Piece of Cake (7 page)

Stickwell slid backward over his horse's rump and fell to the ground. It was a long way to fall and he was slow to get up. “God, I'm thirsty,” he moaned, and realized that it was the wrong thing to say.

“Cowboys,” the Ram repeated. “Heading for the last round-up, no doubt.”

The horses finally stopped. Patterson and Cox got off. As Cattermole tried to dismount, his horse shook itself and Cattermole went sprawling on his hands and knees. All four men looked bleary, hung-over and stained.

“You seem to have had a busy night,” the Ram said. “You seem a trifle fatigued. We can't have that. I know just the thing to buck you up. Squadron battle climb. Take off in twenty minutes.” He grinned, briefly, stretching his mouth like someone testing a rubber band, and walked away. Kellaway went with him. “B” flight waited a moment to let them get ahead and then followed.

Fanny Barton went over to Cattermole, still on his hands and knees, and kicked him. “Get bloody up,” he said. “Where the hell have you been?”

“It wasn't my fault, Fanny,” Mother Cox told him. “I've been trying to get them home for hours. Honestly.”

“Crawler,” Patterson said.

Cattermole heaved himself up. “What's going on, Fanny?” he asked. “Has Hitler declared war?”

“No. But the Ram has, and he's looking for pilots to chop, so you four must be top of his list, wouldn't you say? What the blue blazes have you been up to?”

Stickwell scratched his head, and discovered some straw. “Car broke down,” he said.

“Want to buy a nice horse?” Cattermole inquired.

Barton kicked him again, but Cattermole was already so bruised by events that he merely blinked. “Corporal, put those horses somewhere safe,” Barton ordered. He gave Cattermole an angry push. “Go and soak your heads, all of you,” he said.

“I can't possibly fly,” Stickwell announced, “not in my condition.”

“Then get up there and crash,” Barton told him. “And make a bloody good job of it.” He shoved Stickwell, who collided with Patterson. “Run!” he shouted. They began a shambling trot, which got faster as Barton threw stones at them.

For fifty yards behind the Hurricanes the grass was flattened by the wash from their propellers.

Hornet squadron, twelve-strong, was drawn up in the arrowhead formation that the Ram favored for battle climb. Each section of three aircraft formed a V. The Ram, being squadron leader, was at the point of the leading section. Two of the other sections positioned themselves to right and left so as to form a larger V, while the fourth section was tucked in behind. Kingsmere had no runways. Once the squadron was formed-up and heading into the wind it was ready for takeoff.

The Ram glanced left and right to make sure everyone was watching him. The control tower had given them clearance. No Battles were wandering in or out of the aerodrome. He checked his watch: nineteen minutes since he gave the order. Not bad. The ground crews had been on duty already, so warming-up the planes had been quite straightforward; nevertheless the pilots must have got themselves kitted out and plugged-in and taxied-out and formed-up in double-quick time. Showed what they could do when they took their fingers out. He released his brakes and eased the throttle open.

Standing on the edge of the field, Kellaway and Dicky Starr watched the squadron start to roll. Dicky was reserve pilot that day; and when the trembling thunder of engines suddenly magnified to an aggressive, ear-battering bellow, he couldn't keep still. He walked and skipped a few paces, his fists clenched in encouragement. The Hurricanes bounced and rocked as they gained speed; stray leaves and bits of paper and old grass cuttings got hurled into the air. When the Hurricanes' tails came up, smoothly and quickly, it was as if large weights had slipped off them. Simultaneously the engine-notes altered, booming bigger and harder now that the wings were cutting the air more cleanly. Dicky Starr watched, and flew with them in his imagination: left hand on the throttle (keep her speed up), right hand on the control column (keep her nose up), feet hooked into the rudder-pedal stirrups (hold her straight), eyes, ears and backside acutely aware of the shape of the formation all around, of the health of the engine in front, of the racing judder of the wheels beneath.

The Ram's Hurricane detached itself from the ground first. As it skimmed the grass the others lifted themselves. Within seconds their wheels were folding inwards and the squadron was climbing hard. The thunder faded to a soft roar, the roar to a growl. The planes diminished to a bundle of dots, which merged into one large speck and was lost to sight.

“Dicky, d'you know anything about rugger?” Kellaway asked.

