When Dicken arrived at Pewsey, the station for Upavon, Foote was also there, standing on the platform waiting for a tender to pick him up and take him to the airdrome.
“Willie, I guess,” he grinned. “Pulling strings. I must get him to pull a few for the kid brother.”
Their duties turned out to be very vague. Upavon was a bleak, windswept, inhospitable place and their attachment seemed to be very uncertain and very temporary. They were given a job checking machines for design and appearance, the way they handled, their suitability, comfort, and areas of vision, but it occupied very little of their time and they slipped in and out of the camp as they pleased. It wasn’t far to Sussex and, buying from a local doctor going into the army a small wheezy two-seater known as One-Lung, Dicken was able to get home easily, putting Foote en route on the train for London, where his brother was learning to fly.
Most of the pilots at Upavon had seen hard service in France and many of them were itching to get back. They didn’t like the atmosphere in England where the civilians tended to regard the war as if it were a rather rougher type of football match, and they didn’t like the way men who had never heard a shot fired in anger were picking up rewards. However, the disaster in Italy had started a panic around the home stations where comfortably-established officers began to reflect the politicians’ alarm by imagining, not for the first time since 1914, that the war was about to be decided in Germany’s favour. To their great alarm, some were even snatched from what they had considered secure jobs and sent to France to replace those hurriedly dispatched to help the Italians, and it came as no surprise to Dicken and Foote to learn they were not going back on 1½-Strutters.
“Experienced men are being kept at home,” they were told, “to give their knowledge to new squadrons which are being formed. Some of you will be given flights. Some will be given squadrons. You’re to do all the flying you can. On Bristols.”
There was a saying that an airplane that was good to look at was also good to fly, and the Bristol looked good. Fitted with a Rolls Royce engine, because of its size it looked like a fighter and Dicken studied it like a man buying a horse. It had a businesslike air about it and, while the pilot, boxed in between the upper and lower wings, was virtually blind above, the observer had a good arc of fire.
Hatto turned up at Upavon soon afterward and, deciding it would be pleasant if they could all go to the same squadron, they began to play poker to decide who should have command of the squadron and who should have command of the flights.
“I guess we should give Willie the squadron,” Foote decided. “After all, the guy’s been in this goddamn war since the beginning but he doesn’t seem to progress much.”
“Lieutenant to lieutenant in three years,” Hatto smiled. “What a career.”
“Comes of getting wounded so much,” Dicken said.
“And making so many enemies. Careless all around.”
There was still no sign of them moving and the war didn’t change much. Hatto appeared to have a direct line to the War Office and came up every day with the name of someone else they knew who had been killed – Dunne had flown into a house and Friedmann had been killed by a student pilot he was instructing – but, despite the casualties, despite Italy, in England there remained a strange offhand attitude to the war. The politicians seemed to be giving more of their time to their party squabbles than to beating the Germans and there was a lack of realism among the people who provided the new airplanes. Even the SE5, a well-built fighter sturdy enough to stand up to the rough and tumble of air fighting, appeared to be badly undergunned.
“Why in God’s name stick one gun on the upper wing?” Dicken asked. “If you tried to reload it, the slipstream would slap the ammunition drum into your face like a soup plate in a gale. I bet no pilot thought of that.”
“Some chap like Parasol Percy, shouldn’t wonder,” Hatto said. “Hear he’s no longer the colonel’s pilot, by the way. Aide now. His languages, y’see. Sits in an office and tells people what to do and where they’re posted. Getting married they tell me.”
“I’ve got an invitation to the wedding,” Dicken said. “He’s marrying my girl friend’s sister.”
Diplock himself turned up later that week. The Wing colonel had been posted home and brought him with him. They arrived by car.
“At least a car’s safe to fly,” Foote said as they watched them climb out. “Never leaves the ground.”
Diplock was at the bar when they arrived in the mess and, finding himself face-to-face with them, he seemed at a loss. They were an anarchical trio and he was unsure how to deal with them. “Have a drink?” he suggested nervously.
Dicken was on the point of refusing when Hatto nodded.
“Jolly decent of you,” he said. “After all, when a chap’s getting married, he has to push the old boat out a bit, doesn’t he?”
“What the hell did you do that for?” Dicken demanded later. “I didn’t want to drink with the bastard.”
