Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  On the way back to London she saw a lone Spitfire doing aerobatics. Langham stopped the car and they watched it. Wing-over, plunge, soar, loop, roll, level out, steep bank, circle. “Probably doing an air-test,” he said. “Making sure none of the screws are loose.”

  “Thrilling. Doesn’t it thrill you?”

  “It interests me. You thrill me.”

  She was silent, which made him look. Blood had rushed to her cheeks. He was impressed by his own powers.

  That night he did not sleep on the couch. Again, he was impressed by his own powers until she said: “There’s no hurry. We’ve got hours and hours.”

  He felt the light sweat drying on his body, and listened to his heartbeat dropping to normal. “Yes,” he said. “Of course.”

  “We’ll call that an air-test.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Now we know that none of the screws are loose.”

  “Exactly. We can explore the wide blue yonder.”

  “Infinity for eternity,” she said. “Yummy.”

  Langham had never known a popsy who talked like that.

  Next morning they walked to Savile Row and ordered some suits from Latham & Nunnerley. Zoë charged them to her brother’s account. Then they drove to Richmond and lunched at a riverside hotel. The air was easy, and there was just enough haze in the sky to soften the heat of the sun. An anti-aircraft gun had been set up on the other side of the Thames. The soldiers were playing cricket with a tennis ball. “This war is a swiz,” Langham said. “I want my money back.” It had been a busy night and now he felt very idle.

  “Where do you want to get married?” He had no quick answer, so she said: “Not in a church. Ever since the Hitler-Stalin Pact I’ve gone off God. I don’t think God’s playing the game, do you?”

  “Probably not.” He didn’t care, one way or the other. “I rather think I’ve got to get permission from my CO.”

  “Oh. Shall I come with you?”

  “Good heavens, no.” He had an image of her surrounded by hungry Hampden pilots while she searched for Spitfires.

  “I don’t see how he can approve unless he meets the bride-to-be.” But food arrived, and she forgot the CO. She skipped from subject to subject; nothing obsessed her. He liked that. Flying was his life, and people who interfered with flying annoyed him. She made him proud to be a pilot, maybe not a Spitfire pilot and something would have to be done about that, but still there was plenty of time …

  They drove back to Albany and suddenly she was almost in tears. “Go now,” she said. “Don’t wait. It’s too painful. Go, go.” He packed his bag and kissed her. For a second she responded, but then she could barely stand to look at him. He thought he knew her. Obviously he didn’t. He felt as if he had been poked in the stomach with a walking-stick. He left as silently as a burglar.

  2

  The Bentley coasted onto the forecourt of a petrol station near Stevenage. A long way from Lincolnshire.

  “I was in the last lot,” the owner said. He was middle-aged, gaunt and gloomy. “Durham Light Infantry. Very light, by the time the Armistice came.” He raised his left arm; the sleeve was pinned up at the elbow. “So don’t think I’m not patriotic.” He looked enviously at the wings on their tunics. “Can’t you get filled up at an aerodrome?”

  “Never make it. We’re running on fumes,” Silk said.

  “We got recalled from leave,” Langham said. “Urgent telegram, top priority. The whole squadron’s on operations.”

  “Dawn patrol,” Silk said.

  “Everything’s coupons, coupons,” the owner said. “Bleeding inspectors …”

  “Rules are made to be broken,” Silk said. “We thought you might have a few pre-war gallons still in the pumps. At the going price, of course.”

  “You’ll get me shot, you will.” He sold them two gallons of petrol for three pounds. “Nice motor,” he said. “Lucky sods. We marched every bloody where, we did.”

  They drove north, in the gathering dusk. “Look,” Silk said, and tapped the petrol gauge. “You can actually see the needle going down. She’s drinking like a fish.”

  “I’ll drive fast,” Langham said. “That way, we’ll get there before we run out.”

  Near Peterborough it was obvious that the plan wasn’t working. They stopped at a coaching inn and had dinner. “You look terrible,” Langham said. “Eyes like poached eggs. What happened to you?”

  “Two redheads,” Silk explained. “It’s one too many for a mere boy like me. I was keeping the second-best for you, but you disappeared.”

