A Splendid Little War

by Derek Robinson

  “Ah, the war. Yes. I have a couple of military messages. Wrangel told Denikin that he must have another squadron of British fighters.”

  “Bloody Russians. They think Britain’s an open tap.”

  “Wrangel says he needs them because his cavalry got strafed, badly, by the Red air force,” Lacey said. Brazier’s grunt expressed his feelings about cavalry. “Count Borodin told me what happened,” Lacey said. “Apparently the Cossacks got trapped in a ravine.” Another grunt from Brazier. “It happened very quickly,” Lacey said. “Cossacks don’t know much about aeroplanes.”

  “And they didn’t stop to look when they got strafed. Machine guns have that effect. Everyone gets his head down.”

  Lacey looked at the saddles. “Those came from the Cossacks.”

  They went over and looked. Brazier squatted on his heels and fingered the holes in the leather. “Fresh damage,” he said. “You don’t take much interest in battlefields, do you? I do.” He picked up a saddle and turned it over. “See here. The round has emerged from the underside. Either the horse was standing on its head or the bullets were fired from above. High above.” He put down the saddle and opened a penknife and poked it in the most inviting hole and found nothing; tried another hole and found the remains of a bullet. He quickly found three more. “Rather battered,” he said. “Most are. I saw a lot of these in France. They’re calibre 0.303 inches, the standard British ammunition.” He gave them to Lacey, and stood up.

  “We supplied ammunition to Russia during the war,” Lacey said. “The Reds might have captured it.”

  “Our bullets wouldn’t fit Red machine guns. They fire the standard Russian bullet, which is 7.62 millimetres. Not the same thing at all.”

  Lacey squeezed a bullet between his fingers until the pain made him stop. “Should I tell the C.O.?” he asked.

  “He’ll hate you for it. They’ll all hate you. And it won’t change anything.” He took the bent bit of metal from Lacey’s hand and tucked it in a tunic pocket. “Furthermore, they won’t believe you. But go ahead, if you wish.” Brazier almost smiled. He was enjoying this.

  “I don’t wish.”

  Brazier went back to his desk. “Stick to groceries, Lacey. You won’t get blood on your fingers.”

  7

  The nearest Red air force base was at a place called Urbàkb, fifty miles to the north. Perhaps seventy or eighty. The maps didn’t always agree. Next morning, the White bomber squadron resident at Beketofka set off to raid it, and Griffin’s squadron followed.

  It was like following children going on a picnic. The White bombers did not bother with formation-keeping: they flew at whatever height they pleased, in any pattern, or none. There was a lot of low cloud, which did not help. Oliphant identified the leader’s machine by the white streamer flying from its tail, and he kept his Nines far behind it. The Camels were high above, as usual, scouting for trouble.

  There was none until they got in sight of Urbàkb. Then guns opened up and the White bombers flew into a sky that was blotted with black. It looked a lot worse than it was because the gunners miscalculated the height and so there was plenty of empty air. The cloud, too, provided patchy cover. Oliphant could see enemy machines parked down there. He wheeled his Nines away from the action and let the White bombers have first crack.

  It was a full squadron, twelve aircraft, and their concerted attack should have made a mess of something, but already three White bombers had turned away from the target and were heading for home. They did not appear to be damaged. The remainder milled about. Soon, bomb bursts made small brown fountains, but Urbàkb was a big airfield and attacking the grass would do no lasting harm. And Red fighters were taking off.

  Oliphant re-formed his Flight into line astern and flew towards the hangars. The flak gunners saw him coming and turned their fire on him, so he put his nose down and changed height before they could change the fuses in their shells. A heavy machine gun came looking for him and sent stitches of red tracer climbing and bending and whipping past. Then he was over the first hangar and he pulled the toggle that released the bombs. As he climbed away, the Lewis gun behind him was firing long bursts, probably at the man chucking up the red tracer. Oliphant hoped his observer had many more drums of ammunition. Fighters were still taking off, and it was a long haul back to Beketofka.

  Griffin’s plan was to engage the Red fighters over their own aerodrome. He felt sure they would defend it, and if his Camels couldn’t knock them down they would enjoy a good, long scrap that would exhaust the enemy’s ammunition and give the Nines a healthy start. But to his surprise, the Red fighters fled. They kept low, and they kept going, grey specks between empty steppe and a ragbag of clouds, until he lost them. Extraordinary behaviour. Pathetic, really. He waited another minute. Nothing.

