Piece of Cake

by Derek Robinson

  “We had good reason. I forget what it was exactly, something to do with tennis balls, wasn’t it? I used to know … Anyway, we had a perfect right to be there. Besides, we won, didn’t we?”

  “Hitler might say the same, sir.”

  “I wonder if we can get a cup of tea?”

  The other two came back.

  “Impressed?” Bletchley asked. “Jerry’s got nothing like that.”

  “Very interesting,” she said. “I didn’t understand half of what Micky said, except for something about back-armor and self-sealing tanks and … uh … variable-pitch propellers. And metal wings.” She smiled amiably.

  “All standard,” Bletchley said. “Quite routine.”

  “Really? The strange thing is that six months ago in France they were impossible.”

  “Not metal wings,” Bletchley said firmly. “We had those.”

  “Not only impossible but unnecessary. Or so everybody said, except CH3. And now here they are.”

  “You mustn’t write about any of that stuff,” CH3 said. “Jerry knows we have it, but he doesn’t know we know he knows, so it’s got to be top secret or you’ll spoil the game.”

  “But don’t you think it’s strange?”

  “War sets a hot pace,” Bletchley said, “and the devil takes the hindmost.”

  “I’ll tell you what it reminds me of,” she said. “Squadron tactics. I never fully understood all the technicalities, of course, but I remember that tight-formation flying was absolutely essential. You couldn’t attack without it. Everyone said so, except CH3. And now I’m told that’s all been changed, and tight-formation tactics are completely wrong. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Some squadrons still prefer tight formations,” Bletchley said. “It’s up to the individual CO. I don’t deny that we’ve learned from experience. Surely you don’t blame us for that?”

  “No, no. Certainly not. In fact it’s exactly what I’m going to do myself. You see, so much of what I’ve been told—told repeatedly, and officially, and at a very high level—has turned out to be wrong that … well, I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe anybody any more. When I’m told the RAF has just shot down—what was it? fifty-nine German planes? I don’t believe it. And I can’t write what I don’t believe.”

  “Then it looks as if your career has come to a sudden end,” CH3 said.

  “Not necessarily. I can still check the facts. For instance, if you say you shot down fifty-nine German planes today there should be fifty-nine wrecks, right? Well, I’m going to drive around and count them.”

  “Are you, by jove?” Bletchley murmured.

  “What a startlingly original idea,” CH3 said. “Checking the facts against reality. This could spell the end of modern journalism as we know it.”

  “I’ll give it a whirl, anyway. D’you like the idea?” she asked Bletchley.

  “I’ll put it up to Air Ministry. They may not approve.”

  “I think they will. They’ve nothing to hide, have they?”

  CH3 escorted her through the blackout to her car. “You know,” she said, “you’d be a lot happier if I were some hardbitten ginswilling old bat you didn’t care about. As it is, I think you’re ever so slightly afraid of me.”

  “Why should I be afraid?” He was holding her elbow, steering her around roped-off craters.

  “Because I’ve got your number. I know you’re just like me. We’re both out to prove that money doesn’t matter.”

  “I didn’t know you had any.”

  “I haven’t. I’m broke. Been broke all my life. You should try it sometime. It’s very stimulating.”

  He opened the car door. “I’ll get the butler to try it,” he said. “Then he can tell me if it really works.”

  Replacement Hurricanes had been flown in to Bodkin Hazel by breakfast-time the next morning. Flash Gordon turned up, a ragged line of surgical thread above one eyebrow. A sergeant-pilot called Todd was posted in to replace Zabarnowski in Blue Section. The squadron was almost back to strength.

  The satellite field didn’t look so good. It had been bombed again during the night. A hangar and the clubhouse were flattened and the top of the control tower was missing. Telephone engineers were still mending the lines when the Defiants landed. Fanny Barton went over to greet their CO.

  He left CH3 to lecture the Hornet pilots in the privacy of the crewroom. On the wall was a blown-up print of Macfarlane’s wreck.

