Piece of Cake

by Derek Robinson

  Skull tucked his clipboard under his arm. “On the other hand, air fighting is a confused and confusing affair, so I’m told. Everything happens very quickly. Could it be, do you think, that two pilots might attack the same Stuka at the same instant without being aware of each other, destroy it, and each claim a kill?”

  “No,” Barton said. He looked at CH3, who shrugged. “All right, blast you, yes,” Barton said.

  “We’re agreed on six, then,” Skull said.

  They climbed back into their apple-tree and watched him leave. “Doddering old fool,” CH3 said. “What does he know?”

  “Bet you can’t hit him from here,” Barton said.

  “Bet I can.”

  They hurled apples at Skull, but the branches got in the way and they didn’t even get close.

  “A” flight had an abortive scramble at 4:15. The squadron was stood down early, at six.

  Fitz decided to get a quick drink in the mess before he went home. He felt unusually jumpy. Not twitchy, he wasn’t worried about anything; but he couldn’t seem to wind down after the Great Stuka Shoot. Some Spitfire pilots wanted to hear all about it, and they bought him another drink. He found that he was laughing a lot. Everything seemed very, very funny. Once or twice he was afraid he might not be able to stop laughing. He bought them a round. The Spitfire boys were going on a pub-crawl. They asked him along. “No, no, no,” he said, laughing. “Got to get home to the little wife. Well, not so little.” That was very funny. Oddly enough, though, he didn’t much want to go home. In fact he dreaded it. He really wanted to stay here with the boys.

  The adjutant came in, muttering about Zab and Haddy, and Fitz bought him a drink. The Spitfire boys left. The mess was suddenly quiet. Fitz hated the quiet, hated the prospect of loneliness. “Tell you what, uncle,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere.”

  “No can do, old boy. I need my supper.”

  “Well then …” Fitz had a brainwave. “Come and have a bite at our place, uncle. Take pot-luck.”

  The adjutant looked skeptical. “Jolly nice of you, I’m sure, but … Rather short notice, isn’t it? For Mary, I mean.”

  “No, no. Women can always rustle something up.”

  They drove to the cottage in an old Austin 7 that Fitz had bought for ten pounds. Mary was delighted to see them, but there was no food. “I thought you’d eat at the mess tonight, dear,” she said. “Isn’t that what you said?”

  The cottage was shabby and damp. Kellaway looked at its junkshop furniture and its faded, mismatched colors, and he looked at Fitz and Mary, each trying to smile and each blaming the other for this failure, and he wished to hell he’d never come. Still, it was too late now. Twenty years’ experience of sorting out other people’s cock-ups asserted itself. “What have you got in the larder?” he asked briskly.

  She had some eggs. Two eggs. One was cracked, and smelt off.

  “That’s a start,” he said. “Where did you get them?” A farm, half a mile away. “You’ll never find it,” she said, with such hopelessness that he wanted to hit her. “Then I’ll die in the attempt,” he said. “Got any spuds?” There were three wrinkled potatoes. “Splendid. Excellent. Absolutely wizard. You get cracking on those, my sweet, while I do a spot of foraging. Fitz! What the hell are you doing under the sink?”

  “I thought we had some beer. I’m afraid it’s flat.”

  “Jump in that wagon of yours, find a boozer and buy some booze. Buy lots of booze. Crates of the stuff. When you get back, light a fire. Come on.” He took Fitz’s arm and steered him out, grabbing a shopping-basket as he went.

  It took an hour, but it was a good meal. Kellaway found the farm and persuaded them to sell him eggs, some ham, potatoes, mushrooms, a few tomatoes, and some strawberries. Fitz came home with a case of Guinness. Kellaway cooked the only dish he knew how to make: a sort of giant Spanish omelet, with fried potatoes. They ate everything.

  Conversation was no problem. Mary chattered endlessly and Fitz was full of jokes. All the earlier awkwardness had gone. Then, while they were tackling the strawberries, Fitz stopped talking. For ten minutes he sat and thumbed the edge of a knife while his smile faded and his shoulders hunched. The other two went on discussing food, and France, and pregnancy, and sometimes Mary tried to lure him back into the talk. Fitz wouldn’t even look at her. Then, abruptly, he got up and went out of the cottage.

