Killion had arranged to meet Jane Ashton outside the Chavigny canteen. It was a big place and he waited for twenty minutes while girls came and went. After the dozenth girl Killion began to be afraid that he would not recognize her; but when she came out, even with a single dimmed-out light bulb behind her head, she was so much more than his memories of her.
Jane Ashton was a slim girl, with short, soft hair curling around a face so pleasant that people automatically smiled when they met her. Yet her eyes were serious, even speculative. You might wish to help her but you wouldn’t think of advising her; and usually she needed no help, either. There was a delicacy about her which dominated Killion, and a womanliness which sent the blood pumping to his head. She made him nervous and reckless at the same time. So had every other beautiful girl, of course; but Jane Ashton was now not only the first beautiful girl Killion had kissed good night, she was the first to kiss him in return, and kiss him as if she had a great deal to give as well as take. Even now the shock trembled him, and when she put her arm in his he was afraid to speak.
“That was an awful day,” she said. “How are you?” “I’m twenty.”
“There must be a joke about that, but I’ve forgotten it.” She laughed, and he felt proud because he hadn’t stuttered. “I should have brought you a present,” she said.
“You have.” Killion was amazed at his own sophistication: it worked, it worked. They walked toward the village while he struggled to contain and enjoy his feelings. “Would you like to eat at the same place?” he asked, taking no risks.
“Yes. Did you have a good birthday?”
“Good and bad. Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Can I see you tomorrow?” That sounded jerky, unsure, not at all sophisticated.
“We should wait until tomorrow,” she said; but it was a suggestion, not a statement. Their feet stumbled on the cobbles, and she gripped his arm. “It’s simply asking for trouble,” she said. “We’d only be storing up grief for ourselves.”
“I know. But can I?”
“I may have to work.”
“The next day, then?”
“God … I was going to lead a quiet life. I gave up men after the last time.”
“Give up giving up.”
“We mustn’t start … we mustn’t get …”
“No. But can I see you tomorrow?”
“Oh, why? It’s pointless. Anything could happen at any time. It’s silly.” He said nothing. “Besides, I have to wash my hair.”
He wanted to speak, to say anything so as not to seem sullen or graceless, but there was nothing; and they went into the restaurant stiffly, not looking at each other. When they were holding menus she looked away. “You should have asked me later. It’s been a rotten day, you see.”
“I just had to know.”
“What if you got posted?”
Killion looked in the menu for an answer and was saved by the arrival of the waiter. He ordered a lot of food and a lot of wine.
“I see you’re trying to guarantee results,” she said, but lightly.
During the meal they talked about England, mainly London where they had both lived. They exchanged experiences and enthusiasms. She drank a lot of wine for a small girl, and enjoyed it. They were at the brandy stage when she said; “You know, you got all that sex psychology wrong, before.”
“Nonsense. You’re repressed, that’s all.”
“Not half as repressed as you are. You see sex behind everything, and so you imagine that everything has sex behind it.”
The French couple at the next table heard the scurrilous word and stared reproachfully at this affront to their palates.
“It’s a good rule-of-thumb,” Killion said loftily.
“Only because it’s your thumb,” she replied. He blinked with surprise. She took his hand and squeezed the thumb. “Look, if I were hungry, I mean really hungry, starving. I would look for food everywhere, wouldn’t I? So everything I saw would be in terms of food. If I saw this candle it would remind me of a carrot. Well, that’s what you’re like. You’re hungry, and you see everything in terms of food. Well, there is a lot of food about, but once you start trying to live in a world of nothing but food, you’re going wrong.”
“It’s a nice mistake, though,” Killion said wittily.
“No, it’s not” She surprised him by her intensity. “You can’t see it now, because you can’t. But when you see it like that you don’t just distort the world, you distort yourself. Don’t you understand? You’re trying to see more than exists, and so you’re squinting.”
He refused to look at her. “Nice speech.”
“Oh, don’t sulk. I can’t like you when you’re so childish and … heavy.” He blinked at the words like you.
“How do you know so much about it anyway?” he mumbled.
She took her hand away. “I’m tired of men who look at me as if I were a fillet steak, that’s all.”
He took her home to the cottage near the canteen. He was intensely miserable and, hidden by the darkness, tried to apologize. His stutter resisted him. “I’m s-sorry.” He held both her hands in his and looked down at the pale blur of her face. He felt tears, stupid, pointless, treacherous tears. “I can’t help b-b-b-being the w-w-way I am.” He gave up in disgust. Her fingers tightened around his own, harder and harder, pulling him down. Briefly he refused, not wishing her to know about the tears, and then they kissed. Her mouth was searching for him, and giving to him. Killion’s head surged: girls weren’t like this; she had seemed not to want to … She had said … He gave up. Her arms slipped inside his tunic and encircled his thin body. Relax and enjoy your problem, he told himself.
After a while she let go of him and buttoned his tunic. “You can’t come in,” she said.
“Why not?” He was all courage again.
“Because it would be a waste of time, for medical reasons.” She straightened his invisible tie. “Or didn’t you get that far in your anatomy lessons?”
“Oh,” he said. “That.” Killion was both elated and deflated.
“Come tomorrow, if you still want to.”
“Yes. Good.”
“It will all end in tears,” she said, and went inside.
“Church must have had very small feet,” Lambert said. “His socks don’t seem to keep me warm at all.”
“He wore eights,” Kimberley said. “I hope you had them washed first. You know what Church was like.”
“It’s the worst thing about flying,” Lambert said. “Cold feet. I’d sooner be too warm than too cold.”
Dickinson said: “I knew a pilot who had cold feet one minute and was extremely hot indeed the next.”
“Who was that?” Callaghan asked, interested.
“Pay no heed to him,” Lambert told Callaghan. “Dicky’s remarks are in the worst possible taste.”
They were all in a room near the adjutant’s office, waiting for Woolley to get off the phone to Corps HQ and tell them where the day’s flying would be. It was only 7:30 AM, and still dark.
