Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  Well, Langham had got into a skid before, often, and got out of it. That’s what controls were for. But not these controls. The ailerons had quit, the elevators were useless, the control column was as floppy as a broken leg. The rudder bar was locked hard to the right. He got both feet on its left end, and thrust, and it wouldn’t budge. Rock solid. Dog sliced through cloud and plunged into gray air, wingtip first, still trying to fly sideways.

  Langham forced himself to think. The intercom was silent: they knew he was in trouble. What they didn’t know was he had no idea how to get out of it. Dog had her teeth into this downhill skid. The altimeter kept unwinding briskly. He saw it race past three thousand feet. He heard creaks and groans. The airplane wasn’t built for this cockeyed maneuver. Two thousand.

  A desperate thought wandered into his mind like a lunatic on the run. Steer with the engines. No. With just one engine. His hand went to the starboard throttle, and hesitated. If this was wrong, cancel the wedding. One thousand feet. Against all instinct, he closed the starboard throttle, killed that engine dead, and opened the port throttle, banged it wide open, rammed it to emergency setting. Dog twisted as if kicked. The port engine’s savage thrust forced her to straighten out. The rudders unlocked. All the controls came alive. Dog leveled out at two hundred feet, above a stampede of cattle.

  Langham flew cautiously for a long minute. Nothing seemed broken. The starboard engine picked up. He climbed to a thousand feet. A sour taste of metal filled his mouth and would not go away.

  “Course for base is two-three-zero, skipper,” Jonty said.

  “Thank you, observer.”

  “Distance fifteen miles, skipper.”

  “Thank you, observer.”

  Faintly, Langham heard one of the gunners mutter, “Bleeding Christ on crutches.”

  “Say nothing,” Langham ordered, “unless you have something to say.” The intercom clicked off.

  2

  Twenty minutes later he was talking to the Engineer Officer, a brisk Londoner called Quinn who knew every nut and bolt in a Hampden. “I’ll have D-Dog checked at once,” Quinn said. “Sounds like a duff revs gauge. When you asked for it, the port engine gave full power?”

  “Saved my skin. All our skins. The kite’s okay now, we flew home like a dream, all serene. But before … She just wouldn’t answer. No controls, not a damn thing. We fell five thousand feet. Long way. Didn’t take long, I know that.”

  Quinn looked at his notes. “All this began when you banked to port.”

  Langham’s legs felt shaky. He sat down. “To avoid the Wimpy,” he said.

  “What sort of bank?”

  Langham frowned. “Not so much a bank. More of a skid.”

  Quinn nodded. “Stabilized yaw,” he said.

  “Stabilized yaw?” Langham could barely say it, his mouth was so dry. He swallowed, and tasted bile. “I thought that was just a joke.”

  “It’s in your Pilot’s Notes. Para seventeen, sub-para six. From memory, it says, ‘At low speeds, large sideslips may cause the rudder to lock over. Flat turns should be avoided.’ Or you get stabilized yaw.”

  “I nearly got the chop.”

  Quinn gave him a copy of the Pilot’s Notes. “Para seventeen. I’ve marked it. You need a drink. I’ll get someone to drive you to the Mess.”

  Langham was drinking brandy and soda when his flight commander saw him. “Thought you were on leave,” Stuart said. “Christ, you look awful.”

  “Took Dog up for an air test. Got buzzed by a Wimpy, banked to port, rudders locked solid, everything went to hell.”

  “Ah, yes. Stabilized yaw.”

  “That’s all right, then.” Langham finished his drink in one long swallow. “As long as it’s got a name, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Your fault, Tony. You made a ham-fisted bank, didn’t you? Put a Hampden in a skid, what happens is the front of the airplane blanks the airflow over the tail. You can’t steer, so your skid gets worse. Now your rudders have got air blasting sideways at them. No wonder they locked. I thought everyone knew that.”

  “Silly me. Fancy stabilizing my yaw.”

  “Have another drink. You look bloody awful.”

