Piece of Cake

by Derek Robinson

  “Are you going to Belgium?”

  Marriott laughed. “No, not yet.” He drove off.

  She picked up her bicycle and thought about what he had said, although she knew she had made up her mind. It was a hundred and fifty miles to Belgium. All the more reason to start now.

  Five minutes after they had all landed, Amifontaine was raided.

  The mess had a basement, and that was where everyone except Rex went with Skull for the debriefing. The air was stale and musty, and there were no chairs. They sat on the concrete floor with their backs to the wall, sometimes feeling the shudder of distant bomb-bursts. The electric light flickered.

  Nobody wanted to talk.

  “You reached Maastricht, I take it,” Skull prompted.

  There was a long silence. Most of them were staring at the floor. Some had shut their eyes. Moggy Cattermole was trying to read an old copy of the Illustrated London News that he had found upstairs.

  “We saw three of the Battles,” Fanny Barton said at last. “They all bought it. Missed the bridge. Dunno about the others.”

  “I see. What about enemy aircraft? Any claims?” Silence.

  “Not even possibles?”

  Silence.

  Skull swallowed, noisily, and turned a page of his notebook.

  “That only leaves our own … um … losses. Can anybody …”

  “Lloyd’s dead,” CH3 said. “Got blasted by a 110. I saw that.”

  “And Gordon?”

  “Somebody baled out,” Mother Cox said. “I just missed him. That might’ve been Flash. Didn’t see a parachute, though.”

  “Thank you.” Skull closed his notebook. “I’m sorry to say there is no news of the other Battles.”

  “Dead loss,” Patterson said softly. “What you might call a Losing Battle. Ho ho ho.”

  Skull sat on the staircase and read his notes. Cattermole turned a page. After a while he said, “This is interesting,” and went on reading. The bombing had tailed off but there was still plenty of gunfire.

  Rex came down the stairs and stopped halfway. His jaw was set and his lips were resolutely pressed together but his eyes were worried, and he was blinking more than usual. He smiled, however, and shared the smile amongst them all.

  Cattermole put aside his magazine.

  “We all knew Boy Lloyd,” Rex said. “We all knew Flash Gordon. What they have given for us, anyone here would gladly have given for them. Fine men, both. While they were with the squadron they did all that was asked of them without flinching. Their courage, determination and audacity were never in doubt. Their loss is an example of gallant self-sacrifice in the face of heavy odds and extreme peril. Now, with their going, the struggle becomes that much more arduous. Gentlemen: this is the time to close ranks. To stand shoulder to shoulder. To fill up the gaps left by Boy and Flash. Hornet is a proud squadron, gentlemen. Let us close ranks. With pride.”

  He went out.

  “What does he mean, ‘close ranks’?” Cox asked. “If I fly any closer I’ll be on the other side of him.”

  “He wants us to huddle together,” Patterson said. “It makes him feel warm and secure.”

  “It doesn’t make me feel bloody secure,” Fitz said. “It scares the shits out of me. I reckon we ought to change it.”

  “Change it for what?” Moran asked.

  Suddenly the door at the top of the stairs banged open and Jacky Bellamy appeared, out of breath. She was wearing a steel helmet several sizes too large, and it made her look even smaller. After a first glance, nobody paid her any attention. She shut the door and sat with her back to it. “Hello, you guys,” she said. Nobody answered.

  “Change it for something more spread-out,” Cox said. “So we can see what’s going on and dodge about more easily.”

  “Right!” Patterson said. “When those 110’s came at us we were all looking the wrong way, we had no room to break, it was hopeless.”

  Barton cleared his throat. “I don’t think this is the time or the place to—”

  “Piss off, Fanny,” Fitz said angrily. “You want us to shut up and be good little boys because Jacky’s listening? Balls! I’ve been shot down once and so have you, and now Lloyd’s gone, and Flash, and all the others, and why?”

  Barton said wearily: “You know as well as I do, the only way to hit the bombers is—”

  “What about the fighters hitting us?” Fitz shouted. “We fart about the sky like a bunch of bananas! No wonder we get jumped!”

  “That’s how Nugent and McPhee bought it,” Cox said. “They never saw those 109’s.”

  “Bastards are everywhere,” Moran said gloomily.

  “More spread-out, that’s the answer,” Cox said. “Not so crowded.”

