To Marjorie he never mentioned any aspect of fighting; certainly not anything that could be misconstrued as boasting or seeking sympathy. No mention of meeting the enemy. “We go into one or other of the large towns quite often ... restaurants still astonishingly good ... hoping for at least a couple of days’ leave in Paris before long ... is there any special scent you would like? The men are marvellous, always cheerful and marvellously skilled ... work the clock round to keep our machines in the air ... about their only recreation is footer ... any old patch of more or less level ground ... inter-flight match ... my batman, Higgs, scored two goals ... gave him a slice of Mother’s latest fruit-cake as reward, and he said “Cor, it must be Christmas!” Find myself talking to your photo sometimes, when I’m very lonely ...” And that was as bold as he thought he should get.
Writing to her, one evening when a heavy silence had fallen on the aerodrome, punctuated as usual by the distant rumble of the guns, he asked himself if he was in love. Her letters to him were not even flirtatious, let alone amorous, yet he felt a new emotion creeping over him like an unbidden guest uncertain of his welcome. If love was what he felt for Marjorie, what use were kindness, friendship, even affection, in response? Optimistic, or at least good-humoured, resignation, he thought, was the only attitude to adopt until he could see her again.
His pen moved on.“If you feel like trying your hand at a spot of knitting for the troops, a balaclava would be jolly useful to slip over my helmet and cover my nose and mouth. It is a bore breathing freezing cold air and a scarf round the face is clumsy ... it would be nice to fly with something that has come from your hands ...” It was an invitation to more than a handknitted balaclava and he would wait with more than usual expectancy for her reply.
*
‘Comic Cuts’ they called the Intelligence bulletins; which, being couched in a semi-facetious vein, invited a pejorative title.
Chandler addressed his pilots. “According to the latest Comic Cuts, the Boche is going to be too busy in the Verdun sector to spare much effort in our part of the world.” He looked up with his twisted smile, a shaft of dust-moted sunlight bringing the ridged scars on his face into sharp relief. “So now we know: it’s pure imagination that makes us see so many Fokkers and Rumplers around.”
Boyd put his hand to his cheek and ran his fingertips along the scar which his crash had left. It was still new and therefore conspicuous. Was he going to wind up looking as quilted and as much like a game of noughts and crosses as his flight commander?
Chandler continued: “They’ve tested a captured Rumpler Cl and this is what they have to say about it. Apparently, it has a 160 horsepower Mercedes in-line engine that gives it a maximum speed of ninety-four miles an hour at sea level. They kindly inform us that it has a rear-mounted Parabellum for the observer. As if we hadn’t noticed! What they don’t add is that if the Hun has a reconnaissance aeroplane that’s faster than his single-seater scouts, he’s bally soon going to come out with a much improved single-seater. They’ve added a few of the usual notes on the Rumpler’s handling, but nothing we haven’t already guessed for ourselves from fighting the damn things.”
“Sir, has anybody tried out one of our own single-seaters in mock combat with the captured Rumpler?” Holt asked.
“Yes. But so they did with the Fokker, and the notes they sent out were useless. To start with, they tried out an old Bristol Scout against a captured Fokker: what the hell was the use of that, an aeroplane that came out of the ark? And, of course, they tuned it first by tightening up the rigging so that it flew like a witch and gave quite a good account of itself. But a normally rigged front-line aircraft is a very different proposition.”
Boyd reflected on his flight commander’s perceptive remark about the certain imminent appearance of a German single-seater that would spring a surprise on them by its high performance. From the first he had put himself willingly under his leadership, Chandler’s direct manner, his complete command of his aircraft and his total contempt for the enemy were the attributes of all the inspiring leaders under whom Boyd had served. He was also unexpectedly shrewd under his often exaggerated cavalry manner. If only the squadron had a commanding officer like him, or, better still, Chandler himself, it would make the critical difference in their morale and their respect for authority. Sheer pride maintained their morale, at least in appearance, at an unfaltering level; but there was a lot of heavy drinking and a lot of gaunt faces and trembling hands. Major Dunnett was like an absentee landlord who descended on his domain from time to time to exercise his seigneurial rights. He would take himself off on a lone foray, which everyone welcomed because they all hoped he would not return from it. Or figuratively rape his young pilots by taking a formation of newcomers on a sortie on which his inept leadership and mediocre flying ability put them at a risk which infuriated their flight commanders.