  Stuart left. Langham was finishing his second brandy and soda when the Wingco came in. “Good grief,” he said. “You look dreadful.”

  “Air test, sir. Nasty skid. Nearly bought it.”

  “Stabilized yaw,” Hunt said. “You ought to know better. Still, no harm done. Have another drink.”

  Langham did, and then dragged himself off to his room. He lay on his bed for five minutes and woke up two hours later when Silk pounded on the door and hurried in and shook him. “The Rolls is here!” he said. “Jesus, Tony, wake up! Get changed! What’s the matter with you?”

  “Stabilized yaw,” Langham said croakily. “Thought I’d got the chop, Silko.”

  “Stabilized bollocks. Come on, move. It’s your big day. Stabilized marriage, that’s what you’ve got lined up.”

  “No, not that. Oh God, please save me.” His head was in his hands, his skin felt like rubber, he wanted to hide. “Please, God …”

  By now Silk was in the corridor, shouting for Langham’s batman.

  3

  When they got out of the Rolls, outside the cathedral, Silk said quietly, “Anyone would think you’re being tried for murder. Cheer up, for Pete’s sake. Smile. Like this.” Langham watched him carefully, and copied him. “Not so desperate,” Silk said. “Never mind. Keep it.” He had got Langham to the church. Now all he had to do was get him down the aisle and deliver him to the bishop.

  Langham went quietly. He was still in shock. He was in the third-largest cathedral in England, and its echoing gloom reminded him of a huge railway station. After a while, he was convinced of this. Individuals passed to and fro in the shadows: passengers waiting for a train, like him. He wondered where they were going, but when he looked for a destination board, he saw the glowing splendor of the east window. That explained everything. This was where you went when you got the chop. This was the terminus for the terminus. He saw beautiful flowers. He heard the trickling notes of an organ. He whispered into Silk’s ear: “They give a chap a jolly good send-off here, don’t they?” Silk frowned, so Langham said no more. Silk probably hadn’t got the chop. It was different for him.

  After that, proceedings were just a blur. Zoë appeared, in an awfully pretty dress, and so did the bishop, in a kind of ball-gown, both there to see him off, presumably. It all went on and on. At one stage he was high in the roof, looking down, watching himself going through some kind of ceremony. Answering questions. Could it be a customs examination? Seemed unlikely. He felt light-headed. He shouldn’t be at this height without oxygen. Bad for the brain. He came down to earth at a hell of a lick and made a perfect three-point landing. Not possible. He looked at his feet and counted them. Not three. See what oxygen starvation does to you? At that very moment the train came in. He felt its mighty power rumble up through the soles of his shoes. It was playing Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, gale force ten. It was so loud that it blew him out of the cathedral.

  4

  He got carried along by a tide of congratulations. When the bridal party arrived at Bardney Castle House he knew he was married. Everyone was happy, so he joined in the fun and agreed with what they told him. But after a while he grew very tired of shaking hands and smiling. He wanted to be alone with Zoë. Where was she? Gone to change her clothes. An extraordinarily tall man gripped his elbow. “Saw you admiring our cathedral,” he said too loudly. “Fascinating place. I wrote a book about it.”

  “Ah.” Langham got his elbow back. “Fancy that.”

  “Fifty-seven thousand square feet. Diocese was huge, you see. Reached from the Humber to the Thames. First cathedral was finished in 1092.”

  “Good show.”

  “Burned down in 1141,” he boomed. “Major restorations were necessary, of course.”

  “Yes. If you’ll excuse me—”


  “Worse followed.” He had Langham’s elbow again. “Disastrous earthquake in 1185. Whole structure largely destroyed.”

  “Look, I must go, so—”

  “Hugh of Avalon! Became bishop. Started rebuilding.”

  “You’re bloody deaf, aren’t you?”

  “The nave is thirteenth-century. The style is Early English.”

