Goshawk Squadron

by Derek Robinson

  “Kick these bastards off my airfield,” Woolley said.

  “You should also know that we consulted with your Corps commander this morning,” the Frenchman said, “and he ordered that we should be given every possible assistance.”

  “He is a fart and a bastard,” Woolley said.

  An airman opened a door. “Captain Lambert, sir,” he said. Lambert came in, looking scruffy and pale.

  “You did a piss-poor job on those balloons,” Woolley told him. “I came over there fifteen minutes ago and they had two of the buggers up again, and the Boche artillery was pounding shit out of our lines.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Lambert said. He sat down and fumbled for a cigarette.

  The Frenchman sorted his warrants. “Captain Gerald Frazer Neil Lambert?” he said.

  “I did get one,” Lambert protested miserably. “They moved their rotten sausages during the night, they saw us coming, they pulled them down. You couldn’t …” Woodruffe struck a light, but Lambert’s eyes didn’t see it, and the flame burned itself out. “We lost old Kimberley, as it was,” he said.

  “What did they lose?”

  “I got one—”

  “Did you get the observers?”

  Lambert took in a long, shuddering breath. “They damn near went up with the balloon,” he said. “They jumped, and I thought their parachutes were going to catch fire.” He discovered the cigarette in his hand and examined it as if it were a mistake.

  “You didn’t kill them?” Woolley stared bleakly, like a butcher with an incompetent errand-boy.

  “No, I got the balloon, I didn’t …” Lambert shrugged. “I didn’t … I got the balloon, that was … I got the goddam balloon, didn’t I?” he demanded angrily.

  “I got the goddam balloon!” Woolley parodied in a shrill voice. “Go back and get the goddam observers! You shoot down the gas-bag, dummy, to make them jump out so you can machine-gun them while they go down! By Christ! You think you pop balloons for sport?”

  “You should have told me,” Lambert muttered.

  “Told you? Should have told you we go up to kill men and not pop balloons? I should have told you the Huns have balloons the way you have the runs, but they are short of skilled observers? I should have told you that snot comes out of your nose?”

  The Frenchman stepped forward, and his colleague moved with him. “We will start with this officer,” he said. “Captain Gerald Frazer—”

  “You’re not taking any of my pilots,” Woolley said harshly. “You can stuff those warrants right up the Corps commander’s bum.”

  “Then we shall return in force and compel the arrest.”

  “No you won’t.” Woolley glowered at him. “No you won’t, you French turd, because Captain bloody Lambert is under military arrest already.”

  “Indeed. What charge?”

  “Cowardice in the face of the enemy.”

  The adjutant covered his face with his hands. Lambert looked at Woolley with dull loathing. The French policemen raised their eyebrows fractionally, and picked up their hats. Woolley scratched his stomach.

  “After all we have heard,” the Frenchman said, “I am surprised that you still find the services of Captain Lambert so necessary.”

  “Is that a fact,” Woolley said. “Well, he still has that job to do, doesn’t he? He has to get after them balloons again, today, as soon as possible. And I want those observers dead this time.” He gave Lambert a grubby smirk. “Gerald,” he said.

  Lambert stumbled as he came out of the adjutant’s office, and collided with two airmen. “Where’s Lieutenant Killion?” he demanded.

  “Dunno, sir,” replied one. “We’re on cookhouse fatigues, sir.”

  Lambert stared at him, licking his lips. He suddenly felt cold; shudderingly cold. “Cookhouse?” he said. “So what?” The words came out slurred. He heard the slurring and wondered what caused it.

  “You might try Mr. Kimberley’s room, sir,” the other airman suggested.

  “Don’t want Kimberley. Want Killion,” Lambert shivered and put his hands in his pockets. “Can’t have Kimberley,” he muttered.

  “I think I saw him go in Mr. Kimberley’s room, sir.”

  Lambert walked heavily away. There was a deep puddle in the path and he walked through it.

  “Charming,” said the first airman.

  “He’s not to blame,” the other said. “Poor bastard’s tiddly. Smell the whisky on him?”

