by Max Hennessy
Fans were revolving now in the houses and cafés, and ice appeared in the wine. The flies increased a thousandfold and British gunners had begun to wear drill shorts and Australian bush-hats against the heat, while the rations had been changed to check the dysentery that was starting to take its toll.
A new German attack in France had flung the French back but it had then been flung back in its turn by the Americans at Château-Thierry, and a new push near Mondidier had been a total failure. The German lack of success lifted spirits because it meant the expected Austrian offensive would now have to be mounted without German help.
Since Caporetto, the quietness of the front had given the Italians time to get their breath back, and there were even rumours that they might mount their own offensive first after all. Patrols became more intensive and there seemed no time during daylight when machines were not over the lines, denying air space to the Austrian reconnaissance airplanes. Hatto lost another Bristol but two days later over Italian territory, Dicken shot down a Rumpler which turned over as it fell, scattering thousands of what proved to be leaflets destined for the British infantry.
Finding out the Austrians’ intentions was growing more difficult. They were still concentrating near the River Brenta but their plans seemed to have changed and they were no longer moving in daylight. Diplock ordered his pilots to fly lower to bring back the missing information but it produced nothing but another lost Camel and another lost Bristol. By the middle of June, they still had no real information, then, in the middle of the night, Dicken woke to find Hatto leaning over his bed.
“It’s started,” he said.
Sitting up, Dicken was aware of lights flickering in the sky through the open door and the steady thudding of guns.
“Where is it?”
“Everywhere. Along the whole front. Hallowes says it’s on a twenty-five mile front from the Adriatic. Wing thinks it’ll come everywhere at once, against the Italians on the Piave, the French on Monte Grappa and us on the Asiago plateau.”
The day when it came was overcast and sultry, and flying brought in little information because of mist near the high ground to the north. They learned that the Austrians had broken through part of the British line for a depth of nearly a mile but had then been held by prepared defences. The mist was preventing air support, but patrols were called for nevertheless, and the Camels endeavoured to bomb opposite the beleaguered infantry, marking their position from any momentarily visible landmark seen through the swirling grey curtains. By midday the weather had become so thick all flying was halted.
“Rain’s stopped play,” Dicken said. “Can’t see why they can’t hold the bloody battle indoors.”
They gathered near the office with their flying clothing, all of them nervously lighting cigarettes and praying the battle would be decided without them having to go down into the haze again. But the Austrians were still forcing their way across the Piave and were now adding smoke screens to the mist to hide their preparations. It was gradually becoming obvious where they were, however, from the positions of their reconnaissance airplanes, and finally news came through that they had laid pontoon bridges across the river and were threatening the Montello, the hog’s back which had been such a difficult barrier for both sides, and that Venice was in danger.
A letter from Nicola informed Dicken that, because of the threat, the hospital was being evacuated to Bologna and that the Aubreys were going there, too. It was impossible to get into Capadolio because he knew they were going to have to fly, whatever the weather, and Diplock appeared soon afterwards with orders for a patrol northward. It was led by Dicken and they caught a DFW near Bassano. It fell into the river and, following it down, Dicken suddenly became aware that, beneath him in a gap in the mist, he could see a bridge at Trivizzo that hadn’t been there before and that heading across it to the southern bank was a steady stream of men, horses and vehicles. Almost immediately, the mist closed over it again.
As the sun rose higher, the mist began to burn off and the machines were bombed up with 20-lb bombs and took off again in groups of three. The mist had dispersed a lot by the time they reached the river and they howled down out of the sky towards the bridge at Trivizzo. Dicken saw one of his bombs explode in a pontoon filled with soldiers and another in a boat just as it left the northern bank, and circling, drawing the fire of Austrian machine guns as the other two machines went in, he saw more bombs fall into an Austrian trench. Then, as the other two Camels formed up on him once more, they went down through the hail of fire to spray the grey columns advancing toward the bridge. They dispersed abruptly, diving for cover as if someone was drawing a comb through thick grey hair. A lorry went up in flames and a horse-drawn battery dissolved in a kicking heap of animals, men and overturned guns. Flying along the river, they fired at anything that moved and saw other Camels combing the Ponte di Piave on the direct route south, before returning to Schia Piccola with their guns and bomb racks empty.
