‘Don’t be like that, sir. The older part is quite picturesque: historic. So you won’t want a brief on which bars to avoid, and which are definitely out of bounds?’
‘No. Thank you.’
‘. . . and you haven’t signed in with P2, or visited the Mess either?’ Ah again: so that was it. Someone from Admin had sent him to see what I was up to. P2 was the pay and admin branch . . . I’d thought that signing on here would have been the equivalent of opening a new bank account for less than a week. What the hell for?
‘Has someone said something about me?’
‘The PMC’s staff mentioned something. If you haven’t been issued with your Mess number yet they can’t account for your keep. I know that it seems inconsequential, but little things like that keep the cogs turning. Why don’t you wander over with me now, and I’ll show you what’s where.’ And the next most important person on a RAF station is the President of the Mess Committee.
I couldn’t help smiling, ‘You’re bloody well telling me to, aren’t you, WO?’
‘Pierce, sir. SWO Pierce . . . and no, I would never presume, sir.’
Two things had changed since my Bawne and Tempsford days. The WOs had been taught exquisite manners, and they could use words as long as inconsequential. I wasn’t sure I liked it. Ten years earlier a flight lieutenant would have probably battered his way in and pinned me to the wall with righteous blasphemy, but at least then you knew where you were.
I pulled on my greatcoat and my fore-and-after, and followed him into the cold light of day . . . and for once that phrase is factually accurate. As we walked up to the Admin Block and Mess Building, behind its curved approach road, I tried to make conversation.
‘When did you get concrete runways? This was all grass when I was in training.’
‘Did you fly from here then, sir?’
‘No, but I flew over it a few times.’
‘I believe they started to put the concrete down in 1944, sir. It was an OTU, and a Gunnery School. Then the Parachute School came along of course.’
That reminded me of the jump I’d just done. I didn’t thank him for that.
He left me in an office that reminded me of a bank. Decent counter, desks, a mixture of uniforms and civvies, and an overall air of quiet efficiency. I had to ask myself, with staff as calm, courteous and obviously as bright as these, why the Brass had made the god-awful decisions that littered my service history. A keen civvy type produced a file of papers, each marked with pencilled Xs where he wanted my signature. Dozens of the bloody things.
He smiled and observed, ‘You can read them if you like, sir, but no one else does.’
‘What are they?’
‘Bumf – what else? But with them you promise to repay anything over the odds we spend on you, and you’re indemnifying the Crown if you happen to kill yourself while you’re here.’
‘Thanks for that!’
‘My pleasure, sir. We aim to please.’ I glanced around; several of the men and women were smiling as they earwigged the chat. They seemed a cheerful bunch.
‘Frightful, isn’t it?’ This was from a man who had moved up behind me so silently I hadn’t heard him. When I turned it was the officer of the watch from the night before. He yawned, apologized for it, and held out a hand for the ritual touch. ‘Alec Holden.’
‘Charlie Bassett. You passed me in last night.’
‘I know. Not my usual spot, but I was filling in for some bod on leave. I like to do that now and again – get to know more people. You’re a reservist, right – recalled for Queen and Country? We’ve seen a few of you lately.’
‘I wasn’t all that keen to return, to tell the truth, sir.’
‘Don’t blame you son; nor am I. I even hate coming back from leave these days. I sometimes think it was more fun when Jerry was shooting at us.’ You were younger then, I thought. I had kept my pipe in my hand throughout the ceremony of the hundred signatures. He asked, ‘Pipe man?’ I nodded. ‘Why don’t we sit outside in the sun, and have a jaw?’
He had magically produced a pipe of his own from somewhere – a stained, curved meerschaum. What I know now, but didn’t know then, was that you don’t own a meerschaum pipe; you have a love affair with it. Despite what today’s tobacco Nazis tell you, the Brotherhood of the Pipe was once a great leveller; our inclusive modern society started with it.
We sat on a bench in the garden, and smoked in the sun, which had just enough warmth in it. I was twenty-eight years old, and felt about eighteen. I smoked my Wills Sweet Chestnut, whilst he packed his with Erinmore – that brand was a little hot for me.
He asked, ‘When were you commissioned, Charlie?’
‘In 1945. I was in hospital after a crash at Tempsford in the last few months. I’d flown as a sergeant.’
He was too canny to ask about Tempsford or the crash. ‘So you’ve been an officer for about eight years now?’
‘That’s exactly the point: I don’t see it that way. I’ve only been an officer for three days actually. Before I was demobbed they posted me away for six months – to the place that became GCHQ. It was very informal: most of the time it wasn’t like being in the services at all. No real officering there.’
‘Under David Watson, was that?’ Full of surprises, Mr Holden.
‘Do you know him, sir? I saw him a couple of months ago.’
‘Went to school together. Frightful chap.’ But it was the way he said the word: there was a lot
