Piece of Cake (89 page)

“Bloody good place to leave them,” she said. Cattermole felt disappointed. When she came back he said: “Actually he's not an officer at all. The police are after him. He procures white women for Arab sheikhs.”

She smiled, and gently squeezed his elbow. “That's right, dear. Why don't you have a nice lie-down? It's the heat, I expect.” She moved on. Cattermole turned away. A thin, bony girl with gaps in her teeth was looking at him. “I'd love to meet a nice Arab sheikh,” she said. “Will you introduce me?” She was fairly drunk.

“Certainly,” Cattermole said. “Be in the Savoy Hotel tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock and, above all,
bring your cello.”

“Moggy!” Stickwell shouted. “Bloody old Moggy!” He thrust through the drinkers and seized Cattermole's hand. “I knew it was
you! Stoke-on-Trent … Well I'm damned.” His face was radiant. “Fancy meeting you here … How are you? What a surprise, eh?”

“The children ask me to give you their love, Sticky,” Cattermole said gravely. “And Gwendolen says she forgives you.”

“Oh … Go to blazes, Moggy. I mean, damn it all, Stoke-on-Trent. I deserve somewhere better than that, don't I?”

“Hey!” The thin girl pushed between them. “What's all this about a cello? I ain't got no bleedin' cello.”

“Then you'd better get one, and quick about it,” Cattermole snapped. “There's a war on, you know.” He led Stickwell to a relatively quiet corner. “Didn't you get your gong?” he asked. There were no ribbons on Stickwell's chest. “I kept nagging Rex to recommend you.”

“Really? That was jolly nice of you, Mog. Actually I don't care much about gongs any more. Flying Defiants, you've got your work cut out just getting the crate off the ground … Anyway, I never was a hot-shot pilot, was I? The thing is, I've decided I want to do something really worthwhile.” He took a long gulp of beer and wiped his mouth. “You know, something useful. I'm going to be a surgeon.”

“A surgeon.” Cattermole was taken aback.

“Flying's all very well but … Saving people's lives, I think I'd enjoy doing that.”

“Hard work, Sticky.”

“Oh, I know, I know. Terrific amount of study. All those veins and bones and things. I've started already. Absolutely fascinating.” He took a creased and dog-eared paperback from his hip pocket. It was called
So You Want to Be a Surgeon
.

“How far have you got?”

“I only bought it this afternoon. Threepence, secondhand. Not bad, eh? I'd like to specialize in legs, I think. I've always liked legs … Anyway, that's enough about me. How's everybody? I heard Rex bought it. How's Flip and Moke and Fitz and Flash and Pip and …” He ran out of breath.

“Fitz and Pip are fine,” Cattermole said. “Fine.”

“Good show,” Stickwell said. “Good old Fitz. I always liked Fitz. Damn good sport.”

“Lots of changes. You know how it is.”

“Yes, of course. People come and go.” Stickwell looked around
at the noisy, smiling, gesturing mob, and he kept the happy look on his face. He was thinking:
That's not true, people don't come and go, they just go
. But it wasn't the sort of thing you said. “Funny, the way things work out, isn't it?” he said. “By the way, congratulations on your gong.”

“Oh, well,” Cattermole said. “They send them round with the Naafi van these days.”

When Fanny Barton came away from the press conference, CH3 was waiting for him.

“Flash has turned up,” he said. “He's in the hospital at Dover. Stitches in his head, nothing serious. Should be back soon.”

“That's good. What about Zab?”

“Not so good. Zab's dead. He was chasing a 109 at very low level and according to some witnesses he hit it and it blew up and he flew slap into the explosion.”

“I see.” Barton looked up at the first stars of the evening. “Nothing much anyone can do about that, then. Let's get down to the pub.”

CH3 drove. “I've just been talking to your old sparring partner, Jacky Bellamy,” Barton said. “Baggy brought her here with a great mob of journalists. She says Sticky's arrived.”

“Yes, I saw them fly in.”

“Defiants.”

“That's right.”

“Wasn't it a Defiant squadron that took a bit of a pasting about a month ago? Presumably not Sticky's mob, though.”

“The lot you're thinking about were based at Hawkinge. I ferried a kite in there a couple of days afterward. Everyone was still in a state of shock.”

“They got badly mauled, then.”