  Killion was sitting on Kimberley’s bed, reading one of Kimberley’s books, when Lambert came in. “Here’s a funny thing,” he said. “I bet you didn’t know the Scotch thistle doesn’t really grow all that much in Scotland at all.”

  “Great news,” Lambert said.

  “It grows mainly in England. But bog myrtle grows mainly in Scotland. So does bog asphodel. Scotland and Wales.”

  “Great news,” Lambert sat down and rested his head in his hands.

  “There’s an awfully pretty flower here somewhere, called golden something … They say it likes chalky uplands …” Killion leafed through the book. “It looks a bit like a cowslip,” he said. “I didn’t know old Kimberley was interested in botany, did you?”

  “Great news.”

  Killion glanced at him, and turned back to the Scotch thistle. “What is?”

  “We’re going back.”

  “Back where?”

  “Back to the same place.”

  “Oh.” Killion put the book in his pocket and went to the chest of drawers. He found half a dozen handkerchiefs and a green silk scarf. “Just the thing for my girl!” he exclaimed. He put it around his neck and showed Lambert, but Lambert wasn’t looking. “Do they have the balloons up again? I suppose they must have. When are we going?”

  “As soon as they’ve patched up my plane. Four o’clock, five o’clock, I don’t know. We’ll have to get someone to take Kimberley’s place.”

  Killion rummaged through the bedside locker. “Chocolate … want some chocolate? I say, a wristwatch! What on earth did he want with two watches? Not very accurate: five minutes slow. I suppose you saw the old man about it.”

  “He wants me to machine-gun the observers this time.”

  Killion was brushing his hair with a pair of silver-backed brushes from the top of the chest of drawers. He stared at Lambert through the mirror. “What, in the basket? You can’t see them in the basket.”

  “Not in the bleeding basket,” Lambert said angrily. “After they’ve jumped out, while they’re going down.”

  Killion didn’t like the idea at all. He sat on the wooden chair in the corner and looked at Lambert as if he were a self-confessed criminal. “You can’t do that, though, can you? I mean, they’re completely helpless. It’s like—”

  “If you so much as mention sitting ducks or fish in a barrel,” Lambert said acidly, “I’ll kick your teeth in.”

  “But what good will it do? Did he tell you that?”

  “He says Jerry is short of skilled observers. He says there’s no point in busting a balloon if the observers can go up in another. They can replace the balloons but not the observers.”

  “He can’t make you do it, you know.” Killion ate some chocolate while he thought about it. “You’re within your rights to refuse, you know. He wouldn’t dare court-martial you.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Lambert got up, opened the window, closed it, leaned against the wall. “I didn’t join this rotten squadron to become his hired assassin,” he muttered.

  “No,” Killion agreed. “Of course, that’s where the old man would probably differ.”

  “I’ve just realized.” Lambert looked at him with such energy that for a moment Killion thought he had discovered a way out of it. “Woolley never knew the observers weren’t killed until I told him. How could he? He tricked me into telling him. What if I’d said we killed them all? He couldn’t prove otherwise.”

  “How did he trick you?”

  “He asked me what happened to them. Whether they were dead.”
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  “Oh.” Killion sniffed. “Diabolical cunning.”

  “If I’d only thought … Still, that’s the answer, isn’t it? Bust the balloons, bugger off home, tell him we shot everything that moved.”

  “He might get a different report from our gunners. Frankly I think you should just tell him to go to hell. He wouldn’t dare court-martial. It’s sheer, cold-blooded murder, and in full view of everyone.”

  Kimberley came in. “Hello,” he said. “You two hiding from someone?” He had a dirty bandage above one eye, and mud all over his breeches.

  “What happened to you?” Lambert asked.

  “Just about bloody everything. I got bitten by a rat. Look.” He showed them the mark on his hand. “Our trenches are full of them, horrible great brutes. God, I’m tired.” He lay down on the bed. “I was just coming home when I got hit in the engine. Fortunately it didn’t go off, but it made a hell of mess, and I came down in a shell-hole just outside our wire.”

  “In no-man’s-land?” Killion said. “You were lucky you didn’t get shot.”

