Piece of Cake (39 page)

Winter stopped toying with storms of rain and sleet, and got down to serious business.

For three days and nights the sky dumped snow. It fell thickly, with a stiff westerly wind always bringing up fresh supplies. It fell so fast that one man with a shovel could not keep fifty yards of pathway open. By the second day, the drifts were chest-high, the airfield was cut off, and the mess was obliged to use tinned milk. By the third day the electricity and telephone lines were down and the mess was candle-lit. Snow coated the windows on the exposed side of the house, darkening the interior even more. Periodically, masses of snow lost their grip on the roof and tumbled thunderously to the ground. Log fires blazed night and day. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. Boredom became acute. On the third afternoon Moke Miller came into the anteroom and announced that Sticky Stickwell was reading a book. This was not believed. Miller led the rest of the squadron to the library. “See!” he said.

“Is this wise, Sticky?” asked Cattermole. “You know what the doctors said.”

“What?”

“Too much reading turns your eyeballs hairy.”

“That's not funny. You'd think I'd never read a book before.”

“Have you?” asked Fitz.

“Of course I have. It was very interesting. It had a green cover, just like this one. This one is very interesting, too.”

“In your experience, as a reader of green-covered books,” said Flip Moran, “would you say they tend to be on the interesting side?”

“Piss off,” Stickwell said.

“He's non-committal,” Mother Cox told Moran. “I've seen it happen before in cases like this.”

“Stupid sods,” Stickwell muttered.

“Did you hear that? Alliteration!” Moran exclaimed. “The poor devil's alliterating already.”

“Well, he'll just have to clean it up afterward,” Cattermole said. They trooped back to the anteroom. “What's alliteration?” Miller asked Fitz. “Dunno,” Fitz said, “but you get it from books.”

The fourth day was windless and dazzlingly bright. Rex had every man in the unit shoveling snow, and by midafternoon the driveway leading to the road was open. The pilots retired to the
bar and compared their blisters. There was much talk of visiting Rheims or even Paris as soon as the snowplows cleared the road. By nightfall it was snowing hard again. Skull and Kellaway went out onto the terrace before dinner. The air was like a pillowfight. “Funny stuff, French snow,” said Kellaway. “Not a bit like English snow.”

“Hmm.” Skull made no comment. Kellaway was a good chap, and remarkably adept at persuading drunks to go to bed, but he would sentimentalize so.

“Just look at it! Typical. Never knows when to stop.”

“I expect it's the same in Germany,” Skull said.

“Worse. Much worse. They haven't got the Gulf Stream, you see.”

“Neither have we.”

“Yes we have. It comes up past the Scilly Isles. Daffodils, early potatoes. I know, I went there for holidays.”

“This is France, uncle.”

“You're telling me! Just look at it. God knows the weather was bad enough in '14–'18 … What a country! They've simply got no idea.”

“I thought you rather liked the French.”

“Wouldn't give you tuppence for the lot of them. Come on in, I'm freezing.”

In fact it was getting much colder. After a week of sporadic snowstorms the temperature stayed below freezing and the sky had the chill gray of hammered lead. Micky Marriott improvised a snowplow on the front of a three-ton truck and bashed a path to the airfield, by which time the truck's clutch was burned out. He kept a few groundcrew in the hangars around the clock, warming up the engines every few hours to keep the oil fluid. But there was no chance of any flying.

Rex made the best of it: he sent two men on leave—Patterson and Miller—and he took a week's leave himself. “Try and keep them occupied,” he said to Barton and Moran as he got into his car. “I don't want the squadron putting up any blacks while I'm away, especially with the frogs.”

The flight commanders went inside. “The old man's away for a week,” Barton announced.

“Whoopee!” Cattermole said. “Now we can get down to some
steady raping and looting, with a spot of arson to keep the cold out.”

Barton turned on him. “Listen, you,” he said, aiming a forefinger like a gun. “Any playing silly-buggers and you won't know what's hit you.”

Cattermole stared. “It was a joke, Fanny,” he said.

The rest of the squadron watched, hoping for an exciting bust-up to enliven the gray morning.

“Bloody silly joke,” Barton said. “Just keep your peculiar sense of humor to yourself for the next seven days.”

