A Splendid Little War (4 page)

“Hard to say. The war tends to wander about. Tell you one thing: the place is stiff with typhus, smallpox, enteric fever, malaria, influenza, you name it. I wouldn't linger there, if I were you.”

Oliphant thought the man might be slightly drunk, or perhaps he was inventing these horrors, feeding tall tales to the new boys. He ate a big lunch and he said nothing to Griffin. And then the squadron shook hands and thanked everyone and was trucked to the station, where their train was late and turned out to be even slower and dirtier and colder than the lieutenant had said. The mountains were magnificent but scenic splendour was no substitute for heat.

The pilots spent a bitterly cold and hungry night, and reached Ekaterinodar in time for breakfast. They assembled on the platform, yawning and stamping. Griffin sent Wragge to find the station canteen. He came back, shaking his head. “Bloody awful language,” he said. “Either the Russians don't eat breakfast, or they do and they've eaten it all. Take your pick.”

“Jessop,” Griffin said sharply. “For Christ's sake stop scratching.”

“I'm being eaten for breakfast, sir,” Jessop said. “The little Russian bastards think I'm bacon and eggs.”

Griffin looked around. All he could see was a wall with signs and posters in a garbled and incoherent alphabet, and a drifting crowd of civilians, rich and poor, carrying what mattered most to them, whether it was a live chicken or a sable overcoat; and bunches of soldiers with faces from a dozen races, all wearing a mix of tired uniforms and all bearing the shut-in defensive look of an army that has been given too many stupid orders and is wary of hearing more.

“No point in standing here looking stupid,” Griffin said. “I'm going
to find the H.Q.” He pointed at Hackett. “You're in command.” They watched him disappear into the crowd. A minute passed.

“We could eat Maynard,” Dextry said. “He's fresh.”

They looked at Maynard, who frowned hard.

“Not without roast potatoes,” Jessop said. “I couldn't stomach Maynard without roast spuds.”

“Here's a funny joke,” Dextry said. “What is a roast potato and six bottles of Guinness?” Nobody cared. “A seven-course meal in Ireland,” he said. Nobody laughed. “I can change the potato to boiled cabbage, if you like.” Nobody spoke. “In that case, you can all go and piss in your hats,” he said.

“Salvation!” Hackett announced. He waved his cap. “Here comes God Almighty.”

A captain wearing a brassard with the letters R.T.O. cut through the mob. He was the Railway Transport Officer. He knew all, commanded all, permitted this, denied that. “Burridge,” he said. “Are you Major Burridge?” He squinted at the unfamiliar badges of rank. “You're not Burridge.” He made it sound like an accusation.

“Hackett, flight lieutenant. This is Merlin Squadron, R.A.F.”

“No.” He rapped his gloved knuckles on his clipboard. “Got no authority for you. Don't exist here. What's your transit priority number?” Fifty yards away, another train was arriving with a screech of brakes and a gush of steam. People rushed towards it; hundreds of people.

Hackett heard the hoarseness in the captain's throat and saw the weariness in his eyes. This man had been on duty all night and few things had gone right for him. “God knows our number,” Hackett said. “But we're here, and we need your help.”

“So you say. Without authority …” The clipboard got another rap. “Not my problem.” As he turned to leave, Hackett grabbed him above the elbow. Hackett's fingers could unscrew a rusty nut from a corroded bolt as if they were opening a jar of jam, and they found a nerve in the captain's arm. “We'll go for a walk,” he said gently. “You and me and Wragge.”

The R.T.O. could stand on his dignity as pain flowered down his arm, or he could walk. The pain reached his fingers and he dropped his clipboard. He walked.

The others watched them go. “Fat chance,” Jessop said. “We don't
exist. Starve to death for all he cares.” All around, men were sitting down.

Hackett stopped when the squadron was out of sight. With his free hand he had unbuttoned his greatcoat and opened the flap of his holster and now he took out the revolver. As he released his grip on the R.T.O.'s arm, he raised the gun and tickled him under the chin with it, until the man looked him in the eyes. “Mr Wragge will explain,” he said.

“These men are not soldiers,” Wragge said. “They are intrepid aviators, cavalry of the clouds, knights of the sky. They don't understand the regulations that are meat and drink to you. They have spent all night in a freezing, stinking, crawling Russian train and now they want breakfast. If I tell them otherwise they will kill you, and then me. Is that reasonable?”

