A Splendid Little War (26 page)

The C.O. called a meeting with his senior officers.

“I can run backwards faster than this,” Hackett said. “Can't we speed it up?”

“The drivers say this is the most economical speed,” Borodin said. “The locomotives are low on fuel.”

“What's wrong with the railways? Haven't they got fuel dumps?” Tusker Oliphant asked.

“Not for a hundred miles.”

“If we went faster, we'd reach the dumps sooner,” Hackett said.

“I don't think it works like that,” Tiger Wragge said. “The faster, the slower. In the long run.”

Hackett gave him a hard stare. “Bollocks,” he said.

“Well, I can't compete with your intellectual firepower,” Wragge said. “And I hope you're not turning into another galloping warhorse like our late lamented wing commander.”

“Oh, I say … that's a bit below the belt,” Oliphant said. “Sniping at a chap who's not here to defend himself.”

“Why isn't he? Because he couldn't wait. Dashed off on his own. Outnumbered. Dead. Good way to lead the squadron? Or have I overlooked something?” Wragge stared at Hackett, but Hackett just stared back.

The adjutant cleared his throat, with a sound like gravel being shovelled. “I'm not an airman,” he said. “I'm just a simple soldier, me. But could Griffin have been trying to divert the enemy? All our machines
were not yet in the air. Might he have attacked to distract the Bolsheviks?” He raised his eyebrows, and then his hands. “Just a suggestion. A possibility.”

Hackett said: “If he'd waited two minutes, we could all have distracted them.”

“Two minutes can be a long time in a battle,” Brazier murmured.

“Not in that battle.”

“Captain Ball,” Oliphant said. “56 Squadron. I met a chap from 56 who told me Ball liked to dive into the middle of a Hun circus because they didn't dare fire at him for fear of hitting one of their own. He got three D.S.O.s, a V.C., God knows what else. So it worked for Ball.”

“Until one day it didn't,” Wragge said. “Ball played his joker too often. Griffin played it once, and that was once too many.”

“I don't suppose …” Count Borodin began, and waved the thought away as if it were smoke from a cigar. “No. Silly idea.”

“Most of war's a bloody silly idea,” Hackett said. “Spit it out.”

“Well … I saw some heroic acts when we were fighting the Germans. Truly heroic. The survivors became heroes, and sometimes the Tsar, in person, presented them with the Order of St George, first class, and they were speechless, they felt they had been touched by the hand of God. It begs the question: why had they risked death so recklessly? It wasn't to win the battle. Usually the battle was lost already. So why …” He gave up.

“Griffin had just met Colonel Kenny, hadn't he?” Wragge said. “Kenny V.C. The hero of the Somme.”

“He took on all those Bolos just to win the Victoria Cross?” Oliphant said. “That's crazy.”

“Men on the battlefield are not completely sane,” Brazier said. “I've seen soldiers crawl into no-man's-land in broad daylight just to dig some potatoes. Risk of getting snipered, maybe twenty to one. They weren't crazy. They just wanted a few new spuds.”

“Maybe it wasn't a spur of-the-moment thing,” Wragge said. “Maybe Griffin came to Russia to win the V.C.”

“He might get one,” Hackett said. “I bet the Mission in Ekat is tickled pink with him.”

Further down the train, Lacey was playing backgammon with Stevens, the medical sergeant.

“Your pay parade was a big success,” Stevens said. “We all got five times what we expected.”

Lacey threw his dice and made his move.

“I asked the adj how it was done,” Stevens said. He threw his dice and studied the board. “He seemed a bit awkward. Almost shifty. Said it was all up to you.” He made his move and hit a piece left by Lacey and removed it. “Was it all up to you, Mr Lacey?”

Lacey took his time over his throw and got a two and a five, exactly what he didn't want. “Come on, God,” he said. “Play the game.” He tried a possible move, didn't like it and took it back.

“You nearly fell in a yawning cesspit there, sir.”

Lacey massaged his eyes. “Before now, you were paid at the official exchange rate, twenty roubles to the pound. That was very stupid, it bought almost nothing. The unofficial rate – on the street, any street – is at least eighty roubles. The Paymaster at the Military Mission gives our man in Ekat our pay in pounds, he gets the street rate, or better, and sends the roubles to me. Simple.”

