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

by Andrew Wareham

  “We should join the ladies, I suspect.”

  Lady Holt was inclined to view Noah with slight trepidation, rather as if he was a recently domesticated lion, guaranteed by his tamer not to bite but showing impressive fangs nonetheless.

  “Tell me, Major Arkwright, whatever brought you to fly? What reason had you for wanting to sit inside a contraption of wood and canvas and wires and take yourself thousands of feet up into the air?”

  Noah laughed and shook his head.

  “Reason, ma’am? That is overstating the case. The machines were there, and the chance to fly them – and when one has once flown, ma’am, it is indescribable. To be there, master of the world laid out below one - no person who has not flown can understand, can comprehend the feeling. To fly is to defy reality.”

  “Fine words, Major, but I do not think I understand them! Perhaps I should go up in an aeroplane myself, one day.”

  “You should indeed, ma’am. I shall see if it is possible to arrange it.”

  She was not quite certain that he should go out of his way to do so – one day, perhaps, but there was no urgency.

  “Your sister by marriage, Amanda, wishes to do something for the war, Major Arkwright. Do you consider it wise that she should?”

  Noah thought that an excellent idea – he had seen young ladies in France and been deeply admiring of their courage and sense of duty.

  “Driving with the Field Auxiliary Nursing Yeomanry? We do not see much of FANY ourselves, tending to look after our own in the RFC, but all I hear says that they are doing a remarkable job. There is a risk, I believe some ambulances have been hit by shellfire, or caught in gas – but the men need help. I am very much in favour, ma’am.”

  She had hoped that he might offer more conventional words of wisdom, the woman’s place in the home and the like. Now she had little choice other than to give her blessing.

  “Amanda knows how to drive, unfortunately. She must go, if it is her duty.”

  Her son was upset that his sister could venture where he could not.

  “I wish I could go! Could I fly, Major Arkwright, with this leg?”

  “No, you could not, my lord. I am sorry to be blunt, but flying demands much of the man, including strength and endurance. You must be as fast in your reactions after three hours in the air as you are in the first minutes. Most of our administrative tasks in the RFC are performed by ex-pilots, men who survived a crash with a damaged arm or legs. If they could get back into the air, they certainly would – but they cannot.”

  “So, I must stay in England, watching the corn grow.”

  “Better than staying in France, underneath that corn!”

  “I have two brothers there, Major Arkwright. Lieutenants both. Promotion comes slowly in the Army. I have seen each once since they joined, and they tell me that they doubt they will come home again – but they also say they would not swap places with the madmen in the air!”

  “Each to his own, my lord. I would not voluntarily go near those damned trenches!”

  They laughed, uneasily; it seemed unlikely to either that they would become boon companions, they had too little in common.

  “How did you meet Lucinda, Major Arkwright?”

  Lady Holt appeared to think that the two men were better kept apart, took over the conversation.

  “Tommy Stark’s wife – Lord Moncur’s daughter, Grace – introduced me. I was in the habit of staying with the Starks, having no family of my own, and I much suspect she was match-making. I am glad indeed of her initiative, ma’am!”

  “So am I, sir. Lucinda needed a good husband, and I much believe that she has found one! You are a very close friend of Major Stark, one understands?”

  “The newspapers make a lot of the fact, ma’am, but we have certainly become more than comrades in arms. It is very easy to like Tommy, and to respect his many abilities, and allow for the tact he does not possess, of course. He is very good as a leader of pilots – all of his squadron respect him – well, almost all, because he is ruthless in disposing of those who do not reach his standards.”

  “The son of an acquaintance, Mrs Davenport, seems to have been handled rather unkindly by him, quite recently. I had wondered quite why that might be.”

  “Second Lieutenant Charles Davenport, ma’am? I was present on the occasion, and would have been a very enthusiastic witness at the boy’s court-martial. Tommy was willing to allow the business to be brushed under the carpet – I believe he has been permitted to keep his commission! I can assure you, ma’am, that I would have seen Mr Davenport broken. Gross disobedience to orders coupled with wantonly hazarding the lives of civilians who were so unfortunate as to live near the field he was using. The rule is inflexible, ma’am – pilots are at liberty to put themselves at risk, it is occasionally necessary, but they are never to casually permit civilians to die. He could not remain as a pilot. He should not have been permitted to keep his commission – officers should be men, not heedless schoolboys.”

  “Yet Major Stark is younger than you, is he not?”

  “It is not age, ma’am, but maturity that counts. Tommy crashed his first plane at the age of fourteen – an experience that helped him grow up very rapidly.”

  Lady Holt was appalled rather than convinced – his parents had been derelict in their duty, permitting the boy to fly so young.

  “His mother died when he was still a small boy, ma’am, and his father was a flier, one of our earliest. I believe his father thought he was doing well by Tommy, allowing him to grow up young. I agree, of course.”

  “Possibly so, Major Arkwright. But poor Charles Davenport has been banished to the Colonies – to some unknown spot in Africa!”

  “I am sure the Colonies will survive the experience, ma’am.”

  She became aware that Noah was unsympathetic; it lowered him in her opinion. She again changed the topic of conversation.

