War Story

by Derek Robinson

  WAR STORY

  Derek Robinson read history at Cambridge, was a fighter plotter in the RAF, spent ten years working for ad agencies in London and New York, and then came home via Portugal and the Channel Islands with his American wife Sheila.

  War Story is his sixth novel. It shares with the others a certain debunking of the myths of war, and may be considered a prequel to Goshawk Squadron, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1971 and is a kind of anti-Biggles.

  Derek Robinson has also written books on rugby, squash and the underground West Country patois called ‘Bristle’. He broadcasts a bit. He lives in Bristol.

  Ebooks also by Derek Robinson

  available from Quercus

  Goshawk Squadron

  Hornet's Sting

  Derek Robinson

  WAR STORY

  First published in Great Britain 1987 by

  Macmillan London Limited

  This edition published in Great Britain in 2011 by,

  Quercus Editions Limited

  21 Bloomsbury Square

  London WC1A 2NS

  Copyright © Derek Robinson, 1987, 2011

  The moral right of Derek Robinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN (Ebook) 978 0 857388 483 0

  This book is a work or fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  You can find this and many other great books at:

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  for my Mother

  Chapter 1

  On the map it was about 160 miles from the aerodrome at Shoreham, across the English Channel and down through France to Pepriac, a scruffy little crossroads village some way south of Arras.

  That was on the map. In the air, and flying a BE2c, which meant crabbing against the wind and dodging the bigger clouds, the distance would be more like 200 miles. Allowing for a stop at the St. Omer depot near Boulogne to have lunch and a pee, Second-Lieutenant Paxton had guessed that the trip should take about four hours. Five at the very most.

  Now, five days after leaving Shoreham, Paxton was still in the air and still searching for Pepriac. Honestly (he kept saying to himself), this simply isn’t good enough. And to make matters worse he had lost the four other BE2cs placed under his temporary command. Or they had lost him.

  Either way, he was now on his own, three thousand feet above France, four days late for the war and utterly fed-up. His bottom ached and he was hungry. Also he hadn’t been able to change his underwear since Shoreham and he itched in several places that he couldn’t scratch without upsetting the machine so that it slewed off-course. One of the things the instructors had failed to teach him was how to fly and scratch at the same time.

  Not that BE2cs were temperamental; quite the reverse. The RFC had nicknamed them ‘Quirks’, but Paxton took that to be typical upside-down Service slang: there was nothing quirky about their performance. After training on docile Avro 504s, not to mention Longhorns and Shorthorns-more like motorised kites than aeroplanes – he found the Quirk a delight to fly. Paxton had coveted one as soon as he saw it land. It was a biplane with staggered wings, the upper ahead of the lower. Angled struts gave it a thrusting, sporty look. The wings tilted upwards too: like a hawk hanging on the wind, Paxton thought. The fuselage tapered quite daringly before it flared into a long and elegant tail. The propeller had four blades and was a work of art in itself. Ninety horsepower in the engine. Properly tuned and going flat out, with no wind to help or hinder, the Quirk would do eighty. At least that’s what its owner told him when Paxton strolled over and asked. Paxton flicked the taut, smooth canvas. It vibrated like a drumskin. “Nice little bus,” he said. He walked away before too much excitement showed in his eyes. He was, after all, eighteen; and at eighteen an Englishman was not a schoolboy who went about with his emotional shirt-tails hanging out. Paxton’s housemaster at Sherborne had made a point of that.“Feelings are meant to be felt,” he had said, “not placed on exhibition like prize dahlias. Don’t you agree?”

  At the time, Paxton was seized by a passion for a much younger boy at the school. “Suppose one felt especially strongly about a certain dahlia, sir,” he suggested. “Mightn’t one show it? A bit?”

  “Now you’re being tedious.”

  “Yes, sir,” Paxton said, not really understanding.

  Soon the younger boy got a series of boils on the back of his neck and lost his charm. At about the same time Paxton realised that the war was not, after all, going to end by Christmas 1915 (as some people had said when the Gallipoli show began, and later when the French attacked in Champagne, and later still when the British launched an offensive at Loos). For his eighteenth birthday, on 20th December, his father gave him a motorbike. There was a Royal Flying Corps aerodrome nearby and every day during the Christmas holidays he rode over and watched.

