“I know how you feel, but I cannot find it in my heart to blame those poor men. Surely it is the fault of the generals, not the fighting soldiers?”
This was not an argument that Dupuis wanted. He looked angry and his voice was bitter.
“It is no wonder that the Americans are boasting that they are coming to win our war for us.”
“What about those two Americans on your squadron?”
“Now that I am in command, they will go. I can’t stand the thought of seeing their grinning faces around; mocking us.”
“And what about your bête noire?”
“Gabin? The nouveau riche? Oh, no, I won’t get rid of him. I’ll hang on to him and see him squirm. I don’t like him, but he’s good for the squadron’s morale.”
She smiled.
“And you will enjoy being his boss. Perhaps someone should give him a blessed medal too.”
*
Gabin had spent his leave in Lyons, like a loyal son of that proud city. He had feasted gluttonously twice a day, in the sort of company he most enjoyed: merry, admiring, complaisant women and hearty men with no pretensions about them. There were few of his own age to consort with away from the Front, but two or three of his boyhood friends had shown up on varying periods of leave from the battle zone.
Whatever pessimism and depressions prevailed elsewhere in the country, Lyons remained its industrious, confident, prosperous self. With rather less of a market for silk, these days, the family firm had diversified into other materials and there was many a French sailor, soldier or airman who wore its cloth on his back and its leather on his feet.
Gabin had no recognised mistress. He enjoyed variety and took his pleasures where and when he could.
On the last evening of his leave he would have to stay at home with his parents and as many relatives and friends as they invited. But the penultimate evening was his and he had invited his own friends, all of them in one of the Services, to dine with him in the currently most fashionable restaurant where an orchestra played for dancing. To accompany them he had selected a suitable assortment of girls of their choice and, for those who had none, his. Looking around the table, he could claim to have enjoyed the favours of five of the eight ladies present. The realisation caused him gratification and amusement.
He was glad that he had no strong sentimental attachments and no emotional commitments. He had a pretty, blonde girl on one side of him and a pretty, dark one on the other and he knew that he would spend the night with one but did not yet know which it would be. One of the boys was getting very drunk. And with good reason, thought Gabin. His regiment had been cut to shreds at Verdun and, a month ago, the troops had refused to obey orders to move to another part of the line from their rest area. They had simply sat down and defied their officers to make them budge.
Gabin’s friend had admitted to him that he had been on the verge of blowing his brains out from shame. Instead, he was making himself insensible with wine now. That would leave one girl over, if he became paralytic. Cabin suspected that he would end up in bed with both the blonde and the brunette.
He did his best not to think about returning to the Front. When he did, the most distasteful part of it was having to put up with the constant presence of that humourless, cold, overbearing snob, Dupuis.
The brunette put her lips close to his ear.
“Why are you looking so pensive? It is not like you. It doesn’t suit you.”
He put Dupuis out of his mind instantly. He smiled at her and turned his head so that he could whisper to her.
“Pensive? Yes, I was thinking. Wondering.”
“What about?”
Her lips, so close to his face, reminded him of other times with her. Her husband had been killed early in 1915. She was only twenty-one now. He was glad to succour an old friend’s widow.
“Whether Josette snores.”
She glanced at the blonde, then up at him with an innocent air.
“I don’t.”
“I know that.”
“Well?”
“Pierre is about to pass out. Josette will be on her own.”
“You’ve got a big bed.”
He also had his own suite in one wing of the house, with its own entrance. His parents were very understanding.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Half a loaf is better than none, my dear. And you’re a loaf I’ve always found specially toothsome.”
“It’s girls like you who make me proud to be a Frenchman.”
“You think we’re worth fighting for?”
The subject of fighting had no appeal for him at that moment and he wished she had not brought the matter up.
*
The spring of 1917 saw great changes in Ehrler and Seeckt. Ehrler seemed to have become even more shrivelled. Long hours though he had worked as a rigger, he had never felt as fatigued as he did now. This was because fear was never absent every time he left the ground. In the old days he slept soundly. Now, he slept in snatches and his sleep was plagued by nightmares. Fear and lack of sleep had added furrows and creases to his face. The skin under his eyes sagged.
His disposition had improved noticeably when he began his flying training. For several weeks he had been cheerful and, in a stilted way, jocular. His demeanour had changed again after he had flown his first week’s operational sorties. Once again he became morose, snappish and surly. He was not the same sombre, serious Ehrler of his pre-flying days. He had found some pride in himself now that he was risking his life for his country. That had lessened his grievance against the world. His present black moods were brought on by sheer fear of being killed or badly wounded. It was not death itself that frightened him but the manner in which airmen usually met it.