“No, they got slaughtered. Nine took off, and seven were either shot down or crashed on landing. The whole disaster took less than ten minutes. Ever seen a Defiant?”

“Not up close. Best 1918 fighter in the world, so they say.”

“It's worse than that. A Defiant's got four Brownings in a turret, which is fine as long as the enemy agrees to fly alongside for a few minutes. It's got nothing firing forward. The turret weighs an extra half a ton, not counting the gunner inside, and there's no more
power up front than in a Hurricane, so it flies like a brick. They call it a Defiant because it defies comprehension.”

“What did all the damage? 109's?”

“Yes. Ten 109's from astern and below. Then another ten head-on.”

“Jesus. No wonder they scored seven out of nine.”

“The theory at Hawkinge,” said CH3, “was that Jerry was pissing himself with laughter so much that he missed the last two.”

The landlord had run out of soot. Cattermole persuaded the two blond girls to give him their powder compacts and he mixed the contents with a bottle of red ink on a tin tray. Stickwell was the first man up the pyramid of tables. Most of Hornet squadron had arrived, and they had agreed to make Sticky an honorary member. The pub was jam-packed, and there was prolonged cheering when he made two red footprints on the ceiling. He remained inverted while he sang a song:
If You Were the Only Girl in the World
. Everyone joined in. It was a pity to waste the pyramid and the red mixture. Fanny arrived. They made the CO of the Defiant squadron an honorary member. He sang
Tipperary
. There was still plenty of mixture left. The Defiant flight commanders were pushed up the tables. Red footprints marched haphazardly about the ceiling, the singing was full-throated, the drink flowed as freely as the spirit of fellowship. It took the landlord half an hour to clear the bar. Stickwell could scarcely stand: Cattermole held him up and steered him out. “Good old Moggy,” Stickwell said. He was crying with gratitude. “Hey … Just remembered. Something I want to talk about. Money. All that money I spent. Tons of money. What about that money?”

“Don't worry about it, Sticky,” Cattermole said. “It's not urgent. You can pay me tomorrow.”

“Good old Moggy.” He fell asleep almost as soon as he was put into the Buick. His cheeks were shining with tears. Cattermole found that oddly disturbing. He took the leather he used for wiping the windscreen and he mopped Stickwell's face with it. Stickwell grunted in his sleep and smiled like a child.

It was almost midnight but the hangar was full of noise: hammers tapped, hacksaws rasped, drills whined and snarled. Jacky Bellamy,
flanked by Bletchley and CH3, strolled between the rows of Hurricanes.

“Hello, Micky,” she called. “Don't you ever sleep?”

“I did once,” Marriott said, “but that was before the war.”

“I invited Miss Bellamy to take a look at our aircraft,” Bletchley said. “I have a feeling she doesn't fully appreciate the quality of these new machines.”

“This isn't the Hurricane we had in France, you know,” Marriott told her. “This is twice the kite. Come and see.” He led her away.

“I don't know what's got into her,” Bletchley said softly. “In France she was always perfectly reasonable, wrote some cracking good stuff in fact, but recently she's gone all …
skeptical
. Won't believe a word she's told. Still quite charming, of course, but no faith. Damn nuisance sometimes, I don't mind telling you.”

“You've got to remember, sir, that this is an election year back home,” CH3 said. “If Britain's getting beaten out of sight, that's a good excuse for not interfering. She writes what people want to read.”

“Hmm.” Bletchley pondered that for a moment. “Even so,” he said, “we've got to go on doing our bit to prove that she's wrong. The Yanks are an appalling lot—sorry, old boy, no offense meant—but everyone in Whitehall keeps bleating about how we can't do without them. Mind you, they said that about the French, and thank God we're shot of
them
. Thoroughly shabby crew. Never could fight. I mean, look at Agincourt.”

“Sure. Mind you, sir, I sometimes wonder what an English army was doing at Agincourt in the first place.”

“We had good reason. I forget what it was exactly, something to do with tennis balls, wasn't it? I used to know … Anyway, we had a perfect right to be there. Besides, we won, didn't we?”

“Hitler might say the same, sir.”

“I wonder if we can get a cup of tea?”

The other two came back.

“Impressed?” Bletchley asked. “Jerry's got nothing like that.”

“Very interesting,” she said. “I didn't understand half of what Micky said, except for something about back-armor and self-sealing tanks and … uh … variable-pitch propellers. And metal wings.” She smiled amiably.

