Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse

‘Pockets undone as usual, Kosh.’

‘Good of the Skipper.’

‘Too serious.’

‘Well, he is more serious nowadays.’

‘It’s that bloody Sweet giving him the needle.’

‘Sweet’s all right. One of the boys. He’s got a good sense of humour.’

‘Sense of flipping arse-crawling, you mean.’

‘Any more photos, Jim? Is that your garden?’

‘Can I keep this, Jimmy?’

‘Cost you one and threepence.’

‘Bloody robber.’

‘Here you are. I’ll send it to my mum,’ said Battersby.

‘Me too,’ said Binty. ‘Four I’d better have. No, make it five.’

‘Who’s that bird with the pram?’

‘What a smashing piece of crumble.’

‘Shut up, you berk, it’s Jimmy’s missus.’

Crews were still arriving. There was an endless clang of locker doors, with occasional arguments when someone discovered their helmet missing or their boots borrowed and returned muddy. Flying gear was worn piecemeal according to personal taste and crew position. Usually the Lanc’s heating system blew warm upon the wireless operator, roasted the bomb aimer and left the navigator to freeze. So most of the navigators were wearing the whole gear, from leather Irvin jackets to silk undersocks. So were the rear gunners. Most WOpAGs on the other hand had only the mandatory helmet, boots and Mae West over the same working blue and white rollneck sweater that they had worn at supper. Some flyers had brightly coloured silk scarves and even civilian shirts. Sandy Sanderson wore a fine leather jacket that he’d had made in Cairo.

It was a warm evening and now the blackout shutters were closed the changing-room became smelly as the crews crowded into it. Some of the early comers were playing cards for money while the late arrivals were grabbing their flying boots and filling their shoes with loose change, farewell letters and dirty pictures before pushing them into the back of their lockers. Few were pessimistic enough to leave a spare key behind and all the tin lockers bore scarred paintwork from being forced open many times.

Wing Commander Munro edged his way across the room.

‘Mr Lambert.’

‘Sir?’

‘Last month after the cricket match you paid for both lots of beer. Will one pound ten see me out of debt?’

‘It’s only a pound, sir.’

‘Here you are then, old chap.’ He smiled, gave Lambert the money and was gone.

‘Until now he’s just paid alternately. That’s the way we’ve done it since the season started,’ said Kosher.

‘He just wants to be out of debt,’ said Lambert. Thoughtfully Kosher looked again at the Wing Commander, who was on the far side of the room giving an encouraging word to Fleming.

Fleming’s crew felt that they were being scrutinized and they were careful to display no sign of excitement or nerves. Fleming had bent and dirtied his peaked cap to make it resemble those that had done a few thousand flying miles tucked behind a pilot’s seat. Now he was wearing it at a rakish angle as he finished reading a copy of Routine Orders. He folded the paper up carefully to make a paper aeroplane.

‘What’s that, Mr Fleming, a Lanc Mark IV?’ said Munro in an attempt to make a joke.

‘That’s it, sir,’ agreed Fleming. He launched the paper wing. Everyone watched as it flew straight and level the length of the room. When it reached the tea urns, where the catering WAAFs were dispensing flasks of hot drinks, it hit a thermal. It nosed up until it stalled and fell like a dead bird to the floor.

‘Back to the drawing-board,’ shouted Binty Jones. Fleming smiled shyly.

Batters returned with a vacuum flask and a packet for each of them. Then complicated exchanges began. Binty liked gum – it was part of his Yank posture – so Digby exchanged his gum for Binty’s barley sugar. Then Flash Gordon gave his gum to Binty for chocolate. Then Digby passed his extra barley sugar to Flash who took this, and a contribution from most of the crew, back to his brothers and sisters. There were nine of them. A few months before, Binty had taken him home on the motorbike. After returning he’d hinted that the spare rations from the boys would be the only treats those Gordon kids were likely to see.