  “Let me go or I’ll kill you.” The pulses in Langham’s head were pounding. This deaf maniac couldn’t hear him and wouldn’t release him, he kept barking on about a copy of Magna Carta kept in a cathedral chapel, so Langham snatched a bottle of champagne from a passing waiter and would have cracked it on the man’s head if Pug Duff hadn’t taken it from him. Others appeared: Silk, Tom Stuart, Jonty, Happy Hall, the MO, and they hustled him out of the room, along a corridor, away from the crowd.

  “You’re spoiling the party, Tony,” Stuart said. “And you’re letting the side down.”

  “Mind your own bloody business.” Now he was nine years old.

  “It is our business,” Duff said. “You damn near put up a very large black, back there.” He waved the champagne bottle, and drank from it.

  “Give me a swig.”

  “Not likely. You don’t deserve it.”

  “Don’t what?” He almost choked on rage. “I nearly went for a Burton this morning. Lost the kite at five thousand, pulled out at a hundred! Bloody good job I did, or you bastards wouldn’t be getting pissed now.” He lunged for the bottle, and missed.

  “Wasn’t a hundred,” Jonty said. “More like five hundred. I was there.” He yawned. “I had every confidence in the pilot. He knew what he was doing.”

  “No I bloody didn’t.”

  “I blame the kite,” Happy Hall said. “Lousy heap of scrap.”

  “I blame the weather,” Silk said. Who cared? He certainly didn’t. He wandered over to a window. The overcast had gone. A lazy sun shone in a soft blue sky.

  “My theory is different,” the MO said. “I don’t believe you really wanted to get married, and now you’re disappointed that you didn’t get the chop.” He shrugged.

  “I think he’s bats,” Silk said. “I know his family. They’re all bats.”

  Langham had turned away. He was looking at the parkland.

  “If you don’t want her, I’ll have her,” Jonty said. “Anything for a friend.”

  “Pigeons,” Langham said, and pointed. “Fucking pigeons.”

  “Definitely pigeons,” Silk said. “But otherwise engaged.”

  “They were all over the cockpit.” Langham was calm now. “I couldn’t see for feathers. I’m going to kill those pigeons.”

  “Good,” Duff said. “We’ll come with you.”

  The butler was not surprised. Killing pigeons was one of the amenities at Bardney Castle. He supplied shotguns, and the airmen roamed the park for twenty minutes, blasting the innocent sky and even knocking down a few sluggish birds.

  When they went indoors, Langham seemed much better. “Try and get some rest,” the MO said to him.

  Lady Shapland overheard this. “What an absurd suggestion,” she said. She was dancing with the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. “That boy is going to fertilize my daughter if he has to gird his loins every hour on the hour all through the honeymoon.”

  “I rather think that girding the loins has an opposite effect,” her partner said.

  She wasn’t listening. “I need an heir, Henry. He’d better not be firing blanks or I’ll have him annulled.”

  “You can’t annul a bridegroom, Philly.”

  “Just watch me. Stand and deliver, that’s the name of the game.”

  “My stars, Philly, you’re full of zip. You wouldn’t like to govern Nigeria, would you?”

  Langham was dancing with Zoë. The shock of survival had passed; he was beginning to see its advantages. “I nearly killed my crew this morning,” he said.

  “Only nearly? I nearly slipped in the bath. Nearly broke my neck. Nearly spoiled your day.”

  “Poor show. I don’t like the sound of that bath. In future we shall bathe together. That’s my decision, as an officer commissioned by His Majesty King George the Sixth. I’m jolly good at decisions.”

  “Silko doesn’t think so, darling.”

  “Silko is the most stupid man I’ve ever met.”

  “He thinks I’m making a great mistake. He said I should have married him.”

  “Well, there you are. Pure stupidity on two legs. He should be an exhibit in a traveling circus.” They waved and smiled at Silk, who was dancing with a bridesmaid. “That’s a pretty girl.”

  “This is heaven.” She stopped so that they could kiss. “If you ever leave me I’ll kill you.”

