“Not in Russia,” the duke said firmly.
“If Russian people need democracy, Tsar will decide,” the count said.
“Don’t need,” the duke said. “Tsar told me.”
Cleve-Cutler had coffee in the anteroom with Spud Ogilvy and the duke.
“This duel has to be settled,” he said. “I have decided on the time, the place and the weapons.” Ogilvy frowned at the sugarbowl. The duke was impassive. “Your weapons will be Sopwith Pups. The place will be the sky. The time will be thirty minutes from now.”
The duke did his best to be calm. He nodded, and he stirred his coffee until he made it overflow, and then he abandoned it. “Very well,” he said. He put his hat on and saluted and went away.
“I do wish he’d stop doing that,” the C.O. said.
“What d’you want me to do?” Ogilvy asked. “Apart from not kill him.”
“Look, Spud. Wing says Brigade says the politicos say we’ve got to keep the Russians happy. So he must have a duel to save the precious honour of his Tsar. This is the best I can think of. Put on a show. Maybe he’ll settle for a draw.”
“Maybe he’ll die of fright.”
Cleve-Cutler finished his coffee, and drank the duke’s coffee too. “I wish I’d never taken this bloody silly job,” he said. “The war’s all right, but the people are impossible.”
* * *
The two Pups took off, side by side. At two hundred feet, the duke swung away and came around in a full circle, seeking an early chance to attack. Ogilvy was not there. He was climbing hard. A job-lot of broken cloud was drifting in from the northwest, and Ogilvy wanted to take advantage of it. The duke climbed after him, but he lacked Ogilvy’s cleverness at the controls and he was always lagging behind.
The rest of the squadron was out, watching. “This is just makebelieve,” the C.O. told the adjutant.
“What if a make-believe bullet kills someone stone dead?”
“Dunno. What do King’s Regulations say?”
“They call it sacrilege. It comes somewhere between sabotage and sodomy.”
“Very uncomfortable.” The C.O. aimed his binoculars at the sky. “Hullo, action.”
The pop-pop-pop of a Vickers sounded faintly.
“That’s the Russian,” Gerrish said. “Miles out of range. No patience.”
Ogilvy had levelled out at four thousand feet. He throttled back and flew a wide circle to let the duke catch up. He could see the man’s head moving as he looked up and down, fussing and fiddling with the controls, peering through the telescopic Aldis sight, ducking again to search for more power. Ogilvy reversed his turn and offered his Pup as a distant target. The Russian fired, made no allowance for bullet-drop or deflection or the price of apples, and missed by a street.
Ogilvy shook his head. He persisted with his turn until he was pointing straight at the other Pup. The closing speed was about two hundred miles an hour.
In only a few seconds the duke saw Ogilvy’s machine charging and enlarging, and almost upon him. Instinctively he raised his arm in defence, and saw the underside of wings and fuselage flash above his head. Ogilvy knew the clearance was a comfortable ten feet; but the duke was startled by the extra roar, and felt his aeroplane wallow in the wash, and was amazed that they had not collided. He dragged his Pup around in the hope of getting a snap shot as Ogilvy went away. The sky was empty. Again.
It could not be true, and it wasn’t. As Ogilvy hurdled the duke, he tipped the Pup onto its wingtips and let it fall away. He lost five hundred feet but gained such impetus that when he pulled out and climbed again, the little fighter went up as if it were weightless. Within a minute he was cruising along, two lengths behind the other Pup and slightly below it. The machines wandered about the sky, one trailing the other like a faithful dog.
On the ground, this earned applause.
“Why?” the count asked.
“Captain Ogilvy is sitting in a blind spot,” Gerrish said. “The duke can’t see him.”
“That is not a duel.”
“Be thankful. Spud could have blown his head off a dozen times.”
The duke dipped his wings to help him search left and right. He was puzzled, and he felt cheated, and also mocked by some childish English joke, sending him up here for no purpose. Then a red signal flare fizzed past him and soared away. It came from behind. He twisted in his seat and saw nothing. Ogilvy reloaded the flare pistol. This time the streak of red was even closer. The duke swore, and dived away. Ogilvy followed.
For ten minutes, Ogilvy chased him all over the sky. No matter how abruptly the Russian skidded or rolled or plunged, Ogilvy was always there. It was a circus act. People on the ground were laughing. The duke looked up when a shadow darkened his cockpit, and saw Ogilvy’s Pup exactly above him. He could have hit the wheels with a billiard cue. This was a mockery. And then clouds came and saved him.
