Windows and dishes rattle. Glasses clink. Crockery clashes.
Next morning at ten, Sergeant Lacey filled Captain Lynch’s fountain pen from a bottle of Oxford-blue ink that had been in Lynch’s room. A Janáček piano sonata was playing on the gramophone. As he wiped the nib with an Old Harrovian tie which he kept for that purpose, he looked out of the window and saw Colonel Bliss approaching. He opened Lynch’s chequebook, made a couple of gentle flourishes with the pen and then wrote, quickly and confidently: Scottish Fund for Distressed Gentlefolk. Twenty guineas. He signed Timothy Lynch and dated it five weeks ago. He stood and lifted the needle from the record as Bliss came in. “Good morning, sir. The adjutant is at the churchyard, in charge of the burial party for Lieutenant Shanahan.”
“Really?” Bliss was booted and spurred and he shone with the care of a devoted batman. “I didn’t know you’d lost another chap.”
“Mr Shanahan’s motorcycle was in collision with a cow. He died in hospital, sir.”
“Why couldn’t Shanahan be in collision with a Hun? Anyway, I’m not here to talk about him. Look here: Great Wall of China. Built by the Chinks to keep out the Mormons. Right?”
“Probably not, sir. The Mormons are a religious sect in Utah. Perhaps you meant the Mongols.”
“Did I say Mormons? I meant Mongols.”
“Although the Mormons are by far the greater menace. They reject all forms of alcohol, for instance.”
“That’s their funeral. The Great Wall of China didn’t work, did it?”
“So we are led to believe, sir. However, China is still full of Chinese. For Mongols, you have to go to Mongolia.”
“Don’t quibble, sergeant. Isn’t that an Old Harrovian tie?”
“It belonged to Shanahan, sir. I’m having it cleaned before I send it to his next-of-kin.”
Bliss was no fool. He was a little too fastidious about his appearance, he despised foreign food without tasting it, he could be a great bore on the subject of fox-hunting. But he had seen the military value of aeroplanes long before 1914, and he had paid to learn how to fly. Soon he was promoted out of the cockpit and into a staff job, but he remembered what it was like to be a pilot: the glorious, god-like feeling of soaring away from the pettiness of Earth, and the brutal terror when you suddenly thought this frail machine might be falling apart around you; he knew the value of belonging to the most exclusive club in the world, with its buoyant, rowdy comradeship, and he knew the silent acceptance of frequent deaths from crashing on take-off or breaking up in midair or catching fire anywhere at all.
So Bliss had developed a shrewd nose for squadron morale. He reckoned that the abrupt German retreat had left Hornet Squadron puzzled and a bit discouraged.
The pilots were assembled in the anteroom.
“First, the facts,” he said. “The Hun has surrendered a massive amount of territory along fifty miles of the Front, from Arras in the north to Soissons in the south. The average retreat is twenty miles but near St Quentin it’s more like thirty. Yesterday’s bombardment was merely cover while the Hun rearguard fell back behind their new Line, which is called the Hindenburg Line, although I doubt if Field Marshal von Hindenburg did much of the digging.” A couple of pilots chuckled.
Bliss then explained just what the retreat meant.
Pepriac was now forty or fifty minutes’ flying time from the Hindenburg Line. That was no good. The squadron could expect to move soon, but not to any of the aerodromes just abandoned by the Hun. They were unusable: the fields cratered, the buildings booby-trapped, the roads mined. Indeed, all the territory that the British Army was taking over was a wasteland. Every bridge was down, every house was burned, every well was poisoned. The enemy had been busy.
Finally, Bliss came to the big question.
What had the Hun got out of this massive retreat? He had got the Hindenburg Line. By all reports, it was a wall. Well, history had seen plenty of walls. Hadrian had built a wall, hadn’t he, to keep the Scots out, and a fat lot of good it did him. The Chinese built their Great Wall of China to keep the Mongol hordes out, but they forgot to inform the Mongol hordes of this, and the Great Wall was a Great Flop. Now Hindenburg had his Line. Maybe he expected to win by sitting on his Prussian bum on cold concrete. Fine! “Just remember this,” Bliss ended. “Nobody ever won a war by going backwards.”
He stayed to have coffee with the C.O. “Glad you came, sir,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Some of them need bucking up. Not the new boys so much as the old sweats who remember the Somme.”
“They’re precious few.”
“Yes. Odd, isn’t it? Months of slog and rivers of blood got us six miles nearer Berlin, at most. Now Fritz gives us thirty miles for nothing. I thought he wasn’t supposed to have a sense of humour.”
“Hullo!” the colonel said. The distant hiccuping blips of Pups warming up had grown to a solid roar. “They’re off.”
They took their coffee outside and watched A-Flight transform itself from a bunch of wheeled vehicles, wobbling at every bump, into six flying machines, lifted strongly by the air rushing past their wings. The two Nieuports followed. Nobody stalled, nobody collided, nobody crashed. Everyone on the airfield relaxed. The doc went back into his office. “They won’t score today,” Bliss said. “The Hun’s still settling in.”
“I hope so. We need some practice. Look at Maddegan, waffling about at the tail. God knows how he got his wings.”
Bliss pretended surprise. “My dear Hugh! Boom wants more squadrons. If a man doesn’t kill himself in England, he’s sent to France, lickety-split.”
“And kills himself here.”
A-Flight droned around the sky, climbing. The Nieuports had placed themselves several lengths away from the formation.
