Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  “That’s desertion. I’m not going to desert.” He spread the notes like a fan. “Forty-seven miserable quid. I don’t know ... What should I do?”

  “That’s easy. When in doubt, go to the races.”

  “I like being with you. I don’t have to think. Thinking just makes my stitches itch.”

  They went to their room to pack. “Fresh underwear,” he decided. “It’s about the only thing I’ve got lots of.” He undressed, and stood in front of the mirror, carefully brushing his hair. He cleared his throat. “May I have the pleasure?”

  “Andrew ... your affairs are your affair, but ... Haven’t you got a bank account?”

  “It’s empty.”

  “Well, empty it some more. Get an overdraft.”

  “Jolly good idea. Now may I have the pleasure?”

  “Yes, of course.” She fell onto the bed and lay spread-eagled.

  “Take me for all you’re worth, Andrew. Including the overdraft.”

  * * *

  The bank manager at Crianlaroch knew the Mackenzie family well and he valued their custom; all the same he could allow an eighteen-year-old an overdraft of no more than twenty-five pounds. Crianlaroch was a prudent place and the manager was only a year off retirement. Mackenzie took the lot in cash, on the spot, which was not at all what the manager expected.

  “Perth,” she said. “There’s a race meeting at Perth.”

  It took them four hours to drive there. The weather was better, and Mackenzie was grateful for that because he was feeling worse. His face throbbed painfully and he was sweating all the time. The road was straight, even if it wasn’t smooth. For mile after mile it ran alongside Loch Tay, and then it followed the Tay through Ballinluig and Birnam. “Where the beeches came from,” he told her. Conversation was an effort. He was drowsy. At times it seemed to him that the Daimler was driving itself, and he was just there to fool about with the wheel. That was a dangerous idea. They had a flask, so he took some whisky to clear his head. “Darling, you just missed that cow, or whatever it was,” she said.

  “Did I really?” He squeezed her hand. “Goes to show what a bloody brilliant pilot I am.”

  They reached Perth too late for the first race. The bar was open. They ate smoked salmon sandwiches and drank whisky while they picked a horse in the second. “There’s a runner called Total Wreck,” she said. “No form, unknown jockey, poor draw.”

  “Back it!” he said. Total Wreck surged through the field and won by a length at thirty-to-one. They rejoiced, and went to collect a fistful of notes, and were still rejoicing when they came back to the bar and celebrated with more whisky. A big, pleasant-faced major strolled over and congratulated them. “You’ll be Captain Mackenzie?” he said. “The D.S.O.?”

  “No, no. Can’t you see I’m in mufti? I’m on leave, old chap.”

  “Not so, I’m afraid. My name’s Day. I’m in the APM’s department.”

  “You’re all bastards,” Dorothy said. “Every last one of you.”

  “I’m not going to France,” Mackenzie said.

  “Of course you are. No fuss, old man. We’ll forget the nonsense about the car. Forget all about the munitions factories. Up you get, old chap. If we go now, we can catch the London express and put you on tonight’s boat train.”

  “How did you know I was here?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Your picture’s in all the papers. You’re famous.”

  “He’s not very well,” Dorothy said.

  “In that case he’ll be in good company when he gets to Wipers,” Day said. “Nobody’s very well there at the moment.”

  * * *

  Poperinghe wasn’t a patch on Gazeran. The field was vast and bumpy; three squadrons were based here. The crews lived in draughty Nissen huts, eight officers to a hut. The mess was gaunt and cold. There was no escape from the wind; it rattled the windows of the orderly room. When two military policemen delivered Mackenzie there, they found the adjutant alone; and the adjutant was not Brazier.

  “Where’s Uncle?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Moved on. I’m the new Uncle.” He was balding and amiable, and he wore a faded Observer’s wing. He scribbled a signature and the policemen saluted and marched away. “Spot of bother? I expect you’re glad to be back. Blighty’s a dangerous place, if you ask me. Too many beanos. Too many poppets.”

  “I’m not well, Uncle.”

  “See Dando. He’s got some new hangover cure.”

  “Not hungover.”

  “Look ... the C.O. wants everyone in the anteroom in five minutes. You’d better be there. You don’t want to blot your copybook again, D.S.O. or no D.S.O.”

  “Oh, Christ.”

