By sunset, Boyd had done twenty minutes in a BE2’s observer’s seat and thirty minutes as pilot. By the time he went to his tent to unpack with the help of his batman, he was sagging with the fatigue of a night spent sitting up in a railway carriage and a day in the back of a lorry, with the added strain of flying a strange type of aeroplane in conditions of considerable chill.
But he would have followed Chandler there and then on a raid behind the enemy lines, without hesitation.
*
The squadron was established for twelve aircraft and a minimum of twenty-four pilots and fifteen observers. Casualties had changed the reality, and there were, with the new replacements, twenty-one pilots, nine observers and eighteen aircraft. Of these, eight pilots and six observers were NCOs.
Boyd and Holt entered the mess for the first time, that evening, to a pleasant hum of conversation and laughter. The Adjutant saw them and at once went to meet them and introduce them to the other officers. It was a relief to find that there was none of the caste-snobbery they had encountered at flying school: perhaps because they were always aware that they had no uncertainty of still being alive in a month’s time, the members of the squadron treated one another with friendliness. There were, including the squadron commander, Hannington and Chandler, six cavalrymen. One of the pilots and two observers were artillerymen, there were four from the Royal Engineers, and the rest were, like Boyd, ex-infantry. Evidently it was a healthy mixture. Only three others, besides Boyd, wore an MC.
Drinking whisky in a corner of the room with Boyd, the Adjutant and one or two other new acquaintances, Holt said “You know, Nick, there was a moment this afternoon when I envied you your thirty-four hours air time. I mean, it sounded so bad when Hannington and I had to admit to only twenty-six: we thought we were lucky, at Shoreham and Gosport, when we got passed through ahead of you on account of our previous experience; but, boy, I sure felt sorry for it when the flight commander was quizzing us.”
“Don’t worry, Elliot: you and Hannington will be fighting DH2s while I’m still struggling to fly the BE2 decently.”
Quietly, the Adjutant said, “If Chandler said you would be fit for action in a DH one week from now, you will be fit for action in a DH one week from now. You can take that from me.”
“He also said we’d fly till our asses stuck to our seats,” said Holt. “I hope that doesn’t come true as well.”
“If it doesn’t,” said the Adjutant, “you will be the first replacements on B Flight to whom it hasn’t happened. You can always tell them: they carry cushions around with them.”
*
At eight o’clock the next morning Boyd made his first flight in a DH2.
Before he went off, Holt said, diffidently, “Mind if I tell you something, Nick?”
“If it’s anything to do with flying, go ahead.”
“Well ... I don’t want to sound patronising ... but you really do fly well, Nick ... and I don’t want to criticise the instructors at Shoreham or Gosport ... but I don’t think anyone has ever told you what happens to the controls when you make a vertical bank, have they?”
“Nothing in particular, no. But I notice I lose height when I do.”
“Exactly! I was watching you in the BE last evening. Listen, it’s very simple, and someone should have warned you. When you bank steeply, your rudder starts to behave like your elevator. You see why, don’t you? When you change attitude by ninety degrees, if you put on rudder it won’t turn you left or right laterally: left, if you are in a left bank, is downward, and right is upward. Got it?”
“Of course: it’s perfectly clear. Thanks Elliot. So, to keep my nose up, I apply opposite rudder.”
“You’ve got it.”
That was not the only instruction that had been omitted from Boyd’s basic training. Trying to hold formation, he was taken by surprise the first time he flew into someone else’s slipstream. Then he fell into his first involuntary sideslip and emerged from it 300 feet lower only after having applied his own common sense. Flying back to base one evening when a storm overtook him and his companions unexpectedly, he was flung almost on to his back and righted himself by extreme use of his ailerons and was still dizzy when he found himself on an even keel.
The headiest sensation was firing a Lewis gun while he dived his aeroplane at over seventy miles an hour at a white sheet with a bull’s-eye painted on it, pegged in the centre of a field. It was then that he found out that all he had heard about the wobbly gun mounting in the DH2 was true, and that he would need a lot of practice to perfect his aim. The well-remembered stench of cordite smoke drifting back from his shuddering, clattering machine-gun filled him with elation and excitement. It gave him an unparalleled feeling of destructive power and invincibility to launch himself from 1,000 feet towards the ground target, to judge his angle of approach accurately, to empty a drum of forty-seven rounds into the fluttering square of white canvas and the mocking roundel in its centre, then to pull up steeply and zoom away, reload while he held the control stick steady between his knees, then dive again and again.
By the time he made his first dawn patrol he was brimming over with impatience, more eager than he had ever been in his life to try himself out.
It was, in a way, unfortunate that his maiden encounter with the enemy was over so quickly and with such a devastatingly favourable result.
Four
When Boyd climbed out of his cockpit he was surprised and ashamed to find himself trembling. He had thought himself battle-hardened although he well remembered his reaction to the first time he had led a night-time raid against the enemy trenches. He had shaken then like a leaf in a gale, when it was all over. It had been the same after his first patrol in no-man’s-land during the dark hours, and again when he had led his platoon in their first ‘over-the-top’ bayonet charge. On each occasion he had felt acute fear in anticipation, been cool in the heat of battle, and felt as unsteady as an ague-victim when he had come through safely.
