Damned Good Show

by Derek Robinson

  “I think that blast waves will rock High Wycombe, shake the corridors at Air Ministry, and play merry hell with the War Cabinet.”

  “Quite possibly. It’s all out of my hands.”

  For a moment they looked at each other. It was a curious occasion, possibly unique: two youngish, good-looking people, each highly expert but in different fields, each talking quietly and rationally about something which only they knew; something that would affect the course of a world war. “Is there anything more I can do?” she asked.

  “I’m hugely obliged to you already. I couldn’t have got this far without the help of your Section. Essentially, mine is a statistical investigation. It all comes down to numbers. I’d be grateful if you would scrutinize my calculations and tell me if I’ve misplaced the decimal point.”

  He went for a walk in the grounds. He was dead-heading a rose bush when she came out and gave him the pages. “All correct,” she said.

  Butt drove back to London, to his office in the War Cabinet Secretariat. In an hour he had a perfectly typed copy of his report.

  He checked it twice, and went down the corridor and knocked on the door of Lord Cherwell, who was his boss and Churchill’s Scientific Adviser. Cherwell had only recently been ennobled. He was better known as Professor Lindemann.

  A lot of reports landed on Lindemann’s desk. Long experience had taught him that the pages to look at were the first and the last. The first told you the purpose and the last told you the conclusions.

  Page one said that Butt’s report concerned his statistical investigation of RAF bombing of Germany on forty-eight nights between June 2 and July 25, 1941. He had examined one hundred separate raids on twenty-eight different targets. He had studied six hundred and fifty photographs taken during night operations, as well as operational summaries of Intelligence reports, and other information.

  Lindemann turned to the conclusions. He raised one eyebrow, but only briefly.

  Lindemann was a hard man. He understood flying. For twenty-five years he had studied aeronautics, and that included a spell as a test pilot. Without doubt he was a brilliant scientist, but he combined brilliance with a harsh and intolerant manner. He was often dismissive of other scientists, even contemptuous, if he disagreed with them. Now he gave Butt, who was half his age, the cold stare that might mean anything.

  “Mr. Butt,” he said. “So that there may be no doubt in anybody’s mind, least of all the Prime Minister’s … Your principal conclusion is that when Bomber Command attacked a target, two out of three aircraft failed to get within five miles of that target.”

  “Average figure for Europe, sir. Not all targets were in Germany.”

  “So I see. Targets in France produced better results, you say. Two out of three bombers got within five miles. But over Germany, results were worse. Only one bomber in four got within five miles. Do I understand you correctly? This is what you claim your investigations have found?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And over the Ruhr …” Lindemann leaned back and gazed at the ceiling light for several seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “Over the Ruhr, you say that only one bomber in ten got within five miles of its target.”

  “Again, an average figure, sir.”

  “Average. So it was sometimes less than one in ten?”

  “When the moon was new and haze was thick, the proportion was one in fifteen, sir. Given full moon and no haze, it improved considerably. However, with the increasing intensity of anti-aircraft fire, the proportion worsened. The figures are on page seven, sir.”

  “I am to inform the Prime Minister that, for as long as the RAF has been sending aircraft to bomb Germany, three out of four bombers have failed to find—let alone hit—their target. That is what you wish me to say, is it?”

  Butt thought fast, and decided that he wasn’t going to be bullied by Lindemann. “I’m not competent to suggest what you should tell the Prime Minister, sir. But I think you should know that the full story of Bomber Command’s effectiveness is worse than those figures indicate.”

  Lindemann flicked through the pages. “Over Europe, two out of three bombers fail to reach their target. Over Germany, three out of four. Over the Ruhr, nine out of ten. How can the picture be any worse, Mr. Butt?”

  “Sir, my investigation concerned the number of aircraft that were recorded by Bomber Command as having attacked their primary target. But on those raids, Bomber Command sent many aircraft which did not claim to have attacked their targets. I examined one hundred raids. Bomber Command sent a total of just over six thousand aircraft on those raids. Just over two thousand reported that they failed to reach the target, and so they were not included in my study. If we add to my findings this additional one third of all aircraft dispatched—those which, by their own account, did not attack—then the conclusion must be that, of the total aircraft dispatched, only one fifth reached their target. Therefore …” Butt stopped. Lindemann had raised a hand.

