B for Buster by Iain Lawrence Page B

searchlights had coned him over Gelsenkirchen. There had been bursts of flak all around him, but they didn’t seem to hit his Halifax. It rolled on its side and went corkscrewing down, and the searchlights flailed as they tried to find it. But the whole black sky was empty.
    I lay trembling in my bed. Lofty patted my shoulder on his way from the hut. So did Pop a few minutes later, and Buzz and Ratty after him. They just touched me and kept on going, and I squeezed my pillow and closed my eyes.
    When the room was empty, I got up. Three of the beds were utterly bare, stripped of blankets, pillows, and sheets. The boys who had slept there would never be back. Everything they had owned had been packed into boxes, and even the boxes themselves had been packed away.
    I didn’t know what had happened to those boxes. Maybe there was a room somewhere, maybe off in Hangar D, where all the boxes went—seven that night, seven the night before—filled and folded shut. I could imagine them piling up in some secret, hidden place. And I could imagine another stack of boxes still unfilled. There were two dozen bombers; there must have been scores and scores of boxes waiting somewhere.
    I went to breakfast, dreading the moment when the speaker would crackle. But the others just sat and stared at nothing, and I wished that I could be so calm.
    At last the WAAF came on. I wondered where she sat and what she looked like, if she was smiling or if her eyes were filled with tears. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said.
    Lofty took out his pipe. Ratty’s eyes nearly closed; his hands tightened into fists.
    I found that I didn’t really care what she would tell us. If we didn’t go flying that night we’d go the next, or the one after.
Just get it over with,
I thought.
    â€œYou are stood down for tonight,” said the WAAF.
    The sound from the airmen was like one huge breath let out. Someone laughed. A bit of toast went soaring across the room. The joy I felt surprised me. I felt incredibly free, as though tons of weight had been lifted from my back.
    Lofty leaned forward. “I think we should raid the Merry Men,” he said. “You up for an op, Ratty?”
    The Merry Men was the local, down in the village five miles away. None of us had seen it, but we’d heard the talk of what a wonderful place it was. “Sure,” said Ratty. “I want to get blotto.”
    Buzz and Pop both wanted to go. Lofty said he’d tell Simon and Will. He tapped his pipe on the table, put it back in his pocket. “We’ll take off at eighteen hundred,” he said. “You coming, Kid?”
    I had gone to a bar only once, and gotten so sick that I’d sworn I would never drink again. If I went and sat there, not drinking or smoking, they might see how young I was. If I stayed behind, they might
know.
    â€œKid?” asked Lofty.
    â€œWell, I’ll try,” I said.
    â€œTry?” Buzz almost leered. “What’s the matter with you, Kid?”
    I could see my whole world of little lies about to collapse. But Pop stepped in and saved me. “He’s probably got something better to do,” he said. “We’ll hope to see you there, if you make it.”
    They went off in a group, each of them feeling through his pockets to count his money. I went the other way, down toward the pigeon loft, and old Bert seemed overjoyed to see me. He called out when I was still yards away, “Well, ’allo, sir! I wasn’t expecting you so early, sir.”
    He was plucking weeds from a small garden. On his shoulder stood Percy, stiff-necked, wings at his side. “Stand easy, now,” said Bert. He gave the pigeon a shoot from the garden. “I grow their greens ’ere, sir,” he said. “They like their greens.”
    He took me into the loft, and I was sorry that I had waited so long to see it. Warm and bright, it thrummed with a sound that took me straight