Piece of Cake

by Derek Robinson

  The cooks had sent up some lunch: chilled cucumber soup, poached salmon with salad, and strawberries. There was also Alsace beer on ice. It was a hot, still day. The conversation slackened as they ate, and half an hour later most of them were asleep.

  At ten to three the telephone rang. Another patrol: Metz. They lumbered, stiff and sticky with sweat, to their aircraft, feeling stupid with sleep and heat. A quick whiff of oxygen cleared the head, and the blast of air into the cockpit as the planes charged over the grass got them fully awake.

  They circled Metz for half an hour, looking for raiders that never came. All around the horizon, columns of smoke signaled the results of bombing, and while they orbited the city they saw fresh smoke gushing up, fifteen or twenty miles to the south. The haze had returned, and the bombers, if they were still present, were hidden.

  Rex kept asking the controller for business. The controller told him that when reliable information became available he would pass it on; he sounded harassed. They circled Metz again. A French Potez came out of the east, limping badly. As it passed they could see holes in its wings. One of the tail fins was thrashing about, and the port engine was spilling coolant fluid. Suddenly that propeller ceased turning and the machine veered to its left. The squadron began another circuit, and the last they saw of the Potez it was dropping fast.

  The controller ordered them back to base. As they made their circuit before landing they saw a double row of bomb craters in the next field. Dead sheep lay like patches of late snow.

  Kellaway was waiting to tell Rex what had happened: a raid by aircraft so high that they were scarcely visible. “Not the slightest warning,” he said. “Damn good bombing from that height, wasn’t it? Too damn good. Pity you weren’t here. Never mind; they’re bound to come back. Want some tea?”

  “Any word from Trevelyan?” Rex asked. The adjutant shook his head. “Better call Rheims,” Rex said. “Tell them to send a replacement.”

  “I already have,” Kellaway said. “I asked for two.” Wearily, Rex massaged the goggle-marks around his eyes. “Two,” he said. “You never know,” Kellaway said. “Someone else might catch cold.”

  Miller, Patterson and Lloyd went to look at the bomb craters. Fumes from the high explosive hung in the air and made them cough. “What an appalling pong,” Miller said. “Reminds me of my young days in the chemistry lab. I used to make stinks just like that.”

  “Pity you didn’t blow yourself up,” Lloyd said.

  “Oh, I was only farting,” Miller said.

  “I feel sorry for the poor bloody sheep,” Patterson said moodily.

  “I never farted in front of a sheep,” Miller said. “What sort of cad d’you think I am?”

  “Listen,” Lloyd said. The others looked at the sky. High-flying aircraft could just be seen: splinters of metal proceeding silently and inscrutably. “So what?” Miller said. “Nothing to worry about, is there?” But Lloyd was not looking upward. “That one over there isn’t dead,” he said.

  The sheep had been split open and disemboweled. Its guts were black with flies, which rose with a resentful buzzing and re-settled at once. Its head and shoulders were intact. It saw them coming and made a brief bleat. Lloyd squatted and stroked its ears. “You poor old bugger,” he said.

  Every time the sheep breathed, its intestines slipped and slithered.

  “We ought to kill it,” Miller said. “That’s the decent thing.”

  “Go ahead, then,” Patterson said.

  “No thanks. You do it.”

  “Lloyd found it. It’s his sheep.”

  “Come on: odds and evens,” Lloyd said. Each took out a coin. Two heads, one tail. Miller had the tail. “Blast!” he said. The sheep tried to get up. More of its guts spilled out.

  The pilots were under orders to carry a Colt revolver when flying; nobody knew why. Miller, like many, kept his revolver stuffed down the side of his flying-boot. He took it out and cocked it. The sheep, as if to make his task more difficult, gave a soft and pitiful bleat. “Get a move on, Moke!” Patterson urged.

  “All right, all right!” Miller fired at the head. The bang smashed a huge hole in the sultry silence. “Missed,” Lloyd said. Miller, his face screwed up as if he were staring into a furnace, took a pace forward and fired again, this time hitting the sheep in the shoulder. “For Christ’s sake!” Patterson roared. He snatched the gun from Miller, stooped and shot the animal in the head.

