Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  “The mess bought the cow, sir, at a very fair price.”

  Cleve-Cutler stared. “Well, that’s all right, then, isn’t it? As long as we get our steak-and-kidney pie, the squadron can go to hell, can’t it? What? Straight to hell!” he banged his mug on the desk. Tea slopped. “Dammit,” he said.

  “We also lost a rigger,” Lacey said gently. The C.O. took a deep breath and held it, while he looked at the roof. Then he let it out. “He obtained a small German bomb as a souvenir,” Lacey said. “He attempted to defuse it and blew the fingers off his right hand. Corporal Blunt. The obvious jokes have been made, sir.”

  “Oh?” The C.O. thought about that. “Jokes, you say. Some people think it’s funny, do they?”

  “I believe I see the adjutant coming, sir.”

  Brazier shouldered the door open. He was carrying a wreath in each hand. “Hullo, sir,” he said. “Good leave?”

  “What the blazes have you got there?” Cleve-Cutler snarled. “You look like a two-handled teapot.”

  “If I’d left them in the churchyard, the goats would have eaten them.”

  “Best thing could have happened. Get ’em out of my sight. Where are the flight commanders?”

  Brazier frowned. “Now let me see ...”

  The flight commanders were quickly rounded up and sent to the C.O.’s office. He shook hands with the new man, Captain Crabtree, and welcomed him to the squadron. He thought Crabtree was the most unpleasant officer he had ever seen. A thin face, slightly twisted so that one corner of his mouth sagged; a chin raddled with acne scars; hostile eyes; ears like rudders; and hair that was uniformly white. God dealt you a bloody awful hand, the C.O. thought. If there is a God. If He plays cards.

  “I’m sorry you couldn’t join us at a happier time,” he said bleakly. “For this unhappy state of affairs I blame myself entirely. I go away for ten days and when I get back I find my squadron in tatters. It won’t happen again, I assure you.”

  “That’s a bit hard, sir,” Plug Gerrish said. “Lynch was leading his flight when he met a flock of Fokkers, and he copped a bullet. That’s no disgrace. He did his best.”

  “No doubt. Did Lloyd-Perkins also do his best?”

  “He was out of petrol, he had to land, there was a rainstorm. He made a pig’s ear of it. I might have done the same thing.”

  Ogilvy said, “And if you’re going to ask about Cooper and Radley, sir, nobody’s to blame for Archie, especially when it’s British Archie. A shell hit Radley, and it blew Radley into Cooper.”

  “And Shanahan?”

  “Well, Shanahan’s a bloody idiot, sir.”

  “He’s another pilot I haven’t got. Five pilots in ten days. At that rate the whole squadron will have gone west in a month! Well, I have news for you.” Cleve-Cutler’s artificial grin was frozen. “I am going to revive a quaint, old-fashioned notion called discipline. We are going to tighten up this squadron until every man squeaks when he salutes! You will train your flights to fly together, fight together, kill together and land back here together, in one piece, ready for orders from Wing to go off and do it again! Do I make myself clear?”

  They left. Cleve-Cutler looked around him and saw framed photographs of people he did not wish to remember. He turned off the light and sat in the darkness, waiting for his anger to fade. Tim Lynch had been a decent chap, a competent flight commander, deserved a posthumous medal, wouldn’t get one. He imagined Lynch’s last fight, a dozen machines all whirling around the sky like leaves in a squall, until suddenly Lynch got a bullet in the leg. Must have been a long slog home, against the wind, against the Huns, and all the time blood getting pumped into his boot. There was a clever act that Lynch had performed on guest nights in the mess: he rode a bicycle, facing backwards, and blindfold, while he sang “The Skye Boat Song”. Not any more. Cleve-Cutler would miss seeing him do that trick. Rode all around the mess and never missed a note. Oh, well.

  Cooper and Radley had been new boys, keen and cheerful and totally interchangeable. He would have to write to their parents. The same wording would serve for each. Brazier would know what to say without actually lying. Ditto re Lloyd-Perkins.

  Writing letters was a frightful chore. There was that woman in London. He had promised to write to her. He knew now that he would never write, just as she had told him he wouldn’t. Was he so transparently selfish?

  The question left him feeling shabby and unworthy, which was infuriating, so he thought instead of Lieutenant Shanahan and the dead cow. Bloody idiot. Men like Shanahan let the squadron down. Not good enough! He’d make them jump through hoops of blazing fire. Discipline!

