War Story

by Derek Robinson

  Which made map-reading quite hard. He ducked his head into the cockpit and blinked while he worked out where he was. Thus he was in a crouched position when the BE2c flew into a patch of turbulent air and dropped into a hole fifty feet deep.

  The metallic taste of bacon and egg rushed up his throat. He forced it back. The aeroplane rocked and slithered as it bounced into and out of a series of air pockets. His breakfast surged and surged again, backed now by a tide of sweet tea laced with Daddies Sauce. Kellaway got his head outside the cockpit and was horribly sick. Each new air pocket pumped a little more from his stomach until the plane flew into calm air and he was drained and spent and useless.

  Paxton glimpsed some of this, and enjoyed it. A couple of minutes later he heard a fist being banged on the outside of the fuselage and turned to see Kellaway reaching forward with a scrap of paper.

  The message read: Compass bust. Which way Pepriac?

  Paxton did not hesitate. He pointed towards the Trenches. Kellaway looked uneasily to left and right, and did not change course. Paxton gestured more strenuously. Kellaway turned the aeroplane and flew to the east. Paxton settled down, out of the draught, and ate some chocolate to show his stomach who was boss. He reckoned that in four or five minutes Kellaway would start getting worried again and look for holes in the cloud. By then, they should get a good view of the Front.

  Kellaway’s trust lasted only three minutes. It was more than enough. Ever since they got above the cloud, a brisk wind had been shoving them eastward. When Kellaway went down to find a landmark he emerged above the German trenches.

  Paxton was delighted. He leaped from side to side of his cockpit, shaking the plane with his eagerness to enjoy this magnificent view of modern war. Trenches, endless zigzag lines of trenches, a vast pattern of black lines rimmed with white chalk in green fields splattered with shell-holes, all repeating itself into the distance. Like tapestry, Paxton thought. No, more like a colossal snakeskin, one of those snakes with a pattern down their backs, only this was a mile wide and hundreds of miles long. Spiffing! If only I had a camera. Or a bomb!

  Kellaway was too shocked and startled to know what to do for the best. Those must be the Lines down there. But whose Lines? He tried to work it out. If he was flying south they would be the British Lines, so he should turn right for Pepriac. But if he was flying north they had to be the German Lines and turning right would be the worst thing to do. Meanwhile he wandered northward, just below the cloud base, as clear as a fly on a ceiling. It took the German antiaircraft batteries fifteen seconds to find him, estimate his height, fuse the shells, load, aim and fire.

  Out of nothing, as cleverly as the act of a music-hall magician, a string of black woolly balls appeared to the left of the BE2c. Instantly, they started to fade and unravel. Kellaway heard the woof-woof and said aloud: “That’s archie.” But it took him a couple of seconds to realise that it was archie aimed at him, and then he banked smartly away from it and drove up into the cloud, shutting his eyes at the moment of impact, opening them again when nothing bad happened. Damp gloom streamed past. Abruptly he popped into dazzling sunlight. The plane was shaking; the joystick flickered in his gloved hand. Too many revs! He throttled back, but still everything shook. What was broken? Kellaway held his breath to listen for the sound of damage and heard his heart stampeding. The plane wasn’t shaking. He was.

  The sun, by great good luck, was behind them so he knew they were going home, more or less. And the compass seemed to have mended itself. He steered west, skimming along a hundred feet above the cloud, which didn’t scare him now and which was a handy refuge in time of trouble.

  Paxton was pleased with himself: he had seen the fighting, he had heard shots fired in anger. He played some more with his Lewis gun, shifting it from one candlestick mounting to another and shutting his left eye while he swung the sights onto an imagined Fokker or Albatros storming in to attack. Thus he failed to see a very real Albatros biplane steadily overhauling them in a long flat dive.

  Kellaway did not feel well. His stomach suffered spasms as if it wanted to throw up some more. His legs and feet trembled, his head throbbed, and from time to time his eyes went out of focus. He thought perhaps he had caught influenza. All he wanted was to go home and go to bed for ever and ever. A large bump of cloud came towards him and he slammed straight through it. “See if I care,” he said feebly, and immediately regretted it because the plane started making breakingup noises.

