Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  “It’s the only way they can talk,” Kate protested.

  “Too thin. Too weak. Next, the light. That bomber was as dark as the tomb.”

  “Lights are dangerous. Night fighters are on the look-out.”

  “No doubt, but we hardly ever see the crew, do we? The best piece of human interest is that close-up of a pair of female hands, very bloody, strapping up a horrible gash in somebody’s buttock.”

  “Kate,” Frobisher said. “Deserves a gong.”

  “Agreed, but she’s not getting one. 409 Squadron never knew she was on the plane and they don’t want to know about it now. Crown Films can’t show a woman on an op, and of all the brave wounds suffered in action, the last thing our audience needs to look at is a bloody bottom.”

  “Rollo couldn’t film what he couldn’t see,” Kate said.

  “Forget it,” Gunnery told her. “You both did your best.”

  “Nobody can do more,” Frobisher said.

  “Well …” She made a gesture of despair. “It was such a good idea. Rollo would have hated to see it scrapped.”

  Gunnery sipped his coffee. “The idea’s not scrapped. Good heavens, no. It didn’t work with 409 Squadron, but valuable lessons have been learned. We move forward. Northeast, to be precise. To RAF Mildenhall, also in Suffolk, and to 149 Squadron, also flying Wellingtons. We try again. We’re going to film the actual crew of F-Freddie, on a typical raid.”

  “I don’t see how,” Kate said.

  “The idea’s right. We just have to make it work.”

  He thanked her, and she left.

  “I never had any faith in pure documentary, from the word go,” Gunnery said. “Shoot and hope: that never works. But Tim Delahaye insisted that we try something different.”

  “War and documentary don’t mix,” Frobisher agreed. “Too many cock-ups.”

  “Mmm.” Gunnery stood in the middle of the room, his arms folded, his head bent. He was looking at the wandering pattern in the carpet but he was remembering some of the film that Rollo Blazer had shot over Germany. Brilliant, terrifying images, far too real to be shown in a cinema. “The audience wouldn’t believe it,” he said.

  PIECE OF CAKE

  1

  Asprog pilot officer arrived to replace Skull. He was fat, balding, nervous. “Don’t worry if you put up a few blacks,” Skull told him. “Nobody pays any attention to what Intelligence says. What did you do before the RAF?”

  “Lecturer. Camborne School of Mines, Cornwall.”

  “What a shame. Well, you forget I asked, and I’ll forget you told me.”

  Skull didn’t feel charitable to anyone. Now that Bins didn’t need him, the adjutant took the opportunity to make Skull the Duty Officer as often as possible. The worst part of this was having to walk through the Airmen’s Mess with the Duty NCO and call out, “Any complaints?” A complaint might oblige him to taste the meal. One day he took a spoonful of soup and said he felt it would benefit from a hint of Worcester sauce. The Duty NCO rolled his eyes. After that, so many airmen complained about the lack of Worcester sauce in the food that Skull bought a bottle and gave it to the cooks. Now the same airmen complained of too much Worcester sauce. Sometimes they were right.

  The adjutant heard about it. “You do everything the hard way, don’t you, Skull?” he said. “If you continue like this, you’re going to have a thoroughly unhappy war.”

  “I didn’t realize war was supposed to be happy, Uncle.”

  They were standing by the flare-path caravan, waiting in the dusk to wave off the Wellingtons. Gardening at Boulogne. Easy op for sprog crews.

  “I’ll tell you this for nothing.” The adjutant took him by the arm and led him away from the crowd. “There’s no profit in looking for trouble. Your problem is you’re personally offended when you discover a cock-up. Believe me, there’s always a cock-up. It’s in the nature of war. Whoever said truth is the first casualty arrived late on the scene. The first casualty of war is the plan, Skull. The first plan always fails. Usually the second plan does, often the third, too. Then, with a bit of luck, the next plan works, and we win. That’s my experience.”

  “Not a thrilling prospect, is it, Uncle?”

  “All the more reason to cheer up. Look optimistic, even if you’re not. It’s the least you can do for the chaps. Most of these boys are going to get the chop, aren’t they? Two out of three, probably. They deserve to believe it’s all worthwhile. That’s the least we can do for them.”

