Piece of Cake (51 page)

“Right-ho, Mr. Hart,” Rex said over the radio. “I think that's enough, don't you? Find some friends, if you can, and go after that Hun. I don't imagine you'll find him. I'll tidy up this mess. Have a nice time.”

CH3 saw the broken Hurricane flutter down, crash and burn. He turned and steered zero-six-zero and buried himself in cloud. He didn't find any friends, and he didn't find the intruder. By the time he landed at St. Pierre, the others were down. He asked his fitter who was missing. Flash Gordon, he said. And the new man, Trevelyan.

The adjutant paused outside the library to adjust his collar. It was a detachable white collar from a civilian shirt, worn back to front, and the stud was sticking into his neck. He went into the library and stood with his head bent, peering studiously over the top of his glasses. “Flight Lieutenant Protheroe?” he said.

“That's me.” Protheroe got up from an armchair. He was a burly young man, prematurely bald, with a belligerent thrust to his jaw.

Kellaway tipped his head far back so as to examine him through his glasses. “Ah, there you are,” he said. “I'm the chaplain.”

Protheroe came over and shook hands. “Pleased to meet you, padre.” Kellaway was wearing a black eyepatch, and a strip of sticking plaster covered his upper lip. “Been in the wars?” Protheroe asked.

“Fighting the good fight, like all of us here. Come and meet my little flock.”

They walked through the chateau to the foot of the grand staircase. Kellaway picked up a bible and read in a loud voice: “‘Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about.' Joel, chapter three, verse eleven.”

“Amen!” shouted Moke Miller from the top of the stairs. He came tobogganing down on a huge brass tray, banging and booming, and made Protheroe dodge as he skated across the hall floor. Already the next man was on his way down. Kellaway helped Miller to his feet. Miller was wearing an eyepatch, a white collar back-to-front, and a strip of sticking plaster on his upper lip.
“My assistant chaplain,” Kellaway said. Miller shook hands with Protheroe as Patterson skidded across the floor and fell off his tray. He too wore an eyepatch, sticking plaster and a reversed collar. “My deputy chaplain,” Kellaway said. Patterson shook Protheroe's hand. Kellaway was helping Cattermole to get up. “My second assistant deputy chaplain,” Kellaway said. Lloyd arrived and fell off his tray.

One after another the entire squadron, including Rex and Marriott, came careering down the staircase, each wearing an eyepatch, a dogcollar, and a sticking-plaster mustache. Kellaway introduced them all as junior chaplains.

“Good show,” Protheroe said, smiling grimly. He was determined not to lose face.

There was a short pause while they stood in a circle and looked at him.

“Isn't this a fighter squadron?” Protheroe asked.

Kellaway took up his bible again. “ ‘Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.' Joel, one, five.” He shut the book firmly.

“I think that answers your question,” Rex said.

“I'd like to meet the commanding officer,” Protheroe said.

“He's dead, poor bugger,” Miller told him.

“Really? That must have been sudden.” Protheroe was fighting back. “What was his name?”

“Poor-Bugger,” Fanny Barton said confidently. “Air Vice-Marshal the Reverend Sir Stanley Poor-Bugger.”

“Yes,” Protheroe said. “Of course. It would be.”

“He always spoke most warmly of you,” Kellaway said. “Shall we have some lunch? Perhaps you'd say grace. We're all hopeless at it.”

Lunch was noisy. Much wine was drunk. CH3 came in halfway through, followed fifteen minutes later by Flash Gordon, limping and scratched about the face. Last to arrive was Trevelyan, who had a bandage around his head. Each man was introduced to Protheroe as a chaplain. Protheroe kept a poker face, ate his meal, and took no part in the conversation, which was stiff with profanity. He was thinking.

Protheroe had been in the RAF for fifteen years; he expected to
give it all his working life. He was hardworking, obedient, ambitious and determined. He shaved each day in cold water and his uniform was pressed each night: the creases were as crisp as notepaper. Rex's raid had damaged Protheroe's career-prospects. Nobody blamed Protheroe but he had been made to look foolish. Well, now he had located the men responsible; now the record would be put straight: formally and officially. When lunch was over he would drive back to his base, submit his report identifying the guilty parties, and allow the force of law to take effect.

