“That’s a brutal, hard way of living, Adj.”
“It’s better than a soft way of dying. No regrets, no cares – Drongo always says ‘no worries’, and he’s right. You can’t fly thinking about dead friends – your whole concern must be dead enemies, and creating some more of them. If you mourn your dead, then you will join them, Abe. Eat, drink, be merry – for today you did not die!”
“Reading from the Good Book, George?”
“Part of the job, Tommy. That one needs to get a grip on himself, Tommy, or he will be next. Poor little chap! Come out of the sticks somewhere and thrown into the big, wide world, and with no man he knows to advise him. Village boy problem – he has always had a wise elder to tell him how to go on and now he’s on his own. He’s polite, well-mannered, quite bright, a pillar of the community in the making – but he needs to be Jack the Ripper out here. We really ought to recruit from Dartmoor Prison, you know, Tommy – the murderers, the thugs, the gangsters, they would make perfect fighter pilots.”
“True – and when they die, no loss at all. After this war is over, George, we shan’t be fit for civilised company – but we will be going back to England, to the war profiteers and politicians, so that will be no problem at all.”
“Flying in another couple of hours, Tommy. Time for a cup of coffee and a sandwich.”
They turned towards the Mess, matters of deep philosophy forgotten.
“Any orders come in, George?”
George had been on the telephone to Wing.
“None for this week. ‘Respond to perceived need’, I quote. Carry on as we are doing, finding targets and killing them. The intention is to progress to ‘line of communications’ attacks, but maybe not till June.”
“Railways and canals?”
“Mostly. I expect they’ll try night raids on the Hun’s airfields, too. As soon as the first panic is over, I expect they’ll put us on night bombing.”
“Has the advantage of being just a single raid each night – none of this four a day stuff.”
“Maybe. Drongo’s getting Sopwith Dolphins within the next few days. They may have the bright idea of using him to escort you.”
“What are they like?”
“Better than Camels. Not as good as the D7.”
“Oh, well. If anyone can do it, Drongo can.”
Chapter Six
A Wretched Victory
The new, fourth captain was waiting when they landed, an intense-seeming young man, barely his own age, Tommy thought, very lean, wearing MC and Bar.
“James Fortescue-Pryke, Tommy. Most people call me Jimmy. Been out since ’14, one way and another. Mostly BEs and REs, but a few months on DH4s as well. Just had a month at Central Air Park – couldn’t stand the company, old chap, so I pushed for a squadron!”
Tommy made him welcome, vaguely wondering why he had been sent to the Air Park – that normally happened when a squadron needed to ‘rest’ a pilot and did not want the stigma of grounding the man, labelling him as unfit to fly. Only a captain as well, after nearly four years – one might have expected him to have his own squadron… Not to worry – they would not have let him back to active service if there was a problem – most likely he had a careless mouth in the presence of higher officers and no influence to carry him through.
“Good to see you. You will have my Flight when I’m not flying, and relieving the other three captains in turn. We need another man, you are very welcome.”
Tommy turned away, wondering if that had been a twitch to his eye, but he had no time to spend on the man, he had a Flight to take up.
“Three of us this time, in the spare machines, of course. Same target, but not from the same direction. The other Flights have all given them a pasting since we went in, using a mixture of twenty pounders and incendiaries. We are now going to be bad-tempered with a pair of big bombs each. One of three hundredweight, one of one-hundred pounds – which will make a big bang behind us. The intention is to drop them in the areas that have been cleared of trees by the previous raids, so as to give their blast the greatest effect. We go in as tight as possible to each other – if your gunners can shake hands then you’re close enough. We drop at the same moment and keep going straight, opening the throttle to full and staying low. We’ll head across the trees and I will expect to see leaves in your wheels when we land – otherwise, you won’t land at all. Jerry must have called for help from his fighters, so if we poke our noses up even a little higher, they will shoot them off.”
Mac and Abe nodded gravely; the three sergeants grinned – they had no fears at all, had just put five shillings each into a kitty to be taken by the first man to get a triplane or D7. They had worked out that their best chance of winning lay in picking off a Jerry trying to pull out of a steep dive and showing a slow-moving belly. This sounded like a good chance to test that theory.
It was easy to locate the target – clouds of smoke from burning green timber gave it away. Tommy pulled out to the east and then worked his way north, keeping as low as he could, occasionally hearing Ormerod fire his guns as they passed over clumps of infantry.
“They ain’t moving, Tommy! Digging in!”
He picked up the shout, raised a hand in acknowledgement. The whole German push was skewing to the southeast, it seemed, as if they had given up on reaching the Channel coast and were returning to the aims of 1914, trying to circle in on Paris again to knock the French out of the war. That would be followed by a negotiated peace with Britain, and probably a joint push into Russia, if what he had heard was correct. He wondered just how much inclined Lloyd George might be to stand back and let the Germans get on with it… There was a French colonial empire that would then be up for the taking, and that had to be a temptation.
