“How do I command him to open fire, sir?”
“You do not. You trust his judgement. If you cannot position yourself to hit a target with your gun, then you will turn the plane so that he can fire. You must offer complete trust. Each of you must have faith in the other.”
Lieutenant Williamson did not think this was a very good way of doing things.
Tommy sent him off to find Blue, wondering whether he should not have carried out the threat to refuse him. They were to look for trouble next day, however, and he needed the extra body. He walked across to Jim’s office, not at all sure he had made the correct decision.
“Better a self-satisfied tit like that than a complete novice, Tommy. At least he can be trusted to get off the ground. Who is to be his observer?”
“One of the new men who have trained up recently. They’ll choose between them.”
“As good a way as any. The Armourer wants to fit a stop on the mounting for the Lewis, by the way. He says that it is possible to swing the gun one hundred and eighty degrees, left and right – a full circle. An enthusiastic gunner might follow a Jerry all the way and blow his own pilot’s head off, or take lumps out of the wings. Not very likely, but it might be wise to be careful.”
“Can he do it without demanding materials we haven’t got?”
“He says so.”
“Do it. Any man can get excited in the middle of a fight. Quack gets excited the moment we take off.”
After lunch they watched with Fred and Frank as Blue took Williamson up to play follow-my-leader; he was not very good, swinging wide at every turn, reacting slowly to Blue’s movements.
“Used to driving a BE2c, Jim. You can’t throw them about and he is in the habit of manoeuvring very staidly. He will have to learn that he can push a Strutter about far more. Blue will teach him.”
The pair landed, taxyed to the hangars and switched off. Blue ran across to the other plane, said something which the audience could not hear, but enjoyed imagining, and turned to the mechanics. They began the refuelling process while Blue waited silently. Williamson waited as well, a distance away from Blue.
They started their engines again and Blue led them out to the cinder track; he took off with Williamson glued twenty feet behind his tail.
They stayed up and mostly within sight of the field for two hours, Williamson never losing more than a yard on Blue, even when he performed the new Immelmann Turn, half looping to make a one hundred and eighty degree reversal of his course.
Tommy watched, sat outside his office in company of Fred and Frank.
“I heard of that a couple of weeks ago. Never tried it. I’ll bet an observer would be pissed-off by it.”
“Definitely single-seater stuff, Tommy.”
Fred was dismissive, did not see it as appropriate for their planes.
“You could do it if the observer was belted in, but they always stand to fire the gun, and if they weren’t firing, there’d be no need to do it.”
Frank agreed.
“I’d like to try it, though.”
“Wait till we have the new little Sopwith, gentlemen. And I did not say that, of course, and you can mention it to Blue but not to anyone else, because it might never come off. It’s supposed to be ours in September – but you know how plans go in this Army.”
Fred was concerned about their observers – they would have no function in the re-equipped squadron.
“I’m trying to borrow a couple of old buses to use for training. Let any of them who want learn to fly and work their commissions. There should be a pair of knackered old Gunbuses turning up in a day or two. Thing is, by the time we’ve been trench-bashing for a month, we’ll be so low on pilots that I’ll get away with putting them into the planes, and if they show well, Boom will see them commissioned. Chance to do it now while we can get away with it. I’m going to see if I can fiddle a lieutenancy for Flight-Sergeant Bolton as well, while every man who can fly is in the air and Major Ross is stretched beyond human capacity.”
Frank shook his head and said that it was very wrong that they should take advantage of the deaths of good men in battle to work the system. He volunteered to act as a tutor to the trainees.
Blue landed and stepped down from the cockpit; he waved to Williamson and pointed to the offices, walked across without looking to see if he was followed.
“Afternoon, Tommy. Beautiful bit of sunshine today. This bloke,” pointing in the general direction of Williamson, “is a complete half-wit who probably keeps his swagger stick up his backside all night. He is also a capable pilot, after he’s had the bullshit kicked out of him. He’ll do. He’ll have to be taught how to fly low on bombardment. We can do that later in the week, if that’s right with you. I’ll take the Flight up and show him what’s what. He’ll be flying with us on patrols tomorrow.”
