Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  “One of the mechanics is sure to know,” Simms said confidently.

  The day after Hamilton failed to return, a gale roared down from the North Sea. Simms was sitting in his hut at Pepriac, toasting crumpets at the stove, when Ogilvy came in. “Here’s your new chum,” Ogilvy said. “He’s called Dash. Funny name. Not his fault, I suppose. Where did those come from?”

  “Salisbury, sir. Martin’s Bakery, in the High Street. My mother sent me them. Best crumpets in the world. Have one.”

  Ogilvy plucked the crumpet from the toasting fork. “Got any jam?”

  “Strawberry. Made by my sister Lucy’s own fair hand.” Simms spooned jam onto the crumpet. “Any word from Wing, sir?”

  “Stand-down until tomorrow noon. Don’t get blotto.”

  Ogilvy went out and kicked the door shut behind him. Dash took off his cap. It left a sharp red line across his forehead, which was heavily freckled over white skin. His hair was as straight and as yellow as straw. His greatcoat seemed too big and too heavy for him. “Frightful weather,” he said.

  Simms forked another crumpet. “Wrong. Frightful weather is when Wing makes us fly. Now this weather is perfect. Even the generals dare not send us up in a storm, much as they would like to.”

  “Oh.”

  “What school did you go to?”

  “Monmouth.”

  “Bad luck. I was at Winchester. And what regiment is that?”

  “Hereford Yeomanry.”

  “Oh dear. Well, keep quiet about it and people will soon forget. We’re a very democratic lot in the Corps. Except the servants, of course. Private Bugler looks after you and me. Bugler’s a raging snob.”

  Dash unbuttoned his greatcoat and sat on his bed. He had spent most of the day travelling from the depot. He was stiff and hungry and tired, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked: “What happened to the chap who was here before me?”

  “Nothing special,” Simms said. “Want half a crumpet?”

  When they went to the mess, Dash stood awkwardly and silently and waited for Simms or Ogilvy to introduce him to somebody. They ignored him. Everyone ignored him. Conversation at dinner was all about people or places he didn’t know or jokes he didn’t understand. He went to bed early. He was fairly sure this was the bed of the man he was replacing, and very sure that the man was dead. What a rotten way to join a squadron: shunted across France, made to wait, ignored, treated like an unwanted parcel. The wind howled in the chimney.

  Next day was no better. The gale brought rain, and flying was impossible. Simms played poker, endlessly. Dash read magazines and waited for someone to speak to him. Nobody did. When dusk fell he went to his hut and lay on his bed. He read a letter from his mother. She ended by asking him what he wanted for his nineteenth birthday. To his horror he found himself on the edge of tears. He wanted friendship, popularity, success, all the things he’d had at home and at school. A bit of fun would be nice, too. Simms came in. “For God’s sake ... The stove’s gone out,” he said. “Bloody arctic in here.”

  Dash shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  “Well, I do. Bugler’s a lazy tick. Someone’s got to boot his backside, and you don’t look very busy.”

  Resentment flared, and sent blood tingling to Dash’s face. “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s both kick Bugler’s backside. Take it in turns. Bugler won’t mind. He’s not very busy either.”

  To his surprise, Simms laughed. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “Let’s go to Rosie’s Bar and get slightly pickled.”

  “It’s bucketing down.”

  “McWatters has a car. I expect Munday will come as well. He likes McWatters, God knows why, the man’s all mouth and no brains. Still, he does have a car.”

  The only building that mattered in Pepriac village was an estaminet called Roses d’Or, known by British soldiers as Rosie’s an ‘ore and abbreviated to Rosie’s. It had a large upstairs room where there was a separate bar for officers. “The prices are higher but the stench is less,” Simms told Dash as they went in. “And the glasses are washed once a month, whether they need it or not.” The ceiling was dun from the stain of smoke, the carpet was a uniform mud-colour, and pictures of pretty girls, torn from La Vie Parisienne, lined the walls. Someone had gone around with a cigarette and burned out all the eyes. From time to time the electric lights flickered as the diesel generator outside missed a beat.

  The place was empty except for a bored gunnery captain, playing patience.

  “Met a chap the other day,” the gunner said, “who told me this Red Baron the newspapers keep writing about is actually a woman.”