“Doesn't sound legal, sir.”

“Of course it's not legal. This war isn't legal. The difference is what I do doesn't hurt anybody. Your move.”

“No, it's still yours. Any move you make is a disaster. You can concede now, if you like. If not, I'll clobber you.”

“Where did you learn to play?”

“Salonika. Greeks taught me. Best in the world.”

Lacey decided to play on. He quickly threw a string of double-sixes and played a long, dour defensive game and won by a whisker. “Another?” he said.

“Bloody officers,” Stevens said.

The bar-dining-room had been renamed; it was now known as The Dregs. Several crews from the bomber flight were there, attracted by the poker game. Everyone was flush with Lacey's roubles. A hazy setting sun warmed the air. The train rumbled along, unhurriedly. There was a feeling of contentment, of a well-deserved holiday after hard work. Memories of non-stop P.T. and leapfrog races on top of a hot breakfast had been rapidly forgotten. Nobody mentioned Griffin.

Daddy Maynard was reading some old copies of the
Daily Mail
that Lacey had found in Colonel Kenny's train. “Hullo,” he said. “They're going to hang the Kaiser.”

“About time,” Junk Jessop said. “That bloody awful moustache.
Looks like seaweed. Definite hanging offence.”

“Who's going to hang him?” Hopton asked.

“Not like seaweed,” Drunken Duncan said. “Seaweed's green.”

“The French seem first in line,” Daddy Maynard said.

“German seaweed isn't green,” Jessop said. “German stuff's all grey and slimy. Ask any sailor.”

“I bet the French won't hang him,” Gerry Pedlow said. “I bet they guillotine him.”

“Yes. On the Champs Élysées,” Hopton said. “And their top man, Clemenceau, will sell tickets. Make a fortune. Typical frog thing.”

“I suppose you learnt that at your rotten school,” Rex Dextry said to Jessop. “Got beaten senseless all afternoon and then wrote essays on German seaweed.”

“You can't write on seaweed,” Jessop said. “The ink keeps running.” Nobody laughed.

“They wouldn't do it on the Champs Élysées,” Pedlow said. “It's just a road. If they sold tickets, people would get a lousy view. The frogs would riot.”

“They might guillotine Clemenceau too,” Hopton suggested. “Two for the price of one.”

“That was a good joke, writing essays on seaweed,” Jessop said. “Wasted on you peasants.”

“The Bois de Boulogne is the place to hang him,” Pedlow said. “Tons of room. Or maybe the Eiffel Tower.”

Maynard had moved on to a later copy of the
Daily Mail
. “They can't hang the Kaiser,” he said. “He's done a bunk to Holland, and Holland's neutral.”

“You're a large fart, Daddy,” Gerry Pedlow said.

“Anyway, Tonbridge wasn't as rotten as Rugby,” Jessop said to Dextry. “At least we didn't invent that stupid game where you hack each other on the shins all afternoon.”

“What was the seaweed joke?” Maynard asked Jessop. “I didn't hear it.”

“I've forgotten,” Jessop said. “And it was too clever for you, anyway.”

All three trains came to a gradual halt just as the Camel pilots were sitting down to dinner. “Where are we?” Hackett said.

Daddy Maynard got up and looked out. Dying sunlight made a soft yellow backdrop to the steppe. “Nowhere,” he reported. “We're in a siding in the middle of nowhere. The other trains have stopped too.”

“Locomotive crews must eat,” Count Borodin said. “And rest. We'll move again at dawn.”

Fair enough. Mushroom soup laced with cream and brandy was served. “Signal Mission H.Q. at Ekat,” Tiger Wragge told Lacey. “Tell them to keep the war hot until we get there.”

They were well into the beef stroganoff when the far-off crack of rifle fire stopped all conversation. They looked at Borodin. “Not hunters,” he said. “Nobody hunts in the dark. Nothing to hunt, anyway.”

“I posted a guard,” the adjutant said. “Maybe they saw something.”

He left the Pullman coach and walked along the track to a boxcar with a fixed ladder. He climbed to the roof. Starlight showed the black shapes of two men and a Lewis gun on a tripod, “See anything, sergeant?”

