A Splendid Little War (22 page)

“Why me?” Hackett said. “I've done nothing wrong.”

“You're senior officer,” Brazier said. “Acting squadron leader, with effect from now. It's all in
King's Regulations
.” He waved the book. “Write a draft report. Lacey will polish it.”

“Hackett can't write,” Oliphant said. “He can barely speak. He counts on his fingers. He's a Colonial, for God's sake.”

“Squadron leader, you say,” Hackett said to the adjutant.

“Paid.” Brazier finished his coffee, and stood. “Must go. Bodies to organize.”

They watched him leave. “I wouldn't have come to Russia if I'd known you were going to be in charge,” Oliphant said. “All of a sudden the squadron's gone to pot.”

“Look on the bright side, Olly. When I get killed, you get command. Now shut up or I'll clap you in irons. We Australians are good at doing that. The bloody English showed us how.” Hackett sat back, feeling oddly satisfied. He looked out, at the endless, changeless steppe. He was master of all he surveyed. It wasn't worth a damn, but it was all his. “Olly,” he said. “Get hold of Lacey.”

“Can't,” Oliphant said. “He's not here. And you're corrupted by power already. I suppose you learnt that from the English too.”

There was little the adjutant could do about the bodies.

Colonel Davenport's men had reached Griffin's wreck first and thrown buckets of water at it, but they were far too late: nothing could reverse the impact of the crash and the fierceness of the fire. They shovelled up what looked as if it had been human, piled it on a stretcher, covered it with an old gas cape and carried it to a hangar. Davenport sent a Union Jack to go over the cape. Dammit, the C.O. deserved some recognition.

The bigger problem was Colonel Kenny. He too lay on a stretcher in the same hangar. Twin machine guns of several Red fighters had raked the body and killed it ten times over. Brazier was not affected by the sight
of multiple wounds; he had seen a lot worse; but these legs were knock-kneed and the feet were pigeon-toed, and that looked silly on such a big man. He tried to straighten them but they flopped back to their unsoldierly position. Someone had thoughtfully covered the face with Kenny's Glengarry, and Brazier did not move it.

The dead mechanic was in a similar state, but he was no problem: he would soon go underground. Kenny was different. Brazier sent for the medical sergeant and waited in the fresh air.

“Here's the thing,” he told the medic. “The big lad in the kilt had a V.C., and he's got to go to London. In a coffin. Smelling of roses.”

“Contrary to nature, sir.”

“Suppose we got him to Salonika. Fast express to Calais, ferry to Dover …”

The medic was shaking his head. “That's a week at least. He'd stink bad enough to stun an elephant. This heat, two elephants.” He saw what the adjutant was thinking. “Embalming, sir. I don't do it. Wouldn't know where to start.”

“No more would I, sergeant. When Nelson died at Trafalgar, they pickled him in salt and brought him home in a barrel.”

The medic took another look at Kenny. “Bloody big barrel, sir.”

The adjutant nodded sadly, and walked away. Bloody V.C.s, he thought. Raving lunatics when they're alive and a thundering nuisance when they're dead.

Most of the squadron was sitting in the shade of the train when the Chevrolet came in sight. Borodin made the car backfire twice, just to let everyone know, and he stopped where everyone could see it. The dust made by the wheels drifted away. Nobody got up.

“Less than delirious,” Lacey said.

“I must say I expected mild applause,” Borodin said. “Perhaps even a glad huzzah or two.”

“Maybe they've been worried sick about us,” Duncan said. “Too full to speak.”

They all got out of the car. Oliphant stood up and walked towards them. “I'd written you off,” he said. “We couldn't find any wreckage.”

“It's a long story,” Pedlow said.

“I started doing the paperwork. Next-of-kin, and so on.”

“Tell you what,” Duncan said. “We'll go back and die, and then you can get on with your paperwork.”

“Don't joke about it. We've got enough funerals without yours too.”

“Who's dead?” Lacey asked. “Besides Bellamy.”

“Bellamy's gone?” Pedlow said. “You might have told us.”

“You had rather a lot on your mind,” Lacey said. “And you fell asleep. Then we had tea, and that didn't seem the right moment.”

A few other pilots had joined them. “You had tea?” Tommy Hopton said. “Is that where you've been all this time? Drinking tea?”

“Stroke of luck,” Pedlow said. “Found this Russian tea shop. Damn good cream buns. Recommended.”

“I could do with a drink,” Duncan said.

“Well, you can't go into the bar looking like that,” Oliphant said. “How did you get so filthy? Where did you spend the night? And what's that curious smell?”

“Another long story,” Pedlow said. “Russian village. Simple folk. Bit short on plumbing.”

“They wanted to chop his bollocks off,” Duncan said.

That caused some laughter. “Was this in the tea shop?” Hopton asked. “I hope they let you finish your cream bun.”

“On a point of fact,” Borodin said. “Gerard himself was meant to perform the act, not the villagers. They would provide the knife.”

“So what's all the fuss about?” Jessop said. “Worse things happened to me at Tonbridge.”

Hackett had arrived. “Tonbridge what?”

“Tonbridge School. Believe me, after Tonbridge, the war was a blessed relief.”