  “I was otherwise engaged. In fact, I don’t know how, but I actually got engaged. You know: to be married.”

  “Ah.” Silk frowned, and nodded. “Well, now.”

  “She thinks I’m a Spitfire pilot.”

  “Explains a lot. Bloody glory boys, they are.” Silk drank beer and watched Langham over the rim of the glass. “I hear no cheers.”

  “She’s a wonderful, beautiful girl. I’m very lucky.” He made it sound like a death in the family. Silk changed the subject.

  Somewhere near the edge of Lincolnshire, with the fuel gauge nudging zero, Langham switched off the engine and let the Bentley coast down a long and gentle slope. He saw a small farmhouse, all dark except for a slight gleam of moonlight on its windows. Parked on the grass verge was a Ford shooting brake. He stopped alongside it. “What’s up?” Silk asked.

  “Not a word,” Langham whispered. “Take the wheel. Be ready to depart with all speed.” He held up a coil of rubber tube. “I pinched it from that garage.”

  One end went into the Ford’s petrol tank. Langham sucked on the other end; pinched it shut and breathed hard; sucked again; repeated the routine; finally tasted petrol. One last suck and he had a mouthful; stuffed the splashing tube into the Bentley’s tank and spat vigorously, again and again.

  “Dog,” Silk said quietly.

  It was on a chain, in front of the farmhouse. When it howled, the sound was so raw that Langham almost dropped the tube. “Nice doggie,” he muttered. “Back to sleep.” It kept howling, and the chain rattled as it lunged. A bedroom window was flung open, an angry threat was shouted. Still the dog howled. “How much longer?” Silk asked. “Nearly there,” Langham said. Now the angry man saw them, and cursed, and vanished. “I bet he’s got a gun,” Silk said. “Farmers always have guns.” The dog was becoming hysterical. “Another twenty seconds,” Langham said. “I’m not doing this twice.” Silk turned the key in the ignition: no success. “Please, please,” he said. “Please with pink icing on.” A door slammed. He tried again: nothing. “Could that stuff be diesel?” he asked. More windows, lights, voices. “Eighteen, nineteen, twenty,” Langham said. “Now go!” He vaulted into the back seat. The engine fired and the Bentley accelerated in a spray of gravel and black exhaust just as the farmer skidded out of his gateway and tripped on his nightshirt. The shotgun blew a hole in a hedge. By the time he got up, the Bentley was fifty yards away and backfiring like a cowboy movie. “I don’t think she likes your petrol,” Silk said.

  When they put the car back in Flight Lieutenant McHarg’s lock-up, they noticed the dirt on the wings and the windscreen and the petrol splashes around the filler cap. “We’ll worry about that tomorrow,” Langham said.

  3

  “B” Flight went off to enjoy its three-day leave.

  The threat of German measles faded. Many groundcrew recovered, enough to ensure that at least half of 409’s Hampdens were available for action. Three of these bombers and their crews were kept on stand-by. It was a tedious duty: Command could find no German naval targets for them to bomb. The stand-by crews argued about this. According to the newspapers, the Luftwaffe had not bombed anything in the West, so maybe some neutral statesman was brokering a settlement. Mussolini was the popular choice. But when Hitler made a speech and told Britain and France that the war could stop at once, they turned him down flat. Any ceasefire would condemn the world to slavery, they said. So the war wasn’t off.
But it wasn’t altogether on, either. Except in Poland.

  Germany had agreed to the Roosevelt Rules against bombing targets where civilians might be hit. By then the Luftwaffe had energetically bombed any number of Polish towns and villages. Civilian targets could (and would) be bombed, so the German High Command announced, because Polish civilians were involving themselves in the fighting. A week later, Germany declared that all organized fighting in Poland had ended. Warsaw was now defenseless. The Luftwaffe sent an armada of Heinkels and Dorniers to bomb the city. Ten thousand civilians died. Hitler made another speech, saying he was willing to make peace. Nobody believed him except the German people, and they had no choice in the matter.

