Bursting Balloons (Innocents At War Series, Book 5)

by Andrew Wareham

  “Captain Askey, sir, in charge of the engineering side of things for both squadrons. I have sixteen Flight Sergeants and Sergeant Mechanics, sir, and thirty-two of Corporals and Air Mechanics First Class, sir, and another thirty-two of Air Mechanics Second and Third Class, sir. One senior man to two planes, sir, and a fitter and rigger to each machine. There is a Flight Sergeant Armourer, sir, and his party of four. Eight drivers, sir, with one Vauxhall staff car, four Crossley tenders and three Foden steam-lorries.”

  “Very good, Captain Askey! What is the position regarding hangars?”

  “The factory, sir, was a steam flour mill. Very big, must have taken in wheat for twenty or thirty miles around, sir. Closed with the war, of course, sir, being too far forward. Six big stores for bags of flour – the wheat was kept in the silos, of course.”

  “Of course!”

  Neither Tommy nor Noah knew what a silo might be.

  “The Engineers turned the place into an airfield, only finished last week – very busy, they were, a Captain Marks saying that he was their expert in airfields.”

  “Know him! Bloody good man!”

  “In any case, sir, he has set up four of the warehouses as hangars, with a workshop in the middle, to be shared by both squadrons. I don’t know how he did it, but he has equipped the workshop with a band saw and milling and turning machines, sir, and a bending and folding machine for sheet-metal work! Best set up I have ever seen, sir. The end warehouse is Stores, sir, and he has racked it out so that the QM can keep everything organised and dry. There is a Small Arms Ammunition Dump, and a proper Bomb Dump, and a Petrol and Inflammables Store, sir, all well separate.”

  “Very good. What about planes?”

  “Ah! Not so hot there, sir. Not yet. With yours, sir, we have six of DH4s and four Nieuports. But we only have five pilots, so it don’t really matter yet!”

  “Well, thank you, Captain Askey. I think we ought to find our squadron offices and see about finding planes and people to fly them. Will we able to fly today?”

  “The existing planes are ready, sir. I would like to strip down the ones that arrive today.”

  “Do so. Ensure that all requisitions for parts and materials are sent off as quickly as possible. I will support you in making a row at HQ if anything is ever delayed.”

  Noah nodded, said he would do the same.

  “Where’s the Mess, by the way?”

  “Towards the front of the factory, sir. Captain Marks said that it would be quicker to use the existing offices and convert part of the building to bedrooms and a Dining Room and Anteroom. Sergeants Mess is right down the other end of the place, sir, and he put up barracks huts and a cookhouse for the rest of the Other Ranks. All of ours is solid brick, sir. Easy to keep warm over winter, and single rooms for each officer. It ain’t especially pretty, sir, but it’s comfortable, and plenty of bathrooms with hot water.”

  They walked round to the front, saw it to be ugly in smoke-stained red brick, very industrial.

  There was a monumental and gloriously tasteless front entrance, again in red brick, vast and angular, showing pale where a large sign had been pulled down.

  “I expect that’s what Monkey calls ‘Art Nouveau’, Noah. I just reckon it’s a sodding eyesore! Catches people’s attention, though.”

  Inside there was an entrance hall, a central desk and doors left and right, ’Eighty Squadron’ on one side, ’Eighty-One Squadron’ on the other.

  “Who’s which, Tommy?”

  “Good question. Let us make loud coughing noises and wait for underlings to appear.”

  The sergeant at the desk, who had been waiting to be addressed, put his hat on, stood and saluted.

  “Beg pardon, gentlemen. Major Arkwright to Eighty squadron, Nieuports, sir. Major Stark to Eighty-One, DH4s, sir. Sergeant Isaacs, sir.”

  Noah acknowledged the salute, as was incumbent upon him.

  “Thank you, Sergeant Isaacs. This is Captain Denham. He will command a Flight.”

  “Yes, sir. Beg pardon, sir, but the adjutants haven’t arrived yet, but their sergeants have.”

  “Good. A squadron can survive with sergeants and without an adjutant; the other way round would be difficult.”

  They separated and set to work.

