Piece of Cake

by Derek Robinson

  “I’m sure not, sir,” the adjutant said gently.

  “Are you? I’m not! I’m not sure not, sir! They’re sending us a bastard Yank and you know what that means. A cowboy! Don’t shake your gray head at me, uncle, I’ve met Yankee so-called aviators before and I tell you I know. They chew gum and they smoke cigars before breakfast and they wear crepe-soled brothelcreepers in the mess and I tell you their flying is not worth a twopenny shitl”

  “Not all, surely,” murmured Skull.

  Rex ignored him. “What the blazes do they think I’ve got here? The Foreign Legion? A dump for every stray wog, dago or aborigine that wanders into Fighter Command? Why don’t they send me a few halfcastes or a brace of Untouchables while they’re at it?”

  “I know where I can get you a couple of stunted African pygmies, cheap.” The voice came from the balcony.

  “Who the hell is that?” Rex demanded.

  “Pilot Officer Hart,” said the adjutant. “He arrived twenty minutes ago.”

  To his credit, Rex had the sense and the self-control to leave the control tower immediately and drive back to the chateau. The adjutant took charge of Pilot Officer Hart.

  “You mustn’t be offended by the CO’s remarks, old chap,” Kellaway said. “The thing is, he’s had rather a bad morning.”

  “Yes, I saw it all.” Hart’s accent was unobtrusive: very little twang, just a broadening of the vowels. He had a strong mouth, a short wedge-shaped nose and eyes that were curiously wide-set. At first sight, Kellaway guessed his age at twenty-one, twenty-two maybe; but he was fooled by the boyish jawline and the slight hollows in the cheeks: when he looked more closely he saw that Hart’s brow was fine-etched with lines, and there was a certain distance in his eyes, a self-confidence that came only with time and experience. “I saw it all and I heard it all,” Hart said evenly. “Squadron Leader Rex doesn’t like Americans. I understand that. There are plenty of Americans I could do without myself. If he doesn’t want me, he doesn’t have to have me. It wasn’t my idea to be posted here in the first place.”

  “Well, let’s not rush our fences.”

  Skull asked: “Where are you from?”

  “Hornchurch, 74 squadron. Spitfires.”

  “And what made you join the Royal Air Force?”

  “I was wanted for murder in three Midwestern states,” Hart said, “and Fort Zinderneuf was closed for renovation.”

  “My goodness.”

  “I expect you could do with a spot of lunch,” Kellaway said. “And perhaps a beer first?”

  “I suppose everybody asks that question,” Skull said.

  “Everybody,” Hart agreed. “And they’re never satisfied with the truth, so I’ve stopped telling it.”

  “What is the truth?” Kellaway asked.

  “I’m dying of a rare and incurable disease,” Hart told him. “And me with my whole life ahead of me. Ain’t it a shame?”

  “Point taken,” Kellaway said.

  They reached the chateau just as a staff car delivered Air Commodore Bletchley. The adjutant left the others and hurried over to greet him. “Morning, Kellaway!” Bletchley said. “Such a glorious day, I couldn’t stand being cooped up at Rheims so I decided to toddle down and poach some lunch. I expect we can get this other thing straightened out while I’m here?”

  “I’m sure we can, sir.” The adjutant thought fast. Couldn’t be Starr’s burial; might be the Hurricane chocks; more likely the smoke-trail nonsense. He played safe. “It’s all in the day’s work, so to speak.”

  “I’m not so sure. Anything involving newspapers’, it pays to box careful.”

  “Yes, of course. They always get everything wrong.”

  Bletchley snorted cheerfully. “I hope not. We need them.”

  Kellaway pushed open the big double-doors and stood aside. “Very true, sir,” he said, thinking: Newspapers? Newspapers? What was Baggy on about? Better box careful, as the man said. “Heard about the squadron’s latest stunt, sir?” he asked as they went upstairs. “Colored smoke flares. Patterns in the sky. Very dramatic.”

  “Sounds fun,” Bletchley said. Kellaway gave up.

  Rex was surprised and disturbed to see someone from Area HQ so soon after the blunders of the morning, but he put on a good face, bustled about, seated him in a comfortable chair, and called in Kellaway and Skull for moral support.

