War Story (40 page)

Life's mimic hopes and fears.

To-day they play the Great Game.

To-day they play the man:

In every sort and kind of sport,

-Whene'er they rowed and ran-

They learnt it, all unknowing,

The secret of the game,

That what you do for team or crew

Or country's just the same.

And where the shells burst round them,

And bullets whistle past,

And every yard with wire is barred

The men are dropping fast,

Ripe grows the fruit of training

So little thought upon,

The steady eye, the heartening cry,

“Stick to it, boys! Come on!”

And yet, in trench and dug-out,

When darkness floods the sky,

These lads, at rest, in sudden jest

Recall with half a sigh

The joys wherein their senses

Were bound with silken cords

A year ago, at Henley,

A year ago, at Lord's!

“It's all about you, Frank, “Ogilvy said.” You're the only one here who wears silk underwear.”

“What d'you make of it, Frank?” Goss asked. He handed him the paper.

“Sorry,” Foster said. “I'm afraid I wasn't listening … Is this Paxton's? Just another death warrant, I expect. Not important.” He screwed it up and threw it for Brutus to chase.

If the squadron carpenter was hiding in the front cockpit, he was sobbing and sniffling like a child.

Paxton paused to listen. The rim of the cockpit was higher than his head, so he couldn't see in. Was it sobbing or was it whining? Maybe the dog Brutus had got stuck in there.

He put one foot in the observer's stirrup and hauled himself up. A very young soldier lay curled in the bottom of the cockpit, shaking with sobs. He had wept so much that now he was too weary to make a lot of noise: His head rested on his upper arm; the rest of that arm fell across his face. His knees were almost up to his chest, and his chest jerked occasionally. He was wearing his best uniform. It looked to be a size too big for him.

He didn't see Paxton until Paxton leaned over to get a view of his face. Then the arm fell away and Paxton knew him at once. Even through that wretched tear-sodden expression he knew him. It was Private Watkins, the young man who had mended his motorbike. “My goodness!” he said. “What the devil are you doing here, old chap?”

Watkins straightened up and blinked at Paxton. For a few moments his lungs were working so hard that he couldn't get a word out. Paxton gave him a handkerchief. There was snot on Watkins' upper lip, and Paxton couldn't stand the sight of snot. Other people's snot, that is; he was quite interested in his own. “Take your time, old boy,” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of. You're perfectly safe here.”

Watkins cleaned up his face and gradually stopped gasping. “You promised you'd take me up in your aeroplane,” he said. His voice was croaky and thin.

“Did I really?” But Paxton remembered very well; there was no denying it. “You're absolutely right. So I did.”

“I want to go now.”

Paxton almost laughed and then was glad he hadn't. Watkins was looking up at him like a hungry orphan who's just walked ten miles to ask for a crust. Nothing was funny to Watkins any more. “I'm afraid it's rather difficult just now,” Paxton said. “What with the Push coming up and, you know, all that—”

“I want you to fly me to England.”

Paxton felt he could reasonably smile at that. He swung his legs inside and sat on the cockpit edge. “You don't really want to go to England, do you?” he said.

“No, I want to go to fuckin' Australia where they'll never fuckin' catch me but if I can get to England maybe I can stow away on a fuckin' boat or something.” His elbows were propped on his knees, and Paxton's handkerchief was pressed hard against his cheek. Paxton tried to remember how old he'd said he was. Eighteen? Seventeen? He looked about fourteen. He looked as if he could do with a damn good meal, too. “I've thought it all out,” Watkins said flatly. “Bleedin' France is no good, I don't parley-voo an' I got no francs, fuckin' police are everywhere, they'd catch me like they caught poor old Dodds, an' shoot me too, so you got to take me to England, I got a fuckin' chance if I can get there.”

“Look here, I'm sure you've got this all wrong,” Paxton said.

“Could we be there in time for tea? Is it really fast, your aeroplane?”

“Let me try to explain,” Paxton said.

“I'd give any bloody thing to be home in time for tea. Any bloody thing.” He was chewing on his knuckles. “They had to shoot Dodds twice. Firing party fucked it up. Bastard officer had to finish the poor bugger with his revolver. We all heard it.” He looked at Paxton, accusingly, appealingly. “That's never bloody right, is it?”

