Hornet’s Sting (3 page)

“Sorry about the whisky,” Lynch said. He gave the binoculars to Simms.

“The odd thing is they're
not
Saxons,” Vine said. “One of them deserted, the other night. They're Bavarians.”

“That completes the Cook's Tour of the Front,” Harry said. “Unless you want to look in on our Advanced Casualty Clearing Station?”

“Another time, perhaps,” Lynch said.

“Well, think of us, under the stars,” Vine said, “when your servant is tucking you up in your feather bed.”

But by the time they had walked to the smashed village, and waited for transport, it was black night. They finally scrounged a ride to the landing ground and slept in blankets on the hangar floor. Next morning, unwashed and unshaven, they flew back to Pepriac.

* * *

There were three guests at lunch in the mess. Nobody was surprised to see Colonel Bliss, from Wing H.Q. The other two were strangers, in strange uniforms: their breeches were baggier and their tunics shorter than the British Army's style. One man had a small beard, which the British Army forbade. They were young and they wore more medals
than a general would collect if he spent his entire career in the cannon's mouth.

The padre said grace. Brown soup was served.

“Wops,” Spud Ogilvy guessed. “Wops from Italy.”

Gerrish shook his head. “One's got blue eyes.”

“You can't possibly see that from here,” said Dando, the doctor. “Can you?” The day was gloomy and the mess was dim. He envied their eyesight.

“The Italian Army is fighting splendidly,” the padre said. He was the tallest man in the squadron, and the most enthusiastic. “The Italians will stand no nonsense from the Austrians.”

“If they're not wops, they're Greeks,” Ogilvy said. “Lots of fighting in Salonika. Is that in Greece?”

“Ask young Mr Hamilton,” Gerrish said. “He was at school last year, so he should know. Where's Salonika, Mr Hamilton?”

Hamilton hated having people stare at him. “Geography wasn't all that important at Rugby,” he muttered.

“Well, I don't suppose they play much rugby in Salonika,” the doctor said. “So you're quits.”

The soup plates were cleared. Mutton chops arrived. Lynch, who had been listening carefully, said: “I know who that chap with the beard is. I just can't remember his name.”

“How about the fellow next to him?” Gerrish said.

“Ah, that's Cleve-Cutler. Claims to be C.O. here. Can't make up his mind. One day he wants you to go balloon-busting, next day he doesn't. Bet you wouldn't have put up with him at Salonika,” he said to Hamilton. “Eh?” Hamilton stopped eating, and his eyes flickered in panic from Lynch to Gerrish, who merely shook his head. Lynch sawed a chunk off his chop and waggled it on his fork. “Say no more.” He was silent for the rest of the meal. Gerrish was glad of this. He found Lynch's jokes unfunny. If they
were
jokes. How could anyone tell?

* * *

The visiting officers came from Russia. Colonel Bliss told the C.O. and the adjutant that they were on secondment from the Imperial Russian Air Force and they were now attached to Hornet Squadron,
to gain experience. “Did you know there is a Russian regiment already in the Lines?” Bliss said. “No? Well, there is. Maybe the Tsar plans to send us a squadron of his latest scouts, too.”

After lunch, Captain Brazier took the Russians on a tour of the aerodrome, while Bliss and Cleve-Cutler went to the C.O.'s office for a chat.

“I'm told they don't speak a word of English,” Bliss said, “which doesn't mean they can't understand it. Totally unpronounceable names, by the way. At Wing we called them Steak and Kidney. The beard is Kidney.”

“How did they get all those medals? They look about my age.”

“Younger. They're related to the Tsar, distantly. Steak is a grand duke and Kidney's a marquee or a flower show or something. I expect the medals came with the titles. Top Marks for Pluck. Cossack Order of Chastity, Third Class. Best Geranium in Show, that sort of thing. You know what the Russian court is like.”

“No.”

“Treat them like any other officer.”

“How well can they fly?”

“That's for you to find out, old chap.” Bliss was looking out at the drab, dank afternoon. “This would be considered a bright, sunny day in Russia, so they should feel quite at home here ... Now then. About Captain Lynch.”

“We've sent Colonel Merrivale a case of whisky.”

“Send him a dozen, he won't forgive you.” Bliss put on his glasses, looked hard at Cleve-Cutler, then took them off. “The Corps is not universally popular, you know, Hugh. London gets bombed by Zeppelins while we buzz about like flies in a thunderstorm. Some people in high places think the money would be better spent on more anti-aircraft guns. Don't bugger-up the infantry. Bugger-up the Hun. Otherwise you'll never get a better Pup.”