  “He can’t be a woman,” McWatters said firmly.

  “He’s a sportsman, by all accounts,” Simms said. “Chap I know got into a scrap with the Baron, ran out of ammo, thought his number was up, but the Baron just waved and toddled off home. Wouldn’t shoot a sitting duck, you see.”

  “He can’t be a woman ‘cos women can’t fly,” McWatters said. “Their bodies are all wrong.”

  “I reckon your pal was just lucky,” the gunner told Simms. “I reckon the Baron ran out of ammunition too.”

  Simms shook his head. “It’s a matter of chivalry,” he said, looking at the ceiling. “If you don’t understand, I’m afraid I can’t explain it.”

  “Basically, their plumbing lets them down,” McWatters said, when there was sudden uproar nearby. It came from the kitchen: shouting, banging, a scream. Simms made a long arm and opened the door. A man scurried through, cowering away from an angry woman with a meat cleaver. He was safe: she would not enter the officers’ bar. He sheltered behind Munday, who was taller by a head. She flashed her eyes and fired off a volley of French. Voleur sounded frequently. Also fromage.

  “Thief,” the gunner said. “She caught him pinching the Cheddar.”

  McWatters fluttered his fingers at her. “Restrain yourself, madam,” he said. “The British Army will subdue this blackguard. Be about your duties.” He clicked his fingers, and she turned and closed the door, quietly. Dash was hugely impressed. Masterly, he thought. Head masterly.

  “Come out where we can see you,” Simms ordered. “Marchez-vous pronto, chum.” The man just blinked and gaped.

  “Alley-oop!” McWatters said. He rapped on the table and pointed. The man scrambled up. “Stand easy.”

  He was small and slight and olive-skinned; but for the fuzz of stubble he might have been a boy. He wore a sort of uniform: not khaki, and not the soft blue of some French units; it was a biscuitybrown, faded in places almost to white. The fabric was as thin as pyjamas. The tunic gaped where buttons were missing and it showed stomach muscles clenched tight. Only his boots, big and heavy, looked military. They had no laces.

  “The court will come to order,” McWatters announced. He pounded on the table with a wine bottle. The man gave a little moan, so McWatters pounded some more. “Cheese-stealing,” he declared, “is the stealing of cheese! And I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen —”

  “What ladies? Where?” said Munday.

  “The Red Baron is hiding in the cupboard,” McWatters told him.

  “I see no cupboard,” Simms said.

  “The prisoner is also charged with stealing a cupboard,” McWatters said. “How do you plead, prisoner?”

  They were all sprawled in chairs, looking up at him. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. In the end he hid them in his armpits.

  “I submit that the prisoner is mute of malice,” Simms said.

  “Dumb insolence,” Munday said. “Let’s flog him until he tells us where he hid the cupboard. And the baron. And the cheese.”

  “Which may be inside one another,” Dash said. “In reverse order.” McWatters scowled at him. “Or perhaps not,” Dash said. McWatters grabbed Dash by the ear, and twisted. “If you don’t damn well know, then stay out of the conversation,” he said. Dash was shocked. His ear hurt. He massaged it a little, but that hurt too.

  “I want more wine,” Munday said. “Look: may
be he’s a civilian. Nothing to do with us. What?”

  “He’s a spy,” Simms said. “Vous etes un espion,” he told him. “Don’t deny it.” The man was trembling.

  “Maybe he’s a genuine mute,” Dash said. He had moved well away from McWatters.

  “Well, why doesn’t he say so?” Simms took the corkscrew and poked the man in the back of the leg. He gave a little yelp. “Not mute,” Simms said.

  “He’s not a confounded spy,” Munday scoffed. “Did you ever see anything that looked less like a spy?”

  McWatters went into the kitchen.

  “Well, what’s to be done with him?” Munday said.

  “Give him some cheese,” the gunner said. “Poor devil looks half-starved.”

  McWatters came back with a carving knife. “I bet he’s got the British Army’s Order of Battle secreted about his swarthy body,” he said. “Tattooed on his spleen, I shouldn’t wonder.” The man dropped to his knees and began gabbling. “You can do better than that, laddy,” McWatters said. His knife slid inside the gaping tunic and chopped off the surviving buttons.