  * * *

  Late next afternoon, when the patrols had returned and the air in the anteroom was grey with the lazy writhings of tobacco smoke, a staff car approached the camp. The duty N.C.O. in the guardroom was alert, which was just as well. The car was a Rolls-Royce. In it was General Trenchard. He commanded the Corps.

  “Unexpected pleasure, sir,” Lieutenant Heeley said. He was duty officer; he had run from the mess; one epaulette was flapping.

  “Assemble your mechanics.”

  “Yes, sir. Where, sir?”

  Trenchard looked down. He was six feet four. In his greatcoat he seemed massive. His face was as gaunt as a Highland shepherd. Heeley felt his guts churn, and he tasted the last of his lunch, and he said, “Number one hangar, sir!” in a curiously reedy voice. He turned and ran.

  Trenchard was known throughout the corps as “Boom”. He was not comfortable with the English language; he boomed words as if they were shells to be discharged, in case they blew up in his face. Now he stood on a box and did his gruff and gloomy best. Behind him stood Cleve-Cutler and Baring, Trenchard’s private secretary.

  “You fellows,” Trenchard told the mechanics, “are. The backbone. The backbone of. The Corps. Without you. And. Your skills. We are nowhere. At all. You have toiled. Wonderfully. I can promise. You. Even greater toil. Before. Victory.”

  Cleve-Cutler glanced sideways. Baring shook his head.

  “Arrives,” Trenchard boomed.

  Baring nodded.

  “Three cheers for the general!” the C.O. cried.

  The Rolls-Royce carried them to the mess. On the way, Trenchard said, “How is morale?”

  “A few kills will buck it up, sir.”

  Trenchard grunted. “You’ve had losses.”

  “Yes. We need the rub of the green, sir.”

  Trenchard grunted again.

  All the officers were gathered in the anteroom. Most had never met the Corps commander before, and they were surprised to see wings on his tunic. “Pontius Pilot,” McWatters whispered. Ogilvy frowned. It was an old joke.

  “Don’t complain,” Trenchard boomed, “about your aeroplanes.” He let that soak in. “Do your best. With what you’ve got. Next point. The aeroplane is good for only one thing and that is attack.” He breathed deeply after this rush of words. “Your motto. Attack! Search. Find. Attack the enemy. Conquer his sky. Give the Hun. No peace until. One day. The Hun will. Beg. For peace.”

  Cleve-Cutler glanced at Baring. Baring shrugged. The C.O. took a chance and stepped forward. “Thank you, general. I’m sure we are all in total agreement with your every word.”

  “Hear, hear,” the adjutant said.

  “Not total,” Crabtree said softly.

  There was a moment of frozen time, and then a shuffling of feet as men tried to get a better view.

  “What, then?” Trenchard said.

  “I don’t agree, sir. Not totally.”

  By now Trenchard had picked him out. Crabtree was of medium height, thin, his face deeply lined, eyes almost haggard.

  “Captain Crabtree,” the C.O. murmured. “Commands B-Flight.”

  “Why not totally?” Trenchard asked.

  “Well, it’s not a fair fight, sir, is it?” Crabtree said. His tone was mild; he sounded a little regretful. “The Hun has the advantages. We fight over there. If he doesn’t like it he runs away
. If we don’t like it, we’ve got a headwind against us. You say: conquer the enemy sky and make him beg for peace. Up there, performance counts and the new Hun machines are better than ours. Always attack, you say. And fighting spirit is a fine thing. But on its own it won’t conquer the sky, sir.”

  Trenchard leaned his great shaggy head forward and examined the medal ribbons below Crabtree’s wings. “You’re a brave man, captain,” he said. “You have told me. What not to do. Now give me. Your alternative.”

  Crabtree sighed, and glanced around the room. “Get hold of a few squadrons of the new Albatros, sir,” he said gently; and the shout of laughter seemed to startle him.

  Trenchard did not smile. He let the laughter fade to an expectant silence. “Not a fair fight. You said. War is not. About fairness. It’s about. Winning. Stop fighting and. The battle’s lost. We learn to win. By fighting. Don’t complain. Fight hard. With what weapons. You’ve got. When a better. Weapon arrives. You’ll know. How best to use it. War is hard. But it makes. Victory. All the more. Sweet.”

