Squadron Leader Markham read the thing through three times, then pushed
back from his desk and cocked a stern eye at Phipps.
"I'm surprised, Phipps!" he said.
The Adjutant gulped a little and blinked.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" he said.
Markham tapped the paper with his finger.
"About this," he said. "Do you mean to tell me that you don't
understand? You don't comprehend?"
Phipps licked his lips, fumbled with a loose button on his tunic, and
wondered if he should have enlisted in the artillery instead of the
R.A.F. So many blasted mysteries in the Air Force.
"Well, sir," he began. "That is ... I mean.... Well, frankly, sir, I
don't think I do understand."
"Don't _think_?" Markham barked at him. "Well, that's the difference
between us!"
"Yes, sir," the Adjutant said weakly.
"Exactly the difference!" the Officer Commanding said with a curt
nod of his head. Then grinning broadly, "You don't _think_ you know,
Phipps, but I blessed well _know_ I don't know. It's the craziest memo
I've ever received. I'd almost say that Group Captain Ball was stone
spiffed, but I know him personally, and he never touches a drop. Get
him on the wire for me, will you, Phipps? I believe I have half an idea
as to what's up."
"You have, sir?" the Adjutant echoed with interest.
"I read lots of detective books," the Officer Commanding said with a
wave of his hand. "Fine for taking a chap's mind off this blasted war.
Yes, I fancy the postman stopped at the wrong house this morning."
"Eh, sir?" Phipps mumbled with a frown.
"Obvious, I think, Phipps," Markham said and tapped the paper again.
"This was supposed to be delivered to some other bloke, not to me. Now,
get Ball on the wire like a good chap, eh?"
"Yes, sir," Phipps said and spun back to his own desk. "Oh, quite, sir."
As the Adjutant reached his desk he stopped short and turned toward
the window. So did Squadron Leader Markham for that matter. Outside
the air had suddenly become filled with the roar of powerful aircraft
engines. Markham leaped over to the window and looked out and up at the
five plane formation playing tag at some three or four thousand feet
over the field. They were Supermarine Spitfires, the new Mark 5 type;
the latest and fastest fighter plane off the British aircraft factory
assembly lines.
They looked exactly like the old Spitfires, and in many ways they were
just the same. But there were also many changes, and improvements.
There was more horsepower in the Rolls-Royce engine in the nose. There
was more fire power due to the addition of four 20-mm. aircraft cannon
to the already standard equipment of eight death chopping machine guns
that could blast out bullets at the rate of nine thousand odd per
minute. And there were a few very hush-hush gadgets on the new Mark 5
that the Nazi Luftwaffe would sell its soul to have on their planes.
But that is the difference between the Royal Air Force and Hitler's
Luftwaffe. The Royal Air Force will always be better tomorrow than it
is today, but the Luftwaffe gets just so good, and there it stops.
There just isn't that something in the Nazi aeronautical make-up that
drives a man on to improve upon his best efforts!
"Those Mark Fives!" Markham breathed as his face lighted up with honest
pride. "What a plane! And, do I wish I was just a Pilot Officer again,
instead of a Squadron Leader. See those two flying Number Two and Three
on the right, Phipps?"
"Yes, sir," the Adjutant nodded with a smile. "Flying Officers Dawson
and Farmer, aren't they, sir?"
"That's right," the O.C. replied. "And it was a lucky day for
Eighty-Four when those two were assigned to us. Just kids, both of
them, but worth their weight in gold. They're going far, I fancy. Fact
is, if this blasted war lasts long enough, I'll probably one day be
giving them the salute, and calling them, sir! Just look at that!"
Phipps was already looking at the five plane formation wheeling around
into the wind to come in to land. Number Two and Three planes on the
right slid down through the air as though they were wired together.
There wasn't an inch change of air space between the two planes as they
wheeled around and down. It was precision flying, plus! And Squadron
Leader Markham was breathing hard when he finally turned away from the
window.
"Born in an airplane, those two!" he grunted. "I swear they must have
been. I ... I say there, Phipps, old thing! Did you get Ball on the
wire? After all, this crazy paper may be very important, and all that
sort of thing. Hop to it, my lad!"
Adjutant Phipps hopped to it, and in less than a minute he had the Air
Ministry official on the wire. Markham took the call, and talked with
his superior for some ten minutes. Phipps listened to the snatches of
conversation he could hear, but it all made very little sense to him.
Eventually the Squadron Leader hung up. That is to say, he banged the
receiver back in its cradle, and sat glaring at the instrument as
though he would like to hurl it against the wall. Phipps waited a
minute or so, and then couldn't stand the suspense any longer.
"Bad news, sir?" he ventured.
Markham snorted and reached for a cigarette.
"You've been in Service long enough to know that every time you talk
with Adastral House it means bad news!" he growled. "Blast it! Why
did you show me that confounded thing in the first place, anyway? Why
didn't you tear it up and throw it away, and say nothing?"
"But, sir!" Phipps protested. "That wouldn't be quite right, you know,
sir!"
"There are times when a wrong is perfectly right!" Squadron Leader
Markham grunted between puffs on his cigarette. Then with a faint
gesture of his hand, "But don't go and shoot your brains out, old
thing. Not your fault, of course. Some nit-wit, balmy bloke at Air
Ministry who put it in the wrong dispatch pouch. Fact is, I was wrong
to have called Ball. Now we're in for it, I fancy."
"A special assignment, sir?" Phipps asked.
"Something like that," the Squadron Leader nodded. "Don't know the
details, but I'm quite sure that it'll turn out something very messy.
That blasted paper should have gone to Hundred and Seven Squadron, not
us. When I told Ball we had received it he was over-joyed, blast his
hide. Said he realized that we should have been selected in the first
place. And having received the thing by mistake, he is going to assign
us to it, anyway."
"To what, sir?" Adjutant Phipps persisted.
Markham sighed and shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "Ball wouldn't give details over the phone, of
course. Said he was flying down here, himself. Be here sometime this
afternoon. But you can be sure that it'll be something like capturing
two whole Nazi Staffels complete with equipment, or kidnapping Hitler,
Goering, and Himmler, and bringing them back here to England to keep
Rudolph Hess company. And chances are, it'll be something even more
difficult. You know, Group Captain Ball has been given a standing order
at Air Ministry."
"A standing order, sir?" Phipps echoed with a blank look.
Squadron Leader Markham crushed out his cigarette and stood up.
"I suspect it, anyway!" he mumbled and stared fixedly at the huge
pin-pointed map of Europe on the opposite wall. "I believe he has
orders to think up the strangest, the riskiest, and the craziest patrol
assignments. And then pass them out to poor blasted beggars like us.
Well, I suppose a lot of chaps have got to take-off and get themselves
killed before this confounded war is won. But it's a rum business,
Phipps. Always bear that in mind."
"Yes sir, I will," the Adjutant said and shook his head sadly from side
to side as Markham walked out of the office.
When the door slammed shut Adjutant Phipps sighed heavily, leaned back
in his chair and stroked his greying hair.
"Yes, I should have joined the artillery," he murmured. "I'm too old to
understand these brave young lads who wear wings. They're chaps from
another world, I fancy."