Hornet’s Sting (32 page)

“This one needs a doctor,” Andrei said. He was kneeling beside Nikolai, who was squatting on his haunches and shuddering so violently that they could hear the chatter of his teeth. “Can't you cover those bastards up?”

Woolley got blankets and tried to throw them over the bodies. His strength, and his sense of distance, were distorted by shock and he
bodged the job. One blanket fell short, and left Shtemenko's shattered face looking over the edge. Woolley reached out and tugged the blanket higher and got bits of wet skin on his fingers. He went outside and threw up.

Dando arrived at the run. Cleve-Cutler and Brazier and the duty officer arrived, all holding revolvers. “Can't you stay out of trouble for five bloody minutes?” the C.O. shouted at Woolley. Woolley was sitting against the hut. He spat out the remains of his supper and licked his lips and said, “It's a bit slippery in there ...” But by then they were inside.

Four men with rifles came out of the night, at the double, and guarded the hut. Curious pilots wandered up and asked what on earth was happening. “Aston Villa nil, Wolverhampton Wanderers three,” Woolley whispered. He was strangely short of saliva. Two medics arrived with a stretcher and carried Nikolai away. Finally the officers came out. Woolley stood up. Dando shone a flashlight on his face and asked him how he felt. “Better than those two,” Woolley said huskily, “but not much.”

“Come,” Cleve-Cutler said. They trudged in silence to his office.

* * *

“One of them kept saying
N'existe pas,”
Andrei said. “As if it was some private joke.”

“He knew they were coming for him,” Cleve-Cutler said to Andrei. “You think.”

“Probably.”

“But you didn't know he had the Lewis.”

“No. Hidden in his wardrobe. I never looked there.”

“Of course not. Extraordinary weapon to use.”

Andrei drank his coffee, laced with the C.O.'s whisky. He had told them all he knew. What he could not describe was the killing: the hammering racket and the chemical stink and the invisible bullets kicking the men and making them jump and squirm. One second they sat looking tired and patient, the next second they were frantic and acrobatic and dead. That, he could not even begin to describe, nor to forget.

“Any idea where he got it?” the C.O. asked.

“Anywhere. He had money.”

“How did these thugs get in? They didn't come through the main gate.”

“Plenty of holes in the hedge, sir,” the adjutant said. “Plenty of hedge. Can't guard it all.”

“I want extra sentries everywhere,” the C.O. told the duty officer. “On all the flights, the petrol dump, the ammo store, the motor transport. Go.” He went. “Now, Mr Woolley. What were you doing there?”

“Not much, major. I heard the merry rattle of machine-gun fire. Then I fell on my arse in the gore. Then I chucked a blanket over the dead.
Two
blankets. Then I puked.”

Brazier sighed. “At the sight of blood?” he said pityingly.

“At the sight of innards, Uncle. First time I've seen two men cut up and ready for the butcher's slab. Lights, liver, kidneys, tripes, heart, lungs, all on display.”

“That'll do,” the C.O. said.

“And steaming hot, too.”

“All
right!”
The C.O. was prowling around his room. “This is a hell of a thing. Two civilians, probably got diplomatic status, shot to bits by a member of the squadron, I mean, what could be worse?”

“And with an illicit weapon, too,” the adjutant reminded him.

“I know what could be worse,” Dando said. “Two civilians shooting dead a member of the squadron. We found loaded pistols in their pockets,” he told Woolley.

“Nikolai would never have reached Paris, let alone Petersburg,” Andrei said. “There's no future for the thirteenth heir to the Romanovs. He'll just cause trouble.”

“Yesterday he offered me the Ministry of Railways,” Woolley said. “Five thousand dollars a year.”

“
You
?” Cleve-Cutler exclaimed. “You couldn't run a three-legged race.” He kicked the waste-basket. “Conniving little hound didn't offer me anything . . . What are we going to do, Uncle? What do King's Regs say about this sort of situation?”

“Refer the matter to a Higher Authority, sir.”

Cleve-Cutler picked up the phone and asked for Wing H.Q., and was connected, and asked for Bliss. The windows rattled, and the line went dead, and they all flinched at a roar like a cliff face collapsing.
“Bomb,” Woolley said. “Air raid.”

