War Story (36 page)

Paxton lay on the carpet and wrinkled his nose at O'Neill. For once, O'Neill had no answer except to turn away. From then on he was known as Bunny. He did not find it amusing. That night, as Paxton was brushing his teeth, O'Neill paused beside him and said: “You're the great comedian, aren't you? All right, we'll see how funny you find it next time we're in a scrap. You'll think our fucking FE's on tramlines, and so will Fritz.” Paxton spat, and looked up, and wrinkled his nose.

A large pilot called Jumbo James, in ‘B' Flight, had a bright idea. He got it when he was talking to a chum who was with an anti-aircraft battery defending a British balloon site. He thought it over, and told Plug Gerrish.

“There's one place the archie tries not to fire,” he said. “That's directly above the balloon, in case any of their red-hot shrapnel falls on the damn thing and busts it. So I reckon a chap might be able to come in high and dive straight down and pop it.”

“He might. What then?”

“Well, assuming the observers have taken to their parachutes, like intelligent men, what you do is circle around them as tight as you can. The archie can't hit
you
without hitting
them.
Then you scoot home. Clever wheeze, isn't it?”

Gerrish told the CO. “It's a lousy idea,” Cleve-Cutler said, grinning fiercely. Gerrish asked why. “I don't know why,” Cleve-Cutler said. “I just hate bloody balloons, I suppose.”

“But you asked everyone to try and think of—”

“I know, I know. Does Jumbo want to test his idea? All right. I suppose I'd better come and watch.”

There was no lack of German balloons to attack. They were up every day, and higher than ever. Jumbo James made his attempt one bright morning when he hoped he could hide his FE in a convoy of chunky clouds sailing from west to east, not too high. Gerrish and Cleve-Cutler took off at the same time.

Perhaps it really was a good idea, or perhaps the ground defence was half-asleep. Jumbo fell out of a cloud in a near vertical dive. No archie. Five hundred feet above the balloon he had to pull out or risk tearing the wings off. No archie but the balloon was going down. He climbed until he stalled and slid sideways into a spiralling descent, steeply banked to give his observer a good view of the balloon. The Lewis was loaded with incendiary bullets and tracer, five to one. Still no archie.

To Cleve-Cutler it looked like a fly buzzing over a toffeeapple. The FE had that long-legged, nosey look of a greedy insect; the balloon was brown and plump. Yellow sparks journeyed from one to the other, but the gasbag seemed to absorb them. Still no archie. No parachutes, either.

The observer was reloading. Jumbo was close enough to see how the network of ropes crimped and squeezed the balloon. It was descending faster than ever. He kept chasing but he felt no great enthusiasm for destroying it: the thing was too huge and helpless to hate. A flame as big as a marigold showed itself halfway up the balloon. It split and each part set off in a golden race to reach the other side, a race that was never won because the entire balloon turned itself into an open furnace.

Jumbo felt a blast of heat as he sheered away. There was archie everywhere he looked. It was as if someone was trying to fill the sky with black blots. This wasn't right. He looked for parachutes but all he saw was the blazing wreck of the balloon with its basket tumbling below it. This wasn't right at all. The FE hit a patch of shattered air and staggered over the smoky ruins. Coloured tracer came reaching up like party streamers. One streamer flicked a wing and the joystick
kicked in Jumbo's hand. The wing sank and the ground tipped up and nothing he could do would change it. This was all wrong. Jumbo was strong, very strong, and angry. He whacked and wrenched the joystick until it came away in his hands. He was still looking at it when a grass field raced up and smashed into him.

O'Neill and Paxton returned from another wearying and completely dud patrol. O'Neill washed before lunch, and when he went back to the billet Paxton was rummaging through O'Neill's chest of drawers. “Where d'you keep your clean socks, Bunny?” he asked, still searching.

“I don't keep them. Bastards like you steal them.”

“Not steal. Exchange. I always leave a dirty pair … Hullo, what's this?” He came away with a pair of clean socks. “Anything of mine you want, Bunny, just help yourself. My trunk is never locked. “

O'Neill sat on his bed, and yawned. “I could break your arm,” he said. “That would be nice.”

“Nearly forgot. You had a letter from home.” Paxton sent it skimming across the room. “Auntie Doris got arrested for interfering with a kangaroo, very nasty, and brother Bill's got another boil on his backside, very painful.”

“Keep taking the prunes,” O'Neill said as he began reading the letter,”and for Christ's sake stay downwind. Even the flies have moved out since you arrived.”

