Piece of Cake (4 page)

Mother Cox looked at his flying boots.

“This squadron's gone to hell in my absence,” the Ram said. His voice had fallen to a rasp. “You treat it like a bunch of playboys in a private flying club. Well, by God I'll see you all in hell first. I'll kick every ass in this squadron until either you make yourselves worthy of it or my right leg gets worn to a bloody stub.” He clipped Cox with his shoulder as he strode past him and flung open the door. The faces of the clerks were diplomatically blank. “Get a
shovel and fill in that disgusting hole, Cox,” he ordered. “You break the shovel and I'll have you court-martialled. Go.”

Mother Cox went. It was a very long hole, and darkness had fallen by the time he filled the last of it.

The next day was the last day of August. A sea-fog reached Kingsmere before dawn. By eight-thirty, when the pilots assembled in one of the hangars, it was still blowing across the field in slow drifts of smoky gray, chilling everything it touched.

“I see the war-clouds are gathering again,” Patterson said. A couple of heads turned. He was reading a newspaper.

“Are those new war-clouds?” Stickwell asked. “Or are they the same old war-clouds that have been gathering all year?”

Patterson consulted his newspaper. “It doesn't say,” he said. “All it says is the war-clouds are gathering and once again Europe is at the crossroads.”

“That's a bloody silly place to be,” Cattermole remarked. “I mean, what with the war-clouds gathering and so on. A bloke could get jolly wet.”

“Our fearless leader has an umbrella,” Patterson said. “They've got a photograph here to prove it.” He raised his newspaper to show them.

“But have they got a picture of a war-cloud?” Stickwell insisted. “I don't trust these newspaper people. I bet they can't tell the difference between strato-cumulus and cauliflower
au gratin.”

“Can you?” Cox asked.

“Of course I can. Cauliflower
au gratin
is the stuff we chuck at the guests on mess nights.”

“And, in your case, probably miss,” Cox said.

“Nonsense. Tripe. Utter piffle.”

“I thought Strato Cumulus was an Italian film star,” Cattermole said.

“Come off it, Sticky,” Cox said contemptuously. He was still feeling his blisters from yesterday's shoveling. “How often did you hit the target at that armament practice camp? Never.”

“No, but once or twice I nearly got the plane towing it.”

Cox sniffed.

“I always used too much deflection, you see,” Stickwell explained. “Those training things are far too slow for me. My brain
works at lightning speed. One of the drawbacks of genius, suppose.”

“That was a remarkably funny joke I made about Strato Cumulus,” Cattermole said, looking up into the gloom of the roof, “and not one of you blighters laughed. Not one.”

“Joke? You made a joke, Moggy?” Patterson put his paper away. “Sorry I missed it. Affairs of state, you understand. Never mind, I can give you a minute now. Tell it again.” He cocked his head attentively.

Cattermole sucked in his stomach, and stared over their heads. “My talent is too fine and rare a thing to be wasted on the wind,” he said loftily.

Patterson waited. “That's not very funny,” he said. “Sure you haven't left something out?”

Cattermole walked away and began idly kicking the tires of the nearest Hurricane.

“Actually, it was funnier the first time,” Stickwell said. “When Moggy said he thought Cauliflower Au Gratin was a French railway station.”

“So it is,” Patterson said.

“Test the lights,” Flip Moran said to Cattermole. Moran was “B” flight commander, a stubby Ulsterman with an accent that gave his words a hard cutting-edge. It was his Hurricane that Cattermole was kicking. “Try the horn, why don't you?”

“Somewhere near Bordeaux,” said Patterson. “I've passed through it many a time.”

“Is it funny?” Stickwell asked.

“Oh, unspeakably hilarious.”

“Get in and try her on for size,” Moran told Cattermole. “Take a spin around the block. Go on, give her another kick if you feel like it. Give her a real good kick.”

“Don't be tiresome, Flip,” Cattermole said.

“She's my machine,” Moran growled. “Kick your own plane if you must kick something.”

“No, I couldn't do that. I'm not at all sentimental about aircraft.”

Cattermole's flight commander, Fanny Barton, strolled over. “Stop causing trouble, Moggy,” he said, “or I'll beat you up.” Barton was a New Zealander, tall and athletic, with hair that was so fair his eyebrows were almost invisible.