  The more he saw, the more he knew he was not going back to Sherborne. He also knew he was not going to squelch about in the trenches or make deafening noises with the artillery. He grew a small moustache. In January 1916 an elderly colonel interviewed him at the War Office; he was interested in Paxton’s ability at ball games, especially lawn tennis and fives. After that, the Royal Flying Corps was gratifyingly keen to get its hands on him. In April 1916 he was commissioned second-lieutenant; in May he was awarded his wings.

  He had flown eighteen hours solo, two of them in Quirks, when the CO at Shoreham sent for him and told him that the squadron at Pepriac – they found the place on the map after a bit of a search – needed five new BE2cs, urgently. Paxton was the tallest of the new pilots awaiting postings, so the CO put him in charge.

  “Don’t let anyone go skylarking about,” he warned.“Those machines came straight from the factory. They’re crying out for them in France.”

  Paxton ducked his head out of the slipstream and, one-handed, pulled off his goggles. They were speckled with oil. He tried to wipe them on his sleeve but his gauntlet was so clumsy that it was hard to do a decent job. Putting the goggles on again one-handed turned out to be impossible. He stuffed them in a pocket. You didn’t need goggles to see Amiens. Everyone said it had a tremendous great cathedral. He looked everywhere and couldn’t see a cathedral, large or small. He couldn’t see anything except fields and roads, fields and roads. The fields were different shades of green but all had square corners. The roads were invariably straight. Everything looked like everything else. It was all pattern and no shape. What had happened to Amiens?

  Paxton gripped the joystick between his knees and took another squint at the map. Then he looked over the side again. There was nothing down there that was remotely like the pattern shown on the map. Maybe he’d flown too far. He unfolded the next section of map and noticed an area that seemed vaguely familiar, right at the top, so he opened the top section too, in case it added anything useful. Yes, definitely something familiar… He twisted his body to get a different view of the map. His knees and feet moved and the controls shifted. The BE2c lurched and sidled. A gale of wind rushed into the cockpit, plucked the map from Paxton’s hands and blew it away. “Blast!” he shouted. That was the worst word he knew, and he felt it wasn’t nearly bad enough.

  No cathedral, no clean underwear, and now no map. That took the biscuit, that did. Quite suddenly, Paxton had had enough
. For five days he had been ferrying this blasted Quirk from A to B, and where had it got him? Nowhere. Or, if you liked, everywhere. Or if you wanted to split hairs it had got him somewhere but that somewhere could be anywhere, so it might as well be nowhere, mightn’t it? Anyway, Paxton had had enough. He decided to enjoy himself. He was going to loop the loop. After that, he would find blasted Amiens. And then, with luck, blasted Pepriac.

  Paxton had never looped an aeroplane but he had seen it done, once, by some sport in a Sopwith Tabloid who had made it look easy: first you put the nose down, then you put it up, and over she went like a garden swing. The Tabloid was a single-seater whereas the BE2c was built for two, but Paxton didn’t think that would make much difference because his front cockpit was packed with sandbags which ought to balance the whole thing properly. He opened the throttle and put the nose down.

  The engine seemed to take a deep breath and shriek. Paxton had never dived at full power before, and the noise startled him. A tremor built up until the whole machine was shuddering. The flat French landscape rose into view but everything was blurred by vibration. Paxton leaned forward to get a better look at the gauge. Eighty-five miles an hour, edging towards ninety. Was that enough? The shriek had become a scream and the aeroplane was in the grip of a fever. Ninety at last. Surely something must snap? Paxton couldn’t stand the racket any longer. He pulled back the stick. France quickly drained away, blue skies filled his view, a firm but friendly force pushed him back into his seat, and the shuddering ceased. The BE2c raced up an invisible wall that grew steeper and steeper until it reached the vertical and that was where the aeroplane gave up. Paxton felt all momentum cease. The Quirk was standing on its tail and going nowhere. Then it dropped.

