Tommy had no use for Clausewitz or any other highfalutin theorists, and he knew that all generals were useless – if they had any ability, they would have taken up a productive career; soldiers broke things, that being all they were good for. He peered at the dawn sky and scratched; he was increasingly certain that their new field had not been sufficiently deloused since last the French had inhabited it; a dirty nation, the Frogs, he believed. Bugs were far more important than this Clausewitz fellow; he had heard of him in his training before the war, and had been unimpressed – scientific concepts of killing people were not his cup of tea.
“Low cloud. Visibility will be tolerable at ground level. Have we orders?”
“No change, Tommy. Fly everything for as many hours as possible. Ground attack.”
“Any word of George overnight?”
“Nothing. Disappeared.”
“Inform Wing, Nancy. We require an Adjutant. The farmland next to this field, Nancy – seems not to be in use?”
“A lot of Frog farmers were conscripted in ’14, Tommy. I am told that it is commonly the case that all of the sons of the farm went into uniform. Some died, some remain in service. If the father dies, the farm goes out of cultivation, unless there is a daughter to run the place, which ain’t often the case, it seems – the Frogs not believing in women doing things for themselves.”
“We need a bigger airfield, Nancy. More hangars, more living quarters. Can we take over the empty land?”
“No idea, Tommy. I shall enquire. It may well be possible to push things through in the current state of panic.”
Tommy returned to sky watching, faintly hoping to see a break in the clouds that would make flying easier. He did not like taking off in the knowledge that he could not climb above two or three thousand feet, and with the chance that rain might fall if the cloud thickened. He picked up movement in the west, jumped to the bell at the Mess door. There were several alarms now, the first man to see an aircraft, irrespective of rank, to start making a noise. He began to ring the bell, stopped when he recognised the shape of Camels.
“Replacements, Nancy. Took off in the dark to reach here good and early. Four of them. Puts us up to twenty planes again. Only fifteen pilots, but that’s no great problem.”
Nancy poked him and pointed to the men responding to the alarm, shifting out of the tents pegged out on the grass beside the Mess.
“Sixteen. That’s Black carrying a flying coat.”
“Good lad. If he lives through today, Nancy, put him up for full lieutenant and a gong for his blind soldiers. Took some doing that, putting them into line astern and tying a bit of string to their belts so that they could follow him. His dear mother should be impressed.”
Nancy had not heard of the lady and her protestations as recounted by Noah’s wife’s mother; he was very slightly amused.
“Didn’t know it was that family of Davenports, Tommy. Lots of influence there. Watch your back in the next few years – might be a score to pay off.”
Tommy shrugged; the chance of him being about in a few years seemed very slight.
He called the Flight Commanders to a brief meeting, gave them the orders for the day.
“Don’t know what’s happening, but it ain’t very nice. Jerry seems to be pushing south rather than west, which is better for us. Try to keep to the western edge of his advance and kill anything grey that moves. Don’t venture too far into Hunland. Try to note the position of anything you see, as accurately as possible – which ain’t very. There is a report from HQ that Jerry has tanks now, so if you see any of their tanks, especially, try to pinpoint them. We might be able to bash them with incendiaries; if you spot them, I’ll take first try.”
They drank coffee, or tea if they preferred; most needed coffee to wake up with. None could fancy eating; most had taken very little at dinner. Tommy noticed and worried, but could do nothing other than grab a piece of toast from the nearest table and butter it and try to show pleasure as he forced it down.
“Don’t want to fly on an empty belly – bad for you!”
He ignored the muttered comments and prayed for rain; if they were grounded for a few hours then they might relax enough to eat something.
The ferry pilots came in, spotted Tommy and walked across to him.
“Four Camels, Tommy. Try not to break them.”
“David! How are you? What are you doing with the ferry fairies?”
The other three pilots scowled at the nickname; David laughed.
“I’m not, Tommy. Posted to the squadron. Sent back to training three months ago and was pulled out yesterday because of the emergency here. They asked me what squadron – intending to send me back where I’d come from, I suppose – but I said yours, forgotten the number, and that’s what was written on my papers. So here I am.”
“You are, of course, very welcome. Take a seat, get a bite to eat, talk to Nancy, who’s acting in the absence of the adjutant, and be ready to go out on the next patrols when we come back. You know your way around a Camel?”
“Most certainly, Tommy. I’ve crashed two.”
“Very good! Far the best way of learning what not to do. Ask Nancy to show you a map; then forget it, because it will be out of date since last night.”
Tommy waved across to Nancy.
“David Irvine, who has been posted to us. Puts us a pilot up on establishment for the while.”
“Excellent. Come and take a tent, David – any tent, they’re all the same, and each has three pilots inside. I hope you don’t snore – you won’t be popular. We haven’t got an adjutant at the moment, but we will have soon. We mislaid the last one, but Wing will find us another, no doubt. How long have you been a full lieutenant?”
“Two months, Nancy. I didn’t like Tommy’s successor; the feeling was mutual, after I explained why, and I went down to Second Lieutenant for rather a long time. I was made up in Training.”