  “How d’you mean, a bunch of bananas?” Jacky Bellamy asked Fitz, but he ignored her. “Buggered if I’ll be ass-end Charlie again,” he said. “Short cut to nowhere, that is.”

  “I’ll tell you what pisses me off,” Cox said. “He keeps on shouting at us to regroup. How the bloody hell can you regroup when you don’t know where the silly sod is?”

  “Don’t talk cock,” Barton snapped. “Obviously we’ve got to regroup. Otherwise we’d end up scattered all over the sky. Use your tiny brain, Mother.”

  “What exactly happened?” Jacky Bellamy asked. There was a note of pleading in her voice. They didn’t even look at her.

  “Did Moke have any back-armor?” Patterson asked. Nobody answered. Cattermole, who had gone back to his magazine, turned a page. “Fancy that,” he murmured.

  “I bet the poor bastard didn’t have any back-armor,” Patterson said. “Christ … Imagine getting one of those sodding great cannonshells up your chuff.”

  “Like Lloyd,” Moran said, and sighed. Barton glared.

  “Wonder how Jerry harmonizes his guns?” Fitz said. “I bet they’re not like ours … Where’s CH3?”

  “Two hundred yards’ range,” CH3 mumbled. He was on his back, half-asleep.

  “Two hundred,” Cox said. “Christ, that’s close.”

  “The bastards were a bloody sight closer than that when they hit me,” Fitz told him,

  “I guess Maastricht was pretty bad,” Jacky Bellamy said.

  Cox stood up, yawned, stretched, sniffed his armpits. “God, I stink,” he said. He wandered around the room, stepping over feet, and came to Cattermole. “What d’you think, Moggy?”

  “I’ll give you three seconds to get out of my light. One, two, three …” Cox did not move. “Right, you’ve asked for it,” Cattermole said. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. You’re all going to fly exactly the way Rex says, because he’s CO. When you get to Mailly, you’re all going to remove the back-armor, you’re all going to re-harmonize your guns to conform to the Dowding Spread, and you’re all going to give your lovely new blitz shirts to the poor, because Rex believes in uniformity, and Rex is CO. So just stop your bitching and binding and bellyaching and let me get on with this fascinating article about salmon-fishing.”

  Fitz scrambled to his feet. “Pompous fart! Just because Rex is CO, does that make him God? Jesus Christ Almighty, Moggy, what was he doing taking us through that flak at Maastricht at five hundred feet? What was the point of that?”

  Fitzgerald’s face was working with anger. Cattermole pursed his lips and turned a page. “Ours was the place of honor,” he said.

  “Fuck honor,” Patterson growled, “and fuck Rex.”

  Fitzgerald grabbed the magazine, ripped it from Cattermole’s hands, flung it across the room. Cattermole was left holding a corner of a page. He tilted it to catch the light, “How to protect your nerves in war-time,” he read. “On no account get over-tired … Avoid war talk … Get to bed early and do not read exciting stories … but make sure you take a cup of delicious Ovaltine” He gave Patterson a smug smile. “You’ve been reading exciting stories, Pip, that’s your trouble.”

  “Jerry’s gone,” Barton said. “The guns have stopped. Let’s get out of here.”


  Jacky Bellamy stood aside and watched their faces as they climbed the stairs. Only CH3 looked at her. He gave her a strange, crooked smile that was almost friendly. It made her even more unsure of herself.

  Rex had left the basement to go to the station sickbay. Bletchley was waiting there. “How do you feel?” Bletchley asked.

  “A bit stiff. The neck especially.”

  “Better let them have a look.”

  Rex took off his uniform. A medical orderly cut away his shirt: it was ripped and punctured at the back and stiff with dried blood. He lay facedown while an RAF doctor gently swabbed his back, working from the neck to the buttocks. “I make it twenty-three incisions, but I may have missed one or two,” he said. “So that’s at least twenty-three items of rubbish to be got out.”

  “Bits of flak,” Rex said. “Hell of a bang outside the office.”

  The doctor grunted. “Look: I don’t know how big these bits are, or exactly where they are. Some of them might not want to come out. You’re going to need an anesthetic. Rather a lot of anesthetic.”

  Rex turned his head to look up at him. “If you do that I shan’t be able to fly again today.”

  “You’re in no condition to fly now.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that. Sir: when’s this big show of yours at Sedan?”

