Hornet’s Sting (23 page)

“God couldn't afford the rent,” Venables said. “Go to those pillars,” he told the driver. “That's probably the front door.”

The pillars turned out to be as tall as beech trees. Two servants were waiting with umbrellas. They escorted the officers up some steps and under a portico and through a huge doorway. A silver-haired man in a tailcoat met them and took their coats and hats. “Are you the butler?” Venables asked.

“That is not my privilege, sir. If you will follow me?”

Everything echoed. Rain pattered on a glass dome, fifty feet above. The corridor was wide enough to take a horse team with an eight-pounder gun at the gallop. The floor was marble and the tramp of leather-soled boots sounded like a parade. The butler met them in a room lined with oil paintings of large men in rich clothes who could see nothing to smile at. He apologised for not being present when they arrived. Circumstances had unavoidably detained him elsewhere. His Lordship hoped to be able to receive them soon. He left.

They sat on opposite sides of the room. “The old bugger's polishing his ear-trumpet,” Venables said. “Cursing his gout.” Woolley nodded. He wondered if he had ever met a lord. There had been a baronet in his regiment when they were in the Lines in 1915, Captain Sir Gerald Somebody. Got mortared. Nothing left. It was unusual to vanish like that. Bits hanging on the wire, maybe, but nobody was going to go out and collect those. There had been a Polish count, too, thin chap
with a bad cough. You never met a Pole who wasn't a count, so forget him. But no lords in the Lines. Trench-fighting was a young man's game. You got trench foot, and trench foot was bad for the gout. And all those loud bangs, too. Bad for the ear-trumpet.

The butler returned. He was sleek as a cabinet minister.

They marched down another corridor. Double doors were opened. “Major Venables and Captain Woolley, my lord,” the butler said.

Plaster swans stretched their delicate necks as they flew across the high ceiling. Tall windows overlooked a paved courtyard where the rain was faithfully washing the stones until given orders otherwise. The room had a floor and walls of light oak: a very large tree had died for this room. Two men in dark suits stood at a desk, also of oak, about the shape and size of a family tomb. One man was old, one was not. They were looking at documents. After a while the older man murmured something and moved towards the officers. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. “I am Sir Frederick Parfitt.”

“That's as may be,” Venables said. “My appointment is with Lord Delancey.” The cracks in his voice were wider.

“Lord Delancey has urgent business to settle.” Parfitt made the smallest gesture towards the other man. “As his legal adviser, I can outline to you the salient features of the problem. In a nutshell, it concerns aerial poaching of grouse on the estate ...”

Woolley was only half listening. He was watching Lord Delancey sign letters and documents. The man looked no more than twenty-five. His hair was straw-coloured; it had been barbered to perfection. He looked very alert. He sat upright and only his head and his hand moved: he scanned a page, signed it, turned it, scanned the next. Sometimes the tightening of the jaw muscles betrayed a little tension.

“Potential suffering cannot be discounted,” Sir Frederick was saying. “The breeding of game birds is a highly sensitive affair. The financial loss is arguably very considerable.”

“I'll make enquiries, dammit,” Venables said. “I've told you I will make enquiries, and I will. There's no evidence my squadron did this.”

“Pheasant, in particular, are susceptible to shock.”

“You can't train pilots without letting them fly low. Even if my squadron is involved, and as I said, there's no evidence —”

“Low flying, you say?” The lawyer made a note. “No doubt the
War Office has issued regulations —”

“All right, Freddy,” Lord Delancey called. “That's enough. Come and sit down, everyone.” There were chairs ranged around the desk. As they sat, he stood. He was not tall; slim; with neat and regular features except for his left ear. The sight of that ear startled Woolley: it had been ripped and mangled as if a wild dog had attacked it. The contrast between the young face and the ruined ear was unnerving.

“Let's forget my grouse and their shattered nerves,” Delancey said. His lawyer began to speak and was waved away. “I'm on the boat train tonight. There's time only for urgent business.”

“That's a Guards tie,” Venables said. “You're a Guardsman.”