  “I don’t know why you got so worked-up,” Miller said on the way back to the aerodrome. “It was only a sheep.”

  “I happen to like sheep,” Patterson said stiffly. “I used to look after them when I was a boy. They do nobody any harm and they certainly don’t deserve to suffer. If an animal’s suffering it has every right to be put out of its misery. That’s common decency.”

  “Sorry,” Miller said. “Only it wasn’t my fault, was it? I mean, blame the Huns, not me.”

  “The frogs are just as bad, you know,” Lloyd said. “When they want to clear a minefield they just drive a flock of sheep across it.”

  “You made that up,” Miller accused.

  “Not a bit of it. A French army officer told me in a pub.”

  “Bloody frogs,” Patterson said.

  “Would you shoot a dying frog, Pip?” Miller asked. “To put it out of its misery?”

  Patterson said nothing.

  “I meant a real frog, of course,” Miller added. “A Frenchman.”

  “You’re very interested in shooting people, all of a sudden,” Lloyd said.

  “Well, that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” Miller said, defensively. “It’s a jolly poor lookout if a chap can’t show a healthy interest in his work.”

  Lloyd sighed. They walked the rest of the way in silence.

  Before sundown the squadron flew another patrol, the fifth of the day. They chased a few shadows and caught nothing. Mother Cox’s engine packed up halfway through and he forced-landed in a field.

  Rex called a brief meeting with Skull, Kellaway and Jacky Bellamy. She had just got back after a day of driving, arguing with military policemen, and battling the censors before she could file her report.

  “Rumors abound,” she told them, “but fact is scanty. All I know for certain is I happened to be in a cafe when they got a BBC news bulletin on the radio. It said Germany invaded Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, and she’s making ground.”

  “That’s what the Area intelligence officer keeps telling me,” Skull said. “Mind you, I don’t fully trust the man.” They all looked at him. “His wife’s a Christian Scientist,” Skull explained, “and he wears the most ill-fitting dentures. I don’t see how anyone—”

  “What else has happened?” Rex demanded. They were in his office, drinking his whiskey.

  “Well, we know what’s been taking place nearby,” Skull said, “because CH3 has been flying his peculiar Reconnaissance Liaison patrols. He says the enemy is attacking airfields, road and rail junctions, and bridges, usually in squadron strength. Most of our aerodromes have been bombed: Rouvres, Vassincourt, Mézières …”

  “Uncle,” Rex said. “First thing tomorrow, get the troops to dig some trenches near the hangars. No, wait a minute, not near the hangars, that’s exactly …” He frowned, squeezing his whiskey-glass with both hands. “Pick out the best place,” he said at last.

  “Right, sir.” Kellaway shuffled his pieces of paper. “I had a call from Wing,” he said. “They’ve found Trevelyan, I’m afraid.”

  Jacky Bellamy suddenly came awake.

  Rex stood. “Any clues?”

  “None. The locals who saw it happen say he just came tumbling out of the sky. Hit a haystack and burned for hours, they couldn’t get near him. Sandbags in the coffin, by the sound of it.”

  “Was he shot down?” she asked. “Did you get the German who did it?”

  “And the two replacements have arrived,” Kellaway told Rex. “Pilot Officers Nugent and McPhee.”

  “Tell them they’re f
lying tomorrow. Give Cox a rest, he got a crack on the head tonight. Reshuffle the rest and put these new chaps in Green Section where they won’t be in the way. I’m off to bed.” Rex went out.

  “Trevelyan got shot down?” Jacky Bellamy asked. “Didn’t anybody see it happen?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” Kellaway said gruffly. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand this desire for the morbid details.

  “But surely somebody must have seen it,” she insisted.

  “Somebody certainly did,” Skull agreed, “but he’s back in Germany by now.”

  They were awake again at three.

  Only Rex and the two new men shaved. The others dragged on their clothes and stumbled down to the truck. The sky to the east was washed with saffron, and Reilly frisked about at the edge of the airfield while the pilots stood and scratched and speculated about the weather. Artillery still boomed and bumbled in the distance, but everyone was used to that by now. Hot coffee arrived, and with it Kellaway and the news of Trevelyan. Nobody responded. Nugent and McPhee would have liked to have asked how it happened, but they took their cue from the others.

