A Splendid Little War (9 page)

Hackett and Wragge came in. “Order up some grub, Lacey,” Hackett said. Chef appeared with two plates of bacon and eggs. “Don't bother, you're too slow,” Hackett said. He took his place.

“What was all that, with the C.O.?” Jessop asked.

“He shot my hat,” Wragge said. “Shot it dead.” He poked a finger through the hole and waggled it. “See?”

“You must have done something.”

“We biffed the Bolos,” Hackett said. “Sent 'em packing. But that's not good enough for him.” He was stirring an egg yolk with a piece of toast. “We looked happy. We smiled.” He gave a twisted parody of a smile. “And that spoiled everything.” He ate the toast.

Bellamy stopped sipping milk. “I didn't smile at anyone,” he said.

“You didn't do any Bolo-biffing,” Wragge said. “So you don't count.”

Lacey took Wragge's cap and looked inside it. “Seven and one-eighth … I can replace it, if you don't mind a hat last worn by a captain in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. A trifle gaudy, but … You've no objection?”

“Won't he need it?” Wragge asked, and at once was sorry he'd spoken.

“Typhoid fever, Novorossisk. We keep a stock of replacement items of uniform. Thoroughly disinfected, of course.”

“I've always fancied myself in a kilt,” Jessop said. He poured coffee. “Bit draughty in the cockpit, maybe.”

“Nobody else would fancy you,” Bellamy said. “I've seen your legs. Very shabby.”

“What a bunch of queens,” Hackett said. He aimed his fork. “
He
wants to wear a skirt, and
he
goes around looking at fellows' legs.” He spoke just as Griffin came in.

“Not serious,” Wragge told him. “Just playing charades.”

“Yes,” Griffin said. “That sums up the lot of you.”

Bellamy was sweating as he walked to his Camel for the second strafe of the day. His body felt cold but his face was hot. He mopped it with his handkerchief and told himself the air would be cool when he took off.

“We found the leak, sir,” his fitter said. “Not in the fuel tank, strictly speaking. In a joint, where the pipe joins … Well, you don't want to know all that, do you?” He thought Bellamy looked a bit under the
weather. A bit tenpence in the shilling. “Anyway, it's repaired. Had to drain the tank first. Can't mess about with hot metalwork next to petrol. All it takes is a spark … Anyway, your tank's full again and we swabbed out your cockpit, got rid of the stink.”

Bellamy nodded. That milk hadn't been a good idea.

“We turned her over, sir, and she fired, first time of asking.” The fitter wiped a streak of oil from the fuselage, giving Bellamy time to say Well done or Thank you or any bloody thing. But the pilot just cleared his throat and spat, messily, and wiped his chin.

“Strictly speaking,” the fitter said, “we should give her a test run, full revs, be sure that joint can take the strain, otherwise …” He screwed up his face. Didn't exactly shake his head, but he almost shrugged his shoulders.

Bellamy knew what was happening. They thought he didn't want to fly. Giving him a chance to back out and blame the mechanics. He was furious, and the fury brought some colour to his cheeks. “Guns armed?” he snapped. “Bombs on board? Right. Start her up. Sod the joint.”

But his guts rumbled. They sounded to him like someone moving heavy furniture. Felt like it, too. There was unfinished business down there and he wanted to lie down and let the two sides fight it out.

He climbed into the cockpit and was glad of the support the seat gave him. If he went sick now … They'd never believe him. Wouldn't say so. But he'd seen it happen, in France. Chap got a name for dodging the dangerous patrols and soon the whole squadron knew about it and nobody would drink with him, he was odd man out, you could tell from the way they gave him a sideways glance, nothing said. It was solitary confinement in the crowd. He wasn't going to risk that. He'd sooner die.

Ten minutes later, the Flight attacked Tsaritsyn from out of nowhere. “We go in low,” Griffin had said. “Low is ten feet. Line abreast, flat out, fire when I fire. Non-stop strafe.”

Bright sunlight sent shadows of the Camels racing ahead of them. The Gnome rotary engines flung back ribbons of burnt oil. The engines were past their best and flat out meant little more than a hundred miles an hour, but at ten feet up it felt a lot faster. Maynard enjoyed it. Speed was like brandy to him. Suppose he sneezed now, jolted the joystick an inch, he'd hit Russia with a bang like a howitzer. That would mean goodbye, Michael. Instant cremation. Well, who wants to linger? Uncle Stanley lingered for years and years, poor devil … Tracer rounds were
streaking from the next Camel. Maynard had missed Griffin's signal. His thumbs squeezed the triggers and he felt the shudder of twin Vickers pumping bullets at the houses.

