Appleyard vanished. A month later there was a rumour that he had been reduced to the rank of second lieutenant and posted to a particularly tough Pioneer battalion, a dump for all the thugs and wreckers in the British Army; a month after that there was a rumour that his platoon had beaten his head in one night and left his body in No-Man’s-Land after an argument over the rum ration; but by then there was hardly anyone left in Hornet Squadron who remembered him.
A new adjutant arrived. His name was Brazier and it was obvious that he too had recently been demoted: you could see the unfaded shape of a major’s crown on his epaulettes, which now carried a captain’s stars. He wore the ribbons of the DSO and MC, which were enough to silence the squadron for a start, plus various other ribbons that nobody could identify. He was six foot four and very broad-shouldered. Doorways were sometimes a problem, and he had developed a slight stoop to keep his head down to conversational level. He had the sort of face you see on a Roman coin, all chin and nose, but his eyes were bright blue, very disconcerting at first. According to Corporal Lacey, who looked him up in the Army List, Captain Brazier was forty-nine. At first he was rarely seen in the Mess. “He eats broken bottles for breakfast,” Mayo said. “I’ve seen the corks in his out-tray.” The truth was that he was busy trying to straighten out all the nonsense that Appleyard had left behind; but his absence made him seem even loftier. “Spud called him Uncle,” Mayo said,”and he tore Spud’s arm off, didn’t he, Spud? It’s in the goulash tonight.”
“Anything’s better than mutton,” Foster said.
“You can tell it’s Spud’s by the dirty fingernails,” Mayo said.
“If you don’t like them,” Ogilvy told him,”leave them on the side of your plate.”
“Is that what they taught you at Eton?”
“Nobody gets taught at Eton,” Foster said. “A certain amount of assisted learning takes place, when games allow, but nothing as crass as teaching.”
Binns overheard this. “What’s twelve times nine?” he asked him.
“I don’t intend to go into trade, so it’s of no consequence,” Foster said.
Binns found that amusing. “What do you intend to do when the war’s over?”
“James and I will form some kind of partnership,” Foster said.
Yeo yawned and stretched. “No we shan’t,” he said.
“Partners in what?” Binns asked.
“Oh… lots of things. Motor-racing, perhaps. Or we might set up a film studio. Or maybe a jazz band. We haven’t decided yet.”
“I have,” Yeo said, opening a magazine. “I’m going to stay in the Army. I like the Army.”
“Nonsense. You’d be wasted in the Army.”
Yeo threw down the magazine. “I’ve told you before,” he said. “Don’t nag.”
That killed all conversation for a moment. Then Binns decided he had been patronised by Foster, and so he said: “The answer’s a hundred and eight. Just thought I’d tell you, now you haven’t got a partner to count on.”
“Remind me,” Foster said, peering at Binns as if through fog. “Which school did you go to?”
“Clifton College.”
“Clifton… In the West Country, isn’t it? Last stop on the GWR. No tradition but excellent plumbing.”
“Cor blimey,” Yeo said bleakly, staring at Foster,”you’re a right toff, you are, guvner, strike me pink if you ain’t.” Again, the conversation died. After a few seconds he left the room, leaving Foster looking far from happy.
At first, nobody knew quite what to make of Cleve-Cutler. Now that ‘B’ Flight was back, there was rarely an hour of daylight when somebody wasn’t flying, and the CO often led a patrol, even if it was only an escort for a bit of artillery observation. He knew his stuff, and anyone flying with him had to stay alert. Once, when O’Neill and Duncan were coming home with him at the end of a long patrol, Cleve-Cutler’s machine suddenly disappeared.
It was still early morning, and O’Neill had been thinking of the second breakfast soon to be eaten – thinking of it for perhaps ten seconds, or forty, or ninety, he couldn’t be sure, time played terrible tricks after a couple of hours in the air – when he glanced left at his leader and saw empty sky. Nothing to the right either. He flew a slow figure-of-eight, using his bank to search high and low. Duncan looked at him and gestured failure. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that a pair of aircraft had been cruising home when one blew its engine or bust a vital spar or snapped a control cable and went down so suddenly that its partner noticed nothing. O’Neill got back on course for Pepriac. He was beginning his final glide to the field when the sun was blotted out. It was Cleve-Cutler’s FE, half a length above and behind. The CO waved. His machine sank, and vanished again.
O’Neill worked it out as he made his landing. The FE had an enormous blind spot directly behind its tail. With a bulky engine roaring at his back the pilot could neither see nor hear anything that followed him closely. And Cleve-Cutler must have trailed him very closely indeed. He must have duplicated every move, quick as a shadow.
Quite a clever bit of flying. Filthy with risk, of course. Cleve-Cutler’s observer said afterwards that there were times when he could have reached out and grabbed O’Neill’s rudder, but nobody believed that. Nevertheless, his face and goggles were black with exhaust smuts from O’Neill’s engine. Cleve-Cutler said nothing about it.
He rarely talked shop. A couple of minutes’ comments after the next day’s Flying Orders had been read out, perhaps: an exchange of views on the probable weather, especially wind and cloud, or a change in the system of signals between aircraft, or reports of a new German machine. Then he would conspicuously change the subject, as if to say: Enough is enough, I leave the rest to you, let’s not allow the war to spoil the entire day. He was very good at conversation, or rather at getting others to talk while he listened. He seemed to find everyone entertaining; even Jimmy Duncan made him grin. (But then so did the squadron dog, a mongrel that had turned up in the ration wagon one day.) After a week, almost everyone in Hornet Squadron began to believe that the old man – the new old man – was his especial friend. The exception was Paxton.
Paxton had decided to lie low for a while. There seemed to be some sort of conspiracy to blame him for everything and thank him for nothing. Nobody had thanked him for getting that load of coal, for instance. And of course he got no credit for shooting down the Hun; on the contrary he’d been blamed for it, as if it was his fault that the Hun had attacked them. He wrote a letter to his parents: It is just my foul luck to have been sent to a squadron with so many wasters and drunks in it. On my first flight over the Lines we met a Hun and after a bit of a scrap I managed to shoot him down in flames. Just writing those words excited Paxton. He had to pause and do some deep breathing. But my flight commander, who is an absolute pig, refuses to approve my claim! What’s more he is very ill-mannered and beastly about it. It is all so unfair that I sometimes wonder who is the real enemy out here. The last line sounded a bit whining so he crossed it out. Next day he re-read the whole letter and tore it up. Everything he’d written was still true but he was eighteen; it was up to him to fight his own battles now.
He hadn’t mentioned O’Neill because he couldn’t put his hatred of the man into words.
The day after Cleve-Cutler and Brazier arrived, Paxton inspected the latrines (for the second time) and went back to his billet. He was braced for another fight with O’Neill. He had decided that the only way to cope with the Australian was to ignore him completely. Even so, his heart was kicking his ribs and his fingertips were prickling when he opened the door. The room was empty.