It was a terrifying responsibility for a shy eighteen-year-old.
Until recently Lambert had flown fifteen bombing raids with an engineer named Micky Murphy, who now flew as part of Flight Lieutenant Sweet’s crew. Some people said that Sweet should never have taken the ox-like Irishman away from Lambert after so many trips together. One of the ground-crew sergeants said it was unlucky, some of Sweet’s fellow officers said it was bad manners, and Digby said it was part of Sweet’s plan to arse-crawl his way to become Marshal of the Royal Air Force.
Each day Batters hung round the ground crew of his aeroplane watching and asking endless questions in his thin high voice. While this added to his knowledge, it did nothing for his popularity. He watched Lambert all the time and hoped for nothing more than the curt word of praise that came after each flight. Batters was an untypical flight engineer. Most of them were more like Micky Murphy, practical men with calloused hands and an instinct for mechanical malfunction. They came from factories and garages, they were apprentices or lathe operators or young clerks with their own motorcycle that they could reassemble blindfold. Battersby would never have their instinct. He’d been a secondary-school boy with one afternoon a week in the metalwork class. Of course Batters could run rings round most of the Squadron’s engineers at written exams and luckily the RAF set high store by paperwork. His father taught physics and chemistry at a school in Lancashire.
I marked your last physics paper while on fire-watching. The headmaster was on duty with me. He’d given the sixth form the same sample paper but he told me that yours was undoubtedly the best. This, I need hardly say, made your father rather proud of you. I am confident however that this will not tempt you to slacken your efforts. Always remember that after the war you will be competing for your place at university with fellows who have been wise enough to contribute to the war in a manner that furthers their academic qualifications.
This week’s sample entrance paper should prove a simple matter. Perhaps I should warn you that the second part of question four does not refer solely to sodium. It requires an answer in depth and its apparent simplicity is intended solely to trap the unwary.
Mrs Cohen came into the breakfast room from the kitchen just as Battersby was helping himself to one pancake and a drip of honey. She was a thin white-haired woman who smiled easily. She pushed half a dozen more upon his plate. Battersby had that sort of effect upon mothers. She asked in quiet careful English if anyone else would like more pancakes. In her hand there was a tall pile of fresh ones.
‘They’re delicious, Mrs Cohen,’ said Ruth Lambert. ‘Did you make them?’
‘It’s a Viennese recipe, Ruth. I shall write it for you.’ They all looked towards Mrs Cohen and she cast her eyes down nervously. They reminded her of the clear-eyed young storm-troopers she had seen smashing the shopfronts in Munich. She had always thought of the British as a pale, pimply, stunted race, with bad teeth and ugly faces, but these airmen too were British. Her Simon was indistinguishable from them. They laughed nervously at the same jokes no matter how often repeated. They spoke too quickly for her, and had their own vocabulary. Emmy Cohen was a little afraid of these handsome boys who set fire to the towns she’d known when a girl. She wondered what went on in their cold hearts, and wondered if her son belonged to them now, more than he did to her.
Mrs Cohen looked at Lambert’s wife. Her WAAF corporal’s uniform was too severe to suit her but she looked trim and businesslike. At Warley Fen she was in charge of the inflatable rafts that bombers carried in case they were forced down into the sea. Nineteen, twenty at the most. Her wrists and ankles still with a trace of schoolgirl plumpness. She was clever, thought Mrs Cohen, for without saying much she was a part of their banter and games. They all envied Lambert his beautiful, childlike wife, and yet to conceal their envy they teased her and criticized her and corrected the few mistakes she made about their planes and their squadron and their war. Mrs Cohen coveted her skill. Lambert seldom joined in the chatter and yet his wife would constantly glance towards him, as though seeking approval or praise. Cheerful little Digby and pale-faced Battersby sometimes gave Lambert the same sort of quizzical look. So, noticed Mrs Cohen, did her son Simon.
It was eight-fifteen when a tall girl in WAAF officer’s uniform stepped through the terrace doors like a character in a drawing-room play. She must have known that the sunlight behind her made a halo round her blonde hair, for she stood there for a few moments looking round at the blue-uniformed men.
‘Good God,’ she said in mock amazement. ‘Someone has opened a tin of airmen.’
‘Hello, Nora,’ said young Cohen. She was the daughter of their next-door neighbour if that’s what you call people who own a mansion almost a mile along the lane.
‘I can only stay a millisecond but I must thank you for sending that divine basket of fruit.’ The elder Cohens had sent the fruit but Nora Ashton’s eyes were on their son. She hadn’t seen him since he’d gained his shiny new navigator’s wing.
‘It’s good to see you, Nora,’ he said.
‘Nora visits her mother almost every weekend,’ said Mrs Cohen.
‘Once a month,’ said Nora. ‘I’m at High Wycombe now, Bomber Command HQ.’
‘You must fiddle the petrol for that old banger of yours.’
‘Of course I do, my pet.’
He smiled. He was no longer a shy thin student but a strong handsome man. She touched the stripes on his arm. ‘Sergeant Cohen, navigator,’ she said and exchanged a glance with Ruth. It was all right: this WAAF corporal clearly had her own man.
Nora pecked a kiss and Simon Cohen briefly took her hand. Then she was gone almost as quickly as she arrived. Mrs Cohen saw her to the door and looked closely at her face when she waved goodbye. ‘Simon is looking fine, Mrs Cohen.’
‘I suppose you are surrounded with sergeants like him at your headquarters place.’
‘No, I’m not,’ said Nora. They seldom saw a sergeant at Bomber Command HQ, they only wiped them off the black-board by the hundred after each attack.
After they had finished eating Cohen passed cigars around. Digby, Sweet, and Lambert took one but Batters said his father believed that smoking caused serious harm to the health. Sweet produced a fine ivory-handled penknife and insisted upon using its special attachment to cut the cigars.
Ruth Lambert got up from the table first. She wanted to make sure their bedroom was left neat and tidy, no hairpins on the floor or face powder spilled on the dressing-table.
She looked back at her husband. He was a heavy man and yet he could move lightly and with speed enough to grab a fly in mid-air. His was a battered face and wrinkled too, especially round the mouth and eyes. His eyes were brown and deep-set with dark patches under them. Once she had written that his eyes were ‘smouldering’.
‘Then mind you don’t get burned, my girl.’
‘Oh Mother, you’ll both love him.’
‘Pity he can’t get a commission. Do him more good than that medal.’
‘A commission isn’t important, Father.’
‘Wait until you’re living in a post-war NCO’s Married Quarters. You’ll soon change your tune.’
He felt her looking at him. He looked up suddenly and winked. His eyes revealed more than he would ever speak. This morning for instance she had watched him while Flight Lieutenant Sweet was theorizing about engines, and had
