Bursting Balloons (Innocents At War Series, Book 5)

by Andrew Wareham

  “Cardigan, the fearless blunderer?”

  “Who was at the head of the Light Brigade. Haig is well to the rear of this conflict, sir. You would not have seen Haig standing at the front of his men at Waterloo – he would have been sending his orders from Brussels!”

  “I was warned in London, Major Stark, that you were rich and politically well-connected. If you make that statement where it can be heard, you will need every bit of help you can get. Hush, sir, or you will be posted as liaison officer to the chief mandarin on the China Station; and they will make you walk there. As your commanding officer, I will be held responsible as well – and what they would do to me is unthinkable – St Petersburg as an official observer to the Russian Air Force, I expect.”

  “The Russians have some very good planes, sir.”

  “They have an increasingly wild revolution, as well, and a civil war rapidly brewing, from all I was told in London. Very messy! Good chance that some sort of Reds will start a reign of terror to match Robespierre’s.”

  Noah kicked Tommy before he could ask what team Robespierre played for.

  “English history is often beyond Tommy, sir. French is too much to ask for. I will explain later – I am sure he knows what a guillotine is.”

  Colonel Sarratt was almost sure that was a joke.

  “Well, enough of that, Major Arkwright. You are to go after balloons first, I believe?”

  “In the morning, sir. A couple of hours after dawn. Give them time to get the beasts into the air. When will HQ tell you of their location, sir?”

  “I am to receive a telephone call when they start going up and will then assign the targets to you. I have specified no more than eight at a time. I am told, in fact, there will be fewer than that in our sector, as a general rule.”

  “I don’t think I have ever seen more than three or four at the same time, sir, since they have started sending them up singly. Still, we shall find out in the morning.”

  It rained, and they discovered nothing at all.

  Fred Petersham took his squadron out on the following day; there was no rain, but the wind was gusting up to half a gale and they reached their assigned targets to find the balloons being hauled down, unable to operate in such conditions.

  Tommy led his pilots out onto the apron, the Camels wheeled out ready for them. Colonel Sarratt was waiting with the targets.

  “Just two up today. Yesterday's gale damaged some of the balloons.”

  “Very good, sir. Saves us the trouble. Cheaper on bullets as well, sir. Those Brock rounds are shockingly expensive.”

  “Aha! Got you there, Major Stark. I have saved money by ordering them only to send us duds.”

  It was Colonel Sarratt’s first joke. It was actually amusing as well, Tommy thought; he gave it a good laugh and repeated it to the rest of the squadron.

  The squadron followed Tommy to the cloud base, a little less than the specified six thousand feet, but a good prediction by the weather men, he thought. He climbed slowly into the underneath of the cloud, and came out of it very rapidly – the turbulence was killing, vicious up-draughts pulling at the Camel and close to taking it out of Tommy’s control. He led them through the clear air immediately below, still bumpy and hazardous, but not so immediately dangerous and offering some degree of cover from enemy observers, the planes less visible against the dark clouds. The balloons were up still and both where they had been reported – he had the right pair, was not poaching on some other squadron’s game. He waved to Colne, who had flown as his number two, and pointed to the nearer balloon, a matter of half a mile closer.

  They dived, both pushing the stick to the starboard as hard as they dared, dropping in a tight spiral, on the very edge of falling into a spin. According to Lieutenant Moffat, who was their expert on all matters of gunnery, they would be shifting in three dimensions simultaneously, which should make them extremely difficult to track, the gunners having to lay off in three different directions at once. Moffat had pointed out as well that if he had been the gunners in question, he would have laid down a box barrage, which would demand no aiming at all.

  Tommy kept an eye out to his left, could just see Colne closing on his balloon through the haze of Archie; he was still alive, at least. His own Drachen was growing larger, was less than four hundred yards distant; he straightened to take his aim, opened fire, watched the smoke trails of the tracer rounds making a direct line into the canopy. He hoped the explosive rounds were following the same trajectory – they did not always, and why, he had no idea. There were shells bursting behind and above him, but none directly on him – perhaps the corkscrewing dive was working.

