by Max Hennessy
Nicola seemed disappointed, but Dicken’s leave was almost over now and while they were still arguing over it the sirens went and everybody started to run. There was a sign – Rifugio – outside one of the hotels and they sat in the basement listening for the bombs. It turned out to be a false alarm and, deciding they were safer at the Aubreys, they hurried through the narrow streets and over the humped-back bridges.
Marie-Gabrielle was in the hall when they arrived. “I thought you might have got blown up,” she said cheerfully.
“There weren’t any bombs,” Nicola said. “It was a false alarm.”
She was quiet through the meal as the family made Dicken tell them of the aerial fighting on the Piave front.
“What about the ones that burst into flames?” Marie-Gabrielle asked. “It must be jolly exciting to see them.”
Dicken shook his head. “No,” he said. “It isn’t exciting. It never is.”
“Do they sometimes fall out?”
“Oh, do shut up,” Nicola snapped. “Dick’s here to forget the fighting for a while.”
As they sat on the balcony holding hands in the warm night air, there was a moon and the stars were glinting on the water of the canal. The whole city was in darkness and there was no sound save for the slap and chatter of the water as it was stirred by the wind from the Adriatic.
Nicola’s fingers moved in Dicken’s, tense and hard. “When will things be normal again?” she asked. “When will it end?”
Dicken gave a small defeated shrug. “It probably won’t end,” he said. “It’ll probably just die of old age.”
She seemed to want to dig again into the problem of their differing religions but he refused to let her, and though she allowed him to kiss her, their mouths seeking each other in the darkness, somehow something had gone from the evening.
The following morning, he took his leave and caught the train to Capadolio. Arriving at Issora, he found the squadron had disappeared and was informed by the Italians that they’d been moved to Schia Piccola, north of Vicenza. The rumours had been wrong and the Austrian offensive was on after all.
He arrived in Vicenza late at night and telephoned for transport. Hatto was the first person he saw. He was leaning on a stick, his leg still bandaged.
“Where’s Walt?”
“Flying. Parasol Percy’s not forgotten what he said and he’s pushing him hard. His kid brother too.”
“They told me at Issora the offensive’s on.”
“Not half,” Hatto said. “That’s why we’ve been moved here. We were going to make a push toward Val Sugana but now the Austrians are expected to move first.”
Bad visibility, he said, had prevented normal observation but it had become apparent that the Austrians were concentrating astride the River Brenta and were even dropping leaflets on the British troops there.
“Their aircraft are about in much larger numbers,” he ended. “It doesn’t pay to sing or play the piano much.”
When Foote arrived, his heavy thigh-boots flapping around his knees, his eyes sore from flying, he looked worn out and sat on his bed staring at the floor. The grey cordite marks on his cheeks made his face look ghostly, his expression empty of everything but weariness, a shapeless hunched bulk in his flying suit, his hair flattened by his flying cap.
“I think I’ll transfer to our own air force,” he said. “Me and the kid brother both. At least it’ll get us away from Parasol Percy.”
“Don’t they have Parasol Percys in your lot?” Hatto asked.
“I guess they’ve got ’em in everybody’s air force. But maybe I could start afresh. Maybe, even, the war’ll end before I open my big mouth again.”
He lit a cigarette. “I worry about the kid,” he said. “My mother wrote asking me to look after him. But how in bejesus do you look after a guy in a different airplane flying on a different patrol?” He calmed down abruptly. “I’ve got the wind up,” he admitted. “We’ve been making too many low attacks on troops and reserves. Us trying to stop this goddam push’s like a flea trying to stop a mad elephant. There aren’t enough of us and you can’t dodge. Some of these goddam staff types ought to come and try it themselves. I notice Parasol Percy never does.”
He took a drag at his cigarette and let the smoke come from his nostrils. “It wouldn’t be so bad if the country was flat,” he went on. “But when you’re flying in and out of these goddam valleys you find they’re firing down at you from the mountains as well as up from the ground.” He tossed the cigarette away and managed a painful smile. “How did the leave go?”
