Piece of Cake (27 page)

“Knights of the air,” Kellaway murmured.

“You encourage your chaps to be outspoken, then,” the infantry captain said.

“Enterprise and initiative matter as much to me as discipline and dedication,” Rex said. He cocked his head as Bletchley tasted his
framboise.
“You see what I mean about the understatement, sir?”

“My goodness, yes.” Bletchley sucked his lips. “It hits you in the eyes straight away, doesn't it?”

Dicky Starr stood the Hurricane on its tail and let it carry him vertically through a thin skein of cloud.

It was like coming up from a deep dive in a swimming pool, seeing the surface approach, bursting through. The big difference was that he kept going, kept climbing high above the cloud, until the fighter had spent its momentum. For an instant it hung, slowly turning like the sails of a windmill. Then gravity won, and the plane fell sideways. As it regained speed it naturally and willingly straightened out, and Starr got ready for another fullblooded powerdive. A pleasant tremble built up in the controls, a sense of colossal energy harnessed to his feet and hands. Just for the fun of it he performed a slow roll. Three miles beneath him, the blurred landscape rotated.

He came out of the dive at ten thousand feet, held the stick back and soared into a huge and happy loop.

He was simply air-testing the Hurricane but for the first time in his life he was really chucking it about the sky, stamping on the pedals, hauling on the stick, flying the damn thing to its limits, and discovering that the Hurricane's limits went a bloody sight further
than most people reckoned. It was vastly encouraging, wonderfully exhilarating; he felt as if he were a jockey on the finest, fastest thoroughbred in the world. He inhaled gratefully, enjoying the Hurricane's special atmosphere: a blend of oil and dope, leather and webbing, dust thrown up by aerobatics, and the pure, metallic taste of oxygen. It was the smell of the office. That was what fighter pilots called the cockpit, the place where they did their job, where they were boss.

Dicky Starr looked out at his wings. Forty feet from tip to tip. He looked forward at the powerful curve of his engine cowling, tipped with its shimmering disc, flanked by its red-hot exhausts. So what if he was only five foot six? This was his Hurricane,
his;
and nothing was impossible.

He dipped a wing, searched around, and saw Metz. He flew north, found Thionville, and went down like a plunging hawk.

“B” flight was in the pilots' hut, playing brag. Pip Patterson kept winning.

“This is a pathetic game,” Miller said. “Childish. Why can't we play real poker?”

“Because the queen of hearts and the jack of clubs are missing,” Fitzgerald said. “Also the ace of spades. Shut up and deal.”

“I don't see what difference that makes,” Miller said. He dealt three cards each. “Strewth, what a junkyard.” Patterson, on his left, had not touched his cards. “Broken your arm?” Miller said.

“I'm playing this hand blind.” Patterson bet five francs. “Blind brag. Now it's double to stay in.”

The others grumbled and bet. One by one they dropped out as Patterson raised the stakes, until only Miller remained. Miller's tongue polished his upper lip while he studied his cards. “No fear,” he said, and threw them in.

Patterson took his winnings. He scraped the cards together. “Aren't you going to see what you had?” Gordon asked.

Patterson shrugged, and shuffled the pack.

“Don't you care?” Fitzgerald said.

Patterson cut and dealt. “What difference would it make?” he said.

“You might shit yourself with shock,” Miller said. “Then at least we'd get some value for our money.”

Starr's shadow raced him for the bridge. After a day of clouded skies the sun had broken through and its angled rays flooded the countryside with light. The sunlight came from behind his left shoulder. It was perfect for low flying: every detail in the landscape was picked out with utter clarity, the colors were vivid, there was no glare; he could judge depth and distance perfectly.

The Hurricane was behaving beautifully. It was strolling along at two hundred and ten, leaning in and out of the bends of the Moselle, sinking gradually from fifty to forty to thirty feet as Thionville came nearer. Power cables passed overhead, a long way up, no danger there. Starr kept his racing shadow in the corner of his eye as a guide to height while he studied the advancing bridge. It looked quite low: big and strong but surprisingly flat: not much space beneath, not even under the center span. If Moggy and Pip hadn't done it he'd have said there wasn't room. Optical illusion, obviously.

