He crossed the lines still climbing, quartering the sky, left, right, up, down, behind; a never- ending movement and simultaneously twitching at the control lever and nudging at the wing lever so that the Morane was never travelling in a straight line or at a constant height. He picked up a pair of black flecks, specks of dirt on his goggles, except that they were enlarging, growing as they turned towards him. They had a little height on him and were splitting apart, one to each side. They were too far distant to identify yet, but they were unlikely to be RFC, not in this sector when he had taken off first.
Tommy eased to the left, picking up a little height, hoping his change of course might not be spotted, that he might get to the side of one. Both planes responded.
“Sod this for a game of skittles!”
He dropped into a fast, banking dive, pushing the Morane close to its limits, feeling the wings flex, easing off as he lost height sufficiently to bring himself into extreme range for machine-gun fire from the ground. Five or six German gunners obliged him, started to throw up a barrage that should, he hoped, discourage the Fokkers, if that was what they were. He levelled off as he looked around him, then dived hard again as he realised that the two pursuing aircraft had decided to risk their own anti-aircraft fire. The guns fell silent as they recognised what was happening.
They were Fokkers and had been able to close on him as he had made his turn to get back across the trenches. A minute, he estimated, before one of them would be in range, and if he began to twist and turn then both would reach him the quicker. Two of them, with better guns; fighting was a poor alternative.
‘Try flying then’, he thought.
He was down to a bare thousand feet and stood the Morane on its right wing, fighting the incipient spin and dropping fast to two hundred and then in more controlled fashion to fifty, then lower still, watching his shadow flit across the mud and the shell holes.
The Fokkers tried to match him and he began to snake, flat turns, his wheels barely above the stakes holding the barbed wire, responding to the least rise in the ground. One of them suddenly jerked upwards, the pilot over-reacting to being too low, and lost at least a hundred yards in the pursuit. Tommy rose by twenty feet and entered the beginnings of a turn, as if he was intending to strike at the leader. The Fokker pushed harder into a bank, to cut him off, lost a second or two as Tommy straightened and made directly out into no-mans-land, inching just a fraction lower, bringing up spray from the standing water in the shell holes.
Tommy crossed the front line and heard a sudden storm of rifle and Vickers Gun fire behind him, snatched a look over his shoulder to see the Fokker staggering off, forcing its way back. The pilot had been threatened with every sort of penalty if he permitted a gun to fall into British hands and was determined to reach safety behind his front trench.
Tommy lifted to two hundred feet, glanced about him and made his way back to the field. That had been rather close, he thought, but Trenchard had been, in his own way, right; while they had been chasing him, they had not been killing the observation machines.
“Mud underneath the fuselage, sir…”
“Thrown up by the prop, sergeant. I had to fly a little lower than normal.”
Tommy shivered as he found the Intelligence Officer to make his report; it was cold enough that they did not notice.
“Saw two Fokkers and ran, Brains. Crossed our lines at low level, just in front of them. The soldiers were watching and drove them off. Recommend flying in pairs if possible. Get the feeling that the Morane is just a fraction less stable than the Fokker – might be able to out-turn one at high, but I think the Fokkers are a little faster.”
The Intelligence Officer noted the comment; he would send it in to his superiors who would evaluate the report according to their own criteria and would disseminate any important information appropriately; they did not fly and would have their own definitions of what was, and was not, important.
Major Kite joined them, glanced at the report.
“Tight one, Tommy?”
“Good thing we are issued khaki underwear, sir!”
Major Kite laughed and enquired what had happened.
“They seem always to fly in pairs, Tommy. Perhaps it’s the mating season.”
“Distinctly off-putting, sir. I have a feeling that they are rather confident, sir – know there is nothing in the air to match them. I am inclined to go out with Noah tomorrow, sir, hide in the middle of his Bristol Scouts and then do the old pantomime trick – leap out upon them as they try to catch themselves a soft target. I think that if one or two of their wunderkind were to be caught then they might retire to winter quarters, more or less.”
“Try it, Tommy. We lost another seven machines to them last month; with that on top of ordinary attrition due to accidents and mechanical failures we are unable to keep our numbers up. If they increase their kills to three a week then we will have nothing in the air by Christmas, losses greater than deliveries of planes and pilots both and having to protect our last one hundred planes by grounding them.”
Tommy ate his dinner and went early to bed; it seemed that he would need be at his best for the next few days.
“Simple enough plan, Noah?”
“Sounds straightforward, Tommy. We have three jobs to do today. I was going to split them up, two of them by single Flight, one with us all together, so that we would only have to go out twice. We’ll do all three in company instead – the boys won’t mind, too much.”
The Bristol Scouts took off, the two Flights separated by a few yards and in line abreast; Tommy joined them over the trenches, easing the Morane down and close to Blue’s tail. Joe climbed fifty feet and slipped sideways, part shielding Tommy from observation from above. They flew ten miles to the east, discovered their railway junction and dropped one hundred-pound bombs in its vague vicinity. Tommy had nothing else to do and watched the ground for strikes, decided that he had seen three explosions within twenty yards of the tracks; they might have done some slight damage. They flew home again, inconvenienced by Archie, but there were only a few guns capable of shooting at four thousand feet, though Intelligence insisted that more were being installed every day; for the while, a hit would be the worst of bad luck and the possibility could be ignored.
