A Splendid Little War (20 page)

Count Borodin turned up at ten, freshly shaven and alert.

“All our party-goers are sleeping like the dead,” Lacey said. “How do you do it?”

“I'm accustomed. Banquets like that are routine in Russia. One learns to pace oneself … Is the ambulance tickety-boo? We should drive somewhere.”

Lacey looked around. “Is there somewhere? It's all anywhere. Steppe is steppe.”

“I've been thinking about your missing Nine. If Pedlow and Duncan are dead, they deserve a decent burial. And if they're not …”

“Two British airmen can't just vanish. Even in Russia.”

“Well, you're still the C.O. Take command of the situation.”

Lacey saw Maynard admiring the Chevrolet, and went to him. “Good news, Maynard. I'm delegating my authority,” Lacey said. “You're temporary acting C.O. in my absence.”

“I say, Lacey. That's a bit thick. Where are you going?” Lacey told him. “I shan't know what to do,” Maynard said.

“You were captain of cricket at school, weren't you? Well, play a straight bat,” Lacey said. “That always worked for me.”

Hard-boiled eggs and black bread for breakfast.

Joe Duncan had been working on plans of escape. Set fire to the village and do a bunk in all the smoke and the panic. Or get some paint and write BEKETOFKA on a wall … No. They've probably never heard of it, and most of them can't read. Or, tell the tall chump, the priest or whatever he was, that they were leading a crusade. “You're a bloody angel, Gerry,” Duncan said. “Get on a donkey and lead the buggers out of here.”

“There's some precedent for that,” Pedlow said. “Tell you what. You explain it to them and I'll do the rest.” He scratched his ribs and his crotch. Something was biting. Suppose they became lousy; what could they do about it? A wash and a shave would be wonderful. Nobody in the village seemed to have time for either. He was thirsty. He remembered stories of how a chap got dysentery. Better to be thirsty.

Later a choir in green robes turned up and sang. Then the red-bearded headman led a small delegation into the hut. Pedlow stood on his stool and announced: “I'm a sodding angel. Don't you bastards forget it. I'll bring down the wrath of God on you, so I will.” He gave them a casual papal blessing.

“The redhead has a knife in his belt,” Duncan whispered.

The visitors performed a chant, with the redhead booming out the declarations and the others giving the response, ending with a climactic shout. They all stared at Pedlow. They'd done their bit. A reply would be nice.

He held his arms as wide as possible and spread his fingers. “The train now standing at platform three,” he cried exultantly, “is the nonstop express to Glasgow! The dining car is open, and I recommend the pork chops!”

The crowd looked at each other and muttered. They shuffled out, leaving their leader. He folded his arms and cocked his head and stared, frowning. Pedlow folded his arms and frowned back. “Play suspended,” he said. “No refunds.” The man didn't like that. He walked to the door, stopped and stared again, and left.

“He's gone broody,” Duncan said. “You've let him down.”

“Too bad. I can't help them when I don't know what they want.”

“I know what they want. They want mine too. On a plate. With lots of Worcester sauce.”

Cabbage soup for lunch. No bread.

The midday heat baked the village until even the flies gave up. The airmen sat inside the hut with their backs to the wall and dozed. Faraway gunshots made them blink but it was too hot to move any larger muscle. Then a car engine rapidly expanded its roar and charged past the open door, and by the time they got outside it was a cloud of dust, disappearing around a bend.

“Could be Bolsheviks,” Duncan said. “Come to grab us.”

“Could be a London bus,” Pedlow said. “Number eleven goes past here.”

“Number eleven goes down Piccadilly, old chap.”

“Does it? No damn good, then. Miles out of our way. Might as well walk.”

They joined the stream of people, all hurrying to find the cause of yet another visitation, the second in two days. They found the answer on the village green, a Chevrolet, as miraculous as a meteorite. Lacey and Borodin were examining the scorched wreckage of the bomber. Lacey had a shooting stick, and he was prodding the engine.

“If you break it, you pay for it,” Pedlow said.

They straightened up. “Did you crash in the middle of this built-up
area?” Lacey asked. “Or have they built the slums since you crashed?”

“It's a sacred spot,” Duncan said. “They're all a bit dotty about Gerard. Think he's an angel.”

“Awfully glad you're not dead,” Borodin said. “Two bodies in the car. This heat. Wasn't looking forward to it.”

“Not dead,” Pedlow said. “Slightly immortal, however.”

“And very soiled,” Lacey said. “Squalid, even. What happened to you? Have you gone native?”

“I don't think we should stand around and chat,” Duncan said. “You see the heavyweight with the red beard? We're his property.”

“Leave him to me,” Borodin said. As he walked towards the headman, the crowd of villagers parted like a bow wave.

“How did you find us?” Pedlow asked. “I came down miles away.”

“The count asked a passing shepherd,” Lacey said. “You're big news in these parts. Everyone knows.”

“We heard shooting. Did you have to fight your way into town?”

“Backfires. If you jiggle the controls you can make the car backfire. Borodin showed me. He says he learnt the trick at Cambridge.” There was a pause. The silence of the crowd, and its permanent stare, was disturbing. “Have they been feeding you well?” he asked.

“Boiled eggs,” Duncan said. “Radishes.”

“As many as you like. Awfully healthy,” Pedlow said. “I think I'll stay for supper.”

“Beef Wellington for dinner in the Mess tonight,” Lacey said. “Roast potatoes. Brandied peaches. A sharp Cheddar.”

“Yes? I quite fancy a sliver of Cheddar. Maybe I'll give the radishes a miss.”

Borodin came back. “I thanked him for his efforts and said his reward would be in the Hereafter, where God would keep a warm seat for him in the ranks of angels, not too near the harp section, and he seemed satisfied. So now we can go.”

