War Story

by Derek Robinson

  “It involved the CO.”

  “I’m strictly non-technical.” Appleyard was fussing with the mass of papers on his desk. “Don’t know one end of an aeroplane from the other, especially now they’ve gone and put the propeller in the middle. What?” He grinned, encouragingly. Paxton caught a glimpse of his tongue, and looked away.

  “The CO deliberately put a match to my plane this afternoon,” he said. Appleyard was still fussing, so Paxton raised his voice a little. “It was brand new, I spent five days getting it here, and he deliberately set fire to it. Result – complete and utter destruction of a machine in perfect condition …” Honesty checked him. “Well, almost perfect, I mean it wasn’t all that badly damaged, just the undercarriage and the—”

  “Heavy landing, eh?” Appleyard dumped files in a tray.

  “Yes, I admit I—”

  “Don’t worry, old man.” Appleyard came around the desk and squeezed his shoulder. “Happens all the time. Nothing to lose any sleep over. Beg pardon,” he said as a slight belch escaped him. “You’re a lucky chap, you know. Wish I had your problem. I can’t stay awake for two minutes on end, that’s my problem.” He chuckled again, and coughed his way back to his chair.

  “But I don’t understand, adj,” Paxton said. “Five days I took to ferry that Quirk here. Five. And now it’s just a heap of ashes.”

  Appleyard sat and looked at him. In the distance, a gentle rumble of thunder quickly ran out of strength. The noise drained into the summer silence and was gone. “You feel pretty strongly about this, don’t you?” he said. “I can tell. They don’t call me Uncle for nothing. Corporal Lacey!” he shouted. “You’re entitled to feel strongly,” he told Paxton. “After all, it’s your neck, and if the machine’s as inflammable as you say …” The door opened. “Ah, corporal: be so good as to arrange a meeting with Major Milne for Lieutenant Dexter.”

  “Paxton,” said Paxton.

  “Really?” Appleyard was taken aback. “Not Dexter?” He waved Lacey away, and the door closed. “Well, that’s different. Damn it, I’m sure I had it here …” He scrabbled among his papers. “Yes, look, here it is: Second-Lieutenant D.E.M. Dexter, Sussex Yeomanry.”

  “I’m Paxton.”

  Appleyard did some more scrabbling. “Paxton. Yes. Found it. My God, you should have got here last week. You’re a bit late, aren’t you?”

  “Not as late as Dexter, I’m afraid. He flew into a church.” Paxton was amazed at his own callousness, but also pleased. He felt ready for a bit of callousness.

  “Nobody told me.” Appleyard crossed out Dexter’s name, firmly, several times. “Flew into a church, you say. Extraordinary thing to do … What sort of church? Nothing here about it that I can see …”

  Paxton said nothing; he knew the adjutant was talking to himself. For a while there was silence. Paxton stood up. Through a window he could see the camp’s transport park: a dozen lorries, tenders, petrol bowsers. A man was trying to kick-start a motorcycle. It coughed, once, each time he tried. He went on stamping, regularly, uselessly. Paxton lost patience. He turned and went out. “Don’t worry, old boy,” the adjutant called, “I’ll sort it out.” Paxton closed the door.

  “Can I help, sir?” asked Corporal Lacey.

  “I don’t know. Can you make my BE2c fly again?”

  “Rising like a phoenix from the ashes … What an excellent idea. Tidy and economical. War is so messy. Or so I’m told.”

  Paxton put his cap on and looked hard. Normally, troops stood rigidly to attention when he spoke to them. They squared their shoulders, held their thumbs to the seams of the trousers, and stared at the knot of his tie. Corporal Lacey was quite relaxed. One leg was slightly bent at the knee, a thumb was hooked in a trouser pocket, and he looked Paxton in the eye. His moustache disguised a slight movement of the lips. He was almost, Paxton thought, smiling. Almost but not quite. What a cheek. “I didn’t seem to be able to get through to the adjutant,” he said.

  “Mr. Appleyard is having one of his days, I’m afraid. He served a lot in the tropics, you know.” Still Lacey looked straight into Paxton’s eyes. His voice was silky and assured. “You’ve heard of Delhi Belly? Zambesi Wheeze? The Zulu’s Revenge? Rangoon Rot?”

  “I can’t say I have.”

  “Mr. Appleyard suffers from them all.”