Chandler had something more to tell them, and this he talked about with a genuine smile of pleasure lighting his sharp, challenging pale blue eyes.
“I have actually got a bit of bumf here which, for a change, is not an insult to our intelligence. It’s come from the Air Ministry; whence all blessings flow.” This was greeted by laughter. They all recognised when his sarcasm was prompted by real pleasure and sometimes even what passed for emotion in his ice-cold mind. “Major Gooden, the Chief Test Pilot at Farnborough, and Harry Hawker, Chief Test Pilot at Sopwith’s, have both, and separately, had the guts to discover how to recover from a stall and a spin.
He paused for the quick hum of comment that erupted, and looked with an air of as near to benevolence as one could expect him to get, around the semi-circle of delighted faces.
“All right, I know you’re all bucked. So am I. Now keep quiet and listen to how it’s done, because we’re all going to practise it as soon as we leave this room. It’s really very simple. An aircraft stalls because it loses flying speed and the necessary air flow over its wings. Ergo, shove its nose down and open the throttle: but not ham-fistedly, or you’ll tear the bally wings off. And as a spin is simply a stall with a slight added complication, the remedy is basically the same: make the aircraft do the opposite thing. So, centralise the controls, then put the nose down and give it some more throttle; and, at the same time, put on rudder in the direction opposite to the spin. You will then find yourself in a straight dive instead of a twisting one. Got it? Right, I’m going to test it out first, over the aerodrome so that you can all watch. After I’ve done two stalls and two spins, one to the left and one to the right, and, I hope, recovered from each, the rest of you can do it. After I land I’ll be able to tell you a bit more about it, which you may find useful. Don’t ask me any questions now, because I don’t know any more about it than you do.”
Boyd had never seen such excitement and delight in the faces of his fellow airmen in all the months he had been in the Corps. It was a pardon for men under a suspended sentence of death. At last they would be able to take risks and try out manoeuvres which had hitherto been unjustifiable. To loop the loop was forbidden. Now they would be able to fly off to some unobserved patch of sky and teach themselves to loop with the knowledge that if they fell out of it, which would certainly be the result of a stall, or, having failed, found themselves in the inevitable spin, they could survive. He caught Holt’s eye and Holt winked with all the coarse innuendo of a Cockney errand-boy. Boyd could not quite bring himself to wink back, but he nodded and smiled. One of the sergeant pilots happily described a vertical circle in the air with his hand. Chandler caught him at it and was quick to say: “Don’t advertise, Sergeant Isted.” There was a general good-natured laugh charged with a certain nervous tension, and Sergeant Isted blushed.
It was the first decently warm day of the year, and birds flighted noisily over the treetops in dense flocks, the meadow grass grew richly in front of the hangars, the beet field across which the cinder runway was laid looked like farmland again.
The whole of B Flight, officers and men, assembled. So did ev
eryone else of the other two flights who was available. The B Flight mechanics put on a fearful lot of swank: their CO was about to prove, once again, that he was far and away the best pilot on the squadron.
Major Dunnett, recently awarded a DSO for the exploits of the men under his command, its pristine blue and red ribbon bright under his ill-deserved pilot’s wings, made his own unique contribution to the event. Weaving with marked unsteadiness (“Helluva pilot,” Holt remarked quietly to Boyd, “practises evasive action even on the ground.”) from his office, he came to rest and suddenly flopped on to his shooting-stick, exuding vinous fumes and scowling at anyone who had the misfortune to catch his eye.
Boyd watched Chandler swagger towards his DH2, with an honest admission of relief that it was not he who had to make this display of trust in the Air Ministry’s latest information. As an infanteer he had volunteered more than once for dangerous jobs, but there was a feeling of security about having both feet on the ground; and knowing that there were shell holes and ruined walls where one might find concealment.
