Killing horses wasn’t much fun. Wragge had never killed a horse before. In France, he had never even seen the cavalry in action. Trench warfare was no place for horses. Machine-gunning cavalry seemed a great waste of good horses. Pity there wasn’t some way of killing the cavalrymen and saving the horses. Damn it all, the horses hadn’t done anyone any harm, had they? Oh well.
They cruised home, in nice time for tea. Chef had made more crumpets and some of them were almost round.
Next day Griffin woke, pulled aside a curtain and saw nothing but a thick grey mist. He opened the window and looked out. He could see one end of the next Pullman coach but not the other. “Bugger,” he said. His plenny opened the door and stood ready for orders. “Get Lacey,” Griffin said.
He was shaving when Lacey appeared, wearing a black dressing-gown of Oriental design featuring golden eagles. Underneath, he wore scarlet silk pyjamas. Griffin wore a plain white nightshirt. “You look like the doorman in a Chinese brothel,” he said.
“I bow to your superior knowledge of that milieu,” Lacey said.
The plenny brought two cups of tea. The cups were generously breakfast-sized and carried someone’s royal monogram. “That will be all,” Griffin said. The plenny did not move. “Spasibo,” Lacey said and nodded at the door. The plenny left. Lacey sat in the armchair and sipped his tea. “It’s Fortnum’s Number Seven Blend. A quiet introduction to the day. I think you’ll like it.”
The C.O. finished shaving. As he towelled his face he examined his jowls and found them satisfactory. Ever since he rode point-to-point in England he had watched his weight. His cheeks were slightly hollow and his skin was like polished leather. In France, when he was a flight commander, he had seen a pilot eat a second helping of treacle pudding with custard, told the man he didn’t like gluttons, and sacked him. Fat pilots were like fat jockeys: too greedy for their own good.
“What news on your radio, Lacey?” he asked.
“Wrankel’s report to Denikin says his troops need a week to recover. He asks for reinforcements, so that he can advance northwards. Everything else is routine. We get a delivery of petrol here today or tomorrow. Ditto coal for the locomotives. There’s some delicious spring lamb on the way too.”
Griffin was pleased. The British Mission in Ekat had warned him that he might have to badger the quartermaster-generals for the necessities of life. “Nice to know the Russians appreciate us,” he said.
“You mean Wrangel? I don’t deal with his lot. Russian staff officers will rob, cheat and swindle, and leave you starving at the roadside. I use my own sources.”
“Which are what, exactly?”
“Oh…” Lacey finished his tea. “You really shouldn’t concern yourself with petty details of housekeeping. That’s my job. And the adjutant’s, of course. He and I… we understand each other.” Lacey looked Griffin in the eye and almost smiled.
He’s challenging me, the C.O. thought. He’s a streak of piss with an acting pilot officer’s stripe, and I’m his wing commander, and he’s telling me not to walk on his grass. But Griffin had served on squadrons in France where the C.O. had picked a fight with the quartermaster and everyone had suffered from that: no fires, bad food, precious little whisky. The Camels and the Nines couldn’t fly without petrol and Lacey knew where to get it. Griffin suppressed his anger, postponed it to a better day.
“The squadron has a name,” he said. “I want it painted on the side of every Pullman carriage. So big.” He held his hands far apart. “Nothing jazzy. Strong, but…”
“Quietly understated,” Lacey said. “British to the core. One of the plennys is bound to be good at that sort of thing. It shall be done.”
Immediate action: it made Griffin feel better. “What sort of man is Captain Brazier?” he asked.
“He’s a war-horse.” Lacey walked to the window and looked at the mist. “Sound the bugle and he pricks his ears and snorts. He’s a great snorter.”
“Brazier had a good war. His ribbons say so. But he’s only a captain.”
“Well, he’s been up and now he’s down. A year ago, when the Huns made their last Big Push and nearly reached Paris, he rallied the ranks and became an acting major. He’s awfully good at that sort of thing. He terrifies his men more than the enemy do. The ranks needed a lot more rallying, and he was briefly an acting lieutenant-colonel, but then the Huns gave up and the War Office had a big surplus of terrifying officers, so now he’s a captain again. He’s no fool. He has a weakness for gramophone records of regimental marches.”
Briefly, Griffin wondered if that was a joke. Probably. Not very funny. “What’s your weakness, Lacey?”
“Oh… sometimes I succumb to Grieg. But Rachmaninov is more bracing. And you?”
“Bashing the Bolos,” Griffin said. “Bolo-bashing. Very noisy. You wouldn’t like it.”
There was some dispute during breakfast as to whether this was mist or fog. Those who had known London pea-soupers voted for fog because it had a sulphurous smell. The pro-mist crowd argued that this stuff was the wrong colour and anyway the smell came from the fires of Tsaritsyn.
“I shot a wallaby once,” Hackett said. “Terrible smell. They had to evacuate Adelaide.”
“Adelaide was his sister,” Wragge explained. “She had a very distinctive aroma. It was an inherited trait. All families have them.”
“What’s yours?” Jessop asked.
“Modesty.”
“You hide it well.”
“Nine centuries of breeding, old boy. One doesn’t brag about it.”
“Alright, shut up,” Griffin said. “We can’t fly in this clag. We’ll get the machines serviced and spruced up. Tomorrow’s another day. If the Bolsheviks counter-attack we’ll be ready. If they don’t, we’ll do some Deep Offensive Patrols, try and stir up the Red air force, if it exists. Where’s Bellamy?”
“Ill in bed,” somebody said.
“I brought a medic from Ekat,” Oliphant said. “Sergeant in the Medical Corps. The doctors won’t travel, they say the whole of Russia is stiff with plague.”
Griffin and Oliphant stood in the corridor outside Bellamy’s Pullman car and heard the sergeant’s opinion. “Malaria,” he said. “Either he’ll recover in a week, or he won’t.” They could see the plenny wiping Bellamy’s face. Sweat reappeared at once. He lay under a single sheet, and it clung to his body. He shivered all the time, and the sheet copied the shivering.
The mist thinned but was reluctant to lift. Griffin hated to see officers standing around, tunics unbuttoned, ties loose, gossiping, so he found them jobs: inspecting the Other Ranks’ quarters, checking the ammunition stores, supervising the digging of latrine pits (the Pullman lavatory system would soon need emptying), making sure the Cossack ponies were fed and watered.
Two bomber pilots, Gunning and Lowe, asked permission to visit Tsaritsyn. “Why?” Griffin asked. Lowe had seen this coming. “To inspect the effect of our bombing, sir,” he said.
“How?”
Lowe hadn’t looked that far ahead. “Um…”