  Cattermole threw an old tennis ball for Reilly to chase, and said: “If you ask me, those 110’s aren’t much to write home about.” He yawned. “Too slow in the turn. Easy meat, I reckon.”

  “Fast on the straight, though,” someone said.

  “Especially when they’re running away,” Moran said. He was still not fully awake: his voice was thick, and he couldn’t make his eyes focus on his coffee mug. “Did you notice when we bust up the formation, how keen they were to bugger off?”

  “Typical Hun mentality,” the adjutant said. “Jerry’s no good on his own. They like to huddle together.”

  Rex came out of the ready room. “Airfield protection,” he announced. “We’re not to go chasing Jerry, our job is to keep him off the grass.” He accepted the sticky tennis ball from Reilly. “Too, too kind,” he said. “What a generous dog.” He lobbed it onto the field. “Flip, have you had a word with … uh …”

  “Nugent and McPhee, sir,” the adjutant murmured.

  “Last night,” Moran grunted. “Told ’em to empty their bladders before takeoff and then do exactly what everyone else does.”

  “Don’t wander,” Rex told them. “I believe in tight formations. That’s what creates wallop.”

  The squadron was airborne shortly before four o’clock. The Hurricanes glistened with dew in the horizontal rays of the sun. Rex played safe and kept the sections in close line astern. Nugent, Gordon and McPhee in Green Section formed the tail of the spearhead.

  They flew northwest, sent to cover the aerodrome at St. Hilairele-Grand. The roads were thick with military convoys: sunlight glittered on windscreens. The squadron passed over a crossroads that was a tangle of burning vehicles, and the controller came on the air to redirect them: cancel St. Hilaire, steer zero-nine-zero for Rouvres, make angels twelve. But when they reached Rouvres it was too late. The hangars were blazing merrily and the airfield looked as if it had been visited by giant moles. Rex told the controller and the controller sent them back to St. Hilaire, angels five. They reached St. Hilaire and promptly got shelled by its batteries, so Rex climbed to twelve thousand and killed time. No enemy appeared.

  As they turned away, Rex saw a tiny gray shape drifting across the pastel landscape, far below. It was so small and so gray that he thought it must be a shadow, yet there was nothing above it. “Jester Leader to Green Section,” he said. “Bogey at ten o’clock, low. Go seek him out.”

  Flash Gordon acknowledged. Green Section fell away.

  Flak-bursts clustered near the gray shape and made it swerve. Flash saw discreet German crosses. It was a Henschel 126, a fixed-undercarriage high-wing reconnaissance plane, little more than a sporting aircraft. For an instant he wondered at its courage and stupidity in straying so far into France; then he concentrated on the kill, glanced quickly left and right to check that the new men were still with him, and he had a startling idea: Why not let them polish it off? Give them a bit of confidence …

  “Green Leader to Green Section,” he said. “Line astern, Green Two first, then Three, then Leader last. Line astern, go.”

  They re-formed. Gordon let the others get well ahead of him. The Henschel had taken fright and was heading for home. Nugent at Green Two bore down at full speed and opened fire from four hundred yards. The little plane swerved aside as if someone had grabbed a wingtip, and wandered away from the cone of bullets. Nugent was still blasting at nothing as he stormed past. McPhee too began firing from four hundred yards but the Henschel had sidestepped again and raised its nose toward him. He over-corrected, washing his ammunition all around the target in a great spiral spray and was past it before he knew what to do.

  As the two Hurricanes dwindled, carried a mile or more by their own momentum, the Henschel turned away from them and toppled into a dive. Its only hope now was to reach ground level and hedgehop back to Germany, dodging between trees, going where the Hurricanes were too big and fast to go. Flash Gordon followed. When the Henschel flattened out he was close behind. He saw it swell to fill his gunsight like a moth under a lens, and then he blew it apart. The sheer speed of destruction was astonishing. He merely touched his gun-button and the Henschel went to pieces, the wing spinning away in two chunks, the body smashed in half, shattered fragments exploding in a corona of debris. Gordon had an instant in which to register this frozen fury, and then he was hauling his Hurricane up and away, searching for Green Two and Three. When he had time to look back there was nothing to see but fields: no smoke, no wreckage, no scars in the landscape. Two men were dead yet all he felt was a certain wonder at the suddenness of it all.

