Derek Robinson - A Splendid Little War

But Orel remained a picture of a market town drowsing in the midday sun, and the squadron cruised on, and soon Wragge’s humane and civilized conduct was rewarded by the sight of two armoured trains, north of the town, not moving. Almost at once, the old familiar ink-blots decorated the sky ahead. One burst was close, and he felt rather than heard the rattle of shrapnel pocking his wings as he bucked through the broken air. He looked back and pointed at Oliphant, the Flights separated, and he led the Camels away in a long, shallow sideslip.

We have been here before, Oliphant thought. The Nines had moved wide apart as soon as the shelling began. From this height the armoured trains were very thin, no wider than strips of ribbon. The C.O. would want him to go in low, very low, to improve his bombing chances. That was how the Bolos got Michael Lowe. Oliphant searched the sky, half-hoping for three Spads to appear and give his Nines an excuse to dive hard towards home. No Spads. Black shell bursts marched towards him and forced a decision. A compromise.

He took his Flight down to a thousand feet and put them in line astern. A strong wind kept nudging him to the right. He crabbed to the left and hoped the correction would let his bombs drift onto the target. The old familiar tracer, red and yellow, was pulsing up, searching, racing past. Oh yes, we have been here before.

He bombed the first train, then banked hard to give his gunner a clear shot, and watched his explosions chase each other through the grass. He circled and watched the rest of his Flight have the same bad luck. Well, we tried. Oliphant looked up and saw three Spads arriving from the north. You’re late. What kept you? Pink, with yellow flashes. Did the Reds repaint them every night? Or was there an endless supply? The Nines formed up and made haste for home. Slow haste. The bomber flown by Prod Pedlow and Joe Duncan had been hit. Their machine had lost a wheel, the last three feet of its lower port wing was gone, the rudder was trailing yards of fabric and the engine was streaming black smoke. Pedlow and Duncan waved to show that they were unhurt, but they were losing height and their speed was not much above stalling. The other Nines stayed with them, watched the Spads with one eye, and hoped the C.O. would keep the enemy busy.

Wragge did his best. His plan — to strafe the trains when the last bomb exploded — got scrapped. The Camels climbed hard. The Spads, very cavalier in their bright décor, had seen the Nines and were in a long dive to cut them off. By great good luck, Wragge’s course would meet the Spads halfway. It would be a perfect interception: hammer the enemy broadside while he couldn’t bring his guns to bear. The Spads saw it coming.

When the Camels were just out of gun-range, the enemy suddenly turned away and climbed, turned even more and came at them as nicely as a display at an airshow.

The Camels scattered. The usual madhouse began.

Dextry never flew straight. He saw flashing glimpses of a gaudy fuselage, got few chances to fire and by then he was looking at blue sky until a Spad wandered so close to him that he could smell the stink of its exhausts, and he fired one long burst at the cockpit, one single glorious battering burst and the Spad reared so that he saw the pilot’s arms thrown up as if in surrender. Dextry used the Camel’s escape, a hard right bank, and it was too slow. He flew into the Spad and buried his engine into its cockpit. Now the two aeroplanes were welded into one. The control column impaled itself in his stomach and the gun butts flattened his nose. Dextry knew nothing of this. In the instant when he went from a hundred miles an hour to nothing, the fuel tank behind him tore loose, smashed through his seat and crushed his spine.

The wreckage fell, slowly and awkwardly spinning. It did not burn until it struck the ground. The impact burst the tanks and the flames roared.

The scrap had ended. The other two Spads had gone back where they came from and the three Camel pilots had no appetite for pursuit. They went down and circled the crash until the big guns of the armoured trains chased them away.

They caught up with the Nines, by now down to a few hundred feet. They kept clear and tried to guess whether the broken bomber had enough speed to reach the airfield, and if it had, what sort of landing Pedlow would make on one wheel. They watched it tip sideways, at first gently, as if testing the manoeuvre, and then more boldly, until the wings were vertical and the aeroplane sideslipped hard.

From height, say from fifteen hundred or better yet two thousand feet, with ample space to pull out, the move would have looked smooth, even slick. From a few hundred feet, the best that could be said is that it was a quick death. The force of the crash crumpled the Nine as if it had been made of paper. It burned like paper.

Nobody hung about. Once you’ve seen one crash site, you’ve seen them all. And no amount of looking would improve this one.

Orel fell, without being pushed.

The town sent spokesmen, under large white flags, to say that the Red Army had all gone, were probably halfway to Tula by now, and Orel was glad to offer every assistance to the splendid White armies, including a gala banquet in the town hall that very night.

An invitation to Merlin Squadron was politely declined. “Nobody feels like getting hilariously drunk,” the C.O. told the adjutant, “and we’re not going to sing funny songs for the benefit of a lot of fat, over-decorated…” He couldn’t find the right insult. “Fiascos,” he said.

They were in the Orderly Room. Lacey was filing his radio reports. “Strictly speaking, a fiasco is a total failure,” he said. “Originally a term used by Venetian glassblowers. If one of them blundered, he turned it into a flask, a fiasco . Perhaps the word you seek is farrago , which means—”

Wragge punched him. Lacey saw it coming and swayed. The blow skidded off the side of his head. Brazier was between them at once. “Out, out, out!” he roared. Lacey ran.

Wragge sucked his knuckles. “Sorry about that, Uncle,” he said.

“I’m not. Lacey needs to be struck often and hard. Like insolent children.”

“Blame it on the war. It’s not panning out the way we all thought, is it? If we carry on like this, the whole squadron will be wiped out before we get anywhere near Moscow. I need a drink. What’s wrong with us, Uncle? What’s wrong with me? I’ve lost six men in four days. Three today. Griffin led the squadron all through the Tsaritsyn show and lost no-one.”

Brazier opened a desk drawer and took out a bottle of whisky and two glasses: essential equipment for any adjutant. He poured, they clinked glasses and drank. “Griffin killed himself,” he said. “He didn’t do it for the good of the squadron. Or maybe he did it to teach you a lesson.”

Wragge thought about that. “Nobody liked him, but so what? Not the C.O.’s job to be liked.”

Brazier settled his meaty backside in Lacey’s chair. “He told me he was disappointed in you. All of you. He said Russia wasn’t like France. He felt badly let down.”

Wragge tried to work that out. “He blamed us because Russia isn’t like France? That’s cuckoo.”

“Well, all pilots are slightly cuckoo. You wouldn’t fly if you were completely sane. He said he’d lived the life of Reilly in France. Every day in the air, getting paid to fly top-notch fighters and chase Huns. Marvellous. Time of his life.”

“Griffin told you all this? Extraordinary. Not his style. Was he blotto?”

“Slightly drunk. We were at that big Russian banquet and the vodka made him open his soul. Said he didn’t believe in God until the Royal Flying Corps showed him the heavens, but the war ended and dumped him in the mud. Said he felt worthless. Worse than worthless.”