“What a good idea!” Cattermole said. “Let's have a scrap, ‘B' flight against ‘A' flight. Let's have a jolly good scrap. I'm getting cold.”

“No,” Barton said.

“Game of rugger, then,” Cattermole suggested. “We can use Dicky for the ball.” He went toward Dicky Starr, the youngest and the smallest member of the squadron. “No fear,” Dicky said, backing away. “Just for a couple of minutes,” Moggy wheedled. “Come on, be a sport, Dicky. We'll pay for anything we break.” He made a grab, and Dicky dodged behind Cox. “Get out of the way, Mother,” Cattermole ordered. “I'm too tired,” Cox said. “You'll have to go round the outside.” Cattermole scowled. “Buck up, Mother,” he said. “This is not the proper squadron spirit.”

Cox yawned. “Tell the Ram,” he said.

A car came sliding through the fog, its headlights making the murk seem more solid, and stopped. The Ram got out, carefully; the scars from his shingles were still sensitive.

“Sorry about all this muck,” he announced. “The met people promised me it would lift half an hour ago, and they should know. That being so, I propose to get the whole squadron airborne at once, on the assumption that conditions will have cleared by the time you have to land.”

There was a moment of frozen silence while the Ram turned and examined the fog. He turned back and said: “Now that I have your undivided attention, flying is canceled.” They relaxed; some even chuckled. “Instead there will be a cross-country run, twice around the airfield.” The chuckling ceased. “Get into gym kit and report to the adjutant at the main gate in fifteen minutes.”

The Ram eased himself into his car and drove away.

“At least his eyesight hasn't got any worse,” Moran said as they walked back to their quarters.

“What d'you méan?” Barton asked.

“Well, he can see this fog all right. I just wonder if he'll be able to see the enemy as clearly. Before they see us, that is.”

“It doesn't really matter all that much. We're faster than they are. They can't get away, can they?”

“Ah, no, of course not.” Moran turned up his collar. “Now why didn't I think of that? Dear me, Moran. You're a terrible booby.”

“Not that it isn't an advantage to be able to see the enemy first,” Barton said. “Obviously it's an advantage.”

“Maybe we can persuade the Germans to use bigger airplanes,” Moran said. “There has to be some simple solution.”

They assembled at the main gate. “Remember,” the adjutant said, “your route is outside the perimeter wire, so you can forget about short cuts. I'll time you. My advice,” he went on, as they rubbed their bare arms and hopped from foot to foot, “is take it steady, pace yourself, and don't try to jump the ditches. Run through them. That's what I used to do.”

They hooted their derision. Flight Lieutenant Kellaway had flown in the Royal Flying Corps; he was now forty-two; they treated him like an ancient. Stickwell said: “And my advice to you, adj—”

“Yes, yes, I'm sure. Off you go, then. Have a good time. The Ram will be along to see you finish.”

Grumbling loudly, they trotted away and joined the road that ran alongside the aerodrome. The talking soon stopped. Kingsmere was a big field, at least three miles around.

After about fifty yards, Stickwell jogged alongside Cattermole. He jerked his head toward the rear. Gradually they dropped back. Stickwell slowed to a walk and let the others disappear into the gloom. “What's up?” Cattermole asked.

“I've had a better idea, Moggy. Let's double back and hang around at the other side of the main gate until those twerps turn up. Then we can just tack on the end again.”

“The adj is there. He'll see us go by.”

“Not if we cut across the fields. Come on.”

They crossed the road and looked for a gap in the hedge. There was none.

“There's bound to be a lane turning off this road somewhere near,” Stickwell said.

They walked for a quarter of a mile before they found the lane. It was deeply rutted and very muddy. “I don't fancy that,” Cattermole said. “It's knee-deep in dung.”

“It's heading in the right direction, though. Come on, Moggy. I expect it links up with a decent road further on.”

“Yes, but look at all that manure.”

Stickwell looked at it. “All right. What's your suggestion?”

Cattermole frowned. After a moment Stickwell set off up the lane. Cattermole watched him and, without enthusiasm, followed. Trapped between high hedges, the fog seemed, if anything, thicker and colder.

