Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  Everyone got back to base, one way or another, by dawn. Eight members of “B” Flight arrived first. They had seized the driver of their truck and his map-reading assistant, and spent the evening playing darts in a pub called the Goat and Compasses.

  “We owe the landlord a fiver,” said the “B” Flight commander, a squadron leader called Micky Byrd. “His wife’s nephew is a cook on a Wimpy squadron, so he trusted us. Who’s winning, sir?”

  Rafferty and Hunt were still playing bridge with Bins and the MO.

  “Not exactly in the spirit of the exercise, was it?” Rafferty said.

  “It was a democratic decision, sir. We all voted. And the two erks weren’t hurt. In fact they each ended up as pissed as a fiddler’s bitch, and I had to drive.”

  “This situation was a simulated bale-out,” Hunt said. “You escaped before you were dropped. It’s not possible. It’s nonsensical.”

  “Nobody said anything about that at the briefing.”

  “If you come down in Germany,” Bins said, “do you think the enemy will let you capture his truck?”

  “Well, at least we know how to set about it,” Byrd said defiantly.

  “Three spades,” Rafferty said.

  Apart from Micky Byrd’s group, nobody escaped capture. Lincolnshire—flat, wet, and thoroughly blacked out—was too much for them. Most officers were caught, usually when walking in the wrong direction. Some surrendered. Pug Duff overpowered the soldier guarding him, escaped on a horse, but was finally surrounded. A wireless op fell off a farm gate and broke an arm. At breakfast next day, Wingco Hunt said, “Well, that’s given them a taste of the real thing, Uncle.”

  “Oh,” the adjutant said. “Do you really think so?”

  A Mess waiter interrupted them. Hunt was wanted on the telephone. Urgently. He hurried off.

  Bins said, “It’s not like you to sound skeptical.”

  The adjutant chopped the head off his boiled egg. “I think I’m the only man on this squadron who’s actually baled out of an airplane. Flying display at Hendon, 1922. Fell into a tree. Cut my head. Couldn’t see for blood.”

  “Bad luck.”

  “Yes. Fell out of the tree, broke an ankle.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Chap gave me a swig of brandy and I was sick all over his shoes. Never give brandy to a man who’s had a bash on the head, Bins. They do it all the time in films, don’t they? Not a good idea. The turn doesn’t like it. Up comes dinner. Now that’s a taste of the real thing. Frightful taste, too. So you see, last night wasn’t realistic. If those chaps had actually baled out, half of them would have ended up in trees, half in bogs, and half in hospital. Like me.”

  “You can’t have three halves, old chap.”

  “Yes you can. Jump out of an airplane and anything’s possible.”

  BEATEN TO A FROTH

  1

  Hunt returned. Big flap on. Group wanted three Hampdens airborne now or sooner. German convoy reported off Friesian Islands. Breakfast ended instantly.

  Hunt decided to lead the patrol. A Wingco’s ops were strictly rationed by Group, so he liked to pick the tough jobs. It helped to remind the boys that he could be airborne as well as chairborne. He picked two crews from “B” Flight, one captained by a Canadian, Stubby Gurnee, the other by a gloomy Welshman, Happy Hall. The Wingco knew them to be solid, competent pilots who listened to orders and worked hard at the job. This was no day for cowboys.

  He briefed them in the crew room as they got dressed. “Enemy convoy off the north German coast. Could be heading anywhere: Emden, Wilhelmshaven, Bremerhaven, up the Elbe to Hamburg, nobody knows. Certain to have an escort, destroyers probably. If so, we bomb the escort; if not, we bomb the convoy. We’ll each carry four five-hundred-pounders. What are the winds?”

  The Met man said, “I’ll spare you the technical analysis. It boils down to this: we expect strong easterly winds to cross the North Sea this morning. You might reach your search area before the gale gets there. Here are the predictions.” He handed out sheets of paper.

  “So it’ll blow us home,” Hunt said. “Cloud? Rain? Fog?”

  “Five-tenths cloud at first, thickening steadily. Intermittent rain, perhaps snow. Depends on your height.”

  “We’ll be low. Look at this.” The pilots and observers gathered round the map. Hunt’s finger traced a broken necklace of oddly shaped islands off the shores of Holland and Germany. “Remember, the German islands look like cocktail sausages, each smaller than the last. Our route leads to the last island, Wangeroog. If we overshoot it, we’ll soon see the coastline where it turns north. We’ll make a pinpoint and start the search. Bins?”

