They all could, of course; they nodded to show him that they did. Jim Brewer thought what an interesting letter he could write home about all this if it were permissible.
‘I’ve got my own ideas about how it should be done,’ said the squadron leader, briefly, ‘but I’d like to hear what you blokes have to say.’
He looked round at the young English faces, the Belgian and the two Poles, with the names of their countries sewn on the shoulders of their RAF uniforms; the three Yanks sitting together and so far without any indication of their nationality save for the self-evident one of their intonation.
‘If we came down at them out of the sun--’ began Evans, and then stopped as the squadron leader shook his head.
‘They’ve thought of that too,’ said the squadron leader. ‘They’re only up in the mornings. To get between them and the sun means going too far east, right over Belgium. And that’s out of bounds for us. We’d only be playing their game for ‘em if we did that.’
‘If we fought them,’ began Dombrowski the Pole, struggling hard with the difficulties of expressing himself in a foreign language, ‘just on the edge of the sea, we might have a chance to get one of them, to - to--’
‘To cut one of them out, you mean? Force him over this way and then bring him down?’
Dombrowski nodded. But when the squadron leader looked round at the others they shook their heads.
‘Too risky,’ said the squadron leader. ‘We could try it with anyone else, but not with those blokes.’
There was evident agreement among the others who remembered epic battles.
‘We want a decoy,’ said Jim Brewer.
‘Say, listen,’ said Johnny Coe simultaneously.
The squadron leader turned to them.
‘Jim’s got the same idea as me,’ said Johnny Coe.
‘A decoy’s the only way, I think,’ said the squadron leader. ‘Something that’ll get them to forget their orders for a moment.’
‘A couple of bombers!’ said Brown.
The squadron leader shook his head again.
‘There’s only one thing that’ll make those fellows forget their orders. There’s only one temptation big enough. And that’s one of our Spitfires.’
‘That’s right,’ said Johnny Coe, ‘those guys are pretty cagey.’
The squadron leader looked round the ring of faces again. His mind was already made up, but he was only human, and wasted a second looking round, as a man going to be hanged looks up at the blue sky. The jealous tradition of the RAF is that no task is so dangerous as to call for volunteers. Everyone is prepared to do what he is told and conversely everyone in a position of authority must be prepared to do the telling. He had to select the man who would do the job best; only that. No other consideration could enter into the decision. He wanted the most daring and ingenious flier, the man whose actions would be most likely to deceive Jerry, the man whose quick- calculating mind would be able to draw the proper distinction, in the heat of battle, between daring and folly. Nor was his task of selection made any easier by the wide choice that the enormous talent of the 143rd Squadron offered him. He turned to Harry Brewer.
‘You’ll be the lame duck,’ he said.
‘Okay,’ said Harry. ‘I’ll be the lame duck. Or the goat, or what have you. Let’s hear some more.’
‘I was thinking about trying it this way,’ said the squadron leader. He turned to the blackboard behind him with a gesture queerly like that of a schoolmaster lecturing to a class. But there was the difference that in this case the pupils had valuable contributions to make to the debate that followed.
Down in the underground Operations Room things were quiet at present, in this hush before the dawn. There was not a single buzz from the dozens of telephones that brought in the messages from all over the area, from the observers lying back in their armchairs, from the AA batteries, from the aerodromes hidden away in the folds of the earth. The sergeant sat still on their stools; while a battle was in progress they had small enough chance of that. The group captain sat isolated in front of the frosted glass screen, like some minor deity. To Marjorie the simile was a close one, since she knew what thunders he could unleash at a nod of his head. All this elaborate organization, all these telephones and these flashing lights, all these ministering sergeants and section leaders, were designed to enable the group captain to fight his share of the Battle of England, and to implement in his section the will of the major deity in the underground Central Control Room seventy miles away.