“I wonder why people get cold feet,” Killion remarked. “From a medical point of view, that is. At a time of crisis, you’d think the body would try even harder.”
“In a crisis, the body just panics,” said Rogers. Like everyone except Callaghan and Gabriel, he was sipping whisky with his coffee. “The bowels, in particular, behave with childish irresponsibility.”
“Please,” protested Dickinson.
“Well, so they do. And it’s such a nuisance. Especially when everything freezes.”
Callaghan tittered. He was still trying to establish himself after the siege in the flooded crater. “I can’t think of anything worse,” he murmured.
Lambert pulled hard on his socks, failing to stretch them. “I can,” he said.
Woolley opened the door and stamped in. His teeth were clenched against the cold, and his sleeves were pulled down over his knuckles. He stood for a moment, frowning, his head nodding, not looking at anyone. “Shit,” he grunted. He went out.
There was a pause; then Finlayson said: “That could mean almost anything, couldn’t it?”
Dangerfield leaned across and whispered, with the grotesque drama of an elderly gossip: “I think he wants to be friends, you know. Deep down. He just can’t bring himself to say it.”
Woolley came back with a wooden model of a biplane. He put it on a table where they could see it. “Somebody has started using his brains,” he said. The model looked like a stretched-out SE5a, only smoother and cleaner. “The engine generates 160 horse-power, so the speed, ceiling and rate-of-climb are all good. Top speed is about 120, ceiling is over 22,000, and I don’t know the other, but you can guess.”
Woolley pointed at the wings. “Thick wings. The controls still answer at high altitudes. Very strong construction. You could dive it hard and the wings won’t come off. Sensitive. Easy to turn. Might be too easy if the pilot wasn’t careful. Plenty of wallop; two machine guns mounted on the engine and firing through the prop. Big prop, too.”
Rogers leaned forward and licked his lips. “What a darling creature,” he said softly.
Finlayson made a scornful show of lighting a cigarette, so that everyone looked. “It’s a nice model,” he said, “if you like models. Personally I’d sooner fly what we have, even if they are slow, tired and sick of the palsy.” His hand was shaking.
“Well, bully for you,” said Woolley flatly.
“I do like that tapered wing,” Rogers said. “Do you think we might get these, sir? What are they?”
Woolley took a bacon sandwich out of his tunic pocket. “The enemy calls them Fokker D VIIs,” he said. “If you try hard you might get one this morning.”
“Oh my Christ,” said Lambert. “Now they have something better than Triplanes.” He looked sick.
“I don’t fancy arguing with one of those,” Kimberley said. “That’s a wicked-looking bastard, that is.”
“Isn’t there any chance of our getting better planes, sir?” Rogers asked. “Couldn’t we get Camels, or Bristols?”
“I expect so.” Woolley champed on his sandwich. “I haven’t asked for any, and they haven’t sent them.” He discovered a piece of bone in his bacon and spat it out. The pilots were looking at him with a mixture of dread and shock.
“But sir—”
“The SE5a is the best gun-platform made. It’s rock-steady. It won’t dip, or wobble, or swing, or scratch its ass when you tell it to keep still. I want two things from an airplane: I want it to fly me up to the enemy, and then lie still while I shoot the enemy down.”
“It’s too slow, sir,” Richards said quietly. “It’s too slow, and it won’t fly as high as we need to go. The enemy can get on top of us. In a Camel—”
“Get there first,” Woolley said, “and catch them coming up. I’m not changing planes.”
For a moment, that silenced them. Finlayson threw his cigarette at the model. “The Kaiser’s wife could fly rings round us in one of those,” he said.
“Nobody ever killed the enemy by flying rings around him. You kill him with guns, not the airplane. I have always maintained,” Woolley said with ponderous irony, “that the way to avoid a long argument is to shoot the other man before he starts. All you have to do is get up close, keep your temper, and shoot straight. Camels wobble. Spads wobble. Bristols wobble. SE5as do not,” he brought up a long, curling belch, “wobble.” Nobody smiled.
“Now for the second piece of good news.” Woolley went over to the wall map. “The General Staff has at last discovered what fighters are for. They are for fighting. From now on we shall not hang around our side of the Front, waiting for the foe and getting shot down by the French artillery. We shall fly over the German lines, looking for trouble. We shall fight. Right? As soon as it’s light, my old school chums Finlayson, Richards and Callaghan will come with me and patrol the area Roeux-Riencourt. Rogers will take Dickinson, Gabriel and Dangerfield and patrol Riencourt-Flesquières. Lambert is the lucky one. He goes balloon-busting, with Kimberley and Killion to help.”
“Excuse me,” Lambert muttered. He hurried out, knocking over chairs, and ran to the latrines.
When Lambert found Kimberley and Killion they were out on the field, looking at a map laid on the bottom wing of a plane. The gray light from the east did nothing to improve Lambert’s face. “Where are these bloody balloons?” he said.
“Quéant,” said Kimberley. “That’s just between—”
“I know, I know.” Lambert leaned against the fuselage and shuddered. “I’ve seen those sods before, they always keep a few Fokkers lurking at about five thousand. How many are there?”
“Three, yesterday,” Killion said.
“Oh God.” He walked down to the tail and pressed his hands on the rudder, wet with morning mist. “Bloody sausages,” he said. “Bloody lousy murdering sausages. I shall never eat another sausage as long as I live.”
“Come on,” Kimberley said. “We might as well go.” Planes were taking off. Lambert came back, wiping his wet hands on his face.
“You ever been balloon-busting?” he asked. They had not. “Dear mom, it’s a bastard,” he said. “They have a ring of anti-aircraft guns all round them. Then they have the ground crews with dozens of machine guns and hundreds of damn rifles, all blazing away. If you get through that you have to give the balloon a good hard squirt to make it burn, and if you do make it burn it goes up with a hell of a whoomph and you still have to get away.”
“Past the big guns, the medium-sized guns and the little guns,” said Kimberley.
