Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  “That was a joke,” Paxton said. “Standing up to the challenge. Very clever joke.”

  “Couldn’t afford jokes in Bog Street. We had to make do with rickets.” A different Pup made its approach, coughing and wavering, and it landed. “That’s one of my blokes,” Woolley said, and walked towards it.

  “Anyway, if I’m a twat, so are you,” Paxton shouted after him. “We’re all twats. Only a twat would do this twattish job.” Woolley tossed his hat high in the air, and the breeze caught it and sent it bowling along the grass.

  * * *

  The aerodrome took the name of the nearest village, Coney Garth. A branch line to Bury St Edmunds passed through the village, so travel to and from London was easy. This made Coney Garth a far more attractive posting than the many training fields which were stuck in the wilds of the Yorkshire moors or the Lowlands of Scotland. Coney Garth had half-a-dozen flying instructors and they all got out of the place as fast and as often as possible. They were experienced pilots being rested after a spell at the Western Front. Paxton and Woolley had been at Coney Garth for five months. After France, five months was a lifetime: five lifetimes. Paxton spoke of getting married, if only he could find the right girl. Woolley was learning to play the saxophone. They had plenty of time.

  For the pupils, it was different.

  In less than three years the war had killed about half a million men from Britain and Ireland, plus a couple of hundred thousand from the Empire. A million more had been wounded and might as well be dead for all the use they were to the generals. The Royal Flying Corps was one of the smaller departments of the army. In 1917 the Corps accounted for only 2 per cent of its manpower in France; and of these, only a few thousand made up the pilots and observers who actually flew against the enemy. On the other hand, the R.F.C lost its fighting men far more rapidly than any other unit. By the spring of 1917 it was rushing its pupils through their basic training, and then giving them little time to learn how to fly and fight. Some instructors despised their jobs, some were impatient, some just didn’t care. There was no room for an instructor in the Sopwith Pup, so the pupils mainly taught themselves. Many did not reach France. For every airman killed by the German Air Force, two died in training in England.

  Coney Garth was a fairly typical training field. On average there were four crashes a week and a dozen deaths a month. Paxton and Woolley had been sent home to be rested from the war, only to find it waiting for them, hungrier than ever.

  * * *

  “I think I’m getting the hang of it, sir,” Mackenzie said. He had got the Pup down at the third attempt. One undercarriage leg was cracked. A mechanic squatted to examine it, looked up at Paxton, shook his head.

  “Come with me, Mackenzie,” Paxton said, “and we shall find a quiet corner where I can shoot you without disturbing your friends and colleagues stumbling around the firmament.”

  Mackenzie followed, unbuttoning his Sidcot suit. “Why would you wish to shoot me, sir?” he asked.

  “Economy, old fruit. Think what the War Office will save. The cost of shipping you to France. Meals. Toilet paper. Sheets and pyjamas. You’ll want a bed, I suppose? And then an aeroplane all to yourself, guns loaded, tanks full of petrol – have you any idea of the price of petrol? – so you can fly over the Front and get yourself blown to blazes. Just add it all up. Britain can’t afford it, you know. You’re bleeding the old country white, Mackenzie. That way lies defeat. Whereas if I shoot you now, the cost is trifling, a few pence only, which includes cleaning the weapon afterwards. So you see where my patriotic duty lies.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They reached a heavy roller and sat on it.

  Paxton looked long and hard at Mackenzie, who blinked occasionally. Mackenzie had boyish features and hair that curled enthusiastically. Only his eyes seemed fully adult: they were grey and watchful. “It’s a funny thing,” Paxton said. He found his pipe and his pouch, and took his time over shredding a slice of tobacco. “You look rather like a girl I used to know.” As soon as he heard the words he regretted them: that wasn’t what a chap said to another chap, especially to a chap of lower rank. But another part of him said: Who gives a fuck?

  “What did she look like?”

  “Delicate,” Paxton said. “Very slim, she was a dancer. Turned out to be something of a bitch.”

  “Sir,” Mackenzie said. “Shouldn’t you be teaching me how to beat the Boche?”

  “Oh, bugger the Boche. You’ll never be a fighter pilot.” Paxton stood up. “Get your things packed, report to the C.O. You’re sacked.”