“Yes. I'm Captain the Lord Delancey, and strictly speaking you outrank me, but as this is the last day of my leave I hope you will allow me to lead this show? Thank you. Now: I come from a large family. Scattered about this house are aunts, great-aunts, cousins, both my maternal grandparents, I won't bore you with the list. My wife is here, of course. Pregnant. Our first child. And so to aeroplanes. I dare say you fellows in the Flying Corps take aeroplanes in your stride.”

“We do.”

“This household does not. Aeroplanes frighten them. In particular my wife. The sound of a flying machine terrifies her. She fears it is German and it will drop its bomb on us.”

“Highly unlikely.”

“You think so? For the last two years Zeppelins have wandered all over England, even as far as Cheshire and Lancashire, bombing as they wished. One Zeppelin bombed Piccadilly Circus! How long before German aeroplanes do the same? How long before Liverpool Street Station looks like Ypres? Or Arras? If my wife cannot take the train to town in safety, how can I assure her that she is safe in her own home?”

“I honestly can't see the Germans coming all the way here, just to throw out a few bombs. What would be the point?”

“What was the point of bombing a children's playground in south London? But they did it.”

“Fortunes of war.”

“Which exist, I agree. However, I have never believed in meekly accepting one's luck when the odds can be improved. Here, for instance, we have your squadron of well-armed Sopwith Pups on the doorstep, so to speak, and, I'm sure, itching for battle.”

Venables' head was wobbling again. “Look: I take my orders from —”

“I know. I know precisely who gives you your orders. Know them personally. Many have been guests in this house.”

“You're suggesting that my squadron gives your family special protection.”

“Not a bit. The fact that this year I paid in taxes more than enough to buy several squadrons of aircraft is neither here nor there.” Delancey smiled. He had a pleasant smile, slightly wistful. “Although some might think we
deserve
special protection, if only to guarantee that you can go on buying more squadrons.”

“I don't believe you understand. I command a
training
squadron.”

“What better training than to attack any German aeroplanes that intrude? Shoo them away. Send them packing.”

“It's a spiffing idea, sir,” Woolley said brightly. Venables glared. “Come on, major,” Woolley said. “You know the chaps are keen as mustard to take a crack at the Boche.”

“The first pilot to bag a Hun gets fifty guineas,” Delancey said. “I'll tell my wife.”

“She might not see us. We fly extremely high, to get a better view.” Woolley snapped his fingers. “Here's a thought. Why don't you give her our phone number? If she's the slightest bit worried, we'll pop upstairs and wipe the sky clean.”

“Splendid, splendid.”

Delancey walked with them along the echoing corridors to the porticoed entrance. Sir Frederick had stayed in the study. “Never mind old Freddy,” Delancey said. “He thinks that shooting grouse out of season is worse than fighting in church.”

“I've fought in a church,” Venables said. “What was left of it.”

Their driver was at the door, weighed down with haunches of venison. “Your flying poacher strafed a deer,” Delancey said. “May you have as much success against the Hun.”

* * *

“Damn fool,” Venables said. “Bloody lunatic.” The driver half-turned his head. “Not you,” Venables said wearily.

“His lordship's happy, sir,” Woolley said. “He thinks he's had his
wicked way with us, which proves that a gallon of blue blood is worth more than two pints of peasant piss like us. Did you see him smile?”

“Did you see me smile? While you were treating
my
squadron like a lucky dip? Roll up! Anybody want a dozen Sopwith Pups?
Jesus.”
The car had stopped so abruptly that it skidded a little on the gravel.

“Stag, sir,” the driver said. It stood in the middle of the driveway, its great head swaying, apparently dozing in the rain.

“That's the same bloody beast,” Venables growled. The driver nodded. It was a different beast, but he was only a corporal. “Even Delancey's bloody animals think they own us.”

“I don't give a twopenny toss what Delancey thinks,” Woolley said. “Do you, sir? As soon as I heard him say ‘Shoo them away' I knew he was talking out of his arse. He thinks Huns are like trespassers and we're the village bobby. I could have told him it takes our clapped-out Pups half an hour to reach ten thousand, and by then the Boche has cheated and gone somewhere else, not that we could catch him if he played the white man and waited to be killed. But Delancey wouldn't have liked that, sir. Not what he wanted to hear.”