“Did I mention the Jerry fighters?”
“Yes.” Killion offered him his flask, but Lambert just closed his eyes. “They let these sausages up pretty high, though, don’t they? About a thousand feet, it says here. The ground fire shouldn’t be too accurate there—”
Lambert waved a limp hand. “They pull ’em down,” he said, his eyes still closed. “They pull ’em down as soon as they see you coming.”
“They won’t see us if we fly low.”
“The observers in the balloons will.”
“Oh,” Killion said. “Um.”
“I’m getting cold,” Kimberley complained. “What d’you want to do?”
“Oh, nuts, I don’t know.” Lambert opened his eyes and looked bleakly at the map. “If we go in high the Jerry planes will get us. We have to go in low. I’ll bust the balloons, you two split-ass about and distract their attention.”
“What if they pull the balloons down first?” Killion asked.
“Oh, shut up,” Lambert said. He trudged away.
Hugging the ground, dodging clumps of splintered trees, hopping over hedges and walls and old fortified lines, Lambert led Kimberley and Killion so low that they had little opportunity to take their eyes off the terrain and look for balloons. But his reckoning was good: they skimmed the British trench system and raced across the ruptured wastes of no-man’s-land exactly opposite the given map reference.
As it happened, the Germans had moved the balloons one thousand yards to the left.
Lambert kept on going and made height as fast as possible, to clear the angry patter of small-arms fire and the explosive stutter of machine guns. At five hundred feet he banked hard and headed for the balloons. Inevitably they were being hauled down, fast. Both of them.
Kimberley and Killion swung out to broaden the attack and confuse the ground fire. Flak blotted the sky ahead, making remote grunting sounds. Lambert’s mind registered the presence of aircraft high above, but they were irrelevant. He was studying the nearer balloon, calculating where it would be when he got there. Dimples like heavy rain spotted his wings as stray bullets went through, and then he reached the belt of anti-aircraft fire. The grimy blots grew closer and bigger, sudden thunderclaps made visible, and hurled the little planes from side to side. As Lambert labored to get back on course another blast flung him lopsided. The next pitched him violently upward, or kicked him forward. The controls felt sloppy and disjointed. The explosions made his head hurt. Through the smoke he saw the balloon dropping, its basket swinging wildly. Now he could see the heads of the observers.
Abruptly the flak ceased and he flew into clear air: too near the balloon for the German gunners. The bag was down to five hundred feet. Lambert felt mildly surprised that he had arrived. He lined up the dead center of the target and scored with a long, spiraling burst. The way his bullets plucked at the fat bag was slightly obscene. He kept on firing until he could see each individual rope on the net, then hauled the nose up and vaulted the balloon, realizing as he did so that if it caught fire now he would be fried.
No flames came. He looked behind: the balloon was still dropping. Kimberley and Killion were prancing about the sky, failing to distract the defenses, and Lambert strayed into a hail of machine-gun fire, splashed with flak. He forced the unhappy plane into an Immelmann turn and dived back on the balloon. From a hundred feet he raked it from side to side and back again. This time he curled away before he could overshoot, and as he kicked the rudder bar across he saw a glowing redness develop. Before he had completed his turn the whole sphere was blazing, and two parachutes were unfolding below it. For a moment Lambert went rigid with horror as it looked as if the fire would fall on top of them; but they drifted clear.
The second balloon was a quarter of a mile off, and by now very close to the ground. Kimberley and Killion made mock-attacks while Lambert dived through the intense machine-gun fire and a screen of flak so dense that he lost sight of his target. Something clouted his left shoulder with a blow that numbed the arm and knocked him across the cockpit. The plane staggered and refused to fly straight; it lurched crab-wise out of one shell-blast and into another. Lambert’s eyes went hazy; he felt unconsciousness rising in him like a tide; it drained reluctantly away, and he was through the barrage again.
But now the balloon was in the wrong place … it should be in front … the plane wandered away from it, sluggish and disobedient. Lambert strained to force it back but the controls insisted on turning for home, and so he had to slip past the balloon, all plump and shining gray, soon to be on the ground.
Feeling sick and disgusted, Lambert let the plane lumber over the Front. The bruising flak searched for him again, but he ignored it and eventually it went away. He looked for the other two aircraft.
They were still over German territory, quite high, about half a mile apart, and heading for home. There was a lot of flak but the Fokkers had gone. As Lambert watched, one SE5a took a hit from a shell and fell sideways. Rich black smoke, like costly velvet, unfurled from its engine. The plane began a slow, spiraling descent which developed into a steep side-slip. Lambert watched it as long as he could, but his own plane was losing height, and he limped over the British lines at fifty feet. High above, the third plane flew home, apparently unconcerned by war, destruction or anything.
Lambert nursed his coughing, shaking aircraft back to the field and thankfully touched down on the first available yard of turf. He cut the engine and felt the tail skid sink, bounce, settle and finally run. There was something odd about the way the plane was rolling; one wheel was broken. Lambert slumped and watched the grass go by and listened to the strut tearing itself apart. The plane juddered to a halt and the undercarriage noisily collapsed. The right wing buckled. Lambert got out and left it all.
Woodruffe came over from his hut and met him. “Are you all right?” the adjutant asked. Lambert showed him his left shoulder. “Something hit me,” he said. He wanted a drink, now it was all over.
“Nothing there, old chap,” the adjutant said. “Not even a hole. What did it feel like?”
“Let’s have a drink.” Lambert sat down on the grass and put his head between his knees. “They moved the damn sausages,” he said. “I hate sausages … I feel rotten, Woody. I think …” He lay down and blinked, while the blood roared behind his ears. The adjutant sent a man for whisky.
After a while, Lambert’s head stopped roaring and he could see clearly. He saw an SE5a high above, circling and circling. “Why doesn’t the silly bugger land?” he asked weakly. Woodruffe helped him drink some Scotch and put him in Rogers’ limousine, which a mechanic had brought over. Together they sat and watched the plane circle. After about ten minutes it came down and flew a cautious lap, and then landed. “Killion,” Woodruffe said. Black fumes were coming off the engine.