“Some chaps survive and prosper,” Bliss said. “Look at Ball. Dreadful pilot at first.”
Suddenly Cleve-Cutler had had enough of Bliss’s official optimism. “I bet you twenty to one that Maddegan won’t last a fortnight.”
“Bad taste, old chap,” Bliss said. “Also poor odds.” He waved at his driver to bring the car over.
* * *
Gerrish took his patrol up through dirty, patchy cloud that gave way to a lucky slice of clear air at four thousand feet; lucky because it gave him room to circle so that the flight could close up and the Russians could find them again. Maddegan never succeeded in closing up. He was still five or six lengths behind when Gerrish climbed into the next layer of cloud. It blew out of the southwest, as white as surf.
Maddegan winced and braced himself as his Pup smashed into it. Nobody had taught him how to fly through this stuff. It blinded him, so he shut his eyes. As long as the seat of his pants told him he was leaning back, he let the Pup fly herself. After a long time a sudden dazzle made him look, and the horizon was at a violent angle. Gerrish circled again, while Maddegan straightened himself out. They were in another slice of clear air. Above them, a wilderness of cloud hustled along as if it was late for a storm. Seen from below it was all hills and holes which changed shape as they crowded each other. Gerrish steered for the holes and hoped they weren’t dead ends. Sometimes he saw the two Nieuports, far off to his left. They looked like flies in a canyon.
At sixteen thousand feet there was still no sight of the top of the wilderness. Gerrish knew he couldn’t outclimb it. The wind was strengthening and scattering the Pups. He took them back down to the sanity of clear air.
By now Maddegan had no idea of their position. Gerrish was fairly sure they were over the Hindenburg Line. A lot depended on the strength and direction of the wind. He found a pin-point on the eastern horizon and flew directly at it, keeping one eye on the compass. The wind shoved him hard off-course. He nudged the Pup around until he was head-on to the wind. It blew from the southeast. That was a huge swing: more than ninety degrees in less than an hour. If it stayed like that, it would help them fly back to Pepriac. Good.
They patrolled for another half an hour and saw nothing. Gerrish was stiff and cold and bored. He turned for home and within five minutes a German aeroplane dropped out of the wilderness above them, four hundred yards ahead and flying in the same direction.
“Lost!” Gerrish said. He signalled by hand for the flight to spread out wide and rewarded himself with a chunk of chocolate. Now there was nothing to do but watch the Russians make a botch of it.
The two Nieuports crept up on the machine. It was an LVG, unmistakable with its great six-cylinder engine sticking up, bang in front of the pilot’s face. The observer had a gun, but he wasn’t facing backwards. He was leaning forward and shouting at the pilot.
“Very lost,” said Gerrish. “Got the wind wrong, didn’t you?”
This was the first time Duke Nikolai had fired the Lewis gun in action. It was rigged on the Nieuport’s upper wing so the bullet stream would clear the propeller arc. Still the idiot Huns had not seen him. He eased the stick back and the Nieuport floated up to the LVG. As he squeezed the gun-button his machine bounced in the LVG’s wash and all his shots went high. One in three was tracer. The enemy observer pointed to the burning bullets streaking away; he actually pointed. Nikolai was so furious with himself, and with this crass Hun, that he overcorrected and missed again. Now the drum was empty. He hauled the Lewis down its slide.
The German pilot flung the LVG into a vertical bank, and dived, and saw a line of Pups waiting, and changed his mind and decided to climb for the clouds. Count Andrei was waiting above and cut him off. Nikolai had a second chance, attacking from the beam. It should have been a full-deflection shot. Ogilvy had taught him to aim well ahead. Instead he aimed at the pilot and saw all his bullets pass behind the tail. As he zoomed over the LVG he remembered that Ogilvy had also told him always to dive under a two-seater. The German gunner got in a long burst and wrecked one of the Nieuport’s wingtips.
None of the Pups attacked the LVG. They put themselves between it and escape, while Nikolai again dragged the Lewis down its mounting, ripped off another empty drum, slammed on a fresh one, shunted the Lewis up into firing position and searched the whirling sky for the enemy.
With his third drum he came from below and killed the observer. He also riddled the tail unit and left the rudder flapping uselessly and the elevators smashed. Now the pilot could neither dive nor climb. Gerrish got the binoculars on him. “End of the line, laddy,” he said. “All get out.” The pilot took off his goggles and threw them away. He twisted his head, searching for the Nieuport, and finally found it behind and above him, turning to dive. “For fuck’s sake, get it right this time,” Gerrish muttered. Hot needles of tracer reached for the LVG. The Nieuport pulled out and climbed and everyone watched. Nothing happened for seven seconds. “Oh, sod it,” Gerrish said. The fuel tank exploded. The LVG blew apart. Blast gently nudged Gerrish’s Pup sideways. The fireball made the sky look dingy, and then it shrivelled. A spray of bits, some burning, fell quite quickly and got swallowed by the cloudbank. The Pups were left circling a smear of smoke.
* * *
“Not exactly Queensberry Rules,” Gerrish said to the C.O. “More like amateur night in the abattoir.”
“It’s a start.”
“I don’t like my lads being used as nursemaids, sir. Even if he is the next Tsar but twenty-eight.”
“I’ll spread the chore around, Plug.”
When Cleve-Cutler next saw Duke Nikolai he congratulated him.
“Was luck. LVG was stupid. Albatros is better, I think.”
“You’ll have another chance this afternoon. With B-Flight.”
