A Wretched Victory (Innocents At War Series, Book 6)

by Andrew Wareham

  All six made it home.

  He ordered the mechanics to refuel and bomb up, took the pilots into the Mess, Nancy trailing along behind them.

  “Sorry, Nancy, but it’s raw cold out there – you’d think it was mid-winter. Has anyone come in?”

  “Black walked out, leading four soldiers blinded by gas. Did well. He’s shaken up, mind you. Quack says he shouldn’t fly today. None others that we know of. Hell-For is definitely gone, collided with a Junkers. No word on any of the others. New men are in. Jack wants to fly the next patrol, Tommy. You should stay home. The others will swap about as they arrange. Marble and Johnny are to stay back with you.”

  “Let it be so, Nancy. You’re right. As for a patrol report – impossible to say what’s happening. Some of the troops are running. Most are fighting. We are losing, badly. I get the feeling that Jerry is aiming at Ypres rather than pushing directly to the coast – but that’s no more than a general impression. We need more planes. Jerry has more up than we have, in this sector. I don’t think we could live above two hundred feet. Camels should stay low from now on. Leave the dogfighting to the Bristols and the SE5as – they might be able to do better. What’s the word from Knell?”

  “None yet. George is taking four lorries up there, going up himself; he’s managed to get hold of a couple of extras. He’s equipped them with Vickers, on roughed-up mountings, four on the two he’s borrowed. Eight men to each lorry – volunteers from the drivers and the spare bodies. They’ve got a couple of Lewises as well. Might be able to do something useful, so he said.”

  “Make sure their names are on record. We can’t do much else, but we can get them a gong afterwards, if they come back.”

  “Done, Tommy.”

  More new planes flew in over the afternoon; the fog was almost cleared towards the west, they said, and they had been able to make the hop across easily.

  “Still five pilots short, George. Are any of these ferry-men to stay?”

  “Four are under orders for us, Tommy, and we may ask for volunteers as well. It seems that there are so many Canadian and Australian pilots turned up this last month that the ferry pool is full. The shortage is of British pilots – which HQ is concerned about. They don’t want the new RAF to start off as a Canadian and Australian show. I have sent four sergeants back for training; we can’t really afford to lose more of the experienced hands.”

  The other ferry pilots came across to organise their transport back to Croydon.

  “G’day, Tommy!”

  “Blue – how are you, cobber?”

  “Doing well, mate. More than I can say for you lot. What’s going on?”

  Tommy told him, briefly, mentioned he was still a pilot short.

  “Stick me name down, Tommy. I been trying to get back this last three months. Got sent back to Blighty in September – bounced a Camel landing, a bit shot up. Hit me head and was out of it for a couple of days, woke up in London. Spent a month sat on me backside and bored and then got put onto this bloody ferry business. Most of December and January there was no flying for the weather, so it was hang about doing sod-all except salute bloody fools with brass all over their hats. I was a captain then, by the way.”

  “You ain’t any more, Blue.”

  “Nah – some prick of a colonel got up me nose, so I explained to him just why he was a useless specimen of humanity – not that anyone could be sure he was human; might be he should be swinging through the trees. He got annoyed, I got bust. Kept me wings and stayed on the ferrying.”

  “I need a Flight Commander. Give me ten minutes while you grab hold of your bag.”

  Nancy, acting in George’s place, spoke to Colonel Sarratt and achieved immediate acting rank for Blue and the promise that the request for permanence would go straight up to General Salmond.

  Jack brought his patrol back, four strong.

  “Lost Mickey and Andy, Tommy. They pulled out too high, were knocked off by a pair of these bloody Fokkers. The rest of us were below tree-top height, saw them go down while we worked our way out. We hit a line of those stormtroopers, so low we barely had to drop our noses when we fired at ‘em. We did some good. If there had been a hundred of us, we’d have stopped them dead. As it is, just pissing in the ocean, Tommy – don’t make a lot of difference. What’s the score for replacements?”

  “Two captains in – I haven’t actually met the one of them, but Blue is good. Australian and flown with me before. Should have a squadron, but he was busted as a captain – fell foul of some bloody wingless wonder of a colonel! We’ll need a pair for your two – are they both dead? Any chance they bounced, being still pretty low?”