  “I must say you look pretty foul. Stay off the gin, old chap. That’s my advice.”

  Mackenzie walked to the anteroom. He felt cold, but walking made him sweat. What he needed more than anything was a bath. Major Day had travelled with him on the express to London. Mackenzie had dozed most of the way. Occasionally he daydreamed about killing the major and running away, but the man was big and alert. Just to look at him made Mackenzie feel drained of energy. In London, Day had handed him over to a captain in the APM’s department. They caught the boat train, and the boat. In France, the military policemen took possession. They had put him in a car and driven him to Poperinghe, hitting every pothole on the way. “Slow down,” he’d said. “I’m not perishable goods, for God’s sake. What’s the rush?” They hadn’t answered, and they hadn’t slowed down.

  There seemed to be a lot of new faces in the anteroom. He saw Dingbat Maddegan, and said, “What happened to Uncle?”

  “Sacked. Jiggery-pokery. Something to do with jam. Lacey went too.” Maddegan shrugged. “It’s all bullshit.”

  Mackenzie noticed that Maddegan was wearing the three stars of a captain. “Congratulations.”

  “Well, McWatters copped it, so I’ve got C-flight now. How was London?”

  “Lousy.”

  “And King George?”

  Mackenzie had to work hard to remember. “Very short,” he said. “He couldn’t spell my name.” Maddegan was amused, but not greatly.

  Cleve-Cutler came in with another officer, and everyone stood up and shut up.

  “This won’t take long,” the C.O. said. “We’re ordered to go ground-strafing again.”

  Total silence. Mackenzie tasted salt and wondered if it was blood.

  “Corps doesn’t give us these jobs just to keep us in flying pay,” the C.O. said. “There’s a reason, and this officer will tell us what it is. He’s been in the thick of the fighting and he knows what’s what. Major The Lord Delancey.” Cleve-Cutler stepped back.

  Now that caused a bit of a stir. Titled officers were a rarity. This one looked to be only a few years older than the average pilot. He wore the uniform of the Guards, and his right sleeve was pinned up. Those near enough to him could see that his left ear had been mangled. Delancey had paid for the right to be heard.

  He asked them to sit down.

  “I’m not an airman,” he said, “so I’m not here to tell you how to fly. My experience has been on the battlefield. My job now is to act as liaison between the sky and the mud, and help you to help the infantry. I’ll explain why you are being asked to do certain things, in this case: ground-strafing the enemy. I have seen your machines attack enemy troops and I know first hand how grateful my men were for your intervention. It saved the day. Well, here is another day. This time we’re asking you to help us win it. At Passchendaele.”

  Now they knew the worst. There was a scuffing of boots and a mumble of curses.

  “You’ve been there already, I know. More than once. What makes Passchendaele so special? It’s our final objective. This has been a long battle. August, September, October, and here we are six days into November and still slogging it out with the Boche. Long and costly. The casualty figure I’ve heard is two hundred thousand. That’s a big bill to pay, but if we can just take Passchendaele, we’ll have got what we want and
we’ll have won this battle.”

  The C.O. was watching their faces. A few looked sick. That casualty figure was a bad blow. Personally, he reckoned it was on the low side.

  “There’s a terrible irony about Wipers,” Delancey said. “The more ground we gain, the harder the battle becomes for us. We’ve advanced about four and a half miles since August, but most of the last two miles that we gained are now a swamp, if not a lake. When I tell you that we sometimes need sixteen men to carry a single stretcher out of the mud and onto the duckboard tracks, you’ll appreciate the problems we face when we try to move our guns in the battle area. We lose them in the mud. I’ve seen artillery sink in a swamp. We’re using pack-mules to bring up ammunition. We lose the mules too. Shells arrive covered in slime, and have to be cleaned. Usually it rains, of course, which helps clean the shells.”

  They laughed, briefly, glad of any reason to laugh.

  “The enemy has no such problems,” Delancey said. “Quite the contrary. They have reinforced their artillery behind Passchendaele, where the ground is firm and the roads are good. Not surprisingly, our troops are suffering severely from this mismatch. It will not stop them attacking Passchendaele, but I hope you understand now just how much they need your ground-strafing. Our guns cannot help them, but you can. To you goes the pride of place; yours is the vanguard.”

