Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  “Two d’s in ‘straddle,’” the rear gunner said.

  “You’re very kind,” Skull said.

  “No fighters. Usual flak. Nothing special at all,” Gilchrist said. “Whole trip was a doddle.” Some of the crew were standing up.

  “I suppose the Rhine helped,” Skull said. “It runs dead straight out of Mannheim for about two miles, is that right? The perfect landmark.”

  “Perfect,” the navigator said. He was feeling much better. “Coming out, we flew straight up the Rhine.”

  “Interesting.” Skull made a note. “And the oil tanks beside the river: were they on fire?”

  “Not half. Burning like blazes.”

  “Flames reflected in the water?”

  “That’s right.”

  The crew of B-Baker were clumping out of the hut.

  “I’ll finish off here,” Bins said. “Anything else you want to tell me? No? Thanks. Well done.”

  “Damn good show,” the group captain said. Gilchrist and his men hurried out. Rafferty and Duff followed them, leaving the Intelligence Officers to write up the operational report.

  “Don’t gossip with the chaps,” Bins told Skull. “Ask your questions, get the gen, finish.”

  “I wasn’t gossiping.”

  “I heard you chattering about flames reflected in the Rhine. Nobody gives a damn. The chaps want their meal. God knows they’ve earned it.”

  “I was curious to know if they remembered seeing burning oil tanks alongside the river north of Mannheim, that’s all.”

  Bins put down his fountain-pen and looked at him. “There are no oil tanks on the Rhine north of Mannheim.”

  “R-Robert saw them burning like blazes.”

  Bins found a bit of blotting paper and cleaned the nib. He drew a perfect circle to make sure it worked. “Look,” he said. “First day on the squadron and you’ve put up three large blacks. For Christ’s sake don’t do any more damage. This job is tricky enough already.”

  “Shall I make us some cocoa? At RAF Feck my cocoa-making was highly commended.”

  While Skull made cocoa, Bins found R-Robert’s report and obliterated the bit about burning oil tanks. In the margin he wrote Irrelevant jocular remarks, and initialed it.

  7

  S-Sugar was the oldest Wellington on 409 Squadron.

  She had taken a lot of knocks: slashed by shrapnel, wrenched by storm-force winds, dumped on bumpy runways by pilots who were ten feet higher than they planned to be. Also baked, soaked and frozen by the British weather as she sat at dispersal. But Wellingtons were designed to take punishment. She was still strong enough to haul a load of bombs to Berlin, provided all her bits worked.

  When a new crew arrived at RAF Coney Garth, Pug Duff gave them S-Sugar and told the pilot, Jeremy Diamond, aged twenty-one, ex-medical student, that he had two weeks in which to knock his crew into shape. “Fly all the hours God gives,” Pug said. “Don’t wait for sunshine. Good weather teaches you nothing. Learn in the rain.”

  Diamond did just that. After a week, he took off and flew east, on a navigation exercise plus bombing practice. Over the North Sea the weather turned foul.

  The radio was receiving yards of harsh static and nothing else. The demons of cumulo-nimbus bounced the bomber until the navigator was too sick to do his job. Diamond climbed until he was above the weather, at nine thousand. He turned back, reached the coast and found the bombing range. Nine thousand was far too high. He went down until the navigator said he could see the targets through the bomb-sight. Diamond didn’t believe him, the nav sounded weak, maybe he was still sick; so Diamond banked the Wimpy so that he could look down and see for himself. Just as he banked, the nav said, “Bombs gone.” Which meant the bombs had swung sideways with the Wimpy. Too late now.

  Diamond turned north, hoping to escape the weather, but the weather went north, too. He tried to climb above it, and the wings iced up. The more he climbed, the worse the ice, until the Wimpy was laboring. He had to go back down into the muck. The port engine packed up and now he couldn’t maintain height even if he wanted to. He was searching for a hole in the cloud when he scraped the top of a Yorkshire hill that should have been thirty miles away, and he terrified himself. Ten seconds later he flew into another, bigger hill.

  New boys began at the bottom. The sprog crew got the worst kite. Why waste a good Wimpy when you could waste a duff one? It was only common sense.