  “They weren’t flaming. Could be.”

  “Black walked out – but he’s taken a hammering. Don’t know if he’ll be flying again; might be up in the morning. Assume we fly full squadron, all day long. Four Flights, new blokes thrown in, like it or not.”

  The new captain, Marcus, had flown Bleriots in September and October ’14, had crashed – as was almost inevitable – and had remained in Training in England since. He had been able to get away again after his fourth Medical Board had agreed that he was fit for active service.

  “Turned up wearing riding boots, Tommy, old chap – packed the left bugger with cork so that I stood level, you know. Fooled ‘em!”

  Marcus limped along beside Tommy, chortling as he recounted his exploit.

  “What I say, Tommy, is that if I’m fit enough to fly with bloody trainees, then I’m good enough to pull my weight out here, old chap!”

  “You know your way round a Camel, Marcus?”

  “Doing advanced training in them for three months, Tommy.”

  “Welcome aboard, Marcus. Flying at dawn. Flights of four. Ground attack. Hedge-hopping, line abreast. Keep together, full squadron attacks for the first patrol, until we see what makes sense. Don’t go higher than fifty feet, unless you’re following me. We can’t live with this new Fokker, so I’m told. Nancy says it’s called a D7 and it’s faster than us, outclimbs us, and turns as well as we can manage. Until we’ve got more bodies in the air, we avoid them, which means staying so low we need to fit cow-catchers.”

  Marcus nodded and said that he would be good; he then proceeded to the bar and took a substantial dose of anaesthetic for his bad leg.

  Nancy joined Tommy over a gin, nodded to the new man.

  “Hits it hard, Tommy?”

  “Pain-killer, I think, Nancy. His leg is well-buggered. We need the bodies, and if he can fly, he must stay. Rather have a willing man like him than one who’s one hundred per cent and twitchy.”

  “Agreed, Tommy. Word is that Jerry has made twenty miles advance in places and is showing no sign of slowing down. Haig’s wetting his knickers, sending out orders to stand firm and begging for reinforcements from anywhere and everywhere. I am told that nearly fifty thousand men have crossed the Channel in the last thirty-six hours and the aim is for a quarter of a million before the middle of April. They’ll be green, and most of them will be put into garrison along the Channel Coast to form a last line of defence, but they will be available, provided we last another three weeks.”

  “We might, Nancy. What are you looking at?”

  “Headlamps coming down the road, Tommy. Bright white, acetylene lights, which ought to be steam lorries. The Fodens from St Rigobert, I hope. Earlier than I expected.”

  The field at St Rigobert had not been bombed again – presumably there was more important work for the ground-attack squadrons. Knell had taken the risk of spending the afternoon lifting the guns and tying them down on their trailers and had moved out before dusk; the Fodens were slow, but had brought their heavy loads successfully to the field.

  “Where’s George?”

  “He left two of his lorries with us to carry the rest of the spares. A FANY ambulance came down from the front, told us there were dozens of wounded in the casualty clearing stations and needing transport out. He went up with the other two lorries to see what c
ould be done. The girl driving the ambulance said that some of the men there were RFC – not that that would have made much difference, I think. He’s in a funny mood, is George, Tommy. I think he’s had a gutful of sitting at a desk while other men fight.”

  “Tell that to Colonel Sarratt, if you see him! Can you set the guns up round the field here?”

  “I brought some of the railway sleepers with me. We can put some of them up immediately.”

  “Do it, please. Horatio is off somewhere, talking to sailors – shockingly bad habit, I’ve told him that respectable young men don’t do that sort of thing – he should be back later with something useful, with a bit of luck.”

  “I’ll get it in hand now, Tommy. You don’t know if there’s a railway yard anywhere close, do you?”

  “I’ll ask Nancy. That’s the sort of thing he knows. More sleepers?”

  “Could do with some and they often have a stack of spares tucked away.”

  “I’ll see what can be done, Knell.”

  Horatio returned leading a line of horse drays, four big Shires harnessed to each, plodding quietly through the night.