  It fell two thousand feet before he got it under control, and even then he wasn’t absolutely sure how he did it, except that the engine was making such a hideous din that he throttled back almost to nothing, which seemed to help matters.

  As he climbed again to three thousand he tested the controls and had a good look around. Nothing seemed broken or bent.

  That proved one thing. Ninety wasn’t fast enough.

  The next time, he made the dive a little steeper and held it a lot longer. He was prepared for the screaming and shaking: when it got too bad he shut his eyes and clenched his jaws. Oddly enough, doing that made a difference. The vibration eased a bit. He opened his eyes. Yes, definitely easier. Ninety-five, but the needle was jumping about so much it could be a hundred. This was insane. But great fun. A hundred, a hundred and five! Paxton’s ears popped. He took that as a signal, and hauled the stick into his stomach. The BE2c soared, the horizon came and went, the sky rolled past yet there was always more sky. Paxton wondered if he was completely upside-down yet. How did one tell? There really was an amazing quantity of sky, it just went on and on. At last he glimpsed the horizon, wrong-side up this time, and he knew-with a spasm of joy – that he had done it. He had looped the loop! Then the sandbags fell out.

  They tumbled from the observer’s cockpit in a steady brown stream that went whirling away over Paxton’s head so fast that he did not recognize them.

  He was mystified. Was the plane coming apart? He swivelled his head, but already they were just dots. Most extraordinary! The engine was still howling. He looked for the horizon: gone. Instead the landscape of France appeared, swinging as if on pivots. He was well over the top and starting another power-dive. He throttled back in a hurry.

  The BE2c came out of the loop but she was an unhappy aeroplane: tail-heavy, nose-high, unbalanced, demanding to be flown every inch of the way. Paxton found himself climbing when he didn’t want to climb. He tried to stop that, almost stalled, panicked, did something original with his hands and feet, got into an enormous sideslip, panicked again, kicked the aeroplane hard, got out of the sideslip he knew not how and in desperation whacked the throttle wide open. The machine trembled as if it had struck a storm and started climbing again. Paxton looked around in despair and saw another aeroplane watching him.

  It was sixty or seventy yards to his left, about a length behind him and slightly above. He recognised the type at once. A squadron of them had assembled at Shoreham en route to France. It was an FE2b, a tough-looking two-seater biplane with the engine behind the pilot and no fuselage to speak of, just a naked framework holding the tail in position. The engine was a pusher, so the pilot and his observer sat in a pod ahead of the wings. This arrangement gave them a marvellous view. Right now they were watching Paxton staggering and stumbling about the sky. After a while he noticed that they were waving, gesturing downwards very vigorously. He was sick of being messed about by this stupid Quirk, so he took their advice.

  There was only one way to overcome the machine’s mindless desire to climb, and that was by falling into a series of sideslips. So Paxton descended, like a bad skier stumbling down an icy mountain. The FE2b spiralled behind him, at a safe distance. At five hundred feet it levelled out and flew east. Paxton followed, climbing hard. After five miles he saw the aerodrome. It looked shockingly small. It looked about one quarter the size of the field at Shoreham. Nevertheless the FE landed easily enough.

  It took Paxton half an hour of sweaty experiment at sideslip and climb, sideslip and climb, sideslip and climb, before he entered a final sideslip that sent the Quirk low over the edge of the aerodrome. He let the slide continue. The field kept rising sideways. Now he could see the grass shimmering. This was going to be the most awful crash. He shut his eyes, counted to three, then stirred the joystick vigorously, pedalled the rudder bar, and gave the engine full power. The first bounce of the Quirk jarred his spine and opened his eyes. He snatched at the throttle. The Quirk bounced again, and again. People watching said it bounced seven times before the tailskid touched, and four times after that, until a tyre burst and the machine slewed to a halt. Paxton wasn’t counting. Paxton was down, and that was memorable enough.

