by John Masters
‘Yes, sir,’ Guy said. He thought, but I’m not going to miss a Hun just because he’s firing back at me. I’ll dodge, dive, do anything to escape if he has the jump on me; but if I have him in my sights, I won’t lose him, ever.
A droning sound grew rapidly louder and a lone aircraft appeared low in the east. Guy stopped, watching, standing at the far side of the airfield. He stared at the plane, wondering. It was a Fokker E III hopping the hedges, skimming along the airfield with guns silent … one plane, alone … Mechanics, riggers, fitters, and pilots dived for cover. Guy stared intently. The machine turned tightly and roared back, low over the field. The pilot threw out a white package tied to trailing red ribbons. Hopping over the hedge, the Fokker vanished in the eastern gloaming.
Guy walked across the field. The adjutant was there limping toward the package. He picked it up, adjusted the monocle in his left eye, and opened the package, as Guy and others gathered round him. ‘That was von Rackow,’ he said, ‘Notice the yellow wing ends, outside the black crosses? And that was his E IV – same as an E III, but with three guns instead of two … Ah, what have we here? A package, labelled “Personal effects of Lieutenant Bristol, R.F.C.” with a note addressed to “The next of kin of Lieut. Bristol” – it’s open …’ He read aloud – ‘Dear Sir or Madame, Your son was a skilful pilot and a brave man, but his machine broke up under my fire. He died instantly and I honour his memory – Werner Von Rackow: … Here’s another letter, addressed to Major D.Q. Sugden, D.S.O., O.C. 333 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps …’
Sugden arrived, moustache bristling, and the adjutant said, ‘Perhaps you’d better read it, sir.’
Sugden tore open the envelope and read aloud: ‘Dear Major Sugden: One of your officers today butchered five student pilots. I will be waiting for him, alone, 2,000 metres (6,600 feet) over Peronne at 7.30 tomorrow morning. Only one of my guns will be loaded. Respectfully yours, Werner von Rackow, Captain, Jagdstaffel 16.’
Sugden muttered, ‘What’s he so angry about? How was Rowland expected to know that they were students?’ He glanced up at Guy – ‘If you attempt to make that rendezvous, Rowland, you will be returned to England as unsuitable for active service.’ He stuffed the letter into his pocket and turned to the adjutant – ‘Get four machine guns from the nearest Ordnance Depot, and arrange to train a dozen fitters and riggers to fire them. It was chivalrous of von Rackow to bring over Bristol’s effects, and the note, but I don’t want them to get any ideas. The next Boche who flies down my airfield is not going to get home to his.’
August 1, 1916
The great battle still raged between the Somme and the Ancre. Lieutenant Colonel Quentin Rowland, wounded again, this time through the stomach, was on his way to the railway station in Amiens, there to be loaded, with many others, onto a hospital train and taken to a Base Hospital. The ambulance bumped and rattled over the pavé, his wound hurt, his whole belly ached, but, lying in a haze of morphine, he did not think he was dangerously wounded. Doc Sholto, the R.M.O., had told him that the bullet – received in front of Contalmaison early this morning – had apparently gone clean through without touching any vital part.
Guy Rowland sat in the C.O.’s office, listening to Major Sugden. He had made three more kills during the month, raising his total to seven. Each time he had vomited in the cockpit of his D.H. 2 as soon as he was safely landed.
Sugden said, ‘I am giving you this leave so that you can see your grandfather, Rowland, and help the R.F.C. … because he is a Member of Parliament. I want you to impress on him that our most urgent problem is to get a workable synchronized machine gun. The Boches have had one for months, and it gives them a great advantage in design. Our designers have to build pushers, which, if they’re single engine, must have twin booms and their concomitant problems.’
‘I found that out for myself, sir.’
‘You have designed aircraft?’
‘A little. Single-engined pushers seemed to suffer from structural weakness and inefficiency of the propeller. It was all right, in theory, with multi-engined pushers out on the wings – they were aerodynamically as good as tractors.’