  “Met my old friend Cecil in Calais, Tommy. He’s a Commander, these days, busy as hell with the coastal guns, trying to turn some of them to shoot inland, big six-inch stuff and some smaller four point sevens. They had twelve-pound guns in pits already and they’ve heaved them out and dug in the bigger guns in their emplacements – Chinese labourers, needless to say. Ended up, he had six twelve-pounders to hand. Low angle, of course, no use for aircraft, but handy if we have to play Custer around Calais.”

  “I’d prefer a last flight to a last stand, but, if needs must… Where are we to put them?”

  “’We’ ain’t, Tommy. There’s a labour battalion on the march behind me. They’ll dig us in – trenches and gun pits, all done in the space of a day!”

  “Nothing like an offensive for waking up HQ. It would have taken three months to get that done without Ludendorff hammering on the front door.”

  “Good point. Haig is said to be issuing an Order of the Day demanding that we fight to the last man to stop the Hun. He’s still sixty miles behind the front.”

  “Some things don’t change. Wellington would have been directing the leading battalions!”

  “You have no sense of priorities, Tommy. Wellington had no newspaper reporters to speak to, or photographers to pose for – so he had to resort to tedious business like being a general.”

  “Napoleon must be turning in his grave – he was born in the wrong century. Who do we put in as replacement for George? Can you do it, being Navy trained?”

  “Not a hope, Tommy. Is George gone? I had not heard.”

  Tommy briefly explained; Horatio agreed that the chances of his coming back were slight.

  “Can hardly blame the man, Tommy. Sat there on his backside every day while you and the boys go out to do the real work. I don’t like it, and I had a year and more of fighting. He had a day, from all you’ve told me – it can’t sit easy with him.”

  “Don’t you go sticking your head up, Horatio. You’re not replaceable in a hurry. George is – and he knows it. I suppose we can have a penguin sent across within the day – I just wanted a familiar face in the office. He might be back yet.”

  They flew a squadron patrol at first light, the fog finally cleared, actual sunshine at dawn; Tommy had spent five minutes on a briefing before they took off.

  “Follow father, today. I don’t know where we’re going, so I can’t tell you. The orders are to fly, to find the nearest Jerry, and then to kill him, and not to climb above one hundred feet in the process. We are told that the bulk of Home Defence squadrons are here, or will be by the end of the morning. The Bristols and SE5as will fly at high-level; DH4s and Armstrong-Whitworths and Camels and anything else that can have a couple of bombs tied on with a bit of string will work the ground. If we come across Jerry’s ground-attack planes, remember they are armoured against fire from below. Get above them, and very close, and aim at the cockpit. Line abreast, four Flights to my left. I shall attempt to turn to starboard, if at all possible, so as not to collide with you, but watch me closely. If we are attacked, I shall go low – by which I mean daisy-cutting. This new Fokker is better than us in every aspect of performance, I understand, but let’s see if he can pull out of a diving attack at six feet above the ground!”

  Marcus raised an eyebrow.

  “Seriously, old chap?”

  “Like the two copulating maggots, Marcus – in dead earnest!”

  There was momentary silence, then a roar of laughter, interrupted only by voices of explanation for the benefit of those to whom puns came hard.

  Tommy led them to St Rigobert, preferring to work from a familiar point, then took them to his favourite fifty feet, which was normally high enough to avoid chimneys and all except the tallest trees, few of which remained within twenty miles of the old front lines, firewood having taken those not lost to shelling. The field was empty, but had received no further damage, might possibly be reusable if they pushed Jerry back. He had faintly hoped to have spotted their two lorries, but saw no motor transport at all on the roads. He turned his attention to the ground, following the shallow valleys and watching for movement and colour; it would be easy to mistake mud-splattered khaki for dirty field-grey. If they were wearing their helmets, there should be less difficulty in telling the troops apart.

  A mile from the old field and he spotted British soldiers in retreat, and in close contact; a pair of thin companies leap-frogging each other, one holding for the other to scuttle back and find a hedgerow to hold in turn. White faces looked up, saw the planes were of the right sort, for a change, waved their arms forward.

  Tommy spotted a machine-gun, shooting towards him. That would do as a marker. He fired at it, waited and pulled at the bomb release, kept firing as he picked out grey figures diving flat. He hoped it was a big detachment, that he had not wasted the munitions of the whole squadron on a single platoon – but it was impossible to tell. Whatever the case, he had given the two companies a breathing space. He made a careful turn to starboard, led the squadron home again, none lost, he hoped.

