Hornet’s Sting (19 page)

He trudged towards the flight hut, peeling off his flying gear. He was hot but happy. As his ears cleared he heard birdsong. Men waved and applauded, not because a kill was such a great achievement but because his happiness pleased them.

Snow, the Canadian, came out of the flight hut. “I doomed the bastard,” Maddegan said.

“No, you didn't.” Snow stopped him. “The Russian, Nikolai, he got two Huns.” He spoke softly. “Nobody else got anything. Nik got two Huns, all on his own. Understand?”

“Aw, heck. This isn't
fair,”
Maddegan grumbled.

“Sure. Now be a brave boy, and smile for mommy, and go in there and congratulate the son of a bitch. Skipper's orders.”

Maddegan went in. Count Andrei was pouring vodka into chipped mugs. The pilots were standing around with bribed smiles on their faces. Duke Nikolai was carefully wiping grease from his face. “Hey!” Maddegan said. Nikolai hid behind the towel and peeped over the top. “How about
you?”
Maddegan cried. “Two Huns!” He hugged him. Nikolai was a good head shorter, and Maddegan found himself looking at Crabtree. “That'll do, Dingbat,” Crabtree murmured. “You're in England, remember.”

Vodka for everyone.

“A toast,” Crabtree said. “The duke's two Fokkers!”

“Albatros is better,” Nikolai said. But he drank.

Cleve-Cutler was walking to the mess when he changed his mind
and went to the orderly room instead. “Sergeant Lacey,” he said. “Kindly ask the adjutant to put Duke Nikolai in for the M.C.”

“The citation has already been drafted, sir.”

Cleve-Cutler leaned over the desk and swivelled his head. Lacey had been making out a cheque to Selfridges for fifteen guineas. The bank was Coutts. “What's this all about?”

“For a new piano, sir. The late Lieutenant the Honourable Jeremy Lloyd-Perkins has kindly donated one to the mess.”

“We already have a piano.”

“True, sir. But for how long?”

* * *

Hornet's Sting was invented by Cleve-Cutler to be drunk by the squadron on special occasions: some sad, some not. There was no fixed formula. He let whim and inspiration guide him as he emptied bottles into a galvanised hipbath. Brandy and champagne made a good base, followed by port, gin, apple juice, fresh ground pepper, more champagne, a couple of bottles of Guinness, some rum, a blast of soda water for fizz, a splash of Benedictine for good luck. Count Andrei donated two bottles of vodka. “Just what we need to encourage the brandy,” Cleve-Cutler said. He tipped them both in. “What's that green stuff?” he said. “Never mind, I like green, let's have some.” He tasted the mix. “Needs aniseed,” he declared. “And claret! Lots of claret.”

It was a typical mess-night party. There were guests: pilots from a nearby Pup squadron; some Cameron Highlanders, in camp at Pepriac; and a passing major-general whose car had hit a pothole, broken an axle and stopped passing. By a tradition dating back several months, dinner was served at tables arranged in a circle and each man ate from his neighbour's plate. By the same tradition, roast potatoes were always thrown, never eaten. “You can always tell the cricketers,” Ogilvy said to a Cameron Highlander. “They eat with one hand and field with the other.” He forked a carrot and, at the same time, caught a roast potato as it whizzed by. “See?”

“I detest cricket,” the Scot said amiably.

“Well, I don't care for potatoes.” Ogilvy flung it at Munday and hit Dash instead.

“In fact, all games are a waste of time,” the Scot said.

“No, no, no. Take footer,” Simms said. “Christmas 1914. British troops and Huns playing footer in no-man's-land. Damned sporting!”

“Bunkum,” McWatters said. “Bloke I knew was there. He said they cheated disgracefully.” He threw his potato and winged a waiter.

“That's your Prussians for you,” Ogilvy said. “I wouldn't trust them at ping-pong.”

“Not
them,”
McWatters said. “Our lot. Downright cheats, every one. Permanently off-side. Especially the Welsh regiments.”

Cleve-Cutler pounded on the table. “We shall now take to the air,” he announced, “and drink the squadron toast.” This was another tradition: nobody's feet must touch the floor. Everyone climbed onto chairs. “Hornet's Sting!” they roared, and drank. Heeley, the youngest pilot on the squadron, had already put down a base of whisky-sodas. He was a slim lad who shaved only twice a week, more to encourage growth than to remove it. He dropped his glass. His knees folded outwards and he toppled from his chair. The adjutant caught him, one-handed, by the collar, and gave him to a waiter. “The mixture isn't right,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Add more champagne! At ten francs a bottle,” he told the general, “these chaps can afford it.”