  “Tell me, Major Arkwright. What is to be done about the menace of the Zeppelin? We have twice heard one pass overhead! I live in fear that we may be wantonly destroyed in our sleep!”

  “Possible, but unlikely, ma’am. There is very little to be done about the Zeppelin, except by good fortune. The RFC has been in development of incendiary rounds that will set fire to the gasbags – Buckingham and Pomeroy rounds. I believe the fireworks people, Brocks, have another design which is soon to come out. They will help to destroy the Zeppelin, but one must catch them to do so. They can fly higher than most planes, and climb far quicker. The sole hope is to intercept following telephone calls from the coast – and that requires an amount of luck at night. Finding one’s field and landing afterwards also demands substantial good fortune. I believe my squadron is to attempt to defend London against the Zeppelin threat, but I do not think we will have a great deal of success. A more likely idea is to set up lines of searchlights and guns, but they will be better employed in France than against a minor and occasional menace to England.”

  “Then, we are defenceless against their menace, you say?”

  “Hardly a menace, ma’am! I believe there to be no more than fifteen of them all told, Naval and Army machines together.”

  “But, they can carry as much as a whole ton of high explosive, Major Arkwright!”

  “Trivial, ma’am. They have no means of aiming at any given target at night and so must simply pepper large cities in the hope of hitting something. Aerial bombardment in daylight is imprecise – at night it is utterly pointless, except as a means of frightening civilians. It is by its nature an atrocity, and illegal under every Law of War, but that does not prevent its perpetration in this war. It is as vile as poison gas, for example, ma’am, and I am surprised the Zeppelins do not drop canisters of that filth. In terms of winning the war, it is pointless, wholly so!”

  “Do you not agree that it should be stopped, however, Major Arkwright?”

  Lord Holt seemed interested rather than outraged.

  “If it can be, sir. But the only means for that to be a
chieved is by destruction of their hangars and factories, which has been attempted with some slight success. Given large, two - or even four-engined bombardment machines with a range of one thousand miles and a load of half a ton at least, and that would become feasible. Unfortunately, we lack trained engineers in this country to design and build the machines.”

  “Then we can do almost nothing about the Zeppelin, you say?”

  “Send in spies, sir, saboteurs on the ground, to burn their factories down. I cannot imagine any other method.”

  Lord Holt looked thoughtful, said he might speak to an acquaintance of his in the trade in London. It sounded an excellent idea.

  The visit lasted its four days, Noah unable to feel at home in the mansion but knowing that Lucy’s father at least had a genuine welcome for him. He waited until they took to the road south to Colchester before asking Lucy why.

  “He was captivated by your open, manly visage, of course, my love!”

  “Well, I had taken that for granted. Why?”

  “In the first instance, he made you welcome from policy. My brother will inherit and will become an important figure in the area, and he will always be a lesser man for not having gone to France. He cannot do so, of course, which people will acknowledge. But also, people will know that the family has a VC in its midst, a household name – schoolboys will read of Arkwright of the RFC, and why he was decorated. It made simple sense for my father to welcome you, and to show you the estate and the local villages, so that your face could be seen. But, he has also told me, talking privately, that he has come to like you as a person, has found much in you to respect. You are, he tells me, ‘an acquisition to the family’. I am to be pleased with myself for hooking you!”

  Noah could not but be pleased as well, and more than a little amused – the guttersnipe made good indeed.

  “I do not know if you will be so pleased by my other piece of news, Noah. My father has – high-handedly and without consulting me – increased my income. I have a thousand a year of my own now.”

  That needed to be thought about. Did he like it? He was silent a few minutes, considering the matter. He wanted to be the provider of the household, but life would be much more comfortable with a cook and a housemaid…

  “It will make it possible to keep a pair of servants, won’t it. That must be far easier for you. It is very generous of your father. After the war, especially, you will find it very handy to have a substantial private income. A good thing, whichever way one looks at it.” Noah would make no reference to the chance of him dying, changed the subject. “Is that Ipswich coming up in front of us? If it is, we are on the right road.”

  It was and they found themselves in Colchester just two slow hours later, wondering where the field was. They came to one of the many barracks in the area and Noah drew up at the gatehouse. The sergeant spotted his ribbon and turned the guard out to salute him.

  “Sah! Can I assist, Major?”

  “I am to report to the airfield at Markington. Can you give me directions?”

  “Sah! Follow this road, through the centre of the town, taking a left by the church and then following for two miles, sah! The airfield will be to your right, sah, having crossed the river.”

  “Excellent! Thank you, sergeant.”

  “Sah! Guard will present arms! Present… Arms!”

  Noah stiffened to attention and returned the compliment, all in proper form. The sergeant retired to the guardroom to write up his log of the duty, recording a full salute given to an RFC major with the VC. He would inform the Officer of the Day of the event and he would tell the CO so that it would be known that the gentleman was posted locally and might be met in town at any time.

  “Does that happen every time you meet the Army, Noah?”

  “That sergeant had long-service badges and ribbons from two at least of different campaigns. He would never omit any formality in the presence of this bit of ribbon. Many will be less rigid, but the old sweats will go through the whole rigmarole. Wait till we come to our gate and they greet me for the first time. I sent a message yesterday that I was due this morning.”

