Bursting Balloons (Innocents At War Series, Book 5)

by Andrew Wareham

  “We shall try, sir. What are the orders?”

  “Forget the Hindenburg line and Vimy Ridge for the time being. Concentrate on the Scarpe and the chance of doing some good there. The Canadians have some support already, but the squadrons working the Scarpe have been butchered. When can you start, Tommy?”

  “Now, if you want, sir. We can as well get some experience doing the real thing as beating up the trenches on the Somme. The boys know what to do; now they have to learn how. We have twin-Lewises fitted to two of the Flights already today, the others may be ready for tomorrow. Have we got a map or should we simply poke our noses across to find out what the terrain is like?”

  “It’s a bloody mess, from all I have been told. Fly over at some height, would be my advice, and then pick a target. You know what it’s like – you’ve done it before.”

  “We can but try, sir. We are short of ordnance, sir. Too many of the big bombs, far too few of the very small which are better for work against infantry. We need incendiaries, sir, as a matter of urgency.”

  “I shall push Boom, Tommy. I can do no more.”

  Tommy turned to the hangars and called his pilots to him.

  “We are flying a raid as soon as we are bombed up. We shall take a look at what we can see first and then I shall lead you into an attack on a single section of the line, preferably a very short section. Get a bite to eat now.”

  He gave orders for the planes to be bombed up.

  “One three-hundredweight apiece. Then either twenty-pounders or a hundred-pounder, depending on what we’ve got. Where’s the Armourer?”

  “Here, sir. All Vickers are checked and loaded, sir. Lewises are all good, sir. Eight of the planes have twins, sir, and the rest are ready to be fitted, but will take two hours each, sir.”

  “Good. Fit them as, how and when is possible, Flight. What pans have you loaded?”

  “Ball, sir. Just six of Brock, sir. That’s all I have. Brock is very slow to load, sir, having to check every round.”

  “I know. Keep the Brock back in case we get a balloon call. I hope to have more very quickly. As soon as it comes in, load belts and pans as a first priority. The Brock rounds will beat up a machine-gun emplacement where ball will bounce off the concrete.”

  Milligan had not realised that to be the case.

  “The Book says balloons only, sir. They didn’t tell me about ground attack, sir.”

  “The Book is never less than a year out of date, Flight. They haven’t heard of the Somme yet. Unfortunately, Jerry will have.”

  Tommy was certain in his own mind that the German Army would have learned some of the lessons of the Somme, particularly that aircraft destroyed soldiers’ morale at least as much as they actually killed them. The untouchable machines in the sky had occasionally caused units to run; therefore, they would be concerned to shoot them down, to show them as vulnerable. There would be far more guns on high-angle mountings, and gunners trained to fire deflection. He had wondered if it might make sense to attack in Flights, the first in effect drawing the anti-aircraft fire, the second suppressing it while the third and fourth bombed the actual target; he would see what the afternoon brought.

  There was no discernible front line. The attacks had bitten out salients of varying size and shape, in some places a mile through the old Trenches, in others fifty yards. Sections of the German front line were still held by the original owners, sandbags forming new defences to either side. It was impossible to make sense of the tapestry from five thousand feet.

  Tommy led the squadron across the battlefield and then dropped to three thousand, just in machine-gun range, but low enough to tell khaki from field-grey. He spotted a spur of slightly higher ground with a dozen machine-gun nests commanding the land over four or five hundred yards north, south and west. He could see shell-bursts, field artillery trying to pick off the guns, with slight success as they were set up in little, individual blockhouses. There was some anti-aircraft fire, but very little, which suggested German aircraft very close.

  ‘Get down, or get dead’, he thought.

  He waved a hand, circling and then pointing down, hoped they would remember its meaning and stood the DH4 on its port wing and banked down into a steep attack. He heard Sergeant Devon’s guns begin to rattle from behind him, triggered the Vickers as he passed through five hundred feet. He spotted a blockhouse and aimed directly at it, risked a glance over his shoulder, saw that the remainder of the Flight had followed him in an echelon, as ordered, each about a hundred feet off his line, and out of his bomb blasts.

