War Story

by Derek Robinson

  “Indubitably.” Paxton nodded briskly.

  Brazier looked at him, but Paxton had finished. Brazier made a note.

  O’Neill said: “I saw a Hun about a mile away, Halberstadt I think, but I couldn’t catch it.”

  “Indubitably.” Paxton nodded briskly. This time they both looked at him but he had nothing to add. Brazier made another note.

  “Cruised around for a bit,” O’Neill said. “Saw a Hun much higher than me, Albatros maybe, couldn’t get up to him.”

  “Indubitably.” Paxton nodded briskly.

  “Sounds like the Hun’s come out to play at last,” Brazier remarked.

  “One wonders,” Paxton said.

  “Then a bit later, I saw a Hun below me,” O’Neill said. “Looked too much like a decoy. Left it alone.”

  “Indubitably.” Paxton nodded briskly.

  “And besides I was getting low on fuel.”

  Paxton said nothing. Brazier looked at him. “Forgotten your lines?” he asked.

  “Oh, indubitably,” Paxton said, and nodded slowly.

  “I take it you didn’t open fire,” Brazier said.

  “No risk of that,” Paxton said. He gave the adjutant a sly smile and took O’Neill’s arm. “Come along, old chap,” he said. “I’ll get you a nice cup of cocoa.”

  O’Neill shook him off. “Not much archie,” he told Brazier. “Cloud was too thick.”

  “Indubitably,” Paxton said.

  They were halfway back to the billet when Paxton noticed that O’Neill was not whistling. Paxton began whistling a tearaway version of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. To his surprise O’Neill joined in. He whistled a different part of the melody and did it as badly as ever. Thus they were both whistling, after a fashion, as they entered the hut.

  Kellaway was writing a letter. “Isn’t it great?” he said. “Dando just told me I can fly again. He says my head’s in pukka shape. At least I think it was Dando.” He frowned.

  “You’ll enjoy flying,” Paxton said. “It’s so relaxing. I’ve nearly finished reading Treasure Island.”

  “He was so relaxed he nearly finished breathing,” O’Neill said.

  “Every time I looked up there was a different Hun,” Paxton told Kellaway. “First I saw a big blue one, but he didn’t fancy the colour. Then I saw a red one, but it was the wrong shape. Then I saw a very pretty speckled one, but it must have been going in the wrong direction or something. Anyhow, it didn’t suit him. He’s hard to please. Fussy.”

  “It was Dando,” Kellaway said. “I wrote his name down.”

  O’Neill was cleaning his nails with a penknife. “He thinks the Huns line up to be shot down. He’s a fairy in a fairy tale.”

  “Very, very fussy,” Paxton said. “He must have been spoiled rotten when he was a kid, don’t you think?”

  “There’s a rumour going around about a Russian squadron just landed at St. Omer,” Kellaway said. “D’you believe it?”

  “Indubitably,” Paxton said.

  “Keep that up and I’ll give you my fist to suck,” O’Neill said. He took his towel and went out.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Kellaway asked.

  “He’s got the runs. He was certainly running hard today.”

  “They must be Russians because they smell of vodka,” Kellaway said. “That’s what I heard. D’you think they’ll come here?”

  “Only if they want to be bored to death.”

  Next day the weather was perfect and all flying orders were cancelled. Instead, Colonel Bliss came down from Brigade HQ to speak to the squadron.

  The battle for Verdun, he said, was fizzling out. Frankly, it was a shambles down there, more bodies than either side could count. The French urgently wanted a British attack, pronto, to take the remaining pressure off Verdun before the frog troops started to mutiny.

  So the Royal Flying Corps had two new jobs. We had to keep the German Air Force pinned down behind their own Lines so they couldn’t snoop on our preparations. This squadron (and many others) could expect to fly a lot of Deep Offensive Patrols in future – five, ten, fifteen miles beyond the trenches. We were going to show the Hun who was boss.

  Bliss saw some long faces in his audience, and he hurried on. The other job, he said, was trench-strafing. When the British infantry went over the top, the Flying Corps would go with them, harrying the Hun from his hole. Obviously this called for expert low-level flying, so the Corps Commander had had a dummy stretch of Hun trenches dug, with plenty of smoke and bangs to make everything thoroughly realistic. Hornet Squadron would practise there this afternoon.

