Ever since the business of the stolen book he had kept all his belongings padlocked in his trunk. He found the key but even as be began to insert it the padlock swung open. He stopped breathing; the sound of his own pulse was as loud in his ears as the pounding of surf. When his lungs complained, he sucked in a huge breath and looked around the room as if his enemy might be lurking somewhere.
O’Neill had picked the lock. Paxton clearly remembered testing it, after he had turned the key. “Swine,” he breathed. “Stinking, sneaking swine.” He didn’t really want to look inside the chest. His fingers were trembling when he opened the hasp and lifted the lid: God alone knew what that Australian pig might have done to his things. Lying on top was his book, The Riddle of the Sands, held together by a rubber band.
Paxton had given it up for lost since his first fight with O’Neill. Maybe there was a shred of decency in the fellow, after all. He took off the rubber band and thumbed the pages, but nothing gave way to his thumb. The book refused to open. All the pages were stuck together. It was as solid as a block of wood.
That chest had been Paxton’s last hope. It was the keep of the castle into which he had retreated. Let O’Neill do his worst outside, Paxton had thought; as long as I have that one place which is safe and private and secure, then I don’t care. Now he felt as if he had been raped. “Raped,” he whispered, and played angrily with the padlock, making the shackle go in and out as fast as he could, just to prove its filthy treachery.
“Having trouble with your equipment, sir?” Private Fidler asked. He was standing in the doorway, holding a broom,”I find a touch of Vaseline sometimes helps.”
“Oh, mind your own damn business.” Paxton tossed the lock onto his bed. “If you want something to do, you can clean my boots again, they’re filthy.” He kicked the lid of the chest shut.
“Bust, is it, sir?” Fidler picked up the lock. “Oh dear. Look at this. My old grannie could open this with one wave of her feather duster.”
“Thank you, I’m sure she could. I’m extremely grateful for your advice, Fidler. Most helpful. Perhaps I’ll go round to Harrods and get something better.”
“Well, I suppose you could do that, sir.” Fidler swept a patch of floor, carefully redistributing the dust, fairly and evenly. “But if it was me I’d go and see Corporal Lacey.”
Lacey had no padlocks but he knew where the best were stored and how to get one. “Good cigars are the most useful currency in the Corps,” he said,”and as it happens another box of cigars arrived for you today.”
“Good heavens,” Paxton said.
“Yes. When the first box proved so valuable I took the liberty of sending a telegram to your uncle, nominally from you, asking for more.”
“You did what? You’ve got a damn nerve, Lacey.”
“But you do want the cigars? Five will get you the strongest padlock in France.”
“Who from?”
“It’s best that you don’t know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to my desk. Captain Brazier frets if I’m not at his beck and call.”
Later that day, Lacey delivered the padlock. It was the size of a small pineapple and two keys were needed to operate it. “Specially made to protect gold bullion deliveries up the Khyber Pass,” Lacey said. “Don’t lose the keys or you’ll have to dynamite your way in.”
Paxton dropped the hasp over the staple and fitted the shackle through the slot. The two keys turned slickly, moving heavy and complex mechanisms. “That’s one problem solved,” he said.
Cleve-Cutler kept his squadron busy. Whenever the weather allowed, Brigade HQ ordered them up for escort duties or reconnaissance patrols. Each of the three flights was in the air at some time of the day, and Cleve-Cutler encouraged the pilots to practise low-level flying in their spare time. He also liked the observers to practise gunnery in the butts. What he didn’t like was to see people standing around.
On his second day in command, ‘B’ Flight had been sent up to do the usual variety of jobs. Plug Gerrish, the flight commander, rendezvoused with a BE2c to give it protection while it directed an artillery shoot. Unusually, the plane quit and went home after half an hour, but by then Gerrish and his observer, a red-haired, sharp-faced, Scottish lieutenant called Ross, had seen and warned off a Fokker monoplane. It climbed and loitered. It seemed interested rather than aggressive.
Gerrish waited until the BE2c was safely out of sight before i.e went up and tried to catch the Fokker. No hope. It climbed as he climbed. At about eight thousand feet it levelled off. For some minutes they flew parallel, near enough to be able to see details: oil stains, patched canvas, the other man’s goggles, machine guns.
Ross took out his binoculars and had a good long look. Either this was a new type or the Fokker was even smaller than he remembered. Really, it looked old-fashioned: just a plain cross, with square wings stuck on a square fuselage, not much better than the thing Blériot flew across the Channel. Strange to think that Fokkers had frightened the life out of everyone only six months ago. This one had twin Spandau machine guns on top of the engine, very wicked-looking, perforated like cheese graters, but obviously the pilot wasn’t looking for a fight with anyone. Feeble, feeble. Gerrish banged his fist on the nacelle and Ross stuffed the binoculars away. Time to go.
Gerrish was bored. He put the tail up and the nose down and enjoyed plunging into nothingness. This was what he liked about flying: if you got tired of one place you could be somewhere else in no time at all. From the corner of his eye he saw the Fokker diving too. That was no good; he was fed up with this Hun. He steepened the dive, determined to out-race him; then changed his mind, opened the throttle until the vibrations made the instruments blur, and hauled the FE into a loop. The Fokker followed him. Gerrish looked out and saw the monoplane hanging upside-down just as he was hanging upside-down. They came out of the loop like brothers. It was a game now. Gerrish side-slipped left, then right, then developed a corkscrewing dive that widened into a lazy spiral. The German pilot copied everything, perfectly, instantly, levelled out as Gerrish levelled out, and waited to see what was next. Gerrish waggled his wings. He didn’t look for the reply; he knew it was there. He flew home, feeling amused but also annoyed. Fun and games were all very well, but when were they going to start killing each other again?
Foster and Yeo landed together. It had been another dud patrol. Their observers trudged away to get out of their flying kit but Yeo had things to discuss with his fitter and rigger. Foster leaned on the wing of his plane and watched. It was hot and he began to feel sleepy.
Yeo’s discussion ended. Foster heaved himself upright. They walked slowly and silently to the pilots’ hut, scuffing their boots, sweating.
Yeo peeled off his sheepskin coat and let it fall. He slumped into a chair and got rid of his scarf. He tried to prise off one boot with the toe of the other but it refused to loosen.
“Hang on,” Foster said. He took hold of the boot and dragged it off.
“Thanks awfully,” Yeo said. Apart from formalities, those were the first words they had exchanged since the business with Binns.
Foster pulled off the other boot. “Are we friends?” he asked.
“We always were,” Yeo said. “Sometimes good, sometimes bad. But always friends.”
Next morning was wet but not windy. A soft, fine rain drifted across the aerodrome like smoke. Condensation dribbled down the inside of windows and when Tim Piggott got dressed his clothes felt clammy. ‘A’ Flight was due to be on patrol at 9 a.m. and he was not looking forward to it. Flying an FE2b through rain was like sitting on the sharp end of a schooner in a gale. The cockpit was open, with only half a thumbnail of a windscreen, and when rain arrived at seventy or eighty miles an hour it stung.