  “Now, then.” Bletchley crossed his left ankle over his right knee, exposing an inch or two of sock-suspender, which he snapped against his milk-white calf. “I expect you’ve been wondering about this journalist you’ve been saddled with. Actually, it’s not as bad as it seems.”

  “Journalist, sir? Nobody’s told us about a journalist.”

  “Damn. You should have had a signal.” Bletchley looked at Kellaway, who shook his head: “Bloody Air Ministry … Never mind, I can brief you. The thing is, the War Cabinet want to do something to counter all this attention the Luftwaffe’s been getting. Ever since Poland, Goering’s been bragging that he’s got the biggest, fastest, toughest air force in the world. All lies, of course. Still, it’s time our side of the story got told, especially to the neutrals, so we’ve arranged with one of the big American newspaper chains to send a war correspondent to live with a fighter squadron. That’s you.”

  “An American newspaperman? Living in the mess?” Rex made a sour face. “He’ll make a damned nuisance of himself. You know what they’re like, sir: iced water and coffee and peculiar cocktails with bits of fruit in them at all hours of the day and night, I mean it’s not fair on the servants.”

  Bletchley chuckled, and shook his head. “I doubt it.”

  “Besides, what’s there for him to write about? He can’t fly and nothing interesting happens on the ground. He’ll be bored to death in a week. Send him to a bomber drome, they’re always up to something.”

  “Too late, my boy. It’s got to be you, and for one very simple reason. You’re getting an American pilot posted here soon.”

  “He’s arrived,” Kellaway said. “Came this morning.”

  “And he leaves this afternoon,” Rex declared.

  “Oh?” Bletchley cocked his head.

  “I will not tolerate furtive, underhand behavior,” Rex said. “I cannot stand people who skulk about and lurk in corners to see what they can overhear. It disgusts me.”

  “Hart wasn’t lurking. Quite the opposite,” Skull said. “He went onto the balcony because he thought you would wish some privacy in which to make your remarks about … well, about this and that.”

  “He shouldn’t have been in the control tower in the first place. No idea of the proper form. Typical crude and arrogant—”

  “I told him to report to the tower,” Kellaway said.

  “I don’t care,” Rex said stiffly. “My commission is from the King. It says nothing about taking charge of any casual destitute barnstormer who turns up on the doorstep. I’ve no room for Yankee mercenaries, sir. I don’t like them, I don’t trust them, I don’t need them.”

  “Too bad,” Bletchley said. “This one stays.”

  “Sir, be reasonable—”

  “See here, Rex. The pilot’s the bait for the journalist. That’s the whole deal! No pilot, no journalist. Which would be a severe disappointment not only to me but also to the C-in-C Fighter Command.”

  That took Rex aback. “Stuffy Dowding’s behind this?”

  “He’s taken an interest, yes.” Rex was silent. “If this young American is here already,” Bletchley said, “I really ought to meet him, shouldn’t I?”

  Rex could think of no reason why not. “He’d better be a red-hot pilot, that’s all,” he muttered.

  “My dear Rex, I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see a little bloody-minded bigotry in you,” Bletchley said. “I was beginning to think you were downright decent and fair-minded, and that would never do in a fighter leader, would it, uncle?”

  “Never, sir,” the adjutant said cheerfully. “We proved that last time.”

 
; Chris Hart stayed. Air Commodore Bletchley bought him a beer, took him aside, and said: “Hornet is a damn good squadron, you know. Maybe the Hurri isn’t as quick as the Spits you’ve been flying but it’s still a hell of a good bus, and you’re better off here in many other ways. Nearer the action, for a start. If you want to bag a few Huns, this is the place to be. And just look around you! Finest mess in Fighter Command. They live better here than we do at Area HQ. Terrific bunch of chaps, all the flying you want, excellent chance of blowing the odd Jerry into little bits, and then home to a game of squash, a hot bath, and a five-star dinner! I mean, what more could you want?”

  Hart eased his collar, and Bletchley caught a glimpse of shiny, dark-red scar-tissue at the side of his neck. “Have you talked to the CO, sir?” he said.

  “Storm in a teacup.” Bletchley gestured with his gin-and-tonic as if to erase the incident from memory. “All a misunderstanding.”

