Goshawk Squadron Read online

  Praise for Goshawk Squadron

  “A bleak and savage book, full of the terror of warfare and shot through with grim humor; a sort of First-World-War Catch 22.”

  Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

  “One of the most powerful indictments of war I have ever read … quietly savage, funny and heart-breaking … A book which must once and for all explode the myth of honorable warfare.”

  Sunday Telegraph

  “An uproarious, fast-moving and relentless cynical tale of the war in the air over France in 1918.”

  The Times

  “A terrific impact … Goshawk Squadron has the authoritative ring of a little classic on the subject of war.”

  Observer

  “Shocking, but by no means insensitive, this novel of Derek Robinson’s is a remarkable story of war in the air.”

  Peter Townsend

  Praise for Derek Robinson

  “Robinson … should be mentioned in the same breath as Mailer, Ballard or Heller.”

  Express

  “Bleak, black humor, intelligence, moral depth and high adventure.”

  Independent

  “Robinson writes with tireless enthusiasm which never sacrifices detail to pace, or vice versa … terrific.”

  Observer

  DEREK ROBINSON is a policeman’s son from a council estate who crossed the class barrier by going to Cambridge, where he got a degree in history and learned to write badly. A stint in advertising in London and New York changed that; then—after producing a couple of unpublishable stories—he finally got it right when, in 1971, Goshawk Squadron was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Two further novels of the Royal Flying Corps followed: War Story and Hornet’s Sting. His equally acclaimed trilogy of World War Two novels are Piece of Cake, A Good Clean Fight and Damned Good Show. His other novels include The Eldorado Network and Artillery of Lies.

  Derek Robinson has also published nonfiction on a variety of themes, from the laws of rugby to the nuclear tests on Christmas Island in the 1950s. His most recent book is Invasion, 1940, a revisionist history of the Battle of Britain, also published by Constable & Robinson. He lives in Bristol.

  Goshawk Squadron

  DEREK ROBINSON

  An imprint of Quercus

  New York • London

  © 2011 by Derek Robinson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use or anthology should send inquiries to Permissions c/o Quercus Publishing Inc., 31 West 57th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10019, or to [email protected].

  ISBN 978-1-62365-326-2

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by Random House Publisher Services

  c/o Random House, 1745 Broadway

  New York, NY 10019

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  For Sheila

  CONTENTS

  Force 1: Light Air

  Force 2: Light Breeze

  Force 3: Gentle Breeze

  Force 4: Moderate Breeze

  Force 5: Fresh Breeze

  Force 6: Strong Breeze

  Force 7: Moderate Gale

  Force 8: Fresh Gale

  Force 9: Strong Gale

  Force 10: Whole Gale

  Force 11: Storm

  Force 12: Hurricane

  Afterword

  Force 1: Light Air

  Smoke drifts, but vane and sock unmoved

  January 15th, 1918, was a cold, sparkling, sunny day. Not much happened in the Great War that day. As usual, about two thousand men (of the millions along the Western Front) died; some because they stuck their heads up too high and got shot; some because they got their feet wet too often and caught pneumonia; many by accident; and a steady few by their own hand. It was one thousand two hundred and sixty days since Britain and Germany had declared war. Not that anyone was counting.

  Pont St. Martin was an isolated airfield, far behind the front lines. At 11:45 AM Goshawk Squadron, RFC, was preparing to land there for the first time. Twelve SE5a biplanes—squared-off machines with wings like box kites and tails like weathervanes—were spaced out in line-astern, easing down in a wide sweep toward the field, which was still white with frost under the baby-blue sky.

  In the middle of the field, Stanley Woolley sat in a deckchair and watched them. At twenty-three he was young for a major and old for a pilot. His face looked wrong for either; bad-tempered and stony, heavy-lidded, with a miserable complexion. The newspapers had tried retouching his photograph but it wasn’t any better, and in any case they couldn’t retouch Woolley himself. The last journalist to try to get an interview had started by asking if his men had a pet nickname for him; Woolley had kicked him painfully up the ass. There was no story for the newspapers in Woolley. He was a veteran, he was successful, he had led Goshawk Squadron for over a year, and still they could do nothing with him. They felt badly let down by Woolley.