Marjorie saw to it that her radio-telephone mouthpiece was clear. She ran through in her mind the new list of code names so that she could use any one of them without hesitation, and settled herself securely in her chair. Try as she would, she could not keep her heart from pumping furiously when her period of duty began, and she knew by experience that she would be bathed in sweat at the end of her four hours, even though she would not have moved from her chair. The yellow light in the ruled square in the upper right-hand corner of the frosted screen meant that German aircraft were manoeuvring again in the P row, as they had done each morning for days past - the Messerschmitts upon which so much attention was riveted.
Now the group captain gave the order that tensed her still more; she heard the sergeant muttering the words into his mouthpiece; she knew that Harry and the other pilots of the 143rd Fighter Squadron were now running across the field to get their planes into the air. With her mental ear she could hear the roar of the engines revving up; she could hear that sound from her billet when she was off duty, and had heard it so often. A phone bell rang and a red light appeared on the screen. Marjorie switched in.
‘Hullo, Embankment Leader. Are you receiving me?’
‘Loud and clear,’ said the squadron leader’s voice. He was ‘Embankment’ today when yesterday he had been ‘Cocoa’. She was ‘Card’ today instead of ‘April’.
‘Bandits in P25,’ said Marjorie.
Buzzers were sounding in several places in the room now. and the group captain was issuing rapid orders. More lights were appearing on the screen as he played his chess game of death.
‘Bandits in P26, at 15,000 feet,’ said Marjorie, watching the screen, ‘Hullo, Embankment Leader. Somerset at 20,000 in O19.’
‘Message received,’ said the squadron leader dryly.
The group captain growled an order.
‘Hullo, Embankment Leader,’ said Marjorie. ‘Carry out operation previously ordered.’
What that meant she had no idea. Now that the battle was really beginning she had steeled herself, and had forced her voice into calm. But this morning duty, with its cold-blooded moves, was far more trying than the whirl and excitement of night duty on the nights when Jerry was raiding, when red, yellow and green lights moved incessantly on the screen, and the white bars of anti-aircraft barrages flashed on and off, and the earth, even down where they were, shook to the fall of bombs and vibration of artillery.
‘Bandits at twelve o’clock.’
That was Harry’s voice. It sounded as if he were keyed up a little more than usual. She had thought the same last night when they met for their evening walk, but of course she had asked no questions.
‘Bandits at twelve o’clock!’
Half the pilots in the formation must have switched over their RTs to ‘send’ to get the news off at once; but Harry had been the first. Marjorie watched the red light move across the screen towards where the yellow light of the Messerschmitts wavered on the boundary of P25 and P26.
‘Hullo, Card,’ said the squadron leader’s voice, ‘Embankment beginning action.’
Red and yellow lights were alongside each other now. Over her receiver Marjorie could hear confused sounds as the din of a myriad engines and propellers crept in. Twice, loud and sharp, she heard the sound of machine guns as pilots switched over to ‘send’ with urgent messages to their fellows.
‘Watch those wise guys astern!’ That was Johnny Coe’s voice.
‘Bandits below!
’
‘Keep station, George, damn you.’
It was like hearing football players calling to one another without being able to see the game, but this was a game of life and death. Marjorie had little idea of what was going on. Right at the back of her mind was a recollection of something Harry had told her; that when a Messerschmitt loosed off its cannons it was like the momentary winking of two dull red eyes, visible even in the sunshine of the upper air. Through it all came the staccato orders of the squadron leader; Marjorie’s mental fog cleared a trifle and she began to form a hazy picture of a formal battle, fought at long range with nothing risked and no decision likely. Yet that was not like the squadron leader, nor like the 143rd Fighter Squadron.
‘All right, Harry.’ That was the squadron leader again. ‘You ready to do your stuff?’
‘All set,’ said Harry’s voice. ‘Say when.’
Marjorie stiffened despite herself.
‘Wait for it,’ said the squadron leader. ‘Jim, keep clear. Let her go, Harry.’