As the flight commanders went out, Cattermole slumped in his armchair until he slid off the seat and collapsed on the floor. “Crushed and humiliated,” he said.

“Well, what did you expect, you great oaf?” Mother Cox asked.

“Fanny hasn't forgotten those carthorses,” Stickwell said. “Also the secret Polish phrase-book.”

“Jag tycker om det!”
cried Flash Gordon. It was always good for a laugh.

“I've forgotten what that means,” Stickwell said.

“Old Cherokee proverb,” CH3 told him. “It means: a prune is a plum that thinks too much.”

“Look here, you squalid crew.” Cattermole stood up and scowled. “I want you to be on your best behavior while Rex is away.” He kicked Fitzgerald on the leg. “D'you hear me?” He threw a small leather pouf at Cox. “No mucking about! Fanny and Flip expect us to behave nicely, so …” He tipped CH3 out of his chair. “… so we mustn't disappoint them. Got that?”

“What d'you mean, a prune is a plum that thinks too much?” Sticky asked the American, who lay where he fell, quite relaxed. “That doesn't make any sense.”

“It does if you're a prune,” Flash Gordon said.

“Think about it,” CH3 said lazily.

“No fear,” Sticky said. “I don't want to end up all wrinkled.”

“Remember!” Cattermole said. “I've warned you.”

The flight commanders went to see the adjutant. “Well, they can't get into much trouble here, can they?” Kellaway said.

“What about when they're not here?” Fanny said. “We can't keep them confined to camp all week.”

“I don't suppose you could send them on a tour of inspection of the Maginot Line?” Flip suggested. “A walking tour.”

“Tell you what I can do.” Kellaway fumbled through a heap of papers, and found a letter. “Invitation from a local vineyards. Trip round the works, lunch with the boss, sampling in the cellars.”

“They'd like that, the swine.”

Fanny nodded. “Knowing them, they won't be able to crawl for two days afterward. Got anything else, adj?”

“Leave it with me. I'll see what I can drum up.”

The tour of the vineyards was a great success. Next day the pilots were suitably subdued when they visited an anti-aircraft regiment near Châlons; they were even quieter after the soldiers had demonstrated the quick-firing capability of their batteries. Sticky Stickwell, who had been slow to move away, was still slightly deaf the following day, when they went down a coalmine for no particular reason except that it was a large mine and would take a lot of walking through. After that came a snowstorm, which filled a day, and then there was an official visit to Strasbourg.

The city was deserted. It faced the German frontier, and at the outbreak of war the entire population of two hundred thousand had been moved out. As they drove through it, the Hornet pilots saw an occasional gendarme or military policeman patrolling the bare streets; otherwise nothing: even the pigeons seemed to have gone.

They went to a French army strongpoint on the Rhine; and a hundred yards away, on the opposite bank, they saw their first German soldiers. They were kicking a football about. One of them headed the ball and knocked his helmet off. Laughter came gently but clearly across the hustling black waters.

“This is all very chummy,” Kellaway said to the French officer who was their guide.

“It is absurd. Ridiculous. Last month they put up a big banner:
C'est à votre attaque seul que nous riposterons!”

“Come again?” said Flash Gordon.

Skull said: “We won't fight if you won't.”

“What did you do?” asked Kellaway.

“We used that.” The Frenchman nodded at a black van with the huge horn of a loudspeaker on top. “Selections from
Mein Kampf.
How Hitler planned to annihilate France.”

“Ah-ha! Jolly clever. I bet that shut them up.”

“No, it was a mistake. Now they have their own loudspeaker. You will hear.”

“Haven't they painted something on that wall?” Mother Cox pointed across the river.

“It says:
La France aux Français,”
the officer told him.

“Funny thing for a Hun to say.”

“They're trying to foment distrust,” Skull explained. “Implying that we British are meddling in French affairs.”

“We have made our response,” the French officer said. He showed them a wall on which was painted
La Pologne aux Polonais!

“I thought that was a sort of a dance,” Fitzgerald said.

“It is,” CH3 said. “France for the French, Poland for the foxtrot Get it?”

“Ah.” Fitzgerald nodded doubtfully. “Yes.”

“Very French. Very sardonic.”

“I suppose so.” Fitz forced a brief, suspicious smile.

