Hornet’s Sting (26 page)

“Not in the Royal Flying Corps,” he said comfortably.

* * *

Captain Brazier liked to walk around the aerodrome after breakfast. Corps H.Q. had sent units of heavy machine guns to protect airfields near the Front, and Brazier liked to keep the crews on their toes. He examined the weapons, inspected the haircuts and shaves, moved on to the next gun-pit.

He had found a man wearing slovenly puttees, and he was telling his sergeant of an attack at Neuve Chapelle in 1915 during which a soldier had tripped over his own loose puttees and accidentally shot the company commander dead; when Sergeant Lacey came looking for him.

They walked back to the orderly room.

“A Captain Lightfoot is on his way here, sir, from the assistant provost-marshal's office,” Lacey said.

“Damn. Still ... He's only a captain. Can't be anything serious.” But the adjutant was thoughtful. The A.P.M. investigated the army's crimes, and Brazier was experienced enough to know that there were always crimes, even in the best of units. What was this Lightfoot up to? Why drive forty miles through thick fog? “Did he send us a signal?” the adjutant asked.

“No. I have a friend in the A.P.M.'s department. A mere sergeant like myself. We share a passion for the cello sonatas of Saint-Saëns, although we differ on the piano concerti.”

“Don't we all. I take it he's done us a small favour.”

“An understatement, sir. Saint-Saëns's contribution has been enormous.”

“Get a grip of yourself, Lacey. What's Lightfoot up to?”

They discussed possible crimes and criminals. Brazier went to the mess and called together Maddegan, McWatters, Crabtree and Dash.

“Go to Arras,” he said. “Get a haircut. Have lunch. Get another haircut. Don't come back till dark. The A.P.M. is on his way.”

“Look here,” McWatters said. “If it's about some drunken old frog
who got knocked down, I wasn't even driving, and I've got witnesses.”

“You never said that,” Brazier told him, “and I never heard it.”

“Why me? I haven't done anything wrong,” Dash said; but he remembered the nights in the nunnery at Beauquesne, and his ears went red.

“I haven't done anything either,” Crabtree said, “so the A.P.M. can accuse me of anything he likes, can't he? That's how the system works.”

“It's called
carte blanche,”
the adjutant said. “The French police have been doing it for years.”

* * *

Ralph Lightfoot had the body of a warrior and the eyes of a mole. He was brave, and he wanted to fight for his country, but even the British Army – which since 1916 had been taking boys who were only eighteen and a half years old and five feet tall—even the British Army drew the line at a man who could not tell a general from a gatepost if his glasses fell off. Lightfoot had a decent law degree and a bucketload of patriotism, so he got a commission and a place in the A.P.M.'s department. Without the pebble glasses he looked every inch a fighting man, but of course without the pebble glasses he might walk into the nearest wall and break his nose.

Sergeant Lacey showed Lightfoot into the adjutant's office, and then stayed to take shorthand notes.

“Lightfoot. Lightfoot?” Brazier immediately went onto the attack. “Not the M. N. T. Lightfoot who played rugby for the Harlequins in '13?”

“Alas, no.”

“Well, take a pew.” Brazier remained standing. “Now, I expect you've come about the duff ammo.”

“No, again.”

“It's damn serious. Defective rounds jam the Vickers. Looks like sabotage. Don't you investigate sabotage?”

“No,” Lightfoot said, sadly. “I mean, not me personally.”

“Well, Christ Allbloody Mighty, man,” Brazier said. Exasperation hardened his voice. “Men are dying up there because of this.” But
Lightfoot was pulling files out of his briefcase, muttering as he checked the labels, shuffling the sequence until he got it right.

“Second-Lieutenant Maddegan,” he said. “Let's start with him. Causing an affray, assaulting an officer – several officers – and conduct prejudicial etcetera etcetera.”

Brazier took a monocle from a desk drawer and clamped it to his right eye. He reached across the desk and plucked the file. “Ah, Maddegan. Yes. A most gallant officer. Hopelessly outnumbered. Fought like the devil. His bus was shot to matchwood. Crash-landed. Still unconscious.”

“I see.” Lightfoot kept nodding his head, but he could think of nothing more to ask except the name of the hospital, and he felt sure no good would come of that. “Well, let's move on to Captain Crabtree. Destruction of civilian property, to wit: one electricity generator.”