  Tommy entered his office and called upon the senior sergeant.

  “Flight Sergeant Davies, what are you doing here?”

  “Heard you were coming out, sir, and arranged a posting, sir. Squadron will have sixteen pilots, sir, and sergeant observers. I have organised servants, sir. I assume yours will be coming from England, sir.”

  “He will. I do not know when Smivvels will get here. We had no warning and I possess the clothes I stand up in at the moment.”

  Davies could see no problem.

  “He’ll be here by tomorrow, sir. He’ll work the system, sir. We have only three pilots, sir. Second Lieutenants all. They arrived yesterday afternoon, sir. I opened the Mess for them. I have spoken to an acquaintance at the Central Air Park, sir, and believe that our planes will arrive at or about midday. The Nieuports are to be expected one hour later. Aerial bombs, machine-gun ammunition and petrol are due today, sir. You may have spotted a light railway from the air, sir. Passing about one mile from the field.”

  More than a thousand miles of narrow-gauge track had been laid behind the Western Front in a criss-crossing network served by a hundred steam engines and innumerable little trucks.

  “I didn’t notice it in fact. Probably came in from the other side.”

  “Our steam lorries, sir, will pick up all of our stores – including the explosive and inflammable – from our own siding, sir. Highly convenient. Much quicker than relying on lorry traffic from Calais. Very large stocks of coal here already, sir, in the bunkers, left by the mill when it closed.”

  “Excellent. What do we expect in the way of pilots, Flight?”

  “Three captains, sir, to command Flights. Due to come in from training fields in England, picking up DH4s from the Air Park. Nine of pilots, sir, all lieutenants or second lieutenants, sir. No names, sir, but we are to expect none to have experience. Full lieutenants will have transferred from other units, sir.”

  “Intelligence Officer?”

  “Due today, sir. Name unknown to me. He will be accompanied by the adjutant, sir. Both in from England. Both are experienced RFC officers, sir. Ex-pilots.”

  “Penguins; makes an easy life of it. We have a week, Flight. I want to be busy not later than Tuesday next. You know the people who have flown with me in the past, Flight. If you can locate any of them, I would be most obliged. Oh! Guns! What have we got in the way of airfield defence?”

  “Nothing, sir. Captain Marks of the Engineers dug pits for us, and we are waiting for guns to put in them.”

  “Do you know anyone?”

  “I will get on the telephone, sir.”

  “Good. Make the official requisitions for me to sign as well, to cover yourself.”

  “I will do so, sir, just as soon as I know what we’ve got. You will wish to talk to the Armourer Sergeant, sir.”

  “Oh, will I? What about?”

  “I think he will wish to discuss his stores, sir, and their inadequacy.”

  “Right. Will do. Take the necessary action, if you please, Flight. I will talk to him and find out what he wants, officially, for the sake of the paperwork; you can deal with getting it quickly.”

  “Yes, sir. Brock and Buckingham rounds, sir, are in very short supply. Bombs, sir – we have the three-hundred and thirty-six pounds variety, in some numbers. And more than a few of the one-hundred pound sort, but we are short of the twenty and twenty-five pound variants, and have almost none of the incendiaries, due, it is said, to a shortage of jellified petroleum.”

  “We need the smaller sorts if we are to attack infantry on the ground. Can you arrange a telephone call to England, to my father-in-law?”

  It was better, Tommy thought, if he did not say the name aloud; one never knew wh
at ears might be flapping round the next corner.

  “For this evening, sir, if my lord is available.”

  A car drew up and disgorged a pair of captains, one limping and well-scarred and the other showing burns across the neck and face and wearing an eye-patch.

  “Terence! I had not heard you were back in harness!”

  “Can’t fly with half a leg, Tommy, but I can pretend to be useful as adjutant. Couldn’t stand it in England – all the office-wallahs who really want nothing more than to be in France with the boys, but are just too useful where they are to be released. Then there are the theatres and music-halls singing about how wonderful it is to be a Warrior of Old Mother England, and how everybody else should be marching off to battle. And the bloody newspapers! Then, of course, the dear aunties and grandparents who are so jolly proud of my badges of courage, ‘but don’t come to tea next week, dear, Mrs Smithers will be here and we don’t want to put her off with the sight of those scars’. Not very nice, when one considers it; perhaps I will be able to wear some sort of make-up when peacetime comes.”