Chandler’s ground crew had already warmed the engine and it started at the first swing. A good omen, Boyd hoped. In spite of his belief in Chandler’s skill, what a test pilot could do was not necessarily a criterion of what a pilot of the line could achieve.
The DH rose into the air with its wingtip streamers jauntily fluttering and the beaky nose of its nacelle seeming to sniff the air as though savouring the prospect of freedom to do what it damned well liked: now that its pilot was equipped with the sorcery to break the spell that had bound airmen for so long.
It climbed in wide, beautiful spirals, each impeccably of the same circumference and equally spaced, the sun glinting from its surfaces as it banked and turned, until it was a small cruciform shape at 4,000 feet and many of the watchers had resorted to field-glasses.
It levelled off and began to fly straight across the aerodrome.
“This is it,” Holt muttered.
Silence fell over the small crowd of totally absorbed men, their heads tilted back, their breathing audible.
The mutter of the DH2’s engine reached them faintly.
The aircraft slanted upwards, crossing their front from left to right. Its climb steepened. Boyd had a sick feeling in his stomach and so probably did every other pilot there. The nose lifted more sharply.
For a moment the DH hung seemingly motionless, then it dropped, even at that distance looking lifeless and helpless, no longer the confident machine that took to the air with insolent ease, but an inert, uncontrolled mass. The tail swept up and down went the nose.
Boyd had begun counting instinctively as soon as the aircraft entered the stall. Four seconds passed. The nose went down more steeply and the DH gathered speed. The roar of the engine when Chandler opened the throttle reached the ground and a sigh went up. Chandler levelled off, rocked his wings in triumph, and turned steeply through 180 degrees to repeat the performance. The second time, the watchers’ anxiety was almost as great: but the pilot, in a demonstration of confidence, had not bothered to regain altitude and they heard the reassuring burst from his engine even more loudly.
Back up to 4,000 feet went Chandler and tension mounted. Two successful recoveries from a stall were encouraging but a mad gyration at fifty miles an hour was an evolution that must interfere with the whole function of a man’s senses. And as it fell the aeroplane would gather speed, so that it would be whirling round at sixty ... seventy miles an hour ... maybe more. And could the fine fellows at Farnborough and Sopwith’s who had set them all on this crazy course positively guarantee that the wings would not be torn off or the fuselage crumple while the disoriented pilot struggled to co-ordinate his mind and actions?
Precisely over the centre of the aerodrome, the DH2’s engine note died. Boyd felt his heartbeat quicken. The steep climb ended in a sudden flick to port combined with a sharp tilt groundward. Several people could not restrain a gasp or a murmur.
Boyd counted the number of times the DH twirled downwards. One ... two ... three ... four ... Something was happening ... the descent became almost perpendicular, the bellow of the engine followed ... and Chandler was flying in a straight line, in a diagonal that gradually levelled out parallel with the ground.
The cheer that broke spontaneously from the watching crowd could not have been louder if peace had suddenly been declared.
Boyd was uplifted enough to say to Holt, “Now I know what Columbus must have felt like when he first sighted America.”
Holt looked astonished at this untypical hyperbole. “Yeah, I know what you mean: just think of all the new manoeuvres we can do ... Hell, I can’t wait to get up there and try it ... and a few loops.”
Chandler was corkscrewing up again to make 4,000 feet once more for his second spin, all eyes upon him as though the watchers were reluctant to believe that they had actually seen him spin already, eager for confirmation that it had not been an illusion.
Chandler was nearing the summit of his climb when Holt uttered a startled exclamation. “My God! Nick. Look over there.”
Boyd turned his binoculars in the direction in which Holt was pointing. He saw the characteristic white puffs of bursting British anti-aircraft shells, first. A second or two later, he picked out an aeroplane approaching from the east 1,000 feet below the DH2. There was no mistaking the typical bevelled shape of the wingtips: it was German. Or the dart-shaped tail planes, the elevators inward-slanted and deeply notched at the junction of the fin: a Rumpler C1.