  “If you’re thinking of asking him what’s wrong with him,” she said, “save your breath. He’s like this as often as not.” Kellaway sipped his Guinness. “Even when he’s here, he’s not here, if you know what I mean,” she said. “There’s nothing I can do for him any more. He can’t get back to the squadron fast enough.” One corner of her mouth was turned up but the rest of her face had slumped in defeat.

  “The first thing to understand is it’s got nothing to do with you,” Kellaway said. “What I mean is Fitz loves you just as much as ever. The trouble is flying. It gets to be an addiction.”

  “But he hates it. I know he does. He has nightmares.”

  “Yes, I had nightmares too. Every time I went up I was scared stiff. Everyone looked forward to leave, I mean we couldn’t wait to go on leave, thought of nothing else, but as soon as I got to London I started wishing I was back with the squadron. Strange, isn’t it?”

  “And you really think this is what’s happened to Fitz. This addiction.”

  “Fighter pilots are like that, I’m afraid, Mary. A chap’s got to think about number one, first last and always, or he’s a goner. Makes him seem a bit selfish sometimes.”

  “I wish I could help,” she said.

  Kellaway got up. “I’d better fetch the silly blighter in, before he falls down the well.”

  The landlord of the Spreadeagle had brought his wireless into the bar. The Hornet boys rolled in just as the news was starting. They stood in silence, gazing at the fretwork-sunrise loudspeaker, until the sober, steady voice announced the day’s score. A total of thirty-five enemy aircraft were destroyed for the loss of six British—

  The rest got drowned in a long cheer.

  “Had a good day?” the landlord asked.

  “Had an absolutely smashing day,” Barton told him.

  “Bloody marvelous,” the landlord said. “What’ll you have? First round’s on the house.”

  “Hey, don’t go crazy,” CH3 warned. “We may do even better tomorrow. We wouldn’t want you to go bankrupt.”

  “Don’t worry. You keep shooting them down and I’ll keep putting them up.”

  When they drove back to Brambledown the place was being bombed, not very effectively. The off-beat throb of unsynchronised engines came and went overhead while searchlights stirred the blackness and ack-ack guns woofed and barked. Occasionally there was a distant whistle, a flash, a crump; but it was all very remote. “What d’you think?” Barton asked CH3, yawning.

  “Bed,” CH3 said. Their rooms were on the same floor, and as they were climbing the stairs something exploded outside that seemed to pick up the whole building and dump it six inches to one side. All the windows at the top of the stairs were shattered.

  “Shelter,” Barton said. They went back down. Bells were ringing, whistles shrilled, men in steel helmets went racing about. Another bomb fell, apparently on the parade ground. Something was burning on the other side of the mess; they could see flames leaping as if trying to out-jump each other. “That’s done it,” Barton said. “Now he’s got a marker. Where are these damn shelters?”

  “I thought you knew.”

  “Me? Why should I know?”

  “Well, you’re the CO.” There was a flash and a crash somewhere over by the airfield. They stumbled on. “It’s all right for you,” CH3 said, “you’re just a poor New Zealander. I’m a rich American, for God’s sake, people expect great things of me, I’ve got obligations. If a bomb lands on me now I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “That’s nothing. If you get blown up now I’ll have to fight Skull all on my own.”


  Another flash and crash.

  “Maybe that one hit Skull,” CH3 said. “Jerry’s bound to get something right eventually.”

  “Even if it hit him, Skull wouldn’t believe it. He’d want witnesses and … Hello, what’s this?”

  It was an underground shelter. They felt their way down the steps and opened a steel door. The room was empty except for two men. Zab and Haddy were playing cards. “Bloody hell,” Barton said.

  “Welcome!” Haducek cried. “We were just discussing the many ways in which the Hurricane is superior to the Spitfire. Sit down, have a drink.”

  “Oh, Christ,” CH3 said.

  “No, it is true,” Zabarnowski told him. “Did you know that you get a much better pattern of bullets from the Hurricane? This is because the four guns in each wing are closely grouped together.”

  “In the Spitfire,” Haducek explained, “the guns are spread all along the wing. That is not so good.”

  “Also,” Zabarnowski said, with a flourish of his index finger, “the Hurricane is a much better gun-platform.”

