Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  “Missed by a mile,” Snow said. “I reckon they’re bombing at random.”

  “So they’re just as likely to hit us as not,” Munday said. “Bastards.”

  “This isn’t war,” Simms grumbled. “This isn’t a fair fight.” Another distant explosion made the ground vibrate. “Yah boo sucks!” he shouted.

  “Be reasonable,” Paxton said. “We do the same to them. Oh Christ ...” The whistle was shrill and swelling. They ducked their heads. The bang was like being in the heart of a thunderstorm, and the duckboard leaped beneath their feet. “That was unreasonable,” he said. He was shaking like a wet dog. Yet when he looked over the top of the trench, the moonlight was serene. No sign of an explosion. It wasn’t even close, he thought.

  After an hour the bombers went away. Cleve-Cutler sent men to search the field for damage. He was chilled and dirty and angry from sitting in a foul-smelling trench. “I’ve been thinking,” he said to Ogilvy. “Hasn’t this been too bad to be true?”

  “Don’t tell Uncle, sir. He’s been playing billiards all through it.”

  “I don’t mean just the raid. Look: it came straight after those two bandits broke in. Maybe they weren’t Russians. Eh? Maybe they were German spies, sent to signal to their bombers.”

  “They didn’t have anything to signal with, sir.”

  “Hidden somewhere.”

  “Why would they do that? They wouldn’t expect to get caught, so why hide ...”

  “Yes, yes, don’t go on about it. My point is, we’ve never been bombed before.”

  “Well, we’ve been lucky. Bound to happen eventually. Fritz knows exactly where we are, doesn’t he? He knows there’s a big push coming. Obvious thing: bomb the aerodromes.”

  Reports came in: no damage. Craters nearby, but not on the field. “Jerry couldn’t hit us, could he?” the C.O. said. “Jerry’s not as clever as he thinks he is. Splendid. A hot toddy, then bed for me.” But while he was sipping his toddy, Jerry came back, stayed longer and bombed more accurately. No buildings were hit, but the mess windows were blown out and one canvas hangar was blown down. When dawn arrived there were a lot of repairs to be done. There were still two corpses locked in a hut. And the telephone was still out. Cleve-Cutler drove to Wing H.Q.

  * * *

  Bliss was shaving. Nothing Cleve-Cutler said made him pause. The razor left his cheeks looking as polished as his Sam Browne. “Who else knows?” he said. “Provost-marshal?”

  “No, sir. Nobody knows, outside the squadron.”

  “How’s young Nikolai?”

  “Shocked. Sedated. Otherwise intact.”

  Bliss rinsed his face. “People have been known to die of shock.”

  Cleve-Cutler was very tired, otherwise he would not have said: “The duke is in good hands, sir. Dando won’t let him die.”

  “Dando will do as he’s damn well told.” Bliss turned his back and urinated noisily into the toilet. It gave Cleve-Cutler time to think. When he was sure the colonel’s bladder was empty, he said: “Does this mean the fate of nations is no longer in my hands?”

  “Use your wits, man. His Highness is now His Lowness. There’s a new gang in Russia, very touchy. If London discovers that you’ve been machine-gunning a brace of ...” Bliss’s voice was muffled as he pulled on his shirt. “. . . we’ll both get the chop.”

  “So what do you advise, sir?”

  “Me?” Bliss seemed surprised. “Do your duty, of course. You’ve got yourself into a messy situation, major. Simple solutions are always the best. What if none of your Russians existed? Shouldn’t be difficult. You’ve lost two out of four already ... What’s that dreadful smell?”

  “French vermin.” Cleve-Cutler picked at a stain on his breeches. “What you’re saying, sir, is that after all the nursemaiding we’ve done, you don’t care if they both go west.”

  “No, I never said that.” Bliss concentrated on making a perfect knot in his tie. “You said that.”

  “It’s a sickening idea.”

  “Of course it is, old chap. The very thought of it makes me quite unwell. Breakfast?”

  * * *

  Breakfast was porridge, kippers, bacon and egg with mushrooms, toast and marmalade, coffee. Cleve-Cutler fell asleep in the car taking him back to Gazeran. When the driver woke him, he looked out and saw men knocking bits of glass out of the mess windows. The sun was shining as if nothing mattered. “This is turning into a very shabby war,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. Here comes Mr Brazier.”

