A Splendid Little War

by Derek Robinson

  “Yes, he’d like that. D’you know, it makes a change for me to be on the winning side. The last time was three years ago, and the fleeing remnants were only Bulgarians, so they don’t count. Is it possible for me to come along and watch?”

  “Can you fire a Lewis gun?”

  “I was a pilot in the Tsar’s Imperial Air Service. I can hit a squirrel in the eye at one hundred yards.”

  “Just shoot the fleeing Bolo remnants in their fleeing Bolo backs.” Griffin didn’t smile. Carnage was a serious business.

  The land north of Tsaritsyn was not steppe. It was broken by hills and ravines that appeared and ended for no apparent reason. The railway followed the easiest route along valley floors, and so did the retreating Red infantry. It was not an organized retreat. Clumps of men who had fought together now walked away from the defeat, too tired to run. Why run when the next town, Kamyshin, was a hundred miles away and the first real stronghold, Saratov, two hundred beyond that? Then the bombs began to fall.

  All but one of the Nines had taken off. They circled the airfield, climbing to three thousand feet and making hard work of it, before they headed for Tsaritsyn, where a few of Wrangel’s triumphant troops fired at them out of high spirits, and missed.

  The Camels followed, high above, and watched. The bombers soon found the mass of the enemy trudging between hills, and Oliphant got his Flight into line astern. There wasn’t much point in aiming. The whole valley was a target. When he knew he couldn’t miss, he pulled a toggle and his pair of 230-pound bombs fell away. The aeroplane bounced, as expected, and he banked it a few degrees to give himself a better view.

  He had seen bombings before, many times, but he always enjoyed watching the creation, out of nothing, of a pure white explosion. The roaring Puma drowned the noise, and this made the spectacle seem silent. It reminded him of a conjuror suddenly producing a bunch of flowers from a hat. Then the creation slowly collapsed and left bodies strewn around it like petals. Bombs were blossoming all over the valley and men were running everywhere. Why run? Oliphant thought. You’re just as likely to run into the next bomb as away from it.

  The Flight left the valley, turned, lost height and flew back. It went down to a hundred feet, a comfortable height for a gunner with his Lewis to spray the survivors.

  Count Borodin was Oliphant’s observer and he fired intelligently: short bursts at visible groups. Nothing wasted. This time, nobody ran, which surprised Oliphant. They stood and let themselves be killed. Maybe they had had enough. Maybe they didn’t care.

  High above, Griffin led the Camels in lazy circles until the Nines turned for home. Just when he thought his escort duty was done, two enemy aircraft came out of the north, black specks that grew into a blue Spad and a grey Nieuport, each with a red star on the rudder. Before they arrived the Nines had gone, lost in the haze of smoke drifting from Tsaritsyn. Griffin felt the old kick of excitement, the familiar prickle of blood surging to his fingertips. The enemy were outnumbered, but that was their stupid affair. As soon as he could see the sheen of the Spad’s propeller disc, he signalled Scatter and his formation went five different ways.

  Hackett climbed. He opened the throttle and tucked the stick into his stomach and watched the land fall away. No looping. He had seen bravos performing stunts like that over France and he knew where it got them: wrong speed, wrong attitude, easy meat. He made height, invaluable height, levelled out and found the blue Spad far below, flying in circles. It was steeply banked and tail-chasing a Camel. Small streaks of tracer stabbed at the space where the Camel had been. That was foolish. That was hope over experience. A new boy’s mistake. Hackett pushed the nose down.

  He slowed the dive by flying small S-bends to left and right, and timed his arrival so that he joined the circle, fully banked like the others, close behind the Spad. It didn’t see him. Definitely a new boy. He had a good view of its tail unit. The rudder was unusually long: it reached forward an extra yard or more. Well, Spad knew best. He squeezed the triggers and the twin Vickers blasted the tail unit. Debris flashed by. Bits bounced off his wings. Hackett banked right so hard that his vision briefly went absent without leave. When it returned, the Spad was tumbling and its tail unit was elsewhere. In another part of the sky, the Nieuport was going down in a leisurely spin. It had lost a wing. “Well, that was quick,” Hackett said aloud. He felt flat. It had all been too easy.

  Griffin felt differently. He thought: First blood to us. Now we’ll go and beat up some more bloody Bolos.

