Bomber. Len Deighton

altitude,’ said Lambert, ‘a man could live for ever.’

      At 32,000 feet the Spitfire had begun to spin a white feathery trail in the thin moist air. The pilot watched the trail in his mirror and put the stick forward. The highly polished Spitfire Mk XI responded with a shallow dive. The altimeter needle moved slowly backwards until, as suddenly as it began, the white trail ended. Immediately the pilot corrected his plane into straight and level flight. This was his optimum safety height for today. No enemy could bounce him from above without leaving a telltale trail. Now he need only watch the air below. He checked the notepad and pencils strapped to his knee for the tenth time. He settled back comfortably and ran a finger round his collar; the cockpit was very warm. Few men had seen the world from this height. Few men knew that it was only a layer cake: a rich-green England base with a layer of light-green ocean on it, then Holland, brownish and flecked with clouds along the coastline. Then the distant horizon, perhaps as far as two hundred miles away, disappearing into white mist like whipped cream. Upon it blue sky was heaped until it could hold no more. To the Ruhr and back would take the Spitfire only ninety-two minutes. He’d have time for a game of tennis before tea.

      In the thirteenth century East Anglian wool merchants had brought back from the Low Countries wealth, brickmakers, architects and a taste for fine Dutch houses. There were many houses as well preserved as Warley Manor, with its distinctive curved gables and fine pantiles. Before the war it had been the home of a Conservative Member of Parliament. Art students had regularly come to sketch it. They had sat on the lawn shaded by the ancient elm trees, and had tea and cucumber sandwiches in the Terrace Room. Now it was the Officers’ Mess of RAF Station Warley Fen. The Terrace Room was furnished with long polished tables. Between the tables white-jacketed airmen moved carefully, setting the lunch plates with white linen napkins and gleaming glassware. Through the folding doors from the anteroom came the cheerful shouts of young commissioned aircrew, and a gramophone record of Al Bowlly was playing gently in the background. The sunlight made patterns on the carpet and the glass doors had been opened to let the tobacco-smoke escape.

      There were sixteen Lancaster bombers at Warley Fen. Each one had a crew of seven. Of these one hundred and twelve operational crewmen, eighty-eight were sergeants. (The Sergeants’ Mess was a series of corrugated iron huts interjoined.)

      The remaining twenty-four flyers were officers; they shared this mess with another forty-eight officers ranging from the Padre to the Dental Officer, plus some WAAF officers like Section Officer Maisie Holroyd. She was a plump thirty-eight-year-old woman who had spent eight years running a cheap ‘meat and two veg’ dining-rooms in Exeter. At Warley Fen she was the Catering Officer and even the people who found the present food unappetizing agreed that she did a better job than any of her male predecessors.

      The non-operational officers were mostly middle-aged. They wore medals from the First World War and inter-war campaign ribbons from Arabia and India and a very high percentage had pilot’s wings on their tunics. Of the twenty-four operational flyers, thirteen were born in Britain. The others were three Canadians, four Australians, two Rhodesians, and two Americans who still had not transferred to the USAAF. Seven officers wore the striped ribbon of the DFC, including Flight Lieutenant Sweet of B Flight.

      Had he been asked what his talents were, Flight Lieutenant Sweet would not have put flying a bomber anywhere near the top of his list. Nor, which would have surprised his fellow airmen even more, would he have claimed to be a popular leader of men. Sweet felt himself particularly well fitted to be a planner of air strategy. Some of his boyhood ambitions had come to nought, for instance his desire to be six foot tall and his ambition to be head boy. In addition, there was his dream of winning the hundred yards’ sprint and being Captain of the Southern Counties Public School Cricket Eleven, but these were lesser hopes.

      His desire to be a strategist had not diminished with time as had the desire to be a professional cricketer, nor had it become unreal like his hopes of being six foot tall. The war would continue for at least ten more years, Sweet had decided. There was time enough for this ambition. When we had conquered the Germans the Japs would be next on the list, and look how long the Chinks had spent trying to hold them off: since 1931. After that we’d probably have to put the Russians in their place. It was going to be a long war and Sweet had decided to spend the greater part of it on the staff side: making decisions, formulating plans, forging strategy. These were the things of which wars were made. Naturally a young ambitious staff officer would have had a dangerous war behind him and a couple of gongs. These would be his credentials, his way of making the old-timers listen to reason. Two tours of bombers, DFC and bar and a job at High Wycombe: this was Sweet’s ambition.

      He could handle a bit of schoolboy German and French. Next he’d learn some Russkie or Jap, or perhaps even Mandarin. He bought two whiskies and walked across to the solemn-faced Education Officer, an elderly schoolteacher who had joined the station only that week. Education officers were often called ‘schoolmasters’, and never more aptly, for this bespectacled pilot officer had, until ten weeks before, been teaching History and Languages at a secondary school in Harwich.

      ‘How are you finding things, sir?’ said Sweet deferentially.

      ‘Splendid,’ said the Education Officer, wondering why he should have been sought out by this gay young hero.

      ‘Wizard,’ nodded Sweet. ‘That’s wizard. My name’s Sweet, Flight commander B Flight. Look, sir, I would appreciate your advice. Considering the way the world is going – the war and everything, you know – I’d like to hear a broader view than we’ – quick look round – ‘get in the Mess.’

      The Education Officer looked at Sweet with interest. It was quite amazing that these boys – in spite of their rank badges and medals – were only a year or two older than his sixth form back in Harwich. Younger in a way, for the war had prevented their minds expanding in the normal manner. They thought of nothing but the technical skills of their job. Most of them failed to realize how narrow and uncommercial those skills were. After the war the poor devils would suffer when they started looking for a job, just as he had, as a young infantry officer, after the previous war. A brilliant first year at Oxford with its crowning achievement a commission in a yeomanry regiment. My God, what a fool!

      It goes without saying we are all proud of the sacrifices you have made, Captain, and the decoration you won, but when there are so many men after so few jobs, it would be irresponsible and unfair to our shareholders to take anyone without experience or even a degree.

      He had gone out and joined the Peace Pledge Union. ‘I remember war, and I will never support or sanction another.’ And yet here he was supporting another, with these curious young men. How different they were from the chaps he soldiered with in 1914. Half these kids hadn’t even got their matriculation exam. He was amazed at the superficial nature of their conversation: flying, booze-ups and bints. Even their cynicism was ingenuous. He said, ‘I’d be glad to help if I can.’

      ‘It’s not really for me,’ said Sweet. ‘It’s for my cousin. He’s a pretty clever chap. No degree, but he could get one at any time, just like that.’ Sweet clicked his fingers. ‘He was asking me a few questions the other day. He thinks my advice is worth taking. Can’t think why.’ Sweet laughed. ‘He’s in the Army, he stands a good chance of a job on staff. They are putting together the real brains now to start planning the invasion.’

      ‘Really,’ said the Education Officer.

      ‘Yes. This chap will be a brigadier in no time at all. Anyway this fellow …’

      ‘Your cousin.’