  He was on target, he thought, and as low as he wished to be. He triggered the bomb releases and pulled up into a hard climb, still angling out to the port. He heard the explosions behind him, just the two.

  “Hard left!”

  The bellow came from behind him and he threw the control lever across, pushing into the tightest possible turn. A biplane passed fast to his right, just a little higher; he saw the Maltese crosses, then spotted a Nieuport angling onto its tail and firing a prolonged burst at very close range, twenty feet at most.

  “Right and climb!”

  He obeyed again, heard Sergeant Devon open fire and then spotted another Albatros about to cross him at less than one hundred feet distant. He opened the throttle to its fullest, pulled the nose up a few degrees, almost into a stall, fired the Vickers just before the plane passed his line.

  “Got him!”

  The bullets hit the engine and then the cockpit. The Albatros fell away into a spin at five hundred feet, impossible to pull out of.

  There was suddenly nothing in sight, the sky seemingly empty.

  “Course, Devon?”

  “Come right ninety degrees.”

  He banked obediently, throttling back from full revs and inspecting the ground beneath him, spotting at least four downed aircraft, unable to see who or what. He was still on his own, perhaps a mile on the wrong side of the battlefield. He set off towards the airfield.

  He was seventh in from the squadron, the others mostly still taxying, one showing damage to a wing. There was a red flare as he landed and he turned as quickly as he could to the hangars, out of the way.

  A Flight of five Nieuports landed, one of them very bumpily. Ground staff ran across to the unmoving pilot, hauled him out and onto a stretcher.

  Another DH4 came in, then five more in a gaggle, all unharmed.

  Two more landed and then the bulk of the Nieuports. Twenty minutes and they were missing just one of each squadron.

  “Could have been worse, Noah.”

  “Bloody near was, Tommy. We spotted one bunch of them and were pulled nearly two miles away from you, scrapping with them. Then Poacher saw another lot positioning themselves to pick you off as you climbed out of your attack. He got into them with his Flight just about in time.”

  Captain Denham was waiting his turn with Twittock, the Intelligence Officer. He came away as they walked across to make their own reports.

  “Arr, gave they little buggers a right old quiltin’ betwixt us, Tommy! Eight of ‘em, there was, all set up just waitin’ on thee. Got two of they meself, and old Johnny picked up another brace, and two of the boys got one apiece, and you put one down, I saw, and your gunner shot the engine of one all to bits, but ‘e were gliding in when last I saw ‘im and I don’t reckon ‘e went down. Then the rest turned up and it were take a snapshot at anything goin’ by, like, until all of a sudden there weren’t nobody in sight and we come on ‘ome.”

  Noah claimed two damaged, said he had been unable to see what happened to them, but they didn’t feel like kills.

  “What of ours, Twittock? Were they seen?”

  “Hugh Gough went in, flaming, Tommy. Not a hope. One of yours, Noah, Roger? Engine gone, might have got down in one piece. One wounded pilot, creased the side of his head, will fly inside a week… probably.”

  Two losses from thirty-two – it could have been worse for a first encounter with mostly green pilots, and they had claimed
seven and five damaged all told. It was in fact a fairly encouraging result, except that if they continued to lose two a day then neither squadron would exist at the end of a fortnight.

  “Any results for the bombing, Twittock?”

  “No reports, Tommy. What did you see?”

  “Nothing, as always. We attacked, we dropped, we got out. We were jumped before we could circle round to have a look at what we’d done. The Army might tell us what happened. I think we dropped on the German side of the fighting, but I ain’t even certain sure of that. It’s a bloody shambles, that’s for sure!”

  The Army took the salient that night, reported back to the RFC that they had been able to do so because of the suppression of several of the blockhouses up on the ridge above them, for which much thanks. They suggested coordinates for four other targets they would like to see attacked.