  “This sort of thing makes me bloody angry,” CH3 said. “It’s stupid and childish and selfish. He could’ve wiped out a dozen men on the ground with that pathetic display of showing-off. Doing complicated high-speed maneuvers at low level after combat is idiotic. It’s not clever. It’s not brave. It’s not dashing. It’s stupid. It’s about as stupid as little children playing Last Across the railroad track. This idiot …” He rapped his knuckles on the photograph so hard that he dented it. “How did he know his Hurricane wasn’t damaged? He’d just been in a scrap, anything could’ve happened. Maybe a Jerry bullet nicked a control cable. He didn’t know.” There was complete silence. CH3 was not intensifying his anger for effect; on the contrary he was struggling to contain it. His face was pale and his voice was harsh. “No more victory rolls,” he said. “There’s enough risks in this job without stunting shot-up kites at zero feet. It’s a waste of my half-crown for the wreath, it’s a waste of Fanny’s valuable time writing to the next-of-kin, and it’s a waste of a good Hurricane. That’s all.”

  They got up and went out, glad to escape; all except Cox. He shut the door. CH3 was sitting on a table and gripping it as though he thought it might collapse.

  “Well, you certainly told them,” Cox said. “Now forget it.”

  “He was in my flight. Bloody idiot. Why do they have to be such bloody idiots?”

  “I might ask the same of you.” That made CH3 look up. “I hear you had a date with Jacky last night.”

  “A date? That wasn’t a date.”

  “Whatever it was it hasn’t done you any good, has it? Now you’re going around looking for asses to kick. It’s not their fault if you’ve got popsy problems.”

  “She’s not my popsy.”

  “If you treat her the way you treat us, I’m not surprised. She’s not going to wait forever, you know.” Cox got a cloth and wiped the inside of his oxygen mask. CH3 gazed at the floor and let his right foot bang against the table-leg. “Still, that’s your funeral,” Cox said. “It’s Fanny I’m thinking of. Every time you turn grim, Fanny gets worried.” CH3’s leg stopped moving. For a moment the room was silent.

  “I was looking at that new kid, Todd,” CH3 said. “He’s all keen and eager. And I thought: poor bastard, he doesn’t know what he’s getting into. He doesn’t know beans about what it’s going to be like, and chances are he’ll never live to find out.”

  “But he thinks he’s good,” Cox said. “He thinks he’ll be an ace by this time next week. And that’s a terrific advantage! He’s got confidence in himself. If he’s nervous, if he’s scared, he’ll hang about and hesitate and some dirty little 109 will spit in his eye and that’ll be that, goodbye Todd. Come on, CH3, snap out of it. You can’t save his life by worrying. What you can do is make him feel good. Make him think we’re the hottest squadron that ever flew, and by God what a lucky man he is! Right?”

  CH3 slid off the table. “Christ, I could sleep for a week,” he said.

  “He’s probably going to buy it anyway,” Cox said. “He might as well get his money’s worth.”

  CH3 opened the door. “Hey, Toddy!” he shouted. “Come here, I need your advice.”

  Barton’s conversation with the CO of the Defiant squadron was brief. He was a tall, softspoken man with prematurely gray hair. His name was Grant.

  Barton made sure there were no problems with fuel or ammunition, and then inquired how Grant wished to operate. Relative altitudes, for instance. Suppose the Hurricanes patrolled two thousand feet above the Defiants?

  “I’m afraid I don�
��t understand,” Grant said. “Have you had new orders to join us on patrol?”

  “No. I just thought … I mean I assumed you were here so that we could give you an escort.”

  “Frightfully kind of you,” Grant said, examining the horizon. “We don’t actually need an escort. I do command a fighter squadron, you know.”

  “Yes, but …” Barton had blundered in; now he had to blunder out. “It’s none of my business, of course, and I know it wasn’t your squadron, but they were Defiants, and they did get pretty badly hammered by 109’s, didn’t they?”

  “Only because they were bounced. We don’t intend to get bounced.”

  “No, of course. On the other hand if they come at you head-on, how can—”

  “Please don’t concern yourself. We know what to do.”

  Barton nodded and walked away. After a few paces he stopped and turned. Grant was pulling on a pair of fine leather gloves, although the day was already hot. Barton went back. “This is crazy,” he said. “You chaps shouldn’t be here, right in the front line. You should be up in Scotland or somewhere, in reserve.”

  For the first and last time, Grant looked him straight in the eye. “We have been given the place of honor,” he said, “and we must take it.”

