War Story (38 page)

As the other two went out, the steady booming of the guns sharply increased to a colossal, hammering roar. Piggott looked at his watch. “Same time as yesterday,” he said. “Nice to work with people with such tidy habits, isn't it?”

Cleve-Cutler let them get well away, and said: “Dando told me he had a rather curious conversation with you.”

“Curious?” Foster fanned himself with the envelope. “Well, Dando's rather a curious sort of fellow, isn't he?”

“Is he? I thought he was a typical doctor.”

“Typical bloodsucker, if you ask me. D'you know what he had the nerve to do? He had the nerve to wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me how many flamers I'd got. Foi two pins …” Suddenly Foster was so furious that he couldn't get the words out. He glared at the CO. His lips kept tightening and slackening, and he swallowed again and again. “For two pins I'd smash his head in,” he said.

“You didn't, though.”

“The man's a leech. A damned leech.” Foster looked at his hands, and then stuffed them in his pockets. “He'd better not try it again, that's all.”

“Why was it so important to him? Damn it all, the middle of the night…”

Foster had control of himself again. He could even smile a little. “Perhaps Dando is losing his wits,” he said. Cleve-Cutler gave his roguish grin full throttle, and Foster went away happy.

Ferry pilots delivered the new FE2ds, stayed for lunch and flew out the old machines.

All the crews went out to look at the first arrival. The tricycle undercarriage had gone but otherwise its basic design was much the same. It sounded far more powerful. The engine had been vastly improved: now it generated 250 horse power and turned a four-bladed propeller. That meant just about everything was better: shorter take-offs, a faster rate-of-climb, higher ceiling, greater speed, better stunting. The pilots were happy and the observers were delighted when they heard that the new model carried three Lewis guns. One was mounted on the nose as usual and another was installed just in front of the pilot so that the barrel poked over his observer's right shoulder; this was a fixed gun, which meant the pilot aimed the whole aeroplane when he fired it. The third gun was even more remarkable. A metal post rose just behind the observer's seat, tall enough to clear the upper wing. “This must be what they call the ‘pillar mounting',” Piggott said. “Apparently you attach the Lewis to the top. That's what the book of words says.”

“Bloody long way up,” Boy Binns said. “Do they supply a piece of string to tie to the trigger?”

“You have to stand on your seat,” the ferry pilot explained. There was a moment's silence. It was such an absurd idea; everyone was waiting for the rest of the joke. But he was serious. They all laughed. “Get me a couple of guns and I'll show you,” he said. “Why two?” Piggott asked. “You'll see,” he said.

Two Lewis guns were brought. One was fixed to the pillar mounting, the other to the nose. As usual the balance of the guns left them pointing upwards. The ferry pilot heaved himself into the front cockpit. “Actually the seat's too low,” he said,”but if you stand on the arms …” He climbed onto them and swung the Lewis on the pillar so that he was aiming past the tail. “As you can see, I've got to lean back or I can't work the gun,” he said,”which is why my backside is perched on the drum of the other Lewis. What it comes down to is you've got to sit on the front Lewis in order to use the top one.” He swayed from side to side, pretending to fire.

Mayo said: “What it comes down to is you've only got your boots inside the cockpit.”

“Has anybody ever actually done this?” Gerrish asked. “I mean, in action?”

“Doubt it.” The ferry pilot climbed down.

“You'll never get me up there,” Stubbs said. “I've got no head for heights.”

“You'd have to be a real athlete to do all that,” Mayo said.“I mean, it's not easy with the bus on the ground, let alone whizzing along at eighty or ninety.”

“Make that a hundred,” the ferry pilot said.

Cleve-Cutler had kept in the background. Now he said: “Well, you don't have to do it if you'd rather get shot-up by a Hun on your tail.”

“Personally I think it's a spiffing idea,” Paxton said. “Of course the driver will have to keep the bus straight and level, won't he? But then, that's what bus drivers are paid to do.” He wrinkled his nose.

“What d'you say, Bunny?” Piggott asked.

“I say the pillar's not long enough,” O'Neill said. “I say make it twenty feet long and give the silly bugger a rope ladder and a packet of sandwiches and he can stay up there all day.”

