Piece of Cake (53 page)

The Hurricanes formed two lines, each nose to tail. Still nobody missed Green Two. Nobody looked for him. “Keep close, keep close,” Rex said. “We'll take the bombers first. Good hunting.”

He led them down in a curling dive. The Heinkels paraded immaculately but the 110's were hurrying forward. Fanny Barton, following Rex, felt a great sense of unreality: it was all too well-ordered, too formal, too like an air display. Not even the bright beads of tracer pulsing out of the Heinkels persuaded him that this was battle, that these machines could destroy and be destroyed. Then he was choosing his target, and bracing himself, and firing, and with the crash and shudder of guns all unreality vanished. The
parade fell apart, the sky was full of dodging, skidding, twisting planes. Barton hauled his Hurricane into a half-turn, glimpsed blurred shapes go charging by, and flew straight through a flight of 110's. Everyone fired, nobody scored. He was bewildered: there was no shape or sense to this battle, just a lot of rushing about, taking potshots. A Heinkel slid into his vision. He grabbed the chance, thumb hard on the firing button, and saw all his shots pass far behind its tail. As he took his thumb off, a Hurricane slid across the space he'd been shooting at. Barton shouted with horror and relief. His hands were wet with sweat inside his gloves and his heart was hammering as if he had run up a mountain. Something rattled and thumped like a runaway donkey-engine: bullet-streams raced above his head, flickering past the propeller disc. Barton shoved everything into a corner and dragged the Hurricane through a turn that made the rivets creak. His eyeballs were straining to see behind him.

Nothing. Empty sky. He reversed the turn, searching everywhere. Nothing. His attacker had vanished. He climbed, circling and searching. They had all gone. It was startling. He was quite alone.

Two long trails of smoke led his eye downward. The aircraft on fire were a mile or more below: tumbling specks. As he watched, a third plane hit the ground and exploded with a tiny spurt of flame. “Goodbye, whoever you were,” he said aloud. It had, in fact, been Trevelyan.

They were full of excitement when they landed. The ground crews had seen the black streaks behind the gun-ports in the wings and they were eager to hear about the action. There was much shouting and laughter and re-staging of attacks with twisting, aiming hands. Everyone except Barton and Boy Lloyd claimed to have damaged the enemy. Rex, Moran and Patterson claimed probables. Cox and Miller claimed definite kills. Nobody had seen Trevelyan go down. Rex considered it likely that he had simply stopped a bullet in the engine and made a forced-landing somewhere.

The cooks had sent up some lunch: chilled cucumber soup, poached salmon with salad, and strawberries. There was also Alsace beer on ice. It was a hot, still day. The conversation slackened as they ate, and half an hour later most of them were asleep.

At ten to three the telephone rang. Another patrol: Metz. They lumbered, stiff and sticky with sweat, to their aircraft, feeling stupid with sleep and heat. A quick whiff of oxygen cleared the head, and the blast of air into the cockpit as the planes charged over the grass got them fully awake.

They circled Metz for half an hour, looking for raiders that never came. All around the horizon, columns of smoke signaled the results of bombing, and while they orbited the city they saw fresh smoke gushing up, fifteen or twenty miles to the south. The haze had returned, and the bombers, if they were still present, were hidden.

Rex kept asking the controller for business. The controller told him that when reliable information became available he would pass it on; he sounded harassed. They circled Metz again. A French Potez came out of the east, limping badly. As it passed they could see holes in its wings. One of the tail fins was thrashing about, and the port engine was spilling coolant fluid. Suddenly that propeller ceased turning and the machine veered to its left. The squadron began another circuit, and the last they saw of the Potez it was dropping fast.

The controller ordered them back to base. As they made their circuit before landing they saw a double row of bomb craters in the next field. Dead sheep lay like patches of late snow.

Kellaway was waiting to tell Rex what had happened: a raid by aircraft so high that they were scarcely visible. “Not the slightest warning,” he said. “Damn good bombing from that height, wasn't it? Too damn good. Pity you weren't here. Never mind; they're bound to come back. Want some tea?”

“Any word from Trevelyan?” Rex asked. The adjutant shook his head. “Better call Rheims,” Rex said. “Tell them to send a replacement.”