  At one hundred yards he felt the Camel shudder as machine-gun fire chewed up the fuselage around the cockpit; he continued on course – the gunners would not risk hitting their own men as they took to their parachutes.

  He spotted the basket and changed his aim, shredded it; if the observers had any sense it would be empty. Tough luck if they had not jumped. There was flame above him and the balloon was crumpling – he had to get out. He hauled back on the stick, banking to port and then rapidly to reverse course, hoping to get above the balloon, into dead air where the gunners could not see him. He could hear canvas flapping behind him, decided that he would not indulge in violent manoeuvres if he could avoid them.

  The balloon collapsed into a mass of flames, the gas catching fire and blooming upwards towards him; there was no choice but to dive hard and hopefully.

  He came out of the dive at the last possible moment, wheels no more than ten feet above the ground; he was pointing to the west and simply followed his nose. He was travelling at almost one hundred miles an hour, his speed slowly rising towards the Camel’s maximum; the sound of ripping, flapping canvas was audible even above the noise of his engine and the gunfire of the Front. He tried to climb just a few feet, succeeded only in pointing his nose up – which meant that his tail was drooping, almost touching the ground. He levelled off hurriedly, losing a foot or two of altitude in the process. He was crossing the rear trench, a hundred yards or more behind the second line, itself more than fifty yards back from the front; the German trenches were not straight, formed a series of zig-zags so that an enemy penetrating them could be flanked. He twitched the triggers to the Vickers as the trenches partially opened up in front of him. He did some damage, he was sure, would certainly have frightened some of the men in them, which was worthwhile in itself; in any case, there was no sense in taking the ammunition half-way home with him.

  He crossed the parapet of the front line, reached the great belt of wire, seemingly inches below him, far too fast for the machine-guns to zero in on him. One bounce or twitch would put his wheels into the wire, which would be a messy way of going. He was crossing the mud, over the British wire now, just as dangerous as the German if he crashed into it. Over the trench itself and he began to thumb the blip switch, bleeding off speed and looking for a place to put down before he reached the rear and the possibility of telephone wires up on posts above the mud; cookhouse chimneys might be undesirable as well. He passed over the latrines, a massive construction to serve the daily needs of two thousand and more men; he saw a number of bare backsides as men dived flat out on the ground. It had its funny side, he supposed, searching frantically for anywhere to land.

  He was well into the rear when he spotted men playing football – which demanded open and flattish ground. He switched off and hoped they would see him in time as he dropped his nose just a fraction. They ran and he hit the dirt hard, losing control and ground-looping, digging a wing into something, he could not see what, and spinning like a fairground ride until he was stopped by collision with a bank of newly dug soft earth.

  He was stuck, the sides of the cockpit crumpled in on him. He had thumped his head and was unable to focus on what to do next, sat open-mouthed as a dozen Chinese labourers with pickaxes battered the sides of the cockpit open and picked him up and gently carried him away and put him down at a safe dista
nce from the chance of fire.

  A few minutes and he stood, two of the Chinese steadying him. He looked about him, saw that they were digging deep, oblong holes, fifty yards long by five wide and about ten feet deep. There were several of them, he could not see exactly how many.

  “Mass graves, sir. There will be a Push in a couple of weeks. The bodies will be buried two deep, two hundred to each. We are to dig a total of one hundred of them along the line.”

  Tommy recognised Captain Marks, the Engineer.

  “The Staff are planning for another great success, it would seem, Captain Marks. How are you?”

  “Very well, thank’ee, Major Stark. You don’t look so good, just at the moment. Where are you hit?”

  “Didn’t know I was, in fact.”

  “Your shirt is covered in blood.”

  “Oh! I feel a bit on the giddy side, now I think of it.”

  They put him on a stretcher and took him to the Aid Post where he was washed down and inspected and stitches were put into a long crease across the flesh of his upper chest.