  The adjutant looked far from shabby. He had relished the perils of the night. He was brisk and erect, and the heels of his boots struck small sparks from the tarmac.

  “Good morning, sir. A glorious day for the gunners.”

  Cleve-Cutler heard the barrage rumbling again in the east. “Bliss was useless,” he said. “Pretend it never happened: that’s his solution. Nobody gives a toss about Russia. Nobody cares tuppence about us, provided we don’t cause a scandal.”

  “Excellent. Well done, sir.”

  Sarcasm was not Brazier’s style. “I’ve done nothing, Uncle,” the C.O. said. “What have I done?”

  “You’ve given us a free hand. Now we can make the problem disappear. You remember Sergeant Lacey, the cheese and the bomb.”

  “That was make-believe. There was no cheese and no bomb.”

  “Correct, sir. Now we have two actual bodies and a genuine bomb. An unexploded bomb, lying in a crater only half a mile from here. The bodies go in the crater, sir. A friendly Sapper captain is waiting to explode the bomb. His name is Captain Duffin. An Irishman. He enjoys making loud bangs. You’ll like him.”

  This was all too fast for the C.O. “Where is this convenient crater?”

  Brazier pointed. “Would you like to see it?”

  “Yes. No. Should I?”

  “It’s only a hole. The bomb is buried at the bottom. One hundred kilograms. Should do the trick.”

  “A hundred? God’s teeth, that’s a whopper ... All right, Uncle. Let’s do it.”

  A truck was backed-up to the hut and the dead Russians were carried out, wrapped in blankets. Their limbs had stiffened into the twisted angles of their violent end, and the loads looked more like bundles of logs. “None too soon,” the C.O. observed. The odour of smashed guts was ripe.

  He and the adjutant followed in a tender. As it swayed and bumped over the fields, putting sheep to flight, Cleve-Cutler savoured the guilty pleasures of crime. Blowing corpses sky high, other than in battle, was irregular, it was wrong, it was not officer-like. But it was bloody good fun.

  The crater was ten feet wide and six feet deep.

  “Tell me: is it usual for a dud bomb to make such a big hole?” Cleve-Cutler asked. “And if it’s buried itself, how d’you know it’s a hundred-kilogram job? In fact, how d’you know it’s there at all?”

  “Splendid to meet you, major,” Captain Duffin said. “Your lads are doing great work, so they are.” He was not much taller than a jockey. His voice played hopscotch: harsh one moment, squeaky the next: a disconcerting combination. “I see you’ve brought the late lamented. D’you want to keep the blankets? No, I thought not. We’ll just dump everything in, so we will.”

  The bodies tumbled and sprawled.

  “D’you wish to say a few words, major?”

  “God help them. God help us all.”

  “Neat but not gaudy. Nobody would quarrel with that.” Duffin slid down the side of the crater. “You’ll need to be a good hundred yards from here.”

  Ten minutes later, the explosion made a gratifying crack! like a tree being snapped. A dense geyser of dirt and human remains climbed vertically and slowly collapsed upon itself. “Smithereens,” Duffin said. “You could strain the lot through a sieve and not get enough to feed your cat.”

  The adjutant gave him two bottles of Irish whiskey.

  “Oh, you needn’t have done that,” Duffin said. “But seeing as you have, it won’t be wasted.”

  Later, Cleve-Cu
tler asked the adjutant: “Where did you find that fellow?”

  “Better you don’t ask, sir,” Brazier said. “As they say in Russia.” He was very blithe. It was a long time since he had enjoyed a funeral so much.

  * * *

  Wing did not wait for the Push before sending the six Bristol Fighters on a Deep Offensive Patrol.

  The British guns were once more groaning and grunting in the distance when Cleve-Cutler told his flight commanders that their orders were to cross the front at Arras and patrol the line Douai–Cambrai, a distance of about twenty miles, at fifteen thousand feet. Gerrish would lead. Take-off at 11 a.m.

  “Douai,” Gerrish said.

  The C.O. showed him the signal.

  “Douai,” Gerrish said, more thoughtfully. “Well, sir, they won’t have far to come and look for us, will they?” Douai had a large German aerodrome.

