Goshawk Squadron

by Derek Robinson

Genres: World War II; Black Humor; War & Military

Synopsis

World War One pilots were the knights of the sky, and the press and public idolised them as gallant young heroes. At just twenty-three, Major Stanley Woolley is the old man and commanding officer of Goshawk Squadron. He abhors any notion of chivalry in the clouds and is determined to obliterate the decent, gentlemanly outlook of his young, public school-educated pilots - for their own good. But as the war goes on he is forced to throw greener and greener pilots into the meat grinder. Goshawk Squadron finds its gallows humour and black camaraderie no defence against a Spandau bullet to the back of the head.

Release date: July 1, 2011

Publisher: MacLehose Press

Print pages: 218

Sample

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 towards 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 arse. 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 arse. 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 grabbed 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 forwards,’ Woolley said. ‘Question is, can he look backwards?’ 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 levelled out and flew on. Woolley’s neck-sinews were stretched, his Adam’s apple bulging, his eyeballs swivelled 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 shufti,’ 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 got 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. ‘Hullo, 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 aeroplane. 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 arse,’ 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? Beside, the weather’s been bad and there was a lot of work to be done on the machines. And 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 moustache.’

‘Morris didn’t have a moustache, 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-martialled. That’s not his aeroplane, he’s got 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 towards an early landing; the tail-skid fell with a shuddering thud.

‘I’m not sure that that’s a military offence, is it, sir?’ Rogers asked brightly. Woolley turned his pitted face on him and said: ‘This whole war is a military offence. And for an offence 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 arse yet?’ he demanded.

‘No, sir.’

‘Then go now.’

Rogers went away, making a face at Dickinson as he passed him. Dickinson came up and saluted. ‘Good morning, sir. I hope you had a good leave.’

Woolley got out of his deckchair and turned away from Dickinson. He prodded the brazier with his swagger-stick until sparks glittered in the cold air. ‘Everyone wants to know if I had a good leave,’ he said. ‘So you can tell everyone that I went on leave to bury my brother. He had TB. He was a cripple. Curly golden hair, laughing blue eyes, and he’d just won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Needlework. His mother doted on him, and the only reason he died was the doctors were drunk.’

He glanced at a plane that was landing. ‘Lambert?’ The adjutant nodded. ‘That only leaves the old sweats, then. Church, Dangerfield, Mackenzie and Killion. Let’s go and eat.’ He sniffed the smoking tip of his swagger-stick while Woodruffe folded the deckchair.

The adjutant got the deckchair under his right arm and his papers under his left arm, and looked unhappily at Woolley, who was motionless, staring at nothing through bleak, overworked eyes that blinked when the smoke came too near.

‘Not Mackenzie,’ Woodruffe said, quite clearly.

Woolley let his head drop. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Church touch down. Then he looked the other way. ‘Did I say Mackenzie?’ he asked.

‘We have no Mackenzie flying with us. The other pilot is Kimberley. Not Mackenzie.’

‘Not Mackenzie,’ Woolley murmured. He kept his head down and smiled a crooked, guilty smile. ‘Certainly not Mackenzie. Never Mackenzie. Never.’ He turned and rammed his swagger-stick into the heart of the brazier and set off at a run. Halfway across the field he leaped high, took off his cap, and hurled it spinning from him. ‘Never!’ he shouted. ‘Never!’ All around the perimeter faces turned to look.

‘Why did he go home, Woody?’ Dickinson asked. ‘Was it really family trouble?’

‘Nobody knows. I think probably the quacks made him go.’ They were walking across the field, the stiff grass crunching. ‘That’s only my guess, but I think they gave him a choice. Either three weeks’ rest, or grounded for good.’

‘He doesn’t look as if he’s had three weeks’ rest,’ Dickinson said. ‘He looks bloody awful, poor bastard.’

Woodruffe glanced across curiously. ‘You sound sorry for him,’ he said. ‘You should know better than that by now. If you’re going to feel sorry for anyone, save it for yourself.’

Dickinson remembered the adjutant’s hand, and took the deckchair from him. ‘Who’s Mackenzie, anyway?’

‘One of the many,’ Woodruffe said. ‘Just one of the many.’ He stooped to pick up Woolley’s cap. ‘Three weeks’ leave seems to have done him more harm than good, doesn’t it?’