  “Jack, Blue, Marcus – do you reckon it’s worth running a whole squadron show or will we do better by Flights?”

  Jack was immediate in his reply.

  “Flights, until we locate the main body – there must be brigades at least following in behind to mop up and hold the ground these storm troops have taken, Tommy. What about tanks? Won’t they be coming forward as well, ready to destroy any redoubts we put together?”

  “Don’t know. Never seen a Jerry tank. I’ll ask Nancy. He’ll know, probably.”

  Blue spoke up, said that he thought Flights made better sense while the battlefield was in such a mess.

  “Marcus?”

  “Flights, Tommy. Not only makes sense when they’re fighting in such small groups, it will attract less attention from on high. I admired the way you just ignored those triplanes that tried to attack us, by the way, Tommy. I was quite upset until I realised that they couldn’t get into us.”

  Tommy nodded, thinking it wiser than to admit that he had not seen them.

  Nancy said that Jerry tanks were bigger than the British, and carried more guns, but they were far less able to cross open country because their centre of gravity was very high.

  “Their engines are more reliable, naturally, Tommy. But they do have engineers to design and assemble them. The word is that small bombs bounce off. If you spot tanks – and there are only a very few – then call in DH4s to attack them with hundred-pounders. Nothing a Camel carries will be of any use.”

  “Incendiaries?”

  “Cover them in jellified petroleum or phosphorus and see what happens? I’ve heard worse ideas than that, Tommy. Far worse. Try it and I will pass the word sideways if it works.”

  “Sideways?”

  “Direct to other squadrons, Tommy. Inform HQ but send the message imme
diately rather than wait six weeks while they scratch their backsides and wonder what to do about it.”

  “Makes sense, Nancy. Have you heard any suggestions about how to kill these armoured ground-attack planes?”

  “Nets, Tommy.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Must be, came from HQ this morning. We should give thought to nets on tall poles, stretched across the side of fields or along trenches. Like the Navy does to protect battleships from submarines.”

  “If George turns up, tell him to indent for one hundred and fifty feet high poles and five miles of net to drape between them. Give him his first laugh for a long time.”

  “I checked with the base hospitals, Tommy. George brought two lorry loads of wounded in, including some of our sort, soon after three o’clock this morning. He went back to get more.”

  “Well done, George.”

  Chapter Four

  A Wretched Victory

  “Three days, and they are still coming, Tommy.”

  “They’re not making towards the coast, Nancy. They’ve been pushed a bit inland.”

  “Targeting Ypres and then Hazebrouck, is the word from my people, Tommy. If they take those two, then its rest and regroup and make a push due west to hit the coast somewhere south of Dunkirk. After that, work their way south and west. They’ve changed their first plans, it would seem, and we don’t know why. It’s possible that they have taken higher losses than they expected.”

  “These ‘redoubts’ they’re talking about, perhaps, Nancy?”

  It was now being suggested that certain battalions, or brigades, perhaps, had been able to hold in pre-arranged strongpoints, set-up in clever expectation of the offensive. The story was very vague, however, and was being rapidly improved upon; it seemed far more likely that some units had been fortunately able to hold firm and strengthen their improvised defences.

  “Possibly. We don’t know if they’re holding or not, and we have no idea of whether missing men – and whole units – are holed up in their little forts or dead or marching back with their hands up. The ‘fog of war’, it is called – literally in this instance, Tommy – the fact that commanders of armies almost never know what their own forces are doing at any given moment, let alone their allies and far less the enemy. The idea was supposed to have been invented by Clausewitz, the German theorist, discussing the role of the leader in modern war. He was wrong in his whole concept of war, of course – the American, McLellan, had it right, he was a politician, not a soldier at all, and gave his orders according to the effect they would have upon his ambitions to be president – he used war rather than waged war.” Nancy glanced at Tommy’s face, saw the familiar glazed expression, gave up on any concept of higher education; two plus two would do for Tommy, he concluded. “Clausewitz’ theory is that generals give their orders, and know nothing but hope that they are carried out, that the enemy permits them to succeed, and that no accidents happen. In our case, of course, the greatest single accident is Haig.”