The Crew by Margaret Mayhew Read Free Book Online Page A

over the place and it had been jolly uncomfortable and frightening until they’d got clear of things.
    He’d found out that the downed Lane he’d enteredin the log had been B-Baker. He’d had a bit of a chin-wag in the locker room beforehand with their navigator who’d seemed a really decent type. When B-Baker’s crew had got off the crew bus at their kite, the nav had given him a wry sort of grin and a thumbs-up. He kept seeing his face and the grin . . . kept remembering exactly how he’d looked as he went. Blot it out. Don’t think about it, or about the shrapnel hits he’d noticed all over the fuselage of their own kite when they’d got back. It could have been them. Instead of lying safe and sound on his bed, back in England, he might just as easily have been a charred corpse lying somewhere in Germany. Or simply blown to bits with nothing left for anyone to find.
God
,
stop thinking about it
 . . .
    Well, they’d all been scared – not just him. He’d heard the fear in their voices over the intercom.
All
of them, even Stew. The other crews hadn’t seemed to think it was a specially dicey trip, though. ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,’ one chap had said to him. ‘You wait.’
    After the de-briefing, he’d tackled Van as soon as they’d got back to the cubicle they shared in the officers’ hut. It was the only decent thing to do – to offer to get transferred. Give them the chance to get another navigator.
    Van, tugging off his tie, had brushed the suggestion aside. ‘Forget it, Piers, you were tired. We all were. None of us had been in the air that long before. We’re just rookies. Look at Stew’s dummy run. He screwed up like hell. But we’ll cut it better in time – I hope.’ With that, Van had fallen into his bed and gone straight to sleep, putting an end to any further discussion.
    He
had
been very tired, but it seemed a poor excuse. He’d be tired again on the next op, most likely, and he couldn’t keep letting them down. He’d simply
got
to do better.
    Piers closed his eyes. B-Baker’s navigator’s face was there again, grinning wryly.
    â€˜You sneakin’ off, Charlie?’
    â€˜Thought I’d just take a bike ride, Bert.’
    â€˜Got a popsie tucked away somewhere, then?’
    â€˜â€™Course not.’
    â€˜No ’course not about it. You’re gettin’ a big boy now. Time you found out all about the birds an’ bees. Ain’t that right, Stew?’
    â€˜Yeah . . . not your birds, though, sport. That sheila of yours has lost a sight too many feathers.’
    â€˜Blimey, look who’s talkin’ . . .’
    No ops tonight and they were all in good moods. Stew had got a food parcel from home and was sharing it around: cans of condensed milk and meat and cheese, and bars of chocolate. ‘Long as it’s not kangaroo, mate,’ Bert had told him, inspecting a tin. They’d all been writing letters, or reading, or chatting, or arguing, and Charlie thought he’d be able to get away out of the hut without any of them really noticing. No such luck. They’d all stopped whatever they were doing now and were watching him as he went to get his cap out of his locker. He felt himself going red in the face.
    â€˜I reckon it
is
a girl,’ said Bert, ‘’e’s blushin’. Red as a beetroot, ‘’e is. Who is she, Charlie? Hope it’s not Two-Ton-Tessie. She’ll flatten you like a bloomin’ pancake.’
    They all laughed loudly at that. The WAAF driverwas three times his size and weighed about fifteen stone.
    â€˜Come on, spill the beans, Charlie, boy,’ Stew flicked over the pages of one of his magazines full of naked women. ‘What’s her name?’
    â€˜Bet it
is
Tessie an’ all.’ Bert was chortling away. ‘Cor, fancy our