  *

  By the time he had unstrapped and got out, a couple of mechanics had arrived at a brisk trot and were examining the wheel. Behind them came a burly young man on a bicycle. He wore neither cap nor tunic but from his khaki tie and slacks Paxton guessed he was an officer. He rode unhurriedly, and the bicycle wandered as it hit lumps and ruts. A few yards from Paxton he let it drift almost to a halt, and then stood on the pedals, concentrating on keeping it upright, as if in a slow-bicycle race. “You damn near hit me with your damn sandbags, you know,” he said, not looking. All his attention was on his front wheel.

  Paxton was taken aback. He had expected a sort of welcome and this sounded like an accusation. Or was it meant as a joke? He said: “Are you sure it was me?” That sounded awfully lame.

  “Of course I’m sure. You’re Dexter, aren’t you? I’m Goss. The old man sent me up to find you, and that was easy enough…” He broke off as the bicycle almost toppled and he was forced to work the pedals.

  “Actually, I’m Paxton, not Dexter.”

  Goss wasn’t listening. “You were dancing and prancing all over the sky. Didn’t want to see me, though. Too busy chucking your rotten sandbags about.”

  Suddenly Paxton understood. He walked over to the Quirk and looked into the observer’s cockpit. Empty. Oh my god. At that moment his stomach felt just as empty.

  “See what you nearly did to me?” Goss demanded. Now he had abandoned the slow-bicycle race and was riding in figures-of-eight near the tail. He pointed, and Paxton went over to look. The leading edges of the tailplanes were damaged, cracked, bent downwards. No wonder the Quirk had insisted on climbing. What an idiot he’d been! What a chump! Remorse seized him, and he patted the fuselage, as if it were a big dog whose tail he had trodden on.“Don’t make it any worse,” Goss said. Paxton flinched and took his hand away. “Joke,” Goss said sadly.“Come on. You’ve missed lunch but you might get a sandwich, I suppose.”

  They headed for a cluster of wooden sheds. Elsewhere Paxton saw a windsock, a couple of FE2bs parked outside canvas hangars, a few lorries. It did
n’t look much. He actually had his mouth open to ask the name of the aerodrome when he saved himself. “So this is Pepriac, then,” he said.

  “Well, it’s not Frinton-on-Sea. Look, I’m getting cramp. I’II go ahead and stir up the cookhouse.” Goss raced away, making the bicycle swing briskly from side to side. When he was halfway to the camp he looked back and shouted something. The words were blurred. Paxton called:”What?” Goss, still pedalling, still looking back, pointed. His rear wheel bucked and he went flying over the handlebars like an athlete over a vaulting-horse.

  Paxton ran as fast as his flying boots allowed and reached Goss as he was getting up. “It’s nothing,” Goss said peevishly. “I’m perfectly all right.” But Paxton could see that he was not. His right arm hung loosely, like an empty sleeve with the hand tacked on the end.

  “You’ve done something to your arm,” Paxton said.

  “Thanks very much. And I thought it was gallstones.”

  They walked in silence, Paxton pushing the bicycle, to a shed where an ambulance stood alongside. Goss pointed to another hut, the biggest of all. “Mess,” he said grimly. “Make them give you something to eat. If they argue, throw sandbags. The old man says he wants to see you in half an hour.” He went inside.

  The old man was twenty-four: not an unusual age for a squadron commander in the Royal Flying Corps.

  Major Milne had been christened Rufus because his infant hair was bright red. Within a year it faded to a mild sandy colour, and this was the first of many disappointments for his father, a commander in the Royal Navy.

  Ever since Trafalgar, all the Milne sons had gone into the Navy. When Rufus was five, his father took him dinghy-sailing on a sheltered lake. There was a soft, steady breeze, not enough to make a chop, and Rufus was sick throughout the trip. The next time they went out he began to throw up before the boat left the landing-stage. The third and fourth attempts were no better. “Nil desperandum,” his father said. “The great Horatio Nelson was seasick in Portsmouth harbour, so they say.” The fifth time they went to the lake, Rufus was standing on the shore, putting on his little lifejacket, when he started to vomit. His father wanted to persist, and Rufus was ready to do as he was told, but the boy had lost eight pounds in a week and his mother was alarmed by his gauntness.