They arranged times, weather permitting, with back-ups for rain.
“Limits the work a plane can do, Major Stark, if you can’t fly in the rain.”
“Agreed, sir. We need metal wings and fuselage – canvas stretches and loses its lift in the wet.”
“Cost a lot.”
“Too much, sir. Add to that, there is a shortage of metalworkers to actually fabricate the things.”
Tommy led the full squadron next morning, four Flights taking off in a well-spaced diamond; they would come together to make the attack, but there was little point to tight formation before that.
They climbed to three thousand feet and then made their shallow dive onto the trenches, synchronised Vickers rattling in the hope of clearing a path for them. They dropped their bags of flour and followed the trench for a few seconds to allow the observers the opportunity to use their Lewises. It all seemed very straightforward, apart from the minor problem that half of the Vickers jammed or blazed away continuously, suggesting that a number of propellers would have suffered.
The armourers spent the night on the guns, were almost sure that they would work next day.
“Remember the great rule, gentlemen! Never turn back! If you blow your propeller to shreds, continue in a straight line and hope to land. Nigel will tell you that can be within reason successful. How does he know? He is still alive – well, as much as any man from Rugby can be described as sentient and feeling, that is!”
Nigel proclaimed himself to be hurt, cut to the quick by the insult to the old school; it was not as if he was an Etonian, after all.
“One must agree, Nigel! There seems in fact to be a distinct absence of such beasts in our ranks.”
Ducky raised a tentative hand.
“I am an Etonian, Tommy – but I would never admit to it in public!”
“Quite right too, dear boy!”
“Please, Tommy, what about Harrow?”
He saw that Christopher had spoken, shook his head reprovingly.
“My father was a Harrovian. I have never regarded that as a recommendation.”
They tut-tutted in unison.
The squadron took off and made the short hop to the trenches and attacked by Flights, Vickers firing live, and dropping a mixture of twenty pound and incendiary bombs, the observers raking the second line of trenches as they levelled off.
One of the Vickers jammed, but none shot a propeller off, rather to their relief.
They landed and boarded waiting tenders to return to the scene of the attack, interested to inspect all they had achieved.
The Army was quite impressed, the General present to say so in person.
“Made a mess of a good hundred yards of the trench, Major Stark! Assuming two companies holding, then probably fifty or sixty casualties and a machine-gun put out of action. Do that in front of an attack and we would expect to take that line. The Lewises did some good as well, very clearly so.”
“With a landing field no more than twenty minutes away, we could make attacks at two-hourly intervals, say five in a day, sir. There would be a need to refuel at least once and bombing-up will take not less than half an hour. The armourers can refill belts for the Vickers and pans for the Lewises while we are in the air. The main problem will be repairs to jammed guns or replacements to damaged propellers. The pilots will become fatigued as well – it is not easy to fly at fifty feet, as you will appreciate, sir, particularly for the less experienced of the boys.”
“I was surprised to see you doing so, Major Stark. Is it not dangerously low? Could you not more safely work at, I don’t know, say one hundred feet?”
“More safely, but less accurately, sir. The smaller bombs tumble in the air – apparently there is a reason, something to do with the weight and surface area, which is why the larger bombs are more accurate – and doubling the height more than doubles their chance to wander to the side. I am no scientist, sir, and I don’t know the exact reasoning – but I do know that at fifty feet, very nearly every bomb will hit home inside a trench, while at one hundred nearly one half will miss. To do the job properly, we must fly low.”
“I cannot argue, Major Stark, I am no scientist either! If you must fly low, then I cannot imagine that you choose to do so for pleasure. How many planes will you lose?”
“Too many, sir – of course, you might say that one is too many. If there are machine-guns, we could lose the whole of a squadron. The hope is that the Vickers firing to the front will keep German gunners down for the seconds we need. The other worry, of course, is of British shells landing among us.”
