Len Deighton - Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1 - Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse

Nora pecked a kiss and Simon Cohen briefly took her hand. Then she was gone almost as quickly as she arrived. Mrs Cohen saw her to the door and looked closely at her face when she waved goodbye. ‘Simon is looking fine, Mrs Cohen.’

‘I suppose you are surrounded with sergeants like him at your headquarters place.’

‘No, I’m not,’ said Nora. They seldom saw a sergeant at Bomber Command HQ, they only wiped them off the black-board by the hundred after each attack.

After they had finished eating Cohen passed cigars around. Digby, Sweet, and Lambert took one but Batters said his father believed that smoking caused serious harm to the health. Sweet produced a fine ivory-handled penknife and insisted upon using its special attachment to cut the cigars.

Ruth Lambert got up from the table first. She wanted to make sure their bedroom was left neat and tidy, no hairpins on the floor or face powder spilled on the dressing-table.

She looked back at her husband. He was a heavy man and yet he could move lightly and with speed enough to grab a fly in mid-air. His was a battered face and wrinkled too, especially round the mouth and eyes. His eyes were brown and deep-set with dark patches under them. Once she had written that his eyes were ‘smouldering’.

‘Then mind you don’t get burned, my girl.’

‘Oh Mother, you’ll both love him.’

‘Pity he can’t get a commission. Do him more good than that medal.’

‘A commission isn’t important, Father.’

‘Wait until you’re living in a post-war NCO’s Married Quarters. You’ll soon change your tune.’

He felt her looking at him. He looked up suddenly and winked. His eyes revealed more than he would ever speak. This morning for instance she had watched him while Flight Lieutenant Sweet was theorizing about engines, and had known that it was all nonsense by the amused shine in Sam’s eyes. Sam, I love you so much: calm, thoughtful and brave. She glanced at the other airmen around the table. It’s strange but the others seem to envy me.

Mrs Cohen also hastened away to pack her son’s case. Left to themselves the boys stretched their feet out. They were puffing stylishly at the large cigars, and clichés were exchanged across the table. They could talk more freely when a chap’s mother wasn’t there.

‘We’ll be on tonight,’ predicted Sweet. ‘I feel it in my corns.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll put a little salt on Hitler’s tail again, eh?’

‘Is that what we are doing?’ asked Lambert.

‘Certainly it is,’ said Sweet. ‘Bombing the factories, destroying his means of production.’ Sweet’s voice rose a little higher as he became exasperated by Lambert’s patronizing smile.

Cohen spoke for the first time. ‘If we are going to talk about bombing, let’s be as scientific as possible. The target map of Berlin is just a map of Berlin with the aiming-point right in the city centre. We are fooling only ourselves if we pretend we are bombing anything other than city centres.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ said Flight Lieutenant Sweet.

‘Simply that there are no factories in city centres,’ said Lambert. ‘The centre of most German towns contains old buildings: lots of timber construction, narrow streets and alleys inaccessible to fire engines. Around that is the dormitory ring: middle-class brick apartments mostly. Only the third portion, the outer ring, is factories and workers’ housing.’

‘You seem very well informed, Flight Sergeant Lambert,’ said Sweet.

‘I’m interested in what happens to people,’ said Lambert. ‘I come from a long line of humans myself.’

‘I’m glad you pointed that out,’ said Sweet.

Cohen said, ‘One has only to look at our air photos to know what we do to a town.’

‘That’s war,’ said Battersby tentatively. ‘My brother said there’s no difference between bankrupting a foreign factory in peacetime and bombing it in wartime. Capitalism is competition and the ultimate form of that is war.’

Cohen gave a little gasp of laughter, but corrected it to a cough when Battersby did not smile.

Lambert smiled and rephrased the notion. ‘War is a continuation of capitalism by other means, eh, Batters?’

‘Yes, sir, exactly,’ said Battersby in his thin childish voice. ‘Capitalism depends upon consumption of manufactured goods and war is the most efficient manner of consumption yet devised. Furthermore, it’s a test of each country’s industrial system. I mean, look at the way we are developing our aeroplanes, radios, engines, and all sorts of secret inventions.’

‘What about man for man?’ said Digby.

‘Surely after the great victories of the Red Army you don’t still subscribe to the superhuman ethic, Mr Digby,’ said Battersby. ‘Evils may exist within our social systems but the working man who fights the war is pretty much the same the world over.’

They were all surprised to hear Battersby converse at length, let alone argue.

‘Are you a Red, Battersby?’ said Flight Lieutenant Sweet.

‘No, sir,’ said Battersby, biting his lip nervously. ‘I’m just stating what my brother told me.’

‘He should be shot,’ said Sweet.

‘He was, sir,’ said Battersby. ‘At Dunkirk.’

Sweet’s rubicund face went bright red with embarrassment. He stubbed his cigar into a half-eaten pancake and, getting to his feet, said, ‘Perhaps we’d best get cracking. Just in case there’s something on tonight.’

Digby and Battersby also went upstairs to pack. Lambert was silent, sipping at his coffee and watching the cigar smoke drifting towards the oak ceiling.

Cohen poured coffee for himself and Lambert. The two of them sat at the table in silence until Cohen said, ‘You don’t believe in this war?’

‘Believe in it?’ said Lambert. ‘You make it sound like a rumour.’

‘I think about the bombing a lot,’ admitted Cohen.

‘I hope you do,’ said Lambert. ‘I hope you worry yourself sick about it.’

On the Squadron Lambert usually spoke only of technical matters and like most of the old-timers he would smile without committing himself when politics or religion was discussed. Today was different.

‘What do you believe then?’

‘I believe that everyone is corruptible and I’m always afraid that I might become corrupt. I believe that all societies are a plot to corrupt the individual.’

‘That’s anarchy,’ said young Cohen, ‘and you are never an anarchist by any measure. After all, Skipper, society has a right to demand a citizen’s loyalty.’

‘Loyalty? You mean using another man’s morality instead of your own. That’s just a convenient way of putting your conscience into cold storage.’

‘Yes,’ reflected Cohen doubtfully. ‘The SS motto is “my honour is my loyalty”.’

‘Well, there you are.’

‘But what about family loyalty?’

‘That’s almost as bad: it’s giving your nephew the prize for playing the piano when the little boy down the street plays better.’

‘Is that so terrible?’ asked Cohen.

‘I’m the little boy down the street. I wouldn’t have even got as far as grammar school unless a few people had let a prize or two go out of the family.’

‘What you are really saying,’ said young Cohen trying to make it a question rather than a verdict, ‘is that you don’t like bombing cities.’

‘That is what I’m saying,’ said Lambert and the young navigator was too shocked to think of a reply. Lambert drained his cup. ‘That’s good coffee.’

Hastily Cohen reached for the pot to pour more for him. He wanted to demonstrate his continuing admiration and regard for his pilot. ‘Coffee isn’t rationed,’ said young Cohen.

‘Then fill her up, and give me two hundred Player’s.’