  Hart smiled, and looked away. He seemed completely at ease. “I understood it perfectly,” he said.

  “Yes, but …” Bletchley had to stop and think. He had never before met a pilot officer who treated him so much as an equal. “That’s water under the bridge now, isn’t it? Mustn’t harbor grudges, old boy. Time to link arms and face the common foe. After all, what’s a few hard words between friends? It was all done in the heat of the moment, wasn’t it?”

  Hart sipped his beer, and nodded.

  “There you are, then,” Bletchley said.

  “They’re sending us a bastard Yank,” Hart said evenly. “A cowboy. I’ve met Yankee so-called aviators. They chew gum. They smoke cigars before breakfast. They wear crepe-soled brothel-creepers in the mess. Their flying is not worth a twopenny shit.”

  Bletchley grunted. For a moment they stood and looked at the crowd around the bar.

  “All right,” Bletchley said. “Stay here.”

  After a minute he returned with Rex.

  “Welcome to Hornet squadron!” Rex said. There was a curious, half-triumphant lift in his voice, as if to say, I bet you never expected that.

  “Okay,” Hart said.

  Neither of them offered to shake hands. Rex examined Hart for a moment, until he realized that Hart was examining him in return. He turned away. “You’re in ‘A’ flight,” he said. “Excuse me.” He walked away.

  “I’m glad that’s settled,” Bletchley said. “I’m sure you’ll like it here. This is a very proud squadron, you know.”

  “Show me a fighter pilot who’s full of pride,” Hart said, “and I’ll show you a fighter pilot who’s full of shit one minute and full of holes the next.”

  Bletchley chuckled. “Now you’re just being provocative.”

  “You reckon? I’ll tell you what, sir. Let’s meet again in six months and see who’s still alive and flying, out of this bunch. Not more than half, I bet. And not Squadron Leader Rex.”

  Bletchley was intrigued by Hart’s calm confidence. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’ve met men like him before,” Hart said, “and they’re all dead.”

  “What a morbid chap you are … Come on, let’s get some lunch before the vultures descend.” As they crossed the anteroom, Bletchley said: “Where did you meet these men?”

  “In Spain. Very proud people, the Spanish, but given a five-second burst from a Messerschmitt 109 dead astern, their pride went all to pieces.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would.” Bletchley paused at the dining room door and made sure nobody was within earshot. “You fought in the Spanish Civil War?” Hart nodded. Bletchley said: “I’m guessing, of course, but I’d say you were on the Republican side.” Again, Hart nodded. “In the circumstances,” Bletchley said, “you’d be well-advised to keep that under your hat.”

  Hart leaned against the doorframe. “Sir, are you trying to tell me something about the CO’s politics?”

  “Heavens, no. Squadron Leader Rex is a thoroughgoing Tory, of course. There’s not much room for the brotherhood of man in a cockpit, is there? But politics have nothing to do with it. Franco’s lot won. Your lot lost. In these circles, there’s no prize for coming in second, so my advice is forget about the whole sad affair.”

  “I’ll never forget Spain,” Hart said.

  “Then at least remember it quietly,” Bletchley said.

  They went in to lunch.

  A signal came, advising the imminent arrival of an American war correspondent; but the correspondent did not arrive. “Jake Bellamy,” the adjutant said to Skull. “I don’t think the CO will take to that name, somehow.” He filed the signal and said nothing; Rex, he thought, needed a little more time to recover his poise.

  In fact the cock-ups and confusion of the past few days were being steadily put straight. Dicky Starr was dug up and reinterred in an unimpeachably Protestant cemetery in Metz, after which the adjutant called on the village priest to apologize. They exchanged statements, each in his own language, neither understanding the other. The adjutant was cheery, the priest increasingly stiff and stuffy. Kellaway soon lost patience. “If you ask me it’s all bosh, tosh and drivel,” he said as he got up to go. “In the last show we just bunged the body in the nearest boneyard. Nobody asked to see the chap’s membership card. He’d snuffed it, that was good enough. Well, you’ve got a buckshee hole now, haven’t you? Lucky feller. What are you going to do with it? Hide it in the crypt, or raffle it for Christmas?” The priest slammed the door.