As Pedlow and Duncan got into the car there were signs of distress on the faces of the villagers. “You're abandoning them, Gerry,” Duncan said. “You're a rotten angel.”

“Am I? Well, tell them I'm going to ascend to heaven, and thank you and goodbye.”

Borodin let in the gear and sounded the horn and drove off, backfiring hard. “Not a fanfare,” Pedlow said. “But better than nothing. Jolly
comfy car.” He felt weary and drowsy. Soon he was asleep.

He spent what seemed a lifetime not crashing the DH9. He sat in the cockpit, stick pulled back into his stomach, watching the ground magnify until its size stretched his eyeballs. It rushed at him with a speed that was uncontrollably fast and at the same time cruelly slow. The horror never lessened and it never ended until he shouted at it, and it vanished. Good. Now he was dead. All over. You couldn't die twice. Then it began again. And again. What was worse, that bloody fool Duncan was shaking his arm, trying to make him let go of the stick. He shouted, “Sod off, you maniac!”

“You've got snot on your chin and blood on your lip, and it's tea-time,” Duncan said, and went away.

Pedlow relaxed his body. All his muscles ached. His head was wet with sweat. He licked his lips and tasted the salt of blood. His pulse was galloping. Breathe in slowly, breathe out slowly. His pulse came down to a canter. He felt strong enough to look out of the window. The car had stopped. Lots of steppe. Somewhere in his brain the DH9 was still crashing, but the image was faint, like a weak sepia photograph left in the sun, and it faded to nothing. He got out of the car.

“Is Earl Grey alright?” Lacey asked. A kettle was steaming on a Primus stove. “We brought a hamper. I think you've bitten your lip.” He gave Pedlow a bottle of water and a hand towel. “I'm afraid we forgot the soap.”

They were in the middle of a flat sea of grass. The sun was benign. A breeze wandered by, bending some of the grasses. Nothing violent. Just fun.

They sat on a travel rug and ate cucumber sandwiches and Dundee cake. Pedlow rested his battered brain, and let the others make conversation. Borodin identified the various butterflies that came in sight. He knew a lot about butterflies, having studied them at Cambridge. “The brain is smaller than a pinhead,” he said, “yet in the face of a strong wind, a butterfly knows how to crab sideways and make remarkable progress. Clever little beasts.”

“They can fly jolly high too,” Duncan said. “I've seen them at a thousand feet.”

“Up there with the skylarks,” Lacey said.

“They wanted to cut my goolies off,” Pedlow said.

That got their attention. His lip was bleeding again, and a fat drop
fell onto his cucumber sandwich; but he said no more. Duncan told them the rest of the story. “Horrible business,” he said. “They seemed quite proud of it.”

“It's a mark of purity,” Borodin said. “You had the bad luck to fall in with one of our religious sects. We have a lot of them, some very odd indeed. This particular crowd believes that the road to salvation is purification by self-mutilation, which subdues the flesh. They believe the flesh is the product of evil.”

“So they cut it off,” Duncan said.

“Self-castration for the men. Amputating the breasts for the women. The sect is called
Skoptsi
. Roughly translated: eunuchs.”

“Bloody hell. And I thought the Plymouth Brethren were peculiar.”

“The
Skoptsi
get it from the Bible. Matthew nineteen, verse twelve. The formula for perfection.”

“All this purification,” Lacey said. “Isn't it self-defeating? If the men carry on mutilating themselves, the cult won't have the wherewithal to reproduce, and they'll vanish. Yet they looked quite vigorous.”

“I put it down to radishes,” Pedlow said. “Radishes can work miracles. Believe me. I got it straight from God.”

The C.O. woke at eleven o'clock with a hangover that felt like a kick in the head and a tongue that tasted of old socks. He drank a mug of black coffee and told Brazier to assemble both Flights on the grass.

He came out and led them in twenty minutes of brisk non-stop P.T., with ten press-ups for any slackers. Then he split them into teams of five, lined them up, and sent them on a leapfrogging race the length of the train. Wragge leapfrogged three of his team and collided with the last, who was Maynard. Both fell heavily. “Don't bloody lie there!” Griffin shouted. “Idle on parade! Asleep in the sky! Bolos will biff you!” They scrambled to their feet. When the last team reached the finish, everyone was gasping and some were being sick. “Flabby!” Griffin roared. “Pathetic! Unfit for duty! Fall in and do it again.” They leapfrogged back down the length of the train to the locomotive, working hard and failing often. The
plennys
watched, amazed and amused.

“Take-off in thirty minutes,” Griffin announced. “We'll fly up the Volga and sink a few gunboats.” He felt a little better. Every squadron needed to be licked into shape now and then. Exercising power made him hungry. He strode to the dining car and ordered a bacon sandwich, lickety-split. No time to waste. There were Bolos out there to be bashed.

The squadron sat on the grass and rested its aching joints.

“What brought on that lunacy?” Oliphant asked.

“He's got a sour apple up his ass,” Douglas Gunning said. “Old English saying.”

“We had a games master like that,” Maynard said. “He had the rugger team out doing tackling practice every morning before breakfast. We all had big bruises. Did no good, we lost anyway. Silly bastard.”

“Leapfrog isn't going to beat the Bolsheviks,” Wragge said. “And I didn't come to Russia to play the fool.”

“He shot himself,” Maynard said. “Not because we lost the rugger. The police wanted him. Fraud.”

Oliphant got to his feet. “We shouldn't complain, I suppose. He's the C.O., naturally he wants a top-notch squadron.”

“He killed Bellamy,” Hackett said. “Bellamy was sick. Should never have been flying.” That left a long silence. Nobody wanted to argue, not with Hackett. They got up and went to put their flying kit on.