Piece of Cake (15 page)

Polite chuckles. Rex's dog, Reilly, yawned.

“There's a saying, ‘An Englishman's word is his bond,'” Bletchley went on. “Well, we gave our word to Poland. So did France. And when Hitler launched his treacherous attack on the gallant Polish nation—a nation that rose from the ashes of the last war, remember—how could we stand idly by and watch those brave and freedom-loving allies of ours trampled beneath the Nazi jackboot? Of course we couldn't. The time had come for all right-thinking men to stand up and be counted. When Poland, reeling under the blow of a wicked and cowardly invasion, appealed to us for help, her call did not fall on deaf ears. That is why we have entered the battle on the side of this brilliant and patriotic country which has made such an outstanding contribution to twentieth-century civilization. By siding with Poland against the Hun, we are
standing up for freedom. We are standing up for democracy. We are standing up for the right to live in peace and justice. We are taking the path of honor, and with such as you to guard it, I am sure that it will also be the path of glory and eventual triumph.”

Bletchley stepped back. The squadron coughed and shuffled its feet, uncertain whether or not to applaud.

“Air Commodore Bletchley has kindly said that he will answer any questions,” Rex announced.

Nobody spoke. They had been taken aback by the nobility of their mission. Reilly yawned again.

“With your usual admirable skill you seem to have covered everything, sir,” Rex said.

“Who's going to win the Grand National, sir?” Moke Miller asked.

“Not Hitler,” Bletchley said.

That was a good ending; they all enjoyed that; and they trooped in to lunch in a high good humor. Rex placed Skull on one side of their guest and Kellaway on the other, while he sat opposite. “I'm afraid you've caught us ill-prepared, sir,” he said. “Just
soupe à l' oignon
followed by
sole meunière.
There's a very reasonable white Bordeaux, though, and the Camembert's not bad.”

“Good heavens. When I think of the stuff we used to eat in France. Stew three times a day.”

“Next time you come, sir, we'll give you a decent lunch. I've got my spies out looking for some top-class cooks. Really top-class.”

“Well, good luck,” Bletchley said.

The soup was served.

“You were over here for the last show, sir?” the adjutant asked.

“Yes. Flanders, mainly. We were flying Sopwith Pups, lovely little bus. Great for potting Huns. Unfortunately I had to retire hurt before I could win the war single-handed.”

They chuckled sympathetically.

“Fascinating country, Poland,” Skull said.

Bletchley took a moment to change direction. “Oh, very,” he said. “Quite unique, really.”

“Tell me …” Skull polished his spectacles with his napkin. “When Germany is defeated, is it the Allies' intention to restore Poland?”

“I should damn well hope so.”

“And all the Polish boundaries? Will they be restored too?”

Kellaway chuckled. “It wouldn't be much of a country without boundaries, would it?”

“Did your boy get into Oxford all right, sir?” Rex asked.

“I merely wondered,” Skull said, replacing his spectacles, “because it was only a year ago that Polish troops occupied the Teschen area of Czechoslovakia. Will they be allowed to keep that?”

“Oh, Czechoslovakia! Don't talk to me about Czechoslovakia.” Bletchley dismembered a bread roll. “Not really a nation at all, was it? Just a mixed salad. Frankly, I blame the politicians for trying to cobble it together. I mean, who in his right mind would have given Czechoslovakia three and a half million Germans? I ask you.”

“So Hitler was right to march in.”

“It was inevitable. I mean, I don't like the little blighter, and given half a chance I'd blow his ugly head off, but I can't honestly blame him for what he did in Czechoslovakia. Basically he took back what belonged to him.”

“If only he'd stopped there,” the adjutant said, “things might have been all right.”

Rex signaled for the wine. “Wonderful musicians, the Poles,” he said. “I could listen to Chopin all night.”

“That's very interesting,” Skull said. “You don't mind my asking you to clarify these political matters?”

“Not at all,” Bletchley said.

“I'm supposed to be intelligence officer here, you see.”

“Absolutely.”

“Ivor Novello for me,” Kellaway said. “I say: hasn't he got a new show in London? Or am I thinking of the other bloke?”

“Of course, there are also several million Germans living in Poland,” said Skull. The sole and the wine arrived together.

“I rather think you'll like this, sir,” Rex said confidently.