  “One pilot and observer and one plane, if you would be so good, sir.”

  Colonel Kettle said that he had made the requisition already.

  “There will be a delivery of Brock rounds tonight, Tommy. Incendiary and Hales Bombs will be here by now, I believe. Message from General Trenchard to express his pleasure that you are active so quickly and effectively. Back to the old round, Tommy.”

  “Not quite, sir. We don’t have command of the air here, not like the Somme. We need it. If Jerry had more planes, we would be well buggered, in Poacher Denham’s elegant turn of phrase.”

  “Two today, on his first outing as a pilot.”

  “He’ll be one of the best, sir. Do something for that accent of his and he’ll be in command of a squadron before the year’s out. While he comes across as a Hampshire Hog, though, they won’t take him seriously. I don’t know the answer to that – I’m damned if I am going to speak to the man, tell him that being the best ain’t good enough if he don’t pronounce his English in the right way.”

  “I will. The pleasures of command, Tommy. The way we are losing pilots, we need to bring on next year’s squadron commanders now. Poacher has made captain ridiculously quickly, of course, and I shall put it to him that he owes the RFC a debt. He must make the grade and take a squadron as soon as possible.”

  “Die young, or climb the ladder far too soon. That young man should be knocking down pheasants for the fun of it, not risking his neck here before ever he’s lived.”

  “Tell that to the boys of the Somme, Tommy. Look in a mirror, for that matter, young man! You are a damned sight too old for your age. By the way, did I hear that you had become a millionaire, or something equally silly?”

  “Four times over, I believe, sir. My revolting half-brother – officially, that is, my father had the gravest doubts of his provenance – stole everything that was not nailed down and then died, very conveniently, in the States, leaving all to me. Dirty money, one might say – but likely to be very handy. Two children now, sir, and I know they will be protected whatever happens to me. Lord Moncur is looking after the money for me – and he is as straight a man as ever got involved in politics!”

  “No comment. Do try not to let anything happen to you Tommy!”

  Bursting Balloons

  Chapter Four

  “The Army wants to talk to us, Tommy.”

  Colonel Kettle sounded faintly surprised; the Army often talked to HQ, but rarely in his experience to the lower orders of the RFC.

  Tommy had landed from his third raid of the day, tired but within reason satisfied. This was the fourth day of attacks on the Scarpe and they had lost no more planes and only one pilot and two observers wounded by distant Archie, all three expected to fly again. Noah had scored in a series of scrappy fights and had lost two of his people in exchange, he thought, for four of Jerry – a very satisfactory ratio.

  “What do the Army want, sir?”

  “They wouldn’t say – secret plans, I must imagine. I agreed that they should send a couple of bodies across to see us this afternoon. They should be here within the hour. You won’t be flying again today, not in this weather.”

  They scanned the sky, could see rain clouds in the middle distance and bearing down on the field. It would be too great a risk to take off in such conditions – they might never get back down again.

  “Just me, or Noah as well?”

  “Just the bombardment squadron, they said. Up to us whether we involve Noah afterwards.”

  “It might make sense if we were to coordinate our bombing with the Army’s attacks, sir. It all seems a bit random at the moment. That, mind you, is probably why we’ve seen so little of the Albatros this week – if we don’t know where we’re going to bombard next, how can they predict where we’ll be?”

  “Good point, but I’m not entirely convinced by your logic.”

  “Neither am I, sir, but I never did understand logic anyway. Might be better to pull Noah in, sir, just to give us an extra body while we’re talking, and a bit more weight.”

  Tommy was called to Pot’s office later in the afternoon; he had thought about the meeting and had changed into best working uniform, hat as well, to Smivvel’s amazement – he never wore full uniform.

  He exchanged salutes with a major-general and two half-colonels and at least six of various lesser aides – the contents of three staff cars, he estimated. Taking a quick glance, he carried more ribbons than all of the Army together – which could not hurt if it came to argument.

