Piece of Cake (66 page)

He began walking but within fifty yards he felt a physical reaction to his efforts. First he was lightheaded, then giddy, then faint. He sat down before he fell down. It was a long time before he got up. How long, he couldn't tell, but the woods were quite dark.

After that the night was shapeless. He remembered walking a lot and finding a stream. He took off his tunic to wash himself. The next thing he remembered was feeling cold and discovering that he had forgotten his tunic. By then the stream was far behind him. For a while it worried him, the loss of his tunic. It meant that his brain was not working properly. He tried to tell himself to be more careful but his brain wouldn't listen. He knew why that was,
of course: it wasn't working properly. Now how did he know that? He puzzled over it until he was too tired to think.

Eventually, when his legs were so heavy that his boots were constantly scuffing and dragging, there was a house. First there was a dog that barked. Then there was a light in a window. Patterson walked into a thin fence and smashed something. The dog went insane with its barking.

A door opened. A man shouted. Patterson hung on to the broken fence and answered. “Here,” he said. “Here. Here.” Now that he had stopped walking his legs were useless. The man shouted again. Patterson tried to wave. “I say,” he called.

There was a long silence. Even the dog had shut up. Patterson set his brain to work, thinking of something stronger to say. He was opening his mouth to take a deep breath when the man fired a shotgun at him.

The bang battered the night to bits. Its shock was so big and so brutal that Patterson's knees gave way and he collapsed. All the same he was aware of lead shot ripping through the branches above him and he began running as soon as his hands touched the ground. He scrambled along on all fours, smashing through bushes and ferns and bouncing off trees until he was too bruised and breathless to go further.

His next clear memory was of a road. It was a very black road and he kept wandering off it and falling into the ditch. After that he remembered the searchlight. It picked him out and dazzled him, so he just stood and shielded his eyes. Then he was inside a hut that was full of Arab soldiers who kept shaking him and shouting. One of them had a sort of machete or kukri, anyway a very nasty-looking knife that he enjoyed waving near Patterson's throat.

This went on for a long time. Patterson kept saying, “RAF, RAF,” until his throat was dry. At one point the soldier with the big knife emptied a sack in front of him and two human heads fell out. Patterson picked one up. It was the head of a young man, a white man, a European, no older than himself. He looked at the Arab soldier and shrugged. The soldier shouted at him in rapid angry French. He shrugged again. The soldier hit him in the face and he fell off his chair. Partly he was terrified: he could hear himself whimpering and sniveling. But he was too tired even to sustain terror. He fell asleep.

When he woke up he was in the back of a car, traveling fast along a smooth, straight road. His throat was sore and he was painfully thirsty. He moved and groaned. A French army officer in the front seat turned and smiled.
“Ça va?”
he said. Patterson tried to swallow but it hurt too much. The officer produced a vacuum flask and gave it to him. Milky coffee. Patterson drank it all. When he returned the flask he saw that the driver was an Arab soldier, and memory rushed back.

“Heads,” he said. “Two heads.”

“Ah, you saw them?” the officer said. “German airmen. Their machine crashed. My regiment does not concern itself with prisoners, you understand.”

“They wanted mine. My head.”

“You were
un aviateur
, they knew by your boots.
Et probablement un boche, non? Cependant
… you had luck. They found a map, a
carte Michelin
, here.” He touched Patterson's right boot. “So they telephoned for me.”

The sky was beginning to lighten. Patterson lay on the seat with his hands under his head and let the black blur of the countryside speed past his eyes. Everything was going on at once inside his head: dogfights with 109's inside the Arab hut while he swung from his parachute and shotguns blazed like searchlights so he put up his hand to stop them chopping off his head, and the treetops jabbed at his face …

“Those two heads,” said the officer. “I cannot be sure they were German. I myself have not seen the machine.
Peut-être ils sont descendus par parachutes, n'est-ce-pas?
But one was blond, I think.”

“Some of my best friends are blond,” Patterson said. The officer chuckled.

They took him to Mailly-le-Camp, declined his offer of breakfast, and drove away. That was when he saw the dog Reilly.