  “Intelligence on the convoy is thin. It’s either genuine or a decoy to test our response. We know that anti-aircraft defenses on the Friesians are being strengthened.” Bins saw that Hunt was impatient. “Avoid Holland and Denmark, which also have guns.”

  They lumbered out, layered with flying kit, carrying parachutes, helmets, thermos flasks, sandwiches, chocolate, and piled into a truck. The Hampdens smelt cold and damp. A seagull had shit on Happy Hall’s canopy and the groundcrew were cleaning it off and polishing the perspex. The engines were warm. The three bombers taxied out and formed a line abreast. The Wingco glanced left and right, and released his brakes. Even carrying nearly three tons of fuel and bombs, the Hampdens needed only half the runway. As they went over the perimeter, they panicked a flock of gulls on the ground. The gulls knew this was no day to go to sea.

  2

  “Darling!” Zoë Herrick said. “Hello,” Langham said. Then her arms were around his neck and she was kissing him, on the mouth, very warmly. He saw her reflection in a tall mirror. Right foot on the carpet, left leg bent, foot raised high behind her. Pure Hollywood. Damn nice legs. “Come and meet Mummy,” she said. “Delighted,” he said. Dissipated would have been more accurate, but he knew she wasn’t interested in the night before.

  The Scottish soldiers had been very hospitable. Silk and Langham had been taken to their Officers’ Mess and revived with whisky. More captured escapees arrived; more whisky appeared. The soldiers were frankly disappointed that the exercise had ended so quickly. Some drunken fool of a pilot challenged them to Highland dancing. Then everything was a giddy whirl, powered by whisky. Langham couldn’t remember going to bed. His batman woke him at eleven: a Rolls-Royce was waiting. Lunch at Bardney Castle House. “I can’t,” he croaked. “I’m on standby.”

  “You can, sir. Your fiancée sent the car, and Mr. Rafferty’s released you.”

  Langham scratched his head and found clots of mud. His mouth was so dry that it hurt. He summoned up a little saliva. It was worse. Tasted like a night in a glue factory. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Too much grog, sir, same as usual. I ran a bath.”

  Bardney Castle House was five miles outside Lincoln. There hadn’t been a castle for three hundred years; a Queen Anne mansion occupied the keep. It had enough fluted chimneys to keep a small colliery in business. Peacocks strutted in the park. When Langham got out of the Rolls he had a sinking sensation in his wallet. It quickly passed. Someone else was paying for this feed.

  Zoë led him into a room lightly scattered with large pieces of furniture. “Mummy, I’d like you to meet Tony,” she said. “Tony, this is my mother, Lady Shapland.”

  “How do you do.” As he came forward, Langham tried to hide the fact that he was both limping and hobbling. They shook hands. “Call me Philly. Short for philistine or philanderer or some damn thing,” she said. “I can never remember.” She was a deep redhead, exactly as tall as her daughter, and she was as American as Rita Hayworth. “Not to be confused with the female pony of the same name. Which reminds me. I had a horse like you, but I shot him.”

  “I say!” Langham’s brain was still sluggish. “Rather extreme, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, he couldn’t run, so he wasn’t worth a damn. What’s wrong with your feet?”

  “Ah. Yes. Training exercise
last night. Got slightly wounded.” He smiled. “Fortunes of war.”

  “Take your shoes off. Let me see.” He began to protest but she said, “Just do it. I own racehorses, I know about feet.”

  “Mummy’s horse won the big race at Newmarket last Saturday,” Zoë said.

  “If you insist.” Taking off his shoes meant bending his legs. His right knee suddenly hurt and he grabbed it. “Just a twinge.”

  “Take your pants off too.”

  “Oh, look here. Is this absolutely essential?”

  “Nobody marries my daughter who’s deformed, decrepit or defunct.”

  He lay on a sofa. She pierced and drained his blisters, and coated them with a dark green cream. “Snake oil,” she said. “Comanche chief sold it me on his deathbed.” She manipulated his knee. “Ice-cold compress tonight. Don’t do the Charleston for a week.” She looked at the scratches and bruises on his legs. “You got this way flying a Spitfire? Ever tried flying it above ground?”

  Zoë had given him a big Scotch and soda. He felt strong enough to shrug.

