War Story (3 page)

The fly had come back in. Milne stood up and waved his hat at it, meaning no harm.

“Let's go and take a look at what you've brought us, anyway,” he said.

They strolled across the grass towards the hangars. It was mid-afternoon, and skylarks sang as if in celebration of the sunlight and the giant blue sky.

“All of ‘A' Flight are away on leave this week,” Milne said.”‘B' Flight are up on patrol at the moment, and ‘C' Flight have gone swimming. Nice to have a bit of peace and quiet, isn't it? Damned traffic never stops, of course.”

Paxton saw the tops of vehicles moving on the other side of a distant fence and heard the grumble of engines. “Are we getting ready for a Push, sir?”

Milne smiled. “I expect so,” he said. “We usually are.”

The flat tyre had been replaced. The damaged tailplane had been restored to shape, and the canvas patches were getting a final coat of dope. Paxton was amazed by the speed of the repair, and said so. “They've probably done it before,” Milne said. “That stuff should dry quickly in this weather. Tell you what: when it's ready, why don't you take off and spend a couple of hours getting to know the landmarks around here. Arras is more or less north-east of us. Pick up the main road that runs south-west from Arras and follow it to Doullens, then pick up the road south to Amiens. After Amiens go north-east towards Albert, then cut back north to Pepriac. You can't miss it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Faxton. He had been expecting a hot bath and a change of clothes.

“And while you're up,” Milne said lazily,”after you've gone round the houses a couple of times, you might as well finish off with … what shall we say … six practice landings? And let's see you do the last one from … oh … three thousand feet with a dead engine. Suit you?”

“Yes sir,” said Paxton. The day was very warm and he desperately wanted to scratch his armpits and his crotch, but he dared not. “I don't suppose there's the chance of a cup of tea before I go, sir?”

“Listen to those birds!” Milne said, and strolled away.

“Bugger the birds,” said a fitter when the CO was out of earshot,”begging your pardon, sir. Let's have a listen to this engine.”

They listened, and the fitter wrinkled his nose. All the plugs had to be changed. While that was being done, someone took a blowtorch and a dixie behind the hangar and made a quick brew-up. They gave Paxton a pint of sweet, milky tea. He drank it with such obvious enjoyment that they gave him
a refill. The Quirk sounded much healthier with new plugs. He flung the dregs of his tea onto the grass and clambered into the cockpit.

‘A' Flight came back as Paxton took off. Milne heard the fading buzz of the Quirk being absorbed by the deepening drone of four Beardmore engines. He opened his office window, perched his backside on the sill, and watched the tiny pattern of dots grow into a neat diamond formation. The FEs were no more than a hundred feet up as they passed. Milne knew the flight leader was watching him, so he raised an arm, and got half a wave of a gloved hand in return. That meant: quiet patrol; nothing doing. He watched the flight curl away and lose formation. FEs in the air reminded him of dragonflies. Not from the way they moved, which was hardworking rather than brilliant, rather like a London taxi; but from the way they were put together. Just like a dragonfly, everything important was clustered at the front, the machine was all wings and nose, with a few long bare poles reaching back to keep the tail in place. Milne closed one eye and half shut the other. He ignored the pusher propeller spinning behind the wings and the tricycle wheels hanging down and the Lewis gun poking up and the struts and the wires and the British markings, and all he saw was a khaki blur in the sky. But when he opened his eyes it still reminded him of a dragonfly.

The grub is Okay specially if you like bully beef but what I wouldn't give for a pint of mild at the Dukes Head as the froggeys got no idea how to make beer and the vin blong gives me wind something chronic.

You wont never guess who I met last week Bert Dixon what a surprise! His mob just come out the Trenches he says half got trenchfoot and they all got lice big as your finger! Bert says to me Ted you got a nice cushy number you stay out them trenches Ted they are murder which I am sure is correct, Bert should know. Bert says any time a plane comes near they all fire at it they never waits to see is it a Hun or not they all fire nobody better tell our major!