  Bliss offered his congratulations on recent kills, and Cleve-Cutler led him away to his office for a drink.

  “Fifteen sodding miles,” Goss said. “That’s deeply offensive all right.”

  “It’s too far,” Mayo said.

  “It’s safer than being over the Front,” Piggott told them. “Much less archie.”

  “It’s halfway to bloody Berlin! What if something goes wrong?”

  “Don’t worry,” Goss said. “The wind will blow you the rest of the way.” That brought laughter, but it was brief and nervous. The prevailing west wind was no joke. Almost every patrol over the enemy lines ended up having to labour home into a headwind. Hun patrols, on the other hand, got blown home. It was a swindle.

  “I don’t know what you’re bitching about,” Gerrish said. “You might as well complain about falling into twenty feet of water instead of ten feet, or five. You get just as wet, either way.”

  “Come off it, Plug,” Mayo said. “Fifteen miles with a dicky engine? Losing height? Huns taking turns to polish you off? That’s a long trudge, that is. No thanks.”

  “Orders is orders,” Ogilvy said.

  “I can’t count up to fifteen,” Mayo said.

  “That’s funny, I can’t get up to ten,” Goss said.

  “I meant ten,” Mayo said. “Come to think of it, I meant five.”

  Gerrish was not amused. He said: “The last squadron I was in, we had a pilot who didn’t go where he was sent. Next time, his flight commander flew behind him with his finger on the trigger.”

  “The adj would approve of that,” Ogilvy said.

  Paxton said:“Did he pull the trigger?”

  Gerrish turned and stared. “None of your damned business,” he said.

  Paxton stared back. Gerrish’s anger had made him angry, and he enjoyed the sensation. “Just trying to improve my mind,” he said.

  “I went to Cambridge, you know,” Charlie Essex said. “I can count up to five with one hand tied behind my back.”

  They played cricket until lunch, and then killed time with cards and newspapers, waiting for orders. At three o’clock the trench-strafing exercise was cancelled. “It seems that some bright spark thought it would be a good idea if the trench were under actual artillery fire while strafing took place,” Cleve-Cutler told them. “Two aeroplanes got badly damaged by shrapnel or blast, and one got blown to bits, before they decided it was a bit too realistic.”

  “How can they be so stupid?” Piggott demanded.

  “Centuries of practice, old boy,” Cleve-Cutler said.

  The adjutant disapproved of Foster’s bell-tent and of the noises that came from it, and he told Cleve-Cutler so. “I don’t care what school he went to,” Brazier said,”he’s not entitled to behave like a gypsy. The men won’t respect him for it. No respect means no discipline.”

  “He’s still a very good flight commander. That hasn’t changed.”

  “Something’s changed. I remember once I had a chap in Madras who suddenly dyed his hair green and said his mother was the Queen of Sheba. Thoroughly competent officer, but he had to go.”

  Cleve-Cutler shook his head. “Pilots are different. In my last squadron we had a brilliant pilot, but when he wasn’t flying he was the most feckless brat you could imagine. His idea of fun was to go for a walk and throw stones at people.”

  “A British officer?” Brazier was deeply
offended.

  “So you see I don’t care if Frank dyes his hair sky-bluepink. He won’t get the sack from me. I need him too much.” Before long the dog Brutus chewed up Captain Foster’s clarinet. Corporal Lacey managed to find a secondhand valve trombone, and Foster was in the doorway of his tent, working on The Eton Boating Song, when he saw the Canadian, Stubbs, out for a stroll, and called him in for a drink.

  They sat on the camp bed and sipped whisky from tin mugs.

  “Do you really like France?” Foster asked. “Don’t you find it awfully dull after Canada?”

  “Actually I’m an American,” Stubbs said. “I only joined the Canadian Army because it was a quick way to get into the RFC, but don’t tell anyone.”

  “America.” Foster dipped a finger in his whisky and sucked it. “America. I’d love to be an American. No ties. Free to go anywhere, do anything.”

  “I never lived anywhere except Grand Rapids, Michigan.”

  “Grand Rapids. That sounds exciting.”