‘That’s interesting … Well, make your grandfather appreciate – and have the Prime Minister appreciate – that the very best brains in the country must be put to this. We don’t have much time. Now the D.H. 2 is superior to the E III, but Fokker’s not going to sit still. I don’t think he can push his E design any farther. He’ll bring out something faster … more manoeuvreable, and it will knock us out of the skies, until we get a machine that has better flying characteristics than the D.H. 2, which means a tractor engine – which means synchronized guns – at least two of them … something like the new Sopwith that 70 Squadron got just before the start of the offensive.’
Guy stood up, thinking the squadron commander had finished – ‘Anything else, sir?’
Sugden said, ‘Wait a minute. Tell him you’ve got the M.C. Not for your exploit with the student pilots, but for the way you attacked those four Boches on the 16th, when they had Gorringe cold, gun jammed and engine missing on most of its cylinders.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You’re a bit schoolboyish sometimes – I don’t mean in Mess, that doesn’t matter a damn – but in the air. How old are you?’
‘Nineteen and nearly a half, sir.’
Sugden sighed, ‘Well, you’ve got to act like eighteen, but think like forty, in the air. That’s all.’
Guy saluted, and went out, adjusting the forage cap to the proper angle on the side of his head. Four o’clock and the squadron’s Crossley was waiting for him. His grandfather and the other two visiting M.P.s were in the Hotel de France in Amiens. He ought to get a good dinner out of it, at least …
The car started, Guy sitting beside the driver. For a while they talked, then Guy remembered that the adjutant had handed him two letters just before he went in to see the C.O. He pulled them out of his tunic pocket and glanced at the handwriting. The first was from Aunt Alice. He read quickly – Granny was in the hospital again, but no operation possible. Grandfather hadn’t wanted to go on the tour of the Front with the other M.P.s, for Granny’s sake, but she had insisted. Uncle Richard’s aircraft company was doing well, big aeroplanes flying low over the town every day so that people hardly looked up any more; the American girl, Betty Merritt, was working for the company, helping design the aeroplanes, what a wonderful thing for a woman to do …
He opened the other letter. It was from his mother: Virginia was working as a common private or whatever they called them in the Women’s Legion, cleaning lavatories and scrubbing floors; but she said she was happy. She herself was still in Hedlington, and unhappy: Guy would know why. She had seen the man she had told him about, but he would not speak to her. Was there anything he needed – socks, gloves, scarves, what about a sheepskin flying jacket?
What I’ll need in a few weeks, flying a D.H. 2., is a polar bear’s coat and trousers, Guy thought sardonically … Poor Mummy, apparently she knew where the man she loved was, but would not tell him or Virginia or anyone else. Guy thought he would like to meet the man some time. He ought to regard him as a cad and a rotter, ruining his father’s marriage; but he couldn’t. People weren’t always responsible for themselves or their actions, and allowances had to be made. One had to understand, or try to … one had to think like forty.
At the main road the driver had to stop the Crossley and wait while a column of seventeen ambulances passed, also heading for Amiens. Then they followed behind. Guy thought, he had not yet had an opportunity to go up the line. He knew that his father’s battalion was in the battle area. He’d go tomorrow, as soon as he’d said goodbye to Grandfather, instead of spending the day here, overeating and drinking.
They followed the ambulances until they turned off towards Amiens railway station, while the R.F.C. driver continued to the Hotel de France.
The evening passed pleasantly enough for Guy – a happy reunion with his grandfather, sher
ry with him and the other two M.P.s, while he told them about the war in the air and the absolute need for synchronized machine guns; an hour’s mild flirtation with the vivacious young French woman behind the reception desk, then to his hotel room, and his thoughts … up the line tomorrow; next day, in the air again, and again the killing. His lips tightened and his eyes gleamed, leaning over the basin, staring at his own face in the mirror. This was the face that had gloated over the poor mad Hedlington Ripper, when he’d killed him on the steep slope down into the town, under the full moon. He had felt the same as each Fokker turned and died, its pilot with it. He leaned closer to his image and whispered, ‘Butcher!’ Later he went to bed and tried to go to sleep, but, until three o’clock in the morning, failed.
