“He didn’t say, sir. He went there for lunch.” Lacey went over and lifted the needle from the record. “Would you like a cup of tea, sir?”
Piggott nodded, still pecking away at the keys. Lacey assembled tea, sugar and milk. Piggott dragged the paper out and looked at it.
“Your filthy machine can’t spell,” he said.
“I believe I hear Captain Appleyard’s car, sir.” Lacey put three china mugs on a tray. Piggott folded the sheet of paper into a glider and waited. As the door opened he launched it. The glider flew past Appleyard’s head but the adjutant didn’t notice it. “Afternoon, adj,” Piggott called; but Appleyard didn’t hear that either. Head down, frowning, he hurried across the room. He looked dreadful. His face was dead-white about the chin and mouth, yet blotched with colour at the cheekbones. There was sweat on his brow: sweat, after twenty miles sitting in the breeze of an open car? He moved with his shoulders hunched as if holding himself together. “Glass of water,” he said to Lacey without looking, and went into his room. The door banged shut.
Piggott found his glider and smoothed out the crumpled nose. He watched Lacey pour water from a jug, and spoon white powder into the glass. Lacey looked up. “Bicarbonate of soda,” he said. “Incomparable for swift relief.”
Piggott followed him into the office. Appleyard was lying rather than sitting in an old, padded swivel chair. His tunic and shirt collar were open, and the top of his flies were undone. One foot was propped on a desk drawer. His eyes were shut but the eyelids trembled, and the hollows below them gleamed wetly.
Lacey placed the glass in his hand and held the fingers secure until Appleyard had swallowed most of the fizzing drink. “Mr. Piggott is here, sir,” he said, and went out.
Appleyard sat up and wiped his face with a khaki handkerchief. “Come in, Tim,” he said. “Take a pew, have a cigar. To what do I owe…” He broke off to utter a belch that seemed to begin in his boots.
“You feeling all right, adj?” Piggott asked.
“Nothing to worry about. Touch of the Zulu’s Revenge.” Appleyard was an old-style career officer, now in his mid-forties, a balding bachelor who had seen much service in India and Africa and who wore three rows of faded campaign ribbons to prove it. So why was he only a captain? The squadron was too well-mannered to ask, and in any case there were more interesting things going on in the world. “Ever see a Zulu, Tim? Very large gentlemen. Black as your hat and brave as a bull. Bullets can’t stop ‘em.” He had buttoned his flies and was rearranging the paperwork that cluttered his desk. “Just look at this bally stuff! Grows like weeds… Now then: what’s your problem?”
“Oh… Several things. Let’s start with pay. Jimmy Duncan says his pay has never been adjusted since he got his second pip, and that was weeks ago. Also two of the ‘A’ Flight mechanics still haven’t got their proficiency supplements, or something.” Piggott was pacing up and down, carefully placing his feet so as to stay on the same narrow floorboard. “Then there’s my fitter, Corporal Lee. His wisdom tooth’s giving him absolute hell, but there’s never a travel warrant for him to go to Amiens and get it taken out. I mean, that’s bloody silly, isn’t it?” Piggott reached a wall, pivoted on his heel, and began the return journey. “And now I’m told by stores that the men’s latrines haven’t got a drop of disinfectant. Not a single drop. In this weather! I mean to say, adj, just think of—”
Appleyard’s cough stopped him. It was a savage spasm that gripped the adjutant’s lungs and seemed to attack his throat like a chained dog. Piggott turned away. The noise was so hurtful it made him feel slightly sick. Still seized by his cough, Appleyard stumbled to an open window and eventually, painfully, managed to spit outside. The spasm ceased. He came back, mopping his face. His chest was heaving and he looked exhausted. “Better out than in,” he whispered. Threads of saliva linked his lips.
“You sound pretty dreadful, adj,” Piggott said. “You ought to see a doctor.”
“Just seen one. Chap at Contay.” Appleyard slumped into his chair. “Same old story. Nasty dose of…” He paused to catch his breath. “… dose of Delhi Lung. Just got to… put up with it.” He thumped himself on the chest so hard that Piggott winced. Appleyard noticed this, and grinned. “You do your best for India,” he said, “and this is what India does for you. Never fair, is it?”
Piggott felt acutely uncomfortable. He drifted towards the door. “I don’t suppose any of that stuff really matters all that much,” he said, but then he heard what he was saying. “Still, the disinfectant—”
I’ve got some coming from Contay, old chap. Toot sweet. I was there oh the scrounge. Corps HQ are absolutely useless. You might as well talk to that wall. Don’t worry, I’ll chase up those other things, the pay and so on. Top priority. Do it now.” He pulled the telephone towards him and began searching through a heap of papers. Piggott left.
It’s a damn shame, he thought; but not for long. As he drank the tea that Corporal Lacey gave him he saw people strolling across the airfield with cricket bats and stumps. It was a perfect June afternoon: just enough breeze to soften the sunshine. Piggott gulped the last mouthfuls. He wanted to get out there and clout that ball over the skylarks.
The afternoon was not perfect for Paxton. It took him nearly an hour to complete the first circuit and by then a ground haze was developing. There was also a lot of bumpy air from ground level up to fifteen hundred feet. If he flew any higher, the air was smooth but he couldn’t see through the haze. If he flew low enough to be able to pick out landmarks, the Quirk hit air-bumps and Paxton’s bladder didn’t like that.
It had been a mistake, Paxton now realised, to drink quite so much tea before take-off. His bladder ached. It was a dull, steady ache, and he could almost ignore it as long as nothing made it worse, but a sudden jolt – or even worse a sudden drop – made the ache flare, and then he had to clench and contort every muscle in order to keep control. If only he had a bottle. When he banked and headed east from Amiens, he could feel the pint-and-a-half of tea sloshing to the side and then surging back as he levelled out. The pressure was awful and getting worse. He couldn’t go on like this. Land at Pepriac: that was the answer. Just touch down, keep the engine ticking over, jump out, drain the system, jump in, take off. Yes. Of course. That was what he would do.
Now that relief was almost near he felt much better. His bladder could endure two or three minutes. What frightened it was the prospect of another hour of torment.
When the aerodrome came in sight he actually felt quite comfortable. As he lost height and got closer, he could see figures running about in the middle of the field. He saw them clearly as he passed overhead. Cricket. They were playing cricket. It was inconceivable that he would land and pass water in full view of the squadron cricket match. The shame of exposing himself, and the disgrace of revealing his weakness: even the thought of it made him shudder. The shudder was nearly disastrous. He braced his thighs and his buttocks and stiffened his stomach-muscles. You can do it, Oliver, he told himself as he climbed away to start the second circuit. Not far now. Grin and bear it. Play up, School!
“Can you imagine the Germans playing cricket, Douglas?” asked the chaplain. He was umpiring the match. Douglas Goss, his right arm in a sling, had strolled out to chat with him.
“I can’t imagine the Germans playing anything,” Goss said.
“Exactly. They have no sense of decency and fair play.
Look what they did to Belgium. Those poor nuns.”
Goss paused while the bowler ran up and bowled. The batsman swung and missed, and the ball thwacked into the wicketkeeper’s gloves. “What exactly happened to the nuns?” he asked. “I never did get the full story.”