LITMIR.BIZ

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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 known that it was all nonsense by the amused shine in Sam’s eyes. Sam, I love you so much: calm, thoughtful and brave. She glanced at the other airmen around the table. It’s strange but the others seem to envy me.

      Mrs Cohen also hastened away to pack her son’s case. Left to themselves the boys stretched their feet out. They were puffing stylishly at the large cigars, and clichés were exchanged across the table. They could talk more freely when a chap’s mother wasn’t there.

      ‘We’ll be on tonight,’ predicted Sweet. ‘I feel it in my corns.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll put a little salt on Hitler’s tail again, eh?’

      ‘Is that what we are doing?’ asked Lambert.

      ‘Certainly it is,’ said Sweet. ‘Bombing the factories, destroying his means of production.’ Sweet’s voice rose a little higher as he became exasperated by Lambert’s patronizing smile.

      Cohen spoke for the first time. ‘If we are going to talk about bombing, let’s be as scientific as possible. The target map of Berlin is just a map of Berlin with the aiming-point right in the city centre. We are fooling only ourselves if we pretend we are bombing anything other than city centres.’

      ‘What’s wrong with that?’ said Flight Lieutenant Sweet.

      ‘Simply that there are no factories in city centres,’ said Lambert. ‘The centre of most German towns contains old buildings: lots of timber construction, narrow streets and alleys inaccessible to fire engines. Around that is the dormitory ring: middle-class brick apartments mostly. Only the third portion, the outer ring, is factories and workers’ housing.’

      ‘You seem very well informed, Flight Sergeant Lambert,’ said Sweet.

      ‘I’m interested in what happens to people,’ said Lambert. ‘I come from a long line of humans myself.’

      ‘I’m glad you pointed that out,’ said Sweet.

      Cohen said, ‘One has only to look at our air photos to know what we do to a town.’

      ‘That’s war,’ said Battersby tentatively. ‘My brother said there’s no difference between bankrupting a foreign factory in peacetime and bombing it in wartime. Capitalism is competition and the ultimate form of that is war.’

      Cohen gave a little gasp of laughter, but corrected it to a cough when Battersby did not smile.

      Lambert smiled and rephrased the notion. ‘War is a continuation of capitalism by other means, eh, Batters?’

      ‘Yes, sir, exactly,’ said Battersby in his thin childish voice. ‘Capitalism depends upon consumption of manufactured goods and war is the most efficient manner of consumption yet devised. Furthermore, it’s a test of each country’s industrial system. I mean, look at the way we are developing our aeroplanes, radios, engines, and all sorts of secret inventions.’

      ‘What about man for man?’ said Digby.

      ‘Surely after the great victories of the Red Army you don’t still subscribe to the superhuman ethic, Mr Digby,’ said Battersby. ‘Evils may exist within our social systems but the working man who fights the war is pretty much the same the world over.’

      They were all surprised to hear Battersby converse at length, let alone argue.

      ‘Are you a Red, Battersby?’

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