“All right.”
“Get married?”
“Not even engaged.”
“What’s wrong with her? Rats, doesn’t she know she’s got a four-square, gold-plated hero for a boy friend? Didn’t you even go to bed with her?”
Dicken smiled. “It’s not that sort of thing.”
“You mean, there’s another sort?”
“We’re not all like Walter C Foote, of Boston.”
“It’s a goddam good job, boy. If everybody were as scared as I am, we’d never win the war.” Foote jerked a hand at the medal ribbons under Dicken’s wings. “Those are goddam pretty, kid,” he went on, “and I’m glad I’ve got my one. But I’m sure not aiming to win any more.” His smile came again as he looked around at them. “What a goddam lot we are! Willie’s full of holes. I’m full of heeby-jeebies. The kid here’s the only one who’s full of fight.”
After the evening meal, Diplock appeared in the mess with the order for the next day.
“Lugagnano power station,” he said.
“What, again?” The words burst out of Foote involuntarily.
“It has to be destroyed,” Diplock insisted.
“Then why don’t they get the Capronis to do it?”
Diplock drew a deep breath as if he found the interruption irritating. “The Capronis are attacking Austrian airfields and railway junctions,” he said. “We’re all who can be spared. 28, 45 and 66 Squadrons are engaged in shooting up the Austrian troop movements.” He looked hard at Foote. “At least we’re not going down to the ground.”
“He’s not going down anywhere,” Foote growled as Diplock turned away. “He doesn’t even go up these days.”
As the mess emptied, he stood smoking for a while, then he headed for Diplock’s office. Diplock seemed surprised to see him. Foote drew a deep breath. It was a great effort he was making.
“I guess – I–” Foote frowned. “I’m asking you, Major, to leave my kid brother out of this one. He’s only nineteen.”
“I was only just over nineteen when I first put on uniform,” Diplock pointed out. “So were many others.”
“I’m trying to look after the kid, sir. I promised his mother.”
“Hardly the way to fight a war.”
“Leave the kid out of this one,” Foote burst out, “and I’ll fly all the goddam patrols you want! Even the bad ones.”
“It can’t be done, Foote.” Diplock was unmoved. “We’ve been asked for full support and we’re going to give it.”
When Foote appeared in the hut later, he was in low spirits.
“Why don’t you just walk out?” Hatto said. “Take a train to Rome, see your ambassador and say you want to join your own air force. Tell him why, if you like. Parasol Percy couldn’t do a thing about it.”
“What about the kid?”
“Take him with you.”
“He doesn’t want to go. You don’t know my kid brother. He wants a medal of his own and he’s determined to get one. Rats, I tried to talk to him but he won’t listen and says to mind my own goddam business. He’s flying and that’s that, so I guess I’ve got to fly, too, to keep an eye on him.”
Because the Bristols were short of pilots, Hatto announced that he was also going
to fly. The doctor objected but he refused to listen.
“We’ve bombed that bloody power station so often,” he said, “they know we’re coming before we set off. They’ve got machine guns and anti-aircraft guns all around it, to say nothing of a couple of dozen squadrons of DVs, Bergs and Phönixes sitting upstairs. I’m going.”
The Bristols and Foote’s flight were to go in as low as possible while the other two flights of Camels were to fend off attacks. The idea was to catch the defences before they were properly awake, and they were to take off as soon as it was light enough to see.
“Why does the stupid sonofabitch think that’ll make it easier?” Foote growled. “They’ll have just got up and be full of beans after a good night’s sleep. And if they haven’t just got up, they’ll be mad as wildcats because we’ve got ’em out of bed. Why not late in the evening when they’re tired after a hard day’s work?”
He slept badly and when Dicken woke the following morning, he was already sitting on the edge of his bed, smoking, grey-faced and strained.
“Once more into the goddam valley of death,” he growled.
