The Exec stood behind Colonel Daniel A. Badger, station commander and leader of the Fighter Group. They were a curious pair—the prim, impeccable Duke and the restless, red-faced, squat Colonel Dan, whose short blond hair would never stay the way he combed it and whose large bulbous nose and pugnacious chin never did adapt easily to the strict confines of the moulded-rubber oxygen masks the Air Force used.
Colonel Dan rubbed the hairy arms visible below the shortened sleeves of his khaki shirt. It was a quick nervous gesture, like the few fast strokes a butcher makes on a sharpening steel while deciding how to dissect a carcass. In spite of the climate he never wore long sleeves and only put on his jacket when it was really needed. His shirt collar was open, ready for his white flying scarf—‘ten minutes in the ocean and a GI necktie will shrink enough to strangle you.’ Colonel Dan was always ready to fly.
‘Captain Farebrother!’ The Exec announced him as if he were a guest at a royal ball.
‘Yeah,’ said Colonel Dan. He went on looking at the sheet of paper that the Exec held before him, as if hoping that some more names would miraculously appear there. ‘Just one of you, eh?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Farebrother, restraining an impulse to turn round and see.
Colonel Dan ran a hand across his forehead in a movement that was intended both to mop his brow and to push back into position his short disarranged hair. ‘Do you know what I’ve had to do to get this Group equipped with those P-51s out there?’ He didn’t wait to hear the answer. ‘No officer on this base has tasted whisky in weeks! Why? Because I’ve used their booze ration to bribe the people who shuffle the paperwork at Wing, Fighter Command, and right up to Air Force HQ. In London a black-market bottle of scotch can cost you four English pounds. You can figure the money, I suppose, so you can figure what it’s cost to get those ships.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Farebrother. He’d understood the British currency ever since parting with two pounds to get his travel-creased uniform sponged and pressed in time to wear it at this interview.
‘I was hanging around Wing so much,’ went on Colonel Dan, ‘that the General thought I was dating his WAC secretary.’ He chortled to show how unlikely this would be. ‘I bought lunches for the Chief of Staff, and had my workshops make an airplane model for the Deputy’s desk. When I finally discovered that the guy who really makes the decision was only a major, I spent over a month’s pay taking him to a nightclub and fixing him up with a girl.’ He grinned. It was difficult to decide how much of all this was intended seriously, and how much was an act he put on for newly arrived officers.
‘So I get my airplanes, and what happens? I lose six jockeys in a row. Look at this manning table. One of them’s got an impacted wisdom tooth, one’s hurt his ankle playing softball, and one’s got measles. Can you beat that? The Flight Surgeon tells me…’ He tapped the papers on the table as if to prove it. ‘He tells me this officer’s got measles and can’t fly.’ He looked at Farebrother. ‘So just when I get three squadrons of Mustangs here ready to fly, I’m short of men. And what do they send me? Not the eleven lieutenants the T/O says I’m supposed to have from the replacement depot, but one lousy flying instructor—’ He raised his hand. ‘No offence to you, Captain, believe me. But goddamn it!’ He banged on his desk in anger. ‘What do you think they want me to do, Duke?’ The CO twisted round in his swivel chair to look up at his Exec. ‘Do they want me to set up Captain Farebrother in a dispersal hut on the far side of the field and have him train a dozen pilots for me? Could that be the idea, Duke?’
Colonel Dan scowled at Farebrother and tried without success to stare him down. Finally it was the CO who looked down at his paperwork again. ‘Fifteen hundred flying hours and an unspecified amount of pre-service flying,’ he read aloud. ‘I suppose you think that’s really something, eh, Captain?’
‘No, sir.’
‘We’re not flying Stearman trainers in neat little patterns over the desert, following the train tracks home when we get lost, and closing down for a long weekend whenever a cloud appears in the sky.’ He stabbed a finger at the window. ‘See that pale grey shit up there? It’s two thousand feet above the field and it’s ten thousand feet thick. And you’re going to be flying an airplane up through that stuff…an airplane you never dreamed existed even in your worst nightmare. These P-51 Mustangs are unforgiving s.o.b.s, Captain. No dual controls on these babies…just a mighty big engine with wings attached. For the first few rides they’ll scare you half to death.’
Colonel Dan banged the file shut. ‘We’re stood down right now, as you can see. Plenty of airplanes for you to try your hand on. Most of my pilots are on pass—flat on their faces drunk in some Piccadilly gutter, or trying to buy their pants back from some Cambridge whore. Am I right, Colonel Scroll?’
‘Most probably, sir,’ said the matronly Exec, moving one lot of papers away before placing a new pile in front of the CO. His face was expressionless, as if he were playing the role of butler to a playboy he didn’t like.
‘Get yourself a helmet and a flight suit, Captain,’ said Colonel Dan. ‘And take my advice about logging some hours on a P-51 before the Group’s assigned to its next mission.’ He scratched his arm again. ‘One of my flight commanders is still waiting for his captain’s bars, and that boy has five confirmed kills. How do you think he’s going to feel when he sees you practising wing-overs with those shiny railroad tracks on your collar? Having you turn up means he’ll wait even longer for promotion. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The Colonel touched the edges of the papers the Exec had placed in front of him. Then, as he looked up, his eyes focused upon Farebrother and dilated with amazement. ‘Captain Farebrother,’ he said in a voice which suggested that all the foregoing had been part of some other conversation, ‘may I ask what, in God’s name, you are wearing? Is that a pink jacket?’ His voice croaked with indignation.
‘At my previous assignment it was customary for instructors to have jackets made up in tan gabardine, like the regulation pants.’
‘I swear to you, Farebrother,’ said the Colonel with almost incoherent vehemence, ‘that if I ever see you wearing that pansy oufit again…’ He rubbed his mouth as if to still his own anger.
‘You make sure you wear the regulation pattern uniform, Captain,’ said the Exec. ‘The enlisted men have been getting tailors’ shops to make up all kinds of cockamamie “Ike blouses” and the Colonel will not tolerate it.’
‘One of my top sergeants had a uniform custom-made in Savile Row,’ added Colonel Dan. His voice was not entirely without a note of pride.
‘We stamped on it all pretty hard,’ said the Exec. He picked up the cardboard folder and nodded, to show that the interview was coming to an end.
‘Good luck, Captain Farebrother,’ said Colonel Dan. ‘Get yourself somewhere to sack out and make sure you report to the orderly room of the 199th Squadron sometime this afternoon. The Squadron Commander is Major Tucker—he’ll be back tomorrow.’
Captain Farebrother saluted but this time did his own, modified, version of the about-face.
It was still raining when a sergeant—his name, Tex Gill, stencilled on his fleece-lined jacket—helped Farebrother strap into one of the P-51s parked on the apron. The aircraft smelled new with its mixture of leather, paint and high-octane fuel. On its nose a brightly painted Mickey Mouse danced, and stencilled in yellow, under the cockpit, was the name of its regular pilot: Lt M. Morse.
‘Parking brake on, sir?’
‘On,’ said Farebrother. He plugged in the oxygen