War Story (41 page)

“No, no, of course not. I can remember yesterday, but today's patrols are a blank. Isn't that funny?”

“Come on, then,” O'Neill said. “What happened yesterday?”

“Um … Well… Nothing happened yesterday, did it?”

“You two got a flamer yesterday,” Brazier said. “At least, that's what's in my notes.”

“Hey, that's good,” Paxton said. “That's
very
good, isn't it? My sainted aunt! A flamer! That's tremendous.”

“Don't drench your drawers, Pax, because we didn't get one today,” O'Neill said. “In fact we got bugger-all on that last patrol except a chunk of red-hot archie through the wing.”

Brazier made a note.

“I seem to remember today was damn good fun,” Paxton said.

“You frightened a couple of Aviatiks, I suppose. Put down that he frightened a couple of Aviatiks, adj. And put down that he terrified me as usual.”

“Really?” Paxton said. “How?”

“I'm going to have a bath.” O'Neill went out.

“What on earth did he mean?” Paxton asked.

Brazier shuffled his notes together and put them away. “Bunny's looking tired,” he said.

“Is he? I hadn't noticed.” Paxton licked his lips and tasted the salty chemicals left by the blowback of the Lewis. It was a taste he enjoyed. “Dunno what he's got to be tired about. All he does is drive the bus. I'm the one who does the hard work. Not that I'm complaining, adj. Bloody good fun.”

“So you say. From what you can remember. How about Private Watkins? Can you remember him?”

Paxton laughed. “The spider in the lawnmower…” Brazier raised his eyebrows. “Never mind, adj. Too complicated to explain. Yes, I remember Watkins, poor little chap. I thought you were a bit hard on him, to be frank. I mean, why not—”

“Why not kiss it better and give him sixpence for sweets? Because that's not how battles are won.”

“Oh, come on! Watkins isn't going to win a battle for anyone, ever. He's—”

“He's tried to desert three times already, so his company commander told me. He'll never win a battle, you're right there, but he could easily help to lose it. You let one man get away because he doesn't feel like fighting and the rot spreads through his platoon, his company, his battalion. They go into battle but they won't stand and fight. They run, just as Watkins ran. They abandon their comrades on the flanks and leave them exposed to the enemy. Far better to shoot one man now than lose a thousand when the line fails.”

“Good God,” Paxton said, all humour gone,”he's not going to be shot, is he?”

“If I had my way, yes. I'd parade the battalion in a hollow square, I'd march Private Watkins in, I'd read the charge and the penalty and I'd have him shot, which would save a lot of
decent men's lives later on. But it's not up to me, and I don't know what they'll do with him.”

Paxton had strolled over to a window. “Pity about the rain,” he said. “Just as we got the tennis courts finished.”

“If you don't want to be thrown through that window,” Brazier said,”you'd better leave by the door.”

Paxton left by the door. Lacey was in the Orderly Room, unpacking gramophone records. “Watkins is quite safe for the moment,” he said. “He was sentenced to death as a matter of form, but in view of the imminent battle it seemed superfluous, so they've done the usual thing and given him a chance to redeem his crime … I know it's a matter of taste, but I wouldn't have thought Watkins was your type.”

Paxton frowned. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Well…” Lacey blew some straw off a record. “He's quite pretty, I suppose, but
sullen.
And I'm sure he's never owned a toothbrush in his life. No ambition there. And you are ambitious, aren't you?”

Paxton thought about that. It made him uncomfortable, so he asked: “What was all that about redeeming his crime?”

“Don't you know? I assumed everyone knew. They'll give Watkins the most dangerous job in the first wave. That will give him the greatest chance to demonstrate enough bravery and devotion to duty and similar abstract nouns to wipe out his offence.”

“Oh,” Paxton said. “I hadn't heard of that.”

“Oh yes. You'd be surprised what an incentive to heroism crime can be. Young Watkins will emerge with the VC. You watch.”

Cleve-Cutler took Piggott out of a game of poker and led him to the end of the bar, where Foster was standing. “I think you ought to hear this, Tim,” he said. “Just wait a sec while I get Dando.” He went away.

