by Max Hennessy
When his leave came to an end Dicken wasn’t sure whether it had been a success or not. Annys had had little time for him and Zoë was never a good substitute, though at least she was enthusiastic and, using her father’s car, they went to Eastbourne and London. Her father was proud of her skill as a driver and trusted her anywhere with the machine, which was new, large and roomy and an excellent place for clutching each other in the dark at the end of the day.
He arrived back in France, once more almost at death’s door with seasickness after a gale in the Channel, to find that Hudnutt was dead and that the squadron’s aircraft had been standardised under a new policy to make maintenance easier. The Moranes had gone and all three flights now had BE2s.
“Pity they can’t think of something a bit better,” he commented.
Handiside shrugged. “Things have changed, kid,” he said. “We’ve been hit by a blight. The Germans have got the edge on us again. We’d just got the better of ’em when they came up with a new one. Albatros. Looks like a shark with a tail like a spade and two machine guns firing through the propeller.”
“Two?”
“Why not?” Handiside asked. “If one can fire through the propeller, why not two? One of these days they’ll probably have four. Even eight, if they can find room for ’em. We were knocking seven sorts of hell out of ’em when you left but now they’ve started grouping all their scout machines together in one squadron and one’s arrived opposite. They’re swatting us down like flies.”
The new Albatroses and Halberstadts the Germans had brought out flew a staggering hundred miles an hour and it wasn’t hard to imagine what they’d been doing to the elderly BEs. Their pilots had been hand-picked from both the Western and Eastern Fronts and, flying as a group, were a formidable formation to bump into.
“Intensive course at single-seater scout schools in Germany,” Handiside explained. “Then more training on the squadron at the front. This chap Boelcke’s behind it all. Their morale’s sky-high. Ours, I reckon, is at worm-level.”
“What about Hatto?”
“Still around. But the captain’s gone home and two others just failed to return. The fellers they’re sending out now are only half-trained kids. I hope you’re good at jumping.”
The pilot to whom Dicken was assigned, a boy called MacTavish, didn’t appear to know much about flying. With only ten hours’ experience in England and so far only five in France, he was permanently frustrated by an aggressive spirit that was entirely wasted because he couldn’t handle his machine well. It left him in a perpetual state of fuming fury that troubled Dicken a great deal, because he suspected it would lead him into doing something silly.
The BE2e, which was now in use in the squadron, though still no fighter, was a vast improvement on the earlier 2c, but the politicians responsible for providing the machines for France still didn’t seem to have grasped what was needed. The Germans had awakened quickly to the possibilities of flying and were developing new airplanes and tactics that left the British way behind. In England all that had happened was that somebody had ordered BEs in thousands and seemed unable to stop production, while there was still no means of synchronising the gun to the engine and what British fighters there were, were either pushers or carried the gun on the top wing.
Because of the losses, reconnaissance machines were now only sent out with escorts of scout planes, first three, then, as this proved ineffective, six, and everybody had to start practising formation flying, a highly problematic business in those squadrons equipped with two or three different types of machines all flying at different speeds. They didn’t realise it, but the whole concept of aerial warfare was changing and the fact that the prevailing wind blew from the west to carry any unwary pilot beyond reach of his own lines began to make air fighting a dangerous game. Dicken had arrived back in France, he decided, at a decidedly unpleasant time.
Christmas passed and the New Year came in a smother of mist and rain that kept them grounded for days at a time, fretting at the thought of the indifference of the authorities at home to the good performance of their machines. Flying became an uncomfortable chore. The oil in the machine guns froze and there was always the risk of frostbite. Covering his face with vaseline and trying to muffle himself up to make sure no part of him was left exposed, Dicken succeeded only in making it virtually impossible to move quickly.