“I don't know. What had he done?” When Watkins looked away, Paxton asked:”Did he desert? Was that it?” Watkins nodded. “Well, you know as well as I do,” Paxton said,”desertion's a very serious crime. Was Dodds a particular friend of yours?”

“He wasn't in my mob. I just happened to know him.” Watkins yawned. “You said you'd fly me to England. You promised.” He wasn't pleading; merely reminding.

“I'm afraid we've got our wires crossed, old chap. I never said anything about England. Besides, have you any idea how far it is from here? It's a jolly long way, and much further to Yorkshire. This bus won't fly for ever, you know. One's got to land and refuel several times.”

“I'll pay you for the petrol.”

“No, no, that's not the point—”

“I've got the money at home. Cash.”

Paxton sighed. This was becoming very difficult.

“Two pounds, I've got saved. Will it be more than two pounds, the petrol?”

He really was a handsome lad and Paxton would happily have paid more than two pounds to see him smile, but it was time to be firm. “It's quite impossible for you to fly to England,” he said,”because for one thing you'd be deserting and for another thing my machine is going up on patrol very soon. Incidentally, how did you know this was my machine?”

“You got out of it and came over and talked to our Captain Jameson.”

“Ah. So you were one of the drill unit? Excellent performance, by the way. Congratulations. Now look here, old sport:
you don't want to go back to England. Damn it all, you're a volunteer! You're one of Kitchener's Army!”

“So what?” Watkins said, with the bleak fatalism of a child. “What's the sodding difference? They brought in fuckin' conscription months ago, didn't they? Bastards would've got me, one way or the other.”

“But you don't want to miss the show!” Paxton urged. “I mean, this is the grand finale! Don't you want to join in the fun?”

“Fun.” Watkins rested his head on his arm again. “Fun.”

“Yes, certainly, fun! You'll be able to tell your grandchildren: ‘I went over the top at the Somme and we walked all the way to the Hun front line and we captured the lot!' It'll be a Cakewalk.”

“You believe all that bollocks, do you?”

“Listen to the guns.”

“Fuck the guns. I hate fuckin' guns. I've been in an attack an' I know what it's like an' it's not like what you saw us do that day I mended your motorbike. That's a fuckin' fairytale, that is. It's not like that in a real attack.”

“Indeed? What's the difference?”

Watkins turned his head and looked at him, a long, wide-eyed look that seemed so candid and trusting that Paxton was quite flattered until he realised that Watkins was looking straight through him. Eventually he said: “I used to be a gardener's boy.”
So did Dick
, Paxton thought,
what a coincidence.
”One day I was cuttin' the grass, pushin' the lawnmower, up an' down, up an' down, an' I saw this spider in the grass, just in front of me, runnin' like a bastard to get away an' before I could stop the lawnmower I'd run over the bugger. I thought at the time: poor little sod, chopped up by a fuckin' great lawnmower, never stood a chance. Well, that's what it's like when you go over the top. You're like a spider under a lawnmower.”

“Come on.” Paxton reached down to help him but Watkins would not move. “I'll give you a lift back to your camp on my trusty motorbike.”

“Too late. I'm overdue. Absent without leave. I'm fucked.”

“No you're not. I'll make up an excuse for you. I'll tell them I needed you to help me do something.”

“What have we here?” said Brazier. His head and chest appeared above the cockpit, and instantly Watkins scrambled to his feet, hatless, face smudged, eyes frightened, and looking as guilty as a murderer.

“It's quite all right, adj,” Paxton began.

“You don't belong here,” Brazier said, using that bright, confident tone that every soldier knows means he's in trouble to the armpits so there's no point in trying to dodge it. “I don't know your face, do I?”

Paxton said: “Honestly, adj, I can—”

“What a filthy, tatty, shabby apology for a private soldier you are.” Brazier reached out with his cane and flicked a tunic button. “Do your buttons up, lad. And put your headgear on. And
stand to attention when addressed by an officer!”