  “Enough, Mr. Butt. In a nutshell: of every hundred British bombers that took off, twenty bombed the target and eighty failed. That’s what you’re saying.”

  Butt thought: You don’t trap me like that. “My brief did not include the actual bombing of the target, sir.”

  “If they reached it, why wouldn’t they bomb it?”

  “Sir, for the purpose of my investigation, the target area was defined as having a radius of five miles. This amounts to an area of over seventy-five square miles. Any bomb that fell inside that area was considered to have hit the target area.”

  “Seventy-five square miles,” Lindemann said. “A very large city.”

  “Only Berlin covers such an area, sir.”

  “Which means any other target area must consist of … what?”

  “Largely of open country, sir.”

  “Fields.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bomber Command has been killing cows.”

  Butt hesitated. He knows, anyway, he thought. “And aircrew, sir,” he said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Butt. We are all in your debt.”

  Butt went out. Lindemann weighed the report in his hand. “High explosive,” he said aloud.

  4

  Kate and Rollo attended the briefing. By now they were a familiar presence.

  The target was Hanover.

  Nobody cheered, but there was a slight feeling of relaxation. It could have been worse. It could have been the Ruhr, or a long haul like Frankfurt or Mannheim. Hanover was only about a hundred miles from the German coast. It meant a long slog across the North Sea, but 409 was accustomed to that.

  The briefing followed its usual pattern. It would be a biggish raid: sixty Wellingtons and thirty Hampdens. Hanover contained several factories that were crucial to the German war machine and it was an important communications center. The Aiming Point was the railway station, easily identified because the Masch See, a lake more than a mile long and shaped rather like a Yale key, pointed toward it. The Met man said there was a fifty-fifty risk of some electrical storm activity over the North Sea but it was moving away northwards and should be replaced with clear skies. “The predicted winds …” he announced and waited while they chanted their reply, before he said, “Are southwesterly over Germany, thirty knots, becoming westerly, twenty knots, for your return over the North Sea. No fog is expected.” The Wingco warned them to be ready for heavy light flak and couldn’t understand why they laughed. The group captain told them this was a chance to give Hitler a bloody nose, so strike hard. Good luck. And that was that.

  The room emptied, until only Silk and Skull were left. Skull was collecting maps and photographs and Intelligence summaries.

  “You remember the lovely Zoë? Langham’s popsy?” Silk said. “You went to one of their parties.”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Stupid of me. Of course, you weren’t at Kindrickj were you? The thing is, Zoë turned up here last week, looking for me so she said, and that was very enjoyable, up to a point. Now
she’s gone back to London, but I can’t get her out of my mind. Maybe I ought to ask her to marry me. What d’you think?”

  “Ask her.” Skull rolled up a map and slipped a rubber band around it.

  “Trouble is, she’s such a terrible liar.”

  “The truth is rationed like margarine nowadays. Was this briefing honest? Are the interrogations honest? Is the man Blazer honest? He lives in a world of make-believe. Are you honest?”

  Silk wondered. “Up to a point,” he said. He watched Skull cram papers into a file. Some got torn. “Well, I’d better push off,” he said. “Thanks for the advice.”

  “I was lying,” Skull said. “Not that it matters.”

  5

  Engines were briefly tested sixty minutes before takeoff. After that, crews had to wait at their airplane. With nothing left to do, it was the worst hour of the day. Most men sat or lay on the grass, saying very little, thinking too much, some wondering how they came to volunteer for such a bitch of a job, and all pushing to the backs of their minds the knowledge that it was a stone-cold certainty someone, maybe not on this squadron, but someone, somewhere, was going to get the chop before tomorrow. It was a long hour that felt like punishment for no offense. Even Silk was subdued. And then, while nobody was looking, the minutes had sneaked by and the first engines fired. None of D-Dog’s crew moved.

