Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  “You don’t like flying, do you?”

  “It’s just not …” Rollo searched for the right phrase, and failed to find it. “It’s not my cup of tea,” he said. That sounded feeble.

  “Well, how the hell did you expect to get shots of these Wimpys bombing Germany?” Kate demanded.

  “There are ways and means.” That sounded even more feeble. “For a start, I could easily show one of the crew how to use the camera. It’s not difficult. And they can’t be busy all the time. It would just take them a couple of minutes and—”

  “Cobblers! That really is horseshit.” They glared at each other.

  “All right,” Rollo said. He was pink with rage. “If that’s what you want, if that’s what’ll make you bloody happy, then I’ll fly on a goddam op. I’ll film the lousy raid. Try and stop me.”

  “Don’t make me responsible,” she told him. “You took on this job, not me. If you think you can film 409 without flying, then do it. But don’t blame me if it’s a turkey”

  “I just don’t see the point in getting killed, that’s all.”

  She let him have the last word; they both knew it was only noise. They said little until they were on their way to the Ladies’ Room for lunch, and they paused to watch a Wellington take off. “Someone told me that thing weighs fifteen tons,” Rollo said. “God never meant fifteen tons to fly.” The Wellington came unstuck and climbed and tucked its wheels away. “It’s like making Big Ben fly,” he said. “It’s not natural.”

  Late that afternoon, when all the NFTs had been done and the crews had been briefed and the Wimpys bombed up, the op was scrubbed. It left a sour taste of anticlimax. Poor show.

  5

  Rafferty used his authority and got Mr. and Mrs. Blazer out of the Ladies’ Room and into the Officers’ Mess. He headed off any objections by declaring Kate to be an honorary man. They were also permitted to attend briefings.

  Rollo said nothing to anyone about taking part in an op. He decided to sleep on it, and reach a definite decision next day. He slept badly and woke up, hot and sweaty, at four in the morning. Once, when he was a small boy, he had tried to walk along the top rail of a wooden fence, and slipped, and fallen astride the narrow plank. The agony had so drenched his body that for a while he gave up hope of life. Now he felt the same despair.

  At breakfast, Kate found a place among some pilots. Rollo sat opposite Skull. “I’m thinking of going on an op,” he said. “First time, for me. Never flown in a plane. I expect you’ve been up dozens of times.”

  “Once,” Skull said. “Frightful experience.”

  “Ah.” Rollo waited, but Skull had nothing to add. “I thought I ought to find out what it’s like,” he said. “After all, it’s the reason we’re all here.”

  “Not all of us,” Skull said. “You’re free to leave. You can go back to London any time you like.”

  Briefly, their eyes met; then Rollo looked away. He was comparing the hell of going up in a Wellington with the purgatory of going back to share a flat with Miriam. Not much to choose between them.

  He was still undecided when he tried to see the Wingco and was told he’d have to wait. Urgent meeting in progress. “Is the squadron on ops tonight?” he asked, and got a polite smile in return. Bloody silly question.

  Duff had called a meeting with his Flight Commanders, the Engineer Officer and the Intelligence Officers. Rafferty attended too.

  Duff began speaking quietly, but his left shoulder was hunched in a way that everyone recognized. Somebody had pulled the Wingco’s chain.

  Air Ministry, he said, had ordered—and Command had confirmed—that, as soon as possible, cameras must be installed in all bomber aircraft to record the strike of bombs. Hitherto only a very few Wimpys had carried cameras: the ones with the best crews. That was acceptable. Now every kite had to bring back pictures. “They don’t trust us,” he said. “They’re happy to send us hundreds of miles over Germany through flak as thick as pigshit, but they don’t trust us to report the results. They think they know better. They sit in their fat fucking offices, drinking sweet tea, and pass judgment on my crews, based on a lot of fuzzy snaps.” He gave himself the luxury of hammering that word.

  “The boys won’t like it,” Hazard said. “They’ll think they’re being spied on.”

  “Of course they’re being spied on,” Pratten said. “Why install a camera unless you don’t trust the crew?”