  8

  Rain was still falling next day. It fell on RAF Coney Garth as the adjutant showed the station commander an order from Group. The order directed Rafferty to arrange an appropriate visit, without delay, to a civilian who had been accidentally bombed.

  “You go and see the fellow,” Rafferty said.

  “No fear,” the adjutant said. “Not my pigeon, sir.”

  “Be a sport, Douglas. You’re awfully good at this sort of thing. Honeyed tongue, and so on.”

  “Honey’s on ration, sir. So is tongue, come to that.”

  “Every bloody thing’s on ration. Except bleating civilians.”

  In his flying days, Rafferty’s nickname had been Tiny. Now his presence was even more massive. He was afraid of very few things, but one was angry civilians. “Why don’t we send Pug?” he suggested. “It’s his squadron. I’m just the bally caretaker here.”

  “Squadron’s on ops tonight.”

  “Send Bellamy, then. He’s not flying.”

  “Bellamy’s giving the briefing.” The adjutant paused, and played his ace. “It seems this chap is a former MP, sir.”

  Rafferty gave in. “I’m not going alone,” he said.

  “Well, Skull’s available. Used to be a Cambridge don. Never lost for words, although I can’t say I understand them all.”

  Rafferty perked up. “Skull can do all the talking. I’ll just …” The adjutant shook his head. “Well, I’m damn well not going to apologize.” Rafferty muttered. “Sod ’em all.”

  They went in his official car. An airman drove. Skull had brought a file. “The complainant is Major-General Count Blanco de Colossal-Howitzer-Bombardment, sir,” he began. Rafferty stared. Skull said. “I cannot tell a lie, sir. I made that up.”

  “Drop the ‘sir,’ Skull. And the jokes. Who is this blasted civilian?”

  “Brigadier Piers Barriton, MC. Used to drive racing cars. Tory MP for ten years. A widower. Owns a farm with a large sanctuary for sea birds. He claims that both the farm and the sanctuary were bombed.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “The brigadier has one other passion. Fly-fishing.”

  “Boring bloody nonsense.”

  “True. But as we have some time, you might like to know the difference between a March Brown, a Greenwell’s Glory and a Tupp’s Indispensable.”

  “Damn-fool names. All right, fire away.”

  Brigadier Barriton met them at the front door of his farmhouse. He was in his sixties, angular, slightly hunched, with cropped white hair. Two dogs sat on the doorstep: orderlies awaiting orders. Rafferty introduced himself and Skull. The brigadier did not offer to shake hands. “You’ll want to see the bombs,” he said. His voice held a trace of Scottish Highlands. A trace of granite.

  The further they walked, the muddier it got. The visitors had not thought to bring gumboots. The fields were flat and there was little to be said about them. Rafferty gave up trying to keep his trouser legs clean and he plodded behind the brigadier. Skull’s attempts at conversation got nowhere. “Wonderful skies in these parts, sir,” he said. “Do you paint, at all?” Barriton shook his head. “Neither do I,” Skull said sympathetically.

  Rain had passed, but the sky was overcast and Rafferty could see a squall heading their way.

  The first bomb was lying on a sack. Rafferty recognized 409 Squadron’s colors. All their practice bombs were painted yellow, with a red fin. Still, the brig didn’t know that, did he? “This is a job for the experts,” he said. “It may well be German.”

  “I doubt that.” Barriton roll
ed it over with his foot. Stenciled down one side was 409 SQDN HOT SHOTS. “It struck that Dutch barn yonder. Went through the roof and made a mess of a ton of turnips. The other bombs are widely scattered.”

  “You will be compensated in full,” Rafferty said.

  “Tell that to my breeding gulls.” He set off again.

  It was half a mile to the sanctuary. Rafferty and Skull looked at sea-birds circling mudflats, creeks and stretches of reed, with the gray North Sea beyond. Soon a thin rain began to fall. “It’s taken me ten years to persuade those particular birds to nest here,” Barriton said, “and now you go and bomb them.”

  Rafferty was more interested in the black squall racing toward them. Young Diamond must have run into weather like this. Foul, turning worse. “Accident,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You think I’m making too much of this,” Barriton said. “Well, I fought the Hun and I know one thing. Germany will not be beaten by accident.”