  “Can’t kill me if I’ve got the chop.” Not a clever remark; he was sorry he’d said it. “Anyway, the circumstance won’t arise. That’s another of my brilliant decisions. Who’s that tall bloke over there?”

  “Giles Palfrey. Retired banker. Why?”

  “He kept shouting at me. I nearly killed him, too.”

  “Dear me,” she said. “Another failure. You’re really rotten at killing people, aren’t you, darling?”

  “Utterly hopeless,” he said, and felt much better for it. Sometimes it paid to lose.

  The dance ended. He went looking for champagne, and met the bishop. “At one stage today I feared you were about to expire,” the bishop said. “I’ve never administered the last rites during a wedding service, and I’m not sure I know the drill. But you’re looking much better now.”

  “Thank you. I’ve been married all afternoon, and I think I’ve got the hang of it. I’ve discovered that sometimes it pays to lose.”

  “Highly unlikely. In my experience of matrimony, if you think you’ve won, you’ve lost, and if you think you’ve lost, you really have lost.”

  “Oh. Well, in that case, I’ll settle for a draw.”

  “Then you’re disqualified.” The bishop smiled cheerfully and patted Langham on the shoulder. “Remember those rules, old chap, and you should have a straightforward run to the grave.”

  STRANGLE THE BUTLER

  1

  The couple took their brief honeymoon in London, in Albany. It was her idea. “Lincolnshire is dreary,” she said. “We shall get more than enough of it soon.” They went by train, first class. He slept most of the way. In the taxi from King’s Cross, she said, “You were dreaming, darling.”

  “Was I?” He thought about it. “Yes. I met my father.”

  “Didn’t you tell me he was dead?”

  “Yes. But so was I, you see. Dead as a doughnut.”

  “Dodo, darling. Dead as a dodo.”

  He frowned. “My father wouldn’t make that sort of mistake.”

  She saw that it disturbed him. “Darling, dodo or doughnut, it really doesn’t matter. They’re much the same.”

  “Doughnuts don’t die. It’s absurd. So I couldn’t have been dead.”

  “Of course not. Was it all a joke, d’you suppose?”

  “Maybe. My father used to like playing practical jokes, but still…”

  “A practical joke about death is carrying things a bit far.”

  “Yes. Anyway, I hate doughnuts. If they serve doughnuts in Heaven, I’m not going.” He had shaken off the dream and was cheerful again.

  They spent most of the next three days in her apartment, and much of that time in bed.

  On the evening of the second day, as they shared yet another sexual triumph, and separated, they lay with their fingers linked, letting the sweat cool their bodies. “You’re not a woman,” he said amiably, “you’re an animal.”

  “Goody. I’ve always wanted to be a blue-assed baboon. They have such fun.”

  “I doubt if even baboons keep up our sort of pace. I’m not complaining.”

  “Good. Neither am I, darling.”

  “It’s just that you have a way of looking at me, and when you do, I get a slight pain down below. In my wedding tackle, not to put to
o fine a point on it.”

  She propped herself on an elbow and studied his collapsed penis. “We haven’t put too fine a point on it, dearest.” She raised it with her index finger. “You’ve got oodles of wear left in you.”

  “What a comfort you are. All the same …”

  “You’re suffering from chronic shortage of gin, my sweet.” She slipped out of bed. “Gin cures all. If Hitler drank gin he wouldn’t be in such a frightful paddy with everyone.”

  While she was away, he thought about D-Dog and the rapidly magnifying patch of Lincolnshire that had so nearly become a large crater, burned black all around. The picture came to him less often, but it still caused a kick in his heartbeat. He had wondered about telling Zoë, realized it would mean explaining stabilized yaw, and decided against it.

  She came back with the drinks.

  “Something rather odd happened during our wedding ceremony,” he said. “Cheers … I had the sensation of being high up, near the roof, watching myself get married.”

  “I’ve had that. Not for years, though. How did you get down?”

  “Oh … sideslipped, with full flap and a touch of rudder. By the way, you ought to know: I’ve made my will.”