B for Buster Read Online Free PDF

probably
still
out there, sitting in the doorway and laughing at his joke. Maybe he was just where I’d left him, waiting to scare me again. “Let’s go and see.” I leapt from the sofa. “Let’s surprise him.”
    Ratty frowned, looking more like a rat than ever. “No,” he said simply.
    I went by myself. I stepped out of the hut, onto the grass, and stared across the field.
Buster
stood in the moonlight, black on black, looking sinister and not quite real. I didn’t go any closer.
    Metal squeaked behind me; a breath grunted in the darkness. I smelled birds and rotten straw. And out of the night came Dirty Bert, pulling a bomb trolley. He had a pigeon on his shoulder, and he walked in a hunch, like a half-crazy old pirate.
    Every squadron had a pigeoneer to care for its flock of homing birds. In every bomber, on every op, a pigeon went along. It carried a metal cylinder strapped to its leg, and would fly home with a message if the kite was forced down. At our Operational Training Unit the pigeoneer had been a smart young man who had always dressed as though on parade. He had raised the birds as a hobby in peacetime, and had asked to look after the loft. He kept it as clean as a kitchen, and when he wasn’t tending pigeons, he was tuning instruments on the bombers. But here at the Four-Forty-Two, the squadron’s pigeoneer was a dismal man.
    He was known as Dirty Bert. He lived in a hut adjoining the loft, and everywhere he went, he carried the smell of birds. Day in and day out he wore the same blue coveralls, crusted with mud and droppings. His entire life was spent caring for birds, and washing latrines.
    I was sure he would pass me by. He rarely spoke to anyone, nor anyone to him. But he called out as he trundled toward me, “Good evening, sir.”
    No one ever called me sir. I was only a warrant officer, no more than a glorified sergeant. I actually looked behind me to see if there wasn’t a
real
officer there. But Bert was talking to me.
    â€œLovely night, isn’t it, sir?” he said.
    â€œYes. It is.”
    â€œNot flying tonight, sir?”
    â€œNo.”
    He swung his bomb trolley round in a circle, not even grunting at the effort. It was a massive thing, meant to be hauled by a tractor. But Bert just pulled it by hand. “Having trouble with the motorized, sir,” he said.
    â€œThe what?”
    â€œThe motorized loft, sir.” He tugged the trolley forward, pushed it back, looking like an oversized boy with an oversized wagon. Bert was one of the biggest men I’d ever seen, with hands the size of boxing gloves. His barnyard smell made me sneeze.
    â€œBless you, sir,” he said.
    I sighed. “You don’t have to call me sir.” He was so much older that it made me feel ridiculous, as though we were playing a childish game.
    â€œBut you’re an officer, aren’t you, sir?” asked Bert.
    â€œJust a WO.”
    â€œAh.” He nodded. “Well, it’s one and the same to Percy, sir.”
    I didn’t understand.
    â€œThe pigeon, sir.” He pointed a thumb toward the bird on his shoulder. “Ol’ Percy tipped me off, sir. ’E stands at attention whenever ’e sights an officer. Must ’ave seen your badges, sir.”
    I touched the tiny thing on my sleeve. “In the dark?” I asked.
    â€œOh, darkness doesn’t bother Percy, sir. ’E’ as the eyes of a—” Bert leaned toward me and whispered, “Of a
cat,
sir.” Then he winked, and nodded, and a little spiral of white droppings fell from his wedge-shaped cap. He touched the pigeon’s breast. “Best bird in the loft. That’s Percy, sir.”
    The little pigeon puffed itself up at the touch of Bert’s finger. It opened its wings and cooed with a funny little muttering sound. Its pink feet twitched on the man’s shoulder.
    â€œWould you like to ’old ’im,