“Peace, child,” Hatto said calmly. “Leave it all to your Uncle Willie, who’s a devious, conniving, calculating sort of cove always known to have something up his sleeve for gadgets such as Diplock.”
It almost started a quarrel between them but that afternoon a Camel flew in and everybody wanted to try it.
“Shouldn’t be difficult,” Hatto said. “Same engine as a Strutter so you don’t have to learn any new tricks.”
In fact, there were a lot of new tricks to learn because, after the Strutter, flying a Camel was like flying a wild animal. All the other Sopwiths Dicken had flown had been stable, well-behaved and smooth to handle, but the Camel had to be held back all the time because it seemed eager to wrench itself free. Handled with confidence and intelligence, it was a superlative machine but it was always quick to take advantage of stupidity or nervousness. Because of its short fuselage and stubby wings, the big rotary engine tended to force the nose down in a right-hand turn and it didn’t take Dicken long to discover that to avoid losing height he had to apply left rudder the minute the manoeuvre began and hold it on hard. Then the Camel would turn on a sixpence.
“She’ll never catch anything by surprise, though,” he admitted. “She’s not fast enough. So all you can do is sit up high and go down like a stone. Still, when you’ve gone down, all you do is pull the stick back and she goes straight up again like a lift.”
“I like nice comfortable airplanes,” Foote said.
“Nice comfortable airplanes get shot down,” Dicken insisted. “I reckon I could enjoy flying Camels. I’d be hard to hit, and that counts more for me than being nice and steady. Besides, you can recognise ’em a mile away and the Huns’ll probably think twice before going for ’em. They know Camels waltz their way out of anything.”
At the weekend Hatto announced he was going to Diplock’s wedding.
“Not as a guest, of course,” he pointed out hastily. “Not invited. Just to the reception. Drink the bride’s health.”
“You won’t catch me drinking his health,” Dicken said.
“Didn’t say we were going to,” Hatto said mysteriously. “Just the bride’s.”
Shaved, brushed and combed to within an inch of their lives, they climbed into Hatto’s car and headed for Deane. When they arrived the guests were all parading before the bride, the groom and the parents. Diplock’s father, tall, plump and smiling, had no idea who they were but Hatto’s title carried weight.
“Come in, dear boy,” he said. “You’ll be one of the Norfolk Hattos. I was at Oxford with Rudolf Hatto.”
“Actually,” Hatto said, “we’re from Northamptonshire and we don’t have anything to do with the Norfolk lot. Especially Rudolf. He ran off with the curate’s wife.”
“Do you know this bloody Rudolf, you glass-eyed bastard?” Foote whispered as they made their way into the marquee.
“Never met the chap in my life.”
Looking surprisingly beautiful, Zoë appeared at Dicken’s elbow. “What are you doing here?” she murmured. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“When Willie Hatto gets an idea in his head,” Dicken admitted, “you tend to go along with it. He probably fancied the free champagne.”
A man who looked well-stomached and prosperous started discussing the war with them. “Next time we make a push,” he insisted, “it’s got to take us to Berlin. No half-measures. We’ve just got to disregard the casualties.”
“You in the army?” Hatto asked silkily.
“Not me. I’m reserved.”
“Thought you might be,” Foote commented.
The sarcasm passed unnoticed, and the well-stomached man went on enthusiastically. “It must be very exciting flying over the lines as you do,” he said.
“Not always,” Dicken snapped. “Sometimes you don’t come back.”
It seemed to startle the stout man, and they were just about to set about him when Diplock’s father started banging on a table with a spoon. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’ve come to cake-cutting time.”
An uncle droned on about Annys and the bridegroom, going on so long Diplock’s father had to nudge his elbow, then the best man, who turned out to be the Wing colonel, a man with narrow lips and cold eyes, proposed the toast.
“Making sure his future’s secure,” Hatto observed dryly. “If you want to get ahead, get a high rank to your wedding.”
The Wing colonel’s speech was short and witty and the congratulatory telegrams, they noticed, were mostly from members of his staff. Diplock was just on the point of replying when Hatto raised his hand.
“Permission to speak, sir?” he asked. “Old comrades and all that.”
Diplock’s father beamed. “Just one more word then,” he conceded. “The Honourable William Hatto would like to add his mite. You’ll all know his father, Lord Hooe, of course.”
There was a spatter of applause and Hatto screwed his monocle into his eye.
