Piece of Cake

by Derek Robinson

  “We’ve been through all that, remember? I checked out your theories. I talked to Rex, I talked to Bletchley, I even talked to some experts from Air Ministry. I’m sorry, but your argument doesn’t stand up. It really doesn’t.”

  He hunched his shoulders and concentrated on the game.

  “Look, I don’t say that because I enjoy hearing it,” she said. “Believe me, I’d sooner make friends than make war.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll tell you what you’d sooner. You’d sooner I fitted your stereotype and acted like a Hollywood ace, swashbuckling about in the blue. Your readers would buy that.”

  “They buy the truth.”

  “No. They buy lies.” The game ended. CH3 handed over some coins. They shook hands and the Frenchman went away. “You’ll never understand,” he told her. “All you can see is sexy airplanes and dashing pilots and you report it as if you’re covering the Olympics. You’ll never understand that there’s no more glory in pumping tracer bullets into a rear-gunner’s stomach or setting a Messerschmitt on fire and burning the pilot to death than there is in smashing an enemy soldier’s face with a rifle butt or sticking a bayonet through his chest. But you can’t afford to understand that, so you write junk and your newspaper prints lies. I don’t care. It doesn’t stop the truth happening, it just makes it dirtier and more painful.”

  “For someone who doesn’t care,” she said, “you get mighty agitated.”

  CH3 stretched his legs and closed his eyes. After a moment Fitz Fitzgerald came into the bar, looking cold and dispirited. “Hello,” he said. “Guess what? My girl’s just given me the push.”

  “Mary?” Jacky Bellamy said. “Why? What on earth have you done?”

  “Not enough,” Fitzgerald said flatly. “That’s the whole damn trouble.”

  She had looked tired when he arrived at the cottage. Her eyelids seemed heavy, and her hair had lost some of its gloss. “Hard day at school?” he asked. She nodded, with a sad little smile, and when he kissed her she turned her cheek to his lips and rested her head on his shoulder. “You ought to be in bed,” he said. As the words came out he realized what a very good idea that was; but she shook her head and said she’d be all right in a little while. Fitz opened the bottle he’d brought. They had a couple of drinks and she brightened up a bit. Night is young, Fitz told himself. Bags of time yet.

  He was wrong.

  They had something to eat: nothing special, just cold meat and pickles. They began talking about her pupils, which led to memories of their own childhoods and the general awfulness of growing-up. “Crushes were the worst,” Mary said. “Do boys have crushes?”

  “Well, I remember a certain amount of hero-worship.”

  “No, no. Worse than that. I mean we had crushes on just about everything: older girls, younger girls, teachers. Even horses.”

  “Good lord. Very busy.”

  “It must have been a terrible bore for the grown-ups.”

  “I don’t regret having left all that behind, do you? I mean, childhood is supposed to be all sunny and innocent, but …”

  “After the age of four, you do nothing but fret.”

  “Right. And make horrible gaffes. Like …” Fitz twitched his nose. “On second thoughts I’d better not say.”

  “Yours couldn’t have been any worse than mine.”

  “Want to bet? If you’d met me ten years ago—five years ago—you’d’ve paid me to go away.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “True. I was vain, greedy and selfish, and the reason you can’t believe that, Mary, is because you are fundamentally honest and decent and generous, which in my opinion is completely unfair but jolly nice for thugs like me.”

  Her face gradually crumpled and she began to cry. Fitz was astonished. “My dear Mary!” he said, and put his arms around her. He was more astonished when she pushed him away.

  “It’s not your fault, Fitz,” she said. “I just can’t go on.”

  “Why not? What’s wrong?” He had been brought down so abruptly that he felt helpless.

  “We’ve got to stop. It’s no good.” Her face was shining with tears. He pushed a handkerchief into her hand. “Not your fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t … Please, please …” A jerky sobbing was fighting the words. “Let’s … stop. We’re no … good together …” A wave of sobs overwhelmed her voice. They broke with a violence that was painful.

