Piece of Cake

by Derek Robinson

  “And you’ve got one more, I see.”

  “Yes, sir.” He picked up the fourth plaque. It carried the broken spade-grip from the top of a control column. “Memento of the squadron’s first kill. Slightly before your time, of course.”

  “You don’t mean the Battle of Southend Sands?”

  “Yes, I couldn’t get a bit of the actual Blenheim Fanny potted, but one joystick looks much like another, and—”

  “Definitely not, Moggy.”

  “Oh. Really, sir?”

  “It’s simply not on, old boy.”

  Cattermole sighed. “If you say so, sir.”

  “A question of form, you see.”

  “Oh well. Bang goes fifty francs.”

  “It wouldn’t be the proper form. I mean, just suppose it got into the papers. To tell the truth, I’m not altogether happy about that boot … Still, leave it up for the present. We’ve got to be so damned careful nowadays …” Rex summoned Reilly and went out.

  Cattermole watched him go. He smoothed the horse’s tail, straightened the plaque with the boot on, and looked at the broken spade-grip. “They don’t make them like they used to,” he said.

  He went upstairs and knocked on CH3’s door. The American was lying on his bed, reading a letter.

  “Got a minute?” said Cattermole.

  “Depends what you want to do with it.”

  “I want to roll it up, set fire to it, and stuff it up your backside,” Cattermole said amiably.

  “See my agent.” CH3 turned a page. “He takes care of that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand this, because you’re an American, but the fact is you’re not playing the game, Hart.”

  CH3 put down his letter.

  “I mean to say: all that piffle you were talking with the Bellamy woman last night. And your boorish behavior this morning.” Cattermole wandered over to the dressing-table and began using the hairbrush. “It’s not fair on the CO, that’s all. I mean, you don’t take advantage of a fellow when he’s just won the DFC. It’s simply not on.”

  “I haven’t been taking advantage of him. I just don’t agree with him.”

  “Fine. Splendid. Excellent.” Cattermole put down the hairbrush and inspected the shadows under his eyes. “All we ask is that you shut up and do as you’re told.”

  “If you’re looking for the mascara, it’s under my handkerchiefs.”

  Cattermole turned away from the mirror. “He works damned hard, you know. It’s no joke leading a fighter squadron, and you’re making his job considerably harder.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Moggy. You know what? You’re looking a little peaky yourself.”

  “I said you wouldn’t understand. It’s a question of knowing the proper form, I suppose. Well …” Cattermole shrugged his shoulders. “If you won’t play the game for the CO’s sake, you might spare a thought for the other chaps. They know when they’re well-off, even if you don’t. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed it, but …” He stroked his nose. “We’re a very lucky squadron.”

  CH3 got off the bed. “I don’t suppose you notice it, Moggy,” he said, “but whenever you go all sincere, you have a heavy fall of dandruff.” He brushed Cattermole’s shoulders with his hands.

  “Listen, Hart: who d’you think pays our mess bills? How do we manage to afford all this terrific grub? And wine? And English beer? And stuff like new squash rackets and gramophone records and the latest magazines all the time? Eh? Ever thought about that?”

  “You’re snowing again, Moggy.”

  “I’ll tell you who pays: Squadron Leader Rex. Of course we each give our little check to the adj, but that doesn’t cover half the cost. Hornet squadron is the luckiest squadron in Fighter Command, and it’s all thanks to Rex, who happens to be the best CO any of us has ever known.”

  “So you say.”

  “And it’s about time you realized it.”

  “You mean if I don’t start behaving nicely, Rex will cancel the Tatler and we’ll all live on cheese sandwiches?”

  “I mean there is such a thing as self-control and consideration for others. What we call ‘good manners.’”

  “Oh, oh.” CH3 put on his shoes. “Any time the British mention manners, watch out for a kick in the gut.”

  Cattermole twitched his nostrils. “Very glib, very transatlantic. It’s what I should have expected. After all, with your money, you can afford to be selfish.”

  CH3 doubled up, clutching his stomach and moaning.

