Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson Page A

O’Shea’s parents,” the adjutant said.
    â€œHave they written to me?”
    Woodruffe set his teeth. “No, sir. But—”
    â€œThe hell with them. What d’you say his name was?”
    â€œO’Shea.”
    â€œNever heard of him. Useless goddam pilot, too. Do you have a replacement yet?”
    â€œI wanted to ask you about that. D’you think I should get two?”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œWell … in anticipation, so to speak.”
    Woolley stared at him stonily. “Good idea,” he said. “Get three.”
    Delaforce came over. Woolley went to meet him. “I’m starting you on combat practice,” he said. “Draw a Very pistol, take off and climb to five thousand feet. I’m going to fly to Montdidier and back. If you can surprise me and shoot a flare so that it falls within fifty feet of my plane, I’ll give you a medal. Understand?”
    Delaforce couldn’t speak for joy. He nodded, saluted, and sprinted away to Stores, to get his pistol. He hadn’t felt so wonderful since he got elected Head Boy at school, last year.
    After he had flown around for an hour, Delaforce had a sick feeling that Woolley had played a joke on him.
    It was not his first misgiving. After twenty minutes Delaforce had developed a sudden doubt about the destination which Woolley had named. Was it Grandvilliers, or was it Montdidier? Perhaps he was patrolling the wrong piece of sky.
    Five minutes later Delaforce had convinced himself he was in the right place. Five minutes after that, he began to wonder if the wind had blown him off Woolley’s route. He had flown a consistent box pattern, with a slight overlap on one side to compensate for wind-drift. Maybe the wind was stronger than he thought.
    Or weaker.
    Delaforce thrust the stick forward. He came out of cloud at about eight hundred feet and immediately recognized landmarks. He was a mile or so off course, not enough to make any difference if he kept his eyes open. He climbed hard and won back the mile of drift. It took a long time to reach fivethousand feet again. By the time he’d made it, Delaforce was worrying whether Woolley might have gone overhead while he was down below.
    From then on, he searched the sky in both directions. Because he wasn’t tall enough to get a good look over the side of the cockpit he flew at a slight angle, one wing dipped. This made one buttock stiff and numb. He reversed his flight pattern and rested on the other cheek. It too became stiff and numb. The other merely stayed numb.
    Then Delaforce began to suspect a joke. Woolley thought him too cocksure … Or maybe this was some kind of squadron initiation … If so, it was a feeble rite. And passive jokes didn’t sound like Woolley’s way of doing things. Then maybe Woolley’s plane had given trouble. An important visitor. A phone call.
    An SE5a came out of a cloud about a thousand feet below him and a mile behind, heading for Montdidier.
    Delaforce swung hard away and climbed, presenting as small an outline as possible. Viewed from either end, an SE was skimpy: just a barrel with thin wings and fins. If he could hide quickly and lie in wait, he could dive on Woolley from above and behind—the hardest angle for a defending pilot to turn his head. Delaforce bounced excitedly in his seat.
    He flew behind a bank of cloud and throttled back to just above stalling speed. Woolley had been a mile behind, so he would take well over a minute to catch up. Delaforce loaded the Very pistol.
    After a minute and a quarter he couldn’t wait. “Right, chaps?” he asked himself. He dropped one wing in a steep side-slip. When he cleared the cloud he was diving almost vertically.
    Woolley wasn’t there.
    Delaforce pulled up quickly and went into a searching circle, looking everywhere. The sky lay bare for two thousand feet below. Delaforce felt cheated. A flicker of black on gray, no more than a