LITMIR.BIZ

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or Bebop? Or better, Kibitzer, which is always making trouble. Why does he have to go popping rivets in my ship? That son-of-a-bitch Kruger is paid to look after that machine. He should never have let this new guy fly her.’

      ‘Why didn’t he use Tucker’s plane?’ said Rube Wein, who strongly disliked his Squadron Commander. ‘Why didn’t he take that fancy painted-up Jouster and maybe wreck it?’

      ‘Colonel Dan’s orders,’ explained Earl Koenige, a straw-haired farmer’s son who’d studied agriculture at Fort Valley, Georgia. ‘Colonel Dan told this guy to go out and fly a familiarization hop. Of course it’s only scuttlebutt, but they say Farebrother asked was it okay to fly it inverted.’ Meeting the blank-eyed disbelieving stares of the others, he added, ‘Maybe it’s not true but that’s what they say. The Group Exec is furious—he wanted Farebrother court-martialled.’

      ‘There should be a regulation about taking other people’s airplanes,’ said MM. ‘And inverted flying is strictly for screwballs.’

      Earl Koenige tossed back his fair hair and said, ‘Colonel Dan said the new pilot hadn’t been in the base long enough to make himself familiar with local regulations and conditions. And the Colonel said that the especially bad weather that day created a situation in which low flying in the vicinity of the base was a necessary measure for any pilot new to the field about to attempt a landing in poor visibility.’ Earl laughed. ‘Or put it another way, Colonel Dan needs every pilot he can get his hands on.’ Having related this story, Koenige looked at MM. He always looked at his Flight Commander for approval of everything he did.

      MM nodded his blessing and put another stick of gum into his mouth. It was his habit of chewing gum and smoking at the same time that made him so easy to impersonate, for he’d roll the cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other with a swing of the jaw. Anyone who wanted an easy laugh at the bar had only to do the same thing while flicking an imaginary comb back through his hair to create a recognizable caricature of MM. ‘Sure! Great!’ MM shouted, clapping his hands as if summoning hens out of the grain store. ‘And beautifully told. Now cut and print. Get out of here, will you! I’m not feeling so hot.’

      Rube Wein leaned over MM where he was sprawled out on the bed and said, ‘It’s chow time, MM. How would you like me to bring you back some of those greasy sausages and those real soggy french fries that only the Limeys can make?’

      ‘Scram!’ shouted MM, but the effort made his head ache.

      ‘Rumour is that this new guy is going to get Kibitzer, and that means he’ll be flying as your number four, MM,’ said Rube Wein.

      MM threw a shoe at him, but he was out of the door.

      Winston, MM’s dog, looked up to see if the thrown shoe was intended for him to bring back, decided it wasn’t, growled unconvincingly, and closed his eyes again.

      Not long afterwards there was a polite tap at the door, and without waiting for a response, a tall thin captain put his head into the room. ‘Lieutenant Morse?’

      ‘Come in, don’t just stand in the draught,’ said Morse, stubbing out his cigarette in the lid of a hair-cream bottle.

      ‘My name’s Farebrother, Lieutenant. I’m assigned to your flight.’

      ‘Kick Winston off that chair and sit down.’ MM’s first impression of the newcomer was of a shy stooped figure in an expensive non-regulation leather jacket, wearing a gold Rolex watch and with a fountain pen that was leaking through the breast pocket of his shirt to make a small blue mark over his heart. His captain’s bars had been worn long enough to become tarnished. It was a nice conceit and MM noted it with admiration.

      ‘I’m going to be flying Kibitzer, I understand.’

      MM recognized the slight eastern accent.

      ‘So you’re the bastard who popped rivets in my ship.’

      ‘You’ve got a beautiful bird there, Lieutenant. She ticks like a Swiss watch,’ said Jamie diplomatically. MM purred like a cat with a saucer of cream. ‘But I didn’t pull enough G to pop any rivets.’

      ‘Where are you from, Captain?’ said MM. ‘New York? Boston? Philly?’ These rich eastern kids were all alike; they treated the rest of the nation as if they were just off a farm in Indiana.

      ‘I live in California, Lieutenant. But I went to school in the East.’

      ‘You want a drink, Captain? I’ve got scotch.’

      Farebrother held up a thin hand to indicate that he wouldn’t. MM settled back in the pillows and looked at him—a poor little rich boy. Junior figured that singleseat fighters might be a way he could fight the war without rubbing shoulders with the riffraff.

      Farebrother said, ‘Are we going to fight the entire war with me calling you Lieutenant and you calling me Captain?’

      MM turned and held out a hand that Farebrother shook. ‘Call me Mickey Mouse like everyone else does.’

      ‘My friends call me Jamie.’

      ‘Take the weight off your legs, Jamie, and throw me a pack of butts from that carton on my footlocker.’ Morse opened a book of matches to make sure it wasn’t empty. ‘Are you fixed up with a room?’

      ‘I’m sleeping downstairs—sharing with Lieutenant Hart.’

      ‘Then you’re on your own. Hart got some kind of ulcer. He won’t be back. If you take my advice you’ll leave his name on the door and try to keep the room all to yourself, like I have this one. No sense in sharing if you can avoid it.’

      ‘Why are we living in these little houses?’

      ‘The RAF built them to house officers and their families. That narrow storeroom downstairs, where they fix sandwiches and fry stuff, used to be the family kitchen.’ Farebrother looked round the smoke-filled room. Lieutenant Morse had left no space for anyone else to move in with him. The second bed had been upended and a motorcycle engine occupied its floor space. Parts of the engine were strewn round the room; some were wrapped up in stained cloths and some were in a shallow pan of oil on the floor. In the corner there were Coca-Cola bottles piled up high on a milk crate and on the walls were pinup photos from Yank and a coloured movie poster advertising Dawn Patrol. Above the bed MM had hung a belt with a holstered Colt automatic clipped to it, and above that there was a beautiful grey Stetson.

      ‘And that old civilian sweeping the hall?’ said Farebrother.

      ‘We have British civilian servants, batmen they call them. They’ll fix up your laundry and bring you tea in the morning—well, you can make a face, but it’s better than British coffee, believe me. If you want coffee, fix it yourself.’

      ‘I hear you’re the ranking ace here.’

      MM lit his cigarette carefully and then extinguished the match by waving it in the air. ‘You don’t have to be any Baron von Richthofen to be best around here. Most of these kids should still be in Primary Flight School learning how to do gentle turns in a biplane.’

      ‘Does that go for the pilots in your flight too?’

      MM inhaled on his cigarette, closing his eyes as if in deep thought. ‘Rube Wein is my wingman—sad-eyed kid with jug ears, rooms downstairs. He’s no better, no worse than most as a flyer. He’s a brainy little bastard whose idea of a good time is to sit through an evening of Shakespeare, but he’s got eyes like an Indian scout and reaction times as good as any I’ve seen. And don’t let all that book learning fool you, he’s a tough little shit. When he’s on my wing I feel good.’ MM fiddled with his cigarette and tapped some ash into the tin lid. ‘You’ll probably fly wing for Earl Koenige—better pilot than Rube, he’s got that natural feeling for it, but he’s a shy kid and he just won’t get in close enough to get kills. Earl likes airplanes, that’s his trouble. He’s always frightened of bending something or damaging his engine by using full power. He flies these goddamn Mustangs like

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