‘Captain Bridesman just said you, sir.’
‘In only thirty minutes?’ he said. ‘Damn it, why couldn’t——Right,’ he said. ‘Thirty minutes. Thanks.’ Because he would have to finish the letter now, and it was not that thirty minutes was not long enough to finish it in, but that they were not long enough to get back into the mood, belief in which the letter had been necessary. Except for signing it and folding it into the envelope, he would not even have needed to get the letter out. Because he remembered it:
and what else could one add? what else say to a woman who was not only a mother, but an only and half- orphan mother too? which was backward, of course, but anybody would know what he meant; who knew? perhaps one of the anybody could even suggest a postscript: like this say:
Except that there was not even time for that. He heard engines; looking out, he saw three busses outside now in front of the hangar, the engines running and mechanics about them and the sentry standing again in front of the closed hangar doors. Then he saw a strange staff-car on the grass plot beside the office and he wrote ‘love, David’ at the foot of the letter and folded and licked it into the envelope and in the mess again now he saw the major’s batman cross toward the office carrying an armful of flying kit; apparently Bridesman hadn’t left the office at all, except that a moment later he saw Bridesman coming up from the hangars already dressed for the patrol, so the gear was not his. Then the office door opened and Bridesman came out, saying, ‘All right, get your——’ and stopped, because he already had it: maps, gloves, helmet, scarf, his pistol inside the knee pocket of the sidcott. Then they were outside, walking toward the three aeroplanes in front of B hangar.
‘Just three,’ he said. ‘Who else is going?’
‘The major,’ Bridesman said.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Why did he pick me?’
‘I dont know. Out of a hat, I think. I can wash you out if you dont like it. It wont matter. I think he really picked you out of a hat.’
‘Why should I not like it?’ he said. Then he said, ‘I just thought——’ and then stopped.
‘Thought what?’ Bridesman said.
‘Nothing,’ he said. Then he was telling it, he didn’t know why: ‘I thought that maybe the major found out about it somehow, and when he wanted one of the new blokes on this job, he remembered about me—’ telling it: that morning when he had been supposed simply to be out practicing, contour chasing probably, and instead had spent that forty or fifty seconds right down on the carpet with the unarmed aeroplane over the hun trenches or at least what he thought was the hun front line: ‘You dont get frightened then; it’s not until later, afterward. And then—— It’s like the dentist’s drill, already buzzing before you have even opened your mouth. You’ve got to open your mouth and you know you’re going to all right, only you know at the same time that neither knowing you are going to nor opening it either, is going to help because even after you have closed it again, the thing will buzz at you again and you’ll have to open it again the next moment or tomorrow or maybe it wont be until six months from now, but it will buzz again and you will have to open again because there’s nowhere else you can go …’ He said: ‘Maybe that’s all of it. Maybe when it’s too late and you cant help yourself anymore, you dont really mind getting killed——’
‘I dont know,’ Bridesman said. ‘You didn’t get even one bullet hole?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Maybe I shall this time.’ And this time Bridesman did stop.
‘Listen,’ Bridesman said. ‘This is a job. You know what jobs in this squadron are for.’
‘Yes. To find huns.’
‘And then bust them.’
‘You sound like Monaghan: “Oh, I just ran up behind and busted the ass off the son of a bitch.” ’
‘You do that too,’ Bridesman said. ‘Come on.’ They went on. But he had needed only one glance at the three aeroplanes.
‘Your bus is not back yet,’ he said.
‘No,’ Bridesman said. ‘I’m taking Monaghan’s.’ Then the major came and they took off. As he passed the office, he saw a smallish closed van turn in from the road but he didn’t have time to look then, not until he was off and up and from the turn could really look down. It was the sort of van provost marshals’ people used; and climbing for formation, he saw not one car but two behind the mess—not ordinary muddy staff cars but the sort which detached Life and Horse Guards officers on the staffs of corps- and army-commanders were chauffeured about in. Now he drew in opposite Bridesman across the major’s tail-plane, still climbing but to the southward, so that they would approach the lines squarely, and did so, still climbing; Bridesman waggled his wings and turned away and he did likewise long enough to clear the Vickers, into Germany or anyway toward Germans, and traversed the Lewis on its quadrant and fired it off too and closed in again. Now the major turned back north-west parallel above the front, still climbing and nothing below now to reveal, expose it as front lines although he hadn’t seen it but twice to have learned to know it again—only two kite balloons about a mile apart above the British trenches and two others almost exactly opposite them above the German ones, no dust no murk no gout and drift of smoke purposeless and unorigined and convoluted with no sound out of nothing and already fading and already replaced, no wink of guns as he had seen them once though perhaps at this height you didn’t see flashes anyway: nothing now but the correlative to a map, looking now as it would look on that day when as the general said the last gun would cease beyond the Rhine—for that little space before the earth with one convulsive surge would rush to cover and hide it from the light of day and the sight of man——
He broke off to turn when the major did. They were crossing now, still climbing, right over the upper British balloon, heading straight for the German one. Then he saw it too—a white salvo bursting well below them and in front and then four single bursts pointing away eastward like four asterisks. But he never had time to look where it was pointing because at the same instant German archie burst all around them—or would have, because the major was diving slightly now, going east. But still he could see nothing yet except the black hun archie. It seemed to be everywhere; he flew right through a burst of it, cringing, shrinking convulsively into himself while he waited for the clang and whine which he had heard before. But maybe they were going too fast now, he and the major really