The illusion persisted. He dropped to ten feet to make more space. The river blurred, the white concrete mass reared up, and the skin on the back of his neck crawled. It couldn't be done.

His shadow hit the bridge an instant before he rushed into the gap, still desperate for space. The Hurricane dipped again. Starr's hand trembled. The prop thrashed the surface and the radiator-scoop under the belly rammed into the river like a bucket. Starr yelled and snatched the column back but the scoop dragged the nose hard down and the propeller made an explosion of foam. Starr was hurled onto his straps. His head smashed against the instrument panel. The Hurricane fought its way into the sunlight, nose-down, half-covered in spray, and soon exhausted itself. People on the bridge saw its tail rise slowly and slide out of sight, hurried on by the current. The river smoothed its surface. The echoes died. More people ran over to look, but there was nothing to see.

Sticky Stickwell tried to step from the bookshelf to the mantelpiece but his legs were too short. “It's not fair,” he complained. A cushion just missed his head. He climbed higher up the bookshelf,
jumped, and landed, wobbling hard, on the mantelpiece. A cushion struck him and he fell off. “Knickers!” he cried.

“Your turn, Mother,” Cattermole said. Patterson collected the cushions.

“A” flight had finished testing its aircraft and “B” flight had been released early. They had returned to the mess to find Stickwell and Flip Moran back from leave. Now they were all in the anteroom, playing the squadron's new game. It was simple and dangerous, just right for fighter pilots. One man tried to circle the walls of the room without touching the floor while the others bombarded him with cushions.

Mother Cox began on the mantelpiece. He stretched his legs to the bookshelves, and shuffled along them to the window, ignoring a shower of cushions. He made quick time along a windowsill, a radiator, and another windowsill, and reached the door.

“Now he's in trouble,” Fitzgerald said, but Cox had planned his route. He reached down and opened the door a couple of inches. As cushions thudded against him, he carefully stood on the doorknob and gripped the top of the frame. A gentle push would now swing the door wide and put him within easy reach of a sideboard.

Fanny Barton thrust open the door and Mother Cox went flying. The rest of the squadron stumbled about, doubled-up with laughter.

Barton closed the door and leaned against it. He didn't feel angry or impatient; he didn't feel anything, really, except a dull wish that they would shut up.

Eventually they did stop laughing. “You can't stay there, Fanny,” Miller said. “You're blocking the course.”

Barton raised his hand, palm outward. “Can you all be quiet for a minute?” he asked.

“If it's in a bad cause,” Cattermole said.

“Well, Dicky Starr's bought it,” Barton said. “Is that bad enough?”

They moved to the bar. Pip Patterson bought a round of drinks. “Don't go mad,” Flip Moran told him. “Keep half-a-crown for the wreath.” Patterson, not looking at him, said: “It's only brag winnings.”

The drinks were handed around and everyone waited for Fanny Barton. “Cheers,” Barton said, making the word curt and unemotional.
They drank. Barton saw Flip Moran's glance; it held a hint of approval. The correct tone had been set.

There was nothing to be said: Barton had already told them all he knew. Starr had been overdue, no flap, probably forced-landed somewhere. Kellaway began phoning the nearby airfields. Then Area HQ rang up. Thionville police had reported a Hurricane in their bit of the Moselle. On the bottom. Identification letters noted by eyewitnesses. End of story.

Moke Miller took a handful of peanuts from a dish on the bar.

“Hungry?” Cox said.

Miller ate. “Life goes on,” he mumbled.

“Funny you should say that,” Flash Gordon remarked. “I bet none of you knows how long the average human hair lives.”

They waited. “This had better be hilarious, Flash,” said Stickwell.

“Three years,” Gordon told them. Still they waited. “I mean each hair on your body has a lifespan of between two and four years,” he said. Miller munched his peanuts. “Not many people know that,” Gordon added.

“And what happens to it after that?” Fitzgerald asked.

“Oh, it dies and falls out. Then another hair grows.”

“Pardon me while I sit down,” Moran said. He perched on a bar-stool. “This is all too frenzied for my poor brain.”

“Ah, but the really interesting thing is that each hair is a different age to the hair next to it.” Gordon smiled in harmless triumph. “That way, they don't all fall out at once.”