Then there was not a sound for a whole lifetime - for several seconds. Then Harry’s voice again.
‘All right, Jim.’ There was the hint of mirth in Harry’s voice that told Marjorie that he was as keyed up as it was possible for him to be. ‘Keep off my tail. Give Jerry a chance.’
Then someone else’s voice, high-pitched: ‘Oh, God, Harry, look out for yourself.’
Through her receiver Marjorie could hear not merely the rattle of machine guns but the bang of cannons as well.
‘Line ahead and follow me,’ said the squadron leader with the restrained calm that told its own story. ‘Don’t cut it too fine, Harry.’
‘I won’t,’ said Harry’s voice. And then, immediately afterwards, ‘These guys behind me seem annoyed about something.’
That was Harry trying to copy the eternal British characteristic of habitual understatement. He was still speaking, ‘Sorry, Skipper. You’ll have to write off this plane. It was a good--’
The words ended with a bang and a kind of gulp. Marjorie sat shaking in her chair, waiting for the next words but everything was silent for a few moments.
‘Hullo, Card,’ said the squadron leader, ‘Operation unsuccessful. Send the rescue launches out.’
Marjorie found her nails were hurting her palms, and she unclenched her hands with difficulty. But, that done, she rallied. She plugged in and sent the message. She passed the news on automatically to the group captain. She realized she had been breaking the first rule of the radio-telephone operator, which is never to grow interested in the messages she sends and hears. A light came on in the screen.
‘Hullo, Embankment. Bandits at M26. Are you receiving me?’
‘Loud and clear.’
‘Somerset at 20,000 in O22.’
The group captain growled again, the way he usually did.
‘Hullo, Embankment,’ said Marjorie, relaying the order. ‘Come on in now.’
‘Message received,’ said the squadron leader.
The group captain was bringing Somerset and David over into the sector. Marjorie was busy enough transmitting his orders. Even so, she might have found time to think about Harry and wonder whether his voice had stopped because of a hit on his radio-telephone or because - because of something else. She could have wondered whether or not the rescue launches would arrive in time, but she would not allow herself to do so. She finished her four hours of duty still speaking in the calm, disinterested tones which she had so carefully cultivated.
And long before those four hours were over, when the air marshal had hardly returned from his early session of the Big Five, the air vice-marshal addressed him through his dictograph.
‘It’s a washout this time, sir,’ said the air vice-marshal. ‘They wouldn’t be drawn. Someone over there’s being very standoffish about those Messerschmitts. From the squadron leader’s report I should say he did all he could. He lost a plane.’
‘Where did it fall?’ There was sharp anxiety in the air marshal’s voice.
‘The pilot did the right thing. He crashed it in the sea, five miles off the Foreland.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ said the air marshal.
‘The rescue launches picked him up. Slight wound in the leg.’
‘All right.’ In the grim arithmetic of war a good pilot was worth more than two fighter planes; more than two, but not quite as much as three, in the eyes of a female radio-telephone operator or of an Ohio farmer and his wife.
Nobody can trace the causes of events to their ultimate source, just as it is impossible to trace their effects to their final termination. The air marshal had had a fine fresh egg for breakfast that morning, at a time when fresh eggs were lamentably short in England. It may have been that egg which started it; it may have been some look in the eyes of the air marshal’s wife the night before, when he had been able to make enough time to dine with her. It may be foolish to start an investigation into the cause of things as near at hand as that; it might lie much farther back, in some incident in the air marshal’s boyhood. But the fresh egg may serve as a basis for discussion; we can at least try to follow up cause and effect from the air marshal’s breakfast egg to the receipt of a letter by an Ohio farmer.
The memory of that egg still lingered on the air marshal’s palate. He savoured it reminiscently as he listened to the air vice-marshal. It stimulated his robust optimism as well as his imagination. It set his busy mind at work long before the air vice-marshal had finished telling about the rescue launches. He wanted one of the new Messerschmitts more than a miser wants gold, more than a lover longs for his beloved.
