O’Neill talked briefly with his fitter and rigger and then headed for the pilots’ hut. Paxton blocked his way. “If you don’t want a gunner, leave the gun behind,” Paxton said. “Leave the ammunition behind. Save weight.”
“You had your chance.”
“What? What chance? Precisely when I opened fire, you turned sharp right.”
“Because I couldn’t wait any longer.”
“Wait for what? Until then, that Hun wasn’t in range.”
“No? We were in his range.”
“Rubbish. He opened fire when he was miles away.”
“You know bugger-all about air gunnery.”
“I know that the bigger the target, the better your chances. And just when that Hun got big enough for me to hit him you lost the target.”
“I made damn sure he lost his target, that’s what I did.”
“You ruined my shot.”
“You were too constipated to fire.”
It was hot and they were sweating. O’Neill shed his flying jacket. Paxton said, savagely: “If you’re such an expert, why don’t you do the damned gunnery, and I’ll guarantee to get you close enough, and keep you there.”
O’Neill laughed at him.
They got out of their flying kit and Paxton wiped off the whalegrease. Brazier heard their report; Paxton contributed little. They walked to the billet in silence. Again and again Paxton kept seeing in his mind that beautiful purple-blue yellow-wheeled Albatros enlarging perfectly in his sights, and being snatched from him just as he squeezed the trigger. It was robbery. He’d been swindled. “You did it deliberately, didn’t you?” he said.
O’Neill yawned. He was stretched out on his bed.
“Of course you did,” Paxton said. He walked around the room, kicking a waste basket. “I should have guessed. You don’t like me, you’re certainly not going to give me a chance to pot a Hun, are you?” He booted the basket over O’Neill’s bed and glared at him.
“I don’t give a stuff about you,” O’Neill said.
“Well, you’d better start bloody learning, my fine Australian friend.” Paxton found the basket and gave it another boot, aiming at O’Neill’s head and almost hitting it. “Because our job up there is killing Huns, in case you didn’t know.”
“I’ve killed more Huns than you’ve had wet dreams.”
“Next time we meet one, I want him. I want you to get me near him and stay there while I kill him. That’s your job. You’re just the blasted driver. You drive. I’ll kill. Understand?”
“You had your chance, chum. You muffed it.”
“Peter King and James Duncan never met,” the padre said,”yet now they lie side by side, as brothers. For, as the poet said, he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother.”
There had been a sharp storm half an hour before the funeral and everything in the churchyard dripped. The bodies had been lowered into an inch of water. The air smelt clean and cold, as if it had never been used before.
“One day, when this dreadful conflict is over, some passerby may pause here and wonder just what King and Duncan achieved. The answer is that they died in a just and decent cause, and that by their deaths they helped to win a splendid victory for freedom and for honour. I need not remind you of their gallantry. Those who go forth to do battle in the skies possess a special courage. They display a golden chivalry that shines in the gloom of war like a torch of inspiration.” He said something about the supreme sacrifice and the triumph of right, and then rounded it off as usual.
Frank Foster walked back to camp with him.
“Well done, padre.”
“Thank you, Frank. I think Jimmy would have liked it.”
“Jimmy wouldn’t have understood half of it. He was one of the stupidest men I ever met.”
“Surely not.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Not your fault. He was born thick. Just as well, perhaps. It pays to be thick in our job. Once you start thinking about it you’re heading for a crack-up.”
“You can come to me at any time, you know.”
“I know. I don’t belong to your club, padre. I’ve been upstairs often enough and, believe me, there’s no sign of a bloke with a beard and a box full of thunderbolts. So will you do me a favour? If and when I go west, and you get called upon to propose the toast, leave out all the God stuff, will you?”
The padre hesitated. “I’m by way of being in the God business, you know.”
“Well, I’m not and it’s my funeral. I don’t want any of that high-minded stuff about dying in a just cause, either. Freedom and justice and honour and whatnot. You can forget all that.”
“If you say so, old chap.”
“What I don’t want above all is any waffle about democracy.”
“No democracy. I see.”
“Democracy never did me any good, and if I survive this nonsense I shall inherit the family title and a large slice of England and I shall have earned it ten times over, so democracy can keep its sticky fingers off me.”
“You have grown bitter, Frank.”
“I’ve grown honest, chum.”
“But surely there are qualities to admire? Courage, chivalry, truth? Shouldn’t we recognise them?”
“All right: tell the truth. Tell all the truth. Tell everyone how courageous our late comrade was and also how frightened he was. And lonely. Even in a two-seater. You’ve no idea how lonely and frightened you can feel up there. Just you in several hundred cubic miles of sky, and then all of a sudden here comes the Hun trying to kill you. Nothing personal about it. I’m sure the Hun is the soul of chivalry, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of putting a few bullets in your stomach or your head or your lungs, anywhere as long as the blood comes out in a rush. By all means, you go ahead and recognise the admirable qualities of truth and chivalry. Tell us the truth about chivalry. I’d like to know what it is, because I’ve never seen it in action. If it means that one sportsman waves his hat and lets the other man fire first, that’s not chivalry. That’s suicide. That’s idiocy. So leave it out, will you?”
The padre jumped nimbly across a set of puddles. “You make my task extremely difficult. I suppose I can safely mention the fact of your death?”
“As long as you don’t call it the supreme sacrifice.”
The padre threw up his hands. “What greater sacrifice could there be?”
“It’s not a bally sacrifice at all! Use your imagination, padre. D’you honestly think poor little King gave his life? D’you think Jimmy Duncan had any choice? D’you think any of us would die if we could wangle some way around it? You make the supreme sacrifice sound like the noblest, cleverest, bravest thing a man could do. That’s rubbish. When we get killed it’s because we got it wrong. Or blind chance. Archie. Nothing clever about that.”
“No indeed.” The padre put a long, heavy arm around Foster’s shoulders. “You’ve emptied my stock, Frank. Why don’t you tell me what I ought to say?”
“Just say… Just say: ‘He wasn’t a bad sort, paid his debts, told a few good jokes, and took five wickets for 39 runs in the match against Harrow.’ That’s enough. In fact it’s too much. Cut out the bit about the jokes. They weren’t all that good.”
Chapter 15
Rainstorms blundered in from the west more and more frequently. A canvas hangar was blown down and all flying was cancelled. A lot of poker got played and the gramophone never stopped. Lacey fixed up the cinema projector and showed some Charlie Chaplin films, which were enormously popular. Boy Binns drew dozens of cartoon portraits, which were no better than his usual efforts. “That’s libellous,” Spud Ogilvy said when Boy showed him a sketch. “You’ve made me look like Charlie Essex.” Boy held the sketch at arm’s length and closed one eye. “I think this is Charlie,” he said. “I got them mixed up. That one is you.”