the marks were instantly healed. By contrast the steel ropes that vanished into the water cut a perpetual, livid scar.

  These ropes descended from the top of a British Army mobile crane. Its driver was accustomed to recovering overturned tanks; he knew his stuff. The engine roared, the crane bucked and clanked, the ropes strained and slackened and tightened again, vibrating like fiddle-strings. Gradually, foot by foot, the load came up.

  Barton, Kellaway and Skull stood on the embankment, downstream of the crane, and watched it work. If they raised their heads they could see the bridge, lined with hundreds of spectators. This was the best free show in Thionville since the Tour de France came through in 1933.

  Skull shaded his eyes against the dazzle and peered again at the black hole under the bridge. “It still seems to me,” he said, “a most extraordinary thing to try to do.”

  “Yes, well, you’re not a pilot,” Barton muttered. He was tired and hungry, and they had already talked the matter to death.

  The steel ropes strained, the crane labored. Its driver rested the engine, swung the arm a few feet, and tried again. A cluster of bubbles as big as footballs hit the surface and burst.

  “I don’t think I ever flew under a bridge,” the adjutant said. He hunched his head deeper inside the turned-up collar of his greatcoat. His gaze was fixed on the river, where turbulence was developing. “I flew through a railway station once. It didn’t have much roof left, of course.”

  A buckled wingtip broke the surface. The crane driver stopped hauling for a moment so that the current could straighten the load. The wingtip swung through a quarter-circle and checked. The bridge was busy with pointing arms. The rudder appeared, streaming ribbons of fabric, and then the whole of the upper part of the Hurricane emerged in a rush of pouring water.

  Five minutes later the plane lay on the embankment, shining, crumpled, its ribs exposed, its propeller snapped. The crane driver climbed down and untied the ropes. An RAF ambulance started its engine. Fanny Barton walked forward. Skull took a pace after him but Kellaway held his arm.

  Barton climbed onto the port wing and tried to slide back the hood. It was stuck, probably locked shut on the inside. The crane driver gave him a crowbar. He smashed the Perspex, released the lock, slid the hood.

  Dicky Starr lolled in his straps like an exhausted child in its push-chair. His nose was split but the river had washed away all the blood. His flying-boots paddled in six inches of dirty water.

  Barton took Starr’s smooth, pointed chin in his hand and tipped his head up. The eyes were slightly open. They looked at him as if they were hiding some clever, subtle, private joke. “Idiot,” Barton said.

  He got down and signaled the ambulance. Already the crowd on the bridge was thinning. The show was over.

  NOVEMBER

  1939

  The funeral went badly.

  The adjutant had arranged for Starr to be buried in the churchyard at Pont-St. Pierre. Fanny Barton should have been in charge of the ceremony but he developed a persistent earache. Rex gave the job to Cattermole.

  Green Section had to remain on duty at the airfield; the rest of the squadron (including the mascot, Reilly) drove to the village at midday. Rain had fallen for most of the night and half the morning; now everything dripped. The sky had a tired and grubby look. The trees behind the church were full of crows; every few minutes they took off and circled, silently, and when they landed on the branches again they were nearly invisible: black on black. The silence was oddly disturbing. It was as if the birds were too despondent to comment.

  An RAF chaplain was there, talking to the bandmaster of a regimental band that Area HQ had borrowed from the Army. Cattermole went over to discuss the proceedings. In his service greatcoat, with a sword and scabbard, he looked enormously tall.

  The coffin lay in an open lorry near the gates. On one side of the lorry the bandsmen were grouped in a circle, all facing inwards, discreetly passing cigarette-butts, professionally at ease. On the other side the pilots gathered. They tried not to look at the freshly dug grave halfway up the sloping churchyard.

  Rex alone was willing and able to talk.