  As soon as the Flight had assembled, they flew north. They saw retreating soldiers but the numbers were too few. Maybe the sound of bombing had driven the others to hide. The C.O. had no appetite for machine-gunning a poxy platoon of Reds, not after the victory in the valley, so he pressed on for five, ten miles, hoping for a juicy concentration of troops just waiting to be strafed. Nothing. He turned the Flight and flew south and there, tucked into a narrow ravine, maybe fifty yards wide, was the very thing. Not infantry but cavalry. Packed tight, everyone in the saddle, as if ready to charge.

  The C.O. went first, swooped, began machine-gunning when he was a hundred feet up, kept his thumbs on the triggers until he was so low that his wheels were skimming the raised lances of a few riders, and as the ravine narrowed he climbed away, back into the clean blue sky. The others followed, one by one, and left a shambles of collapsed and dying horses, their legs thrashing, their riders dead or dying or trapped under the fallen animals. In three minutes the guns were empty. It was all over.

  As the Flight regrouped, Wragge wondered about that attack. The cavalry had been in formation, as if they were ready for action. Why? Who did they expect to attack? There was nobody for miles and miles except retreating Red soldiers. And shouldn’t we have seen a red banner? People said the Red Army always waved red flags. Maybe they were hiding. No, that didn’t make sense. They weren’t in any danger, nobody to hide from, not until Merlin Squadron showed up. All very puzzling. If they weren’t Red cavalry, then who were they? So they had to be Bolos. Well, they learned a lesson. Never dawdle after you’ve lost a battle.

  Killing horses wasn’t much fun. Wragge had never killed a horse before. In France, he had never even seen the cavalry in action. Trench warfare was no place for horses. Machine-gunning cavalry seemed a great waste of good horses. Pity there wasn’t some way of killing the cavalrymen and saving the horses. Damn it all, the horses hadn’t done anyone any harm, had they? Oh well.

  They cruised home, in nice time for tea. Chef had made more crumpets and some of them were almost round.

  2

  Next day Griffin woke, pulled aside a curtain and saw nothing but a thick grey mist. He opened the window and looked out. He could see one end of the next Pullman coach but not the other. “Bugger,” he said. His plenny opened the door and stood ready for orders. “Get Lacey,” Griffin said.

  He was shaving when Lacey appeared, wearing a black dressing-gown of Oriental design featuring golden eagles. Underneath, he wore scarlet silk pyjamas. Griffin wore a plain white nightshirt. “You look like the doorman in a Chinese brothel,” he said.

  “I bow to your superior knowledge of that milieu,” Lacey said.

  The plenny brought two cups of tea. The cups were generously breakfast-sized and carried someone’s royal monogram. “That will be all,” Griffin said. The plenny did not move. “Spasibo,” Lacey said and nodded at the door. The plenny left. Lacey sat in the armchair and sipped his tea. “It’s Fortnum’s Number Seven Blend. A quiet introduction to the day. I think you’ll like it.”

  The C.O. finished shaving. As he towelled his face he examined his jowls and found them satisfactory. Ever since he rode point-to-point in England he had watched his weight. His cheeks were slightly hollow and his skin was like polished leather. In France, when he was a flight commander, he had seen a pilot eat a second helping of treacle pudding with custard, told the man he didn’t like gluttons, and sacked him. Fat pilots were like fat jockeys: too greedy for their own good.
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  “What news on your radio, Lacey?” he asked.

  “Wrankel’s report to Denikin says his troops need a week to recover. He asks for reinforcements, so that he can advance northwards. Everything else is routine. We get a delivery of petrol here today or tomorrow. Ditto coal for the locomotives. There’s some delicious spring lamb on the way too.”

  Griffin was pleased. The British Mission in Ekat had warned him that he might have to badger the quartermaster-generals for the necessities of life. “Nice to know the Russians appreciate us,” he said.

  “You mean Wrangel? I don’t deal with his lot. Russian staff officers will rob, cheat and swindle, and leave you starving at the roadside. I use my own sources.”

  “Which are what, exactly?”

  “Oh …” Lacey finished his tea. “You really shouldn’t concern yourself with petty details of housekeeping. That’s my job. And the adjutant’s, of course. He and I … we understand each other.” Lacey looked Griffin in the eye and almost smiled.

