by Peter Albano
After studying blueprints of the new engine and carefully examining the airframe, Randolph drew on his early experience in design with Tommy Sopwith and Geoffrey de Havilland, made his sketches, mulled over his calculations, and then gave his orders. Under the direction of chief mechanic William Cochran, who shouted an uninterrupted stream of epithets for sixteen straight hours without repetition, engines were pulled from the fourteen scout planes and, working night and day with pilots alongside mechanics, new, special high-compression pistons were installed, heads ground down, valves and cams ground and polished to jewellike luster, and the horsepower raised to two hundred. Randolph was not satisfied. He had the windscreens removed and replaced with smaller screens and the pilot’s seat lowered six inches. The upper wing tanks were removed and the dihedral angle of the wings was increased by screwing up the tension on the rigging wires, adding another two or three miles an hour.
Randolph disliked the wing-mounted Lewis gun perched high above the propeller tip on its Foster mount. Fed by a ninety-seven-round drum, it could deliver two pounds of fire in an eight-second burst and then had to be reloaded. The pilot was forced to put the stick between his legs, pull the gun down on its track, reach up, release the empty drum, and replace it. In a hot dogfight, reloading could be fatal. In addition, the high mounting above the propeller tip was another wind drag. The guns were removed and a recessed Vickers was mounted in front of the pilot. Bolted to the engine housing, the machine gun was synchronized with the new Constantinesco gear. Hydraulically driven, it had nearly double the rate of fire of the old Vickers-Challenger gear, eliminated much maintenance, and easily adapted to the Hispano-Suiza.
Within two days, the modifications were completed, adding another fifteen miles an hour to the top speed and raising the aircraft’s ceiling to 22,000 feet. Now they had a fighter, a true fighter, and Randolph ordered the squadron’s old Nieuports turned over to the newly formed Number 112 Squadron.
Randolph accepted his second cup of coffee spiked with rum from his batman, Sergeant Major Johnathan York, who handed it to him with his usual raspy, “Your coffee, Major.”
Randolph sipped the hot liquid, savoring the heat of the coffee and the strong flavor of the dram of rum. His eyes ran over the reports on his desk. It had been a bad winter for the RFC. As it has for centuries, rain and mud had mired the European enemies on the ground and the slaughter had abated, the two armies recoiling from each other like two stags who had locked horns, bloodying each other without either emerging Victorious. Licking their wounds, they had pulled back into their lairs to wait for spring and to prepare for more carnage.
Nevertheless, there had been no respite in the air. General Hugh Montague “Boom” Trenchard’s latest bulletin in boldfaced type stared up at Higgins mockingly. He gulped down the coffee as his eyes found the most galling passage: “The sky is too large to defend. Carry the war into enemy territory and keep it there. Squadron commanders must keep in mind the airplane is not designed for defense and relentless and incessant offensive pressure must be put on the enemy.”
“You bloody killer. You’re nothing but a flying Haig,” Randolph said to himself. He emptied his cup and York refilled it with straight coffee.
The squadron commander picked up the latest report on losses. The taste of sour rum and coffee rose in his throat. British D.H.2s, R.E.8s, and B.E.2s had been easy meat for the new Albatross fighters. Only the Sopwith Pup and the new S.E.5 could stand up to the Albatross scourge and they were too few in number. And Trenchard’s insistence on aggressive, offensive spirit with British scouts and observation planes still penetrating far behind the enemy lines even in the most miserable weather had led to frightening slaughter. In late December seven R.E.8s were attacked by Bruno Hollweg and his Jasta 2 and every one of the British machines was shot out of the air without loss to the Germans. Then in early January, Richthofen’s new Jasta 11 shot five Sopwith one-and-one-half strutters out of the sky still without loss. A week later a flight of eight F.E.2bs vanished without a trace. In the months of November and December the RFC had lost 211 machines to thirty-nine for the Germans. It was all in front of Randolph in cold, heartless statistics, yet Trenchard commanded and harangued and bragged.