  Nobody spoke on the way back.

  By the time they reached the car, the group captain’s feet were squelching inside his shoes; but that was not what angered him. Rain dripped from his nose as he watched the brigadier shut the dogs in a shed, and turn and stand, waiting for his visitors to go.

  “Sir!” Rafferty said. It was so explosive that he paused to control his feelings. “Sir… I came here to apologize for a mistake, and I’ve done so. But I will not apologize for the hazards of war. Nor will I allow you or anyone to belittle the men I’m proud to lead. War is dangerous. Accidents happen. Brave men die. No doubt you knew a few.”

  “More than a few.”

  Rafferty gestured at the wet horizon. “You love your sea-birds, sir. Bully for you. I love my aircrew. Some of them disturbed your birds. The birds may come back. But the crew of that bomber will never come back. That’s all I have to say, sir.” He was about to leave when Skull stopped him. Barriton had opened the farmhouse door and was standing aside, waiting for them to enter.

  Rafferty sat in the kitchen, near a coal-burning stove as big as a sideboard, and watched his stockinged feet steam. Barriton gave them towels, and made tea. Rafferty was silent; Skull talked easily. He noticed Peter Fleming’s Brazilian Adventure on a bookshelf, and praised it, which led to piranha fish, and to scorpions, and desert travel, and crusader castles. Barriton had something to say about them all. One topic led to another. “Fame is over-rated, if you ask me,” Skull said. He picked up a tin of St. Bruno tobacco. “Everyone’s heard of St. Bruno, but who was he? Come to that, who was the great Greenwell?”

  Barriton’s face changed; the boy in the man showed through. “Do you fish?” he asked.

  “Not as often as the group captain.”

  Rafferty cleared his throat, and tried to remember the difference between a March Brown and a Tupps’ Indispensable. Barriton said: “Take a look at my Greenwells. There’s no decent trout fishing in East Anglia, so fly-tying is the next best thing.” He was opening drawers and pulling out trays lined with yellow felt. Trout flies were lined up like gems in a jeweler’s. “What d’you think of that one, group captain?”

  “My goodness,” Rafferty said. “That’s something. That really is something.”

  “I hope that makes him happy,” Rafferty said. They were in the car, heading home. “These trousers will never be the same again.”

  “You handled him beautifully.”

  “Bloody retired pongo. Bloody blimp. Bloody has-been MP. Never flown in his life and he’s got the brass gall to be sniffy about our training methods.”

  “He’s a lonely old man.”

  “Lucky for him. If he’d been younger I’d have flattened him. Men like that haven’t got the faintest idea what Bomber Command’s about.”

  “Few people do.”

  “They don’t know what courage and strength it takes to go on hammering the Hun, night after night. Brave men in Bomber Command. None braver than 409. Give ’em the chance, and they’ll make Hitler look silly.”

  Skull watched the countryside go by. “All the same,” he said, “S-Sugar missed the bombing range by … well, by rather a long way.” Rafferty looked at his watch. “And how did they end up in Yorkshire?” Skull asked.

  “Won’t this damn car go any faster?” Rafferty growled. The driver put his foot down.

  “You did jolly well with his Greenwell’s Glories,” Skull murmured.

  “It’s about time you called me ‘sir’ again,” Rafferty told him. “Straighten your tie. Do up your tunic. You look a complete shambles.”

  RANDOM HAVOC

  1

  While Rafferty and Skull were heading westward, two civilians were driving roughly north, aiming for Coney Garth. Rollo Blazer was a film cameraman; Kate Kelly was his sound recordist. Their route was rough because after they left London they got lost. All the signposts in England had been removed a year ago, during the invasion scare. Kate had a map but until they knew where they were, it was useless. Every road they took twisted and wandered. And the rain blotted out any landmarks.

  Rollo Blazer stopped the car at a T-junction. The wipers cleared the windscreen and revealed a high barbed-wire fence, a wet field and a sky loaded with cloud. Then a gust rocked the car on its springs and lashed it with rain and the wipers had their work to do all over again. The car was misting up. Kate used a headscarf to wipe the windscreen. “We must be in Suffolk by now,” she said.

  “Why? What does Suffolk look like?”