  “I’ll take the rest of your equipment on trust,” Philly said. She handed him his trousers. “This family needs a male heir. Husbands keep dying on me, and Zoë can’t tell a dime from a dollar. I had an idea. You like this place?”

  “Bardney Castle? I’ve only just seen it.”

  “Take it. Wedding present. For you and her.”

  “Frightfully decent of you.”

  “Dump the staff. Or keep ‘em, whichever you like. This is handy for your Spitfires, right? Your field’s just up the road. Okay, let’s have lunch.”

  They went into another room. “I was born in a shack in Kentucky you could fit in here and still have room to pitch horseshoes,” she said. “This is the Bishop of Lincoln. Charlie, meet Tony. Mind you, the fried chicken was better in Kentucky.”

  The bishop said grace. He was slim and brisk, with a full head of thick, silvery hair. Smoked salmon and wafer-thin brown bread were served, with a crisp white Bordeaux. “You play the banjo, I’m told,” the bishop said, amiably.

  “Do I?” Langham said. “I don’t think so.”

  “That was the last chap,” Zoë told the bishop.

  “Really?” He shot his cuffs, and read the penciled notes on the left-hand cuff. “Nobody told me. I’m only her godfather,” he said to Langham. “Only the guardian of her morals. Which last chap?” he asked her.

  “The stockbroker with the eyebrows.”

  “You didn’t like him, Charlie,” Philly said.

  “Because he was obsessed with his banjo,” the bishop said. “There is more to marriage than the banjo, which is perfectly useless for procreation, for instance.”

  “We’re going to procreate, aren’t we, darling?”

  “Morning, noon and night.” Langham was amazed at his own candor; but nobody else seemed to notice. “Here, there and everywhere,” he added. Still no effect. Philly was asking the bishop if he had backed the horses she had tipped at Kempton Park.

  A superb cheese soufflé was served, with a Provençal rosé.

  “Have you noticed,” the bishop said, “how we keep fighting our wars in northern France, where the wine is lethal, instead of, say, the Rhône valley, where it’s at least robust?”

  “Charlie was in the Trenches,” Philly said.

  “Were you really?” Langham said. “What did you think of the Royal Flying Corps?”

  “We thought they made a jolly good target.”

  “You mean you fired at them?”

  “If they came close. Mistakes happen in war. We made our mistakes before they could make theirs.”

  “Talking of mistakes,” Philly said. “I had drinks at the American embassy yesterday. Joe Kennedy reckons this war is a poor joke. He says France hasn’t got the guts to fight, and England hasn’t got the money.”

  “Kennedy’s just an old bootlegger, mummy,” Zoë said. “He’s a dreadful thug. Everyone knows that. He doesn’t understand Europe.”

  “He’s a successful thug. Bought and sold the Democrat vote in Massachusetts, didn’t he? After Massachusetts, Europe is a kindergarten, believe me.”

  “This is a silly question,” the bishop said to Langham, “so feel free not to answer. Are we going to win?”

  “At a canter,” Langham said; which at least made Philly laugh.

  Pears in red wine. Coffee. Brandy.

  Mother and daughter went off to discuss wedding plans. The men strolled in the grounds.

  “Remarkable lady,” the bishop said. “I can’t imagine what it was like to be married to her. Good food but not much rest, probably.”

  “Who gave her the title?”

  “Lord Shapland. Second husband. Killed when his airplane crashed, poor devil.”

  “It’s a quick way to go.”

  “Mm.” The bishop decided not to pursue that subject. “Some say he was her third husband. Rumors of a liaison in Texas with an oil millionaire. The Church is awfully sticky about divorce. I prefer to turn a blind eye.”

  “She’s not at all what I expected. Very forceful. I must admit I’m glad Zoë isn’t a bit like her mother.”

  “No.” The bishop thought about it. “I mean yes.” He cleared his throat. “Shapland left Philly a vast amount of property. She’s a major landowner, you know.”

  “I do know. She’s just given this place to me. Well, to us.”

  They turned and looked at the building. From this angle, a separate chapel and a stable block were visible.

  “You’ll need a bicycle to get from the bathroom to the breakfast room,” the bishop said. “I’d sell it, if I were you.”

  Langham was shocked. “But it’s a wedding present.”

  “Then buy a tandem. Put the butler on the front seat. You’ll need all your energy, once you’re married.”