They landed, refuelled, bombed up, drank tea and patronised the latrines, all in leisurely fashion, as befitted gentlemen. The post had arrived and they read their letters, more or less eagerly. Noah received one from Mrs Wyndham, read it end to end, and then again, smiling quietly. Tommy discovered that Elisabeth Jane now had a tooth, which, Monkey gravely informed him, had drawbacks at feeding time; weaning was to be brought forward.
“Poor girl!”
Frank had received a missive from his loving father, laughed aloud.
“You will be pleased to know, Tommy, that the Elders of the Church have, in solemn conclave, decided that the flying of the aeroplane is not necessarily ungodly. I am nonetheless recommended to care for the condition of my soul – presumably the rarefied air might be bad for it!”
“Not merely air, but French air, my boy! Bound to be bad for the morals of an innocent country lad.”
“Ah! You may well be right, Tommy. I shall respond to the old chap, gravely informing him that I have distinct fears for the purity of mind of many of my companions – I heard two say ‘Dash it’ and ‘Blow’, last week.”
“Shocking! Utterly appalling! I trust you have called for their court-martial?”
“I shall issue papers tomorrow, Tommy. Such wickedness must not flourish!”
“Well said, sir! What’s the time? Better drink up – time we were in the bloody air.”
Five miles behind the lines and hands raised and wings waggled furiously as a pair of Fokkers appeared, six hundred yards on their starboard quarter and perhaps five hundred feet above the bombardment machines. Joe eased back and Tommy climbed through the gap he left, making height while the two Flights released their bombs at random and fell into circles,
chasing each other’s tail clockwise. They sprayed Lewis Gun fire in the general direction of the Fokkers, causing them to change course and lose height in order to attack from underneath; Tommy was not spotted until he was within a hundred yards of the right-hand machine of the pair, diving in from just off the nose, out of reach of the fixed gun.
Tommy opened fire, thumbing the blip switch to slow and give himself an extra half second, hitting the engine and then the cockpit, the last rounds discharged at a distance of thirty feet. He could not see the second Fokker and climbed as hard as he could, banking to the right, staring about the sky. He could still hear the Lewis Guns, spotted the two circles of Bristols firing hopefully and edging their way back west.
The Fokker had turned away from the massed gunfire of the Bristols and was climbing towards him; Tommy did not fancy a direct dive into his gun and banked right to the edge of a spin and heaved back left again before pulling back onto interception course. The Fokker dived and banked in its turn, definitely a little faster, and Tommy chose not to play; a gentler tug on the control lever and a course to rejoin the Bristols. The Fokker pilot counted the odds – one on one he was happy with, but he did not like the extra ten Lewis Guns.
Ten seconds and they were half a mile apart, going their separate ways.
Noah was delighted – the word would spread rapidly that the Bristol Scouts were flying in company with the new Moranes and were dangerous meat.
“The quieter life for me, Tommy!”
“Did you see the going of the first Fokker, Noah?”
“Did you not see him, Tommy? Spun in, one wing tearing off at a thousand feet. Well in view of the trenches, too.”
“Good. If they keep strictly to pairs again, then there will be no interference with the reconnaissance boys for a week or more.”
Major Kite was more quietly pleased.
“Word is that Lanoe Hawker is up to eight, Tommy, and Strange has his share, too. The result is that the Germans are being more cautious in the air. The BEs should suffer far fewer losses, with even reasonable luck.”
“We can hope so, sir.”
“Leave the Morane to the boys for the while, Tommy. Go across to Brigade – their weather prophets think that if you don’t go out in the next two or three nights, you won’t be pigeon-fancying for a month.”
“Let us hope they are wrong, sir. I had far rather delay that particular game.”
“One flight with a cage of birds, Tommy?”
“One flight! For your next joke, sir? Do you think that if we get in and out successfully once they will let it go at that?”
Major Kite shook his head, agreed that Tommy was probably right.
“Only one answer, my boy! Get yourself shot down on the first flight and they certainly won’t ask you to do a second!”
He seemed to think that was funny, was even more amused when Tommy could not see the joke.
Brigadier Trenchard was not in the office when Tommy arrived – he was in London, it transpired, attending some vitally important meeting. Baring had, naturally, accompanied him to soothe the savage breasts that Trenchard would certainly have ruffled. There was a colonel instead.
“Naismith, Major Stark; I do this and that about Brigade, you know. Occasionally venture elsewhere – but never anywhere near the trenches of course – it’s this gold braid on me hat, the soldiers would never recognise it and might mistake me for the enemy!”
A staff officer with an awareness of reality; Tommy did not know that such beasts existed.
“It’s not something that is normally seen within distant shelling range of the lines, sir. Most soldiers believe they do better that way.”
“Exactly, Major Stark. Tell me, if you would be so good, how you came to be a major and yet not in command of a squadron.”
“Too early a promotion, sir. Made as a result of good fortune last winter.”
“Were you so very fortunate, Major Stark?”
