by Alan Evans
Someone among the crew of the cutter sucked in a startled breath, then muttered, “Blimey! Thought it was a ghost!” Edwards came to them out of the gloom, feet silent on the deck, wrapped in white robes from head to foot. He halted by Smith, who now saw the belt around his waist, the knife, in its sheath, thrust through it. Edwards saw the glance and drew the knife, hefted it casually. It was long and curved, wicked looking. Edwards’s teeth showed and his eyes glittered below the headdress as he said “The only friend I trust.”
Smith said shortly, “Put it away and don’t fool about.” Edwards chuckled, but he obeyed.
Dauntless was stopped and the cutter swung out, lowered. Jameson had had a net thrown over the side and the crew climbed down it and into the boat, Edwards following them easily and Smith went last. He settled in the stern sheets beside Jameson with Edwards alongside him and the cutter got under way. So did Dauntless, her grey steel hull sliding past and away as the cutter headed for the shore, and astern of Dauntless went Blackbird with her great, looming hangar.
The crew of the cutter rowed steadily, knowing they had a two-mile pull to the shore. As they closed it Smith asked, “This is the place?”
Edwards nodded, “Good enough. Anywhere along here.”
Smith knew the coast was not defended here, only lightly patrolled by the Turks, and knew why. There was nothing inland but sand dunes for five or ten miles, nothing to defend. But he used his glasses as they crept in, searching the shore to try to detect any signs of movement, a patrol. He could see none. It was a rock-bound coast but there were gaps and Jameson picked one and steered for it. The cutter slipped through the neck of oily swirling water between the rocks with their breaking foam. The beach ahead was deserted. Smith could see Buckley crouched in the bow, tensed to jump and Edwards was leaning forward, ready to go.
Smith asked, “Suppose you meet someone in the dunes?”
Edwards did not look at him, watched the shore over the bending and straightening backs of the cutter’s crew, but he said casually, “His throat or mine. And I’ll bet it’s his.”
The cutter grounded, Buckley leapt over the side into the surf and held the bow as Edwards picked his way light-footed between the men at the oars. He jumped ashore and walked quickly up the beach towards the dunes without pausing or looking back. He reached the dunes and his pale, drifting figure was lost to sight. Smith ordered, “Shove off.”
They turned the cutter and headed back out to sea. Smith thought Braddock was right: Edwards was a brigand, a loud-mouth, a cut-throat. He was also a very brave man. Did it matter that this was only to further his own ambition, not taking risks for his country nor the Arabs but for himself? ‘Money, influence, women ...’
Smith shifted uneasily, admitting to himself his own ambition to succeed in his career — and hadn’t he risked that career more than once because of a woman?
But he and Edwards were not two of a kind, he was sure of that.
*
Before dawn the ships were off Haifa, back on patrol, and Blackbird began launching the three serviceable Shorts in the first grey light, the start of a long day for the Gang. They flew reconnaissance patrols through all the hours of daylight as the ships steamed northward, the Shorts striking inland to Lydda, swinging north up to the big Turkish camp at El Afuleh, then westward down to Haifa and still following the railway. When a returning seaplane was sighted, another flew off to take up the hunt before the first came down on the sea. Further north they flew through the pass in the screening mountains of Lebanon, flying low to observe, never more than five hundred feet above the ground so that riflemen on the upper slopes were firing down at them.
When they came to the junction at Homs they flew north and south alternately, up and down the line of the railway, searching.
After the sun had set the ships hurried northward through the night and the next dawn found them off the Gulf of Alexandretta.
The Gulf was twenty miles wide and ran inland for thirty. Smith watched its northern Turkish shore lift slowly out of the sea as Dauntless steamed northward across the mouth of the Gulf. They were three hundred miles north of Deir el Belah and Cyprus lay seventy miles south-west.
The line of the railway ran north from Lebanon, inland of the Amanus mountains, and then swung around the head of the Gulf. There had been much argument in the first months of the war with Turkey that if the Allies had landed in the Gulf they could have struck inland to cut the Baghdad railway and sever Turkey from her armies in Mesopotamia and Palestine. Smith thought it would not have been easy and the Dardanelles failure had showed that. In any event, the attempt had not been made and the chance was gone for ever. A landing was still talked about, but neither the ships nor the men could be found so that was an end of it.