  “How unfortunate.” Paxton did not like the way Lacey held his gaze. He felt it bordered on insolence, or mockery, or something. He cleared his throat, and waited, but neither man had anything to add, and so he went away.

  Paxton decided to go back to his billet. There was a book in his trunk, The Riddle of the Sands, a rattling good yarn.

  A man was lying on the bed next to Paxton’s, on his side, facing away from the door, tucked-up in the attitude of sleep, and he did not move when Paxton came in. Nobody else was there.

  The trunk was half-empty: Fidler had done some unpacking. Paxton searched through his chest-of-drawers, trying to avoid making squeaks, and then looked in the bedside cabinet. It contained only his toilet kit and a writing compendium. He went back to the trunk and searched more thoroughly. No book. Yet he had seen it lying there, when Fidler had got him his dressing gown. This was exasperating. He leaned out of a window, hoping to find Fidler; but all he could see, through a gap between huts, was that same uniformed fool still trying to kick-start his stupid motorcycle. Or perhaps it was another fool: nothing seemed to work properly in this camp. A page rustled.

  The sound was unmistakable. Paxton followed it. The figure on the bed was not asleep; he was curled up around a book, The Riddle of the Sands.

  “That’s mine,” Paxton said.

  The man rolled slowly onto his back. “No, I don’t think so,” he said.

  His voice was flat, with a twang Paxton had never heard before. Maybe it was Cockney. Paxton had met very few Cockneys, and those usually railway porters. It was inconceivable that the Corps would have Cockney officers. “I tell you, it’s my book,” he said. “Hand it over.” Memories of schoolroom squabbles returned. He tried to dismiss them by holding out a hand and snapping his fingers.

  The man stared. He had a long face with no trace of expression. His nose was broken, or at least bent, and he breathed through his mouth. He managed to look wooden without seeming stupid, so the wooden look had to be deliberate. Certainly he watched Paxton very carefully. “It can’t be yours,” he said. “It’s got my name in it.”

  “Show me.”

  He turned the first page and held it for Paxton to see. “Michael St. John Lenihan Francis O’Neill,” he said.

  “You’ve crossed my name out. You stole that book from my trunk.”

  O’Neill raised himself a few inches to study the trunk. “That’s Toby Chivers’ trunk,” he said flatly. “It’s Toby’s bed so it’s Toby’s trunk. But you can help yourself. Anything you fancy, take it.” He lay back. All his limbs were slack, but his eyes were alert.

  “That’s my trunk. It’s got my initials on it, O.A.D.P. T’ for Paxton, I’m Paxton, that’s my book you’re reading.”

  O’Neill’s mouth was gaping more than ever. “Only four initials?” he said. “I’ve got five. Come from a poor family, do you?” He had slipped a hand down the front of his trousers and was scratching his crotch. “Toby Chivers’ family gave him eight. Take a couple of his. Toby won’t—”

  “No doubt.” Paxton could feel a tremble of rage inside him. “I don’t know Mr. Chivers and I have no wish to know him. What I wish is—”

  “Toby went west. Archie got him. Direct hit. He went in all directions, including west.” O’Neill scratched and winced. “Archie is what we airmen call German anti-aircraft fire,” he explained. “It’s fearfully dangerous.”

  “I know about archie. Just give me my book.”

  O’Neill withdrew his hand and wiped his fingers on his shirt. He thumbed through the pages until he found his place, then gripped the book with both hands and ripped it down the spine. He tossed one part to Paxton. “I’ve read th
at bit,” he said. “This is all I need.”

  Paxton flung it back at him. “Irish pig,” he said.

  “Australian.”

  “Australian swine, then.”

  O’Neill fitted the two parts together. “What’s the difference between pigs and swine?” he said, his voice as blank and unemotional as ever.

  “Swine scratch more often,” Paxton said savagely, and was sure he had scored a point; until he saw O’Neill’s mouth turn up at the corners. It was like watching a suit of armour smile. “One does not expect much in the way of manners from an Australian,” Paxton said acidly, “and one is never disappointed.” At Sherborne he had scored with that remark (suitably adjusted) many times. O’Neill seemed to absorb it like flattery. He began reading again, his mouth still open, his jaw still slack. He soaked a finger and used it to turn a page. He slipped that hand inside his trousers. Paxton felt slightly sick. He couldn’t stand being in the same room with him any longer. “Dinner at seven,” O’Neill called as he went out. “If this is Monday it must be mutton.”

