by John Masters
The adjutant was on the field as soon as he landed, and creaked up to him as he jumped to the ground while Stratton and the rigger held the machine against the wind. Dandy shouted into the wind – ‘Moving airfields again tomorrow, sir.’
‘What a bloody nuisance,’ Guy said.
‘It means we’ve really got the Huns on the run … I’ve given all the necessary orders, except who’s to lead the advanced flight.’
‘Show me where we’re going, and I’ll lead it myself.’
‘The attack will be without artillery support,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Quentin Rowland said. ‘We’ll cross the start line at twelve minutes past noon, with the tanks leading … We’ll have artillery observation officers with us for use against German counterattacks, if there are any.’
Archie Campbell listened, sitting in the far corner of the barn, notebook spread on his knees. The company commanders of the battalion were gathered for orders. The barn was undamaged, as were the farm buildings a hundred yards away across the midden, smoking with cow dung in the sun, rich-smelling on the slow breeze. The days of pure trench warfare were over. They had been succeeded by a war of movement – mostly retreat – following the German offensive of March 21st … then hard slogging over old battlefields – Contalmaison, Thiepval, High Wood, everything reminiscent of 1916 … barbed wire rusting in coils; villages still no more than heaps of rubble, but no longer smoking; unexploded shells by the thousands in the earth, with the unburied dead, white bones, cracked skulls, withered hands, broken boots, rusty rifles … And then the Black Day of the German Army, August 8th, and the beginning of the surge forward … the relentless pursuit, tenacious but uneven resistance, and …
‘The enemy is breaking,’ Quentin said. ‘He’s not broken, but he’s certainly not the man he was. Risks which would have been criminal three months ago, even a month ago, are now no more than your duty to take.’
That’s obvious, Archie thought; no artillery preparation, when it had been an article of faith since 1915 that a long bombardment was necessary to soften up the enemy front-line troops, to break down the trenches and above all, to cut the wire. But now there was no wire, or very little. Attack at midday … heresy! Attacks were put in at dawn, so that all necessary preparations could be made under the cloak of darkness; and then there would be twelve hours of daylight to consolidate the captured positions against the inevitable counterattacks … but now the Germans didn’t counterattack; and if they did, it was feeble, as it had been yesterday, and the day before … More heresy, attacking every day, instead of making long preparations and taking a series of careful bites. It is not necessary to advance in long straight lines, they said now, having said just the opposite for three years. It is not necessary to conform if flanking formations meet opposition – sweep on and take the opposition from flank or rear.
‘Remember, we are winning,’ Quentin grated. ‘And we are going to go on winning until we have beaten the German Army to a pulp. We are going to break it into little pieces, and smash Germany until it falls apart … until there is no German Army, no German General Staff, no organised Germany. And it won’t be long.’
‘How long, do you think, sir?’ Captain Tanner of A Company asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Quentin snapped. ‘And don’t think about it. The men can’t be expected to fight well on September 1st if they are given to believe that the war will be over on September 5th … That’s all.’
The company commanders rose, saluted, and filed out into the hot, humid air. The Regimental Sergeant-Major and Quartermaster followed. Father Caffin was on his feet, but he did not leave. Quentin looked at him, frowning. Caffin was a good regimental padre … the best he’d ever come across, in spite of his being a black Papist; but he was a Sinn Feiner at heart, Quentin was sure; his brother had been shot for treason after the Easter Rising, and that made Quentin feel ill at ease with him. He said now, ‘You want to speak to me, padre?’
‘Yes, sir … I’m thinking the war had better end sooner than later. It’s not only the Germans who are breaking. Our boys are getting tired of it.’
‘What do you mean?’ Quentin snapped. ‘They’re obeying orders, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, colonel, but you must have seen yourself, it’s not with the old snap … Look how many boys we’ve lost, one way or another – since the March retreat. It’s a new battalion, really. The new boys have the belly for it, but not the will.’
Quentin paused. He wanted to rebuke Caffin – but the padre was right; the battalion was not the same as it had been in February … or before Passchendaele … or before Le Cateau. But what could he do about it? Try to be at the critical spots himself, when encouragement was needed. Try to instil into every man pride in his cap badge and shoulder titles; and his rank, so that even a lance corporal understood what a privilege was his to command six private soldiers of the Weald Light Infantry; pride in England … but you couldn’t talk about that to British troops. They’d call you … or think of you, as … what were Kipling’s words? … a jelly-bellied flag flapper.
He said, ‘Thank you, padre. It won’t last much longer, and I think we can stick it out … Campbell, I’m going to visit the tank commander who’s going over with us. I want you to collect the tank escort commander – Jenks, and his NCOs, and bring them here in an hour. We’ll practise signals between tanks and infantry, how to point out targets, how they can inform us what help they need.’