“Shit!” Cattermole said. He stood on one leg and looked at the other foot. “Come
on,
Moggy,” Stickwell called, “or we'll be late.” Cattermole put his foot down and squelched after him. The lane angled sharply to the left. After fifty yards it was crossed by another and even more primitive lane. Stickwell paused briefly, and then turned right. Cattermole followed. Both his feet were soaking wet, and having wet feet was a condition that Cattermole had disliked intensely, ever since childhood.

“One thing's certain, sir,” said the sergeant of police, “it won't be a bit like last time.”

“Mmm.” Kellaway didn't want to talk about the last time, but he was drinking the guardroom's tea and eating the guardroom's biscuits so he had to be polite. “Ah well,” he said.

“I mean, I can't see us going through all that business with trenches and stuff, can you, sir?”

“Hope not, sergeant.”

The sergeant broke a biscuit in half, considered dunking it, glanced at the adjutant, and thought better. “You were in the last lot, weren't you, sir?”

“Yes.” Kellaway walked to the window. The fog drifted past like wet smoke.

“Still, I don't suppose it was all bad, was it, sir?” The sergeant dunked while he had the chance. “From what I hear there used to be quite a bit of what-you-might-call chivalry when you and Jerry had a scrap.”

“Chivalry?” Kellaway gave it some thought. After a while he saw his own reflection in the window and blinked with surprise. He didn't think he looked forty-two. He thought he looked a rather rumpled twenty-one. “Oh, in the beginning I suppose … Of course I wasn't there then, but for the first year or two I don't think either side took flying all that seriously. Later on, when it mattered and things got somewhat desperate, I can't honestly remember much in the way of chivalry.”

“But it wasn't like being stuck in the mud getting shelled to
kingdom-come by someone you couldn't even see, was it, sir?” the sergeant persisted. “I mean, at least you blokes were out in the open. More of a duel, like.” The sergeant dropped a duster onto the linoleum and worked it with his foot, removing a couple of faint prints. He should really have left it for the defaulters to do, but he hated looking at smudged linoleum. “I read somewhere that your average RFC pilot lasted three weeks, sir,” he said. “Three weeks!” He shook his head.

“Oh, I knew a chap who lasted two years,” Kellaway said. The sergeant smiled politely but Kellaway could tell that he was disappointed. “On the other hand the new boys usually got knocked down pretty swiftly,” he added. A runner emerged from the fog. Kellaway opened the door and waved. “My goodness, Barton's absolutely covered in mud …” He went out and counted the gasping runners as they finished their first lap and began their second; waited for a while; came in and shut the door. “Two missing,” he said. “Maybe they've got cramp.”

“I've seen that tree before,” said Cattermole.

Stickwell stopped, and looked at the twisted trunk climbing into the fog. “Don't be preposterous, Moggy,” he said coldly.

Cattermole went over and touched it. “Definitely the same tree,” he called back. “I'd know it anywhere.”

“Impossible. We've never been in this field before. You're imagining things.”

“Same tree,” Cattermole insisted. “You know what that means, don't you?” He walked back to Stickwell.

“I never trusted that bloody silly path in that sodding great wood,” Stickwell muttered savagely. “Damn thing went round and round like a drunken corkscrew.”

“Talk sense, Sticky. You can't have a drunken corkscrew, for Christ's sake. It's not possible.”

Stickwell glared. “All right, then. All right. Since you're the expert, you pick a route. Go on.”

Cattermole sighed, and looked unhappily at the wandering gray walls of damp and cold that blotted out all landmarks except the twisted trunk. “There's only one way out of this,” he said. “Dead reckoning.” He tapped his wristwatch. “Point the hour hand at the
sun, bisect the angle between that and twelve o'clock, and you've got true north.”

Stickwell wiped moisture from his face. “Where did you learn that?”

“Boy Scouts. I was nearly a patrol leader.”

“Nearly? What went wrong?”

“I'd rather not say, if you don't mind.”

“Oh, oh, oh.”

“Where's the sun?” Cattermole asked, raising his wrist.

The fog had a slightly more luminous quality in one area. “Over there,” Stickwell said. He waved his arm through a wide arc.