  “Steady on, Mac,” Munday said.

  The tunic had fallen open. The hammering of the man’s heartbeat made a fast flutter on his skin. McWatters touched it with the knifepoint. “Absolutely nothing to worry about, old man,” he said. “I happen to be a fully qualified vet.”

  That was when the top of the man’s trousers started to change colour. The biscuity-brown turned dark, almost black, and this blackness spread downwards and outwards.

  “Rotten spy,” McWatters said. “Not even house-trained.” The man gasped. A bead of blood appeared on his chest.

  Dash picked up his cap. “Too rich for my taste,” he murmured.

  McWatters sniffed the knifepoint, and then tasted it, delicately, with the tip of his tongue. “Not at all rich,” he said. “A simple peasant flavour.”

  Dash left.

  The rain had stopped. A damp half-moon was enough to show the way home, and he strode briskly, wanting to get far away from McWatters and his terrified victim. Bullying of a more painful kind had been commonplace at Dash’s school; he had suffered from it, he had inflicted it, too. But that was then and this was now. This was war, and Dash knew that there was a huge difference between mere bullying and going into battle. War was death or glory; everyone said so. All the same, he wondered how he would behave if he came across a crippled Hun machine, miles high, pouring smoke, guns jammed. Would he do his patriotic duty and kill the pilot? Probably. But where was the glory in that?

  He walked even faster to leave this problem behind, and came across a lorry that was going nowhere. The bonnet was up and he could dimly see the driver heaving on the starting handle.

  The effort seemed half-hearted. The engine did not respond.

  “Trouble?” Dash said.

  “Brute force,” she said wearily. “That’s the only thing this beast understands.”

  “I see.” What he could see was that she was in uniform and pretty. Perhaps very pretty. Smears of oil made it hard to say. “Well, I got top marks in brute force at Sunday school. May I try?”

  “Keep your thumbs out of the way or she’ll rip them off. She kicks like a pack of mules.”

  He took a deep breath and heaved on the handle. It was like stirring concrete. “I suppose she is in neutral?” he said.

  “Yes. The oil’s too thick. It’s this awful weather.”

  He braced his legs and tried again. His fingers began to ache. At the fifth attempt the engine coughed and the handle jumped. It was a false dawn, but it encouraged him. At the twelfth attempt the engine fired and the exhaust backfired, and they cheered. Too soon. It died. But on the sixteenth swing it gave in and roared like the beast it was. She fiddled with the controls and tamed it.

  “You’re an absolute poppet,” she said. “I’ve been swinging her for twenty minutes. You deserve a medal. Who are you?”

  “Charles Dash, Royal Flying Corps.”

  “Sarah Beverley, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, commonly called Fanny. The least I can do is give you a ride for being such a poppet.”

  “I disagree. The very least you can do is give me a ride and let me take you out to dinner quite soon.” He surprised himself by his own mastery of language.

  “Dinner! Well ... What a poppet you are.” In the headlights she was more than pretty. “And I’m such a wreck. You’d better jump in before she changes her stupid mind again.”

  Sarah Beverley dropped him at the gates to the airfield. He kissed her hand. She called him a poppet. That made four poppets. He knew where she lived, they were definitely going to dine together, she was an absolute corker. Life was looking up, and about bloody time, too.

  * * *

  The weather cleared, and Ogilvy got the Russians into the air again. They could fly, but not well. They bullied the Pup. They flew too fast, especially when they came in to land. Ogilvy stood on the airfield and fired red flares into the sky to signal that they should make another circuit. So many flares went up that an infantry regiment camped nearby sent a man on a motorbike to ask if the squadron needed help.

  Finally Duke Nikolai made a half-decent approach and touched down. Ogilvy, watching through binoculars, saw him take his gloves off and rub his eyes while his Pup’s wheels were racing and her tail was still high. Ogilvy felt ill. It was a breezy day. A gust could easily blow the tail sideways. Then the wheels would try to go one way while the machine went another and in the blink of an eye the whole kit and caboodle would be performing somersaults on its wingtips.

  Luckily the breeze had other plans. Nikolai climbed down, put his cap on and saluted. He looked pleased with himself. “The count is less fast than me,” he said. Andrei’s Pup was still circling.