  Group Captain Rafferty belched softly and pressed his stomach. “Let’s get all our ducks in a row before we start shooting.” He slipped a peppermint into his mouth. “I take it you have no objection to reconnaissance photographs of the target being taken next day”

  “No objection, sir, and no faith in the outcome,” Duff said. “The pilot’s too high and his camera’s too small.”

  “They got some very clear pictures of invasion barges in the Channel ports a year ago,” Skull said.

  “Easy. A blind man with a box Brownie could’ve done it,” Duff sneered. “But send the buggers to a hot spot like Hamburg or Cologne or Dortmund …” He shook his head.

  “You don’t see much detail from fifteen thousand,” Hazard said, “and fifteen thou is where you’d better be. Or more.”

  “Show us your snaps, Bins,” Rafferty said. “I know you’re itching to.”

  Bins passed around some ten-by-twelve prints. “A bit dated, but they prove the point. Vertical photography doesn’t always reveal much. A building could be gutted by incendiaries but if the roof hasn’t collapsed, it looks intact.”

  The Engineer Officer was examining the dates stamped on the backs of the prints. “My God, these are ancient. They must have been taken with the Old F.24 camera, eight-inch lens. Nowadays the photo-recce kites use a new camera. It’s got a twenty-inch lens.”

  “So what?” Duff said. “The bigger the camera, the greater the error.” This astonished the Engineer Officer. He looked at Rafferty, who offered him a peppermint. “I’ll tell you what really gets on my left tit,” Duff said. “Air bloody Ministry not only doesn’t trust my crews, it doesn’t even trust Bomber Command with its own pictures! The Photo Reconnaissance Unit is in Coastal Command!”

  “When did a flying-boat last bomb Berlin?” Hazard asked. Their laughter encouraged him. He waggled his pipe.

  “Forget Coastal. Forget their PRU.” Duff tore one of the prints into scraps. “Only one thing matters here. Operational efficiency. Christ knows the bombing run is hairy enough, holding her straight and level until you can stuff the nose down and vanish. Well, now we can’t. Now we’ve all got to remain straight and level, and drop the photo-flash and wait and wait until the bombs explode and the flash goes off. Then we can vanish.”

  “I’ve seen my bombs explode,” Pratten said. “Flames and smoke, flames and smoke. What more is a photograph going to show?”

  “Tell your crews that a camera has one eye and no brain. They have two eyes and great experience. I’ll take their word over a twenty-inch lens any day of the week.”

  The meeting ended. Duff was still hunched and frowning when Rollo Blazer was shown in. “I’ve got to film an op,” Rollo said. “I’ve got to fly in a Wimpy on a raid.”

  “Why not?” Duff said. “Air Ministry is very keen on taking cameras on raids. There’s an op tonight, Bremen. We often go to Bremen. Very juicy target. You’ll see lots of flak.”

  Rollo felt a great surge of relief. Now it was all out of his hands. He was part of the machinery of Bomber Command. It would send him to Bremen and, God willing, bring him back again, and nothing would be required of him except to shoot film and do as he was told. He felt fit and strong and surprisingly brave. “Good show,” he said.

  Duff was picking up his telephone when he remembered something. “I take it you passed your medical,” he said.

  “Medical? I don’t need a medical. Fit as a flea, me.”

  “No medical?” Duff replaced the phone. “You’re not going to tell me that Crown Films sent you here, to go on ops, with
out a medical examination?”

  “It was all a bit rushed, I’m afraid. Does it matter?” Rollo saw Duff’s lips compressed into a thin line and knew that it mattered a lot.

  He met Kate in the anteroom and said he wouldn’t be allowed to fly until he passed a comprehensive medical. “It seems that altitude does bizarre things to the human body,” he said. “They’re afraid I might break wind and blow my boots off and kill someone.”

  “You’re very chirpy, all of a sudden.”

  “Why not? It’s only a matter of life and death.”

  Rollo went to Sick Quarters at two o’clock, and he was still there at three.

  The MO began with his medical history. Any trouble with the heart? The bowels? Throat? Lungs? Respiration in general? Any difficulty in breathing? Persistent coughing? Problems with the nasal passages?

  “I had croup when I was a kid,” Rollo said. “Highly dramatic, it was. The doctor fainted when he saw me.”