Woolley sat in his tent and cleaned his boots. Outside, the sky was a hard, remote grey: an ancient metal bowl placed over the world. The fields were still frozen and rutted, but a team of horses was hauling a heavy roller up and down the landing-ground. The squadron lived in tents in a corner of the field and did not like it, but nobody said so to Woolley. It was hard to tell whether he liked it or not. As usual, he seemed to dislike everything.

Apart from his cot, his canvas chair, and a folding canvas washstand, there was no furniture in his tent. Woolley kept his belongings in a tin chest, and the clothes which he wasn’t wearing hung from the tent-pole. The only other item was a large piano-accordion which lay on the ground, unbuttoned and sprawling. It managed to look both stunted and bloated at the same time.

Woolley ate as he worked: beside him were a quart jar of pickled onions, half a wheel of cheese and a French loaf, plus a case of bottled Guinness. He was a messy eater, and when a pickled onion got away he left it where it fell, down among the crusts and the indented rind. He paid more attention to his boots (they were his flying-boots), lavishing dubbin on their skins and working out all the stiffness. When a young man appeared in the doorway he ignored him.

The visitor saluted and said: ‘Lieutenant Richards, sir.’

Woolley spat on the toecap of his boot and rubbed the gob in. Without looking up, he examined what part of Lieutenant Richards came within his vision; immaculate breeches, impeccable puttees, elegant boots. ‘How old are you?’ he demanded.

‘Nearly twenty, sir.’

Woolley drank some Guinness and pushed his belt down while he belched. He looked at Richards and caught the tailend of a faint distaste vanishing across his face. ‘Nearly twenty,’ he said flatly. ‘Too young to think and too old to listen. I suppose you are valiant, dashing, chivalrous, gallant and plucky?’

Richards flushed, but held his gaze. ‘I should hope to be all those, at least in part,’ he said, ‘sir.’

Woolley let the bottle of Guinness fall, and stretched out in his chair. He looked long at Richards, but Richards was a well-made, handsome fellow accustomed to having people looking at him; so he said nothing. Then he realized that Woolley, although still looking at him, was not thinking of him. ‘Sir?’ he said politely. Woolley blinked.

‘Why did you join the bloody old RFC, Richards?’

‘Well, sir, I was in the cavalry – 21st Lancers – and frankly it was getting rather dreary. I mean, we never seemed to go into action. So after a while it occurred to me that this wasn’t going to be a good cavalry war at all. It’s all those trenches, you see, sir. First there’s ours, then there’s theirs, and nothing in between but shell-holes. Hopeless riding country. So it occurred to me, sir, that you chaps in aeroplanes were having rather a better time of it. Sort of cavalry of the air, that kind of thing. So I decided to have a stab at that, sir. And here I am.’

‘Here you are.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Woolley went back to his flying-boots. ‘And what are you going to do next?’

‘Next, sir? Well, anything you say, sir. Go up and sort of start shooting down Germans, I hope.’

‘Why?’

‘Why, sir?’ Richard stared curiously. ‘Well, to help win the war, I suppose.’

‘How?’

‘How?’ Richards felt his right hand start to tremble. He held his breeches between his fingers. Woolley, with his gamekeeper’s manners and his trade-unionist voice, upset him. ‘Well … in the obvious way, sir, I suppose. By killing Germans. Sir.’

‘One at a time?’

Richards said nothing.

‘That’s the way they come, up there. One plane, one German.’ Woolley’s voice was flat as slate. ‘If you’re lucky you might get a two-seater and double your victory effort. Were you thinking of going after two-seaters especially, Richards?’

Miserably, Richards muttered: ‘No, sir.’ Even the drill sergeants had never spoken to him with such drab contempt.

‘No. Albert Ball only got forty-four, you know. Guynemer only got fifty-three. Even God Almighty himself, Mr Richthofen, has only got sixty-odd.’ Woolley stopped work, and stared at Richards anxiously. ‘That last one is on the other side, you know. He shoots at us.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good.’ Work resumed. ‘Are you as good as Ball, Richards? Are you as good as – say – Bishop? Who is still, astonishingly, with us?’

‘I doubt it, sir. I shouldn’t think so. . .