He strode out, heading down the pavé to the west. The Germans were shelling the area, but very lightly, and the soldiers were ignoring it. Quentin’s batman-runner rose to his feet from where he had been snoozing against an outer wall of the barn and followed him down the pavé.
Caffin said, to Archie Campbell, ‘I hope the colonel didn’t mind what I said, but the fact is that the British Army is wearing down. English, Scots, Irish, Welsh … city, county regiments, north, south, Fusiliers, Rifles – they’re all the same, all worn out.’
‘Passchendaele did that,’ Archie said.
‘I agree … Now the only troops who fight with the old fire are the colonials … Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans … Perhaps Lloyd George should make one of them Commander-in-Chief.’
Archie said, ‘Perhaps he will … Hey, play us an Irish tune, padre. Now that the CO’s not here, play us “The Wearing of the Green”. It’s one of my favourites.’
Sergeant Frank Stratton, Royal Flying Corps, stood beside his squadron commander’s Sopwith Camel, with its black-painted wheels, and the red stabiliser that had been Guy Rowland’s personal mark since he became the scourge of German pilots. Stratton carried a dog-eared notebook in one hand, from which he was reading aloud, as Guy stood at his shoulder – ‘We’ve stripped her down to what she was like when they were first building her, sir,’ he said. ‘The lower main planes are attached, there … locked by split pins … The upper main planes are in position, securing rods in … flying and incidence wires are in position, but they’re loose … Now we have to true up the main planes. Chester and Hallows dropped the plumb lines, four of them … there, there, there, and there … Now, I’ve been adjusting the wires … we have to get seven things right … let’s see, first the plumb lines are in line, seen from the side … Come here, sir … See?’
Guy nodded as he peered down the line of the wings from the left – ‘They’re in line.’
‘Second, the leading edges of the upper main planes are in line both from in front, and from above … There’s no dihedral on the upper planes … Right?’
‘Right.’
‘Third, the leading edge of the lower wing is symmetrical about the centre line of the machine … I checked it by measuring from the bottom sockets of the forward outer struts to the rudder post and to the propeller boss … Like this.’
Guy watched as Frank bustled about his work. Guy had had part of an aileron shot away the day before and had made such a heavy landing that Frank was sure the main planes had been jarred out of true; hence thi
s practical reconstruction of the machine, here in the open field at the squadron’s new airfield east of Arras.
If Frank thought the work was necessary, it probably was; but Guy would have told him to go ahead even if he didn’t agree. Frank needed to have his mind taken off his private problems.
‘Fourth, we get the correct dihedral of the lower planes by placing straight edges along the front and rear spars and reading the angle on the Abney level … so … five degrees. Correct, sir?’
‘Correct.’
‘Fifth … the stagger is the same throughout, and we measure that …’
Guy thought, the German ground troops aren’t fighting as well as they have all through the war; but the air forces are just as good. Better, in some ways. They’re attacking more than they used to. Richthofen’s death hadn’t been all bad for them … the Red Baron had been something of a prima donna, using his pilots as a Yorkshire landowner might use his tenants to beat grouse towards him – thus enhancing his own score at the expense of his squadron’s. Guy was proud that while his own score had barely increased since he took over command of the Three Threes, the squadron had now recorded a hundred and ten kills in the last six months.
‘Seventh and last, we have to see there is no wash in or wash out … That’s it. She’s all right. I was wrong.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Guy said. ‘You’ve been tightening wires and securing rods all the time, to get this result. They might not have been true before you took her down … I saw this morning that you still have Victoria.’
The sergeant said, ‘Yes, sir. No damage to her yet, though she got shook up on the last trip, when that ASC driver put the lorry in the ditch.’
‘Oh, she was in that one, was she … with the spare engines and machine-guns?’
‘I hope you don’t mind, sir,’ Frank said anxiously. ‘There was room, and …’
‘Of course,’ Guy said, waving a hand. He faced his fitter and friend directly – ‘It won’t be long now, Frank, though it isn’t over yet. What are you going to do after the war?’
Frank lowered his hands and stared, first at Guy, then slowly round the airfield, the tents, the parked lorries, the Camels. ‘I really don’t know, sir. I’d never thought … the war, ending? It doesn’t seem possible.’
‘But it is,’ Guy said. ‘It’s more than possible. It’s a certainty, and soon.’
Frank said, ‘Are you going to stay on, sir?’
Now it was Guy’s turn to pause, thinking. Was he? He had realised for a month that the war would end soon. Why then had he not thought what he proposed to do with his life after it?
