Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  Skelton could not move. “Luther,” he said. “Martin Luther chucked his ink-horn at the devil and missed.” He saw the look in Perry’s eyes and he turned and trotted off.

  Next day the air vice-marshal picked up the telephone and had an amiable chat with an old friend in Air Ministry.

  “Chap doesn’t strike me as Fighter Command material,” Thurgood said. “Too long-winded. Beats about the bush. Full of waffle.”

  Skelton was posted as an instructor in Intelligence to a Flying Training School in Aberdeenshire. It was called RAF Feck. “What’s it near?” the adjutant asked him.

  “Absolutely nothing.” Skelton was examining a map. “Unless you count a village called Nether Feck.”

  “Come on, Skull. It’s got to be near somewhere exciting.”

  “Germany seems closest.”

  The adjutant came over and looked. “Mmm,” he said. “Slightly off the beaten track.”

  “It’s Siberia, Uncle. I’ll die up there.”

  “Nonsense. The Scots are great fun. You wait and see.”

  Skull went off to pack. The adjutant telephoned his opposite number at Feck, supposedly to confirm Skull’s posting but actually to find out something about the place. “What can I tell you?” the other man said. “Nine months of fog and three months of snow. That’s Feck.”

  “Doesn’t sound very thrilling.”

  “We make our own entertainment. Ping-pong and funerals, mainly.”

  RAF Feck trained pilots to fly twin-engined aircraft. Mostly these were Blenheims.

  In the fighting over France, Blenheims got shot down by the score. Clearly, something better was needed. Large numbers of Blenheims were made available for training units. This was just as well. At Feck, a day without a crash was cause for mild surprise.

  At first, the scale of these losses shocked Skull. After a while he got to know a senior instructor, and he asked what caused them.

  “Usually we never know,” the man said. He looked tired. “I have a few theories. For instance, power is intoxicating. We give these boys an airplane. Last year they were riding a bike. Now they’ve got fifteen hundred horsepower at their fingertips. They go solo, they can’t resist flying too fast or too low, or banking too hard. Power seduces them, you see. But one tiny mistake gets magnified by all that power. It only takes a second to lose control.”

  “Can’t you weed out the dare-devil types?” Skull asked.

  “All pilots have a streak of dare-devil. Otherwise they wouldn’t be pilots, would they?”

  Skull remembered the sober and experienced pilots he had known who had chosen to fly underneath bridges for no sane reason that anyone could identify. Some had died. “It seems such an idiotic waste,” he said.

  “Well, there are other reasons for crashes,” the senior instructor said. “Some pilots lack faith. They don’t trust their instruments. They fly by the seat of their pants, and the physical sensations they feel, or think they feel, tell them they’re climbing when the instruments show they’re diving. Or they’re convinced the airplane is turning when the instruments show otherwise. And so they kill themselves.”

  Skull was beginning to be sorry he’d asked.

  “Flying is a very unnatural affair,” the senior instructor said.

  Skull could not blot out the dull thump of a distant explosion, the klaxon summoning the crash crew, the hammering bell of the blood wagon; but he did his best to ignore them. They weren’t his business. His business was in the lecture room, explaining the why and how of Intelligence. The trainees were not especially interested. They were eager to fly, to qualify, to get to an operational squadron before something went horribly wrong and the war ended. So he lectured them as he used to do at Cambridge, speaking to a crowd of bored undergraduates who were as relieved as he was when they were free to go off and play games.

  In his spare time he went bird-watching, as far as possible from Feck. He took his leave allowance one day at a time, drove to St. Andrews, browsed the university library and indulged in an orgy of reading. When spring came, he went into the hills and did some trout fishing. It was an odd life. The newspapers told him about the Blitz. Heavy bombing had reached as far north as Glasgow. But Skull’s war was confined to RAF Feck, and there seemed no reason why Air Ministry should find a need for his services anywhere else; until one day a signal curtly ordered him to proceed to London. No explanation.

  2

  “They’ve bombed the Sheldrake,” Champion said. “The bastards.” For a moment the shock left him breathless.

  “I’m surprised that you’re surprised,” Skelton said. “The rest of London’s been blitzed. Why not your club?”

