Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  “Do you care what she thinks?”

  They had each undressed separately, in the bathroom. Now she was sitting on the bed, brushing her hair. It caught the light as she moved, black chasing red chasing black.

  “I don’t want to ruin your reputation,” he said.

  “Do you care about my reputation?” She spoke easily, lazily. It had been a long and happy evening. “Now? At this very moment?”

  “No.” He sat beside her.

  “Good. Because I certainly don’t care about yours.” She used the tip of the hairbrush to comb his moustache. “What do you care about?”

  “You. I care about you. Absolutely.”

  “Including the woodwork?” Her arms slipped around his body.

  “To be perfectly frank,” he said, “no, I don’t feel any affection for the woodwork.”

  “Then suppose,” she said. “Suppose I take it off, and you remove your pyjamas.”

  “Excellent suggestion.” He stood up. “Long overdue. Warmly welcomed and strongly endorsed by all right-thinking men. Put to the vote and passed nem con.” He threw the pyjamas into a corner and turned around. She was lying on the bed, equally naked.

  “My goodness,” she said. “Rather less of me, but a good deal more of you. Isn’t that a lucky coincidence?”

  “Reminds me of a jigsaw puzzle I got for Christmas,” he said. “Hours of innocent fun.” It made her smile, which was worth more to him than winning his M.C.

  * * *

  They slept for an hour, and then he awoke, wondering where the hell he was, not France, it didn’t feel or smell like France, so what the devil ... And then he remembered, and relaxed. Sharing a bed was a strange experience. He was afraid of disturbing her; on the other hand the lush warmth of her presence was exciting and before he could stop himself his hand had stroked her body; and as if he had touched a trigger she was awake and sitting up, propped on one arm, reaching for his face and kissing it. Soon she was straddling him. Now there’s a surprise, he thought. No complaints, though. He worried, briefly, about hurting her damaged leg, before he realised that she was twice as lithe as he was; and in the tangle of limbs, who was counting feet?

  After that he slept deeply and awoke grudgingly, he knew not why. The room was black. She was mumbling. Or was she crying? He put his hand on her shoulder. The noise stopped.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” she said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Poor butterfly.”

  That made no sense to him.

  “’Poor butterfly’,” she said. “Do you remember? They were dancing to the tune, this afternoon. Yesterday afternoon. ‘Poor Butterfly’ ...” She sang a couple of bars. “Isn’t it a lovely tune? Just perfect for dancing.”

  There was nothing he could say to that. He held her and she quickly fell asleep. He was glad of that. He was very tired.

  * * *

  By dawn she was out of bed and dressing. He allowed himself the luxury of watching, without feeling that he had to abandon the warm sheets. The cold air made him sneeze, and she glanced sideways.

  “You’re very nimble,” he said.

  “Well, I’ve done it before.”

  “Do I mean nimble?” He yawned. “Makes you sound like an acrobat.”

  “Do you like racing?” She was as blithe as a blackbird. “Do you like Scotland?”

  “Let’s see ... Where the whisky comes from?”

  “They’re racing at Edinburgh this afternoon, Hugh. There’s a fast train, Monarch of the Glen, first stop Edinburgh, gets us there in time for the second race.”

  “Edinburgh. That’s —”

  “Four hundred miles. It’s a very fast train.”

  “You’re quite mad. We’d never get seats. Not a hope.”

  “What a shame.” She put her hat on. “Perhaps I’ll send you a picture postcard.”

  “Wait! Look, I haven’t shaved.”

  They went by cab to King’s Cross. She called on the stationmaster, and they travelled first class on the Monarch of the Glen. Cleve-Cutler shaved. They had a long, lazy breakfast in the dining car as the fields and woods of Hertfordshire rushed past. The ticket collector came by. Dorothy showed him a dull gold medallion, slightly larger than a sovereign, and he saluted and moved on. “Ahah,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Now I know. You’re head of the Secret Service.”

  “What a wonderful idea.” The sun had come out and she was drowsy in its warmth. “Then I could be invisible. I’ve always wanted to be invisible.”

  “I don’t think it works quite like that.”

