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-Lhere is a mystery about this book. In the
furore over its publication in New Zealand last
year some reviewers said it must be fiction, and
others that it could only be fact. The one man
who knows the truth says that he received these
letters late in World War II "as the eifects of
a deceased P.O.W." and that they were written
to him by a New Zealand flyer whom he refuses
to identify.

-Liction or fact, this book must be read it
is a piece of self-revelation that tingles with life".

/xs far as we know, the letters were dic-
tated from a hospital bed in a German prison
camp. Day after day, night after night, unable
even to turn his head to see when his friend
Don was coming to write for him, the author
planned out the sections of this book in his
mind, and with candid brutality set down the
story of his life in New Zealand and in the air
war over Europe.

JLhe defenses are down in this book. A man
who knows he is dying has a chance to tell that
one story that everyone has "and isn't that
story worth the telling? The whole of life in a
minute of time."

JTlLe addressed the letters to the man
who knew him best, Squadron Leader J. D.
McDonald. As a result, McDonald became the
literary executor of this extraordinary book.

c&ntinued on back flap

* 958 P682 6
The pitcher and the well

Thatcher and the Well

The Pitcher and the Well

Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston
The Riverside Press, Cambridge

Second printing

First American Edition 1963

First published in 1961 by-
Paul's Book Arcade Ltd., Hamilton, New Zealand
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-10659

Printed in the U.SA.

Foreword

N,

EAR the end o the last war I showed an untidy bundle
o manuscript to the present publisher. It was about a third
of what you read here. I know he was a bookseller, but I
don't think he was a publisher at that time. Intermittently,
over the past dozen years, he has pressed me to publish these
letters and I have refused, perhaps because they seemed so
peculiarly my personal property. I'm not at all sure that I'm
right even now. I'm getting mighty close to betraying con-
fidences.

These letters were addressed to me but I think the author
was really writing to himself. They reached me as the effects
of a deceased prisoner of war.

At one time, during the last war, all grounded airmen-
pilots ended with me. It was my business to see if they had
the capacity to become navigators, but my first job was always
to rebuild the man. No one who hasn't been grounded can
begin to grasp the psychological shock.

In consequence of this, quite close relations grew up. I
received many confidences and, so far as I know, I betrayed
none. These letters are confidences too. Next-of-kin may be
assured that no one will be recognizable unless by those who
actually shared in the incidents described.

H.V- 6313351

VI

I knew the writer for a short time only, but I knew him
very well. None better. He was the alertest person I've ever
met and the most self-conscious one. I'm greatly surprised to
discover how honest he was with himself. But what I find
most disconcerting is his ability to write of his childhood and
youth as though he were unaware of what was subsequently
to happen to him. When he is a boy he writes as a boy.

Here, then, is a selection of letters from a German prison
hospital. The writer died of burns received when his aircraft
was shot down. How long he retained his grip on reality
each reader will have to judge for himself. The later letters
are all unintelligible and the descent to unintelligibility is
very sudden. These are all rejected, along with dated stories,
political speculation, obscenity and downright incoherent
panic.

What you, the reader, will make of these letters I can't
pretend to guess. I didn't want to write this foreword because
the letters explain themselves, and I'd hate to come between
you and the book. However, the publisher insists.

The selection is mainly my own and is all I want to publish.
Who the writer was doesn't matter any more.

Don! If you survive, please get in touch with me through the
publisher.

J. D. MCDONALD

The Pitcher and the Well

T

JL.HI

Chief Flying Instructor was very decent about it all.
He pointed out that I could certainly make the grade in time,
but we didn't have the time. "In 180 hours," he said, "you
have to complete the whole syllabus and you're so far behind
now that it isn't possible. You are to report at base right
away. Get your clearance under way at once. And the best of
luck to you."

The best of luck to you. So that was that!

I don't quite know how I got the signatures to my clearance
and my course wisely left me alone. Within a day I was gone
and a chapter was closed. The feverish swot, the anxious
dual, and the still more anxious solo, the sycophantic cultiva-
tion of authority, the whole senseless, brainless discipline, the
heartwarming friendships and the deadening routine all
ended.

Suddenly I felt very tired of it all. The nervous energy I
had lived on for so long was exhausted at last. Quite frankly,
I didn't care what was waiting for me at base, even though the
latrine rumor went that we were to do kitchen fatigues for
the duration. I just didn't care.

I reported at base, drew my blankets, reported to the Sta-
tion Warrant Officer, found my dormitory and was told to in-

terview you at once. Why all the hurry? I had the duration
ahead of me. Rather dully, and quite unaware of the crisis of
my life, I knocked on your office door. Do you want to know,
very candidly, how it all seemed? I don't see why you should
but, at least, it's a new look.

A thin, and probably tall, officer was sitting at a desk across
the light, another of the apple-polishing desk warriors. This
one was long faced and balding just over the temples.

"Good morning. Sit down," you said.

Now, "Good morning. Sit down," was definitely something
new, so I looked you over with a faint interest. You wouldn't
care to know how faint. A long nose, sheep's face, blue eyes,
mustache . . . They all wear a mustache. A general appear-
ance of restlessness. Thus, me on you.

"How did it happen?" you asked. "Irregular circuits,
faulty approaches, poor judgment of the ground, heavy land-
ings or temperamental instability?"

I grinned faintly, which admitted most of it. At least you
knew what you were talking about. You grinned in reply.

"Had your tail knocked right in? Are you right on the
ground?"

I nodded. You watched me. I think I know now that you
were making up your mind what line to try on me. It didn't
occur to me at the time that you had probably had my file for
a day or so before I saw you. I suppose you had one or two
ideas about what you wanted to do with me and how to go
about it. You loved to play God, didn't you? With me, sit-
ting there, you just had to decide what to try.

Oh, I'd had my arse knocked in all right. What of it? So I
just nodded.

"Game to get up and fight? Any guts left? There's the
toughest job of the lot going begging. Have a go?"

"What, sir?"

"Navigator."

My faintly stirring interest died. Navigator! You watched
it die.

"Think carefully. Whoever sets the course of the objective,
bombs it when he gets there, and then brings the crate safely
home he's the captain of the aircraft, no matter what they call
him. The others are there to do as they are told. But it calls
for qualities we just can't get. And it's the loneliest job in the
world. The pilots and the gunners have each other's com-
pany. They share their responsibilities and they're less than
yours. They check each other's judgments. But you you're
like God! You're on your own. You can consult no one.
You're alone with your knowledge and your faith in yourself
and whatever guts you have. Christ, man, don't you want to
take on omnipotence?*'

I just nodded. I couldn't do anything else. It was a dedi-
cation. From that moment I was a navigator. That line
would have succeeded with no one except me. And it was a
long shot, even with me.

How long did you have my file?

THE Selection Committee had been an odd pair. The Squad-
ron Leader who was chairman was quite obviously a dug-out.
It must have been trying to have to interview thousands of
young men all over the country, to ask the same inane ques-
tions and receive the same equally uninformative replies.
With him was a teacher who assessed educational qualifica-

tions. He was transparently overawed by his bemedaled and
uniformed colleague. So was I.

I told them my name, age, suitably adjusted, education
and threw in height, weight and sex as make-weights. The
jaded eyes of the S/L flickered a little, but the schoolmaster
was shocked. It would be easy to say that, anyway, the tribe
is gutless and very easily shocked, but it just isn't true. Many
of the top dogs on our side are schoolmasters.

However, my bearing, etc., must have been satisfactory, be-
cause the committee decided that I was pilot material. At
least, the S/L wrote "pilot" and then grunted at his colleague
who nodded. I wonder how often this "consultation" went
just this way? In due course I should hear when and where to
report and such other conditions as would be required of me.
I was decanted out into the street thinking of the inauspicious
beginnings of similar grand adventures. I even permitted
myself to dream a little. Permitted? Encouraged is a better
word. After all, I did somewhat resemble the chap in the
poster you know the one

THE AIR FORCE NEEDS MEN. ARE YOU
THAT MAN?

I must grow a mustache. The fellow on the poster wears one.
Still a little under the influence of my own future glamour,
I went around to impress a lady. And why not?

In due course I reported at a ground training station some-
where in the North Island. The course was the greatest col-
lection of grand chaps in the world. The food was excellent,
the beer in the canteen, nectar. Even the weather was re-
markable. The world was rosy.

We learned to inarch in threes, whom to salute, and a little
Air Force law, sufficient to get us into trouble but not enough
to get us out of it. We did P.T., had periodical, perfunctory
medical tests, and did a little elementary arithmetic. From
time to time we were examined by a psychologist who in-
quired into our motivation; that is, why the hell we left our
little farm to join the Air Force. We told him what he ex-
pected, varied with what was good for him to know of the
Freudian recesses of our depraved minds. It became quite a
line to try to set him a real puzzler to interpret.

We paraded for the stationmaster who complimented us on
our marching. We paraded for various visiting big shots who
also complimented us on our marching. We paraded for the
Air Officer Commanding (N.Z.) who failed to compliment us
on our marching. No one complimented us on our arithme-
tic, or on our motivations. Do you gather we were bored?
Only partly, towards the end.

Then two officers came to select some of us to train in
Canada under the Empire Air Training scheme. One of them
was you, I believe, but it could easily not have been. I was
retained and didn't meet them anyway. I'm glad you took
Simmy though. His motivation test reminds me of Mc-
Gonigle. You won't remember but the psychologist asked
him why he joined the Air Force and he replied that it was to
impress a girl back home. This was deemed insufficient, so,
hopefully, Simmy raised his bid by venturing that he aimed
to impress several. After this things grew a little involved
until one of the blokes asked, "Suppose this," indicating the
already sufficiently confused psychologist, "were an enemy on
your sights. Would you do him in? "What, now?" said
Simmy with alacrity and a gleam in his eye. He was accepted.

As the time drew near to be posted from General Training
School I could march in threes with everything from two
blondes to half a horse. I knew when I was entitled to a court-
martial and what my chances were. My long multiplication
was good. Thus superlatively equipped for a flying career I
repaired to Elementary Flying Training School after a suit-
able spot of leave.

Elementary Flying Training School. We tumbled out o
the truck and looked across the airdrome, the first one most of
us had ever seen. Little yellow Tiger Moths were fluttering
in and out, two little knobs on the top of the fuselage were
the heads of the instructor and pupil. Already we could feel
the helmets and earphones on our heads. Helmets and ear-
phones. Helmets with earphones. This was real. This was
life.

Strange that I should remember so clearly that feeling of
being alive. Sometimes now, I hope I die in my sleep, and
then I'm afraid to go to sleep for fear I die. Only God knows
how afraid I am. Life's so good. Why do I have to die? Why
me? I suppose I must be rather horrible to look at. I sup-
pose parts of me are dead already. They Ve cut off the feeling
in places. Or do I still have those places?

We paraded for our kit and drew flying clothes, flying boots
and helmets with earphones. Then we were assigned to in-
structors. Mine was a tall thin youth of under twenty, very
precious in manner and obviously someone's darling. Prob-
ably his mother's. He called my name. "Yes ... er ...
sir/' said I. That "er" was an insult. It was also a serious
mistake.

We waddled awkwardly to a Tiger. Now I know how a
sheep feels with all that hamper between its legs. I felt like

7

a baby with two diapers. I had been shown all the drill o
vital actions, been given instruction in parachutes and theory
of flight. I was patter-perfect. And this was the day. I wasn't
the least scared. After all I was to be merely a passenger as
yet. So, now to enjoy the show.

In actual fact I was given the most brutal thrashing of my
life, as the instructor threw the aircraft all over the sky; so
much so that when we landed I was completely disorganized.

"How d'ye feel?"

"I feel that an error of judgment in the Air Force is apt to
be serious."

His childishly stern face broke into a delighted grin. "I
say, that's rather clever of you," then, abruptly remembering
his two months' seniority as a popeye, "that's all for today."

I lurched off. That attempt at a joke had taken all I had. I
saluted and tried to meet the eye of the mechanics round the
hangar. Curiously enough, I even grew to like him later.

As I was nearing the end of my E.F.T.S. course I began to
have doubts. My cross country was really good (cross country
in a Tiger Moth!), my ground subjects excellent. I was never
airsick, not even when the wind was lifting the dust in spirals
all around the boundary fence. But I was troubled by night
flying, even with the instructor along. Oh, yes I know the
E.F.T.S. is no place for night flying but I'm talking about the
early, early days when each station did what seemed right in
its eyes meaning in the eyes of the GO. Then there was
aerobatics. Or rather, there wasn't. I froze to the controls.
And that was bad. Very bad. And dangerous too.

Yet, on occasion I'd positively bubble with confidence. On
cross-country flights especially. I was alone with a world of

my own, and as I worked out my positions and entered up my
log my mind played with the checkerboard of countryside be-
low me, the carelessly tumbled cloud heaps and the great blue
air between them. I loved to look at cumulus clouds of
course, they're to be avoided turbulence, electrical disturb-
ances, poor visibility . . . But how lovely they are!

Then there's the slow march of the landscape. At height
everything below moves so slowly as to make progress im-
perceptible. Especially when one flies a Tiger Moth.

All the same there's a deep content in being like Moham-
med's coffin. Perhaps that's why it is between heaven and
earth. Then the mood of placid happiness would pass and
be replaced by exultation. "The top of the world to ye!"
really took on meaning. In such a mood I'd throw the air-
craft all around the sky and sometimes feel myself a part of
the aircraft and other times a part of the sky. Sometimes,
again, I'd feel myself completely detached. It's a wonder that
didn't become a literal fact sometimes. Then I'd fake my
log to account for the lost minutes, but the Nav wallah had
faith in me, so all was well.

First solo! Big day! Most of the course have already soloed.
What's wrong with me? I know the patter better than any-
one. I make good approaches, hold off nicely; but I always
seem to make perfect landings thirty feet up. Anyway, to-
day's the day. For Christ's sake listen to the instructor's part-
ing instructions. For Christ's sake remember everything.

Rev up, check up, chocks away, taxi out; must remember
to zigzag at a walking pace. Vital actions. Turn, watch for
the green, open her up steadily, keep her straight by coarse
use of the rudder. Stick forward, tail lifts, center stick. And,
somehow, miraculously, here we are, airborne. Climb to a

thousand feet. Level off. Turn on circuit. This game is
easy. Complete circuit. Prepare to land. Oh Christ, let me
make a good approach. Little bit of motor to flatten out.
Stall her onto the ground. Come on, stall, you bitch, stall.
Please don't balloon on me. Please. And please don't drop
out of my hand on to the deck either. Just a perfect three-
pointer. Please. Stall, damn you, stall. A bit of a bump, but
not much. No one could call that a really heavy landing, a bit
heavy perhaps . . . well, rather heavy, say. Taxi in. Look
out for the other blokes. Hell's delight! I've gone solo. Not
the least scared either, too damned busy. Now for the blas6
air. Better find out how heavy the landing was first, though,
"'Not so bad/' says the instructor. Next stop, Berlin.

THE siren began. You know how it goes ... an undecided
deep roar rising to a wail, and as it grew shriller my stomach
tightened with it. Which one of us? The crash wagon had al-
ready gone, its bellow died in the distance. Sedately behind
it trundled the blood cart.

I began to run after them although I couldn't see any
flames. It was that or stay in the duty pilot's hut, and wait. I
fell down on the stopbank on the edge of the airfield and
right in front of me the lights were shining on a tangled mass
of wreckage and I heard my own breath whistling. Of course,
I'd been running, that was it. Then someone laughed, so I
knew he was all right and I discovered what was wrong with

10

me, what would always be wrong with me: too much imagina-
tion.

He'd hit the top of the stopbank, turned over, and hurled
an engine a furlong from the wreckage, a station record.
There was red-hot metal, petrol, twisted aluminum and erks
all over the place. Nev's sole injury was a broken nose ac-
quired when someone trod on his face when they cut him out
of the airframe. He was a course senior to me and so he
would have the immense advantage of getting his wings while
his nose was still damaged; a neat combination of circum-
stances which would be a great help to him at the Wing
Dance. Practically make the cow irresistible.

As soon as we got back they paraded all the airmen pilots.
We wondered what the hell for. We fell in, were marched to
the hangars, the roll was called and then our instructors took
us up and beat up the station. It was supposed to harden us.
I was so relieved on two counts that nothing an instructor
could do would frighten me in the least. The two counts?
One, that Nev wasn't killed; two, that it wasn't me.

As we were tackling the bacon and eggs afterwards someone
brought up that stupid superstition about accidents going in
threes. I chipped in sharply, someone made a joke about
triplets, the remark was forgotten and we all went off to bed.

To celebrate his let-off by the Court of Inquiry, Nev went
along to the low-flying ground and beat up a certain sheep
station a couple of miles away. Now that station housed thou-
sands of sheep, hundreds of horses, dozens of shepherds, and
a girl. It happened that an instructor who had had no luck in
that quarter was passing at a prim 4000 feet. So Nev was
court-martialed.

It was the first court-martial ever held on the station so

11

we were all o a not unpleasant twitter. We airmen pilots
were to be permitted to attend as a special favor of the GO.
Possibly as a deterrent, do you think? For days we debated
Nev's chances and reluctantly came to the conclusion that
whatever he pleaded, they had him. Cold. And, that being
so, he'd had it too.

The ceremonial wasn't very impressive. We found out
later that no one really knew how to conduct the show and
everyone was working from the Good Book. We had just
finished collecting for the sweep when, the accused pleaded
guilty. That shook the court visibly. They hadn't thought
of that one. Neither had we. And it left all the bets in the
air ... and subject to all the nice points of law and logic
that a chap with a day's pay at stake can dig up.

In the end, Nev served a short term in the Budgie House.
On his release he became the founder and sole member of
the Crooks' Club. There were many more later.

Then Ginger got off the panel coming into the flare path.
I noted, next day, that there was a quarter of a mile between
the first graze and the wreckage. At the time, at the first
rumble of the siren, something inside me said "two" and I
quickly looked around to see the word forming on the other
lips.

Over at the wreckage, someone called out, "Here he is." I
nearly fell over him. He had a deep cut over one eye but no
other visible injury; but he was dead all right. Very dead.
He had been thrown out of the horribly telescoped airframe.
It was the first dead body I had ever seen; it numbed me.
The wild dash around the sky afterwards didn't make me snap
out of it. I was scared, badly scared. Ginger had been such a
good pilot, such a very good pilot.

12

I sat on my bed and stared at the mirror until my room-
mate asked what the devil I thought I was looking at. How
could I tell him I thought I was looking at number three.
We all felt the same. One day someone said what we were all
thinking. "It'll be good when the third is over/' Nobody
laughed. Nobody nodded either.

In our course, easily the best pupil was Jim. Older than
the rest of us, but we all liked him because he was such a good
guy and so damned well balanced. Of course I was regarded
by the younger pups as coeval with Methuselah and Jim was
looked upon as Father Time himself. Perhaps that's why we
became, if not friends, at least something more than acquaint-
ances. Apart from our extreme longevity we had nothing in
common except our length. Oh yes, Jim was long and thin
too. He was as steady as I was mercurial; as unimaginative
and painstaking as I was the reverse. Just plain solid virtue.

At the Wing Dance he met a girl. At the beginning of the
last dance they announced their engagement. My heart
warmed to Jim. How unlike him! And yet, when I think
back on it, how like him!

Jim-like, he weighed things up, considered all the factors
and came to a firm decision. Jim's decisions were always
firm ones. Then he carried it through. Perhaps he'd hurried
a little this time, but then life was hurrying us all at the time.

It was the real thing, too. I watched them. She came
nearly to his shoulder and when she got a crick in her neck
from looking up at him, she put her palm behind her neck for
a little support. The rest of us had somehow merged into the
decorations. Who'd have thought that Jim's aged hormones
he was all of thirty would have acted in such a skittish
manner?

13

The way she looked at him comes back to me with singu-
lar vividness as I lie here. I can't see anything to either side
except when they move me to work on me but I insist that
my position will enable me to see anyone approaching my
bed. Nobody does. Nobody except Don.

Naturally, next day Jim went along to beat up her home a
little. Now, an aged Vincent, such as he was flying, is the
most reliable aircraft in the sky. The Peggy engine which
powers it is the most reliable piece of ironmongery in the Air
Force, and Jim was reliability personified. Nevertheless he
was number three.

We saw the smoke almost as soon as we heard the siren. I
heard that Jim had been hanging the old Vincent by her fan
in the sky and she'd just slid in. Quite gently. But she burned
like all hell nevertheless.

The crash tender was there when we arrived. The N.C.O.
in charge in his asbestos suit just walks through the flames
and brings the pilot out. Which accounts for the care with
which that N.C.O. inspects his suit for defects.

This time he came through empty-handed and when they
took his helmet off he just looked around him. You see, there
was a girl running in aimless circles round the fire. Did I tell
you he finished in her father's hay shed? She was making in-
coherent noises and that, coupled with the horrible smell of
burning meat, made me want to retch.

Her home was about twenty yards away. We tried to take
her there but she just stared at us and said very distinctly,
"He called out to me. Honest he did. Do you think it lasted
long?" Her rather childlike voice had the horribly serious
note of one who is genuinely seeking information.

Then she remembered and began that damned mouthing

14

again. Nothing human, just an un-understanding animal
noise like a bereaved beast. She'd stop . . . then repeat her-
self; and so the ghastly cycle went on. Is memory a cyclic or
rhythmical thing and not at all continuous as we think? And
can shock be discontinuous too?

We were all very cut up about Jim, yet we got over him
more easily than we did Ginger. You see, he was number
three. That made all the difference.

Later, in England, when accidents were everyday things,
we came to regard them as just that, but my earliest memo-
ries of them still stick. We grew up tremendously in a very
short time. I knew nineteen-year-olds who were almost se-
nile.

But, as you knew, I was removed from the pilot business.
I was wedded to navigation now.

THERE was one thing which none of us quite understood. It
was widely believed to be coincidence or luck but Andy and
I thought you managed it too well for it to be merely luck.

Did you ever notice us on bar duty in the Officers' Mess? I
thought a puzzled look fell on us now and then. After all, air-
crew as waiters are unusual. You're bound to have wondered.

We were weighing you up. Probing the secret of "how it's
done." We answered the phone with indefatigable zeal,
watched others jockeying for invitations to your parties, lis-
tened to the gossip of the Waafs, and the malice of the social-

15

climbing set. And we found nothing. We studied you with
anxious care and were no wiser than before. No one could
claim you to be charming, handsome, wealthy or even de-
voted.

Then the Officers' Mess dance provided the solution. Per-
haps, as Andy pointed out, it had been lying around too close
under our noses. Anyway, there it was.

When everyone was sitting out in an interval between
dances, late as usual, you opened the door for a tall blonde
in a black velvet frock. You stood beside her, looking around
so she was forced to wait a moment too. Of course you knew
how effective it was, but did she? Andy whistled softly with-
out knowing he was whistling. All the officers present with
wives suddenly realized what a bastard you were.

You danced. You moderately, she wonderfully well. Peo-
ple watched. Why? You leaned on the bar. Andy and I el-
bowed the other barmen away. You talked. She listened.
We listened.

And we knew at once what it was. It was as though the
others weren't there. The blonde felt it too. Unwittingly,
we also were within the charmed circle. And it was all that.
So beautifully done. Herrick couldn't have done it better.

I don't believe any girl is impervious to the heady feeling
that you are vividly aware of her and that all the rest are
rather like decoration on the wall. Not very good decoration
either. And with what a light, sure touch it was managed!

Naturally, the drink helped. But Andy and I both knew
you wouldn't be in the mess for breakfast, that no word would
be spoken, no overt proposal made, but that she just couldn't
bear to edge away from so bubblelike a dream. You cupped
your hand so that the dancers couldn't see you beckon

i6

to her with the other. She was about eighteen inches away.
Her face lit up in a puckish way and, with her hand cupped
for secrecy, she beckoned you to come her way. You drew a
line on the floor with your toe and advanced to it. She put
her shoe alongside yours. Andy and I had to climb half over
the bar to see. Thus satisfactorily within millimeters of each
other, you looked down on her. She was tall and a tall girl
likes her men to look down on her. You said "Hullo, down
there!" just as I would have done but with infinitely more
grace. She looked up at you and the look was a legacy from
the kind of kid she was before the grog got her.

Six women you brought to a party in the mess, distributed
them among your friends and then went to bed. Were you
so sure of them? Or didn't you care? The types who came to
Ladies' Nights at the Cads' Club thought you were marvel-
ous. But that vivid little thing from the south, consoling her-
self with too much grog, said to no one in particular "That's
the man I'm going to marry if it kills us both." And your
redhead's reply? "That makes two of us and that'll be hell
in bed." We knew you'd marry neither. Andy and I both
think you'll marry for money something tangible anyway.

You probably had a bad liver. No matter for what reason you
took your ill humor out on me. The flight sergeant was very
pleased about it. The gray wolves scared his little soul so
much his stripes got wriggles in them.

I stared at my feet, at your desk, into the corners. Any-
where except at you. Why did you dress me down so? How
does one behave on these occasions, anyway? The discipline
of the Air Force is senseless. Worse, pointless. No man should
be compelled to be silent when the castigator is, after all,
merely another man. Your ring of braid doesn't make you a
god, you know. I don't suppose you do ever think of yourself
that way except on days like this.

Why do you want to humiliate me? Do peccadilloes call
for this sort of thing ... all this elaborate paraphernalia of
humbug? There should be some device so that an offense can
be meted out its due punishment but no one should be able
to vent his spleen just because one of the parties is an officer
and the other is not.

So I looked at my feet. I bet I looked sullen. I felt it too.
That comic opera business of marching me in and making
me mark time like an American drum majorette: what end
do you think it serves?

I think the whole business of rank needs looking into with
a coldly inquiring eye. Even when I was myself commis-
sioned, I felt the same way. Still do. No man should be com-
pelled to call another "sir." It's an affront to human dignity.
And all the saluting eyewash is another.

While you're at it, add this: no man in the services should
be another man's servant. I feel very strongly on the batman
racket. On my first station in Britain, an old established
one, we had all the trimmings. I wonder how many men who
should be fighting are employed in all that nonsense? What's
wrong with a cafeteria service for officers? Why shouldn't I
make my own bed? Oh yes, I'll lie on it all right.

When you tore those strips off me I hadn't had the chance

i8

to see things from the officer side. I have now. And it looks
no different.

When this war is over there'll have to be some furious
thought given to the situations of all those retired officers so
firmly planted on the backs of the lesser breeds. You and
your kind will have to do the thinking because the retired of-
ficers can't. Cerebration is a bar to promotion. Better watch
out, my fine feathered friend.

OF course you knew how the C.O. hated you. It's remarkable
how all those ex-Aero Club instructors made such soft jobs for
themselves. If I must be fair I'll admit he was in the First
War; but why should one be fair?

Apart from his tour of duty at the bar I can't see how he
filled in his time on the station. He hated us too. Your fran-
tic work on us must have made him mad. And so he hated us
because of you. Besides, hadn't we failed to learn to fly? So
weren't we clearly washouts? All of this came a little oddly
from someone who had probably not flown anything save
Tiger Moths for many a moon. Well, I've flown Tiger Moths
too . . . Sir! The fact that we were to be given another
chance, and as navigators in aircrew, galled him; perhaps
navigator ju-ju was as far beyond him as it was for all the
other dugouts. Had I lived I'd have loved to flaunt my flying
arsehole in his face.

This second chance was only possible because of you, so he

transferred all his resentment to you. Tell me why. Was it
because we were the youth that never returns? Were we the
youngster he was when Spads and Camels were names to con-
jure with?

Your gay friends were another insult to him. And weren't
they gay! The dope I have on you. His batman said he used
to practice the neat little speeches he made when visiting dig-
nitaries were around. Of course, there's a very, very distin-
guished precedent for that, but all the same, your natural
flair for that sort of thing hurt like hell. Did you parade it a
bit? We all hoped you did. He couldn't help thinking, too,
that the studied deference you showed to his rank was some-
how a mocking of him personally. It was, wasn't it? You
must have seen through him as easily as we did and you must
have despised what you saw. You couldn't help it. Not you.

I wonder if the dimwit ever wondered why he had no
trouble with the gray wolves? We could have told him. A
long-nosed, sheep-faced, balding bloke represented to us what
every man desires. Do you know your Barrie? All we wanted
was a second chance . . . probably to make all the same mis-
takes again, but a second chance, nevertheless. So the gray
wolves were lambs for the nonce. Did the old goat ever think
of the mess the father and mother of a mess we could
have made of his station full of apple polishers? There never
was a station so full of erks working desperately to hold their
ground jobs and thus keep themselves out of the army. Their
hides were so thick that their efforts to save them savored of
redundance, Of course they were all frantically keen on be-
ing remustered to aircrew but felt that, with their technical
skills, they could best serve etc., and etc. I can't for the life of
me see why a man fit for the army should be in ground crew

20

at all. His technical skills would be very welcome among the
brown jobs. And why, in New Zealand, should ground crew
be in uniform at all? It's the same with the women in uni-
form. Any soldier will tell you of his conception of the func-
tions of women in wartime.

Back to the C.O. How it annoyed him when we barracked
like all hell for you in the final of the station table tennis.
Not that it helped much. You know, when you were driving
Harry farther and farther back until he was right against the
wall and defending like mad, we all knew you couldn't keep
it up. We knew you'd drive out. And when you did and
looked for the hole in your bat and laughed, we all laughed
with you. All except the C.O. He was laughing at you. And
when you were licked we all felt we had seen the other side of
you. The bloodless calculator, the cautious estimator was
gone, and we saw a guy going in to bash superior skill right
off the table if he could. And when he couldn't he just
went right on bashing pigheadedly to the bitter end. Clearly
a man and a brother. *

Say, how old are you, you hairless hound?

I WONDER how Andy came to be grounded. We all used to
talk about how it happened to us. Many of us felt ill used.
We were all sure we could have made it in time. All except
Andy. He told us nothing until we pressed him and then he
offered a string of mutually exclusive alternative reasons.
Some of them were very funny. We gave up.

Yet something must have happened. They didn't ground
him for any lack of capacity. He didn't have any of the tem-
peramental troubles that beset me. Nor did he have any
doubts about where his duty lay. You knew, none better, be-
cause you couldn't help knowing that the gray wolves were
as uneasy as rabbits suspecting a weasel. None of us knew
what navigation was really like or whether we'd make it as
navigators. We were all prone to the most childish upsets
when our troubles got us down. All except Andy. He was
so serene. He had deeper roots.

You're bound to have noticed it in the three-cornered dis-
cussions we had. Andy and I always felt a little timorous in
taking you on but it was a hell of a fine exercise ... I re-
member once, when we were licking our wounds afterwards,
I asked Andy how it was we always ran into the unexpected
with you. "He sees all round it/' said Andy briefly. Do re-
member that. Andy's good opinion is worth having.

I thought over what he'd said. "How?" I asked. Andy
looked at me as if I were a slow child. Then he absent-mind-
edly slapped the arse in front of him with his parallel ruler.
The fellow who belonged to the arse turned round to look
into the matter. Before he could even get going, Andy asked,
"D'ye think they'll kick him out of the show?" meaning you.
"Sure to," said the bloke, "when they find out about him."
He went on with his plotting after first tenderly feeling his
arse to make sure Andy hadn't ignited his matches.

Andy wouldn't write to you. Not Andy. No need.

When we used to go womaning, we'd split the pair up as
quickly as possible. It's the only way. Usually we'd not meet
again but, very occasionally we did, and took in a dance
somewhere. My girl was always sleepy. Very pleased with

22

herself, if I may say so, and rather bewildered by the lights.
Apprehension could wait until tomorrow. I can quite under-
stand her being sleepy. I was that way too.

Andy and his girl would be as lively as kittens. She must
have had at least as strenuous an evening as my girl. And I'll
bet she didn't get away with a thing. I'm sure it was Andy.
There was something about him which was simply fun. I'm
quite sure of that because it was fun to watch them. My girl
and I, quite without envy, used to enjoy it. So did a lot of
others. It wasn't an act either. Just one side of the immense
variety of Andy.

So here I lie. Wondering about him.

I wonder what he did in private life. I've thought over
dozens of jobs he might have had but none of them fitted.
Once I wondered if he were a parson. He'd have gone high
in the church. Probably ended up as Pope. If he could have
concealed the way he had with women.

And what a way it was. They looked up at him and their
eyes danced. I've seen one he'd met only a few moments
earlier run his hand against her cheek. She was sober too.
They were always wanting to get him alone. He didn't have
half the spadework I did. I wonder if it was because, in some
absurd way or other, they trusted him.

I've seen him being pulled out of a dance into a garden.
The girl held his hand and pulled. Pulled hard. She looked
at him with the merriest smile. And much more than that
too. Andy went. Why not? It was his own line coming back
to him.

I don't think much harm followed in his wake. He was
fundamentally different from twerps like me. But I don't
think he had any better mental equipment. Nor did he or-
ganize his ability any better if as well. I liked and admired

23

him but I never felt he was quite my equal when the chips
were down. I don't think he was as ruthless as I was. Of
course he had other advantages. He could be trusted. I think
that even went for his women. I have an idea that he never
held out anything to them other than the moment. It was
they who wrote more into it. All the same, Andy would have
known that. He was too sensitive not to. I wonder how he
did manage it.

I wonder why Andy joined the Air Force. No, that's silly.
I know. He was a man with a mission. At the bottom he be-
lieved in righteousness. He didn't believe that war was ever
justified, but once in it, as always, he did his best.

No. I can't see, at any point, how Andy came to be
grounded. D'ye think he knew that nav. is made for men
with a mission? I wonder if he grounded himself.

8

So I stood in front of you and saluted you for the last time.
You can regard these letters in that light if you like. You
grinned at me. Were you really as interested in us as we all
imagined or were we just interesting guinea pigs for your
ideas on navigation and how to teach it?

You said, "When you come back I hope I have to salute
you. Braid to the elbows."

"And both arms to wear it on," said I.

You nodded. "Please God."

Well, it didn't please Him.

We sailed from Auckland. I'd never been outside New
Zealand before and as we passed the islands in the Gulf we all
felt mighty solemn. It wasn't just the raiders to the north
either, or the lovely winter's afternoon of our departure. It
was that "look thy last on all things lovely" theme and it
wouldn't let us be. Hardly any of the crowd didn't wonder
if he'd ever see all that again. Oh, I'll admit Aucklanders
overdo their admiration of the water in their own backyard
but after all, it is part of New Zealand.

The ship was a luxury liner commandeered for us. De
luxe is the only way to travel at the public expense, as any
politician will tell you. Ever since my famished boyhood I've
loved food and I consumed vast quantities of it. Strange it
doesn't make me fat. On the ship, in times of peace we were
told, the principal interest of the tourists was in food so, nat-
urally, the catering was superb. Eating was really exciting.

The voyage was rather marvelous. No storms. Just the
heavy Pacific swell that plays the devil with the development
of sea legs. Gradually we became used to the odd feeling of
insecurity.

At Suva we had a few hours' leave and the sellers of curios
a few hours' harvest. It was at the beginning of the war;
comparatively speaking, all passenger traffic had stopped and
had not, at this time, been replaced by troop movements.
One crowd came back with masses of native spears and a gory
North Island versus South Island battle was fought around
the decks. Rather childish? Of course.

We duly arrived in Vancouver. The C.O. marched us from
the pier to the depot (Canadian for station). They were op-
posite each other, so the good old bloke marched us round
Vancouver for an hour while he worked out the orientation.

25

We were one of the first parties from down under in the new
training scheme. The town loved us and we loved them for
that. The whole show as ours if only we could have got at it.
Then we entrained on the C.P.R.

THE civvy pilots were a great crowd. They stooge around all
day and half the night taking would-be navigators over courses
they know by heart. When we get ourselves lost they bring us
home, without too much publicity.

It was a wizard morning, clear, crisp and cold. The at-
mosphere was so clear I thought I could see the North Pole.
At least, I could see on the horizon something upright and
far away. I asked the pilot what it was. "Upright and far
away, did you say?" he asked. "Perhaps it's the Padre/ 1

"Hell," said I. "It's a tree."

"I know every goddam tree on this prairie," said he, "and
... oh sure, that's it." It was too. Every tree on the god-
dam prairie.

The nav. was a piece of cake. The instructors had just
passed through the course themselves and were a bit diffident,
especially as they couldn't help wondering if we were won-
dering why they had been kept as instructors rather than
sent overseas. Besides, they'd not had half the grueling you'd
given us. That kept their hair short at the back all right. Of
course we were very decent to them, in a somewhat patroniz-

ing manner I'm afraid. If they didn't get what we were try-
ing to teach them, we'd try your line and say now-let's-get-
back-to-first-principles. Suitably goaded, one of them once
asked a little acidly what first principles were, and walked
into this one. "Didn't your mother ever tell you anything?
Principles are what keep you straight, and make you narrow."

Nav. is all you said. How could I ever have thought of any-
tiiing else? How could anyone with any brains at all?

The food in Canada was a bit of a trial. Beef it was, beef
it is and beef it will be. Did I tell you of the two gunners at
their school in the north. It seems they were doing their
usual stuff in the old Annie. You know, two gunners go up
with the civvy pilot and take turns in the turret, though how
they swap over beats me. Anyway, full of beef and probably
belching gently, they saw just at the changeover about a thou-
sand steers below them. (Their estimate.)

"Quick," said one, "do them in and save the Mess from any
more bloody beefl"

"Oh, yeah," said the other. "What you kill in this man's
country, you eat!"

I meant to tell you earlier how we used to dream about
lamb. Lamb with green peas, mint sauce and new potatoes.
Lamb at Christmas time. Served piping hot if you like it
that way, but I'll remember long hot Christmas Days with
cold lamb and mint sauce eaten under a pohutukawa at Kaw-
hia or on the beach at Takapuna. All right, all right, I'll ad-
mit it's not much of a beach. It's just a stretch of sand barely
visible under people's backsides. What of it? Will you join
me in my lamb and peas?

The seasons in Canada are out of joint. They can have
their snowy Christmases together with the roast beef of old

27

Canada. I was born under different stars. In imagination I
can see the lovely rolling downs of North Canterbury and
Hawkes Bay, their green swards alive with ewes and lambs.
Lambs are the most appealing little things, especially before
they're docked. Few people can resist the careless abandon of
a young lamb's tail. Then, when Christmas is just around
the corner, and one sees a well-grown lamb, one permits an
appreciative eye to cruise over his handsomely upholstered
little bum; one muses on the crunch of a roast leg of lamb
done to a turn, one regrets the improvidence of nature in pro-
viding the dear little fellow with two hind legs only.
I could write a lyric about lamb!

10

THEY say that Celts always bully their inferiors and fawn on
their superiors. Perhaps that's what's wrong with me. I lard
too many "sirs" into my conversation with the large fry and
I'm a little too prone to theatricality with them too. Which
is odd because, in my heart, I despise them so. I think that all
I've ever admired sincerely is magnificent competence, no
matter what the field.

The other half of the proverb is true too. I wish it weren't.
I just can't help adopting a hectoring air with all sorts of folk
whom I consider inferior in the point at issue. I'm a miser-
able bully in argument. I don't think it possible to doubt
that I have the best mind here. But, dear Lord, how I wish I
weren't such a beggar on horseback. Why the hell do I have

to make a mess of all my personal contacts? Why must I be
such a liar and such a mean-spirited twerp? I'd alter myself
if I could.

Looking backwards on it all now, I wish I hadn't lied quite
so much. I wonder if there is a Book of Judgment? Anyway,
whoever keeps it is bound to know the reasons too, so per-
haps I shan't fare so badly.

All the same, in Canada, as a matter of course I began to
fake my log. Want to hear about it?

Yes, as a matter of course I began to fake my log. What's
so sacrosanct about a log anyway? Oh, I know, I know. I
shouldn't have said that. I can see you jump as you read this.

True. Your white-haired boy got lost and took the easy way
out. He asked the pilot to take him home and then carefully
worked backwards from the return leg, filled in the blanks
and then at T.T.T. he entered in the log, "Uncertain of
position. Circle of uncertainty based on ..." and I filled
that in later.

The navigator wallah was pleased with my handling of the
situation and complimented me on my honesty. I didn't bat
an eyelash, nor feel the least ashamed. I just despised him
for not spotting it. I tried the same line once or twice again
but not too often. Anyway, the navigation was absurdly easy
after the grilling you had given us, so I didn't even have to
contemplate faking except in bad weather. That was mighty
seldom. We don't fly in bad weather and the Canadian
weather forecasting is very good in the interior. So it should
be with the ring of reporting stations all around. Only quite
unexpected bad luck can catch us out in bad weather.

Such as that time when an aircraft made a forced landing
on a frozen lake to the north. I don't like thinking about it,

29

even now. And the Lord knows I've had my fill of horror
since.

I had been watching the weather and listening to the sta-
tion to find out if they were going to recall us. Cautious guy*
me! I heard the poor sods call just before they went in. Auto-
matically, I swung a loop on them. Of course that only gave
me one position line, but you know what I can do with one
position line. You ought to know. You taught me. Still, au-
tomatically, I ran up the position line as I had been taught
and then began to call up the station to report that we were
turning off track to search; but the station got in first with
the general recall owing to the rapid and very grave deteriora-
tion in the weather. I passed that on to Hairy-Faced Dick,
the pilot, and then called up the station to report our return
and to pass on to them what I had picked up. They had it al-
ready, so I went back to my navigation before they could tell
us to square search.

When we got back the bush pilots had already left but con-
ditions were blowing up for a handsome blizzard. Of course
they didn't get them out and a couple of pilots went in too.
We were so close to them when I picked up the call; yet what
could we do? Fix their position very accurately? The sta-
tion and I both had bearings and that is fair enough. We
could have circled above them until the others showed up
with the parachute supplies? But what of the weather? They
mightn't pick us up at all and training aircraft are not fueled
for long searches. We might have gone in too. Besides the
edge of the blizzard would be between us and the station,
and visibility in a real blizzard is to be measured in inches.
This was a real blizzard all right. We were neither equipped
nor trained for rescue work so anything we attempted would

30

probably only have hampered those who knew what they
were doing. That's the way I'd have liked everyone to have
looked at it.

The pity was that when the sledge party found them it
proved that they had been uninjured. Made a sweet job of
setting her down. On the frozen, crumpled surface too.
Their efforts to keep warm were pathetic, I heard. They had
entered in the log a plan for a march out to the nearest tele-
graph line which they planned to cut, and then wait. It was
feasible too and they knew where they were and that they
had been heard. So they planned to wait.

Low down on the lake they wouldn't see the blizzard until
shortly before it swept over the ridge and hit them. It may
have been as well. They were all huddled together when
found.

The passing-out examinations were due shortly after this.
At this time the big training scheme was mighty nebulous,
hardly organized at all. All the same these examinations
were important to me. I worked like hell. I was a wizard
on the theory of navigation and my cross-country's were very
well above the average, especially when the weather was good.
When it wasn't, I worried about it. Also I worried about
what the Air Force would do with me because I knew I was a
poor type. Whatever else I may lie about I never lied about
me; not to me.

Passing outl There I stand. I'm what I believe the Yanks
call the "honor graduate" of my class; in other words I have
passed with special distinction. I'd known it all along. So
had the course. But it wasn't a popular result. Merely an
inevitable one. Perhaps they know me too well. Yet I'd like

to be popular with the chaps but I just don't click. It may
be that I'm too keen to make a good impression. I wish I
could play a musical instrument. That helps.

Anyway, here I stand, looking the visiting-very-big-shot
firmly in the eye, head up, chin drawn in, looking one's own
height, thumbs on the line of the seam of the trousers.

I'm tall and thin and I've had my issue uniform altered so
that it fits without a wrinkle. I just stand and don't bat an
eyelash. The V-V-B-S approves. I look like what he fancies
he looked like when he was my age. My blushing honors are
thick upon me. But I'm thinking of that forced landing on
the ice and of those who didn't come back from the search
and I know the course is thinking of it too. But that's our se-
cret. And I don't give a damn what they think, because I'm
on my way up and the devil takes the hindmost. If one goes
up another must go down. They can hardly fail to commis-
sion me. It's in the bag. Dear Lord, just give me a chance
and I'll show them.

The V-V-B-S imported at great expense from Ottawa in
the interest of the war effort takes the salute at the march
past. The C.O. is most obsequious. I catch his eye where he
stands modestly in the background and I permit myself the
ghost of a mocking grin. He knows I know he's crawling.
Why should I worry? He can do nothing for me now. In
any case he'll end the war right here where he began it.

Then I was retained as an instructor. The course all com-
miserated with me at being left behind and I suppose the
duller of them were sincere. I put on a great show of disap-
pointment. Andy, from the next course, came over to see me
and we analyzed the pros and cons of instruction. I thought
it mightn't work out too well apart from the very important

safety of the pelt. Promotion, for example. Andy, seeing the
bright side as always, suggested that, given time to practice
in safety I'd be a ripsnorting navigator when they did draft
me to operations "as of course they will/' I suppressed the
tart reply that I was a ripsnorting navigator already.

My synthetic wails of protest must have reached farther
than I meant, for my first posting was canceled and I was
duly posted overseas. With my new popeye braid making
my arm ache I went on final leave. Andy had a few days too,
so we nipped over the border, in civvies, and had a wonder-
ful beat-up in Chicago. Do ask me sometime.

II

WE went to Hamburg one night. The briefing was more de-
tailed than usual and the out and alternative home routes
were to be decided just before take-off, as the false prophets
we're a little discouraged by the outcome of their previous
night's forecasts. This means more work for the wretched
navigators. Two sets of data to be prepared in time hardly
adequate for one.

The gen about Hamburg is always a little intimidating.
And this is early days, remember. The searchlight coverage
is very good, so is the gun coordination. Besides which, there
are God knows how many fighter stations ringed around it
and, just to pile on the agony, the radio location is invariably
very good too. Thorough! Fritz's way. Rumor spoke of g.s's
being used and of cones of hundreds of searchlights. Com-
ing along?

33

There are two major routes of approach, one over land,
the other a sea route. Naturally we prefer the sea route.
Wouldn't you?

The final briefing ordered the land route and the target
was indicated with extreme precision. What do they think
we are? A curse on all this pinpoint stuff. Pip's view was
(a) it was a lot of bloody lunacy, (b) it wasn't possible and
(c) too many aircraft and their excellent crews are lost on
propaganda stunts featuring precision bombing.

Still, a job is a job. I go along for a last minute nav. check.
Pip does the same for the old girl. It's a chastening thought
that for half the eight hundred miles we're going to be over
enemy territory and he's bound to resent it all.

And so for the usual, after-dusk final touches. Look around
for extra food (you never know your luck), leave behind all
papers and documents other than those essential for the busi-
ness of the evening, check watches, check all necessary equip-
ment; and then there's always that deadly few minutes as
one waits. Remember that bit in Journey's End where the
older man engages the younger in a discussion about tea versus
cocoa as beverages while they talk away the last few mo-
ments of their lives? We usually wait in silence.

This night we joke a little you know how it is every
aircrew has its family jokes. Once in the aircraft things are
much easier. We all have work to do but yet I'll swear we
all have our ears cocked, as we always do, for the first cough-
ing bellow as the cylinders fire. That always means "This
is it!" The engines stutter a bit as they clear themselves and
then settle down. They are warmed beforehand and we sense
the familiar change in their notes as Pip gently pushes the
throttles forward. Soon the old girl shakes with their thunder

34

as one after another they are raced at full throttle. The test
satisfactory, the noise dies to the pleasant sound aircraft en-
gines make as they tick over. Strange how very vividly all
this fills my mind.

Anyway, they quicken a little and we lurch forward and
waddle towards the runway to await our turn to take off.
There's always a moment or two. Then all hell bursts loose
as our horses roar their heads off. The bumps and jolts grad-
ually decrease as the tail comes up, the acceleration seems to
be forcing one backwards through the back of the seat. Now
we are riding with only an occasional solid bump. Soon
these too cease and the second dicky is winding up the legs.

Why am I giving you all this gen? To show I know the
pilot ju-ju? Do I need to convince you? Or just because,
when I write to you, by Christ, I'm right there, riding.

I verify time with Pip and get on with my job. You were
right. A navigator is the loneliest soul under heaven. But
who would swap that loneliness, that power?

Soon we cross the coast and there is our sea, steely gray be-
low us in what remains of the light. I love the pattern wind
lanes make on it but tonight is no time for admiration even
if they were visible. The leader of a formation is as busy as
a one-armed paperhanger. This is no time for beauty, unless
it be the cold beauty of exact calculation. This is our first big
do, the first time we lead.

I swear to myself that Pip will make a name as a leader if
navigational skill can do anything for him. All the other re-
quired qualities he has in full measure, pressed down and
running over. Just quietly, I have all he lacks, however little
that may be. Still and all, he does lack it, and he does need it.

I begin making checks at absurdly short intervals. They

35

were largely unnecessary as the Met gen is good all the way.
See how I'm identifying myself with Pip. We're giving noth-
ing away, Pip and I.

Dead on E.T.A.* (Coast) there's the dirty line of the
Dutch dunes and we spend a little time later dodging search-
lights near Ostend. This valuable time has to be allowed for
and made up later. Our escort turned back and wedged
through the gaps. By this time all is known and the radio
location boys down below are on the job, and there's some
evidence of perturbation around the fighter airdromes down
below. It's not possible to operate an airdrome in complete
concealment but what interests me isn't what fun and games
goes on below, but whether the bright R. L. boys have stacked
up a squadron of fighters above us. Actually we see a couple
of Me. logs looking for trouble and one or two of those little
Heinkels with the inverted gull wings. They're so small they
look farther away than they are you'd swear they're much
farther away an error of that kind can be fatal, as the little
bastards carry cannon.

We slipped the first lot. We're a much better viewing plat-
form than they are, but our luck runs out a little later. The
formation tightened up but the last kite didn't weave as much
as the tail guard should; result: they beat him up and he be-
gins to fall back. We throttle back for him, to protect him
as well as we can until the fighters run out of fuel or ammo
or both, thereby imperiling our own E.T.A. already knocked
about a bit by the delay at the coast. Even a well closed-up
formation is no guarantee of safety when the fighters have
cannon. Soon it's obvious we have to leave him. The heroic
picture in the gutter press of a formation fighting its way

* Estimated time of arrival.

36

through swarms of fighters is just childish. It's not a battle
on even terms, or why design fighters? No bomber wants to
fight. If they have a really worthwhile bomb load they can't
bristle with defensive armament. That's what's wrong with
the so-called "Flying Fortresses." They fly high, they fly fast,
they fly far, they're very well defended, but they don't carry
any bombs. Or, at least, none to speak of. Did you hear the
story of the one which made a forced landing on one of our
fields, and before it could be checked, an absent-minded
bombing crew had included it in the bomb load of one of our
Stirlings? A wicked, wicked lie, no doubt.

Our straggler dropped still farther back. Pip's decision,
now. Not mine, thank God. He jettisoned his cargo, but we
know how it is. The fighters all leave us to concentrate on
him. We imperil the whole show if we don't get moving.
He knows how it is too.

The fighters curve in leisurely fashion, or so it looks to us;
actually they're most businesslike. They'll concentrate on
the tail gunner and do him in, and when he's gone for a Bur-
ton, they'll chew the aircraft up with stern attacks.

That's just what they do. As soon as the gap opens they
blow his fin off and he goes into the deck on fire. Only Alec,
in our tail turret, sees it, and he doesn't see any brollies in
the hazy, shifting moonlight. Perhaps we're too far away.
And we're in a hell of a hurry. The fighters want to do him
in as speedily as possible so as to have fuel and ammo to tackle
the exposed tail end. We want to put as much distance be-
tween us as possible, now that we are buying time and dis-
tance with aircraft and crews.

We bypass Bremen, almost as tough a nut as Hamburg,
but we lose another poor sod to a fighter attack just to the

37

south. He seemed intact too; just slowly banked to starboard
and went into a spin. Perhaps they got the pilots.

Hamburg is better camouflaged than anyone can imagine
but I think we are on the target. Nothing compares remotely
with Hamburg. Brest, Bremen, Berlin, the three B's, are
nothing to it.

Yet miracles are with us. First in, and nobody cares. The
lights cone behind us, the fighters quarter behind us too.
How come we are missed? And for how long?

What's the use of talking. It was bloody hell I tell you. No
man should be asked to go to Hamburg.

What's the use of talking. Most of us gather at the rendez-
vous. We take the sea route home, after looking around for
stragglers but not for long.

Homeward bound. Sea route. Wonderful. The only ques-
tions now are navigational ones, so children, leave it all to
your uncle and don't bother your pretty little heads about in-
tellectual matters. Trust your uncle. Now there are no lights
and fighters and great greasy blobs in the sky.

Then, two of our kites go into the drink at various times
going home. Each time my stomach tightens. How are we?

