Andrew Wareham

by When Empires Collide (Innocents At War Series 1)

  “Sergeant Arkwright, sir, wishes to train up as an observer, and he is surplus to Three Squadron, strictly speaking. He has some experience in the air, sir.”

  “He is a good man, certainly – I have liked what I have seen of him… Why not? Better than knackering the other men. Take him with you. Note Arkwright for flying pay, Adj. If he shows up well, then he can be your observer permanently, Tommy, whenever you fly the two-seaters.”

  Tommy made into the hangars and retrieved his pistols and map-board from the Tabloid and instructed the mechanics to cease work on the machine.

  “If it leaves at all, it will be on a lorry. It’s not important today. Strip out anything useful, as long as it can be done quickly.”

  Men were packing up the tools and machinery they had finished uncrating on the previous day, some of them moaning loudly.

  “Sergeant Arkwright, get a flying coat and ready yourself to join me. We are to take a BE2 up.”

  “Certainly, sir. Number six, sir, is probably the best available just at the moment. I picked up a cavalry carbine while we were in Amiens, sir. Do you think…”

  “Bring it. Has the machine a fixing for a rifle?”

  “No, sir. They are not standard yet.”

  “Pity. If some bugger shoots at me, I would like to have the means to fire back, Sergeant Arkwright. We are to look at Liege, to see whether the forts are still in Belgian hands.”

  An hour later and Tommy was certain that Liege had fallen; there was no shell fire and it seemed that there was at least one column of infantry marching south along the Meuse, cavalry leading rather than acting as a rearguard.

  To confirm the identity of the troops, the pair of two-seater Taubes were working the valley well to the south of the column, evidently seeking out a fleeing enemy. They waved to Tommy again.

  “Going back home, Sergeant Arkwright!”

  “Certain, Tommy?”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  “Good. Take one of the other BE2s and go to Amiens; tell them what you have seen with your own eyes. We are to fly to a small place a few miles west of Mons, on the Belgian border with France. No doubt they will give you a precise location at Amiens for your return. Take Charlie with you; they will think he was your observer and they will believe a KOYLI lieutenant while they might be less trusting of an RFC sergeant.”

  “Cynic, sir?”

  “Realist, Tommy!”

  “Liege is gone? How can you be sure of that, Mr Stark?”

  “No shellfire, sir. In either direction.”

  “You watched for some time, I presume?”

  “Circled the town for slightly more than thirty minutes, sir. No sign of movement in the streets, sir. Normally, flying over a town one can see people, shoppers, in the town centre. Liege was dead, sir.”

  General Henderson was accompanied by a staff colonel, red tabs prominent, presumably one of General French’s people.

  “Any other signs, Captain?”

  Tommy told him of the column marching south towards Namur, cavalry to its front, and of the two German aeroplanes further to their south again.

  “They seemed in good order, sir. In their ranks, all neat and tidy, wagons in between blocks of men. They did not look like defeated troops in retreat, sir. They gave the impression that they were on the winning side.”

  “You make a very good case, young man. I must accept that Liege has fallen. Surprising, it was expected to last at least another fortnight.”

  “Huge shells, sir, landing on the forts yesterday. Like the naval ones you see on the newsreels at the cinema, sir.”

  Charlie, silent at the rear, spoke up.

  “I saw them as well, sir, yesterday. Far greater than our sixty-pounders, sir. Siege guns, sir.”

  “That might explain much. Thank you, gentlemen. I must speak to the General.”

  The staff colonel left, almost running.

  “Well, Mr Stark. I must imagine that he had received word from elsewhere which was disbelieved but is now confirmed. Well done, sir! I understand that the BEF has marched into Belgium, and think it possible that a relief of Liege was in the General’s mind. He will need to pull them back rather quickly now. I believe that is worth a Mention in Dispatches, Captain Stark, and I cannot expect General French to disagree with me.”

  Unlike the two higher decorations, the Distinguished Service Order and the Victoria Cross, which had to be approved at very high level in the War Office, a Mention was in the hands of the General Commanding in the field.

