A Splendid Little War (17 page)

They formed two rings, one inside the other: women on the inside danced one way, men on the outside danced the other. Pedlow and Duncan found it hypnotic but exhausting. This was only the beginning, the warm-up. The dancers started spinning, competing in a tireless contest to dance harder, spin faster. “They're crazy,” Pedlow said. A few dancers collapsed. Their mouths were foaming and their shouts blew foam. Clothing was thrown off. Many of the remaining dancers, men and women, were naked. “What now?” Duncan asked.

“I hate to think,” Pedlow said.

But within minutes the dance was over, the singing had stopped, the dancers were sprawling. That was when the priest approached the airmen with a young man on one side and a young woman on the other. Both were naked. He held a knife in each hand.

“Ritual sacrifice,” Duncan said.

“I think it's worse than that,” Pedlow said.

The young man took a knife and began slicing off his left testicle. The young woman took a knife and began carving away her right breast. Duncan groaned and fainted. Pedlow grabbed him and carried him away. When he looked back the amputations were done and blood painted the figures red.

Wrangel sent two open carriages, horse-drawn, each with room for four guests. Griffin took with him the adjutant, Count Borodin and Hackett. In the other carriage went Oliphant, Wragge and a couple of bomber pilots, Tommy Hopton and Douglas Gunning. Their
plennys
had worked hard. Buttons were bright, creases were sharp.

The carriages crossed the aerodrome and turned south. The weather had cleared and the evening skies were an immense eggshell blue fading to yellow. Squadrons of little birds took off and circled and settled. Griffin stretched his legs. “This is the way to travel, adjutant. We never had this in France.”

Brazier nodded. He was looking to the left. “What's going on over there, count?”

Two hundred yards away, a crowd of men were digging a hole. It was long and deep; already they had created a heap of earth along one side. The setting sun caught the steady action of shovels being swung. Nobody paused, nobody looked at the carriages. At least two hundred men were at work. Probably more.

“A place to bury the typhus victims,” Borodin said. “The disease is raging in Tsaritsyn, I'm afraid.” End of conversation.

Two miles on, the carriages reached the drive of a handsome country house, busy with arrivals. It was not yet dark but the windows were blazing with lights. At the portico, the airmen were greeted by someone who was so magnificently dressed that he could have been the butler or the Brazilian ambassador. Borodin made the introductions. The man turned out to be Denikin's brother-in-law. “The owner is in Switzerland. It's a long story,” Borodin said. “Please follow me.”

The house throbbed with male talk. This was not an evening for the ladies, although the fragrance of eau-de-cologne was everywhere. The uniforms of the Russian guests were never less than brilliant, the tunics rich with decorations, the epaulettes heavy with gold braid, the calf-length boots as glossy as glass. Every man wore a sword and every sword
hilt glittered with jewels. “How many generals are here?” Hackett asked.

“About seventy or eighty,” Borodin said. “And a few colonels and one or two admirals. The Bishop of Tsaritsyn is somewhere.”

“They stare at me as if I'm in my underwear.”

“Pay no attention. This is just the throng. We shall join the favoured few.”

He led them to an anteroom. The chandeliers were dazzling and the uniforms were even more heavily hung with awards, gold-tasselled lanyards, silk sashes. General Wrangel left a group of a dozen and shook hands with Griffin. “
Dobry vecher
,” he said.

“We are honoured by your invitation to such a distinguished gathering, sir,” Griffin said.

Wrangel looked at the count, who translated: “Congratulations on your brilliant victory over the fiendish enemy.”

“They don't speak our language, do they?” Wrangel said to him. “Well, tell them that half the guns they've sent are useless and their boots are too big for my soldiers, but we are glad to get their money and please send more.”

“The general admires your famous British courage,” Borodin told the airmen, “and he applauds the way your skilful flying terrifies the enemy.”

Wrangel gave them a friendly nod and went away.

They turned to the delights on display. A cut-glass bowl as big as a baby's bath was full of vodka. A swan carved from ice appeared to float in the middle. Lying on the bottom were what seemed to be gemstones, and probably were. The goblets were of crystal and the ladle was solid silver. They helped themselves.