  Coffee was stewing on a coke brazier beside the deckchair, and Woolley refilled his mug, using his cap as a potholder. The adjutant, Woodruffe, stood on the other side of the brazier. Captain Woodruffe had the face of a man who pays his bills on time and believes what his country’s leaders say in the newspapers. He had paid one bill in person: there were no fingers on his left hand. He gripped his clip-board between the scarred thumb and the neatly carpentered palm.

  “Nearly forgot to ask, sir,” he said. “Did you have a good leave?”

  The planes tightened their sinking circle and Woolley looked through his binoculars at the number on the fuselage of the first machine. “Seven,” he said.

  Woodruffe consulted his list. “Rogers.”

  “Ah. Bloody Rogers, I hate the bastard.” Woolley fiddled with the focus. “Is that the same plane he broke a month ago?”

  Woodruffe thought. “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s still broken. I can see loose wires flapping behind his undercarriage. Who’s his mechanic?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hemsley. I’ll kick his ass. Couldn’t mend an empty birdcage.”

  They watched Rogers approach, his engine cackling softly as he floated in.

  “If one wire’s bust, he’s bound to bust another,” Woolley said.

  Rogers came over the hedge at about fifty feet. He stretched his neck and searched the ground in front, trying to select a flat piece. The frost had sprayed everything a uniform silver, and the cold, bright sunshine washed away all shadow. Rogers pulled his head back in.

  They watched him sail down, and heard the tiny bursts of power he used to keep the heavy nose up and let the tail sink. The wheels touched and spun and gradually accepted the weight. They raced hard for about thirty feet and hit a ridge of frozen earth. Woolley and the adjutant clearly heard the pang! of snapping piano-wire, then the wheel-legs hastily folded up. The plane stumbled and sprawled like a tripped runner. Its wooden propeller battered at the iron turf and splintered to a stub. Rogers g
rabbed the cockpit rim. The adjutant took a pace forward.

  Woolley said, “I told you so.”

  The plane racketed along on its belly. The bottom wing scraped and ripped its fabric on the stiff weeds and chunks of grass, making the plane zig and zag. Eventually it skidded into a wide, slow curve and stopped.

  Men began running. Woolley raised his binoculars and watched Rogers unstrap himself and climb out. “Stop them, Woody,” he said.

  Woodruffe swung a handbell vigorously. The men stopped and looked. “Go back,” the adjutant bawled. “Go back.”

  Woolley rested his neck on the top of the deckchair. “It’s better where it is. Now the others know where not to come in. Besides, I don’t want a lot of people running across the field, it distracts me. Who’s next?” He looked in the sky. “Three.”

  “Three … Finlayson.”

  “Ah. Bloody Finlayson. I hate that bastard.” He studied Finlayson’s approach. “How long has he been out of hospital?”

  “About a week.”

  “Hurt his neck, didn’t he?”

  “Well, he hurt almost everything—left foot, hip, ribs, tail, right arm, scalp. And his neck, yes. He burned himself, too.”

  “Huh.” Woolley prodded the red-hot coke with his swagger-stick. “If his neck won’t work I don’t want him.” Finlayson drifted down and landed impeccably. “Any fool can fly forward,” Woolley said. “Question is, can he look backward?” Finlayson taxied off to the far end of the field. Woolley raised his binoculars. “Ten.”

  “Ten … O’Shea.”

  “Ah. Bloody O’Shea. I hate that bastard.”

  The adjutant looked at his list. “You’ve never even met him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “O’Shea. He only joined us yesterday. Came straight from that new flying school on Salisbury Plain.”

  “Ah. Right. A replacement. A bloody Irish replacement. My God, is he going to land in the next field or the next bloody arrondissement?” O’Shea made a violent correction to bring himself back on the approach.

