Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  “That’s a relief,” Silk said. “I was beginning to think it might be footballs after all.”

  He walked back to the Mess, where a noisy party had developed, with Langham at its center. “The wedding’s definitely on, Silko! Lincoln cathedral, Wednesday week, fourteen hundred hours. My popsy fixed it. Isn’t she clever? You’re best man.”

  Silk took him aside. “I think Black Mac knows something. I could tell from the way he looked at me. He’s got eyes like corkscrews.”

  “Blast his eyes! We’ve got real corkscrews. Have a drink.”

  “That bloody Bentley.” Silk took a glass. “How does a sweaty armaments officer come to own a Bentley, anyway?”

  “Won it in a raffle. Who cares? Drink up, Silko.”

  In fact McHarg had bought it for a song when it was a wreck, and then spent ten years restoring it. He had never married. The Bentley responded sweetly and without argument, went where he steered it, and was admired by all. No woman could compete with that. The Bentley was his life’s companion.

  THIS HAPPY BREED

  1

  When half a dozen pilots were posted to 409 Squadron from an Operational Training Unit, the adjutant organized their rooms and their servants and then took them to the station commander’s office.

  Group Captain Rafferty always gave an introductory talk. He liked to impress on new officers that 409 was rather special, that it had a bit of swank. He had given the talk so often that it was well-polished.

  “Shakespeare was right, as usual,” he told them. “Here we are on this sceptered isle, as he put it. This fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war. This precious stone set in a silver sea, which serves it as a moat defensive to a house, and so on and so forth. Rattling good stuff. Makes Hitler sound like a rag-and-bone man shouting in the street. Now, the current task of this squadron is to protect the moat, so let’s take a closer look at Shakespeare’s silver sea.”

  Rafferty strolled over to a wall map of England and northern Europe.

  “Between us and the Hun lies the North Sea. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. It has some disadvantages. It’s damned cold, damned windy, damned wet. It has one advantage: it’s damned big. You can have as much of it as you like.” That got a brief laugh. “At the moment, our job is to patrol a short beat—the German coastline between Holland and Denmark. A hundred-plus miles. But to get there you fly nearly four hundred miles. No landmarks in the sea, so good navigation is important. Get your sums wrong and you might overfly Holland or Germany. This will be indicated by anti-aircraft fire. If you observe shellbursts in your vicinity, make an excuse and leave. You are searching for ships, not shrapnel.”

  He talked about the Roosevelt Rules, about neutrality, about the crucial importance of positively identifying warships as German before dropping any bombs. He talked of what to do if British antiaircraft guns shot at them: fire off signal flares in the colors of the day. “You never know,” he said. “It might work.” But stay well away from the Royal Navy, he said. Sailors were notoriously quick on the trigger, and he had scars from the last war to prove it. As for German fighters: they never went to sea. But if you met a Hun, keep in close formation and your gunners’ crossfire should make him think twice about attacking.

  This was useful stuff, but not thrilling. So Rafferty ended on a note of brisk patriotism. “I envy you chaps,” he said. “You’ve got the best bomber in the world. Best crews. Fighting for the best country. I began with Shakespeare, so I’ll end with him. Henry V, before Agincourt, sees his army. ‘This happy breed of men,’ he says. And Henry knew what they were fighting for: ‘This precious stone set in a silver sea.’ Of course we won! How could we lose? And with chaps like you, we’ll win again.”

  That seemed to go down well. A few men actually smiled.

  “Any matters arising?” he said. Feet shuffled. Somebody coughed. “Anything? Anything at all.” Silence. “Well, then …”

  “One small thing, sir.” A tallish officer took a pace forward. Strong features. Thick hair. Deep, confident voice. “Those lines from Shakespeare. They’re not Henry V. They’re Richard II. Act two, scene one.”

  “Oh.” Rafferty was taken aback. “Not Henry, you say. But still … um … relevant, surely?”

  “Not relevant to Agincourt, sir. Wrong century.”

  “I meant relevant to patriotism,” Rafferty said smoothly. “To England.”

  “Relevant to treachery,” the pilot said, “if Shakespeare is to be believed. But of course the king doesn’t speak those lines. He’s not present. The speech comes from his uncle, John of Gaunt.”