The more he flew, the more he fancied the idea of flying himself. The new pilots were sadly lacking in aerial knowledge and all too often had only the experience of their observers to keep them alive. In the first five days of a new offensive the Flying Corps lost seventy-five machines in fighting and another fifty-six in crashes on their own airdromes. The Germans, they heard, had lost Boelcke, but in his place they were said to have a new expert who was clawing the old BEs down in dozens with an all-red Albatros. Rumour suggested the pilot was a woman, because only a woman would go in for such a gaudy colour, and another rumour had it that a special squadron had been recruited among the best British pilots in France for the sole purpose of destroying it, even that a reward had been offered.
They got the truth eventually from a German pilot who had been shot down and appeared in the mess for a drink before departing for a prisoner of war camp. The pilot of the red machine was a man called Richthofen and he wasn’t the only one either, because there was another called Voss, who was believed to have shot down twenty British machines on his own in a matter of two months or so. The Germans, the prisoner said, were claiming four British machines for every one of their own they lost. Certainly the wreckage of BEs was scattered everywhere, both behind and in front of the enemy lines. Broken tails and torn wings, many of them put there by Richthofen or Voss, seemed to sprout from every curve and hollow of the ground. The year had started with the British operating twenty-eight miles behind the German lines; because of the casualties, the limit was now set at two.
“We don’t make it hard for ’em,” Handiside said. “Not using BEs.”
With flying a deadly serious business again, it was best not to use the imagination too much. The places at table of casualties were deliberately not left empty in case people began to dwell on them, and with everybody pretending they didn’t care, hairsbreadth escapes were ignored because they all knew there would be more in the future. If there was a future, of course. For the most part, the future didn’t exist, because the war stretched in a bloody blur across it, leaving a curious sense of emptiness and want.
Despite this, however, there was a tremendous element of daring among the young pilots, all of whom seemed to wish to emulate Albert Ball, a nineteen-year-old pilot who regarded the war as a crusade and was prepared to tackle any number of Germans at once. Unfortunately, most of them – MacTavish among them – had neither the machine he flew nor his skill, and it was as they were flying over the Scarpe at the end of the month that Dicken finally decided that MacTavish was a danger to the public and to Nicholas Dicken Quinney in particular. More than once he had wiped off his undercarriage, once he had turned the machine over, and once, in an attempt to get over the trees at the end of the airdrome, had lost so much height he had flown between them, shedding his wings en route, to make what was for him a reasonably good landing.
“A perfect three-point touchdown,” he had said, his young pink face creased into a grin. “Without wings, too.”
As he watched a German balloon hanging like a fat maggot, obscene and graceless over the river, it suddenly dawned on Dicken that they were approaching it in a particularly determined manner. The morning was cold with a west wind pushing scraps of low cloud before it, the front line marked by smoke streaming eastward like grey wool. High above was a layer of stratus, ice-white so that the sky seemed full of light, and Dicken knew that against it they were silhouetted perfectly and a wonderful target for the ground gunners.
MacTavish was obviously intending to attack the balloon and Dicken began t
o shake his head and wave his arms frantically to warn him not to. MacTavish merely grinned and pointed, something which made Dicken begin to dance with rage in the observer’s cockpit.
The balloon was beginning to descend now and Dicken could see men running to the guns with which it was circled. As they drew nearer, Archie started firing and the first burst exploded within feet of the starboard wing, tearing the fabric and rocking the machine.
Making frantic indications to MacTavish to turn away, Dicken finally decided that, since they were going to attack the balloon, he might as well shoot at it, but MacTavish’s skill was not equal to his determination and they hurtled past like a bus out of control on a hill. By this time the machine was being hit repeatedly but, since nothing vital seemed to be touched, MacTavish swung around to have another go.
As they approached for their second run, Dicken spluttering with rage, the air was full of shellbursts, tracer bullets and flaming onions – a particularly unpleasant form of missile in strings of white lights like chain shot and as big as tennis balls – that came up in a maddeningly leisurely way, then whipped past in a manner that made you realise how lethal they were.