  3

  When the Friesian Islands came into view they were the wrong size and shape. They were also twenty minutes late. Hunt couldn’t believe it.

  For nearly two hours his trio of Hampdens had cruised across the North Sea, seeing nothing but cloud above and water below. The cloud was gray tinged with black, the water was gray spiked with white. At first Hunt was able to let the automatic pilot do the flying. Then the cloud base came down to a thousand feet and the sea was more white than gray. The air should have got warmer as he flew lower, but it felt much colder. And much bumpier.

  His observer was an experienced flight lieutenant called Paddy Mason, and he saw the island first. “That’s Terschelling on the starboard quarter, skipper,” he said.

  “It can’t be,” Hunt said. “Terschelling’s Dutch. We’re miles past Holland by now. Aren’t we?”

  There was silence on the intercom while Hunt and Mason and the two gunners looked at the island. It was too distant to reveal anything except a thin, flat silhouette. “It’s Terschelling, all right,” Mason said. “Look at the length of it. Twice as long as any German island.”

  “Come up here, Paddy. Bring your maps.”

  Mason crawled up the tunnel, plugged in his intercom, spread the maps. Hunt’s finger traced the line of the Friesians from west to east. Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland, Schiermonnikoog. “Extraordinary language,” he murmured. Then some driblets of land before Holland ended and Germany began with the island of Borkum. Next came Juist, Norderney, Langeoog, somewhere unreadable in the crease of the map, finally Wangeroog where you turned right for Wilhelmshaven, which was where he had expected to be. “If that’s Terschelling,” he said, “we’re ten degrees off track, and your dead reckoning is completely duff.”

  The Hampdens had no radio communication between them, but Stubby Gurnee had seen the island and guessed that Hunt was slightly lost. “Try and get some bearings,” he told his wireless operator. “See if you can cook up a rough fix.”

  His wireless operator was Aircraftsman First Class York. His RAF trade was radio mechanic; flying was a bonus. He searched until he got a strong signal: a band playing “Twelfth St
reet Rag.” He switched on his intercom. “Skipper, I’m pretty sure I’ve got Radio Hilversum on a bearing of one eight two degrees.”

  “That puts us off Terschelling,” the observer said.

  “Let’s hear it, Yorky,” Gurnee said. York connected the music to the intercom. The dash of jazz trumpet, witty and cheerful, was wasted in this gray alloy tube. “Louis Armstrong,” Gurnee said. “Never,” the under gunner said. “More like Tommy Dorsey.” York blew a raspberry. The jazz ended, an announcer chattered happily. “Is that Dutch?” Gurnee asked.

  “Sounds kind of like Belgian,” his observer said.

  Gurnee listened some more. “What does Belgian sound like?” he asked. “Never mind. Search east, Yorky. Maybe there’s a Radio Hamburg.”

  In the third bomber, Happy Hall was not surprised to see a Dutch island. “I never trusted those bloody predicted winds, Kenny,” he told his observer. “Silly sod of a Met man’s got everything wrong again. What’s our true ground-speed?”

  “Pretty pathetic. I’ll do some sums. Fuel consumption must be up.”

  “Wireless op,” Hall said. “Stop picking your nose and come up here and give me some coffee and a sandwich.” Buffeting made his voice shake. “I don’t intend to die hungry. This weather is turning into a real bitch. There goes Terschelling.” While he was speaking, rain blotted out the island.

  The Wingco did what he must: he slogged on. At least he knew where he was. A course of seventy or eighty degrees should take the Hampdens parallel to the Friesians, provided they crabbed hard enough into the wind. Everything depended on its strength and direction. The North Sea was getting beaten to a froth. Wherever he looked, it resembled white corduroy.

  In fact, the bombers never saw another island. Rain closed in until visibility was down to a few hundred yards. The silly sod of a Met man had got one thing right: the storm met them just as they reached their search area.

  When Paddy Mason reckoned they were ten miles north of Wangeroog, Hunt began a square search for the convoy: ten miles north, west, south and then twenty miles east to set up the next ten-mile box. The cloud base kept dropping, pressing them down, seven hundred feet, six hundred. The wind hammered the bombers until it was impossible to keep formation. Hunt looked left and right and saw his wingmen dropping and climbing like horses on a fairground roundabout, only more so. Much more so. When they blundered into rain, which was often, it coated the Perspex and everyone was flying on instruments. Hail was worse.