‘It would upset anyone, MM.’
‘Sure it would, I don’t need you to tell me that. Screw the bomber Joes. I didn’t tell them to join the lousy Air Force. It’s not my fault that Colonel Dan wants us to keep tight cover. I can’t help it if Göring tells his fighter jocks to go after the heavies and avoid us…’
‘Is that the time?’ said Farebrother. ‘I’d better get out of here and let you get some sleep.’ He got to his feet and the wicker armchair creaked. Winston looked out from under the bed.
‘You go to hell, Captain goddamn Farebrother! You don’t have to look down your thin white nose at me. You’re heading there, too, Captain, and that eastern schooling won’t mean a thing when the Krauts are putting lead into your ass.’
Farebrother nodded politely and went out, closing the door quietly. Farebrother knew how to be rude in a really high-class way.
‘And keep your lily-white hands off my goddamned ship!’ MM yelled at the closed door.
Officers’ Club
280th Bombardment Sq. (H)
Cowdrey Green
Norfolk, England
Dear Jamie,
You get your five bucks! I’ve never been happier in my life. These guys are friendly and the Group Commander (‘Call me Porky the way the rest of them do’) plays the trumpet in the dance band. He also slams his B-24 down onto the runway with the kind of bang that reminds me of Cadet Jenkins, but it’s just his style, I guess.
This Group has taken a beating, and there are plenty of hair-raising stories told when the beer flows. But they’re good boys—I feel so old! We’ve got kids here who only shave once a week, but good guys. No backbiting and none of that gossip that the staff of you-know-where enjoyed so much. And I got a great crew—instead of duds from the replacement pool I took over a ready-crewed ship when they lost their pilot. He got VD (in Norwich, the Flight Surgeon says, and we got a tub-thumping lecture complete with colour slides that made two or three of the guys go outside for air!).
Good ship too. Nearly new and the crew all like her, which is a plus. Top Banana she’s called, so look out for us over Hunland.
It looked like we were going today, but while we were all trundling round the perimeter track it was scrubbed. Can’t think why it took them so long to decide. I could hardly see the red flare from where the Banana was sitting—five hundred yards away. What an anticlimax! And two ships damaged when wing tips touched on the taxiway. Porky put up a notice saying, ‘Goosing big birds on the apron is a privilege restricted to officers of field grade.’ Of course all the guys love him.
Tomorrow I take my crew for ditching practice in the unheated water of the municipal swimming pool. In December? War is hell. So today I’ve spent the unexpected leisure improving my bridge game at a cost of four and a half pounds and putting a little scotch into my bloodstream as protection against tomorrow’s swim. And writing drunken letters (like this) home. I sure wish you were with us, Jamie, it would make everything perfect. What’s happening at Christmas? Looks like I won’t be OD or get any duties. How are you fixed?
Your pal,
Charlie
6 Captain James A. Farebrother
Jamie Farebrother read Charlie’s letter for the fifth time. Then he folded it, together with the five-dollar bill that was inside the envelope, and placed it in his billfold like an amulet that would protect him, not from evil, but from misery.
What could he write in reply? How could he describe this tent city in the monsoon season, and the red-nosed, rheumy-eyed bums clad in ragged oddments of GI uniforms? What was there to say about the overworked comedian who was in command, or the unfriendly Exec, or MM, the Flight Commander, who seemed to be twitching himself into a nervous breakdown? Perhaps it would all come right when the sun came out, and these mud-spattered planes began operations, but it wasn’t easy to visualize.
Flying the well-worn Mustang Kibitzer provided Jamie’s only happy moments and there weren’t many of them. The weather did not improve. The big black hangar doors were shut and clanking mournfully in the wind. Flyers sat for hours in the Club, and got in each other’s hair, bickering like children kept in after school. There were only a few brief breaks in the monotonous grey days. Apart from some local flights MM had arranged to make sure that his new flyer was able to take off in pairs, keep formation, and get down in one piece, there had been only one scheduled flight in seven days. The group went in formation across country to Yorkshire but encountered unpredicted thunderstorms that couldn’t be penetrated. The Mustangs came back to the base from all points of the compass. There were no casualties, but two pilots landed at other airfields.
Kibitzer had engine trouble on the return. Farebrother nursed her home carefully, and MM, Rube and Earl stayed with him, but when Tex Gill ran her up that night she purred sweetly for him.
‘She’s a whore!’ Tex said of Kibitzer. ‘A heart of gold, but you can’t depend on the old bitch.’
Colonel Dan was not pleased with the group’s crosscountry flight. He assembled the pilots in the briefing room that afternoon and chewed them out for nearly an hour. The Exec sat on the rostrum with his arms folded and head up, his eyes focused on some far corner of the ceiling. It was a pose meant to be both heroic and contemplative.
Colonel Dan was never still; he went striding up and down, hugging himself and flailing his arms, shouting, whispering, threatening and promising, and stabbing his finger angrily at his resentful audience.
MM sat behind Farebrother at the back of the room, with Rube and Earl on either side of him. ‘More training,’ said MM in disgust. ‘I can smell it coming.’
‘That’s only Yorkshire,’ said Rube. ‘With long-range tanks we’ll be trying to find our way back from Austria. Imagine the chaos!’
‘We’ve got to get Farebrother a new ship,’ said MM. He put a flying boot against the back of Jamie’s seat and nudged it hard to make sure he was listening. ‘One jalopy like that in the flight could get us all written out of the script.’
There was a Betty Grable movie being shown on the base that evening and the house was packed. There wasn’t much drinking at the Officers’ Club bar. Highly coloured accounts of the chewing out Colonel Dan had given his pilots soon reached the senior NCOs, and in the Rocker Club the sergeants argued bitterly about the merits of their charges. There was a fistfight outside the Aero Club and a jeep was stolen. The Exec sighed; these were all signs of lowering morale. Colonel Dan agreed.
‘I came over here to fight a war,’ sang a pilot named ‘Boogie’ Bozzelli, playing the piano at the club that evening. He improvised a tune to carry his words. ‘All I’ve done since getting here is duck the weather. Can I have a rain check, Colonel, and come back next summer?’ Colonel Dan was not amused. He picked up his drink and moved away from the piano.
The feelings of frustration were not relieved when, in the small hours of the next morning, the sound of aircraft engines—synchronized Merlins—circled the base ceaselessly until the Duty Officer switched on the runway lights. The noise woke everyone up. Farebrother opened the blackout shutters of his bedroom and saw Rube and MM fully dressed outside. The eastern sky was streaked with the pink light of dawn. The night air blew in like a gale.