Goshawk Squadron

by Derek Robinson

  Woolley hunched his shoulders. He had a sudden, vivid memory of sitting alone in the empty, late-afternoon sunshine on the top of a Welsh mountain, and watching the rabbits hop about the slopes far below. He felt his skin cringe at this treachery, and forced himself to look up at the hulking American. The man had a hard, almost brutal look; not the look of a willing victim. “Do you think you can fly one of these?” he asked.

  Martin glanced at the SEs, wrinkled his brown brow, and pretended to weigh the matter up. “I think I can,” he said softly.

  “No parachutes, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “We have a spare plane sir,” Woodruffe said. “O’Shea’s machine—they’ve replaced it.” Woolley saw that the adjutant was every man’s friend today.

  “Take that up if you like,” he said. “After that I’ll see.” He went inside the tent. Rogers was sitting, reading an old newspaper. “Hello, sir,” he said. “I’ve found a most comfortable château near here, completely empty. It would make a perfect home for the squadron. Honestly.”

  “Bugger off,” Woolley said.

  “Jolly good, sir.”

  Woolley cranked the adjutant’s telephone and asked for the military hospital at Abbeville. While they were getting the number he sat and looked at the stains on the canvas walls. Once he shuddered like a man entering a fever; the rest of the time his pessimistic face remained slack and empty.

  An aircraft started up, and the noise made the field telephone resonate. Woolley ignored it. The roar receded; swelled and deepened; and slowly turned brittle as it climbed away. Woolley yawned. The telephone rang and he answered it. There was a long pause at the other end, at the military hospital in Abbeville. The noise of the airplane gradually returned, then rapidly enlarged to a thunder as it flew low overhead. Woolley pressed the receiver hard against his ear.

  The radiating shock-waves of the explosion sent little tremors up the legs of the camp chair. Men were shouting and running. Far away a woman’s voice spoke. “Hello, bitch,” he said, “I need you. I need you now.”

  Force 4: Moderate Breeze

  Raises dust and loose paper; small branches are moved

  Woolley flew Goshawk Squadron all day, every day, whenever the weather allowed.

  As well as individual flying skills, he drilled them in the routines for reconnaissance, escort duty, balloon attacks, low-level infantry support, and artillery observation. Everything was done intensively; there were no easy days. He never congratulated; he frequently denounced. Not to be damned by Woolley was as near praise as anyone would ever get. He demanded tight formation flying, so there was a constant risk of collision, which meant that everyone was living on his nerves. “Flying with the old man,” Rogers said one day, “is like living with a maniac. You know that the instant you take your eye off him, he’ll kill you. I find it both exhilarating and debilitating.”

  “Like opium,” Lambert said.

  “Exactly.”

  Their eyes became permanently red-stained and gray-pouched; most people lost weight. Everyone complained to Woodruffe about something: the food, the tents, the lack of hot water. Those who sweated a lot began to smell, because it was impossible to bathe regularly. Killion became withdrawn. When he tried to speak a stammer confused him, so he said little. Dangerfield’s face developed a nervous twitch; Kimberley chewed his nails; Lambert couldn’t get to sleep at night and couldn’t wake up in the morning.

  It was not a happy squadron. They resented the way Woolley treated them and secretly longed to see him humbled, but one of the infuriating things about him was his impregnable social life. There was no way of retaliating against Woolley, because his off-duty life was without manners or morals. He was scruffy, ill-shaven, contemptuous of any courtesy or human warmth, and apparently indifferent to personalities. Since there was nothing anybody could find attractive about Woolley, there was nothing anyone could hurt. The squadron, unable to hate him, and deprived of Germans to hate, fell back on hating itself. Woolley watched this with his usual remote indifference.

  He drank considerably, mostly Guinness, which more and more became a food for him. Many pilots were drinking a fair bit, and a good few started at breakfast. This included Richards and Delaforce. On their third day with the squadron, Richards had approached Delaforce and asked him if he didn’t find that one of the difficulties of flying was that the aircraft tended to stay up rather too long.