  Champion recovered and strode forward. ARP barriers shut off Pall Mall but his wing commander’s rings got him through. Skelton, only a flight lieutenant, followed.

  “Just look,” Champion said. “Some idiot Kraut pilot hasn’t the wit to find the docks, so he drops his stupid bomb on the Sheldrake. I mean, just look. I’m on the wine committee.”

  “Past tense, surely.”

  “Bastards. Absolute bastards.”

  A man approached them, an elderly man made to seem older by a covering of dust and a smear of dried blood on his temple. He had a soldierly bearing. “Mr. Champion, sir,” he said.

  “Good Lord, it’s Tizard. Are you hurt, man?” To Skelton he said: “One of the club servants … This is a sad sight, Tizard.”

  “Indeed it is, sir. But we’ve saved the club silver. And two can play at this game, sir. I served in the last show, and take it from me, sir, the Huns haven’t got our backbone. You know me, sir, I’m not a vindictive man, but I hope the RAF blows Berlin to smithereens.”

  Champion patted his shoulder. “Good man, Tizzard … Well, we shan’t get any lunch here, shall we?”

  “The Army and Navy Club has offered our members its hospitality during the emergency, sir.”

  They walked to the Army and Navy.

  It was springtime, but the air smelled of bonfires: city bonfires, stinking not of dead leaves but of charred linoleum and half-burned mattresses, tinged with the harsh aroma of dead fireworks. It was eight months since the Blitz had first introduced Londoners to this smell. Now they scarcely noticed it.

  The two officers said little until they sat down to lunch.

  Ten years before, Champion had been an undergraduate at Cambridge and Skelton had been his tutor. They had disliked each other. Skelton was a youngish history don; his special interest was Tudor Puritan sects. Champion did not take the Puritans seriously. He was not stupid but he was lazy. Sometimes his essays manipulated facts in order to suit his views. Skelton found that intolerable. What made it worse was Champion’s bland indifference when he got found out. “If you were an accountant,” Skelton told him, “you’d be in prison.”

  “Quite a few Puritans went to jail.”

  “For their beliefs. You distort those beliefs.”

  “If they were alive, they might find I’d improved them.”

  “And if you want to write fiction, then change your degree. Read English.”

  Champion wrinkled his nose. “They’re all pansies. They all wear mauve socks.”

  “So do I, occasionally. Write me an essay on the effects of bigotry on Tudor clothing. You’ll find it quite startling.”

  Champion found it damn dull. Skelton amused him: he was too donnish to be true, under thirty yet already developing a scholarly stoop. He wore tweeds as faded and shapeless as a poor watercolor. During tutorials he propped his head on his hand. He had a lank mustache. His glasses were horn-rimmed and heavy. Skelton was practicing to be an old man, thirty years ahead of his time.

  Champion thought this a waste of life. He knew what he liked about Cambridge: rowing in the college eight, drinking beer in pubs, and flying Gloster Gamecocks with the University Air Squadron at weekends. Reading history was just a way of enjoying three good years. He got a middling degree, went down, and never came back. There were many like him, all easily
forgettable, and Skelton forgot them.

  Some years later, Skelton had a short and shattering love affair. He thought of quitting the university, the country, perhaps the world. His load of yearning and contempt and rage was so great that it left him weary and helpless. Not knowing why, he did something absurd: he enlisted in the RAF Volunteer Reserve. With his feeble eyes they’d never let him fly, so it was all pointless. The RAF welcomed him and gave him a uniform. At weekends and at summer camps it trained him to be an Intelligence Officer. He shaved off his mustache, stood up straight, and looked ten years younger. To his surprise, Intelligence was as interesting as history and airmen were more entertaining than dons. Eventually he learned to salute without embarrassment. He even forgot the bloody woman, sometimes for weeks at a time.

  When war broke out he was called up at once. He served with a fighter squadron until he got banished to RAF Feck. The signal from Air Ministry that ordered him to proceed to London told him to report to Wing Commander R.G.T. Champion.

  He was on the train, doing the Times crossword, when the faded memory of a mediocre undergraduate drifted into his mind. Surely it couldn’t be that R.G.T. Champion? A wing commander? But it was.

