‘I spent my first night in an Officers’ Mess at Waddington in 1947,’ I told him. ‘I was on a weather flight that was delayed a day – because of the weather.’ That made him smile. ‘Then in 1948 I spent another night, after I had been discharged; but at Bawne that time – it was under Care and Maintenance; we were the only bods there. The third day was yesterday.’
He grunted, and asked, ‘So what’s the trouble then?’
I suppose that I had to tell someone, so I ground it out slowly – a bit ashamed of myself, and looking down at the gravel path in front of us.
‘I . . . don’t . . . know . . . how to behave. I don’t know what’s expected of me. I don’t know the little signs and code words that let me into officers’ company without sounding like a prat.’
He tamped down his pipe, because he’d let it out, then relit it from a box of Swan Vestas, which he then offered to me. I copied him.
‘That’s all there is to it,’ he told me. ‘Just copy everybody else. Why don’t you let me show you round the place. You can see how it works. There’s just time before lunch.’
‘Very kind of you, sir, but I’m supposed to contact someone from the Mess Committee, and get that sorted out.’
‘Which is what you’re doing at this moment, old fellow. That’s me. I’m supposed to support the PMC in my spare time.’
‘Just exactly what do you do around here, sir?’
He waved his pipe around. ‘Masses of stuff, old chap: masses of stuff. Shall we go? It’s a nice walk when the weather’s with you.’
I don’t know how long the RAF takes to make an officer these days. Months and months probably . . . if not years, and that’s after they’ve earned fifteen Honours Degrees at some obscure university near Huddersfield. Alec Holden did a pretty thorough job on me in just four days, by the end of which that phrase came back to me again: I can cope with this. A few months later I bought him a great curved meerschaum from a side-street bazaar in Port Said: it was carved with the face of a grinning camel. I parcelled it up with printed silk scarves for Mandy and Frances, and sent it back to Abingdon for them on a homing flight. That was because the most improbable people can change your life.
I was at Abingdon for five nights, and left on the sixth day. On the last evening I put on civvies and joined Lorenzo, Francis and WO Pierce – also all in civvies – for an impromptu going-away bash. We sloped down to a pub named the Prince of Wales: they called it the Three Feathers. You work it out. I suspected that non-commissioned ranks getting rat-arsed with an officer probably broke one of Pierce’s rules, but he didn’t let on. A bunch of my new officer pals stood in one corner and pointedly ignored us. Then they tried to chat up the girls after we were all turfed out at closing time. Some things never change, do they?
There was a big shiny York parked near the Watch Office when I walked out the next morning. Even with my old flying jacket over my new duds I felt cold. My fellow passengers milling around it all wore more rings than a gypsy fortune teller: I was moving – literally – in exalted company. I should have guessed, of course. The SWO intercepted me before I was close enough for any of the gods of the RAF to turn and look at me.
‘Not that one, I’m afraid, sir. Your original transport’s been requisitioned by the top brass. Your new aircraft is now over the far side – I’ve organized a crew bus for you. Over there.’ Everything must have been done in a hurry, because the crew bus still had cobwebs in it; an old Commer that hadn’t been used for months. It was cold inside, and its engine rattled: I doubted it would get us to the other side of the airfield. The AC driver was one of those cheeky chappies it’s impossible to like: he whistled as he drove – pitch-perfect. It was just a pity that the tune was the Sailors’ Hymn about those in peril on the sea. There was one other passenger; a flying officer a bit older than me. He was wrapped in his greatcoat but still shivering. We touched gloved hands – not a real shake.
‘Charlie Bassett.’
‘Hector . . . Heck. The rest is Macdonaldsmith, I’m afraid.’
‘Hyphenated?’
‘ ’fraid not.’
‘You poor beggar. How do you ever fit it in when you get a place on a form which says “Your full name”?’
‘I don’t. I write M apostrophe Smith. Everyone who reads it then thinks I’m stuck up, and hates me instinctively.’
I think he’d been laughing in between the words since the conversation had begun. A comedian, obviously. With a handle that long you’d have to be.
‘I’m glad of your company,’ I told him.
‘. . . and I of yours. There’s another dozen on the transport, and I understand they’re not Pongoes, thank God.’ Pongoes were the Senior Service – sailors – and notoriously delicate air passengers. So we had aircraftmen or Brown Jobs. He could have meant either.
‘Seeing as the Air Board’s nicked our aeroplane, do you know what type we’ve been bumped on to?’
‘I do, Charlie, but I’ll leave it to be a surprise.’ He looked away from me, out of the side
