Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  “Yes.”

  “Sounded as if he’d seen a miracle.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t script stuff like that. You can script the words but not the voice. It makes that shot universal. You could watch it in China or Brazil and still get the same kick.”

  The raid was fading away, the guns giving up as the bombers turned south and droned toward home. The clouds above parts of London were as red as dawn, but dawn was still two hours away.

  They stowed their equipment in the car. Rollo started the engine.

  “If that fellow saying ‘Jesus Christ Almighty’ isn’t on the soundtrack I’m going to kill you,” he said.

  “You kill me, I’ll tell the union and they’ll get your name taken off the credits.”

  “Credits?” he said. “Credits. I never thought about credits.” Filmed by Rollo Blazer. The idea kept him quiet for several minutes.

  3

  London was huge; it could afford to lose several hundred acres. It could even afford to lose its great buildings. The House of Commons was wrecked: seven bombs had blown it apart. Westminster Abbey was hit. So was Buckingham Palace, and the Tower of London, and the British Museum, and every railway terminus, and five hospitals, and all the churches in the City, and more. It was a long and gloomy list.

  Everywhere Londoners looked they saw the ruins of landmarks in their everyday lives. What the Luftwaffe had done yesterday it could repeat tomorrow, and the next night, and go on repeating until the long-threatened invasion came. In the shattered shopfronts, handwritten signs said Business as usual-London can take it. The tired faces of the customers told a different story. To make matters worse, there were precious few luxuries in the shops. Rationing hurt.

  For about a year now, in all of Europe, only Britain had stood against Germany and Italy. Defiance was a noble attitude, but it was lonely and painful and tiring, and many people wondered how it was going to win the war.

  4

  The Heinkel corkscrewed lazily down the searchlight beam, as if the light were winding it in. Abruptly it flung its little wings away and then it exploded. Bits of airplane fluttered, trailing flames. Noise of the explosion arrived, like a door slamming. The searchlight went out. The flames made bright scratches in the night.

  The tail of the film flapped through the projector, the screen went blank white, the overhead lights came on.

  “What did that man say?” Gunnery asked. “Right at the end?”

  “He said ‘Jesus Christ Almighty,’” Harry Frobisher said.

  Delahaye yawned; it was stuffy in the viewing room. “Might run into trouble with the Church over that,” he said.

  “People swear in the Blitz,” Gunnery said.

  “Of course they do,” Delahaye said. “They say worse things than ‘Jesus Christ Almighty.’ But we’re not going to repeat them in the cinema, are we?”

  Timothy Delahaye was Minister of Information. The Crown Film Unit was one of his responsibilities. Normally he was happy to leave the running of Crown to its head, Blake Gunnery, who knew all about film. Gunnery’s mother, widowed in the First War, had married an American film producer and raised Blake in California. At twenty-five he came back to England, made a string of successful B-movies, and then rashly invested all his money in an avant-garde production, a dark political thriller full of revolutionary camera-angles, exactly what Thirties audiences didn’t want to see. Gunnery went bust. He still had one asset: the baronetcy which he had inherited from his father. When the top job at Crown Films became vacant, Timothy Delahaye was among those who interviewed him. The baronetcy clinched it. Gunnery never used the title, but he could obviously be depended upon to serve the State.

  “Leaving blasphemy aside,” Delahaye said to Gunnery, “this Blitz stuff is quite brilliant. How much is there?”

  “Forty-seven reels.”

  “Golly. The man deserves a medal. Some of his shots made me want to run for my life.”

  “Those poor devils couldn’t run,” Gunnery said. “Firemen and so on. Had to stand and fight. Stand and die, some of them.”

  “Well, there it is.” Delahaye made an it’s-all-over-now gesture. “We can’t use any of it. Not a foot.”

  “I’ll have it locked in the vault. Double-locked.”

  “Very wise. How will your man Blazer react?”

  “He’ll throw a fit, Minister,” Frobisher said. “Come at me with the paperknife, I expect. He believes he’s shot an epic. London, bloody but unbowed. That sort of thing.”