  The morning was quiet, although Skull kept bringing news of raids elsewhere. An additional ack-ack battery arrived to guard the aerodrome. The adjutant drove in and announced that their backpay had at last been sorted out. Sticky Stickwell came over to visit. They gave him a deckchair and a cup of tea. “I hear you’re saving up to be a lumberjack, Sticky,” the adjutant said. “Jolly healthy life.”

  “No,” Stickwell said. “Who told you that?”

  “Well, I’ve seen pictures of them in National Geographic.”

  “No, no. Who said I want to be a lumberjack?”

  “Moggy did.”

  “Well, he’s got it all wrong. I’m training to be a surgeon.”

  “No, I don’t think so, Sticky,” Flash Gordon said. “Moggy told me, too. He was very definite about it.”

  “They all laughed,” Cattermole said, “but I reckon you’d be very good, Sticky. All that hacking and chopping with dirty great axes, it’s right up your street.”

  “Awful,” Stickwell said. “For a start, you’ve got to live in Canada.” He shuddered.

  “Well,” the adjutant said, “it’s not too late to change your mind. I’d think it over very carefully if I were you.”

  “I’m going to be a surgeon.”

  “Much of a muchness, really,” Barton said. “Hacking and chopping, chopping and hacking.”

  “What are you going to be, when you grow up, Moggy?” CH3 asked.

  “Obscene and disgusting, I hope.”

  “What about you, Haddy?” Barton said. “Got any secret ambitions?” But Haducek just looked blankly at him. Since Zabarnowski’s death, Haducek had said very little.

  “I’m going to be world champion,” Gordon said confidently.

  “What at?” Cox asked.

  “That hasn’t been settled yet. I leave all these details to my agent.”

  “Nothing much changes, does it, Fanny?” Stickwell said. “They still talk a lot of cock.”

  “Nonsense,” Barton said. “We have very serious discussions nowadays. Skull, say something serious for Sticky.”

  “Um … let me see. Well, the Soviet Union has just annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. That’s quite serious.”

  “Shocking lot, the Bolsheviks,” Kellaway said. “I was there in 1919. The RAF was helping the White Russians. Trying to, anyway.”

  “It was probably all agreed last year,” Skull said. “Russo-German pact. That’s when Hitler and Stalin carved up eastern Europe between them.”

  “We flew Camels,” Kellaway said. “Did a lot of low-level strafing. Bolshevik cavalry, mainly.”

  “I thought the Nazis were against the Communists,” Fitz said.

  “They were,” Skull said, “but they kissed and made up.”

  “Never itched so much in my life,” Kellaway mumbled.

  “Well, what d’you expect?” Cattermole stretched and yawned. “They’re all as squalid as each other, aren’t they? Communism’s every bit as bad as Nazism, as far as I—” He crashed sideways out of his deckchair. Haducek had him by the throat and was banging his head on the ground and screaming abuse. It took half the squadron to drag him off. “I am a good Communist!” he shouted. “I fight and I die for my country and for Communism! You say Communists are same as Nazis I kill you!”

  “Take a walk, Moggy,” Barton said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Stickwell said.

  They went and sat on the ruins of the clubhouse. It still stank of high explosive. “Bloody foreigners,” Cattermole wheezed. “They ought to be put down at birth.”

  “Listen, Moggy,” Stickwell said. “I didn’t want to mention this before, but … See, I keep getting letters from the bank … That stuff I sent you, I mean, it added up and … Well, I just wondered what …”

  “I gave Rex all the bills,” Cattermole said hoarsely. “Anyway, Rex went for a burton.” He coughed, painfully.

  Stickwell nodded several times. “I was afraid that was it,” he said. “Oh, well. I’ll manage somehow, I suppose.” He stood up and walked back to his squadron. As he passed the deckchairs, Fitz called out: “When you’re a lumberjack, save us a tree.” Stickwell waved.

  In the crewroom, Barton was tearing a strip off Haducek, who simply sat and shook his head. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Barton demanded. “You must be crazy.” Haducek nodded. Normally, Stickwell piloted a Defiant but today he was an air-gunner. His squadron had more pilots than gunners at the moment. Grant had put him down as a reserve pilot, which was very boring. Then one of the regular gunners developed appendicitis and Stickwell grabbed his place.

