Derek Robinson - War Story

As the other two went out, the steady booming of the guns sharply increased to a colossal, hammering roar. Piggott looked at his watch. “Same time as yesterday,” he said. “Nice to work with people with such tidy habits, isn’t it?”

Cleve-Cutler let them get well away, and said: “Dando told me he had a rather curious conversation with you.”

“Curious?” Foster fanned himself with the envelope. “Well, Dando’s rather a curious sort of fellow, isn’t he?”

“Is he? I thought he was a typical doctor.”

“Typical bloodsucker, if you ask me. D’you know what he had the nerve to do? He had the nerve to wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me how many flamers I’d got. Foi two pins…” Suddenly Foster was so furious that he couldn’t get the words out. He glared at the CO. His lips kept tightening and slackening, and he swallowed again and again. “For two pins I’d smash his head in,” he said.

“You didn’t, though.”

“The man’s a leech. A damned leech.” Foster looked at his hands, and then stuffed them in his pockets. “He’d better not try it again, that’s all.”

“Why was it so important to him? Damn it all, the middle of the night…”

Foster had control of himself again. He could even smile a little. “Perhaps Dando is losing his wits,” he said. Cleve-Cutler gave his roguish grin full throttle, and Foster went away happy.

Ferry pilots delivered the new FE2ds, stayed for lunch and flew out the old machines.

All the crews went out to look at the first arrival. The tricycle undercarriage had gone but otherwise its basic design was much the same. It sounded far more powerful. The engine had been vastly improved: now it generated 250 horse power and turned a four-bladed propeller. That meant just about everything was better: shorter take-offs, a faster rate-of-climb, higher ceiling, greater speed, better stunting. The pilots were happy and the observers were delighted when they heard that the new model carried three Lewis guns. One was mounted on the nose as usual and another was installed just in front of the pilot so that the barrel poked over his observer’s right shoulder; this was a fixed gun, which meant the pilot aimed the whole aeroplane when he fired it. The third gun was even more remarkable. A metal post rose just behind the observer’s seat, tall enough to clear the upper wing. “This must be what they call the ‘pillar mounting’,” Piggott said. “Apparently you attach the Lewis to the top. That’s what the book of words says.”

“Bloody long way up,” Boy Binns said. “Do they supply a piece of string to tie to the trigger?”

“You have to stand on your seat,” the ferry pilot explained. There was a moment’s silence. It was such an absurd idea; everyone was waiting for the rest of the joke. But he was serious. They all laughed. “Get me a couple of guns and I’ll show you,” he said. “Why two?” Piggott asked. “You’ll see,” he said.

Two Lewis guns were brought. One was fixed to the pillar mounting, the other to the nose. As usual the balance of the guns left them pointing upwards. The ferry pilot heaved himself into the front cockpit. “Actually the seat’s too low,” he said,”but if you stand on the arms…” He climbed onto them and swung the Lewis on the pillar so that he was aiming past the tail. “As you can see, I’ve got to lean back or I can’t work the gun,” he said,”which is why my backside is perched on the drum of the other Lewis. What it comes down to is you’ve got to sit on the front Lewis in order to use the top one.” He swayed from side to side, pretending to fire.

Mayo said: “What it comes down to is you’ve only got your boots inside the cockpit.”

“Has anybody ever actually done this?” Gerrish asked. “I mean, in action?”

“Doubt it.” The ferry pilot climbed down.

“You’ll never get me up there,” Stubbs said. “I’ve got no head for heights.”

“You’d have to be a real athlete to do all that,” Mayo said.“I mean, it’s not easy with the bus on the ground, let alone whizzing along at eighty or ninety.”

“Make that a hundred,” the ferry pilot said.

Cleve-Cutler had kept in the background. Now he said: “Well, you don’t have to do it if you’d rather get shot-up by a Hun on your tail.”

“Personally I think it’s a spiffing idea,” Paxton said. “Of course the driver will have to keep the bus straight and level, won’t he? But then, that’s what bus drivers are paid to do.” He wrinkled his nose.

“What d’you say, Bunny?” Piggott asked.

“I say the pillar’s not long enough,” O’Neill said. “I say make it twenty feet long and give the silly bugger a rope ladder and a packet of sandwiches and he can stay up there all day.”

The pattern of the previous day’s bombardment was repeated: stupendously heavy pounding for about an hour and then a steady thunder, so constant that people forgot it. The ground crews had work to do, checking and adapting the new machines, testing the engines, painting numbers on the rudders. The officers went swimming.

Boy Binns chucked a bucket of water at Paxton, so he dived into the pool and cruised underwater until his outstretched fingers touched the other side. He came up to see Corporal Lacey looking down at him.

“Circumcision is clearly a hallmark of the British middle class,” Lacey said. “I make the vote fourteen to three in favour of the amendment, with one member indecisive.”

Paxton climbed out. “What about you?”

“Oh, quite, quite conventional. As an infant I shut my eyes and thought of England, or at least the Home Counties, while the surgeon’s knife made the supreme sacrifice. So I suppose you could say I did my bit for my country. Not a very big bit, but—”

“Look here,” Paxton said,”I really don’t care, so if that’s all you came to tell me…”

“I wondered if you’d mind witnessing Rufus Milne’s will.”

Paxton dried his hands on a towel, took the document, and glanced through it before he fully understood what Lacey had said. “How on earth can I witness his will? The man’s dead. There’s no signature here. He hasn’t signed it.”

“A detail. To be added later.”

Paxton turned a page. “One thousand pounds to the Golden Sunset Donkey Sanctuary, Taunton, Somerset,” he said.

“Milne was very fond of donkeys.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“A generous gesture. It will be much appreciated.”

“You’ve faked this, haven’t you? It’s all a cheat.”

“Nothing of the sort. It’s all perfectly valid. I spent two years in the family law office, you know.” He took the will back. “My mother’s sister, Maud, set up the Golden Sunset Donkey Sanctuary. She does splendid work, but funding is an endless headache… Oh well, if you won’t witness it I shall have to find someone else.”

“You’ll never get away with this.”

“I always have. Toby Chivers, for instance, left five thousand to the Leeds and District Society for Unmarried Mothers. That’s my cousin Harriet’s main interest in life.”

“I think I’ll turn you over to the police.”

“In that case I shan’t tell you about the equipment for the tennis courts that I’ve just got hold of.”

“Ah.” Paxton was quite good at tennis. It would be nice to be squadron tennis champion. “Nets and stuff, eh? We ought to find a nice level bit of grass. “

“I’ve found one. Perfectly level, no slope, but it’s got a few bumps.”

“We need a roller, then.”

“We need a company of infantry. There’s a battalion in camp behind the church who seem very keen on drill. Why don’t you ask some of them to come and march up and down on our tennis court? Take a box of cigars with you.”