War Story (42 page)

There were towels in the boathouse. They dried each other, which was fun of a different kind, and finished off the claret. “You haven't asked me how big my machine-gun is,” he said.

“I don't need to,” she said.

In the air, Douglas Goss had never suffered so much as a scratch. It was always on the ground that things fell on him or collapsed under him, and he was usually limping, or nursing an arm, or wearing a strip of plaster. None of this made any difference to Goss's skill as a pilot, but sometimes he worried about the danger of having some innate physical weakness. He kept a close watch on all parts of his body, including his head. “I think I'm going bald,” he told Dando.

“Not impossible.” Dando sat him in a chair and ruffled his hair. “Looks perfectly adequate to me.”

“Really? You should see my hairbrush. Dreadful sight. The thing is …” Goss smoothed his hair. “Well, you see, I'm the only son in the family so everyone expects me to keep the line going, and I read somewhere that baldness can also mean problems with the plumbing. You know, impotence and all that.”

“There's absolutely no evidence that I know of.”

Goss nodded and frowned. “D'you think I could have an X-ray?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Dando said. “It depends which part of the problem you want X-rayed.”

Goss nodded again, and hunched his shoulders. “Bloody tricky, isn't it?”

“Why don't you think it over, Dougie? There's no rush. These things take years to come about. See me when you get back from patrol. I'll change that plaster on your elbow, too.”

Flying Orders for the day were that there were no orders except to fly and to harass the enemy. Goss and Stubbs took that to mean ground-strafing, which had the great merit of being terrific fun and of not requiring them to spend two hours beyond the Lines: as soon as they had used up their ammunition they could honourably fly home. The sun was up. It looked like a good day to grab half an hour at the pool between patrols.

A new pilot, called Black, asked Goss if he might follow and generally hang about to see how ground-strafing was done. “Be my guest, old chap,” Goss said. “Make yourself conspicuous. If they're shooting at you they won't be shooting at me.”

Goss had a nasty moment while he was above the Trenches. The FE got violently buffeted. There was no archie; the wind was light; for a horrible moment he thought a main spar had snapped and thrown the plane out of control. Then it bounced against another buffet and he felt ashamed of his own stupidity. The turbulence was caused by shell-bumps. He had forgotten about the eternal barrage and he was low enough to be caught in the shove of air displaced by the bigger shells. Which meant they had nearly hit him. What a bloody silly way to die, blown up by your own artillery! He climbed hard. Even so, he actually saw a shell, one of the huge projectiles flung by the great howitzers, as it poised for a second at the top of its arc. Stubbs saw it too, and kissed it goodbye.

Goss flew well beyond the German trench-system before he turned. He knew he was unlikely to find any worthwhile target near where the shells were falling, and he had decided to leave infantry camps alone. With so much strafing taking place the Hun was bound to be protecting them. What he wanted was a nice little unit on the march, a couple of hundred men crossing a field or going up a lane, with their rifles slung and no heavy machine guns nearby. That would be perfect.

There was the usual casual traffic wandering about the sky, the usual sporadic archie, a couple of minor scraps too far away to matter. Goss raised a glove to Black, and tipped the FE into a dive. Black waved back, and began circling.

Goss expected a lot of ground fire to start coming up at him, and it did. Much of it was coming from his right, so he swung to his left and ran away from it. The big Beardmore was roaring like several lions and the FE seemed perfectly balanced. It was just like driving a big racing car down a very long, steep hill.

Stubbs pointed to a road but Goss had seen a small river and he chose that because it meant he could get below the surrounding land and then, with any luck, pop up and surprise someone. He raced just above the water and tried not to think about telephone wires. Naked men stopped washing and stood up, or ran, or sometimes jumped into the river. They were not important enough to shoot; and besides, Goss felt squeamish about shooting naked men. A bridge appeared, and then rows of poplars, forcing Goss to turn away. He chased his shadow across a little field, jumped the fence and found what he wanted waiting in a much bigger field. A company of infantry, standing waiting to be killed.

Perhaps they were tired; perhaps they were new to the Front; perhaps they were badly led. They were certainly surprised. Stubbs swung his Lewis like a scythe and shot fifteen or twenty men before they moved. Goss gave the FE a little rudder so that he could aim his own fixed Lewis into the scattering mass, and as he kept firing he could see the line of his bullets advancing as fast as the FE, knocking over soldiers as if they were all tripping on the same unseen obstacle. He flew too low at the end and actually hit a couple of men with his undercarriage. Stubbs saw this, and howled with delight. “No bloody road sense!” Goss shouted.