  “I don’t quite follow you,” Delaforce said. Richards looked away.

  “One finds,” he said, “that flying seems to accelerate one’s bodily functions to an embarrassing degree, sometimes. One wishes that there were some … er … device for … well, for coping.”

  “I know,” said Delaforce. “I barely landed in time this morning.”

  “Yesterday,” Richards said, “I didn’t.”

  They went to Lambert for advice. “It’s probably only nerves,” Delaforce said, “but there’s no denying that it reduces one’s efficiency.”

  “It’s not nerves, it’s castor oil,” Lambert said. “All these SEs run on castor oil, it’s the only stuff that’ll lubricate the innards without going treacly at height. You’re getting the fumes.”

  “Good God,” said Richards. “Can one build up a tolerance to it?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “But look here,” Delaforce said, “I won’t last five minutes at this rate. I nearly crashed this morning.”

  “It’s not only dangerous,” Richards said, “it’s unhealthy.”

  “Booze is a first-rate antidote,” Lambert said. “Drink hearty before you take off. On long flights, carry a spare bottle and top up the system regularly.”

  “Alcohol?” exclaimed Delaforce.

  “Booze. Plum brandy works fast, but it’s really a matter of taste. The important thing is to stun the bowels before they can go into action.”

  “Yes, but look here,” Richards said. “I don’t have any liquor. And I don't have any money, either.”

  “See Woody,” Lambert advised. “He’ll give you a chit for Stores. Best thing is to get a crate of what you fancy.”

  The adjutant signed the chits without comment. “Does this go on the mess account?” Richards asked.

  “Good Lord, no. This is squadron equipment. We get it with the engine parts and the gasoline and so on.”

  “Extraordinary … Doesn’t anyone question it?”

  “I’ve never known anyone to question anything the old man wants. Mind you, I enter it as lubricant, same as the castor oil. I can recommend the rum,” Woodruffe added. “It tastes unusually well on porridge.”

  The weather in January and early February helped Woolley. There was plenty of cloud, which he welcomed for his aerial stalking exercises, but little rain and no high wind. Showers or mist sometimes soaked the grass and made it slippery; then Woolley always started with half an hour of circuits-and-bumps, until the squadron felt it could land on a melting glacier. There were accidents: broken wheels, broken propellers, broken noses. But, as the adjutant pointed out to Kimberley when he came in grumbling after an unusually dramatic skid, the day might come when he would have to go up or come down in a cloudburst, and dry weather landings would be no help then. Kimberley chewed a corned-beef sandwich. “Listen,” he said at last, “I don’t care if it is good training, the old man’s not thinking of that … All right, he is, but … he’ll not be satisfied until somebody catches a packet, that’s all.”

  “He wants to get the squadron match-fit for when we go back into the Line,” Woodruffe said.

  “I tell you he’ll not be satisfied until somebody touches wingtips. Or does a ground-loop on a wet field. Or dives their wings off. He’ll not be satisfied until he’s gone too far.” Kimberley’s hand was trembling: Kimberley, the stolid plowboy.

  The adjutant watched the sulky faces of the pilots as they sat around the mess tent, and decided to talk to Woolley. He found him in his tent, dubbining his flying-boots.

  “I thought
you ought to know,” Woodruffe said, “some of the chaps feel you’re pushing them a bit hard.”

  “How many pilots have died through cold feet, Woody? I wonder. I killed a German last year who had on dress-uniform jack-boots. I pulled them off him: no socks. Too tight for socks, I suppose. Fifteen thousand feet, and no socks. He looked lovely, though, even without his head. Lovely shine.”

  “The squadron does look a thought weary, sir. Have you any plans for leave? Perhaps a long weekend soon?”

  Woolley dug a gob of dubbin and spread it thickly over the leather. “Going too far,” he said. “Somebody thinks I’m going too far. How far is the war going, Woody? Is the war going too far?”

  “I don’t know. It already has, I suppose.”

  “This year it will go further. This year will be the worst of all.”

