B for Buster (19 page)

“Well, don't,” he snapped, without even slowing.

I felt terribly sad. I let the others move past me, and followed along behind them all, the tail-end Charlie now for sure. But Pop glanced back, then fell in beside me, puffing from the weight of his chute and his black bag of gear. “He's not angry at you, Kid,” he said, quietly enough that no one else would hear. “Not really. He's more angry at himself.”

“Why?” I said.

“Well, Kid, you should know.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked. “
I
don't understand magnetos.”

“I thought you were smarter than that.”

The old guy surprised me sometimes. He knew things that other people didn't. But now I thought the duffer just didn't make sense.

“Lofty's playing it safe,” I said.

“Sure he is,” said Pop.

CHAPTER 20

I WENT DOWN TO the pigeon loft. Bert was sitting with the birds all around him, as though he'd been telling them stories. Percy stood on top of his head, and Bert was smiling.

“Well, 'allo, 'allo, sir,” he cried as I came through the door. “You scrubbed it, did you?”

“One of our magnetos was busted, or something,” I said.

Bert laughed. “That old dodge? That won't work twice with the new CO.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

Bert stretched out his legs. The pigeons moved off in ripples around him, and Percy rose from his head to flutter over to me. “Let's say you don't want to fly. Well, you foul the plugs, and Bob's your uncle, sir. You get too much magneto drop.”

“On purpose?” I asked.

“It's easy to do, sir,” he told me. “Magnetos seem to 'ave a 'abit, sir, of causing problems before a difficult op.”

“But Lofty wouldn't do that,” I said. “He's not afraid to fly.”

“No, sir. You're quite right, sir.”

I hated that maddening way of his. Every time the pigeoneer agreed with me, I felt that I was wrong. But I would never lose faith in Lofty. “He might get the jitters,” I said. “I guess he might, but that's all. He doesn't really get scared.”

Bert wouldn't talk about it anymore. He got up and went to work with a bucket and a rag, washing down the walls of the nesting boxes. The birds hopped up to the rim of his bucket, two or three at once, and he splashed them with water. They shook the drops away and giggled little pigeon laughs. Others squeezed between them to get a turn at the bath.

Bert patted their heads and talked to them. He told them he had to work, that he couldn't sit and play all through the night. But each time he tried to move away, the pigeons squawked and shouted, and back he went to the bucket. “Oh, all right,” he told them. “Just for another minute.”

I watched him play and laugh with the birds, his coveralls filthy, wrinkled and torn. I asked him, “What will you do when the Lancasters come?” Right away I wished I hadn't.

He stood up, his little game at an end. He looked down at the pigeons and all around the loft. “I don't know, sir,” he said. “I don't know what will become of us.”

“Fletcher-Dodge,” I said. “Will he really . . .” I couldn't finish the sentence.

“I don't know that either, sir,” said Bert. “But I 'ope not.” He stood in a slouch, his shoulders bent, the rag dripping water round his boots. “But what can I do, sir? If 'e wants to slaughter them, 'ow can I stop it?”

I didn't have an answer. I shook my head, and Bert's shoulders slumped even more.

“I'm scared of that Fletcher-Dodge,” he said. “If I take one step out of line, 'e'll pull out 'is files and whatnot. Soon as 'e does, 'e'll see who I am and what I've done, and
then
there'll be 'ell to pay.” He looked down at the rag, as though surprised to see it in his fist. “When Uncle Joe made me a pigeoneer, I thought I'd gone as low as I could go. I didn't know what a kindness 'e was doing for me. I love the birds, sir; I love the loft. I love them with all my 'eart. But if I don't do what I'm told, sir, I don't like to think what might 'appen to me.”

“But you're not breeding them,” I said. “You were told to do that, and you didn't.”

“It's different, sir,” said Bert. “I thought I could get away with that.” He started washing the boxes down. “I 'ave these mad ideas, sir.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“I thought I could put them all in the motorized loft. Every blessed bird.” His hand rubbed up and down over the same bit of wood. “I thought I could make a run for it, sir. Up to Scotland maybe. Up to the 'ighlands, sir. I could maybe 'ide myself among the 'ills.”

“Hide yourself?” I laughed. “That loft and fifty birds?”

“That's the catch, sir, isn't it?” said Bert.

“What will happen when they find you?”

