Dark Days Of Summer (Innocents At War Series, Book 4)

by Andrew Wareham

  Andrew Wareham

  Dark Days Of Summer

  Innocents At

  War Series

  BOOK FOUR

  Digital edition published in 2017 by

  The Electronic Book Company

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  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This ebook contains detailed research material, combined with the author's own subjective opinions, which are open to debate. Any offence caused to persons either living or dead is purely unintentional. Factual references may include or present the author's own interpretation, based on research and study.

  Dark Days Of Summer

  Copyright © 2017 by Andrew Wareham

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents:

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  By the Same Author

  Introduction

  Dark Days Of Summer: Despite the lack of suitable aircraft, there is a major effort by the RFC to establish control of the skies over the Western Front in the lead up to the Battle of the Somme. Noah Arkwright marries Mrs Wyndham and faces an awkward introduction to her aristocratic family. With no expectation of the war ending soon, attitudes harden and people begin to question the government and the military’s handling of the ever-worsening situation. A fatalistic cynicism envelopes those closest to the bloody action.

  About the Series: The Royal Flying Corps grew from the amateur hobbyists flying the earliest and most dangerous machines. Mostly drawn from the Army and Navy, the pilots regarded themselves as gentlemen members of a new club. The Great War saw the death of amateurism - except in the higher ranks - and the unplanned, fortuitous creation of a professional force.

  Innocents at War follows the career of Anglo-American flier, Tommy Stark, an enthusiastic boy forced to grow up quickly as many around him die. His deep affection for squire’s daughter, Grace is his only certainty as the bitter conflict threatens to strip the world of its innocence.

  Best read in series order

  Editor’s Note: Andrew’s book was written, produced and edited in the UK where some of the spellings, punctuation and word usage vary slightly from U.S. English. For example: the author uses the British/RFC alternative spelling, ‘taxy’ when referring to aircraft ground movements, rather than the now more common form: taxi. (Notes updated 18 March 2017)

  Dark Days Of Summer

  Chapter One

  “What can you see, Flight-Sergeant?”

  Tommy’s observer, Flight-Sergeant Balcombe, took a cursory glance around the squadron, his slow West Country drawl belying his quick intelligence.

  “Captain Arkwright has his Flight echeloned proper-like, zur, stepped back, each of they twenty foot higher and fifty foot to port and behind, zur. Captain Ferrier’s Flight be back of ‘im, zur, and a bit ‘igher-like, but they ain’t nowhere near so tidy, and Captain Templeton must be a quarter-mile astern, zur, and no more nor the same height as Captain Arkwright.”

  Tommy adjusted the throttle resignedly, dropping a little speed so that Templeton’s Flight could at least join the squadron, even if not in the correct place.

  They had practised the formation, repeatedly, and had agreed that it gave every pilot a clearer view of the target and of the surrounding sky; there really was no excuse other than slackness.

  The thirteen RE7s were fully loaded with their maximum mixed load of three hundred and twenty-four pounds of bombs – two of one-hundred pounders and sixty-two of incendiaries in their nets. The intention was to bomb from five thousand feet, the target a complex of barracks and base stores well behind the Front, eighty miles to the east, far into Belgium, and believed to be full of men and their supplies in deep reserve, ready to enter any battle in its second day when the main thrust of the Big Push was obvious. A series of attacks was planned on this and other reserve locations in the hope of driving them back into Germany, sufficiently far that they would not, hopefully, be available until the third day, giving time for consolidation of any gains made.

  The camp was enormous, so said the intelligence they had been shown, nearly a square mile of heathland laid to concrete and tarmacadam roads and parade grounds in between the great warehouses and rows of barrack huts. The thirteen planes could reasonably hope to place at least a half of their loads inside the perimeter, but a substantial proportion of the bombs that were on target would waste themselves on open spaces rather than hit buildings. They might come up lucky, had timed their raid for what they were informed was breakfast time, when there should be long queues at the cookhouses, but Tommy had little hope of striking any great blow, particularly if the attackers could not keep the formation that was hoped to concentrate their bombardment effectively.

  According to Tommy’s watch, they were four minutes from their aiming point, and the target should be clearly in sight to the northeast.

  “Three miles, zur, northwest, zur. That old wind must be stronger nor we counted on. Airfield, zur, next door to the camp, zur.”

  Tommy peered and recast the plans. The squadron would follow his lead – or should do – so he could alter course in response to the new situation. He swung his head slowly into the northeast, held course for two and half minutes, estimating that he was making at least ninety-five miles an hour across the ground, the wind directly behind him, brought the RE7 through a one hundred and eighty degree turn into the wind and across the camp. His speed dropped, visibly – the wind was of at least twenty miles an hour.

  “Get the machine out, Flight! Give me a ground speed.”

  He concentrated on his aiming, assuming sixty miles an hour, dropped when the mark painted onto the side of the fuselage was about one third of the way across the camp.

