War Story (45 page)

“Perhaps that's enough for today,” Paxton suggested.

“Oh, but you must hear this bit. It's from a young lieutenant who went over the top. He told a reporter,
Excepting a few, the fellows who'd been hit came on with the others, shouting just as loud and running nearly as hard, too!”

“Poor bastards,” Kerr whispered.

Paxton shook his head. “It's not possible,” he said. “How can it be possible?”

“It's perfectly clear,” she said. “He saw it happen.
Some bowled over like boys doing Catherine Wheels when they were
hit, and rushed straight on with hardly a check
… Let go. Let go!”

Kerr had grabbed a corner of the newspaper and was trying to drag the rest of it out of her hands. It tore, slowly and raggedly. Kerr was swearing, an endless, hoarse, stammering stream of obscenities.

Paxton went and found a nurse.

Later, when his dressings were being changed, he asked the doctor how much longer he would have to stay. “I'd very much like to rejoin my squadron,” he said.

“We'll see about that in due course.”

“This place is getting very full. You could give my bed to someone who really needs it.”

“We'll see about that.”

“Hornet Squadron's got a damn good MO. He could do this.”

“We'll see.”

In the afternoon he had a visitor: Kellaway. Paxton was delighted and wanted to hear all his news from Pepriac, but Kellaway had banged his head yet again in another forced landing, and his memory was patchy. He was in Paris to have his skull X-rayed. “Spud Ogilvy went west, I do know that,” he said. “Collided with a Hun. I know Spud went west because he owed me forty francs … It's been very busy since you left, lots of changes. O'Neill asked me to give you this.”

It was a tinted postcard showing a very jolly-looking naked lady. On the reverse side O'Neill had written:
You owe me a fiver.
“I don't remember borrowing a fiver from Bunny,” Paxton said.

“Beats me, old chap. I don't remember eating breakfast.”

“I'm fed up with this hospital,” Paxton said. “I've asked them to send me back to Pepriac. They keep saying they'll see about it, but they never do. I'm fed up with doctors, and their bloody silly wives.”

“Come with me. I'm going back tomorrow, in a car.”

Paxton was startled by the simplicity of the idea. People were walking in and out of the hospital all the time. “All right,” he said. “All right. Yes. All right, I'll do it.”

Paxton slept, woke, ate, drank salt water, and was chatting to a gunner captain who had only one foot when a nurse
stopped to say that Captain Kerr was asking for him. Paxton collected the newspapers and went to see him.

“I'd like to apologise,” Kerr said. “Unforgivable way to behave.” He looked grey and tired. His twitch was worse.

“Not a bit of it, old fellow. I quite understand.”

“To tell the truth, I don't remember very much. All a bit hazy.”

There was a newspaper clipping on his bed. “Is that about the Manchesters?” Paxton asked.

“One of the nurses gave it to me. I haven't read it, of course.”

Paxton read it, silently. There was nothing there that he could tell Kerr, so he gave him the clipping and said: “Everyone agrees the Manchesters were very brave.” It didn't seem enough, so he added:”And all the papers say we've nearly won.”

“Nearly won.” The clipping shook in Kerr's hand like a paper flag being waved. “Nearly won.”

The problem next morning was finding something to wear, something better than hospital-blue pyjamas. He wandered about the corridors, pretending to read a newspaper, and came across a huge wicker laundry-basket, open. He pretended to be resting against it. Nobody even glanced at him. The hospital was very busy now; everyone had too much to do. He fished out a pair of white trousers and a white jacket, both spattered with blood, and a white coat. If he wore the coat loosely, over his shoulders, it would hide the fact that his arm was in a sling.

Kellaway's car was waiting outside the hospital at the agreed time. Two other RFC officers were in it, but they made room for him. Nobody wanted to talk about the war. Before they had left the suburbs he was asleep.

When he awoke they were bouncing and jolting along a rutted lane and his arm didn't like it. This went on for a very long time, as they delivered one pilot to his aerodrome, and then the other. There was no sun. The roads were clogged with troops and transport. Everyone was in khaki, everyone was moving eastward, nobody was smiling. “I bet the Hun's feeling jolly sick,” Paxton said.