  Cattermole watched with distaste. “Look here, Hart,” he said. For the first time there was real anger in his voice. “If you can’t develop some real squadron spirit, why don’t you just buzz off?” He strode out, leaving the door wide open.

  When CH3 went downstairs he met the adjutant. “A word in your ear, old chap,” Kellaway said. They went into the library. “Far be it from me to curb a chap’s style,” he said.

  “That’s good,” CH3 said, “because everyone else keeps trying to.”

  “Do they? Can’t say I’m surprised. You do sometimes rock the boat a bit, you know, and that makes things uncomfortable for everyone.”

  “For instance.”

  “Well, take last night, that little shenanigan over Jacky Bellamy’s report. There was absolutely no need to ridicule the squadron the way you did. That just upset everybody.”

  “Tactics. I criticized the tactics.”

  “Maybe that’s what you meant to do. But you lashed out so violently that you did more damage than you thought. Squadron spirit …” Kellaway straightened a book. “It’s a very precious thing, you know.”

  “But I was right, adj.”

  “That’s another point. There are ways of making suggestions, changing things, putting your ideas across, and I don’t mind telling you: your way won’t work. Too much loud pedal. People resent it.”

  “You mean the CO resents it.”

  Kellaway thought before answering. He strolled across the room, examined a couple of titles, strolled back. “I’ve been in this Service for over twenty years,” he said. “Some of the men I flew with are air marshals now. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but when a pilot officer tells a squadron leader that the C-in-C Fighter Command has got his tactics all wrong, I don’t find it particularly funny.”

  “What did you expect me to say to him? It’s true. The system of Fighting Area Attacks stinks.”

  “There you go again.”

  “All right, let’s say it’s unreal, it’s clumsy, it—”

  “You’ve never seen it work, old chap. You can’t condemn it.”

  CH3 waved an arm in exasperation and hit a lampshade. Light and shadow chased each other over the room. “Sorry … You forget the Dornier, adj, that poor pathetic—”

  “No, I don’t. But Fighting Area Attacks are designed to destroy bomber formations, whole squadrons or even wings of enemy bombers, all flying in a mass.”

  “It makes no difference, for Pete’s sake! In Spain we—”

  “In Spain you weren’t part of a Hurricane squadron.”

  CH3 took a deep breath, held it in his lungs, let it out slowly. “I know I’m right,” he said.

  Kellaway looked at him for a moment. “You weren’t right yesterday afternoon, though, were you?” he said.

  CH3 cocked his head. “Wasn’t I?”

  “Your game of squash with LAC Todd. That court is for officers only.”

  “So I’ve been told. Simple snobbery. One of the less attractive features of the Royal Air Force.”

  “And you decided to change it.”

  “Sure. You can have your class system, but don’t expect me to adopt it. Todd’s a human being, the equal of any of us, and I’ll treat him as such.”

  “Yes? Even if the result of your treatment is that Todd is thoroughly embarrassed and humiliated?”

  “That wasn’t my fault.”

  “Todd thinks it was. He’s asked to be moved. Transferred to ‘B’ flight.”

  Fo
r once CH3 had nothing to say.

  “It’s worse than that.” There was nothing friendly about Kellaway now. “Todd is on a charge. He got into a fight. It seems that another airman had been provoking him, making unpleasant suggestions about his sporting relationship with an officer, so Todd hit him.”

  CH3 groaned.

  “Unfortunately, Todd got rather badly knocked about. He’s not really built for brawling.”

  “When does his charge come up? I can give evidence—”

  “No fear. You’re the last person Todd wants helping him in any way. He’s made that very clear.”

  CH3 threw up his hands. “None of it makes sense.”

  “On the contrary, it makes very good sense. We have a system, and by and large it works, provided people like you don’t mess it about. You were wrong about Todd, weren’t you? It’s not inconceivable that you might be wrong about some other things, too.”

  “No, there’s a difference. Anyway, who cares? I’m never going to agree with Rex, and very soon Rex is going to get fed up with that and kick me out. So I’ve got nothing to lose, have I?”

  Kellaway rubbed his eyes. “Come on,” he said wearily. “The sight of all these books makes me dry. I’ll buy you a drink.”