“Sorry about the smell,” Pedlow said to Hackett. “And I'm afraid we rather broke the aeroplane. Good God.” He noticed the extra stripe on Hackett's sleeve. “You're a squadron leader.”

“Griffin went west. I'm the C.O. Are you fit to fly?”

“Now I really need a drink,” Duncan said. “A big drink.”

“You've turned into a raving dipsomaniac,” Hopton said.

“It's the tea in the tea shop,” Pedlow said. “Twelve per cent proof. They make it in a bathtub while you wait.”

Hackett inherited the C.O.'s Pullman compartment. He gave Lacey the chair, sat on the bed and explained what had happened in his absence. Ten Bolo fighters and three bombers blew the White squadron to buggery on the ground and the C.O. went off his head, attacked the Reds on his own, ten seconds later he was a flamer. At the other end of the field a visiting colonel with a V.C. did exactly the same bloody stupid thing except that he stood and fired a Lewis gun but he got the same treatment. Without the flames. Maybe he wanted to win another V.C. Christ knows. Anyway, Mission H.Q. in Ekat would have to be told. Hackett gave Lacey the adjutant's notes. “Draft a signal,” he said. “You've got half an hour. There's two g's in buggery.”

“I'll do it now,” Lacey said.

Ten minutes later he finished the draft. Hackett read:

“Um,” Hackett said. “Dunno. Bit brief, isn't it?”

“The more we say, the more there is for H.Q. to pick holes in.”

Hackett read it again. The paper crinkled between his restless fingers. “We don't know his ammunition was exhausted.”

“We don't know it wasn't.”

Hackett thought about that, and soon gave up. “This last bit … ‘His spirit and his gallantry remained unquenchable.' What's that supposed to mean? The stupid bastard picked a fight with ten Red machines and got himself killed. That must have quenched his spirit.”

“It means …” Lacey made his eyes big, and searched the room. “Whatever you want it to mean.”

Hackett massaged his face while he reviewed that, and got nowhere. “Where's the other fellow?”

“Turn over.”

Hackett looked at the other side.

“What cause is that?” Hackett asked. “Don't tell me. It's any cause I want it to be.”

“The trick of writing these things is telling people what they want to hear,” Lacey said. “Without actually lying.” He watched Hackett sign the paper. “We should go and search the colonel's train,” he said.

Hackett added
Squadron Leader, Officer Commanding, Merlin Squadron
, before he asked: “Why?”

“It's your train now. And our man in Ekat has sent me a hundred thousand roubles to pay the squadron. I bet it's under the colonel's bed.”

“We'd better take the adjutant.”

“Good idea. He's bored. He hasn't shot a British soldier since last year.”

The colonel's train was compact: just a couple of Pullman cars and a goods truck, hauled by a locomotive. A Vickers machine gun was bolted to the roof of a Pullman. A Royal Marine sentry guarded the doorway of the main coach and refused to admit anyone without Colonel Kenny's permission.

“The colonel's dead,” Hackett said. The sentry blinked, and did not move.

“Death revokes all contracts,” Lacey suggested. The Marine pursed his lips. If he thought about it, he didn't think much.

Hackett turned and looked at the setting sun. It had been a bad day. He was fairly sure he could rush this man and knock him down, but what if there were more Royal Marines waiting inside? A bad day would get worse. Then the adjutant cleared his throat.

“I congratulate you,” he said. “You have done your duty as a Royal Marine should. You are clearly a loyal and intelligent man. You can see that we all face a problem. This officer is Group Captain Hackett. He commands all British forces in this battle zone. As such, he outranked Colonel Kenny. Before he was killed, Colonel Kenny handed control of
this train to Group Captain Hackett, to operate as part of his strategic war plan. If you continue to rely on orders that have in fact expired, you tamper with Group Captain Hackett's strategic war plan. However …”

Brazier paused to let all that sink in.

“However, a lucky solution is at hand, a solution to your problem and ours. This is Lieutenant Lacey. The Honourable Lieutenant Lacey. He is a cousin of the Prince of Wales, who is the son and heir of George V, our monarch – yours and mine – who commissioned both the colonel and the group captain in his service. The Honourable Lieutenant Lacey is twenty-sixth in line to the throne. He will remain here with you as a guarantor of correct behaviour. His presence allows you to give access to this train to Group Captain Hackett, as Colonel Kenny ordered.”

The marine had stopped looking at Brazier. His eyes had swivelled to Lacey, and they were large with awe. Lacey stood like a full-page portrait from
Tatler
, right leg slightly flexed with the foot pointing at two o'clock, chin up and the peak of his cap shielding eyes that gazed at nothing except perhaps the responsibility or being twenty-sixth in line to rule the greatest empire in the world.

The sentry stepped aside. Hackett and Brazier climbed onto the train. “Look here,” Lacey said, and found a drawl he did not know he owned. “Stand easy, if you like. Unless you'd rather not.” The Marine stood easy.

Colonel Kenny's quarters were spacious. Hackett and Brazier went through a kitchen and a bathroom and into a sitting room that was the full width of the train and twenty feet long. A corporal of Marines was playing cribbage with a young woman in nurse's uniform. “That will be all, corporal,” Brazier said, and the man left at speed.