  “Well, I’ll be tremendously secret, then. So secret that nobody knows who I am except you, because nobody else knows the password ...” It was a highly satisfying fantasy. She could never be a total part of this world, so she would invent her own world and vanish into it. “What is the password?” she asked.

  The words poor butterfly came to his mind. He decided not to take the risk. “The password is Poppycock,” he told her. “Because I say so ... Now, explain that medal-thing.”

  She explained. Father was a director, past chairman, of the railway company, and so travelled free; the medallion was a perpetual ticket for two, anywhere, first class. “He lets me borrow it,” she said. “I’m afraid it doesn’t pay for breakfast.”

  He rested his head against the cushioned seat. The train strummed through a length of meadows, cattle standing as steam rose from their backs. Suddenly the train hammered into a cutting and made him blink. Now he could see her face reflected in the window. This time yesterday we were strangers, he thought. Lucky, lucky, lucky. And she thought: We could keep travelling for ever, just him and me. On Father’s medallion. Together for ever. Then the cutting ended and the dark battering fell away, and the train went back to its tidy racy strum.

  “Do you remember singing ‘Poor Butterfly’ last night?” he asked.

  She nodded, and hummed a few bars. “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh ... just feeling brave, I suppose.”

  “You are braver than you know. So many men, when they discover my leg – or rather when they discover no leg – they panic. They decide that the rest of me is ... oh ...”

  “Not in full working order?”

  “I frighten them. They wonder what other terrors await them if they take me to bed. Men are so nervous.”

  “Well, nanny told them if they kept on playing with it, then it would fall off.”

  “Did your nanny say that?”

  “No. My nanny said if I told her where father kept the whisky hidden, I could do what I damn well liked. So I did and she got the sack, father being nobody’s fool.”

  “Well, I think you were jolly brave with me.” She looked thoroughly happy. Cleve-Cutler had never made anyone happy before. He was pleased with himself.

  * * *

  A taxi got them to Edinburgh races. Hugh, betting by instinct, lost a fiver. Dorothy, going always for the second favourite, won thirty pounds. They dined at the Waverley and went back to London by sleeper, thanks to her father’s medallion. Hugh took a large fresh salmon with him for Taggart.

  “Edinburgh?” Taggart said. “You must be exhausted, so you must.”

  “We came by sleeper,” Hugh told him.

  “I can never get any rest in those things.”

  “No. Ours was a bit rackety.”

  They went to their room. “Rackety,” she said. “I’ve never heard it called that before. Rumpty-tumpty. Hanky-panky. Jig-a-jig. Lots of things. But never rackety.”

  “Well, that’s our word. Our password.”

  “Oh.” For the first time, she seemed unsure of herself. “You mean ... whenever ...”

  “Just say rackety.”

  “Heavens above. And to think that Father keeps complaining that the art of conversation is lost.”

  “Does he? Well, next time you see him you can tell him we found it again. Tell him it was in the bed. The maid must have left it there.”

  She glowed with pleasure, and this gave him so
me idea of a stern but loving father whom he had no wish to meet. “Is it too early for me to say rackety?” she asked.

  “It’s odd ... In an aeroplane, at fifteen thousand feet, I feel okay. But when you look at me like that, I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.”

  “I don’t know much about men’s anatomy.” She loosened his tie. “But I don’t think the pit of your stomach comes into it, actually.”

  Cleve-Cutler tried to grin, and failed, and realised it was a wasted effort because his face was hooked into a grin anyway. He was trapped by his own desires. Part of him itched to peel off her clothes, and his, and to carry on where they had left off in the sleeper. Another part cringed away from the prospect, scared of failure. His balls ached while lust sent his heart pounding. Make up your bloody mind! he told his body. “Oysters,” he said. “Let’s go out and eat a bucket of oysters.”

  Taggart saw them leave hand-in-hand. “I thought you two were going to have a nice lie-down,” he said.

  “Oysters,” she told him, smiling like a bride.

  Taggart went into his office and spat on the fire. He really disliked loving couples. They peacocked around as if they knew the answer when they didn’t even know the bloody question.