Bellamy didn't care whether or not his guns hit anything. His hands trembled and the houses were a wandering blur. The ground raced by, treacherously close. All he wanted was to finish. Get it over. Escape.

Griffin found himself singing. A hymn,
Guide me, Oh Thou Great Redeemer
… The Red defence got over its surprise and rifle fire flashed from windows. He hunched behind the solid shield of his engine. A Camel made a very thin silhouette when seen head-on. Only a lucky bullet would find him. Then it was time to escape, and his Camel vaulted the houses as if on springs.

Tsaritsyn was a seriously big city, and it was a mess. Half of it lay in ruins and the other half had been knocked about. This was not the first time that Wrangel's men had tried to capture it, and when Griffin took his Flight up to a safe height, they could see why he wanted it. Tsaritsyn sat beside the Volga and the river was a mile wide or more. There were ships on the river, with steam up. Whoever held Tsaritsyn blocked a supply line that reached deep into Russia, above and beyond Moscow. The Reds couldn't move south without it, and Wrangel couldn't move north. This would be a bloody battle.

Heavy machine-gun fire failed to reach the Camels. The shooting was wild, and artillery fire was worse: the shell bursts were too high. Spent bullets and shrapnel fell back on battered Tsaritsyn.

Griffin signalled his formation to spread out. It took both hands to unclip a 20-pound bomb and drop it over the side; and with the stick between the knees, the aircraft lurched about the sky. The pilots tried, and failed, to track the fall and see what they hit, but too many bangs were going flash down there. And a 20-pounder was only a firework.

They came together again in a loose arrowhead and flew back to the southern defences. During the strafe, the ground had been empty. Now it was seething. Wrangel's infantry, thousands of them, were running at strongpoints. Their banners made tiny splashes of red, green and white, and already their dead lay in hundreds. The Camels' strafe had been a gesture, a threat. Maybe they had killed a few Reds, maybe not. What mattered now was the enemy's machine guns and, further back, his artillery. As the pilots watched, Red shells were blowing holes in the White assault. But Wrangel had more infantry, more banners.

The Camels cruised up and down. Nobody bothered them. Who cares about toys in the sky when the real fighting is on the ground? After twenty minutes, they saw a sudden change. A strongpoint, maybe two, had fallen. The infantry stormed through the gap. Cossack cavalry followed at the gallop, steel glinting in the sunlight. Griffin turned the Flight for home.

“We're through the wall,” General Wrangel said. “Now the hard work begins.” He gave his binoculars to Count Borodin.

“Let us pray we don't capture another vodka distillery, sir,” Borodin said.

“That's beyond our control.”

“Yes, like our troops. Drunk and incapable. And soon dead.”

They stood on top of a wooden tower on a small hill, south of Tsaritsyn. Men had cut trees from the banks of the Volga and built this skeletal look-out for the general. Its purpose was obvious, and occasionally a big Bolshevik gun lobbed a shell at it. Sometimes a near-miss sent bits of hot and jagged shrapnel flying through the open framework of logs. It was hard to destroy the look-out and impossible to disturb Wrangel. He was tall and wiry and had a face that someone said was like a hungry eagle. All eagles look more or less alike, hungry or not, but the description stuck. Count Borodin had served on the staff of many generals. None was thin and few stood within artillery range of a battle. Few stood anywhere, if there was an armchair available.

Borodin pointed at the sky. “Late, as usual,” he said. The White Russian squadron of DH9s was arriving, very high, probably five thousand feet. Their formation was ragged. It changed direction and became more ragged. “Just dots,” Wrangel said. “They won't frighten anybody.”

“They fly high to avoid the artillery, sir,” Borodin said. “It also permits them to see the Red aeroplanes a long way off and run away.”

“They suffer from delayed bravery,” Wrangel said. “I have many officers like that, all seeking a new Tsar to die for. But not yet. Look: that must be the Red arsenal.” A flash of yellow erupted inside Tsaritsyn, and a rolling thunder followed. Black smoke pulsed upwards. “Bang goes the Bolshevik ammunition. We can expect panic, retreat and large slaughter. Time for lunch.”