“The birds will be safe enough. They'll be 'alf wild by then. For me it'll be prison, I suppose, sir. Years of 'ard labor.” He breathed three quick breaths. “But what else can I do, sir? When the pigeons are gone, and the loft's destroyed, there'll be no use for me 'ere anymore. Fletcher-Dodge will get out those files, and it will all be there in black and white. A coward; a malingerer.”

“He won't even look,” I said. “He'll send you somewhere else. To another loft at another squadron.”

“The files will go with me, sir. I could sooner 'ide the loft than 'ide those blasted files.” He mopped his face with the rag. Then he looked up and shouted at his man upstairs. “Damn you! Damn you! 'Ow can you let this 'appen?”

His anger filled him, then drained away, as it always did. He sighed and went back to his wiping. “Some of these birds, sir, they belong to people,” he said. “People in the fancy, sir, who lent them out for the war. When a pigeon gets the chop, I write to the breeder, sir. I tell 'im the bird went out in the line of duty, that it went out a 'ero, sir. 'Ow can I tell a man 'is bird went out as a
pie
?”

I felt like laughing, but there was nothing funny underneath it all.

“I'll make sure those birds get 'ome,” he said. “No matter what 'appens, I'll see to that, sir. But what about the others, the ones like Percy that I bred myself? Who will speak for them, sir, if I don't do it myself?”

I didn't answer. But in a flash of guilt I knew it wouldn't be
me.
I couldn't face an angry Fletcher-Dodge for a second time.

Bert dropped to his knees and called the pigeons around him. He whistled and clucked, and they flew up to his arms and shoulders, to his hands and his head. Even Percy went over, and I felt a jealousy that I shouldn't have felt. The birds were so happy with Bert, and he was so happy with them, that I couldn't imagine them ever being apart.

“Oh, it's awful, sir,” he said. “It's 'orrible to think about.” He was covered with birds, and the sound of them made his voice faint. “I would rather a fox got them, sir. Or a cat, God forgive me for saying it. I would rather burn them.”

“No!” I said.

“It's 'appened before.”

He waited until the birds were calm, until they nuzzled at his clothes and his neck. Then he told me a story from the last war, about a pigeoneer who had set fire to a loft full of birds as the German army advanced toward him. They were beautiful birds, said Bert, such good fliers that the Germans couldn't be allowed to have them. He told me how the pigeoneer had wept as he'd held a torch to the wooden loft, how the birds had panicked as the fire caught.

“It must have been frightful, sir. It must have been . . .” Bert shook his head. He got to his feet, knocking the birds away. “I 'ave to be alone, sir,” he said.

Bert went off to his room, and I washed the boxes for him. I washed the floor and the roosts, looking at Percy every few minutes. Inside, I felt cold. Through all the thoughts about birds and pies, and the fate of the pigeoneer, my own selfish dread kept oozing to the top. I knew I'd be lost if I couldn't take Percy flying.

On his roost by the roof, he blinked at me, with his eye-sign shining in the lantern's yellow glow. Then he stood at attention, and I was sure that Fletcher-Dodge would come in through the door. I turned to look, to wait, and there was Lofty standing at the window, his face a frightening skull in the moving shadows of the light.

“You scared me!” I said.

“Sorry, old boy.” He slipped sideways from the window; then the door opened beside it and he walked in.

“Who came with you?” I asked.

“Simon. But he's gone right by.” Lofty looked surprised. “How did you know that?”

“You're a sergeant.”

He frowned, not understanding that Percy only stood at attention for officers. “Well, never mind.” He shook his head. “Listen, Kid; about tonight.”

“It's okay,” I said.

“The bloody old bus. Those damn magnetos.”

“I understand,” I told him.

He'd been drinking. I could smell it on his breath. His face was pale and blotched; his hands shook as he jammed them into his pockets, nearly shoving his trousers right off his hips.

“You know, Kak, you've changed,” he said. “You were such a kid when I met you. So young and wide-eyed. You couldn't wait to fly, to be a hero. Then you got scared, eh? You got the jitters, didn't you?”

“A bit.” I backed away as he came closer. “You know I did.”

“Yeah, but now you've changed again.” He brought out his pipe. He poked it against his cheek before he found his mouth. “You're not frightened anymore, and I want to know how come. How'd you do it, Kid?”

I had told him already, and I didn't want to do it again when he smelled of beer. He would only laugh at my faith in Percy. “I just don't worry anymore,” I said. “I know we'll always get home.”

“How?”