  “Bastards!”

  “The country is full of ‘em, Tommy! Better to be out here – I prefer the quality of the people.”

  “You’ve got Flight Sergeant Davies running the office. Old hand from way back when. What he doesn’t know about working the oracle, ain’t worth knowing. Anything that needs be done outside of official channels, he can do it. Worth his weight in gold. First thing, Terence, will be to fix the kitchens. I haven’t eaten here yet, but I want a decent belly-full of an evening. You know how bloody hungry we are when we come down after flying four or five times in a day. Money will be no problem, either to pay civilian cooks or to buy black-market grub. Get hold of a bit of decent booze as well, but not too much. It might be possible to pick up some drinkable beer.”

  Terence nodded, knowing that a regular good meal would do more for squadron morale than anything short of the end of the war.

  Tommy turned to the Intelligence Officer, apologised for making him wait.

  “Jeremy Twitterton-Pollock, sir. I was with Two Squadron and was one of those who almost made it to the Concentration Camp in June ’14. Fortunately I had used up half me petrol when I went down; the other half cooked me left side quite well.”

  “Happens, Jeremy. You’ve been Intelligence since, I must imagine?”

  “Playing at it, Tommy. Mostly in London, but a bit of the time over on the Italian Front. Boring bloody place! I observed some of the battles on the Isonzo – pushing up and down the same few miles of ground on the Austrian border. More to come, because there ain’t any other place to fight ‘em. Interesting stuff going on at sea, but the land’s rather tedious. Anyway, the Navy took over from me and I was at a loose end – probably as a result of all that Chianti, makes anyone’s end loose – and was sent over here. Opinion of my masters in London is that you should make bombing attacks on the rear area rather than the front lines, by the way. Wing will send you orders later in the week. I spoke to the Colonel yesterday, in Dover; he will be here by Friday. Says he knows you of old and will be happy to have you in his command. Bloke by the name of Kettle.”

  “Pot? He’s within reason sensible for a CO – a rare beast. Makes it easier. What do they call you, by the way?”

  “Twittock, Tommy. Lumbered with it since before the war.”

  “Could be worse.”

  “Easily! It was at school.”

  The Mess Sergeant interrupted them to say that there was a luncheon available, if they cared to enter the dining room; he had been a waiter in a plush London hotel and could not quite rid himself of his old habits of speech.

  The three existing pilots were waiting and followed them to the table.

  “Morning, gentlemen. Good to see you. I’m Tommy Stark. I’ll talk with you individually later. Meal time is for food! Smells good!”

  A strong onion soup followed by grilled fish, with good bread and lightly fried vegetables; coffee to end the meal.

  “Sergeant! Who have you got in the kitchen?”

  “Four Frogs, sir. Women from the village down the road, sir. It’s the last place that’s still got civilians in it, sir, and they can’t do much in their fields, and there ain’t any work in the mill now, of course, sir. Arranged for a dozen of the older ones to come in as Mess cleaners and cooks, and for some of their men to cut the grass on the field and do general labouring work, sir. Fiddled it a bit, sir, me and Flight Sergeant Davies, as soon as he turned up and told me who was coming as Major, sir. Thought you wouldn’t mind, sir.”

  “Square everything with the Adjutant. Keep them here, that was good food. Will you need more when all of the pilots are here?”

  “Got it arranged, sir.”

  “Well done – a word to the wise, though? None of their daughters – if we turn the place into a knocking-shop, then word will get back to HQ and the proverbial will hit the fan!”

  “Yes, sir. I can hear engines, sir. Should be the DH4s coming in, sir.”

  “Bugger! I wanted to be out there to take a look at them landing.”

  “Arranged, sir. They’ll get a red flare to hold off in circuit, sir.”

  “I like the style of this airfield, Sergeant. Keep it up.”

  Noah, sat at his squadron’s table, as was only proper, seconded the motion.