“Sweet sword of Satan!” Cleve-Cutler roared. “Will this day never end?”

* * *

The bombers droned around the sky. They were near the airfield, perhaps over it. They were too high to be seen and the confusion of engine noise made it impossible to track an individual machine. A bomb fell at least every five minutes; sometimes several bombs fell together.

Most of the pilots had never been bombed before, and they took it badly. They sheltered in old trenches and swore softly at the Hun swine strolling about as if they owned the damn sky.

A faint whistle led to a dull
crump
. The trench trembled and bits fell off its sides.

“Missed by a mile,” Snow said. “I reckon they're bombing at random.”

“So they're just as likely to hit us as not,” Munday said. “Bastards.”

“This isn't war,” Simms grumbled. “This isn't a fair fight.” Another distant explosion made the ground vibrate. “Yah boo sucks!” he shouted.

“Be reasonable,” Paxton said. “We do the same to them. Oh Christ ...” The whistle was shrill and swelling. They ducked their heads. The bang was like being in the heart of a thunderstorm, and the duckboard leaped beneath their feet. “That was unreasonable,” he said. He was shaking like a wet dog. Yet when he looked over the top of the trench, the moonlight was serene. No sign of an explosion. It wasn't even close, he thought.

After an hour the bombers went away. Cleve-Cutler sent men to search the field for damage. He was chilled and dirty and angry from sitting in a foul-smelling trench. “I've been thinking,” he said to Ogilvy. “Hasn't this been too bad to be true?”

“Don't tell Uncle, sir. He's been playing billiards all through it.”

“I don't mean just the raid. Look: it came straight after those two bandits broke in. Maybe they weren't Russians. Eh? Maybe they were German spies, sent to signal to their bombers.”

“They didn't have anything to signal with, sir.”

“Hidden somewhere.”

“Why would they do that? They wouldn't expect to get caught, so why hide ...”

“Yes, yes, don't go on about it. My point is, we've never been bombed before.”

“Well, we've been lucky. Bound to happen eventually. Fritz knows exactly where we are, doesn't he? He knows there's a big push coming. Obvious thing: bomb the aerodromes.”

Reports came in: no damage. Craters nearby, but not on the field. “Jerry couldn't hit us, could he?” the C.O. said. “Jerry's not as clever as he thinks he is. Splendid. A hot toddy, then bed for me.” But while he was sipping his toddy, Jerry came back, stayed longer and bombed more accurately. No buildings were hit, but the mess windows were blown out and one canvas hangar was blown down. When dawn arrived there were a lot of repairs to be done. There were still two corpses locked in a hut. And the telephone was still out. Cleve-Cutler drove to Wing H.Q.

* * *

Bliss was shaving. Nothing Cleve-Cutler said made him pause. The razor left his cheeks looking as polished as his Sam Browne. “Who else knows?” he said. “Provost-marshal?”

“No, sir. Nobody knows, outside the squadron.”

“How's young Nikolai?”

“Shocked. Sedated. Otherwise intact.”

Bliss rinsed his face. “People have been known to die of shock.”

Cleve-Cutler was very tired, otherwise he would not have said: “The duke is in good hands, sir. Dando won't let him die.”

“Dando will do as he's damn well told.” Bliss turned his back and urinated noisily into the toilet. It gave Cleve-Cutler time to think. When he was sure the colonel's bladder was empty, he said: “Does this mean the fate of nations is no longer in my hands?”

“Use your wits, man. His Highness is now His Lowness. There's a new gang in Russia, very touchy. If London discovers that you've been machine-gunning a brace of ...” Bliss's voice was muffled as he pulled on his shirt. “. . . we'll both get the chop.”

“So what do you advise, sir?”

“Me?” Bliss seemed surprised. “Do your duty, of course. You've got yourself into a messy situation, major. Simple solutions are always the best. What if none of your Russians existed? Shouldn't be difficult. You've lost two out of four already ... What's that dreadful smell?”

“French vermin.” Cleve-Cutler picked at a stain on his breeches. “What you're saying, sir, is that after all the nursemaiding we've done, you don't care if they both go west.”

“No, I never said that.” Bliss concentrated on making a perfect knot in his tie. “You said that.”

“It's a sickening idea.”

“Of course it is, old chap. The very thought of it makes me quite unwell. Breakfast?”