By the time he had turned and come back, Stubbs had changed the drums and the field was dotted with running men. Goss chased them and Stubbs shot them. He missed a very tall man in a distinctive helmet, who stopped and shook his fist, so Goss came back and chased him until Stubbs cut him down. Rifle fire was beginning to fizz past the FE. A few holes spotted the wings like raindrops. Goss was unworried; panicky troops were rotten shots; it would have to be a very lucky bullet indeed that did any real harm. And so it was. A very lucky bullet struck the engine and smashed the crankshaft. The engine stopped dead. Goss had just enough height
to clear the fence and land in the next field.

Stubbs jumped out, Goss fell out. Stubbs had the flare pistol and he shot an incendiary flare into a fuel tank. They ran away from the slaughter.

Black knew that Goss had crashed when he saw flames and he went straight down to investigate. His observer spotted Goss and Stubbs stumbling and lumbering across a field of young corn. Fifty or sixty German soldiers were chasing them. Black opened his throttle wide and came in from the flank, both guns chattering. That stopped the chase, but only briefly. Black made six attacks in all before he ran out of ammunition. Then he could only circle and watch the troops catch the airmen. The bayonets went in with great vigour.

Cleve-Cutler was waiting on the aerodrome when Foster came back from patrol. “Goss and Stubbs,” Cleve-Cutler said. “I wanted to be the one to tell you, because I know what pals you and Dougie were.”

Foster chewed his lip and glanced from side to side, as if he were assessing the value of the information he had been given.

“Stubbs, eh?” he said. “He was a flamer, wasn't he?”

“No, as a matter of fact he wasn't.”

Foster nodded, several times. “I knew he was a flamer,” he said.

“I've just told you he wasn't.”

“I think I know better,” Foster said. He spoke gently and courteously, and gave the CO a mild, reassuring smile. “You see, I killed him. Stubbs wrote a letter to someone saying that I'd gone west, I was a flamer. I asked him to write it. And this is the result.” He tossed his goggles in the air and caught them. “Oh dear. Dear oh dear oh dear.”

“Stubbs wrote a letter,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Have you still got it?”

“Jenny got it. But of course Jenny's dead too She hanged herself, poor creature.”

“Go and get cleaned up, Frank. I'll buy you a drink.”

Foster didn't get cleaned up. He went to the padre's room. “Got a knotty problem for you,” he said. “How does one recognise the Word of God when one hears it?”

“I don't think I've been asked that one before. Let me think … Normally, the question doesn't arise, I suppose. God makes it abundantly clear who's speaking.”

Foster made a grimace.

“No, that's not very adequate, is it?” the padre said. “May one ask: do you suspect that you might have been on the receiving end?”

“God knows. All I know is I've been getting some very strange messages lately.”

“Such as?”

Foster picked a cricket ball out of a chair and sat down. “I'm afraid the first message was that I shouldn't tell you or any of the others.”

“Ah.” The padre buffed his crucifix on the sleeve of his cassock. “Well, I can only say that He knows best, of course, but it's most unlike God not to operate through the normal channels. Could it be that transmission was garbled, perhaps?”

Foster shook his head.

“My guess is,” said the padre,”that you are somewhat reluctant to proceed. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.” Foster nodded. “I've been in the same dilemma,” the padre said,”and more than once I've found it very helpful to let God reconsider His decision. ‘Look here, God,' I've said, ‘if that's really what You want me to do I'll do it, but frankly, speaking as man to God, I think You ought to sleep on it.' And next day He's changed His mind.” The padre stopped because it was clear that Foster wasn't listening.

“You heard about Stubbs?”

“Yes. A sad loss. Such a likeable—”

“It's a forgery. He wasn't a flamer at all. The whole thing was a joke. You watch, he'll be back in time for dinner, large as life and twice as ugly.” Foster stood up.

“I feel I haven't been much help,” the padre said. “Look here: before you go, just pick a verse at random in the Bible. It sometimes helps.”

Foster opened the Bible and let his finger fall. “Proverbs 25, verse 33. ‘Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep'.”

“Not very thrilling. Want to try again?”