Nikolai delicately wrinkled his nose. “Is better with A-Flight.”
“Well, that’s my decision.”
“Is better with A-Flight.”
Cleve-Cutler’s fingertips prickled. “One day you’ll play that card once too often and ...” But he got control of himself before he could complete the threat, and he walked away. His hands were trembling with rage. That had never happened before.
* * *
The Russians flew whenever the weather allowed, and always with an escort to give cover. A spell of easterly winds helped, and several times they chased Huns that had been blown too far west and were labouring home; always the enemy escaped.
The next patrol was a morning show. A-Flight was gasping and freezing at nineteen thousand feet when Gerrish saw a pattern of dots drifting across white cloud about two miles below.
The Pup was not built to be dived steeply for two miles. Jokers who tried that trick found that the Pup’s speed built until it went off the clock and the wings shuddered feverishly and occasionally broke. And pilots were not designed to fall like a stone for ten thousand feet, either. It gave them piercing ear-aches and gushing nosebleeds and wretched pains behind the eyes. So Gerrish descended cautiously, in stages. The dots grew into a formation of Pfalz single-seaters, chunky little fighters painted bright yellow and olive green. They had seen the Pups long ago. They were cruising around in a wide circle, waiting.
There was no pattern to the fight. Gerrish gave a signal and the Pups tipped over and went down in a rush. Red and yellow tracer flickered and bent as pilots tried to track their targets, the formations sliced through each other, and now there were no formations. The sky was a tangle of aircraft, all searching and escaping, all hunting and being hunted.
Duke Nikolai followed the flight and fired off half a drum in four very brief bursts. Every Pfalz that came within range swerved as he squeezed the trigger-grip and his tracer went racing wide. It was like trying to nail a butterfly. He hauled back the stick and the horizon fell away and the little Nieuport soared easily into a loop. His ears popped as he went over the top. The opposite horizon swung into view, and then the air battle was spread below him and he was diving again. He knew he was safe; Count Andrei was always close behind him. He picked out a sluggish-looking Pfalz, trailing smoke. It rapidly expanded into a juicy target and as he fired, something ripped the joystick from his hand and at once his Nieuport was rolling like a barrel down a rocky hill. His fingers burned as if thrashed and his brain was too rattled to think. His other hand took charge, found the stick and centred it and stopped the roll. He was sick. While he was vomiting, his hand took the opportunity to bring the nose up and make the machine level again. His brain began working, he looked around and Andrei’s Nieuport was sitting nearby. Andrei waved. The Huns had all gone, the Pups had all gone.
He followed Andrei home, flying one-handed. His right arm was as numb as cold mutton. He used his left hand to stuff his right hand into a coat pocket, but whenever they hit some lumpy air the Nieuport strenuously bounced him about until it had worked the hand out of the pocket and then his shoulder hurt. Never before had anything hurt him like this. The pain in his fingers had been hot and bright; the fingers were on fire. The pain in his shoulder was dull but immense. It possessed all that corner of his body and in its greed it sucked strength from every other part until Nikolai felt like a hunchback being punished by his aching, lopsided hump. The air cleared, the bouncing stopped. He stuffed his useless hand back in its pocket again. The Nieuport was wandering. He kicked it until it learned to behave better.
The field at Pepriac had a Pup standing on its nose in the middle, looking stupid.
Andrei led him on three long circuits, each lower than the last. At the end of the third circuit Andrei eased back until he was flying alongside Nikolai. When they crossed the hedge they were thirty feet up. Nikolai cut his engine. It was the wrong thing to do, but pain was the master and with one hand he couldn’t handle the engine controls and the joystick at the same time, and he didn’t need an engine now that he was home. He kept the Nieuport fairly level, so when it dropped like a brick, both wheels hit together and it bounced high. That bang was all the encouragement his pain needed to flower. The Nieuport bounced three times more. When it ran to a stop, he was slumped sideways, out cold.
Plug Gerrish was wiping whale-grease off his face with a filthy towel as he tramped into Doc Dando’s office. Nikolai was lying on a bed and Dando was examining the Russian’s right hand. Andrei stood nearby, pouring vodka into small medicinal glasses.
“If you must amputate, try and leave the trigger finger,” Gerrish said. Nikolai looked up. “On second thoughts, cut his head off,” Gerrish said. “He’s never used it, he won’t miss it.”
“Three dislocated fingers,” Dando said. “I’ve just put them back. Now I’m going to do the shoulder.” He took off his right shoe. “No point in waiting. It won’t sound any better.” He put his right foot in Nikolai’s armpit, grasped the wrist with both hands and jerked hard. Nikolai screamed. “Told you so,” Dando said. He took Gerrish’s towel and wiped his hands. “He’s good as new now. That’ll be ten guineas. No cheques, no credit, no refunds if he dies after twenty-four hours. Ah, thanks.” Andrei was handing around the vodka.
“You’re a lucky Russian,” Gerrish said to Nikolai. “A bullet bent your joystick. It looks as if it’s got brewer’s droop.”
Nikolai said a word in Russian. Dando looked inquiringly at Andrei.
“Better you don’t know,” Andrei said.
“In fact you’re a very lucky Russian,” Gerrish said. “Just before someone scuppered you, you scuppered a Hun. You can add one Pfalz to your score. He was a flamer, if it matters. Does it matter?”
Nikolai swallowed his vodka and held his glass out for more. “Not in Imperial Russian Air Force,” he said faintly.