Both pilots do good ditching jobs. The sea lights are alight,
and dinghies pop out and I suppose most of the crews are able
to scramble aboard. We note their positions but it's too close
to the enemy coast in both cases for us to signal help for them.
The A.S.R.S.* would have given it a go but Fritz monitors
the radio and he'd get there first. So we report them on ar-
rival.

Watching them go in, one circles and waits. Then the air-
craft hits, nose up, and floats for a few minutes. Christ,

* Air-Sea Rescue Service.

there's a lot to do in that few minutes. And everyone inside
gets a hell of a smack when she stops from about a hundred
m.p.h. down to nothing almost instantaneously. We watch.
And we think, "Thank Christ I'm not those poor bastards.
Going to spend days in a bloody little dinghy/*

Row their guts out with little paddles strapped on their
hands. Ration the concentrated food and double-ration the
water. Get seasick. Cruelly. Get wet if it's rough, baked if
it's hot. The wounded moan like a voice out of hell. Don't
listen. Apply dressings. Give them pills to deaden the pain.
Or to quiet them so it won't madden the rest which? And
above all, don't listen or the sound will drown you. And all
this time unable to move without touching the others. Per-
haps for a week.

Home at dawn; memories of happier, ciwy days; home at
dawn: home.

Pip sat her down sweetly, and why should I mention that?
He always did. But when we are home, I know that when
they grounded me they knew what they were doing. We'll
just bury it here. I couldn't have been an operational pilot.
I haven't the iron that's in Pip. My imagination is a curse.
It's lucky for me I didn't know how badly the second dicky
was shot up. I'd have frozen to the controls when the fighters
staged their last desperate head-on attack. But Pip's differ-
ent. When there are broadside attacks he'll watch and inevi-
tably, at precisely the right moment, he'll turn towards the
right attacker. It's a quality that I can't explain. Neither can
Pip. But he has it.

Strange that I could have imagined us untouched tonight.
Jesus, I must have been busy. Or plain panicked.

Strange about Pip too. In some ways I'm a better man

39

than he is. All these feats of navigation which were getting
talked about couldn't be pure chance. You know that better
than anyone. The simple fact is that I was bloody good.

Navigators are rare. They shouldn't be wasted. Some
day every formation will be led to its target by a navigation
aircraft bristling with navigators and defensive armament,
carrying no bomb load and sent out ahead of the rest to mark
the target with flares. Not like what happened to me later,
but a much more precise thing. It'd be so nice to have mark-
ers in the sky, but the wind would carry them right off the
point where they were laid.

Life's a bit like that, too.

12

MINE-LAYING is an odd job. We used to go to the Baltic and
lay them in the steamer lanes, as near as Intelligence could
guess them, in the pious hope that some ore ship would
nudge one. I don't imagine anything could sink as fast as one
of these. The crews must feel worse than the boys on tank-
ers or in submarines.

The routine is a little different too. The false prophets
give the good word as to when, but as no Met wallah is ever
willfully precise, there's always a tentative air about the pro-
ceedings.

Then, with a belly full of mines we waddle out on to the
flare path. Mines we're supposed to bring back if we can't
find our target point. All right, all right, all that's nonsense
I know. But it used to be so.

40

There's something more intimidating about mines than
about bombs. Don't ask me why. There's no logic in it. It
probably goes back to stories of the last war. The actual lay-
ing of a mine is a very difficult job too. It's a very low-altitude
job and there are quite sticky problems in deciding which is
sea and which sky. But the really delicate operation of the
evening consists in arriving at the predetermined point with-
out interception. It's a very exact point too, and there's not
much to come and go upon.

The first time we were briefed for the job, Pip's face was
a study. He doesn't believe, any more than anyone else, all
the propaganda boys say about the enemy not playing the
game and we do all that sort of guff but mine-laying
was something he just didn't like. You see he'd worked on
wharves all his life and he had strong feelings about ships and
didn't want to destroy them. He hated the idea.

The Met and Nav gen were much more detailed than
usual. We had already had plenty of training in the tech-
nique of dumping them, though Pip always hoped it would
never come to that. When we walked away, Pip's rumbling
murmur ran something like this. "Ships is different. Bloody
different. And the crews don't get no sirens to warn them
and there's no funk holes to dive into. Bloody shame it's got
to be ships . . ."

He was turning the whole matter over in his mind as the
short winter's day closed in all around us. These jobs are
winter jobs. The long nights are necessary owing to the dis-
tances to be covered without escort.

Pip's ruminating became a sort of obbligato. His concep-
tin of a ship as a semi-living thing is, of course, nothing
new. He volunteered, rather shamefacedly, when he felt the
old tramps still gamely plugging away had guts and that fish-

ing boats were, to his mind, rather like friendly dogs. He
meant trawlers, naturally. Sailing ships were just "hell ships"
or "sailors' poorhouses" and the like. He supposed some peo-
ple thought them beautiful. He'd seen pictures of them
from that point of view. But what on earth was biting folk
who knew so little of the facts of a sailor's life?

Ships! And now he was going to do them in. Oh welL
War's war.

It was an overcast night, I remember. We thunder along
finding it hard to come unstuck with all that extra fuel, plus
the mines in the belly. Rather reluctantly, I thought, she
pulled clear. So here we are, my bold sea raiders.

Pip held her down until we had enough airspeed and then
we began to climb on track. It's a busy time for me, but I
have time later to watch the gunners ceaselessly moving their
turrets in arcs to cover all their sky. Even if they are all
asleep, the vigilant movement is comforting to watch. We
are over the sea and low down. There's a curtain of stratus
mush above us that shuts out everything. When some of the
fuel is gone we'll climb through it and have a look at the
stars. All this is routine stuff. Once one's ears become ac-
customed to the noise everything becomes routine stuff. Did
you know that, after the war, nearly all aircrew will have im-
paired hearing? Sounds odd, but it's true.

Anyway, we plug away in the grayness. Night vision doesn't
matter when all is gray, sea and sky alike. There's nothing
much for me to do now. There's nothing much for anybody
to do. If the Met gen is okay, we're on track and all is well.
Why worry and get thin legs? The gunners cover their sky
but the chance of an intercept hardly exists. I'll bet there's a
perfunctory look about the gaze they turn on the great out-
doors.

42

Presently comes: "Captain to navigator; let's have a look
at the bloody stars." We break cloud at about ten thousand
feet only to find ourselves sandwiched. There was another
layer above us. There we were stooging along in the clear
space between the sheets. Lovely. And if the Met patter is
right there's no real reason why we shouldn't just stay here.
All the same, you know what we did. Yes, yes, Little Eric
must be satisfied, so we plunge into the upper cloud base and
climb out into moonlight. I go rapidly about my patter and
get a wizard fix. Everything just too good. So I rechecked.
Still all right. Wonderful!

I felt I owed myself a look around. You were right.

The tumbled tops of the cloud blanket are silver, the val-
leys between them dark gray, and somehow I always believe
them to be breaks and the grayness to be sea. The moon is
bright enough to damp out the minor stars so that the prin-
cipal navigational ones are sharply defined. Their familiar-
ity is positively friendly. Foolish, of course, to think of a
mass of flaming gas millions of miles away as friendly. Might
as well be an astrologer and navigate with a little crystal ball.
Still, everyone needs something to feel friendly and human
about. Even you. And I know the light I see left the star
millions of years ago. What of it? I love stars.

And this lovely night, in the silence and stillness ... oh
yes, after a while the noise is not consciously heard and
there's no sensation of motion at all. I repeat, in the silence
and the stillness I thought of that little bit from "A Naviga-
tor's Song" . . . you know . . ,

The silent, silver stars
Are all our guide tonight.

43

Oh Lord who marks the sparrow's flight
Guide Thou my hand aright.

All right. All right, doggerel no doubt. But I like it. It
ends: "I come among you, star-faring."

Had I survived this I'd have liked to enter my calling in
official publications as "star-farer." Wouldn't it be a sell for
me if there's really something in the rather naive Early Chris-
tian view of a heaven among the stars? For me the firmament
is a sea of stars and I'm sure Leif Ericson and Magellan will
back me up.

I'll never forget that night. Ill remember it until there's
an end to all remembering. And I believe it's soon. The
dressings seem more nauseating every day. Not that I know,
but the staff seem to find them that way. So 111 remember
that night; the tumbled clouds below, the stars above, and
the world for a little space peaceful and human and kind.

We hopped in between the sandwich for the neck of Den-
mark and then went up for a final check. Everything is going
so well we're sure to disappoint the I.O. Then down we come
to break cloud over the sea. And curse it, the cloud base has
fallen and is sitting on the sea. Well? Isn't that a help?
Therell be no possible interference. Oh, yes, but there's one
hell of a danger with mines. We have to come right down on
the sea to lay them. See now? The sea and the cloud are one
as far as we are concerned. Which is which?

This condition is quite common in the Baltic: low cloud,
sea fog and slate-gray sea. Remember it was night, too. Air-
craft lost on mine-laying probably go into the sea through all
this. Or else they see it too late and fail to pull out in time.
We know this. And we're anxious. Who wouldn't be? Sensf

44

tive altimeters are grand things, when you can set them,
knowing the atmospheric pressure at sea level. We couldn't.
So we come down the last few hundred feet with a caution you
can imagine.

Still, the check was so good that, at any rate, we're not go-
ing to hit an island as some poor bastards have done. Putting
the mines over the side, as the Navy would say, has been so
often practiced that we could do it blindfolded; which is
about what we are in the fog.

Homeward bound and everyone's spirits rising. It's a piece
of cake. Warm feelings towards the Met wallahs come all
over us. Dear fellowsl Of course, there's always the enemy
radio location to bear in mind. Still we're on our own and it's
scarcely likely that the Hun will bother his head over a soli-
tary aircraft. Surely to God he has more important things to
do.

Let's count our blessings. Here's the list, Pip.

1 . Homeward Bound.

2. Undetected (so far).

3. Sandwich of clouds for refugees from interceptors.

4. Fuel more than half gone which means much better
performance. Let's see it, Pip.

The world is fine. Next time a star winks at me I'll wink
back. They've done their stuff. I've done mine. We're a
great team, the stars and I.

We're a great team too. Aren't we, Pip?

Now here's a queer one. We've been together a long time,
apart from a running sequence of second dickys. Now, why
do I not remember any of them? Am I still hankering after
that seat? Am I still resenting being grounded? Do I still
want to be a pilot?

Back into the sandwich to cross Denmark. The country's

45

so flat we can't bump a thing unless it's an unusually tall
Dane, even for a Dane. In any case, what's an unusually tall
Dane doing out of his unusually long bed at this hour?

Out over the top again for a look-see. Same old moon,
same old stars. All a bit out of position since last look but who
cares? Another good fix. Everything dovetails beautifully.
What a world! What a night!

We ought to make the coast soon. We're right on the water
and, sure enough, there's the thin edge of white that waves
always show at the coastline and the darker line in the gray-
ness is England, home and breakfast. What beautiful
thoughts pass through the mind on these topics; bacon and
egg (singular), bed and quiet especially quiet. All at
once, just at that moment, I heard the engines. The thought
of quietness, I suppose. And why should the thought of qui-
etness bring an ore ship into my mind?

The I.O. was acutely disappointed. No, we hadn't seen any
fighters. No, we didn't get any visual fixes. No, we noticed
nothing unusual over Denmark. No, we didn't even see Den-
mark. No, there had been no unusual air incident. No, we
had nothing to report. He looked so very disappointed I
nearly told him who pinched all the cocoa but that's no
unusual incident either.

Mine-laying is a piece of cake, a wonderful piece of cake.
This time.

13

A STATION is a happy enough place. The Old Man is usually
quite harmless and in any case the Admin. O. and the adju-

4 6

tants do the work. There's a rash of commissioned grocers
and drapers who do their particular jobs at least as well as
anybody else and there's a grand bunch of I.O.s who have to
make head or tail of some mighty odd affairs. Sometimes
they're bright boys but more often they're just steady hard
workers. Sometimes sessions with them are a bit of a bore, es-
pecially for navigators who are their special prey. By and
large though they do know the score, or rather, the part of the
score it is their portion to know. The Engineer Officers are
good guys and do really know their work, and the same goes
for the R.L.* boys.

But it's the N.C.O.s and other ranks who really make the
wheels turn over. Around the station you'll see the mainte-
nance crews getting about their business. Sometimes a new
N.C.O. will try to march them beyond the limit of the disci-
pline they have set for themselves and they'll jeer at him in a
way to warm a New Zealand heart. All the "spit and polish"
is plain nonsense. An ex-Army N.C.O. told me that good
discipline is shown by good work. It has no other object. As
much discipline as the job demands: no more, and decidedly,
no less. Coming from an ex-Army type, that nearly embold-
ened me to ask him why he transferred to the Air Force.

I hope you'll agree with me that ceremonial is the refuge
of little men, unsure of themselves and so very keen to con-
ceal from others the poor opinion they have formed of them-
selves.

All this leaves out the visitors from Air Ministry. Usually
they have small practical knowledge; they know little, but
they know somebody. Somebody who knows somebody who
knows etc. We all think it's influence which does it, and I

* Radio location.

47

think we're right. The whole show is top-heavy with people
for whom "a suitable position in uniform" must be found.
The deference of really able people towards these gilded nin-
compoops must be seen to be believed. In our country we
treat our snobocracy with a tolerant contempt, but here it's
different. Blokes who've been to the Rabbit Warren assure
me that the broad braid is to be seen by the furlong and that
the area of backside apple-polishing in carpeted offices is
roughly equivalent to that of a medium-sized airfield: say five
hundred acres. Of course all these chair-borne warriors drip
with gongs. Why not? They award them to each other.

Back to the station. Aircraft being run up, bomb trains all
over the place, little trails of aircrew heading for briefing,
blokes out on the airfield jacking everything up for the night.

War is lunacy. But the sanest place in the whole asylum is
squarely on the station.

Even a madhouse is home if you get used to it. Think of
New Zealand. We are so cut off from the rest of the world
that we don't recognize our own forms of lunacy till we get
outside. Shall I tell you about the asylum I grew up in?

IN the beginning there was a very small boy and a very big
river. A poverty-stricken home in a small, drab New Zealand
town. It rained endlessly. The ferns and the native forest
were a tangled riot right up to the outskirts of the wretched
wood and corrugated-iron houses which straggled into un-

48

tidy streets on either side of the river. This river was turbu-
lent, often flooded, and small ships used it at peril, but I grew
up beside it. You may say that it shaped me, even to the
thoughts. Of course I knew no other place, so at the time it
seemed a pleasant enough home town. It was home, you see.

That river. I built flatties of rough timber and rowed on
its surface. I fished there too, for whitebait. I remember,
like yesterday, the chilly vigil for long hours before dawn to
obtain a good rock from which big catches were certain.
Round me other fishermen gradually took shape in the misty
dawn light as the cold valley wind poured long wisps of vapor
around us. All of us intently watched the river. Will they
run today?

If they run I intend to buy myself gum boots. At the
thought my bare feet curl up a little in happy anticipation.
The river is cold but the valley wind is colder, which accounts
for the mist. If there's a really big run, I'll buy a sailor's jer-
sey as well.

Stiffly, I walked to school. How I hated to leave the river
when the tide was right for a good run. All the same I no-
ticed where the coal trucks stood in the railway yards. There
might be an opportunity to do something about that tonight,
whether they run or not.

At school I was the odious "bright boy." Years younger
than the others, who hated and despised me. Looking back,
I don't blame them. I'd despise me. Yet there was an ele-
ment, almost of fear, in their attitudes. I was a ruthless, cold-
blooded, sharp-tongued intellectual snob from the cradle up.
So they caught me alone as often as they could. Do you blame
them? My brother was clever too, but he had the sense not to

49

parade it; indeed he concealed it most skillfully. Besides he
was much better at games than I was. The teachers endeav-
ored to conceal a half-fascinated loathing. I was a liar, a thief,
I had an excuse for everything when I was caught, and I was
a physical coward. Yet all they required of me, and more, I
did to their complete and grudging satisfaction. And if I did
steal, there was a certain necessity about that because I had to
have books and there were no such things as libraries not
for the likes of me. So I stole anything of value, although
once I stole a toy and then couldn't bear to turn it into books.
Occasionally I was caught but no one took my books away.
My mother began to fear that I was reading too much for the
good of my health but I easily outwitted her as soon as I was
able to loosen one of the boards in the filthy old privy. When-
ever I hear a joke about reading matter for lavatories my
youth stands and looks at me in the eye.

When I was eleven, I had read, much of it in that odd li-
brary, most of Scott, Dickens and Stevenson, all of Shake-
speare and most of it passed right over my dazed head
and a great deal of romantic poetry. I was drunk on words
and have remained that way.

I worked systematically through the Authorized Version
once it was drawn to my attention that a boy with a good
knowledge of the Bible could fairly mow down the prizes at
Sunday school, and they were all books. I did very well and,
at the end of the year, I was presented with the complete
works of Hesba Stretton. Has anyone heard of Hesba Stret-
ton these days? Anyway, disappointment so overwhelmed me
that I, there and then, expressed in a few well-chosen words,
a somewhat pungent literary criticism of Hesba Stretton.
Later, when I swapped Hesba for a Boswell, I realized what

50

a goat I'd been to dry up such a regular source of swapping
material. It was too late then, of course. The Sunday school
had cast out the viper from its bosom.

Before this my mother fell ill so I didn't offend her sense of
respectability by mentioning the Sunday school. She was ill
for a whole nightmare year. My brother and I took turns
' 'minding" her. On alternate days we went to school and we
taught each other in the evenings. That might have been fun
for both of us but by evening we were desperately tired.

I can remember my brother seated on the post of our gate,
where he could keep an eye on Mother and at the same time,
watch the other children playing in the street. I heard him
refuse to join them because "I have to mind my mother."
And he was eight.

All that year she lay in bed and the doctor said she would
die. We didn't ask him often. He cost too much and had to
be paid as he left the house, my mother insisted. You see, we
were honest folk, though poor: thus my mother. So we didn't
call the doctor unless we were very frightened and we always
consulted each other, because the fee so honestly tendered to
the doctor meant food. And we had a baby sister to think
about, too. Besides, the doctor always told the neighbors that
our mother would die. They were very compassionate and
did what they could for us, but my brother and I knew she
would not die. It is true that only her eyes were alive, but
how undoubtedly, intensely alive they were. And we knew,
we knew, we knew she would not die. We often told each
other so. At night, by candlelight, we read her Little Women
and the like, which we both privately despised, but we liked
to see the odd, contented look in her eyes and the wrinkles
slowly smoothing themselves on her face. We thought it was

due to the descriptions of placid family life, so unlike our
own. So we used to mark those passages and skip the rest.
And I was ten.

Now, I'm not much different from her. Except that she
was going to live. She knew she was not going to die. We
knew it too. As I lie here I don't dare think of what I know,
so I'll think of myself when young myself as a child at
school, when life was all future. Time must move backwards
for me now. My past is all I have left. But it was a rich time.

And I was so physically alive then, too. Oh, yes, I was small
for my age, but I could run like a hare. Yes, and dodge like
one, too. There wasn't much time for games, but sometimes
on the way home I stopped for a little while to play Prisoners
Base, a game which put a premium on speed and dodging. I
wonder if anyone plays it now? I loved it. Primarily because
it suited my abilities, and also because no one got hurt in the
game. Even at that age I had my own pelt in full view.

One of the masters at the school yearned to turn me into a
halfback, a prospect which filled me with horror. By plead-
ing my inability to stay for the after-school practices I staved
him off for a long time until, one day, he discovered I had
lunch at school. That tore it. He was in a position to compel
me to play, because he was a teacher and that office also gave
him license to abuse me as a "gutless coward/' He was right,
of course.

When the Selection Committee asked me about sport, I
made up a moderately good autobiography, framed with care
to make it quite untraceable. It featured team games and
manly sports, because Selection Committees run to that sort
of thing. I didn't draw to their several attentions that to me a
manly sport always involved a girl.

5*

Where was I? Playing Prisoners Base and growing towards
ten. And meekly enduring my brother's reproaches for being
late home. From where he sat, "minding Mother/' he could
see the children playing in the road, and it was his turn to go
out when I came home from school. He grew irritable watch-
ing them play Prisoners Base.

Making money. Ever tried to? It all happened because
we had a baby sister. Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered if
the neighbors hadn't acquired a daughter at about the same
time. It was my brother who drew the situation to my atten-
tion.

The baby girl opposite had the prettiest baby clothes and,
while such things scarcely counted with boys, it was a serious
matter with girls who were notoriously different in this line.
Thus my brother. Which left the problem squarely where it
belonged: in my lap.

We talked it over a good deal. Almost at once we rejected
the idea of making anything ourselves, because it was clear
there were catches in it. So we had to make some money.

Our first attempt was fishing, because we had seen floun-
ders for sale at half a crown a bundle, and that measure of
wealth was almost unbelievable. I think we sat for three days
with our homemade hooks before we decided to give up the
idea. It was only later we discovered that flounders were
caught in nets. We tried to make a net but it used up too
much string.

Then inspiration came to me: literary inspiration. We
read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to each other for
the money-making ideas that were so plentiful there. The
pity was that none of them applied to a New Zealand small
town where everyone did their own mowing, painting and

53

the like. In any case we were a lot younger than our heroes
and not many people would trust a nine-year-old with paint.

Now, while we were fishing many folk passed us on their
way to the bridge upstream. My brother had a very bright
idea. The bridge was undoubtedly in a bad position since the
road ended on the riverbank near where we fished but the
bridge was nearly a mile upstream. Of course another road
led to it but there was no denying, said my brother, that a
ferry would be a howling success. The construction of the
ferryboat took us weeks. For reasons of strength and carrying
capacity we made it of corrugated roofing iron and fixed two
outriggers alongside from which we, the ferrymen, proposed
to operate sweeps. You will see at once that the whole of the
commodious interior was thus reserved for revenue earning.
We ran into debt, however, during the construction. Lead-
headed nails, for example, were one of those things we just
couldn't make.

Still the launching date did eventually arrive. It was the
deviFs own job getting our boat down to the water, partly be-
cause of its weight, chiefly because we had to keep everything
secret in case our plans were interfered with by adults. No
nine-year-old ever really knows where he is with adults.

It was very early in the morning when we were finally in a
position to edge our hopes gently into the water. It sank at
once.

We could see it easily where it lay on the bottom, once the
stirred-up mud had subsided. By now we were inured to the
failure of our schemes but I think we both cried a little, each
with his back to the other. You see, we were in debt. A
shilling.

Then we tried to salvage the wreck. We didn't dare ask for

54

help either. We feared the laughter that would surely follow.
I remember my brother saying: "Do you think, if we pulled
them out very carefully, and straightened them afterwards
. . . the ironmonger would take the lead-heads back?" I
looked at the lead-heads . . . driven erratically by small
boys so sure of financial success that drawing them out again
didn't occur to either. I looked at the crumpled heads and
the twisted shanks, and wondered somberly about that shil-
ling.

In the end I stole it. I worked one day for my brother on
his bread-cart job and I stole a shilling out of the change. So
we were out of debt. It's a wonderful feeling of relief to
know one's out of debt.

Years later I called on my employer of that day at his home.
I put half a crown on the table in front of him. "Conscience
money/' said I. He looked at it for a moment and then said
mildly, "It was only a shilling." "Interest for twelve years,"
said I. He spun the coin on the table and kept his eyes on it.
"I knew your father and mother," he said. "And your sister
and brother. Now I think I know you. I'll have a hole bored
in it and wear it on my watch chain."

"Half of it is my brother's," I pointed out. He blinked for
a moment and then said very quietly, "Of course." He held
the coin against his watch chain and we both looked at it.
"Did you toss to decide who was to give it to me?" I nodded.
He looked down at the coin again, tapped it with his finger.
"Tell him!" "Of course!" said I.

The situation about our baby sister still faced us. What to
do? Then we did what wiser people would have done much
earlier. We dropped in, by a carefully contrived accident, on

55

a woman we knew who worked in a shop where such things
were sold. We told her as much as we thought necessary but
then she questioned us at such length that she dragged a lot
of embarrassing detail from us. In the end we did discover
the price of the things we had in mind, but who on earth
ever had all that money?

Then all our troubles evaporated. We took a boarder!

The woman from the baby shop called on our mother and
asked to stay with us. As my mother was bedridden, the
whole thing was a deep mystery to us, but how wonderfully
everything changed for the better. Our boarder used to get
our breakfast before she went to work, she gave us cold
lunches and put food beside my mother. When she came
home from work, she bathed our sister and prepared her for
the night. The neighbors did a like office during the day.
During the weekends, she cleaned the house, saw that we
were bathed, cooked for the week ahead and was visited by
the man she was "going with."

Six years later our boarder married, went to live on a back-
blocks farm, reared a large family and, I hope, lived happily
ever after.

IT then became essential for me to win a scholarship, for I was
in my last year at primary school. I was lucky. The teacher
coached me ruthlessly. I know he disliked me but he said I
was to have a scholarship if it killed us both, and it jolly

56

nearly did. Perhaps he pitied me because the odds were all
against my chances, in a field up to four years older. Perhaps
he got some sort of pleasure out of doing his best for me re-
gardless of how he felt about the sharp little twerp I must
have seemed.

Behold me, then, on my first day at high school. My vices
you already know, but add to them, clean but woefully
patched clothing of an outmoded style, the peaked look pe-
culiar to those whose meals are porridge, very filling at the
time but pitifully inadequate towards midday, and a talent
for making enemies unsurpassed since Caligula. My youth
and physical frailty were added insults to my elders and bet-
ters. I was so small that the school furniture was much too
large for me. The other boys were too big for me, too. They
used to conspire to walk behind me and' tramp on my heels
until the bone showed. This treatment formed hideous
sores, and sleep became a problem, but my eyes were on ma-
triculation and the sooner the better; so the formative years
moved on.

Formative influences. First, after my books comes the in-
fluence of my father. Have you wondered why it has taken
me so long to get around to him? Books: my father: perhaps
I should say that, as my father introduced me to books, the
two influences reinforced or supplemented each other, so
that in these years I have difficulty in distinguishing between
what I learned from my father and what I learned from
books.

You must meet my father. He was the town drunkard and
his passion for gambling was the complement of his heavy
drinking. Yet there was something call it what you like
a sort of flame, and he was to kindle it in me. Gosh, how

57

Victorian that sounds. The only thing in its favor is that it's
true and I can't say it in any other way. Does he sound some-
thing like the "lovable drunk' ' who is the stock-in-trade of
some American novelists? They might have found my father
lovable, but he found them false, and that to him was unpar-
donable in an artist. He despised them. No one, not even I,
quite despised my father. He was so gentle. Yet he could be
so gently firm. That is when all his weaknesses didn't get in
the way of his firmness.

A small boy lay on a hot beach and watched the combers
curl over and break. A very proper occupation for a sum-
mer's day and a small boy, both of which are made for each
other. But did you know that just before it breaks, the water
is so thin that you can see the light through it, and it's yellow
yes, yellow not green, but yellow. It was so this day,
and a few gulls winnowed back and forth. Scavenging, of
course. But beautiful, just the same.

Very nice companionable silence. My father's voice
scarcely broke it. "Your mother is rather wonderful. AH
women are like that, really." That was all the sex instruc-
tion he ever volunteered and all he thought necessary. I
have often wished I had lived up to it. You see, my father
was a weakling, a drunken gambler for pittances, but from
him I learned all that I subsequently found beautiful in life.
I don't drink much and I don't gamble at all at least, not
with money but all the other splendid qualities of my fa-
ther I lack. Had I his courage, his tolerance, his strangely
aloof breadth of view, his patience; why should I write to
you?

He knew how to live and he learned how to die.

58

Perhaps you think o him as a sort of dissolute Mr. Chips?
Oh no. For one thing, he wasn't dissolute. That would im-
ply a littleness or meanness of soul. Not that he hadn't been
around. My mother told me that she had been warned about
him, right and left. She knew that when he left her, the rest
of the night was devoted to a selection of the ladies of the
town. She knew he drank to excess, but she was confident she
could reform him. Perhaps because she couldn't fail to know
she was on a very special footing. As she told me shortly be-
fore she died: ''Your father was so respectful to me/' Then
she laughed a little. "And when we were married I didn't
even know. Oh, well; it doesn't matter." Poor Mother.
"'And somehow, long before he said anything I knew it was
him or no one- If he'd said to me, 'Let's go and live on a des-
ert island' I wouldn't even have asked which one."

When he was young, I believe he must have been hand-
some, but it was his bubbling gaiety which my mother best
remembered. I had not ever known him that way but
mother would dredge her memory and bring forth the oddest
.examples. "Of course/' she assured me, "he was very hand-
some, and half the women in the street where we lived use to
call to him as he went by. Nothing to take exception to, but
if he had given them any encouragement there was some-
thing about him that reminded women that they were
women he could turn it on and off like a light. After
that," said Mother firmly, "he was the most loyal man who
-ever lived/' I couldn't resist the dig "And did he ever try it
-on you?" Mother blushed. "I'm an old woman," she said.
"Oh, well, once. And I remember it like yesterday, and him
years dead. I've been a very lucky woman/'

My father was the last of a long line of drunkards on both
: sides of his family and nobly he maintained the family tradi-

59

tion. Little by little, he sank lower and lower. When we
were small he worked on the wharves. When he worked.
Long hours in those days and heavy brutally heavy
work. Yet the long hours and the heavy work, which must
have been agony for him, never marred the serenity of his
spirit or the sincerity of his drinking. I was his other pas-
sion. My brother was much more likable really, and I would
readily admit it. He was my father's usual companion, but I
had him most often alone. All this, while my mother lay
still, all her life in her eyes. How were we to know that she
would outlive him by over a decade? Two small boys
couldn't know. But their father did. I wonder where my
father picked up his extraordinary education. My mother
had no idea. None of us ever asked. Yet everything he told
me came true in the testing, even when uncomprehended at
the time. As ...

"And a cry of 'Thalatta, thalatta/ ran down the ranks.
Yes, the sea.

"So the ten thousand Greeks weren't lost any more, they
had come home."

Greek was Greek to me but, across the dumb centuries,
Xenophon spoke to my father and he told me. And how I
felt for the wretched slave boy being questioned by Socrates.
And how quiet it was when the Phaedo had moved to its
quiet end: "Thus died our friend, the wisest, noblest and
best man that has ever lived." Hear him? Hear me from
under his long shadow! You cast a long shadow too. Do
recognize Everyman when you see him. If this accursed war
spares you and doesn't destroy the essential you in passing,
why then, you'll grow to know why I write to you. If that is
the reason.

And do you care if, when he quoted Shakespeare sonnets,

6o

he almost certainly had my mother in mind? And wouldn't
she be surprised. Yes, surprised, and more than a little
puzzled. Of course I checked what I could of the quotations
in my library.

Do you get any glimpse of him through all this?

He loved me devotedly. My brother, too. When we were
very small people used to say, "Here comes the man with the
babies." Yes, we were the apple of his eye. Yet the publi-
cans wore my gold medals on their watch chains and a small,
frightened boy collected his father and took him home when
the pubs closed at nine. It was so hard to keep awake outside
and there were false alarms when patrons left early. When I
timidly pushed in, barmen offered a drink of raspberry or
shoved lunch across the counter, but we had been told never
to touch it or we might become drunkards too. I suppose I
must have looked dead to the world, asleep on my feet, so
they silently watched me take my father away. Do you know
I've never tasted raspberry and I often ached for the food?

Then, one day, Mother moved her head. Definitely
moved her head. We both saw it. It didn't just aimlessly
droop or lolL It moved. And her eyes showed that she
knew. Four months later she walked again. Slowly and very
painstakingly we taught her. She was so heavy to support
and we didn't dare risk a fall. If only she could take up the
household work again, and we could play as other children
did; and how we longed for just that. But we were afraid to
hurry the process and eventually we had our reward. Then
we found that we had grown away from our contemporaries
and had forgotten how to play. We were years older than
they were.

About this time it became clear that we must go to work

6i

after school. We lied flatly about our ages but I don't think
we deceived anyone. Still, I worked in a printing press, in-
side the machines, and when the paper broke I called to the
operator who stopped the press. My brother worked on a
baker's cart. He was more exposed to the weather but he
had better opportunities for stealing pies and buns, and best
of all, he didn't have to contend with the perpetual roar and
crash of the press which exploded in my head long after I was
in bed. However, I could frequently steal the last few copies
from the press and try to sell them on the streets so, although
he was the better fed, I was the better financed.

We hated each other a little as boys of an age will do. But
we combined well against strangers. My brother was grow-
ing bigger than I and was of much more help to my father in
the little jobs they did together. Besides he was handy in
practical things where I was clumsy. I wonder if I really did
scheme for a share of my father? It's hard to tell at this dis-
tance, but I do believe that I cultivated an interest in music
and plays with that end in view. My father used to whistle
operatic arias to me, or the theme of a symphony, he had a
marvelous ear which I wish I had inherited. When 1
couldn't reproduce them, I used, as skillfully as possible, to
sidetrack him on to drama. He drew the scenes for me and
took all the parts.

What began, I suppose, as a ruse, became of absorbing in-
terest to us both.

I wonder where he heard that music, saw those plays.

Then I won another scholarship, a further medal or two
and matriculation followed. I was too young to go to Uni-
versity, and in any case, an idea so absurd never entered my
head, at least, not for public consumption. What to do?

i6

So I began to teach. It was that or the public service. I was
smaller than some of my pupils and younger, too. I wonder
why no one followed up my failure to produce a birth certifi-
cate. As it was, everyone else had a job by February, but it
was April before I got a start. I became a "pupil teacher," a
sort of apprentice, and I suppose I was a very poor one. Too
frightened. Until I found that my acid tongue could keep
discipline for me, at least in the classroom. I often won-
dered what I would do if I were "waited for" as I had been
while a pupil at this same school. As it was I had to teach in
boy's shorts, until I had earned enough to buy men's longs.
But once I wore long trousers and the class still wore their
shorts, there was no further possibility of trouble. I was a
teacher and entitled to be called "sir."

Some of the pupil-teachers were girls, which ensured ago-
nies of shyness on my part and half-wondering acceptance
on theirs. I think they regarded me rather as a medieval
court would a particularly sharp-witted dwarf. I did a great
deal of their work for them and I even took an occasional re-
proof for one or another of them. At the time I wondered
why I did these things and impatiently recalled my previous
concentration on saving my own skin. I also became, for me,
quite sensitive about what people thought of me. How was I
to know that the onset of adolescence had upset all my values?
Oh, adolescence is a rebirth all right, but no one realizes that
at the time.

One day a girl kissed me, for a joke. I now know that she

63

was merely practicing on a lay figure something she should
have reserved for the climax of intercourse. Yes, it was one
of those kisses. I was so profoundly shaken that I didn't kiss
another girl for a very long time. Even now, the scent of the
cheap powder she used will drift uncalled across my mind
with an eroticism that nothing since has ever equalled.

She subsequently married a policeman, had many chil-
dren, grew very fat, failed to recognize me when we met
again and treat^tl me with some deference when she found
out who I was. But to me, she will always be the red-haired
child-woman who practiced her sexuality on me.

By now I was better dressed and not so angularly fam-
ished. My speech, copied sedulously from my father's, was
quiet and slow and perhaps just a shade precious. That's one
of the perils of a too careful imitation. Of course, if I was re-
ally interested the words tumbled over each other in their
eagerness to make thought patterns. Lord, how I loved to
talk! Still do. Hence all this writing to you. You're my au-
dience, and I love you, my dear, dear public. Don't mind all
that; all I mean is I love to talk.

People began to listen to me and I experienced the heady
delights of an impromptu audience. Obviously I was odd,
but equally obviously, I had brains and I was wryly amusing*
You know, as I run over things in my mind I'm not sure if
I'm describing you or me. The sure sign of successful climb-
ing was the folk who extended invitations to me. Once in-
deed, the doctor who brought me into the world. Well, welL
Yet, on these visits I was always in fear of some solecism or
other which would undo all the good work. I began to lie
more carefully, and to a pattern. The old careless improvisa-
tions were laid aside.

64

One Sunday evening I was returning from a visit to some
friends of the newer order. The son of the house, about my
age or a little older, and I, were escorting his cousin to her
home. Halfway, she remembered that her home was on my
route so she decided that there was no need for him to come
farther. We walked on alone, along the river's edge where
the lupins grew tall. Presently we found ourselves at full
length among them and the scent of lupin flowers was heavy
on the air. Lupin flowers on a hot summer's night, the as-
tringent smell of the crushed leaves and green stems, the lit-
tle crackle of dry seed pods as we turned towards each other.

Not that I noticed this at the time. There seem to be a lot
of things I didn't notice at the time. How, for example, did I
discover that she had nothing yes, nothing under her
frock? It was a light summer frock, too. How in the world
did she get away with it? Yes, yes, so many things not to no-
tice; the practiced way in which the lady prepared herself for
seduction, making herself as comfortable as one can on lu-
pins; her obvious need, and her manifest satisfaction with
me.

Perhaps my abashed eagerness stirred her jaded desires
yes, jaded at eighteen! She taught me the most exciting sex-
ual caresses, and I first learned, there in the lupins, that what
I did to her excited her as much as it did me. I suppose I was
pretty oblivious of the extremely talented performance that
was, probably, wasted on me. I do know that few people,
apart from Marian, have even approached her virtuosity.

Next morning I suddenly began to fear consequences, not
for her, but for me. For the nine days that gutter sex knowl-
edge required I endured agonies of apprehension and self-
examination, then hied me to a doctor. Oh yes, it's funny
now but it wasn't at the time.

65

Naturally, I never saw her again. But does anyone ever
forget the first one? I don't pretend there was anything more
to it than a couple of animals in heat; there wasn't. But it
gives me a better understanding of our dumb friends.

I have since tried upon many people the exciting things
she taught me, to their, and my satisfaction. Every young
person should be initiated into sex by someone of experi-
ence and skilled in that delicate and sophisticated coopera-
tion.

The knowledge of one's ability to awaken desire is a heady
thing. An arrogant thing. As the lady's resistance weakens
there's a fierce and fiery delight in being a man. But the fire
dies.

17

THE letter in the rack was the usual one. I'd been touring
the east coast and I had my very good reason for not wishing
my address known. My mother's pointed handwriting, so ob-
viously learned a generation ago. I put the letter in my
pocket and strolled along the corridor to work. Mother al-
ways collated all the family news but I hadn't had any for a
few weeks.

An hour or so later I had a chance to look at the letter.

". . . we didn't know how to get in touch with you. Your
father died a fortnight ago . . ."

I went on with my work. What else to do? ... a fortnight
ago . . . Nothing to do or say now.

I carried the letter around for several days before 1 could

66

bring myself to read the rest. Probably because I knew what
it would contain. I knew it would tell me, in my mother's
bare,- factual way, the whole grisly story. Mother never
missed details.

My father had been ill for a little time, I knew. You
know how I hate illness and that, somehow, enabled me to
put him out of mind. And now he was out of mind for ever.

In due course I went home.

My mother was lost as a widow. My father had brought her
nothing but misery. He had forced her to fight him for food
for the children, his drunkenness had ruined every chance for
a better life which she so laboriously built for him, the hu-
miliations she suffered no drunk could possibly imagine. And
he had been the one great passion of her life. She was lost
as a widow.

My brother looked at me coldly. "Like to hear about it?"
he asked. "Whether you like it or not you're going to hear
about it. Sit down!" I sat down. My brother stared at me
as though seeing me for the first time. He was angry but he
was puzzled too.

"I was always Dad's boy," he said, "we did everything to-
gether. Built flatties, fished, watered the garden when I was
too small to help with anything else, and then I grew strong
and capable with my hands. I helped him every way. We
were very close. I was his favorite. You knew that, didn't
you? I often wondered if you resented it but if you did you
never showed it. We were very close all right. The day I
capsized the flattie and clung, all morning, to the piles of the
bridge, confident that he'd miss the flattie, even if he didn't
miss me, and that he would find and rescue me, even though
I had been told never to touch the flattie, I knew he'd find

and rescue me. Gosh it was cold, waiting. Then, the days
we spent, just waiting for bites, not saying a word, just happy
to be together . . ." I listened dumbly.

". . . He was at work when it happened. He just dropped
where he stood and they took him away in an ambulance.
He worked until he dropped. There was no chance from
the beginning. They just opened him up, looked, and sewed
him up again. I should have noticed. By God, I should have
noticed. You were away and you couldn't be expected to
know, but, God in Heaven, I was here and he was right
beside me. It wasn't until he was gone that I remembered the
things I should have noticed: the hollows at the temples, the
loss o weight, the deepening lines not that he ever com-
plained. He was very brave. But his smile just seemed a
little faded . . ."

In the silence I saw my father between us. Little now, and
frail, his hair white and not curly any more, his broken
nose, his eyes faded and rheumy from too much beer, the gay
alertness all gone now. The sand running out now.

My brother looked at me carefully. "Not a chance from
the beginning. They let us visit him when he wished. That
was intended to be kind. He had something leading into his
wrist, and something else in his nose. He tired very easily.
I wonder what kept him alive.

"And always, when we came, he looked above and behind
me. Above my shoulder. You're taller than me and you'd
have showed up beyond me, if you'd been there. He didn't
say much but his eyes asked for you. We told him we didn't
have your address, but any day now, any day now. I used to
sit and watch him and think of the time when we nursed
our mother. Remember? How alive her eyes were! But the

68

light was fading out of Dad's. He was an old man who knew
it was time to go. But he hung on, long after he should have
been dead, waiting for you.

"We were very close, Dad and I. I was his favorite. Yet,
at the end it was you he wanted. Oh, well ..."

The brother I was just getting to know walked to the door
and stood, irresolute, with his hand on the knob. He is
printed in my memory. He was clearly debating whether to
say something further. ". . . you bloody snob, you despised
him; you and your bloody education you aren't fit to lick
his boots. Who set you on the path, eh? And me: I went
to work to keep the family so that you could study. Me. And
I might have been as bright as you. And you'd come home
and things would revolve round you, and you'd try your cheap
irony on us. And Dad said not to mind because it was part
of growing up, but, Christ, I did mind, and I was strong
enough to murder you, if I could get my hands on you, and
you were always so cunning at slipping away and I was
seldom quick enough, and I could never goad you. We never
had a row unless you had some sort of drop on me. He was
my father as well as yours . . /'

My brother went into the kitchen and began, absent-mind-
edly, to set about making me a cup of tea.

My mother wanted to talk too. She told me about the se-
date miracle of her courtship. "He courted me for over ten
years. That was a long time even in those days. Everyone
warned me against him, but I wouldn't listen, or if I did I
didn't hear. He was a lot older than me, and, when we were
married, he faked the age he gave the minister." Mother gig-
gled a little nervously at the enormity of it all. "I didn't
know he drank all his money and that we couldn't get married

until I had saved enough. But that ten years and more
passed like a day.

"We were so much in love. Your father always treated me
with the greatest respect. Anyway, we were married and we
left the city to make our fortunes in this little town. We
never left it. Your father was always anxious to visit his par-
ents and his brothers but he would not return to the city
unless he could do it in style make a splash. He just had
to impress people. Of course, he drank everything and so he
gambled in shillings on very long chances in the hope of a
very big win and a triumphant return to the city. It never
came."

I mumbled something about it being a shame how he had
ruined her life. I supposed that that was what she wanted me
to say. But she stared at me with indignation and amaze-
ment.

"Your father was a wonderful man. I have been a very
lucky woman. I don't know what I can tell you to prove it
to you. Drink apart, there was nothing in him that wasn't
good. He was honorable, patient, kind, and very brave. I wish
I could make you see wait a minute though you know he
did all the housework for me after your sister was born, you
know that; the cleaning, the washing, the cooking at the
weekends."

I nodded, thinking of what my brother and I had done at
the same time realizing that it hadn't been of the magnitude
that two small boys had imagined. But she was not done.
". . . and there was one other thing . . . (she hesitated a
long time, struggling with her sense of propriety, and then,
suddenly, made up her mind and took the plunge) . . .
when your sister was born I had a very bad time. I nearly died.

70

And another child would certainly have killed me. So your
father went to see a doctor. But all the doctors in town were
very good men . . . very religious, and they wouldn't tell
him anything. Your father was very upset. So he moved into
the boys' room and slept there for the rest of his life. You
must remember it. You wouldn't understand what that meant
to a man like your father. It must have been terrible for him.
Terrible. It's not so bad for a woman, but, oh, your poor,
poor father. Now do you see the kind of man your father was?

"I visited him every day in hospital. It used to take me a
long time to get there because there is no bus from where we
are. My legs, you know. He used to smile at me and call me
the names we used when we were courting. Sometimes we'd
sit for a long time without speaking. I wasn't a child when I
met him. And that was over forty years ago. We'd been to-
gether for a long time, and when we meet again 111 be more
patient with his weakness and be more grateful for the rest.
He used to look up so eagerly when we came. He did so look
forward to seeing me and the children, and, in spite of all my
cruelty to him, he wanted me more even than the children/ 1
Mother shook her head over the wonder of it. "Mind you, all
I did was for the sake of the children, but I see now how
cruel I was. There was one thing, though; the way he sort
of counted us, hoping for you. He wasn't able to move his
head so he stayed in the one position to see the door. Of
course he knew you'd have something very important on, but
he was disappointed all the same. The last time . . ."

She looked down at her hands. We all have that trick from
her. Or is it that I just noticed it in everybody? The one relic
of her beauty as a young girl, her lovely hands, the almond
nails and the slim fingers. She cried softly to herself.

"... the last time, he very gently let my hand drop and
smiled . . . how could he smile at me! Smiled so sweetly, and
he said, I'll go to sleep now. Wake me when my son comes/
We tiptoed out. An hour later the neighbors came in to
say the hospital wanted to speak to me."

Sound trumpets on the other side! Sound trumpets for my
father. And wake him when his son comes!

18

LONDON is a poor place to spend a leave. Compared with,
say, Chicago, it isn't half so crudely alive. Or perhaps it was,
once, before the war. Or again, it could be that we just didn't
know where to look. Have it your own way. Yet London
has its points. How's that for presumption?

The most interesting thing about the city is the changes in
the habits of the people as a result of the war. All right, all
right, I know nothing at first hand about their prewar habits,
but I've read plenty and been told more. Especially, from op-
posite sides, by Geoff and Alec. But at the time I'm talking
about I was in London for the first time. In the middle of an
Alert. They call the alarms "alerts" now; it doesn't sound so
panicky. Fancy picking the middle of an Alert to begin to get
to know Londonl On second thoughts, if a city 5 its people,
what better time?

Pip and I nipped into one of the sections of the Tube which
had been closed to make a refuge. Nothing short of a bomb

7*

plunging down the escalator could do any damage and even
at that there are twists and turns to be negotiated which make
it most unlikely.

In consequence everyone feels very safe and tries to set up
a life similar to the former one. There are even permanent
residents and pathetic attempts at making the place home-
like. Women and children predominate. The women are
washed-out, worn-out slum mothers; the children are perky
with the chirpiness of rather undernourished sparrows.
Their pale narrow faces and their general air of the gutter
revolted me. Not so Pip. He was immediately on the friend-
liest terms with everyone and indescribably filthy clawlike
hands were pawing over his uniform. I don't know how he
stood it. I'm told that rationing and feeding in school means
the youngsters are better nourished than ever in peacetime.
I hope so, but there's a long way to go.

The air was heavy with the sour smell of an overcrowded
sleeping place and over it all hung, almost visibly, the stench
of unwashed humanity permanently sealed in its unwashed
clothes, and of lice-infested hair.

The really amazing thing, though, was the way the women
went about their accustomed motions of putting children to
bed for the night. A quarrel or two flared up and died
down listlessly. "What's the use?"

A couple of pros, still in their teens, made a tentative pass
at us. To my surprise Pip encouraged them. They were
desperately thin and we both like a little flesh on our women.
Their tawdry finery merely indicated how little there was in
the trade. Or how poorly they plied it.

Pip made all the arrangements while I wondered what the
hell was biting him and we went to a pub in the neighbor-

73

hood as soon as it was safe. We had a drink or two and
some food and then they retired to powder their noses. I
tackled Pip at once. Gosh, did he really think I was interested
in whatever they chose to powder? He mumbled something
about the "poor bitches need the money and they'd be
sore if we just gave it to them/' Fancy Pip seeing so far
into the feminine mind. He actually knew what consti-
tuted an insult to a prostitute, even a 'prentice one. Not that
that was any help.

'Tor God's sake/' said I, "don't you know, you dim-wit,
that everyone is directed to employment. These girls are
probably earning more than they've ever had in their lives
before. They certainly don't need the money. How the hell
do you propose to get us out of this?" Pip looked at me in a
most trusting way. "I'd made sure you'd work that one out.
And if they don't need the money, what the devil are they in
the game for? Oh, well, I suppose men are a bit short."

What a mess! I nipped along to an office phone and made
hurried arrangements with the only friend of ours I could
lay my hands upon. He agreed to ring back in five minutes.
Pip explained I was just notifying the station where we
were.

The ring came through. I did the lying. Pip did the cor-
roborating. We did a little hurried lovemaking as a sop to
their pride and then I discovered that mine wasn't even good
at her game and was desperately frightened. I asked her the
obvious question. Apparently Pip had been luckier. Mine
wanted a man but she didn't want disease. And she did want
babies to go with the man (singular). My Luck! Perhaps
it was, too.

To close off the matter as neatly as possible, we asked them

74

to see us off at the station. Or rather, I asked. Pip just
looked startled. Serve the dumb cluck right. I let him stew
all the way to the station and paid no attention to his frantic
mumbles about somebody would see us and . . . mumble,
mumble. The girls were absurdly flattered and I exerted
myself quite a bit during the drive. Let Pip sweat!

However, when we got to the station I pointed out
to them that they'd never get another taxi to take them back
so we paid the driver for the return trip. Their thrifty souls
just would not permit them to come farther when the taxi
was actually paid for. Pip's sigh of relief was probably heard
in New Zealand.

On the platform he grunted "Got any sisters?" "No,"
said I, lying stoutly. "Neither have I, thank God/' said he.

19

BILL was on a training station not far from us. You'd have
liked Bill. Drunk or sober, he was a most entertaining chap.
I believe he'd been in the R.A.F. aerobatic teams in those
prewar aviation shows. You know the idea aircraft con-
nected by ribbons take off, loop, etc., all in perfect unison. It's
harder than it looks. And Bill was a dab at it. He could make
an aircraft sit up and beg. Everything went well with him.
He had that touch that some people have with horses. What-
ever it was, he had it. I never saw him fly but his name was
legend.

When I knew him he was sitting on his bum as a Link

75

Trainer Instructor. Think of that. L.T.I, for a man like
him.

It was the grog that did it. He just couldn't leave it alone.
I never saw him in the mess without a noggin in his hand.
He was short, dark, thin and handsome the very beau ideal
of a pilot and his voice was the pleasantest I've heard;
there was always a little laugh in it. Even when he was in-
dignant about his treatment he spoke always with a wry
laugh in his voice. It gave his remarks a cynical air which I
doubted if he intended.

He was incapable of sustained anything. He was the most
charming weakling that ever lived. And what a way he had
With women!

I used to nip about the countryside a bit whenever I could
scrounge a ride. He used to do the same. So frequently, we
were competitors for the one remaining seat. Isn't it ironic
that the finest pilot of England should be ferried about by
people who were in every aerial way his inferiors? But you
could trust Bill as far as you can kick a grand piano.
He wouldn't willingly do anyone any harm, but he just
couldn't help involving others in his misfortunes es-
pecially women. He didn't mean a thing, but they would
insist that he did.

Occasionally there'd Bte more than one vacant seat and
we'd get off together. I'll never forget one time.

The very young pilot had heard vaguely of Bill and in-
quired politely if he'd "like a go." Bill gave the controls
such a hungry look as to startle me mightily; just for a mo-
ment what makes a super pilot showed through: the lover and
the loved one.

He inched into the seat. And I'll swear she felt the differ-

76

ence. I know we did. Even when he spent the first few mo-
ments familiarizing himself with the feel of the aircraft, he
did it with such an air. Authority in every sweeping curve,
yet concealed by a superb flair. Almost casually he beat up a
certain house in a way you'd not believe, then pulled off the
tightest turn I've ever been in because he wanted "to see
if she'd come out to look." She came out all right. I nearly
did the same. Once he'd secured the audience he wanted:
oh Lord! Once we were upside-down in a quarry! True
Rock overhead and all around and the only glimpse of blue
sky squarely under the feet so to speak. We went looking for
specimens of foliage in half the local copses.

It was a very shaken young pilot who sat us down at our
destination. As he mumbled to me as we shambled off the
tarmac: "If he's a bloody pilot what the hell am I?" What,
indeed?

20

ALL the current hoo-ha about new explosives and bombs
should interest you. Blockbusters and the like sound well
but they don't really represent a new departure. No matter
how heavy the bomb, no matter how refined its manufacture,
the fact remains that it is simply a device to turn a solid
into a gas with the greatest possible increase of volume.
What we need is a new approach to destructiveness.