  “Yes … Excuse me, but is that my scarf? Thanks. Just put it back in the drawer … Well, they got me out, and into our trenches, and patched me up, and I was just leaving when the Huns started shelling. Have you ever been shelled? It’s horrible. It’s nothing but screaming and colossal explosions and everything shaking and you keep thinking the next one is going to hit you, and you pray for it to stop, and it goes on, and on, and on. You want to scream out and make them stop it, and you want to cringe up your body and hide it somewhere, and there’s nowhere to hide, and the shells keep screaming down and blowing everything up all around you. That was when I got bitten by the rat.”

  Killion and Lambert watched him curiously. This was stocky, stolid Kimberley, the Derbyshire plowboy.

  “How long did it last?” Killion asked.

  “An hour, I think. I’ve no idea, I lost count of time. It took me ten minutes just to stop shaking so I could walk. They took me out with the wounded. Just think. Those men have to stand that over and over again. I never knew it was like that. We lost a lot of men. Direct hits on the trenches.”

  “Was it really accurate?” Lambert asked, stupidly.

  “They couldn’t miss, they just couldn’t miss. They had that sausage up again, the one we didn’t get. The Jerry observers were looking right down on us. It was murder. Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation we’re going back this afternoon to have another go.”

  “So we should. Those balloons are just murdering our poor bloody infantry. It’s a crime to let them do it, a bloody crime.”

  “Woolley wants us to kill the observers,” Killion said. “Fire the balloon, make them jump, then shoot them as they parachute down.”

  “Couldn’t agree more. Shoot the buggers dead. Then their guns won’t be able to see what they’re hitting.”

  “It doesn’t strike you as …” Killion hesitated, “a bit cold-blooded?”

  Kimberley looked at him sideways. “Listen,” he said. “If someone threw a bomb at you and ran away, would you shoot him in the back, or would you let him get some more bombs and try again?”

  “It’s not as easy as that,” Lambert mumbled.

  “It’s as easy as that,” Kimberley said. He closed his eyes. “Now piss off and leave me alone.” He sounded angry.

  Lambert’s plane was ready at 3:45 PM. He tried to telephone the British artillery unit nearest the balloons, but the operator couldn’t get through. The line had probably been cut by shell-fire.

  It was a fine, clear afternoon, dry and bright in an unexpected spell of sunshine. Lambert waited until 4:15. He wanted to go in with the sun behind him. He took off first and circled the field, testing the controls. The rudder felt as if it were covered with barnacles, and the engine sounded old and tired, but there was no reason for grounding the plane. He performed a laborious loop, the signal for Kimberley and Killion to join him.

  Again they skimmed the ground all the way to the Front, but this time the Germans had no chance to hear the warning buzz of engines, for they were shelling again. Lambert was climbing hard over the German wire before the first balloon began to move.

  The ground fire was much worse than it had been that morning. Lambert glimpsed a flickering of muzzle-flames from a hundred machine guns, and heard the deft tug of bullets speckling his machine, with sometimes a spang! as a round struck metal. He realized, without interest, that the enemy firepower had been tremendously increased during the day. Kimberley and Killion were still with him, he observed, but fanning out to distract the gunners. Killion waved to him. Lambert stared, and looked back at the balloon.

  Suddenly the flak awoke and got in fifteen seconds’ vicious pounding before giving up. It was like being ambushed with filthy snowballs; they materialized without warning, crashed painfully against the eardrums, and buffeted the aircraft. The balloon loomed up, gross and jerking, and the storm fell away. Lambert climbed hard at his descending target. For a moment there was nothing to do but let the shabby old SE haul him up the last stretch, so Lambert actually relaxed and momentarily enjoyed his peace. He sprawled sideways and took in the twitching frightened balloon with its crosshatched plumpness rounded out by the golden sun on one side, curving into purple dusk on the other, and the heavy, ugly, functional basket. At two hundred feet he began firing. He could not miss. The balloon was a target indecently big. His bullets streamed into its chubby underside, slitting and probing.

  The flames came almost immediately. Lambert kept on firing, crisscrossing the balloon, underscoring the obvious, until at last he had to turn away.