“It's the Word of God,” Foster said. “It must mean something.”

Kellaway walked into the billet and said: “Goss and Stubbs have—”

“We heard,” Paxton said. “Too bad. Shut up, Bunny's got the shakes, I'm trying to cure him and we've only got half an hour.”

Kellaway watched. They were standing by the table. O'Neill hugged himself, making his biceps bulge, and then relaxed. “Take a breath,” Paxton said. O'Neill took a breath and reached for a nearly-full glass of red wine. Just before he touched it he pulled his hand back and turned away in disgust. “It's not going to bloody work,” he said.

“Imagine it's a block of wood. Just pick it up. Forget the wine.”

O'Neill tried again. He gripped the glass, released it, gripped it differently, raised it. “Bloody good!” Paxton said. O'Neill got the glass halfway to his mouth and his wrist started to tremble. Wine slopped. “Oh,
bollocks
,” he said, and put the glass down.

“Try using your other hand,” Kellaway suggested.

“Try using your other head,” O'Neill snarled.

“Maybe if you kept your elbow tucked in tight,” Paxton said. He demonstrated. The glass went up and down smoothly. O'Neill tried it and spilled very little. “Makes me feel crippled,” he said.

“Trouble is you're pissed,” Kellaway said.

“Trouble is I'm
not
pissed.”

“Well, get pissed and then you'll be okay.”

“How can I get pissed when I keep spilling the stuff?”

Paxton drank the wine. “You've got the Australian Disease, old chap. No known cure except death, which I can arrange although it's very expensive.”

“Why not?” O'Neill said. “You nearly arranged it once today already.”

“I hit the Hun, didn't I? He hardly touched us. You've got to have faith, Bunny.”

A batman knocked and came in. “Captain Foster presents his compliments,” he said,”and would Lieutenant Paxton do
him the honour of joining him in his tent.”

“Me?” Paxton said. “How odd.”

“I expect he wants you to turn the pages of his music for him,” Kellaway said.

Foster poured another inch of whisky into Paxton's tin mug and spilt half an inch over his hand. “I'm telling you all this,” he said,”because I was like you once, and I wish someone had told me. If someone had told me all about women, poor old Stubbs wouldn't have been a flamer. Women aren't all they're cracked up to be. Flamers aren't all they're cracked up to be. And that's not all. I'm not all I'm cracked up to be, and it's taken me a hell of a long time to discover
that.
Hell of a long time. And I'll tell you another thing I've learned. Time isn't all it's cracked up to be. Time isn't worth a damn. You can take that from me. It comes and it goes, and you can't do anything about it. See?” He pointed to an alarm clock, loudly ticking on his chest of drawers. “Five seconds just came and went. That's five seconds of your life you'll never have again. Paxton. Never mind. Life isn't all it's cracked up to be. D'you know how many Huns I've killed? Forty-two thousand eight hundred and fifteen. I've got their names here somewhere. Names aren't all they're cracked up to be. Take mine. Next stop, a peerage. Who wants to be a bloody silly peer? House of Lords isn't all it's cracked up to be, not by a long chalk. Full of Old bloody Etonians. Eton isn't all it's cracked up to be. Full of thugs and skunks. Half of them are in the boneyard, I expect. Killed in action. Killing isn't all it's cracked up to be. I should know, I've killed a few. Killed Stubbs this morning.” He sipped his whisky.

“I honestly don't see how it could have been your fault,” said Paxton. He was getting a bit bored with Foster.

“All it takes is a gun. It doesn't take courage. You think you're brave, but courage isn't all it's cracked up to be. I know you. You're not brave, because you're never afraid. I'm afraid. I've been afraid for months. I was afraid James Yeo might get killed. I liked James, I
loved
James. Love isn't all it's cracked up to be. Didn't save James, did it? Didn't make a blind bit of difference to the war, either. Bloody war. It just goes on and on and on. Listen to it. War's not what it's
cracked up to be. Any bloody fool can go to war. The trick is to get out of it. I wish somebody had told me that years ago.” He pulled open a drawer and took out his Service revolver. “Fucking flies,” he said, and fired three thunderous rounds at the flies circling inside the tent. Brutus bolted. Paxton had fallen off his chair and dropped his whisky. Foster looked at the smoking gun. “Nothing's what it's cracked up to be,” he said, and put the muzzle to his head and fired again.