Henderson, the navigator, said, “The chart shows mine-fields right across the mouth of the Gulf with only one probable cleared channel along the northern shore and about a mile out. And the Turks have coastal batteries on that shore.”
Smith nodded; he had seen the chart and the guns in the Turkish batteries commanded that channel.
Once through the new Bagcha tunnel the railway turned westward along the northern shore of the Gulf and so to the town of Adana. That was the northern limit of Smith’s search because north of Adana the railway ran up into the Taurus mountains and inland, beyond the range of the Shorts. The line was broad gauge up to and through Adana but at the mountains it ceased. The Turks and Germans were building tunnels through the Taurus chain to link with the broad-gauge track from Constantinople on the other side but these were unfinished. So there was a gap between the end of the line from Constantinople and the start of it again south of the mountains. The connection was made by a metre-gauge line and road transport.
Smith was curious to see Adana, so he flew in one of the Shorts with Mike Cole, lieutenant of the Royal Naval Air Service, taking the place of Cole’s usual observer, Lieutenant Hamilton of the Field Artillery. The big, red-headed gunner officer and the short and wiry Cole were a pair of jokers, always laughing together, inseparable, except for now, when Smith turfed Hamilton out of the Short and left him standing disgruntled on the deck of Blackbird.
Cole had flown this one before and warned Smith before they took off, “There’s a sort of downdraught because of the cup formed by the mountains right round the Gulf, so it’ll be a bit bumpy.”
When the Short hit the bumps it dropped like a stone for fifty or sixty feet. All the way up to Adana it wallowed and made heavy weather of the flight so Cole’s whole attention was given up to flying the aircraft and it was left to Smith to look for any sign of the Afrika Legion. They flew over Adana less than a thousand feet above the ground. There was a train at the station and the platform crowded with troops, but all were Turks. Cole banked the Short and headed eastward, following the track along the northern shore of the Gulf and only turning away when it ran into the Bagcha tunnel that carried it through the Amanus mountains.
He was a tired man when he set down the Short in the lee of Blackbird and taxi-ed alongside after three hours of hard flying.
As Smith reached over him to hook on to the derrick, Cole shouted, “Not a shot fired at us all the way! But if they’d thrown up the kitchen sink we wouldn’t have noticed! Those bumps!” Then, “Any luck, sir?”
Smith shouted back, “No!”
So the reports continued as the two ships steamed south again and the Shorts flew their searches. Traffic on the railway was normal. In the late forenoon Blackbird signalled that the replacement Short the fitters and riggers had christened Delilah was ready for a test flight. Smith looked across, saw Flight Lieutenant Bennett in its cockpit and Hamilton climbing into the observer’s seat.
Ackroyd said, “Going along for the ride. Or maybe Bennett wants ballast aboard.”
Smith smiled. “Hamilton will provide plenty of that.” The lieutenant of artillery bulked large as he stood in the cockpit. He sat down.
Smith remembered that Chris Pearce had not flown for two days n
ow. He wondered if it was time yet to lift the embargo ...
Blackbird’s speed was falling away, the Short was hooked on, lifted by the derrick. At that moment Hamilton suddenly and inexplicably stood erect again, just as the derrick swung. He wavered, arms flailing, then toppled over the side and fell to the deck beneath. He was right under the Short where it dangled from the derrick.
Bennett waved, Smith saw his mouth open, shouting an order and the evolution continued. It was the right thing to do — others would cope with Hamilton. As the Short swung out over the sea and was lowered, men aboard Blackbird rushed towards the inert figure on the deck.
Smith snapped, “Pass the word for the surgeon!”
The engine of the Short burst into life and Delilah, the mottled pink and red of her like a flame running across the sea, took off.
Merryweather, the surgeon, a burly young man who played rugby for his county till the war came, charged up the ladder and on to the bridge.
Smith told him of Hamilton’s fall. “Will you need to go aboard?”
Merryweather asked, “Can I have a word with Maginnis?”