“Oh?” Kellaway yawned. “Why's that?”

“Well, he must be retreating like mad.”

“Don't ask me, old chap. I can't remember what I had for breakfast” They trundled through a crowded village where military police directed traffic. “Did I tell you Charlie Essex went west?” Kellaway asked.

“No. You said Spud Ogilvy.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Kellaway worried about it for a mile or so. “The thing is, Spud owes me forty francs.” He chewed a thumbnail and looked at it with distaste. “I could use forty francs,” he said. “What would you do, if you were me?”

“I'd forget it.” Paxton was feeling very weary. “There are more important things going on, you know.”

“Mmm.” Kellaway chewed the other thumbnail and didn't like it either. “Eggs!” he said suddenly. “Just remembered what I had for breakfast. Eggs.” He smiled and looked out of the window. They passed yet another column of troops. “Or maybe that was yesterday,” he said.

Paxton was asleep when they reached Pepriac. Kellaway poked him in the ribs and then helped him out of the car. It was late afternoon, cloudy, and a gusty wind was making a bloody nuisance of itself with dust and scraps of paper. The place was very active. FEs kept coming and going. Paxton watched one land, its wings wobbling in the gusts. It bounced twice. He felt at home. Doing a bunk from that hospital was absolutely right.

“You look like a second-class cricket umpire,” Kellaway said.

Paxton looked down at the stained whites and felt foolish. “I'll get changed. Then I'll go and see the old man.”

The billet was empty. Paxton sat on his bed. He felt as if he had just walked a thousand miles but it was worth it. Kellaway said he would go and get Fidler. Paxton nodded. “I'll get changed,” he said,”then I'll go and see the old man.”

Aero engines roared and throbbed, subsided, settled down to a steady growl. Paxton looked at the wooden hut, the three beds, the stove, table, chairs, and he liked what he saw. A stranger came in and nodded to him. He was about Paxton's age but slim. His hair was black and sleeked-down until it
looked polished. He had a long straight nose and a very small mouth. He was in his shirt sleeves and he carried a towel and sponge-bag. He dropped them on O'Neill's bed and said as he put on his tunic: “Have you come to give the place a coat of paint?”

“Who the shit are you?” Paxton asked. Fidler and Kellaway came in. “Shame about Mr. O'Neill, sir, isn't it?” Fidler said. “This is Mr. Lucas, sir.”

Paxton stopped breathing, and for a moment all sound drained away. When his lungs went into action they swelled and stretched his ribcage; and the sounds of the world flooded back. Lucas was apologising, saying that he mistook Paxton for a workman, awfully sorry. Paxton could only look at O'Neill's bed. He felt frozen inside. O'Neill hadn't gone, not O'Neill, Fidler had got it wrong. It was all impossible, it was a blunder, it made him angry, very angry, furious. He got up fast and ripped the towel off O'Neill's bed, picked up the sponge-bag and hurled it at Lucas. He heard himself shouting disgusting things at Lucas and they were all true. The bed got overturned, blankets and pillows torn off. He must have done that too. He must have used his damaged arm because pain rushed into it like a wild animal. O'Neill wasn't in his bed. It was all a filthy swindle and Paxton told them so as loudly as he could. Lucas was to blame, so he hit Lucas. Fidler tried to stop him and grabbed his damaged arm. Fidler wasn't to know. The light went out.

Paxton woke up for a few seconds. He was in bed, his own bed, and Dando was poking a needle in his other arm. “I want O'Neill,” he told Dando. Dando simply shook his head. Paxton tried to explain but the words wouldn't fit together. Soon, that day ended.

Dando knew that he couldn't keep Paxton in bed, not while machines were taking off and landing all day. Dando let him get up after lunch on the following afternoon, provided he didn't go berserk and chuck beds at people. Paxton promised to behave himself. He was restless but he was also tired.

He let Fidler shave him and then went and sat in a deckchair. The dog Brutus found him and made a great fuss, before settling down on the grass. Private Collins brought a glass of lemonade. There was always an FE warming up, or coming back, or circling.

