Free Piece of Cake by Derek Robinson Page B

touched with mockery. “That’s a heavy responsibility, Fanny. It’s not everyone could make a success of it.”
    Fitz bowled again. This time Moke slashed at the ball and sliced it straight at Pip Patterson, who was standing drowsing in the warmth. He dropped the catch.
    â€œI wonder what sort of a show we’ll put up,” Fanny said. “I mean, we’re not exactly crack flyers, are we?”
    â€œIf you want my opinion,” Moran said, “I expect the entire squadron to be shot down and killed within thirty seconds of encountering the enemy. Death will be instantaneous, so there will be no unnecessary suffering. Does that reassure you?”
    â€œNot really.” Barton scratched his head on the windowframe. “If we’re all killed, who’ll write up the squadron log?”
    â€œYou’re right. I’d better stay behind.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t mind, Flip?”
    â€œNot at all. How d’you spell ‘massacre,’ by the way?”
    â€œTwo q’s and a small f.”
    â€œAh. And there was me thinking it had a p in it. What a comfort it is to have an educated commanding officer.”
    Toward the end of the afternoon an elderly, jovial wing commander arrived. He was making a tour of all Fighter Command bases, lecturing on the German bomber threat. Hitler, he told the pilots, was expected to launch an aerial knock-out blow against England. This meant against London, since the nearest German airfields were three or four hundred miles away and therefore out of range of the rest of England, but in any case London was so exposed and vulnerable that it was the obvious target. The Air Staff reckoned that Germany had at least sixteen hundred long-range bombers available and that this force (if they all got through) could drop about seven hundred tons of bombs on the capital every day for a fortnight. Now that was an awful lot of bombs, the wing commander pointed out, and just to give some idea of what it would mean in human terms, calculations had shown that in the first six months, this scale of bomber attack would kill six hundred thousand people and injure twice that number, not to mention the damage to buildings and things, which would be colossal, of course. “So you see why we’re all depending on you chaps,” he said, smiling warmly.
    Afterward, he asked if there were any questions.
    Moggy Cattermole raised his hand. “Have you any advice, sir,” he said, “on the best way to tackle the Hun?” He spoke in a mock-heroic tone of voice, and Fanny Barton flashed him a warning look, but the wing commander was only too willing to answer.
    â€œA leopard doesn’t change his spots,” he said. “Your typical German was a bully and a brute in the Great War, and he’s a bully and a brute now. Like all bullies, he’s a coward at heart.” Flip Moran shut his eyes. “So take the fight to him,” the wing commander urged. “Go in with all guns blazing, that’s what we used to do. You’ll find the average Hun hasn’t much taste for hot lead.”
    â€œThank you, sir,” said Moggy. “Hot lead,” he whispered loudly, “that’s the stuff to give ’em.”
    The adjutant led their visitor away for a drink, but there was to be no alcohol for the squadron as long as daylight lasted. The Group controller kept them at readiness until dusk, and then released them with a warning to be available again at dawn. It had been a long day. For Cattermole, Stickwell, Patterson and Cox it had been two long days and a long night. “Feel like a beer at the Squirt?” Stickwell asked, yawning. The Squirt was their local pub, The Fountain. Cox shook his head. Patterson thought about it. Cattermole said: “Not if it means walking there and back. D’you know, I think I might get an early night for once.”
    Nobody else wanted to go to the Squirt; for one thing, it had