One of the cooks found him sitting by the body, crying. He took him to the mess-tent and gave him coffee spiked with rum. Skull was the only other officer who was up. He came and talked and listened but Patterson didn't make much sense because he never completed a sentence, he kept remembering something else and sometimes he couldn't think of the right words and his head trembled with the awful effort of capturing them. He began telling
Skull about the Arab soldier and his big knife. “It was …” Grimly he hunted down the word. “Sharp,” he said at last. “It was so bloody
sharp”

“What was, old chap?” Skull asked.

Patterson gazed at him for a long time. “Can't remember,” he said miserably.

Skull gave him a shot of rum. He liked it, so Skull gave him another and put him to bed. He seemed to fall asleep at once, but he muttered a lot. Skull closed the tent-flaps and left him.

Fanny Barton awoke at six and got up at once. He felt slightly brittle but not seriously hung-over. The day had begun and he was keen to start work: he was, he remembered with a surge of pride, the CO of this squadron.

After that, everything conspired to give him encouragement. His batman brought him fresh coffee and hot shaving-water: the bust pipe had been mended. Skull strolled by and told him that Pip Patterson had turned up and that Flip Moran had been found: the land-line to Area HQ was working again. One by one, all of yesterday's anxieties disappeared. Barton luxuriated in the delight of shaving off three days' stubble and told himself that CH3 had been absolutely right. Worrying was a mug's game.

On his way to see Micky Marriott about the Hurricanes he noticed the body of the dog. It was attracting a lot of flies. He took it by the legs, dropped it into a slit-trench and kicked dirt over it, thinking:
A week ago I couldn't have done this, it would have been unthinkable.
He strolled on, pleased at his progress.

Most of the others were up when he got back. They were hanging about the mess-tent, waiting for breakfast. It was correct form to salute the CO and call him “sir” the first time you met him in the morning, and everyone did. He enjoyed that. “Morning, chaps!” he called. “Heard the news? Flip Moran's alive and Pip's back, so things could be a lot worse, right?”

“Pip's in here, sir,” Cox said. “He's still a bit pissed.”

Barton went into the tent. Patterson was slumped in a camp-chair, resting his head and arms on a trestle-table. His eyes were almost shut. Except where it was grimy and bloodstained his face was off-white, like newsprint. “Welcome home, Pip,” Barton said.

No response.

“He's completely whacked, poor chap,” Skull said.

“Landed in some frog officers' mess, I expect,” Fitzgerald said. “Been soaking up the five-star brandy all night.” He funneled his hands and bawled into Patterson's ear: “Is that right, Pip? On the razzle, were you?” Patterson's eyes flickered once.

CH3 squatted and studied him. He felt his pulse and touched his forehead. “He needs a doctor, Fanny,” he said.

“He needs a bucket of Alka-Seltzer,” Cattermole said. “Followed by a nice battle-climb to twenty thou.”

“Listen, Fanny,” CH3 began, but Fitzgerald interrupted with a great shout:
“Zut alors! Mon Dieu, voici le général Delacroix! Bon jour, mon général!”

It was the adjutant. He was looking for Barton, but Fitz and Cox and Cattermole made a loud and extravagant show of greeting him in bad French. Kellaway waved them aside with his clipboard. “Good morning, sir,” he said. “I've had another signal from Rheims. It seems that Flip took a bullet in the foot. He's in a hospital at St. Quentin. No replacements available.”

“Very good,” Barton said.

“And the squadron's to be ready to move north at short notice.”

“I see. Is that all, adj?” The cooks were bringing in trays of eggs and bacon. A tea-urn got heaved onto the table, and Barton pointed at it. A cook drew off a steaming mugful and gave it to him. Rank has its privileges.

“I don't want to bother you with a lot of bumf, sir …” Barton waved the idea away. “It's just that some letters ought to go off as soon as poss,” Kellaway said. “Next-of-kin stuff.” The adjutant was speaking quietly but the others heard him and fell silent. “Miller and Lloyd, and …” Kellaway adjusted the papers on his clipboard. “And Rex, of course.”

The only sound was the soft sizzle of bacon and the slap of the cooks' spatulas as they filled the plates. Barton was staring out of the tent, watching the clouds blow by. “Of course,” he said.

