Brazier took his pipe from his mouth, looked into the bowl, put his pipe back, and waited.
“I got another letter from my chum in the trenches,” Ogilvy said. “The adj used to be his CO. Billy Winters, adj. Remember him?”
Brazier nodded. “Reliable fellow. A bit wild, but he led his company well.”
“And you remember Ashby?”
In the same voice Brazier said: “I shot Ashby. He didn’t lead his company so well, and I had to shoot him.”
The scuffling had stopped.
“What did you shoot him with?”
“A rifle. He was forty yards away. The Service revolver is useless at that range and I couldn’t wait until he got closer. I took the nearest rifle and shot Ashby through the chest. Through the heart. I’m sure he never knew what hit him. The others did, though.”
Everyone was very awake now. Brazier picked a shred of tobacco from his thigh and let it fall in an ashtray.
“I take it there was a panic,” Ogilvy said.
“There was indeed a panic.”
“And you were then a colonel.”
“I was then a colonel and my regiment took part in an attack, a most important part, and the attack miscarried and the enemy counter-attacked. There was fierce fighting, very fierce fighting indeed. Ashby’s men fought with the bayonet and the rifle-butt. Many men died but the line was held. Then the German artillery bombarded Ashby’s position. The enemy attacked again. Ashby got up and ran. His men ran too, until I shot him and told them to go back and fight. They went back and fought and again we held the line.”
There was silence while they absorbed this information.
“Billy says the attack was a flop,” Ogilvy said.
“The attack failed, because the enemy brought up their heavy mortars. You were in the trenches, weren’t you? Perhaps you experienced minnenwerfers yourself?”
“Only once. That was enough. Frightful brutes.”
“A forty-two-inch shell makes a big explosion. We had no answer. We withdrew.”
“What does Billy say next?” Dando asked Ogilvy.
“Billy says there was hell to pay and when the dust had settled the colonel was a major.”
“Two things,” Brazier said. “First: Captain Ashby was the son of a baron. Only the third son, but his blood was blue. Second, I had not shot him quietly. On the contrary, I made sure everyone heard my ultimatum. I shouted, very loud: Ashby, stop. Go back or I’ll kill you. That, after all, was the whole point of shooting him: to influence the others. I suppose Divisional HQ thought I should have shot someone less eminent and done it more discreetly.” Brazier re-lit his pipe.
Mayo said: “Or perhaps they thought you shouldn’t have shot anyone at all.”
Brazier fanned the air to dissipate a cloud of blue smoke and looked at Mayo as if he were a child who had unexpectedly wandered into an adult conversation. “Oh, somebody had to be shot. It was just a matter of how and when.”
Paxton tried to make sense of that, and failed.
“According to Billy you got shunted off to a different division,” Ogilvy said.
“There was some expectation that I would get myself killed leading a rather more ambitious attack. My men were given the task of capturing an enemy strongpoint. It was terribly well defended. We got very close to it – at a cost, of course and then a German machine-gun pinned everyone down in a string of shell-holes. I knew we could knock out this gun if we all charged at once but nobody would move. I tried to buck them up but they were all afraid. The longer we waited, the more time the enemy had to organise a counter-attack. So I told my men that they had a choice. They could advance and risk being killed by the Hun, or lie there and be utterly sure that I would shoot them. Then I gave the order to advance. Nobody moved. I shot one man with my Service revolver, a private named Yelland. Scarcely anyone moved, so I shot another private. His name was Haslam. After that they all went over the top in a rush, me with them, and we took that German machine-gun in no time.”
“At a cost, of course,” Dando said.
“Of course.”
“Including your rank. Down from major to captain. Why? You shot nobody eminent, and you did it discreetly.”
Brazier stood up, and ducked to avoid a hanging lamp. “Yelland died, Haslam didn’t. He made a great fuss and there was an inquiry. After all, it’s a serious matter when officers go around shooting their men in the back. I think I’ll turn in. Goodnight.”
When Mayo was quite sure that Brazier had gone, he said: “Fancy shooting a chap in the back.”
“What should he have done?” Ogilvy asked. “Rolled him over and shot him in the front?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No I don’t. I’m damned if I do.”
Charlie Essex pulled his sock out of the gramophone. “Thank God we don’t have to shoot anybody in our job.”
“You don’t?” said Dando, startled.
“No. Only aeroplanes.”
“With men in them.”
“Well, that’s their silly fault. Who wants a game of ping-pong?”
“Ball’s bust,” Goss announced.
“I’ll play,” Paxton said. “I’ve got a new ball.”
“Come on then, Pax,” Essex said. It was the first time anyone in the squadron had been slightly friendly to Paxton. He suddenly felt accepted.
O’Neill came across an invisible, lumpy seam in the weather just above eight thousand feet. Two airstreams of differing speeds jostled each other, creating a layer of turbulence. He let the FE bounce up through it and when he reached calm air he tipped the nose down and let the FE bounce down through it. Then he climbed very gradually. The FE bucked and plunged and shuddered for a long time. Paxton kept his mouth shut and tried to forget his sore, bruised rump. The patrol was more than half over and his lunch was still in his stomach. This was progress. He tried to ignore the smell of whalegrease, smeared on his face to keep out the battering cold air, but every now and then a breath of whalegrease mingled with the aftertaste of stew and threatened disaster.
The FE bucketed through another lumpy patch. He tightened his jaws and thought of Sherborne.
Then O’Neill was climbing and the air was smooth. Paxton raised his goggles and blinked hard to clear the tears. O’Neill’s fist banged the top of his helmet and Paxton searched the sky where O’Neill pointed.
It took him ten seconds to find a speck the size of a pinhead, high to the right, and then he blinked and lost it. The sky was baby-blue, softened by a screen of cirrus two miles above them. He found the speck again. It was bigger and fuzzier, and falling; falling fast. Quite soon he could see the wings, razor-thin lines on either side of the tiny blob that must be the engine and propeller. The FE was booming and vibrating: O’Neill had opened the throttle wide. Paxton swung the Lewis to the right and tested it: only a brief stutter: he was going to need the rest of the drum. The blob was growing. It was a biplane, blue or purple, yellow wheels, and it was diving at a speed that made Paxton feel the FE was standing still. O’Neill shouted something but whatever it was it was lost. Paxton’s brain was so calm that he felt tranquil yet his body throbbed with excitement. The enemy plane was magnifying at an astonishing rate and he knew with absolute certainty that he could destroy it. Tracer pulsed from its nose, searching for him, missing; the range was too great; he did not fire back. The Hun blossomed in his sights, still firing, and he waited and made sure and then squeezed the trigger as O’Neill flung the FE onto its right wingtips and sheared away from the enemy. Before Paxton could stop himself he had fired at the empty sky. O’Neill hauled the FE into a tight circle. By then the enemy – an Albatros – was half a mile away, a dwindling dot.
Usually, when they got back to Pepriac, Paxton handed over the Lewis to the armourer and got away from O’Neill as quickly as possible. This time he waited.