  The officers relaxed; they were enjoying this. Rafferty was outgunned. He gestured: carry on.

  “Well, sir, Gaunt makes such a fuss about ‘this sceptered isle’ in order to contrast its past with its present, which he says is rotten and he leaves no doubt who’s to blame: the King! Richard has pawned the country. England, Gaunt says, ‘is now bound in with shame, with inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds: that England, that was wont to conquer others, hath made a shameful conquest of itself.’”

  “Interesting,” Rafferty said.

  “Smashing speech,” the pilot said. “But I wouldn’t describe it as a ringing endorsement of the Crown.”

  “You were an actor, I take it.”

  “Briefly, sir.”

  “And your name is …”

  “Gilchrist, sir.”

  “Are you as good a pilot as you were an actor?”

  “I was a lousy actor, sir. That’s why I became a pilot.” It made them laugh. Rafferty smiled, and dismissed them. He had recovered his poise, but he still blamed Gilchrist for spoiling his talk. He blamed Shakespeare, too. The Bard had let him down.

  2

  Rafferty told the Wingco that the new boys seemed a reasonable lot, although one, a chap called Gilchrist, was rather full of himself. A bit cocky.

  “Good,” Hunt said. “I’m laying on some cross-country flights and bombing practice for ‘A’ Flight. This Gilchrist can navigate for Flying Officer Duff. That should keep him quiet.”

  When he was listed as Duff’s observer, Gilchrist went to see his flight commander, an Australian squadron leader called Tom Stuart. In his youth Stuart had fallen off several horses, which was why his nose was bent. His hair was silver-gray because everyone in his family had silver-gray hair. He was twenty-six. Gilchrist thought he was forty.

  “Sir, I think you should know,” Gilchrist said. “I’m not too hot at navigating.”

  “It’s bloody difficult. Last week my observer got lost in Lincoln. Said he’d meet me in the saloon bar of the Turk’s Head. Never turned up. Doesn’t know left from right. Raise your right arm.” Gilchrist did. “You’re halfway home already,” Stuart said. “I’m very impressed.”

  “This may be a silly question, sir, but… am I here as a pilot?”

  “Maybe. You’re certainly not going to be allowed to drive a Hampden, not yet. It’s too valuable, you might scratch the paint.”

  Gilchrist tracked down Duff and warned him that he wasn’t a very good navigator. “You can’t be any worse than me,” Duff said. He was playing chess with Langham. “I can never remember how to plot a course. To calculate distance, d’you divide time by speed? Or do you multiply?” He moved his bishop straight up the board. Langham put it back. “Bishop moves diagonally,” he said. Duff made a face. “See what I mean?” he said to Gilchrist. “Nothing’s easy.”

  The cross-country exercise was a triangular flight: base to Carlisle, to the bombing range near Porthcawl in south Wales, back to base. Gilchrist worked out the routes with some help from a friendly observer called King.

  “Avoid flying over towns,” King said. “Leeds, York, Sheffield, Liverpool, they’re liable to have a balloon barrage up.” Gilchrist made a note. “Don’t trust your compass,” King said. “One degree out, and you’re fifty miles off track. Get pinpoints if you can.” Gilchrist wrote that down, and asked: “What are the best
pinpoints to look for? Rivers? Bridges? Crossroads?” King shrugged. “All rivers look alike to me,” he said. “Towns are the best landmarks. You know where you are with a whacking great cathedral.” Gilchrist scratched his head with the blunt end of his pencil. “Big enough for a cathedral,” he said, “won’t it be big enough for a balloon barrage?”

  King nodded. “It’s a bastard, isn’t it?”

  At least the weather was good: bright and dry, with high white cloud. Gilchrist was not fooled. He had flown clapped-out Hampdens at his OTU, he knew how cold a leaky cockpit could be, he was well wrapped up beneath his Sidcot suit and fleece-lined boots, and already he was sweating as he followed Duff. They went up the narrow ladder that was hooked to the walkway on the port wing. The walkway led to the cockpit canopy, and the sliding hood on the canopy roof would be open, waiting. Duff turned and flapped his gloves, waving Gilchrist away. “This entry is for the gentry,” he said. “Tradesmen use the back door.”