  “Take a seat, Major Stark. Major Arkwright will be with us later, he’s talking with the Intelligence Officer still, making his report on the afternoon. He got down just before the rain came in – cutting it tight, but you know how much he cares about risk!”

  Tommy blinked but agreed. If that was how Pot wanted to play the game, so be it.

  “A wild man, Noah Arkwright, but very useful to have about the place, you know!”

  The Army people smiled, having read the newspapers; Tommy believed they had very little else to do at divisional level.

  “Now then, Major Stark. General Peabody-Smirk has it in mind to launch a surprise attack on the Scarpe, to cut off a ridge that commands half the battlefield and currently gives the Germans a considerable defensive advantage. The high ground enables them to see exactly what is going on, of course. He believes that an attack from the air will enable his men to advance on the ground. He has, of course, obtained the full permission, and encouragement, of General Trenchard, who has already contacted me. I will beg General Peabody-Smirk to outline and explain his proposal to you.”

  The General cleared his throat and peered at his papers, a great sheaf of detail.

  “Very simply, Major Stark, the ridge in question, Hill 37, has been formed by two small tributary streams running down to the Scarpe, so the land below it is wet and muddy – slows any attack down to a crawl. We can’t do anything about that, we can’t get across any faster, so we need to distract the Hun for as long as ten minutes. If you can bombard the exact part of the ridge where the guns and the senior officers are, at just the right time, then we can achieve our surprise. We want your raid to occur at dawn stand-to – when the greatest number of men will be exposed. Our attacks take place at sunrise normally, so the infantrymen come out of their dug-outs and man the firing-line along the trenches and put a full crew to their machine-guns and field artillery pieces. They are, in the nature of things, vulnerable then. If we use artillery, we have to zero-in and that gives them a couple of minutes in which to dive for cover before we can land much on them. If you can appear from the sky in a sudden attack, you may well be able to do them great harm and we should be able to get into them before they are recovered.”

  Tommy was amazed; the proposal was obviously sensible.

  “That sounds very rational, sir. It does demand that we have to be in the exactly correct position at just the right moment. That sounds simple, sir, but, if there is cloud cover then dawn can be effectively delayed for ten minutes. If it rains, of course, we cannot fly at all. Canvas wings, sir, don’t work when they are soaked with rain, let alone the pr
oblems of finding our way about in bad visibility and at low level. That said, sir, your plan has much in its favour. Can I look at your map, sir? Of the location?”

  A lieutenant produced a folder and passed a small-scale map of the battlefield to Tommy.

  “The ridge is marked in red, sir.”

  “Good. I recognise it, in fact. Unless I am much mistaken we raided this ridge on our first outing because it seemed so commanding a feature. I didn’t get a chance to study the ridge in any great detail during the raid – too busy concentrating on staying alive. What is its precise height? Are these markings in feet or metres?”

  The lieutenant did not know, did not seem entirely convinced that the two were different.

  “We will come out of the darkness at a height of fifty feet above the ground. Higher, and the bombs will miss. Lower, and we will bury ourselves. I need to know those heights to an absolute figure, Lieutenant.”

  The General scowled, said he had expected that information to have been readily available. He promised it for the next day. The lieutenant blushed.

  “Now, sir, we have a gunline marked here, and here.” Tommy put his finger on the map. “Field artillery or greater, or machine-guns?”

  “Unknown, for sure, sir.”

  “I need to know that, General. For machine-guns, I would wish to attack with the small Hales Bombs. Field pieces would be better hit with hundred-pounders, even with the three-hundredweight bomb. Are there ammunition dumps? If we could put some bombs into their first reserve of shells, then we could create a degree of havoc. Do we know the exact placement of the trenches? Is there any tree-cover on the ridge? We could send a photographic aircraft across, sir, but it might well alert Jerry to our interest.”

  Noah entered the room; he had taken time to change out of flying gear, was also in full uniform. Everything stopped while the Army stood and saluted the VC.