“I did not die, sir.”
“Not a claim that every other well-known pilot can make, Major Stark.”
“Just so, sir.”
Tommy was quickly coming to the conclusion that he did not like this man; he did not like many senior officers, thinking on it.
“I want you to fly forty or more miles behind the trenches and land in a field on high ground in a heavily wooded area. At night. Can you do that, Major Stark?”
“Possibly, Colonel Naismith. I must be given a two-seater and an experienced navigator; that is an observer who has been out for at least six months and who can read a map and set a course. As the RFC refuses to train observers, their quality varies, or so I am told. I will require as well a party on the ground, with at least two bright lights. The landing field must be of no less than one hundred yards by thirty and with no tall trees within another hundred yards on the long axis. I will hope to fly on a night with low winds – because I may have to land or take off crosswind. What plane have you in mind, sir?”
“I have been told that the plane should be, peculiarly enough, ‘unstable’. A strange requirement and I do not quite understand it.”
The term was not obvious, Tommy agreed.
“A stable plane, such as the BE2 series, will resist stunting. It will not bank hard and fast. It will not, for example, side-slip into a very tight landing ground. It will provide a near ideal carrier for a camera.”
“I do wish the gentleman who made the proviso might have made that simple explanation, Major Stark. You have a choice of a Vickers Gunbus or a Shorthorn or a Breguet 4; all, I am told, are pushers. Of their stability, I know nothing.”
“The Shorthorn is a good training aircraft, to a great extent, because it is stable. The Gunbus is old, and has a limited range and load. The Breguet has a good name, but I have never flown one; it is said to be able to carry a load of a quarter of a ton, which is not small. Do I have a few hours to familiarise myself, sir?”
“I want you to go tomorrow night. You may have the Breguet within the hour, if you wish.”
Colonel Naismith called for an orderly and issued precise orders.
“Thank you, sir. For a navigator?”
“We have a Lieutenant Petersham here at Brigade, Major Stark. A well-recommended pilot.”
“Fred Petersham? A really fine lad, and a thoroughly good pilot. No damned use to me at all. Pilots don’t navigate; observers do.”
“My apologies. He much wanted to accompany you.”
“He would – he is, as I mentioned, a brave and adventurous young man.”
“I shall have a skilled observer-navigator here by mid-morning, Major Stark. Have you any preference for rank?”
“None, sir. As pilot, I command my plane, so he can be a general, if you wish.”
“I was more concerned that he might be a sergeant.”
“Probably won’t be, sir. If he has been out here for six months then he will have been commissioned, if he is particularly good. Many of our very best officers have come up from the ranks in the RFC, sir. We tend to find quality more important than accent, you know, sir.”
Naismith raised an eyebrow.
“I am glad to hear that, Major Stark. I am afraid that General Haig will tend to disagree with you. He prefers to maintain the old standards.”
“Yes, I was told he would rather fight the British lower classes than the Huns, sir.”
“I cannot imagine where you heard that, Major Stark!”
“Whitehall, sir, was the origin of the comment.”
Colonel Naismith – who was Intelligence – decided he would be wiser not to discuss the new, coming general with a pilot; they had been described to him as iconoclasts to a man and he feared his informant was correct.
“I will find you an observer of the finest technical ability, Major Stark, irrespective of his accent!”
“Thank you, sir. What of the landing field?”
“Unknown by personal observation, I am afraid – and what I have not seen, I will not promise. The specification we h
ave sent across was much as you have given, but I cannot guarantee that it has been met.”
“That is honest, sir. I shall return the compliment. I will fly to the spot and I will land there if at all possible. And I will say, sir, that if I can’t land there, no other pilot in the RFC can either.”
Colonel Naismith risked a smile.
“They said you were one of the very best, Major Stark.”
“I may have more hours than any other pilot in the RFC, sir. Experience counts. Among the civilians, Mr Sopwith’s test pilot – Mr Hawker, the Australian – probably has more hours than me, but I can imagine few others in England who come close.”
Colonel Naismith was in his late thirties, as was to be expected of even a young peacetime colonel; he was also mentally alert, not necessarily expected of the breed, and had picked up on Tommy’s youth.
“How, Major Stark?”
“I was flying, regularly, at Brooklands before my fourteenth birthday, sir, becoming a testing pilot there. I gained a pilot’s licence that summer – just before I picked up a driving licence. My father did not believe in schools or universities, sir – having been thrown out of both in his time. I am probably an American national, but father was not one for formalities and birth certificates and nonsense of that nature. He died at the end of ’13, sir, at Brooklands in a plane of his own building.”
“Ah! That Stark. A much respected man in aviation, I believe.”
“He was indeed, sir. And much missed by me.”
Naismith smiled his sympathy, wondered if either of his own boys would one day say the same. He doubted it – family ties weakened at school.
“You’ll do, Major Stark. I had some doubts when they told me about you. I had wondered if you were no more than Brigadier Trenchard’s favourite. I apologise.”
“I believe I look very young, sir. I am getting older very rapidly”
“We are losing a generation of young men, Major Stark – and only a small percentage to death.”
No Longer A Game (Innocents At War Series, Book 3) Page 15