“This Hun came at us from behind, sir,” he said. “Hard to tell what it was. Probably a Fokker. Not an Eindecker, definitely a biplane.” The crowd pressed closer. Paxton paid them no attention, but at the same time he made his account sound matter-of-fact, almost casual, as if this sort of thing were quite routine. The ambulance left with Kellaway. “He began potting at us. I got a few good shots at him, although Kellaway was chucking the grid all over the sky. We shook him off in the clouds and next thing I knew…” Paxton took off his helmet and goggles. Oil stains gave his face a grim, piratical look. “…he came at us again, this time from the side, which wasn’t very clever of him because I gave him half a drum, and he whizzed underneath us and came out the other side on fire.” Paxton demonstrated this move with his hands. “I gave him a few more, down he went and… well, Bob’s your uncle. Thank you, sir.” He accepted a bottle of wine from Colonel Bliss and took a long swig. The guests applauded, and he waved the bottle.
“D’you know where this Hun crashed?” Milne asked.
“Oh, yes.” Paxton thought about it. “More or less.”
“Go and find the wreck. Get the guns and the crosses.”
“Take my car,” Bliss said. “I’ll be here for a while.”
“Of course you will, Bob,” Milne said. “We’re all going to play rugger after lunch.” They began to walk back. “You played rugby for England, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Oh, bad luck.” They walked in silence as far as the camp. “Look, help yourselves to everything and have a good time,” Milne said. “You don’t need me, do you? I’m feeling a tiny bit tired. I might have a bit of a lie-down.” Without waiting for an answer he headed for his room.
Bliss turned and watched the last of ‘C’ Flight make its landing and taxi past the Quirk towards the hangars. “What do you think?” he asked Dando.
“I think he’s as well as can be expected.”
“Do you? I think he’s absolutely bloody miserable.”
“Yes. Well, it adds up to much the same thing.”
The red flare, the bad landing and the ambulance took some of the edge off the guests’ cheerfulness. News of the kill put it all back on, especially when they learned that the ambulance hadn’t really been needed – the pilot just got a bit of a knock on the head, soon woke up, no lasting damage. Paxton’s back was slapped many times on his way to Colonel Bliss’s car. As he was driven away, all he could see was a blur of smiling faces and waving arms.
‘C’ Flight got changed and cleaned-up and went to discover what the party was all about.
The padre was no help. “I was about to ask you,” he said. They got drinks and wandered through the crowd and came across Gus Mayo. “I can tell you what it’s not about,” he said. “It’s not about the latest news. Seen the papers? The Navy’s had a fight at last. Big scrap in the North Sea.”
“Did we win?” Ogilvy asked.
“Hard to say.”
“Then we lost,” Foster said. “Sailors always find it hard to say they didn’t win. It’s a speech defect they’ve got. I knew a captain who went down with his battleship, and his last words were: Don’t be deceived by appearances – this is in fact a glorious victory, glug-glug-glug.”
“Anyway, who cares what we’re supposed to be celebrating?” Mayo said. “The fact is the old man’s thrown a party and Paxton’s got himself a Hun, so I’ll drink to that.”
“Balls,” Essex said. “The archie got it.”
“Really? Paxton didn’t say anything about archie.”
“We watched the whole damn thing,” Foster told him. “God knows what an Albatros was doing so low over our guns, he must have been insane, but they plastered him thoroughly and in the end they nailed him. I saw it happen.”
“Maybe they both got him,” Mayo suggested.
“If Paxton was the gunner in that Quirk,” Ogilvy said,”he missed every time. By a country mile. He might have hit France, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Ah,” Mayo said. “Well, now. Fancy that.” He looked from their unsmiling faces to the laughter and enjoyment all around. “Let’s not spoil everybody’s fun with anything as awkward as the truth,” he said.
They stood and drank, and watched the party. “Hey,” James Yeo said, and they waited. “This sailor friend of yours who went down with his ship,” Yeo said. “How d’you know what his last words were?”
“He sent a message in a bottle,” Foster said. “Juggins.”
Milne came out of his quarters, yawning and scratching, and saw Colonel Bliss sitting in a deckchair. “Bob, my dear chap, please forgive me,” he said. “Shocking manners. You’ve been waiting for hours and hours.”
“Twenty minutes. Are you awake?” Milne nodded, and he clapped his hands. The mule, Alice, stopped grazing and ambled over. “Then listen to me,” Bliss said. “What am I going to tell my boss? He’s worried. You don’t send in half your returns, for a start. I know paperwork’s a bore, and I know you all had a rough time a few months ago, but that’s over now.”
Milne patted Alice’s neck. The mule sniffed his pockets, searching. “Oh what a greedy girl you are,” he murmured. All the time he was looking at Bliss, studying him. “You’re turning grey at the edges, Bob,” he said. “You’re twenty-four and you’re an old man.”
“Twenty-five. Now look: if you pull yourself together you’re in line for promotion and probably another decoration. If you don’t, you’ll get the sack.”
“You leave me no choice, Bob.” Milne swung himself onto Alice’s back. “I shall fly home to England for tea and crumpets, and after that…” He dug in his heels, and the mule cantered away. “Tell your boss,” he shouted,”that it will all be over by Christmas! That’s official!”
Milne wandered on muleback amongst his guests, hatless, his tunic unbuttoned, ignoring anyone who spoke. He was looking for the officers from the Green Howards. He found them, and said to the one who was married: “Look here, I’m going to Brighton, now. Would you like to come? We’ll be back by six o’clock.” Everyone agreed that it was illegal and irresistible. Ten minutes later they took off. Bliss watched the FE2b fly north. “Suit yourself, Rufus,” he said. “It’s your funeral.”
Paxton made himself walk across the field. He wanted to run, but it would be impolite to leave behind the gunnerylieutenant who had guided him for the last mile. Also, running in flying gear might look inelegant.
The wreck had been roped off. It was guarded by a lance-corporal.
“Good Lord,” Paxton said. “They must have hit the ground a fearful wallop.” There was not much to see: a fire-blackened hole, with the tattered and shattered remains of the outer wings of the Albatros scattered around it. He picked up a bit of wood and poked about in the hole.
“That’s the engine down there, sir,” the lance-corporal said. “Petrol tank over here. One of the wheels is—”
“Thank you, thank you.” Paxton did not look at the man. “I know all about this particular merchant. We have met before. The guns… I don’t see the guns.”
“We snaffled ‘em,” the lieutenant said.
Paxton snorted. Indignation pressed hard on his voice and almost cracked it. “Well you can jolly well de-snaffle ‘em!” he said. “Jolly well give ‘em back.”
“No fear. I told you: this was our bird.”
“Bilge. I was nearest, I should know. It’s mine.”
“Come and fight us for it.”
Paxton walked completely around the wreckage. All the German crosses had gone: no point in asking where. “Well,” he said. “I think it’s a jolly poor look-out, that’s all I can say.”