“One captain, another lieutenant, three seconds and a cornet of cavalry. No regiments worth noticing!”
“What does that mean, Charlie?”
“One forgets your absolute ignorance of all that is important in life, dear boy! There are ‘good’ regiments and then again, there are many very ordinary ones. Of course, there’s the Guards as well, but they don’t really count as part of the Army. Chocolate box soldiers! Their function in life is to look pretty and bugger the younger sons of Royalty!”
“Do what?”
“Ask yourself which of Victoria’s sons spent most of his existence in France, and why, dear boy!”
“Oh! Well I never!”
“And I should hope not, too! Let us make ourselves known, in decorous fashion, Tommy. Follow my lead. You will note that they have glasses of beer on their tables – neither wine nor spirits of an afternoon must be the rule here. Always fit in with the locals!”
Charlie glanced across at the Mess waiter who instantly produced two bottles of India Pale Ale and poured them expertly so that they did not froth over the rim of the glasses.
“Lieutenant Petersham, and this is Lieutenant Stark.”
The waiter retired and Charlie took a drink,
“Very good! Local brewery, one must imagine.”
“Wadworth’s of Devizes – one of the better of the big breweries, Charlie.”
“Very good for a light beer, Tommy! Now then, you saw that I introduced us to the Mess Waiter, who must know your name in order to mark your bill. He will not need to be told twice, and the Sergeant in the cellar will not be told at all – he will glance at the tab and then place your face to the name. All highly efficient. Easy in a mess as small as ours. Must make ourselves known; the captain first, of course.”
An hour and they had introduced themselves to the six, envied as the pair with the private motor cars. The others had come by train and had spent an hour in the Crossley tender, which had solid rubber tyres and bounced brutally across the tracks of Salisbury Plain.
“We are going into Salisbury in the morning. Room in the Lanchester and my Peugeot for all six of you if you want to come.”
The excursion was arranged and the Lanchester was no longer a source of envy and resentment; it was a convenience for all. The story of how it had come into Tommy’s possession spread very quickly and created a feeling of sympathy as well.
They ate an uninteresting dinner - brown soup, Beef Wellington, suety pudding and unremarkable cheese - talked long and drank fairly little and retired to bed, draping greatcoats and flying coats on top of the inadequate blankets.
Breakfast was a silent meal, as was tradition in most messes; conversation was not encouraged in the mornings.
“Nine o’clock in the cars?”
There was a grunt of agreement.
They changed into civilian clothing, it being uncommon for the officer to appear in uniform in town in peacetime, and then made their way to the cars, Tommy and Charlie first in order to start the motors and allow them ten minutes to warm up before actually driving off.
“Decent enough bunch of chaps, Charlie.”
“Mostly, Tommy. Keep an eye on that little fellow from the Buffs, Tommy. What was his name now, Alexander? Nasty piece of work, I much suspect. One of those who must be the best, the leading light. He found out that you had more hours than the rest of us put together and looked more than a little displeased. He will be one to niggle, I think.”
“How?”
“Probably try to outfly you. If you do a roll, then he will do two – that sort of thing.”
Tommy was unconcerned; if that was the case, then they would soon be putting him to bed with a shovel. There were not many pilots better than him, and they all had the sense not to indulge in silly competitions with each other. If Alexander wished to make a great display, and no doubt disparage others who did not, that was his affair, and his funeral, quite probably.
Tommy took an hour to get to Salisbury, driving carefully on the tracks over the chalk, slippery from frost and days of rain and sleet. He ignored comments from the back seat, laughing to himself as it was suggested that pilots really should make a better showing.
“Showing whom, Alexander? I see three sheep and a curlew, and they ain’t interested in us!”
Captain Holmes, who clearly had taken a dislike to the Second Lieutenant, and seemed to take pleasure in putting him down. He expanded his remark, commenting that necessary risks must always be taken, but the other sort should be avoided.
They separated once in town and went in search of blankets, Charlie at Tommy’s side.
“The man from the shop must carry them to the car, Tommy! Officers may never carry parcels or baggage!”
“But the old chap’s eighty if he’s a day!”
“Then give him a bigger tip, or point out a good undertaker – but do not carry yourself.”
They looked about the old streets and spent an idle hour before spotting a gunsmith.
“Builds his own, by the looks of things, Tommy. Very pretty pair of shotguns there in the window. Take a look inside – never know, might get a bit of shooting in.”
There was a rack of sporting rifles that caught Tommy’s eye. They were mostly small calibre, essentially for farmers to clear vermin, crows and ravens who preyed upon the lambs, but there was a pair of much larger weapons at the end.
“Big-game rifles, Tommy. Must be a few sportsmen about who go out to Africa, or officers on posting to India. Heavy calibre! Must be a fifty-five, the double-barrel at the end!”
The gentleman at the counter corrected him.
“Sixty-two in fact, sir. Made to specification for a gentleman unfortunately now deceased. One is given to believe, sir, that he wished to hunt the elephant in South Africa. Regrettably, sir, he had some sort of falling-out with his good lady, who shot him six times with a pedestrian three-oh-three. He was an Army officer, one must explain.”