They drove over and picked him up. “Where’s Kimberley?” Killion asked. He had oil all over his face and hands.
“You should know,” Lambert said. He was lying in the back seat, drinking. “He was right next to you when he got hit.”
Killion climbed into the car. “I couldn’t see a damn thing,” he said. “This oil kept blowing back and messing up my goggles, it was all I could do to get home. I must have gotten a splinter in the engine, somewhere.” He spat out of the window. “Filthy-tasting stuff.”
“Well, we got one balloon,” Lambert said. “I hope they’re bloody grateful.”
Woolley landed with Finlayson and Richards an hour later; then Rogers came in with Dickinson and Gabriel. Dangerfield was already there, having struggled home with a broken rudder line, probably clipped by shrapnel. Callaghan had made a forced landing in a field, but they had seen him get out. Woolley sent Finlayson off with a truck to lead the driver to Callaghan. Meanwhile, the ground crews refueled, re-armed, and slapped patches on the worst holes. Everyone was fairly pleased: each flight had killed one German and damaged others, and no German planes had crossed the Front on that sector. Woolley went over to the adjutant’s office.
Two Frenchmen were sitting, drinking coffee. “And here is the Commanding Officer, now, gentlemen,” Woodruffe told them. Everyone stood up. “Did you have a good flight, sir?”
“Where’s Lambert?” Woolley demanded.
“I believe he’s … resting. In his billet.”
“Get him.”
Woodruffe went into the next room. The Frenchmen sat down. Woolley took off his helmet and vigorously massaged his scalp. He picked a match out of an ashtray and cleaned his fingernails. Something sprang to the floor and he mashed it with a large flying-boot. One of the Frenchmen glanced to see what it was. “French,” he told them. They looked at each other blankly.
The adjutant came back. “Yes, he was resting. These gentlemen, by the way, are from the French police.”
“Did you get the booze? And the scarves?”
“Yes, sir. And two replacements arrive tomorrow.”
“New machines?”
“Well, Corps says six good aircraft should be flown here today.”
“Should? The first goddam pilot I see sitting on his ass, I’ll send him to Corps to shoot a general.”
“Yes sir.” There was a pause while Woolley kicked monotonously against a filing cabinet. Woodruffe indicated the visitors. “They would like to arrest about half the squadron,” he said.
Woolley looked at him. “Don’t be fucking stupid,” he said.
“We have warrants,” one of the Frenchmen told him. He unfolded some documents. “Against Captain Dudley Arthur Rogers for manslaughter and conspiracy to defraud. Against Lieutenant George Yates Finlayson for manslaughter, assault and conspiracy to defraud. Against Lieutenant Frank Alan Michael Church for manslaughter, arson, assault, rape and conspiracy to defraud.” His English was good. He riffled the other warrants and put them away.
“Rape?” said Woodruffe. “Not rape, surely. That must be a mistake.”
The man gave a very faint smile. “You might say that the whole affair was a mistake,” he said.
“Get rid of these farts,” Woolley said.
“You should know, sir, that I understand you,” the Frenchman said.
“If I might explain,” Woodruffe said hurriedly, “‘Fart’ is a term of familiar respect in the British Army. Rather like ‘bastard.’”
“Kick these bastards off my airfield,” Woolley said.
“You should also know that we consulted with your Corps commander this morning,” the Frenchman said, “and he ordered that we should be given every possible assistance.”
“He is a fart and a bastard,” Woolley said.
An airman opened a door. “Captain Lambert, sir,” he said. Lambert came in, looking scruffy and pale.
“You did a piss-poor job on those balloons,” Woolley told him. “I came over there fifteen minutes ago and they had two of the buggers up again, and the Boche artillery was pounding shit out of our lines.”
“Oh, Christ,” Lambert said. He sat down and fumbled for a cigarette.
The Frenchman sorted his warrants. “Captain Gerald Frazer Neil Lambert?” he said.
“I did get one,” Lambert protested miserably. “They moved their rotten sausages during the night, they saw us coming, they pulled them down. You couldn’t …” Woodruffe struck a light, but Lambert’s eyes didn’t see it, and the flame burned itself out. “We lost old Kimberley, as it was,” he said.
“What did they lose?”
“I got one—”
“Did you get the observers?”
Lambert took in a long, shuddering breath. “They damn near went up with the balloon,” he said. “They jumped, and I thought their parachutes were going to catch fire.” He discovered the cigarette in his hand and examined it as if it were a mistake.
“You didn’t kill them?” Woolley stared bleakly, like a butcher with an incompetent errand-boy.
“No, I got the balloon, I didn’t …” Lambert shrugged. “I didn’t … I got the balloon, that was … I got the goddam balloon, didn’t I?” he demanded angrily.
“I got the goddam balloon!” Woolley parodied in a shrill voice. “Go back and get the goddam observers! You shoot down the gas-bag, dummy, to make them jump out so you can machine-gun them while they go down! By Christ! You think you pop balloons for sport?”
“You should have told me,” Lambert muttered.
“Told you? Should have told you we go up to kill men and not pop balloons? I should have told you the Huns have balloons the way you have the runs, but they are short of skilled observers? I should have told you that snot comes out of your nose?”
The Frenchman stepped forward, and his colleague moved with him. “We will start with this officer,” he said. “Captain Gerald Frazer—”
“You’re not taking any of my pilots,” Woolley said harshly. “You can stuff those warrants right up the Corps commander’s bum.”
“Then we shall return in force and compel the arrest.”
“No you won’t.” Woolley glowered at him. “No you won’t, you French turd, because Captain bloody Lambert is under military arrest already.”
“Indeed. What charge?”
“Cowardice in the face of the enemy.”
The adjutant covered his face with his hands. Lambert looked at Woolley with dull loathing. The French policemen raised their eyebrows fractionally, and picked up their hats. Woolley scratched his stomach.