Daily Telegraph, Friday, August 4, 1916
CASEMENT HANGED
‘I DIE FOR MY COUNTRY’
Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison shortly after nine o’clock yesterday morning. His last words, uttered just before the bolt was drawn, were ‘I die for my country.’ Ellis was the executioner.
A large crowd, composed mostly of women and children, assembled in the neighbourhood of the front entrance of the prison, in Caledonian-road. When the bell, announcing that the execution had taken place, began to toll, cheers were raised. The cheering was taken up by scores of people, and hats and handkerchiefs were waved …
Cate read it all again slowly. It was over.
It had not begun. Once, he would have felt so. Even his wife Margaret, all the years they had lived together, had not been able to make him see anything more in the troubles of Ireland than the squabblings and internecine bickerings of a small and unstable people, whose fate had unfortunately been linked by geography to that of England. The full majesty of the British legal process had been invoked in Casement’s case; and there was no other way. Obviously, he could not be court-martialled and summarily shot, since he had not been caught with arms in his hands, waging war against the King. But now, from behind the grim walls of Pentonville, Casement would speak to future generations. You could dismiss the Connollys, Pearses, Plunketts, MacDermotts, and Clarkes as wild Irish fanatics, most of them dangerous radicals, too. Sir Roger Casement had been a British Consul, a knight, and a notable diplomat. Perhaps Casement should have been reprieved as a gesture of goodwill, in the name of the Irish soldiers now fighting and dying in France. Or perhaps it was the Pearses and Plunketts who should have been spared – given a stinging metaphorical cut across the palm and told to stand in the corner and be good boys in future.
Poor Ireland! No wonder the song called it the ‘most distressful country,’ and such it would remain if its leaders were to continue to be murderous fanatics and ignorant Roman Catholic bog priests. Definitely Casement should have been spared, to counter-balance the forces of superstition and ignorance.
Chill at heart, he wondered whether Margaret would meet her fate on an English gallows? Or whether by a burst of machine gun fire in some sordid Irish ambush or counter-ambush; and whether the finger on the trigger might not be their son’s, or her brother’s. Again, as so often now, he turned the pages of the newspaper, looking for something that was not tainted by the universal brutishness of the war. At last he found it, and read with spirits rising. Here was the old determination, the old true heart of England! Here was faith, and fellowship, high chivalry, and untarnished courage:
SOUTH POLE EXPEDITION
A TERRIBLE JOURNEY
Reuters’ Agency states that three members of the Shackleton Expedition reached London yesterday from South Georgia. … They were three of the volunteer crew of five who accompanied Sir E. Shackleton on his journey by whale-boat from Elephant Island on April 24 and eventually reached South Georgia. They are full of enthusiasm for Sir E. Shackleton, whom they almost worship. They say that but for his leadership not one would have survived … The journey … which lasted fifteen days, is described as a terrible experience. Constantly they had to hack the ice from the boat to prevent her from being engulfed. They had sufficient rations, but were very short of water … There were continual hurricanes and bad weather, and even as they set out from Elephant Island the whale-boat and its occupants were capsized … The men had their first square meal on South Georgia, where they secured some albatross weighing 14 lb each. Each man consumed half of this, bones and all.
11
Hedlington: Thursday, September 7, 1916
I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth in me shall never die.
The coffin lay at the foot of the altar, covered in wreaths of autumn wildflowers and hothouse lilies. Harry Rowland bowed his head and let the slow tears flow. Through the blur in his mind he could see Rose in her coffin – though it was all of oak, fastened down – as she had been when they first met in the beauty of her youth.
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
Richard stood next to his father, his wife Susan on his other side. It was raining outside, and he could see the streams of water running down the stained glass in the rose east window of the church. Susan heard the service, but did not listen. She was almost certain now that she was pregnant. She’d wait for one more missed period, then she’d have to tell Richard; but how?
We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.
