Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  “Potential suffering cannot be discounted,” Sir Frederick was saying. “The breeding of game birds is a highly sensitive affair. The financial loss is arguably very considerable.”

  “I’ll make enquiries, dammit,” Venables said. “I’ve told you I will make enquiries, and I will. There’s no evidence my squadron did this.”

  “Pheasant, in particular, are susceptible to shock.”

  “You can’t train pilots without letting them fly low. Even if my squadron is involved, and as I said, there’s no evidence —”

  “Low flying, you say?” The lawyer made a note. “No doubt the War Office has issued regulations —”

  “All right, Freddy,” Lord Delancey called. “That’s enough. Come and sit down, everyone.” There were chairs ranged around the desk. As they sat, he stood. He was not tall; slim; with neat and regular features except for his left ear. The sight of that ear startled Woolley: it had been ripped and mangled as if a wild dog had attacked it. The contrast between the young face and the ruined ear was unnerving.

  “Let’s forget my grouse and their shattered nerves,” Delancey said. His lawyer began to speak and was waved away. “I’m on the boat train tonight. There’s time only for urgent business.”

  “That’s a Guards tie,” Venables said. “You’re a Guardsman.”

  “Yes. I’m Captain the Lord Delancey, and strictly speaking you outrank me, but as this is the last day of my leave I hope you will allow me to lead this show? Thank you. Now: I come from a large family. Scattered about this house are aunts, great-aunts, cousins, both my maternal grandparents, I won’t bore you with the list. My wife is here, of course. Pregnant. Our first child. And so to aeroplanes. I dare say you fellows in the Flying Corps take aeroplanes in your stride.”

  “We do.”

  “This household does not. Aeroplanes frighten them. In particular my wife. The sound of a flying machine terrifies her. She fears it is German and it will drop its bomb on us.”

  “Highly unlikely.”

  “You think so? For the last two years Zeppelins have wandered all over England, even as far as Cheshire and Lancashire, bombing as they wished. One Zeppelin bombed Piccadilly Circus! How long before German aeroplanes do the same? How long before Liverpool Street Station looks like Ypres? Or Arras? If my wife cannot take the train to town in safety, how can I assure her that she is safe in her own home?”

  “I honestly can’t see the Germans coming all the way here, just to throw out a few bombs. What would be the point?”

  “What was the point of bombing a children’s playground in south London? But they did it.”

  “Fortunes of war.”

  “Which exist, I agree. However, I have never believed in meekly accepting one’s luck when the odds can be improved. Here, for instance, we have your squadron of well-armed Sopwith Pups on the doorstep, so to speak, and, I’m sure, itching for battle.”

  Venables’ head was wobbling again. “Look: I take my orders from —”

  “I know. I know precisely who gives you your orders. Know them personally. Many have been guests in this house.”

  “You’re suggesting that my squadron gives your family special protection.”

  “Not a bit. The fact that this year I paid in taxes more than enough to buy several squadrons of aircraft is neither here nor there.” Delancey smiled. He had a pleasant smile, slightly wistful. “Although some might think we deserve special protection, if only to guarantee that you can go on buying more squadrons.”

  “I don’t believe you understand. I command a training squadron.”

  “What better training than to attack any German aeroplanes that intrude? Shoo them away. Send them packing.”

  “It’s a spiffing idea, sir,” Woolley said brightly. Venables glared. “Come on, major,” Woolley said. “You know the chaps are keen as mustard to take a crack at the Boche.”

  “The first pilot to bag a Hun gets fifty guineas,” Delancey said. “I’ll tell my wife.”

  “She might not see us. We fly extremely high, to get a better view.” Woolley snapped his fingers. “Here’s a thought. Why don’t you give her our phone number? If she’s the slightest bit worried, we’ll pop upstairs and wipe the sky clean.”

  “Splendid, splendid.”

  Delancey walked with them along the echoing corridors to the porticoed entrance. Sir Frederick had stayed in the study. “Never mind old Freddy,” Delancey said. “He thinks that shooting grouse out of season is worse than fighting in church.”

  “I’ve fought in a church,” Venables said. “What was left of it.”

  Their driver was at the door, weighed down with haunches of venison. “Your flying poacher strafed a deer,” Delancey said. “May you have as much success against the Hun.”

