Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson

prowled up and down behind the guns, counting the shots. “If you aim right, five is enough,” Woolley told them from beneath his potato sack. “If you don’t, it’s all wasted anyhow.” Whenever anyone shot off too many, Woolley hurled bits of mud at him. Delaforce was terribly excited, and the shuddering, air-shaking, hot-smelling thunder of the weapon often got the better of him. He hardly felt the clods thudding against his back.
    The bitter wind swung veils of rain across the range, blurring the targets. The shooting was poor: only odd bullets nicked the soggy cardboard, and none smashed through the nine-inch white circle that marked the heart. The gunners’ teeth chattered, their legs trembled, and their boots attracted pools of rain which seeped inside and sucked the warmth from their feet.
    Down in the butts the target men crouched, splay-footed to stay upright, and sucked the water from their upper lips. Bullets cracked overhead, chasing each other like mating hornets.
    Woolley rang his handbell. All firing stopped. There was a clinking of safety-catches, and the target men splashed out of the trench, to change places with the gunners. Woolleytrudged down and stood looking at the targets. The rain made an oily sheen on his skin. He took a bottle of Guinness from his pocket and sucked at it until the new men arrived.
    â€œThese targets are wrong,” he said. “Look at the hearts. When do you see a heart on your right-hand side?” They stood, shoulders bowed, like cattle in stockyards. “When you face him, you sodding musketeers, you rat-faced gang of stinking honor …” The words fell cold and flat, discarded, worthless. “But we do not face the enemy. We do not fly up to him and slap him with our glove. We shoot the bugger in the back while he’s picking his nose.”
    Finlayson sneezed. Woolley went toward him. “The man you kill has his heart on your left,” he announced. “You fire at his back, so you aim to the left. Paint a new heart on the other side.”
    While they got on with it, Woolley stood above Finlayson and sucked noisily at his stout. Finlayson fumbled with the target, his eyes nervously sneaking back to Woolley’s feet. After a while Woolley went away. Finlayson took a deep breath. “I could do with a tot,” he muttered to Killion.
    â€œFinlayson!”
bawled Woolley. Finlayson hurled himself flat. The bottle skimmed Killion’s head and skidded along the trench. By the time Finlayson got up, fingering mud from his eyes, Woolley was gone, trudging back to the dripping gunners.
    They fired for another hour. Woolley squatted under his potato sack and broke wind at regular intervals, while the pilots blasted away at increasingly difficult targets. Finally a sergeant-mechanic arrived and reported to Woolley. He clanged his handbell and they all went back to camp.
    The ground crews had built two box kites, eight feet by five, painted gray. Each kite-string led to the back of a truck. Behind the trucks were two canvas-topped trucks from which the canvas had been removed, leaving the metal hoops. Clamped to the hoops were three Lewis guns, mounted on swivels. The whole outfit waited on the edge of the airfield.
    The pilots stood with their hands in their pockets, trying to shrink their freezing bodies inside their icy clothes, and regarded the column without enthusiasm.
    â€œThe mechanics will tow the kites,” Woolley shouted above the gusting wind. “You lot take the trucks with the guns. One man drives, three men on the guns. Let the kites get up to about two hundred feet, then start shooting. Right, get on with it.”
    Nobody moved, except the mechanics.
    â€œRogers, Richards, Church, Lambert.” Woolley pointed a muddy boot at one truck. “Gabriel, Finlayson, Killion, Mackenzie.” Three men lumbered to the other truck. Woolley stared at the remainder. “All right,