  After a while, with engines all along dispersal joining in, Rollo asked Silk why he wasn’t starting-up.

  “Dog’s last in the queue. I’m not going to waste fuel and risk overheating the engines.”

  “Last? I thought everyone took off in alphabetical order.”

  “We’re carrying the cookie. The four-thousand-pounder. It makes sense for us to go last.” He stretched and yawned. “Pug Duff would never speak to me again if Dog fell on her face halfway down the flare-path and ruined the grass.” He strolled away.

  Rollo went to Kate. She was bundled up in flying gear, all of it scrounged by Silk, and the warmth had made her drowsy. “Wake up,” he said. How could she sleep at a time like this? “We’re carrying the cookie. It’s a bomb as big as a bus.”

  “I know. Micky Mallaby told me.”

  He found the second pilot admiring the sunset. “This cookie we’ve got on board,” he said. “Why hasn’t everyone got one?”

  “Most of the Wimpys haven’t been adapted yet. Their bomb-bays aren’t big enough. Haven’t you seen a cookie? It looks like two big dustbins welded together, end to end.”

  “I should have been told. I could have filmed it.”

  “Dunno anything about that, mate. Ask Woody. He’s got to drop the bloody thing.”

  The crew were drifting toward the bomber. Rollo, now beginning to be excited by the news, intercepted Woodman. “This cookie will make a hell of a bang, won’t it?” he asked. “I mean to say, four thousand pounds of TNT, that’ll blow the railway station to bits, won’t it?”

  “If we hit it. A cookie’s not a real bomb. It hasn’t got a tail. It’s got the ballistic properties of a brick shit-house. Might go anywhere. I’ll be pleased if it lands within a mile of the AP.”

  Rollo was discouraged, but not for long. When he was sitting next to Kate, behind the main spar, and D-Dog was taxying along the perimeter track, he said: “If I can catch this cookie when it explodes, we could have the perfect climax. It’ll look like the crack of doom.” He was so excited that he forgot to clench his toes when Silk took Dog roaring down the flare-path and, creaking and groaning under its load, into the early night.

  6

  There was still some light at four thousand. Rollo leaned into the cockpit and filmed Silk flying Dog. He shot the shimmer of a prop disc and changed focus to get the English coastline, far below. He thought the surf looked like toothpaste and the sea looked like oilskin. Black oilskin. Ten seconds of that was plenty.

  Kate was taking a feed from the intercom and playing it straight onto the soundtrack. Rollo persuaded Silk and Mallory to say something technical, so they exchanged a few words about keeping an eye on the cylinder-head temperatures. When they finished, the nav gave Silk a new course: eighty-four degrees. Silk did something to the compass, and told everyone to watch out for night fighters. Rollo was pleased. It all added up to a nice little sequence: D-Dog, off to war.

  He had seen the map; he knew that crossing the North Sea would take about two hours. No point in carrying a heavy camera all that way, so he put it in its bag. Already his knees ached slightly, from constant bending in order to soften the bumps and dips of flying. D-Dog was not a perfect platform for a cameraman.

  At six thousand, and still climbing, Silk switched on the autopilot. Rollo took great interest. Outside, it was night; the only light in the cockpit came from the dials and gauges, a dim green glow, not enough to let him shoot this scene. Some other time, he thought.

  Silk kept his hands on his thighs, and he never stopped checking the instrument panel. “This is just testing,” he told Rollo. “I don’t trust George. George is a treacherous bastard. He’s liable to go haywire, and then if you don’t disengage him fast, he’ll kill you. That’s why we keep a fire ax here.” He pointed to the ax, at the second pilot’s side.

  “If George gets the hump, I chop through his hydraulics,” Mallaby said. “Cut his bloody head off.”

  “Crikey,” Rollo said. It seemed a feeble comment.

  He watched the wheel on the control column turn an inch or so, one way or the other. Sometimes the stick wandered back and forth. The rudder bar was rarely still. “George is a bit restless, isn’t he?” he asked.

  “No, that’s Dog. She’s a typical Wimpy, always bending and stretching. It affects the control runs. That’s the cables going out to the wings and back to the tail. Dog twists, the controls move, George corrects. Busy man, George.”