  He signalled his Flight into line abreast and they went down where the guns could not depress their barrels. They flew low across Urbàkb airfield and shot up everything with wings that they saw. Some burned, one exploded, none was airworthy as the Camels cleared the base and climbed, still chased by the red tracer. Griffin thought: Pity about the fighters. We came all this way and they couldn’t even raise a team. He put his Flight into arrowhead, cruised around, looking for a juicy target, found none and headed for home.

  It was fifteen minutes before the Camels caught up with the Nines, and when they did they flew straight into a messy battle with eight Red fighters. Hackett identified two Nieuports, an Albatros, a Fokker D9, a couple of Spads and maybe a Sopwith Pup before he was into the usual madhouse, dodging one bomber to try to get a burst at a Red fighter chasing another bomber. Two wrecks burned on the steppe below, and a Nine had fallen out of formation with a dead engine.

  Its pilot was Gerard Pedlow, and he knew that his best hope was to dive hard and pray that the wings would not fold like wet paper under the strain. He heard the chatter of the Lewis behind him. That meant an enemy was chasing, looking for the kill. Not a happy situation. His wings were shuddering, the cockpit instruments were a blur, the wind in the wires and struts screamed. The Nine had a big, heavy engine, now totally dead and hellbent on burying itself and its crew. The joystick in his hands felt as rigid as an iron bar. At this rate they were bound to crash. He used every muscle and heaved on the stick. Something moved. He thought he’d bent it. Then the nose came up by inches and if it hadn’t been for the wheels he might have got away with it. But the wheels scraped against Russia and snapped off with a bang and the bomber bounced and fell on its belly and skidded through a mist of grass and dirt as if it had no wish to stop.

  When it stopped, everything stopped.

  No blind, suicidal skidding. No rackety shaking. No noise. Just a pain in the stomach. Pedlow undid his seat belt and the pain did not go away but his bruised stomach felt able to breathe more easily. He was dazed and his eyes kept going in and out of focus. He worried about his stomach. It shouldn’t be breathing, that was the job of the lungs. Now his ears were singing. What was there to sing about? And he could taste something that might be bile. Bloody bile. “Well, sod the lot of you,” he said aloud, and surprised himself. At least one bit of him worked properly. He tried to stand up but his legs were empty. Not a drop in them. Now that was strange. He fell asleep.

  His observer, Joe Duncan, shook his shoulder. “Wake up, old chap,” he said.

  Pedlow was enormously refreshed. He felt he must have slept for hours. “Did you get that Hun?” he asked.

  “He wasn’t a Hun, he was a Bolshie. I scared him off. They’ve all gone. You can’t stay there.”

  Pedlow got out. His empty legs were full again. That’s what a night’s rest did for a chap. Duncan held his elbow and made him walk until they were far from the wreck. There was nothing to rest against, so they sat back-to-back and leaned on one another.

  “Jolly desolate,” Pedlow said. The steppe was empty apart from the remains of their Nine. Most of the wings had been torn off and the fuselage was ripped open.

  “The chaps kno
w where we are,” Duncan said. “Someone will turn up.”

  Nobody appeared for an hour or so, and then it was a man driving a farm cart. He stopped and stared at them and said something that meant nothing. He was dressed entirely in fleece. His hair and beard were thick and long.

  “We’ve been captured by a dead sheep,” Duncan said.

  “Angliski,” Pedlow called out. “Angliski aeroplaneski.”

  The man went over to the wreck and walked around it. He climbed onto what was left of the starboard wing and looked into the cockpit. The wing broke under his weight, and the whole wreck lurched. “That’s not a good idea,” Duncan said, and before he could act, the Nine caught fire and the man ran for his life.

  “There was petrol in the tanks,” Duncan said. “I expect the sun turned it into vapour. All it took was a spark.” A small explosion blew the wreck apart and doubled the height of the flames. The man kept running until he was near the airmen.

  He stopped and stared; came closer and studied their uniforms. He was especially interested in the pilot’s wings on Pedlow’s tunic, and he reached out a trembling hand and almost touched the badge. He fell to his knees and raised his hands in prayer, and made a long, husky statement that ended when tears washed away his voice.