  “I don’t see how it can be any worse than last year. Passchendaele was about as bad as anything could be. Three hundred thousand killed and injured. Nothing gained.”

  “Magnificent stalemate. A two-way siege. We besiege them while they besiege us. What farce.”

  Woodruffe resented Woolley’s tone; after all, Woodruffe had left a set of fingers in the trenches. “It’s the best that a dozen generals can think of. What else can they do?”

  Woolley shrugged. “Somebody had better think of something soon. When spring comes the Germans will attack.”

  “Perhaps we shall attack, too.”

  Woolley looked at him mockingly.

  “Well, we have to attack before we can win, don’t we?” Woodruffe cried.

  “What a patriot you are, Woody. Chin up, grin like the devil, and everything’s bound to come out right in the end.”

  “I’ve had more experience of bloody war than you have. I’m twenty-eight.”

  “You should have been shot. If wars were fought so that the old got killed before the young, the survivors would damn soon cut things short.”

  “You seem to be doing your best to make sure that nobody in this squadron has a chance to grow old.”

  “Of course they won’t.” Woolley spat into his dubbin. “They’ll all be dead in a year.”

  “That’s an absurd way to think.”

  “They’ll all be dead in six months, then.”

  “I don’t see how you can possibly lead the squadron if that’s what you really believe.”

  “I don’t. I personally believe there won’t be one of them left alive by the end of April.”

  Woodruffe got up to go. He was angrier than he could explain or understand. “One expects casualties …” he mumbled.

  “The trouble with pilots is that they are civilized, rational human beings,” Woolley said. “They have been brought up, trained, educated, stuffed to bursting with never going too far. In a few weeks they’re going to get chucked into the most horrible fucking slaughterhouse this war has ever seen.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “Oh, shut up. And when this bloodbath starts, if we don’t fight like animals, we’ll lose. The difference between man and animals is that animals never worry about going too far, they just kill.”

  “These men can kill,” Woodruffe grunted.

  “When they try to kill me,” Woolley said, “I’ll believe you.”

  Next day it rained heavily. Richards sloshed over to the mess tent for breakfast, skirting the pools that would not drain into the hard ground. The sky was as gray as the Atlantic it came from.

  Rogers was pacing out distances inside the mess tent. “I thought we might play some indoor cricket,” he announced. “Get up two teams—the over-twenty-ones against the under-twenty-ones, or something. I have an old tennis-ball. Everybody bats, everybody bowls. It’s jolly good exercise. Sharpens the reflexes.”

  Lambert said: “I intend to spend today getting drunk.” He was eating fried bread and drinking gin.

  “Well, you can do that too. I mean, I think we should organize something. There’s not going to be any flying today.”

  “It may be nothing more than a belt of rain,” Gabriel said. “It could have passed by noon.”

  They looked at him with dislike. Gabriel was the only pilot who didn’t drink in the morning. Apparently the engine fumes did not distress him. Dangerfield, who made frequent trips to the latrine, was impressed by Gabriel’s continence. “Gabriel keeps a very tight asshole,” he once said. “I admire that. It’s a sign of strong character. Those sort of people don’t give much away.”

  “But who would want what Gabriel doesn’t give away?” Lambert had asked.

  Now, Gabriel’s remark met with such a silence that he felt obliged to support it. “This weather blew up without warning,” he said. “It could blow over just as quickly. Who knows?”

  “I’ll bet you there’s no flying today,” Dickinson said. He was a smooth, well-groomed young man with the anonymous face of an actor. Only when he was gambling did it light up; the rest of the time he wore the patient, professionally vacant look of a man eternally waiting to be auditioned. But he moved well, and flew elegantly. “I bet you a fiver there’s no flying today.”

  “No, no. It’s too early for w-wagers,” Killion said, and got no further: his stammer jumped in. Nobody paid any attention.

  Finlayson limped in. “Somebody’s plane just got blown over,” he reported.

  “I’ll take that bet,” Church said carefully. Nobody paid any attention to him. He put his face in his hands.

