The Mustering of the Hawks

Journeyman

Chapter 1

As the hand touched his arm, Ira Penaluna, crouched on his kit against the wooden cabin in the back of the lorry, jerked to consciousness and looked round him, dry-mouthed, stiff and cold. It required a moment to appreciate where he was, and, seeing the hunched figure further towards the tailboard peering at him, puzzled, he realised he must have been muttering in his sleep.

‘Dreaming,’ he said shortly.

The other man jerked a thumb and, framed by the rippling canvas curtain that jerked and snatched at its cords under the wind, he saw that the night sky was ablaze with cold fire, the clouds like a field of ploughed pearl in the moonrise.

They had been heading south against the traffic when he had fallen asleep and he realised they had come to a stop.

‘Where are we?’ he asked.

‘Montbrohain.’

Then he heard arguing in front and became aware of the droning overhead that seemed to fill the air with its iron throbbing, rising and falling as though swept back and forth by the bustling wind.

The other man moved his hand once more against the light. ‘Ours,’ he said.

As the heavy machine passed above them, the lorry seemed to rattle with the vibration and the noise.

‘Bomber,’ the driver was saying. He was the usual stolid type who knew every road and by-lane along the front. ‘After the railway at Cambrai.’

There was a smell of burning in the air and the gutted houses on either side gave the place an air of desolation. The church had been hit by a shell the previous year and the steeple had slid into the street in a cascade of bricks and slates that had become weed-festooned after a winter’s rain and a summer’s sun. Where the soldiers thronged round a moss-covered well in the village centre the traffic was a tangle of horses and limbers, and a large notice declaring the water fouled was just visible beyond them in the dim light.

Ira lifted his head to watch the ugly shape like a huge black ‘T’ heading east against the bright sky, its navigation lights burning.

‘They pick up the canal when the moon’s out and follow it north,’ the driver pointed out.

‘I wouldn’t like his job,’ his mate said. ‘Too much like being a bus driver.’

The man in the French uniform who had stopped the lorry gazed upwards. ‘They’re the guys who’ll win the war,’ he observed solemnly. ‘Big bombers. With big bombs. Scare the daylight outa the Kaiser. Do some damage.’

The bulky figure near Ira in the back of the lorry grunted contemptuously. ‘Couple of chickens killed in Cambrai,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘Cat scared from ’ome in Le Cateau.’ The bomber droned away east and there was a pause as they all seemed to grope in their minds for the threads of the argument it had interrupted. The man in the French uniform turned again to the driver. ‘Look,’ he said briskly. ‘I’m going south. You’re going south. Why can’t I go south with you?’

The driver’s voice came, heavy and portentous. ‘Because we ain’t supposed to pick up passengers. That’s why.’

While they argued, Ira studied his surroundings with the dull disinterest of tiredness. Nearby there was a pond which before the war had swept across it had probably been covered with ducks and brushed by willows. Now the trees had gone and it was fouled with slime, and a dead horse lay in the mud along its edge, probably hit while drinking, by a splinter from the same shell that had taken the windows out of every house on the opposite side of the road. On the wall alongside it were the words, ‘1917. C’en est fait de nous’, a relic of the mutinous restlessness that had troubled the French armies in the spring.

There had been a gale a few days before, and the scattered telegraph wires festooned the chaos of fallen trees at the side of the road like creepers of honeysuckle. Men were tramping by in the darkness, phantom figures which loomed up for a moment and then vanished, and incessantly in the ears was the jingle of harness and the clatter of hoofs. Muttered curses came over the rattle of lampless lorries and the crunch of boots on the road, and soft encouragement to tired horses and men stumbling from an even greater weariness. Everything in the darkness around the lorry seemed to be surging northwards.

‘Roye,’ the man at the front of the lorry said. ‘Just to Roye. How’s about that?’

He had clearly been drinking. But he wasn’t drunk. His uniform was a not unfamiliar sight on that southern part of the front, because the blue often overlapped the khaki, and French artillerymen trying to force their guns through the crowd often exchanged curses, greetings or mock resignation with their British comrades-in-arms.

‘All right then,’ the driver was saying. ‘As far as Roye.’

The problem of the lift seemed to have been settled at last and a half-empty bottle changed hands. ‘Have yourself a drink,’ the driver was told. ‘Share it with your sidekick. I’ve got another one.’

A kit-bag hurtled over the tail of the lorry, followed by a valise, and a man began to climb in after them. For a moment he pawed around in the semi-darkness, putting his hand on Ira’s face as he stumbled about.

‘Say, how about that?’ he chuckled. ‘I thought it was empty. You guys British or French, or what the hell? I’m American. One of the Lafayette boys. I just joined ’em. You heard of the Lafayette Escadrille?’

