Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  It was 6 a.m. The snow had blown away, but there was rain about. Woolley went back to the mess and told McWatters he was acting leader of C-Flight. “You’ve got two new boys,” he said. “If you lose them they’ll be charged to your mess bill. You,” he said to a replacement called Pask, “can you piss without splashing your boots?” Pask was too startled to speak. “No?” Woolley said. “You must be a bloody awful shot. Stick close to me. Do what I do. Are you a hero?”

  Pask thought fast, and took a chance. “No, sir.”

  “Good. Heroes die young. I want you back here alive.”

  Woolley led a four-Pup patrol. He took them high over the battlefront, never below nine thousand feet, often as high as fourteen thousand, screened from Archie by tattered layers of raincloud. For two hours they wandered about, always changing height and direction, always getting jostled by the wind. Twice they fell into a steep dive; the second time there was gunfire. As they flew back to Gazeran they met a black squall that tossed them and soaked them. Pask was an unusually fit young man: he boxed and swam and played rugby and climbed mountains. When he landed he was so tired that his fitter had to help him take off his sodden sheepskin jacket.

  He plodded over to the flight hut. The others were already there, getting out of their flying kit. From their conversation, he gathered that some Halberstadts had stalked them but a bunch of Camels drove the Huns away. Later, the Pups had dived on some Pfalz scouts, but these vanished into cloud. He hadn’t seen these Huns either; he’d thought the Pups were testing their guns. He had done nothing but watch Woolley, while friends and enemies flew and fought around them.

  As they walked to the mess, he fell in alongside Andrei. “How can you see anything up there?” he asked. “It’s all so grey and empty.”

  “Fear helps,” Andrei said. If Pask had poor eyesight, then nothing anyone said would save him. Besides, Andrei was hungry for his second breakfast.

  * * *

  Cleve-Cutler stayed in Scarborough overnight and got the train back to London: a slow journey, bedevilled by signalling faults and locomotive breakdowns. The air in London smelt of sulphurous coal and horse-dung, as usual. He went to the War Office, in case there were any fresh orders for him. Nothing.

  “I’ve seen the newspapers,” he said, “but they’re all bullshit.” That raised some eyebrows. “An Australian expression,” he said. “We find it increasingly useful.”

  “Vivid, certainly.”

  “What’s really happening at Arras? What’s the weather like?”

  “Bitter.”

  “And the fighting?”

  “Bitter, also.”

  He went to the hotel. Taggart looked at him. “I said you wouldn’t like Harrogate. Full of whores, conchies and doctors. There was a bloke here to see you. Name of Littleton. Littlejohn. Smallpiece. Something like that.”

  “Means nothing. Leave a card?”

  “No. She’s upstairs.”

  Cleve-Cutler went up, thinking how rotten it would be to go through life with the name Smallpiece. There had been a man in his regiment called Crapper. And another called Fluck. Always in trouble, Fluck. Perhaps people lived down to their names. Might explain Blanchflower. He turned a corner, and there was Tommy Blanchflower with a sponge-bag in one hand and a towel over his shoulder and a smile on his face. The smile had been there before they met.

  “How was Harrogate?”

  “Bloody. How was London?”

  “We went to a first night. New comedy, terribly funny. And we’re just back from Hammersmith.”

  “Not terribly funny.”

  “No, but Dorothy’s awfully good at cheering them up.” He made the sponge-bag spin on its string, and watched it spin back the opposite way. “Especially the ones without legs. But then, she knows what it’s like to be shot. Even better than you do, probably.”

  Cleve-Cutler felt a surge of temper and forced himself to be calm. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  “You mean she’s never told you? Well, well.” Tommy didn’t actually smirk, but his smile was dangerously near it. “How strange. It was a shooting accident, in Scotland. Her father was shooting deer. Dorothy was ten. He was helping her cross a stream when he stumbled, the gun went off, she was hit in the leg. Complications set in, the leg had to come off. He’s never forgiven himself, of course.”

  “Of course. Look here: you really must go back to your regiment, you know. It’s your only hope.” Already Tommy was shaking his head. “They’ll catch you,” Cleve-Cutler said. “And some military bloody policeman will stumble and his gun will go off.”

