Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  “Not them,” McWatters said. “Our lot. Downright cheats, every one. Permanently off-side. Especially the Welsh regiments.”

  Cleve-Cutler pounded on the table. “We shall now take to the air,” he announced, “and drink the squadron toast.” This was another tradition: nobody’s feet must touch the floor. Everyone climbed onto chairs. “Hornet’s Sting!” they roared, and drank. Heeley, the youngest pilot on the squadron, had already put down a base of whisky-sodas. He was a slim lad who shaved only twice a week, more to encourage growth than to remove it. He dropped his glass. His knees folded outwards and he toppled from his chair. The adjutant caught him, one-handed, by the collar, and gave him to a waiter. “The mixture isn’t right,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Add more champagne! At ten francs a bottle,” he told the general, “these chaps can afford it.”

  “I’d like to make a speech, if it’s all right by you,” the general said. He managed the supply of disinfectant to the army: essential work but not thrilling. Meeting a fighting squadron was an exciting stroke of luck.

  “My stars!” the adjutant said. “You’re a brave man, general.”

  “I wouldn’t advise a speech unless you know a lot of good jokes, sir,” Cleve-Cutler said. “The chaps are a bit inflammable tonight.”

  “I know a joke about disinfectant.” The general was on his third tankard of Hornet’s Sting. Comradeship had kidnapped his wits. “Chap goes into a pub, sees a dog lying in front of the fire. What’s happening is, this dog is licking its balls. Chap says, ‘My goodness!’ he says, ‘I wish I could do that!’ So the pub landlord says, ‘Toss him a biscuit and maybe he’ll let you.’ What?” The general pounded and guffawed. “What?”

  “Where does the disinfectant come in?” the adjutant asked.

  “Through the tradesman’s entrance.”

  “I say, that’s jolly clever,” the C.O. said. “Far too clever for my ruffians.”

  “It would go straight over their heads,” the adjutant said. “Might get a bit shirty.”

  “I know a joke about shirts, too. Chap goes into a shop. Shirt shop. Chap says, ‘What’s the difference between a striped shirt and a pound of sausages?’ Shop assistant says, ‘I don’t know, sir. What is the difference between a striped shirt and a pound of sausages?’ Chap says, ‘Well, if you don’t know the difference, I’m damned if I’ll buy my shirts here!’ What?” He drank deeply. “What?”

  “Does disinfectant come into this one, sir?” the adjutant asked cautiously.

  “I’ll say this.” The general was suddenly wide-eyed and serious. “You can’t have a modern war without good disinfectant. Stuff’s crucial. Your chaps ...” He made a sweeping gesture. “Fine boys. Cavalry of the clouds! But take your disinfectant out of your latrines and, believe me, plague would cut them down like the Four Horsemen of the whatsisname.”

  “Acropolis.”

  “Exactly. Thank you, major.”

  Captain Crabtree had been listening. “These Four Horsemen,” he said. “I suppose they’re stabled in heaven, alongside the angels.” Nobody argued. “Is there disinfectant in heaven, padre?”

  “Angels don’t need latrines,” the chaplain said. “They don’t eat or drink.”

  “Well, I’m not going,” Crabtree said. “If you can’t get draught Bass and pickled eggs, then what’s the point?”

  “We shall all find out, one day,” the chaplain said comfortably. It was the ace of trumps and he played it easily.

  After dinner everyone went into the anteroom and played indoor rugby with a cushion as ball. The tackling was ferocious. Munday was caught by the ankle and fell hard on his left ear. Dando took him behind the piano and put five stitches in the ear and emerged to see Heeley standing, dazed, his nose running blood like a tap. Dando steered him out into the night and made him lie on his back. Within a minute, Heeley was asleep and snoring.

  Inside, all the cushions had burst. One of the Cameron Highlanders was fighting Plug Gerrish; they used cane chairs as weapons. It made fine, furious sport, and it inspired others to duel with chairs and small tables. Soon the floor was littered with debris. There was a pause for drink as the mess servants carried in a fresh tub of Hornet’s Sting. All the glasses were flung into the fireplace. And suddenly the mood changed. Everyone must sing.