“I just know it, Lofty. Okay?”

He nodded in that clumsy way of a drunk. “But what about the list? Aren't you scared of the Morris list?”

I looked up at Percy. He seemed to be watching me, his head turned sideways. His eye was enormous and bright, the tiny stars sparkling round his iris.

“Eh?” said Lofty. “It scares everyone else. What about you?”

Percy winked at me. His eye closed and opened again, and I could hardly believe he didn't understand everything we were saying.

“I think it's maybe just a list,” I said. “I'm not sure it really matters.”

“Yeah, why should it?” Lofty puffed his empty pipe. “Just a bunch of names, eh?”

He squatted down in a boneless, drunken way and tried to call one of the birds toward him. It only scuttled out of his reach, but Lofty stayed there with his arm stretched out. “I like you, Kak,” he said. “Have I told you that?”

“Yes,” I said. “The last time you were drunk.”

I didn't want him in the loft. It was
my
place, where I came to be away from him and everyone. But when I tried to help him up, Percy made a funny noise and hopped a circle on his roost. And then, beyond the wire roof, into the lantern light, came a pigeon. It dropped down with its wing feathers splayed, with that soft whistling sound growing louder. It landed above me, pushed through the trap, went straight to the bell, and tapped it with its beak.

“Where's he been?” asked Lofty.

The bird hopped down to the roosts, down to the floor. It took a drink of water from one of Bert's fountains, and other birds hurried to nuzzle against it. They crooned in that peculiar voice that Bert said was singing.

Lofty belched. Moving his hand like a bandleader, he started to sing. “Been to London to visit the Queen.”

I could have hit him. “That bird went flying tonight,” I said. “He was out on
George
or
Victor
.”

“No kidding?” said Lofty. “Then why's he back? What's he—”

I could see the truth sink in for Lofty. A soberness came over him, in a way I'd seen a hundred times with my old man, as if beer could be shocked from his blood. He took his pipe from his mouth; he pushed it back in. “They've bought it, haven't they?” he said. “That bird's come from
George,
and they've bought it.”

I picked up the pigeon. Its heart was pounding, its breath coming in gasps. I turned it over, but there was no message, no cylinder. There wasn't even a
leg
on that side. It had been shot off or torn away, and streaks of dried blood covered the feathers on the pigeon's belly.

“It's
George,
isn't it?” said Lofty. “It's that damned list.”

Bert came in, zipping his coveralls as he rushed through the door. “I 'eard the bell,” he said. “Who's 'omed, sir?”

I held out the bird. “He's hurt,” I said.

“Oh, mercy,” cried Bert. “That's Geordie! Wee Geordie!”

“I knew it,” groaned Lofty. “It's
George.
”

“No, no,” said Bert. “This is Geordie from
Victor.
” He took the bird in one hand and felt through its feathers. He pulled at the stump of the pigeon's leg, and the poor bird thrashed wildly.

“What's happened to
Victor
?” said Lofty.

We never found out. Only the pigeon came home. The kite and the crew vanished completely, as though V
for Victor
had flown off to that other place of Donny Lee's.

But right then in the loft, it was the pigeon that Bert cared about. He got out his salve and his bandages and went to work. “Oh, 'e'll be all right. Don't you fret now, sir.”

Lofty still hadn't sorted it out. “Are you sure that one's not from
G for George
?” he asked. “How can you tell?”

“I think I know my birds,” said Bert.

Lofty hung around, though neither of us wanted him there. He lurked by the nesting boxes, whistling through his pipe with a sound that grated at me. I helped Bert wash Wee Geordie, changing the water as the redness brightened in the bowl. We had just finished and were settling the pigeon into a nest when we heard the sound of engines, a single kite coming in.

“You'd best go, sir,” said Bert. “You and your chum 'ere, sir.” He was signaling to me with his eyes; Bert had never cared for visitors.

I took Lofty outside. “We'll watch him come in,” I said. But we were nearly blind in the darkness, and we had to half grope our way around the corner of the loft. Then we struck off toward the huts and nearly stumbled over Simon, who lay on his back in the grass, looking up at the sky. He was even drunker than Lofty, cradling a brace of bottles that clattered as he got up.

The bomber passed above us, flashing its recognition signal. Everyone knew the code for V, the three dots and a dash that had come to stand for victory. And that wasn't the signal that came from the aircraft. It was
G for
George
coming home, all right. It went round in its circuit.