  * * *

  “Damn fool,” Venables said. “Bloody lunatic.” The driver half-turned his head. “Not you,” Venables said wearily.

  “His lordship’s happy, sir,” Woolley said. “He thinks he’s had his wicked way with us, which proves that a gallon of blue blood is worth more than two pints of peasant piss like us. Did you see him smile?”

  “Did you see me smile? While you were treating my squadron like a lucky dip? Roll up! Anybody want a dozen Sopwith Pups? Jesus.” The car had stopped so abruptly that it skidded a little on the gravel.

  “Stag, sir,” the driver said. It stood in the middle of the driveway, its great head swaying, apparently dozing in the rain.

  “That’s the same bloody beast,” Venables growled. The driver nodded. It was a different beast, but he was only a corporal. “Even Delancey’s bloody animals think they own us.”

  “I don’t give a twopenny toss what Delancey thinks,” Woolley said. “Do you, sir? As soon as I heard him say ‘Shoo them away’ I knew he was talking out of his arse. He thinks Huns are like trespassers and we’re the village bobby. I could have told him it takes our clapped-out Pups half an hour to reach ten thousand, and by then the Boche has cheated and gone somewhere else, not that we could catch him if he played the white man and waited to be killed. But Delancey wouldn’t have liked that, sir. Not what he wanted to hear.”

  Venables sighed. “No, I suppose not.”

  “Whereas now he thinks we’ll be flying high-level patrols over his lovely wife, dawn to dusk, and it was all his idea, clever sod.”

  “If word gets out —”

  “He won’t tell anyone. It’s our little secret.”

  “He’ll tell his wife. She’ll telephone —”

  “And I’ll tell her we’re on patrol. I’ll tell her she’s perfectly safe. I’ll lie.”

  “Yes. You’re good at that, aren’t you, Woolley? I’m not. I was taught soldiering. Find the enemy, bash him, take his territory.” Venables threw open the car door, strode over to the stag and booted it in the rump. It bounded away. He got back in. The car moved off. “Did you see the man’s ear? Looked more like a bayonet than a bullet.”

  “Cut himself shaving,” Woolley said. “The butler told me so.”

  “Is that a joke?” Venables said. “Bloody stupid one, if it is.” That ended all conversation.

  * * *

  They were still playing poker.

  “Back already?” Slattery said. “I just had four kings.”

  “That’s nothing,” Woolley said. “I just had fifty lashes. From Lord Delancey’s butler. Proper toff, his lordship. Watched it all and never flinched once.” He sat at the table. Quarry dealt. “Don’t you want to know what it was about?” Woolley asked Paxton.

  “No,” Paxton said. “’Cos it doesn’t matter. We’re off to France tomorrow. Postings just came through.”

  “France, eh?” Woolley said brightly. “What’s going on there?”

  “Tossing the beanbag,” Quarry said. “We’re in the finals. How many cards d’you want?”

  Earthquake Strength 6:

  Persons walk unsteadily. Small bells ring.

  The sky above Gazeran had been washed clean by the rainstorms o
f winter and blown dry by the gales of spring, and now Cleve-Cutler thought he had never seen a more delicate blue. Of course he knew this was nonsense. He had often flown above the weather, and he knew the sky was always blue, come rain or shine or thick grey fog. But a C.O.’s job left precious little time to enjoy beauty, it was mostly a matter of kicking junior officers up the arse before Wing H.Q. discovered their mistakes, and so when he found himself standing at the window of the anteroom he chose to look at the serenity of the sky rather than at the oily chimney of smoke that was boiling up and spoiling it all.

  “Who’s in camp over there?” he asked.

  “Australian infantry,” Plug Gerrish said. “I expect they saw it coming and got out of the way.”

  “I was on the phone at the time. Lousy line, bloody idiot at Brigade bawling and shouting, I never heard the klaxon.”

  A waiter brought two whisky-sodas.

  “Heard the bang, though,” Cleve Cutler said. “Come on, Plug, speak up.”

  “Well, it’s either Maddegan or the new boy, Stamp. They went up to have a practice scrap. One got in a spin. Quite a slow spin. Don’t suppose he thought it was slow, poor devil.”