“Bit out of order really,” he apologised. “Normally, at these affairs, it’s always the bride who gets the attention. This time, I think the bridegroom ought to be noticed.” He gestured at Diplock who was watching him suspiciously. “Captain, you’ll notice. Very important. Until recently, personal pilot to the colonel at Wing. Very dangerous job.”
Annys smiled proudly and there was a ripple of applause because nobody had the slightest idea what the Wing colonel’s pilot did.
“Still,” Hatto went on, “we’re not here today to draw attention to his flying skills. Just to the fact that he’s a lucky bridegroom with a bride as beautiful as ever appeared in the society magazines.” Annys looked coy and Diplock tried a nervous smile. “The only advice we can give him today is on his future.” Hatto paused. “I’m not going in for all that nonsense about ‘May all his troubles be little ones’ and so on. That’s old stuff and marriage is serious. Like war. And in that our good friend has already brought himself very much to the attention of his comrades.”
Dicken exchanged a glance with Foote and he saw Diplock going pink.
“Doubtless,” Hatto went on, a dangerous look in his eye, “he’s feeling nervous, faced with all his relations and the friends who know him. Marriage, y’see, like many things in life, is sometimes enough to make a man break out in a cold sweat.” There was a low murmur of laughter and a rumble of approval from the men. “But courage is a splendid virtue and our good friend, Arthur, knows all about courage. He’s been called on to show it.”
Dicken was unable to hold his head up because he knew exactly what Hatto was getting at and so did Foote.
So did Diplock. He was frowning deeply, his face red, his fingers twitching at his side. The guests were smiling and nodding approval. It was a serious speech, they were thinking, not the flippant trivialities of most weddings, because the times were serious, with men dying in France and almost everybody suffering loss.
Diplock’s father, plump, smooth and smug, was nodding approval. Nobility, his manner said, gave tone to a wedding.
“The way Arthur demonstrated his courage–” Hatto was well into his stride now “–became known to everybody who flew with him. Every man on the squadron knew its quality because they watched him in action against the enemy and saw how he behaved. And, as you can see, he wears a medal on his breast, and we all know how these medals are won.” This time, not only Diplock but the Wing colonel frowned, because he, too, wore a DSO that had been won for organisation rather than action.
“Marriage needs courage, too,” Hatto smiled. “As he’ll surely discover. It requires the same trust that we needed in him when we were with him in the air. So let him make sure he screws up his courage and makes a success of his marriage. Like war, marriage’s dangerous.”
There was a burst of laughter and Hatto lifted his glass. “Let me ask you then to drink to Arthur, our Paladin, our Hector, our Hotspur, our Achilles.”
“To Arthur!”
As the glasses rose, Dicken noticed that Hatto very pointedly placed his on the table untouched. With the babble of conversation starting again, he faced him. “That was bloody cruel, Willie,” he said.
“It didn’t harm the bride.” Hatto studied the guests crowding round Diplock and Annys. “Come to that, I doubt if it’s hurt the bridegroom. With the Wing colonel on his side, his friends are more powerful than his enemies and his performance in Strutters will be forgotten so quickly it won’t be worth reminding anybody of it.” He paused, watching Diplock, his eyes suddenly contemplative and strangely cold. “I’ve always been prepared to forgive a man for running away, because I’ve often wanted to myself. But this one’s different. A man who can get himself a cushy job, promotion and a medal out of it has more to him than meets the eye. This one’s crafty, ambitious and dangerous, and what I said probably makes up a bit for Snell, Scarati and Johnson. I don’t like our friend. I never shall. He’s the sort of shabby type we haven’t seen the last of. I think we’d better go now. This place stinks of moral turpitude and stale piety. Some of the bastards, in fact, look as though they’re doing very well out of the war.”
As they collected their hats, he spoke to the maid. “Tell Captain Diplock,” he said, “that we had to leave, but that we shall be watching his future progress with great interest. Make sure you get the message right.”
As he went off with Foote to find his car, Zoë appeared.
“Your glass-eyed friend managed to muck up the wedding beautifully for Arthur,” she observed. “He looks as though he’s turned up an amputated hand in the fruit salad.”
“I think,” Dicken said, “that was the idea.”
She gestured. “You don’t think he’ll take it lying down, do you?” she asked. “He was boasting the other night that he has the power to send a man anywhere in France. He’ll probably send you lot to the penal battalion.”