  “I know,” CH3 said. “I told you that at the start.”

  “This also is related to the placing of the guns,” Haducek informed him. “A very, very good idea.”

  “The Hurricane remains steady, you see,” Zabarnowski said. He handed them glasses of some clear fluid. “The Spitfire wobbles and shakes. Cheers.”

  “Hey, come on now,” Barton said. “The Spit’s a hell of a good kite.”

  “But look at its wheels!” Haducek protested. “Thin little wheels that close together, while the Hurricane has those big strong wheels, very wide apart so you can throw it at the ground when you land, much better.”

  “Wheels! Who cares about wheels?” CH3 scoffed. “What you need is speed, and the Spitfire’s faster, no two ways about it.”

  “Ah, but it’s not so tough!” Zabarnowski was getting excited. “You hit a Spit one little bang and poof! She snaps. You hit a Hurricane all day and all night and all next day and she never minds nothing, she flies you home, safe.”

  “No,” Barton said. “Big slow fat old cow. Lousy plane.”

  “Lousy,” CH3 agreed. “Hurricane is cock-up.”

  “Hurricane is dump,” Barton said.

  “I tell you about guns,” Zabarnowski said eagerly. “With Hurricane you get much better pattern of bullets, see, because—”

  “Okay, okay!” Barton waved him down. “You can fly again.”

  “You hit those lousy Stukas pretty damn good today,” Haducek said.

  “That’s your gun-platform, see,” Zabarnowski said.

  “Can we please for Christ’s sake talk about something else besides bloody airplanes?” Barton appealed.

  Haducek topped up his glass. “Pepper vodka,” he said. “Good, huh?”

  The weather next morning was bad: clear, lustrous skies, a warm sun, little breeze. “Oh, Christ. Another blitzy day,” Patterson grumbled when his batman woke him and he squinted at the light. “Why doesn’t it ever bloody rain?” He drank his cup of tea. It tasted tacky and stale, but that wasn’t the tea; it was his mouth. He briefly considered shaving. No. Shave at Bodkin Hazel. Besides, the way he sweated and the way that foul bloody oxygen mask stuck to the skin it was better not to shave. He had a quick wash and got into his uniform, by now creased and stained and baggy and comfortable from so many hours in the cockpit. No collar and tie: he wrapped a scruffy bit of silk around his neck. Couldn’t find a comb. So what? Hair got messed-up anyway. He slapped his cap on and went to the bathroom for a pee. The cap was a fighter pilot’s badge of rank as much as the rings on his sleeve. New boys had clean, circular caps with neat, smooth peaks. Old sweats like Pip had battered caps that had been sat on, stuffed into cockpits, twisted a thousand ways, soaked by rain, baked by sun. All fighter pilots went around with the top tunic button undone, but that was just tribal swank. Men like Pip had earned the right to wear a really beat-up cap.

  Brambledown was still smoking from the night’s raid. Fire hoses trailed across the roads and craters had been roped off. Hornet squadron taxied past men shoveling earth into holes. One hangar had collapsed on itself and crushed several Spitfires. Telephone wires flopped and dangled. The rumor was that three men had been killed and a couple of Waafs injured.

  The morning began quietly. By ten o’clock there had been no scramble, and everyone became quite cheerful. With Zab and Haddy back the squadron was up to strength. Those two were transformed. They mixed, they talked, they made obscure European jokes which might not have been very funny but any sort of joke was better than none when there was time to kill. At the same time, Cattermole seemed to have given up his vendetta against Steele-Stebbing, and Steele-Stebbing himself was remarkably chatty. He’d never played cards but when Quirk organized a pontoon school he watched keenly and soon joined in. He even said “Blast!” when Quirk aced him out. The other players gaped and recoiled.

  “I’ve never heard such language,” Barton said. “What can it mean?”

  “It means balls and buggeration,” Steele-Stebbing said. “Now deal the sodding cards.”

  Skull brought news of Nim Renouf. He was in Ramsgate hospital, alive and conscious. That was all, but it was more than most people had expected, and it further increased the general cheer-fulness. Skull, however, was not popular. In his hearing, Fitzgerald said loudly: “How many Stukas make nine, Moggy?”

  “Six!” Cattermole exclaimed. “Get that into your skull, boy. Six Stukas make nine.”

