I am re-reading
by Derek Robinson which was originally published in 1987 and re-published by Cassel Military Paperbacks in 2001.
It is set in 1916 and they are flying Fe2b's and regard BE2c's as suicidal because they are inherently stable. They are known as 'Quirks.' The time is just before the Battle of the Somme.
There has been discussion before on the merits of
Goshawk Squadron which was nominated for the Booker prize Alex Revell being critical. Personally I liked it.
My point with War Story is two fold:
1 Robinson has a gift for comic dialogue and his characters are more than two dimensional. Whether pilots of that period, however, speak in the manner suggested I have some doubts. Undestatement is typically British. RFC communiques were referred to as 'Comic Cuts'. The dialogue I felt might be better suited to pilots in WW2. This is not to say that I didn't laugh uproariously. I set out below an example.
2 When I see that there has been a glossary published for the terms used etc of Bennet's smash hit on Broadway of 'The History Boys' I wonder if what is funny to us (Brits) is funny to our American cousins. In fairness I thought 'Catch 22' which has passed into our language was a superb example of comedy with a point. I can't think of its title.
I would be glad of comments .
" Oh, one last thing," Cleve-Cutler said (new CO). I'm sorry to see you all looking disgustingly fit. It means I can't try out my Universal High-Altitude Cure-All Treatment. Doesn't matter what's wrong with the chap. I take him up to five thousand feet and chuck him out. By the time he's fallen four thousand nine hundred and ninety feet, the rush of air has completely cured him. Never fails. Marvellous isn't it?" He beamed like a bishop.
Somebody had to ask, so somebody did. "What about the last ten feet?"
"Well he's fit and strong by then , isn't he? Strong enough to fall ten feet, I should hope."
"Actually, it's only the last six inches that hurt," someone else said. Cleve-Cutler roared with laughter, and this time they joined in. Cautiously but it was a start.
Reading from the newspaper, "Do you know Kitchener's dead?"
"No but if you play it I'll try to sing along."
EARTHLING