“Not much.” Starr was cautious. “Damn-all, really. They have scrums and things, don't they? And the ball always bounces the wrong way. Why?”

“The Ram's told me to fix up a game against the Battle boys later on this morning. I'm just wondering—”

“Rugger? Us? Against
them?”

“Why not?”

“Well …” For a moment Starr didn't know where to start. “It's Sunday,” he said. “Nobody plays rugger on Sunday.”

“Evidently the Ram does. He's already had a word with their CO. His chaps are quite enthusiastic.”

“I bet they are. Have you seen them? They're gorillas. They'll murder us, adj.”

“Nonsense. They're a jolly decent bunch. Anyway, the Ram
reckons you all need a bit of toughening-up. He thinks you've been having it too easy.”

“They'll kill us,” Starr said gloomily. “They're maniacs. Anyone who flies a Battle must be loopy. That's how they get picked. If you can think, and feel pain, they won't have you.” He brightened up. “Anyway, we're bound to get put on readiness again, so rugger's out of the question, isn't it?”

“Wrong, old boy. The controller says we're released to forty-minute availability until twelve-noon. And there's something else, too. The Ram wants slit-trenches dug. Somewhere near dispersal, he says, so you can all dive into them if Jerry suddenly pays a visit. Right here would do, I suppose.”

Starr whacked his heel against the turf and failed to make a dent. “Pure concrete,” he said. “We'll break our necks.”

“I'd better get the digging started.” Kellaway went in search of the NCO's.

The purpose of a battle climb was to lift the squadron to combat height in the minimum time. It was hard work for men and machines, the engines slogging away to win a couple of thousand feet every minute, the pilots having to hold tight formation through cloud and air pockets and a change of atmosphere equivalent to climbing the Alps in a quarter of an hour. There was no chance to relax: everything and everyone toiled flat-out. It was the Ram's favorite maneuver.

“Jester Leader to Red Three: close up, damn you,” he ordered for the third time.

Stickwell was Red Three. His wingtip was ten feet from the Ram's wingtip. He cut the gap to five feet and concentrated grimly on holding position. His stomach kept jumping as if someone were poking it with a pencil, and his mouth tasted stiff and sour; also his skull seemed to be pressing down on his eyeballs. He knew it was only a matter of time before he was sick.

At last the Ram looked away from him.
Just you wait, Flying Officer Stickwell,
the Ram said to himself.
I'll teach you to get blotto. I'll spread your guts all over this sky before I'm through.
He opened his transmission switch. “Jester Leader to Red Two: where the hell d'you think you're going?” he said.

Cattermole was Red Two. He had already been sick: the effect
of too much pure oxygen on a system thoroughly abused by alcohol and horse-riding. Oxygen was a well-known hangover cure for fighter pilots but on this occasion, although it had cleared his head, it had also emptied his stomach. He didn't mind being sick but the vomit had splashed onto his gloves and made them slippery. Whenever he tried to wipe them clean, he wandered out of formation. “Sorry, Leader,” he said, and drifted back.

You'll be sorry when we get back, all right,
the Ram thought.
You won't even stay for lunch, my lad.
He checked on Blue Section. “Tighten up, Blue Leader,” he said. “Stop dawdling.” Flip Moran brought his section forward by half a length, and the Ram put a mental question mark beside Blue Two. Miller. Moke Miller. Always larking about. Not a bad pilot but harebrained, no strength of character. It took more than flying ability to be a fighter pilot. In
this
squadron, anyway …

At seventeen thousand feet they leveled out and gained speed until they were cruising at about two hundred miles an hour. The last layer of cloud was a mile below them. They seemed to be hanging in a vast blue dome.

“Tighten up, everyone,” the Ram said. “Stop wasting space.”

The squadron inched together. Pip Patterson, flying as Yellow Three, had to watch his section leader on his right and also keep an eye on Red Two, ahead to his left. Both planes were so close he could count the rivets in the cockpit panels. Fanny Barton was Yellow Leader and he kept a straight enough course, but Moggy Cattermole was forever straying sideways. Patterson's hands were sweating. His ears buzzed and popped; they didn't like battle climbs, and every time they popped, a shower of tiny specks flickered across his eyes. He hated Moggy Cattermole's bad flying. If Moggy drifted out any further, Pip would have to fall back to miss him. Green Section was just behind. Pip had once seen the tailplane of a Hurricane after it had been chewed up by a propeller. It was a mess. The propeller hadn't been much good for anything, either. How the hell did you get down—three miles down—with a smashed rudder? Or a bust prop? Or—if bloody Moggy hit you and knocked you back into Blue Two—with both?