  “Hey, hey,” Pedlow said. “Don’t concern yourself. It’s only an old Nine. We smashed it, not you.”

  The man edged forward and bent and touched his forehead against the toe of Pedlow’s flying boot.

  “I may be wrong,” Duncan said, “but I rather think he’s praying to you.” The forehead moved to the other boot. “He seems to have mistaken you for somebody wonderful. Charlie Chaplin, perhaps.”

  “Tell him to stop.”

  “Can’t. He’s adoring you.”

  “I’m not bloody adorable. Christ, he smells.”

  “Don’t worry, Gerry. Nobody else adores you. To me you will always be a squalid bog-trotting Irishman with no scruples. Hullo, he’s on his feet again.”

  The man stood and unfastened the many fleeces that made up his clothes until a final flourish exposed his crotch, and he made it clear to them that there was little to see: he had been castrated.

  “Charming,” Duncan said. “You’ve got no scruples and he’s got no goolies. We’re being entertained by the village idiot.”

  “He seems quite proud of himself,” Pedlow said. “I think we should show our appreciation.”

  They clapped their hands. He bowed, cried a little, went away and fetched the farm cart.

  “Off to the madhouse,” Duncan said. “Maybe they serve tea.” They climbed aboard.

  8

  The Rose Garden behind the Royal College of Embroidery was just coming into bloom. Jonathan Fitzroy and General Stattaford strolled the gravel paths between the flowerbeds. Sunshine had followed a shower, and raindrops glistened on the first brave blossoms.

  “When I retire I shall be a gardener,” Fitzroy said. “A garden never argues, never complains, never raises objections. Unlike the Cabinet, or the House of Commons, or Fleet Street, which are all permanently dissatisfied. That’s why I thought it might help if you and I had a chat before the others arrive. I’ve always found that the best meetings are those where the decisions are agreed beforehand.”

  “I take it the Prime Minister has turned down our suggestion,” Stattaford said.

  “Not entirely. He rather likes the idea of Britain holding the ring to let the Russians have a fair fight. But his question is, does it square with the facts?”

  “Wouldn’t work, anyway.” Stattaford paused to smell a rose the colour of buttermilk. “Russians can’t fight fair. Never could.”

  “That’s why I felt it would be helpful to look at the facts. The military facts. The overall picture.”

  “Think of an elephant.” The general had a blackthorn stick and he sketched the outline of an elephant in the gravel path. “Moscow’s about here. Where the eye is. Bolshevik H.Q. Up here, on top of the elephant’s head, is our North Russia Army, no great size. Murmansk and Archangel. Arctic Circle, dreadful place, ice or swamp, take your pick. Go further left, down among the tusks and the trunk, there you’ve got Finland, Poland, Baltic States, Ukraine. All anti-Bolshy. They got out of Russia when the Revolution blew up, now the Reds want them back. Very messy.” They walked on and reached a garden bench. Fitzroy spread a copy of The Times and they sat down. Stattaford tapped his left leg with the stick. “Bit of Hun shrapnel wanders about. More rain coming, I shouldn’t wonder. Not important.”

  “Admiral Kolchak,” Jonathan said. “The newspapers seem quite keen on Kolchak. Where d’you place him?”

  “Deep in the belly of the beast. Siberia. Imagine the elephant’s spine. That’s the Trans-Siberian Railway. Kolchak’s H.Q. is at Omsk. About as far from Moscow as we are, sitting here.”

  “The Times says—”

  “Kolchak wants Moscow. He probably does. He claims to be Supreme White Commander of all Russia.”

  “You’re not impressed.”

  Stattaford shrugged. “He’s an admiral. The admiral of Omsk.”

  “That leaves … what? General Denikin?”

  Stattaford chuckled. “Put him on the elephant’s left front foot, with his coat-tails in the Black Sea. Now Denikin is a soldier. Been fighting the Reds for the best part of two years, all the way from Petrograd. Won a few battles, lost a few. Good army, tough as old boots. We kit ’em out. New boots, khaki uniforms, field guns, everything. Money.”

  “So … the elephant’s left foot has some kick in it?”

  Stattaford examined his fingernails for signs of dereliction of duty. “There’s a song. ‘Ours is a nice house, ours is.’ Know it? Music-hall ditty. Has a line: ‘With a ladder and some glasses, you could see to Hackney Marshes, if it wasn’t for the houses in between.’ Clever, isn’t it? When I look at a map of Russia, it reminds me of the song.”