“I had a king-flush,” Piggott said.

Foster smiled sadly. “Think yourself lucky,” he said. “Archie Ryan had gangrene.”

It took a moment for Piggott to remember Ryan and what had happened to him. “That's damn bad luck. I liked Archie.”

“People shouldn't play around with guns.”

Piggott was silenced by this remark. Cleve-Cutler came back with Dando and Gerrish. “Frank's invented a new way to win the war,” he said. “Fire away, Frank.”

“You are, I'm sure, familiar with the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” Foster said. He flashed a keen, conspiratorial grin at each man.

“No,” Gerrish said.

“Probably a writer,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Chaps with three names are usually writers, aren't they?”

Foster raised a forefinger. “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

“Oh yes,” Dando said. “Coleridge.
Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
I had to learn great chunks of it at school. He shot a bird, didn't he? Shot the wrong bird and brought bad luck to the ship.”

“Exactly,” Foster said. “And the same thing's happened to us. Why have we had all this bad luck? Damn decent chaps, all gone west, one after another? I'll tell you why.
Somebody in this squadron has shot down an Albatros with a crossbow.”
He raised his eyebrows and looked hard, checking to be sure they understood.

“Come off it, Frank,” Piggott said. “Who would want to attack a Hun with a crossbow? It's absurd. Where on earth would anyone
get
a crossbow?”

“Harrods,” Foster said.

“Listen,” Gerrish said,”do you know this for a fact? I mean, who is this idiot?”

Foster suddenly became quite passionate. “I know for a fact that decent chaps keep going west day after day,” he said,”and
somebody's
got to be responsible. Don't you agree?” His head was trembling with anger.

“I still don't see the point,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Why pot an Albatros with a crossbow?”

“To
humiliate
the enemy, of course,” Foster said. It was so obvious to him that he could only look pityingly at the CO. “Any fool can see that. But while he's been humiliating the Hun, this chap has been bringing the squadron all this shocking bad luck. No doubt he means well. But it's got to stop.”

They stood in silence. All except Foster looked awkward and uncomfortable. Foster looked angry and determined. “Don't worry,” he said. “I'll track him down. I'll get him, and that will bring this war to a sudden end, believe you me.” He took his umbrella and went out.

“I realise we've discussed this before,” Dando said to Cleve-Cutler,”but how much longer can you let him go on like this?”

“Just as long as his Flight keeps on knocking down Huns,” the CO said. “It's as simple as that. If we kicked out all the loonies in the RFC, we'd be down to single figures in a fortnight.”

Dando nodded towards the other two, who were arguing about how best to shoot down an Albatros with a crossbow. They were getting quite excited. “Want my job?” Cleve-Cutler said to Dando. “The pay's not much but the prospects are lousy.”

A string of limousines lined the drive. They were black, shiny, serious cars that never got driven for fun. You had to have whiskers and a pince-nez and a stomach you could eat your dinner off before you were allowed in the back of one of those cars. Paxton rode past, sneering at them and their owners, and parked his motorbike in the stable yard.

A maid met him at the main entrance, showed him to a small reception room and went away. He stood at the window and watched the rain. It looked finer and silkier than the rain at Pepriac. For the rich, even the weather watched its manners.

After five minutes a very old wolfhound wandered in, looked him over, decided he wasn't worth knowing, and wandered away.

After another five minutes the maid came back with a card. All it said was
Shan't be long.
He knew the writing.

Another maid brought a tray of sandwiches and a bottle of claret. Also the London papers.

It was dusk before she came in. “Thank God, a human being at last!” she said and kissed him, a full, unhurried kiss with both arms around his neck. “Is that horseradish sauce I taste?” she asked.

“More likely cordite. I get it off the Lewis gun.”

“Yummy. It suits you.”

“Is something important going on here?”

“Formal, yes. Important, no. Fortunately, they've reached the cognac, so I slid out. Come on, David, let's go for a swim. Bring the wine.”