“Good point, that. You must somehow arrange that the guns will halt any barrage for a minute or two while you are busy. That might not be too easy – you would have to contact the lights in their forward positions and the mediums further back and the heavies who might be five and more miles away. Just a pair of cut telephone wires could bring disaster! Could you arrange to make an attack at a precise time, nominated a day in advance, say?”
“Not if it chooses to rain, sir.”
“I must go away and think, Major Stark. Your attacks show strong potential, sir – we must find a way to use them properly.”
Tommy was made very nervous by that response. The very concept of a general going away to think worried him – it was so much out of character as to be disturbing.
“The Army is convinced, gentlemen – they believe we will be of great use to them, if only they can solve one or two problems of coordination. We must concentrate on aerial combat now. We have two possibilities – to fly at great height and dive, or to fly at ground level and climb. I do not like the thought of being caught low down, so we shall examine the possibilities of height first. Wrap up warm this afternoon – we shall give the buses an outing to fifteen thousand feet.”
It was bitterly cold at a height of three miles, but they could see the great bulk of southern England spread out below them, bright green in early summer, every field in cultivation under the pressures of food shortage. Salisbury Plain was busy with soldiers, a dozen battalions at least out on ranges or practising their lines, shoulder to shoulder as they slowly advanced. The air was active in the early summer and they bounced from one centre of turbulence to the next, continually correcting to hold height and formation. Tommy took them in a series of dive and zoom attacks, decided again that the plane was not built for the purpose; bombardment and reconnaissance certainly, but pursuit and fighting were outside its capability.
Days of repetition brought no great improvement – the plane simply could not be manoeuvred quickly.
“Never be caught individually, gentlemen! Working as a Flight, it will be possible to break up enemy formations, possibly even to shoot some down. I shall give General Henderson my opinion that the machine is suited for low-level front line bombardment, but for little else. All we can do now is to take them out to France and try them out in the fighting line. General Trenchard will be glad to see us; I must remember that he has been promoted – I am used to thinking of him as a brigadier.”
General Henderson evidently had the same problem. He spoke to Tommy on the telephone and gave him a date to leave England, agreed with Trenchard.
“You will be located on one of the fields close to the Somme, Stark. Trenchard will specify which. Take two weeks of leave and arrive on the Second of May at the Park at Amiens. You will be given your final destination there. Your mechanics will be taken directly to the new field, of course. A delay of a day at Amiens will enable the ground people to get their end up and running to receive you. I believe I need not suggest to you that you should behave correctly at Amiens, Major Stark!”
“Good Lord, no, sir! Is Colonel Bressinghall still there, sir?”
“I am sure you will be sad to hear that Colonel Bressinghall was struck by liver disease in its severest form in late winter. The poor man succumbed to the ailment. He is, as may be imagined, much missed!”
“I am sure that is so, sir. I shall miss his presence, sir, e
nlivened as it always was by wit and good humour!”
“I had not noticed that to be so, Major Stark.”
“It must have been, sir, I laughed frequently when in his company.”
“Enjoy your leave, Major Stark!”
“Probably the last leave of 1916, my love. Certainly, there will be nothing on a squadron scale. We should spend some part of it at Long Benchley, do you think?”
“We should, Tommy. It would only be polite. I believe that Uncle James may be due on a visit at the weekend, with his wife and heir. I understand that the baby is a bright little fellow, and properly healthy – the family seems to run to strong infants!”
“The succession is safe from the contamination of the tea-merchants, it would seem.”
“Exactly so, Tommy. There is a limit to one’s toleration, you know – and to be succeeded by mere tradesmen – Scottish at that – would be a sad come-down!”
“I had not realised that Noah had wed so far up in the world, my love, on a related topic. An earl as his father-in-law!”
“Quite a new family, however, Tommy, as these things go. The present man is no more than the third earl – they were big in politics and in the China trade in the middle of the last century.”
“Ha! More tea-merchants?”
“Not quite so respectable, my dear – they were running opium into Hong Kong and thence into China. Big money! Even richer than the slave trade that created some of our larger banks and chocolate companies!”
