Free Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson

no. This is squadron equipment. We get it with the engine parts and the gasoline and so on.”
    â€œExtraordinary … Doesn’t anyone question it?”
    â€œI’ve never known anyone to question anything the old man wants. Mind you, I enter it as lubricant, same as the castor oil. I can recommend the rum,” Woodruffe added. “It tastes unusually well on porridge.”
    The weather in January and early February helped Woolley. There was plenty of cloud, which he welcomed for his aerial stalking exercises, but little rain and no high wind. Showers or mist sometimes soaked the grass and made it slippery; then Woolley always started with half an hour of circuits-and-bumps, until the squadron felt it could land on a melting glacier. There were accidents: broken wheels, broken propellers, broken noses. But, as the adjutant pointed out to Kimberley when he came in grumbling after an unusually dramatic skid, the day might come when he would have to goup or come down in a cloudburst, and dry weather landings would be no help then. Kimberley chewed a corned-beef sandwich. “Listen,” he said at last, “I don’t care if it
is
good training, the old man’s not thinking of that … All right, he
is,
but … he’ll not be satisfied until somebody catches a packet, that’s all.”
    â€œHe wants to get the squadron match-fit for when we go back into the Line,” Woodruffe said.
    â€œI tell you he’ll not be satisfied until somebody touches wingtips. Or does a ground-loop on a wet field. Or dives their wings off. He’ll not be satisfied until he’s gone too far.” Kimberley’s hand was trembling: Kimberley, the stolid plowboy.
    The adjutant watched the sulky faces of the pilots as they sat around the mess tent, and decided to talk to Woolley. He found him in his tent, dubbining his flying-boots.
    â€œI thought you ought to know,” Woodruffe said, “some of the chaps feel you’re pushing them a bit hard.”
    â€œHow many pilots have died through cold feet, Woody? I wonder. I killed a German last year who had on dress-uniform jack-boots. I pulled them off him: no socks. Too tight for socks, I suppose. Fifteen thousand feet, and no socks. He looked lovely, though, even without his head. Lovely shine.”
    â€œThe squadron does look a thought weary, sir. Have you any plans for leave? Perhaps a long weekend soon?”
    Woolley dug a gob of dubbin and spread it thickly over the leather. “Going too far,” he said. “Somebody thinks I’m going too far. How far is the war going, Woody? Is the war going too far?”
    â€œI don’t know. It already has, I suppose.”
    â€œThis year it will go further. This year will be the worst of all.”
    â€œI don’t see how it can be any worse than last year. Passchendaele was about as bad as anything could be. Three hundred thousand killed and injured. Nothing gained.”
    â€œMagnificent stalemate. A two-way siege. We besiege them while they besiege us. What farce.”
    Woodruffe resented Woolley’s tone; after all, Woodruffe had left a set of fingers in the trenches. “It’s the best that a dozen generals can think of. What else can they do?”
    Woolley shrugged. “Somebody had better think of something soon. When spring comes the Germans will attack.”
    â€œPerhaps we shall attack, too.”
    Woolley looked at him mockingly.
    â€œWell, we have to attack before we can win, don’t we?” Woodruffe cried.
    â€œWhat a patriot you are, Woody. Chin up, grin like the devil, and everything’s bound to come out right in the end.”
    â€œI’ve had more experience of bloody war than you have. I’m twenty-eight.”
    â€œYou should have been shot. If wars were fought so that the old got killed before the young, the survivors would damn soon cut things short.”
    â€œYou seem to be doing your best to make