were parked on the muddy grass, their green paint shiny with the never-ending rain. Some men were huddled against the control tower, the outer walls of which were patchy from a half-finished paint job. Behind it the airfield was empty, its grass darkened by the sunless weeks of wintry weather.
‘A little after eight o’clock this morning, sir.’
‘Transport okay? And you got breakfast, I trust.’ The Exec was bent over his desk, his hands flat on its top, reading from an open file. There was no solicitude apparent in the questions. He seemed more interested in double-checking the motor pool and the mess staff than in Farebrother’s welfare. He looked up without straightening his body.
‘Yes, thank you, sir.’
The Exec banged a hand down on the bell on his desk, like an impatient hotel guest. His sergeant clerk appeared immediately at the door.
‘You tell Sergeant Boyer that if I see him and the rest of those lead swingers goofing off just once more, he’ll be a buckass private in time for lunch. And you tell him I’m looking for men to do guard duty over Christmas.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant clerk doubtfully. He looked out of the window to discover what the Exec could see from here. ‘I guess the rain is pretty heavy.’
‘The rain was heavy yesterday,’ said the Exec, ‘and the day before that. Chances are it will be heavy tomorrow. Colonel Badger wants the tower painted by tonight and it’s going to be done by tonight. The Krauts don’t close down the war every time it rains, Sergeant. Not even the Limeys do that.’
‘I’ll tell Sergeant Boyer, sir.’
‘And make it snappy, Sergeant. We’ve got work to do.’
The Exec looked at Farebrother and then at the rain and then at the papers on his desk. ‘When my sergeant returns he’ll give you a map of the base and tell you about your accommodation and so on. And don’t kick up a fuss if you’re sleeping on the far side of the village in a Quonset hut. This place was built as an RAF satellite field, it wasn’t designed to hold over sixteen hundred Americans who want to bathe every day in hot water. The Limeys seem to manage with a dry polish—they think bathing weakens you.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve got over three hundred officers here. I’ve got captains and majors sleeping under canvas, shaving in tin huts with mud floors and cycling three miles to get breakfast. So…’ He left the sentence unfinished.
‘I understand, sir.’
Having finished his well-rehearsed litany, Colonel Scroll looked at Farebrother as if seeing him for the first time. ‘The commanding officer, Colonel Badger, will see you at eleven hundred hours, Captain Farebrother. You’ve just got time enough to shave, shower and change into a clean class A uniform.’ He nodded a dismissal.
It seemed a bad moment for Farebrother to tell him that he had already showered in the precious hot water, shaved, and was wearing his newest and cleanest uniform. Farebrother saluted punctiliously, and then performed the sort of about-face that was said to be de rigueur at West Point. The effect was not all he’d hoped for; he lost balance performing what the Basic Field Manual describes as ‘…place the toe of your right foot a half foot length in rear and slightly to the left of your left heel. Do not move your left heel.’ Farebrother moved his left heel.
Everything good or bad about the base at Steeple Thaxted during those days was largely due to the Group Exec. It was Duke Scroll who—like all executive officers throughout the Air Force—made life a pleasure or a pain, not only for the flyers but also for the sheet-metal workers, the parachute packers, and the clerks, cooks and crew chiefs who made up the three Fighter Group squadrons, and the Air Service Group, which supplied, maintained, policed and supported them.
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
