War Story (37 page)

They rendezvoused with their Quirk and took care of it while it paraded up and down, infuriating the archie. If O'Neill held his course and height for thirty seconds the archie had a go at him, too. But this was not their day. The Quirk got its pictures and went home. O'Neill still had fuel. He climbed and searched further to the east.

There was nothing much to see: the odd speck, hopelessly remote and going away; the odd line of cloud, and not much of that. O'Neill decided to make a certain cloud his turning-point. It turned out to be big and sprawling, with a massive overhang that almost formed a cave. The shadow of the FE got there first by half a second and went flitting across the face of the cloud until he caught up with it and they charged into the near-cave and came out the other side as an Albatros came flying in. For an instant O'Neill's stomach clenched as
hard as stone because he knew their wings must hit. They flicked past each other. He slumped, forgot how to breathe, and recovered to find his arms and legs automatically stuffing the controls into a corner so as to drag the FE into a tight turn before the Albatros came back and cut it to pieces.

Paxton found it very entertaining. It was like sitting in the cinema, with unexpected pictures suddenly appearing and disappearing. The FE banked, and that was like sitting in a fairground ride, swinging in a circle that pressed you into your seat. Enormous fun. The tail of the Albatros crept into his vision. He screwed his head around. It was a dove-grey two-seater. The observer had the rear cockpit, and a cutaway in the top wing gave him a wide field of fire. Paxton saw him swing his gun, release a squirt of fire, and raise his head to check results. Missed by a mile.

That short stutter of bullets roused Paxton. He shoved himself forward and swung the Lewis to the side. Hopeless: with the FE in such a steep bank he was aiming at the ground. He sat on the cockpit floor and aimed as high as possible. Still too low. A ten-round burst went nowhere near the Albatros. He shouted at O'Neill and shook the Lewis. O'Neill saw, but he held the FE in this tail-chasing turn, the wings almost vertical. O'Neill had his own problems.

The Albatros carried a machine gun in its nose, synchronised to fire through the prop. At least he was pretty sure it did. The FE had a nose gun. First plane to get behind the other would score. So each pilot hauled his machine into the tightest of circles. With the planes banked on their wingtips, each observer was trying to fire above his head and it couldn't be done. The gun fittings made it impossible. O'Neill could flatten his turn and give Paxton a shot, but only at the cost of slackening the circle and letting the Albatros catch him.

So round and round they went.

Paxton got back on his seat. He wondered if he could unfix the Lewis and fire it from his shoulder. Unlikely. He took out his Service revolver and blazed away at the enemy, hanging perpetually opposite him. He might have been firing blanks for all the difference it made.

O'Neill worried about fuel. He worried about it so much that he failed to notice a stubby little German biplane arrive
overhead. It flew up and down, apparently intrigued by the scene below. Paxton saw it, and pointed. There was nothing O'Neill could do except curse, so he cursed. After a while he lost sight of it. There was nothing he could do about that, either.

The stubby Hun had vanished because he had decided to interfere. Perhaps he thought the Albatros needed rescuing. More likely he thought the FE was easy meat. His plan of attack was simple. He would approach, straight and level, until the FE, tipped on its side and presenting a large target, flew into his sights.

This happened and he opened fire and that was that. Half his bullets missed, two or three splashed against the case of the Beardmore, and several holed the nacelle or the canvas wings. These last bullets kept going, of course, and a cluster of them found the tailplane of the Albatros, whose pilot abruptly found his machine threshing about and trying to fly crabwise. The tail-chase was over. Paxton saw the Albatros wandering into his sights and he gave it a burst. O'Neill saw a collision dead ahead and kicked the FE until it reversed its turn and sheered off. The next time he saw the Albatros it was far below and diving hard. The stubby little Hun had disappeared.
Very wise
, O'Neill thought.
Forget it ever happened.
He flew home, carefully, counting the bullet-holes. He could see fifteen. The mechanics later found another twelve.

“Bloody lucky,” O'Neill said.