“I already have,” Kellaway said. “I asked for two.” Wearily, Rex massaged the goggle-marks around his eyes. “Two,” he said. “You never know,” Kellaway said. “Someone else might catch cold.”

Miller, Patterson and Lloyd went to look at the bomb craters. Fumes from the high explosive hung in the air and made them cough. “What an appalling pong,” Miller said. “Reminds me of
my young days in the chemistry lab. I used to make stinks just like that.”

“Pity you didn't blow yourself up,” Lloyd said.

“Oh, I was only farting,” Miller said.

“I feel sorry for the poor bloody sheep,” Patterson said moodily.

“I never farted in front of a sheep,” Miller said. “What sort of cad d'you think I am?”

“Listen,” Lloyd said. The others looked at the sky. High-flying aircraft could just be seen: splinters of metal proceeding silently and inscrutably. “So what?” Miller said. “Nothing to worry about, is there?” But Lloyd was not looking upward. “That one over there isn't dead,” he said.

The sheep had been split open and disemboweled. Its guts were black with flies, which rose with a resentful buzzing and re-settled at once. Its head and shoulders were intact. It saw them coming and made a brief bleat. Lloyd squatted and stroked its ears. “You poor old bugger,” he said.

Every time the sheep breathed, its intestines slipped and slithered.

“We ought to kill it,” Miller said. “That's the decent thing.”

“Go ahead, then,” Patterson said.

“No thanks. You do it.”

“Lloyd found it. It's his sheep.”

“Come on: odds and evens,” Lloyd said. Each took out a coin. Two heads, one tail. Miller had the tail. “Blast!” he said. The sheep tried to get up. More of its guts spilled out.

The pilots were under orders to carry a Colt revolver when flying; nobody knew why. Miller, like many, kept his revolver stuffed down the side of his flying-boot. He took it out and cocked it. The sheep, as if to make his task more difficult, gave a soft and pitiful bleat. “Get a move on, Moke!” Patterson urged.

“All right, all right!” Miller fired at the head. The bang smashed a huge hole in the sultry silence. “Missed,” Lloyd said. Miller, his face screwed up as if he were staring into a furnace, took a pace forward and fired again, this time hitting the sheep in the shoulder. “For Christ's sake!” Patterson roared. He snatched the gun from Miller, stooped and shot the animal in the head.

“I don't know why you got so worked-up,” Miller said on the way back to the aerodrome. “It was only a sheep.”

“I happen to like sheep,” Patterson said stiffly. “I used to look
after them when I was a boy. They do nobody any harm and they certainly don't deserve to suffer. If an animal's suffering it has every right to be put out of its misery. That's common decency.”

“Sorry,” Miller said. “Only it wasn't my fault, was it? I mean, blame the Huns, not me.”

“The frogs are just as bad, you know,” Lloyd said. “When they want to clear a minefield they just drive a flock of sheep across it.”

“You made that up,” Miller accused.

“Not a bit of it. A French army officer told me in a pub.”

“Bloody frogs,” Patterson said.

“Would you shoot a dying frog, Pip?” Miller asked. “To put it out of its misery?”

Patterson said nothing.

“I meant a real frog, of course,” Miller added. “A Frenchman.”

“You're very interested in shooting people, all of a sudden,” Lloyd said.

“Well, that's what we're here for, isn't it?” Miller said, defensively. “It's a jolly poor lookout if a chap can't show a healthy interest in his work.”

Lloyd sighed. They walked the rest of the way in silence.

Before sundown the squadron flew another patrol, the fifth of the day. They chased a few shadows and caught nothing. Mother Cox's engine packed up halfway through and he forced-landed in a field.

Rex called a brief meeting with Skull, Kellaway and Jacky Bellamy. She had just got back after a day of driving, arguing with military policemen, and battling the censors before she could file her report.

“Rumors abound,” she told them, “but fact is scanty. All I know for certain is I happened to be in a cafe when they got a BBC news bulletin on the radio. It said Germany invaded Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, and she's making ground.”

“That's what the Area intelligence officer keeps telling me,” Skull said. “Mind you, I don't fully trust the man.” They all looked at him. “His wife's a Christian Scientist,” Skull explained, “and he wears the most ill-fitting dentures. I don't see how anyone—”

“What else has happened?” Rex demanded. They were in his office, drinking his whiskey.

