The Flyer

by Stuart Harrison

  It seemed that the SE5s had the upper hand, but suddenly tracer flashed over William’s head and he heard the thud of Spandaus and bullets raked his port wings. Reacting instinctively, he stamped on the rudder bar and pushed the nose down. As he dived, he threw the stick across and half rolled, then changed direction to twist in the other direction. The guns followed him, and a machine already at full speed whizzed over his head. More tracer appeared over his wing. The engine roared as he pulled up, trying to use his speed to escape. Only then did he look around and see the sky full of flame-red Albatrosses. They were everywhere. Two of them were trying to box him in, both shooting at once. He dived again while bullets punched holes in his machine. The plane shuddered and shook. His heart raced. He realised they’d been tricked, lured down to be attacked by twenty or thirty planes that must have been waiting high above, like falcons searching for a kill.

  He was down to seven thousand feet. He pulled back on the stick and zoomed up again, half rolling in a vertical turn. The sky was marked with smoking trails. Half a mile away an SE5 plummeted towards the ground, pursued by three Albatrosses. A moment later it was engulfed in a sheet of flame and exploded into fragments. A red shape flashed past and instinctively William opened fire then dived again. It was every man for himself. Planes were fighting everywhere. A cloud formation offered cover and William flew into the thick of it, hoping he wouldn’t meet another plane in the middle. He emerged into clear sky. An Albatross flew overhead and he reached for the Lewis and put a burst into its belly, though there was no time to see what happened to it.

  He wondered how many of them would make it home. Then again he heard the thud of Spandaus and threw his plane to one side and dived.

  CHAPTER 35

  It was raining outside and a stiff westerly had blown up. A heavily overcast sky brought the onset of evening and the world beyond the window was uniformly grey. Water ran down the glass in streams, blurring the view, though Hemming continued to stare outside. William wondered if he really saw anything out there, or was his gaze fixed on some internal landscape of his own.

  He looked around the room at the others. Two of them stood in front of the fire smoking, another sat nearby, hunched over his knees, clasping a drink in both hands and gazing into the flames. Occasionally one of them would attempt to dispel the mood by making some remark, and the others would look up and perhaps manage a murmured response or a sympathetic smile before retreating again to their private thoughts. Corporal Baker moved among them asking if anyone would like another drink. He spoke in a quiet reverential tone, like somebody in a church. It was Baker who’d thought to light the fire. Not so much because it was cold as to try and brighten the atmosphere a little.

  ‘Can I get you something, sir?’ he asked, approaching William.

  William almost declined, but then realised his glass was empty. ‘Thanks, I’ll have another whisky.’

  ‘Right you are, sir.’

  ‘Baker,’ William said as the steward turned away. ‘Do you know whether the CO has come down yet?’

  ‘Yes, sir, he’s in his office.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that drink. I think I’ll go and see him for a minute.’

  Christopher shouldn’t be alone, William thought. God only knew what was going through his mind.

  He crossed the hall and paused outside the library door before knocking and going inside. The fire had been lit, again thanks to Baker, William guessed, and the flames did their best to cast a cheerful glow. Christopher was sitting at his desk with the telephone and a half empty whisky bottle beside him. For a moment he didn’t move. The light from the fire flickered in his eyes, but otherwise he might have been a statue carved from wax. His flesh had a greyish pallor and the shadows accentuated the sunken, lifeless look in his face.

  ‘Christopher?’

  He gave a start. ‘William, it’s you. Come in. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Don’t you think we ought to join the others?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’ Christopher gestured to the phone. ‘I was hoping to hear something. There’s always a chance some of them came down on our side.’

  ‘Baker will tell you if there’s any news.’

  Christopher didn’t move. ‘Six men, William. Half the squadron in a single day. I should have known it was a trap.’

  To lose so many men was bad enough, but that one of them was Christopher’s brother was more than anybody should have to bear. ‘You’re not to blame, Christopher. None of us saw them.’