“I did not know that…”
“It is not perhaps a set of facts often referred to in the textbooks or press, particularly after the heirs turned into Quakers and suchlike exemplars of public virtue!”
“Well, my own father seemed to have made his fortune in somewhat disreputable fashion in the mining industry. What do they say about people in glass houses casting stones?”
“Never a good idea, Tommy. The slightly disreputable Mr Monkton has heard that adage, it would seem, and now that he is Sir Charles is busily making all tidy. I gather that he is no longer associated with Mr Joseph Stark; give him six more months to make all tidy and he never will have been. I shall telephone my father and discover when we may visit.”
They drove across on the following day, slowly for passing three separate battalions marching down to Southampton and the passage across the Channel.
“Are they truly going to victory, Tommy?”
The men were singing as they marched, bellowing out their certainty of triumph as well as whatever the latest comic turn was from the music-halls.
“They believe so, my love. They will fight the better for having no doubts. Poor little chaps. They have not seen the trenches and the mud yet; they have not realised that they cannot possibly charge machine-guns. Those that survive will not be singing two months from now, I fear. We will do what we can, but it will not be much. Tall, strong, healthy youngsters – the best of the breed! England will be impoverished for the loss of those men, Monkey!”
“They might win…”
“Pigs might fly. The probability is much the same. Talking of which, there is an RE7 trainer, look.”
“It seems very large and stable, Tommy.”
“Just so – don’t forget slow as well. Useless in France. Probably not a bad plane for a boy who has just gone solo – time to undo his mistakes, a very forgiving machine. Carries a good load as well – will take a third man with no difficulty at all, for which I am thankful!”
“As am I. Not forgetting Noah’s part in the affair.”
“Difficult to forget that, Monkey. Don’t happen every day. A good thing he was there, and a lot of luck, too.”
“Will you fly together again, Tommy?”
“Possibly – he may well be sent out to the Somme if he gets his squadron together in time. The DH2 ain’t ideal, but it will be able to give some cover which will be appreciated when we are working down low.”
The old house was alive again, Tommy thought; George’s death had made it into a very sombre place, but the presence of two babies and their young mothers, and the additional maids accompanying them, made for noise and scurry and bustle. Monkey’s mother particularly was able to free herself from her mourning and come alive again, even if only for the period they were with her.
Tommy found Lord Moncur and his brother in retreat in the estate office, glass in hand, joined them in seclusion.
“All very well, this family business, young Tommy, but comes as a shock to an old bachelor who has changed his ways. Just telling me brother that he must be thankful to my sense of duty!”
Tommy laughed, glanced at the uniform and said he had not heard of the promotion to Brigadier, offering his congratulations.
“New department, my boy. Economic Warfare, no less. Chasing down the suppliers of raw materials to the Germans and persuading them to change their habits. Commonly by offering a better price, of course! The Danes have little choice but sell their harvests into Germany, but it is possible to talk to the Swedes and divert some of their shipments of iron ore, as one example. Then there is the stuff that goes by all sorts of obscure routes to get onto the railway lines. Came across a firm in Spain last month that was selling fruit into Egypt, and from there to Persia and north into the Ottoman Empire and then by way of Constantinople onto the Berlin line. Some of the best-travelled oranges you’d ever come across!”
“Is the Blockade biting, sir?”
“Three years, Tommy. By 1919 the German population will be experiencing famine – make the Irish Potato Famine look small beer by comparison! The Kaiser has got until the winter of 1918, I would guess; if he has not won by then, he will be finished. Trying to persuade Haig that he should just hold on the Western Front, but he won’t be told and Prime Minister Asquith is no man to force him to knuckle under. We don’t need to fight this war, Tommy. The submarines are a menace, no question of that, but we are gradually coming to reduce the damage they can do. The Belgians want their country back and so do the Frogs, but it would be far better to simply hold on and let the Germans starve.”
