Goshawk Squadron (13 page)

“Some bastard got too close to me,” Finlayson said. “I got a burst through the tail.”

Woolley stopped and turned. “That was me, Finlayson,” he said. “I thought you knew. You were hanging back, Finlayson.”

“Fighting's one thing,” Finlayson said angrily. “Target practice is another. I'm not going to get myself killed just because—”

“Fool!” Woolley boomed. “Feeble fool! You can't
survive,
Finlayson. You can only
win.
If you want to
survive,
you shivering ninny, you might as well shoot off your big toe. Here, I'll do it for you.” Woolley snatched out his revolver. “A ticket home, that's what you want.” He pulled the trigger. The bullet missed by twelve inches. Finlayson jumped and retreated. “What's the matter, Finlayson, don't you want to survive? I'm trying to help you survive, Finlayson!” He fired a shot over the man's head. Finlayson ran backward. “For God's sake, sir, have some sense,” he pleaded.

Woolley lowered his gun. “Sense,” he said. “Now there's a silly word to use in the middle of a war. All the sensible people are dead.”

Richards suddenly understood. Richards saw that Woolley was trying to do more than train them, and lead them, and pass on the lessons of experience: he was also struggling to turn each of them into the kind of person that he himself had become.

When Woolley instructed them in shooting the enemy in the back he was not being melodramatic, he really meant it, because Woolley was a professional. The amateurs played at fighting; they kept their scores and rejoiced in their adventures, and they were brave, good-humored warriors. But Woolley took it seriously. He had asked the ultimate question—
What is it for?
—and got the obvious, the only answer. You flew to destroy the enemy. You did not fly to fight, but to kill. It was neither fun nor adventure nor sport. It was business.

Woolley was in business with death, while the rest of them were just playing with life. Richards suddenly saw this, and
he guessed how erodingly lonely the man must be. Then Woolley looked at him. All the emergent pity in Richards turned sour. You couldn't feel sorry for Woolley. You couldn't feel anything
for
him. Woolley was a man you could only feel against.

It was still an eventful afternoon. Half the squadron had a go at Woolley, popping off a couple of rounds in his general direction and then having to dive away fast when he swung toward them. Woolley patrolled the squadron and gave a brisk burst more or less behind the tail of anyone he considered to be holding back. The flying became more disciplined. Instead of hunting all over the sky, the pilots concentrated on one scatter of targets and spiraled down through them, turning tightly in order to cut down the risk of collision. Marksmanship improved. The pilots became more aware of each other, developing a slick, anticipatory sense of where and when each one would go next.

One man flew with real urgency and some venom. Finlay-son followed Woolley all around the squadron, looking for a chance to get his own back. Woolley gave the squadron a lesson in evasive flying. The only times he allowed Finlayson to get a clear view of him there was always another plane lined up on the other side. Nobody—not even Finlayson—knew what would have happened if he had ever gotten the chance to pepper Woolley. Meanwhile he blazed away at the tumbling dots of metal with a grim obsession.

The exercise nearly ended badly. Dickinson was the last to empty his tins, and so he was the top plane when bits of wood began spitting in all directions. There was a bang; the spinning disk vanished; and the engine raced from a bellow to a scream. His propeller had gone.

At once he put the nose down and switched the engine off. The plane slid into a shallow dive. All around he could hear the toy snarl of wheeling planes. It was a sound he had never heard before: like sitting in a tall tree full of hornets. The weight of the engine tugged his nose down and he had to keep
tugging it up again. He slid between two planes, Church and Killion, and saw them circle and follow him down. He stood up and pointed forward. Killion waved. The rest of the squadron was still below, plunging and climbing and chasing its tail. He side-slipped to miss three tightly spiraling planes, and found himself drifting into another cluster. Automatically he hauled back on the stick. The nose lifted sluggishly, the rush of air slowed, and the plane stalled.

Dickinson slammed the stick forward, but by then he was falling, wavering, spinning. He plunged past one plane and caught a blurred glimpse of another, wheeling toward him. He manhandled and trampled the controls: nothing answered. The other plane continued its turn, its wingspan widening. Dickinson half rose and screamed at the man but the plane lumbered on, seeming to spread itself with deliberate stupidity right across his path. Dickinson shouted his rage. At the last moment the other pilot looked up. Dickinson ducked down and screwed up his face, bracing himself against the shock, listening to the widening roar of the other engine.

The blow rattled the plane as if it had been a car bouncing through a pothole. Then the engine note was suddenly fading, turning light and harmless; and Dickinson felt the controls start to answer. He eased the SE out of its manic plunge and into a steady glide.

One set of wingtips was a mess, and both wings on that side looked a bit bent back; otherwise, nothing. He looked up and saw a plane following him down; it too had a battered wingtip. He laughed aloud. What a nonsense it all was! The difference between two dead men and two slightly bent airplanes was just a fraction of a second. What a joke! A couple of wires in his damaged wing snapped, slashing open the fabric. He stopped laughing.

The other plane powered alongside him: Kimberley. Dickinson waved, and Kimberley waved back, and dived away. Dickinson sailed down in slow, sweeping curves, feeling strangely innocent. It occurred to him that if this were over
the Front he would be a gift for even the stupidest German pilot. It also occurred to him that if he ever found a German plane as helpless as this, Woolley would require him to destroy it.

Finlayson came over and looked at the splintered stubs of Dickinson's propeller.

“It's this bloody awful field,” he said. “You must have nicked it when you were taking off.”

“Probably.”

“The least he could do is have it rolled. He bloody well chewed it up, him and his childish kite-flying.”

“No doubt about that.”

Finlayson walked around and looked at the damage from the other side. “Aren't you going to do anything about it?” he asked, waving at the lumpy grass.