  He’s challenging me, the C.O. thought. He’s a streak of piss with an acting pilot officer’s stripe, and I’m his wing commander, and he’s telling me not to walk on his grass. But Griffin had served on squadrons in France where the C.O. had picked a fight with the quartermaster and everyone had suffered from that: no fires, bad food, precious little whisky. The Camels and the Nines couldn’t fly without petrol and Lacey knew where to get it. Griffin suppressed his anger, postponed it to a better day.

  “The squadron has a name,” he said. “I want it painted on the side of every Pullman carriage. So big.” He held his hands far apart. “Nothing jazzy. Strong, but …”

  “Quietly understated,” Lacey said. “British to the core. One of the plennys is bound to be good at that sort of thing. It shall be done.”

  Immediate action: it made Griffin feel better. “What sort of man is Captain Brazier?” he asked.

  “He’s a war-horse.” Lacey walked to the window and looked at the mist. “Sound the bugle and he pricks his ears and snorts. He’s a great snorter.”

  “Brazier had a good war. His ribbons say so. But he’s only a captain.”

  “Well, he’s been up and now he’s down. A year ago, when the Huns made their last Big Push and nearly reached Paris, he rallied the ranks and became an acting major. He’s awfully good at that sort of thing. He terrifies his men more than the enemy do. The ranks needed a lot more rallying, and he was briefly an acting lieutenant-colonel, but then the Huns gave up and the War Office had a big surplus of terrifying officers, so now he’s a captain again. He’s no fool. He has a weakness for gramophone records of regimental marches.”

  Briefly, Griffin wondered if that was a joke. Probably. Not very funny. “What’s your weakness, Lacey?”

  “Oh … sometimes I succumb to Grieg. But Rachmaninov is more bracing. And you?”

  “Bashing the Bolos,” Griffin said. “Bolo-bashing. Very noisy. You wouldn’t like it.”

  3

  There was some dispute during breakfast as to whether this was mist or fog. Those who had known London pea-soupers voted for fog because it had a sulphurous smell. The pro-mist crowd argued that this stuff was the wrong colour and anyway the smell came from the fires of Tsaritsyn.

  “I shot a wallaby once,” Hackett said. “Terrible smell. They had to evacuate Adelaide.”

  “Adelaide was his sister,” Wragge explained. “She had a very distinctive aroma. It was an inherited trait. All families have them.”

  “What’s yours?” Jessop asked.

  “Modesty.”

  “You hide it well.”

  “Nine centuries of breeding, old boy. One doesn’t brag about it.”

  “Alright, shut up,” Griffin said. “We can’t fly in this clag. We’ll get the machines serviced and spruced up. Tomorrow’s another day. If the Bolsheviks counter-attack we’ll be ready. If they don’t, we’ll do some Deep Offensive Patrols, try and stir up the Red air force, if it exists. Where’s Bellamy?”

  “Ill in bed,” somebody said.

  “I brought a medic from Ekat,” Oliphant said. “Sergeant in the Medical Corps. The doctors won’t travel, they say the whole of Russia is stiff with plague.”

  Griffin and Oliphant stood in the corridor outside Bellamy’s Pullman car and heard the sergeant’s opinion. “Malaria,” he said. “Either he’ll recover in a week, or he won’t.” They could see the plenny wiping Bellamy’s face. Sweat reappeared at once. He lay under a single sheet, and it clung to his body. He shivered all the time, and the sheet copied the shivering.

  The mist thinned but was reluctant to lift. Griffin hated to see officers standing around, tunics unbuttoned, ties loose, gossiping, so he found them jobs: inspecting the Other Ranks’ quarters, checking the ammunition stores, supervising the digging of latrine pits (the Pullman lavatory system would soon need emptying), making sure the Cossack ponies were fed and watered.

  Two bomber pilots, Gunning and Lowe, asked permission to visit Tsaritsyn. “Why?” Griffin asked. Lowe had seen this coming. “To inspect the effect of our bombing, sir,” he said.

  “How?”

  Lowe hadn’t looked that far ahead. “Um …”

  “Two hundred pounds of Amatol,” Griffin said. “It turns a Bolshevik into a pound of strawberry jam. Look closely or you won’t find anything. Go and see Colonel Davenport, the aerodrome commandant. If he says yes, you can go.”