The big man with Ira in the back of the lorry said, yes, ’e’d ’eard of ’em, and the American made himself comfortable, spreading his equipment so he could sit on it and borrowing one of their sacks to put over his knees against the cold. The lorry had picked up Ira at St Omer, and his companion in increasing darkness at a hospital near Doullens, and they were now heading down the long straight road that ran from Albert to Péronne and Compiègne.

The American shuffled himself to comfort and offered cigarettes. Ira shook his head and the American seemed surprised that there was still someone in France in 1917 who didn’t smoke. ‘What’s your outfit?’ he demanded.

‘Flying Corps. Both same squadron.’ As he spoke, Ira realised he’d hardly seen the man from the hospital yet. Though they’d travelled all the way from Doullens together they were still like strangers to each other.

The American seemed delighted to have found fellow-pilots to travel with. ‘First time out?’ he asked.

‘Do you mind?’ The man from the hospital sounded heavily indignant. ‘I came out in 1914. I’ve just come from dock. Suspected food poisoning. Turned out to be something else. Probably I’m on ’eat.’

The American was striking a match now and he held it up so they could all see each other. It wasn’t entirely successful, but it was enough to see a vast bulk in one corner of the lorry and Ira’s new coat in the other.

‘How about you?’ he asked Ira. ‘Are you out from England?’

Ira nodded silently. He was hungry and tired and not disposed to talk. He had been travelling, it seemed, for ever. The crossing from Dover had been rough and the ferry had been full of men in mud-stained uniforms returning from leave and seasick drafts out for the first time. It had been crowded and freezing cold, and the train to the railhead had had half its windows out.

The American was laughing. ‘Say, how about that?’ he said gaily. ‘It’s a great war, son.’ He seemed to be bursting with good humour. ‘We ought to celebrate. I’ve got a bottle somewhere.’ He began to dig into his valise, talking all the time. ‘The name’s Courtney. Felton Keith Courtney.’

‘Forde,’ the man from the hospital said. ‘Toby Forde.’

‘I’m Penaluna,’ Ira said. ‘Ira Penaluna.’

The American looked up. ‘Sure sounds a proud old label.’

‘Cornish, I dessay,’ Forde said.

‘Ira Abel Penaluna,’ Ira went on doggedly; deciding he might as well get it over and done with quickly. He’d suffered a great deal in the course of his young life, since his family had left the West Country and settled in London. ‘In fact,’ he went on, ‘my mother was a Bohenna, so, if you want to push it to its limit, that makes me Ira Abel Bohenna Penaluna.’

The American was suitably impressed. Swaying from side to side as the lorry rattled along, he thrust the bottle forward. ‘Take a drink. It’s cognac.’

Forde drank solemnly, but Ira’s mother was a good Methodist from the farming country of the Devon border and her disapproval was still strong enough in his make-up to deter him. ‘You not a drinking man?’ Courtney asked.

‘Not much.’

Courtney shuffled himself to comfort again and lit his cigarette. ‘We’ve been having a rough time out here lately,’ he said, his voice heavy with concern. ‘Especially round Arras. Richthofen’s been clawing those old BE2s down two or three at a time up there. There’s a curse on those old crates. They make it easy for him to run up a score.’

Like Montbrohain, Langéac, the next village, was full of men, all of them tramping stolidly northwards, heavy boots crunching on the pavé as they stumbled past in the darkness, and the cobbled main street was full of carts belonging to non-combatant postal and railway formations. The lorry became an island in a sea of helmets, and as they edged slowly forward in low gear they could hear the driver’s muttered curses. Half an hour later, not unexpectedly, the engine started to boil and he hauled off the road and said he was going in search of water.

Courtney indicated a cafe and suggested they wait inside. The estaminet was packed with men – most of them, it seemed, arguing angrily with each other about who was doing the most damage to the Germans – and, as they stood at the bar, a girl with a black fuzz of moustache and a large bust bursting out of a skin-tight blouse brought them wine. Ira joined in unwillingly and the girl sidled up to him so that he was aware at once of the aggressive thrust of her bust and the animal smell of woman and garlic overlaid by cheap perfume. She winked at Courtney and Forde.

‘Your frien’ would like me perhaps?’ She indicated Ira, who flushed and pretended to be drinking.

Courtney chuckled.

‘She wants to know if you’d like to go upstairs with her, son,’ he explained.

‘I know what she wants.’ Ira was still flushing awkwardly.

The girl laughed and looked at Courtney. ‘’E becomes red,’ she said. ‘’E is very young, ce petit anglais. ’E needs to grow up.’

Edging closer, she slipped her hand into Ira’s trouser pocket and he jumped away hurriedly as though it were red-hot. Courtney seemed about to choke with merriment.

The girl was studying Ira again now, one eyebrow raised. ‘What is your name, soldier?’ she asked, and Courtney gave a hoot of laughter.

‘Sister,’ he said, ‘that sure will be a mouthful for you.’

He told her and she gazed at Ira as though he were deformed. ‘You must be very big boy to ’ave a name like that.’

