Next morning it rained before breakfast and then the sun came out. The grass glittered. Gerrish and Ross were in their FE with the engine thundering, ready to taxi out and take off, when a pigeon flew into the propeller. Blood and guts and feathers everywhere. Gerrish switched off.
While his crew cleaned off the mess and examined the prop for chips or cracks and checked for any other damage, Gerrish got out and talked to Foster, who had been watching. Ross felt warm and comfortable with the sun on his face. He was too hungover for violent exercise. He stayed where he was.
“Ugly brute, isn’t it?” Foster said. He meant the FE. “Doesn’t look much like a bird. Looks more like the old lady who lived in a shoe and was frightfully prolific. With wings on.”
Gerrish took off his sheepskin coat and sat on it. “Someone told me that Jerry calls it ‘the flying packingcase’. I expect that sounds better in German. Or worse. Bloody ugly lingo, German.”
Foster sat behind Gerrish and leaned against him. The aerodrome was quiet; no engines were being run. From the next field came the faint gabble of Chinese as the labour gang squabbled about something. “I don’t suppose you’ve had a lot to do with women, Plug,” Foster said.
“No? Why not?”
“Because of your extreme ugliness, old chap.”
“If it didn’t mean getting up I’d bash your face in. Then women wouldn’t have a lot to do with you.”
“Too late, alas. One poor creature has decided that she cannot live without me.”
Gerrish grunted. “I’ve got a tailor like that. Keeps writing me grovelling bloody letters. Tell her to go to hell.”
Foster sighed. “Actually, I told her I’d gone to hell.”
“So you have. Pigging it in that wigwam with that bloody dog and playing the concerto for the back passage on the trombone all night. I mean to say, dash it all, Frank.”
“She thinks I snuffed it. You see, I arranged for her to hear that I’d been shot down. And now she’s snuffed it.”
“What d’you mean? Dead?”
“So I hear, Plug.” Foster blew his nose, and Gerrish felt the vibrations. “Message from a mutual friend. Jenny’s snuffed it.”
Gerrish released his breath, puffing out his lips. “That’s going a bit far, that is,” he said.
“My fault. People in our line of business shouldn’t fall in love. It’s not fair on anyone.” There was a faint tremor in Foster’s voice. “Too late now, alas.”
“Definitely snuffed it, has she? I mean…”
“Blew her brains out, old boy. Don’t tell anyone, will you?”
“Must have used a very small revolver, that’s all I can say.” When there was silence he said:”Sorry, Frank. I didn’t mean that.”
A series of bangs erupted inside the FE and Ross began screaming.
Ross had grown bored. He knew the story about Paxton, O’Neill and the flare pistol – the whole squadron knew it – and he started wondering how accurate the thing was as a weapon. He unclipped his own flare pistol, knowing it was unloaded, and tested the trigger action, squeezing harder until it fired and it was loaded and the flare roared out like dragonsbreath. It ricocheted around the inside of the cockpit and hit a drum of Lewis ammo. Ross was dazed and dazzled. The flare rammed itself in the drum and, burning furiously, sent it skittering about the floor. Bullets detonated. Three hit Ross in the leg, one went through his left arm, another entered his thigh.
Everyone fell flat. Ross went on screaming until the firing stopped, and then he began swearing. Later, when Dando had taken him to hospital, twenty-seven bullet-holes were found in the nacelle.
“They say these things always go in threes,” Foster said. “I wonder what’s next.”
“We’ve had three,” Gerrish pointed out. “Macarthur, then Sausage and Mash, and now this.”
“Macarthur… I forgot about Macarthur. Or maybe nobody told me. Did he crash?”
“He snuffed it, like your lady-friend. At least Ross hasn’t snuffed it. What a bloody fool, though.”
For Paxton the worst part of the week was his failure to add another kill to his score, or even to claim that he’d damaged a Hun. He was moving steadily up the table in the mess, which was fine, and most people had come to accept him, especially now the camp had fresh milk and eggs every day from the cow and hens that Lacey had acquired. It was amazing what Lacey could get in exchange for good cigars or new records: a billiards table, a case of Cooper’s Oxford marmalade, a crate of soft toilet paper, rugs for the billets, carpet for the mess, fresh fruit galore including bananas, which were Cleve-Cutler’s favourite. Paxton received his share of the kudos for making all this possible. Pepriac developed a reputation for being the camp with everything; certainly its gramophone had plenty of the latest records, and the gramophone was the beating heart of every RFC mess.
That stuff was all very nice but it wasn’t blood. The enemy was in the sky but he wasn’t in the mood. At the end of the week O’Neill had got close enough to an aeroplane to force a skirmish on only three occasions. Always the enemy held off, backed away, stayed out of range. In a dozen patrols Paxton fired just one burst, and then the range was enormous. The other plane immediately turned and dived to the east.
“Looked like a Roland,” O’Neill told Brazier. “He ran away.”
“How could you tell?” Paxton asked. “Your eyes were too wet to see anything.”
“The great mouth speaks,” O’Neill said sourly.
“He’s sorry for the Hun,” Paxton told Brazier. “Goes all weepy when one appears.”
“Any complaints, see your Flight Commander,” Brazier said. “I just do the paperwork.”
They bickered all the way to their billet.
“Of course the stupid Hun got away,” Paxton said. “You gave up.”
“Right, I did.”
“That’s my wild colonial boy. First prize in the backwards dash.”
“I gave up because I didn’t want to have tea in a prisoner-of-war camp. Don’t you ever look at your watch?”
“Constantly. It’s so boring up there I can’t wait—”
“Shut your trap, fartface. We had enough fuel to get back, or chase that Roland and have a scrap. Not both. Simple enough?”
“Oh, indubitably.”
“Trouble with you English is once you’ve stirred your tea you’ve strained your brain for the rest of the day.”
They argued in and out of the bathhouse and all the way to the mess anteroom.
“If I were driving we’d chase the sods until we jolly well caught one,” Paxton said.
“If you were driving we’d stall on take-off.”
Paxton drank some whisky-soda. He was getting to like the taste. The gramophone played Ragtime Cowboy Joe. “Hey, Kelly,” he said, and threw a cushion at Kellaway. “What’s the difference between an Australian and a dead kangaroo?”
Kellaway chewed on a corner of the cushion. “Give up,” he said.
“Right first time. The Australian gives up.” Paxton was delighted, and tittered into his drink.
“Don’t get too excited,” O’Neill warned. “You’ll wet yourself again.”
Mayo stopped playing ping-pong to say: “I’ve got an uncle in Australia and he’s never seen a kangaroo. He says it’s all rabbits. Bloody rabbits everywhere.” He served.
“One escaped,” Paxton said. “O’Neill’s a bunny.”
“It’s running down your leg,” O’Neill said. He was beginning to sound edgy.