Len Deighton - Bomber

‘The aeroplanes were different then. Biplanes: fragile little affairs of sticks and fabric.’ Why was he using those old clichés? They were tough little planes and agile too. Not like today’s sophisticated metal machines so full of fuelpipes, radio gear and delicate equipment that even a heavy bump on take-off made something malfunction.

‘They were painted with strange patterns of mauve and pink and grey. I can remember them.’ It wasn’t true. He could no longer remember the difference between a Halberstadt and an Albatros. It was the smell that he remembered, the fuel and the dope, shrill smells that caught the back of the throat. He remembered too the sound of the Mercedes motor firing and the roar of it echoing against the side of the hangar.

‘I remember the day I shot down my first Englishman. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky.’ Or was he telling it correctly? Surely that was the day he got the telegram about his mother dying. It was pouring with rain the day he shot down his first Englishman.

‘Were you afraid?’ asked Anna-Luisa.

‘I was afraid that someone would think I might be afraid,’ he said. It was a conventional answer. The true answer was that at eighteen he didn’t have enough intelligence to be afraid with.

‘Did you see the Englishman?’

He tried to remember. ‘It was a two-seater. I saw the pilot’s white silk scarf floating out of the cockpit. I came out of the sun.’

‘Were you proud?’

‘I’d killed two men, Anna-Luisa. It’s a terrible thing.’ He wondered what sort of men they were or might have become. The British should never have sent men out in those BE-2s, not over the lines anyway. After he landed and claimed his first victory his Staffel commander said, ‘A BE-2, I suppose.’ This one had already been shot up but he fought like the devil. On the third pass the gunner ran out of ammunition. He waved and pointed to his gun. A white-faced fellow with a moustache, no youngster. The pilot seemed unable to open the throttle. He looked over his shoulder to see how close the attack was coming. They stood no chance. He went out to the crash, to salvage the roundel markings as a trophy, but there was blood all over the canvas upon which they were painted. Both British flyers were dead. The sentry told him that one of the medical orderlies had kept an Englishman’s scarf. He’ll sell it for five marks, said the sentry. Bach had declined.

‘I want to walk with you, Herr August. Can we go shopping together?’

‘And we will lunch together at the Stube,’ he answered.

‘It will be wonderful, August.’ She stroked his head.

‘We will walk everywhere, Anna-Luisa. Everyone shall see us arm in arm.’

‘I love you, August. I shall always love you.’

The room lit up bright pink.

‘One thousand,’ said Anna-Luisa. ‘Two thousand …’ When he puffed at his cheroot he found it had gone out. He reached for his matches and relit it carefully, then he held up the match and Anna-Luisa blew it out but still counted on. When the thunder came she pronounced the storm to be four kilometres away. There was still no sound of rain.

‘Did you know how to tell how far away a storm is?’ she asked.

‘You can never be sure,’ said August.

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