‘It’ll have to be a pinprick raid, then,’ said the air marshal.
‘Umm,’ said the air vice-marshal doubtfully.
‘Yes,’ said the air marshal with decision. The air vice-marshal had his uses as an advocatus diaboli, as a congenital pessimist, as an envisager of difficulties. But this was not the time for him to function; the breakfast egg told the air marshal so definitely. ‘The orders must go out to those parachute agents immediately. And the War Office’ll have to be told at once; get me the Director of Military Operations. And the Admiralty. Duffy’s the man there; I know he’s only the deputy assistant, but this’ll be his pigeon. No time to lose.’
The air marshal had forgotten the very existence of the breakfast egg as he switched off the dictograph and busied his mind with other details. He had even forgotten the lost Spitfire and the wounded pilot and the recent failure. If it had been a British habit to abandon an enterprise after an initial failure the history of the world would have been different; certainly it would not have been an English-speaking farmer who cultivated that Ohio farm.
Something to the same effect was running through Jim Brewer’s mind that evening as he talked to Marjorie in the black night of a Kentish lane, where no single distant light twinkled through the blackout. He had told her of his dash over to the hospital, and how he had found Harry as perky as usual, with four holes in his right leg and none of them serious, according to Harry.
Marjorie had received the news with sober quiet. These people stood up to punishment all right. It was the example of the fortitude of the little citizens in their bombed streets, the stolid public courage in the face of unprecedented disaster, the national doggedness that did not flinch before the prospect of limitless difficulties, which had converted Brewer into something of a crusader. His motives in coming to fight in the RAF would at first have been hard to analyse; they had included a passion for flying, a vague desire for adventure, possibly a yearning for personal distinction. Now he was a crusader; and the British example had so affected him that he could not possibly say so.
He thought of England as a boxer, hard-hit and still fighting back. England was defending herself with the classic straight left of sea power, with the heavy right hand of an air offensive awaiting its chance. The straight left and pretty footwork were giving her a chance to breathe and regain her strength; a boxer of poorer spiri
t would have fallen before the terrific battering long before, would have lain down and taken the count.
To continue the analogy, at that rate the Air Staff - Brewer had heard the air marshal’s name, but never thought of him as a personality - was a pinch of grey matter inside the boxer’s skull. And Harry? Harry was nothing more than a fragment of skin which had just been chipped off the boxer’s right knuckle. It was the spirit that counted.
It was hard for those unacquainted with England to realize the quiet heroism which kept her still fighting, and it was quite beyond him to describe it in words; that was why he felt so dissatisfied with his letters home.
The silent night was suddenly filled with the sound of aeroplanes.
‘Ours,’ said Marjorie, after listening for an instant. ‘Long- nosed Blenheims. After the invasion ports again.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Brewer.
He had other ideas, but he was not saying so; not even to Marjorie. Tomorrow’s stunt was most strictly secret. Brewer fancied that the Blenheims had another mission besides dropping bombs. So that Jerry would suspect nothing they would probably drop some, though, while the devoted parachutists sank through the darkness, ready for their mission of preparing the attack. The thought started him thinking again about his own part in tomorrow’s attack; he and Johnny Coe would be the only members of the 143rd Squadron taking part in it.
He tried to analyse the motives of the squadron leader, who had allotted them the duty. Probably he and Johnny were - he had to shake off a growing English habit of self-depreciation - the best stunt fliers left, now that Harry was wounded. On a mission where five hundred lives were going to be risked, it would be quite mad to imperil the final success by choosing inferior fliers for the crowning part of it. But there was more to it than that. With Harry wounded, his section was broken up; it would take time to accustom a new pilot to flying with him and Johnny. The most economical course would be to risk the rest of the section, and in the event of failure to train an entirely new section into the ways of the squadron. Better that than to have two or three sections each with a new pilot in it engaged on the sort of duty that fell to the 143rd.