  “It’s not a damned race,” Ogilvy said. “Carry on like this and I’ll end up in front of a court of inquiry, lousy with generals, all wanting to know why I allowed the Tsar’s relatives to break their necks. Land slowly, can’t you?”

  “Is nice little machine. In Russia we have much bigger machines.”

  “So you’ve told me. Now will you for God’s sake do what I tell you?”

  “These generals,” the duke said, “on court of inquiry. Tell me names, I have English cousins in your War Office, dukes, only small dukes but —”

  “Shut up.” Ogilvy shoved the Russian in the chest and sent him staggering. “Shut up! Until you learn to land properly I will not permit you to go on patrol. Hear me? Now go up and do it properly.”

  Nikolai was blinking as if he had dust in his eyes. “This is serious matter.”

  “Life and death.”

  “I am cousin of Nicholas sent by God to be Tsar of Holy Russia. When you strike me, you strike face of God.”

  “Good,” Ogilvy said. “Maybe God will wake up and decide which side he’s on. He hasn’t been doing your cousin any favours lately, has he?”

  The duke was shocked. Ogilvy realised he had gone too far. He walked away. Andrei was coming in to land, far too fast. Ogilvy rammed another cartridge into the pistol and fired a red flare. Andrei flew past, waving cheerily.

  * * *

  Major Cleve-Cutler sat in his office, watching Captain Dando make his report on the health of the squadron.

  Since the surgeons had reassembled his face, it was hard to tell what the C.O. was thinking, but Dando knew he wasn’t listening because his eyes had gone out of focus. “No sickness among the mechanics,” Dando said. “The man with influenza has recovered.”

  The C.O. grunted.

  “All’s well in the cookhouse, apart from a spot of botulism, maybe a touch of anthrax. High mortality rate, of course, but then so was the Somme.”

  The C.O. grunted.

  “Look,” Dando said, “if you’re not listening, I might as well go and lance a boil on somebody’s backside.”

  Cleve-Cutler got up and wandered away from his desk. He stared at the floor. “Rats,” he said. “Hear them?”

  Dando held his
breath and heard a faint squeaking. “No,” he said.

  “Little bastards couldn’t stand the shelling at the Somme. Ran like mad. Didn’t stop until they got here.” He stamped, and raised straight lines of dust.

  “What the British Army calls a planned withdrawal to a superior defensive position,” Dando said. “I remember doing it at Mons in 1914.”

  The C.O. was kneeling. He pulled a champagne cork from a knothole, put his mouth to the hole and shouted: “Go away!”

  “Waste of time,” Dando said. “You know what French rats are like, they pretend they don’t understand.”

  “This lot are Huns. I can speak Hun.” Cleve-Cutler got up and took a revolver from a desk drawer and was back at the knothole when Dando said, “Think of the smell if you hit. Think of the shame if you miss.”

  The C.O. squatted on his heels while he thought of that. Then he hammered on the floor with the butt. “You haven’t heard the last of this!” he shouted into the hole.

  “Exactly what I told General von Kluck at Mons,” Dando said. “And that really put the wind up him, that did.”

  The C.O. went back to his chair. “Mons,” he said. He scratched the back of his head with the revolver sight. “What a lot has happened since then.”

  “No, it hasn’t,” Dando said. “The same stupid thing has happened again and again and again.”

  “Buzz off, doctor.”

  “This war’s going to run longer than Chu-Chin-Chow.”

  As Dando got his papers together, there was a knock and the adjutant came in. With him was a young man who had to duck to get through the door. “Lieutenant Morkel, sir,” he said. “From South Africa. Replacement pilot.” Morkel saluted.

  “My goodness,” Cleve-Cutler said. “A replacement and a half.” Morkel was as tall as Brazier. He had a bushy blond moustache and intensely blue eyes. A fading tan made the most of teeth that were startlingly white. “Welcome to Hornet Squadron,” the C.O. said. “What can I tell you about us? Let me see ...” Dando cleaned his fingernails; he had heard this speech before, many times. “If you wish to play ping-pong, there is ping-pong to be played,” the C.O. said. “If you wish to fly an aeroplane, we have the incomparable Pup. And if you wish to kill Huns, there is an endless supply of eager victims.”