  “Two inches higher, and it would have opened your windpipe, sir. An inch or so deeper and it would have been through your lungs. A little lower and it could have bounced off your ribs and gone anywhere. A very fortunate bullet, that one, sir. Trooper!”

  A driver of the FANY stood up from her chair at the back of the post and waited her orders.

  “This pilot to go to, where, Major?”

  “St Rigobert, if that is possible, Trooper.”

  “A minute while I look at my maps, sir. All things are possible to the FANY, sir.”

  The women drivers never made any other answer; they were normally right.

  Tommy insisted on standing, to avoid the possibility that he might be stretchered to a Base Hospital. He sat in the front passenger seat; the rear compartment smelt of old blood and septicaemia, though he had no doubt it was thoroughly scrubbed and disinfected daily, but the corruption would have soaked deep into the woodwork. He sat silent until they were well clear of the Lines, the driver expertly working her way through the rough, muddy tracks.

  “Excuse me, Trooper, but do you know Trooper Amanda Hunter? She is the sister of Major Noah Arkwright’s wife, and he shares a field with me.”

  “I know of her, Major. She was sent back to England last month. Coughing blood. A whiff of gas, perhaps, or picked up consumption – very common out here, tubercular diseases.”

  “I will tell Noah. I am surprised it was not in his wife’s last letter.”

  “They do not always contact the parents immediately, sir. Things can be delayed sometimes – the hospital in England thinks that the people out here have done it, and vice versa.”

  Tommy nodded and leaned back in the uncomfortable seat; he was just starting to hurt, wondered why it had taken so long, he had not been so high as to be numbed by cold. This was going to be another week off flying, he thought, possibly two – but the need would be so great when the Push started that he would definitely be up on the 31st.

  “Lost Colne, Tommy – one of those ‘flaming onion’ things got him about a hundred yards out and he suddenly blew up and smacked straight into the balloon. The lot went down, on top of the observers as they jumped. So, we got both balloons.”

  Hell-For did not seem especially concerned – Drachen cost Camels, the equation was inexorable.

  “Bloody great explosion when they hit the ground, Tommy. Gas cylinders, perhaps, or ready-use for Archie. Made a mess of the whole establishment, that’s for sure.”

  They had taken Tommy to the sick bay, were debating whether to send him to HQ, to the doctor there.

  “He saw me just a few weeks ago; twice in a short time and he might send me back to England. Better to stay here. The stitching will do, won’t it, Quack?”

  “Too much of it for my liking, Tommy. I count fourteen across the chest. I want it checked. I am not taking this on, Tommy – too much for me. I want a doctor in on these. Base Hospital or HQ, sir? Because you ain’t staying here!”

  “HQ it is – the man there is far less likely to try amputation. Is Noah flying at the moment?”

  They found Noah drinking tea in the Mess, fretting while he waited for his people to come in off patrol.

  “Stayed home today, Tommy – so that they know I don’t think I have to watch over them every minute of the day – but I don’t have to bloody like it!”

  “You won’t like this either, Noah. I was brought back in a FANY ambulance. The girl driving said your wife’s sister, Amanda, was sent back to Blighty last month, coughing blood.”

  “I’ll send a letter to my wife in today’s post, Tommy. From her last letter, Lucy had heard nothing as of three days ago.”

  The doctor at HQ was wryly welcoming, commenting ‘better wounded than dead’.

  “You are tired, Major Stark. You should be rested for six months. Don’t fly for at least five days. I would send you home, if I could, but the need is for every man from next week – as you probably know. Try not to kill yourself through carelessness – you must rest all you can. I have been sent iron pills – there is a theory that pilots suffer from anaemia brought on by high-flying and tiredness. They taste like shit, but they might do some good – reduce the anaemia and one might lessen the tiredness? Don’t like the inverse logic, meself, but you never know... Give them a try. Apart from that, eat full meals, if you can. I want to get supplies of fresh milk out to the airfields, so that all of the pilots and observers can drink some every day, but it ain’t easy to arrange. Don’t drink too much booze – but there’s not much point to telling you that.”

  Tommy promised to be obedient; he said he would take the iron pills, if they were to be good for him.

