Derek Robinson - War Story

“How could you tell?” Paxton asked. “Your eyes were too wet to see anything.”

“The great mouth speaks,” O’Neill said sourly.

“He’s sorry for the Hun,” Paxton told Brazier. “Goes all weepy when one appears.”

“Any complaints, see your Flight Commander,” Brazier said. “I just do the paperwork.”

They bickered all the way to their billet.

“Of course the stupid Hun got away,” Paxton said. “You gave up.”

“Right, I did.”

“That’s my wild colonial boy. First prize in the backwards dash.”

“I gave up because I didn’t want to have tea in a prisoner-of-war camp. Don’t you ever look at your watch?”

“Constantly. It’s so boring up there I can’t wait—”

“Shut your trap, fartface. We had enough fuel to get back, or chase that Roland and have a scrap. Not both. Simple enough?”

“Oh, indubitably.”

“Trouble with you English is once you’ve stirred your tea you’ve strained your brain for the rest of the day.”

They argued in and out of the bathhouse and all the way to the mess anteroom.

“If I were driving we’d chase the sods until we jolly well caught one,” Paxton said.

“If you were driving we’d stall on take-off.”

Paxton drank some whisky-soda. He was getting to like the taste. The gramophone played Ragtime Cowboy Joe. “Hey, Kelly,” he said, and threw a cushion at Kellaway. “What’s the difference between an Australian and a dead kangaroo?”

Kellaway chewed on a corner of the cushion. “Give up,” he said.

“Right first time. The Australian gives up.” Paxton was delighted, and tittered into his drink.

“Don’t get too excited,” O’Neill warned. “You’ll wet yourself again.”

Mayo stopped playing ping-pong to say: “I’ve got an uncle in Australia and he’s never seen a kangaroo. He says it’s all rabbits. Bloody rabbits everywhere.” He served.

“One escaped,” Paxton said. “O’Neill’s a bunny.”

“It’s running down your leg,” O’Neill said. He was beginning to sound edgy.

“Oh dear. Bunny doesn’t like being called Bunny. Do you, Bunny?”

Goss put down his newspaper. “Is that chap annoying you?” He got up and tipped Paxton out of his chair. “You leave my friend Bunny alone! He can’t help it if he’s got big ears. Can you, Bunny?”

Paxton lay on the carpet and wrinkled his nose at O’Neill. For once, O’Neill had no answer except to turn away. From then on he was known as Bunny. He did not find it amusing. That night, as Paxton was brushing his teeth, O’Neill paused beside him and said: “You’re the great comedian, aren’t you? All right, we’ll see how funny you find it next time we’re in a scrap. You’ll think our fucking FE’s on tramlines, and so will Fritz.” Paxton spat, and looked up, and wrinkled his nose.

A large pilot called Jumbo James, in ‘B’ Flight, had a bright idea. He got it when he was talking to a chum who was with an anti-aircraft battery defending a British balloon site. He thought it over, and told Plug Gerrish.

“There’s one place the archie tries not to fire,” he said. “That’s directly above the balloon, in case any of their red-hot shrapnel falls on the damn thing and busts it. So I reckon a chap might be able to come in high and dive straight down and pop it.”

“He might. What then?”

“Well, assuming the observers have taken to their parachutes, like intelligent men, what you do is circle around them as tight as you can. The archie can’t hit you without hitting them. Then you scoot home. Clever wheeze, isn’t it?”

Gerrish told the CO. “It’s a lousy idea,” Cleve-Cutler said, grinning fiercely. Gerrish asked why. “I don’t know why,” Cleve-Cutler said. “I just hate bloody balloons, I suppose.”

“But you asked everyone to try and think of—”

“I know, I know. Does Jumbo want to test his idea? All right. I suppose I’d better come and watch.”

There was no lack of German balloons to attack. They were up every day, and higher than ever. Jumbo James made his attempt one bright morning when he hoped he could hide his FE in a convoy of chunky clouds sailing from west to east, not too high. Gerrish and Cleve-Cutler took off at the same time.

Perhaps it really was a good idea, or perhaps the ground defence was half-asleep. Jumbo fell out of a cloud in a near vertical dive. No archie. Five hundred feet above the balloon he had to pull out or risk tearing the wings off. No archie but the balloon was going down. He climbed until he stalled and slid sideways into a spiralling descent, steeply banked to give his observer a good view of the balloon. The Lewis was loaded with incendiary bullets and tracer, five to one. Still no archie.

To Cleve-Cutler it looked like a fly buzzing over a toffeeapple. The FE had that long-legged, nosey look of a greedy insect; the balloon was brown and plump. Yellow sparks journeyed from one to the other, but the gasbag seemed to absorb them. Still no archie. No parachutes, either.

The observer was reloading. Jumbo was close enough to see how the network of ropes crimped and squeezed the balloon. It was descending faster than ever. He kept chasing but he felt no great enthusiasm for destroying it: the thing was too huge and helpless to hate. A flame as big as a marigold showed itself halfway up the balloon. It split and each part set off in a golden race to reach the other side, a race that was never won because the entire balloon turned itself into an open furnace.

Jumbo felt a blast of heat as he sheered away. There was archie everywhere he looked. It was as if someone was trying to fill the sky with black blots. This wasn’t right. He looked for parachutes but all he saw was the blazing wreck of the balloon with its basket tumbling below it. This wasn’t right at all. The FE hit a patch of shattered air and staggered over the smoky ruins. Coloured tracer came reaching up like party streamers. One streamer flicked a wing and the joystick kicked in Jumbo’s hand. The wing sank and the ground tipped up and nothing he could do would change it. This was all wrong. Jumbo was strong, very strong, and angry. He whacked and wrenched the joystick until it came away in his hands. He was still looking at it when a grass field raced up and smashed into him.

O’Neill and Paxton returned from another wearying and completely dud patrol. O’Neill washed before lunch, and when he went back to the billet Paxton was rummaging through O’Neill’s chest of drawers. “Where d’you keep your clean socks, Bunny?” he asked, still searching.

“I don’t keep them. Bastards like you steal them.”

“Not steal. Exchange. I always leave a dirty pair… Hullo, what’s this?” He came away with a pair of clean socks. “Anything of mine you want, Bunny, just help yourself. My trunk is never locked. “

O’Neill sat on his bed, and yawned. “I could break your arm,” he said. “That would be nice.”

“Nearly forgot. You had a letter from home.” Paxton sent it skimming across the room. “Auntie Doris got arrested for interfering with a kangaroo, very nasty, and brother Bill’s got another boil on his backside, very painful.”

“Keep taking the prunes,” O’Neill said as he began reading the letter,”and for Christ’s sake stay downwind. Even the flies have moved out since you arrived.”

Kellaway came in. “Heard about Jumbo?” he asked. Paxton nodded. “He owed me fifteen francs,” Kellaway said.

Not looking up, O’Neill said: “Then you’d better bloody hurry, hadn’t you?” It took Kellaway a few seconds to work out what he meant. He hurried out.

O’Neill grunted, and put his letter away. He watched Paxton brush his hair. “Jimmy Gordon was a lousy gunner,” he said. Paxton stopped brushing and looked. O’Neill had never spoken to him like that before. The words were as flat as ever but they were the beginning of something, not the end. “Oh, yes?” he said.