“Let me get this straight, Colonel,” Cleve-Cutler said. “To prove that they need a better machine, my chaps must first succeed with an inferior fighter. Have I got it right?”

Bliss shrugged on his British Warm and picked up his hat and stick. He put a hand on Cleve-Cutler's shoulder and leaned forward until his mouth was near the C.O.'s ear. “Don't tell them,” he whispered, “and they'll probably never find out.”

* * *

Captain Vine had been right: nobody launches an attack in January. The wind moaned over his stretch of trench and from time to time rain pattered or bucketed or lashed down on his men. Their boots churned the mud to a clinging, sucking liquid that made walking a drudgery and running an impossibility.

Pepriac too was wet and windy, but smoke raced from the stove pipes, the billets were dry, the beds were warm and the food was hot. Every night, Wing H.Q. sent its orders for the coming day. Usually it wanted deep offensive patrols, and usually its orders were cancelled before breakfast. The pilots relaxed again. They settled down to a day of letter-writing and poker, of drowsing in battered leather armchairs while mishit ping-pong balls ricocheted past their heads, of winding up the gramophone to play songs from
Chu-Chin-Chow
or
The Bing Boys Are Here
.

A mess servant brought Plug Gerrish a postcard datemarked London. He read:
Bumped into Frank Foster in Piccadilly. Calls himself Timms now and has grown a ginger moustache. Very shifty behaviour. I informed Military Intelligence but M.I. is not what it's cracked up to be. Cordially, Frank O'Neill
.

Gerrish made a sour face, and tossed the card to Spud Ogilvy. “Hilarious,” he said. Ogilvy read it and grunted.

Later, an amiable, chubby lieutenant called Munday followed the duckboards to the orderly room. Sergeant Lacey was refilling his fountain pen while listening to a Souza march on his gramophone. It ended with a crash.

“Such swagger,” Lacey said. “I am preparing myself spiritually for the Americans to enter the war. They wear cowboy hats, you know, like the Boy Scouts. So debonair, so refreshing, so irresistible to flying shrapnel. I see you have read Captain O'Neill's postcard.”

Munday gave it to him. “Can you translate? It gave off a bad smell in the mess.”

“Captain Foster was a flight commander. He had been at Eton with another pilot, Lieutenant Yeo. When Yeo was killed, Foster removed himself to a tent, took up the clarinet and blew his brains out.”

“My stars!”

“The whole episode was self-indulgent in a middle-aged way, but then Eton is a self-indulgent and middle-aged school. You can't
dress schoolboys like stockbrokers without damaging their minds.”

“Captain Ogilvy picked on the phrase ‘not what it's cracked up to be'.”

“Foster's last words. Nothing, he said, was what it was cracked up to be. A flimsy reason for suicide, don't you think?” He returned the postcard.

“So what on earth is Captain O'Neill up to?”

“Who knows?” Lacey said. “Be sure to read our next gripping instalment.”

* * *

Spud Ogilvy's parents had a big house in the west of Ireland and Cleve-Cutler thought he looked Irish: plenty of wavy black hair, a snub nose, a quick smile that revealed a couple of chipped teeth. In fact Ogilvy's parents were Scottish and he had been educated in England – at Eton, like the late Frank Foster – and his speech and habits were thoroughly English; he had damaged his teeth playing cricket. But the C.O. felt that the two Russians needed to be handled with a bit of Irish charm, so he put them into C-Flight.

Ogilvy found them in their room: half a hut, which was rather more space than two new pilots got. Ogilvy had read some of the exciting bits of
War and Peace
, so he knew that Russian nobles spoke French.
“Bonjour”
he said.
“Je suis votre chef.”

“Is a long way to Tipperary,” the clean-shaven man said. “Everyone says. Why?”

“I haven't the foggiest. But I do know that it's customary on this squadron for new pilots to put their hats on and salute their flight commander and call him ‘sir'.”

“Is customary in Imperial Russian Air Force to call me ‘Highness',” the clean-shaven Russian said. “Old soldiers kneel and kiss my boots.” He spoke casually: it was not a contest. “But not in Russia now, so ...” They put their caps on and saluted.

Ogilvy returned the salute. “Tell me your names, please.”