  “Don’t suppose he thought anything. Too giddy for that.”

  The smoke was thinning. Not much petrol in a Pup. This one probably had about ten gallons in its tank when it hit, enough for a short, hot fire. The rescuers would be there by now. The squadron had a well-drilled rescue team. No point in rushing over and getting in their way.

  “It wasn’t Dingbat, because here he comes,” Gerrish said. “The original kangaroo.” They watched the Pup make its approach and bounce four times before it ran. “He’s getting better.”

  Cleve-Cutler finished his whisky-soda. “Keep them flying, Plug. Nobody broods. I’m off to write the bloody letter.”

  The orderly room at Gazeran field was in a gloomy barn that was suffering from age and war and rats. For nearly three years the place had been swept daily by the troops of whichever squadron was stationed there, but it still radiated the warm, peppery smell of horse dung. On the day he moved in, Captain Brazier had ordered that Jeyes Fluid be liberally sprinkled about the place. The disinfectant overlaid the ancient aroma, but could not defeat it. Soon the smell of horse dung reappeared like a peasant army which has fled to the hills only to creep back and reclaim its homeland. Next day the adjutant had talked of stronger measures: bleach, creosote, ammonia; even chloride of lime, used in the trenches against the stench of rotting corpses. “You are fighting history,” Lacey had warned him.

  “History and flies, sergeant.”

  It was true: squadrons of heavy French flies cruised around the barn, pilgrims at a shrine. Brazier thrashed the air with his copy of King’s Regulations. A dozen fell dead.

  “Now you are fighting history and natural history,” Lacey said. “But I may have the answer.” He got on the phone to a Royal Navy storekeeper in Boulogne and swapped a lambskin flying jacket, slightly bullet-holed, for six big tins of pungent black pipe-tobacco. Inhaled, its smoke made the adjutant’s eyes water. Exhaled, it sent the flies racing to the nearest window.

  Half an hour after the crash, Cleve-Cutler went into the adjutant’s office. Brazier was with a couple of officers. The air was bruised blue with tobacco smoke.

  “Look here, Uncle ... I’ve knocked something together, but ...” The C.O. looked chirpy, but he sounded annoyed. The officers moved away. “I mean, it’s all well and good to tell his folks he made his mark on the squadron, but what did he actually do?”

  “Stamp was quite keen on getting a cricket team going here, sir. You could say he never let the side down.”

  Cleve-Cutler grunted. “Didn’t exactly cover himself with glory, either.” He folded the paper and used a corner to clean his fingernails. “Covered himself with broken Pup, more like. What d’you call that, Uncle? Go on, give me an epitaph.”

  The adjutant blew smoke at a solitary, inquisitive fly. It whirled and tumbled to the ground. “Sorry, sir,” he said, comfortably. “No can do.”

  The fly lay on its back and buzzed.

  “See that?” Cleve-Cutler said. “Made the same mistake as young Stamp. Stalled and spun, stalled and spun. Silly boy.” He trod on the fly, and immediately wished he hadn’t. “Spinning is such a plague,” he said. “It’s worse than Archie. You can dodge Archie, but a bad spin ...” He shook his head.

  “There’s an answer to it,” one of the officers said.

  Cleve-Cutler turned and saw an angular, black-haired pilot in a uniform that should have been pressed a week ago. His face had a grubby quality. His eyes looked old, but that was not unusual among pilots: even the best goggles could not protect eyes from the bitter gale that hammered at an open cockpit. What was unusual was his mouth. It was a wide mouth in a thin face and it curled in a way that might mean something or nothing. Either way, the C.O. disliked it.

  “Captain Woolley, sir,” the adjutant said. “And you remember Lieutenant Paxton, of course.”

  “Good Christ, Paxton,” the C.O. said. “What a dreadful moustache.”

  “Thank you, sir.” A year ago, Paxton would have burned with shame. Not now. A year ago, when he had left Sherborne School and got his wings and joined this squadron, he had been stiff and priggish, and the other officers had made his apprenticeship very sticky indeed. During the battle of the Somme he had grown up very fast. He survived a bad crash and was sent home to instruct, and now he was back with good old Hornet. The C.O. could say what he liked. Paxton was fireproof.