“After all we have heard,” the Frenchman said, “I am surprised that you still find the services of Captain Lambert so necessary.”
“Is that a fact,” Woolley said. “Well, he still has that job to do, doesn’t he? He has to get after them balloons again, today, as soon as possible. And I want those observers dead this time.” He gave Lambert a grubby smirk. “Gerald,” he said.
Lambert stumbled as he came out of the adjutant’s office, and collided with two airmen. “Where’s Lieutenant Killion?” he demanded.
“Dunno, sir,” replied one. “We’re on cookhouse fatigues, sir.”
Lambert stared at him, licking his lips. He suddenly felt cold; shudderingly cold. “Cookhouse?” he said. “So what?” The words came out slurred. He heard the slurring and wondered what caused it.
“You might try Mr. Kimberley’s room, sir,” the other airman suggested.
“Don’t want Kimberley. Want Killion,” Lambert shivered and put his hands in his pockets. “Can’t have Kimberley,” he muttered.
“I think I saw him go in Mr. Kimberley’s room, sir.”
Lambert walked heavily away. There was a deep puddle in the path and he walked through it.
“Charming,” said the first airman.
“He’s not to blame,” the other said. “Poor bastard’s tiddly. Smell the whisky on him?”
Killion was sitting on Kimberley’s bed, reading one of Kimberley’s books, when Lambert came in. “Here’s a funny thing,” he said. “I bet you didn’t know the Scotch thistle doesn’t really grow all that much in Scotland at all.”
“Great news,” Lambert said.
“It grows mainly in England. But bog myrtle grows mainly in Scotland. So does bog asphodel. Scotland and Wales.”
“Great news,” Lambert sat down and rested his head in his hands.
“There’s an awfully pretty flower here somewhere, called golden something … They say it likes chalky uplands …” Killion leafed through the book. “It looks a bit like a cowslip,” he said. “I didn’t know old Kimberley was interested in botany, did you?”
“Great news.”
Killion glanced at him, and turned back to the Scotch thistle. “What is?”
“We’re going back.”
“Back where?”
“Back to the same place.”
“Oh.” Killion put the book in his pocket and went to the chest of drawers. He found half a dozen handkerchiefs and a green silk scarf. “Just the thing for my girl!” he exclaimed. He put it around his neck and showed Lambert, but Lambert wasn’t looking. “Do they have the balloons up again? I suppose they must have. When are we going?”
“As soon as they’ve patched up my plane. Four o’clock, five o’clock, I don’t know. We’ll have to get someone to take Kimberley’s place.”
Killion rummaged through the bedside locker. “Chocolate … want some chocolate? I say, a wristwatch! What on earth did he want with two watches? Not very accurate: five minutes slow. I suppose you saw the old man about it.”
“He wants me to machine-gun the observers this time.”
Killion was brushing his hair with a pair of silver-backed brushes from the top of the chest of drawers. He stared at Lambert through the mirror. “What, in the basket? You can’t see them in the basket.”
“Not in the bleeding basket,” Lambert said angrily. “After they’ve jumped out, while they’re going down.”
Killion didn’t like the idea at all. He sat on the wooden chair in the corner and looked at Lambert as if he were a self-confessed criminal. “You can’t do that, though, can you? I mean, they’re completely helpless. It’s like—”
“If you so much as mention sitting ducks or fish in a barrel,” Lambert said acidly, “I’ll kick your teeth in.”
“But what good will it do? Did he tell you that?”
“He says Jerry is short of skilled observers. He says there’s no point in busting a balloon if the observers can go up in another. They can replace the balloons but not the observers.”
“He can’t make you do it, you know.” Killion ate some chocolate while he thought about it. “You’re within your rights to refuse, you know. He wouldn’t dare court-martial you.”
“Oh, shut up.” Lambert got up, opened the window, closed it, leaned against the wall. “I didn’t join this rotten squadron to become his hired assassin,” he muttered.
“No,” Killion agreed. “Of course, that’s where the old man would probably differ.”
“I’ve just realized.” Lambert looked at him with such energy that for a moment Killion thought he had discovered a way out of it. “Woolley never knew the observers weren’t killed until I told him. How could he? He tricked me into telling him. What if I’d said we killed them all? He couldn’t prove otherwise.”
“How did he trick you?”
“He asked me what happened to them. Whether they were dead.”
“Oh.” Killion sniffed. “Diabolical cunning.”
“If I’d only thought … Still, that’s the answer, isn’t it? Bust the balloons, bugger off home, tell him we shot everything that moved.”
“He might get a different report from our gunners. Frankly I think you should just tell him to go to hell. He wouldn’t dare court-martial. It’s sheer, cold-blooded murder, and in full view of everyone.”
Kimberley came in. “Hello,” he said. “You two hiding from someone?” He had a dirty bandage above one eye, and mud all over his breeches.
“What happened to you?” Lambert asked.
“Just about bloody everything. I got bitten by a rat. Look.” He showed them the mark on his hand. “Our trenches are full of them, horrible great brutes. God, I’m tired.” He lay down on the bed. “I was just coming home when I got hit in the engine. Fortunately it didn’t go off, but it made a hell of mess, and I came down in a shell-hole just outside our wire.”
“In no-man’s-land?” Killion said. “You were lucky you didn’t get shot.”
“Yes … Excuse me, but is that my scarf? Thanks. Just put it back in the drawer … Well, they got me out, and into our trenches, and patched me up, and I was just leaving when the Huns started shelling. Have you ever been shelled? It’s horrible. It’s nothing but screaming and colossal explosions and everything shaking and you keep thinking the next one is going to hit you, and you pray for it to stop, and it goes on, and on, and on. You want to scream out and make them stop it, and you want to cringe up your body and hide it somewhere, and there’s nowhere to hide, and the shells keep screaming down and blowing everything up all around you. That was when I got bitten by the rat.”
Killion and Lambert watched him curiously. This was stocky, stolid Kimberley, the Derbyshire plowboy.