  There were no questions. Coffee was served. Everyone had something to say, but nobody had the nerve to say it to Major The Lord Delancey, except Woolley.

  “You probably don’t remember me, sir. Last March. A flying poacher took your deer, and you gave us the venison.”

  “My dear chap!” Delancey shook his hand. “How good to see you.”

  “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?” Woolley said. “Quite amazing. Almost unbelievable. After all, there must be a hundred squadrons in France.”

  “No coincidence. As soon as I was attached to Trenchard’s staff, I looked through the list of pilots, just in case there might be an old school chum amongst them.”

  Cleve-Cutler, listening, said, “You went to school with Woolley?”

  “No. But I remembered him as an unusually keen and combative officer, and when the need arose for a squadron to crack a tough nut, I suggested yours.”

  “How interesting,” Cleve-Cutler said. “I don’t think you’ve met the padre.”

  “I say, sir, weren’t you second wicket down for Eton?” the padre asked. “Or was that another Delancey?”

  They moved away, and Cleve-Cutler said, “You got us in the fucking vanguard, Woolley. Now you can have pride of fucking place; you can lead the fucking squadron.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The C.O. braced his shoulders and grinned his rage. He had nothing more to say, but he was reluctant to move.

  “Why did you get rid of Lacey?” Woolley asked. “He was a bit of a pansy, but at least we had comfortable toilet paper. And good grub. And ping-pong.”

  “The A.P.M. caught him with his fingers in all sorts of pies. Brazier had turned a blind eye, so he was as bad. They gave Brazier the option: court martial, or go back to the trenches. He chose the trenches, and now Lacey’s his batman.”

  “And we’re in this dump.”

  “You’re free to leave, captain, just as soon as you’ve won the war. Is that Mackenzie? Tell him to come to my office. Now.”

  * * *

  The adjutant saw Cleve-Cutler heading for his office and got on his bicycle. They arrived together. Cleve-Cutler had to kick the door open and the adjutant had to kick it shut.

  “The usual bumf, sir. All it needs is your signature.”

  The C.O. worked his way through the bundle of papers. His signature became more and more illegible. Finally he stopped. “This letter,” he said. “Who wrote this letter?”

  “I did, sir. I’m afraid I never knew the officer —”

  “That’s painfully obvious.” Cleve-Cutler got up and paced slowly around the room, taking care not to step on the cracks between the boards. The floor creaked and squeaked at every step. “They follow me, Uncle,” he said grimly. “Hear them? They follow me everywhere. From Pepriac to Gazeran, and now here.”

  The adjutant put on a serious face and said nothing.

  “All that tosh about the fellow’s gallantry, Uncle. His conspicuous bloody gallantry. There must be something better to say ... Anyway, the only conspicuous thing about Dobson was his raging acne.”

  “Not Dobson, sir. Jennings. This letter is for Jennings’ next-of-kin.”

  “Where’s Dobson’s letter, then?”

  “We’ve never had a Dobson on the squadron, sir. Not in my time.”

  Cleve-Cutler took the letter and tore it into quarters. “Send Jennings’ people a two-pound tin of raspberry jam.”

  The adjutant made a note. “You think that will be adequate, sir?” he asked cautiously.

  “It’s all we can afford. Chuck in a couple of sandbags to make up the weight, if you like. I don’t care.”

  The adjutant knew when to leave. Mackenzie was waiting to come in.

  “Give the door a good kick,” the C.O. told him. “Well, did you see her? Give her the record?”

  “Yes, sir. She asked me to thank you.”

  “I’ll bet she did. Stay at Taggart’s, did you? What room did he give you?”

  “Can’t remember the number, sir.” Mackenzie squinted at Cleve-Cutler’s ferocious grin and it went out of focus. He rubbed the eye and made it worse. “He said there was no blood on the carpet. Didn’t tell me that. Told her. Dunno why.”

  “I see. I see. Quite a beauty, isn’t she?”

  “Stunning.”

  “I hope she entertained you?”

  Mackenzie was becoming weary from standing. He wanted to get the questioning over. “Yes, sir,” he said. “She entertained me, and I entertained her, and we entertained each other, and that was that. We danced, and she sang, and it was all delightful. Sir.”

