A Splendid Little War (13 page)

“Scoff?” Lacey tugged an ear. “Scoff … Sometimes you sound far more English than the English. How is that?”

“Well, I had a triple-hyphen tutor. Mr Rosedale-Frost-Forrest-Hungerford. Not many Englishmen can claim that. He used to cry if I split an infinitive. Happy days, schooldays.”

“I was sent down a mine as soon as I could walk. I toiled at the coalface from the age of three. What fun! How we laughed!”

“Goodness,” Borodin said. “Was that a jibe? Do you envy me? Would
you really rather be a bastard footnote to an imperial comic opera? Because that's all I am.” He was amused.

“Envy. We English aren't much good at envy.” That sounded feeble. The truth was that a small part of Lacey would very much like a share of Borodin's gloss. He tried self-mockery. “We're good at hypocrisy. I could give you lessons.”

“No true Englishman would ever say that.” By now Borodin was almost laughing. “But you're not typically English, are you? You're the joker in the pack.”

“What pack?” Lacey spread his arms. “Look around you. It's just a war. Nothing but noise and confusion and …” He pointed to the Chevrolet. “… and a lot of blood. I take it that General Wrangel is pleased with us.”

“Yes, yes, he's very happy. Total triumph. One small anxiety. Your friends in the next field, the Cossacks. They sold you some ponies, I believe.”

“And saddles. Griffin wanted saddles.”

“Of course. Unhappily the saddles became available because of the small anxiety. Yesterday the Cossacks sent some of their cavalry, not many, to take care of the Red retreat.”

“Take care of? Food, blankets? Medical aid?”

“Medical aid would have been useful. The cavalry got strafed. Several aeroplanes found them in a little gorge. Escape was difficult. Half the men and the horses were killed. You couldn't call it a battle. More … what's the word …
mechanical
than a battle.”

“Noise, confusion and a lot of blood.” Lacey walked around the Chevrolet and kicked the tyres he hadn't already kicked, until he ended up where he began. “Well, the Reds have an air force. So it's no great surprise, is it?”

“I spoke to the survivors. Some had never seen a train or a car until they came here, so aeroplanes are a mystery. Magic in the sky.”

Small pause.

“Look,” Lacey said. “Stuffed mushrooms and beef stroganoff tonight, with a decent claret. Can you stay for supper?”

“Afraid not.” Borodin heaved his motorcycle from the back of the car. He tried to kick-start it and failed. Tried again, failed again. “There's something else, but keep it under your hat. Cossacks have a habit of packing up and going home after a battle. Perhaps that party in the gorge were deserters. It's a possibility.”

“Only a small anxiety, then,” Lacey said. “What you chaps might call
nichevo
.”

“Yes,
nichevo
.” This time the motorcycle fired, and the count went bumping and bouncing across the grass.

The owner of the oxen uncoupled them and led them away, well satisfied to be paid with two tins of corned beef. By then, several off-duty ground crew had found the Chevrolet and were tinkering with it. That was when Griffin and Dextry rode in. Jack, the C.O.'s
plenny
, came running and took his pony. Griffin walked, slightly bowlegged, to his Pullman and looked at the name painted on it. “Is this a joke?” he asked in a voice that cut humour off at the knees.

“Sweet blind O'Reilly,” Dextry murmured.

“I wrote it down for him,” Lacey said, “but artistic licence seems to have won the day.” The R and the N had been Russified so that the name read ME

Brazier arrived. “What's the problem? Ah, I see. Jolly japes. Well, that won't do. Typical Bolo trick. Bad for morale. Which one is he?”

“The poor chap's illiterate,” Lacey said. “He paints shapes, not words.”

“Oh, leave the damn thing as it is,” Griffin said. “It's special. And so are we.” He climbed into the Pullman.

The others looked at each other. “What prompted that?” Brazier asked.

“We had rather an odd ride,” Dextry said. “I think I need a drink.” He headed for the bar car.

Lacey went to his radio room and called up his contacts at Wrangel's H.Q. and the British Military Mission H.Q. and elsewhere. He was scribbling on a message pad when the adjutant opened the door and three
plennys
carried in pony saddles. He pointed to a corner. They put the saddles on the floor and went out.

“Left lying around,” he said. “I don't like an untidy camp.”

Lacey nodded, and kept writing.

Brazier sat behind his desk. “We're not damned cavalry,” he said. “If people want to ride horses, they should have grooms to clear up behind them.”

Lacey's nod was very small.

Brazier stretched his legs and looked at the dust-motes wandering in the rays of the afternoon sun. He shared his office with the radio room, and it was a comfortable arrangement. He had worked in worse spots; much worse. He focused on the dust-motes. There were thousands of them and they never collided. How was that? He had no patience with questions to which there was no answer, and so he looked instead at the velvet curtains and the pictures on the wall, sketches of naked women done in charcoal. Where did Lacey get them? Same place as the carpet. Thick. Soft. Unsoldierly. Brazier breathed deeply and flared his nostrils. He had all he needed: a desk and a chair, a copy of
King's Regulations
, a bottle of whisky. He reached for the book and opened it at his favourite chapter: “Discipline – Arrest and Custody”. He began reading. After a while he murmured, “Conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline.” Useful catch-all offence, that one. He looked at the column headed “Maximum Punishment (On Active Service)”. “Two years' imprisonment,” he said. Not much. Insubordinate Language got Penal Servitude. Mutiny got Death.

Lacey closed his message pad and took off his earphones. He leaned back and linked his hands behind his head. “Very satisfying,” he said. “A dozen British Army motorcycles were lying on the docks at Novorossisk, quietly rusting away because the Russians couldn't make them go. Faulty sparking plugs. But the army dump at Salonika has plugs galore. A word in Salonika's ear, now the motorcycles roar with life, and every general in Denikin's armies wants one as a toy.”