  “Will that make a difference?”

  Noah laughed.

  “We normally keep two men and a dog on the gate, the men asleep or playing darts in the back office, waiting for the dog to bark. This morning there will be the Station Warrant Officer; one at least of sergeants; a corporal and his full platoon, all with rifles and polished boots and all waiting to show me just how efficient and up to the mark they really are. The Adjutant will be hovering nearby and the senior Flight Commander will be waiting to give the pilots the warning, while the Engineer will be busily polishing the machines and running at least one engine enthusiastically. I shall, of course, be amazed and deeply impressed by their performance. Then we can stop playing and return the squadron to ordinary efficiency. As it is a new squadron, we shall start to move towards competence, in fact.”

  Lucy was worried – hers was not a military family and she had no idea of what she must do.

  “Nothing. Look decorative and wait for the Adjutant to hand you the key to our house. I hope the place is close. If it’s a new field there may be nothing within miles, or there may be a village within walking distance.”

  They passed by a barracks, Engineers and Artillery, and then saw the airfield, literally on the other side of the river, which was fifty yards wide, large by English standards. There was a village clustered on either bank, the bridge important in mediaeval times and still a busy crossing point.

  “With luck, the house will be here, Lucy-love.”

  She inspected the thatched village in the two minutes it took to drive slowly through.

  “One general store; a butcher and dairy; one pub; a church; a small, two-classroom school. Not quite a metropolis.”

  “A car to drive into Colchester or to Ipswich for shopping?”

  “A very good idea, sir!”

  They drew up at the gate; she began to giggle as the pantomime he had forecast began to perform.

  “Sh!”

  She straightened her face.

  Twenty minutes later she was invited into the Mess for tea and buns, as was only proper.

  “Good turn-out, Adjutant!”

  “I thought so, sir. Very keen! My name is Player, sir. Re-enlisted a few months ago. Ninth Hussars originally, sir; retired as a captain in 1910, but they took me back as a lieutenant in the RFC. The pilots insist on calling me Gasper, for some reason I do not quite understand.”

  “I’m Noah, Gasper. Players are one of the biggest makers of cigarettes, and every man in the RFC has a nickname. Quick briefing. Who’s the colonel; how many pilots and planes; how long have they been here?”

  “Colonel Kingston – he has us and Fifty and Fifty-One Squadrons in his Wing; he will be here on Monday afternoon. We are officially Fifty-Two, by the way. Twelve pilots and fifteen DH2s, started arriving on Tuesday. Your house is in the village, Noah – the old Rectory. It ain’t small! Donated for the duration of the war, rent-free.”

  “Count one’s blessings, Gasper. I’ll meet the lads, formally, then disappear with my wife. We’ll need to set the place up. On Monday I shall want to see each of the pilots, individually, and the Engineer. Quartermaster and all that belongs to you, of course. I’ll need a driver to take Tommy’s car back to Amesbury. I’ll pay his railway fare back.”

  Tommy declared the squadron to be two weeks from efficiency.

  “One week of aerial combat after long sessions of trench-bombing. We shall then be ready for all that may be thrown at us.”

  Tommy went into the Mess and made his brief speech, told them that work started on Monday and would be hard. They nodded enthusiastically, even more so when he told them that apart from the Officer of the Day, they could disappear for the weekend.

  The Army was in cooperative mood, for some strange reason; on Tommy’s polite approach they offered him use of their dummy trenches on the Plain just a few miles from Amesbury
. A full Major-General actually deigned to speak to Tommy, to explain that they were training the New Army and the ‘chums’ and ‘pals’ battalions particularly had no knowledge of aeroplanes.

  “Men from the same industry or town who volunteered together and have been kept in their own unit, Major Stark. They know their drill and can march and their rifle practice is up to scratch. They have charged trenches through smoke with dummy bombs crashing about them, but they have not experienced aeroplanes. I would like them to have them buzzing about their ears; as well, they can watch you attack a trench and then look to see how much damage you have done. Finally, they will get an idea of how to shoot you down!”

  The Army sent a staff car to take Tommy, Fred, Blue and Ducky to the target area, so that they could see exactly where the audience would be located.

  “Better not kill off the New Army before it gets to France, eh, Major Stark?”

  “Quite, sir, they will die quickly enough there without our help first.”

  “They are to end the war. Major Stark!”

  “Not with this attack on the Somme, they won’t, sir. All of France knows about it and that it’s due for the First of July – Jerry must know as well.”

  The Major-General was silent; he had been informed of the attack wholly unofficially, had thought it to be a secret.

  The mock trenches were in a shallow valley in the chalk Downs, two triple lines and a no-mans-land, built to official specification but with a grandstand behind for the observers to watch the troops as they attacked.

  “Officers will sit in the grandstand; the men will watch from in front. They can take turns to man our side of the lines, to be closer to the action.”

  “We intend to experiment, sir. We shall attack along the length of the trenches and crosswise as well. Dummy bombs on the first day or two, after that, the real thing, sir. Machine-guns as well will fire live after the first trials.”