They walked down to the lake, hand in hand, under a giant golf umbrella. The claret was stuffed in his tunic pocket. The rain was more like mist; he felt as if he were in a secret, enclosed world, a place where he was no longer in control. So he relaxed entirely and let things happen to him.

The boathouse was black except for the open end, which showed the misty lake like a picture in a book. “I can't find any coat-hooks,” he said.

“Hang your stuff on the floor. That's what it's for. Oh God … That water is going to be so wonderful. You can't imagine how sticky I feel. Those creaky old men have been rolling their eyeballs over me all evening. Are you ready?”

Paxton found himself trembling, although it was not cold. He took a huge breath, so big that a couple of joints creaked, and he stretched. Her hand found his and she led him onto a diving board, broad enough for two. “This is new,” he said. Their weight made it bounce excitingly. His toes felt the end of the board. Still he had not been brave enough to look at her. Her arms, very cool and strong, went around him and as they kissed, strange new contours pressed against him. Her feet stepped onto his and her hands drifted down his back until they held his buttocks. Judy knew best. He did the same to her. His eyes were shut; his brain was flooded with pleasure; he had surrendered all control of his senses, including the sense of balance. They toppled together. There was a fraction of a second when he knew he was falling and another fraction of a second when he enjoyed it, and then the lake exploded in a burst of cold, bracing foam that pulled them apart.

They raced each other to the little island, and she won.

“Okay,” she said. They were lying side by side on the smooth boulder, and he was gasping for breath. “What's new with the war?”

He told her about the barrage, heard here as a ceaseless
grumble, about its sparkle by day and its colour by night. “Honestly, I think it's the prettiest thing I've ever seen,” he said. “Present company excepted, of course.” He was finally looking at her. There was no moon, but his imagination filled in the gaps. “And we've got a marvellous new bus, just the job for trench-strafing.” She wanted to know what strafing was. “You find some Hun infantry,” he said, “and you fly as low as you can and you shoot them up. Or shoot them down. Wonderful sport. Jolly dangerous, of course, because they tend to get peeved when you knock ‘em down, so they fire back.”

“What happens? When you knock them down, I mean. What does it look like?”

Paxton laughed. “Not like what you see on the pictures, I can tell you that! They do all sorts of gymnastics. Some spin around, some do cartwheels, some seem to run backwards! Very comical, it is. Sometimes I laugh so much I can't shoot straight.”

Judy hooked her little finger with his. “I wish I were a man,” she said.

“Mind you, it's damned hard work. Especially now we've got this new bus that flies so much higher. You see, the air gets thin at ten or twelve thousand and it's bloody tiring, jumping from one gun to another.” Suddenly his memory cleared. Suddenly he remembered the flamer. “I made a hell of a good kill yesterday,” he said.

She got up and sat astride him, and held his hands so that his arms were raised. “Tell, tell,” she said.

“It was a Fokker two-seater. We were miles high. He must have come out of the sun – they do that if they can – because first thing we knew, his tracer was buzzing past. It really does buzz, just like a lot of hornets chasing you. He was behind us but we've got a really spiffing new gun that fires backwards, over the tail, so I peppered him good and hard with that.” Her fingers tightened. “Then somehow
we
got behind
him
and I used the nose gun. We were so close I could see the Hun gunner, he looked very surprised. Then he tumbled back and his gun pointed up in the sky, so I knew I'd killed him.” Now her grip was almost painful. “The Fokker tried to dive but he wasn't fast enough. I fired the rest of the drum into the pilot
and of course the pilot sits on the fuel tanks so I hit those too and all of a sudden,
whoosh!”
Her nails were digging into his flesh. “The flames are so bright, all yellow and red, and they burst out so suddenly, it's not like something burning, it's more like an enormous flower in the sky. Beautiful. Unbelievably beautiful.”

He could feel great tension in her arms and thighs, squeezing and pressing. Abruptly she relaxed and fell on top of him, biting and pinching, not enough to hurt but enough to make him wrestle. At first he tried to win. Then he discovered it was more fun to lose. The fun was becoming serious when she made them both roll into the water, which was too deep for wrestling.