Do you remember our discussion about war in general?
You said war was policy. Nothing more. You advanced the

77

theory that all wars were decided in advance by a simple
comparison of industrial capacity. Andy raised inventive
capacity, and then, himself, tied it to industrial develop-
ment. I put up the idea of an ultimate weapon. Remember?
And you asked me to what end. I think we agreed that the
ultimate weapon was the one which would enable us to de-
mand, in perfect safety, whatever we would of the enemy,
without loss to ourselves; and he in no position to refuse.

Do you remember it all grew out of Andy's star recogni-
tion and the recognition of stars by color. We got round to
stellar temperatures and how they were maintained. Re-
member that one too? And Andy said that the ultimate
blackmail would be for someone to threaten to turn the
earth into a small and insignificant star. To bring the cos-
mic experiment (man) to mere pointlessness. Fantastic, of
course. Probably absurd as well. But, at the time, I
wouldn't see where the argument was absurd. What worries
me is that I can't see it now either. If I am to go, I'm most
anxious that something should survive me.

An earth-destroying bomb means one world forthwith.
Unless both sides hit on it at the same time. Is that possible,
do you think? Scientific discoveries are in the air.

Andy wanted to argue each point, step by step. Then he
dropped it like a shot because you were convincing him and
he didn't want to be convinced. Not that he didn't want a
world state. We all do. It's just that he couldn't stomach
how it all was to come about. I told you before that Andy was
a man with a mission.

Queer what brings men to war. Individual men, I mean.
Andy is centuries out of time. He honestly and genuinely
believes, in spite of all the evidence, that this war is a war to

7 8

end wars. When I, aping you, tell him cynically that that is
very possible, he isn't thrown the least off balance. He admits,
as he must, that the war-to-end-all-wars stuff was used by
greasy politicians in the past. And in the present, too. But
he thinks it's different this time. Like a fool, I asked why it
should be. And Andy showed me why, and I got his point.
Wouldn't I like to live to see the greasy bunch at West-
minster dazedly discover that what they had so loudly been
trumpeting as truth was in fact that very commodity.

Can Negroes, in Africa as well as America, ever be the
same postwar? Say around 1949, if this is to be another
Ten Years' War. Can Britain? And what will happen to
France overseas, now that the French have relied so much on
native troops?

What chaos we'll have in devastated, fought-over, liber-
ated Europe. All the old landmarks gone. In essence, I sup-
pose we are fighting this war to divide up Germany into
several pieces so that she will not menace the rest in our life-
times. But will the victors stick together until this is ac-
complished? I am supposing that our side is to be the vic-
tor.

And then there is Asia. Japan doesn't really matter. The
Chinese will absorb Japan as they have absorbed much more
formidable folk in the past. And what of the Colonies? "I
doubt," said Andy, "if a sahib will be more than a philolog-
ical curiosity after the war/'

Where were we? Oh, why individual men go to war. I once
asked Pip why he was in it. "Why not?" he answered. And
that is an answer too. Anyone could see he found immense
satisfactions in Air Force life. Comrades; opportunities; the
chance to show his mettle.

79

Geoff came in from conviction. Who strikes at Britain
strikes at Geoff and all like him. He, the most complicated of
us, came in for the simplest motives. Don tells me that when
one's friends are about to join up one's own thoughts turn in
the same direction. Simple, isn't it?

Everyone has his own beliefs as to what we're fighting
about. And that's not necessarily the same as what we're
fighting for. We all see our postwar worlds differently. Yet,
oddly enough, everyone sees this or that most remarkably
changed, but his own little island of interests is unchanged
in the midst of a sea of change. A jungle of change, rather.

I wonder why I joined the Air Force.

21

"BRIEFING room/' said Pip. "All of youse."

We all grinned at him and drifted along. Everyone
grinned at Pip. His square head with its jug-handle ears and
bashed-in nose, the firm thud of his oversize shoes, all
these were a delight to the uncritical eye. In Civvy Street he
had been a wharfie. "Stevedore," said someone. "Christ,
no!" said Pip. "Stevedore: like hell! Stevedores tell us when
we work." Now, how on earth did Pip get here, so early in
the piece?

He had been commissioned with manifest reluctance on
the part of the powers that be, but how had he got in at all?
Apparently, once in, there must have been trouble about the
publicity siphoned off from the glamour boys up the way and
so commissioned he was. And he was a great success. Air

8o

crews and ground crews alike. You see, he spoke both their
languages, and a sort of digest of technicalities, Air
Force slang and plain bad language. And the beautiful thing
about it was that he was completely unaware that it was not a
merely normal form of address.

In action he was the coolest, most calculating estimator
of risks and possibilities. He was an excellent judge of im-
possibilities and never attempted them, on the basis that he,
the crew and the aircraft all had values to themselves and
the Air Force, intact. His "bloody hero" was the most
scathing condemnation he knew. He admired nothing so
much as competence, for each man in his field. The mere
sight of his own competent, square, work-ingrained dirty
hands about his patter was confidence-inspiring.

He had his pick, I'd think, of all the navigators in the pool
and he chose me. Once I asked him why.

"Passed out top of the course, didn't yuh? Well, for naviga-
tor ju-ju yuh gotter have brains, see. Lots of brains. Bloody
brains for what the others don't think about. And yuh got
them."

"What about other qualities?" I asked.

"Brainsll do," he replied. And with that the topic closed.

I'll give up trying to indicate his speech phonetically and,
in any case, Don thinks it phony.

Pip never questioned anything I did; never seemed to con-
sider it necessary. And he never showed the faintest desire
to learn anything of what I was about. Perhaps he wisely
resolved to leave the theory to those who had to like it. The
result was that I slaved for him the way I did for you. We've
been in shaky do's together. We've been most places together
and I know him. There is such a thing as friendship be-

8i

tween men. He had the most extraordinary sense of humor,
or rather, the broadest sense of fun. I never tried any-
thing but the broadest jokes on him. And how he enjoyed
them! I enjoyed his enjoying them.

From all this you might think of him as a sort of Caliban.
Nothing of the kind. Within the limits of his actual expe-
rience he was the most intelligent person I've ever known and
quite the most forceful and lovable. There'll never be an-
other like Pip, will there, Don? His like comes once in a
century and lucky folk warm their lives momentarily in his
passing.

All I'm saying was pre-Marian.

Marian. Marian! She was so gorgeously turned out one
might imagine her lacquered. Isn't a lacquered surface
something hard and shiny used as a finish over a quite differ-
ent material?

I have never seen Marian at a loss. The only time I can
imagine her at a loss, I wasn't there to see. In her way she
was as competent as Pip in his, but how different the field of
competence.

Her sleek perfection began at her shoes. Who was it said
that it's possible to tell a woman by her shoes? Lovely shoes
she wore. And she had the loveliest legs. And a body calcu-
lated to awaken the carnal desires of a wooden Indian we saw
outside a tobacconist's shop in Chicago. Her hair, dear God,
as near perfect as to deter oh well, deter. I'd like to go
over Marian, feature by feature, and not too literally either,
but I'm damned if I see why I should pander to your slaver-
ing. Maybe you think you could handle her and maybe
you're right, but the encounter wouldn't be all one-sided, my
observant friend.

82

Now what has all this to do with my Pip? The fact of the
matter was she was going to marry him! Bloody well true!
Now, why the hell should she bother? The war is the chance
for such as Marian and the sea is full of good fish. Poor fish!
Why Pip?

Besides, I found later she had, at this time, made up her
mind "to make something of him." She recognized the force
of him. The war was the chance for Pip, too. She saw there
was a sort of power in him which had been waiting for just
this opportunity, slowly maturing against the time of need.
Pip was destined for greatness, if he lived. Not for him the
promotions by survival which will ensure an odd crop of
postwar senior officers. Pip blazed 1

Marian saw all this, and perhaps more besides, but she
didn't see, as we did, that her grooming would destroy the
essential man, and when she "had made something of him"
there would be nothing left. The bawdiness and it was all
of that! virility, courage, shrewdness, cyclonic energy, foul
language, contempt for manners, tactless and fundamental
honesty, simple directness of soul all that was Pip. We
hated her.

Of course, we didn't know more than a part of this at the
time. It leaked out, a little at the time through the sprung
staves, so to speak. Pip was so overcome by the wonder of it
all that it was possible to piece things together.

All this went through my mind as I looked at him, looked
at his back as I drifted along to briefing behind him. I
wondered what to do about it.

Briefing was a much more thorough job than usual. Not
that it isn't fairly well done at all times, but today, however,
everyone knew something big was brewing. The station-

master opened the proceedings with a "lead up" to Paris. He
put across the usual line about the care of historical monu-
ments, not hurting the feelings of the Free French and so on
and so on. No one listened to the silly old bastard after he
said Paris. The real information came later and it was "the
Renault Works/' which didn't mean a thing to us as we'd
never seen them. We knew they were large and that about a
couple of hundred bombers would be necessary to do them
in. If the idea really was to do them in.

Don't believe all the nonsense you doubtless read about
bomb damage. It is not nearly as great as the propaganda
boys imagine, nor is precision bombing anything other than
a statement of pious intent. In target areas, unload and get
out! Get out, and thank God for the let out.

The fornicator took us to the dispersal point and we did
the necessary. Then, wonder of wonders, up pops the station-
master for a final blather. "Wish I were coming with you
boys," etc. and etc. "It must be a piece of cake!" said we.
So it was. So it was.

A lovely evening over Paris. A lovely evening for Paris.
The second dicky had been there before on his own private
business so he took us on a personally conducted tour before
the important public business of the evening. Dead on
E.T.A. we were on the job.

I personally released two gooo-pounders and felt the fa-
miliar upsurge as they left. And nothing happened!

I was never so disappointed in my life. But suddenly, the
roofs below stared upward at me and I'd have sworn that
pieces pattered on the aircraft and that an enormous breath
of air went sighing past us like the sound of a far-off mighty
wind. Of course, we didn't hear a thing and nothing like this

8 4

really happened but that's how It looked as though it
sounded.

There was no interference so we went on another tour.
We could have played Ring o* Roses round the Eiffel Tower
for all of Occupied Europe to see. And, all the time, one
small-caliber ack-ack gun piddling up at us: the sole air
defense of Paris. What a piece of cake. If the station-
master had been with us he'd have got a bar to his gong even
more cheaply than he collected the original. It was so easy
it's surprising there weren't more senior officers in on it. Our
Intelligence must have been seriously at fault or the atmos-
phere would have been stiff with braid.

"All our aircraft returned safely."

And so to bed, nicely filled out with sausage and mash. And
will you please tell me why I went to bed with Marian on
my mind?

Next day we read all about it in the newspapers. The po-
litical aspects were well thrashed out and the radio per-
formed miracles of what the Americans call "doubletalk."
But, rebuild the works as they may, the Jerries can't replace
the hundreds of skilled French workmen we killed and
that was the purpose of the raid.

Let the Free French meditate on that one.

Personally, I'll meditate on Marian.

Marian! Marian! Or, rather, Pip!

In the end we held a meeting to discuss the salvation of
Pip. All right, all right, 111 admit it was none of our business
and, I suppose, we'd never have had the hide to butt in if we
were still in Civvy Street. What a meeting!

I called it but was, as usual, too unpopular to be voted to
the chair. The whole show resolved itself into a committee

85

of ways and means. Ways to circumvent Marian and means
for the guy who was to do it. Everyone agreed that Pip had to
be shown Marian in her true light. Not that we knew, we
merely guessed; and I often wonder, these days, how right we
were and how much a louse I was. Later, of course, I got to
know Marian very well indeed. And I honestly think she
was lacquered.

Once the meeting got its mind made up, decided on ways
and raised a bit of cash, the question occurred to me:
"Who?" The meeting gave me a pitying look and the chair-
man thanked me in most unsuitable terms. So I was it!

Marian lived in town, in one of those quaint old-world
adapted mews. Marian lived damnably uncomfortably in
someone's abandoned coach house, at a most fashionable ad-
dress. "Arty," perhaps, rather than fashionable. The correct
adjective, I discovered, was either "charming" or "divine/*
depending on the kind of woman you were; the one with the
long pants or the one with the short. People of striking orig-
inality called it "unusual." How was it really so? Very dash-
ing blades, however, had yet other adjectives.

All the visitors were civvies. Shrewd little bitch, Marian.
A girl must live, but Pip had no existence apart from the Air
Force, so she ran no risk at all.

Behold me, then, in civvies too. I'd always wanted to
wear full evening dress but I've never owned anything bet-
ter than a dinner suit. When I ordered the trimmings, the
mess told me somewhat sourly to hire the goods. I pointed
out that no gentlemen ever wore hired tails. They asked me
to stick to talking about myself and added, as riders, a few
really good, if lewd, jokes about hired tails. Luckily, I'm
a standard "tall thin" model.

86

The big problem was to make the necessary accidental
acquaintance. We selected a victim, a fellow who knew Mar-
ian, a civvy naturally. We found one of his acquaintances and
then one of his> and finally found someone in a nearby mess
who knew the last. See the chain? I was passed by easy
stages from one to the other and so on. Eventually, I padded
round to the little mews with some blokes we met at a buck
theater party. Incidentally, this was my first meeting with
the expense account.

I don't mind admitting I was more than a little dicky and
muffed my first approach. However, she thought me shy and
took it as an enormous compliment to herself and was very
sweet to me. Noticing how the land lay, I laid it on a little
in a most ingenuous way I was younger than the rest. Ap-
parently no one wondered how a mere youngster could foot
it in that company. Just as well. The game was going to be
tougher than I thought.

Still, I was younger than the rest. Even if I didn't have an
expense account. Perhaps a lady could keep me as a pet?
No? As a matter of fact she couldn't resist the temptation to
"make something of me too. And did that work?

Now, let's take stock a bit. What are we trying to do? The
only thing that will shift Pip will be sexual infidelity.

Now, while I'm regarded as a shy ingenuous person who
somehow dances very well, but who, regrettably, doesn't
have any money, my chances are nil. Who wants to sleep
with Marian has to have the goods if he hasn't the money.
She has to be made to want to, which means I have to get
some sort of ascendancy over her. But how?

Actually, I grew a little less naive each time we met and
Marian loved it. She could see something for her work. It
must have been rather discouraging with Pip sometimes.

8 7

And all this time I laid off the warm and willing flesh else-
where and mortified my hormones in the interests of the
ultimate showdown.

Bit by bit, and ever so gently, I began to check the rein
on her. The thread by which I held her was so tenuous I
had to be bloody careful. Gently, brother. I hunted up
places to take her, then forced her to change her plans to
come with me. And the places were invariably very good.
I used to describe them to the mess as a partial return on
their investment since none could see for themselves. Some-
one might be recognized.

All this time I was getting to know Marian. She stood
so well. Her hair caught the light so. The only effect liquor
had on her was to make her eyes sparkle in a most attractive
way. That was because she never drank very much if there
were more than two present. In her own field she was su-
perb. I wonder what the Americans call girls of this kind?
They usually have picturesque euphemisms for the pleasures
of the flesh. I tried to worm out of her how she came to meet
Pip but the line grew too hot and I just averted a major dis-
aster. But I did hear a lot of Marian when young. It weak-
ened my resolution quite a bit. The war was her chance too.
Her chance to clean up while her beauty lasted. And she was
beautiful. Not pretty beautiful.

At first she gave me her official line, but later, the first
really undeniable sign of progress, was her confiding in me.
She was very determined to clean up, financially, and then
set up someone really capable in a line she had in mind. He
hadn't any money either but, in time, she'd have enough.

I heard less and less of the mysterious person who was to be
set up with Marian's money and she even neglected gilt-
edged opportunities on occasion. She frequently wanted

88

me to be a little "outrageous" with her. She liked, as our
acquaintance grew more intimate, me to "take liberties" as
the dear Queen would say. Believe me? I'm not quite sure
that I do. It was rather pathetic when she came out from be-
hind the lacquer. We went places where she didn't have to
worry about the perfection of her grooming. She even found
some old clothes. She lost interest in the exotic sex that had
shaken me more than a little and grew keen on just plain
lovemaking anywhere. We had a lot of fun at the foot of
sundry trees, and she didn't give a hoot about the possibility
of being seen. Oh, Marian!

And so Marian told Pip as much as was good for him. She
broke it very delicately to him, to give the devil her due
and then she met the other fellow to make some arrange-
ments which were, by now, urgently necessary.

Or, rather, she was to have met him.

22

I REMEMBER very well my first shaky do. The homing pi-
geon did actually lay an egg, not that I blame the bird. I'd
like to have done the same myself. The air was so thick with
missiles we breathed great gulps of air in the gaps between
them. I remember your saying that, in theory, ack-ack can
be watched coming up, so that it can be seen heading for the
old girl and then drifting slowly astern. It's true. But you
didn't mention the great greasy lumps in the sky, the frantic
weaving so fatal to the navigation of a novice, or the night
fighters, or the damnable feeling of emptiness.

And the flares and roman candles and searchlights are
oddly beautiful. Sometimes, they have up to fifty lights in
one cone and some poor devil gets caught and one can see the
long, obscene fingers gathering around him. An aircraft,
caught this way, looks rather like a bemused moth, a beau-
tiful silver moth. And then, there's just a red glow. No
one ever seems to get out of the cone. One has a rather hor-
rifying feeling of relief when the lights pick up someone.
They're bound to find someone, one feels, and the sooner
they catch someone else the better. Of course it's not a
reasonable feeling, but then in these circumstances we're not
reasonable people.

Homeward bound and don't spare the horses, James. But
where the hell are we? Set a course! Must set a course! The
trouble is what course? Weakly I curse the powers that be.
Why send a fellow on a do like this on his very first one?
Second thoughts: this isn't my first do, but it is the first shaky
one.

Scared to death, eh? And forgotten all you ever knew?
What course? Not a star, not a break in the cloud, no, not
one, not even as big as a man's hand.

Why didn't I notice the total cloud as we came over?

Two breaks at an interval of a few minutes. The ruddy
glow of Arcturus drooping low towards the horizon. Bless
Arcturus and bless the bloke that taught me to recognize it,
sight unseen. And triple blessings on the same head as I run
up the true track and the true ground speed in the manner
he taught me. Two position lines mean that we're as good
as home. Everyone in the aircraft knows the navigator has
two position lines and that the new boy has made good. This
time anyway. Everyone is happy. The gunners are think*

go

ing of food. We all think of food. The pilots think of
women. All pilots think of women before food, if not
before meals. Guess who's in Pip's mind. I think of E.T.A.
No one thinks now of the possible days in the dinghy. No
one thought of much else till I got those position lines.

One circuit before touchdown and a gorgeous gray dawn
following us round the sky. Food and bed in prospect.

Only one wheel goes down. Who cares? Lift it back
and down we go on our belly and slither to a stop. I clamber
out stiffly with a hand from Pip. We look towards the nose
where Don shoves up a thumb to us and down to the tail for
Alec. The truck picks us up almost as soon as the crash
wagon arrives.

Then it's food and bed just as soon as the I.O. lets up with
his patter.

I lie awake for a little while. Oh, yes, I was scared all right
But my first shaky do is over and already I've started to build
myself up in my own mind. I tell myself that I came out of
my first shaky do with a certain panache if I have the word
correctly.

I carefully shut out of my mind the situation if the cloud
had not broken, and I carefully don't inquire of myself how
many times I can expect that stroke of luck. All I say to my-
self is: isn't it lucky to have your luck first time off?

23

Do you remember the kid's song "London Town Is Burning
Down"? I've seen it happen. And I don't even know how to

begin to tell you about it. It's true I didn't see the worst
or, at least, so I am told* What I saw was bad enough.

One feels one ought to do something, that a mere by-
stander is really as much a nuisance as the firefighters say; yet,
what to do? Actually there's so little one can do, and the help-
lessness is the worst feeling.

Little narrow streets aflame from end to end, blocked
with rubble, crisscrossed by firemen's hoses; thin shrieks
sound so unimportant beside the roar of the fire and
the thunder of the water, yet they probably indicate that some
poor devil is being burned alive. Hear me! For Christ's
sake, hear me! Someone being burned alive! Do something
if it's the last thing you ever do.

I hate to think of anyone pinned down in the path of the
fire.

Can you hear me? Pinned down in the path of the fire, I
say. Don't let's think any further of that! You were in the
Napier earthquake. Try to imagine Auckland like that. It
won't give you much idea of even a minor blitz, but it'll
help.

Bombed people are numbed unless actually injured.
They don't cry out or have hysterics but they do revert to
the most primitive of all instincts and aimlessly huddle to-
gether. Only the animal instinct left.

The discipline of the firemen carries them through.
They're a great bunch. Their frantic efficiency contrasts
oddly with the stupidity of the victims of the "incident/'
Isn't that a lovely word? The bombed folk know it's no
"incident.' 1 Does the fat boy really think that calling bomb-
ing by another name actually alters it? He's such a windy
spouter of words that he may think they do alter things.

Yes, bombed folk say, and mean "bombed." They know
war's war. It's to be expected, now that the civvies are the
front line, that they'll catch it apart from those in bomb-
proof underground towns of course. Meaning the politicians.

A man is safer in the Air Force than in London. Statistics
prove it.

Pip and I watched. Clumsily we try to help but our lack of
training is a hindrance. Little acts of heroism occur all
around us, and, of course, the inevitable bathos as well. One
old lady looked at a house where the side had been torn out
and then said with obvious satisfaction, "I always knew the
Robinsons didn't have a sideboard."

Actually the material damage is dwarfed by the human
wreckage. A fragment of a woman is a horrifying and sicken-
ing sight. Intestinal and head wounds are very common but
less so than broken limbs. The latter are so normal-looking
that Pip and I look at them for relief from pity and fear.
Was it Aristotle who said that tragedy, by pity and terror,
purged the emotions? It does. On recollection later. At the
time, one is as numbed as the poor wretched beings dug out
of the remains of their homes.

It's always the working class that gets it worst; not that the
uninjured are unduly worried. Their lives are so near the
subsistence level that a little worsening is scarcely noticed.
They double up a little more and share with a cheerful im-
providence.

Fire is the real terror. A broken gas main, a shower of in-
cendiaries, an overturned stove, and panic begins: Fire!
Fire! Even those dazed by blast show signs of fear at the men-
tion of fire. And Christ alone knows what would happen in
New Zealand. We'd all bloody well panic too. Yet one won-

93

ders what there is to burn in some of the English homes,
they're so poverty-stricken.

As I lie here, in retrospect, I can see clearly those hellish
nights, but at the time I saw things and nothing registered.
I was numbed, too. It was like turning over the pages of a
book of horrors and having fleeting glimpses of each thing
more terrifying than the last until there's only a vast con-
fusion of terror. Later, my memory would toss up vivid
little pictures. There was a living child with half a face;
a terrified pet dog; fireman cursing as a leaky lead shot
water all over him; a warden primly taking notes before the
dust of the debris had settled; a whistling bomb with its
devil's shriek; the vague shafts of the searchlights. And, over
all, the stench and the roar of the fire.

You may ask what the hell I am doing here. I'm with Pip.
He wants to see for himself.

I'm afraid. Afraid of being killed. But afraid, most of all,
of what I may see.

We saw plenty. What is courage anyway? Tfce chapjwtia

Next morning the fight is still on, the peril to London is
even greater, the pall of smoke denser, but somehow every-
thing is less terrifying. We can see the damage more clearly
It is indescribably bad, but it's not as bad as it had felt
at night, when we guessed at unmentionable horrors. Per-
haps the real terror is the night. Man has always feared what
the night may hold. A vast fire doesn't turn night into day.
It merely makes the night more evil.

Yet when it was scorching our faces Pip turned to me and
said very quietly, '1 suppose Hamburg is something like
this." Neither of us spoke again for a long time.

94

When I think of that night I wonder what I really look
like now. Why won't they give me a mirror? They laugh
and say, "How would you hold it with your hands all covered
in dressings? We don't need a mirror to do your hair." I
wonder If I have any left? They take a long time dressing
my head. Or do I just think so because I have so much trou-
ble In understanding what is said?

Oh, Lord, Fm tired today. Tired to death. And the fire
won't keep out of my mind. Shall I tell you what hellfire
feels like? Sometimes a burn feels like an unbearably cold
thin steel edge on one's skin. Do you remember the cold
chill as the skin Is cut? You must have cut yourself shaving.

That's how I feel all over. Insofar as I am permitted to feel
anything. Sometimes it's the thin cold edge, other times
it's different. Always it's damnable. Always.

So they got Andy. Ginger hair, grin, freckles, and all. When
I saw he had gone, I suddenly realized how close we'd been.

It seems yesterday that I was waiting outside your door
and I noticed another bloke waiting there too. On the
strength of my one week's acquaintance with you, altruism
Impelled me to give the green hand a word or two of advice.
I turned my thumbs down. He nodded. I nodded. "What
station?" He told me. So he had almost got to A.T.S. too.
The axe falls hardest when it falls just as you're about to get
your wings. "What goes?" he asked. "We do," I said, "Can-

95

ada or the U.K." I wasn't really at all sure myself but I had
to impress the ginger guy. I doubt, though, if I noticed
much about him. I was too full of pictures of myself as a
navigator.

In the work which followed I wondered, with a blazing
contempt to which I am much too prone, how the rest could
be such dumb clucks as not to get what you were teaching
them. That is, all except the ginger bloke. We gravitated
together. Partly because we hated the rest, partly because
we were natural rivals and wanted to watch each other. We
were rivals from the start. Sometimes we competed so
strongly for standing with you that we nearly became en-
emies. In the dorm we slept in adjoining beds. On leave
nights we beat up the town together: women-hunting
mostly. I used to go for the intense kind, their unstable emo-
tions saved me a lot of spadework. Andy's meat was the
lively kind: they liked his ginger hair, freckles, and grin. I
don't blame them I found them pleasant too.

Then you called us both into your office and outlined the
situation about Canada. Do you remember? You said, "I'm
not going to have you pair of crooks fighting each other for
'top of Canada' and thus raising the standard on the other
poor bastards who come in later courses. It's much better
that both of you should top the navigators in Canada in
turn/' Did you really feel so confident about us? We looked
at each other. This was real. Then you fished a coin from
your pocket and tossed and I won. So I was a course ahead
of Andy in Canada. Were you so sure we'd actually get to
Canada? The Empire Scheme hadn't really started and ev-
erything was very makeshift when we arrived. How did
you know that we'd actually get there?

96

Andy and I weren't really friends. We were much too
egotistical for that, but we had a mutual respect, one for the
other. Sometimes, especially when examinations were in the
air, the tension between us came to the surface. Each of us
was intensely jealous of the other s standing with you and we
spent a lot of time endeavoring to evaluate where we stood.

As I told you, when we were in Canada we beat up one
or two places in the U.S. when leave came our way. It
was easier when nothing was really organized. To my an-
noyance, I found that Andy's personal charm Lord, if
he could only hear me say that! was much more popular
than my social gifts. He made friends readily there. In fact
he did so all his life. He had a genius for friendship. He
and his friends stuck together in a way that made me frankly
envious. It must be wonderful never to feel completely
alone. Yet I had my share of his friendship for the taking and
I didn't realize it until too late. Andy was proof against
loneliness. He wouldn't lie here like me and wear his lone-
liness and his fear on Ms sleeve. Oh no. Not Andy.

When he first came to see me in England and told me he
was on the "lunatic run" I was amazed at first; then, when
I thought it over, hardly even surprised. My word, Andy
was interesting.

"The various underground organizations in Europe need
all sorts of things and somehow they have to get them. Quite
frequently, and this will amaze Hitler, leaders have to be
popped in or out. That's where we come in. Whatever goes
there simply can't be dropped by parachute because one
chute discovered means that the whole shooting box is dis-
covered too* And the grisly word to remember is 'reprisals/
Therefore we deliver everything personally by air or sea.

97

That means night work. Little ships dash out of English
ports and creep Into secluded bays on the coast of Europe.
This Is no secret to our friend the enemy. He knows, too, that
we have an 'air express* to inland parts. As the airdromes
are always different, the places of contact In Europe are al-
ways different too: and with the time set only a few hours in
advance, his Information isn't much use to him provided
all secrets are kept." Thus Andy,

"The old Lysanders we used in the early jobs," he told
me, "were unsuitable for the job, to put it mildly. Shaky
do's are the rule rather than the exception. We take off from
England with explosives or propaganda or liaison wallahs
or resistance leaders. Once we were stooging round for the
predetermined signal, which, of course, must be one that
the enemy won't spot. Sure enough it came, the blink of a
hooded torch. It's a problem to navigate to hit a torch
blink, dead on time. Reassured we turned towards the flare
path. Oh, yes, a flare path bang in the middle of Fortress
Europe. Tell that one to Goebbels. The flare path can be
seen from only one approach and a mighty dim flare path it
is still, there it is. The old Lysander touches down and
there's a pause, and then the darkness begins to take shape.
This is the prickly moment!

"Has Fritz dropped to it? Has someone collapsed under
torture and given us away? Is this an ambush? Watch, if
you've ever watched in your life to notice if anyone puts an
obstruction In front of the old bus!

"Then there's a word spoken. The word. More shapes
materialize out of the darkness, there's a quick transfer and
an even quicker load-up. There are to be two. Have we
both? Then the old bus is turned into the wind. Then the

flare path is extinguished and the glims taken off by the
vanishing guerrillas.

"Now we sit and wait. Nobody speaks and the engine tick-
ing over sounds like all the noise in the world. How can they
fail to notice it? We all know the reason for the wait but that
doesn't help much."

"All right," said I, "I'll buy it. Why the wait?"

Andy blinked. "You see, when coming in to land there's
not much row, approaches are always made with the motor
just ticking over, but take-off is different. So we sit and wait.
When we're sure all our side is clear away it's 'Home,
James.'

"When the old engine is opened up the uproar can be
heard for miles and is, naturally, quite unmistakable. Most
of the populace, however, just don't want to hear. Where
was I? Oh, take-off.

"The landing light cuts a slash in the darkness and
reveals every furrow in whatever plowed field this one is.
The old girl chases her own light down the beam. We get
vague glimpses of what's what and what's not. The bumps
are criminal.

"Once airborne on the return journey we're a sitting bird
for anyone interested. The old Lysander does about a hun-
dred and fifty flat out, and the radio location boys can fol-
low us about easily. We all know this and it doesn't help.
Tonight we inch home practically among the hedges.

"From my point of view, as a navigator, coming home
is a piece of cake, but the outward journey is a nightmare.
It's navigation to an accuracy not of miles, but of yards/'

I nodded my sympathy. The mere thought of navigating
across Europe to pick up the blink of a torch flashed into the
sky for a second or two brought me out in a cold sweat.

99

"Of course things got better/' said Andy on another oc-
casion. "We got better aircraft for one thing, but the going
got tougher too. After the pleasure cruises to France and
Holland came Denmark, Norway and, on one occasion, Po-
land."

"Poland!" said 1. "Never in your life. That would mean
refueling. Come off it, Andy!"

"Sure," said Andy mildly, "that is one to tell Goebbels.
Actually refueling under the noses of the Jerries and using
their petrol too. A point too is that our big aircraft which we
use for these jobs must have a semblance of an airdrome to
sit down on. Work that one out, my highly intelligent navi-
gator."

I'll admit the only thing that occurred to me was to use
Fritz's but that calls for more hide even than Andy could mus-
ter. So I tossed the conversation back to him.

"The airdrome is the guerrilla's pigeon., as is everything
else. Sometimes Jerry lets them carry on, even though he
knows what's what, and so he gets the whole lot, red-handed.
Someone has squealed to save his skin, and I can understand
that because the Poles would be tortured with the most in-
genuity of all. So he gets the aircraft and crew as a sort of
bonus.

"The Danes are well off, the dunes in their country are
ideal but there's hardly a level foot in Norway that isn't
guarded. Pretty much the same applies to Czechoslovakia."

All this time I'd been trying to put an oar in. After all I'd
been to Norway and Denmark too, to say nothing of the
Baltic. But the casual mention of Czechoslovakia shut me
up. It's all I can do to spell the bloody word.

"We leave England in the late afternoon in winter and
climb to over twenty thousand feet. That makes the astro

stuff dead easy. Tonight has been well chosen and there's
no cloud up here at all/'

I didn't interrupt because I could see that Andy had for-
gotten me. I didn't mind. In similar circumstances I'd
have forgotten him. As I write to you I'm trying to forget
me.

"It's just getting dark as we cross the coast dark down
there, I mean. Well have the light for a little while yet.
The radio location boys down below pick us up as a matter of
course, but as they're expecting, with good reason, a big raid
later, they don't take much notice of a solitary aircraft as high
as we are. Whoever picks us up first thankfully passes us on
to his neighbor's screen. Of course there's always the chance
of a night fighter already positioned above us for some other
purpose or a fidgety guy on a searchlight.

"Tonight, as the light fails we avoid the first known fighter
stations and flak concentrations and, so far, get away with it.
The numerous changes of course I find irritating because
they play hell with navigation. Still, we're high and we're
fast and here we are, in a little cup in the mountains and dead
on E.T.A. too. We have to be. Below there's a signal and
up here, a reply and here's us. The pilots have to be super
to get the crate in at all. In we go! Chaps pop up from
nowhere almost before the brakes have shuddered the old
girl to a standstill. I never grow used to this minute. My
flesh creeps until I hear the word. There's a guttural mum-
bling for a while and I know the liaison wallah has got
cracking in a hurry. Then the ground crew swing us round,
and we lumber back to the take-off. There's no unloading
until this minute just in case we have to cut and run for it.

"Once the stuff is out we're gone, because we need all the
precious darkness we can get for the homeward journey to

1O1

say nothing of the idle curiosity of Fritz. The blokes fade
into the darkness; we wait. Then all the God-damned up-
roar of take-off. Wo go high again and I find the astro easier
than before. Unfortunately we're in the aftermath of a big
raid and Fritz is sore about it. Luckily, at the first place
we strike all the fighters are on the ground refueling, and
taking on ammo in a fine blaze of light, which showed just
how rattled everybody was.

"Halfway home and suddenly, the sky is lousy with fighters,
just lousy with them, all looking for stragglers, and a solitary
aircraft looks just like that to them. Their radio must be
fairly crackling with the gen of the R.L. boys all of whom
are on their toes to get us. One smart guy positioned his pair
of fighters neatly behind and above us. Nice work, blast his
efficient soul. We put on a lame duck act and kidded them
into a premature pass. After that we stooged along, altering
course from time to time because the visibility is usually
pretty duff by the time we get into any cloud that's lying
round at that height. We dodge from patch to patch. Bar-
ring collisions or a very close pass we're not so badly off. The
R.L. boys can position their fighters on us to about four hun-
dred yards, but that's not all the help it might be when we're
in cloud. So we get away with it."

Andy stopped and looked at me with a vague air of won-
dering what I was doing there. I know the feeling. I was
an intruder in his private world of retrospect.

Nevertheless, they got Andy: ginger hair, grin, freckles
and all. He didn't come back from one of his mysterious
missions. That's all we ever knew. Do you know, I wished
then that I'd got to know him better. I call to mind tenta-
tive approaches he made but I didn't notice them at the
time. He'd have made a wonderful friend.

THEY say that some shell has your number on it. Pip doesn't
believe it. If he knew Shakespeare he'd say, "Bad accidents
happen to bad players." Nevertheless, Pip, accidents, pure
accidents, do happen to the most blameless players. As for
instance . . .

We were proceeding on our unlawful occasions. From
time to time I cast an eye on our flankers to starboard and
port. I can't see those astern. The flak is very light, a single
blob shows up once in a while, much too scattered to be ef-
fective. The fire is probably not even directed, but rather,
speculative. Then why on earth should one of these blame-
less aircraft be hit squarely in the bomb bay?

One moment I was gazing at the gently swaying bulk of a
large aircraft; the next I was looking into the sky. We had
been rolled through ninety degrees by the blast. When I
find time to look again a few moments elapse while Pip
gets us under control again there's nothing to be seen.
Just nothing. No wreckage. No brollies. Nothing. Our old
girl creaks and groans a little and she must be a bit strained.

Now, why did it happen to him? Why him?

Then again there's the case of a fellow I knew slightly.
He'd just completed a tour of duty and was on another sta-
tion, a training show, giving a series of pep talks. If you can
bring yourself to do these they're a wonderful line. Play up
courage, play down luck.

Just to get a few things he'd left here he borrowed a
trainer. He was thoroughly familiar with that trainer, he'd

log

cut his teeth on It; he'd been in swags of shaky do's; he was
the most competent imaginable pilot; he was in his sober
senses and on business bent; certainly not acting the angora;
yet a wing came off at under two hundred feet, nevertheless.
The inquiry disclosed no earthly reason for it. Everything
was exactly as it should be. No one could offer any reason
why it should have happened to that aircraft. No one
thought to ask why it should have happened to him.

I could multiply instances. But, to what point? You get
nowhere. Which opens up a wide field for irrationality.
Superstitions especially. If one isn't superstitious it's hard
not to go for religion. Queer, though, how few do. Super-
stition wins hands down. Or perhaps I should say that sim-
ple homely good luck charms have it all over the organized
trappings of religion. Perhaps an exception should be made
of the St. Christopher medallions so many of the Catholics
wear.

Personally I don't believe in it at all. Neither the one nor
the other has a thing. Nevertheless, they do seem to do
things for those who believe in them. And, for myself, I'd
hate to go off on a shaky do without my little tiki. That's
not superstition, I'd just feel lonely without it. Of course I
don't ascribe any magical powers to it, that'd be very silly
and most unscientific, yet it's odd the number of blacks
I've put up when not wearing it, so now I take no chances and
I wear it all the time.

If I could swap this hellish pain for a painless oblivion,
I'd not do it. Nor would you or anybody else. There's
something in the mere being alive, no matter on what terms,
that's better incomparably better than the vast void of
emptiness.

The religious hounds say that it's not empty. They're con-
vinced, but they're not convincing. The majority of us just
don't believe the padre.

Yet we all want Christian burial, I imagine. Those who
talk of cremation should think of incineration. I do. All
the time. I think of the marvelously game losing fight my
body is putting up. Quite apart from myself I can look on
and imagine the battle going on in all my charred portions.
Am I pitying myself offensively?

Bit by bit my resistance is being broken down, yet the
hopeless fight still continues even though the inevitable
end must surely be in sight. I wonder why it had to be
me? Why me?

The bewildered time-serving of the Protestant padres
would be pathetic if it weren't so damned irritating. What
is a parson doing in a war anyway? What would their Master,
the Prince of Peace, think of them? What must they think of
themselves? This war is too big for them. But their Master
is not deceived.

The Catholics are on much safer ground. They're utterly
certain. They don't retreat an inch, they make no terms, they
don't compromise. Everything is authoritative, "laid down,"
and the whole of their dogma is self-consistent. It ought to
be. It's been sifted for over a thousand years. Yet, for all its
massive, comforting sureness it doesn't appeal much to us.
Perhaps because there's no room for the very individual ter-
rors I've just touched on.

1 wish I could "unreservedly throw myself on the Lord"
which all the sects seem to agree is a good thing. I can't.
Not unreservedly. Neither can most of us. So those who have
no other roots have their private and joint superstitions. The

105

latter are common to all the aircrews of the Air Force. If I
had the time I'd tell you ours.

Which raises the question as to what went awry with mine.
Someone has to buy it every time. But why ME?

You must have heard of these thousand-bomber raids.
It's all true. And it's not true that half of them were Tiger
Moths. All were honest to God bombers, and most of them
carried bombs.

Saturation raids like those are high altitude stuff. Get
into the area and unload to give the next fellow a chance.
That's the gen. Incendiaries are better value than high ex-
plosives, once a few of the latter have opened things up a
little. You'd not believe what a city afire looks like. No one
who hasn't seen it can form an opinion and it's no good quot-
ing the air-raid wardens because they see only a part of it
all. It's we navigators carefully observing for the I.O. who
grasp the whole, and I wonder if anyone could be unshaken.

The little jobs we used to do in the early days those
were the days. The individual aircraft carried out its in-
dividual assignment and everyone thought that he, person-
ally, was doing something pretty solid about the situation.

I'm not referring to the early, early days. The days when
the aircraft brought its bombs back with it if it failed to find
its individual target. Bloody lunacy, that. Of course, in the
end, what everyone knew would happen did happen. A vir-

io6

tuous aircraft, conscientiously returning with a belly full
of bombs, may or may not have landed rather heavily. Well
never know how heavily. And what a mess on the runway.

I think we've got rid of that particular folly now. It's
time to get rid of a few others. But there was a time . . .

We were bound for Baltic ports. Both Danzig and Stettin
were to be honored. That means ten or twelve hours.

In the afternoon we used to get what gen was thought good
for us. A spot of blather, then the route, the photos of the
target and the landmarks that the other folk might find
useful. Usually the best straight stuff came from the Met
wallahs. They were tentatively precise, if you know what I
mean.

And so to look at the problem. Out and home. Thousands
of miles, all of it hostile, either by reason of the human
enemy or because of the sea, which is implacably hostile to
land-based aircraft. The trouble about a week in the dinghy
is a suburban one trouble with the neighbors.

At dusk, struggle into gear that's never really comfortable,
and never quite unbearable. Waddle to the fornicator. All
wool and a yard wide. Boots full of socks. How vast and
comforting the old girl looks in the gloom. Really bulky and
satisfying and safe. Her open bomb doors look like an Amer-
ican union suit with its rear flap down. There's the usual
patter. Pilot ju-ju. On a pleasant evening (i.e., one not rain-
ing) we just stretch out while the preparedness goes on, then
heigh ho, and off to work we go.

It's always a busy evening for me, but, if the Mets know
what they are talking about, Alec won't have much to do.
Cloud on the water. High cloud too. But a clear area in be-
tween. Ideal for discouraging interest from below.

107

I often wonder what Alec thinks once his wee armored,
door Is closed behind him. He told me he plays games with
himself. But can a man do that for twelve hours on end?
Whenever you check you'll see the slow methodical move-
ment of his turret. He has his own method of covering his
area of action. He'd never shot ducks just as well for the
ducks.

Tell me: how can Alec sit there, endlessly and monoto-
nously covering his sky and yet so instantly alert and active
at need? Does something act as a trigger on him? Or Is it
just he has a merciful gift of making himself oblivious until
something calls for a response from him?

All the same, I think even an hour in the turret is long
enough to bring that wee armored door to the forefront of
his mind.

Climbing on course for the Baltic. There are gray wisps
on the North Sea. It'll be thicker when the water is fresher.

Take wind regularly from the drift lanes. The little lines
in the dimness can still be seen and used. So far, the Mets
and I concur.

Up to clear Denmark. Not that there's a sizable bump in
the whole country. But a low-flying aircraft, headed east,
can hardly be up to much good and the whole Baltic marshes
are honeycombed with fighter stations; probably used as re-
lay stations between the two fronts and hence always alert.
Our own very occasional nuisance penetrations into the Bal-
tic would hardly warrant them. We break through the mush
and have a look at the firmament. The fix is splendid. We'll
hit Danzig fair on the nose.

Down again into our little cloud alley. The fog is drifting

io8

over the sea, but there's ice there too. Little cakes that are
probably bigger than they look. Strange that one can see
them at all, but they're mighty handy they define the
sea. Without them it would be very hard to tell the gray sea
from the gray sky, at least in this gray moonless, gray star-
less gloom.

I wonder why we're going to Danzig.

The flares light it up in a way you'd not believe. And I
suppose we thought the ground fire was pretty fearsome in
those days. I hadn't been to Brest in daylight then.

Lying prone I just watched things below. I had the correct
wind on the aiming bar, there wasn't enough defense to in-
terfere with the bombing run, so one side of my mind was
busy mopping up impressions. Not that I was conscious of it
at the time but the recollections were so vivid that there's
no other possible explanation; the neatness and tidiness of
the city; how crowded the old quarter is; well do our share
to remedy that.

On a bombing run there may be shells bursting all
around us, fighter attacks, air turbulence, and anything else
that comes to your mind, but they all take place in somebody
else's world. Mine is a narrow world. It runs along the wires
of the bomb aimer.

Then, in a second, bombs gone, the other world swamps
me and I'm like a frightened child too suddenly awakened.
Oh, Danzig.

Neat little houses that all slowly slewed in the one direc-
tion as the blast hit them. Neat little houses that suddenly
glowed gently and beautifully as the incendiaries took hold
in their roofs.

Have you ever seen those rows of colored lights they

log

string across the streets in New Zealand at Christinas? A
string of incendiaries looks exactly like that, except that
they're all red. Then a high-explosive bomb scatters the
glow into a pattern like a rose garden you know, a formal
arrangement geometrical, almost. After a while the scat-
tered little roses run together into one big glow. A big glow,
black with dense smoke at the edges.

The flares are unnecessary now. If anyone is to follow, the
place is all lit up for him. Not that the fires are nearly as
useful as the cold light of flares when it comes to identifying
a target, but the flares wouldn't penetrate the smoke anyway
and the fire is, at the very least, an unmistakable landmark.

And so home. Five hours away. Five hours to bed.

But why Danzig? The Happy Valley, perhaps. Berlin,
yes. But why Danzig?

Homeward bound. No real threat of interference.

If one should set a course to a place, bomb it and then set a
couse for home, should not one be entitled to a little respite?
A little time for meditation on the war effort, on the
drunken little white houses, and the red glow with the black
edges, and on the wicked who shall burn in hell ever-
lastingly.

One man set a course, bombed the little white houses, and
brought his crew safely home. The others did as they were
told. That may well count in the judgment: for them.

27

EDDIE was the kind of temporary gentleman that I devoutly
hope I'm not and greatly fear I am.

"Your trouble/' he told me, "is that you don't know the
ropes. The game is to get among those clubs for the wives
of servicemen serving overseas. They've got their husbands'
allotments. They have houses or flats. And they know what
the score is. Why, some of them have been on the wagon for
the best part of a year. Their tongues are hanging out. Any-
one can do well for himself/'

What a bastard! And what a good idea!

Behold me then, off to London with Eddie. Or rather, off
to one of the suburbs. We went to a pathetic dance. But
first we picked up Eddie's current and choice. She was a thin
excitable girl married a few weeks before her man left for
overseas. She was madly keen to hang on to Eddie and quite
shameless about it. I'm always willing to let a girl keep a few
rags of pride. Not so Eddie. I think he was trying to impress
me. He did too. But hardly in the way he intended.

What a dance. The few men were outnumbered ten to one.
Successive women played the wretched piano. Women
danced with each other. Eddie and I were resplendent.

I suggested those circulatory dances, and so got to know al-
most everyone. I was told names and addresses within min-
utes, usually.

At the end of the evening I found myself with a party o
four jolly buxom women of thirtyish. I got some beer and
went home with them. All their flats were on the same floor
and there was a certain amount of not too covert jockeying as

Ill

to whose flat was to be the venue of the party. We drank the
beer and then, apparently following an unwritten code, the
other three went home.

We washed the glasses and then I walked round the table to
where she sat, looking at the empties. I ran my hand over
her hair. She rocked herself backward and forward. I knew
her predicament.

She was an honestly married woman. Two children asleep
In the back. She loved her family. And she hadn't had a man
for over a year. I made it as easy as I could for her. I "forced"
her.

Afterwards we got on the queerest terms. We didn't have
a damned thing in common. Not a thing. Yet we went for
picnics together, went to the pictures, sat in the park, and
once went on the river. We found a deep content In each
other. I was gentler with her than I'd have believed possi-
ble. Except in bed, when I manhandled her in the manner
she hoped for.

She talked about her family. She had no other conversa-
tion. And that meant mostly Bob. Little by little I pieced
Bob together and I grew to like him.

Bob, it appeared, was very much a man. A man any wife
could be proud of, a good provider too. He liked his pint
but never took too much. It made him jovial. "He'd come
home roaring for his meal and if it was something he espe-
cially liked he'd pat my bottom as I went past to the stove, and
when he'd finished eating he used to wink at me and say
"Well, old girl, how about a run around the henyard?' And
afterwards he'd snore like a pig if he got on his back, and if
I tried to turn him over he'd wake up and start all over again.
Lord, he was strong."

The kids loved him. He whacked them when she told him

they needed it but they loved to play games with him. Chas-
ing games, mostly. He also had an endless fund of children's
stories. "About made-up animals usually." On winter Sat-
urdays he went to football, but in the summer they took the
children out.

It could hardly be clearer to me that I was a husband sub-
stitute and she'd have liked me a little more hearty. Not that
she had much to complain of. And beggars can't be choosers.

Sometimes, while having a meal in her clean little kitchen,
I'd look across the table at her and see all the domestic vir-
tues before my eyes. But there were depths I didn't suspect.
Once, quite without embarrassment, she put to me the plight
of one of her friends. This friend was a person of very strict
principles but was going a bit cranky for lack of her old man.
Would I mind if things were sort of arranged so's she'd be
fixed up without sacrificing the very strict principles already
mentioned?

As this was the first time I'd ever been farmed out at stud,
1 was suitably taken aback, which merely made her impa-
tient. Oh, well.

Whenever I could, I dug at Bob. Partly for my own inter-
est, partly to please her. Do you think it odd? Not that I
should be interested but that my interest should please her?

Bob, it appeared, was highly skilled and correspondingly
well paid, "although margins were not being kept." The
Army, unfortunately, apparently made little use of the skill
of which he was so proud. All the husbands formerly in the
block were skilled men. See the class stigmata? All the wives
had that much in common. They had other things in com-
mon too. They despised such of their number as were dirty
or poor managers. This latter a very serious matter as the

husbands passed over the pay packet and received an allow-
ance from It. The wives did all the managing. Bob's highest
praise was to draw attention to the good manager he'd mar-
ried.

He used to bathe the children when they were small. He
said he liked to juggle the little soapy wrigglers. In front of
the fire in the winter . . . "and a fine slop of water every-
where. Not that I minded. I was lucky to have Bob and the
kids. When the nippers grew big enough they used to take
them out when the shops were all lit up and Bob used to buy
them odd useless little things just for fun, and because he
liked to see them flatten their little noses against the shop
windows/'

He was very keen on his "rights" too and she was content
that he should. "It isn't every woman who has a man like
Bob. A lot of women would like to have Bob."

So you see how it was. She needed a man and I was as good
as she could reasonably expect but I mustn't think there was
anything more to it than that.

Once, just to ruffle the waters, I asked her what would hap-
pen if Bob "found out." "He'd kick me out and he'd keep
the kids," I was told, "but he's not going to find out." I
chewed on that one. Later I discovered that it was all right
for a man to play around with women, in some way it was a
part of being a man. But it was not all right for a woman.
No wife in her senses expected her husband to be any differ-
ent from other men when in foreign parts but no man should
ever know. "They can't bear it. They say they forgive you,
but they can't. It's always cropping up."

"What if I were to give the show away?"

"Bob would kill you," she said simply. Certainly a blow

to my private belief that I could handle any Bob who was
ever born.

All this time Eddie's leer had been following me around.
I just couldn't dodge him. Because I was playing his game
he thought I was his kind. The fear that I might be growing
that way urged me to put an end to the whole thing.

She took it philosophically. She knew it was bound to
come. The world is full of women. It had been good while it
lasted and she thought she'd just stick it out until Bob came
home. She thought she could. After all she had managed for
over a year until I had come along and surely the war would
be over before another year had passed. Besides, she wasn't
free to everybody.

The last bit was a sop to me, I thought but no. She was
as honest as the day. And as transparent. "You're not my
kind," she told me, "but you've been good to me."

We went on the river for the last time. Not in the crowded
excursions she loved, but alone. Then she went back to her
little flat to stick it out until Bob came home.

28

1 WONDER what goes on behind Pip's knobbly forehead. A
chap so superbly competent just can't be satisfied by his work
alone. There must be some other life he lives. But what?
He's not eaten up by women, like some I could name. He's
not in the least ambitious. What is he really after?

Queer his dominance over us. I'll bet he doesn't flatter
himself his intelligence or education is in the same street as
mine, but I'll bet too, he never doubts I'll do what he tells
me to do. Everything about him is massive. Which makes
his stuck-out ears so odd.

I'm trying so hard to make you see Pip because I just can't
believe he's some time dead. There was a sort of welling out
of life from him. What I say doesn't evoke Pip, I know
that. No words can. But I've got to try. You mustn't forget
me, but you mustn't forget Pip either. He was too magnifi-
cent to be forgotten. What his hand found to do he did so
superbly well. There'll never be anyone again like Pip, will
there, Don?

