Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  FACT ISN’T TRUTH

  1

  Rollo spent two days and nights at the assessment center. Even with stitches to reduce the hole in the gums, his blood was slow to form a permanent clot. He drank beef tea through a straw, listened to the radio, thought about 409 and wondered what an op would look like through a viewfinder. Then, at last, the dentist said he was satisfied. Rafferty’s car arrived.

  Kate was impressed when she saw him. Half his face was still swollen. “You look as if you nearly had mumps and then changed your mind,” she said. “That’s a mump you’ve got there. One mump.”

  “You feeling strong?” Rollo said. He took the wisdom tooth, wrapped in a square of bloody lint, from his pocket, and showed it to her.

  “Oh my God…” She turned away, repelled and fascinated at the same time; and sneaked a last look. “That’s not a tooth, it’s a fang. What a size! No wonder your face is so beat-up. D’you want a drink? I do, after that.”

  “Too early. They’ve rationed my booze. What’s been going on here?”

  “Not much. 409 was stood down until today. Plenty of hustle and bustle now, so my guess is ops are on tonight.”

  After what he’d been through, flying didn’t frighten Rollo. It couldn’t be any worse than having a wisdom pulled out. He wanted to get on with it. He asked for an urgent meeting with the Wingco and the group captain. Within an hour, he and Kate were in Rafferty’s office with Pug Duff. Rollo told them it was time to decide on casting.

  Rafferty was puzzled. One Wimpy was much like another, he said, and so were the crews. Rollo said he had noticed a black man on the squadron. Duff identified him: Sergeant Palmer, from Jamaica, rear gunner in T-Tommy, damn good type. “I’m sure he is,” Rollo said, “but there’s a problem with trying to film a black man on a dark night. All you see is the eyes.” Rollo’s jaw was still stiff. His voice was flat. He sounded tough. “Also there could be difficulties when the film gets shown in America. You know what they’re like over there.”

  “Forget T-Tommy,” Duff said. “How about B-Baker? No niggers, and Joe Pearson’s a damn good pilot.”

  “Isn’t he from up north?” Rollo asked. “Yorkshire accent?”

  “Salt of the earth,” Rafferty said. “Done twenty ops.”

  “I can’t gamble on a bloke with a funny accent,” Rollo said. “Half the audience won’t take him seriously, and we’d need subtitles in America. It’s got to be someone who speaks good English.”

  “Which rules out the Australians, Rhodesians and Canadians,” Duff said. “And the Irish.” He took a long, hard look at the point of his pencil. “At a pinch, I suppose, I could do the job myself.”

  This frightened Rollo. Duff was far too short to play the hero, but Rollo wasn’t brave enough to tell him so. He was grateful when Kate pointed out that the film was supposed to be about a typical Wimpy crew. “You’re the CO, sir. You plan the ops. We can’t very well have you briefing yourself, can we? You’re a chief, not an Indian.”

  “Flight Lieutenant Silk?” Rollo suggested. “His English is good.”

  “And he’s guaranteed to say the wrong thing,” Rafferty said. He snapped his fingers. “I know the man for you. Why didn’t I think of him before? Flying Officer Gilchrist. C-Charlie.”

  “We could do a lot worse,” Duff agreed. “Gilchrist won’t say the wrong thing. Mostly he won’t say anything at all.”

  “Now that he’s got a whole lot of ops under his belt, it’s knocked some sense into him,” Rafferty said. “When he came here, he was a bit of a pansy”

  “Used to be an actor,” Duff said.

  “We all make mistakes,” Rollo said; which amused them.

  He found Gilchrist and told him that C-Charlie had been chosen to be filmed during an op. Gilchrist’s only response was to nod. Rollo suggested they go to his married quarters, to discuss the technical aspects. Gilchrist nodded.

  Kate was there. When Rollo introduced them, she said: “I know you. I saw you in How Like An Angel. You were very good.”

  “Thanks.” He made half a smile. “Long time ago.” The half-smile died.

  “I need to put together an outline for a script,” Rollo said. “A good documentary has a shape, it tells a story. This is the story of an op, obviously. But where does it begin?”

