The CO gave a few encouraging words, the vice-marshal made some hearty remarks as befitted someone sporting so much scrambled egg, a medic standing at the door handed out wakey-wakey pills as they went past. And that was that.
There was the traditional last supper, not much of a feast tonight—sausages and a rubbery egg. No bacon. Teddy thought of Sylvie’s pig, of the smell of roasting pork.
They were sealed off now, a bad time when your thoughts could overshadow everything. Teddy had a few games of dominoes with a flight-lieutenant in the officers’ mess. It was mindless enough to satisfy both of them but it was a relief when it was time to go to the crew room and get kitted up.
Thick woollen long johns and vest, knee-length socks, roll-neck pullover shirt, battledress, sheepskin flying boots, three layers of gloves—silk, chamois, woollen. Half their items of clothing weren’t even uniform at all. It gave some of them a raffish, almost piratical air—rather offset by the way they waddled around as if in nappies. Then they added even more—the Mae West, the parachute harness—until walking itself became difficult.
Checked there was a whistle on their collars, dog tags round their necks. Then from the WAAF orderlies they collected their flasks of coffee, sandwiches, boiled sweets, chewing gum, Fry’s chocolate. They were given their “escape kits”—silk maps printed on scarves or handkerchiefs for the countries they were flying over, local money, compasses concealed in pens and buttons, phrase sheets. Teddy had kept a scrap of paper left over from a long raid to Chemnitz when it was feared that if they came down they might be picked up by Russians, who wouldn’t know what to make of them and would shoot them while they were making up their minds. It said (apparently), “I am an Englishman.”
They picked up their parachutes and a pretty WAAF gave Teddy a silk neck scarf and said shyly, “Take that for me, will you, sir? Then I can say it’s flown over Germany and bombed the enemy.” It smelt sweet. “April violets,” she said. Like a knight taking a favour from some fair damsel in a tale of chivalry, he thought, and stuffed it in his pocket. He never saw it again, it must have fallen out at some point. The time for tales of chivalry was long over.
They emptied their pockets of everything that might identify them. It was an act that always seemed symbolic to Teddy—crossing the threshold between being individuals and becoming fliers, anonymous, interchangeable. Englishmen. And Aussies and Kiwis and Canucks. Indians, West Indians, South Africans, Poles, French, Czechs, Rhodesians, Norwegians. The Yanks. In fact, the whole of Western civilization was ranged against Germany. You had to wonder how that could have happened to the country of Beethoven and Bach and how they would feel about it if they had an afterward. Alle Menschen werden Brüder. Ursula’s question, “Do you think it’s possible? One day?” No. He didn’t. Not really.
A WAAF stood at the door of the crew room and called for F-Fox and L-London’s crews and they all piled aboard the old charabanc she was driving. Sometimes transport seemed as haphazard as some of their clothing.
Lucky had been left in the arms of a particularly attractive WAAF, an R/T girl called Stella. He liked Stella, thought there might be something between them. Last week Teddy had escorted her to a dance in the mess at a neighbouring station. A peck on the cheek on their return and a “Thank you, sir, that was jolly good fun.” Nothing more. There had been a sickening incident the day before at their own airfield, a WAAF who had been decapitated by a propeller blade. Teddy shied away from remembering it even now. It had left everyone sombre, particularly—naturally—the WAAFs. Stella was a good sort, liked dogs and horses. Sometimes the awfulness of war led to sex, at other times it didn’t. It was hard to fathom a reason for the different outcomes. He regretted not going to bed with Stella and wondered if she felt the same. He had had a short-lived—very short-lived—affair with a friend of Stella’s called Julia. It had involved a lot of sex. Very good sex. A secret memory.