Derek Robinson - Damned Good Show

“But if he doesn’t care,” Kemp said, “why does he carry on flying?”

“No option,” Rafferty explained. “He volunteered to fly. He finished his first tour. Now he’s got to finish his second.”

“Silk’s a pain in the ass,” Duff said, “but the boys like him. He’s 409’s mascot. As long as he hits the target, I don’t care if he talks balls.”

Ten minutes later, Silk walked in and Kemp went over and introduced himself. He had never seen such old eyes in such a young face.

Silk’s conversational style managed to sound brisk and pessimistic at the same time. “You don’t look like an American,” he said. “Have you met Hedy Lemarr? Dorothy Lamour? Veronica Lake? Lana Turner? The one in the swimsuit?”

“Esther Williams. No. May I buy you a drink?”

“Nobody’s met Hedy Lemarr. Makes a chap wonder why we went to war. You can’t buy drinks, you’re not a member. Two pints of embalming fluid,” he told a Mess waiter. “And a plate of stale whelks. I can’t eat fresh whelks,” he told Kemp. “They’re too volatile. I expect you’re the same.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never eaten a whelk.”

“Neither have I. Cancel the whelks,” he told a different waiter.

Kemp waited. Silk seemed to have reached an end. “I was at the debriefing,” Kemp said. “You had a different slant on tonight’s raid, compared with the others.”

“Oh well… Six kites. Wasn’t much of a raid, was it? Does it make any difference whether we miss Bremen, or Oldenburg? Half the bombs are duds, anyway.”

Two beers arrived. “Whelks won’t be stale till tomorrow, Mr. Silk,” the waiter said woodenly, and went away.

“Help me out here,” Kemp said. “Bremen’s very heavily defended, and it’s not far from Oldenburg. Couldn’t you see its searchlights? The Germans knew you were in the area.”

“What searchlights? Jerry doesn’t show us where he is unless we bother him. Why should he? Makes more sense for him to hide in his lovely blackout and let us stooge overhead and go on our way. Lost.”

Kemp rubbed his jaw. “Now I know you’re joking.”

“Colonel, if I took this job seriously I’d be as barmy as Pug Duff. Let me give you a potted history of the bombing war. To begin with we flew low, five or six thousand feet. At night, in decent weather, full moon, we could map-read our way across Germany. Not much flak. But Jerry machine guns became a nuisance. So we flew higher. Can’t map-read so well now. Then, heavy tracer. Five hundred rounds per gun per minute, reaching eight thousand and going off bang. So, we flew higher still. Now, we can’t pick out anything except big landmarks. Lakes, rivers, erupting volcanoes. Jerry chucks in light flak. His 3.7-caliber stuff can fire a shell every three seconds. Up we go again, ten thousand, twelve, more, because Jerry’s also got an 88-millimeter weapon, very nasty, and now we’re so high the navigator can’t find a pinpoint on the ground, can’t check the predicted winds, can’t take a star-shot through cloud, and all his dead-reckoning calculations are up the spout because the stupid pilot keeps changing course when the flak gets so close he can smell it. So where are we?”

They drank their beer.

“One bloke got so lost he bombed Yorkshire,” Silk said.

“But many German cities have been bombed,” Kemp said. “The Germans themselves admit that. You even bombed Berlin.”

“They say Yorkshire looks a lot better for it.”

“Well…” Kemp stood up. “I appreciate your help, flight lieutenant.”

“Don’t believe anything Pug Duff tells you. He lies like a rug.”

Kemp went back to Rafferty and the Wingco. “I bet he told you nothing works,” Duff said. “Ops are a nonsense. Am I right?”

“Pretty close.”

“Silk enjoys being bloody-minded. After flying, it’s what he does best.”

Kemp got four hours’ sleep. At eight-thirty, as he was going into the Mess for breakfast, he met Skull coming out. “My stars!” he said. “You fellows work long hours.”

“Actually I’m rather late. The others are at their desks by now. The squadron may be on ops again tonight, and our planning starts early”

“Seems to pay off. Washington is very impressed with the way you fellows keep pounding the Nazis. Bomber Command is a bright light in a gloomy world.”

“It’s a big battle. There’s plenty of room for two.”

Kemp nodded. They both knew he couldn’t discuss America’s neutrality. “Explain something to me, would you? Last night, before the party broke up, didn’t somebody say the reserve plane, S-Sugar, was a total loss?”

“Yes. Flak damage over the German coast. She came down in a field in Essex and caught fire. The crew got out. Some casualties, I believe.”

“I see.” Kemp didn’t sound convinced. “The reason I ask is I caught the BBC news just now. They say a force of Wellingtons hit the U-boat docks at Bremen and, quote, none of our aircraft was lost, unquote.”

“That’s right,” Skull said.

“Yet one is wrecked. In Essex.”

“But not lost. An aircraft is lost when nobody knows where it is. We know precisely where S-Sugar is.”

“I must remember that.” They shook hands. “Good luck.”

“I recommend the kippers,” Skull said.

By ten o’clock, ops were on: a rubber factory in Hanover. The weather in Suffolk was good, but by midday ops were scrubbed. The high winds that 409 had met on the way to Bremen were circling around a deep low-pressure system that had settled on central Europe. The Met men predicted foul weather in Germany, becoming abominable later. 409 was stood down for two days. Urgent servicing could be done. Cameras could be installed. Aircrew could get pissed.

None of this made any difference to Rollo. He had been driven, in Rafferty’s car, to the aircrew assessment center, and now his head was being X-rayed from five different angles. An ear, nose and throat specialist had decided that his sinuses and associated cavities deserved closer scrutiny.

“I’m just a passenger,” Rollo told the X-ray technician. “I’m not going to fly the bloody plane. What’s all the fuss about?”

“It’s about your cranial orifices. You know how your ears pop when you go up a big hill? Some people can’t fly because their head won’t tolerate changes in pressure. The pain sends them berserk. Now, keep absolutely still, please.”

Rollo was placed in a waiting room while they developed the plates. A medical orderly came in and asked for a sample of his urine. “If that’s got anything to do with sinuses, my plumbing is in big trouble,” Rollo said. The orderly nodded soberly and went away.

Time passed. Rollo practiced holding his breath, and got up to twenty seconds. A male nurse opened the door and called his name. Rollo followed him down a series of unfamiliar corridors and finally arrived at a dental surgery.

The dentist was as big as Rafferty but far friendlier. “Just as well we took these snaps, Mr. Blazer,” he said. He held up the X-rays. “I’ve never seen such sinuses. Perfect in every respect! Nothing to worry about there. But here …” He pointed to the end of the jawbone. “Just look at that wisdom tooth! I mean to say, it’s in a bad way, isn’t it?”

“Oh, hell and damnation,” Rollo said.

“Better have it out, don’t you think? We certainly can’t pass you as fit to fly with that tooth. Have it out, old chap. What you haven’t got, can’t harm you. That’s the RAF’s dental policy”

Rollo took the X-ray from him. The wisdom tooth had roots like an oak tree. He desperately wanted to discuss alternative solutions, but his mouth had stopped working. He was trapped.