“How long did it last?” Killion asked.
“An hour, I think. I’ve no idea, I lost count of time. It took me ten minutes just to stop shaking so I could walk. They took me out with the wounded. Just think. Those men have to stand that over and over again. I never knew it was like that. We lost a lot of men. Direct hits on the trenches.”
“Was it really accurate?” Lambert asked, stupidly.
“They couldn’t miss, they just couldn’t miss. They had that sausage up again, the one we didn’t get. The Jerry observers were looking right down on us. It was murder. Like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation we’re going back this afternoon to have another go.”
“So we should. Those balloons are just murdering our poor bloody infantry. It’s a crime to let them do it, a bloody crime.”
“Woolley wants us to kill the observers,” Killion said. “Fire the balloon, make them jump, then shoot them as they parachute down.”
“Couldn’t agree more. Shoot the buggers dead. Then their guns won’t be able to see what they’re hitting.”
“It doesn’t strike you as …” Killion hesitated, “a bit cold-blooded?”
Kimberley looked at him sideways. “Listen,” he said. “If someone threw a bomb at you and ran away, would you shoot him in the back, or would you let him get some more bombs and try again?”
“It’s not as easy as that,” Lambert mumbled.
“It’s as easy as that,” Kimberley said. He closed his eyes. “Now piss off and leave me alone.” He sounded angry.
Lambert’s plane was ready at 3:45 PM. He tried to telephone the British artillery unit nearest the balloons, but the operator couldn’t get through. The line had probably been cut by shell-fire.
It was a fine, clear afternoon, dry and bright in an unexpected spell of sunshine. Lambert waited until 4:15. He wanted to go in with the sun behind him. He took off first and circled the field, testing the controls. The rudder felt as if it were covered with barnacles, and the engine sounded old and tired, but there was no reason for grounding the plane. He performed a laborious loop, the signal for Kimberley and Killion to join him.
Again they skimmed the ground all the way to the Front, but this time the Germans had no chance to hear the warning buzz of engines, for they were shelling again. Lambert was climbing hard over the German wire before the first balloon began to move.
The ground fire was much worse than it had been that morning. Lambert glimpsed a flickering of muzzle-flames from a hundred machine guns, and heard the deft tug of bullets speckling his machine, with sometimes a spang! as a round struck metal. He realized, without interest, that the enemy firepower had been tremendously increased during the day. Kimberley and Killion were still with him, he observed, but fanning out to distract the gunners. Killion waved to him. Lambert stared, and looked back at the balloon.
Suddenly the flak awoke and got in fifteen seconds’ vicious pounding before giving up. It was like being ambushed with filthy snowballs; they materialized without warning, crashed painfully against the eardrums, and buffeted the aircraft. The balloon loomed up, gross and jerking, and the storm fell away. Lambert climbed hard at his descending target. For a moment there was nothing to do but let the shabby old SE haul him up the last stretch, so Lambert actually relaxed and momentarily enjoyed his peace. He sprawled sideways and took in the twitching frightened balloon with its crosshatched plumpness rounded out by the golden sun on one side, curving into purple dusk on the other, and the heavy, ugly, functional basket. At two hundred feet he began firing. He could not miss. The balloon was a target indecently big. His bullets streamed into its chubby underside, slitting and probing.
The flames came almost immediately. Lambert kept on firing, crisscrossing the balloon, underscoring the obvious, until at last he had to turn away.
When he looked back the gas-bag was roaring, a spherical furnace illuminating the early dusk. The basket was still there. Then it became detached. Lambert dived, but nobody came out of the basket. It dropped fast, keeping its upright stance at first, then turning as if emptying itself, and the men fell out. No parachutes opened. Lambert watched the tumbling bodies until they were little spinning, waving irrelevances; and turned away.
The kill infuriated the gunners. They sent up a thick screen of flak between the Goshawk planes and the second balloon, damning anyone who tried to break through. The usual haphazard spray of machine-gun fire sprinkled the air, inaccurate and half-spent at that height, but it only needed one bullet in the head to destroy a whole aircraft. Lambert was now very afraid. Something smashed into his instrument panel and thin oil streaked his goggles. He circled, looking for the other two, and then found he couldn’t level out: the outer half of the left wing was shredded, as if by hailstones.
Lopsided and vulnerable, he tried to climb the barrage and get to the second balloon. The barrage climbed to meet him. He saw Kimberley and Killion curling in from either side, and wondered that they were both intact.
Weaving and dodging, the three planes shuffled across the blotched and shuddering sky. Continuous eruptions created a wilderness of blast and air pockets; they barely recovered from one sickening jolt before something hurled them in the opposite direction, or the plane stumbled into a vacuum and hit bottom fifty feet down. Often Lambert lost sight of the other two. He slumped inside the cockpit as far as he could, out of sight of the pounding high-explosive, protected by old canvas against jagged shell-fragments; and dimly recognized the familiar sensation of hot urine soaking down his right leg.
Like flies in a thunderstorm, their very lightness carried the British planes through. Anything short of a very near miss merely blew them away. Three strong men could lift an SE5a, fully loaded; so blast blew the planes about, aged them, weakened them, but it did not destroy them. Lambert raised his shaking head to see the sky ahead clear of flak, with the balloon in the center. There were also three circling Fokker Triplanes.
This balloon had not descended. Lambert realized that far below the barrage was still pounding away; that the observers’ reports were still going down the telephone wire, correcting ranges and bearings, selecting new targets from the shop window of the British Front. This attack was important to the Germans.
Hence the Triplanes. They came out of their circuit one by one and bore down on the SE5as, each of which was now heading for the balloon from a different quarter. Lambert saw his German change from profile to head-on-view: a black, kite-like pattern, edged with gold, dropping out of the pure purple of the dusk. He turned slightly to meet the attack. The German fired a couple of rounds to clear his guns. Lambert blinked to rid his eyes of a sudden haziness, and then the German was on him, with a curiously muffled stutter that swelled and was lost in the bellow of their engines as they passed in a blaze of flashing muzzles and white-hot exhausts and shining propeller blades.