  Green Section rejoined the squadron, slotting into the tail of the spearhead. They flew back to Château St. Pierre, and saw the smoke before they saw the aerodrome. A hangar was on fire, and there was a remarkably neat line of craters running across the airfield, spaced alternately left and right, like footprints.

  Rex called the tower. The local transmitter still worked. A phlegmatic flight sergeant told him that some bombs had not exploded; whether they were duds or delayed-action nobody knew. Rex ordered him to mark the unexploded bombs with flags; meanwhile the squadron would orbit the field at a safe height.

  It was a glorious, golden morning. The haze had gone, and the sharply angled sunlight cast long, precise shadows. Fanny Barton, flying as Yellow Leader, enjoyed the slightly theatrical feel of the landscape: distant enough to look like toytown, close enough to reveal action and movement. He relaxed and enjoyed the slow, easy circuits. There was nothing to do except keep tucked in behind Rex and think about breakfast. Bacon and eggs: the English classic. Best meal of the day …

  Tucked in behind Barton was Flip Moran, leading Blue Section. He too was hungry, but he was worried about landing on that battered field, and he glanced repeatedly at the damage. He was worried not so much for himself as for Nugent and McPhee. Green Section would be the last to land, so they would have the least fuel, which might be awkward if something went wrong and they had to go round again.

  While Moran worried about landing, Nugent and McPhee worried about their failure to shoot down the Henschel. Each knew that his technique had been right: go in fast, start firing at four hundred yards, keep your thumb on the button: that’s what they had been taught. Yet the Henschel had fluttered away and before they knew it they had overshot and the bloody rear gunner was potting at them … No doubt the squadron commander would have things to say when they landed. Meanwhile, Nugent and McPhee remembered his keenness on tight formations and they watched Flash Gordon’s wingtips very carefully.

  During the third circuit a flight of Messerschmitt 109’s came out of the east: out of the sun. There were six fighters, well spread in line abreast, at about six thousand feet. As Hornet squadron wheeled and flew west, two of the German fighters peeled off. Their swoop was easy and unhurried, carrying the first to within fifty yards of
Green Two. The 109 was slightly below and to the right of Nugent when he shot him. It was a lucky shot, since the bullets from the twin machineguns passed harmlessly through the fuselage behind Nugent’s seat and one cannon missed completely; but two shells from the other cannon bashed through the rear of the canopy, hit Nugent’s skull just behind his right ear, and blew the top of his head off. The other 109 had slipped behind Green Three, also slightly to the right and slightly below, and it hit McPhee with everything. The bullet-stream raced across his upper body. McPhee felt nothing. Cannon shells had torn through both lungs and ripped his heart to shreds. The two attacks lasted, in all, three seconds.

  Flash Gordon heard nothing. When eventually he missed his wingmen he was annoyed, then startled; he began searching but he did not at first look below and so he failed to see the two Hurricanes falling until they had begun to spin.

  They hit the ground almost simultaneously. Flash couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He never thought to look high above, in the sun, where the 109’s were rejoining their flight.

  “Learn from that,” Rex snapped. The pilots were grouped around him at the edge of the field, but his eyes were focused on something beyond, some problem that was angering him. “Don’t daydream. Jesus Christ …” Reilly was frolicking around his feet. Rex seized the chewed-up tennis ball and hurled it with all his strength. Gleefully, Reilly raced away. “For God’s sake, stay alert. All you have to do is keep formation.”

  They stared sulkily at the ground. They were hungry, and depressed by the double crash, and resentful of Rex’s anger.

  “How did it happen?” asked Moran. He too felt let down. All his worry had been wasted.

  “God knows. I expect one of them was gawking at these damn craters,” Rex said. “Lost his place, wandered into the next chap, down they both went.”

  “Didn’t anybody on the ground see it?” Flash Gordon asked.

  “Too busy filling in holes and putting out fires.” Rex shook his head. “What a bloody silly way to go,” he said bitterly.