That was for the politicians, who were not flying over Flanders at fifty feet at that moment. He glanced at the clock, tried to place where they were. He had made his easting, time to turn in to the target. He throttled back and waved to Mac and Abe, took them in a straight line to the distant smoke. If he was spotted, it would not matter – communications on the ground were far too slow to send a warning of their presence.
They would have this wireless thing set up more effectively, one day, he mused – every company in contact with HQ and each other all the time. That would be a bugger – but was to be thought about some other day. The smoke was thicker but blowing across their bows on the sou’westerly wind, as he had hoped; he had been relying on the wind to give a clear view of his track in. There was an amount of cleared ground, far less than he had expected though – the bombs had knocked some trees down, but had left many more standing, and the incendiaries had been only partially effective in burning the debris. Surprising - the bombs had been less efficient than he had expected – woodland was not so easy to clear. Not to worry – live with what is, not what was hoped for.
He raised his right hand high, the warning signal to the other two; when he pulled his hand down they would reach for the bomb release toggles. With a little luck, they would drop in the same second.
There was only a small amount of machine-gun fire climbing towards them – the bulk of the men must have been in cover or facing the wrong way. He wondered if their morale had been affected, if the gunners had run into their funk-holes – it was unlike Jerry not to be throwing everything at them. He dropped his hand and snatched at the toggles, edging the stick forward against the bounce upwards of the release of weight.
Tommy opened the throttle, not too fast a movement, there was a small risk of flooding if he slammed the grip against its stops. He felt a powerful response – Rolls Royce produced a good engine, just too few of them. The others were in place, their gunners looking upward, both pilots easing just inches down towards the trees – competent flying, that, he must remember to congratulate them on. He wished he dared look up to see what was coming, but he was brushing the treetops, so must watch what he was doing; one slightly taller tree and he could be in trouble. Ormerod suddenly let off a su
stained burst, then a second, then yelled in triumph.
“Got that bastard, Tommy! Triplane, trying to come in a shallow dive. Fifteen shillings! Watch ahead!”
There was a pair of triplanes, but at two hundred feet and showing unwilling to come lower, to enter into the dive necessary to make an attack.
Tommy had half expected to find a patrol hedge-hopping, ready to make a pass at low level. Nancy had said it would not happen, that the fighters had strict orders not to drop below fifty metres, about one hundred and fifty feet. He had explained that there was a growing problem with poor-quality petrol causing Jerry’s engines to cough – and that could not be risked at very low level. Tommy could sympathise, if he had an engine missing an occasional beat at two hundred feet, he would be going up, not down.
Time to go home, they were clear of the woodland and heading back towards St Rigobert.
Tommy kept them low, just in case a fighter patrol had permission to venture out of its own area and into British air but saw nothing.
“Damage, Ormerod?”
“None. Mac is clean. Abe has a rip towards the tail.”
He fired a red, in case Abe’s damage was worse than first seemed, but they landed without incident.
“Damage done unknown, Nancy. I am certain now that this Push has come to an end. They are holding, probably regrouping. I don’t think they intend to come further west.”
Mac thought he had seen the beginnings of a trench, men digging and diving into deeper bunkers which they had prepared first.
Abe agreed, they were definitely digging-in – he had seen more than simple overnight foxholes.
They had also seen Ormerod’s tripehound, were much impressed.
“He came in from the rear, pulling out of a dive and dropping down onto your port quarter, Tommy. Ormerod hit him before he could open fire. He went down into the trees. I saw the explosion as he hit.”
Nancy was much in favour – a worthwhile kill, he thought.
“Did you see any markings on his plane, Mac? He must have been one of their better pilots – well worth knocking down.”
They had not spotted anything.
“Can always hope – Richthofen has been making hay again. God knows how many he’s scored now.”
“Our losses high still, Nancy?”
“Massive, Tommy. So much so that HQ ain’t releasing figures at the moment. The whisper is that we’re losing ten to their one – mostly because of the ground attack, of course. They’re going down to Archie much more than to fighters. The word is that you see ten and twenty replacement pilots going through Amiens every morning.”
“Bloody April again.”
“Not in proportional terms, Tommy. Not so bad in its effects, mainly because of the influx of pilots from Canada. There is some mention of Australian squadrons, as well, trained back home and sent across as a group. Necessary – they must want to have their own air force after the war.”
“Americans?”
“Starting out, mostly still learning, but some of them catching on very quickly. If the war is still on next year – and I can see no reason why it should not be – then they will be important. Given till 1920 and they will be the biggest and strongest force of all. As it stands, they are useful.”
“Pity they didn’t join in ’14, Nancy.”
“Maybe, Tommy. If they had been more forceful in their diplomacy then, they might have been able to stop the bloody mess. Leave that to the historians to argue. What do you want the last patrols of the day to do?”