  Paxton heard them too: crackings and hangings. Holes appeared in the wings; then more holes, and flying splinters and strips of fabric. He stood up to get a better view, leaning into the rush of air, and from the corner of his eye saw a flicker of tiny flame and with it heard the whizz of bullets and sat down with a wallop that broke the seat. The Lewis gun, miraculously, was on the right mounting. The enemy machine was above and to the right of their tail, not much of a target, just a purple silhouette. Paxton cocked and fired. The gun made a wonderful high-speed battering sound so he kept on firing, hugging the Lewis so as to share its power. At last he paused, and looked for his victim. Not there. Nowhere. Yes: on the left now, and curling in for another attack. Paxton yanked the Lewis off its pin just as Kellaway came out of his state of shock and thrust the Quirk into as steep a dive as possible. Paxton stumbled. His finger was still on the trigger and he put a dozen rounds through the upper wing. Then he was on the floor, tangled in his straps, hearing the whipcrack of bullets all around. Then the cloud rushed up and saved them.

  Kellaway loved this cloud. He wanted to live in it for the rest of his life, or at least for an hour. As the dank greyness raced past he knew that he would soon fall out of the bottom, so he hauled back on the stick. Too much. Now he was climbing. Or was he? It felt like climbing. It might still be diving. He couldn’t read the speed in this gloom. He might stall and spin. The engine sounded under strain. He might pop out of the top and get shot to blazes. Oh God, Kellaway prayed, Oh God, what should I do? No answer came. He did a little of everything: middled the stick, opened the throttle, worked the rudder pedals once each way for luck. It worked. Or maybe it made no difference, maybe he was doing the right thing in the first place; anyway the cloud was still doing its merciful job half a minute later. And when at last the BE2c slid out of the bottom, crabwise, right wing down, the Albatros was not behind it. The Albatros was half a mile in front and coming towards them, zigzagging through a field of white puffballs: British archie.

  Kellaway saw none of this. He had his head down and he was trying to make sense of his restless compass. Paxton saw it, saw black Maltese crosses on the wings, guessed that the German was heading for home. He shouted: “There’s our Hun! There’s our blasted Hun!” The words were blown away and when Kellaway looked up, all he saw was delight on Paxton’s face, and his outflung arm. It must point towards home, to Pepriac. Now Kellaway knew he was going to live, and the day seemed golden. In fact as he turned onto Paxton’s course it was golden: sunlight had broken through the clouds! Kellaway felt saved. When Paxton pointed left, he steered left. Paxton waved downwards; he pushed the plane into a gentle dive. Paxton spiked the Lewis gun onto a forward mounting and changed the drum. Kellaway looked where the gun was pointing and shut his eyes.

  The Albatros was apparently laying its own carpet of white archie, fresh puffballs always appearing ahead, old ones dying behind. Paxton, aiming out and down, fired a long burst as the paths of the two planes crossed until he lost it beneath the BE2c. By the time he had dismounted the Lewis and slung it across the cockpit the Albatros was on fire and nearly out of range. He blasted off more shots. Its tail broke off and blew away. Kellaway got a glimpse of the pilot, seemingly unhurt, throwing up his hands in rage or despair. The archie was everywhere, endlessly grunting. The Albatros fell, nose down, as if desperate to escape. A wing peeled back, clung to the side of the fuselage, snapped its roots, fluttered free. The guns stopped.

  “I thought it was like driving a car,” said a captain in the Gordon Highlande
rs. “I thought you had a sort of a steeringwheel and when you wanted to go fast you put your foot down.”

  “No, no,” Piggott said. “Completely different.”

  Five officers of the Gordon Highlanders had been the first guests to arrive for Milne’s party; and as Milne himself hadn’t returned, Piggott was looking after them. They peered into the aeroplanes, touched them and sniffed them with a mixture of amazement and amusement. Piggott hid his feelings, but he was not amused. “You’ve seen an aeroplane before?” he said.

  “Oh, to be sure. But not one like this.”

  “Perhaps if you thought of it as a boat. There is the rudder, on the tail. Here is the propeller, which drives it forward. The propeller’s in the middle of the machine because that gives the observer a clear field of fire at the enemy in front.”

  They walked to the front and looked at the nose. “What if a Jerry sneaks up behind you?” one of them asked.