  When he looked back the gas-bag was roaring, a spherical furnace illuminating the early dusk. The basket was still there. Then it became detached. Lambert dived, but nobody came out of the basket. It dropped fast, keeping its upright stance at first, then turning as if emptying itself, and the men fell out. No parachutes opened. Lambert watched the tumbling bodies until they were little spinning, waving irrelevances; and turned away.

  The kill infuriated the gunners. They sent up a thick screen of flak between the Goshawk planes and the second balloon, damning anyone who tried to break through. The usual haphazard spray of machine-gun fire sprinkled the air, inaccurate and half-spent at that height, but it only needed one bullet in the head to destroy a whole aircraft. Lambert was now very afraid. Something smashed into his instrument panel and thin oil streaked his goggles. He circled, looking for the other two, and then found he couldn’t level out: the outer half of the left wing was shredded, as if by hailstones.

  Lopsided and vulnerable, he tried to climb the barrage and get to the second balloon. The barrage climbed to meet him. He saw Kimberley and Killion curling in from either side, and wondered that they were both intact.

  Weaving and dodging, the three planes shuffled across the blotched and shuddering sky. Continuous eruptions created a wilderness of blast and air pockets; they barely recovered from one sickening jolt before something hurled them in the opposite direction, or the plane stumbled into a vacuum and hit bottom fifty feet down. Often Lambert lost sight of the other two. He slumped inside the cockpit as far as he could, out of sight of the pounding high-explosive, protected by old canvas against jagged shell-fragments; and dimly recognized the familiar sensation of hot urine soaking down his right leg.

  Like flies in a thunderstorm, their very lightness carried the British planes through. Anything short of a very near miss merely blew them away. Three strong men could lift an SE5a, fully loaded; so blast blew the planes about, aged them, weakened them, but it did not destroy them. Lambert raised his shaking head to see the sky ahead clear of flak, with the balloon in the center. There were also three circling Fokker Triplanes.

  This balloon had not descended. Lambert realized that far below the barrage was still pounding away; that the observers’ reports were still going down the telephone wire, correcting ranges and bearings, selecting new targets from the
shop window of the British Front. This attack was important to the Germans.

  Hence the Triplanes. They came out of their circuit one by one and bore down on the SE5as, each of which was now heading for the balloon from a different quarter. Lambert saw his German change from profile to head-on-view: a black, kite-like pattern, edged with gold, dropping out of the pure purple of the dusk. He turned slightly to meet the attack. The German fired a couple of rounds to clear his guns. Lambert blinked to rid his eyes of a sudden haziness, and then the German was on him, with a curiously muffled stutter that swelled and was lost in the bellow of their engines as they passed in a blaze of flashing muzzles and white-hot exhausts and shining propeller blades.

  Lambert heard something crack and thrash itself to death in the slipstream, but the plane still flew and although there was a stink coming from the engine it was not on fire. While the Triplane recovered and returned he closed in on the balloon. Killion and Kimberley were keeping the other Germans honest. The balloon rotated gently in the evening breeze, presenting its serial number to him. With the Triplane boring in from behind he fired a long burst at the dead center of the bag, and saw the fabric split and flare.

  Lambert dropped his right wing and dummied to go around the right of the balloon, and just as the Triplane started firing he banked steeply to the left and got away. He missed the burning bag by ten feet, standing his plane on its tattered wingtip, and held the turn until the whole scene came in sight again. The observers were straddling the side of the basket. Then they jumped.

  Lambert hesitated, finding excuses in wanting to oversee the complete destruction of the flaming balloon, or wondering where the Triplane was, or perhaps they had a third balloon somewhere … The parachutes opened like conjuring tricks, and still he circled. A hundred yards away a smoke-ball appeared: the flak was back. The parachutes drifted away, controlled now by their own laws, out of the war. Still Lambert circled, uselessly, neither doing nor not doing.

  A sheet of flame created itself away to his left, like a scrap of brilliant paper, and a Triplane was on its back, trailing smoke. Kimberley came pounding across the sky to the parachutes. Lambert saw his own Triplane diving to protect them and he plunged after it, far too late.