“I'd like to make a speech, if it's all right by you,” the general said. He managed the supply of disinfectant to the army: essential work but not thrilling. Meeting a fighting squadron was an exciting stroke of luck.

“My stars!” the adjutant said. “You're a brave man, general.”

“I wouldn't advise a speech unless you know a lot of good jokes, sir,” Cleve-Cutler said. “The chaps are a bit inflammable tonight.”

“I know a joke about disinfectant.” The general was on his third tankard of Hornet's Sting. Comradeship had kidnapped his wits. “Chap goes into a pub, sees a dog lying in front of the fire. What's happening is, this dog is licking its balls. Chap says, ‘My goodness!' he says, ‘I wish I could do that!' So the pub landlord says, ‘Toss him a biscuit and maybe he'll let you.' What?” The general pounded and guffawed. “What?”

“Where does the disinfectant come in?” the adjutant asked.

“Through the tradesman's entrance.”

“I say, that's jolly clever,” the C.O. said. “Far too clever for my ruffians.”

“It would go straight over their heads,” the adjutant said. “Might get a bit shirty.”

“I know a joke about shirts, too. Chap goes into a shop. Shirt shop. Chap says, ‘What's the difference between a striped shirt and a pound of sausages?' Shop assistant says, ‘I don't know, sir. What
is
the difference between a striped shirt and a pound of sausages?' Chap says, ‘Well, if you don't know the difference, I'm damned if I'll buy my shirts here!' What?” He drank deeply. “What?”

“Does disinfectant come into this one, sir?” the adjutant asked cautiously.

“I'll say this.” The general was suddenly wide-eyed and serious. “You can't have a modern war without good disinfectant. Stuff's crucial. Your chaps ...” He made a sweeping gesture. “Fine boys. Cavalry of the clouds! But take your disinfectant out of your latrines and, believe me, plague would cut them down like the Four Horsemen of the whatsisname.”

“Acropolis.”

“Exactly. Thank you, major.”

Captain Crabtree had been listening. “These Four Horsemen,” he said. “I suppose they're stabled in heaven, alongside the angels.” Nobody argued. “Is there disinfectant in heaven, padre?”

“Angels don't need latrines,” the chaplain said. “They don't eat or drink.”

“Well, I'm not going,” Crabtree said. “If you can't get draught Bass and pickled eggs, then what's the point?”

“We shall all find out, one day,” the chaplain said comfortably. It was the ace of trumps and he played it easily.

After dinner everyone went into the anteroom and played indoor rugby with a cushion as ball. The tackling was ferocious. Munday was caught by the ankle and fell hard on his left ear. Dando took him behind the piano and put five stitches in the ear and emerged to see Heeley standing, dazed, his nose running blood like a tap. Dando steered him out into the night and made him lie on his back. Within a minute, Heeley was asleep and snoring.

Inside, all the cushions had burst. One of the Cameron Highlanders was fighting Plug Gerrish; they used cane chairs as weapons. It made fine, furious sport, and it inspired others to duel with chairs and small tables. Soon the floor was littered with debris. There was a pause for
drink as the mess servants carried in a fresh tub of Hornet's Sting. All the glasses were flung into the fireplace. And suddenly the mood changed. Everyone must sing.

Duke Nikolai played the piano. A lot of drink had been spilt on it and the keys were sticky. McWatters emptied a fire bucket into the piano and a greenish fluid began to seep out of the holes for the pedals. Nobody cared. They all linked arms and bawled the happy ballads from the best London shows, and the relentlessly morbid songs of the Corps: “Who killed Cock Robin? ‘I,' said the Hun, ‘with my Spandau gun . ..'” and “You Haven't got a Hope in the Morning” and, best of all, the chorus to “The Young Aviator Lay Dying”, sung to the tune of “Wrap Me up in My Tarpaulin Jacket”:

Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,
The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain,
From the small of my back take the camshaft,
And assemble the engine again!

They liked that. They sang it twice.