  “It’s what makes the Wimpy so tough,” Mallaby said. “She’s all basket-weave. Alloy basketweave. The strength is in the shape. You can’t break her back because she hasn’t got a spine. Bloody clever.”

  “But she does fidget,” Silk said. “Isn’t that right, Chubby?”

  “Right, Skip,” the rear gunner said. “She likes to wag her tail.”

  “She does it to keep you awake.”

  “It’s like a fairground ride back here.”

  “Chubby’s always on the qui vive,” Silk said to Rollo. “I know because every time he rotates his turret, his guns act as a little rudder and Dog does a little shimmy. And that’s enough of George.” He disengaged the autopilot. “I haven’t got time to do that if we get jumped by a Hun.”

  Rollo watched his face. Silk’s eyes were always moving. He had a routine: he looked at the compass; then at the airspeed indicator; at the horizon; at the moon, which was just rising; at the sea; at other instruments, oil pressures, maybe, or fuel gauges, or engine temperatures; then back to the compass again. An endless check. And the op had only just begun. Rollo felt tired. He went back to the rest bed and sat beside Kate. All the interior lights had been dimmed until they were soft sparks in the dark. That must be how Silk wanted it.

  He put his mouth close to her ear and shouted: “I could do with some coffee.”

  She shouted back: “No coffee until we reach the North Sea on the way home. Otherwise—bad luck.”

  Bloody hell, he thought. Already she knows more than me. Soon they climbed above eight thousand and everyone was on oxygen and the camera crew had nothing to do but look at the blackness and endure the bumps and shudders and the taste of wet rubber.

  7

  Group Captain Rafferty had a good dinner: brown Windsor soup, lamb stew with roast potatoes and leeks, apple pie and custard. He knew it was going to be a long night. Rafferty had a big body; it needed plenty of fuel. He had a second helping of apple pie.

  409 Squadron would still be outward bound, over the North Sea. Rafferty left the Mess and looked at the weather. Ten thousand stars and not one wisp of mist. Good. Don’t let me down tonight, he told the sky, not with a maximum effort in the
air. Somewhere near Hanover, five hundred miles away, his opposite number in a Luftwaffe night fighter base was probably looking at the same stars and having similar thoughts. Well, you started it, chum, Rafferty told him. Now watch Bomber Command finish it. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a shooting star come and go so fast that if you blinked, you missed it. Rafferty wasn’t a poetic man but he thought he’d witnessed something symbolic, if only he could put words to it.

  No, that was hopeless. He went indoors and found the adjutant. They went to a quiet corner of the anteroom and played drafts for a shilling a game. Uncle was good at drafts. Not slapdash, but he didn’t brood either. Made his move, liked to attack. Rafferty approved of that. He lost seven shillings, fought back and was a shilling up, and then they decided to have a coffee break. “Bring some for Mr. Skelton too,” Rafferty told the Mess servant. To Uncle he said, “He’s been waiting nearly an hour for us to finish playing. Too well-mannered to interrupt, of course. My compliments to Mr. Skelton,” he said to the servant, “and would he be so kind as to join us.”

  Skull sat at their table. He had a large buff envelope. They each made the usual polite remarks. The weather was praised. Coffee came.

  Rafferty felt unusually friendly toward Skull. He still regarded him as part of the furniture, like all Intelligence Officers, useful but not essential; somewhere between catering and accounts. However, the man had been plucky enough to go on an op, which meant he’d had a whiff of grapeshot, whatever that might be, so he wasn’t a dead loss. “GreenwelPs Glory,” he said. “Remember that afternoon, Skull? You and your trout flies really bamboozled that dreadful brigadier. Best bit of Intelligence work you’ve done.”

  “Thank you, sir. If my best contribution is to recognize trout flies, my efforts here would seem to be wasted.”

  “It was a joke, old boy. Uncle was amused. Laugh, Uncle.”

  “Ha ha,” the adjutant said. “Ho ho.”

  “There you are. Relax, Skull. Loosen your stays.”