  They strolled back and joined the others. Fifteen minutes later, when the last Wimpy was climbing away, Skull felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Bellamy. “A word in your ear,” he said.

  “Oh dear. More good advice.”

  They sat in Bellamy’s car, in total darkness. “I’ll get straight to the point,” he said. “Someone has gone over my head and complained to Group HQ about the procedure of air-testing radios before ops.”

  “Not I. I never complain. Nobody listens.”

  “Well, somebody’s rocked the boat, and I clearly remember you chuntering on to me about the enemy intercepting my radio instructions at takeoff. Utter bilge, and I told you so. These VHF transmissions have a very short range. Twenty-five miles at most.”

  “Then we’re safe. Huzzah.”

  “No, we’re not bloody safe. I mean, we shall be, but …” Bellamy depressed the clutch and worked the gear stick up through its changes and back down again. “Forget the VHF. The wireless op’s main transmitter-receiver has a range of hundreds of miles. Up until now, every wireless op has air-tested this set, well before takeoff.”

  “Ah-ha,” Skull said.

  “It is thought the Germans have been listening to our air tests.” Bellamy sounded as if he had been cheated at cards. “Estimating the size of the raid. Even the timing.”

  “Of course they’ve been listening. They’re not stupid. We listen to them, don’t we?”

  “Air-testing has been discontinued.” Bellamy started the car.

  “Well, I got it half-right,” Skull said.

  “No, you got it half-wrong,” Bellamy told him firmly. “If you’d done your homework before you began jumping to conclusions, it might have been a very different story.”

  He drove back to the Mess. As they got out, Skull said: “It seems that, whatever I do, I can’t win.”

  “That’s my impression, too,” Bellamy said. “Good night.”

  2

  F-Freddie made a successful low-level raid on the crucial German target of Freihausen, which did not exist. The raid took place in the studio.

  Before he joined Crown Films, Blake Gunnery had made some movies that included flying action. He knew that a camera inside an airplane could never get all the necessary shots. To film the pilot full-face, looking ahead, the cockpit must be lit and the camera must be outside the windscreen. To film a gunner searching the night sky, the interior of the turret must be lit and the camera must be outside the aircraft. To film the bomb doors opening and the bombs falling, the bomb-bay must be lit, the camera must be below the bomber, and a descending whistle must be added to the soundtrack. The only way to film a Wimpy that was apparently on an op at night was to create a static mock-up in the studio and let the camera move around it and inside it. For the op to look authentic, it had to be faked.

  Crown Films were given the carcass of a Wellington that had crashed in a field. Its wings were broken but the fuselage was in good shape. It was shipped to the film studio, propped on trestles, and cut lengthwise so as to expose the interior. Rear projection supplied the propeller disc; sound effects made a quiet roar for the engines, a roar that could be softened during dialogue. With the studio lights dimmed to suggest weak moonlight, the Wimpy was an ideal film-set.

  Harry Frobisher found a new director. Together they read dozens of operational reports and wrote a script that was not unlike Rollo Blazer’s idea. It began with a photo-reconnaissance aircraft bringing back pictures of Germany. One revealed a juicy new target. Orders went down th
e chain of command and reached the squadron which included F-Freddie. All this was shot on location. Frobisher was not too proud to steal a good idea, so there was a decision to make a low-level attack. This solved the central problem of showing the target to the audience. It also got those bloody oxygen masks out of the way.

  Filming the ops began at the airfield. They shot the crew assembling, climbing into F-Freddie, starting engines, taxying, taking off. They shot the flare-path officer doing his job. The dome on his caravan had to be underlit, to show his features; and he pointed out that the light reflected off the Perspex and made it difficult for him to see the aircraft. “Only you and I will know that,” the director said. “It’ll be our little secret.”