“So the losses are fairly much pointless, sir.”
“We must defend our lines – and that is the greater part of your job in the RFC. Keeping the observation planes out is necessary, and that means chasing the Hun out of the air, as far as I understand it. Attacking the submarines is useful too. For the rest of it – no great gain at all.”
Tommy was glad that he was an airman – the repeated effect of driving his men into attack after pointless attack on the ground would have broken him, he believed. As it was, the strain of forcing inadequate machines to perform tasks for which they were unsuited was upsetting his digestion again – the acid was building in his stomach.
“If I survive this war, I shall be a martyr to stomach ulcers, Monkey!”
“You will live, Tommy – no matter how hard you try to kill yourself, you never succeed. Besides, only the good die young!”
“I suspect we may have a country populated exclusively by the bad after the war, my love!” He was distracted by gurgling on the lawn in front of him. “At least, we have ensured that there will be some of the young and hopeful to produce a new generation.”
“She will be a pretty girl, Tommy, and bright! She will talk young, that is for sure!”
“We have done well there, my lady!”
Elisabeth Jane was enjoying the spring air, sat in the garden with her parents and grandparents and great-uncle and aunt with their offspring, all fondly watching and the war far distant for a few minutes.
“I hope Noah and his Lucy are blessed very soon, Tommy.”
“He will make the best of fathers, I think – he knows just what it is like to be a child bereft of all that a family should provide.”
There was the noise of a car, large and not well driven, skidding to a halt on the gravel of the driveway.
“Talking of which, Tommy, I do believe that is the ideal parent, Sir Charles Monkton, drawing up. My lady is at his side, nurse
and infant behind. One wonders quite why we are so privileged.”
Sir Charles had come, he said, to meet his brother-in-law while he was in the country; it was only right that a Member of Parliament should take pains to keep in contact with the heroes who were defending the country from the barbarian onslaught of the vicious Prussian militarists.
“I was speaking to Bottomley the other day, Tommy. He calls them Germ-Huns – not Germans, do you get it? Rather witty, I thought!”
Tommy managed a sickly smile.
“Good chap, Bottomley – got any number of ideas you know. Bit too much nonsense in this paper of his – John Bull, you know – this Tommy and Jack column, encouraging ordinary soldiers and seamen to make their complaints in his letter-columns, and then refusing to give their names to their officers. However, basically, he is very sound – put me onto a number of very good things. I could pass them across to you, my lord, if you wished?”
“Thank you, no, Sir Charles. I really do not wish to make any close acquaintance with Horatio Bottomley!”
“Oh, well – it’s your loss, you know, my lord.”
“He will be caught, one day, and then he, and his associates, will discover what Dartmoor Prison looks like – from the inside. Not a gentleman to be on terms with – he takes too many risks. Not to worry – we must all make our own judgements, you know. Come on inside, Sir Charles – it’s not too early for a snifter, is it? Tommy, will you join us?”
Tommy did, aware that he was wanted; Lord Moncur knew he did not habitually drink of an afternoon, would not have called him in except as a matter of policy.
They settled in a drawing room, whisky to hand, very long on soda in Tommy’s case, and Monkton soon came to the real reason for his visit.
“Munitions from the States, my lord. Forbidden by their Neutrality Act, but going into Canada by the train load. Quite a large amount running into Vancouver and across to Australia and to England that way. Some routed through Japan and being escorted by Japanese warships – they are sending a very large squadron to the Mediterranean for submarine-chasing there. Whatever, Mr Joseph Stark has become involved and is being far too greedy – damned fool is trying to reduce the bribes paid to the authorities in the border states and to the Customs Service. They have sent word to the Embassy here, who knew that I have had some contact with Joseph Stark in the past. Thing is, my lord, I no longer have any influence with him – I have been cutting contacts with the man. Have you any advice? Strictly off the record, that is.”
Dark Days Of Summer (Innocents At War Series, Book 4) Page 8