LITMIR.BIZ

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lunch, sir?’

      ‘Affirmative,’ said Sweet. It was only a quarter of a mile by the short cut, but the path was always muddy. Last week he’d felt a perfect fool when some ass in the Mess had pointed to his shoes and said, ‘Been running B Flight through the assault course, Sweetie? Nothing like it for working up an appetite.’

      Even Munro, the Squadron commander, had joined in the laughter. Good thing the Group Captain hadn’t been there at the time. The Groupie was a real old Sandhurst blimp: fussy as hell about officers’ appearance; no flying gear in the Mess, not even roll-neck sweaters, and him leading the officers in to meals like some old dowager duchess saying, ‘I’m employed to kill Huns,’ as though he’d actually seen one through a gunsight. Still, the buzz was that Munro was getting a station of his own. They might decide to give a flight lieutenant his scraper-ring and a chance at the job.

      ‘Righto, Sambo my lad, off you go on a night-flying test.’ And then, ‘Oh, by the by, Lambert.’

      Lambert turned.

      ‘The armourers have removed a panel from your rear turret. You authorize that?’

      ‘I did.’

      Lambert’s attitude made Sweet think that perhaps a higher authority had ordered it. He trod warily. ‘What’s the idea?’

      ‘To see better.’

      ‘Than through clear polished Perspex?’

      ‘You opened this window just now to see what I was doing.’

      Sweet smiled.

      Lambert said, ‘Anyway, the Perspex was badly marked, the Sergeant armourer was about to change it. I decided it was worth a go.’

      Again Sweet smiled. ‘It’s just a matter of good manners, Flight. As your Flight commander it would be nice to be informed.’

      ‘Written memo. On your desk last Thursday. It came back signed, so we went ahead.’

      ‘Yes, quite. I meant keep me informed how it works out. A good idea of yours, Lambert.’

      ‘Sergeant Gordon’s idea, sir. If it works he deserves the credit.’

      ‘OK, Lambert. Off you go, and don’t forget the Christmas Party tin on your way out, laddie.’

      Lambert, who was four years older and six inches taller than Sweet, saluted and left.

      When Corporal Ruth Lambert had walked a little way along the road she overtook the Bedford lorry that Sweet had sent away. It was waiting for her.

      ‘Jump in, Mrs Lambert,’ said the driver.

      ‘Thanks,’ said Ruth.

      ‘Bloody officers,’ said the driver.

      As the lorry passed near to where Creaking Door was parked, one of its engines started. Four birds, frightened by the noise, flew out of the hedge in front of the lorry. The driver braked in time for the birds to climb steeply into the sky.

      ‘Crows,’ said the driver. “Where I come from they say, “One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth”.’ He glanced at Ruth and grinned. ‘Four for a birth,’ he repeated.

      ‘Three of those were rooks,’ said Ruth.

      ‘Oh well,’ said the driver, ‘I don’t believe any of that stuff anyway.’

      Other motors started, until the noise was shattering. Flight Sergeant Worthington waited for Lambert. They walked without speaking to the aeroplane. Flight Sergeant Worthington had been in the RAF twenty-eight years. His overalls were pressed and starched, and his tie was knotted tight against his collar. His face was red and highly polished and he could climb inside a greasy engine and emerge without a hair out of place. He regarded all airmen who had joined the RAF after war began as nothing better than amateurs. ‘Which war, laddie?’ The way in which aircrews were automatically given sergeant’s rank and membership of the Mess he saw as a terrible heresy. Some evenings when the weather was bad he’d sit at the bar, with pints of beer arriving automatically at his elbow, while he told his fellow men of his peacetime Odyssey to this Ithaca. He’d tell of Bloody April 1917, the rigours of the Khyber Pass, the boredom of Habbaniyah and the cruelties of Uxbridge depot. Whether or not he noticed that the young aircrew were the most dedicated part of his audience and kept the beer pots coming was not certain, but lately his tirades were more jocular than venomous.

      Lambert had joined the Regular RAF in 1938. In Worthington’s eyes he was one of the few ‘real airmen’ on the camp.

      It was January 1936 when Lambert became a part-time airman. He’d had great difficulty in getting six whole weeks off from his job in the garage, but the new manager thought it would be rather smart to boast of a qualified pilot on the staff and let him go, without pay, of course. Lambert went to an airfield in Scotland and was the first of the Volunteer Reserve sergeants to be trained under the new scheme. At the end of his course he had soloed and from then on every weekend, wet or fine, was devoted to training. He flew Hawker Harts and sometimes, as a special treat, a Fury. To be nearer the aeroplanes he got a job as an aero-engine fitter at the flying club that shared the field with the RAF reservists. Now and again the club would let him air test a light plane, or even instruct.

      ‘Take him up for a spot of dual, a few flick rolls and a loop. No spins and for the Lord’s sake don’t let the silly little bastard try a landing.’

      ‘Thanks, I’d like to do that.’

      ‘There’s no one else here, Lambert, and I can’t leave the office.’

      In 1938 the RAF offered any VR pilot with more than two hundred and fifty flying hours a chance of six weeks with a Regular RAF squadron. Lambert volunteered immediately and after six weeks flying Hurricanes he joined the Regular Air Force. He was disappointed to be assigned to twins, especially when war broke out and his old VR squadron was given Hurricanes. However, twin-motor aircraft proved to be a new sort of complication and he liked the challenge. When after a tour on Wellingtons and a DFM he first got his hands on a Stirling his envy of fighter pilots disappeared never to return. The four-motor planes made him happy and if he had to be in the RAF in order to get hold of one of them then he would put up with it.

      Worthington put his spectacles on and studied the snag book before looking at Creaking Door to compare it with the initials of the men who cared for it. For Worthington also felt possessive about these aeroplanes. As he saw it, the Air Ministry had wisely put this aeroplane into his good keeping. Without regarding the bomber as his own personal property he was a little disquieted when Lambert – and Lambert’s amateur crew – took it away overnight and subjected it to indignities and aerobatics and corkscrewing. Sometimes they brought it back damaged by chunks of enemy metal.

      Worthington ushered Lambert through its entrance. Like a lecherous medico with a young girl, Worthington stroked and caressed each grip and bulkhead as they passed through the aeroplane. Her walkways and handholds gleamed like fine silver where so many other men had done the same. It was dark and confined in the slim belly, no wider anywhere than the smallest of today’s motor-cars. They had to crouch as they moved forward, but Worthington continued to speak. His voice was resonant and to punctuate his words he tapped with his knuckles and the metal sang a note of anxiety and affection like a nervous patient under the scrutiny of a specialist.

      ‘She’s a game old bitch, Sam,’ said Worthington, ‘but she’s not getting any younger.’ He allowed Lambert to fit himself into the narrow pilot’s seat and took a quick glance out of the window to be sure that his fitters were hard at work on the starboard inner engine.

      ‘That starboard generator was giving us half a volt this morning on the run-up. We found a wiring fault but I’m still suspicious of the genny. It’s reading high. Your engineer is going to watch the readings on the air test.’ Worthington allowed himself a smile. ‘I’ve given the poor kid a good drilling about it because the accumulators will explode if he lets a big overcharge build up: oxygen and hydrogen, see?’

      ‘Yes,

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