“Pity. Not long enough. We will probably have to promote a captain quite soon, but I doubt it should be you for a month or two yet – it will look unusual, and we have offended a sufficiency of paper-pushers over the last little while.”
David was experienced enough to have no need to ask why they would have to promote a captain soon, or how it came about that Tommy might have offended the wingless. He looked about the big room, spotted the three captains, only Blue known to him, and quickly decided which was suffering from an impaired life-expectancy.
“Who’s the gent with the limp, Nancy?”
“Marcus. Good fellow, don’t you know, and wants to do his bit, and has shown very capable so far. But he ain’t going to make old bones.”
“Funny how you can tell with some of them, Nancy. The squadron’s taken big losses this week, hasn’t it? Two groups, old hands and new; not cold-shouldering each other, just not mixed together yet. I can’t see more than six of the originals, judging by their worn faces.”
“We hope to hear that some of them are in hospital, or taken prisoner. Nothing at the moment. No news, no organisation.”
“They call that a rout, don’t they, Nancy? A retreat coupled with a breakdown of the Army’s systems. We had a master at Winchester who was keen on military history, quite a young man; he taught us a lot about the Army. I expect he’s dead by now – he would have taken a commission, in the Hampshires, most likely.”
“That regiment has seen everything, been everywhere – Flanders, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and all points between. Depends which battalion he was in, of course. At least fifteen battalions in the regiment now. He might have pulled garrison duty in India or Ireland, if he was lucky, and didn’t seek a transfer to one of the busier battalions.”
David was certain he would see no more of the young master, one of the few friends he had made in his schooldays.
“Are we consolidating now, Nancy?”
“Possibly. The brass insist that we will regain ‘control of the skies’ from today. They have brought a number of extra squadrons into the sector. Trou
ble is, Jerry has this new Fokker, which outflies anything else in the air. The sole hope is that the blockade has pinched them – there is word that petrol deliveries to the Front are drying up. According to our informants, the quality of the fuel they’re getting is falling away; one of the young ladies swears that they are having hell’s own job to keep their rotaries in the air, that they might have to withdraw all rotary fighters from service, probably for not having lubricating oil for them. The D7 has got a Mercedes or BMW engine, the BMW far the better, but both are in-line engines.”
David was hardly heartened by these revelations, took his overnight bag out to his tent; his trunk was ‘following’, would no doubt arrive eventually.
The Camels flew and stayed low under the German umbrella, and were untouched by the Fokkers. Sixteen went out soon after dawn, and all returned, most with bullet-holes in unimportant places, Marcus with a round through his left boot, yelling in triumph.
“Stirred up the cork, Tommy. Look! Bloody sawdust leaking out of me foot!”
“Go down to the hangars and get yourself glued up, Marcus. Better call you Hopalong now! Is there any blood?”
“Not a drop! Missed the foot completely, old chap. Buggered a good boot, mind you – cost me forty quid, that pair of boots. From Lobbs, you know!”
Tommy did not know, but rather gathered that he should.
“Get them to stick a patch on the boot as well. Not worth getting new ones until this lot’s over.”
Blue, Jack and Tommy laughed, slapped Marcus on the back and sent him off to make his repairs. They took a look at the location of the bullet-hole, wondered just how much foot the man had left – the round had passed though the ball of the foot, or where the ball should have been.
Nancy called across.
“Tanks, Tommy. Jack spotted four of them, just being sent up from the sound of it, no more than two miles south of the old lines.”
“What do they look like, Jack?”
“Tall and square metal boxes, Tommy. You know ours are lozenge-shaped? Theirs ain’t. Full of bloody guns as well. Slow, like ours. Marching pace at most.”
“Lead me to them as soon as we’re ready to go, Jack. I’ll speak to Horatio now about bomb loads. You and yours to take small stuff; I’ll put up incendiaries.”
“All three of yours are green, Tommy. Will they be able to hit the tanks?”
“Watch and see what they do wrong, Jack. Beat up any infantry hanging around then have a look at what we’re doing.”
“Will do. What are the names of your three lads, Tommy?”
“Two, Three and Four, Jack. I’ve barely spoken to them yet. You’re right. I must.”
Tommy’s three were waiting in the queue to report to Nancy; he stopped by them, told them to follow him down to the hangars as soon as they were done.
“Horatio, what’s the best round for shooting up tanks?”
“Four point seven inch, semi-armour-piercing, Tommy. In the absence of such, try hybrid.”
“Thank you, Horatio. We’re loading that anyway. I want incendiaries only, a full eighty pounds weight of them, all four of my Flight.”
“Can do, Tommy. Two lorry loads of them came in this morning. Also, Tommy, a load of three-hundredweight bombs, which the Camels can’t carry. Have you been told anything? They were specifically sent here, I checked – not an error in transit.”
“Bugger three times! What’s the betting that we’ll see twenty DH4s within the week? Ground attack and Stark go together in the minds – if such they may be called – of HQ.”
“Bloody certain, Tommy. I’ll requisition Lewis Guns, and start on putting together twin mountings.”