  “Why, sir?”

  “Oh ...” Paxton was suddenly tired of Mackenzie. He regretted mentioning the elfin-bitch. “You’re too young. Too small. Not strong enough. Try again next year.” He strolled away. He was thinking of lunch when he heard a squeaking and clanking behind him. The noise grew louder and he turned and saw the roller coming at him. Mackenzie was pushing it by its handle, his body so low that all Paxton saw was the head and shoulders. He jumped aside. Mackenzie let go. The roller rumbled past, and Paxton felt the turf tremble. The roller stopped. Its handle wagged.

  Mackenzie, ten feet away, cocked his head and waited.

  Paxton got hold of the handle and heaved. The roller moved, but not much.

  “All right,” Paxton said. “You are strong enough. But you’re still sacked. Your gunnery’s rotten. Flying’s no good if you can’t shoot. Your scores are pathetic.”

  Mackenzie put his forefinger to his head. “Bang,” he said.

  “Missed. See what I mean? Now put this thing back where you found it.”

  * * *

  When flying finished for the day, Woolley and Paxton and another instructor called Slattery got cleaned up, put on their walking-out uniforms and drove in Slattery’s car to St Quentin’s School for Boys.

  Paxton had not wanted to go. The C.O. at Coney Garth, Major Venables, was normally a mild man. He had crashed a two-seater in 1915 and been somersaulted out of his cockpit. Onlookers said that he travelled fifty feet before he hit the ground, but onlookers always exaggerated. He never flew again. Now he was content to leave the instructing to the instructors, while he took care of the paperwork. That avoided headaches. Headaches made Venables angry, and anger made his headache worse, so when Lieutenant Paxton groaned and said he felt sure there were better people to go and lecture a bunch of schoolboys on the war, sir, people with more time ... Major Venables felt a hot throb bite at the side of his brain. “Do as you’re bloody well told!” he shouted.

  “What I meant, sir, was perhaps it might be better if a couple of other chaps went with me. We could —”

  “Take whoever you like!” Red and green zigzags began to drift into Venables’ vision. “Get out!”

  Paxton took Slattery because he had a car and Woolley because St Quentin’s was a public school and he thought Woolley would hate it. “You may find this place rather strange,” Paxton said as the hedgerows rushed by. “I’ll gladly answer any questions.”

  “Oh, I went to public school,” Woolley said.

  “We’re lost,” Slattery said.

  “I don’t believe you,” Paxton said. Slattery threw the road map at him. “Not you,” Paxton said. “Him.”

  “Well, we’re still lost.”

  “I went to St Bert’s. It’s in Wigan.”

  “I don’t believe there ever was a saint called Bert,” Paxton said.

  Slattery slowed to look at a signpost. “Damn,” he said, and accelerated.

  “You get snotty about St Bert in Wigan,” Woolley said, “and the lads will kick your face in.”

  “Ah,” Paxton said. “A sporting school, is it?”

  “We beat Eton at shoplifting,” Woolley said. “National champions ten years running.”

  “Where are we supposed to be going?” Slattery asked. “I forget.”

  “You really are a bloody awful driver,” Paxton said.

  “Bet you don’t know who the patron saint of bloody awful dri
vers is,” Woolley said to Paxton.

  “Who?”

  “Saint Bert. Coincidence, isn’t it?”

  St Quentin’s School was a stately mansion entirely surrounded by playing fields. The headmaster was burly and bearded. He gave them tea, and then took them to the assembly hall. About six hundred boys and masters were waiting. When they saw the wings on the tunics there was a gentle hum. One click of the headmaster’s fingers silenced that.

  “The poet Browning wrote, ‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ I think we may on this occasion forgive Browning for ending his sentence with a preposition ...” The headmaster smiled, and the older boys laughed dutifully. “The pity is that Browning is not alive to immortalise in verse those whose reach does exceed their grasp, those who do, literally, discover what a heaven’s for – the men of the Royal Flying Corps. Lieutenant Paxton is here to tell us something of the work of this gallant band.”

  Applause.

  Paxton stepped forward, carrying a chair in one hand. He placed it at the front of the stage and put his left foot on it.