  Soup was followed by whitebait, with a deliciously crisp white Bordeaux.

  “I assume you’re paying for this,” Skelton said. “That bottle alone would take my pay for a week.”

  “Lunch is taken care of, old chap. Tell me: what do you know about Bomber Command?”

  Skelton looked hard at Champion. “You know I know damn all about Bomber Command. If you wish to tell me something, I suggest you do so without preamble.”

  Champion ate some brown bread. “You haven’t changed, have you? I remember how you always crossed out the first paragraph of my essays.”

  “With good reason. You were clearing your throat, arranging your thoughts, such as they were. What are your thoughts?”

  “I think you’re wasted up at RAF Feck. This is a bomber war, and it’s going to be huge. We’re the only fighting force that’s hitting the enemy where it hurts, which is in his homeland. The army can’t, neither can the navy. Bomber Command is unique. So we need the best brains. We’re developing very big, very powerful aircraft, hell of a bomb-load, colossal range, phenomenal accuracy …”

  Champion spoke enthusiastically, while Skelton finished his fish and enjoyed more wine.

  “That’s what’s going to settle Jerry’s hash,” Champion said. “We’ve got the winning hand. If you get on the bandwagon now, the sky’s the limit, believe me.”

  “Bandwagons don’t fly. Muddled speech reflects muddled thought.”

  “Listen: bolt a couple of Rolls-Royce Merlins onto a bandwagon and it’ll fly like a bird. Or a Wellington. Which is now the best bomber operated by any air force anywhere. Ever been inside a Wimpy?” Skelton shook his head. “Now’s your chance,” Champion said. “409 Squadron recently switched from Hampdens to Wellingtons. They need an extra Intelligence Officer. They’re at RAF Coney Garth, in Suffolk. Not far from Cambridge, actually.”

  “Why are you persuading me? Why not just post me there, and have done with it?”

  They paused while game pie was served and Champion tasted a Côtes du Rhone and gave his approval. “If we drink enough,” he told Skelton, “we might be able to digest the inscrutable contents of this pie … Now then. This is a special job. 409 is a pukka squadron. Their kites are standard Wimpys, they fly the usual pattern of ops. But they have the best bombing record in the Command.”

  “Somebody must be top. Maybe 409 are lucky.”

  “Forget luck. The figures prove—”

  “Oh, figures.” Skelton polished his glasses and squinted at Champion. “The numbers game. Are these the same figures that proved Fighter Command destroyed the Luftwaffe twice over, last year?”

  Champion sighed. He put down his knife and fork. Speaking softly, he said: “I have access to intelligence summaries at the very highest level. Allow me to assure you that 409 Squadron are supremely good at their job.”

  “Splendid. I’m not supremely good at mine. You wouldn’t want me to lower their standard.”

  “We want you to find out how they do it, what makes them different. Pin-point the special qualities of 409 and maybe we can bring all the other squadrons up to their standard.”

  “Ah! Now I understand.” Skelton pushed his plate aside. “C-in-C Bomber Command wants to be able to say that all his squadrons are above average.”

  Champion smiled happily. “I knew I was right. Your mind works differently. You’ll see things with the clear eye of an outsider, things that everyone else takes for granted.”

  Skelton grunted. “And what do I do with these startling insights?”

  “Bring them to me when you’re ready.”

  Skelton suddenly grew tired of the whole discussion. “Those people over there are eating treacle tart,” he said. “Get me a large portion, with cream, and I’ll go anywhere you like. But I think you’re making a mistake.”

  They took coffee in the smoking room. “Why aren’t you flying?” Skelton asked. “You’re still young enough.”

  “One prang too many. Some of our pre-war bombers were frankly ropey.” He tapped his head with a teaspoon. “The quacks grounded me.”

  “Rotten luck.”

  “One door closes, another opens.”

  They went into Piccadilly. The sky was a fragile blue. The barrage balloons flying from Hyde Park scarcely moved in the breeze.

  “It looks like another blitzy night,” Skelton said. “Will Jerry be back, d’you think?”

  “Yes. And no doubt Jerry is asking himself the same question about our chaps. Would you like to know the answer?”