  There was no inquiry into the giant half-swastika: Baggy Bletchley was told about it and when he returned to Rheims he took care of the complaints and queries. There was an inquiry into the loss of the two Hurricanes, but it was brief and its findings blamed nobody: other Hurricane squadrons had reported similar accidents, and bigger chocks were being issued.

  Replacement aircraft were quickly ferried in. The weather was patchy, with snow showers in the hills, but the squadron trained every day. Micky Marriott solved the problem of switching off the smoke flares and the locals got used to the sight of giant stripes decorating the sky.

  Hart replaced Starr as Fanny Barton’s wingman in Yellow Section. It took him a day to adjust to the Hurricane; after that he quickly mastered the formation maneuvers, flew skillfully, kept position tightly. Rex had no cause for complaint. On the ground, he ignored Hart as much as possible. This was easy, because Hart was rapidly accepted by the rest of the squadron. His was a fresh face, a pleasant voice and an unconventional mind. “Moggy,” Kellaway said in the mess on the day he arrived, “I’d like you to meet Christopher Hart the Third, from America.”

  “How do you do?” Cattermole shook his hand. “The third, eh? I myself am loosely related to Edward the Seventh of England.”

  “Who isn’t, these days?” Hart said.

  “King Edward,” Cattermole said. “Not just a good potato but a damn fine cigar.”

  “When you put it like that,” Hart said, “I begin to see the resemblance.”

  “What are those two talking about?” Miller asked.

  “Moggy’s potty,” Fitzgerald said. “Ever since Dicky knocked him over coming downstairs and he landed on his head. Potty.”

  Gordon said brightly: “The average adult human brain weighs three pounds.”

  “Three pounds,” Moran said. “Would that be before or after cooking?”

  “Flip, I’d like you to meet Christopher Hart the Third,” the adjutant said. “From America.”

  “My uncle Fergus had a boat called the Kate McGrath the Fourth,” Moran said, shaking hands, “but it sank.”

  “That’s nothing,” Patterson said. “My father had a prize bull called Maxwell Bugleboy the Seventh, but the beast died.”

  “And what happened to the bull?” Moran asked.

  “Funny thing about names,” Stickwell said. “I used to drink in a pub called the Henry the Eighth.”

  “That’s not very funny,” Patterson said.

  “Ah, but I was sick in the carpark.”

  “Make a note of that,” Cattermole to
ld Hart. “Being sick in a carpark represents Sticky’s finest piece of marksmanship so far.”

  “It wasn’t in the middle of the carpark,” Stickwell said.

  “Never mind. Nobody’s perfect.”

  “As a matter of fact, most of it went over the fence and into somebody’s back garden. I made rather a mess of his dwarf geraniums.”

  Hart said: “You’ve got to be pretty accurate to hit dwarf geraniums. It’s not as if they were petunias or begonias.”

  “There was a stiff breeze, too,” Stickwell said. “I had to aim-off for wind.”

  “Frankly, old boy, I think you deserved a gong for that,” Kellaway said.

  “Perhaps a small gong,” Stickwell agreed.

  “A dwarf gong,” said Hart.

  “Christopher Hart the Third is extremely intelligent,” Stickwell said, “for an American.”

  “I say: why did you join the Royal Air Force?” Mother Cox inquired.

  “Because of the polo,” Hart said.

  “But we don’t play polo.”

  “Right.”

  Moran said: “What we do instead is we slide downstairs on brass trays at breakneck speed.”

  “That’s almost polo,” Hart said. “Nobody’s going to notice the difference.”

  Later they introduced him to the Cresta Run. More trays had been acquired, so now “A” and “B” flights could race each other down the double staircase. Hart did well: he beat Moke Miller by several feet. At some point during the races he got his nickname. The novelty of Christopher Hart the Third had worn off. Someone shortened it to CH3, and CH3 he remained.

  “I wish I could teach you something,” Flash Gordon said.

  They lay in each other’s arms, snug in a cocoon of blankets.

  Above them the roof of the summerhouse was lost in shadow. The smoky glow from the hurricane lamp reached no higher than the windows. Occasionally it showed up a snowflake, caught on the glass for a few seconds and then blown away.