  General Henderson did not seem distressed by the fact that the BEF had been thrown into retreat – it was more important to him that his squadrons had proved their worth.

  “These Taubes that you saw, Mr Stark. Two-seaters, you say?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No attempts at aggression?”

  “A friendly wave, sir.”

  “No orders then, just local initiative. Four Squadron reports a Taube’s observer throwing brickbats at one of their Bleriots – actually flying over it and deliberately chucking them through a wing!”

  “Missed the pilot, luckily, sir.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it was that bad! I don’t think they were trying to aim at the men!”

  “Perhaps we should fit rifles as Major de Havilland showed us, sir?”

  “I don’t think we should go that far, Captain Stark. That would be to offer a deliberate threat!”

  They flew to Mons, having been told that all they needed to do to find the airfield was to go five miles west of the mining town itself, beyond the pits and slagheaps, and look about on the very edge of the farming land. They were sure to see the place, it would have aeroplanes on it.

  Irritatingly, it was that simple. They spotted green farming land, showing up clearly after the black and dirty grey of the pits, and saw tents being erected and a flagpole showing a bright orange streamer, flapping in the wind.

  “Tony Fokker’s idea, Charlie. He saw oranges on a cart in some Dutch city, from the air, and noticed how brightly they showed up, and he published an article in one of their magazines and one of ours reprinted it, saying what a useful colour it was.”

  “Makes sense, in fact. I’m amazed the Army caught onto it.”

  “They didn’t. Civilian fields only. I’m surprised to see one here.”

  They reached Major Salmond’s tent to discover the Station Warrant Officer demanding that the offending strip of rag be removed from the field: it was non-Regulation.

  “National flag, sir, is the Union Jack. None other may be flown on any RFC field, sir, except the squadron’s own flag, if it has one. It’s in the Book, sir.”

  “Stuff the Book, Mr Moggridge. It is useful. It stays.”

  “It is against Regulations, sir. It is my job to enforce the law of the Army!”

  “It is my job to keep my pilots alive, Mr Moggridge. While I think of it, keep out of the hangars, Mr Moggridge! They are the responsibility of the mechanics. A mechanic who has worked twenty hours non-stop at my personal request to keep a machine airworthy is not to be charged with being unshaven on duty, Mr Moggridge! Do you understand that?”

  “The man in question, sir, was sat drinking a mug of tea when I spoke to him. He could have been shaving instead and it shows an undisciplined spirit in him that he chose to be idle!”

  “Mr Moggridge. I dismissed your predecessor for deliberate obstruction of my orders, for refusing to contribute to the war effort. I will warn you here and now – if you get in the way of the efficient running of this airfield I will see you sent back to England. I am at war with Germany; you seem to be at war with every man in this squadron! I will not tolerate your further disloyalty!”

  “I am loyal to the Army, sir. The Army has proper ways of doing things, and they are the correct way, sir, and I shall continue to do my duty.”

  “Adjutant! Here, please.”

  The adjutant came running from his tent, where he had been listening to the raised voice of the CO.


  “Sir?”

  “Mr Moggridge is a hindrance to the efficient running of this squadron. He is to leave this airfield within the hour. Prepare the appropriate documents, if you would be so good, to state that he is unfit for his rank and for any further duty in the RFC.”

  The adjutant left, ordering Moggridge to follow him.

  “Bloody nuisance, Tommy! Not you, man, him! He is very good at some things – the camp was up and running within minutes because of his work – but he is a pain in the arse otherwise. Demanding that the mechanics must keep clean overalls, for God’s sake! What does he think they do? He reported one of the sergeants for being dirty-handed – a sergeant’s job, he told me, is to give orders, not to do the work himself!”

  “The Army has been at peace since the Crimea, sir. Police actions in India and around the globe in odd trouble-spots, but never a war. As far as career soldiers are concerned, the sole function of the Army is to polish its boots and buttons. Fighting is nowhere on their list of priorities. It is far more important that the airfield is ready for inspection than that it can send machines into the air. Bloody hopeless, sir; the only thing to do with the old dug-outs is to send them back where they came from!”