  If he had underestimated his speed, then much of his bombload, and that of the rest of the squadron, would drift across as far as the airfield, which might discourage any pursuiters stationed there.

  “Hundred pounders falling away clean, zur, but they old incendiaries is fluttering like bloody butterflies! They’m going to spread like a snowstorm, zur!”

  That might be advantageous, Tommy thought – a far better chance of some of the little petrol bombs getting caught in roofs than of the big bombs actually hitting exactly on target.

  “Course for home, Flight?”

  “Hold ‘er as she is for the while, zur. I’m getting sixty-four miles an hour cross the ground, zur, and that says this course will do for the next twenty minutes, zur. Then its due west for twenty miles, zur, and then summat like two hundred degrees, zur, puts us on line for ‘ome, although taking us across the Trenches. Squadron’s closed up, zur, since they got rid of the bombload. Plenty of smoke down there, zur, all over the show, but I can’t see what’s burning.”

  There had been no rain for a week – it could be dry grass or heather or hedgerows as likely
as buildings.

  They droned along for another half minute, Flight-Sergeant Balcombe staring back towards the target and glancing at the rest of the squadron.

  “All twelve still with us, zur. All keeping the altitude, zur. There’s two planes out on the field, zur, turning into the wind now, zur, taking off.”

  “What are they?”

  “Biplanes, zur. Looks like they Halberstadts, zur.”

  “Take them six minutes to reach height, climbing hard, and we will be well distant then – you can do sums, Flight! How long?”

  “We’re doing eighty airspeed, zur, sixty-four over the ground, I said. Zo… in six minutes we shall be six and a half miles distant from where we are now. They will be slower in the climb than when they get up to us – they won’t make much more than fifty ground speed. Zo, that gives us another mile at least distant on ‘em. That will take them at least thirty minutes to make up, because they ain’t very fast – not much more than ninety, but they won’t take the wind like we do, being smaller. If they got any sense, they’ll come at us from behind and underneath, zur – but what I heard was that they’re good in the dive, so they might try to come from above, zur.”

  Tommy digested the information Balcombe had supplied. If they used a diving attack they would come in from the rear; coming from underneath, they would have freedom to fire at any of the squadron.

  “Sod it! Signal Captain Arkwright to close up.”

  Noah’s observer would pass the instruction to Captain Ferrier and he should send it back to Captain Templeton – provided he noticed the hand gestures and remembered what they meant.

  With the RE7s huddled no more than twenty feet apart, the Halberstadts would dive into the fire of thirteen Lewises, which might be expected to do them no good at all. They were said to be very manoeuvrable machines, which meant that the staid RE7s would be unable to outturn them; the sole answer was to overwhelm them – if they would allow themselves to be hit by the massed fire of the squadron.

  They watched the interception unfold, very slowly.

  “In sight now, zur. Below and distant, but still climbing hard, zur. Got the field-glasses on the target, zur. I can see a warehouse well on fire, zur. I reckon that’s a hangar going up as well, zur. Did a bit of good, zur. Captain Templeton’s lot are all over the place, zur – real spread out. They’re getting back into formation, zur. Reckon they got too close to each other and flapped a bit, zur.”

  Frederick was certain that some of Captain Templeton’s Flight had returned to their old habits of drinking in the air. They had been in France for a month now, had made several attacks and had come under sustained anti-aircraft fire, sufficient to upset the nerves of a few of the pilots. They were most of them drinking heavily in the evenings – which they were at liberty to do – but Tommy suspected that one or two were topping up their courage in the mornings as well, which was not permitted.

  He could ask Flight-Sergeant Balcombe if other observers were worried that their pilots were sometimes drunk in the air, but that was to turn him into an informer, which he would not like. Add to that, the officers would bitterly resent being spied upon by Other Ranks; he could do more damage to the morale of his squadron that way than by allowing the drinkers to continue unchecked.

  “Where are the Halberstadts, Flight?”

  “Still climbing, zur. They passed five thousand, going up still.”

  “Bad habit to get into, Flight. They’ve found a way that works so they’re using it in every circumstance, even when attacking from below would be better. They know that diving gives them extra speed and they don’t know much else. New at the game, I’ll bet, and not trained or advised by the Fokker pilots, I must imagine.”

  Flight-Sergeant Balcombe made his final checks on the Lewis, from habit rather than need, and traversed it from side to side on its mounting, just to be quite certain it was ice and grit free. He had done so a dozen times already that morning, but needed to keep busy.

  “I’ll fly steady and level, Flight. Shout if you want a change.”

  Tommy had said that every time they had thought they might need to use the gun, but it was comforting to remind Balcombe that he had effective command during a fight.

  “Coming in now, zur. Bloody daft, zur, beg pardon, zur. Going for Captain Ferrier’s Flight, trying to split the squadron up, zur.”

  Tommy heard the crackle of Spandau fire, surely too early.

  “Bloody near three hundred yards, zur. Schoolboys! Got no bloody idea, zur! Coming in abreast, zur, not in line.”