  “Then he’s a cad,” Piggott said,”and we never speak to him again.” While they were laughing he excused himself to go and welcome fresh arrivals. The Gordon Highlanders agreed that all RFC pilots were mad. “You’d need to be an imbecile to go up in that thing,” the captain said. “It hasn’t even got any brakes.”

  Milne landed at last, carrying a side of smoked salmon he had bought from a lieutenant in the Border Regiment who had just been sent two and who wasn’t all that keen on salmon anyway. He gave it to the sergeant cook. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I hope I done right. I sent off two drivers to get all the food and drink they could find. I couldn’t feed a hundred guests on what was in stores, sir.”

  “Of course you couldn’t. Did they find anything?”

  “Lots of stuff, sir. Cost a packet, too.”

  “If we get through this day alive,” Milne said, tossing his hat in the air,”I’ll put you up for a medal.”

  Somebody had strung up some bunting and the flags of the Allies. Every table and chair had been brought out. Two bars had been set up. Seventy guests had arrived and another staff car rolled in every five or ten minutes. Milne, strolling about and making small-talk, was impressed by his own achievement: all these regiments, all these different uniforms, all those cooks carving cold ham and tongue and roast chicken, and batmen opening bottles of wine – it was like a garden party. Even the sun had come out. Everyone smiled. He’d borrowed a ten-piece band from the 8th Devons (camped only a few miles away) and they were playing a selection of hits from the London shows, jolly tunes like When you wore a tulip and Alexander’s Ragtime Band. Just like a garden party. No girls, of course. Pity about that. He stopped at a group of the Green Howards who were laughing at something Douglas Goss had told them. He said: “Pity we haven’t got any girls. Sorry about that.”

  They were slightly embarrassed, and said nothing. What was there to say? Some smiled politely, some shrugged, some drank.

  “I’ve got a girl,” Goss said,”but she’s in Norfolk.”

  “I can beat that,” said a Green Howards captain. “I’ve got a wife in Brighton.”

  “You can see Brighton from here,” Milne said,”on a clear day.” They looked at him, doubtful, afraid of further embarrassment. “At eight or nine thousand feet, that is. And no cloud.”

  “Of course,” said the captain. “No cloud.”

  “Can I get you a drink, sir?” Goss asked.

  “I suppose you miss each other rather a lot,” Milne said.

  “Oh well. You know how it is. One gets plenty of letters, but—”

  “I knew a very pretty girl once,” Milne said. “Not in Brighton, though.” To Goss’s horror, a tear was leaking from Milne’s right eye. Goss looked around for a drinks-waiter and saw the adjutant approaching instead. “This is our adj,” he said. “Anything goes wrong, it’s his fault, isn’t it, Uncle?”

  “Could I have a word, sir?” Appleyard said.

  “The salmon is excellent,” Milne told them. “I caught it myself.” He moved away, walking backwards. “And after lunch we’ll all have a great big game of cricket,” he announced. “With two balls, to speed things up.” To the adjutant he said: “See to it, would you?”

  “Yes, of course.” Appleyard scribbled cricket on his clipboard. “Bloody good bunfight, this. Brilliant idea, old boy. Absolutely brilliant. Caused us some problems, mind you.”

  “Just feel that sun.” Milne tilted his head back and enjoyed the warmth on his face.

  “End of the month, you see, Rufus. The mess account was pretty low. Couldn’t pay for all this stuff, not even half of it.”

  “That’s the trouble with stuff. It costs money. I tell you, Uncle, the first man to invent free stuff will make a fortune.”

  “I’m sure he will. The thing is, Rufus, I had to make up the difference out of my own pocket.”

  “How much?” Milne was watching a bird, high, balanced against the wind.

  Appleyard took out a sheet of paper and studied it as he spoke. “The fact of the matter is, Rufus, I’ve been lending my own money to half the squadron … I mean, no names no pack drill but some of these young chaps just don’t seem to be able to manage their affairs… It’s all down here if you want to … Anyway, the point is, this little party of yours has burst the bank with rather a loud bang, and yours truly could do with a spot of—”

  “Bend over, Uncle.” Appleyard stooped and Milne rested his cheque book on his back, signed a cheque and gave it to him. “Now for God’s sake stop waffling.”