Pancakes were being served, in abundance. “These are
blinochki
,” Borodin said. “Famous in Russia as an appetizer. The stuffings are too many to mention. Next will be
blinochki's syrom
, a Ukrainian speciality, filled with numerous cheeses. Then there are
bliny
, served with melted butter and caviare.” For the airmen, lunch was a distant memory. They sampled everything, washed down with vodka. “I should warn you,” Borodin said, “these are merely
hors d'oeuvres
. The true banquet is yet to come.”

“The Russian Army does things in style, doesn't it?” Wragge said. “What a pity Bellamy isn't here to enjoy it.”

“Here's to Bellamy!” Hackett said. They all drank to that. The vodka was beginning to work. “He owed me a quid, so I've bagged his flying boots.”

“That's in very poor taste,” Wragge said.

“I agree,” Oliphant said. “Show some respect for the dead.”

“Why?” Hackett said. “He didn't die for me, or for you. He ran out of luck, that's all. He's gone and I'm still alive. What else matters?”

“There's no point in arguing with him,” Wragge told Oliphant. “He went to the wrong school. Not his fault.”

“Boolabong Academy,” Hackett said. “Very exclusive. Highest standards. If you couldn't spell ‘illicit intercourse' properly, they beat the living shit out of you.” But Wragge and Oliphant had moved on.

James Hackett's former C.O. was right: he was a tenacious bugger. At the age of twelve he knew what he wanted: to be the best swimmer in Sydney, in New South Wales, in all of Australia. He swam every day until he could easily swim twenty-five yards underwater. When he was fourteen his chest was two sizes larger than normal and his shirts wouldn't fasten at the collar. Then his father, who was a printer, got a savage pain in his side and a burst appendix killed him. Peritonitis, the doctors said. Dead, whatever you called it.

The unfairness of his loss left James stunned, and then angry. He abandoned swimming and decided to become a surgeon.

After that, in every spare minute, he read second-hand medical books. His friends said he was off his trolley, his mother said it was unhealthy, all this reading, it wouldn't bring his dad back, why didn't he get a job at the printer's, bring in some money, God knows they needed it. Within a year she had remarried. Soon there was an infant brother and she had no time left for James. He decided to go to Victoria College. “Not on my money, you're not,” his stepfather said. “You'll work in my butcher's shop. Get some real blood on your hands.” By then James was out the door, out the house. Soon, out of Sydney, out of Australia. He lied about his age and joined the Royal Australian Navy.

He shovelled coal in a cruiser for a year. Off-duty he learned semaphore and got promoted to Signals, had a spell in Guns, finally won a place on the bridge as captain's messenger. It was from the bridge that he saw his first aeroplane, a seaplane, and knew at once that he had to learn to fly. They were at war; the cruiser was in England, in Portsmouth harbour; he couldn't escape a grinding tour of Atlantic patrols. This almost certainly saved his life. Only in 1917 did the Australian Navy grudgingly agree to his transfer to the Australian Army. The army was happy to give him a commission and send him to the Royal Flying
Corps, which was eager for any volunteer to replace the wastage in France.

He handled engine controls as clumsily as most trainee pilots, but once in the air he managed the lurching, wandering, underpowered craft with the skills he had learned from keeping his balance in a cruiser that was battling the Atlantic gales. For Second Lieutenant Hackett, aeroplanes were an extension of boats: you sailed on the air and you paid close attention to the wind and the weather. Forward momentum made it possible to steer. Watch the birds and learn.

And get your hands dirty. At the end of a day's training, most pupils headed for the Mess and aimed to get blotto. Hackett went to the hangars and talked to the mechanics. When he got posted to France, he knew almost as much as the ground crew about the Sopwith Camel and its Rhône rotary engine.

The mechanics knocked some planks from a packing case and they made a coffin. The
plennys
dug a grave in the steppe, two feet wide, six and a half feet long, six feet deep. They struck clay, and it was dusk by the time they finished.