“You're mad. You're raving.”

“So we have three options. First, Hackett here could shoot himself. He's desperate enough. Wouldn't let you off the hook, though. Second, he could shoot you. The boys would like that.” Now the muzzle was tickling the R.T.O.'s ear. “Please them enormously, that would. Or third, we could shoot that squalid peasant.” He pointed. Hackett used the revolver to turn the R.T.O.'s head.

A family of four squatted on the stone floor. They were like a thousand others: scrawny legs, hopeless faces, barefoot, dressed in tattered sheepskins, everything permanently dirty.

“Go ahead.” The R.T.O.'s voice began to crack under the strain. “Shoot his wife too. And the children, bloody orphans, get rid of them, won't you?”

“Ah! Talking sense at last!” Hackett said. “Now do we get breakfast?” The R.T.O. nodded. “And transport to the aerodrome?” Another nod. “You tell the boys,” Hackett said. “They'll love you for it.” He bent down and fired and shot the spur off the R.T.O.'s right boot. The bullet ricocheted off the station floor and sang its way to nowhere special. The R.T.O. stumbled, almost fell, recovered. “That's bloody idiotic,” he said. Now his voice was stumbling too.

“Of course it is. In France an SE5 squadron near us had a C.O. who did the same thing to some fart just like you. Now you can ride on half a horse, and I can die happy. Lead on.”

Griffin was waiting for them. “Found the H.Q. Locked. Empty.”

“The captain will oblige us,” Hackett said. “Only too willing.”

The R.T.O. took the pilots to a military canteen and stood watching as they drank hot coffee and ate fried-egg sandwiches.

“He changed his tune very smartly,” Oliphant said.

“We found that we went to the same school,” Wragge said. “After that, he couldn't do enough.”

“We heard a shot. Thought maybe you decided to have him put down.”

“What? Shoot the best slow left-arm spin bowler that St Jennifer's ever produced? Not cricket, old chap.”

“St Jennifer's. I didn't know there
was
a Saint Jennifer.”

“Not many do. A small school, but with very high standards. You'd never have got in, Olly. Not a hope.”

The R.T.O. came over. “Two lorries,” he said. “Waiting outside. You haven't heard the last of this.”

“Well, you know where to find us,” Hackett said. “Up in the clouds, duelling with death.” He took the last sandwich and bit into it.

“Have a word with the management,” Wragge told the R.T.O. “Worcester Sauce is what this place needs. Otherwise … well done. Bully for you.”

“My report will go directly to the general.”

“Of course it will. Worcester Sauce. Make a note of it.”

The Royal College of Embroidery had occupied a building in the centre of Grosvenor Crescent, Belgravia, since 1783. Few Londoners knew it existed; nobody polished the small, discreet nameplate. But the house was only a short cab-ride from all the major offices of state, and on a bright but chilly afternoon in March 1919, men from most of those offices were standing in its Reading Room. They were watching the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable David Lloyd George, who was talking quietly to his chief adviser. As they watched, they were thinking their various thoughts.

Charles Delahaye from the Treasury was thinking about tax. Paying for the war had been relatively easy, you just borrowed from the Americans, who, God knows, were happy to lend. But how was the P.M. going to sell this painfully expensive peace to the people?

General Stattaford from the War Office, six feet two in his socks, was thinking how short the P.M. was. Midgets were taking over the world. Even the Grenadier Guards had lowered their height requirement. Tragic, really. How can you have a short Grenadier?

Sir Franklyn Fletcher, Permanent Private Secretary at the Foreign Office, was thinking the P.M. looked awfully tired. All this rushing back and forth to France for the Peace Conference. Suppose President Wilson had to go back to America, suppose the P.M. went down with this terrible flu which was spreading everywhere – that would leave Clemenceau running the show and then we're really
dans le potage
…

James Weatherby, from the Home Office, was thinking Lloyd George looked like a small greengrocer. What did women see in him? The man had all the charm of a walrus and more sex than a goat. The British newspapers were squared, nothing to worry about there, but what if the truth appeared in the foreign Press? The old goat might sue for libel. Weatherby shuddered.

Lloyd George nodded goodbye to them all, and left.