  They were scrambled just before noon.

  He enjoyed being in the turret. Facing the tail, he got a completely fresh view of the sky and the squadron. And swinging the guns was great fun, too: the electrically operated turret went around like a fairground ride, while the guns angled up or down very slickly.

  They climbed steadily, heading south. He got a bit restless, unable to see what was ahead. Then he heard the tally-ho, and the plane tipped sideways, and there were Dorniers everywhere.

  All things considered, the squadron acquitted itself well. It broke up the raid before the Dorniers reached the coast. There was then a collection of dogfights in which each Defiant pilot strained to hold a position that allowed his gunner to keep a bomber in his field of fire. The Dorniers dodged and jinked and used their crossfire to hit the Defiants from both sides. The Dorniers could fire forward and backward and sideways but each gunner had only one gun, whereas the Defiant had four. Stickwell was vaguely aware that his plane was being hit, he heard occasional plunks and saw holes sprout in the tailplane, but the thrill of letting fly with four shuddering, battering Brownings entranced him. He raced the turret from left to right, squirted quadruple death and destruction, and whooped when a Dornier sheered away. He searched from right to left. The turret stopped halfway. The tail went up and he was aiming at the sun.

  Stickwell shouted on the intercom. No answer. He twisted his neck. The prop was windmilling. The pilot’s head was a red smear, pressed into a corner of the windscreen. Stickwell began kicking the turret controls, punching the Perspex, whacking the sides with his elbows. Nothing moved.

  In the end the Defiant changed its mind and eased out of its dive so that it made a neat belly-landing on the water. It sank at once. Bright spray charged past the turret and turned to a swirl of light gray-green that became steadily darker. Stickwell began undoing his straps and then stopped. He knew he wasn’t going anywhere. The water charged up to his knees and climbed more slowly to his waist. He looked up and saw, far away, the shiny-metal surface of the sea. Everything outside was turning black. He had no idea the sea was so dark. He was still gripping the gun-handles
. He squeezed but nothing fired. You couldn’t kill the sea. The water reached his chest, and he gasped at the cold grip. “I didn’t really want to be a sodding surgeon anyway,” he said aloud. His voice sounded old and cracked, but that was because his ears were full of buzzing and whining. A Perspex panel caved in and the sea smashed him in the face.

  The field was littered with broken Defiants and fire-trucks and blood-wagons when Hornet squadron got scrambled. They made a good interception on a bunch of Heinkels just as they were bombing the giant aerials at Pevensey. Haducek destroyed a Heinkel but the escort was heavy and in the frantic scrap that followed, Sergeant Todd got shot down. There was no parachute.

  Each flight was scrambled once during the afternoon. “A” flight found nothing. “B” flight chased a raid back across the Channel but most of its pilots were always out of gun-range.

  A flood of black cloud was hurrying in from the west when the squadron took off early in the evening. They climbed to twenty-two thousand feet and joined a squadron of Hurricanes from North Weald, just north of London. The raid they had been given was making its approach up the Thames estuary: fifty-plus bombers covered by forty Me-110’s; these in turn were protected by a great swarm of 109’s.

  When Barton sighted this mass of aircraft churning toward him he felt a surly resentment: why was it always so one-sided? Why couldn’t they for once fight on even terms? Or even—what a luxury!—outnumber the enemy? The feeling passed, and half a minute later he was astonished to see all the 109’s and half the 110’s detach themselves and fly south.

  “Low on fuel,” CH3 suggested.

  “Not the 110’s,” Barton said.

  “They’re low on appetite,” Cox said.

  This seemed the explanation. As soon as the Hurricanes peeled off to attack, the 110’s formed their familiar tail-chasing circle. The fighters ignored them and concentrated on the bombers, harrying and chivying the flanks to drive them off course. Fitzgerald broke from one such attack and discovered that he had lost his wingman. Flash Gordon had gone.

  He climbed, weaving to search, and glimpsed a solitary Hurricane inside the ring of 110’s, whizzing around, vertically banked. It had to be Gordon. A Messerschmitt fell out of formation and the Hurricane dropped behind it, squirting flame. Fitz opened his throttle wide and went down to guard his wingman’s back.