Her hand moved towards his groin again and Ira jumped like a startled goat, spilling his wine. She laughed and began to finger his overcoat.

‘New,’ she observed. ‘You are new officer, yes? Perhaps you don’ know about war.’

Forde took pity on him and suggested that they find somewhere they could eat. The driver, still outside with his head in the bonnet of the lorry, directed them to a farm where he said they could get a good meal and, moving out of the ruck under the blackness of a clump of trees, they stumbled in and out of the deep ruts of a high-hedged lane.

Eventually, they saw the solid shape of farm buildings, like a castle in the darkness, and the softer outline of trees. The ground smelled damp and evil and, overlaying its sourness, there was the smell of a midden. In the east they could see flickering lights along the front and, occasionally, as the air around them seemed to expand and contract, they heard a dull thudding noise.

Ira stared towards the sound, the flickering light in the sky picking up the barely-formed lines on his face as flash after flash shone red-gold on the surly clouds. Everything around them seemed to be drumming and rattling from the continual murmur, and occasionally a long faint burst of machine-gun fire came to them on some trick of the wind.

‘Front line,’ Courtney said helpfully, jerking a thumb.

‘Yes.’

As Courtney vanished, Ira stood for a moment longer gazing towards the horizon. The noise was one of infinite suggestion and immense menace. Beyond the farmhouse’s bulk, he could see a row of poplars leaning away from the wind like a line of priests going to late mass, and uncovered rafters stark as the empty bones of a dead monster.

A door slammed and Courtney reappeared. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘They’ll feed us.’

Ira allowed himself to be shepherded inside the farmhouse. Muttered French came to him in a female voice and he found himself in a dark room that was bitterly cold and smelled of damp. Courtney’s gaiety was undiminished.

‘It’s a great place,’ he said.

His enthusiasm seemed a little misplaced, because when the farmer’s wife appeared with an oil lamp the room turned out to be furnished only with a table and four chairs. On the walls were portraits of dead soldier sons and a painting of Napoleon, smothered in gloom, after his defeat at Waterloo. The dictator’s scowl seemed to set the mood of the place, which was heavy, oppressive and, above all, horrifyingly cold. It didn’t seem possible after the hot summer they’d been having in England, and Forde, who had shrugged himself out of a British warm as big as a tent, hurriedly put it back on again.

Courtney ordered eggs and chips and the Frenchwoman brought a dusty bottle which she clapped on the table with three glasses that looked as though they’d been in use for centuries. Courtney sloshed the wine into them cheerfully. It tasted tart and had vague overtones of iron filings.

‘That’s great,’ he said.

His enthusiasm was still running away with him and he seemed game to make a night of it. He wore the flat-topped French képi on the back of his head, and his uniform was pulled out of shape with books and papers that were stuffed anyhow into his pockets.

‘It’s a great war,’ he said again, and Forde smiled. He was a big, quiet-faced, quiet-eyed man with red countryman’s cheeks, Ira saw, now that the fight was on his face for the first time – ordinary, nondescript, like thousands of other young men, unheroic, belonging in quiet fields or busy offices, typical of the whole mass of the British Empire caught up by the fighting.

They sat round the table in the tomb of a dining room, trying to rouse a little cheerfulness in themselves with the tart thin wine, then the Frenchwoman appeared with the food. She seemed eager to talk and as she chattered Courtney sat staring at Ira. Despite his obvious youth, there was something about him that suggested he was made of enduring fibre. He was squarely built, with a thatch of jet-black hair above a straight well-shaped nose and eyes of a vivid blue which glowed back at Courtney as he hunched over his plate.

‘Been flying long?’ Courtney asked them.

Forde was occupied with filling his glass. ‘Long enough to ’ear it’s dangerous,’ he said.

Courtney turned to Ira. ‘It’s different from what they tell you at home,’ he informed him earnestly. ‘You think you’re hot stuff when you’re training. You get a different picture out here. All the same, you’re lucky you’re going south. It’s quiet down here. What field are you guys going to?’

‘Huyzes,’ Forde said, and Courtney crowed with delight.

‘Right on the south end of the line where the British join the French. We’re near Chauny on the north end of the French. We often bump across the boys from Huyzes. You’re flying Pups.’

Forde nodded and Ira found himself wondering how he managed to squeeze his colossal frame into the cockpit of the tiny scout.

Courtney was still talking. ‘I heard Pups were being cut up by the Boche,’ he said.

‘You’re all right so long as you stay ’igh,’ Forde observed.

‘Yeah. Maybe.’ Courtney leaned towards Ira. ‘Look out for these new Albatros DIIIs, son,’ he advised. ‘They sure are fast as hell and a whole lot better than a Pup.’

‘Pups are all right,’ Ira said unexpectedly. ‘Better than a pusher, anyway.’

Courtney was reaching out for more wine. ‘Average life of a scout pilot out here’s about three weeks,’ he said.

Forde looked up. ‘I’ve ’eard different,’ he said shortly.