Venables sighed. “No, I suppose not.”

“Whereas now he thinks we'll be flying high-level patrols over his lovely wife, dawn to dusk, and it was all his idea, clever sod.”

“If word gets out —”

“He won't tell anyone. It's our little secret.”

“He'll tell his wife. She'll telephone —”

“And I'll tell her we're on patrol. I'll tell her she's perfectly safe. I'll lie.”

“Yes. You're good at that, aren't you, Woolley? I'm not. I was taught soldiering. Find the enemy, bash him, take his territory.” Venables threw open the car door, strode over to the stag and booted it in the rump. It bounded away. He got back in. The car moved off. “Did you see the man's ear? Looked more like a bayonet than a bullet.”

“Cut himself shaving,” Woolley said. “The butler told me so.”

“Is that a joke?” Venables said. “Bloody stupid one, if it is.” That ended all conversation.

* * *

They were still playing poker.

“Back already?” Slattery said. “I just had four kings.”

“That's nothing,” Woolley said. “I just had fifty lashes. From Lord Delancey's butler. Proper toff, his lordship. Watched it all and never flinched once.” He sat at the table. Quarry dealt. “Don't you want to know what it was about?” Woolley asked Paxton.

“No,” Paxton said. “'Cos it doesn't matter. We're off to France tomorrow. Postings just came through.”

“France, eh?” Woolley said brightly. “What's going on there?”

“Tossing the beanbag,” Quarry said. “We're in the finals. How many cards d'you want?”

Persons walk unsteadily. Small bells ring
.

The sky above Gazeran had been washed clean by the rainstorms of winter and blown dry by the gales of spring, and now Cleve-Cutler thought he had never seen a more delicate blue. Of course he knew this was nonsense. He had often flown above the weather, and he knew the sky was always blue, come rain or shine or thick grey fog. But a C.O.'s job left precious little time to enjoy beauty, it was mostly a matter of kicking junior officers up the arse before Wing H.Q. discovered their mistakes, and so when he found himself standing at the window of the anteroom he chose to look at the serenity of the sky rather than at the oily chimney of smoke that was boiling up and spoiling it all.

“Who's in camp over there?” he asked.

“Australian infantry,” Plug Gerrish said. “I expect they saw it coming and got out of the way.”

“I was on the phone at the time. Lousy line, bloody idiot at Brigade bawling and shouting, I never heard the klaxon.”

A waiter brought two whisky-sodas.

“Heard the bang, though,” Cleve Cutler said. “Come on, Plug, speak up.”

“Well, it's either Maddegan or the new boy, Stamp. They went up to have a practice scrap. One got in a spin. Quite a slow spin. Don't suppose
he
thought it was slow, poor devil.”

“Don't suppose he thought anything. Too giddy for that.”

The smoke was thinning. Not much petrol in a Pup. This one probably had about ten gallons in its tank when it hit, enough for a short, hot fire. The rescuers would be there by now. The squadron had a well-drilled rescue team. No point in rushing over and getting in their way.

“It wasn't Dingbat, because here he comes,” Gerrish said. “The original kangaroo.” They watched the Pup make its approach and
bounce four times before it ran. “He's getting better.”

Cleve-Cutler finished his whisky-soda. “Keep them flying, Plug. Nobody broods. I'm off to write the bloody letter.”

The orderly room at Gazeran field was in a gloomy barn that was suffering from age and war and rats. For nearly three years the place had been swept daily by the troops of whichever squadron was stationed there, but it still radiated the warm, peppery smell of horse dung. On the day he moved in, Captain Brazier had ordered that Jeyes Fluid be liberally sprinkled about the place. The disinfectant overlaid the ancient aroma, but could not defeat it. Soon the smell of horse dung reappeared like a peasant army which has fled to the hills only to creep back and reclaim its homeland. Next day the adjutant had talked of stronger measures: bleach, creosote, ammonia; even chloride of lime, used in the trenches against the stench of rotting corpses. “You are fighting history,” Lacey had warned him.

“History and flies, sergeant.”