Richthofen was emerging as one of Germany’s leading aces. With twenty-four kills, including one of Britain’s finest flyers, Major Lance Hawker, commander of Number Twenty-four Squadron and holder of the Victoria Cross, the baron’s blood-red Albatross had become a scourge and the French assigned the sobriquet Diable Rouge, the Red Devil, to it. But Richthofen was still second to Hollweg, who was the greatest killer, boasting an incredible fifty kills.
Number Five Squadron had been lucky. The heavy action had moved to the sectors to the north, toward Arras and Vimy Ridge. This was where Jasta 2—the Germans now called it Jasta Boelcke—and Richthofen’s new Jasta 11 were operating. It also meant Randolph had little chance of meeting Hollweg. He sipped his coffee again and he felt hate boil. Night after night he had lain awake, his mind’s eye seeing Reed standing helplessly in his cockpit, beating at the flames as Hollweg murdered him.
Higgins had a small measure of revenge when he killed Hollweg’s wingman and rumored best friend, the ace Max Mueller. Mueller, too, was helpless when he died, engine shot dead by Randolph’s full deflection shot from an incredible four hundred yards. Randolph smiled, remembering how casually he had come within twenty feet of the Hun before squeezing the tit. Mueller had turned to the Englishman just as eight rounds hit him in the face, shattering his skull, blowing off his goggles and helmet, and filling the slipstream with gore. Randolph had laughed and pounded the coaming with delight. Mueller had been his twenty-first. Now his score had reached thirty.
There were rumors the great defensive line, which the Germans called Siegfried and the allies Hindenburg, was almost ready. A system of interconnecting dugouts and concrete blockhouses, it was considered impregnable by Ludendorff and its creator, Hindenburg. Already, there were reports that German divisions were beginning to pull back into the line out of the Somme salient. “They’ll pull back,” his new adjutant, Captain Hartley Carter, had said. “Pull back and let Nivelle and Haig waste our chaps on their bloody line until they deal with the Russians. Then they’ll bring their whole bloody army to the Western Front. Then we’ll catch it.”
Randolph looked across the room past a small table where squadron clerk Corporal Harvey Longacre was drawing up lists of the day’s patrols on his typing machine, to Hartley Carter, who sat at a desk next to the room’s rock fireplace where a fire roared. With a full head of gray hair and bushy sideburns and drooping mustaches, the man had a formidable leonine mien to him and appeared much older than his forty-five years. In fact, when the burly captain walked he had the look of a stalking lion—especially when angered by the stupidity of a new pilot. A graduate of Harrow and Sandhurst Military Academy, Carter had fought in India and in the Boer War. Shot through the hip while defending an armored train outside of Natal, he was imprisoned at Pretoria, where his wound festered and poor treatment left him with a slight limp, which he disguised by hunching and stalking. Like Sergeant Major York, duty with a front-line regiment was out of the question for Captain Carter.
The new adjutant had been an enormous help to Randolph, relieving the squadron commander of the innumerable administrative duties that interfered with his function as squadron leader and, as Carter had put it so succinctly, “chief Boche killer.” But no one could relieve the major of the letters—the unending stream of letters to next of kin.
Tossing off the last of his coffee and rum, Randolph nodded at Carter, rose, took the lists from Longacre, picked up his helmet and goggles from a nearby table, and walked to the door. Carter opened it for him and the cold hit Randolph like a frozen fist, and he was suddenly happy he was wearing his flight clothes. To the north there was the usual pulsating salmon and rose glow of the front, and the rumble and bark of the morning “hate barrage” could
be heard like thunder. This morning heavier pieces had added their roll and drumming rumble to the bark and snap of the seventy-sevens and eighteen-pounders. “Heavy weights exercising before breakfast,” Carter said in his usual sardonic tone. “Nine-point-twos and ‘Jack Johnsons.’ Chap can’t get a decent night’s sleep these days, sir.”
Despite his somber mood, Randolph chuckled at Hartley’s use of “Jack Johnson,” Tommy argot for German heavy artillery and its terrific punch—like the American heavyweight boxer. Higgins quipped back, “Bloody inconsiderate, old boy. Morning hate barrages should be fired at noon.”