He put a hand against the nacelle to steady himself when his feet touched the ground, and avoided the eyes of the mechanics, who were watching him with pleased expressions on their faces: the powder burns around the muzzle of his Lewis gun told them it had been fired, and in further proof there were smudges on his face from the cordite smoke.
“You all right, sir?” one of them asked.
“Yes, thanks.” He was in control of his voice, but how he wished his limbs would stop shaking. The cold had something to do with it, but the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach had little to do with the cold and much to do with reflection on how lucky he had been.
Holt was striding towards him, grinning broadly and slapping his gloved hands together to warm them.
Chandler was talking to his mechanics, apparently unconcerned about anything but his machine and his gun, to judge by his occasional gestures and glances.
Boyd went to join his flight commander, beside whom Holt had stopped.
“Boy! Wasn’t that something?” Holt stamped his feet. “But cold! What’s this Fokker Menace about, huh? God, don’t they burn, though?”
Chandler broke off his conversation and turned to them. “With a petrol tank right behind the pilot, and a basketwork seat, of course they damn well burn like tinder. Don’t underestimate them, though. We were all lucky this morning: they suspected a trap, that’s why the other three held off until it was too late. You put up quite a decent show, both of you; but don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s always as easy as that.”
“I’m glad we’ve been practising gunnery,” said Holt. “The way that lousy mounting vibrates, a guy couldn’t hit the side of a barn at fifty yards without a hell of a lot of practice.”
“I still find it awkward having the gun mounted to the left of the centre line.” Boyd was still feeling cold, but the shivering had stopped and he felt in control of himself. The reaction had passed quickly in the old days, too; after the first time. He realised how hungry he was.
Hannington
and the rest of the flight, with most of the other squadron aircrew, were at breakfast when they went into the mess. What little conversation there was ceased and every face turned expectantly. Boyd felt embarrassed, as he had at school when going up to receive a prize or being clapped when awarded colours. Holt looked as delighted as though he had just received a longed-for gift; and perhaps he had. Chandler was impassive. They sat down in a continuing silence.
A Flight commander said “Well, Henry?”
Chandler ate a couple of spoonfuls of porridge, then admitted: “We ran into six Fokkers.”
“How many were left?”
Chandler looked first at Boyd, then at Holt, raised an eyebrow and asked: “Can you chaps remember?”
The commander of C Flight jeered “Come off it, Henry. I suppose you missed the lot?”
Chandler turned towards Holt. “We didn’t, did we?”
“The way I remember it, there seemed to be three less when we finally decided to come on home.”
“Is that true?” A Flight’s CO asked Boyd.
“I’m afraid so. We had to let the others go: they kept out of the way.”
“My word, Henry,” C Flight commander remarked, “your new chaps catch on quickly. Are you going to tell us about it?”
“Nothing much to tell, really. Three of them sat up top, obviously in case there were more of us, while the others came down and acted pugnaciously. They weren’t too bright: built up too much speed. We turned behind them and that was it.”
“One each?”
“Yes. No damage either, except a bit to Boyd’s wing.”
Later, when Boyd stood watching one of the riggers repairing the damage to the aircraft he had flown, with as much proprietorial pride as interest in the process, although this was not his personal machine, Hannington strolled over to his side.
“What did it feel like, Nick?”
Boyd was surprised on two counts: first, that Hannington should ask; second, that he had used his first name, which he had never done before.
“You know what it’s like to have bullet flying around, Anthony.”
“Yes, with my backside firmly in a saddle or my feet on the ground; not several thousand feet up in thin air.”
“Oddly enough, it was less unpleasant in a way: one has the feeling that there’s an awful lot of space to manoeuvre in.”
“H’m. And what happened exactly: did you hold formation?”
“We broke up at once: Chandler went for the Hun leader and Elliot and I each took our opposite number; it was like playing in the three-quarter line ...”
“I’m sure; but what exactly did you do?”
“Well, to start with, I was watching Chandler: he made the most amazing sharp turn and got on his Hun’s tail before you could say ‘knife’. Then mine came rather close, firing, so I tried to do the same, and luckily for me he dived right past.”
“It seems to me that gunnery practice isn’t enough: we ought to go up and practice attacking one another. You’ve told me what happened, and so has Elliot, but I still don’t know how it happened. How did you know the right moment for turning?”
“I honestly can’t say. I just tried to do what the CO had done. Anyway, you’re much more experienced in the air than I am: you won’t have any trouble judging when to turn.” Boyd grinned: “I’m sure it’s the same as taking a jump out hunting.”
“That’s certainly more my mark than rugger; but, between you and me, I usually let my mount take those decisions! I don’t think I can quite leave it all to my aeroplane.”
“Well, if you want to practise attacks, I’m game, and I’m sure Elliot will be.”
“What worries me is that it’s not an officially laid down part of our normal programme.”
“You’re ahead of your time, Anthony: you can’t expect staff wallahs to think intelligently, can you?”