It had evidently been a great scandal, known to the whole county, or the gunsmith would not have mentioned it to strangers.
“I presume that it is now little more than a conversation piece, sir. There could be few customers for so great a piece.”
“None indeed, sir. It sits there, and a box of one hundred hand-made brass cartridges on the shelf behind, and I suspect it may remain forever. It does provide a topic of conversation, however.”
Classes started and Tommy found the initial theory hard work; he knew that heavier-than-air aeroplanes did fly, and he had a strong suspicion that it was something to do with the airflow over the wings – more than that was surely a question for engineers to discuss. He had no education in scientific theory and smiled kindly and memorised by rote the knowledge that would take him through the examination; he left those lessons with an amount of learning, but no understanding at all.
Map-reading was easier – it made sense and was clearly necessary to the military pilot, and he already had a basic grounding in the practical use of charts. He passed that exam at the top of the class.
Discussions of aerial warfare, necessarily theoretical, fascinated and horrified him to an equal degree. The thought of one flier trying to kill another was essentially abhorrent. He made no comment, however, disguised his feelings well, for he was in the Army, he was a soldier, and a soldier’s job was to kill the enemies of the King.
There was a general agreement that if engines were made more powerful, and aeroplanes were designed for greater agility, and if machine-guns became lighter, and if some means could be discovered of aiming them, then fighting in the air would become practical.
“What about a rifle, sir, mounted on a wing and firing at an angle so as to miss the propeller? It will be far lighter than a machine-gun. It might be possible to turn and bank one’s machine so as to shoot at an enemy, provided one was a competent shot, and close.”
Alexander was applauded for his suggestion; it might be practical.
Tommy thought about it.
A three-oh-three was a small round and lacked stopping power; it would kill a man most efficiently, but if it hit the engine, say, then like as not the round would simply bounce off. If it hit the wing or fuselage, then it would probably do no damage at all – a simple hole through the fabric would be all.
“A shotgun would make a bigger hole, Charlie. What’s the range of a twelve-bore?”
“Thirty yards, typically. Load with buckshot and you might do some good, but you will need be very close!”
“And very quick. Two of you at sixty or seventy miles an hour will be gone in a second.”
“Bad arithmetic, dear boy. Sixty miles an hour is a mile a minute, which is about eighty-five feet in a second, which is twenty-eight yards, or thereabouts. Passing each other head-on and you have just half a second to make your shot.”
Tommy could see that was impossible; the only solution was to come up from behind the enemy, to sit on his tail and to aim at his back…
“Forget it, Charlie! That’s no way to make war! We shall be reconnaissance machines and nothing else!”
Charlie could not understand why Tommy was so vehement, but he dropped the topic obediently.
They worked through Christmas, taking the day itself as leisure but flying for the rest of the holiday, the weather favourable and the opportunity not to be missed.
Unsurprisingly, Tommy was easily the best pilot and spent extra hours sat in the cockpit of the two seaters, giving advice, at the request of almost all of the course. Alexander did not need help.
“Lightness, Charlie! Tickle the stick and ease the pedals! Don’t try to throw the machine about – persuade it that it wants to go the same way as you. If there’s an emergency, then you can really push and tug and hammer the throttle open; and when you get it down, you pass it straight across to the mechanic and the rigger and refuse to take it up again until they have checked and reset everything. Some of the newest aeroplanes are more robust, but even they will perform better with a smooth hand. Do everything at half of the pace that seems necessary – unless you are staring at the ground as it comes towards you fast.”
“What do you do if you lose control, Tommy?”
“Centralise everything, throttle back and hope. A well-mannered machine will then start to behave itself and you can gently pull it back onto course. One of the bitches will kill you.”
“Not exactly a message of good tidings, Tommy!”
Tommy shrugged.
“Don’t lose control, Charlie. Think before you do anything – if you have time to. I’ve got a feeling, you know, that in wartime a lot of good men will go down because they simply had no time to think first.”
“You don’t stop to think when you are flying. I have watched you simply shifting from one manoeuvre to another, flowing almost.”
“Four years, Charlie, flying whenever possible. I have done most of the thinking already. I know what I am to do next. You don’t yet. You will – you will be good, but you still haven’t got twenty hours in. I topped the thousand this week – that’s why I seem to think less.”
They were standing by the larger hangar, watching as they waited a turn in the BE2s which, they were told, were to be the mainstay of the Corps. They were stable machines, near-perfect platforms for the observer.
“You fly this time, Tommy. I’ll get the maps out.”
“You need the practice in the back seat, Charlie.”
“The wind’s getting up, Tommy, and there’s cloud to the west. Flying ought to be stopped for the day, but Trenchard will hold off for another hour – he keeps pushing, too much to my mind.”
Major Trenchard was a permanent force in the background, demanding more and better; he drove himself and could see little reason why his juniors should not also work every hour of every day. As for cancelling flying merely because it might become dangerous later – they were soldiers and if they wanted to live for ever they should change profession – the Church of England was always short of vicars, for example.