The Austrians were across the river at several points and as the aircraft were rearmed and refuelled for the next day, the pilots gathered in the mess, still tense and jumpy, and noisy with the explosive excitement of the fighting.
Their maps marked in red, they climbed into the air again at dawn the following morning and flew north, never much more than fifty feet off the ground. Following each other nervously in the mist, they passed over masses of Italian infantrymen waiting by white arrows laid on the ground for some sort of counter-attack and ran into a thick fog made by low cloud mingling with smoke. The air was bumpy with explosions and, flashing overhead at ninety miles an hour, Dicken caught sight of shell bursts below him and groups of men huddled among rocks, then, as they moved further north and the ground rose, he found himself skimming the trees so low the reek from bursting shells made his eyes sting.
Their bombs looked like sunbursts through the mist but added little to what was happening below, and in a split-second glimpse, he saw two Italian Hanriots collide head-on with a smash like the explosion of a shell before dropping like stones into the smoke.
The chances of finding a target in the confusion were negligible. A Phönix shot past him in the murk, and, while his heart was still pounding, he almost flew into a house. Swerving violently, he climbed above the smoke to get his breath. Seeing a column of Austrians in a patch of clear ground, he went down again, alone now because everybody else had disappeared, and bullets cracked by his ears as he was fired at by machine guns on lorries.
He was sweating profusely and had no idea where he was but he managed to spot the railway line south and followed it to pick up Schia Piccola. He was last down and everybody else was chattering noisily with barely restrained fear.
“There are a hell of a lot of them,” Dicken said. “More than I’ve ever seen. I thought they’d hit me.”
“If you don’t rattle,” Hatto commented, “you’re all right.”
The serviceable machines took off again as soon as they were patched, rearmed and refuelled. With flying halted in the west by the weather, they were now being concentrated along the Piave where the Italians were bearing the full weight of the Austrian attack, and every machine was in the air, often close enough to the sea for the pilots to see Venice with its lagoons, canals and churches.
Along the river and over the Venetian Plain all the way from the mountains to the Piave there were Camels, Bristols and RE8s, as well as Italian Hanriots and Caproni bombers, and Austrian Bergs, Phönixes, Hansa-Brandenburgs, Albatroses and every kind of two-seater imaginable. The targets remained batteries and trenches and moving columns of men. Machines returned with leaves or the remains of telephone wires round their undercarriages and the edginess became more marked.
“They’ll do for the lot of us at this rate,” Hatto growled.
There was no rest but the news was that the Austrians were not making much progress and the terrible excitement of feeling that they
were achieving something kept them going. The Austrians were still pushing troops across the river at Trivizzo and, as he shot over them in a wild erratic flight, Dicken saw an officer on a horse, yelling at scattered men to reassemble, disappear abruptly from the saddle. As he pulled out of the murk, he almost flew into an Austrian reconnaissance machine. The two airplanes passed so close he felt he could have reached out and shaken hands.
There was a lot of confusion along the river now and many of the pontoons were sinking or on fire. Italian shells were falling among the Austrians, who were having difficulty making repairs because of the strong current and, as he went down again, Dicken saw boats and pontoons swept away. Climbing once more, keeping the target always in view, he ruddered over with the engine off in a vibrationless dive, and once again saw men scattering, clawing at the ground and staring over their shoulders in fright at him. As he climbed into the air, an explosion lifted the tail of the Camel. He regained control with difficulty, the motor clattering like a steam traction engine. As the rising ground of the Montello appeared in front, he knew he couldn’t hope to clear it and as he swung away, his engine clonking wildly, he found himself facing two small white-painted houses and a brown line of trenches. It was impossible to avoid the houses so he aimed for the gap between them. There was a sound of splintering wood and twanging wires and a shower of tiles as the fuselage, devoid of wings and with Dicken still inside, slid along the ground, its undercarriage gone, until it hit a large grey rock.