He used to tell us stories of his wharf-laboring days. So
completely unaffectedly that I used to wonder, all over again,
how he got in. A club pilot perhaps. The stories fascinated
me. I learned that the unloading of coal was no good, for it
was over too soon. The good jobs were those where every
Item is handled separately, and by as many hands as possible.
He gave us a dozen valuable hints on broaching cargo and
smuggling the stuff ashore. He put us wise to the ways of
dockside Johns. If any of us ever has to make a living by
cargo pilfering at least he is well equipped on the theoretical
side. And on the moral side too. "Mind you, there's all the
difference in the world between pinching from a cobber and
broaching a bit of cargo. The bloody shipping companies
never feel it."

For your interest Pip's code of honor was one I could never
have lived up to. He did. Letter and spirit. It shames me
now to think that he never doubted that I did too.

2 9

DEAR LORB, Fm all of a tizzy. We're to have a visit from the
most I of V.I.P.s. Our station is to be honored by getting
the whole works. First the newsreel boys. They showed up
nearly a week ago. Their ju-ju requires most careful plan-
ning or the Great Man may be photographed showing his un-
complimentary side. Then came the straight reporters
shrewdly getting their background stuff in order beforehand.
Nothing actually dishonest in that! Not quite dishonest.

Then came the Special Reporters. They prepared their
comment on the significance of the visit during a brief tour
of duty at the bar. Finally came the V.LP.'s own "public re-
lations officers/* Don't let that kind of louse get into New
Zealand.

Anyway, the route of the Grand Panjandrum has been ac-
curately surveyed from all likely angles. Spontaneous en-
thusiasm is being carefully rehearsed. Alternative routes and
enthusiasms for a wet day are also under control, though the
Met wallahs have forecast good conditions with no low cloud
and visibility up to ten miles marvelous for an English
spring. Typical interviews with and friendliness between
V.I.P. and lowly erks have been buttoned up. That's not as
easy as it sounds. The erk has to be bright enough not to miss
his cues or to be flustered if the V.I.P. misses his; yet not so
bright that he steals the show.

And I'm rotting here knowing that if they live long enough,
our ineffable politicians will make such a balls-up of the peace
that there'll be another war in a generation. Can't they see

that the United States of Europe is their only solution? A
federation in which Britain will be one of the powers of me-
dium importance. Of course, the U.S.A. will resist such a
thing strenuously. An economic bloc of that size and impor-
tance would be a menace.

I suppose these are really Geoff's ideas. He's English, and
something else as well. The system in which he grew up
must be the most tradition-ridden in the world, so I was quite
startled when Geoff told me that the immense value of tradi-
tion was that it set up, for all to see, what was best avoided in
the future. If there is to be a future. You'd have heard a lot
of Geoff, had he lived.

Oh, the V.I.P.? It rained. He stayed in bed.

30

I SUPPOSE hospitals are the same the world over. As you know,
I was never in a hospital in New Zealand. I suppose there's
the same routine everywhere the routine which effectively
conceals that all that goes on in a hospital is a battle between
life and fear.

Why am I not more uncomfortable than I am? One posi-
tion for so long. I can turn my head through about thirty
degrees I think. The maximum I can sweep with my eyes is
about the same. Or perhaps I'm just kidding myself. How-
ever that may be, I sometimes feel I can cover about a right
angle of the ward. The trouble is, that doesn't bring my

n8

neighbor within eyeshot. But it does include the door. From
my present position anyway.

There was a terrible time when they put me where I
couldn't see the door and I endured agonies thinking Don
might not come. So long as I could see the door I felt much
better. I have no account of time. Not really or clearly. So
every time the door opens it might be Don. Of course, most
times it isn't, but, so long as I can see that door I know it will
open again.

Don always opens the door very carefully. You do so, Don.
You don't really expect to find me asleep, do you?

And then his grin travels down the ward. I can almost see
it coming. And, having warmed myself by it, my eye always
wanders to the paper under his arm. How do you manage
to get so much, old horse? Some of it looks like World War
One.

The time I was shifted so that I couldn't see the door was
terrible. Don would be alongside me before I had time to get
used to the idea by watching him approach. Or I'd shut my
eyes and count and then not open them until I'd counted to,
say, ten thousand. When I did open my eyes sometimes Don
would be there. Sometimes not. Most times not. If he
weren't there I'd not start again.

It got so bad I spoke to the nurse who understood English.
At least that's what I think she did. And, by the way, what
accounts for women nurses? Am I in a civvy outfit? If so,
why? And why is there never anyone in my range of vision
opposite?

Anyway, I spoke to this nurse about it and she understood
and was distressed. Her very big faded blue eyes suffused
and she took her large frame off to do something about it. It

iig

took some time to get the wheels of authority turning, so she
used to come to talk to me when her duties permitted. It
was quite a while before I dropped to it that it wasn't pity for
me that impelled her.

Always she talked of Hans. Her Hans.

They were to be married. Soon. The promise dated from
the day that Hans went off to war. He fought in Poland and
Russia. Was very severely w r ounded and left for dead, but
picked up by a German counterattack. But in the meantime
he had been badly frostbitten. All this emerged as Bertha
worked over me. I don't know her name, so Bertha will do.

Hans was a good soldier and a good man. Very faithful
and very uncomplaining. But, ach, his poor, poor feet. And
then the great heavy tears would fall on my face.

They had a little haven in the rubble, all their own. For
who would want it? They lived together and were to be mar-
ried. Soon. How soon, Bertha? And did I think they were
doing wrong? But then, of course, how could I know? Bertha,
my dear, I knew once! And do let me tell you to seize your
living while you have it!

Hans worked at something or other essential. She did tell
me but I've forgotten. He worked but he couldn't stand. Not
for more than a few minutes at a time. His poor, poor feet.
It was quite a while before I dropped to it that he didn't
have any. The frostbite, naturally.

He was very kind and understanding. But he didn't speak
much. He was much quieter than when he went away. He
just sat and stroked her hair. Silently. Perhaps he too was
happy with his moment while he had it. To have each other.
Against the world.

Between them they could live. Just. Food wasn't so bad.

12O

One did what one could. But Bertha shuddered at the
thought of winter. No fuel. She didn't fear for herself. Not
at all. But for Hans's feet So did I.

You probably think it highly unlikely that people confide
in me the way I say they do. You don't realize how I've
changed since you knew me. Apart from navigation, only my
fellow man interests me. I like to think I have a wry curiosity
as to what makes him tick. Hence all my eavesdropping. I
suppose you guessed that from my stories of what goes on in-
side aircraft. That I eavesdrop shamelessly, I mean.

31

THE night is so comforting. It puts great protecting arms
round deserving aircraft. I can honestly say that I've never
been lost on any job of work once night has fallen.

For example, there's a little affair involving the railway
marshaling yards at Hamm. Since our interest Fritz has re-
routed a lot of his railways and substituted a host of small
junctions for such mammoths as Hamm. Much less efficient,
of course . . . but safer. All the same the more he disperses
the more strain he puts on his transport system. At least,
that's Andy's opinion and I can't see much wrong with it.
There's not usually much wrong with Andy's opinions.

Hamm, We managed to slip across the coastline without
being spotted, or so we thought. Remember this is the early
days about which I'm prone to get mighty tedious. Still, they
were the days. Not spotted, did I say? Well, there are no
lights and the whole countryside looks to be virtuously abed.

121

No cones of light, no, but shadowy forms begin to gather
around us as ground control puts the night fighters on our
track. Now they have something. Working In pairs, as they
do at this time of war, one makes a dummy attack while the
other presses his home from a different angle. The trouble
is to make up your mind which is which. Not that that's my
worry, officially, but It's everyone's worry all the same. Which
is which? The Yanks have a sort of fire controller who co-
ordinates the drill of the gunners and the pilot. A damned
good Idea. We should adopt it.

Well then, which is which again? And the little bastards
have cannon too. Don't let anyone kid you the Me. 109 Is no
good. I don't know anyone who would even try.

There's none of that sick feeling of Inevitability that goes
with searchlights. When you see those long fingers of light
reaching up towards you, your stomach contracts because you
know with a horrible certainty they're going to pick you up.
You can feel something in the aircraft attracting them. And
their slow sweep Is as undeviating as fate. The waiting frays
the nerves almost beyond endurance. One can almost hear
them snap. There's nothing you can do about lights except
avoid them. Mind you, that's a good line with fighters too.

But fighters are different. You can get stuck Into them.
Not that any bomber wants to fight. It doesn't. With fighters
there's no worry much about what you can see; the hellish
tight feeling is about what you can't see. The yammer of our
guns, the leisurely curves of the tracer, pro and con, the smell
of burnt powder, the violent evasive action all make up a
most disconcerting pattern of apparently unordered behav-
ior. Very upsetting for a navigator who is, by definition, a
model of ordered behavior.

Tonight, as always, the fighters seem to approach slowly

122

in the shadowy fashion of bats. Then in one sudden sweep
, . . whew . . . that was a close one! Our guns. Tracer.
The immediate urgency of violent evasion.

Nothing for me to do, of course. Except air-plot for my
life . . . for all our lives.

The fighters drop away. Out of fuel or ammo or both. I
look for damage and casualties. That's my job. Alec is patch-
ing up a flesh wound and to judge from his language hell
survive. There's minor structural damage where we took a
couple of cannon shells aboard. Nothing to write home
about. But everybody's very edgy and every little shadow cast
by a cloud across the moon becomes a fighter. Gunners have
been known to loose off a burst "just in case."

Tonight there's broken cloud and a hunter's moon, and
we're the hunted. One fighter station after another spews up
its squadrons at us. We nip from one bit of cloud cover to an-
other. Pity the poor navigator. Pity me.

Finally it is obvious to them that we're swinging left-
handed to Hamm and not to Essen to starboard. Still not a
lightl But the fighter attacks are pressed home much harder.
We are near the middle of the concentration and usually
they try to get Tail-End Charlie first, but tonight they come
at us from above and from underneath and that's a real hor-
ror. Quite slowly. One on our starboard dropped back until
he had nearly reached the tail of the concentration. They
know they have him. They butcher him expertly. He stag-
gers straight and level for a moment, then, engines aflame
and yawing wildly, in he goes. Christ, we're sorry to see
him go. I sweat like a pig. So does everybody else, I swear.
The stench inside is horrible and the peculiar whump of hits
on us are not so much heard as felt through one's whole body.

123

Jesus, how they press in! The sky Is lousy with them and the
precious cloud cover blows away ... all that beautiful cloud
over some other bloody place where no one needs it!

Then, suddenly, here's Hamm. We should have known.
The night fighters wheel off rather like sea birds. They all
moved to port so, shrewdly, we all edge off to starboard. It's
what the bastards want. All of a sudden, God in Heaven,
here are the lights! Lights, more even than at Cologne.
When they come on like this you have the idiotic idea that
the beam is climbing towards you. Personally. Then the
long fingers begin to trace great arcs in the sky. From di-
rectly above they don't look long at all but they lengthen in
a most sinister manner as they move away. What am I say-
ing? They shorten in a most sinister manner as they ap-
proach.

There's some master plan by which they quarter this area.
The bloody things seem to follow you, even to anticipate you,
and as soon as one of them picks up one of our poor bastards
the others switch on to him with a ghoulish rapidity and cone
him. You can see their horrible slim lines hurrying across the
sky to cut off his escape, and you know that no evasive action
can save him. There are too many guns per cone.

Queer how light panics us. And it's such an unnatural
light. We all look a ghastly sallow yellowish green and eyes
glint in a most sinister fashion, just because the light catches
them that way. It isn't the friendly golden gleam of the sun
it's like the inside of a crematorium.

Anyway, there's Hamm and here's us! Well, let's to it.

On the bombing run. All things else are out of mind. I
snarl at Pip who is probably performing minor miracles to
keep the old girl even remotely on track. We swing on to the

target and line it up first time. I signal "Bombs gone" and
get to hell out of the nose. Alec reports bursts right in the
target area though how the devil he can see beats me. These
new flares we use are so powerful we need shades to see down-
ward. Anyway, Alec said there are bursts all over the target,
and who should know that kind of target better than Alec.

We got out all right, which is more than a lot of others do.
We rendezvous but don't dare wait for stragglers. Going
home they must run the gauntlet individually of all we took,
together, coming out. No wonder many stragglers buy it.
The real wonder is so many survive.

Still, the arms of night are all about you and you're not
quite so scared. We have the absurd idea that now Fritz has
failed to stop the raid he ought to call it a day.

But what I remember most of Hamm is when our flares lit
up the yards, paling even the searchlights. A giant marshaling
yard is the loveliest thing ... its rails gleam in the torrent
of light in the most wonderful ordered geometrical pattern.
Rakes of trucks don't disturb the eye as it runs along the rib-
bons. They serve merely to emphasize the dominant scheme.
A railway yard is an exercise in logic.

Return at dawn. Not daybreak yet, but the promise of it
in the sky. Thank God no one knows how panic-stricken I
was just before Pip slipped the lights. As soon as I've had a
bit of sleep I'll ring Freda. Lord I do want to feel a man
again.

I suppose you're a little impatient with my preoccupation
with myself. What of it? I interest me.

And Freda and all the others? Does all this sound like
dissertations on the related themes of sex and fear? They
are related, you know. And my life in the Air Force is largely

125

these, plus a dash of professional pride In being a bloody
fine navigator; one of the best. A man Is supposed to develop
under all the pressures to which we are subjected. I don't
think anyone I know shows any such signs and I guess my
nature hasn't changed much.

To hell with all the moralizing! I was bloody scared. And
so would you have been!

32

No one can blame the women. It has been a tradition o
soldiering since long before Alexander that the enemies 1
women were part of the spoils of battle. It is only in recent
years that the women of our allies have fallen into the same
category. In the last war, French girls were a bit of all right,
although I can't help thinking that, when the troops were
making the comparisons with the home product, they took
the highly skilled practitioners abroad and stacked against
them the run of the mill at home. In England, now, the
New Zealander is so much better paid than the native that
the latter just cannot compete for the favors of his own wo-
men. The net result is very satisfactory from our short-term
point of view but it is probably less so for the Englishman and
the girl. Who cares? Life is catching up with us and we've
only a little time so we may as well cram it full. This is about
Freda.

It's all very well to talk about the wives. Look at the allow-
ance a munificent government pays them as a token of how

126

highly it regards the private soldier. Wouldn't our women
squeal? But then, we'd never allow that type of government.
The wonder is not that so many of them prefer an easier way
than war work to eke out their pittance, the real wonder is
that so few of them do. The average British working-
class wife, married ten years, isn't very appetizing anyway.
But the troops are not fussy.

There has grown up, however, a class of good-time girls
who pass from bed to bed among the officers. Some are
frankly as promiscuous as rabbits. Others stick to the one of
the moment, while the moment lasts. It's not a businesslike,
cash transaction, though a present of money is very acceptable,
as is anything else readily convertible. Most of them work in
offices and used to live in dingy boardinghouses. Now they all
have flats. It's so necessary if one wishes to entertain one's
friends.

Freda was one of them. She was the best of company,
danced well, fell in with any suggestions, organized parties or
went to them, beat up other girls. She always dressed to suit
the occasion, and that meant some mighty smart observation
in times past. She had an acute ear for accent and it never
played her false. No matter where you took her. She was
never tired, never sulky. She was the perfect chameleon.

Freda wanted a good time. "We're only young once." Oh,
Freda, how right you are!

So we drank, perhaps a little more than we should, we
danced at cabarets and parties, we went to shows (and very
good some of them were), we came home to her flat round
about dawn. We had a couple of drinks. We went to bed.
Just like that.

Do you know, when I try to think of when I first met her, or

127

even how first I went to bed with her, I just can't remem-
ber. It seems to me that I must have always been going to
bed with Freda. So you see the shape of the relationship?
Yet it wasn't as sordid as you'd think. True, I paid for lots
of things for her and, when thinking of presents, I always
bore in mind that a girl must live and they all had ready
value. I used to stock up the flat, since a girl must eat, but
I'd be damned if I'd stock it with liquor. Let the other
blokes bring their own.

All the same, Freda did much more for me. You see, her
flat was somewhere to return to. While I was there I was, at
least temporarily, home. I always let her know well in ad-
vance when I was coming to town. I owed her that and I had
no desire to embarrass her. No hint of jealousy marred our
relationship. While I was there she was my girl and I never
worried further than that. Sometimes when loneliness
welled all over me I'd test my patience against "long dis-
tance" and hope she'd be In when the call eventually got
through. I'd hint that I'd like to come to town. Sometimes
she'd say, "Come up right away/' I used to laugh a little at
the eagerness In her voice. Other times she'd fix a time, in a
day or so. We both understood perfectly.

Perhaps we'd do a hectic round, but once warm and half
asleep, I'd feel so damned grateful to her I'd make the wildest
love to her. The first time she was quite startled but once she
got used to it we found we were very well adjusted, as the
American euphemism has it. She began to look forward to my
visits. So did I. Gradually we began to drop out of our
former circles, and to spend evenings at home in a simple,
even childish, way. Freda learned to cook. She went to the
night classes run by the local gas company and I had a hell of

128

a time for a while. Then, all of a sudden, the knack came to
her.

Then, one night, we decided to do all our old haunts
again. We went to a show but, somehow, it wasn't as good as
it used to be. We went dancing, but knew fewer people than
before, and they were not as lively as before, or so we thought.

When we were home we looked at each othei. We were
both thinking the same thing. "We're getting into a rut.
We're losing our dash. We're out of it. We're growing old.
We've had it."

Then, suddenly, I didn't care. I just picked her up bodily
and rumpled her hair she pretended to hate it and we
both knew, without any words, that we were on another foot-
ing. A quite different one.

It was about two months later that they deflated her left
lung. A spot on the lobe, or something worse. Of course
she'd recover. After a year or so in a sanatorium. So much
can be done these days.

I made all the necessary arrangements. When next I met
her she was already vastly changed, calmer and much better
balanced. She was "a good patient." I told her what I
planned, made elaborate arrangements to visit her, promised
to write frequently and so on and so on. You know how it is.

But I hate and loathe sickness. Always have. She knew it
too. She'd never asked me for anything in all our association,
so I was quite startled when she asked for my cap badge.
Clumsily, I took it off and gave it to her. We both knew what
we were doing. There were to be no wedding bells. Bells,
perhaps. But not wedding bells. The bright bubble had
burst

129

I walked home as conscious as hell of my lack of a hat
badge. I thought everyone was looking at my head. It made
me angry with her and with myself. Of course I wrote, I'm
afraid at lengthening intervals, but I couldn't bring myself
to visit her. I was afraid of what I might see. The actual look
of Freda was so much of her.

She replied to my letters. Long cheerful letters, full of
yesterdays, but she never wrote in the intervals of my infre-
quent notes. But the long gay reply always came by return
mail.

She never complained, never, Indeed, referred to her ill-
ness. She deliberately reduced all the highlights of our rela-
tionship to monotones. And she did it because she knew I
hated illness.

I wonder if she ever did recover.

33

ONE thing about this place. It is certainly warm. Tucked up
In bed as I am there's no discernible difference in the twenty-
four hours. Yes. It's certainly nice and warm, so I suppose
that's why I'm thinking so much of the bad days, when we
went to Norway, for example. Not the good summer runs
with Geoff. Oh, no! It was very different when Pip and I
were on that run. It amazes me now how little we knew and
how well we managed on that little.

When we were first ordered north It was early days and the

130

jaunt to Norway represented about the limit of the old girl's
endurance; at least if we were to have any time in the target
area and carry any bombs. Naturally, we operated from one
of the most northerly airfields in Scotland. I know all this se-
crecy about names is childish but I'm scared some Jack-in-
Censor's-Office may hold these letters up. Dear God, what a
god security is. Anyway, the airfield was in Scotland.

In summertime, one takes off in the long evening twilight
and the night is a mere formality if the job is in the northern
part of Norway, and it usually is. Lovely settled weather.
Long summer nights. Remember them, Geoff?

In winter things were vastly different.

Take-off well before dawn. Grossly overloaded of course.
We'd been carefully briefed, which means we'd been told
most of what the blokes didn't know. No one knew much in
those days and the Met was largely guesswork. And wasn't it
bitter, bitter, cold.

Waddle to the old girl, nicely filled out with food, bur-
dened with rations, a small aviary, pigeon baskets. The
ground crew working with the peculiar slowness of men half
frozen and half asleep. When challenged they always denied
being half asleep and insisted that they were, in fact, half
awake, but, either way, it's no comfort to the blokes whose
necks depend on what they do, or fail to do. All the same
they're really rather marvelous. They keep aircraft airworthy
in conditions when an albatross would be grounded.

In the darkness their shadowy forms going about the last-
minute checks are peculiarly comforting. As they knock
off chunks of ice here and there and whine about their dog's
lives there's a fine homely air about the proceedings. The
airfield's a temporary one and they really do have grounds
for complaint, but they'd invent them if they didn't.

igi

Have you ever experienced a frozen fog? We have it all
winter. Aye. The Scots are a hardy race. But don't believe
all you hear about their hardiness. Alec went out one night
with a bonny bit lass and found her so protected against the
cold that he gave up the unequal struggle. He had a few
poignant things to say about frozen heather, too. Moreover
it appeared the lass had a deplorable pawky sense of humor.
Poor Alec.

The old girl is worked into position and In the slap-happy
way of temporary fields we get our clearance. All the familiar
guff but I never get used to the prickly moment at take-off
when the old girl Is making up her mind about coming un-
stuck. We take the full length of the runway and a howling
gale blasting down is no help at all. You see, when there's a
gale (most times), all they do is to increase the all-up load,
probably from a deficient knowledge of physics. Poor old
girl. And she is old too. She lumbers down the runway, pick-
ing up speed in an agonizingly slow way. We all sort of wish
her Into the air.

Airborne. Set course. Gyro set? Climb In the fog or cloud.
Call it which you please. What course, navigator?

No chance of seeing anything. No visual checks. No astro.
Can't climb. Plenty of radio all mixed up with the Aurora
Borealis. Don once got me a most extraordinary radio bear-
ing. You did, Don, old horse, and I'm not Imagining It. The
only thing we could get to match it was the moon, if we are
where we think we are; where I think we are.

Approaching Norway and its stuffed clouds; clouds stuffed
full of mountains. This time we're in luck. The draught
which always goes up and down a fiord because of the tem-
perature differences is our friend. We recognize the fiord.
Our fiord. The photo tallies exactly. So Pip and I make up

our minds to sneak up the fiord practically on the water, rely-
ing on the fog to confuse anyone trying to locate us. When I
think of it now I realize how mad we were. Think of it: the
narrow winding fiord, nothing to see, just estimation and
the map.

34

YOU'LL object you were always objecting to something
that it's morbid to be so interested in oneself. So what? I'm
all there is of me. When I die, what's left? I want someone
to remember me and I've picked on you. Why pick on you?
Do you, of all people, seriously ask me that?

It's the nothingness I'm afraid of, so I've drawn everything
together so you'll remember the contrasts whatever else you
forget. Don't forget me utterly, will you?

Did you really worry about us? Or was that just a line
good for the morale of grounded pilots. We all thought you
did and it bucked us up no end just when our arses had all
been knocked in. We knew you fought our battles with the
Air Department and we all thought you might be doing it
from personal interest in us. "Thought," did I say; "hoped"
was as high as we dared put it.

Perhaps things aren't always quite the way I tell you but
everything Don's taken down is spiritually true. The essen-
tial guts of things is as I tell them to you. I've just stripped
off the unessentials that stop most folk from seeing the bones
under the skin of happenings. There's a fine vindication of

the law of probability in all we do and I've just drawn things
together in time and place to show the pattern. Everything
that happens to us is really well rounded off with no loose
ends, if we'd only look at it that way. People speak as though
poetic justice were the exception rather than the rule. They
just don't see. I do. Now.

It's just that nothingness I can't bear. I was the liveliest
guy that ever was. Or was I merely a conceited twerp who
thought so.

You'll object again, that I ought to dress things up in their
chronological order and put in the mass of detail which
makes most photographs such messes. Why the hell should
I? You said yourself that our training was selective, that life
was selective. Do you now object just because I am being se-
lective?

At nights, after Don's square back has gone down the ward,
I lie awake; I don't sleep much, and I plan. I go over and
over what I'm getting ready for next day and make mental
notes. Next day is when Don comes again. It's as simple as
that. While I'm waiting for Don's face to come into my range
of vision I give my pictures their final vetting, and then I get
so damned interested that I only find out at the end what It
was all about. Don never says a word: just goes like hell.
Don, old horse, are you pitying me? Frankly I don't mind
pity at all. I spend a lot of time In pitying myself. And the
rest In thinking about the man I was. People who grow old
gradually have time to become reconciled to their body's de-
cay. I can't. It's been too rapid for me, I'm shocked by my
own disintegration.

I'd hate to reach the age when young men called me "Sir'*
and even more I'd hate young girls to offer me a seat in a

tram, but most of all I'd hate to die. Next to dying I hate
most the idea of growing old, but as that's the only way to
live a long time, what then? Apparently I'm to be spared the
indignity of growing old. Yet old people seem so serene. I
often wonder if they did indeed pass through the fire of
youth without burning some, at least, of their tail feathers.
My youth was as I tell you. What I say happened did hap-
pen. It's just the telescoping of it in time that makes it seem
so improbably well rounded off.

Growing old gradually one would scarcely notice the
change from day to day. Besides, no one ever thinks of him-
self as growing old. Of course the children shoot up and grow
impertinently independent. I suppose when the old gentle-
man with the scythe taps them on the shoulder they turn with
surprise and say, ''Who? Me? Why, I'm in the prime of life."

Of course, old folk very old folk exaggerate their
ages, but are pathetic about "being in full possession of all
their faculties." And, all of a sudden, here am I, old. Old,
like them. Ripe for the reaper. Rotten ripe.

I suppose I'd not be very convincing if I shot a bloody hero
line now. Not after all I've said. I'm no bloody hero. I'm
just a guy caught up in something too big for him.

I always feel a bit of a goat when fellows are talking about
their near misses. Until this last time nothing much has ever
happened to me. The aircraft used to get themselves shot
about somewhat, we lost a few gunners and we wrote off an
aircraft or two on returning. Yet all that has happened to
me is bruises. Unfortunately, where they don't show.

In the company I keep, that isn't enough even to buy cards.
You know about Pip and Geoff. They both wear the air of
mild interest proper in one who knows it all. And Don

135

walked down the escape chute out of Holland. Nearly every-
one I know has either baled out or been decanted. The mem-
bers o the Caterpillar Club are not, themselves, assertive,
but the fact of membership is.

Won't someone please collect all these stories before they
have the faded familiarity of a family photograph? Most of
my friends couldn't describe what happened to them. Not if
they tried till Doomsday. And the stories could easily get
into some greasy journalist's hands. Won't you do it? We
all talked to you. It was a little like talking to God for a start
but we got over that. Do go round and listen. Then fill in
the things that they think are common property but are not.
Tell the stories as they should be told. Stories of quite or-
dinary blokes in quite extraordinary situations. And how
they coped. How, since they couldn't alter themselves, they
altered the situation and bent it to their own ends. There'll
be some great escape stories after the war ends. If the war
ends. Those who were in the bag will have some good ones
but I wonder if the best won't be of those who cheated the
bag. And the reaper too.

Imagine a common or garden civvy carpenter, arrayed in
all the splendor of an R.A.F. sergeant's uniform, blithely set-
ting out to walk a hundred miles across Fortress Europe to
the sea. Confident that the sea, being British territory, would
bring forth his deliverance. He knew two words of German.
Guten Morgen. Pronounced in the way they do in Birming-
ham. He also knew one complete sentence in French, but as
it was only useful with like-minded ladies, it wasn't all the
help it might have been. Moreover, he always had difficulty
in interpreting the answer unless it took the form of assault.
So far as I know he didn't know if the noises heard in Hoi-

136

land had or had not any meaning to the initiated ear. Yet
he made it. It took him a fortnight.

He told me . . . "When I found I was on my own I hid
my chute at once and then I sat down on my bum to nut it
all out It seemed to me that the only thing to do was to
head north for the sea. A bit west of north actually. Nearer
that way. I saw no reason for any local excitement and I had
no intention of raising any. I didn't want to force myself on
anyone's attention."

And what about the gunner who got a crack or two when
ground fire caught his aircraft in North Africa. He was the
sole survivor. He dragged himself out of the smoking wreck-
age "because I thought it would be a good thing to do first
. . ." The desert was as empty as a city church and he was in
no condition to travel. He managed a few hundred yards
and then fell into a hole from which some Ities had been
watching him with mild interest. He told me ... "if I'd
had any sort of weapon I'd have made them carry me back
to a British unit but they had all the cards." They put him
in the bag. They were decent enough though, and got him
back to a forward aid post. He was hardly comfortable there
when our long-range desert patrol dropped in on the proceed-
ings and altered the whole situation. They had no means of
shifting him so they just left him in charge of all the lethal
stuff, after fixing his position by a little solar navigation.

The Ities didn't mind. They were most cooperative. One,
who spoke a little broken English, even told him that a spot
of leisure in a P.O.W. camp was just what suited his military
temperament. All was going as merrily as a brewery wed-
ding when someone noticed that the approaching tanks had
a most unfortunate silhouette. As the English speaker said

gloomily, "Now It looks as though we're right back in the war
again." So they were. It would be Fritz. He can never leave
a good situation alone. That's what may lose him the war
yet.

However, he was in no hurry: so rapidly rereversing the
situation he departed for points east. Where it is devoutly to
be wished that he ran into a minefield.

Our gunner "had it out with the I tie who could catch on/'
He pointed out that nothing was really much changed, in
that the P.O.W. camp was just as leisurely as before. The
delicate matter, though, was the others and the dangerous
w r eapons they handled. Eventually an Italian compromise
was reached. One section went west to seek the enemy and
would be certain to come up with him if it is true that the
world is round. The other crowd went east . . . "Me with
them/' And that was that.

As I heard the story I was told . . . "and in all the arguing
it was most important not to show too much interest in the
firearms, but, gosh, it was tempting just to make a quick
grab at them and cut all the blather short. The lecturer who
told us that Italian was the most beautiful language in the
world he played a bunch of records afterwards, remem-
ber? should have had to listen as I did."

I could go on endlessly. Don't let them fall into the wrong
hands. And do collect them. Fill in the gaps while there's
still a chance. I doubt if any of them has more than one story
worth the telling, but isn't that one story worth the telling?
The whole of life in a minute of time. All the rest of his
days he'll remember that moment when the universe revolved
round him.

All I need is time, just a little time. Enough to let com-

138

passion shape the formless rages and bitterness. You're get-
ting the overflow.

Td have come to see you of course. Probably with a mass
of half-digested ideas and an untidy handful of manuscript.
I wonder if you'd have tried to take it over from me? On bal-
ance, perhaps not. You did let us make our own nav. mistakes
but, even now, I'm not sure if your attitude was masterly in-
activity or plain laziness.

Given time I should have been able to tell you so much.
Where love of life ranks among the other compulsions. It's
differently placed with different men, of course, but what's
interesting is the things which outrank it. They're surprising
and most revealing. Given a little time I could have told you
something about men under tensions not tension ten-
sions. No one tension breaks a man. It's the resonance of
many tensions and, when they're all in phase, the man is
shaken to pieces. But you know, and I know, that if I were
given the time I'd not really come to see you, with or with-
out my untidy bundle of manuscript. It's just the being no
time that brings me to write at all.

In the beginning, as you must know by now, I wanted to
write about myself. I wanted you to remember me. Still do.
But I wanted, also, to remember myself. Hence all the auto-
biography.

Then all sorts of other folk crept in. After all, a man is his
associations. And, as I thought of them there was something
memorable about them all, something entitling them to
space in your mind. Usually it was just one thing lodging
just one claim not to be forgotten. With Pip and Geoff and
one or two others it was different of course. I hope you see
them in the round as I do; and not just for a moment, illumi-
nated as if by lightning.

DON and I were amiably chewing the fat. The point at issue
being the "geodetic" construction of our old Wimpy. Don
was of the considered opinion that the basket-weave type of
airframe was a misguided attempt to revive village crafts.
That was pretty big of him as he comes from a village in the
Welsh Marches.

Pip hove in sight and listened bemusedly to us for a mo-
ment and then said "Briefing Room, half an hour. What
have the silly bastards dreamed up that's so urgent?" But all
the same, he was mighty interested. And so was I. Who
wants to brief us at this time?

And God help us, when we got to the Briefing Room, there,
as large as life and twice as ludicrous, was a security officer
from Air Ministry. All names were being taken and there
was a fine cloak and dagger air about the proceedings which
I found vastly entertaining, so I was really angry when Pip
spoiled it all.

Once we were safely in and accounted for, Pip heaved him-
self upright, walked over to the security bloke and nearly
wrecked the enterprise. "We all know each other here/* he
began, "but we don't know you. A security pass isn't good
enough. Is there anyone here who will vouch for you?"

I thought the security bloke was going to have twin pups.
He spent his life questioning the bona fides of others! This
was too much! I was dead scared that the situation wouldn't
develop, but I needn't have worried. The S.O. was on his
mettle. Under Pip's cold and doubting eye he produced an
impressive array of corroborative material, while I worked

like hell to keep the Stationmaster from queering the pitch.
In the end Pip reserved judgment but agreed to listen to
what he might have to say. It was worth listening to.

There was to be a mine-laying program of a very special
kind. Mines were to be laid with pinpoint accuracy right in-
side a certain Norwegian fiord. A special course of instruc-
tion would be necessary under conditions of maximum se-
curity. The course would take only two days since only one
technique had to be mastered. Well!

We were drifting out when the Stationmaster intercepted
us. Back we went to see the S.O. in a small side room. The
bloke who had done most of the briefing was there too, with a
brass hat who was a big shot in navigation. Well well, my
friends, why us? This was early days, remember, and we were
very easily unimpressed.

It appeared that a great deal was not known about this pin-
point everyone had talked about so blithely. In fact maps
and charts were known to be defective but defective in what
way? The highly intelligent aircrew will see at once how im-
portant it is that these matters should be adjusted before
worse befalls. The highly intelligent aircrew also sees who is
to do the dirty work.

To our extreme surprise we were put through another
briefing right away and it wasn't nearly as confident as the
former. Indeed there were distressing lacunae. Moreover
we were informed we were going on to the job at once,
straight from the room to the aircraft which was even now
being prepared. We could have several hours sleep, right
here. Security run mad. So that was why we were briefed
at such an odd hour. Wonder what the other blokes made of
it, especially if they saw us being detained.

141

It was still dark when we went over to the old girl. If
there's one place in all the world to avoid on climatic grounds,
it's the east coast of Scotland. The denizens say that a "snell"
wind blows off the sea. It does. And ice crackles underfoot
and the wet cold bites into one's bones.

As we walked Pip rumbled in my ear, "Now we're rid of
those bastards, what do you make of all this?" I was never
one to miss a chance to air my views, so I sounded off, as the
Yanks say.

"In the first place there's some mighty special reason for
laying a mine lane in a fiord. Either that's the route usually
followed and we are to catch something special there,
or . . ."

"Or what?" asked Pip, and we all stopped for a moment.

"Or the lane is for some ship to be safe in."

I still wonder which one it was.

The old girl doesn't like being run up this morning. Slug-
gish. Just like us. Even the pigeons in their pigeon basket
looked sluggish.

And so for Norway. Sleety showers Interspersed with hail.
Really handsome icing. As we want as much time over the
area we are full to the ears of petrol but have only a fe^W
bombs for targets of opportunity. Endurance? Say, ten
hours.

The dawn comes reluctantly with steely showers. You tell
me which is sea and which is sky. When we come down to
have a look I get cold feet and so we climb to five thousand
again. Safer. In mid North Sea there's no show of intercep-
tion so everyone's happy. Except me. Since I have no man*

ner of fix since departure, you tell me how we are doing. A
loop bearing, did you say? With all that static?

When the light gets better, we have a look at the sea and
the wind lanes confirm the Met forecast. So far, so very good.
When we've used a little more fuel we'll try the sun.

It proves harder than expected to get above the mush and
my shot of the sun is hazy. Still the position line puts us on
track.

Dead on E.T.A.: a few small islands. Good. The entrance
to the fiord is somewhere close. But wait a minute! Every
fiord has a couple of small islands at its entrance, it's the na-
ture of the country.

We edge up the fiord. Just about a thousand feet below
the crests of the mountains. But visibility is very bad. I toy
with the idea of sitting right on the sea and Pip is willing
provided I can guarantee we don't run into a blank wall of
rock with no time to climb over it. I can't. So we stay where
we are. The fiord narrows. Then . . . Jesus Christ! Anti-
aircraft fire! What the hell does this mean? The old girl
plunges wildly; a hit? Alec confirms the hit, and Pip's in
trouble. The old girl's out of control for a moment. Then
Pip has her again.

Down flat on the water we go. Who gives a curse for the
blank wall of rock? That Hun commander shouldn't be in
Norway. Too intelligent. Guns halfway up the side of the
fiordl Bloody cunning. But Pip is cunning too. Anti-aircraft
guns are not made to fire downward, so we sit on the water.
Good for you, Pip. But a hydraulic pressure line is gone and
things start to go to hell rapidly. Christ, that water looks
cold. Pip cuts off that line. So, mes braves, if you don't mind
manhandling a big Wimpy we might see you home.

We climb, dead on track up the fiord. Pip lifts her as fast
as he dares. I've never been so glad to have five thousand on
the clock. And so we turn for home. It wasn't so bad was It?
Now to think about It.

It certainly isn't coincidence that the battery was dead on
that pinpoint. It's as well we found that out in time to cancel
the show now that Fritz is wise to a possible attempt. At-
tempt at what? On second thoughts was there anything
moored under the guns, hard in against the cliff? Everyone
was too busy to notice. I wonder.

A hell of a journey home. Must have been a nightmare for
Pip. A wide turn without flaps. A most clumsy approach. A
very heavy sit-down.

Bless me. Look at the reception committee! Crash wagon.
Blood cart. Fire crew. All the trimmings.

When the riggers looked at the damage It was just the
merest fluke. One lone glancing hit which took out a section
of the hydraulic gear. Repair It in half an hour. And It
nearly dunked us in the fiordl

The I.O. was keenly interested but a bit nervous. So he
should be with all that scrambled egg breathing down his
neck. I've never heard questioning so precise as the cross ex-
amination that followed.

Then, almost gently the axe fell. We were to catch up on
some sleep and then join the other crews already briefed.
Holy Hell!

So the show was not to be called off! Ever put your head in
a lion's mouth? Catch up on some sleep!

The special training involved an approach at five thousand,

144

but the mine was to be laid from fifty feet. And dead to a pat-
tern supplied. What's the big idea? So few of us that some-
one must be mighty sure of the exact time and place. But
what? "Something really important/' we were told. Who'd
have guessed? "And time to seconds is important too."

And so the pitcher goes again to the well.

A morning no dog should be abroad in. As Pip ran the old
girl up, I'll swear the exhaust gases froze solid at the flame
arresters. Cold! It was cold. "Snell."

We don't want to go and hope that something will go
wrong, but nothing does. With our luck, if anything goes
wrong it will be squarely in that bloody fiord. What's there,
anyway?

It's comforting to be in company as we head across the
North Sea, more comforting to them than to me as I'm sup-
posed to be doing the masterminding. Still, here are those
blasted islands and here are we. Approach at five thousand
is the drill. So we approach at five thousand. The icing had
been very bad coming over but it is worse here because of
the nearness of the peaks, and control gets a bit iffy from time
to time. Furious downdrafts too. We dropped nearly a thou-
sand feet in one of them. And keeping in formation was the
devil's own job, partly because the visibility was so bad. Still
we kept on track up the fiord, occasionally losing one of the
party and finding the silly bastard again just as we had given
him up.

Nearer and nearer to the time and place. When we must
come down to fifty feet. Because it's not safe to drop the
mines from any higher altitude.

This is itl

We sneak down to the water and the sleeting showers

make It mighty difficult to tell exactly where the water is.
But we make it. Low on the water the guns can't be depressed
enough to get us, but if the area is so bloody important I won-
der if Fritz has a fighter squadron operating from the goat
tracks hereabouts? Round the bend w r e come and the drifting
showers ease enough for us to see the pinpoint clearly, and
there, blast my eyes, bang in the middle of the area is a small-
ish craft, not anchored (the fiord is too deep for that), but
either drifting or just making steerage way. Is this w r hat
we've come all this way to do in? Seems absurd. Anyway, w y e
have to attack it because it is squarely where the mines are to
go. All this flashes through my mind while we are closing on
it, and we lead in to let him have the few bombs we have, but
the sum total of bombs in the formation is ample for the job.

Still, easy, Pip. Fifty feet is only fifty feet. Line up. Run
in. Just a piece of cake. Unescorted tramp. Won't even hold
us long enough to worry us about endurance . . . steady . . .

We were almost on her when the whole bloody sky blew
up. At first I thought Fritz had guns down at the water's
edge. But no! It was the ship. She bristled with anti-aircraft
gun positions. We were hit all over the place and all control
went to hell. I couldn't even release the bombs. The bomb
doors stayed open and wouldn't close. The old girl reared
up almost vertically and then flopped sideways. All this at
fifty feet, remember! I felt Pip slam her into fine pitch and
knew we hadn't lost that control. Fine pitch! Throttles wide
open! Through the gate! One wing tip touched the water.
By main strength Pip clawed her off. She flopped over on
to the other wing! All stability gone! Pip pushed her nose
down. Yes. At fifty feet. She slithered along the surface of
the water. We grazed a cake of ice. I heard Don reporting.

146

Then the intercom went out. Not a word from Alec. Christ,
the port engine's afire.

All of a sudden it dawned on me how I could see the port
engine. The port side was opened up as though it had been
ripped apart. I saw a quite small fire only a few feet away.
Almost absent-mindedly I beat it out with my glove. My eyes
never left the port engine.

The flames blew out and I can remember thinking, "Hoo-
ray, we're saved." Saved! With the old girl only partly under
control, the port engine sure to conk out soon, a hole in the
airframe such that the open work was bigger than the closed
portion. Saved!

We slithered along a few feet above the water and in a few
miles we'd have to climb out of the end of the fiord. No
room to turn. Just lift her to five thousand, Pip . . . Thanks,

pip.

I made my tour of inspection. Alec was alive but he'd have
to rely on hand rotation for his guns. He said they were very
stiff. Don was all right, he said, but in the same boat as Alec
and the radio was distributed over most of the aircraft.

I reported all this but Pip only grunted. He was trying
for altitude and I was just being tiresome. The old girl
didn't want to climb. Bomb doors open . . . wheels down
. . . would you?

Still, we made it. Although I did think that we might have
collected a sample of the beautiful scenery as the wheels
grazed it.

And now to get home.

Wait a minute! Where are the rest? I can't see anyone.

Homeward bound. High enough to turn but still below
the crests. Sneak through the first gap to avoid passing down

147

that fatal fiord again. Is that something burning on the wa-
ter? It is. And it's too small for a ship.

How long will the port engine run? What ground speed
are we making? This parody of an aircraft can't hold to-
gether much longer. The port engine is running so roughly
it's working the old girl apart. Half my nav. gear is some-
where in the fiord. So let's set a course for home, just as
though we expected to get there.

And now it's Pip's pigeon. The long fight for altitude.

In theory a Wimpy will maintain altitude on one engine
but not on an engine as beaten up as both ours were. So out
goes everything while they still run. Anything which could
be spared. We will have surplus petrol when the port engine
conks out but the controls are all to hell and Pip doubts if
he can dump any.

So now we sit and watch the port engine! How long?

After an eternity of watching it does fail. A series of
coughs. Almost apologetic. But at the first cough Pip had
started to feather the fan. She feathers. And that postpones
things a little.

One engine won't keep us airborne. Think of the damage!
Pip orders us to dunking stations. Prepare to ditch. Hell
hold on as long as he can but hell ditch while he still has
some control. Pip has ditched once before, so he knows the
drill. I take a quick look at the dinghy. Is it punctured?

Pip warns us that shell go under very quickly, all opened
up as she is. I have to relay him and get Alec out. So that
was why the guns were so stiff. Poor Alec.

My imagination runs away with me again. I remember all
too clearly Pip's account of his previous ditching, nose up,
little as possible on the clock.

148

A hell of a crash as we hit. Pip had picked it well. How
he told sea from sky in time to ride that roller. We're all
shaken but make for the escape opening like one man, and
dear God, the force of the impact with the sea has compressed
it a bit. For one horrible moment we wonder if we're going
to get out. But we do. What a squeeze! We stand on the tail
plane. It's a rotten gray half light. Where's Pip? The old
girl rises and falls in a soggy manner and is obviously not go-
ing to last two minutes. Where's Pip?

A whistle? Pip! He has the dinghy out. It dodges around
all over the show as he tries to bring it closer to us. It's not
like Pip to be so clumsy. Then I see he has Alec. He had his
thumb in Alec's mouth and was towing him the way you gill
a trout. We are up to our necks now.

We balance the dinghy carefully to get Alec in and I notice
the leak. My glove stops it, and how did I come still to have a
glove? Alec is rolled in. The rest of us one by one with care-
ful ballasting. Pip last because he's heaviest. As soon as we
count noses we start to bale. Fortunately my leak is the only
one.

Soaked to the skin. Little spicules of ice on the water.
Dope for Alec. Sleep for us all. Truel We went to sleep.
Horrible uneasy sleep. We wake to bale and to shift posi-
tion when our cramped positions become unbearable. We
then shift to another, equally unbearable one. Careful
though. In this sea we could easily overturn.

Later we take stock of our advantages. We have a little
water all round and I remember the pigeons. Dear Lord, the
pigeons. Now at the bottom of the North Sea. Not so, said
Pip, I released them. We all feel as good as picked up. The
trouble is that the sea is rising and we're scarcely visible in

149

the troughs. Here's hoping we're on a crest when they ar-
rive.

On the second day a Beaufighter spotted us. What's he do-
ing so far north? He dropped a flare and headed west. Pres-
ently a matronly old flying boat comes along but the sea has
risen and all she can do is to drop us another dinghy which
we can't reach. Lovely! But she does circle for hours and
that's very comforting because that means a surface craft.

So it does. Navy. Fleet auxiliary, I suppose, as I drop off
to sleep, but they won't let me go to sleep. They have radio
instructions and they know what to do. I am told that I have
severe frostbite and I shall be lucky to keep all the outlying
portions if I don't do as I'm told. Strange! Of course! The
old girl was wide open to all the winds of heaven and we've
been soaking wet for a couple of days. Now, tell me, why
didn't I feel cold in the aircraft?

They put me through the treatment for ditched aircrew
and talk of exposure. I suppose the others are getting the
treatment too. Drowsily I don't care.

Then the feeling starts to come back. It's like the fires of
hell, I tell you. Every little cell is in agony. Like the fires of
hell. What have I said? Don't listen to me! I shouldn't talk
about fires of hell. Not now!

THE friends a man makes. Does Pip seem an odd friend to
make? I mean, for me to make. Anyone can understand any-

one else choosing Geoff. I believe the Yanks have a method
for measuring who is popular and who is odd man out. I sup-
pose they call it the index of gregariousness and I'll bet they
go through anything to improve their ratings.

It seems to me that the best friendships are those between
two men who have no other friends. Forsaking all others.
Oh yes, I know it's sometimes homosexuality, but I'm not on
that very interesting topic. Remind me of it some time.

Consider Alec and Jim. If ever there was a Cockney city
sparrow it was Alec. Jim farmed somewhere in the Yorkshire
dales. Few men could say nothing more eloquently. Even
his pipe was in character. Short, so as to be under his eye.
For good measure he always filled it slowly.

He was stocky. "Rear gunner sawn-off." But, my word, he
was thick through the chest. I think the only time he ever
left his dales was to join the Air Force, and why the Air
Force?

Yet when Alec appeared on the scene a frugal smile, a
north-country smile, creased his face and then was economi-
cally erased. Enter Alec. Talking. They sat together. Alec
talking. Jim's conservative soul revolted at every syllable
I'm sure but he nodded from time to time. And he listened
too. Closely. But he didn't feel called upon for comment,
presuming an interval to occur.

And you'd have noticed that Jim sought out Alec perhaps
a little more than vice versa. And yet, I don't know. Just
two men sitting together.

They had bludgeoned their ways into their present happy
positions of living in each other's pockets. Tomorrow could
wait. Both were unmarried, a little older than the rest of us
and both were sweet gunners. Alec the better of the two.

151

His reflexes were faster. But Jim was solid. He settled into
his turret like a broody hen. Contentedly.

In the turret there's hardly room for a deep breath or a
string of obscenities. The cramping effect on, say, a run to
northern Italy is unbelievable. Yet Jim made himself at
home with a contented sigh.

Alec always raised hell about his dog's life but he, too,
turned round in precisely the same broody-hen way and set-
tled himself to "sit it out" as he used to say.

They once spent a leave, each in the other's bailiwick, and
returned suitably chastened by the experience. Alec told me
a thing or two about life in the fells. "The silence makes
your eardrums rattle. The only living thing is the grass."

What Jim thought of London he confided to his pipe.
Probably one dark night in bed.

You should have seen them at ground to air and vice versa.
Both lovely to watch. But it was in air to air with the cameras
that they were little dreams. You can teach a gunner up to a
point. After that he has it or he hasn't.

Alec and Jim led the target in such a finished way; it made
me remember gray mornings in a maimai near Lake Elles-
naere, waiting for ducks. My shooting companion led the
cross-flying birds in a way that was an education to watch
one moment the whistle of wings and the next the retriever
bringing in the birds. Alec and Jim were like that. Except
that not only was their target moving very rapidly and prob-
ably taking intelligent evasive action, but their own gun plat-
form was probably doing the same. Besides which the only
penalty for missing a duck is missing a duck.

Alec was very keen on a "bit of skirt," with or without
skirt. Jim preferred his pipe. With or without tobacco.

152

They'd have liked to fly together but neither could bring
himself to learn front gunner ju-ju so they had to be content
to fly almost, but not quite, in sight of each other.

Of course a rear gunner is practically written off from the
time he climbs into his turret; still it was strange that Jim
went first.

I heard Alec yelling the foulest obscenities. He was trying
to cover a straggler. We throttled back all we dared but he
just couldn't keep station. And the fighters gathered in a
leisurely fashion for the kill. Why should they hurry? Too
crippled for evasive action. A sitting duck. They were very
interested to see if our solicitude could be turned against us.

I heard Alec open up at extreme range without asking per-
mission. He was yelling in a way to curdle your blood. Why,
I wonder. The best tail gunner in the Air Force was throwing
his ammo away and he knew it. That cramped little turret was
his private hell. The essence of hell is not to be able to do
anything about it. He sobbed and cursed and screamed. And
then I heard him praying. "Please God, all the brollies out.
Please God, please . . . and if there's only one brolly
Jim's, Jim's. . . ."

As you'd expect, there were no brollies.

37

WHEN all this is over there'll be no excuse for not knowing
how it wasn't. The important thing being of course how it
looked to the fellow at the time.

When I put this to Pip he shrugged and said "War's war,"
but his eyes looked like a lost spaniel. AH the iron out of
them for a moment. It came up again at that wonderful all
New Zealand party I told you about. There was a middle-
aged brown job there and this is his story.

"Greece wasn't so bad really. Not for a start. There was
movement. First we moved up through places whose names
one's heard for a moment and there's a silence. A silence
while Thermopylae and Salamis suddenly fill the mind. Then
Fritz hit us. He gave us everything in the book. And it was a
new book. You fellows ever been dive-bombed? No? You
can tell me if you like that a dive bomber is a sitting duck to
you. We were sitting ducks to him* We dug in properly but
small-arms fire didn't worry him very much. Why should it?

"I suppose it was the noise. Those screaming bombs. All
we'd been told said we were safe dug in as we were. Yet
every instinct was to run. A bomb wouldn't account for more
than one or two. We just had to wait and we'd know who
were that one or two. Just wait. And every next time the
same.

"A clear pitiless sky too. The landscape the same. Stark to
the sky. Dig in among the rocks. Then wait. Wait for the
attack. Wait for night.

"Cloudless days as we dug in each morning. Starry nights
as we worked our way south. Most organization gone. Just
the little tight unit of your friends. Hunted among the rocks.

"The hills ran down to the sea in steep bluffs. Here and
there were little bays, some of them with lovely beaches. So
like New Zealand. In every bay we looked for the Navy.
Sometimes it was there. Sometimes not. Always there were
too many of us.

154

"How we prayed for just one foggy day. That would give
us thirty-six hours. Enough time at least to try to throw
them off the scent. So we thought. Yet the first time this
miracle happened I managed to lose my unit. Believe me or
not I was rather glad of it. A man alone is no target for air-
craft or indeed for anyone. Besides, I thought enough of my
own abilities to fancy my chance on my own.

"Then it struck me like a blow that I didn't really know a
word of Greek. I suddenly felt afraid of everything about
me. It was so different from when the dive bombers were at
us. It wasn't only that the next turn of the path might be the
last I'd ever turn. Nor that whoever saw me might very well
give me away. You see, I knew Fritz was ahead of me as well
as behind. I was the filling in his sandwich.