  “Oh Christ Almighty,” Fitz said. He sat on the arm of a chair and knotted his fingers. “Don’t say things like that. I always knew I wasn’t exactly a world champion, I just hoped … Hell’s bells! I did my best, you know … Oh, what a bloody silly thing to say. Bugger it!” Mary’s shoulders were still heaving. “To hell with sex!” he shouted. “To hell with everything! It’s not bloody worth the candle!” He grabbed his greatcoat and ran. He could still hear her as he went down the front path.

  “Not at all,” Rex said. “Only too glad to help.”

  “Thanks. It’s kind of a technical question. I guess I’m just gathering background material.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Battle tactics. As I understand it, the recommended technique in Fighter Command is to open fire from long range and keep firing a long burst as you close in.”

  “Actually, you’re not supposed to know that, but … Yes, in general that’s correct.”

  “Suppose I play devil’s advocate. Suppose I say it’s better to close to short range and fire short bursts, because after all even if you miss you haven’t wasted much, and you can always go round and try again.”

  “Counsel of despair, Miss Bellamy. We don’t encourage pilots to think in terms of failure. The short-range-short-burst school of thought is superficially attractive, but on closer scrutiny it turns out to be a hangover from the last war.”

  “When they didn’t fly so fast.”

  “That’s certainly one factor. Another was the general unreliability of guns in those days. You couldn’t be sure of getting in a long burst even if you wanted to.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” She made a quick note. “And I suppose those machines were a sight more fragile, too. A quick burst in the right place was probably enough to knock a plane to bits.”

  Rex nodded. “Your modern bomber is a very different story. It has to be struck firmly and repeatedly for there to be any hope of a successful interception. I can assure you that these battle tactics are resolved at the very highest level of Fighter Command. I happen to know that Air Chief Marshal Dowding himself put his finger on the crucial element in favor of the long-burst-long-range approach.” Rex took a model of a Hurricane from his desk. “Each time you open fire, the recoil depresses the nose of the airplane.” The model twitched. “Just a fraction, but enough to take your sight off the target. Fire short bursts, and you repeatedly lose your target. Fire a long continuous burst and you get a chance to correct, to adjust, to destroy.” He put the model away, and smiled. “Simple as that.”

  “Seems pretty conclusive.” She put the cap on her pen. “I keep hearing about Spain,” she added. “What d’you make of Spain?”

  “It was a crude and rustic war,” Rex said, “and the hobbledehoys lost. I don’t think there’s anything to be learned from it. I really don’t.”

  Cattermole bumped the door open with his shoulder and came into the mess sideways.

  “Birthday?” Boy Lloyd inquired.

  “Moggy wasn’t born,” Moran said from behind a week-old Daily Mirror. “He couldn’t get his big feet through the hole.”

  “How did he get here, then?” Cox asked.

  “I was carried shoulder-high in triumph,” Cattermole said, “with cringing wogs and frogs scattering garlands in my path. Move your legs.” He sidled past Lloyd and dumped two parcels on a table.

  “Lillywhites,” Lloyd read from the label. “Isn’t that the posh sports shop? My god, it is.” Cattermole had snipped the string, ripped the cardboard, and was taking out squash rackets.

  “D’you al
ways buy them by the dozen?” Lloyd asked.

  “Certainly not. I never deal with tradesmen. These are the gift of an admirer. Have one. You’ve already pawed it with your greasy Celtic fingers so you might as well keep it.” Cattermole opened the second package. It contained a pair of silver-backed hairbrushes, a Hardy’s trout-reel, and some silk pajamas.

  “What d’you want those for?” Cox asked.

  “My skin is very sensitive.”

  “Gifts from another admirer?” Moran asked. Cattermole ignored him. He found the invoices, threw them on the fire, and settled down to play with his new trout-reel.

  Rex had given Flash Gordon permission to live out, on the understanding that he would have to move back in a hurry if the war flared up. Nicole had found a neighbor to look after her mother, and the couple settled down in the cottage. She was determined to have a baby. Flash did his duty nobly and frequently to that end. It was, for him, a complete and happy life. After Nicole there was flying; after flying there was Nicole. He always had something to look forward to.

  For her it was different. They were in bed one evening, and he was telling her the latest squadron gossip, when she said:

  “How long do you remain pilot officer, Flash?”

  “God knows. Why?”