“With a roar like thunder,” Cattermole said. “Awakening the baby and frightening the horses in the street.”

“Where did you get all this drivel, Flash?” Miller demanded.

“It's not drivel, it's true. My girl friend Nicole told me. She's got a university degree in biology.”

“Ah, but that's
French
biology,” Stickwell said. “Frogs aren't made like you and me. Their kidneys are covered in mustard. I should know; I just had some on the train.”

“Don't talk tripe,” Gordon muttered, annoyed.

“And their tripe is stuffed with prunes. Most uncomfortable, don't you think?”

“Time for my bath,” Cattermole said. He went out.

“Anyway, I bet you haven't got the faintest idea how fast your
toenails grow,” Gordon declared. “And where would you be without toenails? Ever stopped to think about that?” Nobody answered.

Patterson finished his beer and went upstairs. He went to his room, stretched out on his bed, but got up after a few seconds. He brushed his hair and examined his fingernails. One nail was ragged; he filed it smooth. A coin lay on the bed; it had slipped from his pocket. He picked it up and took out the rest of his change and counted it. It was French money, light and silvery, unlike the heavy British coinage, and when he'd counted it he still didn't feel it was worth anything. The house was very quiet. He held his breath and listened. Nothing.

He decided to have a bath. He took his towel and walked along the corridor, past Cattermole's room. It was empty. So were the bathrooms. He saw light coming from a doorway at the end of the corridor: Starr's room.

Cattermole was in there, searching the wardrobe.

“What's the game?” Patterson asked.

“It's no game, laddy. It's business. Little Dicky owed me eight hundred and seventy-five francs. Remember?” Cattermole shut the wardrobe and began rummaging in a chest of drawers.

“You can't possibly collect that bet.”

“No? Watch and see. I won, and the stuff's no good to him any more, is it?” Cattermole dumped handkerchiefs and socks on the top. “I hope the twerp didn't take his wallet up with him,” he grumbled. “That's strictly against orders, that is … Ah!” He found it under some shirts.

“My God …” Patterson tasted bile, and had to swallow. “You rotten sod, Moggy.”

“Four, five, six hundred francs. Damn. Oh, and fifty. Six-fifty. Not enough. Hang on, what's this? A fiver! A genuine English fiver … What's that worth?”

“I don't know and I don't care.”

“Say … eight hundred francs. Pip, have you got change of a hundred francs? No? Too bad. I'll just have to owe him a couple of bob.” Cattermole pushed the notes into his pocket, tossed the wallet into the drawer, swept the clothing on top of it and banged the drawer shut with a swing of his hips. He flicked the light off and walked away, leaving Patterson in the dark. “Piece of cake, Pip!” he called in a high, mocking voice.

Patterson sank until he was squatting on his haunches.
If you had any guts
, he told himself,
you'd go after that bastard and smash his face in.
To his surprise he found that he was crying.

The night spat rain, and the drops made long black streaks in the glare of the floodlights. The drops pecked at the oily, hurrying surface of the river but the marks were instantly healed. By contrast the steel ropes that vanished into the water cut a perpetual, livid scar.

These ropes descended from the top of a British Army mobile crane. Its driver was accustomed to recovering overturned tanks; he knew his stuff. The engine roared, the crane bucked and clanked, the ropes strained and slackened and tightened again, vibrating like fiddle-strings. Gradually, foot by foot, the load came up.

Barton, Kellaway and Skull stood on the embankment, downstream of the crane, and watched it work. If they raised their heads they could see the bridge, lined with hundreds of spectators. This was the best free show in Thionville since the Tour de France came through in 1933.

Skull shaded his eyes against the dazzle and peered again at the black hole under the bridge. “It still seems to me,” he said, “a most extraordinary thing to try to do.”

“Yes, well, you're not a pilot,” Barton muttered. He was tired and hungry, and they had already talked the matter to death.

The steel ropes strained, the crane labored. Its driver rested the engine, swung the arm a few feet, and tried again. A cluster of bubbles as big as footballs hit the surface and burst.

“I don't think I ever flew under a bridge,” the adjutant said. He hunched his head deeper inside the turned-up collar of his greatcoat. His gaze was fixed on the river, where turbulence was developing. “I flew through a railway station once. It didn't have much roof left, of course.”