  “So he has,” Delahaye said. “It’ll be a masterpiece one day. When we’ve won the war, and we can look back with pride at this ordeal by fire, that will be the time to let our people see Blazer’s film. Not now.”

  “Sir, the Blitz is a victory of a sort,” Frobisher argued.

  “No, it’s not, Harry,” Gunnery said. “It’s a kick in the teeth.”

  “Yes.” Frobisher remembered images from Blazer’s footage. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

  “So where do we stand?” the Minister said briskly. “The nation’s morale has taken a pounding. First Dunkirk, then the Blitz. We need a damn good morale-booster. Something to make people feel good about the war. Good about democracy. What would cheer up the average man in the typical air raid shelter?”

  “Only one thing that I can think of, Minister,” Gunnery said, “and that’s knowing that the RAF is bombing the living daylights out of Berlin.”

  Timothy Delahaye picked up a phone. “Get me the Air Ministry,” he said. “Air Commodore Russell in Press and Public Relations.”

  “The RAF isn’t bombing the daylights out of Berlin, sir,” Frobisher said.

  “It will be,” Delahaye said. “By the time you’ve finished with it.”

  5

  Tim Delahaye and Charlie Russell were distant cousins and old friends. Each knew what the other’s job involved, and neither felt any need to be especially sympathetic. They met in the Minister’s office, which on that particular morning had a fine view of heavy rain.

  “One good thing,” the Air Commodore said. “It helps to lay the dust.”

  “Yes. Last night’s raid. We had a few bombs, didn’t we? A few incendiaries?”

  “A few hundred. And if you’ve got me here to complain that the RAF can’t shoot down Jerry bombers, I don’t want to hear it. We do our best.”

  “I know you do, Charlie. But look here. The Blitz has been going on for seven or eight months, and people are fed up with it. We need a victory.”

  “Try the Army and Navy Stores. Try Harrods. Try prayer.”

  “Bomber Command is a kind of a victory.”

  Russell sniffed.

  A man brought in coffee on a tray, and left. Delahaye poured. Russell stroked the coffeepot with his finger. “Solid silver,” he said.

  “My father bequeathed it. Damned if I’ll leave it at home to be bombed.”

  “I’m lucky to get a chipped china mug, in my office.”

  “Don’t take this amiss, Charlie, but you don’t seem frightfully bullish about the Royal Air Force today.”

  “Don’t I? Well, I’ll back it to the hilt. What I won’t do is embarrass anyone—from the CO to the erk who sweeps out the hangar—with a lot of overblown propaganda.”

  “Has that happened?”

  “The Battle of Britain. Not your fault, Tim, but by the time it was over, the public thought every RAF fighter pilot was a Greek god who went up before breakfast, knocked down a brace of Dorniers, did a victory roll and said it was a piece of cake.”

  “With a modest smile.”

  “The chaps didn’t like it, Tim. Didn’t like being called ‘Glory Boys.’ They knew it was all balls.”

  “Yes.”

  “So no more glory boys. Flak and fighters are bad enough without coming back to bullshit.”

  “Quite agree. That’s why I want my chaps to make an absolutely honest, accurate film about your best Wellington squadron.”

  Russell made a sour face. “
C-in-C Bomber Command doesn’t like film crews wandering around his bases. They jeopardize security. One bloody cameraman filmed a Guest Night in the Mess. You can imagine how the boys reacted. They debagged the adjutant. I had hell’s own job getting the negative.”

  “It won’t be that kind of film.”

  Russell shook his head. “Bomber Command can be very sticky. Believe me, they won’t budge.”

  “Let me pass on a piece of news,” the Minister said. “The Royal Navy has given permission for a major feature film about the exploits of one of its destroyers.”

  “Oh?” Russell became very alert. “Which one?”

  “HMS Kelly, commanded by—”

  “Mountbatten. The king’s cousin.”

  “Noel Coward is directing and starring. The film will be a great hit. The navy will look very good.”

  “The bloody Kelly sank.”

  “Amid scenes of the most tremendous pluck. The Admiralty are very excited about it.”