  “Too deep for me, old chap.”

  “Remember the elephant. Remember its tail. That’s where the American troops are, and the Japanese, at Vladivostock. Quite a lot of them. Doing very little. They’re six thousand miles from Moscow. Russia is an elephant so big, it can’t even see its own tail. And vice versa.”

  Jonathan stood up. “I think the others are arriving. Well, thank you, general. Very helpful.”

  “Missed out a few warlords,” Stattaford said. “Just fleas on the elephant.”

  They reached the library to find that the meeting had begun without them. “Four million men,” James Weatherby was saying. “Nearly four. As near as dammit, four million. That’s what the Home Office worries about.”

  “Well, it doesn’t worry the Treasury, I can assure you of that,” Charles Delahaye said. “Most of your four million men are demobilized. Paid off. Happy civilians. That’s a huge saving, and God knows we need it. The country should be grateful.”

  “I don’t want to seem dense,” Jonathan Fitzroy said, “but is all this relevant to Russia?”

  “Yes and no,” Weatherby said. “Yes, we think it is and no, we can’t be sure it isn’t. The Army’s demobilized. Happy civilians? Not necessarily. Home Office gets some worrying reports. Men who’ve been trained to kill by gun and bayonet for four years don’t become model citizens when you give them a trilby hat and a rail warrant home.”

  “Poppycock,” Stattaford said. “Utter tosh. The British soldier is highly disciplined.”

  “Then what were the mutinies about?”

  “No mutinies. A few cases of insubordination. Regimental officers stepped in, the men saw sense.”

  “Did they? They burnt down Luton Town Hall first. They seized Calais, and you had to send in two divisions of troops to get it back from them. There are Communists in the Army. They took control of that march from Victoria Station to Whitehall, three thousand soldiers, all armed, enough to fill Horse Guards’ Parade! Of course, that wasn’t a mutiny. It just took a battalion of Grenadiers with fixed bayonets and two troops of Household Cavalry to make them see sense.
”

  “All because some idiot at Victoria Station forgot to provide the men with tea.” Stattaford ground out the words like eating stale bread. “It wasn’t a mutiny. If you want to see mutinies, go to Russia. They shoot all their officers, rape their wives, and blow their noses on the tablecloth.”

  “Moving on …” Jonathan said.

  “We all know about the Bolsheviks,” Weatherby muttered.

  “I wasn’t talking about the Bolsheviks,” Stattaford said.

  “Let me perhaps remind everyone why we are here,” Jonathan Fitzroy said, fast, before anyone could ask what the general meant. “The P.M. seeks a formula to reassure public opinion. A satisfying reason why we’re at war in Russia.”

  “We’re not at war in Russia,” Sir Franklyn said sharply.

  “Exactly. Why we’re not at war in Russia. Oblige us, if you would, with the view from the Foreign Office.”

  Sir Franklyn Fletcher was tall and wiry, with a face like an intelligent gamekeeper, which was not a bad description of his job. He had been in the Foreign Office all his working life, and his goal was to leave his country no worse off when he retired. He walked over to the marble fireplace and turned his back on it and rested his arms along the length of the mantelpiece.

  “One side or another is going to win in Russia,” he said. “It might be Denikin’s White Army. He wants to restore what he calls One Russia, Great and Undivided. That means the Empire of the late Nicholas II – including all the bits and bobs around the edges that are now free and independent, from Finland and Poland in the north to the Caucasus in the south.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Fitzroy said cautiously, “but hasn’t Denikin said he does not wish to be a new Tsar? Isn’t his aim to give Russia back to the Russians?”

  “So he says. But he doesn’t behave like a democrat. He’s hanged quite a few Russians who disagreed with him. However, that’s not our concern. Our concern is that if he gets his One Russia, Great and Undivided, he’ll want India too. Why? Because Russia has always wanted India. On the other hand, Lenin and Trotsky might win. If they do, there’s every sign that they, too, will want the whole of Russia with all the trimmings. Imagine a Bolshevik Poland, gentlemen. A Bolshevik Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. How long before the Bolsheviks get Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria? Was it for that sort of Europe we fought and won the Great War?”