Derek Robinson - Damned Good Show

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.

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.

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 rolled 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.