Hornet’s Sting by Derek Robinson Page A

transferred to
40
Squadron on authority Duty Officer that Squadron
.
    The adjutant read this. “Blame it on the manufacturer. Quite right. I suppose you had a reason for picking 40 Squadron.”
    â€œThey moved to England last week.”
    â€œAh.” He signed the paper. “Duty officer, eh? Could be anybody. Poor chap’s probably gone west by now.”
    Lacey leaned against the doorframe, his thumbs hooked in his pockets. “Probably,” he said. Brazier sat squarely, and cleaned the nib of his pen with a bit of blotting paper. Eventually Lacey looked at him and said: “Strawberry jam.” Brazier raised a bushy eyebrow just a fraction. “Isn’t there something horribly symbolic here?” Lacey asked. “The army can afford to lose millions of men, year after year. But not a few cases of strawberry jam. Jam
matters.”
    â€œCivilian talk,” Brazier said briskly.
    â€œJam matters more than men?”
    â€œRegulations matter more than anything.”
    â€œWar isn’t regulated. War is confusion and disorder and luck and waste, especially waste. Every week – even now, when nothing is happening – hundreds of men, wasted. Thousands of tons of shells, wasted. So why this obsession about jam? I apologise for interrupting you.”
    â€œNot a bit of it. I’m pleased to see you developing the Fighting Spirit, Lacey.”
    â€œMere bile, sir.”
    â€œYou should apply for a commission.”
    â€œI should take one of Beecham’s Pills.”
    â€œWe need keen young subalterns at the Front.”
    â€œOnly because you keep losing them. Which reminds me. Your ammunition has arrived.”
    He fetched a wooden box stencilled Signal Flares (Very Pistol) Handle With Care, and placed it on the adjutant’s desk. “A posthumous token of respect from the late Lieutenant Morkel.”
    Brazier prised open the lid and eased a few records from their straw packing. “Band of the Grenadier Guards ... ‘Blaze Away’ ... ‘Colonel Bogey’ ... ‘Sussex by the Sea’ ... Good. Real music, this.” He dug deeper. “Hullo ... Orlando Benedict and his Savoy Orchestra?” He peered at the labels. “‘I’m Lonesome for You’ ... ‘Here Comes Tootsie’ ... ‘If You Could Care for Me’ ... ‘Poor Butterfly’ ...” One nostril flared. “Tosh. Utter tosh.”
    â€œI think Captain Lynch hoped it might soften your stony soul, sir.” Lacey pointed at a label. “Novelty foxtrot. Splendid exercise for the deskbound office worker.”
    Brazier grunted, and put ‘Blaze Away’ on the gramophone. “Keep your jazz,” he said. “This is real music.”
    * * *
    The day after he left France, Cleve-Cutler was eating breakfast at Taggart’s hotel, near Piccadilly. Taggart was a gloomy Irishman with an eyepatch and a bad limp. He had been invalided out of the R.F.C. early in 1915 when a friendly shell had rushed through the gap between his wings and removed several vital struts, forcing him to make a messy landing in a wood. Now he sat at Cleve-Cutler’s table and helped himself to toast. “My advice,” he said. “Wear mufti. Otherwise wherever you go, the bloody civilians will buy drinks for you, and then they’ll ask you how many Fritzes you’ve shot down.”
    â€œFritzes? They really say Fritzes?”
    â€œThey know nothing. All they know they read in the bloody silly newspapers, and that’s lies dreamed up by the bloody silly War Office. Cavalry of the clouds, that’s you. Take their drinks, tell them any old lies, fuck their women if you want to, they’ll consider it a privilege, with those wings on you and all, like being fucked by an angel.Just don’t take anything they say seriously. They know nothing.” He limped away, dropping crumbs.
    Cleve-Cutler wondered what to do with his week. If he