Derek Robinson - Damned Good Show

He had also brought a Primus stove, a frying pan, six sausages, half a loaf, and four bottles of beer. They cooked the bacon and sausages, and fried the mushrooms in the fat. By now it was dusk. Swallows zigzagged overhead, making flying look easy. Duff dragged the back seat from the car and they sat and ate out of the frying pan.

“Do you often do this?” Silk asked.

“Only when I can’t stand the sight of the bloody squadron any longer.”

“I never expected you to make Wingco, Pug. Not with those puny little legs of yours. How can you kick people up the ass?”

“I take a running jump. And since we’re opening our hearts, I never thought I’d find you in the awkward squad. Everybody’s out of step except our Silko, isn’t that right?”

Silk drank some beer, and wiped his lips.

“You make life bloody difficult for me,” Duff said. “It’s hellish hard work trying to boost morale when you come back and tell everyone the squadron just bombed Zurich.”

“I would never say that. I might say we missed Zurich.”

“Morale is crucial. And you keep chipping away at it.”

“Listen…” Silk eased his backside. “Night after night, op after op, crews tell Bins and Skull, yes, they found the target and yes, they hit the target. You know that’s not always true.”

“Perhaps.”

“And the crews know it. They know who the bullshit-merchants are. How many Wimpys completely miss the target? Ten percent? Twenty? Thirty?”

“No, no,” Duff said. “That’s incompatible with good morale. If my crews start to think their efforts are wasted, they’ll stop trying. Confidence and efficiency go hand in hand. Determination is half the battle.”

“Jesus,” Silk said. “You sound like Henry the Fifth on Benzedrine.”

“Never mind what I sound like. These chaps have got to believe in success before they can succeed. Don’t you see that?”

“You’ve got a lousy job, Pug.” Silk ate the last fried mushroom. “It’s got so you wouldn’t know the truth if it took its clothes off and got into bed with you. Let’s talk about something else.”

“I dreamt about Sergeant Felicity Parks last night,” Duff said. “What a stunner. D’you think she’d marry me?”

“I dreamt about her, too. After what she and I got up to, I don’t think you’d want her, Pug.”

They talked until darkness. As they drove back to their quarters, a fog was beginning to creep across the field. That explained the scrub. Sometimes Group got things right.

The MO told Rollo he was discharged, and gave him a small packet of pills. “Benzedrine,” he said. “Only if you go on ops, and then don’t take more than one. Are you familiar with this stuff?”

“Vaguely.”

The MO smiled: a rare sight. “Vague is not the word I’d choose. Benzedrine will make you so alert that you will amaze yourself with your sheer, staggering brilliance. Don’t take Benzedrine lightly. Or vaguely.”

Rollo emerged into the beginnings of a full-scale flap. After days of stand-downs and scrubs, ops were on again. Group wanted 409 to make a maximum effort. An attack by an entire squadron was rare. The Wingco decided to go on this one. Gilchrist was on leave, so he took over C-Charlie. Then his phone rang for the fiftieth time and he learned that Mr. Blazer was now fit to fly. Duff was pleased: a full squadron op, led by the CO! Just the occasion to be preserved on film for a grateful posterity. Always assuming any posterity would be left when this noisy carnage was over. He called Bellamy. “Find a kite for Blazer,” he said. “You know the drill. No plug-uglies, no stutterers, no maniacs.”

Bellamy had plenty of more important things to do. He ran through the list of pilots and eliminated most. He went to the remainder and tried to find a volunteer. He didn’t expect any great enthusiasm and he didn’t get any. As soon as a pilot said, “Personally, I’ve got nothing against the chap…” Bellamy knew what was coming: the other crew members thought Blazer would jinx the trip. Look what had happened to Polly Lomas. Bellamy was running out of names and hope when he saw Silk. “My crew all think he’s a Jonah,” Silk said, “but I don’t give a toss what they think. I’ll take him.”

“Good. Fine.” Bellamy looked him in the eyes and saw a kind of battered tranquility that worried him. “No tricks, Silko. No jokes.”

“I was never more serious in my life,” Silk told him. “As they say in the films.”

They found Rollo in the Mess, ordering a beer. “Forget that,” Bellamy said. “No alcohol before ops. I’ve got you a place in D-Dog tonight.”

Rollo’s stomach muscles clenched. “Lucky me,” he said. He had persuaded himself that he was brave, but now they were rushing him into it and he knew he was frightened of flying. His mouth seemed to be full of saliva. Even his body was betraying him.

“Grab your hat,” Silk said. “We’re doing an NFT.”

“Haven’t got a hat.” Rollo looked around for rescue.

“Night-Flying Test,” Bellamy said.

“I know what it means.” They outnumbered him.

“D’you want a parachute?” Silk asked. “If it doesn’t work, you take it back and they give you another.” He gently steered Rollo out of the room. “Very old joke, that. Past its best.”

Half an hour later, Rollo was sitting behind the main spar, sweating inside his flying clobber, looking at D-Dog shaking as if it was as frightened as he was. The front gunner was sitting beside him, reading a paperback western. Half its cover had been torn off. All that Rollo could see of the title was Gulch. It was like the inside of this Wimpy: slapdash, disorderly, cluttered. Everywhere he looked, bits of equipment were fixed to the sides and the roof. Behind them ran cables, tubes, wires. Even ropes. What were ropes doing in a bomber? The engines went from a roar to a howl. Rollo went from a sitting to a fetal position, hugged his parachute, closed his eyes. He knew D-Dog was moving. By closing his eyes really tightly and curling his toes, he was helping to keep the airplane in one piece. Forget it. Wasted effort. D-Dog was too heavy to take off. He opened his eyes. The bumps got harder. The gunner turned a page. Rollo started counting the seconds. He was going to die, so he was entitled to know exactly how long he’d lived. Then the awful thumping bouncing stopped, the engine note sweetened, and he realized that, for the first time in his life, he was flying.

Soon, the gunner stuffed his book in a pocket and went forward.

Rollo felt proud and ashamed at the same time: proud because he had conquered flight, and ashamed because he knew he should have done it long ago. Kate was right. This was the guts of the film. The rest was just trimmings. D-Dog was the hero. It was up to him to capture the courage.

He climbed over the main spar and stood behind the pilots. The noise was appalling.

After a while, the second pilot, Mallaby, noticed him and showed him where to plug in his intercom lead. At once the awful roar receded to a noise like surf. Then he heard Silk say: “Welcome to the office. That’s Newmarket below.” His voice was thin.

Rollo glanced down. Ah yes. Pretty little toytown. Piece of cake. “I never thought the noise would be such a problem,” he said. Mallaby reached up and turned the intercom switch on Rollo’s oxygen mask. “Bloody noisy, isn’t it?” Rollo said.

“The Pegasus-eighteen engine delivers nine hundred and twenty-five horsepower, and we have two of them, each about six feet from the cockpit. But really, the worst noise comes from the prop tips.” Silk pointed to the shimmering disc just to the left of his head. “They’re about two feet from my ear, at their closest. Spinning awfully fast, too.” He waved at the instrument panel. “One of these dials tells us how fast, I forget which. Second pilot probably knows.”