* * *

Breakfast was porridge, kippers, bacon and egg with mushrooms, toast and marmalade, coffee. Cleve-Cutler fell asleep in the car taking him back to Gazeran. When the driver woke him, he looked out and saw men knocking bits of glass out of the mess windows. The sun was shining as if nothing mattered. “This is turning into a very shabby war,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Here comes Mr Brazier.”

The adjutant looked far from shabby. He had relished the perils of the night. He was brisk and erect, and the heels of his boots struck small sparks from the tarmac.

“Good morning, sir. A glorious day for the gunners.”

Cleve-Cutler heard the barrage rumbling again in the east. “Bliss was useless,” he said. “Pretend it never happened: that's his solution. Nobody gives a toss about Russia. Nobody cares tuppence about us, provided we don't cause a scandal.”

“Excellent. Well done, sir.”

Sarcasm was not Brazier's style. “I've done nothing, Uncle,” the C.O. said. “What have I done?”

“You've given us a free hand. Now we can make the problem disappear. You remember Sergeant Lacey, the cheese and the bomb.”

“That was make-believe. There was no cheese and no bomb.”

“Correct, sir. Now we have two actual bodies and a genuine bomb. An unexploded bomb, lying in a crater only half a mile from here.
The bodies go in the crater, sir. A friendly Sapper captain is waiting to explode the bomb. His name is Captain Duffin. An Irishman. He enjoys making loud bangs. You'll like him.”

This was all too fast for the C.O. “Where is this convenient crater?”

Brazier pointed. “Would you like to see it?”

“Yes. No. Should I?”

“It's only a hole. The bomb is buried at the bottom. One hundred kilograms. Should do the trick.”

“A
hundred?
God's teeth, that's a whopper ... All right, Uncle. Let's do it.”

A truck was backed-up to the hut and the dead Russians were carried out, wrapped in blankets. Their limbs had stiffened into the twisted angles of their violent end, and the loads looked more like bundles of logs. “None too soon,” the C.O. observed. The odour of smashed guts was ripe.

He and the adjutant followed in a tender. As it swayed and bumped over the fields, putting sheep to flight, Cleve-Cutler savoured the guilty pleasures of crime. Blowing corpses sky high, other than in battle, was irregular, it was wrong, it was not officer-like. But it was bloody good fun.

The crater was ten feet wide and six feet deep.

“Tell me: is it usual for a dud bomb to make such a big hole?” Cleve-Cutler asked. “And if it's buried itself, how d'you know it's a hundred-kilogram job? In fact, how d'you know it's there at all?”

“Splendid to meet you, major,” Captain Duffin said. “Your lads are doing great work, so they are.” He was not much taller than a jockey. His voice played hopscotch: harsh one moment, squeaky the next: a disconcerting combination. “I see you've brought the late lamented. D'you want to keep the blankets? No, I thought not. We'll just dump everything in, so we will.”

The bodies tumbled and sprawled.

“D'you wish to say a few words, major?”

“God help them. God help us all.”

“Neat but not gaudy. Nobody would quarrel with that.” Duffin slid down the side of the crater. “You'll need to be a good hundred yards from here.”

Ten minutes later, the explosion made a gratifying
crack!
like a tree being snapped. A dense geyser of dirt and human remains climbed
vertically and slowly collapsed upon itself. “Smithereens,” Duffin said. “You could strain the lot through a sieve and not get enough to feed your cat.”

The adjutant gave him two bottles of Irish whiskey.

“Oh, you needn't have done that,” Duffin said. “But seeing as you have, it won't be wasted.”

Later, Cleve-Cutler asked the adjutant: “Where did you find that fellow?”

“Better you don't ask, sir,” Brazier said. “As they say in Russia.” He was very blithe. It was a long time since he had enjoyed a funeral so much.

* * *

Wing did not wait for the Push before sending the six Bristol Fighters on a Deep Offensive Patrol.

The British guns were once more groaning and grunting in the distance when Cleve-Cutler told his flight commanders that their orders were to cross the front at Arras and patrol the line Douai–Cambrai, a distance of about twenty miles, at fifteen thousand feet. Gerrish would lead. Take-off at 11 a.m.

“Douai,” Gerrish said.