Lambert heard something crack and thrash itself to death in the slipstream, but the plane still flew and although there was a stink coming from the engine it was not on fire. While the Triplane recovered and returned he closed in on the balloon. Killion and Kimberley were keeping the other Germans honest. The balloon rotated gently in the evening breeze, presenting its serial number to him. With the Triplane boring in from behind he fired a long burst at the dead center of the bag, and saw the fabric split and flare.
Lambert dropped his right wing and dummied to go around the right of the balloon, and just as the Triplane started firing he banked steeply to the left and got away. He missed the burning bag by ten feet, standing his plane on its tattered wingtip, and held the turn until the whole scene came in sight again. The observers were straddling the side of the basket. Then they jumped.
Lambert hesitated, finding excuses in wanting to oversee the complete destruction of the flaming balloon, or wondering where the Triplane was, or perhaps they had a third balloon somewhere … The parachutes opened like conjuring tricks, and still he circled. A hundred yards away a smoke-ball appeared: the flak was back. The parachutes drifted away, controlled now by their own laws, out of the war. Still Lambert circled, uselessly, neither doing nor not doing.
A sheet of flame created itself away to his left, like a scrap of brilliant paper, and a Triplane was on its back, trailing smoke. Kimberley came pounding across the sky to the parachutes. Lambert saw his own Triplane diving to protect them and he plunged after it, far too late.
Kimberley let fly at the dangling men from a hopeless range. He dueled briefly with the Triplane, lost it, and came round in a wide, searching turn. He flew into an anti-aircraft shell with the precise catastrophe of a drunken driver speeding into a wall. The gas tank exploded in a bloom of yellow and red, and then there was only a lot of smoke, with bits falling: bits of wing, bits of wheel, bits of pilot.
Lambert held his dive. The Triplane came after him and made a long, angled pass, but he was unaware of it. He reached the parachutes and killed the observers in two attacks from close range. Then he dropped to rooftop height and fled for home through the deepening dusk. Killion landed right behind him.
“I’d like to introduce myself,” said the replacement. “My name is Shufflebotham. I just came today.”
“Oh.” Rogers looked at him. The man was neat and clean and nervously ingratiating. “I’m Rogers. Do you have somewhere to sleep?”
“Oh, yes. The adjutant—”
“That’s all right, then.” Rogers went back to oiling his cricket bat. He seemed anxious about its condition.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“Got one.” Rogers indicated the half-full bottle of Scotch on the floor between his legs.
Shufflebotham watched him work for a few moments. “Sorry about my name,” he said, unconvincingly. “Damn silly name, really. I ought to do something about it.”
“Oh?” Rogers said. He waited. “Oh,” he said.
Shufflebotham wandered away. Lambert was putting records on the gramophone. He was drunk, and he dropped one. Shufflebotham picked it up for him. Lambert played a record.
“Jolly little tune,” Shufflebotham said.
“What?”
“I don’t think we’ve met. My name is Shufflebotham. Awfully sorry …”
“Nonsense.” Lambert blinked at the blur of the spinning label. “That’s a waltz. Know it anywhere.”
“No, no. My name is Shufflebotham.”
“Never heard of him. Not in this squadron.” He picked up his bottle and tramped away, treading on Dickinson’s feet.
“Who’s that?” Dickinson said, waking up.
“Shufflebotham,” Lambert said angrily. “Not in this squadron, never. Fellow has the wrong squadron. Never, never, never.” His narrow, bloodshot eyes glared at the replacement.
“Wait a minute,” Finlayson said. “You’re a bloody liar, Lambert. Wait a minute. I know you’re a bloody liar.”
“Where?” Lambert demanded. “What?”
“There was a Shuttlecock in this squadron,” Finlayson said. “I’m almost bloody certain of it.” He sniffed morosely. “You always were a bloody liar, Lambert. Hey,” he turned on Dangerfield. “You remember the bastard, don’t you?”
“Who’s that?”
Finlayson looked back at Lambert. “Come on, then, who was it?”
“Nobody,” said Lambert. “There never was one. Never.”
“I’m afraid it’s all a bit of a misunderstanding,” Shufflebotham said with a light chuckle.
“Who is this screaming hysteric?” Finlayson said.
“You mean Shackleton,” Dangerfield announced. “You remember old Shack, Dudley? Came down in a tree and broke both his legs. You remember, he used to do those tricks with matches.”
Rogers thought. “No,” he decided.
“Oh, come on,” Dangerfield protested. “How can you forget old Shack?”
“I never knew him,” Rogers said. “Before my time probably.”
“I win, then,” Lambert said loudly. “You’re all bloody liars.”
“Listen,” Finlayson said. He went up to Lambert and hiccupped rum fumes into his face. “Listen, I can remember this fellow whatshisname as clear as you.” He waved at Shufflebotham. “Clearer.”
“All right, then,” Lambert challenged. “AH right, ask old Woody.”
“You ask old Woody.” Finlayson closed his eyes to help him think. “The burden of the evidence rests on the other side to disprove whatever it is, and not on the other side to disprove the other side’s evidence. That’s English justice.”
Lambert turned to Dickinson. “Is that right, Dicky?” he asked, confused.
“Better ask old Woody,” Dickinson said.
“That’s what I said,” Finlayson confirmed. “You ask old Woody.”
The adjutant came in, followed by a one-armed major. “Aha!” said Dangerfield. “Now for a duel between giants. Lambert wants to ask you something, Woody.”
“Fire ahead.”
“I forget,” Lambert said. There was a chorus of booing and laughter. “There never was one, that’s why!” he shouted.
“Are these the officers named in the arraignments?” the major asked Woodruffe.
“Yes. Manslaughter and fraud all round, more or less, and rape, arson and assault sort of sprinkled through. This is Major Gibbs,” he told them
“Have a drink,” Dangerfield offered.
