War Read online

  This time I think that I sat there for three or four minutes waiting for the answer. It wasn’t any use hurrying or getting impatient. That was the one thing of which I was sure. But what a long time it was all taking. I said aloud, ‘Bugger it. I’m going to be burned. I’m …’ but I was interrupted. The answer was coming – no, it wasn’t – yes, it was, it was slowly coming through. ‘Pull – out – the – quick – release – pin – you – bloody – fool – and – hurry.’

  Out came the pin and the straps were loosed. Now, let’s get out. Let’s get out, let’s get out. But I couldn’t do it. I simply couldn’t lift myself out of the cockpit. Arms and legs tried their best but it wasn’t any use. A last desperate message was flashed upwards and this time it was marked ‘Urgent’.

  ‘Something else is holding us down,’ it said. ‘Something else, something else, something heavy.’

  Still the arms and legs did not fight. They seemed to know instinctively that there was no point in using up their strength. They stayed quiet and waited for the answer, and oh what a time it took. Twenty, thirty, forty hot seconds. None of them really white-hot yet, no sizzling of flesh or smell of burning meat, but that would come any moment now, because those old Gladiators aren’t made of stressed steel like a Hurricane or a Spit.

  They have taut canvas wings, covered with magnificently inflammable dope, and underneath there are hundreds of small thin sticks, the kind you put under the logs for kindling, only these are drier and thinner. If a clever man said, ‘I am going to build a big thing that will burn better and quicker than anything else in the world,’ and if he applied himself diligently to his task, he would probably finish up by building something very like a Gladiator. I sat still waiting.

  Then suddenly the reply, beautiful in its briefness, but at the same time explaining everything. ‘Your – parachute – turn – the – buckle.’

  I turned the buckle, released the parachute harness and with some effort hoisted myself up and tumbled over the side of the cockpit. Something seemed to be burning, so I rolled about a bit in the sand, then crawled away from the fire on all fours and lay down.

  I heard some of my machine-gun ammunition going off in the heat and I heard some of the bullets thumping into the sand near by. I did not worry about them; I merely heard them.

  Things were beginning to hurt. My face hurt most. There was something wrong with my face. Something had happened to it. Slowly I put up a hand to feel it. It was sticky. My nose didn’t seem to be there. I tried to feel my teeth, but I cannot remember whether I came to any conclusion about them. I think I dozed off.

  All of a sudden there was Peter. I heard his voice and I heard him dancing around and yelling like a madman and shaking my hand and saying, ‘Jesus, I thought you were still inside. I came down half a mile away and ran like hell. Are you all right?’

  I said, ‘Peter, what has happened to my nose?’

  I heard him striking a match in the dark. The night comes quickly in the desert. There was a pause.

  ‘It actually doesn’t seem to be there very much,’ he said. ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Don’t be a bloody fool, of course it hurts.’

  He said he was going back to his machine to get some morphia out of his emergency pack, but he came back again soon, saying he couldn’t find his aircraft in the dark.

  ‘Peter,’ I said, ‘I can’t see anything.’

  ‘It’s night,’ he answered. ‘I can’t see either.’

  It was cold now. It was bitter cold, and Peter lay down close alongside so that we could both keep a little warmer. Every now and then he would say, ‘I’ve never seen a man without a nose before.’ I kept spewing a lot of blood and every time I did it, Peter lit a match. Once he gave me a cigarette, but it got wet and I didn’t want it anyway.

  I do not know how long we stayed there and I remember only very little more. I remember that I kept telling Peter that there was a tin of sore-throat tablets in my pocket, and that he should take one, otherwise he would catch my sore throat. I remember asking him where we were and him saying, ‘We’re between the two armies,’ and then I remember English voices from an English patrol asking if we were Italians. Peter said something to them; I cannot remember what he said.

  Later I remember hot thick soup and one spoonful making me sick. And all the time the pleasant feeling that Peter was around, being wonderful, doing wonderful things and never going away. That is all that I can remember.

  The men stood beside the aeroplane painting away and talking about the heat.

  ‘Painting pictures on the aircraft,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘It’s a great idea. It’s subtle.’

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Just you tell me.’

  ‘They’re funny pictures,’ he said. ‘The German pilots will all laugh when they see them; they’ll shake so with their laughing that they won’t be able to shoot straight.’

  ‘Oh baloney, baloney, baloney.’

  ‘No, it’s a great idea. It’s fine. Come and have a look.’

  We ran towards the line of aircraft. ‘Hop, skip, jump,’ said Peter. ‘Hop, skip, jump, keep in time.’

  ‘Hop, skip, jump,’ I said. ‘Hop, skip, jump,’ and we danced along.

  The painter on the first aeroplane had a straw hat on his head and a sad face. He was copying the drawing out of a magazine, and when Peter saw it he said, ‘Boy oh boy look at that picture,’ and he began to laugh. His laugh began with a rumble and grew quickly into a belly-roar and he slapped his thighs with his hands both at the same time and went on laughing with his body doubled up and his mouth wide open and his eyes shut. His silk top hat fell off his head on to the sand.

  ‘That’s not funny,’ I said.

  ‘Not funny!’ he cried. ‘What d’you mean, “not funny”? Look at me. Look at me laughing. Laughing like this I couldn’t hit anything. I couldn’t hit a hay wagon or a house or a louse.’ And he capered about on the sand, gurgling and shaking with laughter. Then he seized me by the arm and we danced over to the next aeroplane. ‘Hop, skip, jump,’ he said. ‘Hop, skip, jump.’

  There was a small man with a crumpled face writing a long story on the fuselage with a red crayon. His straw hat was perched right on the back of his head and his face was shiny with sweat.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Good morning, good morning,’ and he swept his hat off his head in a very elegant way.

  Peter said, ‘Shut up,’ and bent down and began to read what the little man had been writing. All the time Peter was spluttering and rumbling with laughter, and as he read he began to laugh afresh. He rocked from one side to the other and danced around on the sand slapping his thighs with his hands and bending his body. ‘Oh my, what a story, what a story, what a story. Look at me. Look at me laughing,’ and he hopped about on his toes, shaking his head and chortling like a madman. Then suddenly I saw the joke and I began to laugh with him. I laughed so much that my stomach hurt and I fell down and rolled around on the sand and roared and roared because it was so funny that there was nothing else I could do.

  ‘Peter, you’re marvellous,’ I shouted. ‘But can all those German pilots read English?’

  ‘Oh hell,’ he said. ‘Oh hell. Stop,’ he shouted. ‘Stop your work,’ and the painters all stopped their painting and turned round slowly and looked at Peter. They did a little caper on their toes and began to chant in unison. ‘Rubbishy things – on all the wings, on all the wings, on all the wings,’ they chanted.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Peter. ‘We’re in a jam. We must keep calm. Where’s my top hat?’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘You can speak German,’ he said. ‘You must translate for us. He will translate for you,’ he shouted to the painters. ‘He will translate.’

  Then I saw his black top hat lying in the sand. I looked away, then I looked around and saw it again. It was a silk opera hat and it was lying there on its side in the sand.

  ‘You’re mad,’ I shouted. ‘You’re madder than