“God’s teeth! A joke! A palpable joke,” Gerrish said. “The peasants have permission to laugh. When will he be fit to fly?” he asked Dando.
“Tomorrow,” Nikolai whispered, and drank more vodka.
“Don’t ask me,” Dando said, “I’m just a bloody tradesman, one step above an undertaker’s mate, that’s me, what do I know?” He snatched the bottle from Andrei and stamped out.
“Pay him no heed,” Gerrish said. “Doctors never win a war. It makes them moody.”
* * *
The Pup standing on its nose had belonged to a pilot called Avery. He had been shot through the foot, a very messy wound because the bullet was tumbling when it struck. Simply nursing the Pup home and getting it to touch down was a triumph of determination, but then he muddled the controls. He meant to throttle back; instead he made the engine race. So the tail came up and the nose went down. The propeller attacked the turf, and the next thing Avery knew was he was being loaded into an ambulance, and Charles Dash was chatting to the driver. “... awfully nice girls at Beauquesne,” he was saying.
“Not any longer, I’m afraid,” the girl driver said. “They’ve moved on.”
“I must say, I think you F.A.N.Y. girls are absolutely splendid.”
She laughed. “It’s the uniform. Irresistible.”
“Everyone at Beauquesne was awfully friendly.”
“Well ... that’s nice.”
“I can’t tell you how awfully friendly everyone was. I never knew girls could be so ... friendly. Where are they now, d’you know?”
There was a pause. Then she said, flatly: “Look. Life’s too short. Honestly. Forget them. They could be anywhere.”
Avery made an effort to speak, but all that came out was a croak. Dash’s face appeared, only inches away and upside-down. “Don’t worry about a thing, old chap. It’s just your foot,” he said. “Nothing serious. Besides, you’ve always got another foot, haven’t you?” His breath smelt of peppermint. He disappeared. The engine was started, and the ambulance vibrated in a way that Avery found alarming. Dash’s face reappeared. “You scored a flamer. Did you know? They’ve given it to Nikolai, but everyone hit it.” The ambulance began to move. Avery had a sudden swamping fear: they were leaving his foot behind, someone had cut it off. Again he tried to speak, but he heard himself whimper instead. Dash said, “One-eighth of a Pfalz, that’s your share. You get the wheels, the oil tank and the gunner’s left elbow. Lucky boy! Cheerio.”
* * *
Duke Nikolai declared himself fit to fly, and to prove it he was now playing bad ragtime on the mess piano.
Plug Gerrish was dozing in an armchair when McWatters came and sat next to him. “Four more kills and he’s an ace,” he said.
“Don’t care,” Gerrish mumbled. “I’m off-duty ... Buggering bastard shit!” he roared. Captain Crabtree had popped a toy balloon behind his head, and Gerrish had almost fallen out of his chair.
“Sorry,” Crabtree said mildly. “Loud, wasn’t it?”
“You’re a maniac. You’re ...” Gerrish realised that a dozen pilots were watching, and he swallowed the obscenity. “Oh, Christ,” he muttered. His knee hurt.
“Spud said it would test your reflexes, didn’t you, Spud?”
“No,” Ogilvy said.
“You’re lucky I didn’t flatten you,” Gerrish said. He could feel the pulse in his neck pounding like running feet.
“Spud’s got some more balloons. D’you want one?”
“No I haven’t,” Ogilvy said. “Come on, Plug, we need to talk.”
They went out. The buzz of conversation began again. “Poor old Plug,” Simms said. “If he was my hunter I’d have him put down. Send the remains to the glue factory. We need lots of glue in wartime.”
“What for?” Heeley asked.
“Plans of attack are constantly coming unstuck,” McWatters said. “Rather like Humpty-Dumpty.”
“At least Plug jumped when that balloon went bang,” Munday said. “You didn’t even blink. I’d sooner have a skipper who’s jumpy than someone carved out of lard.” After that the talk deteriorated.
The flight commanders took a stroll and talked about patrols, tactics, Huns, Russians and Cleve-Cutler.
They agreed that the C.O. had his orders from Wing and it was a waste of time to challenge them. There was no alternative to Deep Offensive Patrols. The Pup hadn’t enough muscle to beat the latest Hun machines, but nothing could be done about that. Nor about the Hindenburg Line, which was lousy with Archie. The Archie was getting worse, too: more big guns, which forced the Pups up higher and higher, where the weather was usually worse and it was always a bloody sight colder. Crabtree began talking about rumours of electrically heated flying-suits in the German Air Force, when Gerrish interrupted.
“What gets on my left tit is having to drum up trade for that snotty little Russian.”
“I find him rather plucky,” Crabtree said. “Also astonishingly stupid.”
“He’s got courage coming out of both ears,” Ogilvy said. “That’s why he never listens.”
“Never learns, either,” Gerrish said. “My lads are fed up with poncing for foreigners. So am I.”
They had reached the part of the airfield known as Pocock’s Patch. Long ago, a blazing pond of petrol had left the earth charred black, with Pocock cremated in the middle. Now, for the first time, his Patch was blurred by bright new grass. The wind had lost its bite. Blue sky slid behind white cloud. A few more weeks of this and the generals would feel it was safe to have a really big battle.
“Can I borrow Dingbat?” Crabtree asked. His flight was due to go on patrol.
“Take him,” Gerrish said. “My granny flies better than him, and she’s five years dead.”