  ‘That’s not the point though is it? The responsibility is mine. I led everyone down. I should have seen them. They were just waiting for us to make a mistake and I played into their hands.’

  ‘We don’t know that it was planned,’ William argued. ‘They might just as easily have come across us by chance. It was simply bad luck on our part.’

  ‘Bad luck?’ Christopher’s mouth twisted into a mirthless smile. ‘Six men killed, seems a little more than bad luck.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ William said, and then he spoke firmly, trying to shake Christopher from his mood. ‘Besides, you have to think of the others. They have to go out again tomorrow, and somehow you have to get them over this.’

  Christopher blinked in surprise, but then he made a visible effort to pull himself together. ‘You’re right, of course.’ He got up from his desk, though he couldn’t disguise his weariness, like a man with a weight on his back that he would carry for the rest of his days. He smiled, but his eyes were empty and it occurred to William that he was close to the limits of his endurance. He’d seen the signs often enough to recognise them. Men who wore a perpetually haunted look, who had lost hope. To a lesser degree he saw the same expression in his own eyes each morning when he shaved. He saw it in them all.

  ‘Christopher,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about Henry.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  When they joined the others, Christopher asked Baker to serve dinner. They took their places around the table, unable to ignore the empty chairs. Christopher stood up to address them and William thought it was to his credit that Christopher conveyed the sorrow and regret that they all felt, while at the same time managing to summon a rallying tone.

  ‘We have lost brave men today. I’m not going to give you a speech about duty and making a sacrifice for one’s country and all that. I suppose that’s why we’re all here, but I’d prefer to simply remember our friends. I’m proud to have served with them and I’m proud to have known them. And when we go out again, we ought to think of them and pray that we do our work as bravely as they did, because I think that is the best way that we can honour them.’

  When he finished there was silence. William was the first to stand up and the others quickly followed.

  ‘I give you absent friends,’ Christopher said, which the rest of them echoed before emptying their glasses.

  When they sat down again the mood altered. Some of the tension dissipated. Christopher’s speech and their toast had given them an expression for the things they all felt.

  They were served chicken soup, and though none of them had much of an appetite they at least began to talk, rather than sit in deathly silence. They spoke about what had happened, and as they recounted moments of the fight they became excitable as they tried to make sense of it.

  ‘I saw Beresford get hit,’ Hemming said. ‘A Hun got on his tail and I saw him twisting and turning, trying to get away but it was no good. He should have zoomed up, the bloody fool! If he’d done that he might have got away!’

  He sounded angry at Beresford, though William wondered if it was really an expression of the guilt they all felt because they had survived.

  ‘I was busy dodging Huns myself so I didn’t see it all, but the next time I looked he was going down in flames,’ Hemming added.

  ‘Atherton was on fire as well,’ one of the others chipped in. ‘Did anybody else see him? He jumped. I watched him climb out of his cockpit and crawl back toward the tail. The wh
ole front of his machine was blazing by then. He just sort of rolled over the side, and I saw him spinning as he fell. It must have taken an absolute age for him to get all the way down. Do you think he would have known about it?’

  He looked around the table, hoping somebody might give him an answer, a sort of ghoulish eagerness in his eyes, as if Atherton’s fate was his own personal demon, his secret terror. He looked at Christopher as if he might provide an answer. And then one by one they all turned to Christopher. He appeared not to have heard and was concentrating on eating his soup. In silence they witnessed the tremor in his hand. He stared at his trembling spoon as if by force of will he could stop it, but he only seemed to make it worse and soup splashed onto the tablecloth. Frustrated, he put his spoon down. When he became aware that they were all watching him, they hurriedly averted their eyes as if they’d been caught in some voyeuristic indecency.

  ‘It’s actually not very good soup,’ William said in an attempt at humorous irony.

  Christopher managed a grateful smile. ‘Did anybody see what happened to Henry,’ he asked. He sounded almost embarrassed, as if he didn’t want to give the impression that Henry meant more to him than any of the others.

