Len Deighton - Goodbye Mickey Mouse

‘Come in, don’t just stand in the draught,’ said Morse, stubbing out his cigarette in the lid of a hair-cream bottle.

‘My name’s Farebrother, Lieutenant. I’m assigned to your flight.’

‘Kick Winston off that chair and sit down.’ MM’s first impression of the newcomer was of a shy stooped figure in an expensive non-regulation leather jacket, wearing a gold Rolex watch and with a fountain pen that was leaking through the breast pocket of his shirt to make a small blue mark over his heart. His captain’s bars had been worn long enough to become tarnished. It was a nice conceit and MM noted it with admiration.

‘I’m going to be flying Kibitzer , I understand.’

MM recognized the slight eastern accent.

‘So you’re the bastard who popped rivets in my ship.’

‘You’ve got a beautiful bird there, Lieutenant. She ticks like a Swiss watch,’ said Jamie diplomatically. MM purred like a cat with a saucer of cream. ‘But I didn’t pull enough G to pop any rivets.’

‘Where are you from, Captain?’ said MM. ‘New York? Boston? Philly?’ These rich eastern kids were all alike; they treated the rest of the nation as if they were just off a farm in Indiana.

‘I live in California, Lieutenant. But I went to school in the East.’

‘You want a drink, Captain? I’ve got scotch.’

Farebrother held up a thin hand to indicate that he wouldn’t. MM settled back in the pillows and looked at him—a poor little rich boy. Junior figured that singleseat fighters might be a way he could fight the war without rubbing shoulders with the riffraff.

Farebrother said, ‘Are we going to fight the entire war with me calling you Lieutenant and you calling me Captain?’

MM turned and held out a hand that Farebrother shook. ‘Call me Mickey Mouse like everyone else does.’

‘My friends call me Jamie.’

‘Take the weight off your legs, Jamie, and throw me a pack of butts from that carton on my footlocker.’ Morse opened a book of matches to make sure it wasn’t empty. ‘Are you fixed up with a room?’

‘I’m sleeping downstairs—sharing with Lieutenant Hart.’

‘Then you’re on your own. Hart got some kind of ulcer. He won’t be back. If you take my advice you’ll leave his name on the door and try to keep the room all to yourself, like I have this one. No sense in sharing if you can avoid it.’

‘Why are we living in these little houses?’

‘The RAF built them to house officers and their families. That narrow storeroom downstairs, where they fix sandwiches and fry stuff, used to be the family kitchen.’ Farebrother looked round the smoke-filled room. Lieutenant Morse had left no space for anyone else to move in with him. The second bed had been upended and a motorcycle engine occupied its floor space. Parts of the engine were strewn round the room; some were wrapped up in stained cloths and some were in a shallow pan of oil on the floor. In the corner there were Coca-Cola bottles piled up high on a milk crate and on the walls were pinup photos from Yank and a coloured movie poster advertising Dawn Patrol . Above the bed MM had hung a belt with a holstered Colt automatic clipped to it, and above that there was a beautiful grey Stetson.

‘And that old civilian sweeping the hall?’ said Farebrother.

‘We have British civilian servants, batmen they call them. They’ll fix up your laundry and bring you tea in the morning—well, you can make a face, but it’s better than British coffee, believe me. If you want coffee, fix it yourself.’

‘I hear you’re the ranking ace here.’

MM lit his cigarette carefully and then extinguished the match by waving it in the air. ‘You don’t have to be any Baron von Richthofen to be best around here. Most of these kids should still be in Primary Flight School learning how to do gentle turns in a biplane.’

‘Does that go for the pilots in your flight too?’

MM inhaled on his cigarette, closing his eyes as if in deep thought. ‘Rube Wein is my wingman—sad-eyed kid with jug ears, rooms downstairs. He’s no better, no worse than most as a flyer. He’s a brainy little bastard whose idea of a good time is to sit through an evening of Shakespeare, but he’s got eyes like an Indian scout and reaction times as good as any I’ve seen. And don’t let all that book learning fool you, he’s a tough little shit. When he’s on my wing I feel good.’ MM fiddled with his cigarette and tapped some ash into the tin lid. ‘You’ll probably fly wing for Earl Koenige—better pilot than Rube, he’s got that natural feeling for it, but he’s a shy kid and he just won’t get in close enough to get kills. Earl likes airplanes, that’s his trouble. He’s always frightened of bending something or damaging his engine by using full power. He flies these goddamn Mustangs like he was paying the maintenance out of his own pocket.’

Winston sighed and slid gracelessly off the wicker chair, which creaked loudly. Farebrother, who had been standing, sat down on the dog’s cushion and put his feet up on a hard chair. It gave MM a chance to admire Farebrother’s hand-tooled high boots.

‘When do you think we’ll go again?’ Farebrother asked.

‘After that Gelsenkirchen foul-up I thought we’d never go again. I had a hunch we’d all be transferred to the infantry.’

‘What happened?’

MM shook his head sadly. ‘Track in to Colonel Dan leading us to the rendezvous with the Bomb Groups at Emmerich, near the Dutch frontier. We’re tasked to give them close support all the way to the target, and then back as far as Holland again. We’re all tucked in nice and tight behind Colonel Dan. It was like an air show except that the stratus is under us and no one could see anything.’

‘Not even the bombers?’

‘What bombers?’ MM waved an arm to indicate that he could see nothing. ‘I never saw any bombers.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I’ll tell you what happened—nothing happened, that’s what happened. The bombers never found the target. The little magic black boxes that are supposed to see through cloud went on the blink, and the B-17s went miles north of our route. Cut to Colonel Dan, who’s taking us round and round Gelsenkirchen—at least he insists it’s Gelsenkirchen—but all we see is cloud. Then we fly back to England in a nice tight formation, do some low passes over the field to show what split-ass aces we are, and there’s plenty of time for drinks before dinner. Jesus, what a fuck-up!’

‘The mission didn’t bomb?’

‘Oh, they bombed. They bombed, “targets of opportunity”, which is a cute name the Air Force dreamed up for shutting your eyes, toggling the bombload, gaining height, and getting the hell out.’

‘I heard the Bomb Groups were having a tough time,’ said Farebrother. ‘I saw replacements by the truckload heading for the bombers.’

‘Slow dissolve to the Bremen mission one week later,’ said MM. ‘Seems like the target-selection guys at High Wycombe have some kind of private feud with the inhabitants of Bremen.’

Farebrother nodded politely. ‘It’s accessible; it’s near the ocean,’ he said. He reached into his shirt pocket for a packet of Camels and flicked a cigarette up with his fingernail. MM watched him light it. His hands were as steady as a rock. These rich kids are all the same—maybe it’s the school they go to on the east coast. Keep it cool, never laugh, never fart, never shout, never cry. MM admired it. ‘So what happened?’ said Farebrother.

MM realized he’d been daydreaming. He was tired and hung over—he should have told Farebrother to go away and leave him alone, but he didn’t. He told him about Bremen. He told him about the one that got torn in half.