Tommy’s three new men marched into the hangar, shoulder to shoulder, ready to form up in a rank, habits of training still strong in them.
“Twenty minutes before we go up again, gentlemen. Gives us time to talk. I don’t even know your names yet, which is a poor show. Who’s which?”
Thomas, Tony and Peter, which provided a slight problem.
“One Tommy’s more than sufficient for the Flight, I am afraid.”
“They always called me Spinner at school, Tommy. I bowled out the whole of Harrow – ten wickets – for just thirty runs, you see, so the name stuck. Not their Firsts, it was before the War when I was just fifteen years old. What happened, you see, was a poor wicket and…”
Tommy cut him short; the only thing that bored him more than seeing cricket was hearing enthusiasts talk about it.
“Very good, Spinner. I am sure you will tell me all about it, one day. Now, to business. We hope to find a flock of Jerry tanks – I suppose they would call them a squadron or troop or something cavalryish. If we locate them, then we will drop incendiaries on them to see whether they will do them any good.”
“Do we know how other squadrons have dealt with them, Tommy?”
“No. We may be the first to have tried incendiaries – it might have been done before, but I don’t know. If we find them, I will take the furthest left, and you run them in order after me. We go in line abreast, at fifty feet, at most. If I think it possible, I will take you lower. You must conform to me – this is an experiment, I think that’s what it’s called – and we must all do the same thing. When we have hit them, we turn away to port. That way, with luck, we won’t kill each other.”
“What happens if we do collide, Tommy?”
“We die, generally speaking. It’s not a good idea, Spinner. Some vices are habit-forming. Colliding with me ain’t, for either of us.”
“That’s not quite what I meant, Tommy. I was trying to ask whether there would be a court-martial.”
“Definitely not. Even the Army hasn’t discovered how to get a stiff to stand up in front of a court. I expect they’re working on it, though.”
Spinner was finally silenced; Tommy gained the impression that he had thought there was an umpire who would call him out and smile kindly as he trudged back to the pavilion. The concept of death seemed new, and rather upsetting to him.
“Jack will lead us to the scene of the crime – he saw the tanks, will have an idea of where to find them.”
“Crime, Tommy? Why is that?”
Tony seemed to regard his choice of words as rather funny.
“We are going to drop eighty pounds weight of phosphorus incendiary on them, Tony. At the least, it’s attempted arson; at best it’s a very unpleasant way of killing them.”
“Won’t the men be able to get out, Tommy?”
“Possibly, Tony. If they do, we make a second run and machine-gun them. They are trained and valuable specialist soldiers – kill them and they will be hard to replace.”
Peter, the third and least forthcoming of the new men, showed distaste.
“What of the Laws of War? Men running away, trying to escape… Isn’t that truly a crime, Tommy?”
“This whole war is a bloody crime, Peter. As far as you are concerned, I have given you an order.”
“But, are not we the Knights of the Air, Tommy? The last upholders of chivalry?”
“Balls, Peter!”
The Camels were rolled out, Horatio confirming that they were bombed up and loaded correctly.
“Impact fuses to these things, Tommy. No delay on them. You can drop them from any height, but watch out for your target blowing. If you hit a field gun, for example, the ready use rounds might all explode before you’re out of range. I don’t know how tanks are loaded, or what guns they carry, but you might get half a ton of shredded armour-plate up your rear if you’re too successful.”
“Something new every day, Horatio! Though that is perhaps only for the most sophisticated and exotic tastes. Climb or keep low and fast?”
“Don’t know, Tommy, not for sure. My instinct says low.”
“So be it. You heard that, gentlemen? We bomb, turn away to port and keep to less than fifty feet. Follow my example, unless I’m crashing in flames.”
“What do we do then, Tommy?”
“Go h
ome, Tony, and tell Nancy.”
“What will he do?”
“Post the letter to my wife. Then he will salute my replacement.”
Tommy knew that the boys were young, but these seemed even more sheltered than the general run of green hands. He had been wise, he decided, to assign the new Canadians who were supposed to be coming to the other Flights – he was more experienced as a nursemaid than Jack or Blue, or Hopalong.
“Remember to fire your guns as you go in – you might not hit anything you’re aiming at, but they’re not going to hit you if they’re ducking.”
The new training made them less likely to crash in the first minute of flight; he put them into line abreast and took off, all four together, not worried that one of them might spin into him. Jack brought his Flight into the lead and dropped to one hundred feet; Tommy thought that was too high, but perhaps Jack didn’t like looking up to see the treetops.
Twenty minutes and they were into the fighting zone – there was still no such thing as a line. Two hours had passed since Jack’s initial sighting; the tanks could have travelled ten miles in that time, but the chances were that they would have managed far less in the absence of roads to follow. They were very slow cross-country, or so Nancy had said. Jack spotted them in a bare quarter of an hour, three strong; one might have broken down, Tommy thought, tanks were said to be very unreliable, though the Germans made better machines.
A Wretched Victory (Innocents At War Series, Book 6) Page 9