His Pup charged into the biggest cloud and he relished the blessed grey oblivion. He came out, one wing down, and made for the next nearest hiding place, and the next. When he popped out, nose up, engine straining, he was into dazzling sunshine.
No sign of the frightful Ogilvy. Excellent.
He cruised around for a couple of minutes. The duel had turned into a farce. So that was a second insult to add to the first.
The clouds parted and he looked down and saw Ogilvy’s Pup a thousand feet below. Perhaps the duel wasn’t over yet. He shoved the stick forward and said a short Russian prayer. It was time for God, who blessed the Tsar, to do a little something now for the Tsar’s cousin.
* * *
Ogilvy landed in a break between the showers.
“I didn’t kill him, sir,” he said, “but he’s not back, so I don’t know what’s happened.” They were in the C.O.’s office, drinking coffee.
“You put up a hell of a show, Spud. You had him by the throat, and he must know that. Honour is satisfied, for God’s sake.”
“Honour may be. What about pride?”
Cleve-Cutler grunted, and went to the window. Clouds the colour of coal dust were gathering. “Winter isn’t good for aeroplanes,” he said. “Mildew in the canvas, rot in the spars, rust in the cables ...” The telephone rang.
He answered it, and said, “Yes, he’s one of mine.” He listened some more, and said, “I’m sorry he bothered you. Can you put him on the line?” After that he did a lot of listening and grunting. “I see ... Well, refuel and return. That’s all.” He hung up.
“Where is he?” Ogilvy asked.
“Deux-églises. 42 Squadron. Says he got lost and landed there to ask the way. Also says he shot you down. Profound apologies etcetera. God save the Tsar and all his relations.” Cleve-Cutler stooped and pulled the cork from a knothole in the floor. “Stand to attention down there!” he shouted. He replaced the cork.
“I’m fairly sure nobody shot me down,” Ogilvy said.
“Oh, I think they did, Spud. Fortunately, he didn’t see you crash. Too much cloud. Brilliant flying got you home, albeit your machine was holed like a colander.”
“Albeit?” Ogilvy cocked his head. “Is that what you just said?”
“Yes, dammit. Albeit. I want this idiocy ended, even if I have to talk like a tombstone to do it. Now, we need a bust-up Pup.”
“Well, there’s what’s left of Stone-Franklin’s bus, after he tried to fly through a tree.”
They found the wreckage in the back of a hangar and had it dragged out. When the duke landed, in gathering dusk, Cleve-Cutler and Ogilvy were examining it, with a sergeant mechanic. The duke came over and saluted. He looked from the wreck to his flight commander and back again. His eyes were wider than usual. Other than that, his face gave nothing away.
“A good landing is one you can walk away from,” the C.O. said. “Right, sergeant?”
“Right, sir.”
Ogilvy prodded a piece of tail-fin with his foot. “Can’t you salvage anything, sergeant?”
“Afraid not, sir.”
“Oh, well. You know
best. Carry on.” The sergeant saluted, and his boots crunched on the wet tarmac.
Cleve-Cutler and Ogilvy strolled slowly around the wrecked Pup.
“Brilliant flying,” the C.O. said, “albeit for the loss of a much-loved aeroplane.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Cleve-Cutler turned to the duke. “Now then, lieutenant. Have you anything to report?”
“I regret —”
“Wait a moment,” Ogilvy said. “Things may be different in Russia, but here in the Royal Flying Corps, when an affair of honour is settled, we never discuss it. Never.”
“I have nothing to report, sir.”
When he had gone, Ogilvy said: “Presumably he took a pot at someone, thinking it was me. And missed.”
“He’d better do better than that when you take him over the Lines.”
They strolled back to the mess. The first flakes of snow speckled their uniforms. By nightfall the field was white.
Earthquake Strength 3:
Hanging objects swing.
Snow fell, and ended flying. Cleve-Cutler searched for ways to keep the pilots fit. The adjutant suggested bayonet-fighting. “The bayonet is on the rifle,” he explained. “There are certain moves and countermoves. It’s very similar to sword-fighting.” A space was cleared in a hangar, and within the hour two men were being stitched up by Dando. Cleve-Cutler cancelled bayonet-fighting.
Brazier retired to the orderly room in disgust.
“They were only puncture-wounds,” he said.
“Rather like the Crucifixion,” Lacey said. “And what a fuss people made about that.”
