Day Read Free Page B

have much time for ceremony.’ His voice with a kindness in it that will take you and lead you to trust. ‘Picked you first, because you have to watch my back. You sing out and I’ll fly us right up our own fundament if I have to. Make the attempt, anyway. Evasion will take place.’ And then, in case you think he’s a line-shooter, ‘But I’m a rotten pilot, actually. So this is your last chance to get away . . .’
    You grin to him for an answer, then press on, ‘Well, if all else fails, like, you can just take us round in circles anti-clockwise and screw the bulbs out of their searchlights . . .’ Which is a very old gag, but you need it to cover the pause, because neither of you can guess how this will be, but it’s impossible to admit that, no future in it, and so you let one plan seem as likely as another, because all of them have to be at least half mad and both of you have to sound certain when you are not and you suspect that you may start laughing, shadow-boxing, singing ‘Jerusalem’: you can’t predict: anything to lead your mind astray, because you are actually here and beginning to be aircrew and in a war – yourself in the whole of a war – and because you are so alive, so infinitely, infinitely alive.
    The skipper coughs, not complaining, but he would like to be in charge, thanks, and you enjoy quieting down for him, having him make you focus. You can focus – a good gunner concentrates.
    â€˜Sergeant Day, I’m going to scout round for a bomb aimer. You get me a navigator, would you? Rendezvous by that fire bucket in ten minutes.’
    â€˜Right you are, sir.’
    You’re almost off when he touches your arm, bends in to be level with you. ‘Look, I should suppose a gunner wants to shoot things, yes? Well, I rather hope I never let you get the chance. Unless you can aim with your head banging off the turret roof. I want to get us through and bomb. It’s our job to bomb. If you won’t like that you should tell me now.’
    â€˜â€™Course. We have to bomb.’ But a disagreement in you, the taste of how they’ve trained you and liking to hit your target, understanding how to put yourself into a kill: one thousand, one hundred and fifty rounds per minute – you know the hot, dark trick of that.
    â€˜Sure? I mean arse-splitting turns will not be in it.’
    You let go, though, because you have to: he’s your skipper. ‘If there’s a fighter in my way and getting too friendly, I’ll fire at it. But I’ll be singing out all the while.’ You liked that
singing out
– the way he would put it. ‘Don’t mind getting my head lamped when you dive – nothing valuable in there.’
    â€˜When you say
go,
I go.’
    â€˜When I say
go
, you go.’
    But he’ll get his wish: the bombing will always be the thing, what you’re for, what Bomber Harris says you’re for, the Big Boss. He says you’re to be the boys who bring the whirlwind.
    And you don’t only obey the skipper, you
want
to obey him and that makes a wonderful difference. Even if in the end it amounts to precisely the same thing. Saying more than you’d expected, ‘We’ll bomb. We’ll bomb the bastards.’ And you don’t mither, don’t flap, because you’re comfortable with Pilot Officer Gibbs; you always will be. The skipper is safe and you know it. ‘Never mind me squirting tracer all over the shop – corkscrew us out of bother and we’ll make it home.’
    â€˜When you say
go
, Boss.’
    â€˜When I say
go.’
    Then a different smile from him, bigger, a bit half soaked. ‘That’s the stuff, Boss. We’re agreed.’
    No reason for him to call you Boss – maybe he wants to feel lighter, because you’ve just given him command, or maybe because you’re small and this makes it funny. You never can work it out, but