“All standard,” Bletchley said. “Quite routine.”

“Really? The strange thing is that six months ago in France they were impossible.”

“Not metal wings,” Bletchley said firmly. “We had those.”

“Not only impossible but unnecessary. Or so everybody said, except CH3. And now here they are.”

“You mustn't write about any of that stuff,” CH3 said. “Jerry knows we have it, but he doesn't know we know he knows, so it's got to be top secret or you'll spoil the game.”

“But don't you think it's strange?”

“War sets a hot pace,” Bletchley said, “and the devil takes the hindmost.”

“I'll tell you what it reminds me of,” she said. “Squadron tactics. I never fully understood all the technicalities, of course, but I remember that tight-formation flying was absolutely essential. You couldn't attack without it. Everyone said so, except CH3. And now I'm told that's all been changed, and tight-formation tactics are completely wrong. Isn't that strange?”

“Some squadrons still prefer tight formations,” Bletchley said. “It's up to the individual CO. I don't deny that we've learned from experience. Surely you don't blame us for that?”

“No, no. Certainly not. In fact it's exactly what I'm going to do myself. You see, so much of what I've been told—told repeatedly, and officially, and at a very high level—has turned out to be wrong that … well, I'm sorry, but I just don't believe anybody any more. When I'm told the RAF has just shot down—what was it? fifty-nine German planes? I don't believe it. And I can't write what I don't believe.”

“Then it looks as if your career has come to a sudden end,” CH3 said.

“Not necessarily. I can still check the facts. For instance, if you say you shot down fifty-nine German planes today there should be fifty-nine wrecks, right? Well, I'm going to drive around and count them.”

“Are you, by jove?” Bletchley murmured.

“What a startlingly original idea,” CH3 said. “Checking the facts against reality. This could spell the end of modern journalism as we know it.”

“I'll give it a whirl, anyway. D'you like the idea?” she asked Bletchley.

“I'll put it up to Air Ministry. They may not approve.”

“I think they will. They've nothing to hide, have they?”

CH3 escorted her through the blackout to her car. “You know,” she said, “you'd be a lot happier if I were some hardbitten ginswilling old bat you didn't care about. As it is, I think you're ever so slightly afraid of me.”

“Why should I be afraid?” He was holding her elbow, steering her around roped-off craters.

“Because I've got your number. I know you're just like me. We're both out to prove that money doesn't matter.”

“I didn't know you had any.”

“I haven't. I'm broke. Been broke all my life. You should try it sometime. It's very stimulating.”

He opened the car door. “I'll get the butler to try it,” he said. “Then he can tell me if it really works.”

Replacement Hurricanes had been flown in to Bodkin Hazel by breakfast-time the next morning. Flash Gordon turned up, a ragged line of surgical thread above one eyebrow. A sergeant-pilot called Todd was posted in to replace Zabarnowski in Blue Section. The squadron was almost back to strength.

The satellite field didn't look so good. It had been bombed again during the night. A hangar and the clubhouse were flattened and the top of the control tower was missing. Telephone engineers were still mending the lines when the Defiants landed. Fanny Barton went over to greet their CO.

He left CH3 to lecture the Hornet pilots in the privacy of the crewroom. On the wall was a blown-up print of Macfarlane's wreck.

“This sort of thing makes me bloody angry,” CH3 said. “It's stupid and childish and selfish. He could've wiped out a dozen men on the ground with that pathetic display of showing-off. Doing complicated high-speed maneuvers at low level after combat is idiotic. It's not clever. It's not brave. It's not dashing. It's stupid. It's about as stupid as little children playing Last Across the railroad track. This idiot …” He rapped his knuckles on the photograph so hard that he dented it. “How did he know his Hurricane wasn't damaged? He'd just been in a scrap, anything could've happened. Maybe a Jerry bullet nicked a control cable.
He didn't know.” There was complete silence. CH3 was not intensifying his anger for effect; on the contrary he was struggling to contain it. His face was pale and his voice was harsh. “No more victory rolls,” he said. “There's enough risks in this job without stunting shot-up kites at zero feet. It's a waste of my half-crown for the wreath, it's a waste of Fanny's valuable time writing to the next-of-kin, and it's a waste of a good Hurricane. That's all.”