  “It sounds exhausting.” Cleve-Cutler was circling the room again, frowning with concentration in order not to step on a crack. “Still, now that you’re back you can have a nice rest at Passchendaele.”

  “I don’t think I’m fit, sir.”

  “Fit enough to have a fight in Buckingham Palace, weren’t you? A.P.M. told me all about it. Hellbent on a court martial, they were, until I persuaded them to let you go on patrol at Wipers instead. I leaned over backwards for you.”

  “I can’t find the doc anywhere. He could —”

  “Dando’s gone to get a tooth pulled. You can see him when you get back.”

  “I can’t see anything clearly, sir.”

  “Not surprised, with that bloody silly eyepatch on. Besides, you can’t miss Passchendaele. Large village, full of Huns. Ah!” The C.O. knelt and put his ear to the floor. “Little bastards are listening,” he whispered. He tiptoed to his desk and took out a Service revolver and fired at the floor. He kept firing until the gun was empty and the room was full of smoke. “Ground-strafing!” he said. “That’s the stuff to give the troops.” But by then Mackenzie had gone.

  * * *

  Woolley was talking to Dingbat Maddegan when he saw Mackenzie in the distance, going into the flight hut. He stopped a passing mechanic and took his bicycle and rode to the hut.

  Mackenzie was picking through a litter of flying clothing. “Some bastard pinched my sheepskin coat,” he said. “I’ve a damn good mind to tell the king.”

  Woolley went over to him and took a long look at his face, and walked away, his hands in his pockets. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Seven,” Mackenzie said. He had found one flying boot. “Twelve.” He heaved on the boot, but it was too small for him. The effort was exhausting and he had to rest. He sat on the table. “Six and a half?” he said.

  “You’re not fit to fly.”

  “The C.O. reckons I am. And Dando’s got toothache.”

  “The C.O.’s off his head. Look at you: you’ve got the shakes.”

&nbs
p; “Uncle says it’s a hangover.” Mackenzie was shivering. He found a stained and ragged muffler, and wrapped it around his neck. “It comes and goes. It’s come now, so it’ll go soon. That’s logic.”

  “Bugger your logic. You’re not fit to fly. If you try to take off I’ll shoot you.”

  Immediately, Mackenzie brightened up. “What for? To save my life? Bugger your logic.”

  “All right, forget logic. And forget jokes. Passchendaele is no joke. I’ve been there already. Trench-strafing isn’t funny, either. Too many Huns with too many guns.”

  “But think of the slaughter,” Mackenzie said softly. He wiped his face with one end of the muffler and left smears of whale-grease. “Strafe a trench that’s full of Hun infantry and you could knock over a brace of platoons in a single swoop. Wouldn’t that be thrilling? If your luck’s in, you might bag a whole company.”

  “It’s not grouse shooting, for Christ’s sake,” Woolley muttered.

  “Good God, no. It’s much more fun than that.” He smiled at Woolley; or, at least, half his face smiled. “That upsets you, doesn’t it? Killing isn’t supposed to be fun. Too bad. I like it. I didn’t realise how much I liked it until you tried to stop me doing it. Flamers are fun, but you can only get a couple of Huns in a flamer. Whereas trenchstrafing is one long glorious skittle-match. Huns by the ton.”

  “I had a dog like you, once. Never happier than when he was savaging sheep.”

  Mackenzie cocked his head. “You shot him.”

  “Somebody else did. Blew his stupid head off.”

  “I blame the sheep,” Mackenzie said. “No sense of humour.”

  “Sometimes you get on my right tit,” Woolley said. His voice was harsh; his face was sour. “Don’t you want to live? You think the rest of us are turds; well, maybe we are turds. That’s no reason to chuck your life away. Anyone can die, you know. It doesn’t take brains. What’s your damned hurry?”

  “I like the taste,” Mackenzie said simply.

  * * *

  The squadron took off thirty minutes before Canadian troops were due to assault Passchendaele.

  Woolley led eleven Bristol Fighters, which was the most the squadron could raise. It had suffered badly since moving to Poperinghe. The Biff was a sturdy machine, but trench-strafing was the most hazardous kind of air fighting. The only way to do it was to fly low; very low. The enemy was all around, often well hidden, usually well armed, and eager to hack down an aeroplane before its guns could hunt them through their trenches.