  She tucked her head against his shoulder and was silent for a while. Her hair tickled his nose. He snorted softly, blowing it away. “Because when you are promoted,” she said, “we can find somewhere better than this to live.”

  “Ah. Yes. Of course.” He had never thought of moving. “That would be nice. Are you sure it’s worth it, though?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, with the war and everything. You know what the RAFs like. Always posting chaps.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Flight Lieutenant Gordon,” she said.

  “Not half. Flight Lieutenant Gordon, DFC and bar.”

  Nicole pressed her face against his chest and made grumbling noises. Flash relaxed. He knew that sound. Everything was all right.

  More of the new Hurricanes were delivered. Rex took one and gave others to the flight commanders and senior pilots. The weather improved. The snow gradually melted, until all that was left were diehard streaks of white, underscoring the contours of the countryside. At night black ice glazed the roads and fog lay in ambush. Military drivers—never the most patient of men—sent their vehicles waltzing and bouncing over hedges and ditches, or somersaulting down hillsides, or careering into buildings, or colliding head-on with other traffic to make a wreck that formed an extra hazard for the next military vehicle to come barreling cheerfully through the icy murk.

  That was how Hornet squadron lost four vehicles in a week. Two men died, seven were injured. Rex discussed the problem with Skull and the adjutant. “Only one solution,” Kellaway said. “Put governors on all the gearboxes. Then they can’t go fast.”

  Rex said: “What about the fog, though?”

  Kellaway found a dead matchstick and poked about in his pipe. “Fog’s fog, isn’t it?” he said. “If the silly buggers insist on racing around with their eyes shut you can’t stop ’em.”

  “But it’s playing hell with our operational efficiency, uncle. I don’t mind losing the idiot drivers; we can always get more drivers. It’s the chaps they take with them that bother me. Two perfectly good fitters and an armorer—my armorer, I might add—all in hospital. Not to mention an absolutely irreplaceable pastry-cook with a compound fracture of the right arm.”

  “Yes. I shall miss that steak-and-kidney pie,” Kellaway murmured.

  “Any ideas, Skull?” Rex asked.

  “In my opinion the weather is a minor contributory factor,” Skull said. “I suspect that these men are bored. You promised them a war. After six months they have experienced no adventure, no excitement. So they go out and make their own.”

  “That’s absurd,” Rex said.

  “So is war.”

  “How d’you know?” Kellaway said sharply. “You’ve never seen one.”

  “No, but I read the book,” Skull said, which made them stare.

  Warm westerlies blew away the ice and fog and dried the airfield. Daffodils and narcissi bloomed in great yellow and white stands all over the grounds of the chateau, and flocks of birds came and went. At sunset, when they circled the tall trees, they were so closely packed that it was impossible to regard them as individual creatures: they moved as one, a community in flight. Mother Cox was showing Stickwell’s replacement, a flying officer named Trevelyan, around the grounds, when he pointed to a mass of birds wheeling overhead. “Bloody clever animals,” he said. “One of them’s obviously leading, but which one? How do they know?” As they watched, the birds swerved simultaneously and the texture of the flock was transformed. “How do they signal?” Cox asked. “How do they miss each other? It’s a mystery. Bloody clever animals.”

  “Rex is pretty hot on close-formation stuff, I hear,” Trevelyan said.

  “Rather. He likes to be close enough to count people’s teeth.”

  “Does he really?” They strolled on. “Not, I trust, when they have become scattered across the landscape.”

  “Oh, nobody’s pranged yet. All you need to do is keep an eye on your leader. Easy.”

  Trevelyan was an Old Etonian, which pleased Rex, but he was also very tall, which was a disadvantage. His head touched the cockpit canopy and the rudder bar could not be adjusted to fit his legs comfortably. As the latest arrival, he inherited the worst Hurricane: a much-patched veteran with an engine past middle age and a tendency to sidle that demanded a bootful of rudder. Trevelyan’s formation-flying was not good. Rex put him in Green Section, back at the tail of the squadron where there was nobody behind him to back into.