  “Trust the navy to blow its own bugle. They hate the RAF, you know. They wouldn’t rest until they got the Fleet Air Arm away from us. And now their damn ships fire at our chaps all the time. Utter bastards.”

  “The army is planning a big film too, set in North Africa.” Delahaye brushed biscuit crumbs from his fingers.

  “That’s crazy,” Russell said. “The army is losing, for God’s sake.”

  “Laurence Olivier is a Commando officer. Rex Harrison is an expert in Intelligence. Margaret Lockwood plays a fearless nurse. Good cast.”

  “Good at what? Running backward? Rommel’s twenty miles inside Egypt.”

  “Backs-to-the-wall stuff, Charlie. The army’s always been good at that.”

  “The army hates us too. After Dunkirk it wasn’t safe for an airman to go into an army pub. The brown jobs reckon we let them down. All balls, of course.”

  “I know, I know. But please think about it. Did you see Olivier in Wuthering Heights? Quite brilliant. And I know the navy are very serious about HMS Kelly. Just imagine. Mountbatten. Noel Coward.”

  “The fellow’s a pansy.”

  “He’ll be a very gallant pansy. All the nice girls love a sailor.”

  “Enemies everywhere,” Russell said bitterly. “And I don’t mean Hitler.”

  That afternoon, Russell phoned Delahaye and said Air Ministry was fully in favor of a film about Bomber Command. 409 Squadron, based at RAF Coney Garth in Suffolk, had the best record of any Wellington squadron.

  “Fine.”

  “I can get you David Niven. He was excellent in Dawn Patrol. He’s in the army, but they’ll lend him to us. David Niven’s better than Noel Coward, don’t you think?”

  “It’s not that sort of film, Charlie. This is a documentary. Real men, real action. Crown Films will make it. They’re part of my little empire.”

  “We’ll need to see the script.”

  “Of course you shall. You can have a bit part. Bring your own brush and you can be the erk who sweeps out the hangar.”

  “Ha bloody ha,” Russell said. He had set his heart on getting David Niven to play a bomber pilot: skillful, ambitious, charming, unafraid. Another disappointment. War was all disappointment.

  6

  Rain made everything worse.

  When Rollo was a boy, summer holidays were always in Cornwall. It always rained. That couldn’t be true, but it was how he remembered it. Bad enough being small: no money, no power, no freedom to go anywhere without adult permission, and no money to do anything when you got there. And then it rained. Cornwall turned granite-gray. The sky seemed to sulk, dragging itself heavily and gloomily out of the Atlantic. A day of rain was a slow death in wet sandals.

  When he became a cameraman, the first thing Blazer reacted to when he awoke each day was the light. Good light meant a good day’s shoot, if they were shooting outdoors. Rain was the most depressing sound. That nibbling, speckling patter on the windows put him in a bad temper, whether he was filming or not.

  Now the rain was the second sound he heard when he awoke.

  He had been up all night, driving all over London with Kate, searching for something different to film and finding the same old smoking craters and shattered buildings. To make it worse, rain kept spotting the lens. A wasted night.

  He fell into bed at seven. A shrill bell drilled into his brain. He hated waking up. He saw the clock and detested the time: eleven twenty. He loathed the rattle of rain on the window. The bell stopped. Whoever tried to phone him had quit. Thank God. He dragged the covers over his head and Fucking belli the bastard hadn’t quit and it wasn’t the phone, it was the door. He stumbled through the flat and opened it. His wife was there. Ex-wife. Miriam. Weeping. No, not weeping. That was rain dripping down her face. “I was afraid you were out,” she said.

  “I was out.” He plucked at his pajamas. “This is my outerwear.”

  “I’m sorry.” Maybe she was crying a bit, too.

  “Not half as sorry as me.” She had a suitcase. “Oh, shit,” he said.

  “I couldn’t think where else to go.”

  “I could.” They went into the kitchen. “Salvation Army. Scotland Yard. Your mother’s place.”

  “She’s dead. Died four years ago.”

  He sat down and immediately stood up: the fly on his pajama pants had flared open. His raincoat lay nearby. He put it on. What’s the matter with you? he asked himself. She’s seen it all before, a thousand times. She was drying her face with a tea-towel. “Are you unwell, Miriam?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He waited. “Well, if you’re not going to tell me, I’m not going to ask.”