  Tommy and the three lieutenants walked to the hangars, signalled to the senior mechanic for the green flare, then watched the circling planes come into their landing, ten DH4s in line astern, a hundred yards between them, very sensibly.

  They taxyed across, some after a smoothly skilful touch down, others on the third bounce, but all down and undamaged. They placed themselves according to orders from the ground crews and switched off, one by one.

  Tommy turned to the three with him, commented that the landings were not too bad.

  “Which is not to say that I am entirely happy with all that we have just seen, but it could have been worse.”

  The new men were led inside and introduced to their rooms, approving that they were singles and amazed to have no fewer than four bathrooms between them, with copious supplies of hot water. There was a servant each as well, rather than the normal one between two for lieutenants.

  “Too many useless conscripts, sir,” Flight Sergeant Davies confided. “Men up to the age of fifty now. Willing to do what they can, but most of them are past it, physically speaking, and can’t carry a sixty-pound pack and a rifle, or live out in the trenches for weeks at a time. So they end up in the rear areas, those who are sent out to France at all. We can put them to jobs they can do, sir, but they are going to have to man the guns, sir, part of the time at least. We won’t get more than one gunner for each of the machine-guns round the field, sir, so they are going to have to take turns as well.”

  “Practice, I suppose, Flight. A lot of practice – they are bound to start attacking us, you know. Work it out with Uncle Terence.”

  “Yes, sir. Three captains, sir, as Flight Commanders. To meet with you when, sir?”

  “In my office, in an hour, say? I haven’t poked my nose inside it myself yet. Have we got chairs?”

  “Just about, sir!”

  Davies led Tommy down the corridor behind the main entrance and up a wide flight of stairs, the walls brightly painted in primary greens and blues with occasional red and orange diagonal stripes, to a wide landing and a single mahogany door.

  “Captain Marks thought that the decoration of the walls was a ‘depiction of sunrise over the grain fields in spring’, sir.”

  “Very agricultural! I suppose that it was a flour mill, after all. Glad it wasn’t in the wool trade, bloody sheep all over the place!”

  Davies opened the door, displaying a managerial suite rather than an office. There was a boardroom with table and chairs for at least a dozen, and a secretary’s desk in one corner and a small kitchen in the other. The room was at least forty feet long, thickly carpeted, the windows lined with heavy curtains in some
sort of velvet, the chairs lushly cushioned.

  “Bloody hell! They looked after themselves, didn’t they!”

  “Your personal office is on the left, sir.”

  Another door, panelled and ornate, led to a twenty foot square office with a huge desk and a great wooden swivel chair. The room was carpeted and lined with cupboards and filing cabinets.

  “One chair?”

  “Looks like the underlings all stood before the master, sir. There were pictures on the wall, sir, some sort of baron, who I think was the boss, sir. I don’t think he believed in a democratic sort of approach in this Republic, sir.”

  Tommy stared about him, tried to see himself as master of all this glory.

  “No. Turn this over to Colonel Kettle, Flight. I can’t run a squadron from here, lord and master of all I survey. Get me an office downstairs.”

  “Captain Marks said that would be what you’d do, sir. There’s a room next to the Adjutant’s office what will do, sir.”

  The office downstairs was larger than his last domain as Major in command of a squadron, perfectly adequate, Tommy thought.

  “Send in the three captains, please, Flight. We’ll see what they are like. While I think of it, what’s the position regarding observers?”

  “None, sir. Not yet. Due to come in today and tomorrow, sir. Sergeants, in the nature of things. Most will be new in to the RFC, sir, privates and corporals from the cavalry or behind the line units, sir. Some old hands, sir, including Sergeant Devon, who you will remember.”

  “So I do. Anyone who has flown with me before?”

  “Not that I know of, sir. Shall I put Devon with you, sir?”

  “Please. Let’s see the captains.”

  One in RFC uniform, one cavalryman from the 9th Lancers; the third with badges of the Rifles, which was rare, very few officers transferring from that elite.

  “Welcome to Eighty-One Squadron, gentlemen. I am Tommy Stark, except when there’s brass in sight, then I’m Major. I can’t remember meeting any of you before – the RFC is getting bigger!”