  * * *

  All across the Atlantic, masses of air jostled and spun and drove east. What began as a warm front off New England dropped its rain into the ocean and matured into a sequence of brisk westerlies that swept across Europe and gave the fields a chance to drain and dry. Thanks to the Chinese labourers’ ditches, the aerodrome at Pepriac dried quickly. Soon Hornet Squadron was flying again. As usual, Wing wanted Deep Offensive Patrols.

  * * *

  For three more days they were never apart, and then he had to go back to France.

  He wanted to say goodbye in London. “Dover is dreary. Nothing but troops. Worse than a garrison town. You’ll hate it.”

  “I’ve never been to Dover,” she said, and put the medallion in her eye like a monocle. “This is Field Marshal Haig speaking. Don’t sulk, or I’ll get Taggart to kick you.”

  “I’m not sulking, I’m furious.”

  “Well, you’re a soldier. You’re paid to be furious.”

  “Why aren’t you furious?”

  “Oh, Hugh, just look at me.” She let the medallion drop into her hand. “Poor butterfly. Can you imagine a furious butterfly? People would think I was drunk.”

  On the way to Victoria, he stopped the cab at a music shop and bought a record of “Poor Butterfly”.

  “This is for you. A keepsake.”

  But she wouldn’t take it. “Being a butterfly is bad enough.” She was pleasant but firm. “I’d rather not be reminded.” Which left him feeling foolish, carrying a gramophone record that neither of them wanted. Why the devil couldn’t she just take the thing and throw it away later? Why did she have to be so damned honest?

  They had little to say on the boat train, and not much to see through windows streaked with rain. They travelled with a bunch of cavalry officers who spoke gruffly among themselves about polo.

  At Dover the showers had all blown away, the sun was out, and it was a lovely day for anything except what they were there to do.

  They stood on the platform while a porter got his bags out. “There’s no point in your coming down to the harbour,” he said. “You’d just have to come back here again.” His voice was hard. Almost accusing. He wondered why, and he made himself laugh. “Why are we so gloomy? I don’t understand.”

  “Look at that,” she said, and pointed high behind him. “What is it? You must know.”

  He turned and squinted at the bright blue sky. “Sopwith Camel.” He had heard the rasping buzz of its engine and he had resisted looking; now he could get his fill. “First-rate machine. They get ferried to France from here. Wish I had them on my squadron. Climbs like a rocket, turns on a sixpence, twin Vickers to blow the Boche to bits. Beautiful.”

  “I can’t compete with that,” she said, without bitterness. “No woman can.” She kissed him on the lips: one quick kiss. “Off you go and enjoy your war. It won’t last for ever.”

  “Of course it won’t. Anyway, I’ll be back soon.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  She was calm; he was baffled. He said, “I will, I tell you. I’ll write. We’ll meet.”

  “No, we shan’t.”

  The porter was waiting.

  “Don’t take it so badly,” she said. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “But this is absurd.”

  “Yes, it’s absurd.” And she limped away.

  On the boat, he brooded over the bloody silly mystery of women. In mid-Channel he took the record of “Poor Butterfly” and sent it skimming into the waves. By the time they landed in France he was actually, and to his great surprise, looking forward enormously to getting back to the war, back to Pepriac and the men he commanded. It was a relief to be out of England. Taggart was right: England knew nothing.

  * * *

  Dusk came early to Pepriac. Grimy clouds drifted out of the west and built a barricade too strong for the setting sun. Electric lights burned in the orderly room and the kettle sang on the cast-iron stove, which glowed a soft mauve in places. Occasionally rain rattled on the roof and the odd drop plunged down the chimney and died a martyr’s death.

  Sergeant Lacey was listening to the gramophone playing Ravel’s string quartet, while he practised the signature of Daniel T. Latham. It was difficult because Daniel was much bigger and bolder than T. Latham. Usually there was a final flourish to a signature, but this one ended in a weak dribble of ink. Perhaps, Lacey thought, Lieutenant Latham hadn’t liked his name. Perhaps he hadn’t respected his father or his family.

  He made ten more attempts and then reached for Latham’s cheque book and dashed off the signature. The cheque was payable to the Polperro Home for Distressed Mariners, in the amount of twenty-five guineas. It was dated six weeks earlier. Lacey slid it into an envelope and addressed the envelope to Polperro. He threw the experimental signatures into the stove just as Ravel reached his closing chord and Cleve-Cutler came through the door, grinning like a shark. “God’s teeth!” he cried, and went straight to the adjutant’s room.