  “So it’s just a choice of bullets, then, isn’t it? German or British.” Somebody was coming upstairs. Tommy went into the bathroom. The lock clicked.

  Cleve-Cutler went to his room, not knowing what to think or how to feel. Maybe she had lied to the boy. Anyway, who cared? But if it made no difference, why was he bracing himself to challenge her? But when he opened the door the room was dark. She was asleep.

  He sat on an upright chair and listened to her slow, soft breathing. Cock-ups everywhere, he thought. I come to London for an inquiry that’s cancelled. I go to Harrogate and Spud talks through his arse. The service in the Abbey will be bullshit. Christ alone knows what’s going wrong in France, but my squadron’s taking a caning, you can bet on that. And I’m in Taggart’s hotel, sitting in the dark, waiting for what?

  He got up and undressed, not loudly but not quietly, and got into bed. He hadn’t realised how stiff he was until he relaxed. The bed was wonderfully welcoming. He thought he could smell roses, or maybe primroses, or daffodils; flowers were not his strong suit. It didn’t matter. He was soon asleep.

  The bastards weren’t going to catch him. He kicked and punched and bawled his way out of what he knew was obviously a nightmare even while it was happening, but that didn’t mean the bastards wouldn’t harm you unless you escaped, until finally he got jolted into consciousness by some punches in the ribs. Real punches that caused real pain. “Kick me again,” she said, “and I’ll put my knee where it hurts.”

  “Oh ...” His mouth was dry, his lungs were chasing air. “Bad dream. Sorry.” He got up and found a towel and dried his face and head. He sat on the bed and waited for his body and brain to calm down. Her hand touched his. A finger tickled his palm. “Nothing’s gone right lately,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’d —”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s awfully decent —”

  “Yes.”

  “You really are the most —”

  “Yes.”

  After that, there was nothing more to be said. As usual, at the beginning he felt gentle and kind, and at the end he was swamped by a rush of lust that left him feeling slightly betrayed because he’d hoped for a sweeter and more lasting pleasure. There was never enough: that was the trouble with sex. An hour later, when his courage had returned, he mentioned this. “That’s God’s little joke,” she said. “He had to spoil everything.”

  * * *

  Seen from eighteen thousand feet, the Halberstadt looked like a moth in a ballroom.

  Paxton, flying a Biff, had been watching the Halberstadt for ten minutes. It was a mile below him and he was up-sun, which made him virtually transparent unless the enemy had eyes of iron. He circled and watched the Halberstadt cruise around. It was so tiny that a speck of oil on his goggles covered it.

  Midday. He was hungry. He cracked a slab of chocolate against the rim of the cockpit. He turned his head and shouted, “Chocko!” and his gunner, Griffiths, reached for a chunk. The air was Arctic, so the chocolate was like stone; but it tasted good.

  Paxton was high in the sky because a gloomy lull had settled on the battlefield. He could have gone trench-strafing. No thanks. That was good sport during a noisy battle, when the Hun infantry kept their heads down; but not now.

  At this height the sky was a bowl of shimmering blue. Actually the blue was rock-solid and any shimmering was taking place inside Paxton’s eyeballs, which co
mplained about being shunted three miles high and made to look into a glare like an open furnace. Paxton and Griffiths constantly checked the sun. Maybe one of the new highflying Albatroses was hiding up there. The risk made the chocolate taste all the better.

  Still the Halberstadt cruised about. Hunting for bunnies, no doubt.

  In the end, the weather took a hand. A sea of cloud blew in from the west. When its fringes covered the Halberstadt, Paxton drove the Biff down into the muck and gambled. He throttled back and heard the wind howling in the wires and waited for the gloom to become light, and when it did he levelled out and broke cloud. Griffiths’ elbow dug him in the ribs. “Left and down!” he shouted. The enemy was a thousand feet below, flying away. A two-seater. That made life more difficult. Paxton eased the Biff up into the cloud.

  For the next seven or eight minutes he stalked the Halberstadt. Most of the time he was in or behind cloud, edging closer, drifting downwards, always trying to second-guess the other pilot’s move, until he suddenly broke cover and there it was, dead ahead and slightly above, looking as pretty as a fat pheasant. Paxton whooped and nudged the throttle open and saw this bird spread its wings in his gunsight and he fired.