“Right, sir,” the adjutant said with a straight face, opening the door to the mess hall and standing aside.
As Randolph entered the smoke-filled room, the pilots came to their feet. “Be seated, gentlemen,” he said, gesturing and walking to a small table that served as a podium. Hartley Carter took his station next to a blackboard behind the squadron leader. As usual, Randolph felt a mixture of confidence and dread when he looked at the faces of his men. The athletic nineteen-year-old Jarret Barton stared up at him, the blue of his eyes hardened by scores of patrols and six kills. Puffing on the foul Egyptian tobacco of an Abdullah, the baby-faced, cold-eyed Canadian Leefe Hendon, with thirteen kills and wearing new captain’s patches, lounged back in his chair. The amiable, reliable Scotsman Angus McDonald sipped his Scotch whiskey flavored with a dash of coffee and yawned grandly. McDonald was second to Randolph with nineteen kills and had also been promoted to captain. Lieutenant Gaskell, with three kills, fidgeted nervously as he smoked, while flight Lieutenants Cowdry and Anderson, both with two kills, sat side by side, toying with their cups and staring at Randolph with eyes that appeared more tired and bloodshot each morning.
Randolph felt his guts wrench as he thought of the missing faces: Lieutenant Anthony Smith, who had been Hollweg’s forty-seventh kill over Contalmaison, flight Lieutenant Freddie Morris, smashed to strawberry jelly when his wings were shot off at twelve thousand feet; Flight Lieutenant Irwin Jillings, shot through the lungs but still able to land back of friendly lines. Now young Jillings was back in blighty trying to survive on one lung.
And the ever eager, expectant new faces were there: Flight Lieutenants Hollingsworth, Dunlap, Hemmings, and Baldwin. None had more than twelve hours at the controls of an S.E.5 when he reported and not one had reached his nineteenth birthday. Fortunately, the sector had been quiet and the new men had survived almost three weeks of flying, building their hours in the cockpit and their chances for survival. There’s hope, Randolph thought. If I can just keep them alive for another three weeks.
In desperate efforts to protect his new men, Randolph had experimented with a variety of formations. He had tried line abreast, but it forced constant surveillance of the flight leader by all eyes, leaving the end men to be picked off like ripe plums by any experienced attacker. Line astern was just as taxing, each trailing pilot forced to keep his eyes on the machine ahead, neglecting the usual life-preserving search all around. The end man was cold meat in this formation. The full squadron inverted V, preferred by the Germans, had the same weaknesses, the end men being vulnerable. Pairs worked well if both pilots were experienced, or in the event two pairs flew one above the other. But too many of his best men had been lost trying to protect clumsy wingmen. He still preferred pairs when flying with one of his better flyers.
Now he was experimenting with the three. The three simply put an inexperienced man at the leading point of an inverted V while two experienced men trailed off his elevators. This formation put experienced eyes behind the novices where none of them ever seemed to see anything, anyway, and required only that the new chum keep his eyes on the patrol leader and ahead. However, in an attack, the most inexperienced pilot led and the three depended on his gun more than any other for its kill. Most new pilots were terrible shots. Consequently, after an initial attack and first pass, the three was allowed to break up and it was every man for himself. It tore the major’s heart to see his fledglings on their own, but his experienced pilots were too valuable and he had sacrificed too many in fruitless attempts to protect the new men.
“This morning,” he began, eyes moving over the faces, “we will make a full squadron patrol between Mametz and Gommecourt.” There were raised eyebrows. “Yes,” he explained. “Division has moved our patrol north and they want us up in full strength to support Number Twenty-four Squadron. Number Twenty-four Squadron not only lost Hawker, but Diable Rouge and his Jasta Eleven have inflicted heavy losses on them. They can only put up five D.H. twos.” Everyone seemed to suck in on cigarettes and drink at the same time.
McDonald spoke up. “Sure an’ we’ll show Fritzie with our new machines, we will, laddies.”