  Hemming said, ‘The last I saw of him there were a pair of Huns on his tail, but they all flew into a cloud. I don’t know what happened after that.’

  The door had opened without any of them noticing. A voice said, ‘Atherton was supposed to be watching my back. He ought to have flown his kite right into one of those damn Huns. At least that way he could have taken one of them with him.’

  It was Henry, still wearing his flying gear, and spattered with mud and oil, but otherwise unharmed. They regarded him with astonishment as he took his regular place at the table and gestured to Baker.

  ‘Bring me a beer, steward, and fetch me some of that soup. I’ve been stuck at the back of the bloody trenches for half the afternoon and I’m famished.’ He looked around at the others with a vexed expression. ‘I know I’m a bit late, but you might have waited for me before you started.’

  ‘We didn’t know,’ Christopher said, finding his voice at last. ‘What on earth happened to you?’

  ‘Do you mean to say that nobody telephoned? I crashed near one of our artillery units. My kite was pretty well smashed up, but I managed to get out alright. You ought to get hold of their commanding officer and lay a complaint if they didn’t tell you. They were pretty unhelpful all round actually. I had to more or less find my own way back here.’

  It was only then that Henry seemed to fully take in the fact of the empty chairs at the table.

  ‘Good Lord, where’s Davies and Wetherby? They haven’t all bought it have they?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Christopher said. ‘We thought you had too.’

  ‘What? Not likely! I got one of those Huns that were on my tail, by the way. Did anybody see him go down?’ He looked around the table, but nobody spoke up to offer confirmation. ‘Surely somebody must have seen it?’ he insisted, sounding irritated. ‘When I came out of the cloud he was right below me. I dived on him and put a burst right into his cockpit and he just rolled over and dropped away like a stone. Dead as a dodo I shouldn’t wonder. I don’t see how you could all have missed it.’

  ‘I expect we were all quite occupied at the time,’ Christopher said quietly.

  ‘But I’m sure I saw one of our own planes nearby at the time.’ Henry looked at each one them, as if he suspected somebody of deliberately trying to deprive him of the credit for his victory.

  ‘It might have been one of the chaps who didn’t make it,’ Hemming suggested helpfully, at which Henry scowled.

  ‘What rotten luck. It isn’t fair.’ He turned to Christopher. ‘Do you think they’ll take my word for it at HQ? You’d vouch for me wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Why don’t we discuss it later.’

  For a moment it seemed that Henry would continue to press his point, but the significance of the five empty chairs penetrated his mind at last. Reluctantly, he let the matter go. ‘Where’s that damn steward with my soup?’ he demanded irritably.

  *****

  The following morning Christopher informed the pilots that the attack at Passchendaele had, for the moment, been called off. Due to a combination of the continuing bad weather, and the fact that every plane in the squadron was damaged, the squadron was grounded.

  ‘In the circumstances, I’ve decided that since we could all do with a break, we ought to go to Amiens for the night,’ he added.

  His announcement was met with a rousing cheer, and later that morning they set off in the squadron’s tender and checked into the hotel where Christopher had stayed after he left the hospital.

  ‘I managed to get hold of Elizabeth earlier,’ Christopher said as he and William went to their rooms. ‘She’s going to meet us later at that club we went to once, do you remember?’

  ‘Yes, the Chat Noir.’

  ‘That’s it. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to seeing her. I must have re-read every one of her letters fifty times, I should think.’ Christopher laughed at himself. ‘I sound like a schoolboy smitten with his first love don’t I? Speaking of which, Margaret’s coming too I believe. Henry’s been writing to her, you know. I think he may have been smitten himself.’

  They reached William’s room, which was on the same floor as Christopher’s.

  ‘The girls won’t be able to get away until quite late. We may as well go as soon as you’re ready and we’ll have dinner.’

  ‘Alright,’ William agreed. ‘Give me an hour to have a bath and get changed.’