  November went out in a prolonged storm of wind and rain, turning to sleet. Very little flying was possible: just occasionally the wind dropped enough to let an individual Hurricane go up for height-testing or to check some modification. One of these flights went violently wrong.

  The pilot involved was Mother Cox. He took off and entered the cloudbase at three thousand feet. He could scarcely see his wingtips; moisture raced over his canopy; the aircraft lurched and bumped like a farmcart. To his surprise, he found that he was enjoying himself. The fighter felt strong. He trusted his instruments and he had faith in his own ability. For a moment he suffered a flicker of anxiety: such confidence was worrying. Then he took an enormous chance and decided not to worry about anything, not even about his peace of mind. He tried it, and it worked. Nothing fell off the airplane. Mother Cox burst out of cloud and climbed into sunlight that filled the vastness of the sky like a shout of freedom.

  At ten thousand feet he leveled off and took a good long look at his domain. He was the sole and undisputed tenant of heaven. One mile below, a colossal quilt of snowy cloud had the decency to hide the gloomy Earth from him. When he looked up, the blue was so endlessly perfect that his eye began searching for a scratch or a speck; but the only distraction was a smear on the Perspex. From time to time, the cockpit buzzed or trembled to the throaty power of the Merlin.

  Mother Cox let the nose drop a few inches and celebrated his good fortune with a long, slow barrel-roll. It went so well—hand and foot and eye smoothly coordinating to sling the Hurricane around the inside of a great invisible cylinder—that he did it again. Halfway through, when he was upside down, there was a bang like a whack from a sledgehammer. The plane buckled and things whizzed past the cockpit. At once the engine began to scream and race; everything vibrated furiously: Cox was shaken in his straps until his teeth rattled. The Hurricane skewed drunkenly, as if trying to fly belly-first. The instruments were a blur. But the scream of the engine was the worst: the Merlin sounded agonized. Cox fumbled, found the throttle, dragged it back.

  The noise sank to a moan and the vibration faded to nothing. He found the horizon and worked the plane back to more or less its normal flying attitude, except that it was badly nose-down. Then he saw that he had no propeller. He switched off the engine. The hub stopped spinning. All that was left was a couple of splintered stubs.

  By the time he had told the tower, he was very near the cloud, gliding in a steep spiral. It was not until he entered the cloud and experienced almost total silence, as well as gloom and wetness, that he began to be afraid. Everything felt wrong: his senses told him he was going uphill and must stall. He forced himself to believe the instruments. When he dropped out of the cloudbase he couldn’t see the aerodrome and panic squeezed his guts. But the tower saw him, and a voice in his ear told him which way to steer.

  The Hurricane was eager to get down. It was always trying to fall forward. He kept tugging the nose up, watching the airspeed, feeling the start of a wallow, pushing the nose down, searching for the field, willing it nearer, hearing the whirr of air get louder, tugging the nose up again.

  The ground was all trees and barns and lakes. There was one decent-looking meadow but by the time he saw it, it was under him. If he turned, he might fall out of the sky. He went on.

  Crash drill. What was the crash drill? A running fight was going on between his imagination and his intelligence. He felt like a helpless spectator. Tighten your straps! The instruction seemed to drift sideways into his mind. He contemplated it for a few seconds, decided it was a good idea, and did it. Open your hood! Yes, that was right, too. But he had to loosen his straps to do it. Something wrong there. He heaved the hood back, and was amazed to hear the whinny of a horse. Other noises reached him: crows calling, the buzz of a motorcycle.

  What else? He tightened his straps again. Undercarriage? Use your hand pump! He hand-pumped the wheels down and immediately felt the drag slow the aircraft. Oh Christ, Cox, now you’ve done it, you bloody fool, now you’ve killed yourself … The ground ahead was all bumps and holes. Landing there, wheels down, meant a cartwheel for certain. With nearly full tanks, too. He slid between the tops of two trees and startled a woodpigeon: it clattered away, climbing steadily. “Lucky sod,” Cox said miserably. A long gust of wind bent the treetops and helped to hold the Hurricane up. He crossed the perimeter fence with inches to spare. His wheels were so near the wire that he instinctively hoisted his feet.

