eased his body down between the sheets. She made a sleepy mumbling sound and pulled his chilly body close.
‘He was just tense,’ said Lambert. ‘Cohen’s a bloody nice kid, a wizard damned navigator too.’
‘I love you,’ Ruth mumbled.
‘Everyone gets tense,’ explained Lambert.
His wife pulled the pillow under his head and moved to give him more room. His eyes were closed but she knew he was not sleepy. Many times at night they’d been awake together like this.
When they married in March it had rained when they arrived at the church, but as they came on to the steps the sun came out. She’d worn a pale-blue silk dress. Two other girls had married in it since then.
Her face pressed close to him and she could hear his heart beating. It was a calming, confident sound and soon she dropped off to sleep.
The one-time grandeur of the Cohens’ country house was defaced by wartime shortages of labour and material. In the breakfast room there was a damp patch on the wall and the carpet had been turned so that the worn part was under the sideboard. The small, leaded windows and the clumsy blackout fittings made the room gloomy even on a bright summer’s morning like this one.
Each of the airmen guests was already coming to terms with the return to duty and each in their different ways sensed that the day would end in combat. Lambert had smelled the change in the weather, and he chose a chair that gave him a glimpse of the sky.
The Lamberts were not the first down to breakfast. Flight Lieutenant Sweet had been up for hours. He told them that he had taken one of the horses out. ‘Mind you, all I did was sit upon the poor creature while it walked around the meadow.’ He had in fact done exactly that, but such was his self-deprecating tone that he was able to suggest that he was a horseman of great skill.
Sweet chose to sit in the Windsor hoopback armchair that was at the head of the table. He was a short, fair-haired man of twenty-two, four years younger than Lambert. Like many of the aircrew he was short and stocky. Ruddy-complexioned, his pink skin went even pinker in the sun, and when he smiled he looked like a happy bouncing baby. Some women found this irresistible. It was easy to see why he had been regarded as ‘officer material’ from the day he joined up. He had a clear, high voice, energy, enthusiasm, and an unquestioning readiness to flatter and defer to the voice of authority.
‘And an ambition to get to grips with the Hun, sir.’
‘Good show, Sweet.’
‘Goodness, sir, I can’t be any other way. That sort of thing is bred into a chap at any decent public school.’
‘Good show, Sweet.’
Temporarily Sweet had been appointed commander of B Flight’s aircraft, one of which Lambert piloted. He was anxious to be popular: he knew everyone’s nickname and remembered their birthplace. It was his great pleasure to greet people in their hometown accent. In spite of all his efforts some people hated him. Sweet couldn’t understand why.
This month the Squadron had been transferred to pathfinder duties. It meant that every crew must do a double tour of ops. Double thirty was sixty, and sixty trips over Germany, with the average five-per-cent casualty rate, was mathematically three times impossible to survive. Lambert and Sweet had already completed one tour and this was their second. Actuarily they were long since dead.
Sweet was telling a story when Flight Sergeant Digby came into the room. Digby was a thirty-two-year-old Australian bomb aimer. He was elderly by combat aircrew standards and his balding head and weathered face singled him out from the others. As did his readiness to puncture the dignity of any officer. He listened to Flight Lieutenant Sweet. Sweet was the only officer among the guests.
‘A fellow drives into a service station,’ said Sweet. His eyes crinkled into a smile and the others paid attention, for he was good at telling funny stories. Sweet knocked an edge of ash into the remains of his breakfast. ‘The driver had only got coupons for half a gallon. He says, “A good show Monty’s boys are putting on, eh?” “Who?” says the bloke in the service station, very puzzled. “General Montgomery and the Eighth Army.” “What army?” “The Eighth Army. It’s given old Rommel’s Panzers a nasty shock.” “Rommel? Who’s Rommel?” “OK,” says the bloke in the car, putting away his coupons. “Never mind all that crap. Fill her up with petrol and give me two hundred Player’s cigarettes and two bottles of whisky.”’
It was unfortunate that Sweet had cast the driver as an Australian for Digby was rather sensitive about his accent. Appreciative of the smiles, Sweet repeated the punch line in his normal voice, ‘Fill her up with petrol and give me two hundred cigarettes.’ He laughed and blew a perfect smoke ring.
‘That’s a funny accent you’re using now,’ said Digby.
‘The King’s English,’ acknowledged Sweet.
‘I hope he is,’ said Digby. ‘With a ripe pommy accent like his he’d have a terrible time back where I come from.’
Sweet smiled. Under the special circumstances of being fellow guests in Cohen’s father’s house he had to put up with a familiarity that he would never tolerate on the Squadron.
‘It’s just a matter of education,’ said Sweet, referring as much to Digby’s behaviour as to his accent.
‘That’s right,’ agreed Digby, sitting down opposite him. Digby’s tie had trapped one point of his collar so that it stood up under his jawline. ‘Seriously, though, I really admire the way you fellows speak. You can all make Daily Routine Orders sound like Shakespeare. Now, you must have been to a good school, Flight Lieutenant Sweet. Is that an Eton tie you’re wearing?’
Sweet smiled and fingered his black Air Force tie. ‘Harrods actually.’
‘Jesus,’ said Digby in mock amazement. ‘I didn’t know you’d studied at Harrods, sport. What did you take, modern lingerie?’
Sweet saw Digby’s attitude as a challenge to his charm. He gave him a very warm smile, he was confident that he could make the man like him. Everyone knew that Digby’s record as bomb aimer was second to none.
Young Sergeant Cohen played the anxious host, constantly going to the sideboard for more coffee and pressing all his guests to second helpings of pancakes and honey.
Sergeant Battersby was the last down to breakfast. He was a tall boy of eighteen with frizzy yellow hair, thin arms and legs and a very pale complexion. His eyes scanned the room apologetically and his soft full mouth quivered as he decided not to say how sorry he was to be late. He had less reason than anyone to be delayed. His chin seldom needed shaving and most mornings he merely surveyed it to be sure that the pimples of adolescence had finally gone. They had. His frizzy hair paid little heed to combing and his boots and buttons were always done the night before.
Batters was the only member of Lambert’s crew who was younger and less experienced than Cohen. And Batters was the only member of Lambert’s crew who would have contemplated flying under another captain. Not that he believed that there was any other captain anywhere in the RAF who could compare with Lambert, but Battersby was his flight engineer. An engineer was a pilot’s technical adviser and assistant. He helped operate the controls on take-offs and landings; he had to keep a constant watch on the fuel, oil, and coolant systems, especially the fuel changeovers. As well as this he was expected to know every nut and bolt of the aeroplane and be prepared ‘to