  The tent began to leak. Richards put a bucket under the drips. “It’s definitely getting worse,” he said.

  “All right then, I bet you there is flying today,” Dickinson said. He looked around, but nobody spoke. Church took a piece of toast and carefully buttered it, clutching the knife in his fist.

  “This bloody French weather,” Kimberley said. “You can’t trust it.”

  Church piled marmalade on his toast and spread it thickly and thoroughly. “I’ll take that bet,” he said distinctly. Again, nobody paid any attention. He put the toast back on the plate where he’d found it and got up and went out.

  “It must be hell in the t-t-t-t—” began Killion.

  “Trenches,” Dickinson supplied. Killion nodded.

  “Oh well,” said Dangerfield. “They shouldn’t have volunteered.”

  “Funny to think that people actually did volunteer in the beginning,” said Richards.

  “Hilarious,” said Lambert.

  Finalyson went to the door of the tent. “Old Churchy’s standing out in the rain,” he said.

  “I don’t think he had any breakfast again,” Kimberley said. “Did he?”

  “Don’t worry about Church,” Dickinson said. “Church is feeling no pain.”

  “Why does he do it?” Gabriel asked.

  “The real question is, how does he do it and still manage to fly,” Rogers said. “But he does.”

  Woolley came in, wearing a potato sack over his head and shoulders. “Finlayson?” he said. “I want to look at your neck.”

  Finlayson stood up. “It aches a bit, but I can turn it all right, sir,” he said. Woolley walked behind him. “Move it,” he said.

  Finlayson turned his head from side to side. “Stop moving your shoulders,” Woolley told him. He gripped Finlayson’s shoulders. “Do it now.” Finlayson flung his head about. Woolley grunted and let go. Stuck to Finlayson’s left shoulder with sticking-plaster was a piece of string. On the end was a small firecracker. “Now look straight in front and nod,” Woolley ordered. He blew on his cigarette and lit the firecracker. “All right,” he said.

  Finlayson sat down, looking relieved. The firecracker exploded. He ducked, covering his head. It went off again. He jerked around; again it exploded, and he twisted the other way. The firework hissed and banged, and then he understood, and struggled to throw off his jacket.

  “Good God all bloody mighty,” he said, watching the stub fizzle and flutter about.

  Woolley was sitting astride a chair, drinking coffee. “Slow,” he said. “Too
damn slow.”

  “One of the buttons stuck,” Finlayson protested.

  “Bugger the buttons, your neck is too slow. You don’t turn fast enough.” He leaned across and poured coffee on the dying squib. It sighed furiously. “No future in that,” he said. “Dead end.”

  “All right,” muttered Finlayson. “I know.”

  “You should know. That’s what happened last time, you didn’t look behind you. By rights you should be cremated. He must have been a very stupid German.”

  “I’m exercising it,” Finlayson said, rubbing his neck. “I’m having treatment for it.”

  “I don’t care if you have mass said for it. Get it right. From now on I’m going to carry a Guinness bottle around with me. Every time I see you I’m going to chuck it at you and shout.”

  Finlayson stared at him, white-faced and hating.

  “The Guinness bottle is very good for the throwing. If I hit you once, you’re grounded. Twice, you’re posted.” Woolley finished his coffee. “No flying today. Everybody get over to the butts. Gunnery practice.”

  Half of Goshawk Squadron sat on soaking wet camp chairs and hunched their saturated shoulders against Lewis guns which hissed steadily as the rain washed their hot barrels. The rest of Goshawk Squadron was slithering about in the deepening mud of a seven-foot trench, thrusting the targets up, waving them for a few seconds, and hauling them down again.

  Woolley prowled up and down behind the guns, counting the shots. “If you aim right, five is enough,” Woolley told them from beneath his potato sack. “If you don’t, it’s all wasted anyhow.” Whenever anyone shot off too many, Woolley hurled bits of mud at him. Delaforce was terribly excited, and the shuddering, air-shaking, hot-smelling thunder of the weapon often got the better of him. He hardly felt the clods thudding against his back.