Derek Robinson - Damned Good Show

“It’s a classic,” the wing commander said. “It’s made my day.” He sent for Skull’s file.

A week later, Skull got a signal from Command: Proceed to Hogshead Court, Essex, for conference 1300 hours today. Authority: R.G.T. Champion, Group Captain. A map reference was given. Skull got the Lagonda out.

Hogshead Court was Georgian, and comfortably big enough to hold a hunt ball. It stood in its own grounds. Cattle kept a respectful distance. Ralph Champion was waiting on the terrace. He was in a dark suit.

“Isn’t this an official matter?” Skull asked. “I could have worn my tweeds.”

“Semi-official. I’ve got a couple of days’ leave. We’ve found a new home for the Sheldrake Club. Isn’t that grand news?”

“It makes no difference to me.”

“I’ll put you up for membership when the war’s over. The club’s acquired the former Hungarian embassy, in Holland Park. Serve them right for joining Hitler. Unfortunately, there’s no wine in the place. Well, there’s a bit of Hungarian red, but I wouldn’t give that to the servants. Come on, I’ll show you the house.”

“I’d rather you showed me lunch.”

“All in good time.”

He had keys. The furniture was covered in sheets, and paintings were stacked against the walls. Champion strolled from room to room, telling the history of the Court. The same family had built it and lived here until the owner, a major in the Guards, got killed at Dunkirk a year ago. Next of kin was in California, and staying there. Now the War Office had requisitioned it, but the solicitors acting for the estate saw no reason to give the wine to the army. The Sheldrake had bought the lot, sight unseen.

“I don’t care,” Skull said. “I don’t care a little bit.”

“I’m here to organize the transport. I’m on the wine committee, you see. Come on, we’ll pick out a bottle for lunch.”

The cellars were long and well-stocked. When Champion showed signs of lingering, Skull said: “Fifteen seconds. Or I find the nearest pub.” Champion chose a claret. “A chirpy little beast,” he said. “What I call a Cockney sparrow of a wine.”

“What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

Champion looked at him with amused tolerance. “There you go again, Skull,” he said. “Everything has to mean something, doesn’t it? Believe me, you’re wrong. Most things have no significance whatever. That includes your getting kicked out of 409 Squadron.”

They went upstairs. He locked the front door and fetched a luncheon basket from his car. The late owner had left some wrought-iron garden furniture on the terrace. They sat and ate quails’ eggs, roast duck, potato salad, fruit. Champion reminisced about Cambridge.

“Not that I care,” Skull said at last, “but do you happen to know where I’ll end up when I get kicked out?”

“Of course I do. I’ve still got some pals at Air Ministry. When it became obvious that Pug Duff was about to strangle you, they phoned me up. Just as well they did. Plan A was to send you back to RAF Feck.”

Skull was eating a pear. Juice ran down his chin. “I’d sooner be strangled. What’s Plan B?”

“Ah, that’s the bind. We’ve got a surfeit of flight-lieutenant Intelligence Officers right now. Nobody wants you.”

“Except Feck.”

“Yes, Feck will take anyone. Since you were there, they’ve had a riot, a couple of suicides and a murder. Morale is not good.”

“It’s a penal colony. If the rain stopped, they’d burn it down. The rain never stops.” Skull took the last of the claret.

“Fortunately, I solved the problem.” Champion concentrated on peeling an apple so that the peel made one continuous strip. “One of my few undisputed skills.” He displayed the strip on the point of the knife. “Completely worthless, of course, but it impresses the air marshals. I said to my chum at Air Ministry, if you can’t find a decent posting for Flight Lieutenant Skelton, then for God’s sake, man, promote him!” He popped a slice of apple into his mouth. “So that’s what he’s doing.”

“Squadron leader? Me?”

Champion smiled broadly as he chewed. The effect was slightly satanic. “You’ve earned it,” he said. “All that expert advice you gave me on bombing accuracy”

“You rejected it.”

“What nonsense. We at Command HQ took it very much to heart. David Butt’s report came as no surprise to us, Skull. We knew all along.”

His bland self-assurance completely wrong-footed Skull. He had no answer to it. “I get the chop,” he said, “so they promote me… Since you seem to know everything, where is your friend at Air Ministry posting me?”

“You’re a very lucky man. He’s found a place for you in the Desert Air Force.”

“Egypt.”

“Probably Egypt to start with. Get you acclimatized. Then Libya, I expect. All depends where the front line is.”

“I’m going to the Western Desert. You’re getting rid of me.”

Champion found that quite amusing. “Please don’t overrate your importance, Skull. In fact Air Ministry picked the Desert Air Force because that’s where your old fighter squadron is based. I understand the same CO and adjutant are still serving. Your chance to meet old friends again.”

“Hornet Squadron,” Skull said. “I got kicked out of Hornet Squadron a year ago. Now I’m getting kicked back into it.”

“Don’t thank me,” Champion told him. “It’s what I’m here for.”

They packed up the luncheon stuff and walked to the cars.

“How can you go on doing your job?” Skull asked. “Counting the aircrew killed, night after night, and knowing it’s so much waste. Death as the price of triumph is one thing. Death as the cost of failure is obscene.”

“I say!” Champion exclaimed. “That’s good. That really is good. Is it original? Stupid question. Of course it’s original. I must get it down before I forget it…” He took out a pocket notebook and began writing. He was still writing when Skull drove away.

Silk wrote several letters. Zoë replied with picture postcards of the Tower of London. Finally he got forty-eight hours’ leave and drove to London. He found Zoë at the Albany apartment with a five-month-old baby.

“The older she gets, the more she looks like you,” Zoë said. “Can you see it?”

“Only in the squint and the buck teeth,” Silk said. “And perhaps the cauliflower ears.”

“If you’re going to be vile about her, you can go to your club. Isn’t that what men do?”

“I haven’t got a club, and when we last met you hadn’t got a baby” He walked away and sniffed a vase of creamy roses. “Is she definitely yours? Perhaps you bought her. You live inside Harrods’ delivery area, don’t you?”

“My God, you’re in a foul temper, Silko. Did you drive all this way just to be a brute?” She tickled the baby, who chuckled and produced a fine belch. “That’s what she thinks of you.”

“What about Kentucky? Where are the stretch marks?”

“Guy Chard-Cox found me a very clever masseur who made them go away. Fingers like Rachmaninov’s, Guy said. They gave me the most delicious frisson. I was sorry when the treatment ended.”

Silk was searching through a stack of gramophone records. Anything to avoid looking at her. If he looked, he was lost. “You can’t stop cheating, can you?”

“Can’t I? Well, half the fun of playing the game is cheating a bit.” She was brushing her hair, briskly, cheerfully. “I never denied I had stretch marks. Kentucky was a slight fib. The baby was in Kensington, with my cousin. I mean… Kentucky, Kensington: what difference does it make?”

“Not much. I bombed Koblenz the other night. It might just as well have been Cologne.”