  Duke Nikolai played the piano. A lot of drink had been spilt on it and the keys were sticky. McWatters emptied a fire bucket into the piano and a greenish fluid began to seep out of the holes for the pedals. Nobody cared. They all linked arms and bawled the happy ballads from the best London shows, and the relentlessly morbid songs of the Corps: “Who killed Cock Robin? ‘I,’ said the Hun, ‘with my Spandau gun . ..’” and “You Haven’t got a Hope in the Morning” and, best of all, the chorus to “The Young Aviator Lay Dying”, sung to the tune of “Wrap Me up in My Tarpaulin Jacket”:

  Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,

  The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain,

  From the small of my back take the camshaft,

  And assemble the engine again!

  They liked that. They sang it twice.

  Then a Scottish sergeant was summoned to play his bagpipes, and eightsome reels were danced with clumsy gusto. The general lost his grip and was spun into a wall with such force that the lights flickered, or so he thought. He slid down onto his rump. “Bloody piper,” he told Dando huskily. “Piping in waltz time.” Dando nodded. He knew a broken arm when he saw one. Someone offered the general a glass of Hornet’s Sting. “Disinfectant,” he whispered. “That’s the stuff to give the troops.”

  Outside, the adjutant was signing for a large envelope. The despatch rider saluted and roared away. His headlamp caught and lost Sergeant Lacey. “What the deuce do you want?” Brazier asked, without anger.

  “The same as you, captain. The same as everyone. A warm bed, a clear conscience, and friendly bowels.”

  “Wrong. I can sleep on a plank, I left my conscience on the battlefield, and my bowels do what I damn well tell them to.”

  “Goodness. How Shakespearean ...” Lacey shone his flashlight and Brazier broke the seal on the envelope. Together, they read the messages.

  “You’re an educated feller,” the adjutant said. “What d’you reckon history will make of this little lot?”

  “That’s easy. History will make it a footnote to an afterword to an appendix.”

  “Well, history is an imbecile.”

  “Yes. The footnote will say that too. But alas, no one will read it.”

  Someone had stumbled over Heeley in the darkness and carried him inside, and now the pilots were tossing him in a blanket. They roared as they tried to toss him over a beam in the rafters. Heeley was too drunk to protest, but not too drunk to be terrified as he got flung up and the beam clipped his head and he dropped, utterly out of control. “Don’t be so bloody flabby, Heeley!” Simms told him. “Make a bit of an effort, man, for God’s sake.”

  Maddegan watched them until he got bored. He wandered over to the piano, and looked inside at the dance of the felt hammers. He was holding a tankard. It tipped as he leaned to see more. Hornet’s Sting poured over the workings. Duke Nikolai stopped playing. Maddegan looked at him. “Go on,” he said. “You’re doing fine.”

  “Stuck,” Nikolai said. “Won’t work.” He hammered on the keys, but they made no sound.

  Maddegan prised one of the keys up. It snapped, so he gave it to Nikolai. “Keep that,” he said, “we’ll put it back later.” He thrust his fingers into the hole and ripped out five more keys, three white and two black.

  Heeley fell and the blanket split, and the pilots holding it collapsed.

  “Doomed the bastard!” Maddegan said, and waved the five keys. The pilots cheered.

  That was when Cleve-Cutler came in, with the adjutant behind him. Brazier had a soda-syphon. He sprayed the pilots until they were quiet. “Gather round and listen,” he ordered.

  “I have important news for you.” The C.O. waved some signals. That silenced
them completely. They dripped as they stared. “First... the squadron is moving. Tomorrow. To a field near ... Arras.”

  A whoop of surprise and approval. Pepriac was a scruffy crossroads; Arras was a city.

  “Second ... the squadron will re-equip with ...” A long pause tortured them. “... with Bristol Fighters.”

  That brought a roar of delight. Several pilots danced. They were drunk with joy.

  “And third ...” They laughed in anticipation of another celebrtion. “ ... the Tsar has abdicated.” And of course they cheered. The noise was waiting in their throats; it had to come out. “Good old Tsar!” they shouted.

  Cleve-Cutler walked over to the piano. Duke Nikolai was staring at the ruined keyboard. “I really am awfully sorry,” the C.O. said. “I’m told that power has gone to his brother.” He checked the message form. “That’s the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch.” Behind them, the pilots had formed a circle, arms on shoulders, and were singing “When this bloody war is over, Oh how happy we shall be ...” He moved closer to Nikolai and said, “I expect you know him.”