“Strange sort of chap, you know Tommy. They used to call him ‘Camel’ in the regiment, because he was never seen to drink and kept silent most of the time. Did well in South Africa, though. And in Nigeria. Pity he ain’t in Africa now!”
Tommy laughed and watched as Alexander took off, Captain Holmes as observer.
“Do you see what he’s doing wrong, Charlie?”
“Smooth take-off, climbing and banking onto his course. Very smart!”
“And all a little too brisk, Charlie. He could have stayed on the ground until he had built up just another two miles an hour; he could have climbed a fraction less steeply. He really should have delayed turning onto his course until he was at least one hundred feet higher. He still loses a little height when he banks – it’s difficult not to, takes time to learn – so he would be better advised to wait a little longer.”
“Counsels of perfection, dear boy?”
Tommy shook his head.
“Just a habit of staying alive, Charlie. What if there was a speck of dirt in the petrol? You’ve seen these old cans the petrol comes in – rusty on the outside; what if a flake gets in the carburettor?”
“Then the engine coughs, Tommy, and you lose power.”
“That’s right. At five hundred feet, so what? Banking at two hundred feet – splat!”
Captain Becke was standing behind them, overheard their conversation.
“Quite right, Mr Stark! Take any necessary risk, and none that is unnecessary. Remember that, Mr Petersham – you are too good a pilot in the making to lose you to a flamboyant gesture. No point to telling some of your course members that, but you have shown a willingness to learn, sir!”
Tommy caught Becke’s eye, a little surprised by his reassuring enthusiasm; Becke shook his head. Tommy had suspected the same; though he had only encouragement to offer Charlie, he believed he had no intuitive feel for the air.
Their machine was refuelled and ready and they buttoned up their fleece waistcoats and heaved the belt tight on their flying coats, tucking scarves around their necks and pulling their flying helmets low over their foreheads. They would still be cold, Tommy especially because he refused to wear thick gloves that restricted his fingers, but they would not freeze.
Tommy went through the starting procedures and waved to the mechanic who was ready to spin the propeller; then he sat and waited for three minutes while the temperatures rose and the oil pressure stabilised and he became satisfied with the sound of the engine.
“Ready, Charlie?”
There was a rubber tube leading from one cockpit to the other and enabling them just to hear each other.
“Ready!”
Tommy waved to the mechanic at the wheels and opened the throttle, taxying slowly and turning into the wind. He had no brakes on the wheels and gave full throttle as he turned and bounced across the grass. The BE2 wanted to lift at about forty miles an hour and he held the stick forward for a few seconds to gain more speed before slowly pulling back and commencing his climb. At five hundred feet he banked easily to port and turned onto his course, following the shouted instructions from Charlie.
The plan was that they were to fly twenty miles at two thousand feet, almost due west to the edge of the Plain, then turn north to the railway line at Swindon, follow an easterly course in sight of the line then bank again at Hungerford and return to base. There would be instructors on the ground to spot them and note their times at the two railway stations.
It was an easy task and, the school hoped, rather much the sort of thing they might be expected to do in time of war, when they would be instructed to note any concentrations of troops or guns in a specific area.
The wind slowly increased and Tommy could see that their speed across the ground was falling off. He turned towards Swindon a little before the twenty mile mark, just shaving a couple of minutes; they bounced across the wind to the railway town, Tommy permanently adjusting the attitude of the machine, trying to keep her level. Charlie concentrated on hi
s maps, noting their course as precisely as he could and calling the turns to Tommy and bringing them to the railway station; it was no great achievement but it gave him something to do, rather than to worry and try to keep his breakfast down.
They reached Hungerford quickly, the tail wind adding as much as twenty miles an hour to their speed; Tommy very cautiously circled the station and lost a little height. He waved to the instructor, visible as a uniform on the platform, and then turned to his course for Upavon, almost directly into the storm.
The sky darkened and snowflakes began to whip their exposed faces; the wind increased. Charlie shouted and held up his mapboard, a piece of paper with a scrawled note just readable.
‘Thirty miles an hour ground speed?’
Tommy raised a hand in acknowledgement.
Forty minutes to Upavon.
They had fuel enough, but the wind was still gaining and visibility was decreasing every minute.
He put his mouth to the rubber tube.
“I’m going down. Hedge-hopping. If I spot a sheltered field, I’ll land. If not, then it’s crawl through the valleys and across the Plain. Half an hour!”
They reached the aerodrome, landing as the snowfall built and visibility fell to less than a hundred yards. Mechanics ran out and grabbed the wings and pushed the machine into the hangar, closing the big doors behind them. Tommy stirred stiffly out of the cockpit, shivering now that he had time to feel cold.
“Stove in the corner, sir. Get a warm. Tea, sir?”
“Please, sergeant.”
“Sip it, sir.”
Tommy took a cautious taste, decided the tea was at least fifty per cent issue rum; it was welcome.
Captain Paine was there with Trenchard at his side; both men were frowning. Tommy realised that the hangar was too silent; there were mechanics working on engines, a pair of riggers refurbishing the wing of a two-seater Bleriot, and none were whistling or singing to themselves. He looked about, saw there was a gap where the second BE2 normally stood.
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