“You haven’t the slightest idea of physical pain, sergeant. One of these days I might perforate your hide with a bayonet, just to educate you.”
“Yes, sir. You’re strangely interested in mutilating the other ranks, aren’t you? Were you whipped a good deal when you were a child?”
“I was never a child, sergeant. I was issued by the War Office in 1891. You can find the military specifications engraved upon my left buttock.” He put his glasses on and stared at Lacey. Lacey went away to brew some tea.
Ration wagons trundled up and down the lanes leading to the Front, but otherwise the war virtually stopped. Without aeroplanes and balloons to spot for them, the guns were blind and silent. Brazier hired fifty Chinese labourers to dig a runway across the aerodrome, but snow kept falling. They never gave up, but they made no progress either. The temperature kept falling, too. The ground was iron-hard; trenches were difficult to repair and impossible to dig. “God’s a conchie,” McWatters said to the padre. “He’s decided He’s against this war on religious principle, and He’s gone off to play with the angels.”
“Too deep for me, old man. Very dodgy area, religious principle. Look: which of these cinema films d’you think the chaps would enjoy?”
McWatters glanced at the list. “Get westerns. William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks. Lots of violence.”
“There’s a rather stirring one about the Battle of the Somme. Don’t you think ...”
“Not violent enough.”
“Surely —”
“Get westerns. Revolvers and brawls and bars getting bust-up, that’s the ticket. Just like a good mess-night party.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Next day the padre had to report that the mobile cinema was stuck in a snowdrift, miles away, near a place called Beauquesne. Lieutenant Dash immediately volunteered to go and unstick it. Moving pictures didn’t excite him, but the name Beauquesne did. It was where Sarah Beverley, of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, lived. Ogilvy asked how he proposed to get there, since he certainly wasn’t taking any squadron transport. Dash said he would ride; at home, in Herefordshire, he’d ridden all sorts of horses. “I’m glad you’re good at something,” Ogilvy said, “since you’re obviously a tenth-rate pilot.” The adjutant phoned a nearby artillery unit and borrowed a horse. It was a huge, shaggy beast, accustomed to hauling field guns over rough country at the hard canter, and it had a mouth like a steel trap.
Sergeant Lacey fed it carrots while Dash got into the saddle and bunched the reins. “Should you come upon a reputable épicene,” Lacey said, “the mess is in need of a good Dijon mustard.” Brazier slapped the animal’s rump and it set off at a sedate trot that kicked up clods of snow like broken plates.
The name on the bridle was Daisy. It didn’t suit. The horse was entirely black, and as broad as a sofa; Dash’s knees were far apart. Because one eye was milky, the horse led with the other eye, and this caused it to trot obliquely, aiming to the left while moving to the right. Daisy was a gun-carriage horse. It disliked the saddle and it disliked Dash. After half a mile it locked its front legs and tossed him as easily as a farmhand tossing a sheaf of wheat.
He landed in a snowdrift. Daisy trotted on. By the time Dash got his breath back, cleared the snow from his ears and found his hat, Daisy was a small black shape, growing steadily smaller. He chased hard. Daisy would not stop for him. He ran alongside and managed to vault into the saddle. His breeches were slippery with snow. Daisy threw him twice more in the next hundred yards. The second time, there was something hard in the drift: ice or stone or wood; and he crawled out bruised and cursing, ready to quit; but an oncoming ration wagon had seen his trouble and a soldier had jumped off and captured the brute.
They waited for him to limp up to them.
“Bit frisky, is she, sir?” said the sergeant in charge.
“Just a trifle.”
“Your nose is bleedin’, sir. Rub some snow on it.”
Dash tried to laugh. “That’s all I’ve been doing since I set out, sergeant. This isn’t a horse, it’s a catapult.”
“Too frisky, sir. Give ‘er a good gallop, make ‘er blow a bit. Once she’s fucked she won’t be so fuckin’ frisky, pardon my French. Women are all the fuckin’ same.”
Dash remounted and banged his heels against the ribs. Daisy went off at a slow canter and nothing changed that. He wished he had worn spurs. He disliked spurs but he loathed Daisy. The horse seemed to be developing a jolting, sideways prance. This did his bruised backside no good at all. On the other hand he was still in the saddle when they reached a crossroads. Beauquesne was to the right. Daisy had already decided to go left.