"I was weakening too. Not enough rest or food. Then the
littlest thing cooked my goose. My boots were pretty far gone,
so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when my left
foot let me down. I remember it was a very small stone and
the pain in my foot was out of all proportion to the little
twist it had had. I got my boot off and looked at my foot. It
looked much the same as usual, but putting it to the ground
was very painful. The march to the Peloponnesus was off.

"I hobbled a little at a time. I was trapped by my foot. It
was only time now until I was in the cage. I was so dulled
I was almost reconciled to it. The only thing that worried me
was whether they'd try to march me to the stalag. And what
they'd do to me if I couldn't make it.

"The girl in the tree knew nothing of this. I wonder i
she saw me as any different from any other soldier of either
side. I guess the Greeks just had to know. Anyway, up into
the loft affair I went. You know how Greek houses have that

sort of space under the roof. Now if I had been Fritz I would
have searched up there first, wouldn't you? But my leg didn't
hurt so much lying down. There was plenty of time to think.
Of course I'd have liked to bathe my foot with cold water but
water was much too precious for that. So I stuck it up in the
air and tried to think out the next move.

"And, damn it all, Fritz fairly streamed by. I loosened one
stone and angled it on another and could see through the
crack. Some of them even had bikes. Bikes on those goat
tracks. Bet they carried the bikes farther than the bikes car-
ried them.

"I tried to find out where I was; where the British were;
if the Navy put in anywhere; not a chance. Nobody knew a
thing. I wonder now whether they did or not. But they fed
me and they didn't give me away. So far as I could make out
they were offering me clothes for my getaway. What a fool
Yd be to be picked up, without a word of Greek, in civvies.
So I stuck to my uniform, although only a clairvoyant would
think it a uniform any more.

"Then Jerry picked me up and put me in the bag. As sim-
ple as that. A little group of them came round the corner.
You know what Greek tracks are like. I was a goat to stop
even for a minute just round a corner. The only place to
stop is where you have a clear view in every direction. They
came round the corner. A cheerful little group of youngsters
in those neat and practical uniforms. They unslung their
submachine guns, still smiling, and I knew that any one
of them might do me in, in a pleasant offhand sort of way.
But they didn't. Just gestured me to get going back down
the track. My back tingled all the time but I soon came to
their security bunch. Someone spoke to me. It wasn't

156

German so I suppose it was Greek. Then, suddenly, English
rattled all around me. I had been told that every Jerry unit
had someone who spoke Greek and English. I didn't believe
it at the time but there they were all right. They gave me
a drink and some of their iron rations. We used to hear
that they had a chemical drug in soya-bean flour for their
iron rations and it was supposed to perform miracles, but
it tasted like sawdust. Just like ours. No miracles either.
Just food.

"Then they started on me. Questions. Casual as you please.
I told them exactly what I was required to do. Not a word
more. So they asked me questions about England and about
New Zealand. Wasn't that neat? Only Fritz would be bright
enough to have such shrewd intelligence blokes so close up.
Neat, all right.

"So I marched north under a skeleton guard. In the bag.
They were pretty decent. Oldish fellows. I lagged a bit be-
cause of my foot. Nobody worried. How's that for confi-
dence? So I lagged a bit more. I was getting confident too.
My foot felt a lot better already.

"No sense in making a break at night, though. That was
the time they were on their toes. I made it right in the mid-
dle of the day. We were skirting a bluff above a little bay. I
just slipped into a little crack, after lagging as usual. I doubt
if they missed me until night. As easy as that.

"I had enough sense to hole up for a while and then I
haunted the beach. No boats. No Navy. No shellfish.

"I ate a kind of seaweed. Very rubbery to chew when
you're weak. Slightly sweet though and very filling. I looked
round for a log but anything burnable is precious in this
treeless country. But I did find bits and pieces here and

there. Tied them together with strips of what was left of my
shirt. Then, one night, I took the lot down to the sea and
hitched myself underneath so that my face would float clear
no matter what happened to the rest of me. Quite a job that.
I nearly drowned myself before I got it right You should try
it some time. The water was warm though. A bit of luck
that.

"When the light came it played hell with my eyes. Re-
flections from the water, I suppose. And sea birds were too
interested by far. I shudder when I think of that now.

"That's how it was when the Navy picked me up. It took
them a week to get back to Egypt so I was able to walk ashore.
I imagine everyone thought me mad. I just bent down and
patted the deck with my hand. It must have looked stupid/'

So Pip is gone. "Missing, believed killed/'

Of course there's always hope. Cling to it even after rea-
son has done its worst.

I should never have gone on that leave. I should never
have let him go anywhere on a shaky do without me. Just
keep hoping.

He was missing once before and spent days in a dinghy,
and in the days of primitive dinghies at that. Nowadays the
dinghy inflates itself, pops out of its stowage space and floats
alongside the aircraft. It contains everything the well-
ditched aircrew can desire and everything possible is done to

combat exposure, thirst, hunger, exhaustion and even bore-
dom. They have a tiny radio, mirrors for signaling, whistles,
yellow caps, fluorescein to color the water and . . . why the
hell do I spend days thinking about dinghies?

It's because it's the only chance. If Pip's alive he's in the
drink. Alive, and on land, he'd have reported by now or
we'd have heard he's a prisoner. He simply must be in the
drink. Must!

I studied charts I already knew by heart, currents that were
as familiar as the palm of my hand because I always have the
drink in mind. If I'm ever in a dinghy again, I'm ready for
it. I considered winds that no Met O. ever knew. But al-
ways, and desperately, I wanted to cling to the idea that Pip
was alive. All right! All right! I know all about the prov-
erbs. All men must die, it's part of the price we pay for our
nervous system, but Pip need not die young. Not Pip. Oh
yes, war's like that and the best run out of luck first, but the
losses are bearable until they happen to be Pip. I realized,
belatedly, how important he was to me. Now, lying here, I
have time to discover that all my life I've leaned on someone.
I haven't the guts to stand alone. Once it was you, another
time, Pip. Now I'm veering back to you. If I weren't a sci-
entist I'd take a chance that the parsons know what they're
talking about and go for religion: lean on that. But I can't.
This business of leaning isn't from any lack of confidence in
myself; there's something else. What is it? Do you know?

A few weeks later I'd become used to the mess without Pip
but I doubted if I'd ever get on so well with any other cap-
tain. I was dead lucky when Geoff came along. Pip, then
Geoff. My luck was certainly in.

Geoff was a queer fish. He'd been in the Battle of France

in Falrey Battles, known as fighter-bombers because those
who had the misfortune to have to use them as fighters
thought they were bombers, and vice versa. Both parties
were wrong. Not that being in the Battle of France or in
Fairey Battles makes a man a queer fish. Geoff was a queer
fish long before he was in either. A sort of natural queer
fish. His shy smile was very pleasant and his hair made him
look almost Norwegian, but what set him apart was his pas-
sion for perfection if the end served was to affect the future
world he talked so much about. In some ways he reminds
me of you: younger, less cynical, head in the clouds, feet on
the ground. Like us, the war was made for him too. It en-
abled him to discover a lot of things, and a lot of people, but
mostly it enabled him to discover Geoff. He was the first
Englishman I'd ever had much to do with in the way of dis-
cussion. But all that came later.

In the days of the "phony war" it had been too easy. I
used to listen in a sort of daze. What an odd world it was be-
fore the blitz! It was simply a case of landing at the nearest
convenient French airfield: engine trouble, of course, and
listening to the delighted exclamations of "ce$ braves An-
glais" as one was led away to sundry glasses. After that, all
that really mattered was not to get one's airdromes mixed as
the warmth of the welcome varied inversely with the fre-
quency of the accident. What a war! And why wasn't I here
to cash in on it?

Apparently no one knew what we were to do if we ad-
vanced or the Hun did. And no one cared.

When the breakthrough came Geoff showed up at Dun-
kirk as did all of whatever Air Force we could raise. He went
into the drink, was rescued and dragged back to shore by the

i6o

Army and then took his turn with them waiting on the
beaches. He has never lost a rather shy admiration for
the Army and Navy. This sets him somewhat apart from the
rest of us.

You know the bitter jibe that the initials of the British Ex-
peditionary Force stand for Back Every Fortnight. With
France and Norway in mind there might appear to be some-
thing in that. But Geoff felt differently and he'd actually
seen something. He had one supporter too. A bloke who'd
been in the Greek and Crete messes and whose views on
brave men and incompetent leaders were entitled to respect.
In his opinion the Army was no better led than the Air Force,
an opinion we found difficult to stomach, however entitled to
respect. The point he made to Geoff was that Britain had
won all her previous wars because those appointed to com-
mand were too unintelligent to have any effect either way.
In other words, we had won what can be done by courage
without leadership; our opponents suffering from leaders as
incompetent as ours but without our saving grace of indo-
lence.

The fellow out of the Cretan affair also conducted an in-
quiry into the Air Force share in the mess. He told Geoff
that, if it was good enough for the brown jobs to stick it out
and die where they stood, the Air Force need not have fled
quite so precipitately.

See how folk unbend with Geoff? Yet it was all outside
stuff. By his nature Geoff was barred from the quick com-
munion of such as Pip.

Don't worry about what I've said about the Air Force.
There'll always be jealousy between the services. The Air
Force, being the youngest and hence the most anxious to as-

sert Itself, howls much too shrilly, of course. And when as-
sessing courage, it's one thing to come back home to a pleas-
ant mess at the end of the job, and a quite different thing to
stick it out, half starved, disease ridden, lost and forgotten,
with equipment that can be captured, rotting in some tropi-
cal jungle. Don't sell the Army short, as the Americans say.
"Infantry is the arm, which in the end, wins battles/' says
their training manuai. It may or may not be true, but belief
in it will work wonders.

How did all this happen when I set out to tell you about
Geoff? Somehow Geoff opens up so many things worth
thinking about. And Don never says a word about him.
Neither do I. Not now.

39

"EVER seen so much of it?" asked Geoff as we stopped at the
door of the briefing room. "Never/* said I.

The Stationmaster was looking very subdued, as well he
might in the presence of all that broad braid and gold lace.
Geoff closed his eyes for a moment to accustom them to the
magnificence and then groped his way to a seat. I don't
think that met with unqualified approval in the highest quar-
ters.

I sometimes wonder what all these deputy directors thought
of us. On the occasions they came slumming to operational
stations, I mean.

162

Anyway, we were honored with the full works. The prop-
aganda boys were there in force. All the rest were experts
in something or other. There was all the usual hoo-ha. You
know. The aims and objects of war in general and of this
one in particular. The moral significance of righteousness,
etc. (What does Fritz tell his bunch?) They all had the
pleasantest voices. Somehow, though they talked of war, all
the messy business of blood and guts and fire seemed a long
way away as they talked, so I felt a little annoyed when some-
one produced a brand-new map, clean, too. Gnomonic pro-
jection and as far down as the Mediterranean.

There was a preliminary solemnity about respecting the
rights of neutrals, then the same bloke produced a handsome
map of northern Italy. Geoff grinned and whispered "Mi
sen to mglio."

"Meaning, you snob?" said I.

Geoff smiled an apology and whispered again "I feel bet-
ter/' but I was damned if I could see why. Meanwhile the
pleasant voices went on, just like that.

The general idea was, it appeared to wake the Ities up a
bit and to remind them that war is distressingly two-sided.
There had been rumors that Musso had petitioned Adolf to
allow his gallant airmen to join in the bombing of London.
I'll bet that worried the Fuehrer more than a little. Anyway,
it's all his own fault and a man must put up with the allies
who fasten themselves on him. Wasn't it Napoleon who
said that If the Italians were hostile It took a division to de-
feat them; if they were neutral it took two divisions to watch
them; and if they were allies it took ten divisions to rescue
them. Adolf can learn from Boney. If and when we win
this war I wonder If we'll put the Ities back on their feet just
because the Itie vote is so Important in the U.S.

During this time an officer minus gold braid is, like a good
child, obscene but not heard, but Geoff said, out loud,
"There's an element of low comedy in this." After the prop-
aganda boys had considered what he might mean, and finally
dismissed him as the kind of eccentric occasionally found on
operational stations, the show got under way again.

"Fiat works/ 7 whispered Geoff.

However, .it wasn't quite that way. Although everyone
agreed that the Fiat works would be A Good Thing, we'd all
be satisfied with a little general excitement in northern Italy.
Especially if it brought repercussions in North Africa.

Then the question of preliminary training was thrashed
out and all the variables carefully examined by minor, but
strangely competent blokes. It was a pleasure to hear such
detailed sense. Although I noted with some regret a distinct
weakness in their vowels.

"You know/' I said as we walked away, "I've never been to
Italy and I *ve always wanted to go/ 1

As only Geoff had ever been there there was a not unpleas-
ant tourist feeling about the whole show. I had a hell of a lot
of unsolicited advice on the route. The consensus was in fa-
vor of a loop round Vichy France, along the G6te d'Aiur, the
Italian Riviera and so home via Switzerland the whole lot
in daylight and good visibility, except the business end.

Queer what worried me. Wouldn't stay out of my mind in
fact. It wasn't the distance or the unescorted flight right
across Fortress Europe. After all, we'd be so high and so few
that we'd be of no interest to anyone. I had no fears about
the navigation. It was fatigue that worried me. It nagged
at my mind.

So here we are. Everything special, even the rations. Not
much frightfulness aboard too full of petrol. Still, we had

164

enough. Nearly all Incendiary but with just a few big bangs
for variety and as a moral deterrent to firefighters. And, as
far as I can see, all we have to do is to fly there and back.

We tumbled out of the truck and the shadowy bulk of the
old girl looked, as usual, huge and comforting in the failing
light. Geoff looked us over. I know he desperately wanted
to say something which would be appropriate to the occa-
sion, but, being English, he couldn't, so he just smiled in his
pleasant shy way, but he did say to me: "Don't let me flatter
myself. For a job like this they don't pick the pilots with the
blue eyes/' I nodded. I wouldn't let him flatter himself.
Everyone knew that the only problems were navigational
ones.

It's an early start for a job like this, of course. After all,
it's a damned long way and there are some interesting possi-
bilities for first-rate errors.

The old girl staggers off in her customary doubtful fashion.
You know what I mean. Hold her down until the last possi-
ble moment, then gently ease her because she has such a bel-
lyful of fuel. That belly full of petrol sticks in all our minds
until she finally comes unstuck. So it should. Dangerous
stuff, petrol. We climb slowly in what remains of the light
in the upper atmosphere. Queer, that. I remember, once,
we had two sunsets in the one evening. One on the ground,
and then, as we rose we sighted the sun again, apparently ris-
ing in the west and then sinking in a most obliging manner
in the same place as we steadied up on track. Silly to look at.

Anyway, tonight we had a little more light as we went
higher but that soon faded. We felt reasonably secure. No
one would be interested, in so few of us at our height. Obvi-
ously we meant business elsewhere so Fritz thankfully passed

i6 5

us on to his neighbor's screen ... In passing, can you think
of a good device for letting an aircraft know if it is on some-
one's screen? I had an idea for something to pick up the out-
going pulse and record it in the way that radio location picks
up the returning pulse. It'd be simple, because I don't want
a map of the features of the bloke below, all Fd want to know
was if he was interested enough to want to track me. Useful
bit of information, that. The difference between wondering
if you're detected and being sure you're not is worth all the
money in the world.

At our height there's not a ground feature of any kind visi-
ble. In the dark and the cloud cover there's a lovely cozy
feeling of remoteness from trouble. Even the noise of the
engines has become part of the pattern. Not, of course, that
"cozy" should be taken too literally, either. On a long job
like this the Air Force hasn't the sense to realize that the air-
crew must be protected from undue strain. The first enemy
is noise . . . the unbearable racket of the engines. Unbear-
able. Until they become part of the all-embracing nerve sap-
ping. Then there's cold. You'll point out that high altitude
suits deal with that one. Not so. You pay for your warmth
with immobility. And the inability to move freely is an-
other of those things. Then there's the pressure of the mask
on the face. You remember your idea for an oxygen-helium
recirculated atmosphere? Aren't you glad to know it's only
taken a couple of years to get around?

Discomfort. Then there's the restricted vision. And on
really long jobs like this one there's the difficulty about eat-
ing. If ever they climb Everest I suppose they'll use your
oxygen-helium idea but they'll probably feel the way we do
when they try to eat. After all, we're on top of Everest now.

i66

I'll bet they find it hard to concentrate too. Oxygen lack
leads to "don't care." Not the debonair ignoring of risks;
just a pettish unwillingness to do anything about them.
Tempers suffer too. Ill bet that's how it will be on Everest.

Hear the way a man thinks in the little world of an aircraft,
shut in by the cloud and the night and the noise. You've no
idea how close the crew feel to each other. Of course the
guided rocket will be developed, if not for this war for the
next, and all the very real comradeship, the one redeeming
feature of war, will be over. The way men feel towards each
other, the warmth of unacknowledged friendship that's
very strong in aircrew. But when the rocket has finally re-
placed us all, when the gunner has won his final victory, I
wonder if the Air Force will be kept in existence to perform
symbolic duties. We British are capable of anything. Of
course, the top planners should, by now, have matured plans
for taking over rockets on the basis that whatever moves in
the air is, ipso facto. Air Force. I can't see the Army being
so dull as to let that one go, but it's worth a try.

And so, when we've used a bit of fuel, up to have a look at
the rest of the universe. The old girl wallows with soggy con-
trols round about her ceiling but there's still a bit of mush
above us. And so down to an altitude where control is easier.
Unless something is seriously wrong we're on track, making
the estimated ground speed, well clear of all possible spot
heights, and Switzerland is still some distance away.

I'll bet you're bored reading this. It bored me at the time
and it bores me now to talk about it. Still, that's the way it
was. Doubtless we were detected but chances of intercep-
tion scarcely existed. So why not a little nourishment? We

167

never get over drinking boiling cocoa, even although we
know that it's the altitude that makes It boil at a drinking
temperature. And food. We get the absurdest fads, which,
surprisingly, disappear when we return to lower altitudes.

All this speculation and boredom brings us over Switzer-
land. There's a bit of turbulence there always is. We
climb to get above It without undue guilt about the rights of
neutrals. Soon we are among the cloud hills and valleys In
the starlight. There's no moon. Naturally, we pick a moon-
less night just In case there's no cloud cover over any parts of
the route. It's embarrassing though. There are too many
stars to choose from. On moonlight nights the principal
navigation stars are very prominent because the light of the
moon blankets all the minor ones and this is all to the good.
What a lovely night. No wonder poets are fascinated by
night, the mystery of it and the beauty of the stars.

So here we are. Below Is Switzerland. Sleep well, neces-
sary neutrals. After all it would be quite impossible to run a
war without you.

It won't be long now. Once clear of the edge of the Italian
Alps we'll go downhill fast enough. With the long lead up
behind us it was rather pleasant to see the Plain of Lombardy
spread out in the starlight. We left the cloud cover over
Switzerland and the clear Italian skies were probably as the
poets describe them.

Down below was a real genuine Italian gray-out. You
know, patches of darkness entirely surrounded by careless-
ness. And no undue perturbation either. Doubtless Fritz
had dismissed us from his thoughts when we passed over into
neutral Switzerland. Or perhaps he alerted Austria. Geoff
said afterwards that he had probably also alerted northern

1 68

Italy and what we saw was preparedness a I'ltalien. He
opined that a steady stream of data had been pouring in to
Control, North Italy, for hours past and that, tomorrow, some
orderly or other would search the wastepaper baskets and
burn the stuff to avoid any ill-judged inquiries. In fact, we
were there expressly to save that orderly that trouble.

And so to be a little choosy. Do you know the autostrada
that runs from Milano to Torino? No? Neither do I. I'm
just reading from the map but Geoff says it's packed solid on
both sides with advertisements. Be that as it may, we were
able to line up on it to perfection. True. And no one in-
terested in us. And after all the long way we'd come too.

The business of the early A.M. didn't take long. We
opened up the formation to get maximum coverage of the
target area and then did our little setpiece. The incen-
diaries dropped in without undue fuss or interest. But the
first bangs attracted attention, all right. I wonder what
they thought they were? Earthquake, perhaps? Strangely
enough, the whole city lit up for a moment. Streets were
outlined and all the rest of the city was clearly visible. Don't
ask me what or why. Perhaps all hands just turned on lights
and lifted blinds or shutters just to look-see. Ities are like
that. Whatever it was, it was strange. It made me regret
bitterly that we hadn't allotted more strength to the job. As
far as targets were concerned it was merely a matter of taking
one's pick from all the tempting ones on offer. The whole
city seemed panic-stricken, as far as one could judge from
events. Fires took good hold almost at once in the strong
cold wind from the Alps. In the northern portion the scat-
tered blazes ran rapidly together to form one enormous
glare. Fuel plant, most likely.

i6g

And still the absurd lights were clearly visible. It was all
so unreal. No attack should be pressed home with so little
effort as this one.

Then, suddenly, the anti-aircraft crowd got on to the job.
Probably called from bed into the cold night air. It was
time to get out, o course. We had no real margin for the re-
turn but it was very difficult to tear ourselves away, because
this was the piece of cake we all dream of. And what a piece
of cake. Even the radio location must have been duff. As
for air interception, there just wasn't any. All I can think of
is that the possibility of ever needing it had never occurred to
anyone around Musso.

Rather dazedly we took up the return journey. After a
while we became quite exuberant but there was still that
lingering doubt that unreal feeling. Anyone who'd been
to, say, Hamm, just couldn't believe it. I'm not sure that I
do, even now.

With light aircraft the necessary high altitude was easily
maintained and coming home was easier than anyone had a
right to expect. It was all too easy. Something wrong some-
where. Why, the big chiefs had thoughtfully arranged no
other unpleasantness on our return track, so, although we
were certainly picked up at divers places no one felt strongly
enough about us to want passionately to do something about
It. What a piece of cake. But was it real?

And so home. Once in the truck I was suddenly exhausted
beyond belief, so that I couldn't sleep at all when eventually,
I did get to bed. Which gave me ample time to think of the
fires we'd left behind us.

And of the children certainly incinerated there.

40

I SPENI> so much time getting this stuff clear in my mind. Ev-
ery night and most o the day. It would serve me right if it
bored you and was never read. The odd thing is that, even if
you don't bother to work through it I've had a wonderful
time with it. Getting to know me so to speak, but there's not
as much hindsight in it as you'd think. In fact, when I'm
licking something into shape, I'm right back there and what
I have to say doesn't even show the changes in me and my
opinions as I grew up (in three years).

What brought that to my mind was Tex. He was so called
because that wasn't his name, and he hated it. He came
from New England somewhere and he was sent to live with
us and learn the facts of life. I don't know quite why I dis-
liked Americans so much at this time. Anyway I was mighty
rude to Tex. That made it tough for him since the great
weakness of the U. S. Army Air Force was, and is, navigation.

It may have been his milk-chocolate trousers or his invari-
ably immaculate appearance. At the time I couldn't have
told you.

The pity was that he was such a fine fellow, courteous, in-
variably polite, even to me; highly intelligent, honest and
modest. Am I laying it on a bit because I was so miserable a
twerp, in retrospect? He had been briefed to regard himself
as an ambassador for his country and he did his best. The
others didn't like Yanks either, but his genuine good nature
won them over.

It got so bad that Geoff took his courage in his hands and

asked me straight out. I was angry because I didn't know
what was biting me. Finally Tex cleaned the whole thing up
for himself.

He buttonholed me on an occasion I now know to have
been very carefully selected. "We Americans suffer a lot,"
he said, "from our rash of publicity officers and morale build-
ers and what have you, but we're not all a bunch of big-
mouthed know-it-alls. I'm here to learn and it's a great dis-
appointment . . ." He left the remark in the air and
watched me. I said nothing.

". . . we must learn, and quickly. I know what's wrong
with some Americans, but what's wrong with me?"

I thought for a moment and then presented my backside to
him.

"If you wouldn't mind booting my arse," said I. "Good
and hard."

"A pleasure," said he, and he bloody near laid me on my
face* "And now that we've been formally introduced," said
he, "d'ye mind if I get right down to business?" Clearly a
man and a brother.

"About navigation?"

"About navigation. How do you do it? You should be
dead a dozen times over. Of course, I know about your little
crystal bowL"

"But you don't know about my great-grandmother's broom-
stick/*

"Don't I? I don't live Ear from Salem." I like Tex.

So I told him my belief that few people are fitted by men*
tal capacity and temperament to be navigators. A ghost of
a grin told me he probably knew rd been grounded. I in-

172

quired tenderly about his math and he revealed an un-
American interest in theory. Good man! I trotted out the
cruel one started by the U.S. publicity hounds about the
bombsight which would put a bomb into a pickle barrel
from 20,000 feet. But Tex didn't mind because we were on
a very different footing now as Tom Hood would say.

He agreed with my theses that a man must think naviga-
tion all the time, and he must analyze his errors for his souFs
good. His successes he can chalk up to God. His errors are
his own.

By the time the bruises on my arse were a lovely green, Yd
grown really fond of Tex. He was a pilot, but I could see he
was a frustrated navigator. The radio aids were a piece of
cake to him. All Americans take well to gadgetry. But radio
is very vulnerable. I told him of the radio plastered all over
the aircraft and of a direct hit square on the radio, and other
horrors. Tex whistled softly. I waited for him to ask "And
what did you do?" The splendid fellow always asked.

Through Tex I saw his country and his countrymen in a
new light. He talked "logistics" and I found it exciting. We
both knew that industrial potential decides wars before they
begin. He talked of America's industrial strength, and it
can't be interfered with. I told him of the libel that the
U.S.A.A.F., when a plug is defective, swaps the engine for a
new one and gives the other to the Free French. Tex was
glad they didn't condemn the airframe as well.

So we talked about the stars and how to see them in day-
light, and how to look at the map and see the ground, and
how to look for wind, and how combinations of features tie
themselves together, and now to take an "intuitive glance" at
them. (How many objects can you intuit at a glance?) I

held forth on my pet foibles and he listened with exemplary
patience. He blinked when I said I had a better method
than Marc St. Hilaire but always ran up my position lines in
the conventional manner as well, with the result that the po-
sition was more accurate than the calculations upon which it
was ostensibly based. Tex thought a moment.

"In case?" he asked.

"In case," I said.

In the end, I even opened up my idea to get around the
chronic dearth of navigators. Navigational aircraft, with up
to half a dozen navigators, no bomb load. Just navigators.
Oh, and top cover to see the precious cargo gets safe home.
All this will have to wait on a long-range fighter, of course,
but when we get round to it, God help Fritz. The Americans
will bury him under materiel. At present, their navigators
being what they are not, Fritz is safe enough. But when the
navigator team gets established . . ,

Tex invited me to his home station, and I went, even
though I knew that this was the opportunity of all opportuni-
ties to settle a thing or two. Actually they were charming.
As disturbed as possible about the antics of their publicity-
hungry chiefs of "public relations/'

When Tex left he wasn't in the class of, say, Andy but he
was a first-class navigator.

And, stuffed full of what the U.S.A.A.F. wanted, they lost
him on the third time out. That daylight lunacy I

He left me a special mapping pen, unaffected by change of
altitude.

IT is a little difficult to see, at this distance, how you can be
the bastard you are widely known to be and still influence us
so much. Still do. Not that we were dewy-eyed little angels
either. Or was it just that you were the kind o hell hound
that every man at arms would wish to be?

I've talked about you a devil of a lot. Youll be surprised
to discover, one day, how many total strangers know you
quite well. Disconcertingly well. Or know one aspect of
you anyway. Pip's opinion was that you were made to run a
big union. "One bastard sees inside the other bastards'
minds/' But Geoff thought you were quite possibly the frus-
trated reincarnation of a Renaissance Pope. I suggested,
rather, a condottiere. Geoff merely smiled and said, "Oh, do
give talent its scope."

The war was your chance. Did you know it? We did.
But no one else. And you let it slip. Or did you despise the
whole game?

Remember that discussion of math as beauty? Dear God,
dear God. Were you trying to point the way through the
mess? "Math as beauty." "Beauty as perfection." "Every
man carries with him some share of the vision splendid; his
share." "So few know they do." "Every man serves his ideal
in his fashion . . /' "Nature is simple . . ." And we rough-
necks looking inward, perhaps for the first time in our hurry-
ing lives.

Since you're never going to be in a position to take this up

with me, not ever, I'll tell you a few things that a man tells
his mask: in strictest confidence.

There is such a thing as friendship among men- Passing
the love of women. There's a seal on it and the seal isn't
blood. It's sealed with tension shared. Tension long past
the screaming point.

Tension is felt most when there is nothing active to do.
By "active" I mean employment of the body or mental work
so engrossing as to shut out the world. A sudden emergency
is a much easier thing to cope with. Action flares up and
there's a frantic to-do for a while and everyone's busy,
Would you believe me if I said that there's hardly any sense
of tension in that at all?

It's the mounting certainty that does it. We were coming
home from Bremen once. The sea route, naturally. It was
early days and things were not as well organized as now.

Bremen is defended with fearsome efficiency. You'd not
believe it if I told you of the known flak concentrations, or
the U-shaped wall of fighter cover. Bremen is at the bottom
of the U, at the end of a sack. And we stopped a packet. A
direct hit. And no one injured. Imagine it. All as deaf as
posts. Apart from the pilots, each convinced that he was the
only possible survivor. And with no means of knowing oth-
erwise once communication went to hell. The old girl all
over the sky, naturally.

So I checked up on the material damage and it was fright-
ening. A gaping hole in the fuselage. The intercom out.
Bomb doors open. One leg dangling, the other gone. Petrol
everywhere. The pilots fighting the old girl all the way.

Me? Oh, stumbling along with my dimmed torch, aim-
lessly and methodically checking as I had been taught.

176

Rather like a mechanical doll. No sense o urgency at all.

In the upshot it looked as though we had all better get out
before we crossed the coast. The dinghy was done for. We
were losing petrol too and one couldn't help thinking about
the drink. It was a hell of a night for a dunking. The fans
were still turning but there were chunks of cowling loose and
God knows what else. On a stinking night a dimmed torch
doesn't show much, and you guess the rest from the behavior
of the old girl.

So it's us for the high jump.

Unless, of course, we try to make it and take the high jump
at the other end. We can't get the dangling leg up so no
belly landing is possible. It's abandon the ship somewhere.
The trouble is where?

You'd probably know we gave it a go to get her home.
Don't ask me why. But we all knew that that was what we'd
try.

A stinking night. I told you, didn't I? The old girl could
hold her own at altitude but she couldn't climb. The cover
above us was impenetrable. No fix there. The loop was
out too. No bearings there. No sense in dropping any of our
precious altitude to have a look at the sea. That wouldn't tell
us much.

What happens to a compass that's had a shell explode prac-
tically on top of it?

Back-plot for your life. For all our lives. Get a point of
departure. Set a course. And, by way of comedy, add an
E.T.A. Then wait, just wait.

The pilots happily steer the course that little Johnny has
given them.

"When we get over the home airdrome everyone will bail
out. Sorry for the old girl, but there it is."

177

The gunners were probably thankful for all the cloud cover
which relieved their minds a lot. There's always some pet-
tishness at fighter airdromes along the homeward route. So
the gunners view the cloud in a most benign way.

So the navigator sits and waits. Scans a sky in which there's
no break in the cloud. It's the same on both sides and below.
We're flying in a bale of wool.

The wireless op. was engaged in trying to restore his ju-ju
to order. Considering that most of it was plastered in
fragments all around him it seemed to me to reflect more
credit on his training than on his sense. His instructions were
to repair the set.

Yes. The navigator waits. Waits for hour after aching
hour. Then, suddenly, there was Geoff. It was one of my
earliest jobs with him. He looked at me owlishly for a mo-
ment. With the hurricane blasting through the shattered old
girl, the mush all around us, the soggy wallowing that told of
precarious control, Geoff found time to look in. He patted
my forearm. Then he patted the old girl. He knew all right.
The weight was on him too.

The second dicky knew that we were making a very reduced
air speed, that the wind had swung round against us, that we
were losing fuel, that the bomb doors were open and that the
go-cart had gone to hell. He also knew that there was a whack-
ing great hole somewhere. Apart from these he hadn't a care
In the world. He was on course and headed for home.

At any rate, he was on course.

It would be Geoff's pigeon when the testing time came.
Geoff saw the whole picture and he knew where the tension
was being felt. There is such a thing as friendship among
men.

178

Just to tidy things up. I was well out in my course but we
did hit England. Well north of my reckoning. Would you
believe me if I said that, subconsciously, I'd planned it that
way? North of course still hits England; south puts one in the
bag. Or the drink.

An hour past dawn. A gray wet morning. Much later than
I had estimated too. The time between my estimate and
the actual time of arrival was all eternity.

Geoff asked if I could see the wheel from the hole. I man-
aged to sight it but what the hell he wanted its angle for beat
me. He had throttled back for a while and then gave her all
she'd safely take. After which fun and games I had to tell
him if the leg had altered its angle. It had too. Appreciably.

"Good," said Geoff. "It's loose. Not jammed. Well sit
her down/* I was thinking of Geoff. He planned to sit
her down bargaining on the leg getting whipped off at first
contact. Good for Geoff.

"You know where shell break in two," said he.

"Sure," said I. "At the blasted hole."

"You're in the best position," said he. "Alec?"

I nodded. I'd get Alec.

A gray morning I said, didn't I? No fuel at all. Probably
what was in the carburetors. A strange field. Some agitated
work with the lamps. Signs of perturbation down below.
Doubtless the crash wagon was alerted and the blood cart too.

A wide flat turn without flaps. But no tension for me
any more. Over to you, Geoff.

A hell of a crash. The old girl broke in two all right. No
fire. Nothing to burn? Alec in the mashed-up remains of
his turret At first I thought of the mashed-up remains o

Alec. Not so. Chieiy his legs. When the airframe went to
hell his feet stuck through out into the cruel world.

A very handsome wreck, all in all. The Warrant Officer
(Fire Crew) in his asbestos suit looked very hot and a little
disappointed. The blood cart had picked up an M.O. en
route. He was young and new. We were his first clients. The
mobile crane appeared through the rain. Its long jib had a
most disconcerting air. Almost obscene.

We stood and watched. The young M.O. wanted to fill us
up with glucose. Shock, I suppose.

Geoff's chin had fallen right onto his chest. His fair hair
dripped with rain.

42

ARE you getting a little tired of hearing me whine? I hope
not. Because I have a heavy cold today. You may smile a bit
at that. I suppose I'm nearly broken to pieces unless I'm
charred all over. I don't know. There's not much sensation
In the antipodes. It's a curious feeling not to have any feel-
ing in the outlying portions.

How do we know where our limbs are when our eyes are
closed? Is there a feeling for body orientation and position
in space? And how do we know that we actually possess
legs in a case like mine? I've not seen them for ages. As you'll
gather I Ve not sat up since I came here. Yet, somehow, I feel
I still have my legs.

There was a gunner whose legs stuck out from the turret

i8o

when his aircraft disintegrated. Rather like Alec's. But this
fellow was unlucky. They amputated both legs. All the same,
he took some convincing because, like me, he couldn't sit up
and he could still feel cramp, pins and needles, and a chil-
blain in his missing feet. When he was finally convinced he
set his shoes up on the locker beside his bed. Whether to re-
mind him of his vanished feet or as a token of his interest in
artificial limbs I don't know. It's the insensitive ones who are
"good patients" when it comes to fitting and using of the ar-
tificial limbs. New toys and a child's mind. The fellow sen-
sitive to his body's integrity never really convinces anyone that
he is trying. My body's integrity! Oh, Christ.

I didn't discover what happened to that gunner. I hate hos-
pitals and all they stand for and what they indicate of man's
days. Suffering, no matter to what end, hurts me so ex-
quisitely that I have learned to avoid looking at it. I wonder
if I affect anyone else like that now? Not that I am suffering
at the moment. I'm not.

I didn't see that gunner again, as you'd expect. You're sen-
sitive to these things, so you tell me something about him. He
used to lie, they said, looking at those shoes. Occasionally he'd
put his hands in them and make them march. He was much
happier when he had socks on his hands.

My cold? If I'm as heavily drugged as I think I am what
chance would a cold germ have with that battery of antiseptics
and sedatives or whatever it is they use to shut parts of me
off from my knowledge? How is it that I have a cold at all?

My awareness of myself is sharply bounded. My arms and
hands are still with me, so is my head and my upper body. I
wonder how goes the rest. They dress my back and chest.

I don't like to think of that. But they also work on me for
long periods when I have no feeling of what they're at.

I've tried to get out of them something about my condition*
They laugh cheerfully, the buxom bitches, and try to keep my
spirits up with their incomprehensible inanities. One doesn't
need to be a linguist to grasp the general tenor.

The male sex purses its lips and asks me, what, specifically,
I want to know. As though I knew. What I'm really begging
them to tell me is what I don't want to know. And they
don't tell me anyway. It's an elaborate two-sided game of pre-
tenses. One day someone is going to step out of his role.

My cold? Why should it depress me so? Why should it as-
sume major importance when so many other things clamor for
my attention?

I'll tell you something. Well bury it In the middle of this
letter. The direct hit shut me in.

My cold again? My nose runs. The back of my throat is
on fire. No! It isn't. Nothing is on fire.

I wonder if anyone ever volunteers to work in a P.O.W,
camp? Quakers perhaps. All the big camps have their own
P.O.W. medical staff of course, but we're much too small. At
least I think that's how it is. Everyone appears to be old. Or
am I just imagining that? And everyone is so impersonally
kind. Don't believe anything you hear to the contrary. Every-
one is kind. I'm smothered in kindness.

There's a most comforting stuff to swallow and from time
to time I get help to gargle. I have something to suck. I don't
suppose the whole lot will shorten my cold's duration by an
hour but it does bring people around and I don't feel so much
that I'm left in a comer to die. What did I say? What I
meant was that the cold medicines are no good.

They've shifted my bed two places nearer the door.

43

THERE'S a queer heightened feeling about the place when a
really big raid Is in prospect. Of course some of us won't re-
turn, but we'll give Fritz an almighty crack and prove to
someone's satisfaction that air attack isn't as puerile as the
Army says (and we half believe). Besides, about those who
won't come back, it'll be the other blokes. Anyway, who
wants to think about that? Bad for morale!

Now the Yanks are with us, one hears a lot of nattering
about rival theories of strategy. They believe in pinpoint
targets attacked in daylight and they propose to take on the
Luftwaffe in the process. I wish I shared their faith in their
navigation.

They went to Schweinfurt just a short time ago. The U. S.
Flying Fortresses are said to have had a go in broad daylight.
The latrine rumor has it that they lost about a quarter of
their strength, that the remainder is largely useless and that
the aircrews are yelling for Mom and the Marines.

Our present official line is that we bomb an area. For pref-
erence, a working-class residential area. Lay it flat with high
explosives and devastate It with fire. Saturate the defenses
and obliterate the place. The workman won't have much
stomach for the job if he comes home to find his family
incinerated. We shall win by breaking morale as much as
by material damage. But, all in all, how far are we succeed-
ing? Fritz is tough and highly disciplined. I'll bet he's bet-
ter prepared than London was for the blitz. But then,
we're hitting him much harder.

All this presupposes evasion of the Luftwaffe. See the dif-
ference? We don't want to fight. We deliver much heavier
loads than the Yanks, too, and from lower altitudes. The
latest bombing aids permit reasonably accurate bombing
through cloud too. Near enough, anyway.

All the same, the Yanks could very well be right. Our in-
formation must be very good. Every disgruntled person in
the occupied countries Is a potential spy for us, so we should
know where to do our pinpointing. And one really good
crack at a key point could shorten the war. But no bomber
can take on the fighter defense not even an aircraft as
well defended as the Flying Fortress. The American plan
must wait for the evolution of a long-range fighter to give
top cover there and back.

Let me tell you what a big raid Is like. I've been in several.
Once we were first in and, another time, last out.

Takeoff. Rendezvous. Set course.

Have you ever thought of the difficulty of keeping several
hundred aircraft In a compact group?

Over the water, gaining altitude all the time; over the
blacked-out enemy countryside that looks as though it were
asleep, but that's the last thing it is. We've been picked up
and our course charted, probably destination estimated, and
quietly and efficiently, Fritz is preparing the counterstroke.

Suddenly, with no warning, there's a yammer of guns be-
hind us and tracers trail out their familiar patterns. A small
fighter station has slipped Its squadron onto Tall-End Charlie.
They get Mm, too. He explodes In mid-air. And that is that!
All of us feel as naked as eggs now he's gone and there's a
certain amount of fidgety weaving. But the fighters are nearly
out of fuel and ammo.

184

Ahead is the target. Blacked out. Silent.

Then fighters drop in from all angles, but all from above
where they have been waiting. The ground control is very
good. These are ordered attacks, section by section.

Two fighters come at us. One on the tail and the other
broadside on.

Jesus. Which is the decoy and which is going to press the
attack? Don wants Geoff to set one up for him. Alec wants
the other. Geoff does neither. We'll take the damage when
our own guns don't bear and we'll rely on a little cover from
the other guys.

Oh, Alec, you little beauty. I can see him dropping away
below us. And at that range too! What a sweet gunner!

But Don has missed his and the cannon shells rip us about.
Every hit feels as if it is upon one's own body. Christ, what's
that? The old girl seriously afire? As we're not yet over the
target it's my duty to find the fire. Hell! The flares have ig-
nited and the whole show's full of smoke. I dump them and
scramble back to my job. Some day there'll be a proper bomb-
aimer instead of my being a maid-of-all-work.

Another attack and another. But I'm too busy to notice.
We turn towards the bombing run and the fighters drop
away. Up come the lights! Jesus Christ! Coned!

But down Suicide Alley we go just the same! First in!

We drop our markers. The green balls look so lovely.
Clusters of them. They're the aiming marks and we lay them
carefully, holding course all the time. Resolution and train-
ing versus the rising panic and the urgent desire to get to hell
out of it. Bombs gone and Geoff has her in fine pitch and,
with throttles wide open, we acrobatic all over the sky to lose
the lights. We do, too. But she comes out of it very sluggishly.

What's wrong. As if we didn't know! How serious? God,
she's sluggish! Low down, almost on the rooftops. Lord!
We must have dropped off twelve thousand feet!

But what worries me isn't our peril it was only one of
my worries! as we sideslipped, yes, in a big bomber! to
clear the lights, I thought I saw two clusters of green balls.
It nags at my mind. Two! There must be only one. I know
the cluster didn't divide. I saw it all the way. What other
bloody fool has horned in, and what lunacy of mismanage-
ment have we here? Every one of our big team will be in two
minds. Oh Christ! Have I made a mess of my first big job?
TWO!

I ask Geoff if we can pick up a little altitude and go back.
Very strictly against instructions, of course, but I tell you
there were two clusters, Geoff!

It's all we can do to control the old girl. A.A. fire when we
were coned and that broadsiding fighter have mucked up
the electrical equipment. Still, Geoff is puzzled too. So, most
laboriously, we pick up a few thousand feet and look back.

And, God in Heaven, there are three clusters of green
flares! THREE. All burning well. A bloody equilateral tri-
angle!

Only minutes have passed. Soon the secondaries will be
going in. But where? What the hell has happened?

Oh, Fritz, you cunning bastard. Of course! Two are dum-
mies! And the secondary markers: where will the poor be-
mused sods put them? Their instructions cover only one set
of green balls.

Let's go home and tell the I.O. I could cry with misery. All
bombing creeps back from the markers, but, oh Lord, this is
cunning. There should be a sort of overseer on these jobs.

i86

Sitting up at twenty thousand correcting the bombing pat-
tern. But then, that would only be possible on clear nights.
Still our new radio aids (dare I mention them?) would put
him pretty right.

Oh! Shut up and go home! Christ Almighty, THREE.

I suppose I made a bit of a song and dance about the dum-
mies and the creep-back of the bombing pattern. Probably
to forestall any hint that it might be all my fault.

Anyway, we were sent on a mighty queer mission when the
next big job came off. We were exactly last. Sort of observ-
ers. A brkfing all to ourselves. A long list of questions to
memorize. Then observation drill. Alec with a severe cau-
tion about curbing his natural optimism.

I had a vague idea why they picked on us. Geoff is really
an astonishingly good navigator, for a pilot. And we have
been very lucky too. Perhaps they cast out joint horoscopes

So of we go. Not .even Tail-End Charlie. Much higher
than the rest of 'the formation. Do they know we're there? I
toy with the idea of lighting the old girl up and claiming
to be a new constellation. But, as we have no bombs and are
nearly at our ceiling you can see we're high enough.

I know the concentration is below. I can even imagine how
:all hands feel. An attack develops as we watch, and this is a
long way from the , target. At the distance the tracer is quite
.difficult to pick up but it's real enough. A warm glow shows
IOT a moment. '0ur$? Or his? But it's all so far away and
ttihat is mighty comforting to a fellow of my temperament.

Suddenly b^elqjv" i^s I <swear I saw a pair of fighters. They

l8 7

were quite unaware of us, of course, because their ground
control cannot have picked us up with the concentration be-
tween us and their radio location. Shall we do them in? It
would be childishly easy. The gunners itch with the destruc-
tiveness that all good gunners share with all bad children.
Do them in? And perhaps save some poor sod in the forma-
tion, and give the whole show away?

In the thin air and the cold, thinking tends to get woolly.
I only hope our observation doesn't suffer.

And so to the target area. Berlin is under cloud. It gen-
erally is in the winter. I'd hate to live there. The cloud is
very dense. And Fritz, the dimwit, gets cracking with all his
lights. Hasn't anyone ever told him that searchlights won't
pierce cloud? All he does is to give himself away by the glow
on the cloud. We can see it easily. Fritz, you dumb cluck,
turn off those lights!

Now we can see the concentration easily. Their black out-
lines show against the lighted cloud rather like the silhouettes
in the shadow games we played as children. From time to
time one or another is momentarily obscured, and I was idly
wondering why when, all of a sudden, the concentration
showed every sign of breaking up. An attack of singular skill
and tenacity has been launched. I'd never seen one so com-
pletely a surprise and so successful. Every fighter seemed to
make unerringly for its target and my mind reeled with
thoughts of some errorless new device as inexorable as fate.
The bombing appeared ragged from our height, as well it
might be. But what devilish device was in use against us?
Had we been sent to note it? If so, A.M. must have known of
it and yet sent the force to annihilation just the same.

Frantically I try to work it out. I try to put myself in the

i88

fighters' place. And, like a flash it came to me. Of course!
Silhouettes. Fritz isn't a dumb cluck. The light on the
clouds and fighters in ambush! the concentration be-
tween the fighters and light like black insects traveling
across a well-lighted carpet; sitting shots; for the fighters in
the dark.

We stooge about as we have been instructed for the re-
quired time though it is obvious that the attack is a failure
and has been beaten off with heavy loss. Then we drop
down below the cloud and we take the photos as per instruc-
tions. There are one or two small fires but nothing much.
We fire out photoflash and that brings the lights up again, but
the flash has a delay on it and we are nowhere in its vicinity
when it illuminates everything so well. In the pitiless light
of millions of candlepower there's not much chance of con-
cealment.

We head east until the fighters give us up and then turn for
home on the northerly route. All as miserable as a Scotch
loser.

Apparently our effort was commendable, for we were sent
off on a similar job shortly afterwards. This time, the Ruhr
turned on its annual night when there is no cloud or indus-
trial haze and the whole complex was clear to view. The
only trouble is to say where one town leaves off and another
begins. Not that that worried us very much. This is a really
big strike. Really big.

We were last off but we soon overtake the striking force
and arrive in time to see the markers go in. The searchlights
come up at once and skillfully quarter the sky. Ground con-
trol is good. The coordination between ground and air is

i8g

good too. A few of ours buy it. But this is a big job. More
and more unload in the target area. Even the secondaries are
difficult to pick up in the spreading fires. The whole area is
a sea of flame and smoke, occasionally erupting rather like
sunspots seen through a telescope. And still the incendiar-
ies pour in and the occasional high explosive as well. Dear
God, pity thy children, even if they be our enemies.

How long? Oh Lord, how long? Never had ninety min-
utes seemed such an eternity. We watch. We wait.

The fighters, out of fuel or ammo, are no longer about.
But the really horrible thing is the lights. They wave rather
aimlessly, something in the manner of the tentacles of an oc-
topus when its brain has been bashed in as we used to do it on
the rocks as children.

The fire. The aimless purposeless lights. The gradual
rising of the smoke cloud. We swing into position for our
photos* The smoke reflects our flash and when we turn we
see the naked fire. It covers the city and it heaves and bub-
bles like a volcanic eruption. Now and then an explosion
hurls debris almost up to us. Can anyone live in this inferno?
All our bunch have gone. There are no fighters.

The guns are silent. Only the aimless lights. As we look
back we see them for a long time.

44

Fix admit I had prejudices about Yanks before I met Tex.
If lie hadn't bought it I'd have liked to ask him why, since

igo

the 6-17$ really can fly nearly as high as their P.R.O.s say,
they haven't done something about the problems of high-
altitude flying. Their masks leak oxygen, they hurt the face
and the heated suit they have is just like ours bloody well
useless. And when the 6-17 turrets swing out they let the
cold, cold atmosphere right in. Probably designed by an au-
tomobile stylist. "How come?" as Tex's Indian ancestors
would say.

All this whining. Just whining. Geoff and his stout crew
had been guinea pigs in this high-altitude stuff and we've had
a fright. And we don't like frights.

"Bring back a photograph of this and this." You know the
idea. Navigation to yards. Altitude to inches. All in lovely
crystal daylight. Off with the wheels brushing away the
morning dew just as the first light flushes the buildings
around the field. Off with the bloody early birds. (In pass-
Ing, city birds haunt airfields. All the original rural avian
inhabitants have beat it to Central Africa or the North Pole.
Perhaps the city sparrows like the familiar Invigorating smell
of petrol.)

A lovely day, my hearties. Specially laid on by the false
prophets for your exclusive use. As we climb the sun pops
up in a most sprightly manner. He was rising anyway but
our rapid ascent brought him up more rapidly too. The air-
craft looks somehow less warlike than usual, no one would say
beautiful, but perhaps a little less out of keeping with the
loveliness of nature.

We climb. And after that we climb. We've been using
oxygen since take-off since this is a special job and everyone
has to have his wits about him. Because of the oxygen every-
thing looks mighty fine. Except that as we climb I get an at-

igi

tack of gas in the guts. Excruciating while it lasts. I double
up in agony and it's misery to try to do my job. Geoff's sorry
for me and mumbles something about diet. Curse his sym-
pathetic soul! "Try a good fart/' says Alec, seizing essentials
as always. "Nothing like it to clear the arse." The others
don't phrase it that way but they're, well expectant. If I
can't do my job we put back. All for want of a fart.

Presently it comes, a real arse-splitter. I'm on top of my
job again within a minute. I tell Geoff so, but he suggests
mildly that the information is superfluous.

Still we climb. The sky looks more black than blue now"*
We're above even the feathery cirrus clouds and the little
spicules of ice in them glitter in a most attractive way. The
world below is spread out like a carpet. I kid myself I can
see the curvature of the earth. The occasional cirrus drift-
ing below merely serves to veil the broad expanse. Oh,
lovely day!

Higher still. The old girl is about at her ceiling. It's true
she's new and specially tuned for this job so we must be
nearly as high as my altimeter incredulously indicates.
Which is bloody high, my braves.

Then along comes the first faint breath of trouble. Calmly
as ever, Don mentions difficulty in moving his joints. The
old girl wallows with soggy controls at her ceiling and Don
has "the bends." How to save him?

Then, God in Heavenl Vapor trails! And above us!
Above us, I tell you. How the hell can fighters get up there
without pressure cabins? I can't see them against the sun
but the trails show they're there. "Run down the line of the
vapor trail," I yell to Alec; "youll see them with your slit
goggles." Back comes a sort of croak from Alec. Oh God, if

I can't hear him he can't hear me. Is the intercom defective?

But trust Alec. He's spotted the situation but they're out
of his range and of course the little bastards have cannon.
Now Geoff, it's over to you. Your front gunner is crippled
and the fighters up there must be the latest thing or they'd
never get so high and there are at least three of them. Why
hasn't the second dicky relieved Don? Pettishly, I clip on
my portable oxygen bottle and scramble along to edge out
Don. He looks bad, what I can see of him. It's the heavy,
thickset guys like Don who get the bends. Not skinny fellows
like Geoff and Alec and me. But wait a minute, Pip was
pounds heavier than Don, he flew at the ceiling of every air-
craft he was ever in, and with duff oxygen gear too, yet he
never got the bends. Perhaps that's part of being Pip. Eh,
Don?

Don's resolution is remarkable. It must be agony for him
to move a joint I settle in his place while Geoff circles to
try to get the fighters out of the sun. There's an unreal air
about the proceedings. It's too high and too lovely a morn-
ing for sudden death.

