‘Yes; I’ve read your papers. Nothing’s come down from Wing yet. Worried?’
‘Only the principle of it, sir. If they think I’m worth more, they should pay me more.’
He gave me a fiver from his desk drawer as if it was a tip. It probably made him feel good.
‘Don’t ask me where it comes from; my clerk gives me more whenever I ask. It seems that the War House thinks we need more filth than most outfits.’
I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t need it, once I’d opened my mouth: I would have to talk to Frohlich, I thought. I buttoned it into my right top pocket, saluted and about-turned; I felt a party coming on. Or maybe I should speak to the American Master Sergeant guy I knew at Thurleigh Field, and make him an offer for a box of toilet paper.
Tommo Thomsett from Thurleigh told me that the Kraut and his U-boats had deliberately targeted vessels carrying toilet paper, and torpedoed them in the Atlantic. This had led to what he described as ‘a little supply side difficulty’. I got a box of flat packets for three quid, which was extortionate. Then he told me he was glad I was back. He didn’t like to lose an old customer.
Later that week I shared a breakfast table with Frohlich. He gave me his bacon, and asked me, ‘Have you noticed that some beggar is stealing all of the Jane cartoons from the arse paper?’
‘Yes. I saw that.’
‘Wonder who?’
‘Some spy, I should think.’
‘I should have thought of that,’ he told me.
They operated the need to know system at Tempsford, so naturally nobody ever knew anything. The squadrons didn’t consider that I needed to know much at all. I was surprised to find it rather suited me. My mum used to say that what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you. The flue from her kitchen stove had leaked, and she didn’t know about that. It killed her and my kid sister. I suppose you can’t be right about everything.
There were two resident squadrons, 138 and 161, who clandestinely flew people and materials to the parts of Europe that Adolf was still in love with. They also brought people out again. The aircraft they operated varied from small Lysanders and twin-engined Hudsons, which actually landed over there, to the big Halifax and Stirling bombers: four-engined jobs like the Lanc I flew on my tour.
A week or so after my arrival I had stood at the WVS canteen lorry behind the converted parachute store in which they kitted out the passengers, who they called Joes, and watched a Hallibag limbering up its engines for a trip across the Channel somewhere. It looked very old, and huffed and puffed a bit. It made a lot of smoke. There was a scruffy Flight Lieutenant with a full set of wings alongside me, blowing on his tea. He was probably fifteen years older than me, and his uniform, although clean, hadn’t seen an iron since it had been issued to him – it gave him a curious boneless look. He’d borrowed his moustache from Douglas Fairbanks, but it didn’t give him the edge he’d hoped for, and he wore his Irvine flying jacket over his shoulders like a cape. I thought that he’d seen The Dawn Patrol at his local fleapit too often at Saturday morning pictures, but he was the only one left to talk to. I asked him how long they would be out. Stupid question: my speciality.
‘As long as a string of bangers, old son. Could be going to the bloody moon and back, couldn’t they?’
‘Sorry. I’m new here.’
‘I guessed. It’s bad form to ask about a trip on this station, but I won’t tell on you. I’m David Clifford. Most people call me Cliff.’
‘I’m Charlie Bassett. I was sent here as a radio instructor, but I can’t find anyone to instruct.’
‘Don’t knock it. Let them come to you.’
‘I’ll remember that. I can’t seem to find my boss either; he’s the Station Radio Officer. Stan somebody.’
‘He went out on a trip to Never Never Never Land three weeks ago, and he’s walking back.’
‘What’s Never Never Never Land?’
‘Never ask. Never go there. Never land there if you do.’
He took a thick gulp of tea: he must have had an asbestos throat.
‘Do you really know that he’s alive and walking back?’
‘Yes, we do, actually, old son. You’ll learn the form quick enough.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I call myself the odd-job man, but the Group Captain calls me an Intelligence Officer. But I can fly a bit as well: it’s what we like here – sort of jack-of-all-trades. Someone must have picked you out for the job.’
‘I can’t believe that.’
‘You’d be surprised.’ Then he spun the chamber on me. ‘Fancy a bevvy? They won’t be back until tomorrow. There’s a good bar at Blunham, just down the road, that I’d be pleased to introduce you to – and I understand you’ve got a flash little car at your disposal. If I’d been running your security checks, the first thing I would have asked was how a humble Sergeant could afford that.’
‘It was inherited. From a good rear gunner who ran out of luck.’
‘Ah. One of those. It’s an ill wind, and all that.’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’ I think that that was the first time I really believed that Pete the Pink Pole was dead, and wasn’t about to turn up from another irregular couple of days’ leave in London, with a new bird on his arm.
I didn’t tell him that I already knew the bar at Blunham: it was where I had first met Albie Grost. When he got drunk he recited reams of beautiful poetry, and the whole bar fell silent to listen to him. That’s why I kept on leaning on him, and that’s how I ended up teaching him how to palm Morse code when your fingers stopped working. What goes around, comes around.
There was still no sign of my missing officer