  The jolt and tremble of his tires on the grass was a glorious sensation. Inside his gloves his hands were slippery with sweat. He let the plane run to a halt, and he was still slumped in the cockpit when the first truck reached him. Fanny Barton leaped up. “What happened?” he asked. Cox tried to speak but failed. He was trembling like a patient in fever. They had to help him out, and then help him walk.

  Jacky Bellamy was away, in Metz, when all this happened. It was evening by the time she returned. Fitz and Flash passed her on their way out. “Hello, Jacky!” Flash shouted. “Heard about poor old Mother?”

  “No?”

  “Nearly died of fright, silly blighter. Can’t stop, we’re late.”

  She looked into the anteroom, the library, the billiard room. All empty. The entire squadron seemed to have gone out. As she was walking from an empty reading-room to an empty coffee-room, faint music reached her. She followed the sounds to the ballroom. CH3 was sitting at a grand piano, trying to improvise a blues and making rather a mess of it.

  She leaned on the piano and watched his fingers stumble and trip and go back and stumble again, until he finished the sequence and looked up. She was trying not to laugh. “I got Stardust” she said, “and a bit of Stormy Weather, but what was The Ride of the Valkyries doing in there?”

  “Just making up the numbers.” He ran a finger up the keyboard and reached for his glass.

  She sensed that, for the first time, he wanted to talk; and immediately she distrusted the feeling: it was too close to her own strong wishes. Yet the sense of his loneliness persisted. That glance, when he first looked up, had stayed on her for a second or two longer than was strictly necessary. “It’s quiet tonight,” she said. “I guess they’ve all gone out.” She reached into the piano and plucked a string. “What’s all this about Mother Cox?”

  “Nothing.” He began working on some chords. “Nothing to interest you.”

  “I’m interested already.”

  “Your readers wouldn’t understand.”

  “I’ll explain. That’s my job.”

  “If you explained properly they wouldn’t read it.”

  “Why not?”

  He gave her a look of wide-eyed amusement. “Because they don’t want to know what flying fighters is really like. They prefer the comic-strip
version, it suits their Mickey-Mouse minds. So that’s what you’ve got to serve up, isn’t it? Lots of fearless gung-ho action.” He abandoned the chords and started on a ragged melody. “Mother’s little accident wouldn’t please them at all.”

  He added an uncertain left hand to the ragged melody. After a little while she turned and went out.

  Ten minutes later she was back. “I found Micky Marriott and he told me the whole story. Well, not quite all. He couldn’t explain why Mother was in such a state of collapse.”

  “Mother thought he was going to die, obviously.” CH3 turned his back on the piano and rested his elbows on the keyboard: two bundles of notes clashed. He let the noise fade. “But you can’t write that. It’s unattractive.”

  “I still don’t understand. It was an emergency, I realize that, but Mother’s a trained pilot. Why go all to pieces once he’d—”

  “A Hurricane weighs three tons. Without a propeller it flies like this Bechstein.” He banged the bass keys with his elbow. “People don’t enjoy the prospect of sudden death. It upsets them.”

  “Micky says he’s asleep. Exhausted.”

  “Well, I’ve seen tough, grown-up fighter pilots land without the strength left to blow their nose. Don’t tell your editor, he wouldn’t approve.” He shrugged. “Naturally you’ve missed the real story, but don’t worry: he wouldn’t like that either.”

  “What real story?”

  “Why the Hurricane still has a wooden prop when the Me-109 has a metal job, and with variable pitch too.”

  “Micky says you’re getting metal props.”

  “That’s progress. Now all we need to do is throw away the rest of the plane and fix a Spitfire to the prop.”

  “You really rate the Hurricane that badly?”

  “I might, if I gave it much thought.” He exercised his neck; it was a habit he had. “As it is I don’t expect to be here long enough to care.”

  She walked to where she could look him in the face. “Why won’t you let yourself like me?” she asked. “I’m not asking for a mad passionate love-affair, just …”

  “Aren’t you?” He made his fists into binoculars and studied her.