  CH3 remained the odd man out. He sat in silence at the squadron briefings. Apart from routine reports to Skull, he had nothing to say about his solitary patrols, and the others soon stopped asking him. Cox explained the situation to Trevelyan. “It’s not exactly a feud,” he said. “The CO’s done his best to bring him round, but the Yank won’t budge. I mean he wants everything his way. So we’ve rather left him to his own devices. He hasn’t been sent to Coventry or anything like that. It’s just that he’s quite convinced he could make a better job of CO than Rex, and as it happens we rather like having Rex as boss, so there’s not a great deal left to talk about.”

  “He sounds a bit of a bore,” Trevelyan said.

  “He was, for a while. But then we shut him up, and now he just sort of hangs about. Even Jacky Bellamy’s given up on him … Have you met Jacky? She’s a great girl. We’ve got all her newspaper stories in an album in the mess. Buy her a drink and she’ll make you a hero. Not really. But she’s a terrific writer, all the same.”

  The Hurricanes, scattered about the edge of the aerodrome, were already bellowing like a cattlemarket when the pilots left their hut. It was a breezy morning after a showery night and the sky held more cloud than clear air: mainly big fat stuff, wallowing from west to east at about three thousand feet; but through gaps could be seen a much higher layer, while down at five or six hundred feet, thin streamers were blowing like smoke. It was the sort of day when a pilot would be able to see five miles one moment and five yards the next.

  Rex had briefed them for a routine patrol west of the Maginot Line. CH3 was planning to go further north, to the Luxembourg border. He was halfway to his Hurricane when he heard someone shouting his name. It was Rex. He was in his flying kit, parachute slung over one shoulder, and he was playing with Reilly, dangling the leash so that the dog kept jumping and snapping. He waved. CH3 tramped back.

  “You’re not very happy about my close-formation flying,” Rex said.

  “That’s right.”

  “You consider you have a better alternative.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, now’s your chance to prove it.” Rex rolled the leash into a ball and hurled it. Reilly bounded away. “I get the squadron together at a couple of thousand feet and
then you take my place. I clear off and watch. Fair enough?”

  “I don’t know.” CH3 was taken aback. “Where are we going? I need to tell them how it works and …” Reilly came frolicking back, offering him a mouthful of soggy leash. “I mean, what’s the plan?”

  “You were at the briefing. Nothing’s changed.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Look: you can explain everything when you take over. It’s not frightfully complicated, I hope?”

  “No, but—”

  “Fine. See you upstairs, then.”

  The squadron took off by sections. CH3 sat in his cockpit, engine ticking over, and watched them go. Each section of three Hurricanes waddled into line, paused, and pitched forward, exhaust stubs gushing black fumes that faded when the tails rose, as if the rush of air had blown the engines clean. He could identify the pilots by the way they left the ground. Fanny Barton eased up gradually, building speed before he climbed. Moran came unstuck and made a quick thirty feet: if he wasn’t on the ground he wanted to be right off it. Cattermole retracted his undercarriage as soon as he was airborne: wheels spoiled the look of the thing. Cox left his wheels down for several seconds, just in case. Fitzgerald wobbled a bit: his feet twitched on takeoff. Patterson was always higher than the rest of his section. Gordon always waved to his groundcrew. Lloyd was a bit slow. Trevelyan was even slower.

  At the end of a wide circuit the squadron had formed up, sections astern, twelve machines snugly interlocked. CH3 was airborne, trailing them by half a mile. They climbed another thousand feet, passing through the heavy shadows of billowing clouds, and leveled out. Headphones crackled, and Rex said: “Jester Leader to Jester aircraft. Change, change. Pilot Officer Hart takes command, Hart is now Jester Leader, out.” Rex opened his throttle and pulled away, climbing hard.

  “Okay, Jester aircraft, now get this.” CH3 had closed the gap; he was fifty feet behind and above them, and he saw the flicker of faces as they glanced around. “Squadron will re-form into three, repeat three, sections of four aircraft. Green Section ceases to exist. Green Leader joins Blue Section as Blue Four. Green Two becomes Red Four. Green Three becomes Yellow Four.” He repeated the orders and got confirmation from each member of Green Section. “Okay, when I say go, Green Section splits up and all sections echelon port. Is that clear?” Nobody spoke. “Okay. Sections echelon port, go.”