  Woodruffe glanced cautiously at Woolley. “I don’t suppose you remember,” he said, “but O’Shea was quite famous in 1913. His father’s portrait of him was in the Royal Academy Exhibition.” Woolley grunted. O’Shea had almost stalled, had dropped twenty feet, and now his engine was bellowing at full power. Woolley lowered his binoculars and lay back. They watched O’Shea’s high-speed approach. “He was the most extraordinarily beautiful child,” Woodruffe said. O’Shea skimmed the hedge at about a hundred miles an hour.

  “He must go round again,” Woolley said firmly.

  “It was quite a shock, meeting him,” Woodruffe said.

  “He must go round again.”

  The biplane bored across the field, making hurried dips and passes at the ground without ever touching. Woolley turned his head to watch it race by. At last O’Shea got the plane down. The wheels raced furiously, jittering at the endless jolts, but the tail would not drop. “Throw out the anchor!” Woolley murmured sadly. He twisted still farther to follow the action.

  The aircraft did not slow down. It was flying with its wheels on the ground, and soon one of the wheels broke off and fled away, bouncing hugely. “Now he must go round again,” Woolley said finally, as O’Shea climbed by perhaps five feet. But the aircraft leveled out and flew on. Woolley’s neck-sinews were stretched, his Adam’s apple bulging, his eyeballs swiveled to their limit. Still O’Shea flew on. The deckchair tipped and fell. “Balls,” Woolley said. He knelt on the crisp white grass and watched O’Shea approach the edge of the field. Trees lined the hedgerow; O’Shea seemed to plan on steering through a gap between two of them.

  From that distance the outer branches looked frail and spindly with winter, but they hooked the wings right off the biplane and held them hanging in the trees like stiff and dirty washing. There was a muffled crash as the fuselage fell into the next field, and then silence.

  Woolley gave the adjutant his field glasses. “Take a look,” he said. He straightened the deckchair and brushed the frost off his knees.

  “Right side up,” Woodruffe said. “No sign of fire. Should be all right, shouldn’t he? Provided he had his straps done up.”

  Woolley settled himself. “Who’s next? Looks like … four.”

  Reluctantly the adjutant lowered the binoculars. “Four is Richards. Another replacement.”

  “Ah. Bloody Richards. I hate that bastard.”

  The biplane wobbled out of the sky as if blindfolded, groping for earth. When it came within twenty feet of the ground it dropped too fast, and bounced. It kangarooed halfway across the field, with Woolley loudly counting the hops, before Richards made it stick and ran it harmlessly to a halt.

  “They’ve gotten him out,” Woodruffe said, from behind the field glasses.

  “Who?”

  “O’Shea.”

  “What for? Should’ve left him there. Irish clod.”

  “They’re helping him into the field.” He lowered the glasses. “He seems to be all right.” A wing fell out of a tree.

  “That’s a hell of an improvement, then. Here comes nine.”

  “Nine … Dickinson.”

  “Ah. Bloody Dickinson. I hate that bastard.”

  Rogers came up, rubbing his right elbow. “Hello, sir,” he said. He saluted, wincing. “Good to have you back, sir. Did you have a good leave? This place is worse than the last one, isn’t it? Bumps everywhere. Hope we’re not going to stay here.”

  Dickinson side-slipped delicately, and Woolley allowed his eyelids to droop and frame the scene with gauzy, golden softness: the lovely balance of the plane as it settled, like an owl, mature and masterful and so controlled that it seemed lazy, only half-thinking what to do next. The instant of contact: the firm, square kiss. Then Dickinson rolled home, his left wheel squeaking. Just a man in a patched and obsolescent airplane. Woolley raised the binoculars again.

  “Who was that up the tree?” Rogers asked.

  “Six,” Woolley announced loudly.

  “Six is … Gabriel. He’s another replacement. Came from the school in Kent.”

  “Ah. Bloody Gabriel. I hate that bastard.”