  “Actually it’s Tuesday,” Paxton told him, and put a lot of venom into it.

  “Well, it’s still mutton,” O’Neill said, scratching.

  The mess anteroom was a wooden hut with a big stone fireplace, a bar, a few sagging armchairs and sofas, and a table with a torn ping-pong net fixed to it. When Paxton went in, five officers were playing poker at this table. They ignored him until the hand had been played out; then one asked: “Bring any new records?”

  Paxton, hands in pockets, balancing on the outside edges of his shoes, was looking at a piece of tailplane with a bullet holed German cross on it. The walls were hung with bits of aeroplane, and tattered posters from London theatres, a rugby ball dangling by its lace, a zebra skin, magazine pictures of can-can dancers, photographs of crashed aircraft already sepia with age. When nobody answered he turned and saw that the question was meant for him. “Records?” he said.

  “For the gramophone, fathead.”

  “Oh. No. No, I’m afraid not.”

  A flicker of an eyebrow showed what the other man thought of that. Paxton went and sat in a corner and turned the pages of a magazine while he wondered how on earth he was supposed to bring gramophone records in a Quirk, and how on earth he was supposed to know that he ought to bring records in the first place.

  More people came in. The bar got busy. Eventually someone tapped him on the knee. “Guess who’s turned up,” the adjutant said. He had shaved, and his face was shining with goodwill.

  “Not Dexter,” Paxton said. “That would be a miracle.”

  “No, no. The other chap. Chap you lost. Thought you lost. He’s turned up. Not lost at all.” Appleyard beamed. “Good news, isn’t it? Certainly deserves a drink.”

  Paxton stood up. “It can’t be Wilkins. Wilkins is in hospital. It must be …” Paxton fished out a scribbled list of pilots’ names. “Must be Ross-Kennedy.”

  “That’s the chap! He’ll be flying here tomorrow. Good news, isn’t it? I knew you were worried. Only natural.” They had reached the bar. “What’U you have, old boy?”

  “But I saw him turn over.”

  “Two whisky-sodas,” the adjutant ordered.

  “He did a cartwheel, adj.” Paxton saw the light of cheerful ignorance in Appleyard’s eyes. “You know: the plane somersaulted, it went …” He demonstrated, rolling his hands around each other. “It must have been bust. He must have been bust. How can he fly it here tomorrow?”

  “Beats me, old boy. I know absolutely damn-all about flying-machines. Simple soldier, me.” He gave Paxton his drink. “Cheers.” Half the adjutant’s whisky-soda disappeared. He sighed, and shut his eyes for a second. “There are twenty-six tropical diseases you can catch in the Gold Coast, did you know that? Twenty-six. The little bastards are still inside me, all twenty-six of them, all fighting each other for the privilege of laying me low, and the only medicine that keeps them at bay is this. My bloodstream is a battlefield that makes Gallipoli look like a football match.”

  “It can’t be Ross-Kennedy, adj. Impossible.”

  “See for yourself, old boy.” Appleyard took out a signal and showed him.

  “Kellaway,” Paxton said. He pointed. “This says Kella-way’s coming.”

  “So it does.” Appleyard took Paxton’s piece of paper and compared them. “Well, that settles it. I don’t know where you got your information but it looks pretty dud to me.”

  Paxton took a swig of whisky-soda. It had been a strange and wearing day, and now everything felt unreal: this junk-shop of an anteroom, these men who ignored him, the adjutant who made no sense. “I give up,” he said. “Ross-Kennedy was the chap we lost. What I mean is, he’s the chap we couldn’t find.”

  Appleyard finished his drink. “It doesn’t say anything about that here,” he said, and winked confidentially. “Take it from me, old boy: the Army may not always get everything absolutely right but we rarely get anything completely wrong.”

  A gong boomed. There was a general buttoning-up of tunics and finishing of drinks. Paxton went with the adjutant into the mess. This was simply a larger version of the anteroom, with a T-shaped table taking up most of the space. Appleyard, happily waving and calling greetings, went to the top of the T. Paxton almost followed him, but then had the sense to select a chair halfway up the longer table, the stem of the T. He stood behind the chair, uncertain whether grace would be said. Someone poked him in the ribs. “Your place, chummy,” said O’Neill, “is down there.” He pointed to the bottom of the table.