  “That band will want feeding afterward, uncle,” he said. “Can our cooks cope?” The adjutant nodded. “It’s good to see a few natives here,” Rex said. A dozen villagers stood watching; some wore black armbands. The adjutant smiled. “Jolly good. We’re here to defend them, after all.” The adjutant smiled. “Jolly good show,” he murmured. Rex glanced sharply. “Buck up, uncle,” he said.

  “Sorry.” The adjutant hid a yawn. “Don’t know what’s the matter with me. I keep thinking about lunch. It’s kidneys today.”

  “Yes? So what?”

  “Nothing. I rather like kidneys, that’s all.”

  The intelligence officer joined them. “Had he been drinking?” he asked. “That would explain a lot.”

  “Who?” said Rex.

  “The deceased. I heard you mention kidneys. If the autopsy showed—”

  “Not his kidneys,” Rex said. “Not Starr’s kidneys, for God’s sake.”

  “Whose, then?”

  “Forget it, Skull,” Kellaway said. “Not important.”

  “Oh.” Skull was offended by the rebuff. “If you say so.”

  “How much longer do we hang around here?” Rex grumbled. Reilly recognized the impatient tone and trotted over. Dog and master exchanged sympathetic looks.

  “Kidneys unimportant,” Skull said. “Must remember that.”

  “Jolly good show,” the adjutant said.

  “It’s not just your kidneys, you know, Skull,” Flash Gordon said, joining the conversation. “You don’t need your gall bladder or your spleen. In fact you don’t need half your stomach! Take the average chap’s intestines—”

  “Not now, old boy,” Kellaway said.

  “Moggy!” Rex called. “Finger out, if you please!”

  Cattermole stopped gesturing in the direction of the grave and said something to a sergeant, who nodded, saluted, and moved away.

  “It’s true, though,” Gordon said. “I read it in a book.”


  “Oh, jolly good show,” Skull said bleakly.

  “Spot of hush, please,” Kellaway said. “The big picture’s starting.”

  Four airmen lifted the coffin from the lorry and placed it on their shoulders. It was draped with the Union Jack. The flag was new; its colors looked too bright for the drab surroundings. “Poor old Dicky,” Stickwell murmured. “He’s been gift-wrapped.” Patterson suddenly turned away and stood with his shoulders hunched, his chin pressed down, his jaws locked tight. “You all right, Pip?” Stickwell asked. Patterson nodded. His legs kept wanting to fold the wrong way and there was something foul lurking at the bottom of his throat. He was horribly hung-over, but it wasn’t just that. His fingers clutched his thumbs, squeezed them against his palms, and he concentrated on not falling down. “You look bloody awful,” Stickwell said. “You look like a used French letter. Have a swig.” He offered his flask, but Patterson shook his head. “I’ll have a drop, Sticky,” Miller said. The flask circulated.

  Meanwhile the band had begun to play Abide with Me. Catter-mole marched after the pallbearers; there was a space; and the rest of the squadron followed. Patterson came last, constantly afraid that his legs would fail him.

  A firing squad of airmen had already taken up position on one side of the grave. The coffin was placed on wooden slats that spanned the hole. Cattermole stood opposite the firing squad. The pilots shuffled into a loose half-circle and everyone waited while the band blew the last, sad notes. For a second the churchyard was utterly silent, and Fitz Fitzgerald suddenly realized what they were about to do. They were all there to put Dicky Starr in that deep black hole and bury him forever and ever. No more ping-pong, no more towel-fights, no more sliding downstairs on a brass tray. Dicky was dead. Drowned. Dead and gone and never more to be one of the boys. For a long moment Fitzgerald felt numbed, helpless, defeated.

  Then the chaplain began to speak, and almost at once Fitzgerald’s mind wandered from the words of the burial service. He found himself reading the brass plate on the coffin. Richard Finlay Starr. Royal Air Force. Finlay. It made Dicky sound old and mature. And what a huge grave they’d dug for him! Far too big. He’d be lost in a hole that size. Wonder where Moggy got his sword? Damn silly, pilots wearing swords. They used to wear spurs, according to old uncle …

 

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