“Come right, you bitch!” Dash shouted. He doubled the reins in his fists and dragged hard. His feet were braced against the stirrups. It was like trying to turn one of the lions in Trafalgar Square. Snow was falling, and he felt the flakes melting on his sweating face. The horse was winning. Dash had come all the way to France to fight for his country, and now he was being beaten by a bloody nag. “You lousy whore!” he screamed. Another ration wagon was approaching. He didn’t care. He kept the reins in one hand and unbuttoned his holster with the other and took out his service revolver and cocked it and fired a thunderous shot past Daisy’s left ear. The horse shied. He fired again, a blast of noise that flung the head to the right. He whacked with his heels. Daisy broke into a gallop. Dash fired at the sky and whooped. Faintly, he heard the ration party cheer.
* * *
Chlöe Legge-Barrington slid back the bolts and heaved on the door of the nunnery of Sainte Croix. “Goodness,” she said. “You look like Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.”
Dash stood in the night, layered with snow, too tired to shrug it off. Behind him the horse raised its great head, black capped with white, and looked at the young woman; then it let its head droop.
“Is this First Aid Nursing Yeomanry?” Dash said. “Because I’m looking for Sarah Beverley.”
“This is F.A.N.Y., but Sarah’s in England. Would you like some supper? Lancashire hotpot with apple crumble to follow.”
“That’s frightfully decent of you.”
“Well, frightful decency is something we have rather a lot of, around here.”
They stabled Daisy and came back inside. She led Dash to a cheerless bathroom and ran a hot tub for him. “Thank God the nuns had a new boiler put in be
fore they left,” she said. “They believed in self-sacrifice but they drew the line at chilblains.”
“Where are they now?”
“Orleans.” She gave him a pair of workman’s overalls. “Best I can do. Bring your things, they’ll need drying.”
Dash eased his aching body into the bath. The cold retreated from his limbs like a beaten army. It put up a brief resistance in his toes and then surrendered to the heat. He ducked his head and blew a fanfare of bubbles.
He found the kitchen by following the noise. Six stunningly beautiful young women turned and looked at him. All wore smartly tailored uniform. Most were without their tunics. “Golly,” one of them said. “Such a lot of freckles.”
“Sorry.” Dash tugged sideways at the overalls and made them look like a blue sack. “I thought it said fancy dress on the invitation.”
Chlöe Legge-Barrington took his clothes. “Left to right,” she said, “Edith Reynolds, Laura da Silva, Nancy Hicks-Potter, Jane Brackenden, Lucy Knight. You’ll never remember them, but don’t worry, they’re all thoroughly forgettable.”
“Charles Dash. This is really awfully —”
“I say!” Chlöe was draping his uniform on a clothes horse and she’d found the wings. “Royal Flying Corps.” Again, they all gazed at him.
“Guilty.” This time he smiled back. It was an engaging, wide-mouthed smile; he knew this because he had practised in front of a mirror at home. As he smiled he saluted. It had been an exhausting afternoon and the hotpot smelled delicious.
“My stars, a hero,” Lucy Knight said. “I must get a clean tablecloth.”
“Are you a pilot? How high do you fly?” Laura da Silva asked.
“Oh ... a mile or two. Or three. Depends where the Huns are.”
“How many Huns have you shot down?”
Dash looked away, while honesty fought temptation. “Oh well,” he said. “It’s a team game, you know. The squadron gets the credit.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t a total lie either; and he could see that his modesty impressed them.
Supper was easy. All he had to do was smile – not all the time – and tell funny little stories about flying. He fascinated them, and the more casual he was, the more attentive they were. He mentioned the Mad Major. “He used to fly upside-down, just above the enemy trenches, and pelt them with old beer-bottles.” Edith Reynolds asked why. “Dunno. An expression of contempt, I suppose.” He spoke of the banned practice of chasing staff can full of British generals until they drove into the ditch. “Isn’t it awfully risky?” Chlöe asked. “Not if they can swim,” Dash said, and tried to look puzzled by their laughter. He told of a marvellous chap called Captain Ball (they had all heard of him) who developed a frightfully clever trick. “He flies straight into the middle of a flock of Hun scouts, and they daren’t fire at him in case they hit each other.” Then what does he do? “Oh, he knocks one or two down and streaks home for breakfast.” It was easy. He had never met a Mad Major, nor chased a staff car, nor talked tactics with Captain Ball, but he had heard a lot of chatter in the mess, and by the end of the meal, with a couple of glasses of red wine inside him and these wonderful girls all saying How spiffing! and What a corker! Dash almost believed that he’d done it. Or at least seen it done.
Hornet’s Sting Page 6
