Derek Robinson - War Story

“You can’t talk like that to me,” Mayo said thickly. “Moi, je suis the next Czar of Russia but three and I’ll have your bloody head chopped off if—”

Piggott grabbed him and dragged him back. There was a ladder against the alley wall and the adjutant was pushing men up it as fast as he could. Mayo, unable to escape from Piggott, surrendered to him and began to waltz. Soon this struck him as hugely funny, and he stopped waltzing to laugh. “Shut him up!” the adjutant hissed. Piggott punched Mayo in the stomach. The laughter turned to a groan, the groan to a gurgle as Mayo was sick. Spitting and wheezing, he let himself be steered up the ladder.

They were in a churchyard.

“One short,” O’Neill said. “Where’s the old man?”

“Vanished ten minutes ago,” the adjutant told him. “No idea where he’s gone.”

“Gone berserk, if you ask me,” Piggott said.

A deep sigh came from Kellaway. He lay stretched out on the top of a tomb, his arms crossed on his chest.

“He wants to die here,” O’Neill explained. “He reckons it’s handy for the pub.”

“Did we win the boat race?” Jimmy Duncan asked. “I sort of lost count.”

“Stand him up,” the adjutant said, pointing to Kellaway. As he spoke there came a glow of light in the alley, a rush of boots and oaths and the thud of blows. O’Neill shook Kellaway by the foot. Kellaway rolled over twice and fell off the tomb, crushing something fragile, a vase perhaps. “Follow me,” the adjutant muttered. He hurried them through the churchyard, down a muddy track and into a cobbled street. The street led back to the town square. “Rufus can look after himself,” the adjutant said. “We’re going to take the tender and get out of here, now.” But the tender was not where they had left it. “Damn,” said the adjutant. “Damn, damn, damn. Also bugger.”

They sat on the edge of a fountain in the middle of the square and watched Le Trictrac being emptied by the military police. There were several bloody heads and a few men being carried by their friends. The police whacked and kicked indiscriminately to keep the crowd on the run.

“Just like Piccadilly Circus on Boat Race night,” said Piggott.

“Did we win?” Jimmy Duncan asked. “I lost count.”

“He must have gone somewhere,” the adjutant said. “Who else would have taken it?”

O’Neill said: “Big question is, where’s he gone?”

“I’ll ask a policeman,” Mayo said, and made off. “I say, constable!” he shouted. Piggott chased him and dragged him back. “Sit down and shut up,” he said.

Mayo shook himself free. “Russian policemen finest in the world,” he said loftily. “Russian police know all the answers.” He found himself looking at Jimmy Duncan. “What’s the question?” he asked.

“Did we win?” said Duncan. “I lost count.”

For a long while, nobody spoke. Kellaway was asleep, propped up against O’Neill. Appleyard was wondering how long they should wait. Goss was rubbing the ankle he said he had broken. The others were staring at the moon, or combing their hair, or just standing with their hands in their pockets, rattling their small change. A mule trotted into the square. By now the troops had gone. Le Trictrac was shuttered and dark. The mule stopped and looked around. It heard the tinkle of falling water, walked to the fountain, eyed the airmen and found them unthreatening, and began to drink.

“That’s a mule,” Duncan said.

The animal flapped its ears. Water dripped from its nose. A clatter of hooves made it look over its shoulder. Another mule cantered into the square.

“There’s another,” Duncan asked.

“How many does that make?” Piggott asked.

“Two.”

“You’re not as stupid as you look, Jimmy.”

“Wrong,” O’Neill said. “It makes four.” Two more mules had arrived. He pointed, and the gesture disturbed Kellaway, who toppled backwards into the fountain. The first mule tossed its head and backed away. “And six makes ten,” O’Neill said. “And ten makes twenty. After that it’s bloody ridiculous.”

Kellaway stood up in the fountain. His eyes were open but he was seeing double. He was utterly bewildered. He had no idea where he was or how he got there. Everywhere he looked he saw moonlit mules: double images of moonlit mules, dozens and dozens of them, all running, but the more they ran the more there were of them until the square was crammed with mules. It was a nightmare. He dropped to his hands and knees and shut his eyes and crawled away from it.

“I don’t like the look of this,” the adjutant said to Piggott They were standing on the fountain wall, for safety. It was not a big square and mules were still pouring in. “There’s got to be a reason for this sort of nonsense.”

“Here he comes,” said Piggott.

Rufus Milne cantered into the square on a mule with reins and a halter but no saddle. He saw the airmen and forced his way towards them. “Hullo, you lot!” he cried. “Where on earth have you been?”

The square was dense with braying and stamping. Still more mules were arriving. Faintly, from a corner, the whistles of the military police could be heard. “What’s the game, Rufus?” Piggott shouted.

“These are all mine,” Milne announced. “Aren’t they jolly? This one’s called Alice. She’s a wise old bird. Aren’t you, Alice?”

“Mules are neuter,” said Goss,”and yours looks stupid.”

“Does she really? Trick of the light, I expect. The sergeant said she has the brains of an archbishop.”

“What sergeant?” the adjutant asked.

“Chap I met in the Trictrac. Awfully nice fellow. I said to him, you look a bit fed-up, and he said so would you look fed up if you had to look after five hundred bloody mules, so I said that’s an awful lot of bloody mules, and he said you bet it’s an awful lot of bloody mules, and to cut a long story short we went to see them and he swapped them for the tender.”

“He must have been drunk.”

“Soused as a herring.”

“We need the tender,” Piggott said,”to get home.”

“Take a mule. Take any mule.” Milne waved at the moonlit mass of animals. “Shop around. Find one that fits. Take two, and give the other to your mother.”

“I’ll go and get the tender,” Piggott said to the adjutant.

“You’ll have to run,” Milne said. “He told me he was going to drive to Paris.”

Mayo gave a little scream of pain. “That beast bit me!” he said.

“He’s got a girlfriend in Paris, you see.”

“Bugger the girlfriend,” the adjutant said bleakly.

“Very unlikely,” Milne said. “Not according to what he told me.”

Lord Trafford fell asleep, in mid-sentence, in an armchair. His cousin Rupert, the general, played poker with the hard core of the Old Etonians, including the four from Hornet Squadron. After an hour or so they stopped to eat sandwiches of beef tongue and chicken.

“Has it ever occurred to you,” said the general,”that this would be a much better war if all the Russians were in France, and we and the French were in Russia? Our men rot in trenches until they get blown to glory. Any bloody fool can do that. The Russian army is perfectly qualified for trench warfare. They’ve got an endless supply of bloody fools. But there’s no trench warfare to speak of on the Eastern Front. It’s all war-of-movement. Professional fighting. That’s what we’re good at. We should be there , having the time of our lives in the wide open spaces. They should be here , doing what they’re good at, which is dying for Holy Mother Russia. This is a very badly arranged war.”

“What about Salonika and Gallipoli?” someone asked.