Every day he saw aeroplanes on fire or falling many thousands of feet out of control. He pictured what it must be like to be slowly burned alive or to sit and wait for your aircraft to slam into the ground and know that you were about to be crushed to death. He had seen many men thrown out of their cockpits, and, in those days of flying without parachutes, go tumbling down to the same horrific end. He had seen some jump out in preference to being burned. He had seen the survivors of battles with the enemy who had lost a limb or been blinded. He had seen aeroplanes return to base with their cockpits awash with blood and their bullet-riddled crews slowly dying.
It all preyed on his mind day and night and he had aged years in a few months. This had not reconciled him to his wife and he still avoided going home despite her strident letters of complaint and accusation.
Seeckt was too obtuse and too physically self-assured because of his great size to suffer such extremes of terror as Ehrler. His mind was mostly preoccupied with pleasant thoughts even when he was on an operation.
His pay as a sergeant was much more than he had ever earned before. As a labourer on his parents’ farm he had been given bed and board and a little pocket money. As a private and lance corporal he had received a pittance. The few marks he had earned from casual farm work didn’t go far. Now he felt rich and in addition he was comfortably housed and well fed. He was not as well fed as at the family table, but he no longer went hungry as he often had in the lower ranks. He was mixing with men whom he regarded as sophisticated; and they treated him as an equal. The ground crew sergeants showed him respect. He had taken to playing cards and smoking cheroots. Twice a week he visited the senior N.C.Os’ Puff, which was rather less sordid than the ones to which he had been accustomed.
Because he had always been much bigger than his coevals, he had been his friends’ protector against bullies and in whatever games they played he had excelled. He could climb trees faster and higher than his playmates, because of his reach. He could throw or kick a ball further because he had the weight and the long arms and legs which gave him the advantage. He had grown up regarding himself as indestructible. He still had this delusion and looked at enemy fire with equanimity.
Although he had seen just as many men killed an
d wounded in aerial combat as Ehrler, he was not equipped to put himself mentally in their predicaments. Having been wounded as an infantryman, he felt that he was much safer in the air. The greatest number of casualties in the trenches was inflicted by artillery. He seldom came under heavy anti-aircraft fire, because the Military Aviation Service never went far behind enemy lines.
Seeckt had learned a way of imposing his superiority on his comrades. Very few of them were old Front hogs. He often referred to the early days of the war and his experiences in the trenches. He implied that life in the air force was safe in comparison. Nobody contradicted him. Those who had not been in the trenches could not and those who had did not wish to.
He had become increasingly friendly with Ehrler. Although there were many among the sergeants whose backgrounds fitted them better for Ehrler’s companionship, Seeckt gave him reassurance because he provided a link with the days then they were both working safely on the ground. Ehrler had even taken to accompanying Seeckt to the Puff now and then.
Seeckt still respected and sought Ehrler’s views about every possible topic.
“When is the war going to end, Ehrler?”
They were sharing a bottle of wine on a day’s leave in Lille.
“When the General Staff applies simple mathematics to the solution of this stalemate.”
Seeckt, quite lost, looked admiring.
Ehrler got into his stride at once, as though lecturing a backward pupil; which, in a sense, he was.
“It is a matter of probabilities, you see. If they measure the amount of ground won against expenditure of life and ammunition, they should be able to calculate that the most economical method of attack is by the proper use of these new Schlachtgeschwader, the Schlastas. Did you know they are actually putting protective armour on these new CL class machines?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well, they are. Think of being protected against enemy fire by steel plating! And these Schlastas work very close to the ground: so, even if a machine is hit, it hasn’t got far to fall. And there’s time to get out before it burns.”
“You make it sound very safe.”
“I think it is. And, used properly, these close support squadrons could win the war for us. I wish I were on one.”
“I wonder what Leutnant Rudel and Leutnant Weisbach are doing these days?”
*
The spring of 1917 brought misery to both Baxter L. Kaczinski and Frodingham S. Andretti.
Spoiled brats, they tasted discipline for the first time in their lives and neither of them took kindly to it.
Spring meant “boot camp”. They paraded and they formed fours and they marched and they double-marched. They did arms drill and calisthenics. They slept on hard beds and although they fed very well they did not feed as well as they did at home. Nobody told either of them that he was marvellous, but several officers and sergeants told them they were a disgrace to Uncle Sam’s Air Service.
They ached physically and they seethed mentally with indignation at this rough treatment: which seemed to have nothing at all to do with flying. Instructors bawled “Brace! Mister” and they hollowed their backs until they thought their spines would crack, they tucked in their chins until they thought they would choke.
They took their first faltering flights and got bawled at some more. They found themselves “restricted” and confined to camp for days at a time. They could do nothing right in anyone’s eyes, which was a salutary change from being idolised by doting parents. It was strange to them to be disciplined by men, when the only attempt at censure or punishment they had ever encountered in their matriarchal society had been made by high school mistresses.
They looked forward to escaping to advanced flying school in France.
In the meanwhile they boasted to anyone who would listen to them about what spectacular flyers they were going to be. Nobody among their fellow recruits listened, because each was boasting as loudly himself. But when they were allowed out on liberty they found a few foolish girls who hung on their words and told them they were heroes; and went to bed with them because they were shortly leaving for France and may never come home again.