Lacey was acting C.O. during the period of the banquet. The sergeant medic told him that Mr Bellamy had to be taken care of now, they couldn't wait until morning. The smell was bad and getting worse. Lacey told Maynard to select five other officers who would form a firing party. A sergeant gave them rifles and showed them how to load and fire. Some wanted to practise. Lacey foresaw trouble and said there was no time for that. A fresh squad of
plennys
– the first lot were wet with sweat and stained with clay – lifted the coffin from the train. Lacey and the sergeant carried hurricane lamps and the whole party set off.

The moon had not yet risen and the night was black. After two minutes, Lacey said: “Stop. This is too far. You've missed it, sergeant.”

“I thought you were leading, sir.”

“Don't you know where it is?”

“Never seen it. I wasn't here when the
plennys
dug it.”

Lacey sent Maynard back to fetch one of the diggers.

The
plennys
put down the coffin, and moved well away from it.

One of the hurricane lamps began to flicker. “I hope someone
remembered to fill these things,” Lacey said sharply. The sergeant took a firm grip of the lamp and shook it. Liquid sloshed. “Well, it's not empty, anyway,” he said. Lacey took a deep breath. “If it were empty, sergeant, I think we should have known by now.”

The flickering flame cast an erratic, dancing light on the scene. The
plennys
huddled together and whispered. An officer sat down and immediately got up. “Grass is soaking wet,” he complained.

“That'll be the dew, sir,” the sergeant said.

“Christ … My rear end is drenched. Totally drenched.”

He got no sympathy from the rest of the firing party. “Oh dear,” one said. “Mickey's gone and wet himself again.”

“Oh, I say, Mickey. Play the game. You're letting the side down.”

“Poor old Mickey. He could never hold his drink.”

“Look at who's talking,” Mickey said. “A glass of port and you're legless.”

“That's enough!” Lacey said.

“More than enough,” Mickey muttered. “Half a glass.”

“You're
on parade
,” Lacey said. “Kindly remember that.”

“The fact is, we're bloody lost,” someone said.

“I don't see why this couldn't wait until morning,” another said. “Leave the box here. Perfectly safe.”

“Unthinkable,” Lacey said. But the idea provoked discussion.

“Nothing's safe out here,” Mickey said. “Some thieving Russki might steal him in the night, open the box, heart attack.”

“Now there's
two
bodies. Doesn't look good.”

“Got the makings of an international incident.”

“Diplomatic uproar. High-level complaints. All because of you, Lacey.”

“Only one complaint matters,” Lacey said, “and that's Jeremy Bellamy's. We are here to send it to the lowest level. If you want a second opinion, smell the coffin.” Nobody moved. “Very wise.”

A
plenny
came out of the night. Maynard was behind him, waving his rifle. “About time,” Lacey said.

“I had the devil of a job persuading him to leave the train,” Maynard said. “He thought I was going to shoot him. I couldn't explain because … I couldn't.”

The
plenny
hurried to his comrades. There was much gesturing and excited talk and finally suppressed laughter. The
plenny
went back to
Maynard and saluted, and pointed into the night. The funeral party set off. “We nearly didn't find you,” Maynard said. “One of your lamps is on its last legs.”

“I know,” Lacey said. “It's one of the few things I do know.”

“Perhaps it's low on fuel.”

“Perhaps. We're all rather low on fuel, Maynard. All except for poor Bellamy, who's empty, so let's put him to rest, shall we?”

Maynard knew that tone of voice. He had often heard it from parents and schoolmasters and, more recently, adjutants. It meant:
If that's the best you can say, then shut up
.

Ten minutes of wandering finally paid off, and they found the place.

The
plennys
laid Bellamy on the grass at one end of the grave and the sergeant gave them two long straps of khaki webbing. They slid the straps under the coffin. Two
plennys
stood on each side and wrapped the webbing around their fists.

Lacey opened Brazier's copy of the
British Army Pocket Book, 1917
, and knew at once that the Burial Service was too long. He cut to the middle and read: “Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live,

and is full of misery.” (Total tosh, he thought. No R.A.F. squadron is full of misery. Not even half-full.) “He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.” (Some truth in that.) He looked up and made a vaguely priestly gesture towards the grave.