Kellaway came in. “Heard about Jumbo?” he asked. Paxton nodded. “He owed me fifteen francs,” Kellaway said.

Not looking up, O'Neill said: “Then you'd better bloody hurry, hadn't you?” It took Kellaway a few seconds to work out what he meant. He hurried out.

O'Neill grunted, and put his letter away. He watched Paxton brush his hair. “Jimmy Gordon was a lousy gunner,” he said. Paxton stopped brushing and looked. O'Neill had never spoken to him like that before. The words were as flat as ever but they were the beginning of something, not the end. “Oh, yes?” he said.

“Jimmy couldn't think ahead. You get a Hun diving at you. Say he's in front and a bit to the right. Coming down at two o'clock, say. No good aiming straight at him is it?”

“No. You've got to aim at where he's going to be in the time it takes the bullets to reach him. He's diving, so you aim ahead of him.”

O'Neill waited for more, and shook his head. “We're dead,” he said.

Paxton stared. He could see that Hun; he could hear the hammering Lewis, follow the streaming tracer. “Aim a bit to his left, of course. To allow for our own speed. I mean, that's bound to push the bullets to the right.”

“We're still dead.”

Paxton finished brushing his hair. “Maybe the gun jammed,” he said lightly, and wished he hadn't.

“He's high, we're low, you're firing uphill. What about gravity?”

“Oh yes. Bullet-drop. Aim high to allow for bullet-drop. I took that for granted.” He picked up his cap and twirled it on his finger. “Coming to lunch?”

O'Neill didn't move. “It only takes one bullet, you know,” he said. “You won't even know it hit you.”

“True.” Paxton's voice sounded thin. “Very true,” he said more confidently.

“You want a steady gun-platform. I can do it. I can fly straight and level. That's perfect for you. It's also perfect for the Hun. You miss him, and he'll definitely kill us.”

Paxton cleared his throat. He could think of nothing to say.

“Now that Ross has gone, Gus Mayo's the best gunner in the squadron,” O'Neill said. “For Christ's sake go and talk to him”

“Right,” Paxton said.

Next day Frank Foster and Gus Mayo saw a trail of smoke at six thousand feet. It was being made by a Fokker monoplane with terrible engine trouble. The Fokker tried to dive to safety when it saw them but its wings got the shakes and it had to pull out. Foster cruised underneath it and Mayo shot it down. “You wouldn't believe so much smoke could come out of such a little plane,” Mayo told Brazier. It was no great triumph. Certainly no cause for serving Hornet's Sting.

Dando was awoken at three in the morning by the howling of an animal. It rose and fell with a regularity that would have been musical but for the desperation behind it.

Rain was drifting, making a soft, fine mist. Dando put on his boots and tunic and took an umbrella and a flashlight. He traced the sound to Captain Foster's tent where the dog Brutus was making an unhappy noise. But the howling was coming from Foster, who was having a nightmare. His face glistened like wet marble, and his eyelids flickered non-stop.

Dando shook him awake and the howling died in a gasp of terror. Foster's eyes were as clear and empty as a child's. Dando kept talking, repeating their names, making reassuring noises while he lit a hurricane lamp. Foster's head was drenched and his pyjamas were soaked. “I'm coming back,” Dando said. “Don't get up.”

He roused Foster's batman. They got Foster out of bed, stripped off the drenched pyjamas and towelled him dry. All the time he stood, shoulders slumped and knees wavering, with his mouth open and his eyes half-shut, and said nothing. Dando got fresh pyjamas on him while the batman changed his bedding. He was asleep before they got him into bed. Dando checked his pulse: it was bumping along like a cart on a stony lane. The batman had found half a bottle of rum. They each had a tot, and Dando gave Brutus a mouthful in a saucer for good luck.

At breakfast it was obvious to Dando that Foster remembered nothing of the night; he was good-humoured and seemed refreshed. Dando found an opportunity to tell Cleve-Cutler. “So what, old boy?” the CO said. “Half the squadron has nightmares. I have nightmares. Don't you have nightmares?”

“No, sir.”

“Something wrong with you, then. Sometimes I wake up in the small hours and this camp sounds like Christians versus Lions. All quite normal.”

However, at lunchtime Foster bought Dando a drink and took him aside. “Was it you made Brutus squiffy?” he asked.

“Guilty.”

“Don't do it again, old boy. You probably don't know this, but there have been attempts to poison the poor hound.” Foster looked squarely into Dando's eyes.