Again, Brazier took the file. He shut his left eye and scanned the pages through his monocle. “M.C. and Croix de Guerre,” he said softly, as if to himself. “A most gallant officer. At present in Ireland. Pall-bearer for Tommy Fitzallen. Died of wounds. But of course you knew that?” He raised his eyebrows. The monocle fell. He caught it without looking.

Lightfoot searched for a handkerchief, polished his glasses, put them on again and stared at the adjutant. In a distant hangar an engine was being tested. The pitch of its thunder intensified and, abruptly, died.

“There was a Portuguese deserter at Pepriac,” Lightfoot said. “Lieutenant McWatters and Second-Lieutenant Dash were in contact with him. In
close
contact. My information is —”

The adjutant's massive hand reached out and gripped the files. For a moment the papers buckled as Lightfoot refused to let go, but when they started to tear his fingers relaxed and Brazier had won again. “McWatters and Dash, you say.”

“Most gallant officers, no doubt,” Lightfoot said bleakly. “Let me guess. Salmon-fishing on the Spey? Sudden appendicitis?”

Brazier roared with laughter and beat the files against his desk so furiously that the draught ruffled Lightfoot's hair. “That would be fun, eh, Lacey? What? Splendid fun. No, this is a fighting squadron and those two gallant officers are at war.”

“In the fog.”

“Certainly, in the fog. Don't ask me where. Military secret.”

Lightfoot closed his briefcase and stood up. “Two hundred pounds of plum jam went missing at Pepriac,” he said. “Now the quartermaster at Brigade reports that you have indented for, and received, exactly
twice
your proper allocation of cheese.”

Brazier shrugged.

“The first allocation was destroyed by bombing, sir,” Lacey said.

“Bombing,” Lightfoot said. “Have you evidence of this?”

Lacey led the officers into the fog. Somewhere in the area of the cookhouse, he found a small hut. “The bomb fell exactly here, sir.”

“But this structure is undamaged, sergeant.”

“Yes, sir. This hut
replaced
the hut that was bombed.”

Lightfoot walked around it. “The ground is not even scarred. There is no sign of a crater.”

“It was a small bomb, sir. Enough to start a fire which, although soon extinguished, ruined the cheese.”

Lightfoot opened the door, and struck a match. The hut was full of potatoes. “This is not a cheese store,” he said, accusingly.

“Certainly not,” the adjutant said. “We lost our cheese to the Hun once. We've made damn sure it won't happen again.”

Lightfoot declined an invitation to lunch. Brazier excused himself: urgent operational business. Lacey escorted the visitor to his car. When he got back to the orderly room, he found the adjutant studying the A.P.M.'s files. “Bloody idiots,” he growled. “Why do staff officers make life so difficult?”

“Probably for the same reason they make death so easy.”

“Very glib. What do you know about it?”

“I know it's two sides of the same coin.”

Brazier wasn't listening. “I know that sort,” he said. “He'll be back. A pound of cheese is like the holy grail to him.”

* * *

Arras was never big. It had been a medieval town of about fifty thousand Flemish people, famous for making tapestry, until the autumn of 1914 when the German Army settled down in the eastern suburbs. They shelled the place for the next two and a half years. By March 1917, nearly all the high, handsome, gabled houses were gutted and
skeletal. The cathedral was a ruin, few shops survived, there wasn't a civilian to be seen. When the four pilots drove into Arras, the fog was thickened by drifting smoke from fires that lurked deep inside the wrecked buildings.

“This is a bloody silly place to come to,” McWatters grumbled. “We should have gone the other way. Doullens. Amiens. Abbeville.”

“Uncle told us to come here,” Dash said.

“Grow up, laddy. He's only the bloody adjutant. Just look at this squalor. I need handkerchiefs, and there isn't a decent haberdashers anywhere.”

“Look, I've got a spare snotrag you can borrow,” Maddegan said.

“I'm sure you have, Dingbat. Fortunately, its use in war is banned under the Geneva Convention.”

“Look,” Maddegan said. “Choo-choo.”

They were in a cobbled square that had a narrow-gauge railway track running across it. Trundling by was a train of trucks loaded with rocks and dirt. “Can it be,” Crabtree said, “that the French have found a market for their debris?”

“Souvenirs de la guerre,”
Dash said. “Five francs a lump.”