It was as they swung away a second time, with the only damage inflicted done to their own machine, that Dicken turned around to implore MacTavish not to have another go and spotted a machine turning in beneath them.
With alarm he saw it had the sharklike fuselage and spadeshaped tail that Handiside had warned against and it had twice the speed of the old BE and two guns winking deadly orange flashes through the propeller. It was red and evil-looking and was doubtless controlled by one of the Germans’ special pilots with their extra training – probably Richthofen himself!
Hammering on the fuselage, Dicken pointed. Appearing to think he was telling him to have another go at the balloon, MacTavish grinned back and nodded. Making frantic signals, Dicken finally got him to understand, and glancing back, MacTavish’s expression changed abruptly to one of alarm. As he wrenched the BE violently aside, Dicken almost disappeared over the side and clung for a while, half-out of the cockpit, staring downward at a thousand feet of nothing until MacTavish righted the machine.
Pushing the nose down, he began to head for the British lines in a shallow dive to increase the speed. The Albatros came around beneath them once more, and the two machine guns seemed to be pointing straight down Dicken’s throat.
“Ess!” he screamed, making curving gestures with his hand. “For Christ’s sake, ess!”
It took some time for the idea to sink in but MacTavish finally swung the machine to one side – just in time – and the tracer lines went past the tip of their starboard wing.
“Keep essing!” Dicken yelled, heaving at the gun, and they went down, the tail swinging from right to left as MacTavish kicked at the rudder bar.
Small lines of grey smoke kept appearing beyond their wingtips and Dicken smelled the familiar smell of German tracers, then the Albatros bored in once more, showing its upper wings with their black Maltese crosses. Getting in a quick burst, Dicken managed to make it sheer away, but it came doggedly around again for yet another go.
By this time, they were almost on the ground and, as they crossed the German lines, it seemed that every German in France was shooting at them. Fabric began to flap in long streamers and the engine began to develop a loud knocking noise.
MacTavish was working like a madman to keep the machine in the air, but the rudder was hanging loose by this time and he had little control. The British trenches appeared, with another fusillade of shots, then Dicken saw faces turned upwards as they sailed over, the motor making a noise like a steam traction engine going uphill.
The torn brown earth was close beneath the wheels as the engine finally stopped and they continued in a silence that was broken only by the whistle of the wind through the flying wires. There was a twang as the wheels caught a coil of barbed wire and, looking back, Dicken saw they were trailing what appeared to be the whole of the British second line defences, wire, stakes and all.
Then abruptly, as the strain became too much, the BE’s nose dipped.
The propeller flew to pieces, one of the blades whipping through the wings in a shower of splinters and torn fabric, then the wheels dropped into a shellhole, and the machine turned upside down. Dicken found himself flying through the air to land on his face and almost immediately he became aware of machine gun bullets whack-whacking just above his head. Crawling through the mud, he dived for a shellhole almost on top of MacTavish who was sitting in the slime at the bottom, laughing. All the terror had gone from his expression and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.
“It’s bad enough when the Germans and the French shoot at us,” he said, “but when the British do it, it’s too much. I think I’ll complain to the general.”
Dicken stared at him as if he were mad. “Why in the name of God did you have to attack a bloody balloon?” he snarled.
MacTavish laughed. “Felt like giving the bastards a fright!”
“In a BE?”
“Got to scrag the Hun.”
“In any scragging between a balloon and a BE, the balloon’s bound to come off best. It’s much more dangerous.”
Dicken glared, wondering where and how MacTavish had been brought up. At his school – the sort of school which had bred the kind of officer who had fought the Fuzzy-Wuzzies in the last century, facing tremendous odds in front of the flag with blazing eyes and a smile on his lips – no doubt it had been taught that it was bad form not to stand up and face an enemy fair and square.
They obviously didn’t know much about war, Dicken decided, because a much more sensible maxim was the one about the man who ran away living to fight another day. It even seemed a good idea to hit your opponent below the belt when he wasn’t looking.
