The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (28 page)

I knew that the hotness was unpleasant, but that was all I knew. I disliked it,
so I curled my legs up under the seat and waited. I think there was something
wrong with the telegraph system between the body and the brain. It did not seem
to be working very well. Somehow it was a bit slow in telling the brain all
about it and in asking for instructions. But I believe a message eventually got
through, saying, "Down here there is a great hotness. What shall we do?
(Signed) Left Leg and Right Leg." For a long time there was no reply. The
brain was figuring the matter out.

Then slowly, word by word, the answer was tapped over the wires. 'The -- plane
-- is -- burning. Get -- out -- repeat -- get -- out -- get -- out." The
order was relayed to the whole system, to all the muscles in the legs, arms and
body, and the muscles went to work. They tried their best; they pushed a little
and pulled a little, and they strained greatly, but it wasn't any good. Up went
another telegram, "Can't get out.
Something holding us
in."
The answer to this one took even longer in arriving, SO I just
sat there waiting for it to come, and all the time the hotness increased.
Something was holding me down and it was up to the brain to find out what it
was. Was it giants' hands pressing on my shoulders, or heavy stones or houses
or steam rollers or filing cabinets or gravity or was it ropes? Wait a minute.
Ropes --
ropes
. The message was beginning to
come through. It came very slowly.
"Your -- straps.
Undo -- your -- straps." My arms received the message and went to work.
They tugged at the straps, but they wouldn't undo. They tugged again and again,
a little feebly, but as hard as they could, and it wasn't any use. Back went
the message, "How do we undo the straps?"

This time I think that I sat there for three or four minutes waiting for the
answer. It wasn't any use hurrying or getting impatient. That was the one thing
of which I was sure. But what a long time it was all taking. I said aloud,
"Bugger it. I'm going to be burnt. I'm. . ." but I was interrupted.
The answer was coming -- no, it wasn't -- yes, it was, it was slowly coming
through. "Pull -- out -- the -- quick -- release -- pin -- you -- bloody
-- fool -- and -- hurry."

Out came the pin and the straps were loosed. Now, let's get out. Let's get out,
let's get out. But I couldn't do it. I simply couldn't lift myself out of the
cockpit. Arms and legs tried their best but it wasn't any use. A last desperate
message was flashed upwards and this time it was marked "Urgent".

"Something else is holding us down," it said.
"Something
else, something else, something heavy."

Still the arms and legs did not fight. They seemed to know instinctively that
there was no point in using up their strength. They stayed quiet and waited for
the answer, and oh what a time it took.
Twenty, thirty, forty
hot seconds.
None of them really white hot yet, no sizzling of flesh or
smell of burning meat, but that would come any moment now, because those old
Gladiators aren't made of stressed steel like a Hurricane or a Spit. They have
taut canvas wings, covered with magnificently inflammable dope, and underneath
there are hundreds of small thin sticks, the kind you put under the logs for
kindling, only these are drier and thinner. If a clever man said, 'I am going
to build a big thing that will burn better and quicker than anything else in
the world,' and if he applied himself diligently to his task, he would probably
finish up by building something very like a Gladiator. I sat still waiting.

Then suddenly the reply, beautiful in its briefness, but at
the same time explaining everything.
"Your -- parachute -- turn --
the -- buckle."

I turned the buckle, released the parachute harness and with some effort
hoisted myself up and tumbled over the side of the cockpit. Something seemed to
be burning, so I rolled about a bit in the sand, then crawled away from the
fire on all fours and lay down.

I heard some of my machine-gun ammunition going off in the heat and I heard
some of the bullets thumping into the sand nearby. I did not worry about them;
I merely heard them.

Things were beginning to hurt. My face hurt most. There was something wrong
with my face. Something had happened to it. Slowly I put up a hand to feel it.
It was sticky. My nose didn't seem to be there. I tried to feel my teeth, but I
cannot remember whether I came to any conclusion about them. I think I dozed
off.

All of a sudden there was Peter. I heard his voice and I heard him dancing
around and yelling like a madman and shaking my hand and saying, "Jesus, I
thought you were still inside. I came down half a mile away and ran like hell.
Are you all right?"

I said, "Peter, what has happened to my nose?"

I heard him striking a match in the dark. The night comes quickly in the
desert. There was a pause.

"It actually doesn't seem to be there very much," he said. "Does
it hurt?"

"Don't be a bloody fool, of course it hurts." He said he was going
back to his machine to get some
morphia
out of his
emergency pack, but he came back again soon, saying he couldn't find his
aircraft in the dark.

"Peter," I said, "I can't see anything."

"
It's
night," he answered. "I can't see
either."

It was cold now. It was bitter cold, and Peter lay down close alongside so that
we could both keep a little warmer. Every now and then he would say, "I've
never seen a man without a nose before." I kept spewing a lot of blood and
every time I did it, Peter lit a match. Once he gave me a cigarette, but it got
wet and I didn't want it anyway.

I do not know how long we stayed there and I remember only very little more. I
remember that I kept telling Peter that there was a tin of sore throat tablets
in my pocket, and that he should take one, otherwise he would catch my sore
throat. I remember asking him where we were and him saying, "We're between
the two armies," and then I remember English voices from an English patrol
asking if we were Italians. Peter said something to them; I cannot remember
what he said. Later I remember hot thick soup and one spoonful making me sick.
And all the time the pleasant feeling that Peter was around, being wonderful,
doing wonderful things and never going away. That is all that I can remember.

The men stood beside the
aeroplane
painting away and
talking about the heat.

"Painting pictures on the aircraft," I said.

"Yes," said Peter. "It's a great idea. It's subtle."