  “They might be. I doubt they will do any harm, so it’s worth trying them at least. You remember that pilot of yours, Abbott, the calculating coward?”

  “Vaguely, sir. I would not recognise his face, but I recall him. Sent up to the Front to die, was he not?”

  “He was, but the plan went slightly wrong. I was informed that he was caught by a whizz-bang, was blown half to pieces, but not killed. Back in England for rebuilding, as far as they can – one of the heroes to be wheeled out – quite literally – each year for the memorial services.”

  “I can’t say I am sorry for him, poor sod! If he had pulled his weight as a pilot he might have ended up roasted alive or spread like strawberry jam over an acre or two, but he probably wouldn’t have been put into a wheelchair. Don’t get wounded so much in our game. This is my fourth – and it’s rare for a pilot to get more than one.”

  “Luck, Major Stark. They say that one of the Frog aces has got more metal than bone in his legs but still keeps flying. Can’t remember which one – they’ve got several who are really good. Five days, remember – do not, under any circumstances, fly this week. Two reasons, by the way – one is that you are fatigued; the other is that you thumped your head, and there is a chance that you might start to see double or lose focus. If you get eye problems, report them immediately, and you won’t fly for three months, at least – which will be better than misjudging your height on landing and burying yourself in the middle of the field.”

  “If I see double, will they let me count two for each one I shoot down?”

  “Knowing the RFC they’ll get it wrong and give you a half of each. Go back to your field and behave yourself, sir! I shall get on the telephone now and will have spoken to your colonel before you get back. We are losing too many of the best these days – not just the new boys sent out from training. How is Major Arkwright, by the way? He is another one at risk for being out here far too long.”

  “Noah is well, sir. But worried, of course. He hates sending the boys out, knowing that some will die for lack of knowledge and training. He has a daughter now, by the way, and that has given him far more reason to live – he is less of a fatalist now, and that must be good. Is Maurice Baring in HQ today?”

  “We are talking of men wh
o hurt when others die, are we not? Mr Baring has seen too many good men go – I worry for him, you know. He is beginning to close in on himself, is unwilling perhaps to make new friends for the hurt when they are killed.”

  “He is the best of good men, Doctor. I am glad that he at least will not be killed – though I expect he wonders sometimes whether he ought not be in the Front Line. He is not a typical staff officer, that man.”

  Tommy made his farewells and slowly walked across to Baring’s office; he was tired, he found, and he hurt. He needed a few quiet minutes of conversation before he found the car for the bumpy journey back to St Rigobert.

  “Bandaged again, Tommy?”

  “Balloons, Maurice. I was lucky. I am not at all sure of this single plane per balloon policy, you know.”

  “Neither am I, Tommy, but we needed to see if it would work. The casualty figures are just coming in. I doubt the policy will be maintained.”

  “Balloons are a bugger, Maurice. Jerry has got some armoured planes, we have seen. It might be an idea to put some metal on a DH4 and send it out after balloons. No bomb load would allow for a heavy piece of steel around pilot, engine and observer.”

  Baring shook his head.

  “You’ve heard of tanks, Tommy?”

  He had, thought they might be a good idea.

  “They will be, when they are improved a little. All toughened steel plate is reserved for the construction of tanks, except for the supplies going to the Navy. We simply would not be able to lay our hands on the stuff.”

  “Annoying – it was such a good idea, and I don’t have very many.”

  “Are you grounded, Tommy?”

  “Five days is all, Maurice. I have promised the doctor that I shall be good, as well. I will be flying for the morning of the Big Push.”

  “Good. You will be needed, I suspect.”

  “Ground attack?”

  “We are putting the finishing touches to a plan to beat up the German reserves as they come forward. We know where their camps are and which railways they must use and where they will detrain; given that, it is not difficult to work out which roads and communications trenches they must use and assign squadrons to each. We might easily be able to pound them into immobility during daylight hours, Tommy. No reserves, or delayed for half a day, say, will make the difference when it comes to consolidating the ground taken in the first assault.”