  “I trust you enjoyed a good leave, sir,” Lacey said.

  “None of your damned business.” He kicked the adjutant’s desk and came out. “What’s the score? Nobody in the mess, nobody at the Flights, nobody here. Where’s Brazier?”

  “At the churchyard, sir. Would you like some tea?”

  “Oh.” The C.O. came to an abrupt halt. “Churchyard, eh?” He found himself looking at the gramophone and he twisted his head to read the record label. “Churchyard. Well I’m damned. The usual?”

  “Mr Cooper and Mr Radley, sir.”

  “Good Christ.” All the way from Boulogne, Cleve-Cutler had been enjoying a mounting gusto for the war. Dorothy was a dear sweet woman, but his memory of her faded with every mile until now it was almost erased. He was impressed by his own callousness. Still, he hadn’t bargained on coming back to this. “Accident or ... or what?”

  “Archie, sir.”

  The C.O. grunted. “Rotten luck.” Yet he was relieved: at least they were killed in action. And probably quickly. Archie was all or nothing. Either Archie missed, or he blew you to bits. But invariably the bits came down in Hunland. “Sure it was Archie?”

  “No lack of witnesses, sir.” Lacey was making tea. “It was British Archie.”

  “Sodding bastards,” the C.O. said. “Blind murdering sodding bastards.”

  “The battery commander sent his apologies.”

  “Stuff ’em up his arse.”

  “Also a pair of wreaths.”

  “Ten francs each. Twenty francs, two pilots. What a rotten waste.” All his gusto had gone, and bitter rage had taken its place. The military part of his brain reacted quickly. Losses, it told him, just losses, that’s all, you’ve had ’em before, don’t stand there mumbling, do something! “Whe
re are the replacements?” he demanded. “And where’s the bloody adjutant, for God’s sake?”

  “Still at the churchyard, sir.” Lacey was pouring the tea.

  “Churchyard? That’s not his job, it’s the flight commander’s job. Tim Lynch’s job.”

  “Mr Lynch died a week ago, sir. We buried him the following day.”

  Cleve-Cutler took a mug of tea and sat on the nearest desk. “God speed the plough,” he muttered.

  Lacey took the record off the turntable and slipped it into its brown-paper sleeve. “Perhaps I should tell you everything, sir.”

  “More deaths, you mean?” Lacey nodded. “Telephone the mess,” the C.O. said. “Tell them I want a bottle of whisky sent over.” Lacey went into the adjutant’s office and came back with whisky. “Totally irregular,” the C.O. said. “Someone will pay for this.” Lacey poured whisky into his tea. “Is Brazier a secret drinker?” the C.O. asked. Lacey shook his head. “The adjutant before him was an awful soak,” the C.O. said. “Applegate, Appleford, something like that. I had to send him packing. Bit of a crook, too.” He drank his tea-and-whisky. “Hell of a crook, in fact. Applecart? Appletart?”

  “Appleyard, sir.”

  Lacey leaned against a wall, arms folded. He watched and waited, and wondered why the C.O. was being so evasive. Casualties had never upset him before. They had caused regret, but not distress. Death struck and life went on, that was Cleve-Cutler’s style. Brisk. Positive.

  “Well, I suppose you’d better tell me,” the C.O. said.

  “Mr Lloyd-Perkins in A-Flight was a landing accident, fractured skull and internal injuries. Died in hospital. Mr Lynch was shot in combat, it seems. He managed to return, but by then he had lost too much blood and there was no time to take him to hospital. Wing has sent us Captain Crabtree to take command of B-Flight, but as yet we have no replacements for Mr Cooper and Mr Radley. In C-Flight Mr Shanahan has a touch of pneumonia and a broken nose.”

  “From flying?”

  “Only a very short distance. His motorcycle hit a cow and he flew into a ditch.”

  “A cow? Was he drunk?”

  “The night was dark, sir. And the cow was black.”

  “And Shanahan’s an idiot.”