  “Is pig.”

  Cleve-Cutler could think of nothing to add. He left the adjutant to break up the party and send everyone off to bed.

  McWatters strolled across to Nikolai, who had not moved. “All of a sudden you’re nobody’s cousin,” he said. “Funny feeling, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  By noon next day, all the Pups were lined up in order of flights, waiting to take off. Cleve-Cutler sat in his office, signing a pile of papers which relieved him of responsibility for the aerodrome, its buildings and their contents. Each signature took him a step nearer Arras and Gazeran field and the superlative Bristol Fighters. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Jam, sir,” Lacey said. “Two hundred pounds of strawberry, mislabelled plum. Written off.”

  The CO read further. “Destroyed by accidental explosion? I don’t remember that.”

  “You were on patrol, sir.”

  “Still, two hundred pounds ...” Cleve-Cutler looked at the general, who was in a chair by the stove with his arm in a sling. He was waiting for his car to be repaired.

  “I know a joke about jam,” the general said.

  “The quartermaster at Brigade is being a bit officious, sir,” Lacey explained.

  “You can turn a raspberry patch into a pot of jam,” the general said. “But it’s not so easy the other way around.”

  “How very true, sir,” Lacey said. The C.O. signed, and Lacey slid the form away from his fingers, to uncover the next.

  “Sounded a lot funnier when I heard it. Mind you, we were all a bit squiffy at the time.”

  Cleve-Cutler scribbled his name on the rest of the forms, threw them all at Lacey, and threw the pen at the door. “Come on, general,” he said. “You can wave us goodbye.”

  “I nearly got a bit squiffy last night,” the general said. “That vodka creeps up on a chap.”

  After a mild night and a sunny morning, the grass was dry and the air was sweet. The adjutant bicycled about, searching for the two Russians, and found them in one of the flight huts, playing poker with a mixed bunch of pilots. They were all drinking a hangover cure devised by the doctor. It consisted of raw eggs beaten up with cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce and toothpaste, and it wasn’t doing much good. When Brazier opened the door, most flinched as from a blinding light.

  “Signal from Brigade H.Q.,” Brazier said. “Your Paris embassy says you’ve got to swear an oath to the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch.”

  “Yes,” Nikolai said. “Is stinking lousy smelling fucking shitting Pig.”

  “A very decent oath,” McWatters said.

  “More than you deserve, Uncle,” Simms said. “Bursting in here, shouting and stamping and frightening the children, you should be ashamed.”

  “I brought this,” the adjutant said to Count Andrei. It was a Bible, large and leatherbound. “Not in Russian, I’m afraid. Any use?”

  “I don’t swear,” Nikolai said firmly.

  “Yes, you do swear.” Andrei took the Bible and whacked him on the side of his head, and then swung backhand and whacked the other side. Nikolai rocked and gaped. A string of saliva swayed from his upper lip.

  “Golly,” Heeley whispered. Nobody moved. This was better than poker.

  Andrei slammed the Bible on the table and pointed. Nikolai placed his hand on it. So did Andrei. He said: “We swear allegiance to Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch, by the grace of God, sole ruler of all the Russias.” He kicked Nikolai on the leg. “I swear,” Nikolai said. He sounded twelve years old.

  Brazier took the Bible and left.

  “I now pronounce you Mappin and Webb,” McWatters said. “You may shoot the bride.”

  Nikolai stood up. His face was working hard to seem adult and strong, but the high cheekbones were wet with tears. He went out.

  His cards lay face-down. McWatters turned them over. “Queens on tens,” he said. “Fancy that.”

  Munday began collecting the cards. “Little Nicky is a pest,” he said. “At my school we’d have toasted his tiny bottom over a hot fire. All the same ... was it wise to box his ears? He just might be Tsar one day.”

  “Nicky is finished. The Romanovs are finished. There will never be another Tsar.” Andrei stirred his cards with his forefinger, but he left them lying. “It’s all up to the Socialists now.”

  “If Nicky’s done for,” Simms said, “what about you? Suppose there’s a revolution. You might ...” He shrugged.