The pattern of the previous day's bombardment was repeated: stupendously heavy pounding for about an hour and then a steady thunder, so constant that people forgot it. The ground crews had work to do, checking and adapting the new machines, testing the engines, painting numbers on the rudders. The officers went swimming.

Boy Binns chucked a bucket of water at Paxton, so he dived into the pool and cruised underwater until his outstretched fingers touched the other side. He came up to see Corporal Lacey looking down at him.

“Circumcision is clearly a hallmark of the British middle class,” Lacey said. “I make the vote fourteen to three in favour of the amendment, with one member indecisive.”

Paxton climbed out. “What about you?”

“Oh, quite, quite conventional. As an infant I shut my eyes and thought of England, or at least the Home Counties, while the surgeon's knife made the supreme sacrifice. So I suppose
you could say I did my bit for my country. Not a very big bit, but—”

“Look here,” Paxton said,”I really don't care, so if that's all you came to tell me …”

“I wondered if you'd mind witnessing Rufus Milne's will.”

Paxton dried his hands on a towel, took the document, and glanced through it before he fully understood what Lacey had said. “How on earth can I witness his will? The man's dead. There's no signature here. He hasn't signed it.”

“A detail. To be added later.”

Paxton turned a page. “One thousand pounds to the Golden Sunset Donkey Sanctuary, Taunton, Somerset,” he said.

“Milne was very fond of donkeys.”

“I don't believe it.”

“A generous gesture. It will be much appreciated.”

“You've faked this, haven't you? It's all a cheat.”

“Nothing of the sort. It's all perfectly valid. I spent two years in the family law office, you know.” He took the will back. “My mother's sister, Maud, set up the Golden Sunset Donkey Sanctuary. She does splendid work, but funding is an endless headache … Oh well, if you won't witness it I shall have to find someone else.”

“You'll never get away with this.”

“I always have. Toby Chivers, for instance, left five thousand to the Leeds and District Society for Unmarried Mothers. That's my cousin Harriet's main interest in life.”

“I think I'll turn you over to the police.”

“In that case I shan't tell you about the equipment for the tennis courts that I've just got hold of.”

“Ah.” Paxton was quite good at tennis. It would be nice to be squadron tennis champion. “Nets and stuff, eh? We ought to find a nice level bit of grass. “

“I've found one. Perfectly level, no slope, but it's got a few bumps.”

“We need a roller, then.”

“We need a company of infantry. There's a battalion in camp behind the church who seem very keen on drill. Why don't you ask some of them to come and march up and down on our tennis court? Take a box of cigars with you.”

“All right.” Paxton looked at Lacey and shared in the warm glow of the Public School Spirit. “Hell's bells, what the devil, give me your pen,” he said, and witnessed the will. “It can't be illegal,” he said,”because I'm not actually witnessing anything, am I?”

“You know, it's time you put your own affairs in order,” Lacey said. “I'll draft something for you to look at.”

Before the day was out, all the new aeroplanes were in the air. Everyone liked them. The German air force was up in strength and there was much skirmishing. Cleve-Cutler, three miles over the Lines, came across an elderly Rumpler two-seater that seemed to have lost something, it was wandering about so vaguely. He searched above, and eventually saw a tiny scuff in the sky, so small it could have been wiped away with a flick of a cloth. He left the Rumpler and spiralled up, climbing steeper and faster than the old FE could have managed, until the scuff grew wings, pale-blue and translucent. It was an Albatros. Just above it was another.

They came down to meet him and then seemed to change their minds and parted, one to the left and one to the right. Cleve-Cutler admired these simple tactics. Whichever plane he challenged, he would expose his tail to the other. He turned his back on them both and flew away. They chased for a mile and gave up. He circled, and climbed a little, and watched them watching him. He had plenty of fuel. Far below, through gaps in the cloud, he saw the Allied barrage, a wandering trail of brilliant sparks. It looked quite pretty. Like an expensive Christmas decoration.

At about the same time, ten miles to the north, Ogilvy and Essex found a splendid target.