Crabtree told Maddegan to stay near the Russians, and to shoot at anything Nikolai shot at. The Australian said that he found it hard to stay near anyone and as for shooting, everything whizzed about so fast... “Do your best,” Crabtree said.
The flight had a busy afternoon.
Cloud clogged the sky. They stumbled upon a fight – Aviatik two-seaters against SE5s who were escorting a pair of RE8s, probably coming back from a photographic job–but after some long-range gunplay the Aviatiks dived into cover. They were outnumbered; very sensibly they vanished. The Pups moved on. They had a brisk scrap with five smart-looking Fokker scouts, all green and gold, all very aggressive. Maddegan soon lost sight of the Nieuport he was supposed to be shadowing. He made up for it by charging at the enemy and firing at every image that leaped across his vision. He fired too late, because his Pup was rolling and skidding and falling and his tracer was always bending the wrong way. The Fokkers quit and flew home at a speed the Pups could never match. And then, twenty minutes later, it happened all over again, except the Fokkers were silver-grey with scarlet zigzags down the fuselage, and this time Maddegan plunged into the battle without bothering about Nikolai. He fired his second burst when a Fokker turned on him, rushed at him, swamped his vision and God alone knew how they missed collision. But in a thin slice of time he saw his bullets rip across the enemy cockpit, he saw the pilot’s arms thrown high, and he tasted blood. He tasted blood because, in the fear of collision, he had bitten his lip.
* * *
“Two Huns?” Cleve-Cutler said. “Definitely two? Not possibly, or probably?”
“Definitely two Huns,” Crabtree said. “Absolutely positively utterly certainly definitely. I swear it on my mother’s grave.”
“And Duke Nikolai got them both?”
“Splendid shooting.” Crabtree turned aside and spat. He was still in flying kit, and sweat washed whale-grease into his mouth. “The whole flight is full of admiration, sir.” He spat again.
Cleve-Cutler looked hard at Crabtree’s glistening, deep-lined, empty face. It was as blank as his voice. He looked away. The last of the Pups was landing. “Two short,” he said.
“Grant’s engine blew. Forced landing, our side of the Lines. Hooper’s gone for good. Tailplane got shot off. Fell like a brick.”
“Hooper ... Tall thin lad?”
“No, that’s Cooper, A-Flight. Hooper had big ears. He replaced Latham.”
Cleve-Cutler nodded. Latham was just a name. “Time for a squadron thrash, don’t you think? Celebrate your Huns with copious quantities of Hornet’s Sting? Yes. Big party tonight.”
Maddegan was always the last to land. He was excited, came in too fast, needed all the field; still, he didn’t break the Pup. His mechanics called out: “Any luck, sir?”
“Doomed the bastard!” That delighted them. He said it again, more loudly. “Doomed the bastard!” They cheered.
He trudged towards the flight hut, peeling off his flying gear. He was hot but happy. As his ears cleared he heard birdsong. Men waved and applauded, not because a kill was such a great achievement but because his happiness pleased them.
Snow, the Canadian, came out of the flight hut. “I doomed the bastard,” Maddegan said.
“No, you didn’t.” Snow stopped him. “The Russian, Nikolai, he got two Huns.” He spoke softly. “Nobody else got anything. Nik got two Huns, all on his own. Understand?”
“Aw, heck. This isn’t fair,” Maddegan grumbled.
“Sure. Now be a brave boy, and smile for mommy, and go in there and congratulate the son of a bitch. Skipper’s orders.”
Maddegan went in. Count Andrei was pouring vodka into chipped mugs. The pilots were standing around with bribed smiles on their faces. Duke Nikolai was carefully wiping grease from his face. “Hey!” Maddegan said. Nikolai hid behind the towel and peeped over the top. “How about you?” Maddegan cried. “Two Huns!” He hugged him. Nikolai was a good head shorter, and Maddegan found himself looking at Crabtree. “That’ll do, Dingbat,” Crabtree murmured. “You’re in England, remember.”
Vodka for everyone.
“A toast,” Crabtree said. “The duke’s two Fokkers!”
“Albatros is better,” Nikolai said. But he drank.
Cleve-Cutler was walking to the mess when he changed his mind and went to the orderly room instead. “Sergeant Lacey,” he said. “Kindly ask the adjutant to put Duke Nikolai in for the M.C.”
“The citation has already been drafted, sir.”
Cleve-Cutler leaned over the desk and swivelled his head. Lacey had been making out a cheque to Selfridges for fifteen guineas. The bank was Coutts. “What’s this all about?”
“For a new piano, sir. The late Lieutenant the Honourable Jeremy Lloyd-Perkins has kindly donated one to the mess.”
“We already have a piano.”
“True, sir. But for how long?”
* * *
Hornet’s Sting was invented by Cleve-Cutler to be drunk by the squadron on special occasions: some sad, some not. There was no fixed formula. He let whim and inspiration guide him as he emptied bottles into a galvanised hipbath. Brandy and champagne made a good base, followed by port, gin, apple juice, fresh ground pepper, more champagne, a couple of bottles of Guinness, some rum, a blast of soda water for fizz, a splash of Benedictine for good luck. Count Andrei donated two bottles of vodka. “Just what we need to encourage the brandy,” Cleve-Cutler said. He tipped them both in. “What’s that green stuff?” he said. “Never mind, I like green, let’s have some.” He tasted the mix. “Needs aniseed,” he declared. “And claret! Lots of claret.”