"Why?" I said. "Just you tell me."

"They're funny pictures," he said. "The German pilots will all
laugh when they see them; they'll shake so with their laughing that they won't
be able to shoot straight."

"Oh baloney
baloney
baloney
."

"No, it's a great idea. It's fine. Come and have a look."

We ran towards the line of aircraft. "Hop, skip, jump," said Peter.
"Hop skip jump, keep in time."

"Hop skip jump," I said, "Hop skip jump," and we danced
along.

The painter on the first
aeroplane
had a straw hat on
his head and a sad face. He was copying the drawing out of a magazine, and when
Peter saw it he said, "Boy oh boy look at that picture," and he began
to laugh. His laugh began with a rumble and grew quickly into a belly-roar and
he slapped his thighs with his hands both at the same time and went on laughing
with his body doubled up and his mouth wide open and his eyes shut. His silk
top hat fell off his head on to the sand.

"That's not funny," I said.

"Not funny!" he cried. "What
d'you
mean
'not funny'? Look at me. Look at me laughing. Laughing
like this I couldn't hit anything. I couldn't hit a hay wagon or a house or a
louse." And he capered about on the sand, gurgling and shaking with
laughter. Then he seized me by the arm and we danced over to the next
aeroplane
. "Hop skip jump," he said. "Hop
skip jump."

There was a small man with a crumpled face writing a long story on the fuselage
with a red crayon. His straw hat was perched right on the back of his head and
his face was shiny with sweat.

"Good morning," he said. "Good morning, good morning," and
he swept his hat off his head in a very elegant way.

Peter said, "Shut up," and bent down and began to read what the
little man had been writing. All the time Peter was splattering and rumbling
with laughter, and as he read he began to laugh afresh. He
rooked
from one side to the other and danced around on the sand slapping his thighs
with his hands and bending his body.
"Oh my, what a
story, what a story, what a story.
Look at me. Look at me
laughing," and he hopped about on his toes, shaking his head and chortling
like a madman. Then suddenly I saw the joke and I began to laugh with him. I
laughed so much that my stomach hurt and I fell down and rolled around on the
sand and roared and roared because it was so funny that there was nothing else
I could do.

"Peter, you're
marvellous
," I shouted.
"But can all those German pilots read English?"

"Oh hell," he said.
"Oh hell.
Stop," he shouted. "Stop your work," and the painters all
stopped their painting and turned round slowly and looked at Peter. They did a
little caper on their toes and began to chant in unison. "Rubbishy things
-- on all the wings, on all the wings, on all the wings," they chanted.

"Shut up," said Peter. "We're in a jam. We must keep calm.
Where's my top hat?"

"What?" I said.

"You can speak German," he said. "You must translate for us. He
will translate for you," he shouted to the painters. "He will
translate."

Then I saw his black top hat lying in the sand. I looked away,
then
I looked around and saw it again. It was a silk opera
hat and it was lying there on its side in the sand.

"You're mad," I shouted. "You're madder than hell. You don't
know what you're doing. You'll get us all killed. You're absolutely plumb
crazy, do you know that? You're crazier than hell. My God, you're crazy."

"Goodness, what a noise you're making. You mustn't shout like that; it's
not good for you." This was a woman's voice. "You've made
youself
all hot," she said, and I felt someone wiping
my forehead with a handkerchief. "You mustn't work yourself up like
that."

Then she was gone and I saw only the sky, which was pale blue. There were no
clouds and all around were the German fighters. They were above, below and on
every side and there was no way I could go; there was nothing I could do. They
took it in turns to come in to attack and they flew their aircraft carelessly,
banking and looping and dancing in the air. But I was not frightened, because
of the funny pictures on my wings. I was confident and I thought, "I am
going to fight a hundred of them alone and I'll shoot them all down. I'll shoot
them while they are laughing; that's what I'll do."

Then they flew closer. The whole sky was full of them. There were so many that
I did not know which ones to watch and which ones to attack. There were so many
that they made a black curtain over the sky and only here and there could I see
a little of the blue showing through. But there was enough to patch a
Dutchman's trousers, which was all that mattered. So long as there was enough
to do that, then everything was all right.

Still they flew closer. They came nearer and nearer, right up in front of my
face so that I saw only the black crosses which stood out brightly against the
colour
of the
Messerschmitts
and
against the blue of the sky; and as I turned my head quickly from one side to
the other I saw more aircraft and more crosses and then I saw nothing but the
arms of the crosses and the blue of the sky. The arms had hands and they joined
together and made a circle and danced around my Gladiator, while the engines of
the
Messerschmitts
sang joyfully in a deep voice.
They were playing Oranges and Lemons and every now and then two would detach
themselves
and come out into the middle of the floor and
make an attack and I knew then that it was Oranges and Lemons. They banked and
swerved and danced upon their toes and they leant against the air first to one
side, then to the other. "Oranges and Lemons said the bells of St
Clement's
," sang the engines.

But I was still confident. I could dance better than they and I had a better
partner. She was the most beautiful girl in the world. I looked down and saw
the curve of her neck and the gentle slope of her pale shoulders and I saw her
slender arms, eager and outstretched.

Suddenly I saw some bullet holes in my starboard wing and I got angry and
soared both at the same time; but mostly I got angry. Then I got confident and
I said, "The German who did that had no sense of
humour
.
There's always one man in a party who has no sense of
humour
.
But there's nothing to worry about; there's nothing at all to worry
about."

Then I saw more bullet holes and I got scared. I slid back the hood of the
cockpit and stood up and shouted, "You fools, look at the funny pictures.
Look at the one on my tail; look at the story on my fuselage. Please look at
the story on my fuselage."