  “If we don’t do it soon,” Bletchley said, “then the answer is never.”

  Rex took a good grip of the horizontal rail at the head of the bed. “Go ahead and winkle it all out,” he told the doctor. “If it hurts too much I’ll let you know.”

  Bombs crumped on and around the aerodrome, and anti-aircraft guns pounded away, while the doctor probed Rex’s back, and dragged out ragged slivers and little torn chunks of metal. Rex thrust his face into the pillow. At the end, the pillow was drenched with sweat and the rail at the bedhead was bent like a set of handlebars.

  Mary was changing trains at Nîmes, climbing into the first-class compartment of an express to Bordeaux, with a new pair of shoes and a bundle of magazines, enjoying the sunshine and imagining that she could smell the Mediterranean, while Nicole was chasing an old man down a road near Épernay, south of Rheims.

  Nicole had bicycled hard, all day, heading north. Most refugees were moving west so she had a fairly clear road. By midafternoon it was time for her to move her bowels. There was no building in sight: nothing but woods and fields. She pushed the bicycle across a field, hid it in deep grass and went into a wood.

  When she came out a little old man dressed in black was halfway across the field with her bicycle. She shouted, which was a mistake: he was amazingly nimble. He had a twenty-yard lead by the time he got to the road and began pedaling. She ran as fast as she could but he steadily pulled away from her, until he was so sure of himself that he looked back and waved. Nicole stopped running and began cursing. Soon he was out of sight.

  Some cattle came wandering over to see what all the cursing was about. One of them gave tongue at her, idiotically. She picked up a stone and hurled it and, to her horror, struck the beast in the ribs. It galloped away. She shouted an apology. The other cattle stared, skeptically. She started to walk.

  Gangs of airmen were shoveling earth into the smoking bomb-craters that dotted Amifontaine. A couple of buildings were on fire, but they were only billets; they were left to burn. Low cloud and strong winds had hampered the German bombers, and they had missed all the Hurricanes except one: Miller’s wreck had been blown to bits.

  A Naafi mobile canteen was open. The pilots stood in line and bought hot sweet tea and sticky buns. They were sitting on the grass, eating and drinking and watching the flames flower over the billet roofs, when Flash Gordon arrived in the back of a truck. He was carrying a great bundle of white silk, which he dumped. “It works!” he shouted. “The bloody thing really works!” His eyes were bright with excitement, he was grinning like a child, words bubbled from him. “I never thought it, would, never trusted it, to be honest, just kept on falling and waited for something to turn up but it never did, bloody hell is that tea, smashing, love one, sell my soul for … Anyway, kept on falling, hit this cloud a terrific smack, nearly broke all my bones, I’ll have a bun as well, inside this cloud, thought come on Flash time to get your finger out, see if it works, nobody watching, bags of privacy, as per manufacturer’s instructions I pulled the bit of string and by God it works! Works like a dream! Loud bang, nasty kick in the crotch, poor old Flash never the same man again but lots of lovely parachute overhead to keep out the nasty rain and tracer and bombs and birdshit and thank you, Fitz.” He took the mug in both hands and drank deeply.

  “Nice to have you back, Flash,” Moran said. “You made damn good time.”

  “Had to, Flip. Had to. All the way down I kept saying to myself if I can still walk when this is over, first thing I’m going to do is find that stupid fucker Rex and screw his head off.”

  “What: right off?”

  “Right off. Like a lightbulb.”

  “Have you been on the booze, Flash?” Fitz asked.

  “Certainly not. Tell you what, though. Met this awfully nice doctor. RAMC. Made me take some pills. Big fat stripey pills. Pep pills. Pep you up. Give you lots of zip. So he said. Why? Got any booze? Wouldn’t mind a swig.”

  “Better not, Flash,” Cox said.

  “Why not? Miserable lot of buggers. Where’s bloody Rex? Screw his fucking head off. Where’s everyone? Where’s Lloyd? Where’s Moke?”

  “Lloyd bought it,” Barton said. “Moke nearly bought it. He’s—”

  “Silly bastards, should’ve done what I did, pulled the bit of string, it really works you know, really does, not a trick, it—”

  “I know, Flash,” Barton said. “I’ve done it myself.”

  “Good for you, join the club, have a drink.” Flash threw out his dregs without looking and hit Patterson. “Two pints, love!” he shouted at the Naafi girl.