All exchanges finished, Lambert gave them each a sealed escape kit containing a compass, counterfeit money, a silk map of Germany and some compressed dried fruit. Then they shuffled along the covered walkway to the next building. The parachute section was always clean and shiny, brightly lit and smelling of floor polish like a hospital for machines. Two bored WAAFs tugged parachutes and harnesses from the shelves behind them and threw them on to the counter with a clatter. Pilots’ chutes had their parcel of silk fixed to the harness so that it formed a seat. The other crew members carried their silk canopies as a separate brown-canvas parcel which before use had to be fixed to their chests by metal clips. Until they returned, each crewman would carry the chute with him wherever he moved. The pilots didn’t have to remember the life-saving parcel, but, on the other hand, moving about within the aeroplane’s cramped interior with a pilot-style chute strapped behind one’s thighs was difficult. So there were comparatively few bomber pilots in POW camps.

Joe for King’s engineer, Ben Gallacher, was having a noisy argument with one of the WAAFs.

‘So why wasn’t it done while I was on leave?’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said the girl. ‘Your chute isn’t repacked yet. You’ll have to take this one instead.’

‘I told your chiefie that I was going on leave.’

The LAC shrugged her shoulders indifferently. ‘I just work here.’

‘I want my own parachute. I’ve always flown with the same one. It’s lucky. Don’t you understand?’ First he had lost his own reliable air-tested L Love and now they wanted to give him a strange chute.

‘I don’t know what you are making such a fuss about. This one is just as good as your one and it’s just been checked and repacked.’ Glad of a pause in her strenuous work, she patted her hair into place. ‘You’re holding up the whole queue, you know.’

‘Get stuffed,’ said Ben. ‘I’ll go without.’

‘Don’t be a fool, Ben,’ said Lambert. ‘Take it.’ Lambert had been one of Gallacher’s instructors at his Conversion Unit.

‘Aw,’ said Ben, walking away.

‘Someone will notice,’ said Lambert. ‘How will you feel if you abort the trip for your whole crew?’

The boy made a rude noise and then took the parachute. ‘Perhaps you’re right, Chiefie,’ he admitted. A line had formed by now and someone shouted, ‘What’s up?’

‘Someone’s brought one back,’ replied Digby loudly. ‘Says it didn’t bloody work.’

Everyone smiled at the joke they had heard so many times. The line moved forward again and the two girls pushed the harnesses and packs across the counter with a mechanical indifference interrupted only when they saw some crewman they knew. Then there would be an exchange of smiles and a hurried ‘Good luck’.

From the other room Ruth came and stood in the doorway watching her husband as he took his parachute.

At the door there was another holdup: two of the lorries were late. Some of the boys went outside and watched the last glimmer of daylight. It was cold and some of them took a drink from their vacuum flasks or bit into the chocolate ration. Almost every crew had a mascot of some sort and teddy bears and rag dolls were cradled in their arms or stuffed into their webbing harness and silk stockings were worn as scarfs.

A muffled cheer went up as the missing lorries arrived. ‘B Flight here,’ called the WAAF driver. There was a sudden flurry of activity as some of the flyers punched each other playfully and vaulted up into the lorry. Lambert looked back and gave Ruth a brief thumbs-up sign. She nodded. He only just had time to climb aboard as the lorry lurched forward. The tailboard rattled loudly. The girl driver followed the blue lights that marked the peri track while twenty-eight crew in the back complained loudly about the slow journey and whistled. They bumped over the runway’s edge and went across the black smears of rubber where the bombers’ wheels first touched the runway on landing. The lights of Warley village were visible to the left. ‘Blackout,’ screamed the crews, ‘pull a finger.’ ‘Put that light out.’ There was little chance of their voices carrying all that way to the village even on a still summer’s night but this was their chance to let off steam that had been building up since they had first read their names on the Battle Order that morning.

The lorry turned off the peri track on to the double pan where two aeroplanes were silhouetted against the dark sky.