“Very good, Blue. We need every pilot we can find, and will need still more as soon as the Big Push starts. Organise an observer for him. We will be alternating with the DH2s tomorrow. I’ll go out with Fred, that will be the second patrol of the day. Noah will take another Flight of his lads out when we come home, then you and Frank follow on, then another lot of Noah’s single-seaters. That should take us to about three in the afternoon. Repeat the rota after that, one or two Flights together or separated across the sector, depending on your judgement, picking up the next dry morning the same way. Pass the word to our people. Noah knows already.”
Tommy turned to Williamson, stood awkwardly to one side, not knowing whether he was still needed in the office.
“I am glad I did not throw you out of the squadron, Mr Williamson. It seems that you might be useful. I will say to you now the message I give to every new man coming in. Our job is to assist the army to win this war. We are not here to look pretty or to win medals – though they do come if we are useful. Particularly, we are not here to be jolly good chaps, knights of the air, or any of that crap! We must prevent the enemy from attacking our troops. That means we must keep their reconnaissance and artillery machines at a distance, killing them if possible, and we must protect our own machines by clearing the air for them. The ideal is to fight at an advantage – a whole Flight against one Jerry, or sneaking up behind and shooting one in the back. Sometimes we are forced to fight one on one – try not to. I have nine, I think it is now – all shot in the back. I hope to kill more, in the same way. I much hope that you will build up a score, and will ground you if I so much as suspect that you are trying to be honourable or chivalrous. Now then, welcome to the squadron and I hope you will make a name for yourself as a killer – a cross between Billy the Kid and Jack the Ripper is what we really need.”
They watched Williamson totter away, in a state of shock.
“All yours, Blue!”
“I’ll round up an observer and get the Flight in the air inside the hour, Tommy. If we see anything I’ll shepherd him to get a shot at it. Once he’s had a taste of blood, he’ll be a lot easier in his mind.”
“True enough, Blue – first one is always nervous-making. Get that over with and flying is far easier. He’s going to die in the first month or live forever, that one. He’ll be carrying more ironmongery on his chest than ever I dreamed of, I hope.”
Noah took a Flight out with the dawn and came back empty-handed; too early for the Hun to rise, he thought.
“Let him chew his breakfast sausage, Tommy, and sup down his acorn coffee. He’ll be just ready for you.”
“Acorn coffee?”
“Didn’t you see the Daily Mail last week? The blockade is biting so hard that Germany can’t import coffee any more and is forced to create ersatz stuff. Apparently, the children are being sent out into the forests to collect acorns to be roasted to make a hot drink. They are also collecting beech mast and pine nuts to add to their food.”
Tommy was less delighted than Noah appeared to be.
“That’s not the way I think a war should be fought, Noah. Killing women and children is not the right thing to d
o.”
“What about the Lusitania, Tommy? They started it.”
“So, hang the Kaiser as a butcher, but don’t kill their women in exchange. It ain’t right, Noah – and I shall do and say nothing whatsoever while this war is still going strong. I can have opinions, but I’m no martyr!”
“Same here, Tommy. Right and wrong is one thing; surviving the war is another. I’ve got better things to do than annoy the politicians and their owners.”
Tommy led his Flight up, deciding to work with four machines rather than eight at a time, and sending Fred to the south of the sector while he went north, wondering if it was still the home of the older German planes, tucked away from the expected action around the Somme. Kill off the older machines and they must be replaced, either by more soft targets or by newer aircraft which would be unable to take part in the coming battle.
They spotted a patrol of monoplanes, much as he had hoped. He held off a few seconds, gaining height and inspecting the air for cover for the poor fellows. He raised a hand, pointing, sent David and Breezy off to the left, signalled Rozzer to hold on his tail, then gave the wave for them to dive into the attack.