“Well, we know what's been taking place nearby,” Skull said,
“because CH3 has been flying his peculiar Reconnaissance Liaison patrols. He says the enemy is attacking airfields, road and rail junctions, and bridges, usually in squadron strength. Most of our aerodromes have been bombed: Rouvres, Vassincourt, Mézières …”

“Uncle,” Rex said. “First thing tomorrow, get the troops to dig some trenches near the hangars. No, wait a minute,
not
near the hangars, that's exactly …” He frowned, squeezing his whiskey-glass with both hands. “Pick out the best place,” he said at last.

“Right, sir.” Kellaway shuffled his pieces of paper. “I had a call from Wing,” he said. “They've found Trevelyan, I'm afraid.”

Jacky Bellamy suddenly came awake.

Rex stood. “Any clues?”

“None. The locals who saw it happen say he just came tumbling out of the sky. Hit a haystack and burned for hours, they couldn't get near him. Sandbags in the coffin, by the sound of it.”

“Was he shot down?” she asked. “Did you get the German who did it?”

“And the two replacements have arrived,” Kellaway told Rex. “Pilot Officers Nugent and McPhee.”

“Tell them they're flying tomorrow. Give Cox a rest, he got a crack on the head tonight. Reshuffle the rest and put these new chaps in Green Section where they won't be in the way. I'm off to bed.” Rex went out.

“Trevelyan got shot down?” Jacky Bellamy asked. “Didn't anybody see it happen?”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Kellaway said gruffly. For the life of him, he couldn't understand this desire for the morbid details.

“But surely somebody must have seen it,” she insisted.

“Somebody certainly did,” Skull agreed, “but he's back in Germany by now.”

They were awake again at three.

Only Rex and the two new men shaved. The others dragged on their clothes and stumbled down to the truck. The sky to the east was washed with saffron, and Reilly frisked about at the edge of the airfield while the pilots stood and scratched and speculated about the weather. Artillery still boomed and bumbled in the distance, but everyone was used to that by now. Hot coffee arrived,
and with it Kellaway and the news of Trevelyan. Nobody responded. Nugent and McPhee would have liked to have asked how it happened, but they took their cue from the others.

Cattermole threw an old tennis ball for Reilly to chase, and said: “If you ask me, those 110's aren't much to write home about.” He yawned. “Too slow in the turn. Easy meat, I reckon.”

“Fast on the straight, though,” someone said.

“Especially when they're running away,” Moran said. He was still not fully awake: his voice was thick, and he couldn't make his eyes focus on his coffee mug. “Did you notice when we bust up the formation, how keen they were to bugger off?”

“Typical Hun mentality,” the adjutant said. “Jerry's no good on his own. They like to huddle together.”

Rex came out of the ready room. “Airfield protection,” he announced. “We're
not
to go chasing Jerry, our job is to keep him off the grass.” He accepted the sticky tennis ball from Reilly. “Too, too kind,” he said. “What a generous dog.” He lobbed it onto the field. “Flip, have you had a word with … uh …”

“Nugent and McPhee, sir,” the adjutant murmured.

“Last night,” Moran grunted. “Told 'em to empty their bladders before takeoff and then do exactly what everyone else does.”

“Don't wander,” Rex told them. “I believe in tight formations. That's what creates wallop.”

The squadron was airborne shortly before four o'clock. The Hurricanes glistened with dew in the horizontal rays of the sun. Rex played safe and kept the sections in close line astern. Nugent, Gordon and McPhee in Green Section formed the tail of the spearhead.

They flew northwest, sent to cover the aerodrome at St. Hilairele-Grand. The roads were thick with military convoys: sunlight glittered on windscreens. The squadron passed over a crossroads that was a tangle of burning vehicles, and the controller came on the air to redirect them: cancel St. Hilaire, steer zero-nine-zero for Rouvres, make angels twelve. But when they reached Rouvres it was too late. The hangars were blazing merrily and the airfield looked as if it had been visited by giant moles. Rex told the controller and the controller sent them back to St. Hilaire, angels five. They reached St. Hilaire and promptly got shelled by its
batteries, so Rex climbed to twelve thousand and killed time. No enemy appeared.