Wrangel was right about lunch but wrong about the arsenal. White cavalry had been massing, preparing to charge down a street. Red defenders dynamited houses on both sides: that was the explosion. As the dust settled, the defenders climbed onto the barricade of rubble and shot down the White cavalry, still panicking from the dynamite blast. So there was no retreat, and the slaughter was of cavalry.

Wrangel sent Borodin to invite the Camels to return to Tsaritsyn.

“Preferably with many incendiaries,” Borodin told Griffin. “Fire from the skies upsets the Bolsheviks.”

“Where exactly are the enemy positions? How shall we know where to make our attack?”

“If you bomb our troops, they will fire at you, whereas the enemy will fire at you whatever you do.”

Griffin called the Flight together. “It's a bloody shambles,” he said. “We're liable to get shot at by friend or foe.”

“Just like France,” Wragge said. “Frog artillery always potted us.”

“Is that relevant?” Griffin said in a voice like sandpaper. “Then shut up. Fuel tanks a quarter full. With the weight saved we'll take extra incendiaries. Attack the north side of the city. That's the Bolos' way out. Height, a thousand feet. Let them see the bombs coming.” He looked sideways at Bellamy. “Are you fit?”

“I'll manage.” His face was bleached.

The weight of incendiaries in the cockpits upset the balance of the aircraft, and they bounced and lurched into the air. They kept clear of the west of the city but a few machine guns saw them coming and as the Camels turned to cross the northern side, a bright flicker of ground-fire could be seen. Griffin dropped a bomb and that was a signal for the rest.

The pilots were very widely spaced and they needed to be: using both hands to heave a bomb sent the machine dipping and skidding. Hackett threw a bomb too hard and his knees lost the stick and his Camel flipped onto its back. At once another bomb fell without his help, so he stayed inverted and punched and kicked at the rest until they dropped. “Sheer bloody skill!” he shouted, and levelled out. Nobody had noticed. Too busy doing it the hard way. They flew home.

Lucky groundfire had made a mess of Bellamy's port wheel, but he
didn't know this until he touched down and the Camel slewed so violently that his face whacked the gun butts and broke his nose. Wheel struts snapped; the fighter crabbed along on its belly, spraying chunks of propeller; the engine stalled; nothing caught fire. Bellamy, too weak to move, sat and swallowed the blood that ran into his mouth. Not a good day.

“Unforgivable,” Lacey said. He had prised the top off a tea chest and was sniffing the contents. “This is Assam, and what's worse, it was picked from one of the inferior hills. Where is my Earl Grey?”

“Beats me, old chap,” Captain Brazier said. “I'm not a bloody quartermaster, I just signed for the rations. I hope you've got plenty of hot water. Our plumbing died the death when we left Ekaterinodar.”

“I've been shaving in cold water for two days,” Oliphant said. “My chops are chapped.”

The three men were in a railway wagon full of boxes of food and drink. They were on the train that had brought “B” Flight, the other half of Griffin's squadron. Now it was in a siding next to Beketofka aerodrome. Six De Havilland DH9 bombers were strapped to flatbed trucks, with their wings lashed alongside. Oliphant was the flight leader.

“Assam,” Lacey said. “Undrinkable. I shall have a strong word with our man in Ekat about this. Well, I suppose it's good enough for the troops.” He moved on. “Pears soap, Cooper's Oxford marmalade, Gentleman's Relish … Good, good.” He ticked his list.

Guns rumbled in the distance, and Brazier cocked his head. “Artillery. I'd like to see that. What I really want is a three-egg omelette.”

“And so you shall. What's in that barrel you're sitting on?” Brazier stood up, and Lacey levered off the lid. “It's my Earl Grey!” he said. “Praise be. Civilisation is saved.”

“It's only a cup of tea, for God's sake,” Oliphant said.

“Wrong. Or perhaps right. It is tea and it is for God's sake.” Lacey hammered down the lid. “Now we can go. You shall both have hot baths and fresh eggs in abundance.”

He padlocked the wagon and they strolled towards the Pullman cars. “You haven't changed,” Brazier said. “You were a mouthy chump then and you're a mouthy chump now.”

“Do you two know each other?” Oliphant asked.