  “Fighting in the sky,” he said, using the clear, firm voice he had developed in the Sherborne school debating society, “is rather like a boxing match. In order to hit the other fellow you have to get close to him. So close, in fact, that he can hit you. Which makes it a straight, clean, man-to-man contest. And – this may surprise you – no ill-feeling. Plenty of excitement! When you’re throwing your machine all over the sky, dodging hot lead that’s spewing from some Hun’s machine guns, with nothing beneath you but eight or ten thousand feet of thin air – well, the old heart pumps a bit, believe me. And when the scrap’s over, and it’s goodbye to another Boche aviator ...” Paxton’s mouth twitched in a generous smile. “... I’m not ashamed to salute the passing of a foe who fought his best. Now, you all know there’s a lot of mud and blood in France. That doesn’t mean there’s no room for chivalry. We in the Royal Flying Corps like to think of ourselves as a sort of cavalry of the clouds. Of course, chivalry alone isn’t going to win this war. That’s where you chaps come in. Why are you here? I’ll tell you. A couple of years ago I was at a school very much like yours, and what I learned – apart from how to decline the subjunctive and solve quadratic equations and ...” here he turned to the headmaster “... not to end my sentences with a preposition ...” The boys laughed. “What I learned was that cream rises to the top.” Paxton paused and flexed the leg that was propped on the chair. “Spot of Archie in the knee,” he explained. “You’ve heard of Archie? He goes woof-woof and if you get too close he bites you ...” They enjoyed that. “What was I saying?” He looked at Slattery.

  “Cream?”

  “Ah, yes. That’s why you’re here. This is a topping school, and you chaps are the cream. No matter how hard the Hun tries – and believe me, nobody tries harder – he suffers from one awful disadvantage, which is: he’s a Hun! And that’s why he’s bound to lose!” Applause, and some cheering. “You see, what the Kaiser didn’t take into account is, there’s no substitute for breeding. The Hun doesn’t understand that; it’s not in his blood. He doesn’t know how to make a tackle in a rugger match. He doesn’t know how to face fast bowling on a bumpy wicket and smack it for six. He doesn’t know how to deliver a straight left to the jaw. You do; it’s in your blood. Chaps like you made the Empire, and the Empire covers half the earth. That just leaves the sky to be conquered, and you’re the very chaps to do it.” He stepped back. The applause was warm, and he waved his chair in acknowledgement.

  “Splendid, splendid,” the headmaster said. “Is there anything your fellow officers wish to add?”

  “I could do with a Guinness,” Woolley said.

  “The chaplain will propose a vote of thanks,” the headmaster said.

  “The words of the Prayer Book are not unfitting,” said the chaplain. “‘He rode upon the cherubims, and did fly; he came flying upon the wings of the wind.’ We have all heard, have we not, a most stimulating account ...”

  * * *

  They dined with the headmaster, his wife and the chaplain.

  “It’s good to know that the Public School Spirit is alive and well in France,” the headmaster said. He made it sound like an examination: Discuss the following ...

  “One does one’s best to live up to tradition,” Paxton said.

  “Ah, tradition!” the chaplain said. He was short, dark and bald, and his right arm was limp: he used his left hand to lift it onto the table. “Great stuff, tradition. How did we ever manage without it?”

  The question was aimed at Slattery. “Um ...” he said.

  “Pay no attention,” the headmaster’s wife said. “He only does it to annoy, he should have been a politician.” She was middle-aged and pretty and lively. The chaplain smirked.

  A maid was going around the table, filling glasses with water. “No Guinness at all?” Woolley asked.

  “We took a pledge to abstain from alcohol,” the headmaster said, “until the cessation of hostilities.”

  “We could send out for some. There must be a pub ...”

  “Alas, no.”

  His wife added: “We like to think that this small act of self-denial brings us a little closer to the men in the trenches.”

  Paxton nodded. “We’re all in this thing together, aren’t we?”

  “No,” the chaplain said. “Italy’s in, Holland’s neutral and —”

  “Ah, soup,” the headmaster said. “I hope you like tomato.”