It was a typical mess-night party. There were guests: pilots from a nearby Pup squadron; some Cameron Highlanders, in camp at Pepriac; and a passing major-general whose car had hit a pothole, broken an axle and stopped passing. By a tradition dating back several months, dinner was served at tables arranged in a circle and each man ate from his neighbour’s plate. By the same tradition, roast potatoes were always thrown, never eaten. “You can always tell the cricketers,” Ogilvy said to a Cameron Highlander. “They eat with one hand and field with the other.” He forked a carrot and, at the same time, caught a roast potato as it whizzed by. “See?”
“I detest cricket,” the Scot said amiably.
“Well, I don’t care for potatoes.” Ogilvy flung it at Munday and hit Dash instead.
“In fact, all games are a waste of time,” the Scot said.
“No, no, no. Take footer,” Simms said. “Christmas 1914. British troops and Huns playing footer in no-man’s-land. Damned sporting!”
“Bunkum,” McWatters said. “Bloke I knew was there. He said they cheated disgracefully.” He threw his potato and winged a waiter.
“That’s your Prussians for you,” Ogilvy said. “I wouldn’t trust them at ping-pong.”
“Not them,” McWatters said. “Our lot. Downright cheats, every one. Permanently off-side. Especially the Welsh regiments.”
Cleve-Cutler pounded on the table. “We shall now take to the air,” he announced, “and drink the squadron toast.” This was another tradition: nobody’s feet must touch the floor. Everyone climbed onto chairs. “Hornet’s Sting!” they roared, and drank. Heeley, the youngest pilot on the squadron, had already put down a base of whisky-sodas. He was a slim lad who shaved only twice a week, more to encourage growth than to remove it. He dropped his glass. His knees folded outwards and he toppled from his chair. The adjutant caught him, one-handed, by the collar, and gave him to a waiter. “The mixture isn’t right,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Add more champagne! At ten francs a bottle,” he told the general, “these chaps can afford it.”
“I’d like to make a speech, if it’s all right by you,” the general said. He managed the supply of disinfectant to the army: essential work but not thrilling. Meeting a fighting squadron was an exciting stroke of luck.
“My stars!” the adjutant said. “You’re a brave man, general.”
“I wouldn’t advise a speech unless you know a lot of good jokes, sir,” Cleve-Cutler said. “The chaps are a bit inflammable tonight.”
“I know a joke about disinfectant.” The general was on his third tankard of Hornet’s Sting. Comradeship had kidnapped his wits. “Chap goes into a pub, sees a dog lying in front of the fire. What’s happening is, this dog is licking its balls. Chap says, ‘My goodness!’ he says, ‘I wish I could do that!’ So the pub landlord says, ‘Toss him a biscuit and maybe he’ll let you.’ What?” The general pounded and guffawed. “What?”
“Where does the disinfectant come in?” the adjutant asked.
“Through the tradesman’s entrance.”
“I say, that’s jolly clever,” the C.O. said. “Far too clever for my ruffians.”
“It would go straight over their heads,” the adjutant said. “Might get a bit shirty.”
“I know a joke about shirts, too. Chap goes into a shop. Shirt shop. Chap says, ‘What’s the difference between a striped shirt and a pound of sausages?’ Shop assistant says, ‘I don’t know, sir. What is the difference between a striped shirt and a pound of sausages?’ Chap says, ‘Well, if you don’t know the difference, I’m damned if I’ll buy my shirts here!’ What?” He drank deeply. “What?”
“Does disinfectant come into this one, sir?” the adjutant asked cautiously.
“I’ll say this.” The general was suddenly wide-eyed and serious. “You can’t have a modern war without good disinfectant. Stuff’s crucial. Your chaps ...” He made a sweeping gesture. “Fine boys. Cavalry of the clouds! But take your disinfectant out of your latrines and, believe me, plague would cut them down like the Four Horsemen of the whatsisname.”
“Acropolis.”
“Exactly. Thank you, major.”
Captain Crabtree had been listening. “These Four Horsemen,” he said. “I suppose they’re stabled in heaven, alongside the angels.” Nobody argued. “Is there disinfectant in heaven, padre?”
“Angels don’t need latrines,” the chaplain said. “They don’t eat or drink.”
“Well, I’m not going,” Crabtree said. “If you can’t get draught Bass and pickled eggs, then what’s the point?”
“We shall all find out, one day,” the chaplain said comfortably. It was the ace of trumps and he played it easily.
After dinner everyone went into the anteroom and played indoor rugby with a cushion as ball. The tackling was ferocious. Munday was caught by the ankle and fell hard on his left ear. Dando took him behind the piano and put five stitches in the ear and emerged to see Heeley standing, dazed, his nose running blood like a tap. Dando steered him out into the night and made him lie on his back. Within a minute, Heeley was asleep and snoring.
Inside, all the cushions had burst. One of the Cameron Highlanders was fighting Plug Gerrish; they used cane chairs as weapons. It made fine, furious sport, and it inspired others to duel with chairs and small tables. Soon the floor was littered with debris. There was a pause for drink as the mess servants carried in a fresh tub of Hornet’s Sting. All the glasses were flung into the fireplace. And suddenly the mood changed. Everyone must sing.
Duke Nikolai played the piano. A lot of drink had been spilt on it and the keys were sticky. McWatters emptied a fire bucket into the piano and a greenish fluid began to seep out of the holes for the pedals. Nobody cared. They all linked arms and bawled the happy ballads from the best London shows, and the relentlessly morbid songs of the Corps: “Who killed Cock Robin? ‘I,’ said the Hun, ‘with my Spandau gun . ..’” and “You Haven’t got a Hope in the Morning” and, best of all, the chorus to “The Young Aviator Lay Dying”, sung to the tune of “Wrap Me up in My Tarpaulin Jacket”:
Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,
The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain,
From the small of my back take the camshaft,
And assemble the engine again!