“I expect he knows.”

Finlayson sniffed. “I'll make bloody sure he bloody knows,” he said, and went away.

Woolley listened to Finlayson in silence. “You don't like the field,” he said.

“I don't see why it should be dangerously bad,” Finlayson said, “sir.”

Woolley drained his Guinness. “Draw a dozen spades from Stores,” he said. “Take the pilots and flatten the field.”

“But sir, it needs to be
rolled.”

“Hit the field,” Woolley said, “with the spade.”

Finlayson looked at the bleak, vast meadow. “That'll take hours,” he said.

“Better hurry,” Woolley advised.

Finlayson walked away without saluting. Woolley watched his resentful back. “Finlayson!” he called. Finlayson half-turned, ducked under the flying bottle, slipped on the wet grass, and fell. Woolley, arms folded, watched him get up and limp away, trembling with rage.

It took the squadron all the remaining hours of daylight to clean up the airfield. They replaced hundreds of divots,
flattened hundreds of bumps, filled in scores of ruts, and pounded the turf until their backs ached and their hands burned. From time to time light showers blew over, but the squadron plodded on with a mute, masochistic determination. The sound of their sodden thwacking punctuated the dusk.

When it was too dark to see, they came in, grimly satisfied. “It's done and I hope he likes it,” Finlayson told the adjutant. “I notice
he
never took his coat off and helped.”

“That was hardly possible,” Woodruffe said. “He was called to Corps HQ for a conference two hours ago.”

They received the news silently, unwilling to concede that Woolley had a good reason for doing anything. “When's he coming back?” Lambert asked.

The adjutant shrugged. “You know Corps. It's supposed to be a very big conference.”

“Woody,” Rogers said, “is it all right with you if we all go over to St. Denis and cause a certain amount of devastation?”

“That depends,” the adjutant said. “Will it bring the fair name of the squadron into disrepute?”

“Inevitably,” Rogers said. “Inevitably and repeatedly.”

“In that case I'd better come with you,” Woodruffe said.

Six empty barrels stood on the main dining table of the best restaurant in St. Denis. They supported two large chairs, which supported one small chair. Lambert sat in this chair and emptied his wine over Finlayson, seated far below. “That was a Low Story,” he said. “The chair find bloody old Finlayson guilty of telling a Low Story, the bastard.”

“All right,” Finlayson said easily, licking the drops off his upper lip. “Tell you another. Man walking down quiet street, gets taken short—”

“Heard it!” The other pilots sprawled, bloated with food and tipsy with drink, around the table. Some of them started throwing bread at Finlayson.

“Another story, then,” Finlayson said. “Man falls down at stag party and breaks his cock.”

“Heard it!”
The squadron booed him.

“Christ, that's old,” Kimberley said.

“My problem,” said Finlayson, drinking, “is I don't know any new dirty jokes.”

“Your problem is you don't know any old jokes,” Dangerfield boomed. “Your problem is you have absolutely no sense of humor.”

“I deny that!” Finlayson cried. “I categorically repudiate that!”

“There you are, that proves it,” Rogers declared. “Boring and pompous.”

“Found guilty,” Lambert ruled from on high. “Mr. Woodruffe will pass sentence.”

“Relax and enjoy your problem,” the adjutant decreed.

Lambert emptied his glass over Finlayson again. “Perhaps you'll know better next time,” he said. “Next problem.”

“My problem is I can't see straight,” Rogers said. “Seriously, chaps, you all look a bit drunk to me.”

“You're boozed, Rogers,” Lambert told him.

“Who's that?” Rogers closed one eye and peered up. “Is that God?” The bread-throwers turned their attention on Lambert. “I always knew God was on our side,” Rogers mumbled, “but I never knew He was so bloody ugly.”

Lambert stood up. “Being God,” he said, “and seeing as this is Tuesday, I shall now make water.” He began unbuttoning.

The owner of the restaurant came in. “
Non, non, messieurs!”
he pleaded. Lambert sat down. “Good news,” he said. “We've found someone who really has a problem.” They cheered, and threw bread at the haggard Frenchman. Lambert tried to douse him with wine.
“In nomine Patris
—” he began when the street door burst open, and Killion rushed in. “I found them!” he shouted.

“You forgot to stutter,” Rogers said. “Go out and come in again.”

Six sulky girls sidled through the door. “I f-f-f-found them,” Killion bragged, “in a b-b-b-brothel.”

The restaurant owner had turned white.
“Mon dieu!”
he gasped.
“Ah! Ça non! Quand même!”
He rushed over to Killion and shook him, spitting demands.

“I s-s-s-say,” Killion said as he rattled back and forth. “This is f-f-f-f-u-n.” The girls slouched moodily into the room and found places to sit. “We shall now sing one chorus of ‘Praise God, from Whom all Blessings Flow,'” Lambert announced. Woodruffe rose and led the singing. The girls found themselves glasses and bottles and began drinking. The Frenchman slapped Killion hard on both cheeks and ran out into the
street. Dangerfield selected the thinnest girl and began dancing a waltz to the hymn-tune. Killion stood there hiccupping until Lambert threw wine over him; then he woke up and went to the doorway and started calling out.

The singing ended. Killion came back in. “I found these ch-ch-chaps in the b-b-b-brothel, too,” he said. Three elderly French accordionists eased sideways through the door, smiled nervously, and played conflicting chords. “Music!” Dangerfield shouted happily, and kissed them.
“Allez, allez!”
The eldest one wheezed uncertainly into a waltz. The others listened hard, launched themselves, and put on speed until they caught up with him. Soon all the girls were dancing. Lambert conducted them on high with an open bottle, sprinkling the couples as they passed beneath. The owner came in with a gendarme.