  “Oh … high in the sky. A photo-recce kite does a quick dash over Germany. Some penguin at Command sees the snaps, finds a target, gives it to Group, Group gives it to 409, the Wingco gives it to me.”

  “So the target’s the key. Find it, hit it, beat it. That’s our story. Right?”

  “Other things can happen.”

  “Sure, sure.” Rollo heard himself. He sounded too slick, too casual. “What sort of things?”

  “Mistakes. A Wimpy explodes when it’s being bombed up. That’s happened. Wimpys collide on the perimeter track. Might lose an engine on takeoff. Big bang, then.”

  “Let’s assume none of that happens,” Rollo said. “For the sake of brevity.”

  “Also happiness,” Kate explained. “This film is about winners. You take off, no disasters. What next?”

  “Reach the coast. Watch out for intruders. That’s German night fighters. Might not even be Jerry. I remember when a Spitfire shot down a Hampden.” Rollo put his head in his hands. “I suppose it seemed a good idea at the time,” Gilchrist said. Nothing changed his quiet voice.

  “Nobody gets shot down,” Kate said. “It must be true, it’s in the script. What’s next?”

  “Enemy coast. Belt of lights and flak.”

  “Good,” Rollo said. “The beast at bay, spitting fire and fury. 409 sails through the storm. That’ll make a great sequence. Then?”

  “Depends on the target. Another hour if it’s Dortmund. Two hours to Stuttgart. Three to Chemnitz. More flak. Night fighters. I’ve seen kites blow up. Big flash.”

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” Rollo said. “Hitting the target. Is that the climax of the whole op? You aim, you drop—boom, up goes the factory”

  “Does it?” Gilchrist said. He raised an eyebrow.

  “If it doesn’t,” Kate said, “something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?”

  “Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. From ten or twelve thousand feet you can’t always be sure. It’s like Guy Fawkes’ Night down there.”

  Rollo did the sum in his head. Twelve thousand feet was about two miles. “I can’t focus on something two miles away, at night!” he complained.

  “Neither can the flak batteries,” Gilchrist said. “That’s the whole idea.”

  “Let’s forget the target for a minute,” Kate said. “We can always come back to it later.”

  “We often do.”

  “What about the trip home? What are the problems now?”

  “Weather.”

  “I can’t film rain at twelve thousand feet.”

  “Shut up, Rollo. What about the weather?”

  “Unpredicted winds bugger up the navigation. Electrical storms bugger up the instruments. Icing buggers up the whole airplane. Ice inside the cockpit, sometimes.”

  “I can film that,” Rollo said.

  “Fog is worst.”

  “Nobody can film fog.” Rollo went to the bathroom.

  “At the end of a long op, fog is a bitch,” Gilchrist said. He was talking more freely now. “The station’s clamped, you’ve got to divert, your fuel’s low. I was on an op last winter. Dusseldorf. Game back, fog everywhere. Twenty-two bombers crashed in England that night. Twenty-two.”

  Rollo returned. “Not strictly true,” he said. “I can film fog, but it looks very boring. Fog at night, even more so. Listen: I had a better idea. Suppose you get hit by flak. Not you personally. Just a near-miss, enough to make a few holes and prang one of the crew.” He saw Gilchrist’s eyes widen. “Not killed,” Rollo said. “Just put out of action.”

  Gilchrist looked at Kate. “What happened to the happy film?”

  “He’s a happy casualty,” Rollo said. “A mere flesh wound. In th
e leg, say. He makes a complete recovery, I promise. Now tell me: what’s his job? Everyone’s important, sure, but you’ve bombed the target, you’re halfway home, who can you do without? For a short time?”

  “Second pilot.”

  Rollo frowned, picturing the scene. “He sits next to you, doesn’t he? Too risky. We can’t panic the audience, not now when you’re nearly home. Who’s next?”

  “Wireless op, I suppose.”

  Rollo had questions to ask about pain-killing injections, but there was a knock on the door. It was Silk and Zoë. “I wonder if you could hide Mrs. Langham for a few days,” Silk said. “She doesn’t eat much. Pilchards, mainly”

  “He smuggled me into camp under a sack in the back seat of his car,” Zoë told them. “I’m on the run from the police.”

  “Are you serious?” Kate said.