  Cleve-Cutler did not need to call for three cheers; the applause broke out spontaneously. Baring murmured into Cleve-Cutler’s ear: “D’you know, I’ve never heard him so eloquent.”

  As they went in to dinner, the adjutant sought out Crabtree and took him aside. “What the blazes possessed you?” he demanded. “He’ll think we’re all pansies.”

  “I don’t care,” Crabtree said. He was still calm and untroubled. “I just don’t care.”

  “Well ... For God’s sake, pull yourself together. You volunteered to join the Corps, didn’t you?”

  “That was a long, long time ago, Uncle. I’ve flown five hundred hours. More than a lifetime. Now I don’t care.”

  Brazier’s temper ran out. “You ought to be shot,” he growled.

  “I certainly shall be,” Crabtree said. “Beyond a doubt.” His nose twitched. “Pork. I like pork.”

  * * *

  Baring sat between Spud Ogilvy and Duke Nikolai.

  “Is America really in the war?” Ogilvy asked him.

  “Yes. President Wilson finally took the plunge,” Baring said. “The U-boats, you know. The Kaiser let them off the leash and so they sank the Housatonic, which was American, and the Sussex, which was American, and the California, which was very American, a big liner, nine thousand tons. No warning. Straight to the bottom. Oh, I say: celery soup, how wonderful. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

  “My Uncle George is in Alberta,” Munday said. “Everything’s awfully big and everyone’s tremendously tough. They all carry guns and chew tobacco and eat steak for breakfast. Quite terrifying, he said.”

  “Russian Cossacks more terrifying,” the duke said. The others nodded.

  “I think you’ll find that Alberta is in Canada,” Baring said. McWatters smirked.

  “Medicine Hat isn’t in America?” Munday asked.

  “Scarcely at all.”

  “Oh. Well, it doesn’t matter. Uncle George hated Medicine Hat. Rotten whisky, and he couldn’t get the county cricket scores. He’s probably in Arizona or Texas by now, and sucks to you,” Munday told McWatters.

  “What news from Petersburg?” the duke asked Baring.

  “Let me see ... The Tsar has appealed for unity. All must work for victory, that sort of thing.”

  “Of course. All will work! Russians devoted to Tsar.”

  Simms, sitting nearby, heard this. “Then it’s all a bit pointless, isn’t it?” he said. “If everyone loves him, why does he need to appeal for unity?”

  The duke stiffened. He frowned at his plate.

  “Oh, there’s some story about a minister called Protopopoff,” Baring said. “He claims to be in contact with the spirit of the late Mr Rasputin, who tells him how to fight the war.”

  “Protopopoff is cockroach,” the duke said, more loudly than was necessary.

  “Obvious nonsense,” Ogilvy said.

  “But if it’s nonsense,” Simms said, “the Tsar wouldn’t pay it any attention, would he?” Simms rarely had an idea, but when he did he clung to it. “Surely he’s got advisers? Isn’t there a sort of House of Commons?”

  “He means the Duma,” Baring said.

  “Duma is cockroach.” By now the duke was staring at nothing. He clutched his soup-spoon, rigidly, as if someone might steal it from him.

  “I’m beginning to be sorry I asked.” Simms tried a warm chuckle but nobody joined in.

  “When do you think the Americans will be here?” Ogilvy asked Baring.

  Duke Nikolai spoke a few harsh words in Russian. He stood up so abruptly that a mess servant had to grab his chair. He turned towards Trenchard and Cleve-Cutler. “With permission,” he said, and marched out, still holding the soup-spoon. Ogilvy got to his feet but when he saw the adjutant hurrying after the duke he sat down.

  “If you mean the American Army,” Baring said, “it barely exists at present. When they have one, no doubt we shall see it, brandishing its revolvers and eating steak for its breakfast.”

  The duke was outside, arms folded, looking at the stars. After the noise of the mess, the night was so silent that his ears heard the tiny whistle of his blood.

  “What’s wrong, lad?” Brazier asked. No answer. “Pay no attention to those clowns in there,” he said. “They’ve got trench foot in the brain. Ever seen trench foot? Yes, of course you have. Nasty-looking stuff, isn’t it? Doesn’t smell very nice, either.” Brazier was surprised to hear himself sounding so friendly, even protective. Well, damn it, he might be a duke but he was a good ten inches shorter than the adjutant, and too slim to be a proper soldier, and a very long way from home. “Getting chilly, isn’t it?” Brazier said. “How about a hot toddy? We might play some chess.”