The first whumps of the cannon shells soon dispel that one.
In they come, the little sods, one broadside, one on the tail.
And more to follow. Why the bloody circus? Why all the
protection? What has Fritz that he doesn't want to be pho-
tographed?

The broadside guy slips underneath and turns back for an-
other pass. Geoff deftly sets him up for me but in so doing
buggers up my shot at the tail bloke who has just overshot us
forward. I loose off a burst but don't need to look at Don to
know I've mucked it up. Curse it, deflection shooting is for
gunners. Geoff should have let me have the other one.

But here he comes again and this time I think I get one or
two aboard. The old girl shudders with the cannon shells
but nothing vital is hit. Jesus, how I sweat.

Geoff tries to set him up for Alec but the old girl is mighty
soggy on the controls and in any case we're not built to turn
with fighters. All the same, Alec does some damage. His
bird straightens and flies off on the level but too far away for
Alec to get him.

All this time we'd forgotten there were more than two.
The other fellow dropped neatly on top, right out of the sun's
eye, and this time is it. The old girl begins to spin, quite
slowly. There's no sense in husbanding ammo now, so we
let them have it at extreme range. That keeps them off mo-
mentarily. How long? Another minute. In they come.
Alec does some more damage. Not vital, just enough to
make him break off. I spray the upper atmosphere, to Don's
misery and reproach. Then miraculously, the undamaged
guy draws off.

Can't he see we're crippled? Or is he out of fuel or amino?
Was it a trap up there and were we late? Were they up there
longer than they bargained?

Slowly we spin. Not a word over the intercom. Just a
strange mumble. All the same, I'll bet all hands have
grabbed their "brolly bottles" the little oxygen bottle
which will keep you alive for a quarter of an hour until you
reach breathable air. At least, that's the idea. But what
about the frostbite? And howll we get Don out?

The second dicky shows up. He's only been with us twice.
"Can't we hear Geoff on the intercom, or won't we answer?
Are we all clots? Don't we know the doors are down and the
hydraulic gear has gone to hell? Come along and wind up

with the hand gear." I leave Don and crawl after him. My
portable oxygen bottle bobs along with me. Lord God, how
we worked! If we can get the doors up she may come out of
the spin. It's a slow spin but the extra G's force me to crawl
and fight my way along. If the spin quickens or tightens
we'll black out. Geoff, Geoff don't let herl

The doors take an eternity. The second dicky's on the
outer, harder side and he works like a fiend. Presently he
passes out. Stupidly, I stared at him. Automatically I notice
that his oxygen is O.K. Why did he pass out then? Hit? In a
moment or two he recovers but passes out again as soon as he
tries to work. I see it now and so, very cautiously, I finish
my share and edge by him to tie off the job as well as my
clumsiness will permit. He recovers again in a minute or two
and crawls shakily forward. The spin slowly stops and we are
flying straight and level. It's only then that I notice that one
fan is feathered. On the outside of the spin, thank God.
That must have helped. A lovely feeling to be flying straight
and level.

The sound of Alec's guns soon ends that pipe dream. Like
a fool, I leap for my place and the whole aircraft slowly grays
and spins around me. When I come to, seconds later, I crawl
slowly to Don's place and, in spite of the urgency of the guns,
I plug into the main oxygen supply at once. The whole
world clears up and I can see the little bastard slipping into
position again but out of range. All the same I can see him
clearly and without the furry outlines of oxygen lack and
there's something odd about the tips of his wings. I've never
seen that shape before and so he must be new! New fighter,
eh?

Jesus! What's that? A great gaping hole appears near me

and a noise like all the thunder that ever was. Through the
hole I can see an outer engine go to hell. The little cloud of
ice that suddenly appears could be Geoff jettisoning petrol,
I suppose. And the cold! The blasting wind and the bitter,
bitter cold.

Slowly the nose comes over and down, down, down we go.
The speed must be terrific and I doubt whether we're
stressed to take it in our damaged condition. And how do you
get out of an aircraft at this speed? If we try the escape
hatches the blast will pin us there. Stupidly and dully, I find
myself cursing, of all people, Don and his bloody bends. I
make no move to save myself or Don; the hole gapes in front
of me, its jagged edges will cut us to pieces: no escape there.
Stupidly, I just won't think of anything else. I put the idea of
getting out away from my mind, rather petulantly, and feebly
return to cursing Don and his bends.

Seconds only, I suppose, but what an eternity of time a sec-
ond is. The main oxygen supply goes and I recognize, stu-
pidly again, that Don has passed out and I feel, in some in-
fantile way, that it serves him right. All the same, after Fd
plugged myself into my portable supply, with fingers like
sausages, I do the same for him. How is Alec doing? The in-
tercom is still mumbling.

Still going down, and then, ever so slowly, we come out of
it. Ever so slowly so the damaged wing won't leave us. Ever
so slowly, Geoff. Oh yes, we come out of it. Not much to
spare that time, Geoff. The countryside is distressingly close.
However, now that we're almost on top of it I know exactly
where we are and, forgetting the intercom can only mumble,
I pass the news on to Geoff. His reply comes crisp and clear.
Now, how do you like that?

ig6

Then it dawned on me, or at least I think it dawned on me.
Up where we were there wasn't enough air to carry our voices
from the vocal cords. Hence the mumbles. That's my ex-
planation, anyway.

And now for the chastening look around, because it's my
job to check on damage. The old girl, without a load, will
hold her altitude on what she has according to her manufac-
turers, but she's been specially tuned for high-altitude stuff
and she's not so good down here. Besides two engines are not
intended to maintain altitude on a flying colander.

Very slowly we slip downhill. To my surprise we lose
height at about the rate the land is falling away from us and
so we keep the same relative distance above it. That's fine
until we meet the sea which doesn't fall away.

Count your blessings. The fans are turning. The crew is
intact, or is it? What a sod you are for flesh wounds, Alec.
The doors are up but one wheel is down in the way it always
happens, the flaps are jammed but that's not the present trou-
ble. That'll worry Geoff at letdown (if there is a letdown).
Crowning blessing the bloody big hole is where the old
girl is strong. And how wonderful to breathe without a mask
that hurts the face, constricts vision; the way a mask cuts into
vision has to be experienced to be believed. The biting wind
still pours through that cracking big hole and God knows how
many smaller ones, but my thermometer has tentatively
moved back onto the scale so the temperature must be rising.
My apprehension keeps me warm, anyway.

Rather ashamedly I sneak a look at Don. He must have
gone through bloody hell in that dive. A sort of decompres-
sion chamber back to front. It's a wonder the gas bubbles
didn't find his heart and kill him. The sweat pouring from

him is freezing around his mask. I pull the mask off and try
to make him comfortable. Slowly he revives.

Still we drift downhill. Good for you, Geoff. Hold her off
the carpet.

Why is nobody interested in us? We're a sitting duck.
Fighter defense knows all about us. Fritz has some bloody
good reason for not wanting the area photographed and he
has every reason to do us in. It'll be easy too. Geoff has a lit-
tle lateral control but hardly any possibility of vertical ma-
neuver. What are you waiting for, Fritz?

By way of comfort, I do know exactly where we are. I also
know our parody of a groundspeed. And I know we're on the
best possible course for the nearest possible airfield. And it's
a lovely, crystal-clear day.

I need hardly mention that the radio has gone to hell. It
always does. The multiplying of gadgetry to compensate for
the inferior man is plain folly. An aircraft has a surprisingly
small vital area, and without half the junk would be mighty
hard to clean up.

Bless me, here's the sea, the very abode of Britannia her-
self. Just a little dirty smear on the horizon but the veritable
ocean nevertheless. Geoff, how far above the little wavelets
can you hold the old buzzard?

But as we approach the sea the crystal air changes a little
and distressing signs of thermals appear. The damned cumu-
lus begin to gather.

The old girl is working a bit already. You can feel her
coming apart. She's in no shape to take a beating from the
cumulus.

Behind us the land is bright, ahead the sea is as grim as the
gates of Hell. What has happened to our lovely day?

i 9 8

Still no fighters? Why not? Why are they letting us off the
hook? They can't want us to get away.

The light fades. Somehow, the murky light makes it feel
colder. Perhaps it is. The first clumsy lurch tells us the old
girl doesn't like the turbulence. I don't blame her. Neither
do I.

Very slowly Don flexes his arms, and then with a sort of
wonder, his legs too. The nitrogen bubbles are clearing
themselves and if he doesn't have a seizure we're all right.

What did I say? At this very moment the old girl drops
sickeningly. I know it's only a bump but the falling seems to
be going on forever as though there were no end to it and the
sudden reversal seems to be driving one's guts through one's
mouth. God, I feel bad. Surely not going to be airsick before
we get home. I grab some of the dope we were issued as an
experiment, and then force another couple on Don.

Almost, it seems, methodically, the elements proceed to
batter the old girl to pieces. Quite slowly. There's plenty of
time. But, little by little, she's coming apart beneath us un-
der the savage hammering of the cumulus and it won't be
long now, my friends. The second dicky is violently airsick
and I get some satisfaction out of that. He's no help at all.
He just stays in his place and spews straight ahead while his
whole body is convulsed with great shudders. Geoff signaled
to me and I fed him some of the dope, hoping frantically that
I was in time because if there's one thing will make you air-
sick quicker than anything else it's the smell of spew and the
horrible retching sounds that go with it. Perhaps you're sur-
prised to know it can be heard?

Going back, I took a bad toss. My own fault, of course, but
it shook the wits out of me for a bit, partly because it was so

199

near that bloody hole. Then It dawned on me that the course
for a clear, cloudless, windless morning at thirty thousand
feet mightn't be necessarily right for the bashing we were get-
ting at under two thousand. The Met report was all to hell.
But wait a minute, that report was for our operational height
and It said nothing about conditions at sea level. Very well
then, what are these conditions at sea level? Occasionally I
can see the waves so I have a line on the wind. It's all over the
place. Mostly upward. Lovely.

Can you keep her airborne for another couple of hours,
Geoff? Geoff thinks not. But Geoff had better think again.
I tell him he has no option unless he wants to ditch the flying
junk heap we're in. He gets the point. He always does. So
minute by aching minute we sit and ride her with Geoff. I
try not to look at the altimeter every ten seconds and I try
even harder not to think of the two remaining engines, tuned
for high-altitude stuff and now certainly running hot at this
level. Only two of them and the old girl as full of holes as a
bath sponge.

Minute by minute she settles. Minute by minute we inch
closer to England. Strain your eyes through the gaps. Never
mind the jolts and the breaking up of the old bus. Of course
she's breaking up but It's broad daylight and soon, in the
gaps between the cumulus, you'll see England. So strain your
eyes until they start out of your heads. Anything that doesn't
alter position Is England.

And so it is. We slither over the coastline and I notice for
the first time how roughly the engines are running. Geoff
does his stuff. He doesn't put the other leg down until the
last possible moment at the first possible airfield. All at crash
stations. This is It!

200

We could almost put a hand on the ground at this stage but
from my position I couldn't even see the little field we sat
down on. All I know is that the other leg did go down and
that we hit with a Godawful crack, kangarooed along for a
bit, dipped to one side as the leg on that side collapsed, swung
in a wide circle, the wing tip touched and disintegrated, we
half rolled over and then, suddenly . . . unbelievably . . .
stopped!

With me still alive. With us all still alive.

The blood cart and the crash wagon made a dead heat of it.

We stood and looked at the write-off. Geoff turned to me,
"And we didn't get those photographs either."

That's just what I was thinking.

4-5

VERY occasionally I beat up the town with Geoff. I never vol-
unteered to provide the women. My women mightn't be in
Geoff's line of country. Yet, somehow, in the pleasantest off-
hand way he would jack them up. And he always seemed to
know the anonymous blind date, as the Americans say, when
we actually met. Like Anne, for example.

"Why! Anne!" said he. "How nice! Do you think you can
manage the Antipodean for us?"

"I can manage anything that tips," said she firmly.

I looked at her carefully. It pays. Chestnut hair, a few
freckles, gash of a mouth (they all have), lovely legs, a bit
bony in the body.

SOI

"Think you'll remember me when next we meet?"

"Sure to; no one else I know has seventeen freckles across
the bridge of the nose!"

She squinted horribly in an endeavor to check my arith-
metic. That covered the gap until we got a table. Then she
squinted sideways again. This time at me.

"Ho! Navigator! Do you know your way round?*' The
others were mildly amused. So this was an act. Let me get
Into it!

"Only with those one can work around/*

She turned to Geoff. "Am I in bad company?"

"Dreadful," said he.

"My grandfather was a missionary," she told me, "and
whenever I get in bad company I have an urgent desire to
drag it down to my level. Scared?"

"Petrified, and hungry, too. When you have finished tap-
ping the menu against your teeth, I'd like to sink mine into
the table d'hote." We ordered and danced until it was
served. She danced beautifully. They all do. The music was
"If I should fall in love again."

Then a taxi for four. What the hell was wrong with Geoff?

That weekend the station looked not too bad. I had leave
and it was a lovely Sunday morning of early summer. I was
eying it with considerable approval when Geoff (on duty,
poor sod) turned up behind me. He Iiad an ignition key
dangling from his little finger. "Anne," he said giving me
the key.

"You and your taxi for four," said I. "I don't even know
how to get hold of her." Then I noticed the scrap of paper in
the key ring.

202

I had my usual trial of patience with long distance and then
I heard her lively voice . . .

"Hoi" said I.

"Navigator/' said she. "Stars in your eyes?"

"I had thought/' said I, "of the charm of the countryside.
My bucolic Antipodean nature needs an outlet, and I have a
chariot for two/'

"Petrol?" said she succinctly.

"I am on the best of terms with the sergeant of the Trans-
port Section/' I replied loftily.

"What shall I wear? Don't be dumb, tell me!"

"Oh, I was just running over in my mind what you might
wear, and I was undressing and dressing you so fast I got my-
self confused/'

"And when your confusion abates, what do I wear?"

"A print frock. Crisp. No hat/'

She rang again a few moments later . . .

"Stockings?"

"Yes. You can take them off if need be."

"Oh."

A little while later, another ring.

"Sandals?"

"Sandals, Three quarters of an hour/'

"Oh."

Geoff's little go-cart was cream with red upholstery. Rid-
ing in it one's backside was practically on the road and there
was as much wind protection as you get on a raft.

Anne looked lovely. Crisp. A summer morning girl.

I opened the pretense of a door and she arranged herself
with a delightful rustle of underwear and pretty legs. She
tipped her face up to the sun to say "Lovely day. Oh, lovely

203

day." Considering that the wild flowers had begun to colo-
nize the bomb wreckage opposite she may well have been
right.

"Fifteen," said L

"Good," said she. "Two gone."

"Where to?" from both of us simultaneously.

"As a bucolic Antipodean . . ."

She laughed and looked at nie with the expectant air of a
bird.

"Do they still grow tulips in Lincolnshire?" But, on the
way, I thought about tulips. They look as though someone
had cut them out of metal. Tulips! On a morning such as
this. With this girl. And in this mood! So we turned south-
west for Shakespeare's country.

"Tell me about the Antipodes/' she said.

I told her of the forest, lime-green to the water's edge; of
lakes tucked away in the midst of it as though God had
planted them there for his private contemplation; of the
Franz Josef glacier plunging through subtropical rain forest,
ablaze with rata at Christmas, of Tane Muhata, and the glow-
worm cave and the silence there; the mists rising at
Milford Sound, and Te Rauparaha's march from Kawhia to
Kapiti . . .

Suddenly I was aware of her hand on my sleeve. "Come
back," she said gently, "you're shutting me out."

I looked at her shining eyes and alert little face. I kissed
my forefinger and touched it to her freckled nose. She wrin-
kled the nose and blew a kiss across the heel of her hand.

"Isn't it a lovely morning to have the morning to our-
selves?" I asked.

"And It's just as well we have the road to ourselves while

you go voyaging to the Ultimate Isles." This from her.

Suddenly, there was Stratford's spire sticking up out of its
water meadows. It was high noon and the spire shimmered a
little in the heat. We stopped on the only suitable rise.

I lifted her over a gate. I could feel her softness through
her frock. I dropped her gently and vaulted the fence just to
prove to myself that I could. We leaned on the gate for a
moment.

" 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' " I asked.

Her face shadowed for a moment. " Tor summer's lease
hath all too short a date . . .' "

We started to walk along the ridge, but there was some-
thing awry. Then you came to my aid as you so often do in
times of emergency. I wriggled my finger at her, she stared
for a moment, and then we walked on, little fingers linked,
unspeaking.

As we neared the crest she said "There's a group of trees in
the hollow. Not enough to make a copse. But the latest wood
violets in all England are there."

"Are there?" from me, realizing that we hadn't stopped by
the accident I had thought.

"Wait here," she whispered, "and I'll see."

She left me below the crest and then returned with a
child's air of mystery. "They're there! "

So we went to look at the violets. A round dozen of them.
The sun was hot and the air was still. No weather for violets.

I took her hand and kissed the fingertips separately, folded
them into the palm and sealed them with another on the
knuckles. Her hand was firm and freckled. Childlike she
offered me the other.

205

I picked her up, and, believe it or not, on the farther slope
were bluebells. Bluebells! Weeks late!

She was lying so quietly in my arms she might have been
asleep. Mighty delicately I sat down. The sun was her
friend. Her chestnut hair shone and her freckles rejoiced.
She turned an inquiring eyebrow on me.

"No, I shall not compare thee to a summer's day. You are
the summer's day." I outlined her eyebrow with my forefin-
ger and she rubbed her cheek against my palm.

I swear the air was singing. I was as scared as all hell that
I'd ruin it so I stood up, took her thumb to raise her and said
firmly, "Lunch!" Her mood changed like a flash.

"Oh, dear/' said she, "bluebells! And on your Number
One too/' She was right and the cleaners couldn't get the
bloody stain out either. Sitting on bluebells. Hell!

We had lunch at a little place where ration books seemed
far away. Until they presented the bill when everything be-
came crystal-clear. Anyway, we had a lovely lunch, although
they left out the book of verse. Don't you like to watch a
pretty girl drink cider when the dappled shade of the leaves
overhead is probably as Milton puts It? The little walled
garden we had to ourselves. Just the rustle of leaves and the
breath of a summer's Sunday. The smell of food and cider all
mixed with the smell of summer. I talked about poetry and
New Zealand. I thought I might be getting my subjects
mixed but no. Anne said that clearly the two weren't mixed
in my mind they were the same thing.

I offered her a cigarette. I don't smoke myself but I carry
them as ammunition. She shook her head. "Not today!"
Now, wasn't that flattering?

And all that golden afternoon we stopped at promising

206

gates and climbed over them, Or rather, I lifted her over
them. We made all manner of discoveries, but mostly we dis-
covered each other.

Which brought us back to her flat for a bite just at that
near-dusk when a great city is mysterious and oddly beauti-
ful. She changed into something businesslike and succeeded
in looking as delightfully unbusinesslike as I had hoped.

I walked into the wee kitchenette and stood behind her.
Then I put my arms around her and felt her breasts against
my palms. She still held the tin opener. She didn't put it
down but it rattled in her hand against the sink.

We stood there a long time. Neither spoke. Then I turned
her round. Still not a word. She ran her hand along my
cheek against the stubble and shivered a little. Why do
women do that?

I bent her backward against the sink until her face was
tilted upwards. She was so pale her make-up was positively
startling. Her lips were parted and I imagined I could hear
her breathe.

"You'll have to wait for your meal/' she said, "because this
won't wait."

Later, much later, she took up the interrupted meal-
making. It took a long time. Occasionally she'd pick up a pot
and stare at it as though seeing it for the first time. Then
we'd both stare at it and then at each other. Not laughing.
Just overwhelmed, and a bit sleepy.

I went down to the corner public, thinking of long slim
bottles of hock, but as I walked, I knew this wasn't an oc-
casion for hock. So I bought a heavy Burgundy and when we
sat facing each other I poured it; wine like blood, strong,
heavy Burgundy, I picked up her glass, kissed the brim and

passed it to her. She took it solemnly and murmured "And
thereto I plight thee my troth/' sipped a little and leaned
across and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips tasted of wine.
Wine like blood. I didn't go back to the station. It didn't oc-
cur to either of us that I should.

We used to lie in her narrow little bed. She used to pull
my arm under her neck and push my hand against her naked
breast. We whispered to each other about love, and us, and
the nature of miracles; about tomorrow . . . and what about
a cup of tea?

One night she dragged my hand around by the wrist and
then bit each of the fingers in turn. "You're exciting me/'
she said, "and I don't belong to myself any more." I looked
at her. Most girls look wrecks after a spirited session in bed.
She looked lovely.

"I'm as poor as a church mouse/" I began, and then I
stopped because I couldn't help noticing how she was looking
at me. Intense and frightened she might be wrong. She
didn't say a word. Just waited. "And I'll never have half the
things you need, and I live in a little country where every-
thing is small scale, and you'll be a world's length away from
this life, Anne. Oh, Anne . . ."

"Yes," she said so softly that I guessed rather than heard it.

"Anne, Anne: will you marry me, worthless as I am?"

She looked at me with an extraordinary solemnity. "Ill
marry you, and try to make you happy, and bear you chil-
dren, and where thou goest, I will go." I knew she was mak-
ing a vow.

We lay, looking at the ceiling. She whispered "I'm so glad
to be me in bed with you." Oh Anne, Anne.

208

Ages later about a week we had just listened to the
news and even that didn't depress us. She sat on my knee like
a child. "We're not going out, we're laying plans; plans for
an all-white wedding. You have to plan well ahead if you
want a white wedding frock. Fortunately, most of it is al-
ready in the family. All my relatives must be there, even the
oldest and most remote; and a choir, and flowers poor Fa-
ther; it'll take a long time to organize."

Geoff was mildly interested in us. He frequently jacked up
parties, primarily, I think, to observe us. It was nice of him,
but actually we met every day I could get off-station. Some-
times only for two minutes. But those two minutes served
until next time. Lunacy? Of course.

Then we were posted off to Scotland, back to the jobs in
Norway. We wondered, at the time, why we were sent. I
wondered, chiefly, when I should see Anne again. We were
away for months. Our letters served us poorly.

Atlastl At long last!

I rang her and booked a room at the little hotel we had
found for ourselves. Very discreet. Then I sat down to wait
for her.

I heard her shoes coming along the corridor.

She turned her cheek for me to kiss. Her cheekl She lit a
cigarette, looked at it for a moment, and then turned to me.
'Tin getting married next week." I just stared . . . "He's
very young . . . and he was so lonely and so frightened
. . . and we ... we got drunk . . . drunk." I opened my
mouth to speak but she shook her head.

"Oh, no! I wouldn't do that to you!"

209

She got up and stood in the doorway. I noticed hex
make-up in a quite startling way. Then her stiff face twisted
up and I saw she was trying for the gay smile I loved so much.
In a ghastly parody of herself she said, in a brittle sort of
way: "Off course, navigator!"

I listened to the indomitable clack, clack, clack, of her
shoes as she walked along the corridor.

GEOFF'S on the verge of collapse. The M.O. looks oddly at
him from time to time. He's had it. It's only a question of
time and hell be appointed to command a station somewhere
or other, or else "promoted to a special appointment at the
Air Ministry." Poor Geoff. He knows, too. For all I know
I may be wasting my pity. I may be in the same boat myself,
or a worse one.

I wonder if that's why we were sent to do this short tour
stooging round over the sea to the poorly defended Norwe-
gian coast? Of course, parts of it are sticky enough, but by
and large Norway's a piece of cake.

We're farther north than I've been based since my opera-
tional training days. There's never been a more peaceful
routine. We keep office hours. All the work is done in day-
light and daylight lasts forever in the summer up here. Be-
sides the jobs we get don't seem to matter much anyway,

We leave in the early mornings, all the freshness of the

21Q

breaking day about us, climb on track into the growing light,
cross the coast always at the same spot and there, below, is
the same peaceful sea: our sea. Lovely!

The checkerboard that is rural England even as far north
as this gradually foreshortens and falls away behind us. The
rugged coastline sinks lower and lower until it is only a white
line on the horizon and indistinguishable from sea and sky.
The rising sun is on our faces. Inside it soon gets damned
hot.

Once course is set there's nothing to do but meditate on the
clarity, or otherwise, of the air, the form of the clouds and
the wind lanes on the sea, with a mental note of the wind di-
rection they indicate. Sometimes we'd see ships in convoy
herringboning their way north. Then we'd make no delay
about the recognition signal. The guns down there are hair-
triggered. And I don't blame them. They get hell on the
northern route to Russia.

But mostly it is one bewilderingly beautiful day after an-
other. We all get sunburned. Apparently the ultraviolet
rays come through the perspex. An empty sea, a most attrac-
tive shade of blue; not mid-ocean indigo, but a closer match
for the sky. Where is the horizon, my somnolent navigator?

Nothing to do for hours. George does all that an automatic
pilot can be expected to do. The pilots give up even pre-
tending to be doing anything. Usually we eat anything that's
around. In time, no doubt, we'll grow as fat as the kipper
kite boys. Coastal Command needs large flying boats to ac-
commodate its personnel. It's the contented life which
makes the seat too small for the seat.

Life's so easy I don't even bother about where we are until
somewhere round E.T.A. (Coast). At least, that's my line;

211

actually I do keep an eye on things, primarily from respect
for the pelt's safety. When we do reach the coast the visual
fixes are dead easy and everything in the garden is invariably
lovely. We fly very high and there's hardly ever any inter-
ference. For special jobs, by contrast, we may go in at zero
altitude but these are seldom.

It was interesting to watch Geoff. He grew less jumpy day
by day, and the muscle of his jaw stopped twitching.

Sometimes we start later and come home in the cool of the
evening, in the magic of the long northern twilight. It lasts
forever at ground level and somewhat longer at the altitudes
we usually fly. Perhaps I'm a more primitive guy than most
but I swear I can smell rural England when we're a little way
from it. Imagine coming home to a place that feels like
home, looks like home, even smells like home, and is home.
Can you tell from this how homesick I am? Amid the alien
corn, sick for home.

Geoff's improvement continued. He began to come out o
his shell a bit. We beat up the town a little together when
leave came our way. He knew more ropes than I suspected
existed. We had a few drinks, now and then met some girls,
and had a sedately good time. Frequently we (or rather
Geoff and I) were invited out for cocktails and a show. This
temporary gentleman finds all that a little heady. However,
the cocktails were thin (they can't get the liquor). After
downing them we'd go out, all together, to dine and, perhaps
dance. Or take in a show. The shows were good very good
in many cases much better than the cabaret stuff. I must
admit British cabaret humor leaves me cold, or makes me
hot. I can stand hearty bawdy belly-shaking laughter, and I

212

can appreciate jokes one smiles at, then, and for some days
after. But I'm damned if I can stomach the typically British
grubby innuendo, the correct response to which is a sly
snicker. In most impeccably correct accents, naturally.

Geoff's people were charming. Both of them were a little
perturbed about Winston Churchill (so changeable), our al-
liance with Russia (the Reds mean trouble), the strikes in
the coal mines (don't they know there's a war on?), our de-
pendence on America (they think of nothing but money),
the French (but what can one expect?), the young people (ir-
responsible, my dear).

Yet, when we were in town together, their house was my
home. My guttersnipe upbringing recognized that their
good manners were not, as mine were, something to assume
with care, but a quite unconscious garment that went with in-
nate goodness of heart. Sometimes they blinked a little at
me, but that was all.

Geoff's sister intimidated me. She called him Geoffrey.
The whole family did. I began to fear I might too, and he'd
never have forgiven me.

Sister took me round. Part of her war effort perhaps. Now
I know how to deal with a variety of girls culminating in my
education at the hands of Marian. After all she was my kind.
But little sister was different. I wouldn't go out with her un-
less Geoff went along.

Geoff seemed to know, in the most casual way, an extraor-
dinary number of most beautiful girls. On a strangely im-
personal plane. Now, that was something beyond my com-
prehension. I could understand a man taking a girl around
for the charm of her conversation or from abstract admira-
tion of her beauty, but not more than once in a while.

Little sister was also devastatingly frank. One night, as
we danced, she asked me: "Do you ever wonder what Geof-
frey sees in you?" The tone stung so I said dryly: "Do you
ever wonder what I see in Geoff?'* the emphasis rather like
pistol shots.

"Didn't mean it that way," said she. "Geoffrey says you're
his sense of reality, but are you really as uninteresting as
that?"

Well ... So I told her the story of my life* Suitably
cleaned up as you'd expect. How I loved it. Talking about
myself, I mean. Perhaps I sharpened the early struggles a lit-
tle. At the very least they lost nothing in the telling.

47

SOMETIMES^ from sheer boredom I suppose, I used to go down
to the New Zealand pool of aircrew. Just to look over the
green newcomers.

There was a bloke there in charge of all the things that get
messed up when they are moved halfway round the world.
A short, oldish chap, weathered and leathery. He held his
pen with convulsive effort in a curiously massive fist. Obvi-
ously no clerk. Everything that came to the pool was badly
confused. He added the essential element of hopelessness.
Not that such a thing ever occurred to him. He did what he
was told. Or rather, he did what he thought he had been
told.

I used to like to hear him talk. Always about New Zealand

314

and Civvy Street. How sane he sounded. He had been a
bushman and could easily be provoked to talk about it.

A flat monotonous voice he had, oddly cracked, weathered,
you might say. I started on the wrong foot by referring to
him as a "sawmill hand/' He was wryly contemptuous of a
New Zealander who didn't know that a mill hand works un-
der shelter but that a bushie drops the trees in the open,
where It appears they grow. The last bit just to cut me down
in size.

He'd sit and talk, his palms flat on his knees in a curiously
simian way. Always in the present tense. While he talked,
the green rain forest enveloped us both, and I knew his
friends as well as he did, Shorty, and Bull, and Cookie. Es-
pecially Cookie.

"His name is Cook, see? And he is a cook. Our cook. Get
it?" And then would follow that curious flat laughter. Min-
utes of it.

"A bushie's life is tough. Mostly it rains. Almost every day
at some time or other. Sometimes all day and every day for
weeks. We all get rheumatics." Here he always looked
briefly at his own knuckles. "But the gang gets to be good
friends. The others go down the track.

"Of course the bush gets you. The warm moistness in sum-
mer and the cold mist in winter. The smell of the earth,
moist, warm and somehow alive. Snow on the leaves. A
wood pigeon eating white pine berries in the autumn, the
sound of axes and the scream of the saw when two good men
get to it; so peaceful. And then the donkey engine rackets up
and breaks it all.

"Or we fell an old man rimu or totara and it smashes all
the small stuff as it comes down. I tell you, the earth does
shake and rotten sticks thrown in the air come down quite a

215

while after. These are hand-sawing days of course. Axes and
wedges and men who know how to use them."

I sat beside him and the pool of aircrew was far away. You
may say that, by inciting him to neglect his duties, I added
to the hopelessness. On the contrary, It was a public duty to
keep him harmlessly employed. All the same the story Is the
same anywhere. Here Is a man who could cope, a part of our
own very special legend, for the bushle Is Indeed that.

And what in the hell was that powerful fist doing clutching
a pen?

I SUPPOSE I should write you a chatty letter about what this
place is like. As I don't know, you tell me how to do it. Why
do I see no one but Don and the staff? Where are the rest of
the P.O.W.S? I imagine I am a P.O.W. Or shall I wake up
in bed in New Zealand and find there hasn't been any war at
all? Am I too bloody interested in myself? Who else comes
into vision except Don? Who Is on either side of me? Why
don't they talk? Or can't I hear? But I hear Don well enough.
What shall I put into my chatty letter? Shall I describe the
bed and bedding? Why not? Let me take you on a personally
conducted tour. My bed seems very high to me or else Don
sits on a low stool. I think I'm a bit propped up but I'm not
sure. There's a bed opposite and at least one other on each
side of It but my peripheral vision is not good. The really ir-
ritating thing, though, is my difficulty in focusing on the bed
directly opposite. It Interests me enormously in the intervals
of my getting my work ready for Don,

Or shall I write to you about food? I don't know very much
about the Red Cross parcels, although Don, here, says they're
what makes life worth living. I could tell him what makes
life worth living it's just the wanting to be alive. And how
I want to be alive!

I gather we're not big enough to have a staff of P.O.W.
medicos, but the enemy M.O.s. are all right. Old, most of
them that I've seen, and I've seen a few. I must be a bit of a
curiosity. That is, if I'm really here. When I'm not in this
damnable pain there's a dream quality that plays hell with
my orientation of myself.

One of the doctors lent me a portable phonograph and his
records. Of course I can't wind it but anyone passing helps.
Why do so few pass? The phonograph has the thinnest, tin-
niest tone old like its owner a tone eminently suitable
for dance band numbers, but the old boy's records are all
Wagner and Bach. What strange bedfellows.

How I wish I'd known Wagner earlier. I'd have had a flat
and a big radio-phonograph years ago and I'd have tried the
charms of music to some purpose. But Wagner is a bit earthy
for my taste now. Everything is different and the austerity
of Bach is more to my mind. No ambiguities about him; and
nothing omitted. Why do I have to meet him so late? So
very late.

49

I'VE been setting things to rights so confidently. Remaking
this slop-made world, as the Navy would say and knowing
so little.

217

I suppose Air Ministry does have plans, may even make
them. It's almost certain that Bomber Command has master
plans and subplans and so on. It is doubtful if Fighter Com-
mand has any plans not directly and immediately connected
with grog or women, for preference, both at once. Coastal
Command bristles with long-range plans, chiefly concerned
with chicken farms or keeping bees.

Quite seriously, we go off on some of the craziest jobs, but
I suppose they must fit into the pattern somewhere. Some-
thing like the matter of pain and injustice in a world ruled
by an all-merciful father. If we could see the overall pattern
it would make sense.

Let me tell you about a job we did on the Danish coast. It
was a place of no importance whatever and the job was
equally of no importance as one could tell from the strength
allotted to it and the perfunctory briefing. We caught the
contagion. We always do. There wasn't even the pretense
that we were to try out some new frightfulness. It made us
rather wonder why we were sent.

I took no real pains over my work yet, dead on E.T.A.,
there we were. The place was easily recognizable and there
were no difficulties of any kind. A complete surprise. No de-
fense of any sort or shape. It was rather like kicking a drunk.

When we got back even the IXXs. weren't unduly inter-
ested. We thought we were probably a dummy for something
big, but nothing big came off that night. It was a very quiet
night all round which was surprising considering the ideal
weather. We gave It up. But we gave the situation our full
attention the following night when we were sent on the Iden-
tical job. How's that?

Now, going back to the same place is only a matter of satu-
ration, but we were so few and the defense just wasn't there

218

anyway. What do you make of that? Back we went. I took a
lot more care this time and so did everyone else. It was
partly the fear that there'd be a little feeling about last night,
but mostly it was plain fear. We didn't want to go back when
we could see no purpose in it. If there were to be guinea
pigs let them be other folk.

The line the surf makes with the dunes all along the Danish
coast showed up according to plan and time. It was a lovely
night. Moon on the water and just sufficient riffles to make
sweeping patterns of the light. Did you ever come across a
poem in which there is a line about "waves struck silver by
the moon* '? That's how it was and the featureless coast
merely heightened the effect. I didn't want to go to war with
anyone.

The little town lay below. Last night's fire had all been
put out and it looked peaceful enough. What remained hab-
itable was now sheltering a lot more folk than usual but, as
before, the surprise was complete. When I spoke to them
afterwards everyone said that they wished that they had not
been on the job. It wasn't really a piece of cake. Not at all.
There was something seriously and fundamentally wrong
about the whole business. We all felt, in some strange way,
ashamed.

No doubt there was some very Important reason why so
few of us went twice to the same little place. No doubt there
was some compelling reason why we had to go twice.

I'd never kicked a drunk. I'd never punched a baby. Not
till that night.

SHOULD I mention "Gee"? I wonder if it's still on the secret
list? I am mighty careful what I write to you for fear some
chuckleheaded guy will confiscate it all on the grounds of se-
curity. I'm not very surprised if it's still on the secret list.
We usually remove things from the secret list about five years
after Fritz has been using them against us. Gee Is Intended
for the dumb cluck who can't make things out for himself
but it's much more than that really. Don't listen to my
carping. I'm an antediluvian preflood survivor. A relic of
the days when, in small formations, every self-respecting air-
craft looked after itself. We didn't have radio devices like
Gee to do our navigation for us. But then, we made a lot
of blacks that wouldn't have happened with Gee. When the
crew is dog-tired at the end of a long flight that's when first-
rate errors occur. Gee doesn't get tired.

Still, they were great days when we relied on what we'd
been taught and our own capacities. It's different now, of
course. When you have a thousand bombers over one place
and must get the whole show over in, say, an hour and a half,
it's obvious you must lay down radio beams for guidance, but
that only puts you in the neighborhood of where you want to
go. Someone has to hit it fair on the nose. That's my job.

We go in as three waves; the first to locate the place and
mark it with flares and incendiaries; the next bunch lay
great stacks of marker incendiaries and then the third bunch
really does the work. The target is, in theory, unmistakable
by then; so in go the high explosives and more incendiaries.

220

But Fritz is a dab at laying false fires and dummy targets to
mislead ingenuous bombers, so we don't always have it our
way. It wasn't that way when all of us went to Essen last
April but everything ran to plan when the target was Cologne
a month later. "The Thousand Bomber Raid." Dear Lord.
I wonder why they dredged up trainers and nonoperational
aircraft to make up the magic "thousand." And drop a mere
two tons of bombs apiece! We lost about fifty aircraft and
that's too many for one night. It's the crews we can't replace.
Every replacement is inferior to the crew it replaces.

All the same the planning for Cologne was most impressive,
especially as we were sent to Essen in the same strength the
following night. I suppose Air Ministry, with a rush of brains
to the head, decided on another bash while all the aircraft
were assembled. Anyway, we lost another forty-odd and we
didn't accomplish much. The weather was against us, for one
thing, and for another the Rhineland haze was all on the
side of the opposition. Somehow, things were different when
small numbers went off on real personal jobs. I wasn't here
for the Battle of France but that must have been the high-
water mark of the private and personal war. To hell with
area bombing and "morale" bombing. In both cases it's a
straightout attack on the women and children to undermine
the will of the men. It might, too.

Before these big do's we'd been converted to four-engined
aircraft. There was no trouble in that for me. Everything
the same only much better. But there was a hell of a lot of
rethinking, as the Yanks say, for Geoff and Don and Fred. I
wonder how Pip would have fared? No, I don't. I know Pip
would have coped superbly. Pip and cope are synony-
mous.

221

In a big aircraft there's more of everybody too. Rather
like living in a city or in an American aircraft. However,
we "hard core" relics kept the new boys in their places. In
this job there's no second dicky. Just one pilot and the navi-
gator is relieved of bombing. A bloody good idea. Naviga-
tion is like making love to a girl a full-time job. The new
guy, the bomb-aimer, is given a few hours' instruction in
piloting and in an emergency, and in theory, he brings us
home for breakfast. There are more gunners too and they're
better placed, but there's still no upper and lower turret
central fire control. That's one great thing with the Yank
aircraft.

Enough of all this. Some other time.

Did I tell you about that job at Genoa when we were prac-
tically the only aircraft that made it? Now, that was real.
Just a handful of us and each aircraft quietly confident of its
own resources.

But we were unlucky from the start. Fritz popped an in-
truder right over our airfield. In November it's quite dark
before seven o'clock. Just one miserable little Focke-Wulf.
How the hell wasn't he spotted? He nipped in on the first
guy just at take-off. The big fellow swung left-handed off the
runway and went to hell in a most finished manner. A belly-
ful of petrol and bombs: poor sods.

It took a little time to clear the mess and he was still burn-
ing when we went by. I was bloody glad that I couldn't see
much even although the fire crew had their floodlights full
on in spite of the blasted little F-W. Perhaps they knew our
own single seaters had whipped over to see the little bastard.
Anyway, that gave us top cover.

I wasn't really worried about the F-W. when our crowd

222

was above us but I couldn't help thinking that we were very
often first off especially on long jobs.

We ran down our own corridor for aircraft outward bound,
but were very nearly picked up by one of our own bunch. We
were dead on course so it must have been his mistake
which is a hell of a lot of consolation. An intruder always
makes all hands jumpy.

Over the French coast we ran into some light flak. Noth-
ing much. Fritz has pulled most of his A.A. stuff back to de-
fend the key target areas. Wise guy, Fritz. You don't have
to show him twice. All the same, a few spent fragments did
rattle on us a bit. It would have been cruel luck if any had
hit us in a vital spot. None did. Still, we were spotted.

We had been promised cloud cover for most of the route.
The Met wallahs are surprisingly accurate when one con-
siders that all the regular sources of information are cut off;
which certainly makes drawing a weather map rather like
drawing a horoscope.

We certainly had the cloud cover. Great heavy cumulo-
nimbus. No show of getting above it, not with our belly full.

Most unpleasant, all round. I shouldn't be surprised if
someone is airsick. I feel a bit queasy myself. The anxiety
about position adds to my uneasiness. Fritz has dropped to
our radio navigational beams and is very subtly and shrewdly
interfering with them. Not enough to awaken suspicion
just enough to muck up all the plant for frightfulness. Lead
the aircraft away from its target, confuse its route home, and
drop a brace of fighters on it when convenient. Yet when re-
turning, tired, damaged perhaps, fog everywhere; how com-
forting to be talked down on a strange field.

Tonight static is so bad the W. Op. can't get a bearing any-

way so we don't really know anything much. Meaning, /
don't know where we are, except in an approximate sort 'of
way.

Not a chance of seeing the ground for a landmark, not a
hope in the world of getting up high enough for an astro fix.
So I just sit.

Let's look at the situation. First, Fritz certainly knows
we're about because of the flak at the French coast. It's true
we altered course at once to deceive him but I doubt if he
was taken in by that. Let's assume he knows our track and
groundspeed. Right. Then ground control is certainly track-
ing us. So ground control can easily place a brace of fighters
on our tail, on the same course, slightly higher, and within,
say, 200 yards. As I've tried the wing-tip lights and they can't
be seen from here, it follows that ground control's 200 yards
might as well be 200 miles: all of which makes us feel mighty
fine.

But if you look, youll see the slow, methodical covering of
the sky by the gunners. Since they can hardly see the muzzles
of their own guns, there's training for you. Their orders are
to cover the sky. Nobody is going to Intercept us except by
the purest accident and he won't get time even to get a burst
in. A lovely safe feeling. Let's have something to eat.

But where are we, folks?

Captain to navigator: "How are we going?"

Me: 'Tine!" Are we?

Wet and white. Like flying in a bowl of milk. If the noise
seems a little less than usual, put it down to the muffling ef-
fect of the cloud. Although the old girl is being thrown all
over the sky everyone except me feels fine, if a little uneasy
in the guts. It's like traveling in an unpredictable lift.

224

Shut in. Up and down. No sense of forward motion what-
ever.

The W. Op. has given up the unequal struggle with the
static. It bloody nearly wrecks his set, he says, but we are so
lightheaded that we cheerfully tell him to try another pro-
gram. See how safe we feel?

Then I noticed a queer blue light and my stomach tight-
ened. It looked like a blue streamer, and, dear God, there
were similar streamers all over the fuselage. I felt my own re-
lief as it dawned on me that this was merely St. Elmo's fire,
the stuff that used to terrify sailors in the old days of sailing
ships. Oh well, the sailors haven't got that on their own. It
appears first on anything pointed, so it's obviously an accumu-
lation of static, but you try telling me that when I'm actu-
ally looking at the eerie stuff. The point discharges are blue.
One can't help feeling they must be visible for miles. St.
Elmo's fire looks like a giveaway, the way that vapor trails
are. It's no comfort to say to oneself that it's not really visible
very far and, in any case, there's no one about to see it. It's
not dangerous, but, by God, it looks dangerous. We all think
we look villainous in the ghostly blue light.

Presently it appears on the fans and along the leading edge.
None of us had seen so much of it, not even in Hudsons over
Norway. No one felt happy any more. The bloody stuff got
on our nerves.

A spark among the fuel wonder if there are any leaks?
We all know there are always leaks, always leaks, always
minute leaks that no one can do anything about. An air-
craft "works" in every joint as it flies, just as a ship works in
a seaway. Of course there are leaks. And a fat lot of good
thinking of them does you.

Then, with all this static there's bound to be lightning and
that's really dangerous. I keep this to myself. The crew Is
uneasy enough as it is. The blue light makes everything
glint so evilly. So keep it to yourself. But not for long.

A hell of a crash. A.A. fire? Can't be. What the hell? We
were all blinded for a moment and then we had the weirdest
afterimages. Scared? Not at the moment. We all thought
ourselves done for. Yet the old girl didn't even swerve even
although the pilot was momentarily blind. George wasn't
affected. Thank God! Thank George!

It was lightning all right. None of us thought of it at the
time. Not as the explanation of the hell of a crash. Not
even I who had lightning in his mind at the time.

The W. Op. reported the radio wrecked. He reported to
me because the intercom was out. His eyes were staring owl-
ishly and he was stone deaf. Poor sod.

So here we are, slowly getting over our fright On course,
we hope; undamaged, we hope. The radio gone. And it is
so useful when we're returning, done to the world, perhaps
to land on a strange field. There'll be only visual signals on
our return and who will see the blasted things? Wonder what
the visibility will be? If we can see the visual signals we
won't have to go to an alternative field. But if England is cov-
ered with one of those picturesque November fogs, how shall
we know where to go?

Put all that out of your mind, fella. Youse not home yet,
brudder.

All the time Geoff had been keeping to himself the really
horrible icing conditions. Windshields all glazed over and
quite useless. I wonder how he felt the gunners were faring,
and if they didn't know? Now, Isn't it nice to think that we

226

can all keep our worries to ourselves? Wonderful bunch,
aren't we?

Then chunks of ice hurled from the fans go whump on the
airframe. Whump! Whump! Rather like direct hits. The
weight of ice more than makes up for the fuel we've used, so
the old girl won't climb. Can't climb. No stars tonight,
navigator. We're using more fuel than we should and I'll bet
it's a hell of a job keeping control with all that icing along
the control surfaces. Still, that's Geoff's worry. Leave me to
mine.

It's bitterly cold too. In theory we have some heat but the
heating doesn't seem to work too well. The high-altitude
suits we got later were still being developed at this time.
That poor devil, Tail-End Charlie, suffered most. But then,
he always did.

Presently Geoff looked in to see me. Strange! I'd been
thinking of spot heights too. To clear Switzerland we'd need
fifteen thousand feet and we haven't got fifteen thousand, and
we don't look like getting fifteen thousand. But if we're dead
on track we can get by with nine thousand. But if we're off
track we'll be dead off track because that nine thousand will
plaster us over half Switzerland. It would be much safer to
return right now. I don't say that. Neither does Geoff. Bet
he thought it though.

Of course we take the chance. I tell Geoff all I don't know.
But if the Met wallahs are right, so are we. If not, not. We
goon.

Anyway we're not to Switzerland yet. But we mighty soon
will be. I make careful notes of the time we'll enter the cor-
ridor and how long well be in it. If the false prophets are out
in their calculations that time will probably appear in our
obituaries.

227

The time comes! The prickly hour!

Gosh! I'm some navigator. We don't even graze a moun-
tain. But the temperature drops mighty suddenly which
means they're very near. No more icing on the aircraft,
though. They must be near.

Well, well, my friends. Having delivered you from one
peril, now to dump you in another. Let's find Genoa, unless
the perfidious Ities have shifted it.

Downhill, boys, and well soon be over the target. The
shipyards should be readily visible and therell be broken
cloud. Just made for us. Geoff, my son, this is a mighty good
team. Keep going downhill.

Engines throttled right back to save fuel, mixture lean as a
drover's dog, and the bumps getting fewer and fewer. A bit
heavier though, as we get near the edge of the cumulus, or
maybe the cloud base. All hands straining their eyes for the
first glimpse of the ground through the broken cloud. Our
altimeter was set at take-off and if there are barometric
changes it will be all to hell. If it's recording short I'd hate to
hit the ground at a hundred and fifty knots with all this dan-
gerous cargo. Keep your eyes peeled, blokes.

And damn it all, the break, when it came, was above us
and the stars peeped through. Dear Lord! Just a moment
and no time to grab a sextant and get even one shot before it
closed in again.

Keep on downhill. E.T.A. And not a damned thing to see.
Just grayness. Keep on course and keep on downhill. How
long is a minute? Dear Lord, how long a minute is! It won't
break above again at this level. So watch below! Watch the
grayness till your eyeballs burst. Watch! Watch! Why didn't
we return when we had the chance?

All that happens is that the grayness grows darker. A

darker grayness, that's all. What did I say? Hold her,
Charles! Oh, Christ, hold her! Level off for God's sake!

Of course! Of course! The deeper grayness is the sea.

We claw off from it. Scarcely a wave on it. Must be fog
with an offshore light breeze. That was close, wasn't it,
Geoff? Geoff, you surely know how to baby an aircraft.
Straight and level, please, while I think. Think straight and
level.

We've overshot for sure. This is the Gulf of Genoa. The
city is behind us. The land rises steeply out of the Gulf but
it's behind us, too. Still, we have to go back to it. And if
there's fog over the sea there's certainly fog over an industrial
city such as Genoa. What to do? That's my pigeon. The pilot
flies on the course I give him. The gunners cover their sky.
Both parties grateful that the icing is over and they can see.
What shall we do next, navigator?

I think of our alternative target and then, pettishly, I put
it out of my mind. Genoa it is and Genoa it will be. The only
trouble is: where is Genoa?

Genoa is under fog. Genoa is blacked out. How long have
I to find it, Geoff? Twenty minutes to half an hour? Fly on
a reciprocal course, while I think.

The others are quite content to let me think after all, that's
what they brought me all this way to do. Tension mounts
inside my head. There's a heavy hand pressing on the back
of my neck.

No radio for a bearing. No good, anyway, at this distance.
No astro fix. Don't be funny. Don't rely on the clouds open-
ing and giving two first magnitude stars at right angles. That
sort of thing only happens in books. Think about the wind;
almost a flat calm or the fog would blow away. There should

have been a strong north wind from the Alps over the whole
area. Why not? How far the fog? Thus far the calm. If the
wind from the Alps is genuine we'll get a clear patch in about
half an hour on this course.

How long is half an hour? How long half an hour is!

And we do see the ground. Every Itie village has a cathe-
dral and they all have thumping big towers or spires or domes.
God, that was a near one over Geoff, not between . . .
What Itie cathedral in a small town has a dome and two tow-
ers or spires? Practically every one. What a help!

O.K. Square search. Can you spare another half hour,
Geoff? All right, I heard you. A quarter then?

A railway skirting a cliff beside the sea. Or was that a wisp
of cloud? Risk a flare. I think so. Hard to see downward.
Why doesn't someone invent shades for these blasted things
so that the light goes downward? Was it the sea? Sure? Good.
We'll get Genoa on one leg or the other. We're east or west
of it.

We do too. I have a word with Geoff about the docks.
Geoff looks at his endurance and then he looks at me. He
doesn't think we've got enough fuel to get home, let alone
find the docks. But we look for them, just the same. As Geoff
said: "A.M. shouldn't allow two perfectionists in one air-
craft."

We find them too. And give them all the stuff we've
brought from England for the purpose. We were so low to
keep under the cloud base that we had to climb to bomb for
our own safety. That doesn't make for accuracy but the rear
gunner reported large fires in the target area they all do
and that doesn't make Alex any bigger liar than his confreres.
Not that Alec hasn't a lively imagination.

2 go

No point in hanging around. And who said fuel? And the
whumps on the old girl aren't icing this time. You can see
the greasy bursts in the cloud, but the A.A. boys are doing
well in a most un-Itie way; we're not really frightened
the cloud cover which nearly did for us is now our friend.

So "Home, James/'

Now I know where we are and how we got here, it's a piece
of cake to set a course home. The old girl, bombs gone, more
than half the fuel gone, climbs like a child's kite. And she
won't use so much going home in ballast. But we're not really
sure we'll make it; the actual quantity of fuel isn't a matter of
opinion, it's a fact. The winds on the homeward track are
the critical matters.

The cloud seems a little more broken. We get above it
easily. Lovely astro fixes. But cold. Bitter, bitter cold.

We must be getting near Switzerland now. Geoff comes
along to have it out with me. Endurance. If we go high we
get good fixes but that northerly, if real, will play hell with
our endurance. I suggest we clear Switzerland and then nip
into the cloud. Geoff is doubtful, but I convince him. So,
with the cold eating into our bones, we sit it out, as Alec says.
We've eaten what there is and we've cleaned up all the ther-
mos flasks, as much from boredom as from cold or need for
food and drink.

Over Switzerland we have broken cloud. How do you like
that? No sense in going too high when I can get my fixes in
the gaps. So far, so very good.