  “That’s not what matters. Believe me, we’re not out to make a big score. Not yet. I just want you to give the Boche something to worry about. Knock down one, two if you like, and we’ll all be very happy. Then you can go and do it again tomorrow. But today ... no heroics, Plug. Let some Huns get home to tell the tale and put the breeze up their pals.”

  “What you want,” Ogilvy said, “is restrained carnage.”

  Gerrish smiled at that. Ogilvy didn’t.

  “Just a bloody nose will do,” Cleve-Cutler said.

  The Biffs took off at eleven. They circled and formed up in line abreast and swept across the airfield in a shallow dive. Cleve-Cutler saluted, and lost his cap to the sudden tearing wash of the propellers. He let it go while he watched the fighters climb. They banked left, re-formed into pairs astern, kept climbing. A cumulus cloud of dazzling white reared magnificently behind them. Cleve-Cutler felt a tear of pride trickle down his face and he did not wipe it away.

  The flight crossed the Lines at thirteen thousand feet, and was only spottily Archied. Two and a half miles below, smoke from the artillery bombardment drifted like dirty ground-mist, speckled with soft, small flashes. None of the crews paid it much attention. Most had seen it all before. It was a remote event, rather like a disaster in a coal mine, and nothing to do with the war in the air. They concentrated on searching the sky.

  The sky consisted of great white galleons of cloud; a scrubbed blue backdrop; and sparkling sunlight everywhere. Good day for a scrap.

  Gerrish checked the map strapped to his left thigh, and looked below. The little river Scarpe glistened, a wet thread that dribbled towards Douai. He looked between the wings, past the shining arc of the prop, and there it was, a pretty little town, terribly old no doubt, stuffed with glorious architecture, maybe a soaring cathedral, probably an ancient university. If it didn’t get out of the way soon and the British attack succeeded, then Douai might be a smoking ruin in a week or so.

  Douai’s Archie shelled the Biffs. No luck: maybe the clouds got in the way, or shrapnel fell on the heads of the gunners and their friends; anyway, they quit. Gerrish turned the flight southeast, towards Cambrai. There was activity in the air but it was far off and not worth chasing. Five Albatros D-IIIs slid around the edge of a towering hulk of cloud. They were single-seaters, glossy red against snowy white. Gerrish fired a Very light.

  After that, there was little for him to do but wait. The rest of the flight closed up and swung onto an interception course. They had done it a hundred times. It was automatic. Still, Gerrish looked around and checked that everyone was there. He turned so far that he could see his observer, Munday. “Ready?” he shouted. Munday waved.

  The Albatroses made a broad arrowhead. Gerrish was always intrigued by the apparent silence of enemy formations. They weren’t silent, of course; it was just that his ears were swamped by the six-cylinder Rolls-Royce roaring in front of him. But in flight the Albatros formation seemed so silent, so effortless. Red should burn very nicely, he thought. Now both flights were closing fast, as eager as lovers with gifts. I’ve got this for you, he thought, and signalled a turn.

  The six Biffs banked and levelled out. Their gunners had a clear shot from a steady platform. The Lewis guns crackled. Yellow tracer leaped out and tried to touch the enemy. The five Albatroses split up as if stung.

  The outer two soared away in a steep, flaring turn. The inner three fell, each diving in a different direction. Gerrish looked over the side and watched them pull out and use their speed to climb. The slipstream rattled his head. Freezing air tugged at his helmet and goggles. He loaded the Very pistol and fired, rammed the pistol into its holster and gently eased the Biff into the beginning of a roll and held it there so that Munday could fire downwards.

  All the Biffs were canted over, and all their gunners were firing long bursts at the rising Albatroses. The tactic worked. The enemy got driven off and fell away. The Biffs levelled out, a little ragged. At once everyone searched for the other red scouts, the pair that had not dived. Munday poked Gerrish in the shoulder and he pointed dead ahead. Gerrish’s eyes were still watering. He could see one blurred red silhouette, too low for Munday to fire at without hitting his pilot or his prop or both. Gerrish’s thumb pressed the gun-button, and the Vickers sent bright pulses of fire leaping ahead. As the Albatros swerved, his hands and feet automatically moved to chase it. The Biff dipped and heeled, and he realised he was falling out of formation, so he abandoned the target, steered hard back towards the flight and over-steered.