  “Croup, you say.” The MO thought about it. “Croup. Have you got your tonsils?”

  “Damn. I left them in Tunbridge Wells. I was only six at the time. Kids are so careless. If I’d known you wanted them—”

  “Be quiet.” The MO used a tongue-depressor and peered down Rollo’s throat. “My Christ, that’s a mess. What did they use, garden shears?” He looked at Rollo’s tongue. “Texture and color remind me of my bedroom carpet. Take your clothes off.”

  “All of them?”

  “Should I brace myself for some hideous abnormality?”

  Rollo stripped. His chest disappointed the MO. “Breathe in. Out. In, and take a deep breath and hold it. A deep breath, I said … Good God, is that the best you can do?”

  “It’s kept me alive so far.”

  “I said hold it.”

  “I can’t talk and hold my breath.”

  “Then shut up.”

  “I’ll shut up when you stop asking questions.”

  “Take a deep breath and hold it while I count to thirty.”

  Rollo collapsed at fourteen. The MO took his pulse and blood pressure. “You have the cardio-pulmonary system of a ten-year-old boy,” he said.

  “Then give it back to the little sod,” Rollo wheezed.

  “Goodness, how droll. Are you sure you’ve never had rheumatic fever? Fainting fits? Breathlessness? Palpitations?”

  “The worst thing that happened to me was the Blitz. I survived that, didn’t I?”

  “Give me a sample of urine. After that we’ll put you on the tread mill, and then you can blow up a few balloons. If you’re still conscious, we’ll get down to some serious tests.”

  At the end of an hour Rollo got dressed. The MO sat at his desk, hunched over his notes. “Give it to me straight, doc,” Rollo said. “Will I ever play the violin again?” The MO didn’t look up, didn’t smile, didn’t respond. The silence lengthened and Rollo wished he’d kept his mouth shut. He could hear his pulse throbbing. It didn’t sound strong. Or steady.

  “Well, you’re not fit for aircrew duties,” the MO said.

  “I’m not going to carry out aircrew duties.”

  “I’m aware of that. What concerns me is how your somewhat battered system would respond to conditions of minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit at, say, twelve thousand feet, for several hours.” He reached a decision. “I need a second opinion. I’m sending you to an RAF aircrew assessment center. They have specialist equipment. Not far from here. Tomorrow morning, probably”

  BANG LIKE RABBITS

  1

  Six Wellingtons were going to Bremen. Rollo and Kate sat at the side of the briefing room. He worked out camera angles in his head; it took his mind off flying. She looked at the faces until she noticed an air gunner watching her and she felt guilty, he should be paying attention, this was serious stuff; and she turned away. Much of the serious stuff meant nothing to her. Bins talked about primary and secondary targets, using much jargon. Skull talked of spoofs and decoys. Pug Duff had something to say about what made Bremen so important: aircraft factories and a yard that built U-boats. Specialists gave complicated advice about navigation and signals. Finally, the group captain said Bremen was about the size of Liverpool, and he didn’t need to remind everyone what the Luftwaffe had done to Liverpool. Now 409 had a chance to return the compliment, and flatten a few U-boats too. Good luck.

  When Rafferty left, a civilian in a well-cut dark blue suit went with him. Good haircut. Broad mustache, neatly trimmed. “He’s a Yank,” Rollo murmured to Kate. “Wears a wedding ring. Zip fly on his pants. Very clean fingernails. Got to be a Yank.” Rollo felt better, knowing that he wasn’t flying. Tomorrow was a year away.

  The next time they saw the blue suit was at dusk. By then, everyone knew he was Colonel Kemp, assistant air attaché at the American embassy. He was one of the group standing at the end of the flare-path, next to the Flying Control caravan, waving off the bombers.

  A cold wind had arrived from the northernmost part of the North Sea, and Skull noticed that Kate was hunched and shivering. “Come inside and have some coffee,” he said. “You two should see the maestro at work.”

  They sat in the caravan and watched Bellamy send each Wellington on its way. His head in the plastic dome slowly swiveled as the engines thundered and faded. “We’ll shoot him from the outside,” Rollo said softly. “Medium close-up, lit from below. Wonderfully theatrical.”

  “Sure,” Kate said. “Why not stick a rose behind each ear?”

