Pug thought it was extremely foolhardy nonsense, but he said at once, “I’d be honored, of course.”
“Well, well. Probably out of the question. But it would be fun, wouldn’t it?” Churchill painfully pushed himself out of his chair, and Pug jumped up. “I trust General Tillet is taking good care of you? You are to see everything here that you’ve a mind to, good or bad.”
“He’s been perfect, sir.”
“Tillet is very good. His views on Gallipoli I regard as slightly unsound, since he makes me out at once a Cyrano, a jackass, and a poltroon.” He held out his hand. “I suppose you’ve seen a bit of Hitler. What do you think of him?”
“Very able, unfortunately.”
“He is a most wicked man. The German badly wants tradition and authority, or this black face out of the forest appears. Had we restored the Hohenzollerns in 1919, Hitler might still be a ragged tramp, muttering to himself in a squalid Vienna doss house. Now, alas, we must be at considerable trouble to destroy him. And we shall.” Churchill shook hands at the desk. “You were in War Plans and you may be again. I recommend that you obtain all our latest stuff on landing craft. Ask Tillet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We shall require great swarms of the things. Great…
“Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister.”
General Tillet was waiting in his car. They went to a room in the Admiralty where huge wall charts showed the disposition of the fleet. In the blue spaces of the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean, the little pins looked sparse and lonesome, but the sowing around the home islands bristled thick. Pins in a thin line marked the great-circle convoy path across the Atlantic; Tillet traced this line with his pipe. “There’s the problem. We breathe through that tube. If Jerry can cut it, we’ve bought it. Obviously we can use some old destroyers you’ve got lying around from the last war, not doing much of anything.”
“Yes, so the Prime Minister said. But there’s a political problem, General. Either Hitler’s a menace to the United States, in which case we need everything we’ve got and a lot more, or he isn’t, and in that case why should we let you have part of our Navy to fight him? I’m just giving you the isolationist argument.”
“Mm, yaas. Of course we hope you’ll think of common traditions and all that, and the advantage of keeping us alive, and the possibility that the Germans and Japanese, dominating Europe and Asia and the oceans, might prove more disagreeable over the years than we’ve been. Now I’m still to show you those landing craft we’ve got up in Bristol, and Fighter Command in Stanmore -”
“If I can, I’d also like to visit Group Operations, Number Eleven Fighter Group.”
Tillet blinked at him. “Number Eleven? Jolly good idea. Take a bit of arrangement but I believe we can lay it on.”
Chapter 32
Victor Henry sat in the lobby of the Savoy, waiting for Pamela and her fighter pilot. Uniforms thronged past, with only a sprinkling of dinner jackets on white-headed or bald men. The young women, in colorful thin summer finery, looked like a stream of excited amorous angels. On the brink of being invaded by Hitler’s hordes, England was the gayest place he had ever seen.
This was nothing like the glum hedonism of the French in May, going down with knives and forks in their hands. Wherever the American had visited in a hard-driving week — and by now this included shipyards, navy and air bases, factories, government offices, and army maneuvers — he had noted the resolute, cheerful spirit, borne out by the rise in production figures. The British were beginning to turn out tanks, planes, guns, and ships as never before. They now claimed to be making airplanes faster than the Germans were knocking them down. The problem was getting to be fighter pilots. If the figures given him were true, they had started with somewhat more than a thousand seasoned men. Combat attrition was taking a steep toll, and to send green replacements into the skies was fruitless. They could kill no Germans and the Germans could kill them. England had to sweat out 1940 with the fighter pilots on hand. But how fast was the Luftwaffe losing its own trained pilots? That was the key, Tillet said; and the hope was that Goring was already throwing everything in. If so, and if the British could hold on, there would come a crack in Luftwaffe performance. The signal, said Tillet, might be a shift to terror bombing of the cities.
“Here we are, late as hell.” chirped Pamela, floating up to him in a mauve silk dress. Pamela’s flier was short, swarthy, broad-nosed, and rather stout, and his thick wavy black hair badly needed cutting. Except for the creased blue uniform, Flight Lieutenant Gallard looked like a young lawyer, or businessman rather than an actor, though his brilliant blue eyes, sunken with fatigue, had a dramatic sparkle.
Diamonds glittered in Pamela’s ears. Her hair was done up in a makeshift way. Pug thought she had probably emerged from bed rather than a beauty parlor; and fair enough in the time and place! The notion gave him a pang of desire to be young and in combat. Their table was waiting in the crowded grillroom. They ordered drinks.
“Orange squash,” said Flight Lieutenant Gallard.
“Two dry martinis. One orange squash.
Gallard gave Victor Henry a fetching grin, showing perfect teeth; it made him seem more of an actor. The fingers of his left hand were beating a brisk tattoo on the starched cloth. “That’s the devil of an order, isn’t it, in the Savoy?”
Pamela said to Pug, “I’m told he used to drink like a proper sponge, but he went on orange squash the day we declared war.”
Pug said, “My son’s a Navy flier. I wish he’d go on orange squash.”
“It’s not a bad idea. This business up there,” Gallard raised a thumb toward the ceiling — “happens fast. You’ve got to look sharp so as to see the other fellow before he sees you. You have to react fast when you do see him, and then you have to make one quick decision after another. Things get mixed up and keep changing every second. You have to fly that plane for dear life. Now, some of the lads thrive on drink, they say it blows off their steam. I need all my steam for that work.”
“There’s a lot I’d like to ask you,” said Victor Henry. “But probably this is your night to forget about the air war.”
“Oh?” Gallard gave Pug a long inquiring look then glanced at Pamela. “Not a bit. Fire away.”
“How good are they?”
“The Jerries are fine pilots and ruddy good shots. Our newspaper talk about how easy they are makes us a little sick.”
“And their planes?”
“The 109’s a fine machine, but the Spitfire’s a good match for it. The Hurricane’s quite a bit slower; fortunately it’s much more maneuverable. Their twin-engine 110 is an inferior machine, seems to handle very stiffly. The bombers of course are sitting birds, if you can get at them.”
“How’s RAF morale?”
Gallard flipped a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with swift gestures of one hand. “I’d say it’s very high. But not the way the papers tell it. Not that dashing patriotic business. I can remember the first time I fought over England, when those dots appeared in the sky just where Fighter Control said they were, I had a bit of that feeling, I thought, ‘Why, damn their eyes, they’re really trying it, and what the hell are they doing flying over my country? Let’s shoot the bloody bastards down!’ But right away I became damn busy trying not to get shot down myself. That’s how it’s been ever since.” He smoked in silence, his eyes wide and far away, his fingers dancing and dancing. He shifted in the chair, as though it were too hard. “It’s a job, and we’re trying to do our best. It’s a lot more fighting than we had over France. You can tell your son, Captain, that fear’s a big factor, especially as the thing goes on and on. The main thing is learning to live with it. Some chaps simply can’t. We call it LMF, lack of moral fibre. The brute fact is that as range decreases, accuracy increases. You’ve