“Why would anyone do that?”

“I'm surprised you find it necessary to ask.”

“Well, I'm a newcomer here, remember.”

Foster took a long look around the room. It was noisy and cheerful as it filled up for lunch. “You can tell them this from me. If they want to kill Brutus they'll have to kill me first.”

Dando signalled for more drinks. “Do you have any particular person in mind?” he asked.

“Second-lieutenant Paxton,” Foster said.“I've been watching him. He enjoys killing. Well, I'll enjoy killing him. I say, Paxton!” he called, and beckoned.

“I honestly don't believe he means you any harm,” Dando said.

“Look here, Paxton,” Foster said, amiably,“you've got a reputation as something of a ladykiller. What?”

“Oh, not half. Why?”

“Somebody killed my girl in London. She cut her throat. Wondered if it was you.”

“Not me, old chap.”

“On your honour?” Now that it was obvious that Foster was mocking him, Paxton's only reply was an uncomfortable smile. “No honour, you see. Paxton doesn't really belong in this squadron,” Foster told Dando. “He's a common tradesman. A merchant of death to home and industry.” And he winked. Dando noted the brittle glitter in his eyes, and wondered how much of it was drink.

In another part of the room, Gerrish was telling Tim Piggott: “I worked out where Jumbo's idea went wrong. He was going to use the balloon crew as his shield while they parachuted down. But he was more or less directly
above
the balloon when he was shooting at it, so I reckon his bullets went straight through it and killed the crew in the basket, so they never had a chance to parachute. See?”

“Maybe there never was a crew,” Piggott said. “Maybe the basket was empty.”

“A decoy? Bit expensive, isn't it?”

“Dunno. Look what they got: one FE, Jumbo, his observer. Or maybe it was just a test flight. Testing the balloon.”

Gerrish kicked a chair. “The old man said it was a lousy idea.”

“Got your replacements yet?”

“Arrived this morning. Pilot's thirteen, observer's twelve. Shout loudly and they burst into tears.”

Somewhere a dam had burst. It was a huge dam, stuffed with thunder, and in its rush to escape, the thunder rolled over itself and made a double thunder, and then the double thunder exploded with a roar, and the roar swelled until the air was swamped with noise. Fifteen miles away, lying on O'Neill's bed, Paxton thought the hut would collapse under the weight of noise. A pane of glass fell from a trembling window and shattered. He rolled off the bed just as O'Neill came in. “You've been signing my name on your mess chits, you prick,” O'Neill said, pitching his voice to penetrate the roar.

“Well, you've been signing mine on yours, you turd. What the hell is
that?”

“Guns. They go bang. Didn't you know?” He began rummaging in Paxton's trunk. “I wish you wouldn't have so much starch put in your shirts … Is this my bottle of rum?”

“I expect so.” Paxton was in the doorway, looking to the east. He expected to see a distant sign of such a colossal roar, but there was nothing. A few panicking pigeons clattered overhead. “Is this the Big Push?”

“Christ knows. Is this my toothbrush?”

“I expect so.”

“Jesus … Can't you get your own?”

“I did. You took it. How long will this last?”

O'Neill removed a bunch of coloured photographs from Paxton's hand. “I wish to buggery you wouldn't breathe on
my naked ladies,” he grumbled. “And go and stink in your own pit.”

“It's wonderful,” Paxton said. “Just listen. It's superb. Isn't it superb?”

“Get your bonnet on,” O'Neill said. “Let's go and get some breakfast.”

They took off half an hour later, to cover a Quirk on a photographic patrol. All the squadron was in the air. Paxton was eager to see what the bombardment looked like but when they crossed the Front it was obscured by a drifting fog of smoke from the guns, and the enemy trenches were completely lost under a cloud of grey-brown dust, which occasionally gave birth to shapely puffballs when the heavy howitzers caused an unusual amount of damage. The barrage drowned out the FE's engine. There was so much din that Paxton heard nothing. He thought he might have gone deaf, so he undid his flying helmet and peeled back a flap. His ears hurt. It was like being in the middle of a mob of angry blacksmiths He did up his helmet, fast. Behind the British Lines, gunflashes made a flickering stream of red and yellow that wandered to the north and faded into their own smoke. Paxton turned his head. Another stream wandered south, as bright as fireflies.
Those guns have fired a thousand shells while I watched them
, he thought.
How magnificent! How stunning!