Then a Scottish sergeant was summoned to play his bagpipes, and eightsome reels were danced with clumsy gusto. The general lost his grip and was spun into a wall with such force that the lights flickered, or so he thought. He slid down onto his rump. “Bloody piper,” he told Dando huskily. “Piping in waltz time.” Dando nodded. He knew a broken arm when he saw one. Someone offered the general a glass of Hornet's Sting. “Disinfectant,” he whispered. “That's the stuff to give the troops.”

Outside, the adjutant was signing for a large envelope. The despatch rider saluted and roared away. His headlamp caught and lost Sergeant Lacey. “What the deuce do you want?” Brazier asked, without anger.

“The same as you, captain. The same as everyone. A warm bed, a clear conscience, and friendly bowels.”

“Wrong. I can sleep on a plank, I left my conscience on the battlefield, and my bowels do what I damn well tell them to.”

“Goodness. How Shakespearean ...” Lacey shone his flashlight and Brazier broke the seal on the envelope. Together, they read the messages.

“You're an educated feller,” the adjutant said. “What d'you reckon history will make of this little lot?”

“That's easy. History will make it a footnote to an afterword to an appendix.”

“Well, history is an imbecile.”

“Yes. The footnote will say that too. But alas, no one will read it.”

Someone had stumbled over Heeley in the darkness and carried him inside, and now the pilots were tossing him in a blanket. They roared as they tried to toss him over a beam in the rafters. Heeley was too drunk to protest, but not too drunk to be terrified as he got flung up and the beam clipped his head and he dropped, utterly out of control. “Don't be so bloody flabby, Heeley!” Simms told him. “Make a bit of an effort, man, for God's sake.”

Maddegan watched them until he got bored. He wandered over to the piano, and looked inside at the dance of the felt hammers. He was holding a tankard. It tipped as he leaned to see more. Hornet's Sting poured over the workings. Duke Nikolai stopped playing. Maddegan looked at him. “Go on,” he said. “You're doing fine.”

“Stuck,” Nikolai said. “Won't work.” He hammered on the keys, but they made no sound.

Maddegan prised one of the keys up. It snapped, so he gave it to Nikolai. “Keep that,” he said, “we'll put it back later.” He thrust his fingers into the hole and ripped out five more keys, three white and two black.

Heeley fell and the blanket split, and the pilots holding it collapsed.

“Doomed the bastard!” Maddegan said, and waved the five keys. The pilots cheered.

That was when Cleve-Cutler came in, with the adjutant behind him. Brazier had a soda-syphon. He sprayed the pilots until they were quiet. “Gather round and listen,” he ordered.

“I have important news for you.” The C.O. waved some signals. That silenced them completely. They dripped as they stared. “First... the squadron is moving. Tomorrow. To a field near ... Arras.”

A whoop of surprise and approval. Pepriac was a scruffy crossroads; Arras was a city.

“Second ... the squadron will re-equip with ...” A long pause tortured them. “... with Bristol Fighters.”

That brought a roar of delight. Several pilots danced. They were drunk with joy.

“And third ...” They laughed in anticipation of another celebrtion.
“ ... the Tsar has abdicated.” And of course they cheered. The noise was waiting in their throats; it had to come out. “Good old Tsar!” they shouted.

Cleve-Cutler walked over to the piano. Duke Nikolai was staring at the ruined keyboard. “I really am awfully sorry,” the C.O. said. “I'm told that power has gone to his brother.” He checked the message form. “That's the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch.” Behind them, the pilots had formed a circle, arms on shoulders, and were singing “When this bloody war is over, Oh how happy we shall be ...” He moved closer to Nikolai and said, “I expect you know him.”

“Is pig.”

Cleve-Cutler could think of nothing to add. He left the adjutant to break up the party and send everyone off to bed.

McWatters strolled across to Nikolai, who had not moved. “All of a sudden you're nobody's cousin,” he said. “Funny feeling, isn't it?”

* * *

By noon next day, all the Pups were lined up in order of flights, waiting to take off. Cleve-Cutler sat in his office, signing a pile of papers which relieved him of responsibility for the aerodrome, its buildings and their contents. Each signature took him a step nearer Arras and Gazeran field and the superlative Bristol Fighters. “What's this?” he asked.

“Jam, sir,” Lacey said. “Two hundred pounds of strawberry, mislabelled plum. Written off.”

The CO read further. “Destroyed by accidental explosion? I don't remember that.”