  “Anyway, the Guinness wasn’t for me,” Woolley said. “Lieutenant Paxton needs it for his leg. Nothing else soothes the pain, the biting, burning pain.”

  “Oh, I say. Steady on.” Paxton ripped a bread roll in half.

  “Matron has a wonderful liniment,” the headmaster’s wife offered. “It cures rugger sprains in no time. Perhaps ...”

  “What sort of cricket team have you got this year, sir?” Paxton asked, which kept the headmaster going right through the soup and into the fish pie. “So, despite everything, we beat St Stephen’s by two wickets,” he said. “And it was only afterwards that I discovered young Lumley had been batting with a broken nose. Of course, I awarded him his school colours on the spot.”

  “Commissioned in the field, so to speak,” Slattery said.

  “He looked better for it,” the chaplain said. “Very ugly boy.”

  “I went to public school,” Woolley said. “St Oscar’s, in Brighton.”

  “St Oscar’s,” the headmaster said. “Brighton, you say?”

  “I didn’t know there was a saint called Oscar,” his wife said.

  “Spent his life saving virgins,” Woolley told them. “Martyred for the cause.”

  “Not much good at it, then,” Slattery said.

  “You can’t get sanctified nowadays unless you’ve been martyred,” the chaplain said. “It’s a very difficult choice.” He winked at Slattery.

  “Hullo!” Woolley said. “Somebody’s up.”

  It was a mild evening; the windows were open. A faint, lazy buzz came to them, and faded, and came again. “Excuse me,” Woolley said. He went out by the French windows and stood on the terrace. “It’s a Gotha,” he said.

  That ended dinner. “A damned Hun?” the headmaster said. Everyone hurried out, and looked where Woolley pointed, and saw a speck like a pinprick in the sky.

  The English were a phlegmatic people. They had accepted casualty lists of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, growing to a million and more; but that was in France, abroad, invisible and glorious; even the battle of the Somme had been a triumph, all the newspapers said so. But when Zeppelins and bombers attacked England, all stoicism suddenly dissolved in a howl of fear and fury. Death was prowling the skies. This wasn’t the war the civilians had agreed to fight. This wasn’t fair.

  “Are you sure?” the headmaster asked.

  “It might not be a Gotha,” Woolley said. The headmaster relaxed slightly. “It looks more like a Gian
t,” Woolley said. “That’s twice as big as a Gotha.”

  “Swine. How dare they ...” The headmaster hurried off to get all the boys indoors. His wife left to see to the servants. The chaplain escorted the pilots to their car.

  “I enjoyed your visit,” he said. “You mustn’t be too hard on them. They haven’t the faintest idea what it’s like in France.”

  Suddenly Slattery understood. “But you do.”

  “I went over with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in 1914. We got rather knocked about. The army likes its padres to be able to act as stretcher-bearers, so ... I was lucky to get this job.”

  “Don’t be too hard on us,” Paxton said. “We’ve all fallen out of too many aeroplanes.” They shook his good hand and drove away.

  * * *

  Slattery got lost again. Suffolk was a pleasant county to be lost in. The slanting sunlight of evening burnished the fields of early wheat and barley, and brightened the greens of woodland and pasture. Enormous farm-horses looked over gates and watched the car go by and flattened their ears at the noise. Children left their games and ran and cheered, and flung old potatoes, and missed. “No idea of deflection shooting,” Paxton said.

  At dusk they stopped at a pub to find out where they were. Slattery glanced into the public bar. “Full of gnarled Shakespearean types wearing corduroy trousers secured with twine below the knees,” he reported. The saloon bar was empty. The landlord brought them bottled Guinness and went away.

  “We of the Royal Flying Corps,” Woolley said, “like to think of ourselves as a sort of cavalry of the clouds. Show us your roses and we shall shit on them.”

  “That was you, was it?” Slattery said. “I thought it was hot lead spewing from a Hun’s machine guns.”

  “Archie goes woof-woof,” Woolley said. “Stanley went puke-puke.”

  Paxton dipped a finger into his stout and licked the cream. He was unmoved by their comments. “The boys seemed to enjoy it,” he said.

  “Ask them again in a year,” Woolley said. “When the oldest ones meet an Albatros and try to kill it with breeding.”