  Once F-Freddie was airborne, the studio stuff was a piece of cake. The director had the crew all day long. He could rehearse, rewrite, experiment, shoot the scene again until he was satisfied. With the camera outside the fuselage he got close-ups of the pilot at the controls, shots of the pilot in profile talking to the second pilot, head-on shots of the gunners in their turrets, slowly rotating, searching the night sky. He got wonderful shots of the bomb-aimer kneeling in the front cockpit, eyes on the bombsight and one hand on the tit, saying: “Left … left … steady … right … steady … Bombs gone!” And a lovely close-up of the gloved hand pressing the tit.

  Above all, filming in the studio overcame the terrible problem of sound. The director made a gesture toward authenticity: everyone pretended to use the intercom. They held the mask near the mouth as they spoke. But it never obscured the face; and all their voices were as clear as if they were in the Mess.

  F-Freddie reached Freihausen—a genuine shot from a cockpit, showing a moonlit river—bombed it, blew it to bits, thanks to some pyrotechnics in a blitzed factory. The script called for flak. Crown Films dressed the British gunners of an anti-aircraft battery in coalscuttle helmets and filmed them in action, silhouetted against the night, jumping to harsh orders in German. Flak as seen from the cockpit was real. Rollo’s shots were too good to waste.

  The fuselage was in a cradle that could be rocked to simulate a near-miss. F-Freddie bounced but recovered. That was when the wireless op took some shrapnel in the leg: another legacy from Rollo. The flight home was tense. There was a problem with an engine, and then the danger of fog over England. All the time, back at base, senior officers were shown waiting, not knowing that F-Freddie’s radio had been knocked out by flak.

  The Wimpy found its base, but its landing posed a problem for the director. If fog had, in fact, shrouded the airfield, filming would be impossible. Yet the bomber must be seen to land. He compromised. Senior officers in the control room spoke anxiously of worsening fog. Outside, the night was very dark. Airmen ran through the gloom, lighting the flare-path. When F-Freddie swept into view, black against black, her safe landing seemed magical. The sequence ended with a shot of the Wimpy taxying out of the night, straight at the camera, halting with a tired squeal of brakes and a last gruff burst of power. The propellers stopped. F-Freddie was home. The stillness created a sense of quiet accomplishment.

  Blake Gunnery invited the Minister to a showing of the rough cut. Tim Delahaye was silent as he watched it. When the lights went up he was smiling, nodding. He brushed away a tear.

  “This is what the British people want to see,” he said. “Real men fighting a real war. Not actors. A genuine bomber crew, on a genuine raid. I think it’s superb.”

  “It’ll be even better when we’ve added the music”

  “Noel Coward can act his socks off,” Delahaye said, “but he doesn’t stand a chance against an actual raid on Germany by the actual crew of a real Wellington.”

  Gunnery thought, very briefly, about qualifying that claim, and then abandoned the idea. No matter how much credit Bomber Command crews got, it would never be enough.

  3

  It wasn’t always easy to get an officer posted. The decision lay with Air Ministry. Naturally, Air Ministry wanted a reason. The fact that he got up the CO’s nose might be enough, but the CO stood a better chance if he phrased it differently.

  Pug Duff thought about this before he made his report on Skull. “Flight Lieutenant Skelton has shown an unusual flair for interpreting Intelligence material in an unorthodox and unconventional manner,” he wrote. “He applies his critical faculties with vigor and persistence. He has never suffered from excessive caution when reaching conclusions that challenge existing operational procedures. He has made a distinctive impact on this squadron.” Skull, he said, “would benefit from wider experience in Bomber Command.”

  Rafferty saw a copy. “Not sure about this,” he said. “You may have over-egged the pudding.” But he initialed it. The report got shuttled through Group HQ and Command HQ without comment, and landed on a desk at Air Ministry. A veteran wing commander read it with one eye and decoded it with the other. He showed it to a colleague. “This is a classic,” he said. “We should have it framed.”

  “Unorthodox and unconventional …vigor and persistence …never suffered from excessive caution … distinctive impact … In other words, he gets on everybody’s tits.” He read on. “Ah … This last line is a gem.”

  “I thought you’d like it. Would benefit from wider experience.”

  “They want to dump him.”

  “It’s a classic,” the wing commander said. “It’s made my day.” He sent for Skull’s file.