  The usual boyish stammer from the Vickers, the usual faint whiff of cordite. The Halberstadt jumped aside as if kicked. Paxton banked to give Griffiths a wide view. The Lewis made an angry chatter that went on until the drum was empty. Griffiths had a new drum on in a flash, but the Hun was swallowed by a cloud. Paxton plunged in after it. Hopeless. Came out and got thoroughly Archied. Went home.

  * * *

  “This is a damnfool way to live,” Cleve-Cutler said. “All this skulking about in hotels.”

  “I like it,” Dorothy said. They were in their bedroom; she had bought a small gramophone and she was sorting out a box of records belonging to Taggart. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s so damned . .. what’s the word? Hand-to-mouth.”

  “That’s three words. I’m not complaining. Just counting.”

  He sat sideways in an armchair, legs dangling, and watched her read each label and then dust the record with a silk handkerchief. He thought she was the most delicate creature he had ever seen. “You can’t call this home,” he said.

  “Good God, no. Home was frightful. I never want to live in a place like that. This is perfect.”

  “Suppose we got married.”

  She turned her head and gave him a cool, appraising glance as if he had suggested rearranging the furniture.

  “Well, suppose we did,” he said.

  “You would hate it. You’d hate me. You’d want to live in a house, with a maid and a cook, and neighbours. I don’t want any of that. I like hotels. I like hiding.”

  “Yes, you do. You like telling fibs, too.” He hadn’t planned to say that. It just slipped out.

  “You can’t stop now.” She was amused.

  “Your leg. You told me it was an accident with a pony-trap when you were six and living in Berkshire. Then you told the boy deserter it was a shooting accident in Scotland when you were ten. So which was it?”

  “Neither. I was deformed at birth. Very dreary explanation. So I invented something more colourful. More entertaining.”

  He suspected she was mocking him, and he resented it. “Peculiar way to entertain people,” he said.

  “I did it to entertain myself, you booby. It’s no fun growing up a cripple.”

  “Oh.” Cleve-Cutler felt obscurely that he was in the wrong, but he was damned if he would apologise when she was the one who had lied. So he counter-attacked. “Maybe you’d better tell me all your other entertaining fibs,” he said. “Then I’ll know where we stand. Let’s take little Tommy. Did you really find him on Waterloo station?”

  “No. Met him at the tea-dance at Malplackett House. Same as you.”

  “And did he really sleep on your couch?”

  “Yes. For a couple of nights.”

  “And then?”

  “Oh, we shared the same bed. And we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in it.” Cleve-Cutler was silent. “Guess what I’ve found,” she said. “‘Poor Butterfly’. Shall I play it?”

  “Why ask me? You’ll do what you like anyway.”

  “Self-pity?” she said. “I expected better of you, Hugh.” She put on the record.

  Poor butterfly ...

  ’Neath the blossoms waiting,

  Poor butterfly . . .

  For she loved him so.

  The moments pass into hours,

  The hours pass into years,

  And as she smiles through her tears

  She murmurs low...

  There was a knock on the door. Cleve-Cutler heaved himself out of the chair and went and opened it. The boot-boy, a skinny fourteen-year-old, stood holding a brass tray on which there was a visiting card. “Waitin’ downstairs,” the boy said.

  Cleve-Cutler took the card to the middle of the room, where the light was better. “Captain Ralph Lightfoot. Assistant provost-marshal.”

  “Sounds vaguely ... religious.”

  “Far from it. The A.P.M. is the army’s Scotland Yard. Law and order, crime and punishment. I’d better see what he wants.”

  He was in his stockinged feet. He slipped his shoes on and knelt to tie the laces, and therefore did not see Dorothy swiftly unstrap her artificial leg. She clipped him on the side of the head: a glancing blow that broke the skin and knocked him to the floor. He felt it as a burst of roaring white heat that receded as everything receded into blackness.