The two FEs had been patrolling separately when each saw a blob coming out of the east. It grew to be three Aviatiks in
arrowhead formation over a fourth machine, which Ogilvy identified through binoculars as a Roland CII. It was on reconnaissance duty. He could see the black box of the camera clamped to the outside of the observer's cockpit.

The FEs attacked at the same time from opposite sides but by then the formation had broken. It was very smoothly done. One Aviatik climbed, the other two turned to face the. attacks, and the Roland dived towards the nearest cloud. There followed one of those hectic scraps that the pilots, if they survived, could never properly describe to Brazier because all they remembered was a flurry of images: planes that seemed to be sporting like swallows at one moment and charging head-first into a suicide pact the next; bright blurs of tracer, bending to chase a target; a swooping shadow; blood surging as the plane banked; the magnificent, exuberant hammering of guns; the panic of trying to look three ways at once and nearly colliding and screaming abuse and firing and missing; dragging the FE round in a turn so tight you think you can see your own tail; and thank God the air is empty behind. So you climb and hurt your neck by looking everywhere for everyone, but everyone has gone. The scrap lasted two minutes, maybe. How could the sky be crammed with fighting one moment and empty the next? When they landed, Ogilvy and Essex asked each other: “Where did you get to?” It wasn't important. They'd got back, and now the scrap seemed like tremendous fun. It was only later, when one or other of them woke, far too soon, in the dreary stone-grey half-light before dawn, that terror got a bit of its own back.

Stubbs, flying with Goss, was probably the first to use the new pillar-mounted gun.

Before take-off they had agreed to try to lure an enemy machine onto their tail. Goss would fly fairly slowly and not too high, and Stubbs would be ready to unstrap himself and stand on his seat. After that, Goss would have to fly straight and level until Stubbs got down from his perch.

They crossed the Lines and wandered about, above cloud where the archie was blind. There was no lack of Huns but they were all too high or too low or too busy going elsewhere. After about twenty minutes an Albatros came wheeling in, out of range, nose gun blazing; as soon as Stubbs opened fire
it curled away and dived for home. A novice, Goss decided. He also decided that this particular experiment wasn't going to work. He opened the throttle and eased back on the stick to gain some height and automatically scanned the sky. With the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of something drifting behind him; when he turned his head the glimpse had gone.

Stubbs moved fast. His legs were braced against the shove of the slipstream, his rump pressed against the front Lewis, and the Hun wasn't even in range: just a silhouette, slim as a child's kite. Stubbs waited. He enjoyed the luxury of not having the rushing air squeezing his face, and suddenly realised there were other advantages in firing backwards. The FE's speed would actually
help
his bullets. So the Hun was in range after all. He fired off half a drum, marvelling at the way he just missed propeller and tail, and saw his tracer washing all over the enemy. That was all he saw. He blinked, and it was gone. No hope of giving chase. Stubbs climbed down, giving Goss a beefy grin.

After that the patrol was an anticlimax. Goss saw two distant scraps but they dissolved before he arrived. He became impatient; he wanted to try out his new fixed forward-firing Lewis.

The FE was a pleasure to dive. It cut through the thin curtain of archie like a locomotive through mist. Goss felt total confidence in the big Beardmore. From the way the wires and struts sang, he knew this was going to be a joyride. The rising countryside was spread out for his delight: he could choose what he wanted. He chose a field that was a town of tents and strafed it like a small mechanical storm, rising and dipping again and again to bring his gun to bear. Stubbs shot at anything that moved. It was all so easy. They heard bugles sounding the alarm, and saw men with their mouths open. Then the FE was gone, and Stubbs was busy reloading both guns. Goss found a column of infantry on the march and they shot it up too. Just point the bus and pull the trigger. You couldn't miss. Rifle-fire chased him as he climbed high and went through the archie again, and flew home.

Cleve-Cutler had watched and waited a very long time. He was watching the decoy Rumpler, still pottering about down below, as well as the two Albatroses, who were loitering half
a mile away. It would be foolish, he thought, to take on two of the enemy's best fighters; but if he hung about long enough, anything might happen. Aircraft in various markings passed. All had their own business to attend to. None of this was very exciting. Far away, somebody's business ended in a bright bead of flame strung on a long black thread of smoke. Now
that
must have been exciting.