They liked that. They sang it twice.
Then a Scottish sergeant was summoned to play his bagpipes, and eightsome reels were danced with clumsy gusto. The general lost his grip and was spun into a wall with such force that the lights flickered, or so he thought. He slid down onto his rump. “Bloody piper,” he told Dando huskily. “Piping in waltz time.” Dando nodded. He knew a broken arm when he saw one. Someone offered the general a glass of Hornet’s Sting. “Disinfectant,” he whispered. “That’s the stuff to give the troops.”
Outside, the adjutant was signing for a large envelope. The despatch rider saluted and roared away. His headlamp caught and lost Sergeant Lacey. “What the deuce do you want?” Brazier asked, without anger.
“The same as you, captain. The same as everyone. A warm bed, a clear conscience, and friendly bowels.”
“Wrong. I can sleep on a plank, I left my conscience on the battlefield, and my bowels do what I damn well tell them to.”
“Goodness. How Shakespearean ...” Lacey shone his flashlight and Brazier broke the seal on the envelope. Together, they read the messages.
“You’re an educated feller,” the adjutant said. “What d’you reckon history will make of this little lot?”
“That’s easy. History will make it a footnote to an afterword to an appendix.”
“Well, history is an imbecile.”
“Yes. The footnote will say that too. But alas, no one will read it.”
Someone had stumbled over Heeley in the darkness and carried him inside, and now the pilots were tossing him in a blanket. They roared as they tried to toss him over a beam in the rafters. Heeley was too drunk to protest, but not too drunk to be terrified as he got flung up and the beam clipped his head and he dropped, utterly out of control. “Don’t be so bloody flabby, Heeley!” Simms told him. “Make a bit of an effort, man, for God’s sake.”
Maddegan watched them until he got bored. He wandered over to the piano, and looked inside at the dance of the felt hammers. He was holding a tankard. It tipped as he leaned to see more. Hornet’s Sting poured over the workings. Duke Nikolai stopped playing. Maddegan looked at him. “Go on,” he said. “You’re doing fine.”
“Stuck,” Nikolai said. “Won’t work.” He hammered on the keys, but they made no sound.
Maddegan prised one of the keys up. It snapped, so he gave it to Nikolai. “Keep that,” he said, “we’ll put it back later.” He thrust his fingers into the hole and ripped out five more keys, three white and two black.
Heeley fell and the blanket split, and the pilots holding it collapsed.
“Doomed the bastard!” Maddegan said, and waved the five keys. The pilots cheered.
That was when Cleve-Cutler came in, with the adjutant behind him. Brazier had a soda-syphon. He sprayed the pilots until they were quiet. “Gather round and listen,” he ordered.
“I have important news for you.” The C.O. waved some signals. That silenced them completely. They dripped as they stared. “First... the squadron is moving. Tomorrow. To a field near ... Arras.”
A whoop of surprise and approval. Pepriac was a scruffy crossroads; Arras was a city.
“Second ... the squadron will re-equip with ...” A long pause tortured them. “... with Bristol Fighters.”
That brought a roar of delight. Several pilots danced. They were drunk with joy.
“And third ...” They laughed in anticipation of another celebrtion. “ ... the Tsar has abdicated.” And of course they cheered. The noise was waiting in their throats; it had to come out. “Good old Tsar!” they shouted.
Cleve-Cutler walked over to the piano. Duke Nikolai was staring at the ruined keyboard. “I really am awfully sorry,” the C.O. said. “I’m told that power has gone to his brother.” He checked the message form. “That’s the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch.” Behind them, the pilots had formed a circle, arms on shoulders, and were singing “When this bloody war is over, Oh how happy we shall be ...” He moved closer to Nikolai and said, “I expect you know him.”
“Is pig.”
Cleve-Cutler could think of nothing to add. He left the adjutant to break up the party and send everyone off to bed.
McWatters strolled across to Nikolai, who had not moved. “All of a sudden you’re nobody’s cousin,” he said. “Funny feeling, isn’t it?”
* * *
By noon next day, all the Pups were lined up in order of flights, waiting to take off. Cleve-Cutler sat in his office, signing a pile of papers which relieved him of responsibility for the aerodrome, its buildings and their contents. Each signature took him a step nearer Arras and Gazeran field and the superlative Bristol Fighters. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Jam, sir,” Lacey said. “Two hundred pounds of strawberry, mislabelled plum. Written off.”
The CO read further. “Destroyed by accidental explosion? I don’t remember that.”
“You were on patrol, sir.”
“Still, two hundred pounds ...” Cleve-Cutler looked at the general, who was in a chair by the stove with his arm in a sling. He was waiting for his car to be repaired.
“I know a joke about jam,” the general said.
“The quartermaster at Brigade is being a bit officious, sir,” Lacey explained.
“You can turn a raspberry patch into a pot of jam,” the general said. “But it’s not so easy the other way around.”
“How very true, sir,” Lacey said. The C.O. signed, and Lacey slid the form away from his fingers, to uncover the next.
“Sounded a lot funnier when I heard it. Mind you, we were all a bit squiffy at the time.”