  “Mr Woolley,” Cleve-Cutler said. “A machine in a bad spin is a coffin. The answer is not to let the machine get into the spin to start with. That’s what we teach on this squadron.”

  “A pilot can get out of a bad spin if he knows how,” Woolley said. “Sir.” He wasn’t arguing.

  “Captain Woolley has been instructing, sir,” the adjutant said.

  “Ah! Instructing, has he? That explains why we get replacement pilots who never last long enough to pay their mess bills! What d’you teach them? Hopscotch?”

  “They get their wings too soon,” Woolley said. “That’s not my fault.”

  “They get their funerals too damn soon. And I have to write these bloody letters! So don’t come bragging to me about your brilliant methods, captain. We shovel the results into coffins every week.” Cleve-Cutler hadn’t finished. He didn’t like Woolley’s unreadable face or his easy stance or his grubby uniform. “Chaps like you make the Hun very happy,” he said. “Mr God-Almighty-Richthofen depends on chaps like you to send him the bunnies he knocks down before breakfast.”

  “Richthofen depends on his skills, sir. He’s a professional.”

  “He’s a bloody butcher.”

  “Butchery is an honest trade.”

  Cleve-Cutler gave up in disgust. He turned to the adjutant. “This officer is a tradesman who has been sent, in error, to a squadron of gentlemen. Make him duty officer until further notice. Since he regards himself as no better than the municipal rat-catcher, he can get rid of the rats that plague this camp.” He left. The door banged, and its shock shivered the remnants of tobacco smoke hanging in the air.

  “The major’s a bit touchy,” Brazier said. “We’ve had a few losses lately.”

  “That’s all right, Uncle. I never wanted to come here, anyway,” Woolley said. “I bet there’s no draught Guinness in the mess.”

  Brazier gave him a duty officer armband and a clipboard. “The funeral’s tomorrow morning. The burial party know the drill. I trained them myself.”

  “See? This is a top-notch squadron,” Paxton told Woolley. “Keen as mustard.”

  They left. Brazier strolled into the orderly room. “You fancy yourself as a scribbler,” he said to Lacey. “The C.O. needs something to spice up his next-of-kin letters. Knock out a few patriotic lines.”

  Lacey was slightly nettled. “Certainly, sir. Do you want sentimental rhymes, or deathless prose? I should warn you that the latter may take a lifeti
me.”

  Brazier nodded. “Start now,” he urged.

  * * *

  Only a handful of Bristol Fighters had been sent to France. Hornet Squadron was to get six. The day before they were ferried in, General Trenchard sent for Cleve-Cutler. A single Bristol Fighter, he told him, was worth two of any other type. The squadron had three weeks to learn how to use it. And the enemy must know nothing of its existence. “You,” Trenchard said, “are entrusted. With a weapon. That could well turn the tide. Of battle.”

  Rashly, Cleve-Cutler said, “The battle of Arras, by the look of things, sir.”

  Trenchard gazed down at him from his great, gaunt height.

  “That’s pure speculation, of course,” Cleve-Cutler murmured.

  “Impure,” Trenchard growled.

  Next day, six Bristol Fighters circled Gazeran and the first sight of them was a disappointment. “It’s an elephant,” Spud Ogilvy said. He handed his binoculars to Crash Crabtree. “What a monster! Must weigh a ton.”

  “Perhaps it’s a Bristol Bomber. Or a clerical error.”

  Nobody wanted to hear that. The R.F.C. had bomber squadrons, brave chaps who flew deep into enemy territory, bombed from beneath the clouds, and got harried all the way home. No thanks.

  The Bristol Fighters landed neatly and in quick succession. Cleve-Cutler and his pilots ambled towards the aircraft, hands in pockets, out of step, exercising the privilege of airmen to be unmilitary.

  “We shall need bigger hangars,” the C.O. said. He walked around the nearest machine.

  Plug Gerrish paced out the wingspan. “Forty feet,” he said. “Half as wide again as a Pup. Nose to tail, I’d say a good six feet longer.”

  McWatters approached the C.O. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, sir,” he said, “but the bottom wing seems to have come away from the fuselage.”

  “I’d noticed.”

  “You can see daylight between them, sir. The bottom wing’s actually hanging from the top wing.”

  “So it appears.”