“I think you’re barmy,” he said disgustedly.
MacTavish gurgled with laughter and looked up at the wrecked BE above his head dripping petrol into the ground.
“Don’t know what you’re going on about,” he said. “They can’t kill me.”
Seven
But they did.
A week later, as Dicken was working in the hangar installing a wireless set in a new machine, he became aware of the buzz of an engine and everyone moving toward the entrance to stare into the sky. Putting down his screwdriver, he joined them to see a BE just turning over the trees at the far end of the field, its flight growing more erratic with every yard.
“It’s MacTavish,” someone said. “He’s in trouble.”
The BE was turning in a wide circle for its final approach, but, as it did so, they heard a flat sound like a paper bag bursting.
“Oh, Christ!” Handiside said.
The upper wing of the BE had lifted and they could see it flapping loose above the centre section.
“Get it down!” Handiside grated.
The wing seemed to be floating away from the struts now, then it finally snapped back and the nose of the machine dropped at once. It fell in a twisting movement round the broken section of wing and they watched, horrified, as it whacked into the next field with the sound of a Jack Johnson shell.
They all started to run and, scrambling through the hedge, the first on the scene, Dicken almost crashed into the observer who was staggering about dazed, with blood across the grey film of grease and gunpowder on his face. A wisp of smoke rising from the motor, the machine lay in a crumpled heap just beyond him, surrounded by a scattering of pulverised earth. MacTavish was trying to push his way clear from the crumpled wreckage of the upper wing that lay half on top of him, and as Dicken began to tug at his leather coat, he lifted his head and two shocked blue eyes stared at Dicken from a ruined face which blew a spray of scarlet mist across his hands. Handiside yanked Dicken away just as the petrol exploded and the two of them were flung backward.
Only half aware that his clothes were on fire, he was rolled over and over in the wet grass with Handiside beating at the flames. Scrambling to his feet, still shocked, he saw everybody standing in a circle, staring aghast at the furnace and the moving figure in the middle still struggling feebly to free itself, its face scorched to carbon in seconds.
“The silly bugger tried to shoot down that balloon over the Scarpe.” Tense and white-faced, his eyes like a frightened animal’s, the observer had recovered his senses now and was standing alongside Dicken, clutching his arm. “He said he missed it last time and wanted to chalk up a victory.”
Standing near the hangar, his hands in his pockets, Dicken stared into the evening sky, his eyes bleak, a lost expression on his face, wondering what idiot he would be assigned to next.
MacTavish’s death was just one more of the persistent chilly reminders that he belonged to a lost generation that dared not look too far ahead. Even death seemed sharper, more abrupt and less dignified than it had the previous year and there was something vaguely nauseating about the way the German machines could knock them out of the sky.
“What’s up, young ’un? Breeze up a bit?”
Dicken turned. Standing with his hands thrust into the front pockets of his breeches, his tunic flaps pushed back behind his wrists, Hatto looked like some French aristocrat going defiantly to the guillotine.
“No, sir,” Dicken said. “Not really. Just thinking.”
“Don’t pay to do that too much. What about?”
Dicken tried to explain. Before 1914 only a few rash spirits had dared to contemplate using airplanes at all, let alone fighting with them in wartime; now, every energy was being bent to devise new ways and means of killing each other in the air.
“But the airplanes we’ve got are so unsuitable, sir.” A spasm of anger crossed his face. “We’re like boxers with their hands tied.”
Hatto shrugged. “Well, don’t let it get you down too much,” he said. “We’ve produced some new machines, too, I hear. Arriving any day now. Better recce machines and fighters as good as the Hun’s. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to be getting many of them. They’re all going to the RNAS because Churchill happened to be at the Admiralty and he was sharp enough to bag most of ’em.” He paused then went on briskly. “Know anything about bomb sights?”