  Major Salmond agreed – they were more bother than they were worth. Tommy turned to the good news.

  “General Henderson is pleased with us at the moment, sir, for discovering that Liege has fallen. It had been reported but discounted, but is now accepted, because of our observations. The whole BEF is to change its march because of the RFC’s scouting.”

  “Good. You must not fly again today, Tommy. You will be tired. Patrol first thing in the morning. I have sent your Sergeant Arkwright out again. I wasn’t going to but one of the other sergeants tripped over a tent peg, of all things, and fell on his nose – blood everywhere!”

  “Did Moggridge put him on a charge for making the grass untidy with his blood, sir?”

  “I have no doubt that he would have done, had he been present, Tommy. Arkwright looks to be of the right sort, Tommy. He tells me that he has sat in the pilot’s seat already. I shall take him up in the morning, see if he has any aptitude. We are short one pilot already, and I cannot doubt there will be more.”

  It was not a pleasant thought. Tommy turned to go, then remembered the Taube and the half-bricks, told the story simply, without embellishment or comment.

  “You could put an aeroplane out of service for half a day, I suppose… It would not take long for the riggers to replace a stringer and put new canvas in place. Hardly worthwhile. Just stupidity, if you ask me, Tommy. Some ill-mannered young lout of a Prussian showing his bad temper! Ignore it.”

  Major Salmond decided that Arkwright had it in him to be a pilot and took him off observing so that he could undergo a concentrated ‘tuition’ process. The lessons consisted of two hours of repeated take-off and landings until he was proficient at these basics, and then sending him out for an hour at a time to the south-west, there to practice on his own and simply become comfortable in the pilot’s seat.

  Tommy took Charlie as his permanent observer.

  There followed a week of almost unbroken patrols; take off at dawn, five or six strong, back for breakfast while the other half of the squadron flew, making reports over a bacon sandwich, trying to make sense of a war of rapid movement and to write reports that would be of use to the commanders in the field.

  The Army had come to trust the RFC, to the extent that telephone lines were laid between airfield and Headquarters. The first reports were sent in each morning and orders would come back to concentrate their patrols in areas of specific interest. More and more they were watching the countryside immediately north and east of Mons itself, under pressure to keep the information as up to date as possible, landing after just an hour so that their news was less stale. It meant that each pilot, and his observer, would fly as many as seven times in a day; ten aeroplanes produced seventy take-offs and as many landings in the space of fourteen daylight hours.

  An average of one movement every six minutes did not sound like much, until allowance was made for their slow speed and for circling the field to take the wind correctly. The pilots were kept on edge, certain that there must be a collision, and soon, aware that they were growing tired, were losing their concentration.

  They saw German machines two and three times each in a day, mostly Taubes but the occasional biplanes as well; they stopped waving to each other after a very few days.

  Towards the end of the week Tommy was wearily returning from his last patrol east of Mons, quite certain that he had seen the BEF, and that it was in retreat, the main body of infantry and field artillery, not simply outlying cavalry. He noticed a biplane, slightly faster than his, crossing his course perhaps fifty yards distant and a few feet higher, heard a faint popping noise.

  There was a shout through the voice-tube.

  “That bugger’s shooting at us, Tommy! Observer in the front seat. With a rifle!”

  “He’s missing, Charlie. Sod him!”

  Tommy put the BE2 into a shallow dive, banking gently away and swearing to himself because the determinedly stable machine would undertake nothing more violent. The range opened in seconds and Tommy fled homewards, driven off, he supposed, though he had finished his patrol beforehand.

  “Shooting at us, sir! From a biplane, an Aviatik, I think, but I do not know them all that well. Never saw one in England. Thinking on it, sir, I do not believe I ever saw a German machine at all.”

  Major Salmond looked up from the sheet of paper on which he was making notes.