Half a roll hit Protheroe in the face. He showed no emotion. He brushed the crumbs off his cheek and said to Cattermole, who had thrown it: “You people are too stupid to realize how stupid you are.”

“Sorry,” Cattermole said. “Don't quite follow. I'm a bit stupid, you see.”

That was marvelously funny. They pounded the table.

“Don't waste your stupidity on me,” Protheroe said. “Save it for the courtmartial. I'm sure they'll find your actions most amusing.”

That was when Cattermole got up and went out.

“Would you like to see the chapel?” Kellaway asked. “I can play Chopsticks on the organ.”

“You fighter boys make me sick,” Protheroe said.

When he left, they shambled out with their drinks to see him off. There was one more surprise. Someone had painted a large white cross on the roof of his car. “More hooliganism,” he said evenly. “Another charge.” The roar of an aero-engine surged beyond the trees. “What's that?” he asked. “The wrath of God?” He drove away.

“Bloody tradesman,” Rex said. “Bloody troublemaker.”

“Can he really get you courtmartialled?” Cox asked.

“Well, at least we pulled his pisser for him,” Miller said.

Kellaway yawned enormously. “Christ, I'm tight,” he said.

“Why were you late for lunch?” Rex asked Gordon.

“I had to bale out. Trevelyan flew into me.”

“No I didn't,” Trevelyan said. “You flew into me. Knocked my prop off.”

“Well, you both missed some damn good partridge,” Rex said.

“Was that partridge?” Moran asked. “Mine tasted like pork.”

“I think I might go and have a little lie-down,” Kellaway said.

They straggled inside. CH3, standing by the door, raised a hand as Rex approached and began: “I want to—”

“Later.” Rex went past him. “You've wreaked enough havoc for one day.”

The broken cloud of the morning had been replaced by a thick, low layer the color of dirty snow. Dusk would come early. When Cattermole took off he found the light at five hundred feet little better than at ground level; all the same, he had no difficulty in spotting Protheroe's car. As it worked its way along the lanes to the village, he flew leisurely figures-of-eight behind it.

Beyond the village the roads improved. Protheroe got onto a stretch of military highway, straight and wide, built during the Great War. Traffic was light. He put his foot down. The cobbled surface made a brisk drumming that blended pleasantly with the throb of the motor. He was planning his report, testing phrases in his mind, searching for the right style. It had been a crime, he thought. Treat it as a crime. Let the facts do the work. Spell out the flagrant illegality, of course, but …

Out of nowhere came a mild growl. Protheroe cocked his head. It was like a whining dog, but harsh and resonant. The growl suddenly magnified itself to a stupendous blast of sound that made him instinctively duck. The car fishtailed and he had a second fright before he got it under control. The Hurricane streaked away in front, skimming the road, so low that he could see the tops of its wings, and then soared and was lost to sight.

Protheroe had been badly frightened. He stopped the car. As his heartbeat slowed, he told himself that this was simply further proof of guilt. The only point of this idiocy was to scare him. It wouldn't work. He despised them for thinking that it would.

He drove on, and gradually in place of fear came anger. He put on speed, aiming the car down the long, wide highway, thinking of what had just happened and what was going to happen. He did not see the Hurricane coming back toward him until the plane was a mile away, flying head-high down the middle of the road, very fast. Protheroe didn't slow: he was damned if he was going to be scared twice. But the Hurricane kept coming. It filled the road. It got closer and bigger with an appalling rush. The thing was
hellbent on ramming him. His wits were scattered. He screamed and flung the wheel over.

Cattermole tucked the stick back and hurdled the skidding car like a hunter taking an easy fence. When he turned and flew back to look, the car was upside down at the bottom of an embankment, steaming gently. In a nearby field a young horse kept galloping in circles.

Kellaway went upstairs and had his little lie-down. CH3 got his car, drove to Nancy and saw a film. The rest of the squadron continued the party, since there was no apparent reason to stop it and everyone was agreed that it was a damn good thrash, especially as Rex was bound to pick up the tab for most of the booze; he always did. The party had ignited spontaneously when they gathered in the mess after the morning's disastrous patrol. Nobody had been killed, which was something to celebrate, and CH3 had made a monumental cock-up, which was also worth recording, and then this prize pratt Protheroe had turned up, which put the tin hat on everything. There was plenty to drink about.

