Read Online War Story by Derek Robinson - Free Book Online

re-lived in reverse his disastrous landing: here was the strip where the plane slid on its belly, and beyond that the marks where the wheel-struts collapsed and gouged out turf, and further back still the spot where the plane first fell to earth and the wheels dented the grass. Now that the machine was destroyed he felt curiously proud of his arrival. A good landing, so one of his instructors had told him, was a landing you could walk away from. He sat on his heels and fingered the wheel-marks. It hadn’t been perfect but it was still a damn sight better than Wilkins had managed at Dover. Or Ross-Kennedy, doing cartwheels in a French field. Or Dexter, making a mess of that church. Damn fools. Nice chaps but rotten pilots. The hard-edged drone of an engine cut into his thoughts and he looked up. An FE2b sailed overhead, sinking softly, and touched down without a bounce. Paxton felt sick with envy. Two more planes landed during the next ten minutes. Each bounced a bit. The second bounced twice. Paxton felt better.
    He went for a walk around the field, and then strolled into the mess to chat with the crews about their patrol; but the mess was empty.
    â€œThey’ve all gone swimming, sir,” a servant said. “Just ate breakfast and went.”
    â€œAh. They’ll be back for lunch, though?”
    â€œNo, sir. I think they go to an
estaminet
, sir.”
    â€œYou mean I’m the only officer on the camp?”
    â€œWell, there’s the adjutant, sir. But he doesn’t usually take lunch.”
    Paxton went to see the adjutant. Corporal Lacey’s gramophone was playing the César Franck symphonic variations, but Lacey stopped the record and received Paxton courteously. “I’m afraid Mr. Appleyard is resting in bed this morning,” he said. “A recurrence of an old Nigerian malady, I believe. The CO, of course, is at Brigade HQ all day.”
    â€œAh,” Paxton said. “Yes. Of course.” Nobody had told
him
the CO was at Brigade. You’d think the Orderly Officer ought to be told.
    In the next room, a couple of typewriters chattered, starting and stopping as unpredictably as birdsong.
    â€œIf I may say so,” Lacey said,”it was uncommonly generous of you to take over Mr. Ogilvy’s duty as Orderly Officer.”
    Paxton looked down. He found something of interest in an in-tray. It was a memo about disinfectant for the men’s latrines. “Oh well,” he said. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”
    â€œNeither was Mr. Ogilvy. Now he’s splashing happily in the Somme.”
    Rafters creaked as the heat baked the roof. Lacey sharpened a pencil, taking a long time to get it to a fine point. Paxton watched the tiny flakes fall and wished he knew how to drive. Then he could take an army car and whizz around the French countryside. There had been a chap at Sherborne who’d had a car. Lucky blighter. Sherborne had been a jolly good school. You got beaten, of course. Everyone got beaten, by masters, by prefects. Eventually you became a prefect and then you beat others. Didn’t do anyone any harm. On the contrary, it helped to develop the proper spirit. That was the great difference between us and the Boche. We had the proper spirit.
    â€œSinfully languid,” Lacey said. He was standing by a window, balancing the pencil on a fingertip by its point.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDon’t you find this weather almost sinfully languid?” The pencil wavered and he deftly caught it as it fell. “Idleness is a virtue on days like this. Unless one chooses to swim, and swimming is simply the most sensual of all indulgences. Don’t you think?” He had the pencil balanced again.
    â€œNo,” Paxton said firmly.
    â€œOh, surely,” Lacey murmured. “We all dream of toppling naked into a cool calm river and letting the running current do with us what it will.”
    â€œI don’t,” Paxton said. “I