  “Good point, Tommy. I shall ask General Henderson whether he might not be able to supply photographs and outlines of German aeroplanes. It might be useful to tell one from another. We could put them up on the walls of the mess, if we ever settle in any one spot long enough to have one!”

  “Moving again, sir?”

  “South-west again, Tommy. General Henderson wants us to be fifteen miles away from any battlefield, perhaps twenty. It does, after all, require ten minutes at least to rise to two thousand feet, and that is with a favouring wind to assist.”

  “What of this rifle, sir?”

  “Observers to carry a carbine; sergeants to be equipped with a pistol as well. Pilots to have a rifle, in a de Havilland mounting, as well as their officer’s Webley. In future, we shall not be driven away from our chosen location, or not without a fight, gentlemen.”

  “We could try fitting a Lewis to the Tabloids, sir? On the upper wing?”

  “No. I do not want to see you going hunting, Tommy. Your job is observation… only!”

  The BEF tried to hold at Mons, to form a line and put a stop to the German offensive. The terrain in the immediate area of the battlefield favoured the defence; there were slagheaps that formed effective walls and canals that created natural bottlenecks, hard for infantry or cavalry to cross, almost impossible for field artillery.

  The squadron flew every hour of the first day, bringing back favourable reports; the British infantry was holding and, well-trained in accurate rapid fire, was causing substantial casualties to the attackers.

  On the second day Tommy was sent out beyond the battlefield, to the north where the ground was more open. There were massive forces visible in the distance, two or more full corps with a heavy presence of artillery, swinging around to the west of the engagement. Another day would see them outflanking the BEF.

  “Home, Charlie?”

  “Seen enough. Back as quickly as possible.”

  Tommy opened the throttle and put the nose down, pushing the BE2c to its sedate limit. He would normally have turned into the east so as to land easily into the wind, taking another ten minutes on the run back to the field, but, hurrying, he quartered across the prevailing south-westerly, bumping his way down. He landed at a slightly higher speed than was his normal habit, far less cautiously than he preferred, and taxyed as close as he could get to Major Salmond’s office tent rather than parking by a hangar.

/>   “Emergency, Tommy?”

  “Flanking army to the north, sir, just making its turn. It will be into the Mons area from the south-west by dawn tomorrow, sir. Two corps, I think, sir, and artillery.”

  Major Salmond ran to the telephone, was back in five minutes.

  “Take one of the ready aircraft, Tommy. Headquarters named you specifically as the man they want, having been right at Liege. Go out to the east and see if it is a pincers movement. The BEF is to disengage and fall back in any case, but they want to know what else is coming. They also want to know if the Schlieffen Plan is still holding.”

  The Schlieffen Plan had been devised some ten years previously, by the German General Staff, and had somehow become known to the War Office. There had been an initial assumption that the Plan, being no longer a secret, would have been dropped, but the German offensive had shown only minor modification from the version of 1905 that had been taught at the Central Flying School. The attack had been made in five spearheads aiming to form a clutching hand around Paris, but the French attacks in Alsace and Lorraine, although foreseen by Germany, had been more disruptive than expected; Belgian resistance had been a little stiffer, had created a delay of three or four days; the BEF had appeared more quickly and had proved more effective than the Plan had imagined. The result had been to throw the coordination of the five columns out of kilter, which was pleasing to the defenders, but left them guessing for what came next.

  Tommy flew south of Mons, avoiding the possibility of rifle fire from the ground, before making his way north and then east again, steadying at two thousand feet. Thirty miles from the battlefield and another army came in sight, marching in a south-westerly direction. He assumed it was the third spearhead, diverted from its original track to make a tactical assault on the BEF, encircling the smaller force and driving Britain out of the ground war in a single, overwhelming defeat.

  “Seen enough, Charlie?”

  “Not yet! I want to take a closer look at the artillery, Tommy. There seems to be some very heavy stuff there, might be able to set up a gun line out of range of anything the BEF possesses.”