“No, but I do expect Henry Chandler to.”
“He’s been very stern about our formation flying and gunnery.”
“I appreciate that, but I still think we ought to practise manoeuvres.”
“I suppose no one has thought of it because none of the most successful pilots ever practised: they just did it instinctively and by trial and error.”
“That was all right in ’fourteen and ’fifteen, old boy, but this is 1916, and we are fighting a different sort of war in the air now. If Trenchard says we’ve got to protect the reconnaissance machines, and if we’re getting more single-seaters, we must learn how to fight the Hun single- and two-seaters without an observer to do our shooting for us.”
“If you go on like this, Anthony, you’re going to develop into a kind of aerial Julius Caesar.”
“Someone will have to: I don’t want the Hun dividing me, like all Gaul, into three parts.”
“Don’t be so damned gruesome.” Nevertheless, Boyd was impressed by what Hannington had said. The men with famous names, on both sides, had quickly become renowned for their marksmanship rather than for any particular skill in throwing machines about the sky. Aircraft had been highly unreliable and frail during the first eighteen months of the war, and this liability to engine failure or airframe disintegration had inhibited both Allied and German pilots in their manoeuvring. Men like Major Lanoe Hawker and Lieutenant Louis Strange had made their names by the way they used their guns. Hawker had a 300 calibre deer-stalking rifle held in a clamp to steady it and aimed at between thirty and forty-five degrees to starboard. He could shoot an enemy pilot or observer through the head at a hundred yards. Strange had the first airborne Lewis gun fitted to the upper wing of his Martinsyde and could hit the enemy with it at the same range. Among the Germans, Boelcke and von Richthofen were deadly with machine-guns firing through the propeller disc. Everyone remarked on these men’s uncanny ability with a weapon, not on their flying ability. Things must change now, however.
Major Dunnett was an aloof figure. He had his breakfast alone in his tent, was uncommunicative at lunch, morose at dinner if present at all, and spent his evenings either visiting other field officers in units within a ten-mile radius, listening to operatic music on his gramophone in the solitude of his quarters, or in the arms of a bibulous and nymphomaniac widow who owned a nearby inn. It was unlikely that any initiative in meeting the new demands of air warfare would come from him.
Chandler was the senior flight commander and had shown great good sense, under his toughly disparaging manner, in preparing his replacement pilots and observers for their work. But he had, Boyd thought, probably been too long at the game to be able to take an objective view of future needs.
The other two flight commanders were brave but unimaginative and even the irreverent attitude for authority that already distinguished the RFC was not enough to lead them into exploring too far. They were responsible for other men’s lives, and for that reason would take any risk themselves but avoid endangering others. And aerobatics, or stunts as they were still called, were inherently dangerous as long as no one really knew how to cope with a stall or spin; if the wings did not fall off anyway.
Many innovations might have been attempted if there were a safe way of abandoning an aeroplane: but the generals, none of whom flew himself, had instantly thrown out the repeated suggestions that parachutes should be worn. Their objection was that pilots and navigators may be tempted to jump out in moments of danger instead of staying and fighting.
When Boyd tackled Holt about Hannington’s suggestion, the American gave him a droll look and said: “You know something? Even without a guy like Dunnett heading up this outfit, we would scarcely be better off. You know what Chandler told me? Nearly all the Staff officers who control the RFC don’t belong to the Corps. They know nothing about flying and have no real interest in it. On the theory that the less sympathy they have with the aviators’ point of view, the better! Can you beat that? Isn’t it crazy? So, because they don’t know the first thing about our job, they’re supposed to be all the better at commanding us. Ours not to reason why, huh?”
“Don’t quote the next line, Elliot; I don’t want to be reminded that the Staff think we’re just here to ‘do and die’. Yes, I knew about the policy regarding the Staff; but that will have to change, along with a lot of other things.”
“The change I want to see is single-seat tractor machines with a Vickers gun firing through the prop. When we have those, we’ll be able to take on six Huns at once.”
Boyd was used to Holt’s way of expressing himself, but said none the less “I’d keep that opinion to myself if I were you, Elliot. I don’t think any of the others would react too kindly to it.”
Holt smiled wryly. “It’s OK, Nick; I’m getting the hang of things: but I know I can say what I like in front of you.”
“You must feel a long way from home, sometimes.”
“Sure do. We’ll have to get to Paris some time soon and I’ll introduce you to some of the guys in the Escadrille Americaine.”
“Meanwhile,” Chandler’s voice interrupted them, “I wonder if you would mind awf’ly joining us in a little party? Not in Paris, I’m afraid. Just over the Hun lines. If you’d care to come along to my office, I’m about to give a briefing.”
Sarcasm was a new note. They had heard him angry, reproving, encouraging; now this. Boyd wondered how Holt would take it. To his relief, he looked pleased; the prospect of another sortie against the enemy evidently overcame his resentment at any kind of rudeness or condescension. He did not even clench his fists in momentary annoyance. “Anything you say, Cap’n, sir.”
Dusk Patrol Page 5