Six of them, trying their best in their outdated machines to turn into the attack; four were hit and broke up or caught alight in the first onset, a tidy one apiece, as Tommy had hoped, with almost no return fire. He banked hard and tried to cut off the pair who were diving for home, decided he would not get to them before they were under a thousand feet and well over their trenches. No sense to taking losses from ground fire – they would fly again on another day.
He took the flight back to eight thousand feet and turned back towards the south. He thought he had fired no more than fifty rounds from the Vickers, though it was probable that Rozzer and Breezy would have used more, finishing off already doomed targets; new men commonly made that error. They had enough ammunition to indulge in one more fight, he thought.
It was a good morning; David waved and pointed them onto a two-seater, low and probably trying to sneak in to take photographs of the rear area, hoping to be unseen at a couple of hundred feet. Tommy took the Flight east and spent five minutes positioning them in line abreast to cut off any escape. A dive took them onto the two-seater’s tail, perhaps a quarter of a mile behind the British lines. Tommy edged across to just fifty yards to the rear and fired a quick burst, deliberately high, announcing his presence and suggesting that it might be a good idea to land the plane, war over for the two men aboard. The Intelligence people were always pleased to examine the German cameras – apparently they were commonly of better quality than the English makes.
The observer on the two-seater evidently did not fancy a prisoner of war cage and returned fire with a sustained and well-aimed burst from his Parabellum. Tommy’s engine stopped and his right wing showed damage. He swore and lost height, looking for a patch of empty flat ground immediately to his front. He had ten seconds of glide, he estimated, hearing the fire of three Vickers, rapidly followed by the Lewises, as the rest of the Flight swarmed the two-seater down. There was a road immediately in front, a convoy of mules bringing up ammunition, spotting him coming in at twenty feet and scattering. Tommy hoped they could run fast – he did not fancy landing on top of a mule-load of grenades or trench-mortar bombs.
He touched down, reasonably central on the track, which was quite firm, well-maintained in fact. Unfortunately, it took a bend some fifty yards further down and the Strutter was in no mood to turn with it. They skidded off, into a mixture of mud and old barbed wire, came to a noisy halt, nose down in a shell crater.
Tommy undid his belt, looked for somewhere, anywhere, to jump. He had a choice of deep mud and water in the crater, sufficient to drown in, perhaps, or rusty wire to either side.
“Back this way, Tommy!”
Quack was dripping blood from a cut across his face, was crawling along the fuselage towards the tail. That took them away from the petrol tank, which seemed a good idea. Quack waited, hanging onto the rudder for balance. Tommy slowly joined him, the added weight too much for the weakened airframe. A prolonged creaking and the tail slowly cracked away and dropped them into a light covering of grass and mud, smoothed flat by the plane’s passage.
The road was no more than forty yards distant. They slipped and skidded their way to it, watched but not aided by indignant muleteers; two of them threw clods of earth at them as they arrived. An elderly Indian Army captain tried to placate his people.
“Two of the mules fell and broke their legs running and I have had to shoot them. Their handlers are very upset. They grow very close to their animals, you see.”
Tommy apologised; it seemed unwise to say that he had not meant to do it, and would far rather that he had not crashed.
He inspected himself, decided he was bruised and scratched, cut a little, but not really injured. Quack had found a dressing and was holding it to his own face.
A truck came down the road, containing an artillery major who began to shout at him because ‘a bloody Jerry had crashed on his dugouts and killed four of his bombardiers’. It seemed that it was typical of the arrogant, uncaring stupidity of the bloody RFC; they could walk home for all he cared. The truck drove off again.
Half an hour later another vehicle appeared, an ambulance driven by a FANY trooper; she permitted them to climb into her cab and dropped them off at her casualty clearing station, which had a field telephone.
She stopped while her ambulance was refuelled and two loaded stretchers were pulled out of the rear.