  From nowhere, Snow’s machine rushed at him. Snow was looking high up, his gunner was firing vertically, the two Biffs were seconds away from collision. Gerrish cursed and dragged the stick across as he kicked the rudder and opened the throttle. The Biff did as it was told, did much more than Gerrish meant: it skidded into a clumsy roll and threw Munday out.

  Some gunners strapped themselves in. Not Munday. Munday liked the freedom to swing his Lewis all around the cockpit. He trusted Gerrish to remember this. Gerrish glimpsed Munday’s right leg and he actually tried to turn and grab it, and of course he failed and had to watch the man falling head-over-heels until he was a blob and the blob got swallowed by a cloud. The Biff slowly righted itself. For a few seconds Gerrish was too shocked to know or care where he was: more than long enough for an Albatros to make a beam attack. The shots wandered around the cockpit. Three bullets punched a hole as big as his fist in Gerrish’s ribcage. The impact flung him sideways. His fist carried the joystick with it. The Biff tried to perform circus acts as it wandered back through the formation, and that was the end of the formation.

  Crabtree flew a circle, trying to marshal the others. While he was concentrating on firing off Very signals he couldn’t watch the enemy closely enough. Heeley was his gunner, and Heeley did a very competent job of swinging his Lewis from left to right, firing short bursts to scare off prowling Albatroses. Even short bursts emptied the drum. Heeley was so excited that he tried to fit the new drum upside-down. While he was hammering at it with his fist an Albatros came up behind and blew his hand off. The same burst went through the fuselage and severed so many control cables that the Biff put its tail up and fell. A final burst hit its tank, and now it was burning too brightly to be worth chasing.

  Snow found himself alongside Simms and together they turned for home. Their gunners, Charles Dash and Duke Nikolai, were unhurt; the tactics drummed into them might yet succeed. For three minutes – say five miles – they fought off attacks. One Albatros fell out of the fight and began gliding home, trailing a rich train of smoke. Then others made simultaneous thrusts from each side and above, and that left the Biffs’ gunners out of ammunition. Soon Snow’s engine was streaming smoke, and the smoke became flame, and the flame exploded. Simms saw this and dived away as steeply as possible. His airspeed overran his engine speed: the aeroplane was trying to outfly its propeller. Something had to go, and it was the prop that snapped. He was lucky to crash-land in a German wood. Nikolai, not strapped in, was found many yards away, neck and back broken; but that was hours later.

  Ogilvy was intelligent enough to
abandon the fight and hide in a cloud. He sneaked home, dodging from cover to cover, and landed safely. His gunner, Maddegan, had a small hole in his backside: nothing serious; the bullet passed straight through. At first Maddegan was severely shocked, too shocked to be able to speak; but that had nothing to do with the wound.

  McWatters and Andrei escaped too, although their Biff fell apart when McWatters tried to put it down in a potato field behind the British trenches. Some nearby troops came running over to help. They pulled the crew out of the wreckage and gave them cigarettes. Somebody dropped a careless match and the Biff went up, just like that. Andrei was lightly singed.

  Cleve-Cutler waited until two o’clock before he telephoned Wing H.Q. Even then he didn’t fully believe what he was telling them. Neither did they, until it was jubilantly reported in the German press next day. Bloody April had begun.

  Earthquake Strength 8:

  Chimneys and monuments fall. Cracks in wet ground.

  Next morning, eight second-lieutenants walked into the mess. They wore the new R.F.C. uniform, called the maternity jacket because of its deep, double-breasted tunic. It looked dull and shapeless against the stylish regimental outfits of old sweats like Dingbat Maddegan. His uniform was already patched at the elbow and the seat, and faded in streaks where his servant had taken out oil-stains with petrol. The newcomers seemed to be on parade, whilst Maddegan was obviously at war.

  He sat lopsided, with one foot on a chair. He was eating breakfast. Nobody else was there. “Which one is Snow White?” he asked.

  They glanced uncertainly at each other. The tallest man said, “The adjutant told us we might find Captain Ogilvy here.”

  Maddegan munched some bacon and thought about that. “I’d steer clear of him if I was you. He’s been acting a bit funny lately.” Their shoulders slumped a little, and those carrying valises put them down. “Go to your rooms,” Maddegan advised. “Have a nice lie-down.”

  “The adjutant said our rooms aren’t ready yet.”