  In the privacy of his room he thought about Elizabeth. He wanted to see her, and yet a part of him dreaded it. He imagined being close to her, having to smile and talk politely and yet being unable to touch her, to hold her. It would be a kind of torture, but not seeing her would be infinitely worse.

  When he was ready he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He was pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. He looked like a ghost, he thought.

  The Chat Noir was just as busy as the last time they’d been there. The men were glad to be away from the aerodrome, even if it was only for a night, and they were determined to make the most of it. Within minutes of their arrival, Hemming and three others were competing to impress a pair of French girls, who clearly enjoyed the attention lavished on them. They were all laughing and talking at once, insisting on having the next dance and ordering more champagne as soon as a bottle was empty, even though the prices were bordering on extortionate. Henry didn’t join in, however, but often glanced at his watch and peered anxiously towards the entrance.

  When Elizabeth and Margaret arrived, Christopher got up eagerly. ‘It’s marvellous to see you again, Liz,’ he said, hugging her.

  She was aghast at his appearance, though she tried to hide her reaction and kissed him. ‘I’m sorry it took us so long to get here. We got away as soon as we could.’ She looked around at them all with the same expression of shock, before kissing William’s cheek. ‘Hello again,’ she said.

  ‘Hello.’ For an instant they looked into one another’s eyes and he felt a jolt of longing that he was sure must be obvious to everyone, though Christopher gave no sign of having noticed.

  ‘Thank goodness you could come, Margaret,’ Christopher said. ‘Henry’s been looking at his watch all evening.’ He turned to his younger brother. ‘Well, aren’t you going to say hello?’

  Henry blushed and threw him a furious look as he offered his hand. ‘Hello Margaret. It’s awfully nice to see you again.’

  She smiled and kissed his cheek. ‘It’s nice to see you again, Henry. Will you take me for a dance?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, crimson from her kiss, and led her off to the dance floor.

  Christopher pulled out a chair for Elizabeth. ‘Have you been working hard?’

  ‘We’ve been absolutely snowed under since Haig began this latest push at Passchendaele. I can’t imagine why that ma
n hasn’t been replaced. He must be either an immense fool, or the most callous man on earth.’

  ‘Are things that bad?’

  ‘I can’t tell you the stories we’ve heard from the wounded. Thousands of men forced to attack through mud that came up to their thighs, terrified of being sucked down while the Germans shot them to pieces with their machine guns.’

  She looked washed out, William thought. She was under as much strain as they were.

  ‘Yes, we’ve seen some of it ourselves,’ Christopher said as he poured her a glass of champagne. His hand trembled and some of it splashed onto the table, but he laughed it off. ‘I seem to have got the shakes. Can’t get rid of it. Come on, Liz, drink up. You too, William. We’ve come here to forget about the war for a little while. We ought to have some fun.’

  Elizabeth hesitated, but then picked up her glass and resolutely emptied it.

  ‘That’s the ticket,’ Christopher said, and then he and William followed suit and he filled their glasses again.

  After that they did their best to pretend there was no war, and it seemed that everyone in the club was intent on doing the same thing. They were determined to have fun, to drink and eat and dance as if it were the last evening in their lives, and underneath it all they knew that for any one of them it might well be. Couples could be seen kissing in dark corners. Laughter and music drowned out any real attempt at conversation, even if there had been anybody who wanted to talk.

  At the squadron’s table, whisky and champagne flowed ceaselessly. Seats were found for the two French girls, and their over-eager suitors insisted they join them for supper. Some of the men asked Margaret to dance and she was only too pleased to oblige. William watched her on the dance floor, laughing out loud at some outrageous flattery, while Henry looked on trying to give the impression that he didn’t mind. When she returned he was attentive, holding out her chair, making sure her glass was filled, his adoring eyes stuck to her like glue, and yet a minute later she would be whisked away again by one of the others. They were all drunk, except Henry. Though he drank as much as anyone, while the others became more boisterous, Henry became increasingly introverted and sullen.