  “Ask anyone in Suffolk,” Silk said wearily. “They’ll confirm it.”

  2

  Ops were changed before lunch. The bombs came off; mines were loaded, but only onto two aircraft. Group wanted two Wimpys for Gardening, and Gilchrist’s C-Charlie was not one of them. 409 relaxed.

  Rollo heard all this from Squadron Leader Hazard, one of the flight commanders. “Damn,” he said. “Just when I was getting keyed up.”

  “Never bitch about a scrub. It could be the op where you get the chop.”

  “I know, but… it’s unsettling, isn’t it? I feel… let down.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s worse. In the kite, engines warmed up, ready to taxi, and then the scrub signal. I’ve seen men get out of the airplane and throw up. Doesn’t pay to think when you’re aircrew. How’s your tooth?”

  “Better, thank you.” Rollo had given up telling people that the pain came from a hole and not from a tooth. Compared with ops and scrubs, what was a bloody silly hole?

  The afternoon was empty. Rollo got approval to film a typical briefing session. He had a sandwich for lunch, and wrote a script. Normally a briefing lasted half an hour; Rollo scripted five minutes. He showed it to Rafferty and Duff.

  “This can’t be right,” the Wingco said. “I’m supposed to send my crews to bomb some vital oil tanks, and you want me to tell them to go in low. Not bloody likely! Minimum of eight thousand. Ten’s good and thirteen’s better.”

  “I expect Mr. Blazer has a reason,” Rafferty said.

  “Every good film needs a good villain,” Rollo said. “Ours is the target. The audience must see that target. Okay, they see photographs of it at the briefing, good, now they know which particular dragon 409 Squadron has to slay. But unless they see the actual target through the eyes of the crew, the audience hasn’t completed the experience. We want our audience to identify with your crew, to share their achievements. Which it can’t do from thirteen thousand feet.”

  “Vital oil tanks,” Duff said. “According to this, they’re heavily defended.”

  “Spare yourself, Pug,” Rafferty said. “They don’t exist, do they, Mr. Blazer?”

  “Not in Germany. Bins found this nice shot of the river Severn.” He showed them an aerial photograph of a sweeping bend, with a road and railway. “Those round things are genuine oil tanks.”

  “Someone in the audience is bound to recognize this place,” Duff said.

  “We’ve flopped the negative. Left-to-right becomes right-to-left. We’re calling it Krumingen. Everyone will believe it’s in Germany. Later on, when there’s a full moon, a kite can fly me over the Severn, I can shoot the moonlight on the water, we flop the neg, Bob’s your uncle. C-Charlie’s found its target.”

  “Dashed clever,” Rafferty said.

  Duff grunted, and looked at the script again. “This is like no briefing I’ve ever attended. You’ve given Bins four lines. I’ve got eight. That’s more than nav, signals and Met put together. The group captain’s got the last word, and very brief it is.”

  “I based it on what you usually say. Slightly condensed, that’s all.”

  “I suppose you want us to memorize this stuff,” Rafferty said.

  The crews filled the briefing room. Rollo and Kate got some establishing shots, then filmed the entry of the briefing officers, then stopped filming for a rehearsal.

  It went badly. Duff began by describing the importance of the target and the method of attack. His body was stiff, his eyes stared straight ahead, he looked grim and he sounded tense. Bins was next. He explained the target photograph, speaking in a stop-go monotone which lacked all conviction. Armaments, Signals and Met had little to say and seemed glad of it. Finally, the group captain delivered his little pep talk with a total lack of pep.

  “They’re terrible,” Rollo whispered to Kate.

  “They’re not actors. They’re worried about their lines.”

  “That was excellent,” he announced. “Very professional.” He asked those with speaking parts to come with him into the next room, and he rehearsed them in private. “Don’t worry about saying the exact words, just say what comes naturally. A little warmth, a few gestures, a touch of gusto?” He smiled broadly, but he was the only man who did. The second rehearsal was a very slight improvement. They returned to the briefing room. Rollo urged the crews to look more interested. “This information is all for your benefit,” he reminded them. “Feel free to react.”

  He filmed the third effort.

  Duff delivered his opening remarks again. It was an important target and would be heavily defended. Crews should go in low, to be sure of accuracy. He ended with the usual words: “Any questions?”