“I'm sure I shall. What d'you mean?”

Skull said: “The Peace Settlement gave Poland all of West Prussia and a good deal besides. In fact twenty years ago rather a lot of Germany ended up inside Poland.”

“Your very good health, sir,” Rex said. They drank. “It's got
authority,
if you know what I mean,” he said, “and yet it's
piquant.”

“Very true.” Bletchley worked his lips. “Yes. A good
piquant
wine, that. Damned
piquant.”

“Noël Coward,” Kellaway said happily. They looked at him. “Just remembered,” he explained. “The other bloke.”

“Look, I don't know about all these peculiar Prussians who're supposed to have been shanghaied to Poland in 1919,” Bletchley said. “Statistics prove nothing, anyway. What I
do
know is an awful lot of Jerry stormtroopers are chucking their weight about in Poland right now, and it's got to stop.”

“D'you know what I dislike most about the fascists, sir?” Rex asked. “It's their awfully poor taste. I mean, one look at their uniforms tells you they're not gentlemen.”

“And it's not true that they make the trains run on time, either,” Kellaway said. “I met a chap in a pub who told me he was always missing his connection in Rome. Propaganda, that's all it is.”

“Anyway, I hope I've put your mind at rest,” Bletchley said.

Skull gave a twisted smile. “A consummation devoutly not to be wished,” he said.

“You mustn't mind old Skull, sir,” Kellaway said. “We got him from a university. They were having a sale.”

“The Poles also invaded Soviet Russia in 1920,” Skull said, “as a result of which their eastern border was extended to take in twenty-seven million people who are certainly not Polish and who have not the slightest wish to become Polish. The same applies to a quantity of Lithuanians. My restless mind wonders whether or not we are fighting for their independence, too.”

Bletchley grunted.

“How's your sole, sir?” Rex asked.

“Let's get one thing straight,” Bletchley said. “This is not a war about boundaries.”

“Good Lord, no,” Rex said.

“I mean it's not
completely
about boundaries.”

“Far from it.”

“This is a war about decency, about … about …”

“Spot more wine, sir?”

“Yes. Thanks. Decency, that's what we're fighting for. Thanks.
Just keep that idea clear in your mind,” Bletchley said to Skull.

“That's what really matters. Nothing else matters.”

“Not Poland?”

“Yes, Poland, for heaven's sake! The Poles are a very decent people. They don't go around beating up Jews.”

“Oh yes they do,” Skull said firmly. “The Poles beat up Jews regularly, vigorously and with every sign of keen enjoyment.”

“Rubbish.”

The adjutant caught a warning flicker of the eyes from his CO. “Skull, old chap,” he said, “change the record, would you? It's getting a bit worn.”

Bletchley drank some wine and forced himself to smile. “Let's face it, talk never won a war,” he said. “What you chaps need is some decent action. Then you'll really have something to talk about.”

“It's like playing cricket, isn't it?” Rex said. “Waiting to bat is always the hardest … Your boy's a pretty fair cricketer, isn't he, sir? D'you think he'll get a Blue?”

Air Commodore Bletchley visited the hangars and walked past the Hurricanes, slapping them on the engine-cowling as if they were horses lined up in stables. “Jolly good,” he said. “Now remember, Rex: keep your squadron on its toes. And if you ever need anything, call me at Headquarters. Goodbye.” He got into his car.

Rex went back to the mess, found Kellaway and Skull, and took them into a quiet corner. “What d'you make of all that?” he asked.

“Poland's had it,” Kellaway said. “As soon as I heard him use that word ‘gallant,' I said to myself ‘Old boy, Poland's been scratched.' It's all over for them.”

“Skull?”

“Poland has been carved up by its neighbors for centuries,” Skull said. “I see no reason why it should not be carved up once again.”

“Right, we're agreed. Forget Poland. So now the question is: What the dickens are we doing sitting here?”

“We're waiting for Jerry to invade France, aren't we?” the adjutant said.

“Are we? I'm not so sure. If you look at the map, we've got Belgium next door.”

“That's the way he came last time.”

“Yes.
And
he got thoroughly bogged down.” Rex nodded at the drenched, drowned view of the airport. “What price Flanders fields in this weather? Frightfully muddy. Besides, it's getting late in the year. No, I think we're in the wrong spot, gentlemen. Nothing's going to happen here.”