Next morning, breakfast was a somber meal.

“Pass the butter,” CH3 said.

“Please don't shout,” Moran said. “There are people here trying to die.”

“Not me,” Cox said. “I died an hour ago. I can still taste the embalming fluid. Ghastly.”

Skull came in and sat down. “Several large fried eggs,” he told the waiter, “and a pile of greasy bacon, please, with a couple of smelly kippers and a bowl of bubbling gruel.” Groans and moans sounded around the table. “How nice to hear from you all,” he said. “The CO is currently having a bath. Kindly meet him in the library in half an hour.”

The meeting was brisk. “I have to attend a conference in Rheims,” Rex said. “That leaves me just five minutes to sort out yesterday's nonsense. Flash, what happened to you?”

Gordon had told the story so often that he was bored with it. “Climbing through cloud as per orders, sir. Hell of a bang at the rear end, kite goes haywire, controls up the spout, yours truly bales out.”

“Hugo?”

“Much the same, sir,” Trevelyan said. “I was trudging up through that wodge of cloud. Next thing I knew, my prop was chewing away at somebody's tail. Goodbye prop. I managed to put her down in a field.”

“Good show.”

“Had to go through a fence first.”

“She's somewhat bent, then.”

“So am I, sir. My skull is now hexagonal.”

Rex looked at CH3. “Your comment?”

“That extended formation is meant for clean-air conditions. It lets everyone see—”

“But you sent these chaps through cloud like that.”

“Only because Blackjack came on and fouled things up. If Blackjack hadn't—”

“Oh, but Blackjack did. And Blackjack had every right to, because that's why we were on patrol, wasn't it? To intercept intruders? As directed by Blackjack?”

“Yes, but his controlling was lousy, he was slow and longwinded and verbose and—”

“You don't like his style, is that it? Well, I'm not always enchanted by your style, either, but I hope I don't write off a brace of Hurricanes every time it happens. Now then: what's the point of this emaciated-looking formation?”

“It frees every pilot to use his eyes. Nobody gets jumped.”

Rex glanced at his watch. “And you consider it worth losing the united punch of the squadron just so that everyone can develop a stiff neck?”

“That's a false comparison. You can't begin to fight the enemy until you see him.”

Fitzgerald said: “Come off it, CH3. Anyone can spot a gaggle of Heinkels. Even Moggy, and look at his eyes.”

“You look,” Cattermole said. “All I can see is a red mist.”

Fanny Barton raised a hand. “I must say I don't see the point of having everybody looking
everywhere all
the time,” he said.

“You would, if …” CH3 stopped.

“If what?”

“Well …” CH3 scratched his jaw. “I was going to say, if you'd flown against the Condor Legion, but …”

“Oh, Christ,” Miller grumbled. “Not bloody Spain again.”

There was a discreet knock at the door. “My driver,” Rex said. “Carry on the discussion, if you wish.” He went out.

The silence was bored and slightly hostile. Eventually Flash Gordon stood up. “Look,” he said, “I had plenty of time to think while I was hanging underneath that brolly yesterday. I mean, it makes you think when something like that happens. It was my life,” he told CH3. “It was your clever idea, but it was my life, and I kept thinking, What would Nicole say if she could see this? She'd say … Well, she'd say something very rude in French.” There were a few quiet chuckles. “So this is what I think,” Flash went on. “I think Rex is a bloody good CO. I mean, look at the way he rescued old Sticky from the bloody Belgians. Look at what he did when Dumbo Dutton pranged. This squadron means everything to him. Of course he's tough on us, of course he won't tolerate sloppy flying, and personally I'm damn glad of it. Rex is a hell of a good leader, the best I've ever known, and I'll follow him anywhere. But I'm damned if I'll follow
you.”

“Because I'm not a hell of a good leader,” CH3 said.

“You couldn't lead a church parade.”

Gordon sat down, looking flushed and angry. It was the longest speech he had ever made.