  “You never knew what sacrifices I made for you, Rollo,” she said. “I gave—”

  “Stop!” he shouted. “Don’t say you gave me the best years of your life. I can take the Blitz, and I can take cheap dialogue, but not both together.”

  She filled the kettle with water. That simple action amazed him: it was as if she had never been away: what gall! “There’s no gas,” he said. “They’ve turned it off. A bomb.” She struck a match, and the gas flowered obediently. “What a cow you are,” he said. “You can’t stay here.”

  “I’ve been bombed out.”

  “Well, obviously.” Rollo kicked her suitcase. “I didn’t think you were selling lavatory brushes. You still can’t stay here.”

  Miriam simply looked at him. Her hair was damp; she tucked it behind her ears. She seemed five or six years older, and this disappointed Rollo until he did the arithmetic and realized she was five or six years older. So was he. Bloody hell.

  “But I really need to stay here,” she said.

  “There’s no damn room! You’re not my wife, I don’t have to feed and clothe you and keep you in household crockery to smash on my head. You told me to go to hell, remember? Well, I went to hell and here I am, slightly grilled and smelling of sulfur but otherwise happy in my hell-hole, and you can’t have it!”

  “You don’t understand,” she said.

  He threw a cup at her, and missed by a yard. She flinched, and smiled sadly. “Christ Almighty!” he roared. “Don’t you remember anything? If you stay here, one of us will kill the other before sunset. We hate each other, Miriam.”

  “But I’ve nowhere else to go.”

  He pulled the raincoat over his head and closed his eyes. He said: “I can’t see you, so you don’t exist.” The raincoat stank of blitzed buildings. Ah, happy days, he thought.

  “House two doors away got hit,” she said. He heard her making tea: the hot rush and bubble of water into the pot. “Next door wasn’t safe. They pulled it down and half my house came down with it.”

  A milk bottle clinked, a teaspoon rattled. He wanted a cup of tea. More than that, he wanted to chuck her into the street. In the movies men got chucked into the street all the time. Why not a woman, for once? The phone rang and she picked it up.

  “It’s for you,” she said.

  “Of course it’s for bloody me.” Now he had to
come out of hiding. “Look: go and stay in a hotel, Miriam. I’ll pay, if I must. Hello. Rollo Blazer speaking.”

  It was a brief conversation.

  “That was the office,” he told her. “The boss wants to see me. Drink up. I’ll drive you to a hotel.”

  “There’s Desmond as well,” she said. “He’s been living with me. As a paying guest, so to speak.”

  “Spare me your feeble euphemisms, Miriam. If the bugger’s your boyfriend, say so. Do you fuck each other?”

  She nodded. He thought he saw a tiny smile of pride.

  “Well, you can do it in the gutter. This is a very small flat. I need every square inch.”

  “Desmond’s waiting outside. We came in his car.”

  Rollo raised his arms and howled like dog. The effort was tiring and soon he had to stop. She was still there, sipping tea, watching. “Cover yourself up, Rollo,” she said. “You know the neighbors can see in, and it’s not a pretty sight.”

  “If I come back and find bloody Desmond in this bloody flat I’ll bloody kill the pair of you.”

  He shaved and dressed, and went out to his car. The rain had stopped. One other car was parked nearby, and a man stood beside it: a naval officer, tall, broad, very bearded. He was carrying a pair of gloves, and he made a jaunty little salute with them. Rollo nodded. As he drove away he wondered what the chap saw in Miriam. Then he wondered what he, Rollo, had seen in Miriam. Whatever it was, it had turned out to be an optical illusion.

  He put it out of his mind. Quite soon he would be back in the real world, the world of film. It was a reassuring thought.

  7

  “Warmest congratulations,” Blake Gunnery said. Frobisher was working on the cork. Rollo Blazer smiled modestly. The cork ricocheted off the ceiling. Frobisher made haste to pour. “There are few privileges in my job,” Gunnery said, “but one is seeing the work of true genius, and another is toasting its creator.”