  “Please.”

  “The answer,” Champion said, “will be thunderous.” He smiled like a vicar announcing the next hymn on Mothering Sunday.

  3

  Skull drove into RAF Coney Garth at four p.m., in the middle of a fair-sized flap.

  Aircraft were droning around the circuit. Vans and trucks were shuttling from hangars and workshops to Wellingtons parked at the perimeter. The Tannoy was chanting a string of messages. Skull had had an apple for lunch; he was looking forward to tea and toast in the Mess. Obviously that could wait. An airman showed him where the Ops Room was. Two armed Service Policemen guarded it. They admitted Skull only when 409’s Senior Intelligence Officer came to the door and told them to.

  He was a Squadron Leader with a shiny head, thick mustache and busy eyes made bigger and busier by powerful spectacles. “Bloody glad to see you,” he said, almost accusingly. “I’ve lost a pilot officer and a Waaf sergeant, one posted, one gone down with flu, so that leaves me and Corporal Hawkins, and Group has changed the target twice since noon. What? Anyway, I’ve got everything sorted out now. Can you take over here? I haven’t eaten since breakfast. What’s your name?”

  “Skelton.”

  “Of course. You’re Skull. I’m called Bins. Right, I’m off.” He got into his tunic; Skull saw an Observer’s half-wing, much faded. “Final briefing, seventeen hundred hours.” The door banged behind him.

  Skull, thought Skull. How did he know about Skull? One of the mysteries of RAF life was the way nicknames went ahead of a posting. “What’s the target?” he asked.

  “Mannheim, sir,” Corporal Hawkins said.

  Everywhere Skull looked there were telephones. Some were labeled with initials that meant nothing to him. “You’d better start explaining—” he began, when a phone rang. Hawkins answered it. Mannheim, Skull thought. Where the devil is Mannheim? A map of Germany covered half a wall and he began searching. Another phone rang. The Sergeants’ Mess wanted to know when the aircrew sandwiches should be ready. Skull said Corporal Hawkins would call them back. He fended off the next two calls in the same way and then got a brisk Scotsman on the red phone. Instinctively, Skull knew it would be a mistake to offer him a corporal; on the other hand the man spoke too fast and used strange words. “Say again, pleas
e,” Skull said. “This is an awfully bad line. I missed half of that. Who are you?”

  “NLO.”

  “Still not good. Perhaps if—”

  “NLO. Naval Liaison Officer, for Christ’s sake. Can you hear me now? Can you write? Then write this: convoy three seven green new position …” Skull wrote hard.

  Phones kept ringing. When Bins returned, Skull had a small stack of messages to give him. “Anything crucial here?” Bins asked. Skull thought. “Um…” he said. He couldn’t remember what half the messages were about. Bins turned to Corporal Hawkins. “Got the target file? Good. Let’s go.”

  The squadron was sending six Wellingtons to Mannheim; there were thirty-six aircrew in the Briefing Room. Skull listened carefully to the squadron commander’s description of the target, what it manufactured, and precisely where, and just how it helped the German war effort. Other officers took over. A stream of information came thick and fast—petrol load, bombload, takeoff time, diversion airfields, signal codes, recognition signals, alternative targets—until Skull let it wash over him. He looked at the crews. He had expected them to be older than fighter pilots; instead they seemed younger. Many gunners and wireless ops were twenty at most; probably only eighteen or nineteen. He saw pilots with schoolboy faces. He glanced back at the squadron commander: awfully young to be a Wingco. Three rings on his sleeve went halfway to his elbow. Skull felt curiously remote from this scene. He was nearly forty: a very old man to the crews. They laughed at something Bins was saying about searchlight concentrations. Skull missed the joke but he smiled anyway.

  “Any questions?” Bins said.

  “Who else is on this raid?” someone asked.

  “Only Wellingtons. Thirty-odd kites. If you see something over Germany that’s not a Wimpy, shoot it down.”

  “What about convoys? Can we shoot at them?” a pilot asked. There was groaning and whistling.

  “Only one convoy,” Bins said. “Northbound off Cromer, so it should be well away from you. Anything else? No? Then it’s weather time.” He handed his pointer to the Met man.