  Paxton refused to turn his head. “I hope you’ve washed your hands,” he said stiffly. “You never know where they’ve been.” He found himself looking at Goss, standing opposite. “New boys start at the bottom,” Goss said. “Push off, quick.”

  The squadron commander was coming in, chatter was subsiding. Paxton moved. He was partly numb with embarrassment and partly twitching with rage. Someone stuck out a foot and he stumbled. Stifled laughter. When he reached his place at the foot of the table he gripped the chairback and squeezed it like a strangler while the padre said grace.

  Only one man spoke to him during the meal. “See any good shows in London?”

  “No,” Paxton said. “Pass the cheese.”

  After dinner he went back to his billet. The sky was still light but he went to bed. At three o’clock he woke up. O’Neill was snoring. Paxton glared into the blackness for the best, or worst, part of an hour. He felt lonely and miserable, and he was not looking forward to tomorrow, except that it would put an end to O’Neill’s snoring. He drifted into fantasies of putting an end to O’Neill, all of them brutal and bloody and hugely satisfying.

  Fidler woke him at seven with a mug of tea. O’Neill’s bed was empty.

  “I forgot to tell you about the mess table, sir,” Fidler said. “You come in at the bottom and you work your way up. That’s how it’s done here, sir. Don’t worry, it doesn’t take very long. You’ll be halfway up that table before you know it, sir.”

  Paxton buried his nose in the mug and watched Fidler busying himself. He thought about moving up the mess table. Moving up quickly. “Why doesn’t it take very long?” he asked.

  “Some people get posted. Other gentlemen sort of … drop out, sir.”

  Paxton thought about that. “And how long has Mr. O’Neill been here?”

  Oh … two months, sir.”

  Paxton finished his tea and went off to shave. Now that he knew that nothing was permanent he felt better. Perhaps even O’Neill might drop out soon. Anything was possible. That was the great thing about war. The sun was bright, he had a marvellous appetite for breakfast. He felt much better. Soon he would go up and pot a Hun. That would show them.

  Chapter 3

  There were only four officers at breakfast, and O’Neill was not among them.

  One man was in a dressing gown, the other three in shirt sleeves and tieless. Paxton, in tunic and tie, felt very dressed-up. They ignored him, each half-
hidden behind a newspaper. He hesitated, wondering where to sit; then took a chance and sat opposite them. He recognised them from the previous night. The dressing-gowned man was a captain called Frank, the others were lieutenants known as Charlie, Spud and James.

  The newspapers, he saw, were all yesterday’s editions. While he had taken five days to reach Pepriac, the Daily Mirror and Morning Post made the journey in one.

  Frank cleared his throat. “They keep going on about this chap Russell”, he said, sounding puzzled and aggrieved. “Awful lot of fuss … What d’you think, Charlie?”

  “Russell,” Charlie said. None of them had so far looked up from his paper. “Do I know him?”

  “Ought to. You were at Cambridge, weren’t you?”

  “Just one term. Then they found out I couldn’t do any sums and my spelling was rotten.” He reached for some toast. “So I got the boot, B double-0 T. I can spell boot.”

  “Well, they’ve gone and done it to this chap Russell. He’s got the boot too.”

  “Absolute bastards, they are,” Charlie muttered through his toast.

  “Yes, but he’s a don. They don’t sack dons, do they?”

  “Dunno. I can’t spell don. Not before lunch, anyway.”

  A mess servant placed a large bowl of porridge in front of Paxton. “Actually, I don’t take porridge,” he said; but he was talking to himself. The servant had gone. There was silence for about ten seconds while Paxton wondered how best to get rid of the stuff; and then James looked over the top of his newspaper and said:”The CO’s keen on everyone having porridge. It’s not an order, but…”

  “You get the boot if you don’t,” Charlie said.

  Paxton poured milk on the porridge and began eating. It tasted grey and slippery. “Every day?” he asked.

  “D’you mean a bloke called Bertrand Russell?” Spud said. “He’s in my paper too. Says he made a statement calculated to prejudice recruiting. Fined a hundred pounds.”

  “Awful lot of fuss,” Charlie complained. His nose was broken, which gave his voice a nasal tone that emphasised his drawl. “Why don’t they just shoot the bugger and be done with it?”