  “I guess it is if you like making furniture.” Stubbs rubbed Brutus with his foot. “Would you like a job making furniture?”

  “Not… all day, no.”

  “In Grand Rapids they make furniture all year.” Brutus squirmed away from Stubbs’ foot and began chewing the trombone.

  “Look here,” Foster said. All of a sudden he sounded tense and nervous. “I’m going to ask the most enormous favour.” He gave Stubbs the full force of his smile.

  “Okay. Try me.”

  “Well… the last time I went home on leave I did a damn silly thing. I met a girl, took her out, shows, dinners, dancing, all that nonsense.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Yes, you might think so, I suppose. Trouble is, I sort of … well, fell in love. Can’t get her out of my mind.” Foster was frowning heavily. “Absolute bloody disaster, of course.”

  “Why? Doesn’t she like you?”

  “Oh, yes.” Foster gripped his tin mug so hard that his fingertips went white. “Yes, I’m pretty sure she was quite fond of me.”

  “Sounds like a nice combination, then.”

  “No. No, it’s quite hopeless. I’m afraid there’s absolutely no future in it.”

  “I don’t see why. Just—”

  “No future at all, believe me. I’ve thought about it a great deal and it’s all over, I can’t go on like this, it’s unfair to her, the only possible thing is to end it now, dead.”

  Stubbs was briefly silenced by this burst of feeling. Then he said: “So what’s this big favour you want me to do?”

  Foster sighed. “She keeps writing. I can’t forget her as long as she keeps writing, so I’ve decided the best thing for both of us would be if I arranged my demise.”

  “Your demise. You mean your death?”

  Foster nodded.

  “Nothing but the best for the British aristocracy,” Stubbs said. “Okay, how d’you want to demise? With or without lilies?”

  “I’d like you to write a letter, telling her that I was killed in action. It’s got to be definite and final. No half measures.”

  Stubbs gave it some thought. “I could tell her I saw you get shot down. And crash.”

  “Better say I was riddled with enemy bullets.”

  “Listen, I can have you blown up in mid-air. No extra cost.”

  “A flamer. Make it a flamer.”

  Stubbs looked away. He finished his whisky, sip by sip. “Not a flamer,” he said. “I’ll say the rest, but not a flamer.”

  Foster gave him pen and paper. “I’d do it myself,” he said,”but she knows my handwriting.”

  “Okay,” Stubbs said. “What’s her name?”

  “Jenny,” Foster said. “Her name is Jenny.”

  Stubbs began to write. In a corner of the tent, Brutus was testing his teeth on the horn of the trombone. “Don’t tell anyone else about this, will you?” Foster said.

  By 10 a.m. the day was as grey as a ghost. O’Neill flew a random pattern above a BE2c that was spotting for a shoot. About a thousand feet above him, the overcast spread from horizon to horizon. It looked like the biggest tarpaulin in the western world.

  Paxton had begun this patrol eagerly. Now, after forty minutes, he was so bored that he was scratching his initials on the inside of the nacelle. The German archie was a bore. It was always in the wrong place or at the wrong height. The shoot was a bore. As soon as the guns found one target they switched to another. The German air force was a bore because it wasn’t to be seen. And then, suddenly, it was. A Fokker monoplane came out of the east. Paxton sat up as if he’d been stung.

  The Fokker was at about the same height as the BE2c and was heading for it. O’Neill had seen the Fokker too; he dipped a wing so as to get a better view. Paxton fired a test burst. If they went down now they could catch the Hun when he was still a mile from the BE2c.

  O’Neill did not go down. He circled, and after a while he climbed. Paxton couldn’t believe it. He turned and stared at O’Neill but all he got was blank goggles. Below, the Fokker was chasing the British plane across the Lines. Shellfire from both sides, black and white, littered the sky. Paxton slumped and swore. The FE levelled out and O’Neill cruised around for half an hour. Then they went home. O’Neill told Brazier there was nothing worth reporting.

  Lunch was cold bully-beef, boiled potatoes and salad. O’Neill ate his meal quickly and went out. Paxton stayed in the mess.

  “Hey!” Kellaway said. He was reading a week-old Daily Mail.”Lord Kitchener’s dead!” He was amazed. Nobody else was.