The stars were still shining as they finished their breakfast of coffee, rolls and boiled eggs. No one felt much like chattering and they trudged silently across the field working out the imponderables of the situation with a sense of foreboding as they adjusted gloves and scarves and fastened belts and buckles in the steely half-light beginning to pick out huts and trees.
The machines were lined up ready to take off in groups. Italian photographers were waiting with their heads under the black cloths that covered their cameras, and there was an artist making sketches for an Italian illustrated magazine. Diplock appeared in his light-blue uniform as they gathered around the machines. “Going to headquarters,” Hatto said. “Always likes to be properly dressed.”
“Properly dressed,” Foote growled, “would be in a Sidcot suit and flying helmet.”
As they collected in a group, checking map references and instructions, nobody pretended it was going to be easy. By this time the defences at Lugagnano had grown so used to them there weren’t any new tactics. As they climbed into their seats, shouts came across the quiet air, then the engines started in bursts of blue castor oil smoke. Cold blasts slapped into Dicken’s face.
The countryside seemed empty, just an occasional column of smoke rising from a farmhouse chimney. The burping of the engines was filling the air and little clouds of moisture were being whipped off the dew-laden grass to hang over the field like patches of mist. Diplock raised a Very pistol and as the flare curved into the air, the Bristols began to lurch forward, their wings swaying as they moved over the uneven ground. As they lifted, hanging stiffly in the air, the Camels began to follow, first Foote’s flight, then the other two, well spaced so they wouldn’t be in each other’s slipstreams.
Italians heading for the countryside with their forks and hoes, and the Italian airmen on their own half of the airfield, stopped to watch them as they climbed to meet the light. The mountain peaks were touched with red, glowing against the pale sky like broken bloodstained teeth.
Beneath them were all the signs of the coming attack. Every village swarmed with soldiers and there were interminable processions of lorries pushing supplies to the front, mule carts, and wagons piled with hay, lumber, wine casks, flour, shells, barbed wire, ammunition.
As they began to approach the Lugagnano valley, the lower flights formed up into two long lines, one behind the other. Mortano came up, then Spasso, and the Bristols and Foote’s Camels began turning in a wide arc to enter the end of the valley. As they became a straight line again, Lugagnano appeared, the houses showing through the mist as a swathe of white boxes clustered around the power station. As they drew nearer, the sun lifted between a gap in the mountains and the dew-wet roofs began to shine like golden squares.
As the Bristols entered the valley, Dicken circled at eight thousand feet, watching as black puffballs of smoke began to appear. Hatto was going low, roaring along the valley at the head of the two long lines of aircraft. A quick glance about him showed Dicken that the two upper flights were in order, then he saw the first flash of a bomb and Hatto’s Bristol clawing its way upward, turning desperately to avoid the mountain. As it did so Dicken saw a faint movement to his left and, looking down, caught a glimpse of two flights of DVs coming in from the direction of Caldonazzo, the sun catching their buff-coloured wings. A Flight had seen them, too, and began to drop from the sky. Dicken was just about to take up a position behind them when he glanced upward and saw a group of tiny glittering dots against the blue at the other side of the valley and made out a swarm of Bergs and Phönixes. Instead of following A Flight, he raised his arm and pointed in the other direction.
As he turned to meet the newcomers, he saw huts burning on the ground, men on foot and on horseback scattering from the rain of bombs, and the last of the Bristols manoeuvring wildly to get out of the way of Foote’s Camels. As the Austrian machines dived across his front, he fired quickly and the leading Phönix lifted abruptly so that the machine behind flew into it. Locked together, they fell like stones. As they vanished, a Berg appeared and, as he fired, the wings snapped back as if the pressing of his triggers had affected some switch. It had been climbing away from the mêlée but, as its nose dropped, it fell past him, the wings folded about it, and he could see the pilot trying to lift himself from his seat against the wreckage that enveloped him.