“It’s damn ticklish, really,” the major said. He accepted some whisky. “Thanks. I’ve been sent down to arrange your indictments before a French civil court on all these charges. Cheers.”
“But it’s all bull,” Richards said, emerging from behind a newspaper. “Tell them to go to hell.”
“It is their country,” Woodruffe pointed out.
“They don’t deserve it. We’re fighting much harder than they are. Besides, look at the rations they sell us. Look at the eggs we get, they’re tiny. It’s scandalous.” Richards was trembling with indignation.
“Well, never mind about that,” the major said. “We can’t get you before a French court anyway, as long as you’re all awaiting court-martial.”
“I’m not awaiting court-martial,” Gabriel declared. He put down his pocket Bible and looked around with a certain grim satisfaction. “Nor am I charged with any crime under French civil law.”
“Good,” said the major. “Then maybe you can give me a hand. We have to get one set of charges or the other in motion, and I’m your defense counsel.”
“We plead guilty but insane,” Lambert said.
“I shall have nothing to do with unrighteousness,” Gabriel stated firmly. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” He looked calmly from Gibbs to Lambert. “But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.”
“I don’t think you understand,” said Gibbs. “I just need someone to help with the paperwork.”
“Oh no. That’s quite impossible. If ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague. And I will break the pride of your power.” He tapped his Bible with his finger. “You see, it’s out of my hands.”
“Jesus Christ,” Finlayson growled in disgust.
“Who else?” asked Gabriel.
“What about the other girl who lives here?” Killion asked.
“She’s hiding behind the curtains,” Jane Ashton said. “Why are you shivering? Perhaps you’d better put some clothes back on.”
“Who’s shivering?” He swished the wine around in his glass to disguise the tremble. “Anyway, I’ve had a hard day.”
She stepped out of her skirt and undid her hair. Killion watched from the corners of his eyes. “Let’s bring the mattress through here, in front of the fire,” she suggested. She cocked her head. “If you can wait that long, that is.”
Killion turned away, pretending to look for somewhere to put his glass. “All right,” he said. “Are you sure it will go through the door?” He picked a china ornament off the mantelpiece and looked at its base. “Neat, but not gaudy,” he said. “Is it yours?”
She came up and put her arms around him. “Oh Jack,” she said. Killion felt the warm and cool curves and points pressing against him. He put the ornament down very carefully. It fell over. “It’s all very well for you,” he said meaninglessly. “You live here.”
“Oh, come on. Stop muttering away to yourself.” She reached down and began tickling toward his groin, and he broke away.
“Where is it?” he demanded.
They dragged the mattress through, and stood panting with exertion on either side of it. Killion said: “You really do look absolutely wonderful.” There were tears in his eyes, and he did not look away.
“Thank you.”
They lay down, and started to begin the endless discovery of the pleasure of each other, and the endless pleasure of each discovery; while outside there was a faint, remote rumble which could have been shell-fire, or heavy traffic, or even a loose window vibrating in the wind.
“If we had a house,” Margery said, “what would we call it?” She was frying eggs and bacon and mushrooms on a camp stove in Woolley’s billet.
“Cléry-le-Grand.” Woolley was looking at a large-scale map, and drinking Guinness.
“What? Seriously.”
“Seriously, I can’t think of anything more serious than Cléry-le-Grand. Right now it’s just about the most serious little piss-pot of a frog pox-factory in the whole world.”
She glanced at the map, and went back to spooning hot fat over the eggs. “It depends what sort of house it is, I suppose, but what if it was a, you know, biggish place, in the country somewhere. Like Hampshire. What about that? What would we call it?”
“Dunromin. Taj Mahal. Justanook.” He rubbed a grimy thumb in his palm, collecting dirt off both surfaces. “Bide-a-wee. Cosycot. Cedar Lodge. The Moated Grange. The Station Hotel. The Bottom of the Barrel. The End of the Road. The Skin of our Teeth. The Broken Reed. Bottomsup.” He went back to the map. “Cléry-le-Grand.”
“We used to live in a house called The Nest.” She forked out the bacon, letting it drain before she arranged it around the plate. “We didn’t give it that name, but all the same it made a difference. I mean, it wouldn’t have been the same if it had been called something else.”
“We lived in hundred and ten Canal Row,” he said. “If it had been called hundred and twelve we’d have had our own lavatory.”
She slid the eggs, one by one, on to slices of toast in the middle of the plate. “It does matter,” she said. “You give names to the things that matter to you, and where you live matters.”
“As long as the postman puts the begging letters through the right door,” he said. He felt a throbbing strain at the outer corners of his eyes, and pressed them with his fingertips. Margery’s face was hidden by her hair as she bent over the stove.
“I’d like to live somewhere nice, that was called something nice,” she said. The mushrooms were being dotted around the eggs, bright and buttony. “What I want more than anything is to have somewhere I can look forward to.” She put the plate in front of him, and he began eating.
“I once had a week in a boarding-house called St. Monica’s,” he said. “What I look forward to is never seeing it again.”
“Why don’t you want to live somewhere nice, for God’s sake?” she asked. “Haven’t you ever wanted a home of your own?”
Woolley grimaced. “This bacon,” he said. “Bloody salty.”
She reached forward and overturned the plate so that it landed on his lap. Mushrooms bounced about the plank floor. He stared at her.
“You’re an absolute bastard,” she said. The tears came, and rapidly dissolved her angry expression to one of utter despair. Woolley sat, knife and fork in hand, and tried to think what to do.
“Why do you have two watches on?” Jane asked. She held his wrist and smoothed the soft hairs on his arm.
“Extra precaution,” Killion said, “in case one goes wrong. Hey! That reminds me.” He jumped up and went to his tunic. “I brought something for you.”
He handed her his green silk scarf. “How beautiful!” she said. “You are kind.” She kissed him.
“Try it on,” he said. She put it around her neck and let the points fall between her breasts. “What a perfect day,” she whispered.