Cleve-Cutler scribbled his name on the rest of the forms, threw them all at Lacey, and threw the pen at the door. “Come on, general,” he said. “You can wave us goodbye.”
“I nearly got a bit squiffy last night,” the general said. “That vodka creeps up on a chap.”
After a mild night and a sunny morning, the grass was dry and the air was sweet. The adjutant bicycled about, searching for the two Russians, and found them in one of the flight huts, playing poker with a mixed bunch of pilots. They were all drinking a hangover cure devised by the doctor. It consisted of raw eggs beaten up with cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce and toothpaste, and it wasn’t doing much good. When Brazier opened the door, most flinched as from a blinding light.
“Signal from Brigade H.Q.,” Brazier said. “Your Paris embassy says you’ve got to swear an oath to the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch.”
“Yes,” Nikolai said. “Is stinking lousy smelling fucking shitting Pig.”
“A very decent oath,” McWatters said.
“More than you deserve, Uncle,” Simms said. “Bursting in here, shouting and stamping and frightening the children, you should be ashamed.”
“I brought this,” the adjutant said to Count Andrei. It was a Bible, large and leatherbound. “Not in Russian, I’m afraid. Any use?”
“I don’t swear,” Nikolai said firmly.
“Yes, you do swear.” Andrei took the Bible and whacked him on the side of his head, and then swung backhand and whacked the other side. Nikolai rocked and gaped. A string of saliva swayed from his upper lip.
“Golly,” Heeley whispered. Nobody moved. This was better than poker.
Andrei slammed the Bible on the table and pointed. Nikolai placed his hand on it. So did Andrei. He said: “We swear allegiance to Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch, by the grace of God, sole ruler of all the Russias.” He kicked Nikolai on the leg. “I swear,” Nikolai said. He sounded twelve years old.
Brazier took the Bible and left.
“I now pronounce you Mappin and Webb,” McWatters said. “You may shoot the bride.”
Nikolai stood up. His face was working hard to seem adult and strong, but the high cheekbones were wet with tears. He went out.
His cards lay face-down. McWatters turned them over. “Queens on tens,” he said. “Fancy that.”
Munday began collecting the cards. “Little Nicky is a pest,” he said. “At my school we’d have toasted his tiny bottom over a hot fire. All the same ... was it wise to box his ears? He just might be Tsar one day.”
“Nicky is finished. The Romanovs are finished. There will never be another Tsar.” Andrei stirred his cards with his forefinger, but he left them lying. “It’s all up to the Socialists now.”
“If Nicky’s done for,” Simms said, “what about you? Suppose there’s a revolution. You might ...” He shrugged.
“Count for nothing,” Heeley said.
“Heaven help us!” Munday said. “The boy Heeley has made a joke! Count for nothing. Did you hear?”
“It was an accident,” Heeley mumbled, blushing.
“I count for nothing because I am not a count,” Andrei said. “I hold no rank in Russian nobility. My father is an engineer. I studied chemistry at London University. When Duke Nikolai was sent here, he must have an aide who could fly and speak English. Nothing less than a count would do. Unfortunately the Tsar was feeling a little low that week. He went to bed and refused to see his ministers or his generals. So I was not elevated. I am a counterfeit count.”
The poker had come to a halt.
“I still don’t think you should have hit him,” McWatters said. “I mean, what if the Cossacks put the Tsar back on the throne? He might turn very shirty about blokes like you clouting his cousin.”
Andrei said, “There were riots in Petersburg, and the Cossacks refused to fire. So the Tsar had to go.”
“Politics is a squalid business,” McWatters said.
“The riots were about bread,” Andrei said. “Hunger beats politics. Hunger beats anything.”
“I never heard about any riots,” Simms said. “I suppose you’ve got some secret supply of intelligence.”
“I read it in The Times.”
“Really? Damned heavy going, The Times. I stick to the racing page.”
Outside, a klaxon blared. They got up and collected bits of flying kit.
“What I don’t understand,” Maddegan said, “is why you swore your great steaming oath to the Grand Duke Thingummy, when you reckon the whole royal kit and caboodle has gone down the drain.” He yawned and stretched, and accidentally hit Heeley in the face. “Sorry, chum,” he said.
“It was a small courtesy to the adjutant,” Andrei said. “And it will keep the Paris embassy quiet.”
They left the cards on the table for the next squadron, and shut the door and walked to the aircraft. Dash edged alongside McWatters. “Remember that night at Rosie’s?” he said quietly. “The business with the deserter. You made him stand on the table.”
“Oh, that. That was years ago. What of it?”
“Well ... what happened? What did you ... What became of him?”
“As a matter of fact, we killed him. A deserter, you see. We court-martialled him, on the spot, and he confessed. Only one sentence. Little chap. Didn’t take much killing. Threw the remains in the midden. Wet as a bog. Sank like a stone.” They had reached the Pups. They stopped and looked at each other. McWatters was wearing sunglasses and Dash wanted to knock them off, but he wasn’t brave enough.
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
“Of course you don’t.” McWatters moved to his machine. “You could always look in the midden,” he said. “I expect he’s still there.”
The squadron took off in order of flights, with the Russian Nieuports the last to leave. The general stood on a tender and waved them goodbye. A sergeant-fitter helped him down. “Cavalry of the clouds,” the general said. There were tears in his eyes, and he stumbled as he walked to his car. What’s he got to cry about? the sergeant wondered. He’s not likely to get a burst of tracer up his arse. Silly old sod.