“Piss off, Bunny.” Paxton showed him the heel of his left flying boot, shot through and flapping loose. “Bloody Huns can't shoot straight. “

O'Neill tried to undo a button but he couldn't make his fingers work. “You don't take it seriously, do you?” he said. “It's all just a game, isn't it?”

“As long as we win, Bunny.” Paxton wrinkled his nose and undid the button for him. “Who cares? Just listen to those guns!”

The opening barrage had lasted an hour and ten minutes. It subsided to a perpetual thunder. For weeks the London papers had been predicting a big new offensive. Well, everyone knew now where it would be. The mood at Pepriac
was optimistic. The Hun was taking a tremendous battering, the sun was out and the Chinks had finished digging the swimming pool.

Most of the squadron strolled over to look. It was a very big hole, brimful of water from a diverted stream. “Bet you haven't got anything like that back in Grand Rapids,” Mayo said to Stubbs.

“Awesome is the word for it,” Stubbs said. “Truly awesome.”

“No, I think wet is the word,” Ogilvy said. “Where's Charlie? He was at Cambridge.”

Essex tossed in a small stone. “Liquid,” he said. There was a round of applause. “Or maybe fluid,” he added.

Mayo said: “I think Pax should declare it open. After all, it was his idea.”

“Who, me?” Paxton said.

“Brilliant.” Mayo pushed him in. Stubbs pushed Mayo in. After that everyone got pushed in until only Charlie Essex was left. They all got out and chased him and caught him and threw him in. He couldn't swim, and it was a few moments before Spud Ogilvy remembered this, so they had to fish him out and hold him head-down to empty him. But it was an excellent pool and there was no need to wear trunks. Paxton felt the hot sun on his wet skin and looked about him at the leaping, splashing bodies.
Comradeship
, he thought.
That's what this war is all about.

“Nothing was happening,” Tim Piggott said. “That's the funny thing. We were in the middle of a patrol, no Huns, no nothing. And I got this sudden overwhelming impulse.”

“Well … perhaps not
quite
overwhelming,” the padre said. “Otherwise you wouldn't be here now, would you?”

“If I hadn't been strapped in I wouldn't be here now. I tell you, padre, the urge to climb out of the cockpit and walk away was enormous. Irresistible. All right,
nearly
irresistible.”

“This may seem a silly question.” the padre said,”but where did you think you were going?”

“Nowhere. Just… away, I suppose. Away.”

They were sitting in the padre's room. The guns rumbled like a passing train that never passed.

“I would suggest a spot of leave, but…”

“I've already
had
a spot of leave. Hated it. Ended up in London, getting drunk. Came back a day early.”

The padre chewed on his lower lip for such a long time that Piggott grew worried that he might draw blood.

“I promised myself I'd stop doing this,” the padre said,”but evidently my will is weak. Take the Bible, shut your eyes, let it fall open wherever it will, place your finger on the page, see what verse you get.”

“Rather like using a pin to find a winner.” Piggott followed instructions and opened his eyes. “Ecclesiastes, nine, verse ten. ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.'”

“I say! That's pretty snappy, isn't it?”

Piggott read it again, silently. “Life is better than death,” he said. “That's what it boils down to.”

“Yes indeed. And personally I find it very encouraging. I must admit I was beginning to despair … But what's your opinion?”

“If it wins, I'll back it,” Piggott said.

Someone had changed the soap in the Chinese bathroom. Now it had a delicate scent of lemons. The towels were crisp and thick, and had snarling red dragons woven into them.

Evidently she was giving a party. The terrace and the rooms opening onto it were full of talk, laughter, music. Paxton guessed there were fifty officers, all young, and half as many nurses, all pretty. You could drink champagne, or champagne. Everyone was drinking champagne. Chinese lanterns hung all around the terrace and never mind the blackout.

He wanted her with an urgency like hunger but he wanted her to himself. So he strolled around the edge of the crowd and kept away from her. He hadn't been invited and she didn't know he had arrived. Once or twice he had a very odd sensation: as if he were outside himself, overhead, watching himself stroll around. He had a drink and the sensation went away. He knew he wasn't drunk. Maybe he was sick with wanting. Certainly there were moments when he could have
killed all these people, just swept them away so that nobody was between him and her.