Nine
The fourth month of 1917 became known as Bloody April.
The swarms of gaily-painted Albatros D3s which filled the sky along the whole of the Western Front overpowered the Royal Flying Corps and Aviation Militaire.
The R.F.C.’s casualties amounted to one-third of its strength: another grievous loss of many of its best pilots and observers which would in turn endanger the lives of the newcomers; who were now without enough experienced leaders.
Codrington and Paxton rejoined their squadron in time to catch the full weight of the German air effort. The Pups were in the process of being replaced by Bristol Fighters. They were inspecting one within minutes of arriving at St. Sangsue.
“I’m going to miss the Pup,” Codrington said. “This big brute won’t be anything like as agile.”
“It makes up for that, though. Just think of what it’s going to be like to know that you can get a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour out of it; and climb to twenty-two thousand.”
“And call on all that fire power.”
The Bristol Fighter had a Vickers gun for the pilot, and one or two Lewis guns, to choice, for the observer.
They spent a day familiarising themselves with the new type in flight. Codrington was in his office late that afternoon when the sergeant from the Squadron Orderly Room came in.
“New arrival, sir. Observer. Major’s put him on your flight.”
Codrington, with a leaden feeling in his stomach, held out his hand for the newcomer’s documents. The name seemed to stand out in letters of fire.
“Send him in, Sergeant.”
The light from the open door was temporarily blotted out by Stokoe’s bulk. He saluted grandly and waited at attention.
Codrington rose, shook hands and forced a smile which he hoped did not look sickly.
“Sit down.”
The chair creaked. Codrington surveyed his new observer. Stokoe, in a brand new R.F.C. uniform and with a British forage cap replacing his slouch hat, looked no less a handful of trouble than before. The small forage cap was almost lost in his enormous hands as he sat holding it on his lap.
Codrington tried not to sound reluctant.
“I’d better take you as my personal observer ...”
“That’s beaut, sir.”
“I was going to say: so that I can keep an eye on you. What happened to your friend?”
“Baird? He came with me, sir, but he’s gone to “B” Flight.”
That evening there seemed to be more noise in the mess than usual. There were already three Australians on the station, in the two other squadrons. They were not among the quieter members of the mess at any time, but Stokoe’s arrival seemed to have an enlivening effect on them.
Major Fotheringay-Brown gave frequent glances in their direction and Codrington felt amused by his baffled look. He knew exactly how the major felt.
“I put Thtokoe on your flight becauthe he thaid he wath a friend of yourth.” It was said with raised eyebrows.
“I ran into him in London at the end of my leave, Major. He had Baird with him. I hardly know either of them.”
“Oh? He thaid he wath a friend.”
“I think Stokoe makes friends or enemies on the instant, Major.”
On the next day Baird had his unfortunate experience of being catapulted out of his cockpit when his pilot made an unexpected dive followed by a sharp pull up.
The episode caused considerable amusement in the mess and Baird, who was shy, suffered much embarrassment.
His flight commander, who had nearly caused his death by the abrupt manoeuvre, was no less embarrassed. He had a word with Codrington, they both spoke to the major, and the following day Baird was transferred to Codrington’s flight in exchange for another recent arrival.
Codrington sent for Paxton.
Paxton, being a Montreal man, was bilingual. He looked unhappy.
“Merde, Crasher.”
They were on their own and Paxton could allow himself this familiarity.
“Any objection?”
“He’s a good guy, but he’s not very bright.”
“Have you forgotten he passed top in gunnery? Stokoe says he’s never seen anyone shoot with any sort of gun like Baird does.”
“Yeah, I had forgotten. That’s different, then!”
“Don’t be patronising. I’m giving you an observer who’s an ace hot-stuffer with a rifle and shotgun as well as the Vickers and Lewis. You’ll be the best-protected pilot on the wing.”
“Let’s see how he shapes in action. Keeping cool and an accurate aim under fire is a lot different from target practice or potting game. And you know it, Crasher.”
“What an ungrateful chap you are, Paxton.”
The last few months had generated a genuine warmth between them and, although Codrington would never have dreamed of saying so, he rated Paxton the best pilot on the squadron after himself. Paxton had the rare natural gift for flying which Codrington was aware that he also possessed. They grinned at each other in understanding now and Paxton went towards the office door.
“I’d better go and give young Baird the good news. Can I take him up for a familiarisation flight and a spot of practice?”
“You may. You could do with some practice yourself.”
Paxton went off looking amused by this parting admonishment.
He flew Baird well away from the line and subjected him to several minutes of aerobatics. Then he found suitable targets on the ground: a lone tree, a derelict hut, a tree stump. He made varying approaches to them, and Baird, showing no signs of having been disturbed by the stunting, hit them all with an accuracy which pleased his pilot.
*
No Wrath of Men Page 11