They gave him their cards. The clean-shaven man was Lieutenant the Duke Nikolai Dolgorankov-Orlovensky-Vladimirovich. The bearded man was Lieutenant Count Andrei Kolchak-Romishevsky. Ogilvy was impressed by their extreme good looks. So many pilots came and went that he usually paid little attention to faces, but these
two held his attention, like fine young actors. And their build was short and slim, which added to the sense of neatness. Most pilots were a bit grubby, a bit untidy: the result of long patrols with oil splattering back from the engine and whale-grease on the face. The Russians looked immaculate.

“I'm told you're here to get experience on Pups,” he said.

“No. Here to kill German pilots,” the duke said. “I promise Tsar I kill twenty-five by Easter. I swear this on crucifix of Tsar.”

“Duke Nikolai is distant cousin of Tsar,” the count said.

“And Count Andrei is distant cousin of me. Tsar chose us. We pledge our blood, which is also blood of cousin, Holy Emperor the Tsar.”

“My goodness.” Ogilvy felt a need to keep pace with all this loyalty. “How is the Tsar?” he asked.

“Very tired,” the duke said. “He carries pain and suffering of Holy Russia on his back.”

“Also in right shoulder some rheumatism, I think,” the count said.

The discussion left them silent and brooding. Ogilvy said briskly: “Well, I'm sure you'll soon settle in here. A servant will be allocated to you and then —”

“Two servants,” the duke said.

“One shared servant is customary.”

“Not in Imperial Russian Air Force. Two servants each.”

“The British Army has definite rules.”

“Not in Imperial Russian Air Force.”

“I'm afraid my hands are tied.”

“Not in Imperial Russian Air Force.”

Their bodies had stiffened, their faces were blank. “Need two servants,” the count said. “Otherwise filth and squalor. Insult to Tsar.”

“Put your hats on,” Ogilvy said. “We'll see the C.O. about it.” They put their caps on and saluted. “Not now,” he said. They looked at each other. “Never mind,” he said.

It was a long walk to Cleve-Cutler's office. Halfway there, the duke pointed out that their boots were already very muddy. “Need servants in war,” he said.

“Tell me something,” Ogilvy said. “Why didn't you speak English when you were at Wing H.Q., with Colonel Bliss?”

“Wing said nothing worth answer.”

“Ah. I should have thought of that.” They plodded on in silence.

Cleve-Cutler was polite but firm: officers of junior rank were entitled to half a servant each. The Russians thought this absurd: how could an officer be shaved by half a servant? What would the other half do? What if
both
officers needed immediate attention? “One must wait,” the C.O. said.

“Not in Imperial Russian Air Force,” the duke said.

“This is the Royal Flying Corps.” The C.O. sent for the adjutant. Captain Brazier came with a well-thumbed copy of
King's Regulations
. The duke pointed out that King George V was a first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II because their mothers were sisters. What was more, the Tsarina Alexandra was also a cousin of King George, both being grandchildren of Queen Victoria. He himself, as Duke of Dolgorankov etcetera, was a cousin of the Tsar and therefore a part of the British royal family.

“Bully for you, lad,” Brazier said. “But it earns you no special privileges here.”

“King's Regulations,”
said the count, picking up the book and slamming it shut, “cannot regulate king.”

The discussion went on for half an hour. Cleve-Cutler didn't want to impose his rank, but the Russians seemed ready to argue all day. The longer they talked, the more chopped and staccato their speech became. In the end, he offered a compromise: one servant each now, and a second each when it could be arranged.

They talked in Russian, long enough for the adjutant to clean and assemble his pipe.

“Is agreed,” the duke said. He and the count stood, put their caps on, saluted, and left.

“God's bollocks!” the C.O. roared. “And that's positively my last word on the subject.”

* * *

Ogilvy took the Russians into a hangar and showed them a Pup engine on a workbench.

“As you can see, it's a rotary,” he said. “Now —”

“Is too small,” the duke said.

“Well, rotary engines don't have to be big. A rotary doesn't work like a car engine, what we call an ‘in-line'. An in-line engine is fixed
to the frame and the cylinders go up and down and make the crankshaft go round and round, which turns the wheels. Well, forget all that. A rotary engine is totally different. The crankshaft is fixed to the front of the aeroplane. See?” He showed them a Pup with no engine. The crankshaft stuck out like the stub of a unicorn's horn. “Won't turn.
Can't
turn. What turns is the
engine
. The entire engine whizzes round the crankshaft. All nine cylinders.”