  “Count for nothing,” Heeley said.

  “Heaven help us!” Munday said. “The boy Heeley has made a joke! Count for nothing. Did you hear?”

  “It was an accident,” Heeley mumbled, blushing.

  “I count for nothing because I am not a count,” Andrei said. “I hold no rank in Russian nobility. My father is an engineer. I studied chemistry at London University. When Duke Nikolai was sent here, he must have an aide who could fly and speak English. Nothing less than a count would do. Unfortunately the Tsar was feeling a little low that week. He went to bed and refused to see his ministers or his generals. So I was not elevated. I am a counterfeit count.”

  The poker had come to a halt.

  “I still don’t think you should have hit him,” McWatters said. “I mean, what if the Cossacks put the Tsar back on the throne? He might turn very shirty about blokes like you clouting his cousin.”

  Andrei said, “There were riots in Petersburg, and the Cossacks refused to fire. So the Tsar had to go.”

  “Politics is a squalid business,” McWatters said.

  “The riots were about bread,” Andrei said. “Hunger beats politics. Hunger beats anything.”

  “I never heard about any riots,” Simms said. “I suppose you’ve got some secret supply of intelligence.”

  “I read it in The Times.”

  “Really? Damned heavy going, The Times. I stick to the racing page.”

  Outside, a klaxon blared. They got up and collected bits of flying kit.

  “What I don’t understand,” Maddegan said, “is why you swore your great steaming oath to the Grand Duke Thingummy, when you reckon the whole royal kit and caboodle has gone down the drain.” He yawned and stretched, and accidentally hit Heeley in the face. “Sorry, chum,” he said.

  “It was a small courtesy to the adjutant,” Andrei said. “And it will keep the Paris embassy quiet.”

  They left the cards on the table for the next squadron, and shut the door and walked to the aircraft. Dash edged alongside McWatters. “Remember that night at Rosie’s?” he said quietly. “The business with the deserter. You made him stand on the table.”

  “Oh, that. That was years ago. What of it?”

  “Well ... what happened? What did you ... What became of him?”

  “As a matter of fact, we killed him. A deserter, you see. We court-martialled him, on the spot, and he confessed. Only one sentence. Little chap. Didn’t take much killing. Threw the remains
in the midden. Wet as a bog. Sank like a stone.” They had reached the Pups. They stopped and looked at each other. McWatters was wearing sunglasses and Dash wanted to knock them off, but he wasn’t brave enough.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said.

  “Of course you don’t.” McWatters moved to his machine. “You could always look in the midden,” he said. “I expect he’s still there.”

  The squadron took off in order of flights, with the Russian Nieuports the last to leave. The general stood on a tender and waved them goodbye. A sergeant-fitter helped him down. “Cavalry of the clouds,” the general said. There were tears in his eyes, and he stumbled as he walked to his car. What’s he got to cry about? the sergeant wondered. He’s not likely to get a burst of tracer up his arse. Silly old sod.

  Earthquake Strength 5:

  Sleepers wakened. Small objects upset. Doors swing open or closed.

  “It’s the poor bloody aeroplane I feel sorry for,” Paxton said.

  “Then you’re a twat,” Woolley told him. “It’s just a Pup, for Christ’s sake.”

  “It did its duty in France. It deserves a decent end in England, not to get bashed to bits by silly buggers like Mackenzie.”

  “Stay off the gin, Pax. Gin makes you come over all weepy.”

  They watched the Pup come in to land. The engine made brief belching sounds as its magneto was switched off to lose power. A small gust of wind shook the wings and slewed the machine, and the pilot lost confidence in his approach. The engine roared as he tried to make the Pup climb. It was too late. The Pup dropped ten feet and bounced. Then it stayed up and cruised across the field, head high, gaining speed, and wobbled over a hedge.

  “I wish he’d break his bloody neck and get it done with,” Woolley said. “Then we can all have a beer.”

  “Is that true, what you said about gin?” Paxton asked. “When I was at Sherborne, the chaplain was always droning on about the evils of liquor. He said gin attacked a chap’s manhood. I must say mine seems to be standing up to the challenge.”

  “I went to Bog Street Elementary School,” Woolley said. “Couldn’t afford gin. We drank the ink.”