He drank a bit and smiled a lot. People chatted to him, or he to them. It was amazingly easy to talk to strangers: you just said the first thing that entered your head and before you could finish, they interrupted with something they wanted to tell you, and it was all balls so who cared? And all the time he kept away from her.

A car appeared below the terrace. One group left, and then they were all going. They made a lot of noise, and suddenly the only noise was the last car going down the drive.

He sat on the terrace wall, in the shadow between two lanterns. “Hullo,” she said from the house.

“Hullo yourself.”

“If you're a real burglar, come inside and start burglaring.”

He got down and went inside. Now that he could get a close look at it, her dress – green silky stuff, so thin you could sort of see through it – was even more startling than he'd thought. It didn't cover much, and what bits it covered seemed to be obvious whenever she moved. Half of him was scared of touching it and the other half wanted to give it a little tug to make it fall off. “What a rotten party,” he said.

“Oh, a real stinker.”

“I hated it.”

“Fine. Next time I shan't invite you.”

“Again.”

“Certainly, again. I knew you wouldn't like it. And I was right, wasn't I?”

“You're always bloody right,” he said gloomily. “Everything about you is completely and utterly bloody right. That's what I can't stand about you. In fact I—”

“Oh, shut up.” She kissed him on the mouth, and this time it was much better. He knew where his nose went, and what to do with his tongue. He even had some success with his hands. When she tipped her head back and looked at him she said:”This must be your birthday.”

“Why?”

“All of a sudden you've grown up.”

He felt both pleased and embarrassed, so he said: “I've come for another dancing lesson.”

“Another kill?” She was delighted. It wasn't flattery; he could see the sparkle in her eyes, feel the sudden hug.

“Another kill.” It wasn't true, but who cared?”Devil of a scrap, against two of the blighters.” Anyway, it
might
be true, maybe the Albatros crashed, it was certainly shot-up.

“And how's that big strong machine-gun of yours?” She put her cheek against his and whispered:”Still going bangbang-bang?”

“None of your business,” he whispered.

“Don't worry. I'll winkle that secret out of you.”

They danced. The music was very slow, and she was more interested in kissing than in dancing. “You're the loveliest killer I danced with all night,” she said. He thought about that remark all the way back to Pepriac.

The bombardment had lasted all day and all night. When dawn came it took away the pulse of light that had danced along the eastern skyline, but the rolling thunder went on. “Get used to it,” Cleve-Cutler told his flight commanders when he called a meeting after breakfast. “I don't know any secrets but the general impression at Wing and Brigade is that this is just the beginning.”

Piggott said: “If we're going after the Boche artillery we must have hit every gun they've got twice over by now.”

“It's not that easy,” Gerrish said. “I bet the Hun pulled his artillery back as soon as he saw what we were up to.”

“So what's this? A summer sale? Clearing out old stock?”

“We're after their wire,” Cleve-Cutler said, as breezy as a master of foxhounds. “Troops can get past shellfire but they can't climb over barbed wire. So we're blowing it to blazes.”

“Then what?” Gerrish asked.

“Then we capture their first-line trenches, of course.”

“There won't
be
any first-line trenches left to take, if we go on chucking shells at them like this.”

“Then we take their second-line trenches. That suit you?”

“Or failing that, the outskirts of Berlin,” Piggott said.

“Funny you should say that,” Foster said. “Last time we had a Big Push, we captured about half a mile. Assuming we have two Pushes a year, I calculate we'll reach Berlin no later than—”

“Save it, Frank. I have news,” Cleve-Cutler said. “We're getting a better FE.” That made them sit up. “It's the FE2d. What happened to the FE2c God knows, they probably murdered a few test pilots with it before they realised the wings were on back-to-front. Anyway, this version is supposed to be bigger and stronger and faster and climbs higher and for all I know it makes Welsh rabbit and tells your weight and fortune if you put a penny in a slot…” He was dishing out fat envelopes to each man. “It's all in there. Go off and read it and brief your blokes. We're supposed to get these new machines today. I'd like a word with Frank.”