Smith nodded and told the signalman: “Make to Blackbird: ‘Am coming alongside. Surgeon to speak to S.B.A.’” And ordered, “Starboard five. Revolutions for ten knots.”
Pearce was on the bridge of the carrier as Dauntless closed to within a score of yards and Maginnis came onto the wing of Blackbird’s bridge. He was the Sick Berth Attendant aboard Blackbird; she carried no doctor. He was Glaswegian and an unlikely nurse. Broad and squat, long-armed and with huge hands, he looked more like a gorilla. The bridge megaphone in one hand dangled almost at his knee. He was without his cap, having come straight from the sick bay, and his hair showed black and close-cropped like a skull cap on his bullet head.
Merryweather spoke through the trumpet. “What’s his condition?”
Maginnis’s deep growl came over the sea, “Ach: He banged his heid but the skulls a’richt. He’s got a bump like an egg, that’s a’. Concussion, mebbe. Ah’m keeping him in his bunk wi’ some tea an’ aspirin.”
Merryweather answered, “Very good. Let me know if there’s any change.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
So Hamilton was all right. Smith was relieved but then he bellowed through cupped hands, “What the hell did he think he was doing, standing up as she was hoisted out?”
Maginnis shrugged heavy shoulders. “He disnae ken, sir. Canna remember daein’ it. Didnae believe it when first we telt him.”
It was an accident, but a stupid, unnecessary accident. Maginnis, as if trying to explain away the wilfulness of a child, called, “He’s only a soljer, ye ken.”
Dauntless took station ahead of Blackbird again and Bennett flew Delilah around and around the ships for an hour as they steamed southward. When he finally set the Short down and was back aboard Blackbird Pearce signalled: “Aircraft excellent. Needs only minor adjustments before operational. Estimated available four hours.”
Smith grunted, “Acknowledge.” Then: “No!” That was not enough. “Make: ‘Well done. We need your painted lady.’” No harm in patting Pearce’s back and thereby those of the mechanics and riggers who had laboured long hours to get Delilah into the air. Bennett flew it again later and this time reported Delilah ready for operations.
All the time the other three Shorts had been circulating, always two of them in the air, one taking off as another was recovered. The reports came in with each recovery, signalled to Smith in Dauntless, where he read them and pored over the map, compared, looked for omissions, for gaps in the patrol pattern. He found only those that were physically out of the range of the Shorts or screened by the mountains of Lebanon. But the Afrika Legion must be moving. If it had been passing through one of those patches of dead ground as the Shorts made their northward sweep the Legion would be out of it and in the open for the southerly search. He was certain they had not yet arrived, or he would be when the final reports come in to complete the pattern. He was also certain as to his next move. When the Legion did come they would be held up at the bottleneck north of Adana. There they would be slowed for a time to a snail’s pace on the metre-gauge line and the road connection. There he would find them.
So in the early evening of the day he told Ackroyd, “We’ll fly one more patrol down to Lydda and Jaffa and if that draws a blank we’ll head north for Alexandretta at twenty knots.”
Cole was the pilot and now Wilson of the Norfolks went as his observer. The Short was Delilah. They took off when the two ships were twenty miles north of Haifa and there was something over two hours of daylight remaining. Their mission was to fly down the coast to Haifa and from there follow the railway up to Afuleh, then south over Tul Karam and on to Lydda. From there they would return and seek out the ships at their projected position at that time.
So it worked out.
Smith was on the bridge at the estimated time of the Short’s return. A few minutes’ delay would not have caused nail biting. By nature of the task and the Short itself, flight timings were elastic. But there was no delay. Right on time a look-out reported, “Aircraft bearing Red three-oh!”
At that distance it was no more than just an aircraft, unidentifiable, but as ships and aircraft closed the gap at eighty knots it was seen to be a Short and then that it was Delilah.
Smith told the Signal Yeoman, “Make to Blackbird: ‘Prepare to recover seaplane. Captain coming aboard.’”
He wanted to hear Wilson’s report in person, even though he was so certain they would have drawn a blank that the course north to Alexandretta was already laid off.