  The duke made a fierce kick at the snow and sent it whirling. A door slammed and Count Andrei came towards them. He and the duke had a short, subdued conversation in Russian.

  “I am in the dark,” Brazier said. “In every sense.”

  “Treachery,” the count said. “Tsar is stabbed in back. Russia bleeds. Duke bleeds.”

  “My goodness. That wasn’t in the newspapers, was it?”

  Duke Nikolai flung his arms out wide. “I love Tsar! I give my life for Tsar! If I die Tsar will live!”

  “Full marks for loyalty,” the adjutant said.

  They went back to the mess. They were just in time for the pudding: plum cobbler. “Give me a big helping,” Brazier told the servant, “and don’t stint on the cream.”

  * * *

  After dinner there was to be a smoking concert. While the anteroom was being prepared, Cleve-Cutler took Trenchard and Baring to his room for coffee.

  “That captain,” Trenchard said. “Ugly fellow.”

  “Crabtree, sir. He’s crashed rather a lot. ‘Crash’ Crabtree, they call him.”

  “No fool. Brave, too. Dangerous combination, that.” Trenchard looked at Baring.

  “On the other hand, sir,” Baring said, “if Crabtree were to be ... um ... sacked, or sent home, the rest of the squadron might think that perhaps ...”

  “He was right all along,” the C.O. said.

  “Of course he was right,” Trenchard said. “Only a lunatic would fly Deep Offensive Patrols if there was any alternative. Worst possible way to fight.”

  “Except for all the others,” Baring said.

  “Show Cleve-Cutler the memorandum.”

  Baring gave him a sheet of paper, headed VIGOROUS OFFENSIVE.

  An aeroplane is an offensive weapon.

  An aeroplane is not a defensive weapon. Hostile aircraft can always cross the enemy’s Lines.

  The policy of British air fighting is one of relentless offensive.

  This gives the enemy no opportunity to make hostile raids.

  Thus superiority in the air is achieved.

  An aeroplane is an offensive weapon. An aeroplane is not a defensive

  weapon.

  “Most interesting,” Cleve-Cutler said. He returned
the paper to Baring, handling it carefully, as if it were part of a rare and valuable archive.

  “Attack!” Trenchard boomed. “Take the battle to the enemy! Fight the Hun on your terms. Not on his.”

  “Oh, absolutely.” There was much more to the air war than Trenchard’s plan allowed for. There was the little matter of sending undertrained pilots in outclassed aeroplanes so deep into enemy territory that British losses were four times greater than German losses. How did that achieve superiority in the air? But the C.O. looked at the general’s craggy face, granitic with certainty, and decided not to debate the point. “D’you know, I think they might just be ready for us,” he said. “Shall we toddle back?”

  * * *

  The smoker began with a song-and-dance chorus. Four of the youngest pilots, lavishly made-up and dressed in split skirts, overstuffed blouses and flaxen pigtailed wigs, danced onto the makeshift stage with such enthusiasm that one stepped off the end and fell over the piano. Loud laughter surprised the other three and they stopped. Spud Ogilvy was master of ceremonies. He stepped forward. “Silly girl crashed on take-off,” he announced. “The patrol is cancelled.” For that he got thoroughly booed. “Well, all right, then,” he said. “Postponed, slightly.”

  The second time they got it right. Briskly they sang:

  “We’re four plucky maidens

  All out on the spree!

  We’ve got the keyhole

  If you’ve got the key!

  Now Major Cleve-Cutler, don’t make us be subtler,

  Can Hornets please come out and play?

  We’re four plucky maidens

  All out on the spree!

  We’ve got the keyhole

  If you’ve got the key!”

  It brought a storm of applause. They performed a high-stepping dance routine that was clearly under-rehearsed. One dancer turned right when the others turned left, and had his legs kicked from under him. This was very popular. He was trampled as the remaining three doggedly finished their routine, and he crawled off while they took several bows.

  “What you might call the offensive spirit,” Cleve-Cutler said.

  “Catchy tune,” Trenchard said.

  A corporal from the orderly room came on and did card tricks. Then Count Andrei sang a Russian ballad. It lasted too long and got only polite applause.