Down into the mush again to cross France. Bumpier than
before, really impressive turbulence. Lightning struck again
at least twice. St. Elmo's fire. All as per outward journey.
But the sense of urgency was all gone. No one gave a damn.

Fatigue accounted for a lot, and the cold and the boredom.
Fred had spent nearly eight hours trying to repair his radio.
He hadn't a dog's show not with the component parts
welded together by lightning but those were his instruc-
tions. It saves him from the boredom which, by now, must be
an aching tooth with the gunners.

In the cloud something suddenly gets at my peace of mind.
Suppose England is under fog; looks as though it might be.
We'd better get a good look at the ground over France once
we're clear of the towers of Notre Dame.

The trouble is we don't see the lovely countryside of La
Belle France at all. Flares simply illuminate the grayness.
What endurance have we? Say, twelve to thirteen hours, base
to base. At 8.30 A.M. the tanks run dry. What's the time now?
And where are we?

The turbulence near ground level tells its own tale. Not
fog! The cloud base is on the ground. Dear Lord, no radio!
What station for us? With two good astro fixes I can put
us squarely over the field, but who will talk us down? Who
will ever know we're around except for the sound or the mo-
tors?

Geoff, can you spare me one more climb at 8 A.M.?

Geoff can spare me one more climb. He has no option.
With no radio and the cloud down like a blanket, it's the only
thing to do. So up, Geoff, to eye the rest of the universe. A
lovely fix. So that's where we are! What a hell of a wind
change that must have been to put us over the low land of
Holland instead of similar country in the fens! I think sourly
of what might have happened. We alter course for home.

At E.T.A. with enough fuel in the carburetors to fill a cig-
arette lighter, the cloud is as low as before, the turbulence

as bad and we're something under a hundred feet from the
ground if there's been no change in barometric pressure. Ob-
viously the radio is crackling with instructions as to alterna-
tive fields; lovely airfields with unimpaired visibility, and ex-
pecting us, if we only knew which.

Not a bloody thing to be seen, except, perhaps a poplar
which went by at wing-tip level. Geoff, you're a country
gentleman: was that a poplar?

Here's a pretty how-d'ye-do. No fuel, no home to go to, no
idea of how to get there anyway.

The hair on the back of my neck is very sensitive to peril.
Dear Lord, where is the airfield? Any airfield?

The engines are still running. On what, I wonder. Half
an hour past the end of our endurance and still the fans keep
turning: for how long?

Shall we try a flare? An odd idea in the middle of the morn-
ing but who has a better one? The flare heats the air in its
neighborhood and the cloud lifts for a moment. What Eng-
lish village has a large parish church with a square tower?
Dozens! What a help!

Geoff, are you thinking of taking us all to about a thousand
feet and having us bale out? And have you the fuel to climb
to that height? Surely someone has heard our engines and
dropped to it that the radio is out! Otherwise, why no reply?

Someone had. A line of what looks like smudge pots on a
frosty night in Central Otago suddenly begins to glow uncer-
tainly in the fog and dissipates it momentarily along a run-
way. Slowly we turn towards salvation. One motor dies, but
we have enough airspeed even if another dies. Sure enough
it does.

Rumble along the runway. Stop. Taxi to dispersal. We
had to get a tractor to finish the job.

233

And now we're here, folks, where are we?

You guessed it. That's what I mean by navigation!

THERE are some mighty fine fellows knocking about in the
Air Force. Intelligent goes without saying. And, occasionally,
of a hearteningly zany turn of mind. Intelligence and eccen-
tricity qualify for the Cads' Club.

Did I tell you of the chapter of the Club which had an
imaginary cat? True! A phantasmal feline, if you'll pardon
me. An animal of great intelligence and charm but, as you'd
expect, a little given to eccentricity. Moreover, the animal
was a source of no small profit to the proud owners.

I made the animal's acquaintance when I dropped in, quite
casually, and noticed with surprise that the president didn't
have the best chair. Invitingly by the fire too.

I took it.

Immediately everyone put down books, glasses and the
like. All shoulders rose in horror. Shudders shook all frames.
All faces screwed up in agony. All voices said simultaneously:
"The clot has sat on the animal!" Whereupon, stifling their
sympathies, all went to the bar and had one on me.

I reviewed the situation as well as I could without asking
questions, which would clearly have bankrupted me. Then
I noticed that the barman had set up all the glasses, and a
saucer of milk, with whisky. Uh-huh. A cat.

So I breasted the bar and downed mine. I said: "So it's an
imaginary cat." Everyone winced, and the barman, who had

234

been stroking about six inches above the saucer of whisky and
milk, hastened to refuel the shocked ensemble. As I signed
the chit for the drinks I ran over the proceedings to date:
"the clot has sat on the animal"; so that was it!

I turned to my neighbor. "May I pay my respects to the
animal?" He nodded a little austerely. "Certainly. And I
think a suitable apology." I looked along the bar. On my
left a bloke was scratching a pair of imaginary ears so I ad-
dressed myself in that quarter. Just before I opened my
mouth the scratching ceased and, when I spoke, everyone
looked at me curiously. With a sigh the barman reached for
the glasses again. What the hell?

I looked around. A bit bewildered, I don't mind admit-
ting. And there was a bloke, way down the bar, running his
cupped fingers along an imaginary tail. The bloody animal
must have passed me without my noticing it! No wonder
they thought me crazy! My polite apology had been ad-
dressed to the arse end of a retreating cat.

Would you believe me if I said that, for weeks, the animal
obsessed me? He or she, for example? Sorry. He, of course.
A male club.

The more one studied its habits the more one respected
the animal. Coupled with the highest intelligence went a
cavalier and original attitude to the world which I found
much to my taste. The animal, however, regarded his gifts
as in the general nature of catlike things. I longed to im-
prove my acquaintance.

YouVe no idea of the range of his abilities. For example,
he played Cardinal Huff with all comers every dining night,
and he invariably won. The saucers of whisky and milk have
been known to extend the full length of the bar.

235

What interested me most, however, was to see him cross
the anteroom. He would be sitting, curled up, on someone's
knee. That could be told by watching how he was being
stroked. Then someone on the other side would call to him.
Silently, naturally. The stroker would lift him carefully to
the carpet. (There are two schools of lifters, one round the
middle, the other by the scruff of the neck.) Once on the
carpet you could follow his progress by the little scratches he
stopped, en route, to receive. Then he'd make a well-judged
leap and land on some knee or other. He'd turn round in cat
fashion, make himself comfortable and then, once comfort-
able, he'd submit to what he enjoyed, rather like a woman.

I swear I could see his eyes close and his whiskers quiver
sybaritically. The fellows all looked on and smiled. Lucky
tyke.

A little later somebody would take him to the bar where
his winnings awaited his attention. He would sniff among
the saucers and finally settle for one. The nearest bloke
would shift any in which he might step or drop his tail. Did
I mention that whisky and milk was his sole diet? He de-
spised anything solid.

Dear Lord! One guest night the M.O., anxious for his wel-
fare and worried about his vitamin intake and the consequent
state of his fur, slipped some conditioning powders into his
saucers so stealthily that he deceived even that alert animaL

The barman damned nearly died. He was off duty for a
fortnight, but, on his return we did notice a perceptible im-
provement in the condition of his hair. He did, unfortu-
nately, bear certain scars on his personality. In moments of
stress or indecision he began to mew faintly.

236

Then came the troubled time when the animal was kid-
naped. Only the Fleet Air Arm would have the gall to kid-
nap an imaginary cat. And on a guest night, too.

The mess was stricken. Chaps sat around trying to read.
Tempers frayed easily. Too many of us just lounged around
with our hands hanging over the sides of chairs, just wait-
ing for the familiar whiskers. Bloodcurdling sketches of his
probable life in that sink of iniquity harrowed our feelings.
How could the animal come, unsullied, from such an experi-
ence? If he ever did come. Perhaps, indeed, his moral fiber
had been so subtly undermined that he had become a will-
ing helot. Such thoughts, if uttered aloud, always led to rows.
But most of us harbored them.

The bar takings fell off. We would have liked to drown
our sorrows. But the mute saucers of whisky and milk, gath-
ering dust, reproved us. The barman, mewing quite audibly
now, used to empty the senior saucer and put out a fresh one
every day. More in hope than in expectation, I imagine.

And then the cat came back!

Walked it! The game little bastard!

What a night we had that night. The animal presided over
one of the finest bashes ever. One of the most lunatic binges
ever. Yet there was one little contretemps. It reveals the
Navy in a bad light, too. After all, the animal could not have
been more than a few years old. It happened like this. The
barman, in tears, was reaching for the whisky and milk when
suddenly he halted irresolutely and then cocked his ear while
a mounting expression of horror gradually crept over his face;
mewing distractedly to himself, he put the whisky back on
the shelf and reached for the bottle of rum we keep for sof-
tening leather or occasional visits from the Navy. We looked

237

at the animal in stricken misery. It was only momentary.
The noble beast rallied all his forces and resolutely put Sa-
tan behind him. With a debonair courage we all admired he
waved the rum back to that obscurity from which it should
never have emerged. Purring happily, the barman restored
the status quo ante.

Yet we were worried. A sojourn with the Fleet Air Arm
could hardly have failed to have left his character and morals
in need of attention. After a hell of a lot of trouble we were
able to get down a psychiatrist from Air Ministry. He assured
us that there was no irreparable harm apparent. Nothing
which a suitable diet would not mend. Provided the patient
was protected from shock, such as an unexpected sight of a
child sailing a boat, for example. In his opinion, the animal
had nothing to fear.

I wish we could say the same for him. I notice he is on in-
definite leave. The animal said he guessed it right from the
beginning of the interview, but said also, that he found such
interviews tiring and begged us not to send him any more
folk in need of the kind of mental guidance which only a
well-adjusted cat can give.

Life took up its accustomed tenor. But our joy was tem-
pered by our appreciation of the hardships he had endured.
He'd lived for several weeks with the Navy, which corre-
sponds to exposure to the kind of culture the anthropologists
dig up in Java. And then he'd walked home. After the Navy
I suppose that was a piece of cake. Hardly an ordeal at all,
though tough enough at ordinary times.

The Met wallah calculted that, allowing for lifts at normal
frequency, it had taken him a fortnight. And the M.O. dis-
covered that he had worn his pads down an inch and a

238

quarter. Which the Met wallah agreed was reasonable for the
time and the distance.

We all used to feel pity well up in us as we stroked his back
an inch and a quarter lower than formerly. But the game
little bastard never complained. He did his best by holding
his ears very erectl

GEOFF and I went over to Brest together. It looks so decep-
tively near England that everyone thinks it a piece of cake,
until he's been there. I was the same as all the rest. I didn't
give the briefing half the attention I should.

So here we are, my bold sky-farers. Below is the English
Channel. This is a job for a summer's evening, because of
the short run.

There are all sorts of fake targets and dummy stuff but
Geoff dissects them all and exposes them remember what
I said about him? Our pigeon is the harbor installations.

On the way over we all notice the usual banks of low fog
in the Channel and approve of them highly, but as we ap-
proach the target area they thin out and blow away, blast
them! I feel a peculiar tightness in my stomach I get it
every time, but that doesn't make it any easier.

We have to make a rather difficult approach practically
down a lane of light. There are few night fighters. There
are seldom many at Brest. But the flak is all a nightmare
can imagine. The searchlight crews know their stuff too.

239

They're well protected in their concrete emplacements. So,
too, the gunners. Nothing short of a saturation raid will mar
their efficiency. And our little do is very far from that. Yes,
they're mighty good down there. But then, so are we up
here. We've been together a long time now.

Tonight, Geoff turns heavily onto the bombing run up to
the target and a few night fighters have us on. Alec speaks
up first on the intercom. Then he opens up. We might get
out of it by evasive action but it's too late now. The interior
of the aircraft begins to stink of burnt powder as the top gun-
ner opens up to. Then there's a side attack. All this in a mat-
ter of seconds.

With half my mind I register that the tail guns are silent
and that there's no reply from that station. Either Alec has
beaten off the attack and his intercom is damaged or they've
got him; the top gunner reports tail attacks. That tells its
own tale.

Don goes back to the tail. I can't do a thing. We're on the
bombing run and all these things seem to be happening to
shadowy creatures outside my world. The old girl shudders
once or twice but steadies up on track. I let everything go, sig-
nal bombs away, and then scramble back to help Don. He
is trying to drag Alec out of his turret. He is dead all right.
Horribly ripped about. All blood and guts. And hard to
shift too.

All this time Geoff is weaving all over the show, dodging
lights, fighters and known flak concentrations.

Then Alec comes out with a rush. Thank Christ all gun-
ners are small. They have to be, to get into their turrets.
When we fold him properly and have him almost out, the
bloody nose goes right up again and back he pitches, squarely

240

in the blasted turret again. Just as I'm cursing Geoff, down
goes the nose and out he comes like a cork out of a bottle.
Don wriggles his way in. The guns are all right. Just greasy
with blood and guts. The perspex is all ripped to hell but
who cares about that so long as the guns work.

All this time the other gunners are engaged. There's a
momentary lull and then they start again. The second
dicky, in Don's place, is earning his ride. But it's not the fight-
ers so much. It's the flak and the instability of the old girl.

When 1 am busy I have no time to be scared. Now I am, all
right. Scared stiff. I begin to plot a course a futile at-
tempt at an air plot; weakly curse everything, feel violently
sick, try not to think of Alec, wonder what to do.

Youll say I've been through it all before, and so I have,
many times. True, but it never changes. The dry retching
is the worst.

O.K. O.K. I've got no guts. So what? Who has? The gun-
ners are busy, so are the pilots. My job is done with the re-
lease of the bombs, until we start for home, anyway, if you
don't count the air plot for a point of departure. So I have
time for terror. And it grips me damnedly.

We smash from side to side in frantic weaves; we climb,
almost vertically, and then flop over on one wing and spin
downward; we come out in the clear no fighters, and in a
merciful pool of darkness. Normally one thinks of a pool of
light in the darkness. This time the whole place is lit up; a
blaze of every kind of light flares, searchlights, roman can-
dies, flaming onions, gun flashes, incendiaries bursting in
clusters, fires on the quays, fires in the streets, everywhere
great masses of smoke. Anything you can imagine is a child's
picnic to this.

241

They shot a wing off one of our fellows just as he was run-
ning in past us. He turned over quite slowly and then flut-
tered down in a horrible way, rather like a fly with one wing
torn off by a sadistic child. He was much too low for anyone
to get clear. He went into the smoke and glare. I didn't see
any more.

Our little island of darkness is suddenly split by a dozen
searchlights. In the glare I can see every detail in the office
in front of me. We simply must get out of it. Brest is too hot.
We're sunk. The lights have us and the greasy black blobs
begin to appear around us. Then another kite blunders al-
most right on top of us. He's obviously out of control or at
least very badly hit. We have no time to see more. Of course
the lights switch to him for the certain kill and we make a
break for it right on the rooftops. Chances are better down
there. Fritz can't depress his guns as far as that.

And suddenly, miraculously, we are clear. Low down on
the water, we light out for home. Believe me or not, it's
dawn and there's some form of surface engagement below
us. We're in no case to do anything about it with one dead
engine and an airframe like a colander. It's curious, though,
to have it dark enough to make the gun flashes clearly visible
but light enough, if not to see, at least to guess at the posi-
tions of those involved. And the gun flashes and the white
lines of trails on the sea betoken that a good time is being
had by all. Our problem is to get home.

All this time Alec had been rolling around. So we secured
him. A grisly business, that lashing him so he'll stay put.
I took no part in it.

I am setting the best route back. Once away from Brest
there is a sudden unbelievable quietness. Even the naval en-

242

gagement is a silent one at the distance. The thunder of
the remaining engines is a usual and friendly sound. Little
wisps of the fog we saw coming over still hang around. Hardly
big enough to call them banks. The pale remainder of a
bomber's moon still looks down on us.

A short outward journey, a short time over the target, and
an easy return. To Brest always is. But it's one of the best-
defended posts in the occupied countries . . . it's frighten-
ingly well defended. It isn't as though we do much damage
either. The Heavenly Twins* are still there, the great sub-
marine shelters are bombproof and so are the quays. Of
course we make the problems of supply pretty tough for
them.

England's green and pleasant land, spread out in the light
between the dawn and the moon is a lovely sight. Affection
wells up in me at the sight of its crumbling chalk cliffs. And
relief, too.

The weather is our friend. We can't miss now. As we
make a rather clumsy circuit before touch down, somehow
against my will I think of Alec, securely lashed, but his head
lolling in time with the movements of the circuit. Alec.
Alec.

Here am I sitting down to breakfast and Alec is dead.
Stretched out awaiting burial. All that chirpy Cockney alert-
ness under a sheet. Doubtless by now the firing party has
been told off, next-of-kin notified in case they want the body,
tentative time of the funeral decided "in order not to inter-
fere unduly with the exigencies of the service," padre in-
formed, and the whole depressing ritual of committing Alec

* Scharnhorst and Gneisenau: German battleships.

243

back to his mother earth well under way. It's a gray morning
but he won't mind. No handful of fighting kids, Alec. No
nationalized pubs, now.

I had no time, last night, to think of him and this morn-
ing I'm drugged by tiredness, but it's another gap. Of course,
he was only a gunner and gunners are practically written off
from the time they go into the tail turret. He'd have stayed
a flight sergeant all his service, too. A rough diamond, but a
sweet gunner. Let that be his epitaph. He's a horrible liquid
mess in his coffin under the ground now. And soon I'll be
like him. I ought to have known: first Pip, then Alec. I won-
dered idly, at the time, who'd be next.

And Don never says a word about Geoff. Not a word.

I WONDER what the Air Force meant to Alec. He was talka-
tive enough but one had to guess in the gaps. Geoff was keen
to get him to talk about his life because he was interested in
"postwar patterns." As it happened he wasn't to see any, but
Alec told him all sorts of things it was very good for Geoff to
know. What a drunken father means, for example. I could
have enlarged on that one, but I'd not say a word. When I
talked, say, to little sister, the early struggles lost nothing in
the telling, but they were cleaned up for her ears.

Why do outsiders persist in thinking that British pubs are
"inns"? The corner pub is much the same the world over.
It's a swillshop. Alec grew up alongside one. It was a liberal

244

education. He couldn't remember when he first was able to
distinguish at a glance those of the "private" from the "pub-
lic" but he must have known the jug carriers from birth.
The street fights after closing time, the ladies so very inter-
ested in the incapable drunk, the vomiting in the gutters, the
cold eye of the jovial landlord, the weary eye of the copper
on the beat, the public beating of children, these were mere
background. A mere background to the ever present anxiety
about eating.

He grew up "sharp." Everyone did. The others didn't
grow up. He knew the generous drunk almost as soon as he
learned to talk. Before he was school age he could tell the
sadistic one from the merely unfeeling. He knew how far he
could chance his luck, and he knew the consequences of mis-
judgment. I'll bet he'd have been astonished if he'd known
the fellow feeling his stories awakened in me. Often I yearned
to cap his stories one of my weaknesses but I didn't dare.
I'd built up for myself a wall against those days. Other times
my fellow feeling welled right up and I longed to compare
life stories with him. He'd have misunderstood the approach
and wouldn't have believed a word of it anyway. I was too
obviously not of the pattern.

He was an ardent republican. One of the few Cockneys
I met who was, so I couldn't help wondering what the Air
Force meant to him. I found out in the oddest way. He
was sketching for a rather scandalized Don his postwar pic-
ture and, as I listened, I saw the picture all right, but mostly
I saw Alec. He had a vision splendid too. I didn't include any
of the things the politicians tell us we are fighting for but if
you believed in them, they were the things worth fighting
for. And that was what the Air Force meant to Alec.

245

I wonder if Alec would ever have got his nationalized brew-
eries and pubs. Not that there was anything much wrong
with the pubs i no bastard of a landlord sends him home
drunk to the missus and kids. I don't know about the pubs
but the breweries look a certainty to be nationalized. Those
enterprises which are already strongly centralized like the
sugar industry, tobacco, steel, coal, cement and, of course,
the breweries, have made their own fate certain. They have
combined to such a degree that nationalization involves no
more than changing the directors.

Alec and his missus when he landed one and his hand-
ful of kids. I'll bet they'd be a handful all right. When Don
suggested, mildly as ever, that a woman's place was the
home, Alec offered to narrow that down a bit. And that job.
Where nobody could kick him out so long as he did a job.
Nationalized, naturally. It's a shame he isn't to have his
humble egalitarian postwar world of a guaranteed job, na-
tionalized breweries, and tobacco, etc., and etc., a missus who
knows that men are different, and that handful of lively,
fighting kids. The lampposts, decorated with assorted mem-
bers of the House of Lords seemed to him to give that wholly
satisfying touch to an otherwise satisfactory landscape.

Incidentally, since the deification of the royal family of
Britain is so capably advanced by the B.B.C., has anyone ever
thought of what would happen if the vulgar were ever to se-
cure control of the god-making mechanism? Not that they
ever will.

In Alec's postwar world Britain wasn't going to try to foot
it with the big boys. Alec was a Little Englander. But how
fifty millions are to eat he didn't make clear. He wavered be-
tween emigration and intensive farming, but he hadn't really

246

thought about either. His simple remedy was to get rid of
the parasites and to run everything for the good of us all. Al-
though he talked of intensive farming, the countryside bored
him flat. ("J ust tell me whatever happens there/') Doubt-
less other people found it interesting, beautiful and so on.
They were welcome to their views. After all it takes all sorts
to make a world. All this with the large tolerance of com-
plete ignorance. And what better base for tolerance than
that?

Strangely, Alec wasn't going to emigrate himself, but he
hoped the kids would. The old country isn't done yet but she
will be by the time the kids grow up. And you've got to
give them a chance. Must be hard though to say goodbye to
them just when they're grown and to know you'll never see
them again. All the same he hoped they'd go.

Now why did Alec fight with such skill and determination?
He was a sweet gunner. Why did we feel so sure of him? I
wonder what the Air Force meant to him.

54

AFTER Alec's funeral I had a chance to think about things.
We had a spell after that do and I took a spot of leave to
round off a very sound week. And then, bless my soul, the
Heavenly Twins decided to "bolt from Brest," as the popu-
lar press put it. Curious that they should "bolt" right up our
alley so to speak. When they were passing up Channel, Jerry
had "local naval superiority" there, which is something Na-

247

poleon would have liked. And, in passing, it shows how
easily Fritz could have invaded us after Dunkirk. Why the
devil did he not? What a colossal error of judgment or else a
failure of intelligence.

Anyway, up-Channel they came with minesweepers out,
flak ships, escort craft, E-boats; in fact the flotilla was practi-
cally a symposium of their naval stocks, so I was told. Our
crowd didn't see a thing of them. Neither did most of the
other squadrons. Our nav. just wasn't good enough. We
didn't see a thing, but we heard plenty. Especially after-
wards. And it was my luck to be on leave when all this hap-
pened; the one really important thing towards which all my
training and inclination had been bent.

At first no one believed it. Then the horrible truth burst
on us. To wit, if we bash away like that at sitting birds and
the sitting birds are still seaworthy, what show have we of
getting them when they're on the wing? The Public Rela-
tions Officers were in tears, wringing their hands and wail-
ing: "What will the PUBLIC SAY?" Public Relations Officers
always think of the PUBLIC in capital letters. Miserably they
asked each other this and that, to end with: "They'll ask the
most awkward questions!" I bet they will.

An overturned beehive most aptly describes the Royal
Scare Force the next week. When such a thing happens (to
the beehive I mean) I suppose the bees panic a bit and go
around stinging each other. Get the idea? Besides, it was all
so difficult to pin the blame on the Army, our usual scape-
goat. So very difficult!

The night before there' d been the usual crop of decora-
tions dished out for "setting an example of coolness and de-
votion to duty," etc. Don't think they weren't earned! Every-

248

one who goes to Brest deserves a gong, but the inference of
damage is what's at fault. About this gong business the
whole thing desperately needs reorganizing. There are ten
times as many other ranks as officers, yet to date, ten times as
many V.C.s have been awarded to officers as men, from which
you'll gather, correctly, that it's a hundred times as difficult
for another rank to get the gong. Anyway, why the hell a
D.F.C. for officers and a D.F.M. for the second-class citizens?
Yes, the whole gong business needs reorganizing or we'll be
like the Yanks and wear them on both sides, the back and the
backside.

Anyway, the Heavenly Twins left Brest. The story goes
that some of our fellows narrowly missed being decorated
for sinking them at the quay some hours after they'd left. It's
a lie, I hope. It's all very difficult. Here we are, been bomb-
ing them fairly steadily for months and are gradually work-
ing the public round to believing that we're damaging them.
In fact we were almost ready to hit the headlines with
"R.A.F. sinks S. and G. at Brest/' and back it up with the
usual photographs if the boys in the back room could get the
models finished in time.

They came up the Channel for a day and a night. Visibility
varied from three miles down to half a mile. They moved
quite slowly because they'd minesweepers and flak ships all
around. The Navy found them all right but didn't have
anything in their class, so it sent in the torpedo bombers and
lost the lot. That's the Navy way. Stupid as they come,
tradition-ridden, and as game as all hell. You've got to hand
it to them. Why our blokes didn't find them is one of the
major mysteries of navigation, something like Columbus
making a landfall in India. What the hell was wrong? Didn't
they want to pick them up? Did the naval losses have any-

249

thing to do with it? I don't really believe it did, but there's
a lot that calls for explanation, and I haven't seen the ex-
planations yet.

Spare a thought for whoever planned the whole remark-
able feat. Hitler has some amazing people at call; tough, re-
sourceful, packed with effrontery, and, above all, highly
intelligent. For it was a remarkable feat. The last time a hos-
tile fleet forced the Channel without loss was when Caesar
crossed from Gaul.

I've flown over every inch of the route they followed and
I still can't see how it happened. I've cross-examined as many
of those who were in it as would submit to my inquiries and
I still can't see. All I can think is that Fritz has kindly ex-
posed for us either a basic flaw in our thinking or an astonish-
ing breach in our practice. Either the whole idea that air-
craft are a match for surface craft is an error or the Air Force
is in need of overhaul. Faced with the Japanese successes,
who will back the former?

If all the decorations awarded for Air Force attacks on the
S. and G. were put in a bag and dropped on them they'd have
been sunk at their moorings. If all the damage done in the
newspaper offices by our raids were piled, column by column,
on top of them there'd be no necessity to sink them. If but
what's the bloody use. They got away.

55

LYING here I can think quite dispassionately about the man-
ner of Alec's passing and Pip's: especially Pip's. Don and I
often talk of them. We feel as Noah must have done when he

s>5<>

finally realized that Ms family, alone, had survived the Del-
pge. And why should Don and I be chosen to survive? That
is, if you count me a survivor.

Barring accidents, Don will live in the Post-Deluge world
#nd mighty like a fish out of water hell be. Not much shows
.on the surface, but underneath he could not help but be
changed by all the oddities to which he has been exposed.
Me, for example.

You see, while the storm rages and the waters of tribula-
tion cover the earth, queer fish like me are in their element.
But there's an end to all things. Perhaps there is a merciful
God. Perhaps He knows what a mess I've made of things and
how I hate making a mess of things, so perhaps very wisely,
he's decided there's to be no more mucking about.

Only Don and I left. I wonder how long Pip was in the
dinghy. // he were in the dinghy. I associate the rest of the
crew so completely with Pip that they become, so to speak,
proj ections of him.

When he was gone I was lost for a while. I used to moon
&bout thinking of the most impossible chances, but always,
of course, that h.e was in the drink. He'd ditched an aircraft
ven before that time I told you about. Remember it? When
he towed Alec like a gilled trout. But his first ditching must
Jiave been a really hairy show. He used to tell us about it
when explaining tjxe necessity for the drill he used to give
us.

He'd been in an old Wimpy coming home from one of
those futile jobs on seaplane bases and the old crate had had
enough. When she finally packed up, Pip put her down with
the nose up because he "reckoned that she'd dive straight in
otherwise." Tfctf h&W how much they knew in those day$

251

about the technique of ditching. He'd told all hands to hold
on like hell and counted noses in the water. The tail gunner
didn't get out in time and they lost him. He was probably
dead before she sank anyway. They got the dinghy out and
threw it in the water. It wasn't punctured but they had a lot
of fun topping it up. Then they scrambled into it as it
twisted about, "like a bloody circular eel": thus Pip.

There was no ditching technique in those days and the
equipment was pretty lacking too. The observer (they had a
combination navigator-bomb-aimer-radio-operator-gunner in
those days) had a couple of split ribs and a gunner a broken
ankle, otherwise they were O.K. They had their rations
and water but the paddles, not being secured as they are now,
were lost. So they paddled with their boots.

Think of it! A crowded little dinghy, a dirty night, two
injured men, mighty little rations and the enemy coast not
too far away. So they turned their backs on it and paddled
for England.

Water was their worst worry. The lack of it to drink and
the superfluity of it in the dinghy in spite of constant baling,
with the inevitable boot. It rained in little driving gusts,
"but any water we collected was salt from the spray."

During the days the high winds chapped their faces and
blew the tops off the choppy waves; at night they huddled
even closer together; "our flesh began to pucker from being
constantly wet, we didn't talk much, our tongues were swol-
len and our throats too sore even Alec's."

In short spells they paddled for England.

They lost a boot during one of the interminable nights
but the next day was fine. The observer still had the Verey
pistol with which they hoped to signal help if any came their

way and if the pistol still worked. When I think of what we
have today I'm amazed that anyone survived at all. They lost
a couple but how they didn't all go for a Burton is a mystery.

They were eight days in the dinghy. When the weather
cleared, "we would have liked to take off our clothes to dry
them in the sun, but we were too weak." It appears that they
dried anyway because "we were most damnedly hot in the
middle of the day and the light on the water began to play
up with our eyes."

One gunner, who was paddling, fell out and they were too
weak to drag him back again. He floated alongside till night-
fall but they lost him during the night. "He just bobbed
there, looking at us. We took the boot before it fell out of his
hands and sank. His tongue had swollen so much it was hang-
ing out, his eyes were so red, just like the rest of us, that it
was more painful with them closed than open. So he just
stared at us. We tried to pass him his rations but couldn't get
them into his mouth. I gave him the water even though I
knew it would only dribble down his face. I wanted him to
know we were treating him just like the rest and not writing
him off. I didn't know how to feel when the light came and
he wasn't there."

After that Pip took precautions against anyone falling out.
Their rations were all gone and they didn't want any. Occa-
sional instability showers, now the wind had dropped, en-
abled them to lap up a little water, but it was difficult for
them to open their mouths, or to close them, if open.

They were beyond fear or hope but they were wryly con-
temptuous when one of our aircraft, on recce, in broad day-
light, passed them within half a mile, "bastards keeping a
watch like that deserve to be shot down by a submarine."

253

Then, miracle of miracles, they were seen and picked up
in the middle of the night by a trawler busy on God knows
what business so near the enemy coast* She was going dead
slow ahead at the time or would have missed them. They
were given sips of water and rolled in hot blankets and parked
in the stokehold. There was no doctor on board, naturally,
and the well-meaning skipper nearly killed them by trying to
give them a tot of neat rum. Fortunately for them it dribbled
out of the corners of their swollen mouths. But Pip has often
lamented that circumstance.

During that eight days they had paddled or drifted nearly
seventy miles, as near as I can calculate, but they were nearer
the enemy coast when picked up than when they started pad-
dling.

Pip used to speak of the old Wimpy with the greatest re-
spect because "I thought she'd fall apart in the air and she
hit the water such a hell of a crack, she had the best part of
a hundred on the clock and she held together . . . good old
girl "

They had played games on the first two days in the dinghy.
Have you ever tried that game where someone starts with a
letter and everybody adds one in turn, building up words un-
til someone is stumped? Pip said "It's a bastard of a game.
All the other sods knew too many bloody words." He also
said that he never wanted to see a Horlicks' tablet again, or
another piece of chocolate.

Sensible chap that he was, he drilled us all like hell, with
dinghies in a hanger. Then we tried it in a pool to the great
interest of all who could fake an excuse to be present. And it
seemed that half the Air Force could.

At the time we hated it. Yet the more I think of Pip in

254

retrospect, the more I find to admire; his careful planning,
his simple assumption of natural leadership, his competence,
his courage, the whole grand manliness of him. If the padres
know what they're talking about it's unlikely 111 ever see Pip
again. I'm a poor type really, and I know where I'll end up,
but God could hardly be omniscient if He wasted a guy like

I WONDER if anyone else is writing you. All the grounded
pilots suffered from mental disturbances and I wonder if any
others hit on my idea. Privately, I think it rather a good one.
I get things off my mind and take care of the future at the
same time. You know how I feel. There's no future except in
the memory of those who bear one in mind and that's why I
write to you and, well, there you are.

I suppose I'm a mental case. Am I? You can probably tell
it from the self-conscious writing. I have the reader firmly
in mind every careful minute. You're the reader. If I don't
seize and hold you, bang goes my immortality my immor-
tality while you live.

Did someone say that no one was ever in mental trouble if
he was worried about his sanity?

All I worry about is being clear. Why, I've even written
down the current slang of the Air Force to the level it had
when we were in New Zealand. Sometimes Don blinks at the
obviously false qualities but I'm not writing for Don.

Perhaps it's all a little too pat. Things done and things

255

told are getting a little mixed now. In any case I am not one
to hesitate about embroidering a tale. Still and all, the es-
sential guts of what I say is as I say. I am Everyman. Every-
man as a man of war. An unwilling man of war. That's why
I've introduced you to the select circle of my friends. Do you
feel you know Alec? And him a horrible liquid mess under'
the ground now. And do you know me any better for know--
ing them?

Don't listen to me today. Today's a bad day. They've be-~
gun to move my bed at night. I've just noticed that it is sys-
tematic.

It would serve me right if I've overdone all this. But I've
nothing else to do. Have I squeezed all life out of these let-
ters by my overnight revetting of them?

I wonder if anyone else is writing to you.

57

AN aircrew has a certain unity. In the best crews the captain
has a sort of natural "headship," so to speak, in all they do. It
becomes second nature to glance at him. The second dicky
has the very difficult job of learning this indefinable leader-
ship, but at the same time he has no opportunity to practice
it. He must store it all up inside him until the dam breaks;
in other words, until he becomes captain of his own aircraft.
Some chaps never learn, of course. And the crew always
knows. There's a tremendous lot of "crewing up" that no
one who hasn't been part of it will ever realize.

256

The Pilots' Union is a reality, more's the pity. The gun-
ners, too, are a closed corporation. They have th^ir own
fiercely guarded independence but they are bitterly conscious
of not being pilots. Reselection is of continuous interest to
them. Straight gunners are rare except in tail turrets and are
despised unless particularly skilful. Nobody could despise
Alec, the quality was there for all to see.

Most gunners are radio operators as well, and I know them
chiefly from the radio bearings they get for me when we're
coming home. A good bearing is worth a lot and a fellow
who can get them is mighty useful. Especially as things are
frequently difficult for him, what with static and enemy ac-
tion and the tendency of a set which has suffered a direct hit
to call it a night. Don's one of those little jewels.

Navigators like to think that they're a class apart. Maybe
they are. We tell ourselves that we're the guys who set the
courses to the target, bomb it when we get there and then
bring the boys safely home. We like to think we have a kindly
contempt for the taxi driver. We're the ones who get the
really detailed briefing, and we're the principal prey of the
LO. on our return. But don't take that "kindly contempt" too
seriously. Reselection does matter, and many navigators
would dearly love to be pilots. Perhaps the way I avoid even
thinking of the second dicky is because I envy him his seat.
And not just for the view, either. Many navigators profess to
regard pilots as rather dumb clucks, apart from their rather
crude mechanical patter, and wax merry about the rumors of
flight engineers for quite small bombers. But how many
would turn down the chance to remuster to pilot?

Reselection is supposed, in theory, to ensure that each
member of the aircrew is in the trade he can manage best.

257

Some can cope, some can't. I'd hate to suggest that the social
advantages ever rise to the surface but pilots do tend to be so-
cial and to do better for women.

There's a sort of discipline of natural consequences in an
aircraft where the crew has been together for some time and
that keeps everyone up to scratch. Besides, there's the fellow-
ship into which, curiously enough, the aircraft is admitted in
terms of equality: the old girl is conceded to have a life of her
own.

There's a fellow in our mess who was forced to order the
abandoning of the aircraft over Holland. They all popped
out and he was about to do the same when one engine picked
up a bit and another ran in fits and starts. Of course you can
guess the rest. "Gallant Aviator Refuses to Abandon Noble
Steed," etc., etc.

He did, in fact, stick it out and try to slap her down in
England but he made an awful mess of it. He cleaned up a
row of houses and somehow didn't go for a Burton himself.
After the butcher boys had done their stuff upon him he even-
tually recovered but what interested me was what he told us
as we sat around: "... and, honest, the old girl was a trier
and when the motors packed up I just hated to sort of leave
her on her own, so I was as pleased as hell when the two
motors picked up a bit and I said to her 'Come on, you old
bitch England or the ditch/ Pretty good that. Wish I had
said it. Anyway, she'd cut a bit sometimes and we'd have a
look at the drink and then she'd pick up a bit and we'd floun-
der away from it. And all the time I was thinking 'Good old
girl, you little bew-tie/ So we crabbed and staggered all the
way back. I was sorry how it all ended up. She was a great
trier, honest she was/'

258

We all nodded our heads without speaking. We knew how
it was. Do you gather what I mean by saying that an aircrew
has a certain unity? It's just dawned on me that what cements
the unity is the aircraft; it's the old girl herself that holds us
all together.

Sometimes, however, there's no option about abandoning.
It's off you go. Nevertheless one can make mistakes. An air-
craft, abandoned over the sea, flew inland nearly a hundred
miles before it crashed. I spoke to my opposite number about
it. He said: "The skipper told us all to decant and then he
trimmed her to fly straight and level and we all pushed off.
That's all there is to it. But the old girl, being trimmed to
fly straight and level, simply went on doing just that. There
was a hell of a fine full-dress inquiry but the evidence they
really needed they couldn't get. The old girl was not there to
Defend her literal interpretation of instructions."

Get the role of "the old girl"?

All of which gives me an idea. As you know, each aircraft
as it grows older, becomes less useful, whereas the longer the
aircrew is together the more valuable it becomes. As a unit,
I mean. Now, let's suppose that, for really shaky do's, we fuel
an aircraft with just sufficient to take it to the target. The
crew take it off the ground, set it on course and then bale out.
Over the target, out of fuel, in she goes. The bomb load
could be very heavy because no return fuel would be needed,
and they could fly really high to make interception problem-
atical. Not that the R.L. blokes wouldn't get on to them but
the interception would be another matter. The machine
could be dirt cheap so long as it would fly high. Really high.
Of course I've left out the adjustments to course made in
flight, the very rqisgn d'etre of the navigator, but perhaps we

could fit the machine with a simple emitter gadget by which
it could be tracked and its course corrected while in flight.
But I suppose Fritz, who's the very devil at horning in on a
good line, would jam the whole show.

As a matter of fact the whole idea is not so good. This war
has only one redeeming feature and that is the deep and last-
ing comradeship between man and man and I'd hate to be-
come roboted, even to save lives. Isn't it odd how we welcome
more and more gadgets but not those which would eliminate
us, and the risks which we all run.

Aircrews are growing bigger, more's the pity. Some Yank
aircraft, Tex says, have stations for thirteen. We inquired if
that total included the newsreel cameramen and Tex had us
all on beautifully. "Why, no," said he, "those guys are extra.
Superpriority extras. To make room for them and their nec-
essary gadgetry, unessentials have to be reduced so, after much
thought, we cut down the bomb load. And every pilot enters
into a solemn obligation not to jettison the news over the
target. Everyone has to take a social trustworthiness test to
determine whether he is safe to be trusted with the news.
Most of us have a small pamphlet compiled by a hired psy-
chologist on how to flunk this test." Not much change to be
had out of Tex, is there?

But big crews mean that the very close friendships are tend-
ing to become less and less common and there may even be
two well-defined circles among the crew. Based on rank,
usually. That's a bad, bad thing. I've been lucky. We'd been
together for quite a long time before Pip bought it and then
I had a wizard time with Geoff. They were the only two. I've
not been buggered about as much as most. Then there was
Alec who probably had a better grip on reality than the rest

of us. At the bottom end, but reality just the same. And Don.
Especially Don. I'll bet he's made it. Trust Don. His calm
inner security was a blessing to us all. Though how he came
to be called Don when he was born in Shropshire is some-
thing of a mystery.

Second dickys come and go. Odd bodies pop up now and
then. But, by and large, we were a happy family. First, Pip.
Then Alec. Then Geoff. He must be gone or Don would
have mentioned him. And now me.

Then there was one. Don will live to a ripe old age, plac-
idly surveying his farm, and occasionally grossly extending his
horizon to include Shropshire. Remember when the world,
was wider, Don? Remember us! Remember us all! An air-
craft is a great place to play "Happy Families.* 1

I SUPPOSE there's a plan somewhere. I was thinking some-
thing of the kind as we listened to the briefing for a job we
were to do on our own. A daylight job. We were to photo-
graph carefully the beaches in a certain area almost opposite
Dover. You might wonder if it foretold a landing by us or
fear of a landing by Fritz. So did we.

The photos at the briefing, however, were so good that no
one could help wondering why any others were wanted. Of
course there's always the chance of significant changes. But
what is significant?

There was a light breeze at take-off. There usually is on

26l

the east coast. I once met a Dutchman who told me he
couldn't remember a windless day in his country. What a
place to operate aircraft.

It was a lovely morning. The flat fen lands reveal their
customary neat geometry. The line of the sea is clearly visi-
ble. The world looks very good to me. If only there's no
opposition interest in our proposals. Photographic aircraft
should be labeled "innocuous" in two languages.

From the air we can see very clearly how the Channel
was made. The cliffs on either side are very similar and the
Goodwin Sands are sharply outlined, even the part which is
under the water. Looked at this way it seems odd that
there's been no progress with the idea of a Channel tunnel.
Too late now, but it seems like a good idea that should have
been carried out before the air age which is sure to follow
this war, in the event of there being sufficient survivors.

The modest cliffs this side of Dieppe were our pigeon.
Does Fritz have observation posts on the cliffs? He'd be a
goat not to. Or is it something about the beaches at the foot
of the cliffs?

We line up for the job. Then the defense opens up.
Ground fire. Probably hadn't bothered about a single air-
craft until we were drawn to attention. The fighters should
be along in about ten minutes. By which time we'd be else-
where. Everybody knows the game.

Do you remember how you used to talk about watching
A.A. shells on their way up? It's true of course. When one
is photographing there's a great chance to watch that sort of
thing. The projectile comes up quite slowly and then acceler-
ates as it comes closer. Or that's what it looks like. Usually it
seems to drift astern. That's because we notice those coming

262

for us and not those dangerous ones which are aimed ahead
of our track.

There's that sudden rush and then, even more suddenly,
the explosion. It always takes us by surprise. The crashes
and the whines of fragments, the air disturbances, but,
above all, the uncertainty of hit or miss. It's wonderful
what an aircraft will stand in the matter of A.A. fire but any
hit at all reduces efficiency and is a bonus for the fighter de-
fense.

This time we took one aboard just as we lined up for the
job. I thought it was bad work in the office and snarled at
them to steady the old girl on track. In the intervals of scrab-
bling all over the sky I got roughly what we wanted, but it
took much longer than I had expected. Which brings Willi
Messerschmitt into the picture. Don't believe anything you
hear about the Me. being no good. It's damnably good.

The first thing we knew of it was a stream of tracer over
the port cowling.

Think of it. The old girl practically unmanageable at a
time when evasive action was our only hope. The hydraulic
gear gone too. Think of what that means to the gunners.

Down on the sea we went. Bloody lunacy that, when the
old girl can't be controlled. But it was a case of sit on the sea
or be shot down into it. I had plenty of time to work myself
up into a fine frenzy of activity. The old girl shudders when
hit. I shudder with her. Our own guns open up when they
bear. I noticed the dinghy full of holes and thought sourly
of this business of sitting on the sea. Especially, as all our
maneuvering was lateral and hence death on navigation.
Not that I cared with England so clearly visible it was just
the principle I objected to.

The Me. made a final near-suicide pass at us. He was as
good as in the drink but just crabbed away from it. Probably
out of ammo and nearly out of fuel he departed to re-
port having damaged us. He had, too. But why only one of
them? We were a sitting duck for two, damaged as we were.

And so home to listen to a list of the damage. The old
girl was hardly parked before the riggers were all over her.
They take a ghoulish delight in pointing out things better
not pointed out. One went through a damaged panel,
dropped a fair distance and broke his ankle.

The general opinion is that it is quite remarkable what an
airplane will fly without.

IF I were only in New Zealand now. "God's own Country"
they call it so called with special fervor by those who have
never left its shores and so have no opportunity of comparing
the 'prentice efforts of the Almighty when He created, say,
the United States. How wise not to look abroad. They have
found their Fortunate Isles. Why should they roam? Where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also. There's a
special virtue in the earth and sky of that little country.
Sometimes it even extends to the people, too.

There was a conchy I knew once who wrote a line or two
of some merit. One day we were leaning over a bridge and
watching the dusk purpling in the valleys. There was still a
flush on the snow and the noise of the river seemed as much

264

part of the evening as the first mosquitoes. I'd like to be
buried in New Zealand. My heart has never left it.

Should I have mentioned I was on leave and was fraterniz-
ing with a conchy I liked and admired? He belonged to an
obscure religious sect not recognized for purposes of con-
science by the exemption committees. In consequence he
was set upon by young thugs in the name of high patriotism,
almost in the shadow of the cathedral in a small town.
Can you guess which? And I wonder what the spirit of
Christ assuming Him to inhabit the cathedral made of
these young patriots?

I only know I don't want to die here. I want to die in New
Zealand. Even if they repatriate me I'd never reach those
little islands, I mustn't think of the church window at
Waiho, nor of evening along Hongi's Track, nor, even, of the
abashed silence of the tourists in the Glow Worm Cave.

If I put a fern frond at the foot of the Wishing Tree, do
you know what I would wish? I'd wish that I could put a
fern frond at the foot of the Wishing Tree in Hongi's Track
in New Zealand. It might not be a good idea to think about
the Glow Worm Cave because the darkness and the silence
and the soft lapping of the water, combined with the glow
worms above, and reflected below might make one feel too
disembodied. That's something I'd like to avoid.

Don't think further of the little country. Leave it to those
who will survive to enjoy it. I must not hear again the deep
warm Maori voices say "Waikaremoana" or "Aotearoa."
Each syllable distinct and ending with its vowel. How I
love voicesl And how I love New Zealandl Unashamedly
I '11 say it.

6o

THE stories men tell illustrate something about men in gen-
eral as well as throwing a hell of a lot of light on the story-
teller. I suppose that's why I probe at fellows so much.
Catch a man late at night and alone, and if you touch the
right chord, hell talk, and once he's under way hell forget
you, provided he's comfortable and at rest, as they say of
bomber crews.

We were the last two left in the mess. The fire was dying
and we drew our chairs a little closer to it. The night mess-
man was half asleep and slopped our tea into our saucers but
we didn't say anything about it. We'd been half asleep, our-
selves, in our time.

Very gently, I probed into Jerry's escape. All the same,
and however gently I did it his eyes flicked wide open and
then glazed over a bit. The skin grafts on his face showed
yellow for a moment.

"Oh, I forgot," said he. "The Grand Inquisitor. The
amateur M.O. Poking round for L.M.F., eh? Don't you
know we all see through that? Who d'ye think you are? Why
don't you look for L.M.F. in yourself?"

"I do," I said, "perhaps my interest in my fellow man isn't
unconnected with the safety of the pelt." I could afford to
let the mockery pass. I'd seen him with the curtain up.

Jerry looked into his cup as though seeing things in the
dregs of milky tea. Perhaps he was. "D'you mean you get
scared about, say, a parachute drop, or a fire, or both?" in a
curiously gentle, faraway sort of voice. I grunted, but I

266

doubt ! he heard me. "There's nothing to it. Out you go.
Bloody glad you can get out. When the order comes youll
find you do your drill rather like a clockwork toy. Discipline
wins over panic every time, I imagine."

I think the little pause here was to enable Jerry to rid
himself of me.

". . . Out you go then. A blast of the air is a hell of a
surprise and maybe you're a second or two late in starting
your count. But once you start counting, everything settles
Into a comfortable mechanical sequence. Sure enough the
brolly opens with a really handsome jerk and you begin to
wonder if you'll ever be any use to a woman again." There
was a short bark of laughter at this point but I didn't
even glance at his skin grafts.

". . . Why don't they invent some sort of rubber spring
to take some of the jolt out of the opening? Anyway, here
we are, brolly open and a curious feeling of being cushioned
on the air. Very peaceful.

"Yet I remember that, as I tumbled head over heels
before the brolly opened, I saw others snap open. The silk
streamed out, a kind of shiver went through it and then it
snapped open. Now how did I notice all this and still keep
counting while I was turning over and over? There were
several open below me and they looked black against the
glare of the fire. Presently I noticed them disappear into the
smoke and the thought hit me like a blow: they're dropping
into that inferno. I'm dropping into the same place."

In the little following silence I stole a look at him and his
grafts were a fiery red. He was still looking into the cup.

When he took up the tale again the gentle, dreamlike qual-
ity was all gone from his voice. He spoke in rapid gusts, with

267

wheezing silences between them. And I lie here, remember-
ing him. And understanding him, too.

". . . Dropping ini At this very instant I become con-
scious of the air being full of missiles. Now, why hadn't I
noticed them up where the stuff was bursting? Was it the
fire that brought all the other perils to my mind? Up to this
time I'd been pillowed on the air, mighty comfortable and
hardly conscious of dropping at all, but as soon as the fire
came into my mind I realized at once I was dropping rapidly
into it. Somehow the rate of descent seemed to accelerate.
Oh, I know you'll tell me that it just seems to drop faster as
the ground approaches but that's a fat lot of comfort/ 7

Jerry made little licking noises and I could hear hit
breath.

". . . How the hell to steer clear of the flames? My in-
structor told me that 'the parachute can be steered to a
limited degree by manipulating the shrouds.' Now's the
time to manipulate the bloody shrouds, but where the hell
to? There's fire, explosions, and smoke as far as the eye
can see (which isn't far), and one direction's as good as an-
other. The only certain one is down. So down we go.

"The air is getting thicker. Smoke in billowing gusts
and warm. Yes, warm. Must be the hot air rising from the
fire. Fairly heavy flakes of soot too, some almost as big as
your hand and positively whipping past. I must be dropping
fast. But wait a minute, I'm going down and the soot is com-
ing up; all the same I'm dropping bloody fast. The smoke
denser, the soot bigger, the light duller, but now and then
the murk split by great gouts of fire. Fresh bombs bursting,
or perhaps the fire has found something especially inflam-
mable.

"When will the drop end? A tongue of flame flicks past so

268

close it singes my flying suit. There's a sea of flame below and
it's clearly visible now and it seethes and bubbles and every
now and then the accursed tongues leap up at me. Falling
into hell! Falling into hell! Hot! Hot! Everything hot.
The air's too hot to breathe. It sears your lungs. Close your
eyes. Put your arms over them. Save your eyes, no matter
what. Better limbless than blind. Breathe in the curve of
your elbow. Folded up like this you're protected all over.
Not exposed at all. If you can breathe/'

I chanced another look at his face. Dear God, "protected
all over." Well, I know what he was talking about, now.

In a quiet conversational tone he began again. "Brolly's
on fire/'

He was quiet so long I thought that was all. Oh, no.

". . . The ground? Where's the ground? Suit's afire!
Boil in your own sweat. Boil, swell and blister. Just a breath
of air, just one smallest gust of wind to bring me a breath and
let me see the ground. Of course I didn't get it.

"A hell of a crack, partly on the legs, partly on the arse and
then dragging over rubble and hot ashes. Christ, it's pain-
ful. And who's dragging me? It's the remnants of the brolly,
of course, lifting and dragging in the thermal gusts from the
fires. Automatically I punch the release and scream at the
pain in my fist. Then I lie there, just as I had fallen.

"Clearly the civil defense has abandoned this sector of the
city. There's no roar or hiss of water, no sound of explosions
as they blast firebreaks in the ruins. No explosions of burst-
ing bombs either because the raid is over now. Merely the
minor explosions of gas mains and stored inflammable stuff.

But the roar of the fire is here all right, a roar that no one
can mistake. I lie and listen to it. Quite comfortable now,
I'm not being bashed about by the brolly.

"Then a vagary of the wind licked a tongue of fire my way.
That woke me up all right. When I heave myself upright
I discover my feet are hardly burned at all. That's a blessing.
I'm going to need them. So I can walk.