  They passed over Captain Templeton’s Flight, no more than two hundred feet above and presenting their bellies most invitingly. Tommy suddenly wondered whether they could possibly be setting themselves up as decoys, but stare as he might he could spot no other planes.

  The eight Lewises of the rearmost Flights opened almost together. Tommy risked a look back, saw flames on the nearer of the two Halberstadts and the other trying to haul into a zoom clear. Balcombe and Noah’s Flight opened fire in turn as the climbing aircraft came in range.

  “Got that little bugger, zur. Wing collapsing, engine stopped, starting to spin, zur. That one ain’t never eating another sausage, zur.”

  They heard a small explosion as the petrol tank blew on the flamer.

  “Both of they wicked varmints, zur!”

  “Well done, Flight – two by one-thirteenth of a kill apiece!”

  “Do me, zur – I ain’t bothered with making no count, zur.”

  “What of ours?”

  “Can’t see no damage, zur. It’ll be in Captain Ferrier’s Flight, if anywhere, zur. Time for course change, zur. Due west, zur, so as to miss the guns along the rear defences, zur.”

  Tommy made the change, watched the rest of the squadron conform.

  “Make that thirty minutes on this course, to put us just off the coast, zur. We’m slower than first I reckoned, don’t want to cross the Trenches with all they guns, zur, not crawling like this.”

  An hour saw them in sight of the field, making a circuit to land in their Flights in three separate echelons.

  Tommy led them in and landed immediately in front of Noah’s Flight, all tidily onto the grass and taxying to the hangars as Captain Ferrier’s four came in abreast.

  “Shit, zur! Number Three’s undercart must ‘ave been ‘it, zur!”

  Tommy watched as the third RE7 tilted a wing into the ground and skidded out of control across the field, colliding with the fourth. He fired a red Very Light into the air to warn Captain Templeton’s Flight to hold off, stood back as the ground parties ran across to the two planes and broke their way into the cockpits.

  “No fires, zur.”

  “Not yet, Balcombe.”

  The rescuers started to trot back to the hangars, two fliers hobbling on men’s shoulders, two more on stretchers. The ground party fired the green to call Captain Templeton in as soon as they had counted their men clear.

  Tommy dismounted from the RE7, stiff from three hours of flying.

  He made his way across to the medical party.

  “What’s the score, Quack?” Medical attendants in every squadron were called Quack; it was now almost official in the RFC.

  “None dead, sir. Two no more than cuts and bruises, from number four, sir. Three was almost stopped when it hit them. Observer from three has broken legs, sir. Pilot must have unbuckled his belt, sir; thrown about in the cockpit and injured to the chest and belly and one arm, sir. No bleeding from the mouth, which is a relief, but he may be severely injured internally even so. The body-snatchers are shifting their stretchers into the tender, sir, to take them into Base Hospital, sir. The Dressing Station is nearer, but we know both of these must go to the operating table, sir.”

  Tommy walked across to his office, the adjutant at his side.

  “One pilot and an observer to be replaced, Jim. Indent for two planes as well.”

  “Plenty of bodies, Tommy, but the planes are a different matter. Been going through
them a bit hard, you know, old chap. They never made too many of them and they’re running short – because they ain’t making any more at all. Was talking on the telephone to Baring while you were up. He says that Boom is thinking about the problem now – slowly, of course. Baring says it’s ten to one that he’ll choose to give all of the RE7s to Twenty Squadron, who are the only others still using them.”

  “Where does that leave us?”

  “On the ground, dear boy! Your fault for breaking so many.”

  “We’ve lost only eight in nine weeks, and only two of the old pilots and one observer dead up to today. That ain’t a bad record for accidents!”

  “Agreed, Tommy, but it’s expensive when they only sent about fifty of them across in the first place. All the rest have been converted for training.”

  “Very mean-spirited of them, if you ask me!”

  “Blame it on the Treasury civil servants – they won’t provide the money. Tight as crab’s arses, that lot.”

  “Crabs’ arses?”

  “They’re watertight.”

  Tommy became rarely thoughtful.

  “No planes, and either they send us home, or disband the squadron and disperse the pilots where they are needed, Jim.”

  “Most likely to go to Home Defence, Tommy. Big flap about Zeppelins again. Why, I don’t know – they’re a waste of time and money, but they sometimes get too close to the House of Commons, I suppose. Can’t have our lords and masters getting within ten miles of a bomb.”

  “Pity they won’t go for the High Command! A ton of bombs onto Haig’s chateau would do us all good. Mind you, they might not be able to penetrate so far behind the lines!”

  Jim shook his head patronisingly.

  “Think, dear boy, cogitate for a minute or two! Who are the most dedicated allies the Germans possess? If they killed off the Staff and the brasshats, the intellectual capacity of the Army would improve to so marked an extent that we might even have a chance of ending this war. The last thing the Germans will do is to put Haig’s life at risk!”