Goodbye Mickey Mouse
‘Do you know that part of the world, Victoria?’
‘I’ve passed through it on the train to Scotland.’
‘What a crime,’ said Bohnen. ‘I’ve ridden to hounds there more times than I can count. Marvellous countryside. Do you like horses?’
‘Not awfully,’ she admitted.
‘Well, I knew you had to have one major flaw, Victoria.’ He smiled. ‘Luckily it’s one my son will happily put up with. I remember the first time I put Jamie on a horse. He was very small, and he yelled enough to shake the stables down. The master of foxhounds came running out to see if I was beating the child to death.’ He turned to Jamie. ‘Remember that time at your uncle John’s farm in Virginia?’
‘Airplanes for me,’ said Jamie with some embarrassment.
‘He knows how to avoid questions he doesn’t like,’ said Bohnen. ‘He learned that from his mother.’
Jamie poured a little wine and said nothing.
‘My son has a mind of his own, Victoria. Perhaps you’ve already discovered how stubborn he can be.’ It was said in fun, but there was no mistaking the admonition behind it.
Victoria put a hand out to touch Jamie. His head was lowered but he raised his eyes to her and smiled.
‘Wouldn’t go to Harvard. Instead he went to Stanford.’
‘They let me start a year early,’ Jamie said.
‘And a lot of good that did,’ said Bohnen, smiling to show that he was no longer annoyed by it. He turned to Victoria. ‘He graduated a year early and started his law studies a year early…then he throws it all away to join the Air Force. You could have been practising law by now, Jamie. I could have placed you in the office of some of the smartest lawyers in Washington or New York.’
‘I wanted to join the Air Force.’
‘You would have been a colonel in the Judge Advocate’s corps.’ Getting no response to this he added, ‘But I suppose that wouldn’t be much substitute for flying P-51s over Germany.’
‘No, sir, it would not be.’
‘I have to admire him, Victoria. But he’ll never take my good advice.’ Bohnen laughed as if at his own failings.
‘And how much advice did you take from your father?’ asked Victoria. She had endured the same sort of criticism from her mother, always cloaked in geniality. And so often it was done like this, through a third party.
Her point was not lost on Bohnen. ‘I hope we Americans aren’t too brash for you, Victoria.’
‘My fortune-teller told me I’d meet two dark handsome forceful men.’
‘You don’t believe in fortune-tellers, Victoria? A sensible modern young woman like you?’
‘I believe in what I want to believe in,’ she said with a smile. ‘Surely you understand that?’
‘Exactly the way my analysts treat the strike photos. I understand that all right.’
Jamie was fidgeting with his wineglass, obviously getting ready to leave. ‘Finish the wine, Jamie. Don’t go before you finish the Margaux.’
Victoria heard a note of anxiety in Bohnen’s voice and felt sorry for him now. She could see how desperately he wanted his son to stay.
Jamie drank his wine slowly and got to his feet. ‘I’m taking Vicky to a show tonight. Then I have to go back to the base.’
Bohnen did not ask him which show, in case it was just a polite fiction. His son wanted his girl to himself, and why not? ‘Have a good time, Jamie.’
‘Good to see you again, Dad.’
‘Take care of yourself, Jamie. And you, Victoria.’ She gave him a kiss on the cheek. The girl understood, thought Bohnen. Children stop being children, but parents never stop being parents, doting parents. That’s the tragedy of it.
Bohnen picked up a heavy briefcase and opened it. ‘I’ve got a whole lot of reading to do in the next two hours,’ he told them. ‘It’s just as well you have to leave. The car is at your disposal—he’ll take you wherever you want to go. The driver is used to late nights.’
‘Take care of yourself,’ Jamie said.
Bohnen pretended to be fully occupied with the contents of his case. ‘Don’t get into trouble out there at Steeple Thaxted,’ he said without looking up from his papers, ‘or my general will take it out of my hide.’
He still hadn’t looked up when they went out. Jamie closed the door gently so as not to disturb him.