“Idiots.”

“Happy idiots. Also, a lot of the war supplies sent by London had the wrong labels. Nurses' underwear, for example, was labelled football boots.”

“Doesn't surprise me.”

“Russians don't play footer. So the crates were left to rot on the dockside. Luckily, our man in Novo spotted the mistake. Same thing happened with army band instruments, labelled disinfectant, while a crate of disinfectant was labelled swimming costumes, which the Russians didn't want because they always swim naked.”

“I suppose it's too much to hope that London sent a crate of nurses' knickers that was full of disinfected trombones,” Brazier said. “No, I thought not. There's nothing new in your laundry list, Lacey. When I was
in Palestine I took delivery of a railway truck full of left-hand boots. Never got the right-hand boots. The truck's probably still there. War is waste.”

“Not in this case. The motorcycles fetched a good price, and the nurses' lingerie was in hot demand. The Ekat opera company snapped up the band instruments – Bolos had destroyed their originals – and we made such a profit that we donated the disinfectant to the hospitals.”

“I don't care,” Brazier said. “Sell your damned knick-knacks wherever. It doesn't matter to me.”

“Well, it should.” Lacey got up and straightened one of the charcoal nudes. “Delightful creature … There was enough profit to buy a huge amount of Russian champagne. We traded half of it with the captain of an American cruiser in Novo harbour. He gave us a large box of gramophone records – the latest Broadway hits – and half a dozen enormous smoked hams, plus a barrel of salted herring and a case of rum. With the rest of the money I bought caviare, castor oil and soft toilet paper for the squadron.”

“The last two items,” Brazier said. “Cause and effect, I suppose.”

“Heavens, no. The oil is for the aeroplane engines.”

Brazier put his head back and let his eyelids fall until he seemed to be looking at Lacey from a great distance. “How sad,” he said, “that the war has to intrude in your grocery affairs.”

“Ah, the war. Yes. I have a couple of military messages. Wrangel told Denikin that he must have another squadron of British fighters.”

“Bloody Russians. They think Britain's an open tap.”

“Wrangel says he needs them because his cavalry got strafed, badly, by the Red air force,” Lacey said. Brazier's grunt expressed his feelings about cavalry. “Count Borodin told me what happened,” Lacey said. “Apparently the Cossacks got trapped in a ravine.” Another grunt from Brazier. “It happened very quickly,” Lacey said. “Cossacks don't know much about aeroplanes.”

“And they didn't stop to look when they got strafed. Machine guns have that effect. Everyone gets his head down.”

Lacey looked at the saddles. “Those came from the Cossacks.”

They went over and looked. Brazier squatted on his heels and fingered the holes in the leather. “Fresh damage,” he said. “You don't take much interest in battlefields, do you? I do.” He picked up a saddle and turned it over. “See here. The round has emerged from the underside.
Either the horse was standing on its head or the bullets were fired from above. High above.” He put down the saddle and opened a penknife and poked it in the most inviting hole and found nothing; tried another hole and found the remains of a bullet. He quickly found three more. “Rather battered,” he said. “Most are. I saw a lot of these in France. They're calibre 0.303 inches, the standard British ammunition.” He gave them to Lacey, and stood up.

“We supplied ammunition to Russia during the war,” Lacey said. “The Reds might have captured it.”

“Our bullets wouldn't fit Red machine guns. They fire the standard Russian bullet, which is 7.62 millimetres. Not the same thing at all.”

Lacey squeezed a bullet between his fingers until the pain made him stop. “Should I tell the C.O.?” he asked.

“He'll hate you for it. They'll all hate you. And it won't change anything.” He took the bent bit of metal from Lacey's hand and tucked it in a tunic pocket. “Furthermore, they won't believe you. But go ahead, if you wish.” Brazier almost smiled. He was enjoying this.

“I don't wish.”

Brazier went back to his desk. “Stick to groceries, Lacey. You won't get blood on your fingers.”

The nearest Red air force base was at a place called Urbàkb, fifty miles to the north. Perhaps seventy or eighty. The maps didn't always agree. Next morning, the White bomber squadron resident at Beketofka set off to raid it, and Griffin's squadron followed.

It was like following children going on a picnic. The White bombers did not bother with formation-keeping: they flew at whatever height they pleased, in any pattern, or none. There was a lot of low cloud, which did not help. Oliphant identified the leader's machine by the white streamer flying from its tail, and he kept his Nines far behind it. The Camels were high above, as usual, scouting for trouble.

There was none until they got in sight of Urbàkb. Then guns opened up and the White bombers flew into a sky that was blotted with black. It looked a lot worse than it was because the gunners miscalculated the height and so there was plenty of empty air. The cloud, too, provided patchy cover. Oliphant could see enemy machines parked down there.
He wheeled his Nines away from the action and let the White bombers have first crack.

It was a full squadron, twelve aircraft, and their concerted attack should have made a mess of something, but already three White bombers had turned away from the target and were heading for home. They did not appear to be damaged. The remainder milled about. Soon, bomb bursts made small brown fountains, but Urbàkb was a big airfield and attacking the grass would do no lasting harm. And Red fighters were taking off.

Oliphant re-formed his Flight into line astern and flew towards the hangars. The flak gunners saw him coming and turned their fire on him, so he put his nose down and changed height before they could change the fuses in their shells. A heavy machine gun came looking for him and sent stitches of red tracer climbing and bending and whipping past. Then he was over the first hangar and he pulled the toggle that released the bombs. As he climbed away, the Lewis gun behind him was firing long bursts, probably at the man chucking up the red tracer. Oliphant hoped his observer had many more drums of ammunition. Fighters were still taking off, and it was a long haul back to Beketofka.