  “Sorry.” Gilchrist had to turn and shuffle back down. The ground crew and a corporal wireless operator watched, boot-faced. Sprog pilot puts up a black. That’s what they’d be thinking. Can’t find his way to the nav position. Jesus wept. The walkway was narrow. Suppose he slipped now and trod on the port flap. It was only canvas-covered, he’d put a boot through it, the kite would be unserviceable. What a colossal black … He reached the end and the ladder was waiting. They’d known he’d be coming back.

  He ducked below the wing and clambered in through a door at the side of the under gunner’s compartment. There was no powered turret; just a cell where the fuselage ended and the tail-boom began. Fancy being alone in here for umpteen hours, sealed in by a bulkhead. Not a cheery prospect. He squeezed sideways through a door in the bulkhead and walked uphill, slowly and clumsily. At its maximum, the Hampden’s interior was three feet wide. So was Gilchrist, carrying a parachute pack and a navigator’s bag; and obstructions narrowed his path: oxygen bottles, fire extinguishers, cables, hydraulic pipes, parachute stowages and awkward-shaped chunks of unidentified equipment.

  He struggled over the main spar, a massive alloy girder that linked the wings to the fuselage. Now he was standing behind the pilot’s seat. Directly above it was the sliding hood. If he had followed Duff through that space, he would have ended up sitting in Duff’s lap, with nowhere to go except back out through the hood. What an idiot he’d been, worrying so much about navigating that he forgot he wasn’t the pilot. Failed before he began.

  A crawl-space under the pilot’s seat led down to the nose cockpit. Gilchrist slid through it feet-first. The nose was roomy; he had a swivel-seat, a folding table, plenty of light. He took out his maps and studied the route again. Almost immediately he knew something was wrong. Panic nibbled at his guts. Once, on stage during a first night, he’d forgotten his lines. Now he felt the same rebellion in his stomach: not butterflies but bats, bloody great bloodsucking bats. The port engine fired and grew to a thunder that made the bomber shake. Gilchrist put on his helmet. Then he remembered. He plugged in the intercom.

  “Ah,” Duff said. “So glad you could join us.”

  “Sorry, skipper.”

  “Sorry isn’t the word. Pathetic is better.”

  At takeoff the navigator’s position was behind the pilot. Gilchrist went up the crawl-space on his hands and knees and sat on the main spar. Takeoff was exhilarating. Duff built the engine revs higher than Gilchrist would have dared, got the Hampden bounding across the grass faster and into the air sooner than he thought possible. At a thousand feet Gilchrist slid back to the nose cockpit. Plugged in the intercom. A dull roar filled his ears.

  “Navigator to pilot. Steer three one zero degrees.”

  No answer.

  He said it again. No answer. His repeater compass showed they were flying on zero eight zero degrees: almost due east, instead of northwest. “Navigator to pilot,” he said, and the Hampden dropped its left wing so steeply that he had to grab the table. Maps, pencils, papers, calculators were scattered. The left wing came up slowly. He relaxed his grip. At once the right wing dropped steeply and he fell out of his seat.

  This went on for some minutes. Then the bomber stopped rolling and began pitching: diving and climbing, plunging and rearing. Gilchrist tasted the wretched memory of his last meal. The pitching ended. He was on the floor, collecting maps, when Duff asked: “Where are we, navigator?” Gilchrist looked out and saw nothing but sea. “Up the creek,” he said.

  “The course we’re on will take us to Norway, if that’s any help.”

  “Turn back,” Gilchrist said feebly. “Fly west.”

  “Too vague, old son. I need an exact course.”

  “If it’s any help,” the wireless operator said, “we’re twenty miles southeast of Spurn Head.”

  Gilchrist found a map and made a wild guess. “New course two eight zero, repeat two eight zero. Please confirm.”

  “No need to shout,” Duff said. “I heard you the first time.”

  The Hampden turned and flew sedately for the next half-hour. Gilchrist recognized landmarks—the great gash of the Humber estuary, the four-square mass of York Minster—and he recalculated the route to Carlisle.

  “I’m losing power in the starboard engine, navigator,” Duff said. “I’m not going to risk crossing the Pennines. Give me a course to Newcastle and then I’ll fly up the Tyne Valley.”