  “I’m not changing anything. Just illuminating the truth.”

  The last bomber took off. They thanked Bellamy and left.

  Skull lingered until the two airmen had gone. “Perhaps I’m chasing moonbeams,” he said. “After all, this isn’t my subject. I just wonder if it’s altogether wise to control operational takeoffs as you do, by radio.”

  “Standard procedure,” Bellamy said. “Simple and quick.”

  “Yes … The thing is, I was in Fighter Command last year, and during the Battle of Britain the German air force used to assemble large formations over the north of France. Fighter Command got early warning of this, because we had experts listening to the enemy radio traffic”

  “And you think the enemy is listening to ours.”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “Having made that short journey, please let it travel on. Bomber Command would not have allocated a channel unless it was secure.”

  They went out and Skull nearly lost his cap to the wind. “Isn’t that a rather dangerous assumption? Presumably Jerry didn’t realize we were reading his radio traffic during the Battle.”

  “Then Jerry’s an ass. That’s why he lost the Battle. Get in, I’m freezing.” Skull recognized that tone of voice. Discussion over. He got in and they drove away.

  By now the first Wellington was crossing the coast at Aldeburgh, where the long blunt bulge of Orfordness, ringed by water, made an unmistakeable landmark. Normally they would fly deep into the North Sea, past the Friesian Islands, and turn south for a quick dash to Bremen, but the Germans had built such a thick belt of guns and searchlights along their coast that 409 was experimenting with a different approach to the target: an overland approach They would take a direct route, fly east across Holland, and hope to sneak into Bremen behind the flak barrier. It might be the safest way. And if it wasn’t the safest, it was the quickest.

  Within an hour, T-Tommy was back.

  The pilot was Beef Benton, famous on the squadron for being able to drink a yard of ale in thirteen seconds. “Tommy just didn’t want to go,” he told Bins. They were alone. “First I lost power in the port engine. Couldn’t maintain height. Ran into cu-nims and suddenly there’s ice everywhere, including the carburettors. Went lower to lose the ice and got stuck at eight hundred feet. Tommy refused to climb. Ice damaged the elevators, perhaps. I don’t know. That was when the navigator told me he’d forgotten half his charts. Then some ships began shelling us, ours or theirs, who knows? I decided to call it a day. Or a night. Whichever you
prefer.”

  Benton had a meal and went to bed and twenty minutes later was roused by the duty NCO. He dressed and reported to the Wingco. Duff said the Engineer Officer couldn’t find anything wrong with T-Tommy. He’d fired up the engines and tested the elevators. “Do you still want to bomb Bremen?” he asked. “Tonight?”

  Benton looked around, in search of an answer, and saw Colonel Kemp sitting in a corner. What a shitty question, he thought. Say no and I’m chopped. Say yes and it’ll be daylight before we clear the enemy coast. “I always wanted to bomb Bremen, sir,” he said.

  “Take S-Sugar, the reserve kite. Your crew’s waiting.” Benton saluted and went out. “See what I mean?” Duff said to Kemp. “Red-hot keen.”

  2

  “That’s not Bremen,” Silk said.

  “Yes it is, skip,” Woodman said. “Right a bit.” He was the navigator of D-Dog, which made him the bomb-aimer too. He was lying in the nose, looking through the bomb-sight at a slice of Germany two miles below. “I can see the river. More right.”

  “Lots of German towns have rivers,” Silk said.

  “Flak behind us, skip,” the rear gunner said.

  “Best place for it.”

  “Right,” Woodman said.

  “Flak’s closer.” The gunner’s name was Chubb. The intercom lightened and heightened men’s voices. Chubb was nineteen and sounded fifteen. “They’ve got our height, skip.”

  “Left, left,” Woodman said. “Steady.”

  “Going down.” Silk put Dog into a shallow dive and leveled out at nine thousand.

  “Now I can’t see a damn thing,” Woodman said. Broken cloud had arrived to blot out much of the ground.

  Everyone could see flak but it was scattered and distant, no bigger than the sparks of fireflies and lasting about as long. There were searchlights in the area but they had to find holes in the clouds.

  “Not Bremen,” Silk said. “Too quiet.”