He said at last, ‘I suppose so. I was planning to design aircraft before the war, but … I think I’m better at flying them. Yet if they formed a company to fly people, and goods, about Europe … all over the world, perhaps … I would be interested.’
‘So would I,’ Frank said enthusiastically. ‘Would you take me on?’
‘If I were in a position to do so, I certainly would,’ Guy said. ‘Mechanics are just as important as pilots. And wireless experts. That’s an area which badly needs development – aircraft communications … for weather reports, for course setting and plotting … landing, even.’ Once again he looked full at the sergeant – ‘Any news from home?’
Guy had himself heard, in July, from his Uncle Christopher, that Frank Stratton’s wife had given birth to a baby boy – not Frank’s – in May. Frank must know, but he had not mentioned it. The baby had been baptised James.
Frank said, ‘I don’t have a family now, sir … My brother Fred’s written to say he’s engaged to a Miss Broadhurst-Smythe. A colonel’s daughter, she is. That’s out in India … Do you want to take her up and try her out, sir?’
‘Good idea,’ Guy said. ‘In fifteen minutes.’ He walked off towards his quarters. No good talking to Frank about Anne and the baby and the other children. Time might change that … The problem now was to test out his Camel for wing and structural soundness; and, when he came down, work out some tactics to give the Germans in general and Jasta 16 in particular a nasty shock in the near future.
The Minister of Munitions was sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair opposite the large desk of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Behind the desk, but turned sideways, sprawled that officer himself – General Sir Henry Wilson, his long legs in immaculate field boots stretched out on the carpet. Churchill was smoking a cigar; the general’s hands were folded across his long, thin belly.
Churchill said, ‘Well, Henry, how did he take it?’
Wilson picked up a piece of paper beside him and said, ‘This is what I sent … Personal: Just a word of warning in regard to incurring heavy losses in attacks on the Hindenburg Line as opposed to losses when driving the enemy back to that line. I do not mean to say that you have incurred such losses, but I know the War Cabinet would become anxious if we receive heavy punishment in attacking the Hindenburg Line without success … signed, Wilson.’ He picked up another piece of paper – ‘This is Haig’s reply – With reference to your wire re casualties in attacking the Hindenburg Line – what a wretched lot! And how well they meant to support me! What confidence! Please call their attention to my action two weeks ago when the French pressed me to attack the strong lines of defence east of the Royes-Chaulnes front. I wrote you at the time and instead of attacking south of the Somme I started Byng’s attack. I assure you I watch the drafts most carefully … Haig has a very low opinion of all of you politicians, I fear, Winston.’
Churchill said, ‘It is not he who is responsible to the British people for victory … and for carnage – but we, their elected representatives. He must be stopped from butting his head against a brick wall and suffering more enormous casualties. This is not the year for a big attack. The Americans are nowhere near ready in mass on the Western Front. The air forces are building, but have fallen behind schedule, and we will not be ready to bomb Germany in force till 1919 … What are you going to reply, if anything?’
Wilson stretched and said with a little unease, ‘Well, he is in command. And he is convinced that the Germans are breaking.’
‘He … and Charteris … have said that before,’ Churchill said grimly.
‘I propose to tell him that my telegram was intended to convey a sort of distant warning. It’s all so easy to explain face to face, but in writing … it’s damnably difficult … I’m just as much against casualties as you are, but there’s a good chance that we’ll suffer fewer by finishing the war this year … if we can.’ He changed the subject – ‘Are you still with us in thinking that the RAF should be got rid of as soon as the war’s over?’
Churchill said, ‘Yes. And so is Trenchard. He agrees on the Independent Striking Force … so he ought, as he’s now commanding it, and it’s doing good work … but not a separate air force. The navy’s even more strongly on our side. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble abolishing it as soon as the war’s over.’
‘Who’s on the other side?’
‘Sykes, Brancker, I think … Brooke-Popham, Henderson … but they’ve got rid of him.’ Churchill rose, still puffing his cigar, and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me now, general, I must return to my own little niche. Good day.’
Wilson showed his visitor to the door, then again sat down behind his desk. His personal assistant came in with a sheaf of Registered Files. Wilson said, ‘Put them down there, Jimmy … You’ve seen Haig’s reply to my telegram?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What do you think he wrote in his diary?’
The young officer smiled – ‘Something about politicians making ready to claim credit for any success but absolving themselves beforehand from any blame if things go wrong … leaving it to him to make the decision, with the axe if he fails.’
‘Something like that,’ the mercurial Wilson said gloomily. ‘And all I wanted to say in the telegram was that that was just what LG has in mind.’