“Have no fear,” murmured Corporal Lacey. He was a slim
young man in well-tailored khaki. He had an auburn moustache, full and heavy, which made half his face look bigger and stronger than it was. He dipped a small camelhair brush into a pot of india ink and painted out almost all the second half of the page, starting with the line
His mob just come out the Trenches
… He gave the jet black shape neat, rounded corners and straight sides, so that it formed a deep frame surrounding the only words he had not obliterated. These were:
which I am sure is correct.
”And who dares deny it?” Corporal Lacey said. He put the page in a patch of sunlight to dry.

He was alone in the orderly room. A kettle was simmering on a Primus stove, and a gramophone was playing a record of string quartets. The music had a harsh, driving urgency. Lacey's eyes widened as the quartet cut the theme into pieces and flung them together again, the same only different. “That's the stuff,” he said. “Stand no nonsense.” The door opened and Captain Piggott came in. Lacey stood up. “Did you have a good patrol, sir?” he asked.

“Dud. No Hun, no fun.” Piggott was red-haired and restless. He noticed the gramophone and went over to it. “Is the adjutant in?” His head twisted as he tried to read the spinning label.

“Captain Appleyard is not back from Contay yet, sir.”

“Contay? What the devil's he doing in Contay? That's Kite Balloons, isn't it?” Piggott abandoned the label. “What's this bloody awful music, Lacey?”

“Dvoř ák, sir.”

“Sounds foul. What is it, German?”

“Bohemian.”

“Just as bad.” Piggott found a typewriter with paper in it and began poking the keys. “They're all Huns, over there. When's the adj going to be back? I want to play some cricket.”

“He didn't say, sir. He went there for lunch.” Lacey went over and lifted the needle from the record. “Would you like a cup of tea, sir?”

Piggott nodded, still pecking away at the keys. Lacey assembled tea, sugar and milk. Piggott dragged the paper out and looked at it.

“Your filthy machine can't spell,” he said.

“I believe I hear Captain Appleyard's car, sir.” Lacey put three china mugs on a tray. Piggott folded the sheet of paper into a glider and waited. As the door opened he launched it. The glider flew past Appleyard's head but the adjutant didn't notice it. “Afternoon, adj,” Piggott called; but Appleyard didn't hear that either. Head down, frowning, he hurried across the room. He looked dreadful. His face was dead-white about the chin and mouth, yet blotched with colour at the cheekbones. There was sweat on his brow: sweat, after twenty miles sitting in the breeze of an open car? He moved with his shoulders hunched as if holding himself together. “Glass of water,” he said to Lacey without looking, and went into his room. The door banged shut.

Piggott found his glider and smoothed out the crumpled nose. He watched Lacey pour water from a jug, and spoon white powder into the glass. Lacey looked up. “Bicarbonate of soda,” he said. “Incomparable for swift relief.”

Piggott followed him into the office. Appleyard was lying rather than sitting in an old, padded swivel chair. His tunic and shirt collar were open, and the top of his flies were undone. One foot was propped on a desk drawer. His eyes were shut but the eyelids trembled, and the hollows below them gleamed wetly.

Lacey placed the glass in his hand and held the fingers secure until Appleyard had swallowed most of the fizzing drink. “Mr. Piggott is here, sir,” he said, and went out.

Appleyard sat up and wiped his face with a khaki handkerchief. “Come in, Tim,” he said. “Take a pew, have a cigar. To what do I owe …” He broke off to utter a belch that seemed to begin in his boots.

“You feeling all right, adj?” Piggott asked.

“Nothing to worry about. Touch of the Zulu's Revenge.” Appleyard was an old-style career officer, now in his mid-forties, a balding bachelor who had seen much service in India and Africa and who wore three rows of faded campaign ribbons to prove it. So why was he only a captain? The squadron was too well-mannered to ask, and in any case there were more interesting things going on in the world. “Ever see a Zulu, Tim? Very large gentlemen. Black as your hat and
brave as a bull. Bullets can't stop ‘em.” He had buttoned his flies and was rearranging the paperwork that cluttered his desk. “Just look at this bally stuff! Grows like weeds … Now then: what's your problem?”

