Derek Robinson - War Story

“I had a king-flush,” Piggott said.

Foster smiled sadly. “Think yourself lucky,” he said. “Archie Ryan had gangrene.”

It took a moment for Piggott to remember Ryan and what had happened to him. “That’s damn bad luck. I liked Archie.”

“People shouldn’t play around with guns.”

Piggott was silenced by this remark. Cleve-Cutler came back with Dando and Gerrish. “Frank’s invented a new way to win the war,” he said. “Fire away, Frank.”

“You are, I’m sure, familiar with the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” Foster said. He flashed a keen, conspiratorial grin at each man.

“No,” Gerrish said.

“Probably a writer,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Chaps with three names are usually writers, aren’t they?”

Foster raised a forefinger. “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

“Oh yes,” Dando said. “Coleridge. Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I had to learn great chunks of it at school. He shot a bird, didn’t he? Shot the wrong bird and brought bad luck to the ship.”

“Exactly,” Foster said. “And the same thing’s happened to us. Why have we had all this bad luck? Damn decent chaps, all gone west, one after another? I’ll tell you why. Somebody in this squadron has shot down an Albatros with a crossbow.” He raised his eyebrows and looked hard, checking to be sure they understood.

“Come off it, Frank,” Piggott said. “Who would want to attack a Hun with a crossbow? It’s absurd. Where on earth would anyone get a crossbow?”

“Harrods,” Foster said.

“Listen,” Gerrish said,”do you know this for a fact? I mean, who is this idiot?”

Foster suddenly became quite passionate. “I know for a fact that decent chaps keep going west day after day,” he said,”and somebody’s got to be responsible. Don’t you agree?” His head was trembling with anger.

“I still don’t see the point,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Why pot an Albatros with a crossbow?”

“To humiliate the enemy, of course,” Foster said. It was so obvious to him that he could only look pityingly at the CO. “Any fool can see that. But while he’s been humiliating the Hun, this chap has been bringing the squadron all this shocking bad luck. No doubt he means well. But it’s got to stop.”

They stood in silence. All except Foster looked awkward and uncomfortable. Foster looked angry and determined. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll track him down. I’ll get him, and that will bring this war to a sudden end, believe you me.” He took his umbrella and went out.

“I realise we’ve discussed this before,” Dando said to Cleve-Cutler,”but how much longer can you let him go on like this?”

“Just as long as his Flight keeps on knocking down Huns,” the CO said. “It’s as simple as that. If we kicked out all the loonies in the RFC, we’d be down to single figures in a fortnight.”

Dando nodded towards the other two, who were arguing about how best to shoot down an Albatros with a crossbow. They were getting quite excited. “Want my job?” Cleve-Cutler said to Dando. “The pay’s not much but the prospects are lousy.”

A string of limousines lined the drive. They were black, shiny, serious cars that never got driven for fun. You had to have whiskers and a pince-nez and a stomach you could eat your dinner off before you were allowed in the back of one of those cars. Paxton rode past, sneering at them and their owners, and parked his motorbike in the stable yard.

A maid met him at the main entrance, showed him to a small reception room and went away. He stood at the window and watched the rain. It looked finer and silkier than the rain at Pepriac. For the rich, even the weather watched its manners.

After five minutes a very old wolfhound wandered in, looked him over, decided he wasn’t worth knowing, and wandered away.

After another five minutes the maid came back with a card. All it said was Shan’t be long. He knew the writing.

Another maid brought a tray of sandwiches and a bottle of claret. Also the London papers.

It was dusk before she came in. “Thank God, a human being at last!” she said and kissed him, a full, unhurried kiss with both arms around his neck. “Is that horseradish sauce I taste?” she asked.

“More likely cordite. I get it off the Lewis gun.”

“Yummy. It suits you.”

“Is something important going on here?”

“Formal, yes. Important, no. Fortunately, they’ve reached the cognac, so I slid out. Come on, David, let’s go for a swim. Bring the wine.”

They walked down to the lake, hand in hand, under a giant golf umbrella. The claret was stuffed in his tunic pocket. The rain was more like mist; he felt as if he were in a secret, enclosed world, a place where he was no longer in control. So he relaxed entirely and let things happen to him.

The boathouse was black except for the open end, which showed the misty lake like a picture in a book. “I can’t find any coat-hooks,” he said.

“Hang your stuff on the floor. That’s what it’s for. Oh God… That water is going to be so wonderful. You can’t imagine how sticky I feel. Those creaky old men have been rolling their eyeballs over me all evening. Are you ready?”

Paxton found himself trembling, although it was not cold. He took a huge breath, so big that a couple of joints creaked, and he stretched. Her hand found his and she led him onto a diving board, broad enough for two. “This is new,” he said. Their weight made it bounce excitingly. His toes felt the end of the board. Still he had not been brave enough to look at her. Her arms, very cool and strong, went around him and as they kissed, strange new contours pressed against him. Her feet stepped onto his and her hands drifted down his back until they held his buttocks. Judy knew best. He did the same to her. His eyes were shut; his brain was flooded with pleasure; he had surrendered all control of his senses, including the sense of balance. They toppled together. There was a fraction of a second when he knew he was falling and another fraction of a second when he enjoyed it, and then the lake exploded in a burst of cold, bracing foam that pulled them apart.

They raced each other to the little island, and she won.

“Okay,” she said. They were lying side by side on the smooth boulder, and he was gasping for breath. “What’s new with the war?”

He told her about the barrage, heard here as a ceaseless grumble, about its sparkle by day and its colour by night. “Honestly, I think it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Present company excepted, of course.” He was finally looking at her. There was no moon, but his imagination filled in the gaps. “And we’ve got a marvellous new bus, just the job for trench-strafing.” She wanted to know what strafing was. “You find some Hun infantry,” he said, “and you fly as low as you can and you shoot them up. Or shoot them down. Wonderful sport. Jolly dangerous, of course, because they tend to get peeved when you knock ‘em down, so they fire back.”

“What happens? When you knock them down, I mean. What does it look like?”

Paxton laughed. “Not like what you see on the pictures, I can tell you that! They do all sorts of gymnastics. Some spin around, some do cartwheels, some seem to run backwards! Very comical, it is. Sometimes I laugh so much I can’t shoot straight.”

Judy hooked her little finger with his. “I wish I were a man,” she said.

“Mind you, it’s damned hard work. Especially now we’ve got this new bus that flies so much higher. You see, the air gets thin at ten or twelve thousand and it’s bloody tiring, jumping from one gun to another.” Suddenly his memory cleared. Suddenly he remembered the flamer. “I made a hell of a good kill yesterday,” he said.