  Meanwhile, 409 Squadron’s Hampdens waited on the tarmac hardstandings. Their crews hung about, listening to the wind-up gramophone grinding out the hit songs of 1939, “Red Sails in the Sunset,” “This Can’t Be Love,” “South of the Border Down Mexico Way,” “Two Sleepy People.” The morning papers were eagerly seized but they had little to report except stuff about Poland, and everyone knew that the Poles were total goners. Hitler and Stalin had carved up the country between them. Was that part of a deal to make Hitler’s eastern border safe? Probably. Cunning bugger, Hitler. Sweden announced it was neutral. Was that news? Probably not. Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland were neutral. Rumania, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey were neutral. Italy and Spain were neutral. Ireland was neutral. Someone bought a record of “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” and the crews played it and sang it until the joke wore thin. This was turning into a very unsatisfactory war.

  4

  Silk was not on standby duty the day that Flight Lieutenant McHarg was declared fit and came into the Mess.

  German measles had not been kind to him. He looked gaunt and grim. Also angry. He hated waste, and that included waste of time. He had joined the RAF as a boy apprentice in 1922. In the years between the wars the Treasury kept the Armed Forces on a very tight budget. McHarg learned that the road to promotion demanded a mean and miserly grip on stores; ideally, nothing should be used. He was good at that. Even so, it was twelve years before he got commissioned: a pilot officer at the age of twenty-eight. Now he was thirty-three, and dealing with aircrew who were pilot officers at nineteen. They knew nothing of tradition. They treated his bombs as cheaply as boiled sweets. If they met a strong headwind on their way home, or if an engine began coughing, they cheerfully jettisoned their load in the sea. McHarg and generations of armaments officers had carefully guarded those bombs ever since they were stockpiled at the end of what McHarg called the Great War. The aircrew thought him an old man. That amused him. With his bare hand he could unscrew the most corroded fuse on a bomb faster than they could open a bottle of lemonade. They were children.

  Silk observed McHarg from the opposite side of the Mess and decided that he didn’t look happy. It could mean anything. Silk went off to find Sergeant Trimbull in the Motor Transport Section.

  Trimbull said he was fairly sure that Flight Lieutenant McHarg had not been near his Bentley since he got over the measles. Of course he couldn’t be positive.

  “The car may be a bit muddy,” Silk said. “A wash and a polish would be nice.” Trimbull sucked his teeth. “My Hampden needs an air test this afternoon,” Silk said. “Can you get away for an hour or two?”

  “Easily, sir. Wash and polish. As good as done.”

  “Splendid.” The sun was shining. “Perfect day for stooging around England. Um … You might find the odd footprint on the back of the Bentley.”

  “Don’t worry about it, sir. Will we be doing any practice gunnery?” Silk was about to say Probably not when Trimbull added, “Only I’ve always had an ambition to fire one of those machine guns.”

  Silk thought of what the Bentley had been through. “This is your lucky day, Sergeant.” Neither man smiled: conspiracy was a serious business. “Not a word to McHarg, of course.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The bombers were dispersed around the edge of the airfield as a safeguard against enemy attack; nobody noticed Trimbull, in borrowed flying overalls, climb into the Hampden. He had never flown before. The takeoff, twice as bumpy and ten times as loud as he expected, made his heart race with excitement. The climb was alarmingly steep; his ears popped; the countryside was shrinking into a toytown world. Trimbull was fascinated. The bomber was so narrow that when he stood behind Silk, his elbows brushed the fuselage. He began to count all the gauges and switches and indicators crammed onto the instrument panel and overflowing down the sides, reached twenty-five, saw a dozen more and gave up.

  Silk found a field of cloud and made fun of it, skimming the surface, rushing down slopes, charging up hills. Then they were over the sea. It looked as if it had been spray-painted a deep metallic blue. Silk found a fluffy cloud and flew slowly around it while Trimbull, installed in the upper gunner’s position, raked it savagely with bursts of fire while the real gunner guided his arm. Trimbull enjoyed watching the tracer bullets most of all. They streaked like red devils. Silk flew home at a hundred feet, hurdling the power lines, while Trimbull gripped the pilot’s seatback and flexed his knees and silently cheered. Altogether, a successful trip.