“Jag tycker om det,”
Flash Gordon said brightly, but nobody laughed.

“Here they come,” said the French officer gloomily. “Punctual as usual.”

A company of German troops marched out and faced the French bank. At a signal, they waved. Another signal: they stopped. “Ten seconds of friendship,” the Frenchman said. “Now they sing.” At once the soldiers sang, their voices enormously amplified by a loudspeaker van twice as big as the French one.

“I can't stomach that,” Kellaway complained. “Let's see about lunch, eh?”

They went back to the cars. Before they got in, Barton counted heads. One man was missing: Stickwell. “Go and find him, Moggy,” Moran said.

“No fear. He's nothing to do with me.”

“We can't go without him.”

“Yes, we can. Wonderful opportunity.”

“Sticky!” Fitzgerald shouted. “Where are you, Sticky?”

No answer.

“I expect he's gone to the pictures,” Cattermole said. “He's very keen on the pictures. Come on, I'm hungry.”

A voice suddenly boomed at them like an angry god.
“This is
the BBC Home Service. Here are the latest cricket scores. Middlesex, 418 for 3; Surrey, 26 all out. Not much of an innings from Surrey but what the hell can you expect from the dump where Moggy lives? Bugger-all. Next: Somerset, 418 for 9 …”

“I'll break his bloody neck,” Fanny Barton said. “Come on.”

The voice went on, harsh and thunderous and ceaseless. It competed with the German choir and won.

“… who is wanted by the police for indecent exposure. Uncle Kellaway is eighty-three years old and wears a red wig. Now for some gardening news. This is the time to prune your peas, or pee on your prunes, please yourself, I don't give a damn …”

They tracked down the French loudspeaker van. It was parked behind a timberyard.

“Stickwell! Shut up!” Barton shouted as he advanced.

“… No news from Africa, where things look black, but the weather forecast shows a deep depression surrounding Fanny Barton, who's just coming into the straight and making a late burst, yes, it's Fanny Barton out in front and as they come to the post it's Fanny Barton
…” The van jumped forward and accelerated away. “…
it's-Fanny Barton finishing second!”
the loudspeaker bellowed triumphantly,
“and the rest are nowhere!”
The van disappeared around the corner, still shouting.

When they got back to the cars, Stickwell was sitting in a back seat, pretending to read a French newspaper. The van was not to be seen. “Where on earth have you been?” he said. “I've been looking all over for you.”

Moran laughed, and even Barton had to yield a sour smile. In fact everyone found it funny, except Cattermole. “Very juvenile,” he said stonily. “Rather like writing on lavatory walls.”

“What's that, Moggy?” Stickwell asked blandly.

“You're a mental runt. You've no guts. That's why you're such a pygmy. Guts all fell out.”

Stickwell clutched his stomach with such sudden anxiety that the others all laughed again.

Cattermole was unusually silent throughout lunch. Moran watched him and turned to Barton. “Moggy's sulking,” he murmured. “He doesn't like playing second fiddle, especially to Sticky.”

To everyone's surprise, Rex was quite amused by the incident. “I bet the frogs were livid,” he said.

“They kicked up a bit of a stink,” the adjutant said. “They claim that Sticky bust their loudspeaker.”

“Typical. Snotty lot, the French.”

“Unfortunately they don't seem willing to let it rest.”

“Hmm.” Rex walked to the window. A light snow was falling, gently blotting out the footprints and the tire-tracks. “I'm not having them in here, breathing garlic into people's faces … What's the airfield like? How's Micky Marriott getting on?”

“It's still unfit for flying, sir,” Barton said. “He needs to plow out a strip at least sixty feet wide and he hasn't got half that.”

“So we can't fly for what, five days? A week?”

“Unless it thaws, sir.”

“It won't thaw,” the adjutant said confidently.

“Hmm.” Rex breathed on the window and waited to see a patch of frost melt outside. “I'm very pleased to find the squadron so full of enterprise and initiative. That's the sort of thing I like to encourage. I think I'll send the flights on a survival test. Into the Vosges. For a week.” He breathed again, a long and thoughtful exhalation. “Yes … That should stymie the frogs. And give the chaps something to occupy them, too.” He turned, smiling. “You can go along with them if you like, adj.”