“Oh … Several things. Let's start with pay. Jimmy Duncan says his pay has never been adjusted since he got his second pip, and that was
weeks
ago. Also two of the ‘A' Flight mechanics still haven't got their proficiency supplements, or something.” Piggott was pacing up and down, carefully placing his feet so as to stay on the same narrow floorboard. “Then there's my fitter, Corporal Lee. His wisdom tooth's giving him absolute hell, but there's never a travel warrant for him to go to Amiens and get it taken out. I mean, that's bloody silly, isn't it?” Piggott reached a wall, pivoted on his heel, and began the return journey. “And now I'm told by stores that the men's latrines haven't got a drop of disinfectant. Not a single drop. In this weather! I mean to say, adj, just think of—”

Appleyard's cough stopped him. It was a savage spasm that gripped the adjutant's lungs and seemed to attack his throat like a chained dog. Piggott turned away. The noise was so hurtful it made him feel slightly sick. Still seized by his cough, Appleyard stumbled to an open window and eventually, painfully, managed to spit outside. The spasm ceased. He came back, mopping his face. His chest was heaving and he looked exhausted. “Better out than in,” he whispered. Threads of saliva linked his lips.

“You sound pretty dreadful, adj,” Piggott said. “You ought to see a doctor.”

“Just seen one. Chap at Contay.” Appleyard slumped into his chair. “Same old story. Nasty dose of …” He paused to catch his breath. “… dose of Delhi Lung. Just got to … put up with it.” He thumped himself on the chest so hard that Piggott winced. Appleyard noticed this, and grinned. “You do your best for India,” he said, “and this is what India does for you. Never fair, is it?”

Piggott felt acutely uncomfortable. He drifted towards the door. “I don't suppose any of that stuff really matters all that much,” he said, but then he heard what he was saying. “Still, the disinfectant—”

I've got some coming from Contay, old chap. Toot sweet. I was there oh the scrounge. Corps HQ are absolutely useless. You might as well talk to that wall. Don't worry, I'll chase up those other things, the pay and so on. Top priority. Do it now.” He pulled the telephone towards him and began searching through a heap of papers. Piggott left.

It's a damn shame
, he thought; but not for long. As he drank the tea that Corporal Lacey gave him he saw people strolling across the airfield with cricket bats and stumps. It was a perfect June afternoon: just enough breeze to soften the sunshine. Piggott gulped the last mouthfuls. He wanted to get out there and clout that ball over the skylarks.

The afternoon was not perfect for Paxton. It took him nearly an hour to complete the first circuit and by then a ground haze was developing. There was also a lot of bumpy air from ground level up to fifteen hundred feet. If he flew any higher, the air was smooth but he couldn't see through the haze. If he flew low enough to be able to pick out landmarks, the Quirk hit air-bumps and Paxton's bladder didn't like that.

It had been a mistake, Paxton now realised, to drink quite so much tea before take-off. His bladder ached. It was a dull, steady ache, and he could almost ignore it as long as nothing made it worse, but a sudden jolt – or even worse a sudden drop – made the ache flare, and then he had to clench and contort every muscle in order to keep control. If only he had a bottle. When he banked and headed east from Amiens, he could feel the pint-and-a-half of tea sloshing to the side and then surging back as he levelled out. The pressure was awful and getting worse. He couldn't go on like this. Land at Pepriac: that was the answer. Just touch down, keep the engine ticking over, jump out, drain the system, jump in, take off. Yes. Of course. That was what he would do.

Now that relief was almost near he felt much better. His bladder could endure two or three minutes. What frightened it was the prospect of another hour of torment.

When the aerodrome came in sight he actually felt quite comfortable. As he lost height and got closer, he could see figures running about in the middle of the field. He saw them clearly as he passed overhead. Cricket. They were playing
cricket. It was inconceivable that he would land and pass water in full view of the squadron cricket match. The shame of exposing himself, and the disgrace of revealing his weakness: even the thought of it made him shudder. The shudder was nearly disastrous. He braced his thighs and his buttocks and stiffened his stomach-muscles.
You can do it, Oliver
, he told himself as he climbed away to start the second circuit.
Not far now. Grin and bear it. Play up, School!

“Can you imagine the Germans playing cricket, Douglas?” asked the chaplain. He was umpiring the match. Douglas Goss, his right arm in a sling, had strolled out to chat with him.

“I can't imagine the Germans playing anything,” Goss said.

“Exactly. They have no sense of decency and fair play.

Look what they did to Belgium. Those poor nuns.”