For a second he remained in the machine, dazed, then he realised that shells were throwing up dirt and stones around him and, coming to life, scrambled free and leaped for shelter. Italian soldiers were waving to him from their trenches and he ran bent-double in zigzag fashion to dive headlong among them.
For a moment, he huddled among the legs at the bottom of the trench, shocked and exhausted, wanting nothing but to remain there, curled up like a foetus, ignoring the men who were even then reaching down to him, the battle, the war, the whole world even, but he was yanked upright and offered a cigarette and a bottle of Strega.
“You are well?” one of the soldiers asked. It seemed an understatement. He was alive and that was enough.
He was taken to an officer’s dugout and offered a brandy, then given a guide to lead him to the rear.
“We are holding them, I think,” the officer said. “It is difficult, but their progress is very slow and it becomes slower.”
The roads to the rear were choked with wounded, on stretchers, walking, carried in litters on the shoulders of their friends. They were all wet through and looked scared stiff. Men tramped by in the darkness, phantom figures which loomed up for a moment then vanished. Incessantly in the ears was the jingle of harness and the clatter of hooves, the rattle of lampless lorries and the crunch of boots on the road. Blunt-nosed grey ambulances like moving vans were trying to edge against the stream of refugees, but, wailing at their lost properties, the Italian peasants were driving donkey- and mule-carts containing marble clocks, wine casks and canaries in cages, and a furious Italian colonel, a bottle of chianti in his hand, was trying to force them down the side roads.
“Va via!” he kept yelling. “Go away! Get out of our path!”
The town of Pontello, just behind the line, had been bombed, and the bell in the campanile was still jangling as a warning for everybody to take cover. Women were weeping in the street and the church was crowded with people who were overflowing on to the steps. It was growing dark as the day drew to an end and half the village was burning, bright red against the dark background of trees. Up ahead, shells were exploding with a rush of air, a hard bright flash and a shower of sparks like fireworks, leaving a smell of explosive and turned earth. A few young soldiers, their eyes large and scared, were pushing toward the rear but a company of bersaglieri came up at their swift trotting pace to draw a line across the road, and the young soldiers were rounded up and sent forward again.
As he moved further back, Dicken found a British officer with a battery of guns who found him a car to take him back to Schia Piccola. They headed south past an endless stream of motor lorries moving toward the front. Among them were Sicilian mule carts which had been commandeered and brought north to help. There seemed to be hundreds of them, painted in gaudy colours like ice cream carts, with religious pictures on their sides, the mules which pulled them wearing harness studded with brass and hung with scarlet tassels. Behind them were long strings of donkeys so heavily laden all that could be seen were their ears and tails, followed by groups of Austrian prisoners, dirty, depressed and guarded by cavalry, tall men on tall horses with lances that seemed to reach heavens high.
As they fought their way past, an airplane skimmed overhead. No one took any notice, assuming it to be allied, and a moment later there was a tremendous explosion as a bomb landed, and men, horses and carts went up into the air in a shower of arms, legs and debris. The bomb had landed in the centre of the road just ahead and around the crater there was a ring of dead and wounded. A mule was dragging itself away, its back broken, its hind legs trailing, its mouth open in a hoarse scream of terror and pain.
It was dark when they reached the airfield. The two-seaters, both RE8s and Bristols, were being loaded with food.
Hatto grabbed him and felt him all over. “You all right?” he asked. “We stopped the buggers, but they’ve been free from air attack since dark and they’ve rebridged the bloody river at Trivizzo. Rebuilt everything we smashed. The Italians say they’re bringing up anti-aircraft guns, too, now. They hadn’t got any today. Somebody on the staff forgot, I suppose, because I expect their staff’s as stupid as ours. We’re going to try to drop supplies to the Italians.”