“And the right spot is where?” Skull asked.

Reilly wandered over and licked Rex's hand. After a while Rex lay back in his chair, one hand propping his head, his faithful hound at his feet, and allowed a smile to play over his face. “The right spot,” he said, “is where danger lurks and honor beckons.”

Kellaway sighed. “I say, Skull,” he said. “Was all that stuff true, about Poland?”

“Was it
true?”
Skull was quite offended. “My dear fellow …”

“Sorry, sorry.” Kellaway sighed again. “Oh, well. I'll go and see about a spot of tea, I think.”

Three days later, Hornet squadron was airborne again, flying southeast.

Below them, saturated fields gleamed and glistened in pale sunlight. The sky had a cold, scrubbed look, with leftover scraps of cloud swept along by a gusting, thirty-mile-an-hour wind. The squadron flew in a very loose vic at only four thousand feet. This was because Rex had Reilly in his cockpit, curled between his legs, and he didn't want to distress the dog with extreme altitude.

They landed at Rheims, refueled, lunched, and flew on, this time more east than south.

The sun gained a little strength and picked out more clearly the wandering scars of old warfare. The pilots looked down on the marks left by mile after mile of trench-system. It was as if an endless furrow had been plowed out by some dreamy giant who had turned this way and that as he walked, opening the earth as easily as a finger splits a rotten seam; and had then forgotten it, abandoned it, left it to mend itself or not. Alongside it ran the remains of a smaller ditch: half an inch away from the air, two hundred yards on the ground; and running parallel with that was an even softer marking. These were the second and third lines of trenches. On the German side the same pattern repeated itself, one-two-three, like breakers picking up strength as they advanced.
And everywhere the scab and pox of shell-holes. They spattered no-man's-land with the frozen impact of rain-drops hitting water. They left a million craters on either side, and the afternoon sun caught them and counted them all. Twenty years of grass and weeds had begun to coat the damage, but it was a feeble answer to four years of high explosive.

Châlons was left behind them; then Sainte-Menehould; Clermont; Verdun with its fortress, its huge cemeteries, its ugly memorial tower. After that the land fell sharply to a wide plain and they reached Metz. To the north lay neutral Luxembourg. Forty-odd miles to the east they could see the haze of factory smoke that must be Saarbrücken: Germany.

They flew halfway to Saarbrücken and then turned south. Ten minutes later they landed at a small, all-grass airfield on the edge of somewhere called Lunéville.

The pilots went for a walk through the town. It did not take long. “What a hole,” Dicky Starr said.

“Someone has blundered,” Rex said. He looked very grave. “This won't possibly do.”

It had to do, at least for a while. The convoy of trucks bringing the groundcrews, cooks, batmen and administrative staff arrived late that night, led by Kellaway and Skull in Stickwell's Buick convertible, which had been smuggled over (contrary to all regulations) by an army-officer friend returning from leave.

They were all billeted in a brand-new block of flats with no heating and erratic plumbing. For the next week, Flip Moran commanded the squadron while Rex drove around the countryside in Sticky's Buick, with the adjutant to navigate. At length he found what he wanted: an adequate airfield within striking distance of Metz and Nancy, a requisitionable château less than a mile away, some shooting in the surrounding hills, and good riding in the grounds of the estate. It was called Château St. Pierre. “Given a decent winter,” he told Kellaway as they stood on the terrace, “we might even get a spot of skiing in the Vosges.”

“Where on earth are we going to get skis, sir?” the adjutant asked.

“Wake up, uncle,” Rex said patiently. “This is war, when all things are possible. Remember?”

Fanny Barton rejoined Hornet squadron and found it a happy unit.

“This is a smashing place,” Flash Gordon said as he showed Barton over the house. “Lovely big bedrooms, a socking great library where we play ping-pong, jolly nice anteroom with a log fire and a bar …” He opened a door. “Look, this is the billiard room.” Barton glanced inside: two full-size tables, with deep leather armchairs all around. “Colossal, isn't it? And there's a swimmingpool in the grounds, and a tennis-court, and a thing for clay-pigeon shooting. We've even got a squash court! Must be the only one for hundreds of miles. Soon as we get some rackets, Pip Patterson's teaching me how to play.”