  “General Gordon’s not feeling too good, either,” Goss said. “And Napoleon’s quite poorly, so I’m told, while Alexander the Great…”

  “Yes but… I mean, he was a field-marshal.” Kellaway was dismayed by their indifference.

  “Who shot him?” Foster asked.

  “I don’t think anyone did.”

  “Too bad. A good opportunity missed.” Foster lost interest.

  Kellaway turned to Stubbs. “Do you know Lord Kitchener’s dead?” he asked.

  “No, but you sing it, and I’ll pick up the tune as we go along,” Stubbs said brightly. There was a weary chorus of groans and hisses. “That’s considered a pretty damn good joke back in Grand Rapids,” he protested.

  “Says here he was drowned,” Kellaway said glumly.

  “How’s your swimming pool coming on?” Goss asked Paxton.

  “Oh, they’ve made a start.” The others looked interested, so he explained:”I’ve got a couple of dozen Chinkies digging a hole in the next field. Borrowed ‘em from a labour battalion. Dig like beavers.” The prospect of having a pool was exciting, and he answered a lot of questions. Success felt good.

  O’Neill was on his bed, asleep. Paxton kicked the bed. “What didn’t you like this time?” he asked. “The colour of his eyes, or the way he parted his hair?”

  O’Neill took a long time to wake up.

  “We had that bloody Hun on a plate,” Paxton said. “It was a damned gift from God, that bloody Hun.” He was so worked-up that he couldn’t get the words out fast enough: they tripped and stumbled. “But you didn’t want it! One look down, and up you went! So the poor bloody Quirk got chased home while we chased rainbows!”

  “You didn’t see the Albatros,” O’Neill said flatly.

  “I didn’t see any Albatros, nor any golden eagle, nor—”

  “Why not? You’re the observer.” O’Neill rubbed his face as if trying to push it back into shape.

  “I observed the Fokker. One Hun’s enough for me.”

  “Arse-hole. Our job was to guard the Quirk.”

  “Which got jumped by the Fokker.”

  “Balls. They saw it coming, they quit, they knew it couldn’t catch them, and it didn’t.”

  “But we could have caught it! I could have cut the blasted thing in half!”

  “You never saw the Albatros.” O’Neill had taken Paxton’s eau-de-cologne from his shelf and was splashing it on his neck and face.
“It was in and out of that cloud like a whore who’s lost her handbag.”

  “Help yourself, it’s free,” Paxton said.

  “Thanks.” O’Neill took a mouthful, rinsed his teeth and spat out of a window. “Back home we make better booze than this out of dead dingoes … That Albatros wanted our Quirk.”

  “So you say.”

  “And he was fast enough to catch the Quirk. But I knew he was up there, and he knew that I knew, and we both knew he wasn’t going to risk it while I was in the way.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  O’Neill raised one knee and broke wind. “God save the King,” he said. “Indubitably.”

  In the afternoon they were listed for a Deep Offensive Patrol. The air was still and dull as they walked from the pilots’ hut to the FE. The inevitable flurry of flies tried to get a taste of their sweating heads.

  “I can’t hit the Hun if you never get near him,” Paxton said. O’Neill said nothing. “We’ve got nothing to protect this afternoon except ourselves,” Paxton said. “If we see a Hun, are you going to let me fight him?”

  “Depends. Depends how many there are, how high, and how late in the patrol.”

  “You mean how desperately you want to get home for tea and cake?”

  Their fitter swung the propeller. The Beardmore coughed and spat, banged and coughed, and grudgingly decided there was nothing else for it and so settled down to work. O’Neill slowly built the revs, and the roar broadened and deepened to a bellow, while black exhaust smoke got sucked into the propeller disc and sliced into nothingness. The wheels leaned hard on their chocks, and everything shook like a wet dog on a cold day. Paxton sat in the front cockpit and tried to focus on the dancing flies. He knew it couldn’t be done but it was something to do. O’Neill slowly brought the revs down. The chocks were dragged clear. The FE rolled. The flies gave up the chase. Paxton stared at the rushing grass until it became a blur. He had a sudden moment of panic when he thought he’d left his chocolate behind, but it was in his pocket after all. By then they were flying.