“It was Dando,” Kellaway said. “I wrote his name down.”
O’Neill was cleaning his nails with a penknife. “He thinks the Huns line up to be shot down. He’s a fairy in a fairy tale.”
“Very, very fussy,” Paxton said. “He must have been spoiled rotten when he was a kid, don’t you think?”
“There’s a rumour going around about a Russian squadron just landed at St. Omer,” Kellaway said. “D’you believe it?”
“Indubitably,” Paxton said.
“Keep that up and I’ll give you my fist to suck,” O’Neill said. He took his towel and went out.
“What’s wrong with him?” Kellaway asked.
“He’s got the runs. He was certainly running hard today.”
“They must be Russians because they smell of vodka,” Kellaway said. “That’s what I heard. D’you think they’ll come here?”
“Only if they want to be bored to death.”
Next day the weather was perfect and all flying orders were cancelled. Instead, Colonel Bliss came down from Brigade HQ to speak to the squadron.
The battle for Verdun, he said, was fizzling out. Frankly, it was a shambles down there, more bodies than either side could count. The French urgently wanted a British attack, pronto, to take the remaining pressure off Verdun before the frog troops started to mutiny.
So the Royal Flying Corps had two new jobs. We had to keep the German Air Force pinned down behind their own Lines so they couldn’t snoop on our preparations. This squadron (and many others) could expect to fly a lot of Deep Offensive Patrols in future – five, ten, fifteen miles beyond the trenches. We were going to show the Hun who was boss.
Bliss saw some long faces in his audience, and he hurried on. The other job, he said, was trench-strafing. When the British infantry went over the top, the Flying Corps would go with them, harrying the Hun from his hole. Obviously this called for expert low-level flying, so the Corps Commander had had a dummy stretch of Hun trenches dug, with plenty of smoke and bangs to make everything thoroughly realistic. Hornet Squadron would practise there this afternoon.
Bliss offered his congratulations on recent kills, and Cleve-Cutler led him away to his office for a drink.
“Fifteen sodding miles,” Goss said. “That’s deeply offensive all right.”
“It’s too far,” Mayo said.
“It’s safer than being over the Front,” Piggott told them. “Much less archie.”
“It’s halfway to bloody Berlin! What if something goes wrong?”
“Don’t worry,” Goss said. “The wind will blow you the rest of the way.” That brought laughter, but it was brief and nervous. The prevailing west wind was no joke. Almost every patrol over the enemy lines ended up having to labour home into a headwind. Hun patrols, on the other hand, got blown home. It was a swindle.
“I don’t know what you’re bitching about,” Gerrish said. “You might as well complain about falling into twenty feet of water instead of ten feet, or five. You get just as wet, either way.”
“Come off it, Plug,” Mayo said. “Fifteen miles with a dicky engine? Losing height? Huns taking turns to polish you off? That’s a long trudge, that is. No thanks.”
“Orders is orders,” Ogilvy said.
“I can’t count up to fifteen,” Mayo said.
“That’s funny, I can’t get up to ten,” Goss said.
“I meant ten,” Mayo said. “Come to think of it, I meant five.”
Gerrish was not amused. He said: “The last squadron I was in, we had a pilot who didn’t go where he was sent. Next time, his flight commander flew behind him with his finger on the trigger.”
“The adj would approve of that,” Ogilvy said.
Paxton said: “Did he pull the trigger?”
Gerrish turned and stared. “None of your damned business,” he said.
Paxton stared back. Gerrish’s anger had made him angry, and he enjoyed the sensation. “Just trying to improve my mind,” he said.
“I went to Cambridge, you know,” Charlie Essex said. “I can count up to five with one hand tied behind my back.”
They played cricket until lunch, and then killed time with cards and newspapers, waiting for orders. At three o’clock the trench-strafing exercise was cancelled. “It seems that some bright spark thought it would be a good idea if the trench were under actual artillery fire while strafing took place,” Cleve-Cutler told them. “Two aeroplanes got badly damaged by shrapnel or blast, and one got blown to bits, before they decided it was a bit too realistic.”
“How can they be so stupid?” Piggott demanded.
“Centuries of practice, old boy,” Cleve-Cutler said.
The adjutant disapproved of Foster’s bell-tent and of the noises that came from it, and he told Cleve-Cutler so. “I don’t care what school he went to,” Brazier said,”he’s not entitled to behave like a gypsy. The men won’t respect him for it. No respect means no discipline.”
“He’s still a very good flight commander. That hasn’t changed.”
“Something’s changed. I remember once I had a chap in Madras who suddenly dyed his hair green and said his mother was the Queen of Sheba. Thoroughly competent officer, but he had to go.”
Cleve-Cutler shook his head. “Pilots are different. In my last squadron we had a brilliant pilot, but when he wasn’t flying he was the most feckless brat you could imagine. His idea of fun was to go for a walk and throw stones at people.”
“A British officer?” Brazier was deeply offended.
“So you see I don’t care if Frank dyes his hair sky-bluepink. He won’t get the sack from me. I need him too much.” Before long the dog Brutus chewed up Captain Foster’s clarinet. Corporal Lacey managed to find a secondhand valve trombone, and Foster was in the doorway of his tent, working on The Eton Boating Song, when he saw the Canadian, Stubbs, out for a stroll, and called him in for a drink.
They sat on the camp bed and sipped whisky from tin mugs.
“Do you really like France?” Foster asked. “Don’t you find it awfully dull after Canada?”
“Actually I’m an American,” Stubbs said. “I only joined the Canadian Army because it was a quick way to get into the RFC, but don’t tell anyone.”
“America.” Foster dipped a finger in his whisky and sucked it. “America. I’d love to be an American. No ties. Free to go anywhere, do anything.”
“I never lived anywhere except Grand Rapids, Michigan.”
“Grand Rapids. That sounds exciting.”
“I guess it is if you like making furniture.” Stubbs rubbed Brutus with his foot. “Would you like a job making furniture?”
“Not… all day, no.”
“In Grand Rapids they make furniture all year.” Brutus squirmed away from Stubbs’ foot and began chewing the trombone.
“Look here,” Foster said. All of a sudden he sounded tense and nervous. “I’m going to ask the most enormous favour.” He gave Stubbs the full force of his smile.
“Okay. Try me.”
“Well… the last time I went home on leave I did a damn silly thing. I met a girl, took her out, shows, dinners, dancing, all that nonsense.”
“Lucky you.”
“Yes, you might think so, I suppose. Trouble is, I sort of… well, fell in love. Can’t get her out of my mind.” Foster was frowning heavily. “Absolute bloody disaster, of course.”
“Why? Doesn’t she like you?”
“Oh, yes.” Foster gripped his tin mug so hard that his fingertips went white. “Yes, I’m pretty sure she was quite fond of me.”
“Sounds like a nice combination, then.”
“No. No, it’s quite hopeless. I’m afraid there’s absolutely no future in it.”