From time to time pilots or observers waved to him, or paused to chat. Paxton hadn't much to say and they didn't stay long. He watched an FE hurry over the grass, raise its tail and come unstuck. It droned away. He dozed, and woke up when Cleve-Cutler sat beside him and said, “Nobody told you to come back here. You're guilty of indiscipline, dereliction of duty, gross neglect and deserting your post in the face of the medical profession, just because they wanted to saw your arm off at the shoulder. I should have you court-martialled.”

“I wasn't doing any good in that hospital, sir,” Paxton said. It was a struggle to wake up.

“They don't like losing patients. Not like that, anyway. It spoils their record-keeping. You've no idea how badtempered they've been, and Christ knows I've got enough complaints descending on me from a great height already.”

“Sorry to hear that, sir.” There was a rough edge to the
CO's voice that worried Paxton.

“You're a pretty bloody depressing sight to have lying about the place, aren't you? Just what the new boys like to see, I don't think.”

“Dando says it's healing up nicely,” Paxton lied.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn't give you a boot up the backside and send you back to the quacks toot sweet.”

Paxton thought desperately hard and could offer only one bad reason, so bad it was worse than nothing. But he had to say something. “If you send me back I'll do another bunk tomorrow,” he said.
“What?”
Cleve-Cutler shouted. “This is mutiny!” He got up laughing, and walked away laughing. It was as if he had heard the first real joke for a week. He picked up one deckchair and threw it over another. “Go and see the adj,” he said. “Tell him to find you something to do.” He headed for his office.

Brazier was dictating summaries of combat reports to Corporal Lacey. Paxton sat in a corner and chewed his lip. Leaning against the wall was a blackboard with the flight commanders and their crews chalked on it. He studied the names. When Lacey went out, he said: “No Piggott.”

“Tim got a bit burnt. He's in Blighty, at some special hospital. I must say you don't look too wonderful. I've seen plates of porridge that had more colour than you.”

“I'm fine. The CO says you're to find me a job, until I can fly.”

“Oh. That's what you're here for, is it? I thought it was this.” Brazier opened a desk drawer and took out an envelope. Paxton took it and tore it open and then stopped. “It's not from O'Neill, is it?” If it was from O'Neill he didn't want to see it. Not yet; perhaps not ever. Brazier shook his head. Paxton pulled out a pair of photographs.

“Colonel Bliss said you might as well have them. He said they're a bit grisly for his taste.”

Paxton grunted, and shoved the pictures into a tunic pocket.

For a long moment they sat and looked at each other.

“So you've had a taste of war,” Brazier said. “Does it suit your palate?”

“It's a bit salty,” Paxton said. “Actually I don't mind the
taste so much as the noise. Don't those bloody guns ever stop?”

Brazier found an empty pipe and used the stem to scratch an eyebrow. “I can remember a time when you were quite proud of our guns,” he said. “You quite enjoyed them, in fact.”

“I can remember a time when the poor bloody infantry were going to walk across No-Man's-Land and capture the Boche front line. Nice quiet stroll after breakfast, so everyone said.”

“We've just captured their front line, so the papers say. Not all of it, but quite a lot. Took rather longer than we thought.”

“Because of the machine-guns.”

“Because of the dugouts. Fritz is a wily bird. He'd dug a great number of very deep dugouts, twenty feet down in the chalk. Thirty feet, some of them. Very, very strong.”

“And that's where he kept his machine-guns.”

“So I'm told.” Brazier stuffed tobacco into his pipe. “You live and learn, you live and learn.”

Paxton shifted his arm in its sling. The damage was beginning to throb and burn. “But why on earth are we going on with the battle? The stupid plan failed, so why …”

“Because,” Brazier said. “Because Tweedledum, said Tweedledee, had broke his nice new rattle. It was time to have a battle, therefore a battle we must have.” He gazed at Paxton, who was looking disgruntled. “Not good enough,” Brazier said.

“It's a load of fucking bollocks, adj.”

“I don't know, Pax. Nothing seems to please you today. You don't like being shot, you don't approve of cock-ups in battle, you didn't even seem to enjoy looking at your own souvenir snapshots.”

Paxton sniffed, and looked away. “That was just a kill,” he said. “Two poor sods in a flamer, that's all.” He stood up. “Have you got anything for me to do?”

“I don't suppose you feel like inspecting the men's latrines.”