“Play silly buggers, Nancy. Load incendiaries and bomb blind in the woodland about a quarter of a mile back from where we’ve been hitting so far. If they are consolidating and holding along the line there, making the edge of the woodland their new front, then there ought to be all sorts of things hidden away in the bushes just behind. Let’s send Jimmy with Blue’s Flight, and David with his, together, drop in line abreast, all eight of them, spreading their blessings. You never know what might pop out of the woodwork.”
The eight returned, highly satisfied with their endeavours, Jimmy particularly chirpy.
“Shot down a pair of tripehounds, Tommy, and scared a D7 that ventured down from the empyrean heights.”
“Which?”
“The sublime heights where angels dwell, Tommy – by definition unknown to you, of course.”
“Have you been reading books, Jimmy?”
“Quite often at Oxford, Tommy. I shall do so again, after the war, I trust. Philosophy, you know – I was a very junior sort of don, working towards a doctorate, which I may even complete – after the war, if such a state should ever exist.”
It was a foreign language to Tommy. He was not entirely certain what philosophy was, and associated doctors with pox as a general rule, but he was sure it was a fine ambition. He was even slightly envious of Jimmy for having an ambition at all.
“That apart, we dropped our little presents and watched what happened, Tommy. There were a number of additional explosions, some of them significant, and one dirty fire – thick black smoke billowing up. Possibly hit the fuel supplies for a big cookhouse? I think you were right in your surmise – it was the second line and they are intending to settle on that front.”
“Good. We don’t want them pushing across to the sea. The war will last forever if they take the Channel coast.”
Jimmy made a great show of seeming surprised, hands flung up, mouthing amaze; there was something wrong in his behaviour, Tommy thought, out of character, not the attitude of a pilot, his attempts at humour too stiff and studied.
“I might have thought you to be in favour of that, Tommy. You are the perfect warrior, after all – fighting on and on until you can no longer stand for the weight of medals on your jacket. You are the luckiest of us all – the Immortal Stark, a figure of myth and legend – some poor bastard has to be in this bloody shambles!”
Under normal circumstances, Tommy would have grounded Jimmy for showing that evidence of an impending breakdown. There was no insult, no intention to offend, just a man at the end of his endurance unintentionally allowing the guards to slip. The odds were that he would be dead inside the week – he had lost the rigid control that the pilot must maintain - but the orders were to keep every pilot in the air, irrespective of anything short of disabling wounds. Tommy thought a few seconds, decided Jimmy was disabled and that he was not ordering the man to fly again, whatever threats came his way from on high.
Tommy grinned at Jimmy, bought him a drink, slipped off to the office and the telephone. George followed him inside.
“That was not what I expected from Jimmy, Tommy. Do you think he’s all right?”
Tommy shook his head.
“George, keep Jimmy out of hearing, please. I must make this telephone call in private.”
“What?” George was taken aback by the degree of formality, quickly realised the problem. “Sorry, on my way, Tommy.”
Tommy picked up the equipment, placed a call to Wing.
“Colonel Sarratt, please. Stark, sir. I am about to ground the new captain, Jimmy Fortescue-Pryke, sir. He’s not capable of leading a Flight, in my judgement. I need a replacement as soon as possible… No, sir. Not tomorrow night, now… Yes, I know, sir, every man is needed, but he is no longer able to fly safely. The squadron could lose his whole Flight… My judgement, sir, which in matters aeronautical, is a damned sight more professional than yours… Yes, sir, I agree that was insubordinate. I am still grounding Jimmy… Is that so, sir? Then you can send me back to England with him – I will certainly have no objections!”
Tommy stood back, holding the receiver a distance from his ear as Colonel Sarratt bellowed.
“Terribly sorry, sir. Could you repeat that? I missed some of the detail… Yes, sir, I know exactly what I am risking. He is not flying in my squadron for the next six months, sir. He is not fit to fly. I want him to be in England tonight, sir. I will not send a man out to certain death, sir, and that is what I will be doing if I
order him to fly again.”
It was a reasonable risk to take, Tommy thought. If Colonel Sarratt brought him to court-martial, then he would be grounded pending trial. The Colonel could hardly afford to lose a squadron commander at this moment. Colonel Sarratt agreed – he would make matters worse if Tommy went as well; he surrendered, ungraciously.
“Thank you, sir. I will send a full report on the business, including my statement that I believe Jimmy to be mentally unfit for flying duty. If we had a doctor at Wing, sir, we could deal with this sort of thing far more easily.”
Colonel Sarratt, calmer now, austerely informed Tommy that a reason why the precedent he had set had not been followed was because doctors were far too much inclined to ground fliers.
“Doctors are more concerned about the welfare of their damned patients, Tommy. Tell them to put the demands of the war first and they become extremely offensive. Better not to have doctors lower than Brigade level.”
“Yes, sir. I am sure you are right. We definitely do not want the sort of quack who cares about the well-being of his patients; it’s the wrong sort of war for that. I’ll put Jimmy into the staff car and get him to Calais, with a sergeant escort, for the earliest possible boat.”
A Wretched Victory (Innocents At War Series, Book 6) Page 14