And that was not all. At 6,000 feet or so rode five Fokker E3 monoplanes in V-formation.
Holt was not alone in spotting the approaching enemy. There were several warning shouts. Enough to cause Major Dunnett almost to fall off his shooting-stick. He jumped erect and bellowed a series of orders which sent someone bolting off to fetch an Aldis lamp and someone else to bring a Verey pistol.
Boyd watched the five escorting Fokkers begin to dive in protection of the Rumpler which was manifestly there to photograph the aerodrome.
One of the observers had the Aldis lamp focused on the DH2 and was flashing a warning to Chandler. Another officer fired a white Verey cartridge followed by a red. But there was no sign of awareness from the DH2.
They all watched the Fokkers tearing down the sky to attack the oblivious Chandler. They saw him prepare for his spin exactly as before, and his aeroplane flick and twist violently to starboard and start its breath-taking corkscrewing fall to earth.
“I’ll bet that startled the Boches,” exclaimed Holt. But he remembered to count. And as he counted, panic started to rise: “one spin ... two ... three ... four ... five ... six ...” He was holding his breath without realising it.
Chandler came out of the spin. As he did so, he must have seen the Rumpler. In any event, it made him aware of its existence by a burst of tracer from its heavy Parabellum LMG 08/15 machine-gun; the dreaded weapon the British had named the Spandau, after its place of manufacture.
“By Gad, he’s a sitting duck,” Boyd muttered.
Immediately, the DH reared up as though it had been hit, swung violently to the right and dipped earthward, spun one and a half times and came out of the spin just above the Rumpler and facing it; also ahead, safely out of the Spandau’s arc of fire.
“Brilliant ... deliberate spin,” said Holt aloud.
Tracer from Chandler’s gun poured into the Rumpler’s engine and it instantly started to come down in a controlled glide.
The five Fokkers, obviously astonished and baffled by Chandler’s recovery from his second long spin, during which they had followed him down, and even more so by his last short one, were some thousand feet above him.
Boyd saw them dive as Chandler turned to face them. He saw Chandler suddenly put his own aeroplane into a dive and wondered at his rashness: the Fokkers would catch him within a few hundred feet. But Chandler’s short steep plunge did not end by reason of a hail of fire from the Fokkers’ guns. It ended when he judged he had built up enough
speed to pull up into a loop.
Boyd burst into uncontrollable laughter at thought of the Germans’ looks of astonishment as their intended victim soared out of their way. Chandler zoomed up and over in a tight, faultless loop that brought him out dead behind the leader and slightly above. A brief touch on the trigger of his Lewis sent the enemy spinning down, presumably hit in the head or between the shoulder blades. The Fokkers next in line on both sides turned inwards, but before they had loosed off more than five or six rounds Chandler was looping again.
This time they did not wait for him to complete his manoeuvre: they wheeled sharply around and headed eastward, climbing as they went.
The leading Fokker hurtled past the downward-spiralling Rumpler and exploded on the ground on the far side of the aerodrome.
The Rumpler continued its descent with its engine dead and emitting a skein of smoke, the propeller slowly windmilling. By the time it landed, a few hundred yards beyond the aerodrome perimeter, a Crossley tender was already halfway there to capture its crew.
Major Dunnett had been too enthralled to resume his seat. Indeed he waved his shooting-stick as his squadron cheered for the second time that morning when Chandler’s bullets hit the Rumpler and yet a third time when the Fokker came tumbling to destruction.
The lorry came back with the squadron Adjutant and two dejected German officers.
Major Dunnett, who was awaiting them outside the farm with his officers behind him and the troops ranged, agog, on either side, watched the prisoners approach with a stern look on his heavy-jowled, florid face.
The pilot and observer, both wearing black leather coats that reached almost to the knee, and long boots that came right up over the thighs, brought their heels together and their hands up to their flying helmets in salute. The major casually returned the compliment.
Dusk Patrol Page 10