Free Battle of Britain by Chris Priestley Page B

all this is going on.”
    â€œLive for today, old chap,” he said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.” He glanced down at his leg.
    â€œI know,” I said. “But I don’t want to think about anyone when I’m up there. I don’t want to be careful. Being too careful is as bad as being careless. You just have to do what feels right, regardless. Otherwise you get. . . Sorry, Lenny, listen to me going on. . .”
    â€œDon’t worry about it. Honestly. I don’t want you feeling sorry for me, Harry. I won’t have it.” I smiled. He smiled back, a little weakly.
    â€œSo,” I said. “Are they treating you well? Any good-looking nurses?”
    â€œNot bad,” he said. “On both counts.” Another weak smile. “How are things back at base? Are they managing without me?”
    â€œJust about, just about.”
    â€œThey’re fixing me up with a desk job, you know.”
    â€œThat’s great. A brainbox like you should be running the show, not being a donkey like the rest of us.”
    â€œThanks Harry. I’ll be glad of the work. Too much time to think here, if you know what I mean.” I nodded and put my hand on his shoulder. He turned away.
    â€œHey,” I said. “We’ve got a film crew coming to the base – you know, one of those Ministry of Information set-ups.”
    â€œThat’s something I would like to see,” laughed Lenny.
    â€œLess of the giggling,” I said. “Who knows. When all this is over I just may have a career as a movie star waiting for me.”
    Then a nurse came in with some food on a tray.
    â€œVisiting time’s over, I’m afraid.” I got up.
    â€œSorry. I’ll leave you to it, then,” I said.
    â€œWhat do you think, Nurse,” said Lenny. “Can you see him in the movies?” She looked me up and down as she was leaving.
    â€œComedies maybe,” she said, and disappeared through the door.
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    I rang Edith when I got back. She was having a pretty rough time of it, by all accounts. She sounded older.
    She asked me how Lenny was – Mum and Dad had told her about him in their last letter. I said I had taken some books in for him. She asked what they were and I said the only one I could remember was Moby Dick because it had a picture of a whale on it. I suppose I had whales on the brain after Pinocchio .
    â€œOh no!” she said. “You idiot!”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I asked, a bit taken aback.
    â€œ Moby Dick , you twit! Captain Ahab! Captain Ahab!”
    â€œSorry, sis. What are you talking about?” She sighed a very big sigh.
    â€œYou don’t have a clue, do you? Don’t you ever read a book? Captain Ahab in Moby Dick only has one leg, you chump. The other is bitten off by a whale!”
    â€œOh no,” I said. “What am I going to do? I. . . I. . . Oh no, Edith. What an idiot!”
    But when I spoke to Lenny on the phone he could hardly stop laughing. He said it had cheered him up no end. He said only I could have done something that stupid.
    â€œGlad to have been of service,” I said. And he collapsed into laughter all over again.

October 1940
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    The film crew arrived on the 5th October. It was a lark at first. All the attention was pretty head-swelling, I have to admit. We were like a bunch of school kids, clowning about. The director got rather cross actually and the CO came and tore a strip off us.
    Well, all thoughts of Hollywood soon went out of my head. It was tedious in the extreme. The whole process was painfully slow. If this is what movie stars go through every day, then they can keep it, they really can.
    The chaps from the film crew briefed us about what they were going to do and what they wanted us to do. It was all incredibly simple, but they still felt the need to tell us over and over again as if we were idiots or