As he climbed to regain height, the fight broke up into whirling groups of airplanes. A Camel went down in a long straight dive, trailing a thin stream of smoke, then dissolved in a flare of flame to fill the sky with flying wreckage, small glittering pieces of burning fabric falling from it as though it were melting. Another Phönix appeared in front of him, standing on its wingtips in a vertical bank. As he fired, the nose dropped slightly and he watched it descend, still turning in tight banks, until it disappeared into the smoke made by the exploding Camel.
By this time the sky was emptying of aircraft. The Bristols were heading out of the valley, followed by Foote’s Camels. Dicken tried to count them but could make out only three. On the way back, his engine was blowing back into the carburettor and, afraid of fire, he landed at Issora where the Italian pilots greeted him like a long-lost brother and filled him with wine while the mechanics examined his machine. It was past midday when he landed at Schia Piccola.
“Thought you’d gone west, sir,” one of the mechanics said as he switched off the engine.
“Not this time. What about the others?”
“One of the Bristols didn’t come back, sir. New man. Only arrived last week. I heard someone say he hit the hillside.”
“What about the Camels?”
“One missing, sir, from A Flight. Another landed for oil at Sovizzo.”
“What about B?”
The mechanic jerked a thumb. A small group of men were standing by the hangar entrance staring to the north. Dicken counted them: Six. Three fitters. Three riggers. That meant Foote had lost three.
“Who?” he asked.
“Mr MacKay, sir. Mr Blaze.” The mechanic paused and glanced again at his mate. “And Mr Foote, sir. Young Mr Foote.”
Four
“Flew into the goddam power station,” Foote said, his face grim. “Went down in a straight glide to drop his bombs and seemed to go straight into a window. The wings fell off and you could see the tail sticking out. Then there was the most God-awful explosion and that was that. His bombs must have gone off and set off something inside.” He took out a cigarette with a shaking hand. “At least he did what he was sent to do.”
Diplock had disappeared to Wing – obviously to wait until things had blown over – and they eventually put Foote to bed very drunk. When they woke in the morning there was no sign of him. Later they learned there was a tender missing and eventually it was found at the station and
they heard Foote had been seen boarding a train. When Diplock returned, he seemed relieved to find Foote had disappeared and finally called Dicken into the office to question him about his movements.
“There seems little doubt but that he’s deserted,” he said coldly.
Because the Austrian offensive still seemed to be hanging fire, Dicken was able in a weekend of bad weather to slip away to Capadolio thirty miles away. The news of Foote’s disappearance threw the whole Aubrey family into gloom. They had got to know him well in the early days before the rest of the squadron had arrived and they seemed to think it portended mass desertions. The imminence of the Austrian offensive was having its effect and the increased patrolling along the front had brought in a batch of Italian wounded.
“We have the wives and girl friends,” Mrs Aubrey said sternly. “They come to see their men and they ask me ‘In nome di Dio, what am I to do?’ Mon Dieu, I am more concerned with what their men are going to do.”
She seemed more able to cope with the horrors than Nicola who seemed depressed by them. Most of all, she was shocked by the attitude of the city children who waited outside the hospital to see the wounded arrive. “‘He’s got no hands,’ they say,” she pointed out bitterly. “Or ‘Look, he’s bleeding.’ Why do people have to get so hurt? Why are there wars?”
“Because there always have been.”
“That’s no answer.”
Dicken sighed, feeling old and depressed. “It’s the best I can do,” he said.
The bombing of the Austrian troops continued.
The weather was growing hot now and the grey columns were covered with white dust that was stirred up in clouds that settled on leaves, grass, human beings, horses, lorries and houses. Every railway siding was choked with wagons and every village swarmed with men moving north. There were pontoon trains, balloon outfits, searchlights, siege guns hauled by tractors, lighter guns hauled by oxen, even herds of cattle and flocks of sheep on the hoof, and thousands of the bright-eyed, green-caped soldiers. Matting made of corn stalks had been hung across the road to prevent the Austrians seeing anything and in the banks dugouts had been made for the infantry.