  A week later, Skull got a signal from Command: Proceed to Hogshead Court, Essex, for conference 1300 hours today. Authority: R.G.T. Champion, Group Captain. A map reference was given. Skull got the Lagonda out.

  Hogshead Court was Georgian, and comfortably big enough to hold a hunt ball. It stood in its own grounds. Cattle kept a respectful distance. Ralph Champion was waiting on the terrace. He was in a dark suit.

  “Isn’t this an official matter?” Skull asked. “I could have worn my tweeds.”

  “Semi-official. I’ve got a couple of days’ leave. We’ve found a new home for the Sheldrake Club. Isn’t that grand news?”

  “It makes no difference to me.”

  “I’ll put you up for membership when the war’s over. The club’s acquired the former Hungarian embassy, in Holland Park. Serve them right for joining Hitler. Unfortunately, there’s no wine in the place. Well, there’s a bit of Hungarian red, but I wouldn’t give that to the servants. Come on, I’ll show you the house.”

  “I’d rather you showed me lunch.”

  “All in good time.”

  He had keys. The furniture was covered in sheets, and paintings were stacked against the walls. Champion strolled from room to room, telling the history of the Court. The same family had built it and lived here until the owner, a major in the Guards, got killed at Dunkirk a year ago. Next of kin was in California, and staying there. Now the War Office had requisitioned it, but the solicitors acting for the estate saw no reason to give the wine to the army. The Sheldrake had bought the lot, sight unseen.

  “I don’t care,” Skull said. “I don’t care a little bit.”

  “I’m here to organize the transport. I’m on the wine committee, you see. Come on, we’ll pick out a bottle for lunch.”

  The cellars were long and well-stocked. When Champion showed signs of lingering, Skull said: “Fifteen seconds. Or I find the nearest pub.” Champion chose a claret. “A chirpy little beast,” he said. “What I call a Cockney sparrow of a wine.”

  “What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

  Champion looked at him with amused tolerance. “There you go again, Skull,” he said. “Everything has to mean something, doesn’t it? Believe me, you’re wrong. Most things have no significance whatever. That includes your getting kicked out of 409 Squadron.”

  They went upstairs. He locked the front door and fetched a luncheon basket from his car. The late owner had left some wrought-iron garden furniture on the terrace. They sat and ate quails’ eggs, roast duck, potato salad, fruit. Champion reminisced about Cambridge.

&nbs
p; “Not that I care,” Skull said at last, “but do you happen to know where I’ll end up when I get kicked out?”

  “Of course I do. I’ve still got some pals at Air Ministry. When it became obvious that Pug Duff was about to strangle you, they phoned me up. Just as well they did. Plan A was to send you back to RAF Feck.”

  Skull was eating a pear. Juice ran down his chin. “I’d sooner be strangled. What’s Plan B?”

  “Ah, that’s the bind. We’ve got a surfeit of flight-lieutenant Intelligence Officers right now. Nobody wants you.”

  “Except Feck.”

  “Yes, Feck will take anyone. Since you were there, they’ve had a riot, a couple of suicides and a murder. Morale is not good.”

  “It’s a penal colony. If the rain stopped, they’d burn it down. The rain never stops.” Skull took the last of the claret.

  “Fortunately, I solved the problem.” Champion concentrated on peeling an apple so that the peel made one continuous strip. “One of my few undisputed skills.” He displayed the strip on the point of the knife. “Completely worthless, of course, but it impresses the air marshals. I said to my chum at Air Ministry, if you can’t find a decent posting for Flight Lieutenant Skelton, then for God’s sake, man, promote him!” He popped a slice of apple into his mouth. “So that’s what he’s doing.”

  “Squadron leader? Me?”

  Champion smiled broadly as he chewed. The effect was slightly satanic. “You’ve earned it,” he said. “All that expert advice you gave me on bombing accuracy”

  “You rejected it.”

  “What nonsense. We at Command HQ took it very much to heart. David Butt’s report came as no surprise to us, Skull. We knew all along.”

  His bland self-assurance completely wrong-footed Skull. He had no answer to it. “I get the chop,” he said, “so they promote me … Since you seem to know everything, where is your friend at Air Ministry posting me?”