There were shouts of “Hear! Hear!”
Nodding, Randolph turned to Hartley Carter, who was busy scribbling the information on the board. Carter handed Randolph another document. “The Hun is up to some new tricks. French intelligence reports the German flying service is organizing huge hunting groups—they call them Jagdgeschwaders. A Jagdgeschwader will be made up of four Jagdstraffels—forty-eight planes. Already, there are reports the first will be under Manfred von Richthofen.” He looked around at the solemn faces. “Hunter groups. The sky could rain Albatrosses. Numerical superiority at the time and place of their choosing.”
Leefe Hendon waved a hand. “And with our esteemed Trenchard sending our observation planes deep behind their lines, it’ll be more easy kills.”
Randolph knew he should squelch the Canadian, but the man’s sentiments too closely reflected his own and even the new men knew the truth of the words. He continued. “The new Albatross D.3 has appeared to the north. It has a one-hundred-sixty-horsepower Mercedes, can do at least one hundred twenty, service ceiling is estimated at nineteen thousand. Of course, it’s durable and can outdive the S.E.5. But we can fly higher and outmaneuver it. We’ll take our patrol to twenty-one thousand feet.” There were shouts of approval.
He stared around at the eleven flyers and the intent eyes focused on his face. Despite the enthusiasm he found, he was gripped by an awful emptiness. The effects of the rum were beginning to wear off and the frightful depression that had haunted him since David A. Reed’s death began to return. The thought of losing another pilot was unbearable. Death was part of war—part of life. But young death was so unnatural. And he was a purveyor of death and the writer of crushing letters home. Again, he felt a hunger to be alone. To hunt for Hollweg in his new fighter and think of nothing else. But the young faces looked to him for leadership. For life. They were his cross and he had nailed himself to it. He yearned for another drink.
His tongue became thick and he was afraid to talk—afraid he would look foolish stumbling over words. After several deep breaths he tried to continue but was unable to form the words. A heavy silence fell on the room like a wet blanket and he noticed curious, concerned looks; especially on the faces of Barton, Hendon, and McDonald.
Captain Hartley Carter saved him. “Here it is, Major,” the adjutant said, casually handing him flight orders. “Four threes flying in a diamond with your three leading and your aircraft the point.”
“Why, quite right,” Randolph said, suddenly regaining composure. “The trailing three of the diamond will fly five hundred feet higher than the other elements.” Feeling suddenly fatigued, he placed both hands on the table and put his weight on his arms. “Division is sending two B.E. Two artillery spotters over the German lines all the way to Bapaume. They’ll be escorted by Number Twenty-four Squadron. But I already told you Number Twenty-four can only put up five D.H. twos and all of you know the D.H. two can’t fly above sixteen thousand feet and is cold meat for the Albatross.”
“Sir,” the adjutant said gently, “the other threes.”
Randolph felt his face flush. He spoke sarcastically. “Thank you, Captain. I am quite capable of conducting this meeting.” Carter returned to the board
while Randolph read off the assignments. Then he concluded, “Check your aircraft carefully, and if you want to survive this lot, check your oxygen bottles. There won’t be much up there and you know it. And keep your eyes open for Rumplers and L.V.G.s. They’ve been crossing the lines at seventeen thousand feet.” Then a quick review of Very pistol and hand signals and the caution to watch for wing waggling, which would indicate the sighting of unknown aircraft and the pilots were dismissed. Quietly they filed through the door and walked toward the flight line.
Followed by chief mechanic Cochran, Randolph inspected the S.E.5. Slowly, he walked around the fighter giving it his usual thorough inspection despite his strange weakness. Just the appearance of the fighter raised his morale: the long nose over the huge engine gave the impression of great power; the large control surfaces, which gave the fighter its agility and control; the raked wings and deep dihedral, which helped give the plane its speed and maneuverability; and the single synchronized Vickers, which made the beauty a killer. He grunted his approval and moved slowly to the front of the aircraft. Stroking the beautifully laminated wood of the propeller, he looked up in surprise. An orange spinner was attached to the propeller hub.