  “Gabriel,” said Rogers. “I wonder if his brother kept wicket for Essex before the war. J. T. W. Gabriel. I think he was killed on the Somme.”

  “Who wasn’t?” the adjutant asked.

  “Not a great wicket-keeper, mind you,” Rogers said. “Good enough for Essex, though.”

  They watched Gabriel make a long, conscientious descent. Even from that distance, they could see his head sticking far above the cockpit.

  “Does he have to stand up to fly?” Woolley asked.

  “He’s six foot three, sir,” Rogers said. “Perfect build for a fast bowler. Big feet, really enormous feet. And hands, too. Perfect.”

  “I hate the bastard,” Woolley said. Gabriel resolutely drove his machine down the invisible road. Woolley closed one eye and held up his charred swagger-stick so that Gabriel appeared to be sliding down it. “I want you to kick your mechanic up the ass,” he said.

  Rogers waited. “Yes, sir?” he said.

  “Take a good swing,” Woolley said. “Wear boots.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gabriel landed solidly in someone else’s wheel marks and motored briskly, the tail-skid bouncing high on the ruts and the whole plane vibrating with the power he gave the engine.

  Woolley looked away, massaging his face. “What the hell have you lot been doing while I’ve been away?” he asked.

  “We’ve been in reserve,” Rogers said. “On two-hour standby, most of the time. As it happened, they hardly ever needed us.”

  “No training? No work? What about all these replacements? Why haven’t you brought them up to scratch?”

  “Because we were on reserve, on stand-by,” Rogers explained. “You can’t do proper training on stand-by, sir, can you? Besides, the weather’s been bad and there was a lot of work to be done on the machines. A
nd in any case, I gave people as much local leave as I could.” Woolley grunted. “They had it due,” Rogers pointed out.

  “It’s done them no good, has it? Find out if O’Shea’s fit to fly.”

  “Was that O’Shea over there?”

  “Yes,” the adjutant said. “Throttle stuck, probably. He came in far too fast, anyway. It reminded me of what’s-his-name, last month.”

  “Wintle,” Rogers suggested.

  “Wintle? No, no. Began with a B. Burroughs …? Morris. The ginger mustache.”

  “Morris didn’t have a mustache, he had a spaniel.”

  “Who’s two?” Woolley demanded loudly.

  “Two is … Delaforce. Another replacement.”

  “Hate the bastard,” Woolley muttered.

  “Anyway, I don’t think Morris had a stuck throttle,” Rogers said. “Wasn’t he a jammed control line? Or am I thinking of Spencer?”

  “Woody!” said Woolley suddenly. “What are you going to do about Delaport? He’s gone absent without leave.”

  The adjutant looked at his list. “Delaforce,” he said. “I can still hear him.” He stood on his toes and tried to see into the next field. “What’s he doing over there?”

  “AWOL,” Woolley said. “I want him court-martialed. That’s not his airplane, he has no right to keep it. Who does he think he is? Morris? Spencer? Wintle? George V? Court-martial the bastard.”

  They listened to the flat, invisible roar of Delaforce’s machine. Suddenly the plane heaved itself over the hedge, panicking a flock of birds. Most escaped, some bounced off the wings and fell broken, and a couple got sucked into the arc of the propeller, which snapped, slinging chunks of wood about like a drunken juggler. The engine, workless now, screamed hysterically and then died. “Charge Delaport,” Woolley said in the silence, “with cruelty to animals.” The aircraft glided shakily toward an early landing; the tail-skid fell with a shuddering thud.

  “I’m not sure that that’s a military offense, is it, sir?” Rogers asked brightly. Woolley turned his pitted face on him and said: “This whole war is a military offense. And for an offense of this size there is never enough offensiveness to go around, so we must not waste it on the birds, who shit impartially on either side.” He spoke flatly and stonily, as he always did, forcing Rogers to stand up and be active. “Have you kicked Hemsley up the ass yet?” he demanded.