9 Captain James A. Farebrother
One of the disadvantages of sharing a room with Vince Madigan was the way in which he spread his possessions about him. Farebrother seldom saw his bed under the array of magazines, opera records, sports gear, lotions, unguents, hair restorers, half-completed love letters, and beribboned little packages of nylons or canned fruit that were a fundamental part of Vince Madigan’s love affairs.
It was Mickey Mouse who woke them the first morning after the 1943 Christmas stand-down. He was looking for a cigarette. ‘What’s been going on in here?’ said MM, looking at the stuff that Vince had strewn around the room. ‘Looks like you just took a hit from a 105.’
Winston came in and sniffed at Madigan’s footlocker.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said Farebrother. ‘I went to London yesterday. I didn’t get back here until five this morning.’
‘I went to Cambridge,’ said MM. ‘My motorcycle’s out of action. I missed the liberty truck and it cost me seven pounds for a taxi.’
‘Jesus,’ said Vince, climbing out of bed. ‘Seven pounds! A cab driver will take you to London and find you a piece of tail for a carton of Luckies.’
MM said, ‘That’s just the kind of dumb remark you can expect from a PRO.’ He grimaced. ‘I didn’t have a carton of Luckies, dummy!’
Madigan yawned and pushed Winston away from his secret hoard of candy bars. ‘Where did you get to after the party, Jamie? I saw you picking Earl Koenige off the floor and then you and Vicky had disappeared.’
‘Hey,’ said MM. ‘That Vicky! She’s some dish!’ He described an hourglass with his outstretched hands.
‘You sure left me in a jam,’ Madigan complained. He had one of his socks on but couldn’t find the other. ‘The little dark girl came back after you’d left. Vera went crazy. If MM hadn’t been there she would have hospitalized me. Right, MM?’
‘Vera’s okay,’ said MM quietly.
‘Vera’s not just okay,’ said Vince Madigan indignantly. ‘She’s the goods. I told you she’s a sure thing, MM.’
MM didn’t want to hear that Vera was a sure thing. ‘Colonel Dan was looking for you yesterday, Jamie,’ he said to change the subject.
‘In person?’ said Farebrother.
MM nodded. ‘Well, that’s fame,’ said Vince Madigan.
‘I guess he figured you’d gone over the hill,’ said MM. He found Winston quietly gnawing a sock and tossed it back onto the bed without Madigan noticing.
‘My pass didn’t expire until roll call this morning,’ said Farebrother.
‘He said to be sure you knew you were on the board,’ said MM.
Farebrother nodded. It was no surprise to find that he was scheduled to fly. The shortage of pilots was such that Colonel Dan and the rest of the Group HQ officers were flying almost every mission that came along. ‘Operational?’
‘We’re not practising for a fly-by,’ said MM. ‘Who’s coming to eat?’
Farebrother ate with MM—they left Vince Madigan still searching for his sock—and after breakfast they played cards. Farebrother said something about Vera, but MM didn’t encourage further questions. He didn’t want anybody thinking that he had to make do with Vince Madigan’s cast-off girlfriends. There were too many jokes told about Madigan’s women lining up at the main gate, red-eyed and fat-bellied and asking to see the chaplain.
The pilots spent all morning waiting. The bombers were attacking the naval base at Kiel. It was a heavily defended target, but the 220th Fighter Group was assigned to the role of withdrawal support force and wouldn’t be needed until the bombers were on their way home.
The relaxed postures of the flyers were deceptive. Like amateur actors in a bad play, they held books and magazines without reading them, smoked without inhaling, and spoke without listening. Colonel Dan, wearing the short-sleeve khaki shirt he favoured, was standing in the corner, nervously scratching his upper arms, his fingernails leaving red weals. Major Kevin Phelan, Group Operations Officer, was with him. They were having a conversation they’d had many times before.
‘Last year Notre Dame had the greatest football team it’s ever had…begging your pardon, Kevin.’
Major Phelan fingered the nose he’d broken playing for the Fighting Irish, grinned and said, ‘Second greatest.’
‘But I’m not talking talent, I’m talking tactics. I’m talking about Clark Shaughnessy, and what he did for those University of Chicago kids, back in the thirties.’ The Colonel took a quick look at his watch before going on. ‘You’re too young to remember them winding up in the Rose Bowl, having won every last game on the schedule.’
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