  “Tea’s finished, dear,” she called. “All gone.”

  Flash stared. His face went stiff. He dragged the revolver from his flying-boot and advanced on the Naafi wagon. “Treachery!” he shouted. “Stab in the back!” Cattermole stuck out a foot and tripped him. The revolver went flying. Flash hit the ground with a thump and did not move. “That’s right, old boy,” Cattermole said. “You have a nice rest or I’ll break your legs.”

  “I can easily make some more tea,” the Naafi girl said. “No trouble.”

  “Good idea,” Barton told her. “Make lots. Flip, there’s something I want to show you.”

  Moran pried himself off the ground. One leg had gone to sleep; he limped heavily and stumbled a couple of times. They walked around the corner of a bedding store. Stacked against the wall was a heap of rusty corrugated iron. Moran kicked it. “Certainly,” he said. “Put an engine on it and I’ll fly the bastard. Where’s the stick?”

  “Something’s got to be done,” Barton said. He was still angry from being shouted at in the basement.

  “Fully aerobatic, is it?” Moran asked. He began poking at the heap.

  “Listen!” Barton grabbed him by the shoulder. “Shut up about that. You’ve got to do something about Fitz or there’s going to be trouble.”

  That was wrong. Barton knew it as soon as he did it. Wrong to tell him to shut up. Wrong to order. And fatal to tag what sounded like a threat on the end. Moran looked at him with a kind of weary disgust, like a bouncer eyeing a drunk. “Fitz is in ‘B’ flight,” he said, “which is none of your damn business.”

  “Don’t be such a fool. It doesn’t matter which flight he’s in—”

  “Have you taken over the entire squadron again? Supreme commander, are you, like the last time? And a glorious shambles that was. Go and play in your own backyard. There’s enough to keep you busy there with lunatics like Flash wanting to kill the CO.”

  “Flash is my business, and anyway he’s doped to the eyeballs. What worries me—”

  “Cattermole, then. If you can’t shut him up I swear I’ll flatten the
bastard.”

  “Damn you to bloody hell, Moran,” Barton said desperately, “will you shut your great Irish gob and listen? I’m telling you the squadron’s going down the pan and all you can—”

  “I’m in charge of ‘B’ flight. You don’t give me orders, Barton. If I have to go to hell I’d sooner go my way than yours.”

  Barton sat on the corrugated iron and put his head in his hands. “Christ on crutches,” he muttered. “What a way to run a war.”

  When they went back Flash Gordon was stretched out facedown on his parachute. CH3 was chatting with the Naafi girl. The others were sitting in a circle with their heads together.

  “What’s the big conference?” Barton asked.

  “Nothing,” Fitz said.

  “Please yourself,” Barton said.

  “We were telling dirty stories,” Patterson said.

  “Not very funny, by the look of you.”

  “We didn’t get to the punch-line,” Cox said.

  Barton suspected mockery. “Tell me,” he said stiffly. “See if I laugh.”

  Fitz glanced at the others. “Okay. The punch-line is ‘Close ranks.’” He sat on his heels and stared at Barton. A nervous twitch kept making his mouth start to grin.

  Barton felt baffled, excluded from their private joke, but he had to say something. “Look, things could be worse,” he said. “We’ve had some bad luck, that’s all.”

  “People make their own luck,” Cox said flatly.

  “If you must know,” Cattermole said, “we have been discussing the best way to bump off the CO.” Moran stopped cleaning his nails and raised his head. “That’s not a funny joke,” he said, “with or without a punch-line. We’ll have no more of that stupid talk.”

  “Screw his fucking head off,” Flash Gordon muttered.

  “Close ranks!” Fitz declared. He raised a clenched fist, and then spoiled the effect by tittering. Nobody else laughed. Barton turned away in disgust and saw Skull coming bouncing and rattling over the grass on a bicycle. He came to summon them to a briefing in the mess.

  It was very similar to the earlier briefing, with Sedan substituted for Maastricht. Rex announced that the Battle groundcrews were working flat-out on the damaged Hurricanes and expected to have them operational within the hour. The other piece of good news was that, in recognition of the great courage and resolution shown during the Maastricht show, the squadron had again been awarded the place of honor in another vital mission. Air Commodore Bletchley would explain.