“Do you know Major Arkwright, sir?”
“Very well, Trooper. His squadron shares my field and he is an old friend.”
Tommy knew better than to call a FANY driver ‘miss’.
“I thought it was you, Major Stark. Major Arkwright married my sister a few months ago.”
“I will tell him I met you. Thank you for picking us up, Trooper. If you give me a note with your contact address, I will give it him, if you wish.”
“I will drop into your field if I am passing by, sir.”
They drank tea and waited for the squadron transport to arrive.
“Do you want them to look at your face while we are here, Quack?”
“Not bloody likely, Tommy! Not at a Casualty Clearing Station. They might decide to amputate my bloody head!”
“No doubt your brother will do a better job – he will have more time. I think this scratch on my arm could do with a bit of work, looking at it.”
Quack peered with professional interest.
“Six stitches, Tommy, and a thorough clean up with a good antiseptic. That, sir, is going to sting!”
Tommy waited two hours while Quack was dealt with and then took his turn.
Quack was right. It did sting; in fact, Tommy decided, it bloody well hurt.
“No flying today, sir.”
“Can’t, Quacker. Bent my plane and left it behind. Notched up my tenth, though. Looks like Noah’s people coming back – what is that half-witted son of a bitch doing?”
“A victory loop, I believe, sir. According to the English newspapers, that is what the RFC does after every successful patrol.”
They watched the DH2 complete the stunt and land, saw Noah running across to the vainglorious pilot; they were just too far distant to hear what he was shouting.
“I wonder who has Officer of the Day duties for the next month in that squadron, Quacker?”
“Is it so great a sin, sir? He was simply celebrating, probably his first kill?”
“If he had a stray bullet or two lodged and weakening a stringer, or in the wing, then that would have been his last kill. Always land very delicately after a fight and wait for your mechanics to give the all clear. How’s Quack, by the way?”
“Sleeping. I put him out to work on his face – it took a while. The laceration is quite deep and the left side of his face will sag a little – not much, but his mouth will have a downturn. Could be quite dashing in later life! I spent some time on his st
itches – very small and close together, should have reduced the scarring to no more than a white line, a penstroke. Couldn’t leave me brother looking like Blackbeard the Pirate!”
“Good. You are incorrectly dressed, by the way.”
“What?”
“Jim told me while I was waiting, your MC for pulling that observer out of the flames last month has been confirmed. Get the ribbon up, Quacker. It was well earned. Good to have you with us.”
“Well, Noah?”
“Jesus, Tommy! Did you see that fool? I have told him I shall ground him if he ever does anything that stupid again! Pot’s back; he saw it of course and asked whether that was standard practice in my squadron. I felt a complete bloody idiot while I assured him that it was an individual’s aberration, and would never be seen again.”
“Excellent, Noah! Apart from that, how was your day?”
“Profitable! There were two this morning, by the patrol after yours, and then my Flight fell in with two separate pairs of Fokker biplanes and shot them to pieces between us and picked up some sort of stray two-seater on its way back from the lines as we came home. Augustus – who is now Officer of the Day – saw him as he slipped into a patch of cloud and waved us in and was in the right place when he came out into the sunlight again. He hit the pilot from a good hundred yards – really fine deflection shooting – before we could close in. He had reason to be cocky, I suppose. My other Flight scored, and the squadron has ten for its first real day at war. The booze will flow tonight!”
“We did almost as well, but lost one plane, unfortunately. Better see Pot and brief him on the day’s work.”
Colonel Kettle was delighted, and said so repeatedly.
“Just been looking at my desk, gentlemen. Your squadron is being made up to sixteen pilots and aircraft, Noah. Due to fly in this week. From a Home Squadron, been flying DH2s for months, so they might be useful. The Air Park is sending another Strutter up this evening, Tommy. Will you be fit to fly tomorrow?”
Dark Days Of Summer (Innocents At War Series, Book 4) Page 20