"Almost at once I nearly fall over a body. Then another.
And another. They look uninjured, so why are they so dead?
The smoke perhaps? Nearer the rubble are mashed-up bod-
ies. All dead. I begin to wonder if I am too. Or is this all
an hallucination from which 111 wake? Wake me now, if
it's so.

"Why no wounded? Why all these unmoving silent bod-
ies? Remains of men and women and children. Relics,
rather. Occasionally the flickering light of the fire gives an
illusion of movement and I stumble in that direction. God,
how I want to help someone.

"Why no wounded? Of course. The enormous effect of
our new blockbusters dropped into a fire, tremendous al-
ready; the shock wave of gases and smoke, of course; even the
wounded would be choked.

"So I sat down with my silent companions to ask myself
how I was to get to hell out of it all."

I stole another cautious look at him. He licked his lips a
few times but the red gradually died out of his face and a
calmness that surprised me came over him. He had a shrewd,
considering sort of air.

". . . You know, your uniform is your only title to the
status of a prisoner of war, but it also practically guarantees

270

you'll end up that way. So, in defiance of the good book and
its rules I went among the corpses looking for one about my
size. Among so many it wasn't hard. I debated whether I
leave him naked or to put my gear on him. If I dress him in
my uniform he may be buried as me and so make my escape
that much easier, but if he's recognized, everyone spots the
deception at once, and everyone except me knows that the
hunt is up. If I leave him naked he may have been stripped
by looters. Query? Then why not the rest? I put that one
behind me and threw my stuff into the fire.

"The time to beat it for the open country was now. When
all civil organization has gone to hell nobody is going to ques-
tion a poor, dumb, shocked refugee from terror. The point
being: which way to go? Then Fritz, with all his thorough-
ness, came to my aid.

"I beat it as fast as I could shamble. Any direction so long
as it was away. I had barely walked any distance at all when
I ran into the first of the civil defense fellows, working in
conditions to chill the blood. Compassionate, brave, disci-
plined. The best type of man on either side in this hellish
mess.

"They took me, quite gently, to a clearing station, cluck-
ing sympathetic Teutonic clucks at my dumbness. Told me
it's not unusual to be dumb after shock and then watched me
carefully to see if I showed signs (or lack of them), of deaf-
ness too. I felt a louse.

"It wasn't difficult to slip away from the charnel-house
collection of maimed and mangled bodies and bland minds.
I must have been the only normal person there apart from
the wardens. No. It wasn't hard to slip away."

He turned a strange, sleepwalker's gaze on me, then stif-
fened. I suppose my expectant look must have alarmed him.
He gave me a sidelong, cunning look. I knew then I wasn't
to hear anything about how he actually escaped. Perhaps
because there might be others on the same route?

The skin grafts were a tired yellow now. He hitched him-
self out of his chair and walked across the anteroom with the
curious stumping walk I'd not noticed until this moment,
and left me to the tired messman, the slopped over saucers,
the smell of stale cigarettes.

61

Do you ever wonder how I get all this stuff down? It must
amount to a hell of a lot by now. Sometimes I wonder how
much and then wonder, is it too much? Have you persevered
thus far?

Occasionally I wonder if all this isn't an hallucination
and I shall wake up in New Zealand and find that the war
has been a dream. Did I mention the difficulty I have sorting
out things done from things heard? It's true. I have no way
of referring to anything here. I guess there's a fine mixture
in all this.

What was I saying? Oh, how I do my stint.

Usually I try to do one complete section at a time. Some-
times it's very short and finished in a few minutes, to Don's
surprise, and relief, I imagine. My first solo, for example.
Have you come to that yet? Sometimes it takes a long time

because it's a long story, which means I have to try to break
it up into reasonable-sized portions. It's surprising what can
be done in two or three hours if it's all clearly in mind at
the beginning. Of course some bits are much too long for
a single sitting. But I do try to finish it consecutively because
I never recapture the feeling of it once it is committed to
Don's care. I never see it again nor do I wish to.

So, if I contradict myself now and then; well, then, I
contradict myself.

My greatest worry is how long I have to finish it all. My
next, that I don't know how much there still is. I'd hate to
die with anything unfinished, but what on earth should I do
if I finish before I die? What will be left for me?

Now and then I try to work out how many pencils Don
has worn out and how many thousands of words he has writ-
ten. It's so long ago since I started that I can't remember
when. And when I ask Don how many words, he always
says "about a million." It can't be as much as that, but it
must be a hell of a lot.

Isn't this a bore? Why should I try Don's patience with
this when I had something really important ready for today?
Sidetracked again.

Today isn't a bad day either. Just a dull one. And now
I've got hold of this dull theme I just can't let it go. Am I
kidding myself that the way I sort things out matters in the
least? All that matters is that you should read . . . and
read . . . and read. Right to the bitter, bitter end.

When I think of you, New Zealand comes flooding back
into my mind. In a very special sense this war was fought to
make a world fit for New Zealanders to live in. To make all
the world comparable with New Zealand, no matter how re-
motely.

So you have a duty upon you for the rest of what I hope
will be a long life. New Zealanders should be worthy of their
good fortune, but how can they, unless they know it to be
good fortune? There, my friend, is your life's work!

62

Fix tell you what the face of fear is. I know what it looks
like. It looks like George.

George looks you squarely in the eye. He knows that that's
the mark of a man who's unafraid so he looks steadily at a
point some feet behind your head. You can feel the effort it
is. That unfocused stare, fairly shrieking of torment.

George shakes your hand firmly. He remembers that too.
Carefully. But he can't remember to stop flicking his fingers.
He remembers sometimes, but not always. The middle fin-
ger of the right hand on the thumb: a little enough sound,
but he does it all the time. Except when he remembers
not to. You can see the painful remembering.

George doesn't jump when addressed unexpectedly, not
unless it is very unexpected indeed. He turns slowly. When
he remembers.

He covertly watches the Medical Officers. We all do,
but George has a greater urgency in his watching. We all
know the M.O.s are in the mess to spy on us. They're look-
ing for L.M.F. and, now and then, they find it but not if we
can help it. I wonder what they're watching in me? The
M.O.s have been through flying courses, they've flown on
operations and, in theory, they have the score. Of course,
they haven't, not really. It's one thing to go along for the ride

274

and quite another to be doing the job, carrying the respon-
sibility, again and again. It's the next time after the next
time which stretches the nerves. How can the M.O.s know
that? Of course they're brave men, whatever that may be.
And they study their problems with excellent concentration
while the aircraft is being shot to pieces all around them.
Oh yes, they have their courage with them. But they don't
carry the baby.

Usually they're very decent guys. Young. Well able to
take their share in the horseplay on dining-in nights and, to
the outsider, quite indistinguishable from the rest of the
mess. But we know. Oh yes, we know. It isn't just the ever
present faint "medical odor" either.

They're here to spy on us. To watch for the little chinks
in the armor. To look for the little giveaway that one's
friends tactfully ignore. The idea seems to be that it's better
to find out such things before cowardice blows up in your
face and it could easily be right. The trouble is, we can't
help taking it personally. So we're as polite and friendly as
a ladies' finishing school. And cagey isn't the word for us.

George went off on do's the same as the rest of us, but navi-
gators under instruction went along for the ride quite a lot.
Much more often than with the rest of us navigators. Has he
noticed that, too? Or the lazy, good-natured desire of the
medicos to butt in on the solitude he likes so much? If
George doesn't notice, we do. I mentioned this to Geoff,
rather idly, but he gave me such an odd look in reply that I
wondered if he thought of himself as in the same boat, as
indeed he very nearly was before we went on those long sum-
mer runs to Norway. It's just struck me, though; was he
thinking of me?

275

George likes to sit alone and read. He takes a chair in a
corner because no one can get behind him that way. He
doesn't ever shift a chair into a corner. Oh no, nothing so
obvious. He just looks around for one. Happily in his cor-
ner chair, he picks up a magazine and methodically turns
the pages. He remembers to keep his right hand in his
pocket. What he thinks won't bear thinking about.

Then, quite suddenly, he was posted to a conversion
course. He thought it was one of those slap-up affairs when
new advances come out in navigation and the first bunch go
off to get the gen. Or did he? It turned out to be an instruc-
tor's course.

George was a good instructor, a very good one; he knew
the score from every angle and he was a damned good navi-
gator; yes, that's right good and damned. His navigation
was first rate, and that, coming from me, can be taken at face
value; he was highly intelligent and very patient. Especially
with himself.

The strange thing was that his finger flicking grew worse.
You know something of most things. Tell me why he didn't
get his grip back when he was removed from nearly all risk.
He should have. He had a cushy job, yet a useful one and one
he could do standing on his head. No M.O.s to haunt him.
Why then the flicking fingers?

He avoided all the operational crowd, took all his leave
in out-of-the-way places, grew more silent and wide-eyed.
But, of course, with so many needing his kind of course he
couldn't quite bury himself.

How do I know? Oh, I ran into him in one of his little
hide-outs. And what was I doing there, did you ask?

George looked at me with that wide blank stare but I'll

276

swear that something flickered in his eyes before he got his
fearless gaze operating. We shook hands. That firm grip.
And that finger flicking! That bloody, God-damned finger
flicking!

We talked idly. About this one and that one. When we
came to someone who'd bought it, there was a sudden ten-
sioning in the air. Or was I imagining that, too?

Life at a training station had its points. There was the
regularity, the lack of the unexpected, the constant intake of
new faces there was even the safety of the pelt. He volun-
teered our old pleasantries with a ghastly parody of noncha-
lance and then I knew he was in a worse case than before.
Once he could tell himself it was all his imagination and half
convince himself that no one else suspected. Now, no such
self-deceit was possible. His nakedness was patent to all.

All of this so upset me that I suggested we take on the
town. He looked at me quickly, perhaps to see if there were
any signs of mockery, or worse, pity. I hope to God I showed
neither. Then the fear that alcohol might loosen his tongue
quite obviously occurred to him and so London was out.
Mercifully I remembered that he was very interested in liter-
ary stuff and I remembered, too, that someone or other was
holding forth in that line at the Churchill Club.* When I
made the suggestion he fairly leaped at it. He could keep his
very careful guard up.

So we attended what turned out to be a mighty interesting
affair. Surprisingly well attended, too. Quite a sprinkling of
women, into the bargain, but I couldn't help noticing that

* Churchill Club; founded by Mrs. (now Lady) Churchill in Ashburnham
House, part of the Westminster School, in 1943, as a place for servicemen of
all ranks to meet artists and keep contact with the arts.

277

they were pretty close herded and, in any case, the pursuit
of the literary types is a long-drawn-out affair like the siege
of Troy and, like that military adventure, only to be success-
fully terminated by a little intelligent subterfuge. It was
the number of brown jobs that I remarked most. Is the Army
more alert than the Air Force or are there just more of them
to get to shows like this? Anyway, everyone appeared keenly
interested and the discussion which followed was quite ab-
sorbing. George even put his spoke in, mighty shrewdly too.
But he was very embarrassed when all eyes turned on him
and his finger flicking was almost continuous. However, the
adventure was sufficiently emboldening to run to two cups of
coffee apiece afterwards and then very cautiously, a single
nightcap.

As we walked through the blacked-out city George talked
to me of his boyhood. I knew he had been a very good foot-
baller (rugger, of course) but I was astounded to note how
freely he admitted he hated getting hurt and that only
an odd quirk of exhibitionism kept his nose to the ball.
Perhaps it was the shifting moonlight and the broken clouds
and the queer feeling one always gets when alone in a
blacked-out city. The feeling that you have the city to your-
self. Perhaps he thought he was talking to himself. He spoke
of his parents and his brothers and sisters and then of well-
remembered more distant relatives. A close-knit and affec-
tionate family. Of his university days and how useful a talent
for rugger can be. Of getting a start in his profession, and
I was surprised at his eminence in it, for his youth. But, as
we approached the outbreak of war he edged backwards on
another tack, back to the safe comfortable days.

Every man in the Air Force is a volunteer, I suppose to

278

join is one way of exhibiting your superior courage. That
may have been the trap which social pressure sprung on
George.

Lying here, without hope and with no future to worry me,
I often think of George. I'm so bloody afraid, myself, right
now, that George seems very real, almost as though he were
standing here beside me. You see, like George, I've been
afraid all along. George will survive this war and live out a
long life with his memories, but I wonder if God has been
kinder to me. Oh no, I don't. All I want to do is to live no
matter in what shape or pain or with what memories just
to live.

The last time I saw him I thought he looked much thinner
but that may have been the light. He didn't jump nearly as
much as he used to do and the dreadful finger flicking, while
nearly continuous, was so soft as to be inaudible except to one
listening for it. I'd have thought him recovering but for the
blank stare, so much worse, and the way he didn't let go his
firm handshake until, with an effort he remembered and
dropped the embarrassing hand.

This is the end of the line. There's a limit to what the
nervous system can take. Soon the stare will grow blanker
still and the movements slower. The sensitive mechanism
is running down . . .

In mercy, let's think no further of George. Not now.

MANY of the chaps are very superstitious. Good luck
tokens or charms are very common. And there are one or

279

two odd tales as well. Of course I'm not superstitious. Not
at all. But queer things do sometimes happen somehow or
other.

There was an Aussie who had a rabbit's foot he bought in
New Orleans. He says he found it in his pocket after a
most unlikely seance; we all swear he bought it while he was
drunk. It had a little silver mount and a tiny silver chain.
He used to wear it round his neck under his shirt. He most
devoutly believed that it was the reason for his phenomenal
luck and it was phenomenal far beyond mere coinci-
dence.

What do you make of this? Twice he was the sole survivor
of his crew, once from a crack-up at take-off and once in the
sea. Another time, he was smuggled out of Holland by the
underground when all the others were grabbed and put in
the bag. He won second prize in a big sweep, he received
swags of parcels from home, all without loss, and finally he
was posted to an apple-polishing job at Air Ministry all in
one marvelous year. There it is. Take it or leave it!

The little charm went with him everywhere. Reminds me
of American Negroes and it did come from New Orleans,
but it worked, apparently. He used to reach up and hold
it in his left hand when making big decisions and, strangely,
he made those decisions without reflection or consideration
just as if he were told what to do.

I wonder if charms and the like give us the confidence to
trust our own judgments? And when we really do trust our
own judgment things break right for us. But how the hell
can events over which we have no control and indeed may
not even know about, suddenly go all our way when, before,
luck was all against us? I inquired closely about that Aussie
I told you about and he had been no luckier than anyone

before he got that rabbit's foot but afterwards well, what
do you make of it?

And now I suppose you'll tell me that we can apply proba-
bility to all things and they usually work out that way if we
know enough about them. All right. I believe you. But
there are some quite inexplicable exceptions. I know it
doesn't help my case that a rabbit's foot has become a joke as
a good luck token. Perhaps it wasn't much of a case after all.

Good luck tokens, however, are much less common than
other forms of superstition; three men and one match, for
example, and so forth. Much rarer is the belief in clair-
voyance, yet some of the toughest guys consult fortunetellers
as though they knew a thing about the future. And I may
as well tell you that it's rumored that at least one R.A.F.
Command is run by reincarnated spirits or astral essences or
something of the kind.

The mass favorites, though, are horoscopes the Gypsy
Petulengro and similar types cast them en masse in the
cheaper newspapers. Are you a Pisces? I rather think you
are a queer Pisces. For myself, 111 settle for any Virgo.

Horoscopes! Huh! Now there is something to despise 1
The poor Pisces who cast the horoscopes don't even know
that the stars change position and precession makes sure they
no longer occupy the houses once theirs. Flight of time has
evicted them. Poor homeless stars!

I SUPPOSE it's time I ceased trying Don's patience. It's all
very well to grin but it must be pretty grim; every day, and a

couple of hours each time, I should imagine. I can't tell time
but I guess it's at least that. Why do I say so little about you,
Don? You know, Don, when I looked back on it, we've been
together ever since operational training days and that's a
long time now.

A front gunner is a jack-of-all-trades and a master of some.
He's a gunner, a radio operator, a medical man, and a se-
creter of food. He can produce almost anything if it's been
lost long enough to be written off. Any new skill demanded
in aircrew? Teach it to the front gunner. They're like the
engines you'd notice their absence.

If all good things come to an end there can be no excep-
tions. It's the nothingness that worries me. I've always been
so intensely preoccupied with myself that the mere idea that
I shall be utterly forgotten and conveniently stowed away
in the ground is terrifying. I suppose, Don, that's why I'm
so grateful to you for taking all this down, but why bother,
Don? Are you laying up treasures in Heaven? Oh, my ap-
proaching annihilation 1 All religions realize that the mere
nothingness is terrifying, and they all base their appeals on a
continuation of the essential self after the body's horrible
decay. Why believe it? In what way do I, now that I've lost
my mobility, differ from the tree which will shortly use me
as food? I'd like to say "Who cares?" but I can't. I do.

I'd like to have a word with a padre. A Roman Catholic
one for preference. They're so sure. So bloody sure. The
others would be afraid of me, I should think. In my relent-
less search for certainty for myself I might upset theirs. I
know the old doctor would get me one if I asked. Should I
ask, Don?

What a climb down that'd be! To crawl to Him as I die,
after despising Him all my life, and certainly living in a way

282

He must despise. No, not despising Him. Despising those
who believed in Him, just because I, personally, couldn't
feel the need for a first cause.

Anyway, why ask the padre? In a short time I'll know
better than he does. There'll be a resolving of all doubts
soon. What a position for a navigator! His job is to get
you there and get you back!

I'VE been wondering what it is like to be a prisoner. I can't
tell you because I don't know. I'm so much out of the world
of men that how living folk feel is getting a little dim in my
mind.

Wait a minute. I do know the feel of captivity. Of course.
When I come to think of it I'm doubly a prisoner. Perhaps
that's why Don looks at me so oddly when I inquire how he
is taking being in the bag. Sometimes he just looks at me
queerly and says nothing. Other times he says: "But surely,
you know!" Well, do I?

Would you say that I am lying here in the sure and certain
hope of release? And it won't be long either. Today I'm
quite indifferent about when it comes. I'm as placid as a
hibernating bear. It could be tomorrow.

But Don was only bruised and he's fully recovered now.
I'll bet he's thinking and planning escape. Trust Don. If
he doesn't make it from here his chances are remote from
anywhere else. We're so small and makeshift here.

They're sure to draft him off soon. At least that's what he
told me when he brought along a couple of you blokes and
introduced them as fellow prisoners who would take letters
for me. Don said . . . "in case I'm not here when you want
me . . ."

It's a soldier's duty to escape if he can. I run over all that
in my mind but it's taking place in a world outside mine. I
lie here, warm, fed, alone. An existence rather like that in a
cocoon. Partial dissolution, too. Except that there isn't any
escape to a glorious winged stage. Unless of course primitive
Christian ideas of angels turn up trumps.

Now that I've someone else to take letters, I'm giving a lot
of thought to Don. Captivity must irk him more than most.
That and enforced discretion. He's never said a word of
Geoff. And I never inquired. Obviously he's dead. I wonder
how it happened but I daren't ask Don because it's so obvious
that he and I are the only survivors. That is if you count me
as anything.

Don tells me it's not so bad really. Irksome to feel restraint
even when you don't bump against it. It nags and nags until
the mere not being able to do things is pure horror. "A sort
of hysteria," said Don, judicially. Apparently men beat with
the hands against walls or the wire. Especially the wire. It's
a symbol of course. Men in cages. Where no man should be.
I wonder if there'll be a wave of penal reform when the re-
leased P.O.W. troops return home? You'd think so. Thou-
sands will know what it is like never to be free from constraint
and to be compelled to lead an externally ordered life. It
should make them understand the criminal code a little
better, or rather, make them try to make it understandable.
Or will the P.O.W. be so broken himself as not to have the

284

spirit to battle for those in a like case at home? Or will he be
so glad that he is only too thankful to let the remembered
things be?

All this, or nearly all, from Don. I'll bet Alec, if he had
been here, would have filled in a lot of blank places. Liberty
isn't all that's lost in a prison camp. Men without women
run very easily to perversion* There were rather horrible ex-
amples in Britain. Domineering sods who forced others into
it. Sometimes, after really horrifying futile resistance on
the part of the victim. But the strange thing is this. Once
the act had been completed the resister abandoned all resist-
ance and dropped easily into a quasi-feminine role vis-i-vis
his perverter. His masculine characteristics gradually
dropped from him and he began to adopt the submissive be-
havior of a barnyard fowl run down and trodden by a rooster.
Usually it was the younger man. Sickening, isn't it?

The inactivity of a prison camp is, I imagine, a forcing
ground. Whatever will grow certainly grows in that humid
atmosphere. Hence the remarkable feats of escapees. When
all else is out of mind, singleness of purpose and resolution
are all. But where do they get them from?

66

DON'S been gone nearly a week. He's made it.

It seems an eternity of time since I went with him to his
home buried in the Welsh Marches. I won't tell you exactly
where, but if you've read A Shropshire Lad you'll know what
it was like. As Housman says . . .

285

Clunton and Clunbury, Clungford and Glun,
Are the quietest places under the sun.

You'll know that the gently rolling hills have, all over
them, little lines of hedges straggling into a beguiling sem-
blance of order. Roads wind about absent-mindedly. The
churches are enormously bigger than the size of the villages
appears to warrant. And thatched roofs startle me. In ar-
gument I'm prone to point out that they harbor vermin,
are highly inflammable, need constant skilled repair, etc.
and etc. Privately, I think them charming. If set among the
Bredon Hills. But not, oh not in New Zealand.

We changed trains twice and I made the acquaintance of
that legendary thing, the English branch line. I was just
getting used to the thin high-pitched apologetic feminine
peep of the locomotive whistle of this country when we
finally arrived at our station. I was looking out of the win-
dow while Don fished things out so I saw her before he did.
I knew her at once. His imminent arrival had lit little lamps
in her eyes, or perhaps they just reflected an inner radiance.

When she saw him you couldn't say she hurried but, sud-
denly, they were together and she was holding both his hands
between hers and rocking them gently: the reassurance of
touch. Then she tucked her arm under his and turned, as a
good Englishwoman should, to her husband's guest. But she
twitched her shoulder against his arm and she was stroking
his thumb gently . . . the one she had under her arm. She
smiled in a friendly way and put out a firm hand. England
rests, not insecurely, on such as her.

We walked to their old car. Do you remember those old
bullet-nosed Morris Cowleys long extinct in New Zealand?

286

They have immortality in the land of their birth. This one
had a name: Emily, because she sniffles. A name and an
explanation: how very satisfactory.

I apologized for taking up the time that, doubltless, they'd
find little enough of. She laughed and said: "I know you'd
like us to neglect you, and besides, I like Him around/*

Don, you lucky sweep. Him with a capital letter. And
isn't it strange he should have so complete a life beyond the
Air Force. I have no existence outside it. Oh yes, he had a
complete life all right. You looked at his wife and you knew.

We ate by candlelight, then lit lamps. Does anyone in
New Zealand ever speak of paraffin except as a laxative?

I pleaded tiredness and went early to bed. So did
they. My candle cast odd shadows on the walls. So it was
when I was a child and the shadows which terrified a small
boy had to be propitiated. Here, however, they were pleas-
antly part of my growing drowsiness. There was a sort of
speaking stillness about the house you know the
patter of little noises in an old house. A door creaked, a
floorboard replied, a lock clicked, a window squeaked, a
mouse or two began foraging, something or other stirred in
the thatch. But the noises were friendly. I soon fell asleep.

Next morning the mists were on the hills and there was a
sort of cobweb of mist drops everywhere. I went out to feel
it in my hair. You could see my path across the grass where
my feet had disturbed the droplets.

One precious quiet day followed another. The kind of
leave I usually had seemed a rather ignorant wasting of op-
portunities. And one of the opportunities was to look care-
fully at Don. I'll bet you all Lombard Street to a china
orange that he's made it. Feet firmly planted in his own

287

fields he let the soil dribble through his fingers, while his
wife looked on. Don's life!

They were happy; so quietly, unashamedly happy. Lord
how deeply, contentedly happy they were with their few
hours snatched from the bloody mess. I don't think they
were harassed by tomorrow as I am. Perhaps their lives, so
close to the land, gave them balance and they grew close to
the soil.

That very soil, by the way, is shamefully encumbered. I
didn't realize how badly until Don told me some of the
things of which he, although a tenant, is mercifully free.
Every evil we have in our New Zealand land tenure, every
shocking abuse we have indignantly rejected, flourishes
in England. Every disgraceful method of wringing tribute
from the real worker is practiced, and sanctified too, by
tradition. Of course the Church grabs its share. Why the
hell are the English people so apathetic about it? They re-
act fast enough when the foreigner attempts the same thing.

So I looked at Don and thought of all those like him; of his
"class" as he would put it. On their own soil they have a
fierce independence but their interests cease with the bound-
ary hedges. "Good fences make good neighbors," Don said
mildly when I put all this to him. What nice folk! On
their own land!

They're incredibly ignorant of the outside world, and
quite unbelievably smug about it in the nicest possible
way, of course. "Now, just where is the land you live in?"
It must be terrible, for example, for New Zealanders that
they have no upper class to open things. As we must get
along with politicians doing that very thing, maybe they're
right at that!

288

Watching them, a man and his wife, makes me ache for
the future of England. Oh yes, I know, I know. England is
urban and industrial and I'm being seduced by the mists and
Mrs. Don. Her voice has a lilt in it. Welsh, I suppose. But
I prefer to think that it's the "singing heart" of the old Celtic
legends. See me? Looking at Don and Mrs. D. and thinking
of England.

She was frankly possessive as far as her man was concerned
and I'll bet a disloyal thought never entered her head.
Queer how that last popped into my head because, in New
Zealand, disloyalty in a man is lack of patriotic demonstra-
tiveness; in a woman it's sexual, of course. Somehow, though,
things are cleaner in this air and the loyalty of husband and
wife takes on its full splendor. And, like a little boy, I look
on a little wistfully.

I liked the way Don's wife brought up the children. Oh
yes, they had three. Quiet, well-mannered, "seen and not
heard" children. Who yet seemed energetic enough. Some-
how, though, they lacked the cyclonic energy I had at that
age. Or do I just kid myself I had it? Don is quiet too. The
countryside that bred them all is quiet, too. There are many
worse things than that.

In the quietness the real things grow a little clearer. Birth,
breeding, death. That's man's days. And I don't know the
whereabouts of any of my children. It's only begun to worry
me now.

We left on a typically gray morning. We were up early,
packed our few odds and ends, took turns cranking Emily
because she sniffles, and then it was time to go. The children
said goodbye to their father very sedately. Was he growing
to be a stranger? It's very possible in war time.

I sat in the back of the car and watched Don a man and
his wife their shoulders just touching. Deeply content
with their moment while they had it. At the station he
hugged her in parting. I had made my departure. Can you
tell the quality of their affection from that? They did not kiss
as young people do, even though they were young enough.
Nor did either speak.

Yet she stood and watched the train until we were round
the inevitable branch line bend. I know. I looked back to
see.

And I know too, that she'd start the old car competently,
call cheerfully to the people she knew, drive quietly home-
ward. And if she needed it, have a cry before arrival. Then
she'd take up again her life of suspended animation. She'd
fill her days with duties which, to her, were privileges the
children, the farm and make plans for next time.

Some day Don is going back to her and the current evil
will never take him away again. I couldn't ever let him
know how this is. He'd be acutely embarrassed. To him a
wife such as his is a very normal thing everyone is that
wa y it's her absence he'd notice. And that's the way she'd
have it too. Dear quiet folk in your tiny island, the world is
crumbling under your feet and you are bewildered by it.
Pray God for one little oasis of sanity and simple goodness of
heart, and if there's not to be one, pray for my friends, for
they will make you one.

It'll be a very quiet little oasis, and maybe even a little
dull at times. Don will never build him a house in the clouds.
For myself, I'll have one above the bright blue sky. Don will
go back to his Shropshire. Thousands of New Zealanders
will go back to "The Little Country." Millions of Britons

ago

and Americans too, their Odyssey over. Then will be the
time for consolidating their lives and for examining their ex-
periences of life, for drawing a chair to the fire and seeing
pictures. Ulysses at Ithaca, the strange seas far away.

Thinking of Don. The splendor has passed me by. Ulys-
?es under his own roof tree, and Penelope waiting: journey's
end.

DID I ever tell you I was married? That's something not on
my file. Work that one out, my friend.

It seems far away and long ago now, and the outlines are a
little blurred at this distance. We met at work and we were
together for one halcyon year. We lived in each other's pock-
ets and I had almost forgotten a certain blonde in the south,
a relic of my university days. We danced together. We went
to dances and I doubt if we noticed that there were others
present. Know the feeling? We danced as we walked home
from dances. We discovered one devious route home after
another. We were appropriately surprised when these de-
vious routes did indeed lead us home.

She was as irresponsible as a raindrop on a wire-netting
fence. So was I.

We walked on moonlit summer evenings to a high hill
across the river. She didn't like walking and was never
dressed for it. But the little bridge in the ravine at the foot
of the hill was always in darkness no matter how full the
moon. I used to sit her on the bridge rail and she pressed

sgi

against me with all her strength when I lifted her. On very
hot nights she wore nothing under her frock.

There was a peach orchard on the hill slopes. I remember
sitting her on a branch there and showering peach blossom
on her hair; dark it was but there was never night so dark
that you couldn't see the copper highlights in it. She had
beautiful hands and there's never been a touch so exciting.
She would gently draw two fingers across my lips and it felt
like another woman's nakedness, she'd tilt my head back and
push her hands inside my shirt and watch me intently, her
own mouth slowly opening. Once she took my hand and laid
it on her breast over the heart and I could feel it pounding
under the smooth coolness of her skin.

Lunacy? Of course! One night she was wearing an
accordion-pleated frock, if that means anything to you. They
were new at the time and most chic, besides being a devil of
a job to keep in pleat. She loved clothes, so she hung it on a
peach tree to keep the pleats in.

And me? There were so many things I didn't notice.

Her voice was the lightest and gayest thing in the world.
She loved to laugh. She was adept at laughing her way to
what she wanted.

It was at this time I appeared on the scene. Let me set it
for you. A scene peopled by an old man, white-haired,
charming and with a delightful manner and a gentleness that
I can't hope to convey to you. He had obviously come from
a class above me and I recognized it without any resentment,
which surprises me even now. Then there was an angular
indomitable, infinitely resourceful iron-gray woman. And
a girl.

I married the girl. Not quite as abruptly as that perhaps.

2Q2

She was engaged to another chap who was very much in love
with her but I should have known the lay of the land
the night she gave me her engagement ring to put in my
pocket while we went swimming. It was as hot as only
Northland nights can be and the little pool at the foot of
Lovers' Lane lay in wait for us long after the other dancers
were home.

'Tut this in your pocket for me/' said she, "and hurry up
and get undressed. Women half clothed look enticing, men
half clothed merely look ridiculous." We lay on the grass
letting the water drip and she bent over me to say: "You're
my kind of animal!" I didn't stop to wonder at that from a
girl not yet twenty nor did I think of the ring in my pocket.

We read poetry together. She knew so much more than
I. I produced my favorites among Shakespeare sonnets and,
when I was leaving the little town, she came to the station
and gave me a copy of Henry Brocken ever read it?

I wrote to her. Chiefly in the intervals of quarreling with
her successors, but she took the letters at their face value.
Presently she followed me. And she brought her proposed
bridesmaid with her. Jesus Christ, had I really written all
that?

Yet in less than an hour the old magic reasserted itself and
we went walking in the moonlight again. After all I'd told
her so many outrageous lies that a few more were neither
here nor there. Perhaps if I hadn't lied so contemptibly I'd
not now bring that ring back to mind.

So we were married. She was older than I. Twenty-one by
now, so her father could do nothing but accept the situation.
I ought to have known how it would end.

Then her people fell ill and she had to return to look after

293

them. During the fortnight we were together I did nothing
about any permanence. I doubt if I really intended to. No,
we didn't get off to a good start. I may as well admit that I
slipped a bit here and there while she was away. I was really
unfitted for married life.

Then she forced the issue. We went to live together in
another town. She used what must have been mighty slim
savings to furnish a house, and for a little while all went
moderately well. But we both revealed unexpectedly vil-
lainous tempers. Everyone sympathized with her and the
sympathy-mongering got on my nerves. Things grew worse.
In the end I used to beat her. There could only be one end
to that.

Then she found herself pregnant and wanted me to do
something about it. In spite of my man-of-the-world air I
was as innocent as a babe about what one did, and I couldn't
even spell the "curette" she demanded. Then things really
went to hell.

I'd like to forget what happened before they took her to
hospital.

The next day I went to see her. Tlte superintendent had
given orders I was not to be admitted but not one of his
bunch, including himself, dared lift a finger to stop me. I
sat beside her bed and looked at her bruised discolored face.
She took my hand and laid it against her cheek. There it
rested, among the discolored bruises and the swelling. Hold-
ing it gently she went to sleep. I sat there and watched it.

Presently a bloke came to boot me out. As gently as I
could, and without disengaging my hand, I reached for his
throat and he went away.

294

She was curetted all right. I was hounded out of town.
She went to work in another place. I visited her once.

68

I HOPE you two don't feel I'm just being a difficult bastard.
The fact is that I'd got myself into a rut. I was writing to a
bloke you'll never know but I was talking to Don. As a result
I plugged ahead quite happily once we were in Britain.
After all Don and I went on our first mission together and
we've been together ever since. You do see, don't you?

Besides it's very important to get everything right and
finished. Especially, finished.

Finished is the word. When I think of all the lousy trick-
ery I've been at during my life, I think, too, that the women,
for example, needn't harbor too much grievance against me.
After all they're going to have a long time to forget me. And
I hope they do. But you mustn't forget me. Not you.

And, since my children have never known me we can
safely leave them out too. One I know is a boy, but what is
the other? If she's a girl I'd like to have seen her. Could have
given her some advice too. Not that she'd take it. Not my
daughter.

Do you know what advice I'd offer first? ". . . lay off the
grog. If a girl knows what she's doing, fair enough; but,
daughter of mine, no man fills you up with grog in order to
enjoy your sparkling conversation." What am I saying? I
don't even know for sure that you were born, little daughter.
If you are little daughter.

295

Nobody knows who your mother is. I'm not telling. Not
at this late time of day. I haven't mentioned her to Don and
I'm not saying anything now. She was one of those not men-
tioned. Yet I'd know her again if I saw her as surely as I'd
know Pip and I can't say anything fairer than that. I think I'd
know my little daughter too, if I have a little daughter.

Since I can't tidy up all the loose ends I suppose the best
thing is just to leave them loose. Still I do know I have a
son. I saw him exactly once. When he was a fortnight old.
His mother didn't want to part with him and she hoped in
the way that women will, that the sight of the helpless little
bastard might soften me. I don't think of that any more than
I can help but the lawyer said that the people who adopted
him were splendid folk.

I WAS wondering when I'd get the chance to talk about
Don again. Did you get the one I wrote about Don's home?
Somehow I felt more lost than ever when I had left that little
haven in the Welsh Marches. It was home for Don. For me
it was a reminder that I had no home.

Don's serene full face and his serene broad back mirror
the man. He's not as short as Alec. A front gunner doesn't
need to be sawn off. But he has to be more versatile. A re-
serve radio operator as well. The gunnery too is more ex-
acting than it is in the rear turret. There's not the same lone-
liness nor the same responsibility as is carried way down in
the tail, though. The front gunner has a very comforting

sense of not being cut off from the rest. He also has a grand
view of what is going on. Or not going on as the case may be.

When the last desperate attack comes, from fighters almost
out of fuel and ammo, deliberately, and delaying until
the last possible moment, Pip turns towards the attack. As
the nose comes round Don sizes up the situation. He and
Pip are a wonderful team. Because each thought of the other
you'd sometimes think that each thought for the other. They
sometimes appeared to share a common mind.

One evening we were near Osnabriick. Anywhere near the
Ruhr is frighteningly well defended and the haze from
heavy industry isn't a help in finding a target. The heat
shimmer in the air, too, is death to accurate bombing. We
were interested in the Ruhr side of Osnabriick, a little
south and on the way to Duisberg. No need to tell you about
Osnabriick. Only Hamm is a bigger railway junction. The
broken cloud and the moonlight would, no doubt, have
made the pattern of the lines a thing of singular geometric
beauty. Like Hamm. But what goats we'd be to go that
way.

All the same, someone dropped to us. Do you think Fritz
had radio location as early in the war as that? The lights
swung up. You almost seem to see the shafts climbing to-
wards you, but these were over the marshalling yards and
we felt very safe. Away to the south.

Then I saw tracer whipping past and heard Alec yell. It
was a fair catch. The dim black shapes appeared to starboard.
Night fighters are curiously like bats. Although they fly so fast
they don't appear to. Relative to us, their approach appears
slow. And surprisingly graceful. Then the leisurely ap-
proach suddenly and sickeningly accelerates. They close ter-

297

rifyingly fast. The whump whump of hits on the old girl
seem to be blows on one's own body. The smell of cordite is
astringent.

But as we turn and Don opens up, at least we're fighting
back. We're fighting from a better gun platform too, but
we're slower, less maneuverable and we're outnumbered.

Don phlegmatically leads the target. The tracer patterns,
pro and con, curve into beauty. Our lives are in Don's firm
and steadfast hands, his unfrightened mind and his lovely
coordination. Not as swift as Alec's, perhaps but sweet to
watch nevertheless. If you can see anything at all.

Everything that happens with fighters is sudden. The bats
close slowly. Then, suddenly, freakishly, they're only a cou-
ple of hundred yards away. But Pip's not caught napping.
Nor is Don. We turn towards them. That's what makes the
approach seem so rapid. We're closing at over 600 m.p.h.
Half a mile a second. From extreme range to close action
in that time. Then our avoiding action clears him and he
passes underneath to turn for the next pass at us. This is
Alec's pigeon until Pip can set him up for Don again.

There's a small fire halfway down to the tail. I beat it out
with my gloves. There's a stink of petrol too. Could mean
anything. The tanks are self-sealing and only a little escapes
but that little certainly doesn't escape our attention. Hope
that's what it is.

Is this the time? The time that comes to every pitcher?
But Don gets him. A fierce feeling wells up in all of us. It
was one of us for it. We win.

The white plume from his engine is clear in the light o
the flares: shadowy in the starlight. It turns black.

A shot-down fighter is, according to the Americans, merely

298

an incident in their bombing sorties. The route to the Ruhr
is paved with the carcasses o Me.s shot down by these in-
domitable heroes. As they fly, they say, at around thirty thou-
sand feet the fighter opposition must frequently take them
for meteorites. All the same they really are astonishingly well
defended, I'm told. Places for eight gunners, two pilots, an
engineer, two radio men and half a dozen cameramen. The
residue of the weight-carrying capacity is divided between
bombs and Coca-Cola. They have a bombsight which can
"put a bomb into a pickle barrel from six miles up/' The
trouble is that Fritz has called in all the pickle barrels and so
there isn't a target offering. Not that that matters. When a
Flying Fortress releases its bombs, gravity ensures that they
strike something terrestrial.

Don't listen to me. Today's a bad day. Major dressings.
The Americans will be all right. Everyone is the same for
the first few months. We were the same stupid know-alls
too. The trouble is their publicity boys won't let the learners
keep their mouths shut and learn in peace. Sometimes I
wonder if they really have as many "accredited publicity
representatives" as they appear to have. It seems they have
an extraordinary number of nonfighting troops servicing
.those who do the work.

They set great store by what they call "morale building,"
which is somehow connected with hot showers, strings of
medals, gum and "seconds of Jello." I have a feeling that it
is also obliquely connected with mom-raised males suddenly
forced to be men. The necessity for morale building, I mean.

Once the U.S. men shed Mom from their shoulders and
stop crying on ours they'll be world-beaters. Their Marines

299

are already a corps d 'elite, very nearly as good as they so
loudly trumpet they are. The best units are tough, resource-
ful, adaptable and courageous in the best sense of that bat-
tered word. In time most of them will be like that. Seasoned.

You're going to live through a hard decade though, while
you work out how Hollywood won the Battle of Britain and
the Battle of Stalingrad.

The fighter Don shot down trailed his plume of white. It
turned black and the nose dropped. The characteristic glow
appeared and he slipped out of vision. If the pilot doesn't
get out before the red glow the pilot doesn't get out.

70

FIGHTING men don't hate each other. Sometimes, not always,
they hate war. It's the sheer senselessness of it all that irks us.
We must raise up some alternative to all that folly. And
judging by the Fritz the footsloggers know it shouldn't be
hard. Said Fritz is the finest infantryman in the world
tough, determined, uncomplaining, disciplined and resource-
ful. And he's a damned fine aviator too. To hell with all
these atrocity stories. It's not men but war which does
such things. I don't hate my enemy but I'd kill him like a
shot nevertheless as he would me. It's our business. Air
warfare is given a knightly air by the gutter press. You know
the sort of thing. "Duel in the clouds," etc., and it always
ends with someone, uninjured, floating earthward in windless
clear air to land safely alongside a pub. Actually, we're the

goo

most cowardly lice that crawl. When I release a ton of high
explosive and bolt from the scene of my crime, what redress
have the mangled children below? If I bale out why should
not the outraged people below pour oil over me and fire it?
Why, in heaven's name, not? Why not in the name of hell?

Yet all men are brothers, "there is neither Jew nor Greek
nor bond nor free. Ye are all one in Jesus Christ." I'd like to
meet Him. His words, garbled, distorted, willfully some-
times, and wrenched from their context, still seem to offer
hope to a way out of this mess. He was so damned civilized.
Have we not all one Father? If there is any truth in Christian-
ity, how can any Christian fight? There simply can't be a
"just war* 1 if all men are brothers. Agnostics like me will con-
tinue to fight and so be eliminated. Perhaps it's as well.
Perhaps it is His plan to eliminate those incapable of spiritual
growth. As for myself, I'm of the earth, earthy. At least I
shall never grow so old that all the sharpness is gone from
my sensations. Perhaps it's as well I'll never see New Zealand
again. All the places I love are haunted haunted by
women, and chances not taken. Because that is the same for
everyone, it makes it no easier for me. Still, there was an
acuteness and an awareness of living about me in those days.
Perhaps I did have the capacity for spiritual growth before it
was overlaid by the coarse earth of the life we live.

71

THE pitcher and the well.

I suppose Air Ministry brainstorms are responsible for the
climate of opinion right through the show. Or do more lowly

goi

creatures have them too? At a lower level of intensity of
course.

I suppose we must have begun to accumulate a reputation
(said he, modestly), because all sorts of odd assignments come
our way. For example, that little jaunt to the Baltic for no
purpose in particular. That was only a couple of days ago.
Perhaps I ought to explain that I take no count of time since
I am here, so "yesterday" means the day before they brought
me here.

As usual there was a very special briefing and a little, well
not quite unpleasantness among the others. It appears
there is an island in the Baltic and it interests us profoundly,
By now, both Geoff and I are adept at asking the question
better left unasked, and a confused, and hence angry big
shot, gave us a choice of two improbable, and mutually
exclusive, explanations as to why an obscure Baltic island
should be of interest.

Thinking it over now, I recall we were often sent on mis-
sions where photography of a special kind was called for.
Boy, am I flattering myself! This time, much more than
photography was required and when we were asked to note
"the enemy reaction to our presence if it were detected" I
confess my scalp prickled at the sinister sound of it.

So off to the Baltic. Everything of the very best. But
wait, my bold airmen, it appears that, at the very moment of
departure, there's more to tell. How's that for security? The
island is apparently still important, but only as indicating
the real focus of attention. I now incline to the second of the
explanations offered us. Perhaps Fritz really is jacking up
something that will make our radio-location useless. And
after all our research on it tool Let's go look-see, as the Yanks
say.

I did tell you we had been converted to four engines some-
time back, didn't I? I get so confused, lying here.

All we have to go on is the report of a lone, returning
aircraft round about last April. But 111 bet intelligence has
a lot more from our spies.

The run to the Baltic isn't the hair-raising job it was in
the early days. Everything is improved. We have a mile of
runway to play with, four engines, scientific aids of all kinds.
So why should I be so full of foreboding? With no bomb
load and ample fuel we gradually make altitude over the
North Sea. The night is ideal for our purpose. A big moon
and drifting cloud. With our fuel reserves we can pick our
time and use the cloud and the moon as necessary. Besides,
nobody is going to be interested in a lone aircraft which
clearly can't do much harm to anyone and is probably lost
anyway. We have some of those new metallized strips to set
up fake images on the enemy screens but I don't think well
need them. Not tonight. This is a piece of cake.

Sedately we climb to operational height. The nav. is
childish. We cross the neck of Denmark where virtuous
Danes are minding their own business, in bed. The Baltic
unfolds its familiar grayness. We've been here before.

Now to find the area defined with such precision. This
should be it. Every point of identification tallies. We're
within ten miles of the pinpoint.

And then a bloody mist blew over. From nowhere at all.
Just a frustrating blanket that meant failure. I had a quick
word with Geoff. There was no sign of mist a moment
ago. It blew up like magic, just as though Fritz had ordered
it. Perhaps that' s what the trick is! Has Fritz a means of
condensing mist to order? We can test that by stooging about

for a while and watching it disperse in the light breeze fore-
cast for ground level.

And it doesn't disperse!

Why doesn't it disperse? Is it being renewed all the time?
Wait a minute! Who said it was mist? It's smoke. Visions of
Brest leaped to my mind. Remember? How -Fritz protects
his submarine pens. Is this a submarine training base? Or an
experimental base for a new type of submarine? Still the
smoke hung over the area. No photos tonight, unless . . .
what about it Geoff? Seems safe enough.

So we edge cautiously downward to try to get under the
smoke. A lovely night. The quiet countryside, the reflection
of the moon on the sea: delightful. But, of course, the light
isn't good enough for photography. Not that we're worried
about that. At the right time I released my flare, and then all
hell broke loose, just as if it had been waiting for us. Lights
by the score; accurate, carefully coordinated fire. Holy hell:
how come all of this on the Baltic dunes?

Geoff smashes all over the sky to confuse the predictors.
But the lights get us. Everything in the aircraft looks dam-
nable in that unnatural clarity. Minutes now, boys, but no:
Geoff slipped the lights and I knew he'd try his favorite sur-
vival trick, down on the rooftops. So here we are on the
roofs. And I'm as scared as hell. No hope of a brolly opening
at this height, and, great greasy lumps appear all around us
even at this level. How is Fritz depressing his guns. Hit all
over the place; the old girl's coming apart at the seams; how
long can she be controlled? Then, miraculously, we're clear.
No one even injured. But the aircraft is just a flying junk
heap. Still she is flying. Now to set a course for home but,
what was that? Tracer? Christl Tracer, and us crippled.

Did you know there are straggling pine forests along here?
Planted to control the dunes, no doubt. Well, Geoff plays
hide and seek in the foliage. At near stalling speed.

But the sky is lousy with fighters. Why all the defense?
We are taking a terrible beating but lateral control hasn't
gone yet. Won't they ever run out of fuel and ammo? Don
reports in his dry way that the attackers are different. Dear
Lord, is the place ringed with fighter stations? Geoff makes
no attempt to get away either. He sticks to his narrow belt
of trees. The fighters hope he'll make a break for home, and
he won't get there. So Geoff stays put. We have plenty o
fuel.

But our luck can't last forever. The odds are too heavy.
Then Geoff found a firebreak and practically sat on the
ground in it. It was a tight fit for the old girl but it baffled
the single-seater boys for a while say two minutes but
that gave us an edge.

Clear for the moment I can see Fritz has some special
reason for making sure we don't get home. So I set a course
via Sweden!

We have plenty of fuel still and the opposition will cer-
tainly alert all the fighter stations from here to the North Sea.
I don't kid myself that we're not tracked. I'm simply making
it as tough as possible for them and the unexpected does some-
times catch Fritz a little short. So let's have a look at Sweden.
What's the use of all this neutrality unless we use it?

Now, why didn't I notice that one fan was feathered?
Three engines eh? This is fun. Geoff says that the old girl is
barely manageable and it will not be possible to keep her
under control indefinitely. Bless you, Geoff. What are the
Swedish internment camps like?

35

The coast of Sweden is unmistakable. But we need a lot
of altitude to cross over to Norway and Geoff says that we
can't climb. So we follow the coast after we've cut across the
flat part of Sweden. The Swedes mind their own business in
an exemplary manner. But Oslo Fiord is different. All we
want to do is to sneak across it. No luck.

Two fighters. One on the tail and the other broadside.
Wise guys. Geoff sits on the sea and we pray for a patch
of fog. All this time, every bit of two minutes, the fighters
position themselves in a leisurely way. We're not going far.
They have all the time in the world and a lame duck on their
hands. Which is going to make the dummy pass and which
the real one? In some occult way Pip could divine such
things. But Geoff doesn't work like that so I was mighty
surprised when he turned towards the fellow on the beam.
As soon as he bore, Don fired a burst for range, and (don't
believe me if you don't want to), scored a near miracle. The
bloke lost control for a moment and swung sharply left-
handed with the torque. He almost rammed his cobber who
went into a near vertical climb. He fell off the top of it of
course and before he could recover a wingtip touched the
sea. He swung in a queer tight semicircle before shattering
on the water. Christ, did that look like salvation!

But the other guy has got a grip on his aircraft by this
time yet he doesn't make a pass at us, even though he can see
we can barely fly. We're only feet above the sea, partly from
choice, and partly from necessity. "Calling up reinforce-
ments," said Geoff.

So we just poke her nose in the direction of England and
wait for them to come . . .

Our shadower is carefully plotting our course and speed

306

and relaying it, of course. Where shall we be picked up?

Presently he heads off for base and we can expect his boy
friends any time now. I get one of the best quality Air
Ministry brainstorms.

"Get in behind him, Geoff, and try to follow him to base.
Where would be the last place to look for a lame duck? Over
your home base/'

"Radio location/' says Geoff.

"Metalized strips," say I.

We try it. It works.

I think they employ Geoff and me on these shows so much
because we both think Fritz's way. Ill bet the blokes, failing
to intercept us, just didn't believe the confusing data that
ground control, all foxed by the metalized strips, tried to ram
down their throats.

But we are still hundreds of miles from home. The fight-
ers didn't fire a shot so we're no worse than before except that
the old girl is vibrating herself to pieces. We'd dumped every-
thing unessential earlier but we find a few other bits and
pieces to jettison. It gives us something to do.

Why is radio so vulnerable? Still the lack of radio won't
matter so much. On a night like this your uncle could get
you home standing on his head. I only hope he doesn't end
up that way.

And now to sit it out, as Alec used to say. When the tension
is on, I often think of him. He was a sweet gunner.

Every aching minute brings England closer. But every-
thing is operating on a strictly temporary basis. We're torn
apart almost any place you care to mention.

We sit down at the first place we see. Dear Lord, what a
landing, Geoff. We run clean to the boundary and pile the
old girl up there. A hell of a crash but no fire. Let's count
noses.

And after all that derring-do, nobody has a scratch. For the
love of God, would you believe it? All right! Neither did I,
but it was true, nevertheless.

Food. Beautiful food. And me alive to eat it. Hot, hot
coffee with oodles of sugar. Geoff, did you have a bite on the
return?

And, before we finish eating, here's little Lord Fauntleroy.
Who'd believe he could get here so fast. The interrogation
which followed was the most searching I've known. And, all
the time, more and more blokes dropped in until the place
was stiff with scrambled egg. They always try to make Geoff
and me disagree on something or other. In an argument we
remember things we might otherwise have overlooked. Our
every word was taken down verbatim and used for a further
re-examination when we had finished. Jesus, this must be im-
portant!

But all I wanted was sleep. Perhaps our replies were get-
ting confused because the most senior bloke said, as gently as
a father, that we should get some sleep at once. We did.

And when we woke they were still waiting for us!

"What would you say was the enemy reaction? Did the
strength of the defense surprise you? Why were you not inter-
cepted on the outward journey?" I had the answer to that
one. Fritz hoped to get away with concealment. And he was
sure enough on the defense to be sure that no one would get
away to tell.

38

With intervals for reflection, we were grilled most of the
day. Then, with a nonchalance which deceived nobody we
were told that we were to go back in daylight. "In daylight/*
I yelled. Geoff whistled softly.

God have mercy on us all. I was in daylight affairs at
Brest. I can't think. In daylight. In daylight.

What a briefing! Ages of it. Hopefully I suggested that, if
a number were sent, some would be sure to survive. But no.
We need information about so very small an area that . . .
oh, well. Get some sleep, boys. Sleep!

And so the pitcher goes again to the well.

That was yesterday by my reckoning: that is, the day be-
fore I came here. Which makes me think I'm somewhere near
the Baltic.

Don never mentioned Geoff and you two blokes have never
heard of him.

continued from jront flap

w

/e do not know the name of the man
who is speaking to us. But we know him
his courage, pride, cruelty, joy; and, above all,
honesty. The book speaks for itself.

Jacket art by
Sol Levenson

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