  A pilot raised his hand. “How low is low, sir?”

  “As high as you like,” Duff said. That earned a small cheer.

  Later, when the Met man said, “The predicted winds …” all the crews chanted, “Are wrong!”

  Rollo made a mental note to edit out the interruptions. But there was nothing he could do to improve Rafferty. The group captain slumped at the sight of the cine-camera. His words were hesitant and his voice was dull. He wished them good luck as if they were taking his last sixpence.

  3

  Zoë couldn’t leave the house, so Silk and Gilchrist came to supper. Rollo did the cooking. It was sausage and mash, with bottled Bass.

  “My potato has lumps in it,” Kate said.

  “That’s nothing,” Silk said. “My sausage doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going. See? You can eat either end. Not simultaneously, of course.”

  “You must have an interesting job,” Gilchrist said to Kate. Duty done, he went back to his food.

  “Well, it’s interesting to watch Rollo win the war,” she said. “We came here to film a typical crew on a typical raid. So far he’s picked the best crew, with the best-looking pilot. He wants the Wimpy to go in really low so that he can get nice clear pictures of the target. Did I forget anything?”

  “Kate’s a romantic,” Rollo said. “She thinks you just point a camera at the world and you get the truth.” He was quite unworried.

  “I did forget something,” she said.

  “Fact isn’t truth. Truth is something you discover.”

  “I forgot the wireless op. Rollo’s going to shoot the wireless op in the leg, if he can get a gun.”

  “I’ve got a gun,”Zoë said.

  “Empty,” Silk said.

  “Only because you emptied it, darling. I’ve got lots of bullets.” She took the revolver from her skirt pocket.

  “Why?” Kate asked.

  “She keeps it not to shoot people with,” Silk said. “Special constables, hotel receptionists, me. Nothing personal, you understand. Zoë won’t shoot you, too, if you ask nicely.”

  “You’re such a lovely chump, Silko.” Zoë kissed him on the cheek. “It’s for my own protection. The police gave it to me. The Special Branch. In case I bump into any Irish revolutionaries and they start any funny business.”

  Kate said, “So you’re not on the run from the police?”

  “Sometimes I am.” She smiled, reassuringly. “It depends.”

&nb
sp; “Wait a minute,” Silk said. “What about the charity, the fraud, the quarter of a million?” He had stopped eating.

  “That was all a trick to catch the IRA. It was a subterfuge.”

  “Ah,” Gilchrist whispered. “Subterfuge.” The word gave him great pleasure.

  “But this is Suffolk,” Kate complained. “What the hell’s the IRA doing in Suffolk?”

  “Frightfully hush-hush, I’m afraid.”

  “You said you came here looking for me,” Silk said. “What was that—another subterfuge?”

  “Everyone’s so angry,” Zoë said. “What is everyone so angry about?”

  “Your pack of lies,” Silk told her. “Just give me the facts, for God’s sake.”

  “Fact isn’t truth,” Rollo said, too complacently, which started the argument all over again.

  4

  The Met man was up with the dawn and liked what he saw. The sky was empty and the breeze was light. It would be a day for farmers to bring in the harvest and armorers to bomb up the Wellingtons. Later he talked to his colleagues at Group. An anticyclone covered the British Isles. The rubbish that had recently clogged the skies of Germany was probably gone, pushed south over the Balkans. The Met man went out and flew his weather balloon, estimated visibility, recorded atmospheric pressure, and told Pug Duff what the Wingco had known as soon as he opened his bedroom window. Ops tonight.

  Orders came through from Group while the sun was still burning the dew from the grass. Six aircraft to attack Essen.

  That took some of the shine off the day.

  Every target was dangerous but some were worse than others. Rotterdam had its attractions; so did St. Nazaire and Boulogne and Le Havre. None was in Germany and all were on the coast, so it was possible to get in and get out fast and avoid most of the flak. Enemy ports like Emden, Wilhelmshaven, Hamburg and Kiel were hot spots but they didn’t require hours of flying over Germany. It was the deeper ops—Brunswick, Kassel, Frankfurt—that brought a thoughtful silence to the briefing room when the city was named.