“Hey! I see an Australian,” Maddegan said. He was out of the car and striding towards a group of men, some in slouch hats. Much hand-shaking and back-slapping, and then he was back. “Trust a Digger to find the best grub in town,” he reported. “It's down a hole.”

The hole was a cellar as big as a ballroom, converted into a restaurant and doing a brisk business. A little old Frenchman, bandy-legged by the weight of years, brought them bread but no menu. “Leave this to me,” McWatters said.
“Garçon, s'il vous plait . . . Pour commencer ...”

Dash had never seen such a collection of uniforms from so many countries in one room. It thrilled him to think that all these fine chaps had rallied to the Old Country. Soon they would stand shoulder to shoulder and give the Hun one hell of a hiding. Then he saw a face that made him kick a leg of the table. He half-stood to get a better view. No doubt about it. His loins crawled with excitement. “Excuse me,” he murmured.

It was Chlöe Legge-Barrington, and as he went towards her, the officer at her table got up and walked away. Dash was astonished by his luck. “Hullo!” he said. “Remember me? The chap on the white horse.”

“Charles ...” She tugged at his sleeve. “Sit down. What a relief. I've just been bored to death by a man who is going to be the next prime minister but five. You're looking well.”

“And you're looking spiffing. Isn't this the most marvellous luck? Bumping into each other.”

“Not really. Arras is getting ready for the next Big Push, isn't it? So F.A.N.Y. is here in strength. We go where we're needed.”

“Oh.” He hadn't thought of that. “Still, it's a far cry from Sainte Croix.” She nodded. “D'you know,” he said, “those were the happiest days of my life.” He discovered that he was chewing his lower lip, so he stopped doing that. Now he felt like a sack of potatoes. “Definitely the happiest,” he said. “It's an awful cheek, but d'you think you could put me in touch ...”

She propped her chin on her hand and examined his freckled face. “My dear Charles,” she said, “either you led a very dull life until we met you, or there was something special about Sainte Croix that escaped me.”

“The latter.” Dash felt his ears go red.

“Ah. And you want ...” She was looking him in the eyes. He tried not to blink. “You want to repeat the happiness,” she said. He nodded. “Well, tell me who it was,” she said, “and I'll tell you where she is.”

Now his cheeks were burning. “It's not as simple as that.” She raised her eyebrows. “The lights were out. It was pitch black. I couldn't tell... She didn't say ... Oh, damn and blast,” he said, weighed down by a wretched pride in his experience, “it wasn't the time for conversation, was it?” He was close to tears.

“Golly, no,” she whispered. “But —”

“Charles!” McWatters boomed. “Been looking all over for you! Introduce me, or I'll box your enormous ears.”

“Go to hell.”

“In that case, I'm Captain Ball,” McWatters told her. He kissed her hand. “I hope young Charlie hasn't been bothering you. I have a car, perhaps I can take you —”

“Here comes my escort now. Where are you based?” She asked Dash.

“Gazeran.”

She smiled, and left. They went back to their table. “Why can't
you mind your own bloody business?” Dash demanded.

“A beauty like that
is
my business, laddy. What's her name?”

“Lady Macbeth,” Dash said.

“I'll find out. A chap like you shouldn't attempt to fly
and
fornicate so much. There's only room for one joystick in the cockpit. Anyway, you've had more than your fair share of rumpty-tumpty. A decent chap would spread his good luck among his pals.”

“Listen!” Maddegan said. Somewhere a locomotive hooted. “Choo-choo,” he said.

“Goodness, Dingbat,” Crabtree said. “What a fierce intellectual pace you set, to be sure.”

* * *

The gunnery instructors soon changed Hornet Squadron's thinking about beam attacks. The whole business turned out to be very complex.

Everyone understood the need to lay off for speed: it was like shooting pheasant, you had to aim ahead of the bird. (And at two hundred yards' range, an Albatros was a target no bigger than a game bird.) With the Biff, the rear gunner had to lay off for three separate speeds, perhaps four. If his machine was flying at one hundred miles an hour and he fired at right-angles to its course, then its speed would tug the bullets forward of the target. If the target approached at right-angles, it would be drifting sideways in relation to the fighter; so allowance had to be made for that too. Then there was the wind, which – if strong enough – would nudge the stream of bullets one way or the other. Not forgetting bullet-drop. Bullets were heavy and they fell away. At long range it paid to aim high. Unless, of course, the enemy was already diving, in which case it might be better to aim low, all things being equal, which they never were.