  The artificial leg went back on as fast as it came off; she had done it fifty thousand times. The boot-boy watched with his mouth hanging open. The record churned towards its end:

  The moon and I know that he’ll be faithful,

  I know he’ll come to me,

  By and bye.

  But if he don’t come back,

  Then I’ll never sigh or cry.

  I just must die ... Poor butterfly.

  She gave the boy a shilling. Two days’ wages. That bought his attention. “Tell Taggart he’ll be down in ten minutes,” she said. The boy ran. She headed along the corridor.

  In fact it was fifteen minutes before Cleve-Cutler lurched downstairs, a wet towel held to his head.

  “Don’t tell me,” Taggart said. “You slipped in the bath.” This wasn’t the first time that loving couples had left bloodstains on his carpet. “Sit here. No brandy. Brandy just makes you throw up.” One stained carpet was enough for one night. “I’ll send for a doctor. He slipped in the bath,” Taggart told Lightfoot. “It’s an awfully slippery bath, that one. People are always coming a cropper in it.”

  “I expect that’s why he was wearing his shoes,” Lightfoot said; but Taggart had gone and Cleve-Cutler wasn’t listening.

  The doctor came and put two stitches in his head and took a guinea and left.

  “My apologies,” Cleve-Cutler said. “Now then . . . fire away. Not too fast.”

  “Yes, major. The A.P.M.’s department is carrying out an investigation into a conspiracy to murder a Russian member of your squadron, Duke Nikolai.”

  “Too late, old chap. The Huns got Nikolai.”

  “Yes, sir. We realise that. But when the duke died, it seems he controlled a large sum of money, perhaps as much as a million dollars. This cannot now be traced.”

  “Well, you won’t find it here. A million? Can’t help you.”

  Lightfoot asked a few more questions, got nowhere and left. Cleve-Cutler climbed the stairs, both hands gripping the banister, his head nodding to the beat of his headache.

  Dorothy was packing.

  “Did you hit me?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He sat in the armchair, carefully, so as not to knock his head against the back. “I withdraw my offer of marriage,” he said.

  “I wasn’t going to let you take Tommy away.” She was quite calm. “I don’t care what your A.M.P. says or does.”

  “A.P.M. Get it right.”

  “
He’s not going to France, ever. I’m sorry I hurt you. Not sorry I hit you, because —”

  “Please.” He raised a hand. “Spare me the niceties.”

  “Anyway ...” She closed the suitcase. “I only did it to make sure Tommy got a good head-start and they’ll never catch him now.”

  “Fine. He can run slap into a brick wall for all I care, because the A.P.M. doesn’t want him. The A.P.M. isn’t looking for him. The A.P.M. came here about something totally different.”

  She leaned on the suitcase and looked at him. “That bandage suits you. It makes you look jolly dashing.” It was true: the slant of the bandage matched the surgical twist of his smile. “I can’t stay here.”

  “Stay or go, it makes no odds to me.” He was feeling very tired. “Actually, I hope the little bastard does run into a brick wall. Several brick walls ...”

  Taggart sent a man up to get her bags.

  The memorial service for Lieutenant Savage M.P. was a great success. Cleve-Cutler’s bandaged presence was much appreciated. Dorothy was there, beautiful in black. She waited for him outside the Abbey.

  “Back to France?”

  “Yes. Back to Hammersmith?”

  She nodded. She reached up and smoothed his collar in such a way that her fingers stroked his neck.

  “Tell me honestly,” he said. “When you said you shared the bed with that boy and ... and so on and so forth, that was just another of your fibs, wasn’t it?”

  She raised her veil, and stood on the tiptoe of her one good foot to kiss him on the lips: a daring thing for an unmarried woman to do outside the Abbey in broad daylight. “Oh, yes,” she said.

  * * *

  Every R.F.C. pilot and observer had his private way of coping with the mental stress of killing the enemy, and of living with the violent death of friends. Booze helped; so did witless, rowdy, destructive mess-night parties. The mind had its own way of releasing pressure: nightmares were commonplace. Sergeant Lacey, for all his bland professionalism, was not immune to the death toll. Long ago, he had found a way to deflect the brutal reality and thereby sleep soundly at nights. He assumed that every pilot would soon die. Death was part of his everyday routine.