  When Davenport saw them approach they reminded him of his son. Well, many young officers made him think of Phillip, dead in Flanders like thousands of other subalterns. Why him? Why not? Phillip caught a packet in Flanders and now he was buried at St Margaret’s in Chalfont St Giles. Just look at these two: medium height, grey eyes, square chin, good teeth. Could be brothers. Twin memories, sent back to haunt him. He got rid of them quickly. “I doubt you’ll find much of interest,” he said. “Ruins are ruins. God knows I’ve seen plenty. Sergeant!”

  He gave his orders. “I want these officers armed and horsed. You are their escort. Any threat, bring them out fast.” They left. But the memories lingered.

  Armed meant holstered revolvers. The mounts were Cossack ponies. The sergeant carried a leather whip; its thong was so long that the tip bounced in the dust as they rode. “You rather remind me of the American cowboys, sergeant,” Gunning said. “Herding cattle and so on.”

  The sergeant thought about that. “This bleedin’ country, if you’ll pardon my French, sir. It’s not like anywhere else.” That ended the conversation.

  The city stank. The air was foul with the smell of unburied dead, both human and animal. This was not guesswork; Gunning and Lowe could see the carcases, mostly blackened and bloated. More bodies were hidden in the ruins, releasing a stench that was as sweet as sugar and as sour as vomit. The officers held handkerchiefs over mouth and nostrils. Useless. Even the ponies tossed their heads and blew noisily, hating the air.

  There was nothing noble about the ruins. The walls that stood were black with smoke. Those that fell were hillocks of rubble. Some streets were still burning. The sergeant followed what might once have been a broad avenue. Soldiers watched them pass. Some were wounded, some were drunk, some were both. Their uniforms were far from being uniform: tattered, filthy, a mixture of colours. Most were barefoot. All looked underfed. “Keep moving,” the sergeant said, and as he spoke a handful of women and children saw the visitors and ran towards them, shouting, pleading. Their rags were worse than the soldiers’. The sergeant cracked his whip at them, left and right, but they came on and the lash knocked a few to the ground. “Go!” he bawled. “Go, go!” Gunning and Lowe turned the ponies and whacked their heels against the ribs.

  They stopped when they were outside the city, and let the ponies recover.

  “The whip,” Gunning said. “Was that absolutely necessary?”

  “They’re starving,” the sergeant said. “If you’d given them a crust of bread, sir, ten thousand more of them would come out from nowhere and knock us all down. That’
s what hunger does, sir. Real hunger.”

  They rode back to the aerodrome, thanked the sergeant and went to say goodbye to Colonel Davenport. They found him outside his office with Count Borodin, both men looking at five corpses laid out in a row, face up. All five wore the grimy, shapeless, sheepskin clothing of Russian peasants, with one small addition: red stars cut clumsily from cloth were pinned to their chests. “The two on the end are far too old,” Borodin said. “Even the Bolsheviks wouldn’t conscript such grandfathers.”

  “You’re right,” Davenport said. “And if those cut-throats killed these two, they probably murdered them all.” He turned and stared at a pair of Russian men standing beside a farm cart.

  “They want ten roubles per head,” Borodin said. “Fifty roubles. Not bad for a night’s work.”

  Lowe could still taste the stink of Tsaritsyn and he cleared his throat. Davenport looked and saw two well-brought-up young Englishmen whose faces were utterly empty of understanding. “Some idiot offered ten roubles for every Red Army soldier brought to us,” he told them. “See the result. Civilians, all civilians. Russians kill their neighbours and pin a red star on them. If we pay, there will be more. If we don’t there will be trouble.”

  “Every Russian village has a feud,” Borodin said sadly. “It’s our national industry.”

  Davenport squared his shoulders. “Did you two find what you wanted in Tsaritsyn?”

  “Yes, sir,” Gunning said.

  “Interesting city, sir,” Lowe said.

  “We really ought to get back to our squadron, sir,” Gunning said. They saluted and marched away.

  “Five roubles a head, no more,” Davenport decided. “And I won’t pay until those thugs have buried the bodies, here and now.” Borodin beckoned to the waiting pair. “For two pins I’d bayonet them both,” Davenport said. “That’s what this country needs: a bloody good purge.”

  “The Cossacks used to perform that duty for the Tsar,” Borodin said, “but in the end their hearts weren’t in it.”