‘Say that again?’
‘I’m not driving you over any border in those clothes. It may not have occurred to you, sir, but men in RAF blues aren’t exactly greeted with open arms by a citizenry you’ve been bombing shit out of for the last five years.’ Clobber: brown-job speak for walking-out dress, apparently.
It suddenly dawned on me that if there was only one person running this operation, then maybe it was neither me nor the brave Major. Inside my memory my dead friend Black Francie smiled at me. About ten minutes later Raffles called to me from a small office stuck on the side of the blister hangar, and waved me over. Inside it was like a second-hand clothes shop. He picked me out a couple of smallish pairs of battledress trousers, one khaki and one navy, and an oversized khaki bum-freezer jacket. I was joining the Army.
‘Put these on, sir, and stick yours in your bag: they still might come in useful, despite what I said earlier. Keep your boots, it’ll save you wearing gaiters, and wear your old flying jacket over the lot. A lot of us have got them; filched of course, but bloody good against the cold.’ When I paused, he added for effect, ‘If you could get a move on, sir? The plane’s due any min.’ Then he glanced out of the open door and said, ‘Sod it! Where’s the Major got to?’
I followed his gaze. Our kitbags sat on the tarmac like three small sheep, grazing. Where was the fucking shepherd? A comedian could have said that England was everywhere, but nowhere within sight. Raffles said, ‘Jildi – get a move on!’ to me as he trotted out, and, ‘You understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I told him, and began to move. Force of habit, I suppose.
When I walked out in my new kit, Raffles was standing by our sad bags of luggage, hands on hips, radiating impatience. There was a small gold cross in each lapel of my new battledress jacket. My new regimental shoulder flash said Seaforth Highlanders. It had been thoroughly spruced up, and the two holes I noted in its back panel, and one above the breast pocket, had been neatly mended. Not only a brown job, but a dead brown job, a fucking Jock, and a fucking parson to boot. Then I remembered that a Chaplain had a Captain’s rank in the Army: I’d been promoted again. I told him, ‘I’ll need a Bible and a prayer book if we’re going to carry this off.’
He swung on me, and Private to Captain or not, I would have got the rough edge of his tongue if James England hadn’t ambled around the other side of the small humped building buttoning up, and said, ‘Sorry about that. Got took short. Weren’t worried, were you? Would that be our transport just bounding down the airfield now?’
Bloody Tempsford. They always had to get in on the act. It was a 158 Squadron Hudson, and it turned out David Clifford was driving the bloody thing. Flying would have been a more appropriate description of what he was doing with it: I wondered if he had flown the type before. He was still laughing as he climbed down from the small fuselage door.
‘Did you see that, Charlie?’ he asked me. ‘Bounced like a fucking kangaroo! I hope I haven’t upset it, or stuffed the oleo legs.’
I said, ‘Hello, Cliff. Yes, I saw that. It really gives me bags of confidence.’
‘Don’t be such a dismal little sod. I’m much better with the heavies. How’s your head?’
‘Less burned, thank you. But I still have a trace of the hangover I brought from Crifton.’
‘Great people, aren’t they?’
‘No, Cliff; they’re turds. They’re exceptionally rich turds, and they might get me killed.’
‘Said it before. Dismal little sod.’
‘This is Major James England, and Private Finnigan or Raffles.’
‘I know. I knew them before you did. What ho Beginagin.’
‘Hello, sir,’ said Raffles, and gave him a salute that was like touching his forelock.
‘Hello, Cliff,’ said England. ‘Shall we get going then?’
There were eight forward-facing seats in pairs in the accommodation of the Hudson. Raffles stretched himself across two and went to sleep. England strapped in three rows back, and began to study rows of figures in his small notebook. Cliff pushed me into the seat alongside his own.
‘Don’t touch anything unless you know how to fly.’
‘I know a bit.’
‘What bit do you know – getting up into the sky, or getting back down on the ground?’
‘Neither. The bit in between.’
‘In that case don’t even think about it.’
‘You’re the boss.’
‘No, I’m not, but you don’t need to know who is.’
I think that the problem was that the Hudson was so much lighter and more sensitive than the Stirling he had shown me he was good at. All of his actions seemed heavy-handed. I think we were flying sideways as we actually unstuck. He told me, ‘That was fucking horrible.’
‘I wasn’t going to mention it.’
‘Good.’
‘Grace’s dad said I’d get a briefing before I went over.’
‘This is it, and there’s damn-all to tell. Just a couple of hints. After that you’re on your own. Well, not quite on your own. You’ve got ITMA back there, for backup.’
‘I got the impression that it was the other way round. Don’t they expect me to help them out? Look out!’ Cliff had turned to me as he spoke, trying to gauge the impact his words made. That meant that he wasn’t looking at the Waddon Gas Works chimney coming towards us at about 180 knots. He hauled us round it with a girlish giggle which didn’t suit him. The Major called forward, ‘Everything OK up there?’
‘Grand, Major. I’m just teaching old Charlie the rudiments of flying.’
‘Do it from a bit further up, old chap.’
Cliff laughed, and pulled us into a steep circling climb. He didn’t speak again until there was eight thou