Snatching a few hours’ sleep, Dicken was awakened at three o’clock next morning. The mist was so thick he couldn’t see how the two-seaters were even going to get off the ground, but almost immediately he heard aircraft starting up and then the drone of motors as they took off.
At six o’clock Diplock sent him up for a weather test and he climbed directly above the airfield. The mist was still thick, a brilliant white haze at 300 feet, and he could see nothing, but by the time the two-seaters returned, it had thinned a little and they got down with only one of the Bristols missing and Hatto edgy with nerves.
The continued low flying was taking its toll of all of them by this time and the mess alternated with the noisy chatter of over-excited frightened young men or the heavy silence as their fears finally caught up with them so that they sat smoking and staring into the distance, held by unimaginable terrors that they couldn’t – and didn’t wish to – put into words. They looked like ghosts and moved like drugged bees, full of a growing suspicion that the Austrian offensive was going to put the war – and their world – back by years, so that the prospect of peace and living to grow old dwindled to little more than a tiny speck of light in the distance.
About nine o’clock the mist lifted sufficiently for the Camels to get off the ground, but at 800 feet there was still low cloud through which they could see nothing of the ground and they had to drop down and fly north beneath it.
Their reception at the river was much hotter than the previous day and they went down into the hail of bullets to bomb and machine gun along the whole front. Near Miroda, to the east of Trivizzo, the Austrians had constructed a wooden bridge to an island half way across the river and were continuing from the island to the south bank. Dropping his bombs around it, Dicken flew along the river and found three other bridges further along, all in good condition and passing troops to the south bank while their engineers struggled waist-deep in grey and swirling water.
Returning to Schia Piccola for more bombs, he led his flight north again at once. The bridges had not been destroyed and, as Hatto had said, the Austrians had taken advantage of the night and the early mist to repair everything they’d wrecked the previous day, so that there seemed to be thousands more men and
dozens more machines on the south side of the river. Returning for still more bombs, he was sent with two other men to report on what he could see north of the river. There were angry rags of cloud near the mountains and eventually he found himself in a downpour that prevented him seeing anything at all. Ahead of him was just a whirling wall of water and his windscreen was blurred by wind-whipped trickles that flew off the edge and disappeared over his shoulder. Within five minutes he had lost touch with the other machines and decided the search was pointless. Dropping lower, he saw the mountain streams below had changed to white foam that tumbled downward in an increasing volume of water, and when he landed, all the varnish had been removed from the propeller.
There seemed to be a panic in Diplock’s office and Dicken noticed he had a suitcase standing near his desk, packed ready for a quick take-off if the Austrians broke out of their bridgeheads. Already they had pushed a considerable force across the river and were still making progress, and the Italians had so far been unable to mount a counter-attack to stop them. As darkness fell, there was a feeling of frustration. The attempts to drop supplies had not been successful.
The following morning the clouds were low again and it was raining heavily once more.
“I always thought Italy was sunny,” Dicken observed bitterly.
“Pure fallacy, old fruit,” Hatto said. “Anywhere there are mountains you can expect rain and it stands to reason that where snow falls in winter, rain’ll fall in summer. I can’t see why they don’t up-end the peaks into the valleys and roll ’em flat.”
The rain continued throughout the day, in a steady downpour, the clouds so low it was impossible to see the mountains. During a lull, Dicken was ordered off with two others to bomb the bridge at Trivizzo again. Clinging to the underside of the cloud, they met a hail of anti-aircraft fire as they arrived, but when they went down into it they were unable to find the bridge. Swinging around for another try, wondering if he’d arrived at the wrong spot, Dicken suddenly realised that where the bridge had been were now only the splintered ends of timber and the wreckage of boats and pontoons. The firing was tremendous and it dawned on him that the Austrians were trying to prevent him seeing that the bridge had been destroyed.