“No problem about Lloyd and Miller,” Kellaway said briskly. “I can draft something for you to look at, perfectly straightforward and routine … No, not routine, far from it, but … Anyway, no problem. And I can put up a few suggestions for the other one, if
you like.” Barton nodded. “Although it would help,” Kellaway said, “if I knew something about how it happened.”

Patterson heaved himself up from the table and propped his face on his fists.

“Yes, I see,” Barton said. “Mind you, it was all rather sudden. Rex was leading, of course.”

“Rex leading …” Kellaway made a note, and added:
Vanguard. (Spearhead?) Hot pursuit.

“He ran into a couple of 109's,” Barton said. “And that was that, really.”

Kellaway wrote. “Outnumbered,” he murmured. “He set his personal safety at naught.”

Barton grunted. “I suppose you could say the squadron won't be the same without him.”

“Sorely missed,” Kellaway remarked.

“No,” Barton said. “Just put: the squadron won't be the same without him.”

The adjutant glanced inquiringly; but Barton had nothing to add. “Jolly good,” he said. “I'll get cracking, then.” He went out.

Everyone relaxed at once. Everyone moved, or scratched, or coughed, or swung his arms. There was an air of relief as keen as the smell of bacon. “Let's eat!” Barton said. CH3 got a mug of tea and put it in front of Patterson. Steam rose and made him blink.

They sat and ate. For a while the only sound was the scrape of knives and forks on metal plates. Patterson watched, his eyes half-open.

“How's the war getting on, Skull?” Fitzgerald asked. “Got any half-time scores?”

“Sorry. Haven't the vaguest idea.”

Cox said: “Fine intelligence officer you are. Can't you even make up some rumors?”

“The skies of Flanders,” said CH3, and paused to swallow, “are thick with German parachutists disguised as nuns. They machine-gun innocent children as they float down.”

“Bloody good shots,” Barton said.

Patterson tried to speak and could only croak. They waited, interested, while he took a sip of tea. It stung his lips. “Who shot the dog?” he asked huskily.

Cattermole raised his fork. “I, said the Mog. I shot the dog, in mistake for a frog.”

Fitzgerald groaned. Cox blew a raspberry. Patterson picked up his mug and flung the tea in Cattermole's face. It was hot enough to hurt. CH3's warning shout came too late for Cattermole to do more than throw up an arm. That couldn't save his face. The shock and the pain knocked him off his chair. He rolled from side to side and moaned like someone winded and fighting for breath. “What happened?” Fitzgerald asked. He had been rubbing sleep from his eyes and he'd missed it all.

One of the cooks got to Cattermole first. He ripped off his apron and wrapped it around Cattermole's face so that it covered everything except his mouth. The others gathered around. CH3, however, went to Patterson and removed everything throwable from his reach. Patterson did not notice. He had got to his feet and was shouting, furiously but incoherently. Spittle ran down his chin, and a tremor shook his left arm.

Quite soon, Cattermole got his breath and stopped moaning. He sat up, holding the apron to his face, and let it slip until his eyes were exposed. “You maniac,” he said.

That silenced Patterson, but only for a couple of seconds. He cackled with laughter, and waved a derisive finger. “Can't take it, can you?” he cried. “You can dish it out but you can't bloody take it. Who killed Dicky Starr, eh? You did, you murdering bastard! Just like you nearly killed poor old Sticky! Couldn't get him killed but you got him chopped!” Patterson was hoarse, and his voice kept cracking. A sneer of contempt hooked up a corner of his mouth and exposed his teeth. “You're damn good at that, aren't you, Moggy? You killed Rex, too! Cunning bugger! You got us silly sods to do it for you!” Patterson was beginning to cry. “Who's going to be left at the end? Just you? Don't bet on it, chum.” The tears were coming fast, now; his left arm was shaking so that his knuckles rattled on the table. “Don't bet on it! You won't kill me like you killed Dicky and … and …” Patterson broke down.

CH3 took his arm and led him out.

They helped Cattermole up and sat him on a chair. Cautiously, he removed the cloth. His face was lobster-red, as if he had fallen asleep in the sun. “I'm all right,” he said. “I'm not so sure about
him.
”

“He was in a bad way when he got here,” Skull said. “He kept jabbering about having his head cut off.”