“Bugger-all, sir. Harris thinks he heard something. Black as sin out there.”

Brazier looked. It was impossible to tell where steppe ended and night sky began. There was nothing to focus on.

“Might be some fuckin' peasant,” the sergeant said softly. “Fucked his brain with fuckin' vodka, got kicked out by his fuckin' wife, went and shot his fuckin' self.”

“Probably fuckin' missed,” Harris said.

Brazier walked slowly up and down the boxcar roof. His stroganoff was getting cold, all because a drunken nobody couldn't shoot straight. Then a rifle cracked the night on the other side of the train, the bullet ricocheted off iron and sang as it soared and died in the night. Then another shot. This time Brazier saw the tiny splash of flame. As Harris swung the Lewis, Brazier said: “Watch for the next muzzle-flash and give it a short burst. Four rounds maximum. This could be a long fight.”

He swung down the ladder. Lit windows in all three trains were turning black. He hurried back to The Dregs and met Hackett at the door. “Tell everyone to lie flat,” he said.

Hackett disappeared, shouted orders, came back, “What's up?” he asked.

“God knows. No moon yet. You could hide two or three battalions out there.” Lewis guns made short statements. “I bet the bastards didn't expect
that
,” Brazier said.

“This is your kind of show, Uncle. You're in command.”

A bullet sighed overhead. High overhead. “Sloppy,” Brazier said. “No discipline. But a random shot can still kill you. I'll get some rifles sent here.”

“Thanks. We officers can shoot at random too. Might even hit it.”

The adjutant chuckled, a rare sound.

He made his rounds of the trains, talking to the flight sergeants, making sure that all the ground crews were armed. He added four more Lewis guns on top of boxcars. Sporadic shots continued. A couple punctured windows, but there seemed no obvious plan to the firing. Brazier walked to Kenny's train and found, as he expected, that he could teach its Royal Marines nothing. They welcomed the change in routine. They could fire, reload and fire again so fast that a rifle sounded almost like a light machine gun. All they needed was a target.

In The Dregs everyone was on the floor, including Hackett. He felt restless: annoyed that the evening had been spoiled by a few bad marksmen, God knew how many, a dozen, a thousand? Merlin Squadron could strafe the scruffy bastards to bits in five minutes. If it was daytime. If the Camels could be assembled. If the scruffy bastards would stand and fight, which they probably wouldn't … That was when he remembered the squadron doctor.

Susan Perry was in her Pullman cabin, sitting on the floor, finishing her supper by candlelight and reading a tattered copy of
Horse and Hound
.

“Just wanted to check that you're O.K.,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. Just a few troublemakers. Soon send them packing.”

She ate the last bit and gave him the plate. “In France I worked with surgeons in a Forward Dressing Station,” she said. “Blood up to the elbows and Hun shells dropping like autumn leaves. So this doesn't worry me.”

“All the same, I think you should be with the pilots.”

“Is there pudding?”

“Um … Treacle tart. Cream.”

“I'm not going to miss out on that.” She got to her feet and picked up a Colt revolver. “Belonged to Colonel Kenny. Don't worry, it's loaded.”

“I hope we won't let any blighter get that close.”

“I'm sure you won't. This is to fight off randy pilots in the dark.”

“You can trust my chaps.”

“When a man tells a girl she can trust him,” she said, “she knows she can't trust him.”

They went to The Dregs. “Listen here,” he announced. “There's a lady present. Mind your manners.”

“God, I hope not,” she said. “I can take war or good manners but I can't take them both together.”

The night passed slowly. Some of the pilots fell asleep. Hackett organized a system of watches so that two were always awake and alert. The firing lessened but never completely stopped. Brazier would have liked to lead a few volunteers from the ground crews, stealthily patrolling the steppe with blackened faces and sharpened knives, but he knew that such tactics ended with the last war, the one with trenches and no-man's-land and abundant Huns to be poached. Instead, he made sure that hot cocoa and bully-beef sandwiches were available. The hours drifted by, and just as a tinge of grey began to soften the darkness, the enemy attacked Kenny's train.