Derek Robinson - War Story

“The salmon is excellent,” Milne told them. “I caught it myself.” He moved away, walking backwards. “And after lunch we’ll all have a great big game of cricket,” he announced. “With two balls, to speed things up.” To the adjutant he said: “See to it, would you?”

“Yes, of course.” Appleyard scribbled cricket on his clipboard. “Bloody good bunfight, this. Brilliant idea, old boy. Absolutely brilliant. Caused us some problems, mind you.”

“Just feel that sun.” Milne tilted his head back and enjoyed the warmth on his face.

“End of the month, you see, Rufus. The mess account was pretty low. Couldn’t pay for all this stuff, not even half of it.”

“That’s the trouble with stuff. It costs money. I tell you, Uncle, the first man to invent free stuff will make a fortune.”

“I’m sure he will. The thing is, Rufus, I had to make up the difference out of my own pocket.”

“How much?” Milne was watching a bird, high, balanced against the wind.

Appleyard took out a sheet of paper and studied it as he spoke. “The fact of the matter is, Rufus, I’ve been lending my own money to half the squadron… I mean, no names no pack drill but some of these young chaps just don’t seem to be able to manage their affairs… It’s all down here if you want to… Anyway, the point is, this little party of yours has burst the bank with rather a loud bang, and yours truly could do with a spot of—”

“Bend over, Uncle.” Appleyard stooped and Milne rested his cheque book on his back, signed a cheque and gave it to him. “Now for God’s sake stop waffling.”

“But this is a blank cheque. I can’t take this.”

“Then throw it away.” He left Appleyard flapping the cheque to dry the ink and looking not unhappy, and walked past the band – now playing the Londonderry Air – to an open-top Bentley. A colonel and a captain were sitting in the back seats.

“Hullo, Bob,” Milne said. “I invited a few friends. Didn’t want you to feel lonely.”

Bliss looked at the crowd, now well over a hundred, at the band, the hurrying waiters. “The Corps Commander thinks you’ve blown a gasket,” he said. “You’re overdue for it, God knows. You’ve been flying for nearly two years, you’ve had this squadron for a year, it’s high time you went round the bend.”

“He doesn’t think I’m good enough. Is that it? Time I got pensioned off.” Scarlet patched Milne’s face as anger rose in him. “Bastard!” He kicked the car. “Bloody bastard!”

“You can’t break it,” Bliss said. “It’s a Bentley.”

“I don’t care if it’s a babbling brook.” Milne kicked it again, but already his anger was subsiding. “Damn, damn, damn. I’m sorry, Bob. This is… this is all wrong. Completely cockeyed.”

Bliss took off his cap, smoothed his hair, replaced his cap. Milne licked his fingers and tried to rub out a scratch on the car. In the distance, the band was playing a polka.

“I don’t understand any of that,” Bliss said,”but I don’t suppose it matters. The remarkably patient chap sitting in the car is Captain Dando, your new medical officer. Corps Commander’s asked him to take a close look between your ears and report what, if anything, he finds.”

Milne and Dando exchanged nods.

“And now,” Bliss said,”I’ll go and get myself a drink, because I’m sure you will want to attend to that rather wobbly aeroplane of yours.”

Milne turned to see where Bliss was looking. The plane was a BE2c. It was coming in to land and its approach was very uncertain, full of swerves and dips. The playing of the band had drowned its engine, but now the band stopped and they all heard the blips and spurts and crackles. A red flare soared from the plane, creating the brief illusion that it was hanging from a string. “Hell’s bloody bells,” Milne said wearily. An ambulance came by and he chased it and jumped on the running-board.

It was a heavy landing. Kellaway, worried about his revs, chose the wrong moment to look at the gauge and he crashed his head against the instrument panel. Left to itself, the plane ran to a halt in the middle of the field. ‘C’ Flight circled overhead and watched the ambulance pull up alongside it. Kellaway was unconscious. A small cut on his forehead had released enough blood to cover his face but the real problem was his right foot, which was jammed behind a rudder pedal. By the time the medics had slit open his flying boot and heaved him clear, Bliss and Dando had arrived with a crowd of guests, and Paxton was telling Milne what had happened.

“This Hun came at us from behind, sir,” he said. “Hard to tell what it was. Probably a Fokker. Not an Eindecker , definitely a biplane.” The crowd pressed closer. Paxton paid them no attention, but at the same time he made his account sound matter-of-fact, almost casual, as if this sort of thing were quite routine. The ambulance left with Kellaway. “He began potting at us. I got a few good shots at him, although Kellaway was chucking the grid all over the sky. We shook him off in the clouds and next thing I knew…” Paxton took off his helmet and goggles. Oil stains gave his face a grim, piratical look. “…he came at us again, this time from the side, which wasn’t very clever of him because I gave him half a drum, and he whizzed underneath us and came out the other side on fire.” Paxton demonstrated this move with his hands. “I gave him a few more, down he went and… well, Bob’s your uncle. Thank you, sir.” He accepted a bottle of wine from Colonel Bliss and took a long swig. The guests applauded, and he waved the bottle.

“D’you know where this Hun crashed?” Milne asked.

“Oh, yes.” Paxton thought about it. “More or less.”

“Go and find the wreck. Get the guns and the crosses.”

“Take my car,” Bliss said. “I’ll be here for a while.”

“Of course you will, Bob,” Milne said. “We’re all going to play rugger after lunch.” They began to walk back. “You played rugby for England, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Oh, bad luck.” They walked in silence as far as the camp. “Look, help yourselves to everything and have a good time,” Milne said. “You don’t need me, do you? I’m feeling a tiny bit tired. I might have a bit of a lie-down.” Without waiting for an answer he headed for his room.

Bliss turned and watched the last of ‘C’ Flight make its landing and taxi past the Quirk towards the hangars. “What do you think?” he asked Dando.

“I think he’s as well as can be expected.”

“Do you? I think he’s absolutely bloody miserable.”

“Yes. Well, it adds up to much the same thing.”

The red flare, the bad landing and the ambulance took some of the edge off the guests’ cheerfulness. News of the kill put it all back on, especially when they learned that the ambulance hadn’t really been needed – the pilot just got a bit of a knock on the head, soon woke up, no lasting damage. Paxton’s back was slapped many times on his way to Colonel Bliss’s car. As he was driven away, all he could see was a blur of smiling faces and waving arms.

‘C’ Flight got changed and cleaned-up and went to discover what the party was all about.

The padre was no help. “I was about to ask you,” he said. They got drinks and wandered through the crowd and came across Gus Mayo. “I can tell you what it’s not about,” he said. “It’s not about the latest news. Seen the papers? The Navy’s had a fight at last. Big scrap in the North Sea.”

“Did we win?” Ogilvy asked.

“Hard to say.”

“Then we lost,” Foster said. “Sailors always find it hard to say they didn’t win. It’s a speech defect they’ve got. I knew a captain who went down with his battleship, and his last words were: Don’t be deceived by appearances – this is in fact a glorious victory, glug-glug-glug.”