So as Blackbird swung out of her station astern and stopped to make a lee for the Short, so Dauntless slowed, stopped, lowered the gig and Smith went down into it. Its crew pulled across to Blackbird, and Smith watched Delilah turning into the wind to come down on the sea. With a part of his mind he was thinking that Pearce still had plenty of aviation fuel in ranked drums in the hangar, and the store of bombs beneath it was almost complete. Bombing raids alone would not stop the Legion though — the Fokkers of the Asia Corps would shoot the Shorts out of the sky, and anyway —
There was something wrong.
As the gig came up astern of Blackbird the Short was down and taxi-ing, engine snarling. Wilson should have been on his feet and ready to grab at the heaving line on the derrick purchase but he sat slumped in the cockpit, head lolling. The boom of the derrick was swung inboard again. A seaman snatched at the line that dangled from the purchase, whipped it around him under his arm, grabbed at the hook and was swung out from Blackbird’s deck to hang above the Short. The steam winch chuntered and the seaman went down on the end of the wire, balanced briefly on the cockpit coaming by the pilot, then hauled down the block of the purchase and hooked on. The seaplane’s engine died, the winch hammered and Delilah was hoisted, swung inboard.
The gig ran in along side Blackbird. Smith hooked fingers on the ladder and climbed aboard. The Short rested on its trolley. Now that he stood only yards away from it he could see the rents torn in the fuselage around the observer’s cockpit. Cole was down on the deck, Pearce holding him by the arm and shouting orders at the men milling around the Short. Chris looked no better for his rest from flying, was still nervy, tired. He turned, saw Smith and led Cole over to him. They moved to stand right in the stern, out of the way of the men working around the Short.
Cole had pulled off the leather helmet and goggles. His hair was sweat-matted to his head and he blinked at Smith.
Who asked shortly, “What happened?”
Cole swallowed. “We didn’t see the Afrika Legion or anything like it. Flew in up to Afuleh then down the line, circled around Lydda, headed for Jaffa and home, only saw the one train all the time. Then a Fokker dived on us. You know how it is, sir. They’ve got that bit more speed, manoeuvrability and can pick their shots. This chap must have been new, thank God. He tore round and round but never got his sights on us. Wilson gave him a few bursts from the Lewis and t
hat kept him off. In the end he just threw up the sponge, fired one burst at long range and flew away. Just that one burst, but it got Wilson and cut him all to pieces below the waist. They’ll have a hell of a job cleaning that cockpit —”
Smith cut in harshly, “What about the train?”
“The train?” Cole shoved fingers through his hair. “That was just north of Lydda. We dropped the bombs, missed, but one burst ahead and that was enough to make them stop and everybody got out of the train. The second time we buzzed down low, right over them and I saw them clearly. They were Turks, no doubt of it. They fired at us with rifles but never came near. Then that bloody Fokker.” He shook his head.
Pearce asked, “What about Delilah?”
Cole brightened a little. “Marvellous. Still hard work, like all these Shorts, but she’s the pick of our bunch and no mistake.” They began to talk the technicalities of flying and Smith recognised it as a deliberate manoeuvre on Pearce’s part to take Cole’s mind off Wilson, if only briefly.
Smith looked over the pilot’s shoulder. Surgeon Merryweather was there. Smith had not seen him arrive from Dauntless but he had come quickly and was now up on one side of the observer’s cockpit, Maginnis on the other. Merryweather climbed down after a moment and stood on the deck, shoulders hunched. He turned and caught Smith’s eye, shook his head wearily.
So it was Wilson’s dead body Maginnis and the others were extricating from the cockpit. Smith watched the group of seamen, riggers and mechanics as they worked gently, voices hushed. Wilson had been seconded from the Norfolks as an observer, a volunteer, son of a farming family. Smith had talked with him several times. Wilson had known the Norfolk village where Smith lived as a boy. A likeable young man, shy but with an engaging smile and an eagerness to fly. He had been so enthusiastic, wanted to become a pilot.
Smith’s gaze swung back to Cole standing weary and dejected before him. “It wasn’t your fault, just bad luck,” he said quietly. And to Pearce, scowling angrily at Delilah, “I think Mike has earned a drink, Chris.”