His chief adviser, Jonathan Fitzroy, sixty, was built like a blacksmith, face like a turnip, mind like a razor, and morals of a stoat. Or so people said. He gestured at the armchairs, arranged in a wide circle. For himself he chose a large cane chair. It gave him a height advantage.

“Gentlemen: you probably know each other. However …” He quickly introduced everyone, ending with General Stattaford. “I shouldn't be here,” the general said. “Forgot my
petit-point
.” He smiled when they chuckled. One up to the Army.

“An unusual rendezvous, I agree,” Fitzroy said. “We're here because, first, my sister runs the College, and secondly, it's completely private. Free from gossip. And that matters because our agenda has only one, very delicate, item: Russia. The Prime Minister feels the public needs to be reassured. Some aspects of our Russian involvement may be causing confusion. It's a matter of communications. Why are we in Russia? A simple and easily understood message is what the P.M. seeks. He looks to you for help.”

“Two words. Strategic necessity,” General Stattaford said. “Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of the war in the east. Common knowledge. Obviously we had to go in and start it again, otherwise the Boche would hammer us twice as hard in the west. Damn near did, too. Strategic necessity, gentlemen. Any fool can see that.”

“The Foreign Office looks uneasy,” Jonathan Fitzroy said.

“I can see what the general means, but …” Sir Franklyn frowned. “We never actually got the war going again in the east, did we? And anyway, the Armistice changed all that.”

“I don't know anybody who believes we're still in Russia because of the German war,” James Weatherby said. “That's ancient history. Frankly, the Home Office doesn't give a toss what their Bolsheviks did last year.”

“Doesn't it? I do,” the general said. “Betrayed the Allies! Made peace with the Hun! Opened their doors, told him to help himself! I call that treachery. Despicable vermin. A lot of good men died on the Western Front, gentlemen, friends of mine, just because the Bolsheviks threw in the towel. If I'd been given my way, the minute the Boche surrendered I'd have ordered them to about-turn and march east and not come back until every Bolshevik was cold meat. You may smile, gentlemen, but if my strategy had been applied, Russia wouldn't be a problem for us today, would it?”

“I'm not saying the Bolsheviks don't matter,” Weatherby said patiently. “Far from it. The Home Office is very concerned about Bolshevik interference
here
. Rioting in Glasgow and Belfast was definitely provoked by Communists. Blood was shed, a few men died. Typical Bolshevik tactics. Destroy from within.”

Silence. Then Jonathan Fitzroy said: “So … is that our advice to the P.M.? We're in Russia because that's where the threat comes from?”

“No other country wants to get really involved,” Sir Franklyn said. “Not on Britain's scale, anyway. Not Italy. France went in and pulled out. America thinks it's done enough. We're on our own. It's rather a lonely crusade, isn't it?”

“A crusade against an international conspiracy,” James Weatherby said. “Lenin's own words. Communist world domination.”

“Red tentacles,” the general said helpfully.

“The man in the street wouldn't know a red tentacle from a black pudding,” Sir Franklyn said. “Britain has fought a lot of foreign wars, some popular, some not, and I can tell you what the man in the street recognizes. It's victories. Success proves we must be doing right. The best message the P.M. could give the nation is a thumping victory in Russia. Unfortunately …” He raised an eyebrow at Fitzroy.

“A military victory would certainly help,” Fitzroy said. “The pity is, the Bolsheviks seem to be doing rather well. People want to know why. And we don't need awkward questions asked in the House.”

“Easy,” Stattaford said. “Tell the blighters it's not in our national interest to give such information.”

“We tried that. The House didn't like it.”

“Don't know why. Censorship worked jolly well in wartime.”

“War's over. In peacetime they want straight answers.”

“So says the
Manchester Guardian
,” Weatherby said. “Not to mention the
Daily Express
.”

“Radical rags,” the general muttered.

“You've been very silent, Charles,” Fitzroy said. “Does the Treasury have an opinion?”

“The Treasury has seven hundred and fifty-seven million opinions,” Delahaye said. “The Tsar's government borrowed seven hundred and fifty-seven million pounds from Britain to fight their side of the war. If our troops in Russia can persuade them to pay it back, I'm sure the British taxpayer will express a very heartfelt thank-you.”