  “But this is a blank cheque. I can’t take this.”

  “Then throw it away.” He left Appleyard flapping the cheque to dry the ink and looking not unhappy, and walked past the band – now playing the Londonderry Air – to an open-top Bentley. A colonel and a captain were sitting in the back seats.

  “Hullo, Bob,” Milne said. “I invited a few friends. Didn’t want you to feel lonely.”

  Bliss looked at the crowd, now well over a hundred, at the band, the hurrying waiters. “The Corps Commander thinks you’ve blown a gasket,” he said. “You’re overdue for it, God knows. You’ve been flying for nearly two years, you’ve had this squadron for a year, it’s high time you went round the bend.”

  “He doesn’t think I’m good enough. Is that it? Time I got pensioned off.” Scarlet patched Milne’s face as anger rose in him. “Bastard!” He kicked the car. “Bloody bastard!”

  “You can’t break it,” Bliss said. “It’s a Bentley.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a babbling brook.” Milne kicked it again, but already his anger was subsiding. “Damn, damn, damn. I’m sorry, Bob. This is … this is all wrong. Completely cockeyed.”

  Bliss took off his cap, smoothed his hair, replaced his cap. Milne licked his fingers and tried to rub out a scratch on the car. In the distance, the band was playing a polka.

  “I don’t understand any of that,” Bliss said,”but I don’t suppose it matters. The remarkably patient chap sitting in the car is Captain Dando, your new medical officer. Corps Commander’s asked him to take a close look between your ears and report what, if anything, he finds.”

  Milne and Dando exchanged nods.

  “And now,” Bliss said,”I’ll go and get myself a drink, because I’m sure you will want to attend to that rather wobbly aeroplane of yours.”

  Milne turned to see where Bliss was looking. The plane was a BE2c. It was coming in to land and its approach was very uncertain, full of swerves and dips. The playing of the band had drowned its engine, but now the band stopped and they all heard the blips and spurts and crackles. A red flare soared from the plane, creating the brief illusion that it was hanging from a string. “Hell’s bloody bells,” Milne said wearily. An ambulance came by and he chased it and jumped on the running-board.

  Chapter 7

  It was a heavy landing. Kellaway, worried about his revs, chose the wrong moment to look at the gauge and he crashed his head against the instrument panel. Left to itself, the plane ran to a halt in the middle of the field. ‘C’ Flight circled ov
erhead and watched the ambulance pull up alongside it. Kellaway was unconscious. A small cut on his forehead had released enough blood to cover his face but the real problem was his right foot, which was jammed behind a rudder pedal. By the time the medics had slit open his flying boot and heaved him clear, Bliss and Dando had arrived with a crowd of guests, and Paxton was telling Milne what had happened.

  “This Hun came at us from behind, sir,” he said. “Hard to tell what it was. Probably a Fokker. Not an Eindecker, definitely a biplane.” The crowd pressed closer. Paxton paid them no attention, but at the same time he made his account sound matter-of-fact, almost casual, as if this sort of thing were quite routine. The ambulance left with Kellaway. “He began potting at us. I got a few good shots at him, although Kellaway was chucking the grid all over the sky. We shook him off in the clouds and next thing I knew …” Paxton took off his helmet and goggles. Oil stains gave his face a grim, piratical look.”… he came at us again, this time from the side, which wasn’t very clever of him because I gave him half a drum, and he whizzed underneath us and came out the other side on fire.” Paxton demonstrated this move with his hands. “I gave him a few more, down he went and … well, Bob’s your uncle. Thank you, sir.” He accepted a bottle of wine from Colonel Bliss and took a long swig. The guests applauded, and he waved the bottle.

  “D’you know where this Hun crashed?” Milne asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Paxton thought about it. “More or less.”

  “Go and find the wreck. Get the guns and the crosses.”

  “Take my car,” Bliss said. “I’ll be here for a while.”

  “Of course you will, Bob,” Milne said. “We’re all going to play rugger after lunch.” They began to walk back. “You played rugby for England, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, bad luck.” They walked in silence as far as the camp. “Look, help yourselves to everything and have a good time,” Milne said. “You don’t need me, do you? I’m feeling a tiny bit tired. I might have a bit of a lie-down.” Without waiting for an answer he headed for his room.