  Gilchrist did it. Ten minutes later Duff said the engine had recovered and he’d decided to risk the Pennines after all. Gilchrist scrapped his calculations and began all over again. He gave Duff the new course. Duff said it would take them over an army gunnery range: not wise. Gilchrist worked out a large dog-leg to avoid this. Duff then became worried about a nearby Spitfire squadron, notoriously trigger-happy. Gilchrist worked out another big dog-leg to avoid that. His map was a mess.

  They missed Carlisle by about forty miles. “That’s Lake Windermere down there, skipper,” the wireless operator said. “I had a jigsaw puzzle of it when I was a kid. Know it anywhere.”

  “Forget Carlisle, navigator,” Duff said. “Give me a course for Porthcawl.”

  He climbed to twelve thousand feet, above the cloud. Now they were breathing oxygen. Gilchrist could see no landmarks. After two hours of dead reckoning he decided they were four miles north of Porthcawl. “Navigator to pilot,” he said. “ETA Porthcawl two minutes from now.”

  Duff dived through the cloud. To Gilchrist the land was a vast map of a foreign country. “Any guesses?” Duff said. He kept diving. Gilchrist had lost all faith in himself. He saw water but it looked wrong so he stayed silent. Still Duff lost height.

  “Cardiff,” the wireless operator said. “There’s the Arms Park, where the Welsh play the rugby internationals. By the river.”

  Gilchrist stared at his map, at the thirty-mile gap between Porthcawl and Cardiff. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I double-checked everything. Twice.”

  “Forget Porthcawl. Forget the bombing range. Have a cup of coffee and a nice piece of cake. I know the way home. Watch out for factory chimneys.”

  Gilchrist drank coffee and looked at factory chimneys. Their smoke was streaming toward Lincolnshire, so the wind was from the southwest. But the meteorological officer had told him the predicted winds were southeast. He had made his course-corrections on the assumption that the airplane was being blown west, when all the time it was being blown east. So his corrections had pushed it even further east.

  That night, in the Mess, he bought Duff a beer. “I made a pig’s ear of that, didn’t I?” he said.

  “Things always go wrong. That’s the first rule of flying.”

  “Everything went wrong. You made sure of that.”

  “I get bored easily,” Duff said. “It’s my fatal flaw.”

  Word of Gilchrist’s unhappy afternoon soon spread around the squadron. Pug Duff’s flight commander, Tom Stuart, sent for him. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, Pug,” he said.

  “I agree, sir. I’m not
a very nice person.”

  “You may well have destroyed Gilchrist’s self-confidence.”

  “Good. If he’s so fragile, he deserves the chop.”

  “No, I’m not going to recommend that.” Stuart cleaned his fingernails with a paperknife. “When you came here, I took you to be a fairly decent sort. Now you’re developing a thoroughly vicious streak. Keep it up, Pug, and you’ll be a flight lieutenant in no time.”

  “Good show,” Duff said.

  3

  Flight Lieutenant McHarg got into his Bentley and had a severe shock. The driver’s seat had been adjusted to suit someone with shorter legs.

  Of course that could have been done by Sergeant Trimbull, or one of his mechanics. No it couldn’t. McHarg had a deal with Trimbull. From time to time the sergeant was allowed to fire a machine gun in the butts, which were in a distant corner of the airfield. In return he kept the Bentley clean and polished, its oil, radiator and battery topped up, its tires properly inflated. None of that involved moving the driver’s seat.

  McHarg restored it to its correct position and began looking for other irregularities. He found bits of gravel trapped in the tire treads, a couple of dead bugs on the headlamps. There was some unfamiliar mud on the underside of the rear springs. Now he was profoundly disturbed. He felt attacked, invaded, almost raped. Reaction set in at once. “Calm down, calm down,” he said aloud. Maybe, while he had the measles, some idiot mechanic had driven the Bentley around the aerodrome, maybe the car itself had not suffered. But he had to be sure. His hand trembled slightly as he turned the key in the ignition.

  He drove out by the Main Gate and nursed the old girl up to fifty, went back down through the gears to walking pace, then accelerated again, keeping a check on the revs and the juice and the temperature. All went well. He relaxed, cruised around the lanes, came back to the base, reversed his lovely lady into her garage, gave the throttle a final burst as a sort of nightcap, and switched her off. He was hugely reassured, but not for long. The worst was saved for last.