Susan’s adopted children, Tim and Sally, stood next to her, then John and Louise Rowland, Louise with her handkerchief to her eyes. Louise had been a little afraid of her mother-in-law all her married life, and had found her hard to approach, but there had never been any wavering in her respect for her. Louise heard a rustling and snickering and glanced down, frowning, at Tim and Sally. Susan had heard too, and was looking down. Tim was tearing corners out of the hymn book in front of him and rolling them in his mouth to make spitballs. Sally was trying to choke down her giggles. She caught Louise’s stern eye and gagged. Tim swallowed his spitballs, turned red in the face and began to cough.
John Rowland heard the commotion the children were making, but his mind was far away. The battle in France, which had started early in July, was still raging. The casualties were beyond all reason. It had to be stopped, somehow, and every right-thinking man and woman must do all he or she could to see that it was. Louise would not agree. She, like many others, would think that he had turned pro-German, a traitor. So would his own son, Boy.
I will take heed to my ways: that I offend not in my tongue.
I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle: while the ungodly is in my sight.
Quentin and Fiona stood in the pew behind. Quentin was in uniform, and tomorrow would return to France, to his battalion. He had been ready to go four days ago – the day his mother died. The War Office had extended his leave at once – because his father was an M.P., he supposed. England made him feel uneasy. He wanted to get back, and the sooner the better, for the battle was still raging by the Somme. His wound was healed for, as Sholto had predicted, the bullet had gone through without damaging any vital organ.
Fiona, at her husband’s side, stared at the coffin. Like Louise, she had been a little afraid of her mother-in-law, but had also loved her, for they were both Celts – and they had understood each other. And now her attempts to make her very English family understand how the Scots and Welsh and Irish felt were ended. The persuasion was now in the hands, and arms, of others – many with violence, not reason, in their hearts. She turned her head slowly, while listening to the curate assisting the canon read the Psalm. When she came into the church she had noticed an odd-looking man by the door, dressed in blue serge, wearing a bowler hat, a man with a heavy face and sharp, little eyes – a policeman in plain clothes, she could swear. Scotland Yard would be thinking that perhaps Margaret
would take the risk of coming over, in some sort of disguise, to pay her last respects.
The worst pain she suffered now was hearing Quentin talk of his new adjutant, Archie Campbell. It wrenched her bowels that Archie should prefer life in the trenches with Quentin, to what she had offered him. She was a woman and she had offered Archie her whole self – her body, her love, her life; instead he had gone into the mud with the soldiers, at Quentin’s side. Quentin couldn’t understand him, of course. ‘Drinks too much,’ he’d said, ‘but his heart’s in the right place. And he’s learning … It isn’t as though we were having ceremonial parades every week, or providing full dress guards of honour for the Viceroy … this isn’t soldiering, in France … it’s a dirty, filthy street fight.’ He had not said a word to her about why she was still in the flat, and not gone to join her lover in London, as she had told him nearly a year ago that she would. And he had not once asked who the lover had been.
Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end.
In the second row pew the other side of the aisle, behind the domestic staff of Laburnum Lodge, Bill and Ruth Hoggin stood beside the Earl and Countess of Swanwick. Hoggin had not known Rose Rowland well, but this was an important funeral in Hedlington and everyone who was anyone was here; so he had to be; and, by hick and good management, he had wriggled in next to the Swanwicks. Lady S had all but ignored their existence when they entered the pew, Ruth bobbing and curtseying as though she was greeting Queen Mary, but that didn’t matter. The earl had got himself onto the Joint Select Committee looking into the food business – in return for promising to vote for something Asquith wanted, probably; and – here Hoggin pretended to blow his nose to smother a chuckle – the Committee had invited him, Bill Hoggin, to act as one of their technical advisers. So Bill Hoggin, expert, would be advising them about the doings of Bill Hoggin, food purveyor and manufacturer. And Horatio Bottomley, editor of the influential John Bull, was ready to eat out of his hand, for a consideration, of course. And the H.U.S.L. shops were coming along famously. It was enough to make a cat laugh.