  5

  At Clifton College, Langham had won prizes for his English essays. His sentences grew like ivy. They were rich with subordinate clauses and parentheses; his handling of the semi-colon was masterly. Often his sentences ran until they made complete paragraphs. He could qualify a statement five different ways without breaking sweat. But he couldn’t write a letter to Zoë Herrick. He tried, and immediately felt swamped by a flood of remembered lust. If he put this hunger into words, his writing became a scribble and then an exhausted scrawl. He gave up. He telephoned her. Easier. Also more dangerous.

  “Darling!” she said. “How sweet of you. By the way, you forgot to take your underpants.”

  “Damn … Look, chuck them out.”

  “Never. I’m wearing them. Not as nice as you next to the skin, but I suppose a girl has to make sacrifices. There’s a war on. Have you been looping the loop in your sexy Spitfire?”

  “Actually, there’s been a bit of a change. I’m off Spitfires. We’re flying Hampdens now. Twice as many engines, and a ton of bombs. Plus a crew to boss about. So I’m frightfully high-powered.”

  “What fun. I had a dog called Harrington when I was small.”

  “Not Harrington. Hampden.”

  Brief pause. “Harrington. King Charles spaniel. I should know, darling, he was my bloody dog.”

  He let her win. “What are you up to? Apart from my underwear.”

  “If I were apart from your underwear, darling, I’d be stark naked.”

  “Ah.” His loins gave a small leap. “I know a few pilots who wear their girl-friends’ silk stockings on a long flight. Keeps the legs warm.”

  “Precious, you may have the pick of my lingerie the instant we’re married. Are you free a week on Wednesday? Lincoln cathedral, two o’clock. The bishop got a special license for us. He’s my godfather, he swore to protect me from the flesh and the devil but nobody said anything about Spitfire pilots.”

  “That’s because we’re unspeakable.” Let her think he flew a Spitfire. What harm could it do?

  6

  Silk lay stretched on a sofa in the Mess anteroom, engrossed in a paperback called A Bullet for Your Pains. He was within a page or two of discovering whodunit when a servant presented Flight Lieutenant McHarg’s compliments and requested Mr. Silk’s presence in his office on a matter of some importance.

  This had never happened before.

  McHarg was at his desk. He pointed to a straightback chair without looking up. He was reading a typewritten report and following every word with his forefinger. Silk looked around the room, and saw framed photographs of McHarg and his Bentley everywhere, so he looked at the floor instead. McHarg finished reading and stapled the pages with a crash of his fist that made Silk jump. “What doesn’t grow on trees?
” he demanded. His voice was still grounded in Glasgow.

  “Fish,” Silk said. “Footballs. Fountain-pens. I give up.”

  But McHarg had lost interest. He plucked at a hair in his left nostril until he detached it and rubbed his fingers together to dispose of it. “You carried out an air test, Mr. Silk,” he said, and sneezed so violently that his torso convulsed. “During the flight, your upper gunner expended two drums of ammunition.”

  “That’s right.”

  “An air test is not a gunnery exercise.”

  “True.”

  “So this was a case of negligent discharge of ammunition.”

  “On the contrary. I authorized it, for the defense of the airplane.”

  “Against which enemy machine? None has been reported over England.”

  Silk relaxed. “That’s where we differ. Any fighter that comes sniffing around me is hostile, in my eyes. That’s what happened. A Spitfire pilot came too close and I told my gunner to scare him off.”

  “You attacked a Spitfire.”

  “Damn right I did. Didn’t you hear of the Battle of Barking Creek? Three days after the war began, a bunch of Spits went up to intercept raiders in the Thames estuary. The Huns were actually Hurricanes but that didn’t stop the Spits shooting down two of them, did it? Well, my Hampden looks a lot like a Dornier 17. I don’t trust fighter pilots.”

  “Two drums.”

  “Yeah. Very nosey, he was.”

  “You didn’t report this.”

  “What’s the point? I couldn’t identify the bastard.”

  McHarg spent a long time staring at him, before he said: “I don’t like negligent discharge. The man who squanders bullets can’t be trusted. Ammunition doesn’t grow on trees.”