“Sections line astern,” the Ram announced. “Flights echelon port. Go!”

He held his position and watched closely for blunders. Green
Section swung away to its left, clearing the air behind him. Red Two dropped into the space behind his tail, Red Three fell in behind Red Two. Yellow Section followed, each aircraft keeping slightly below the one in front in order to miss its wash. Now “A” flight was in line astern and completely invisible to the Ram. He studied “B” flight. They were almost in formation, weaving snake like as an adjustment worked its way through, then settling into a straight line. Not bad, not bad at all. “Shambles,” he told them. “Sloppy, scruffy, slow. Wake up! Squadron in vic. Sections astern. Go!” The section wingmen swung out, reformed vics, closed up. He looked across at the twin arrowheads of “B” flight. “Wake me when you've finished,” he said. “And remind me to give you something for your arthritis. Squadron in vic, sections echelon starboard. Go!”

The Ram drilled his squadron intensively for the next half-hour, often changing course as he changed formation, sometimes changing altitude too, and always nagging at them to tighten up, sharpen up, get a move on. It was relentlessly demanding work, but the knowledge that a single misunderstanding could mean a collision completely overcame fatigue; at the end even Cattermole felt clearheaded.

“We can't have a battle climb without a battle,” the Ram announced. “Lacking enemy aircraft, we shall make do with cloud formations, which even you should be able to hit.” He led the squadron down in a series of plunging power-dives, each culminating in a mock-attack that led to a steep, turning climb and a rapid change of formation to set up the next power-dive. They finished within sight of the airfield. The Ram put them into sections line astern and took them into the circuit.

All the way down he had been thinking about whom to chop. Cattermole, obviously. And Stickwell, of course. Cox? Yes, Cox had asked for it. Miller, too. That made four. Chopping four ought to shake up the rest more than somewhat, he thought.

Halfway around the circuit. Speed: 160 and falling. Undercarriage selector lever to “down.” Usual hydraulic whining. Double clunk as the wheels lock. Green light on. All correct.

The big question was: when to chop? Sooner the better, obviously. But with the international situation so tricky the squadron couldn't be left below strength. Not even for a day.

Speed: 135 and falling. Height: seven hundred feet. Slide the hood open and lock it. Nice bit of breeze. Downwind leg. Turn to port. Nice view of the rest of the squadron all strung out, descending. Good plane, the Hurricane. Tough, fast, chunky. And lethal. Blast any bloody Heinkel or Junkers to hell and gone in ten seconds. Five, even. Flaps down. Final approach.

Well, they would all play in this game of rugger, anyway, chopped or not. Do them good. Got to be fit to fight.

Over the barbed wire. Usual crowd waiting to watch the squadron land: groundcrew, fire tender, bloodwagon. And the adjutant, standing over there at the side all on his own. Funny how you could recognize people by the way they stood …

Maybe four was too many. Three might do. Give Cox another chance. Yes.

Down. Down. Gently down. All power off … now! Up comes the nose and onward she floats, sinking, sinking, until bump, rumble and squeak, she touches the ground and runs.

Yes, chop three. If not today at least tomorrow. But why not send for replacements now, immediately? Of course, good idea! They might even arrive tonight, with luck. Why not indeed? Yes, definitely. Got to get the old adj cracking on that straight away. Where was the old adj?

The Ram let the Hurricane run off most of its speed, and then used the brakes to swing the nose from side to side until he found him. Kellaway was still standing on his own, near the perimeter fence. The Ram turned toward him and gave the engine a hint of throttle. As long as the massive, uprearing nose of the Hurricane blotted out the adjutant's figure, he knew that he was heading the right way. The Ram taxied briskly across the grass, rehearsing in his mind the orders that would send the adjutant hurrying to the telephone:
Listen, I've decided to chop three of these useless buggers and I want you to—