  “Sorry, sir. And please, sir: how d’you know when you’ve shot down a Heinkel, sir?”

  “You get a chit from the Jerry pilot, obviously. You are a fool, boy.”

  “In triplicate, sir?”

  “Of course in triplicate. One for you, one for Berlin, and one for the intelligence officer to wipe his bottom with.”

  “And make sure it’s got a twopenny stamp on it,” CH3 muttered. Barton nudged him warningly. CH3 grunted, tipped his cap over his eyes and had a snooze. Six or nine, who cared what the records said as long as the Huns had bought it?

  At five to eleven “B” flight got scrambled. They came back forty minutes later, gun-ports fluting as they drifted in to land. There were only five planes: Mother Cox had gone down.

  “Absolute shambles,” Fitzgerald reported. “Two dozen Dornier 17’s had a go at those socking great aerials at Beachy Head. By the time we got there it was too late, they’d dropped their load and they were off home, lickety-split. And we were the wrong height.”

  “Too low,” Barton said: more a statement than a question.

  “Angels five. Should have been seven, or eight! Anyway, we spotted Jerry departing, so we cut the corner and bust a gut and we just about caught him.”

  “Not really caught,” Zabarnowski said. “Got close, but …”

  “Bloody nippy, those Dorniers,” said Quirk.

  “Everybody tore up and blasted away at them,” Fitzgerald said, “and they all blasted away at us, and Mother must have stopped a bullet in the radiator or something because all of a sudden there’s glycol coming out of him like spilled milk. He turned back and headed for home. He told us to keep on chasing, so we did, but I don’t think we hit anything.”

  All in all it had been a thoroughly duff interception: scrambled too late, vectored too low, outpaced, and nothing to show for it but the loss of the flight commander, who might be anywhere, in the drink, wrapped around a tree, anywhere. Poor show.

  Later, Barton asked Quirk what he thought of his first bit of real action.

  Quirk swallowed, and cleared his throat.

  “Look,” Barton said, “I don’t want an official statement from the admiralty. Just tell me.”

  Quirk took his hands from, his pockets and raised them. The fingers were trembling. “I can’t make them stop,” he said.

  “Don’t try. If they want to shake, let ’em shake. After a scrap I usually drink my tea through a straw.”

  “The funny thing is, I wasn’t sc
ared during the scrap. I got a bit twitchy when we made the tally-ho, but later on there was too much to do … Anyway it was all over so quickly. Fifteen seconds of ammo soon goes, doesn’t it? I couldn’t hit anything. Couldn’t get near anything. I never realized it was so hard to hit a twinengined bomber. It’s impossible. How does anyone do it?”

  “You’ve got to get damn close. A Dornier looks big on the ground. It’s not very big in the sky.”

  “Well, I reckon we were two or three hundred yards behind that lot and the nearest one looked to me about the size of that sparrow.” Quirk stuffed his hands back into his pockets. “In any case I was always bucketing about in their slipstream, and they were always bouncing up and down like mad, so I never even got one in my sights.”

  “I don’t suppose the others did either. It’s a bit different from firing at the towed target, isn’t it?”

  Quirk laughed. “It’s like riding a merry-go-round and trying to swat flies.”

  “In a gale,” Barton said, “with a crowd of maniacs shooting at you.”

  “And a very wet left leg,” Quirk said.

  “Ah. Welcome to the club. Remember: if you see a fighter pilot walking lopsided it’s because one leg has shrunk in the wash.”

  When they sat down to lunch there was a huge blow-up of the group photograph pinned to the wall. It was the first picture, the one taken just as the police corporal fired his revolver. Everyone was chest-on to the camera but the heads had swiveled and no faces could be seen. They found it very amusing.

  “This proves something I always suspected about the British,” Haducek said. “They certainly have their heads screwed on, but unfortunately they are pointing the wrong way.”

  “Personally, I think it’s brilliant,” Macfarlane said. “You can’t tell who’s who, so it’ll never wear out, will it? What we’ve got is the first permanent, everlasting squadron. Brilliant.”

  “What was happening here?” Zabarnowski asked.

  Flash Gordon began a rambling explanation. CH3 murmured to Barton: “Their English has made a startling improvement, hasn’t it?”