  She wiped the windscreen again. “Looks wet.”

  “Left or right?”

  “Damn good question.” A truck arrived behind them and gave a rasping blast. “Right,” she said.

  The truck followed them. Rollo saw an entrance to a field and swerved into it. The truck charged past. He killed the engine. “Say what you like about the Blitz,” he said, “it filmed well.” Ahead stretched soggy grass and sky: dark green and gray. “You know what that’s going to look like on the screen. Cold porridge.” He took a Leica from a bag and focused on a passing bird. “Look, a fly in the porridge,” he said.

  The wind was still gusting. It battered the grass and made the barbed wire shriek.

  “My mike is ready to hate this place,” Kate said. “It’s all screaming and howling.”

  “That’s the fly. It’s drowning in the porridge.” Someone knocked on his window. He wound it down. Four RAF policemen looked at him. All wore revolver holsters, and one had the holster open and his hand on the gun. “Identify yourselves,” he demanded.

  “I’m Alfred Hitchcock and she’s Vivien Leigh,” Rollo said.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” the policeman said. “You’re both under arrest.”

  “And about time too,” Rollo said. “I’m bloody starving.”

  It was the wrong thing to say but he delivered it well. Long ago, Rollo Blazer had been a promising young actor, talented and handsome, until he threw it all away.

  His curse was his restless imagination. The off-stage life of a character intrigued him. At rehearsals he kept asking: “What’s the story behind the story?” It irritated the cast. “For fuck’s sake, Rollo,” an old actor told him, “the audience don’t give a damn what happens offstage. You can exit and convert to Satanism and strangle your grandmother, for all they care.” Next night, in Act Two, Rollo entered on cue and said, “I’ve converted to Satanism and strangled my grandmother, does anybody care?” Then he spoke his usual lines. For the rest of the performance, whenever he came on stage the audience was unusually alert. Rollo met the old actor in the wings. “You know,” he murmured, “I think they do care.” The man gave a wintry smile. “Any fool can chuck a brick through a stained-glass window,” he said. The curtain fell and Rollo was sacked.

  He was glad. The prospect of a long run bored him. What next? He’d had bit-parts in a few short movies. It was fun but the money was pitiful. He borrowed twenty-five pounds from an aunt who thought he was twice as handsome as Leslie Howard, and gave ten to a cameraman to teach him how
to shoot movies. This was 1930, when many a worker got a pound a week. Rollo learned a lot for his tenner. With the other fifteen he bought a slightly damaged Sunbeam Talbot and had it painted red. Red for Blazer.

  The car became familiar at low-budget shoots on locations around London. Rollo said he was freelancing for movie magazines. He helped carry equipment, he watched and learned. One day a cameraman fell sick. Rollo volunteered. He wasn’t expert but he was cheap, and the film was already over budget. The director kept him on.

  By 1939 he was a veteran of the British film industry. All the easy charm of the slim young actor had gone: he was stocky, even stubby, and his right shoulder sagged from carrying cameras. Rust-red hair was graying about the ears; freckles dotted his nose and cheekbones. At the corners of his eyes, years of squinting into a thousand viewfinders had left arrowhead tracks. He was thirty-four and divorced. He came across many attractive women and some who were beautiful, but if he thought too much about any of them the scar on his scalp itched.

  Rollo had married an actress called Miriam. It was meant to be a union of minds and souls as well as bodies, but from the first they fought. While he was an actor they fought about the difference between good and bad theater. When he became a cameraman he despised the theater and they fought over that. No blood got shed until their final fight. She threw plates. Most women cannot throw straight, or far. He dodged a couple and then realized that he was safer standing still. She missed and missed. He leaned against a wall and laughed because he genuinely found the scene funny. “You’ve seen too many B-movies,” he said. “People only do this in the movies.” That made her furious, and her fury made her miss him by an even wider margin. He was laughing so much that his ribs hurt. She rushed at him with the last plate and smashed it on his head. When she saw blood trickle down his face, she ran from the room and from his life. He needed six stitches. Ever afterward, if he laughed too much or if the sudden sight of a delightful woman flustered his loins, the scar itched. Rollo Blazer took this as a warning. He had no intention of remarrying. Too old.