Watkins stopped fumbling with the button and searching for his cap, and jumped to attention. Paxton was amazed by the transformation Brazier had achieved. Watkins now looked as if steel rods had been inserted in his small body. His shoulders were forced back, his chest stuck out, his chin was tucked down and his head was quivering with the strain of holding himself so erect. “Name, rank, number,” Brazier snapped.

Paxton climbed down from the aeroplane while Watkins chanted his reply. He knew there was no point in talking to the adjutant. The Army had taken over; you couldn't talk to the Army. He walked away and sat on the grass. He could hear Brazier asking about permission, and intentions, and absence from duty. If Watkins answered he spoke very quietly. Paxton lay on his back and counted the clouds. Brazier shouted:
“Duty NCO!”
in a voice that could have knocked the flies off the cookhouse roof. When Paxton stood up, Brazier and Watkins were standing beside the FE and the Duty NCO was doubling across the field towards them. Paxton gave up. He strolled back to the deckchairs. Most of them were empty. It was nearly time to get dressed and go on patrol.

“Who was he?” Goss asked.“Nobody.”

“You had a long chat with him. For a nobody.”

“He was a lost dog, if you must know. And now I suppose they'll send him to the dogs' home.” The Duty NCO was quick-marching Watkins towards the guardroom.

“Here's your toilet-paper,” O'Neill said. He held out the sheet of poetry.

“Oh, fuck off,” Paxton said.

Goss and O'Neill looked at each other. “I don't know where he picks up these words,” Goss said. “Not from me, I'm sure.”

“He's been playing with those nasty boys in the street,” O'Neill said. “Just look at his fingernails!”

“For God's sake let's get upstairs,” Paxton said. “I'm sick of being down here.”

The adjutant's information had been right. The barrage went on, night and day, thundering perpetually and erupting into an hour of colossal, concentrated devastation every morning. It was said that the British guns stood wheel to wheel for twenty miles, that the hillocks of empty shellcases stood fifty feet high, that hordes of rats – maddened by the battering detonations – were fleeing from the Front, even that the bombardment could be heard by people living on the south coast of England. This last claim was true: men coming back from leave confirmed it; in fact some said the gunfire could be heard in London, when the wind was right.

So nobody had any doubt where the Big Push would be. The only question was when.

Meanwhile, Hornet Squadron was being worked increasingly hard: three patrols a day became normal, four not unusual. Inevitably, men died and machines crashed. Kills were claimed by Gerrish and Piggott and O'Neill (or by their observers) and a dozen crews said, more or less confidently, that the enemy plane had abandoned the fight in a steep and smoking dive. But three FE2ds were missing, one from each flight, and the ground crews were working through the night, every night, patching the battle damage and servicing the overstrained engines and occasionally washing the blood out of the cockpits. Boy Binns had his right arm almost shot off and Dando finished the job with a pair of scissors, kneeling in the wreckage of the observer's cockpit in the middle of the field while his medics dragged the pilot clear and cut away his
flying coat in order to find the bullet-holes. Dando got Binns onto a stretcher just as the wreckage caught fire with a rush that singed their hands and eyebrows. Binns' arm got a quick cremation. Both casualties were in the squadron ambulance within minutes, and they got excellent surgical treatment within half an hour; there were casualty clearing stations everywhere, full of keen young doctors with nobody to save. The pilot died, perversely, while they were stitching up his chest and stomach. Shock, they said. Massive trauma and postoperative shock. Classic case of Moran's Disease. The body got moran it could take.

Boy Binns survived. He had hardly any blood but somehow he survived. He felt rotten, he looked rotten and he developed pneumonia a month later, which killed him. That wasn't what Cleve-Cutler wrote to his parents, of course. If they had to grieve, they might as well grieve over a more glorious death than pneumonia. Boy Binns went down gallantly, outnumbered but fighting pluckily to the end. Or some such. Cleve-Cutler knew what to say. He had written many letters before he wrote that one.

A curious thing happen to Paxton on the fifth day of the barrage. After their third and last patrol, at about seven in the evening, he went with O'Neill to report to the adjutant on what had happened up there and he couldn't remember anything about it. “You mean you've lost your memory?” the adjutant said. They were in his office, out of the rain.