A Wretched Victory (Innocents At War Series, Book 6)

by Andrew Wareham

  “You may be right, Stark. Please do not say so in public, however. On a different topic – raids on airfields – how will you conduct them?”

  “They are heavily defended, sir. Night or day, I would wish to go in above the machine-guns – which means four thousand feet at minimum. Arrive at first light, so that the Drift Sight can be used efficiently, and protected by at least one and preferably two squadrons of fighters. If this new Dolphin is as good as they say, then that is what I would want above me.”

  Colonel Sarratt said that he had heard good reports of the machine and that both Drongo and Fred were to be re-equipped before the end of April.

  “It has an in-line engine rather than a rotary – which is rare for Sopwith. Hispano-Suiza make. It can also carry four guns, I am told, two firing ahead, two upwards, though quite why I am not sure. I suspect it may be a hangover from Zeppelin fever!”

  “There’s a point, sir. Not heard of Zeppelins in months.”

  “Used at sea only now, Tommy. Too easily caught by the new planes. Add to that, they cost too much to build. Not much point in a Zeppelin carrying a ton of bombs when the new Gothas and Staakens carry the same.”

  “Not much point in either, sir, if they are only used for the random bombing of cities. No military gain in that!”

  “One day, perhaps, Tommy. Think of a thousand great bombing planes, each carrying two or even three tons of bombs and all releasing together, and returning, night after night.”

  “It would kill a lot of women and children, sir. If my King and Country demands that of me, then I shall be gone, sir.”

  The Brigadier returned to the conversation.

  “’Ours is not to reason why’, Major Stark.”

  “Then it damned well ought to be, sir! ‘Orders are orders’ will not do for me, I am afraid.”

  They ended their meeting, each aware that the other was at least partly right.

  “Will you come into the Mess, Brigadier? The bar is not open, but there will be a number of the pilots there who would like to see your face. We don’t see brass this close to the line normally.”

  “I was warned that you were renowned for tact, Stark. They did not tell me that it was the utter lack of it that made you famous. No, why give the lads heart attacks? Let them be content that I have made all speed to the rear!”

  Tommy could not see what he had said that was so wrong, but he wanted to sit down with a map for a few minutes before he flew again. He called Nancy into the office.

  “What’s the best road or railway for Jerry to use to build up dumps for the push to Ypres, Nancy? Are there bridges? Any sorts of valleys that make sense for lorries and wagons?”

  “Don’t know, Tommy. Give me a car and a day, will you?”

  “My pleasure, Nancy. Give my regards to HQ.”

  “I haven’t got two fingers to spare, Tommy.”

  They flew their raids, four times a day – the old, familiar, grinding routine. Occasionally it rained, and they relaxed, finding it harder to go out next morning. Towards the end of the month they heard that Richthofen was gone – they bellowed their delight that night in the bar.

  “Did you ever see the Red Baron in the air, Tommy?”

  “No, Mac. I was lucky, I suspect. He was good. The bulk of his kills were BEs and REs, of course, but that’s because they were available – no reason to suppose he ducked away from fighters. He killed a sufficiency of Camels for there to be little doubt of his ability. Thinking on it, I’m close to thirty myself, and more than twenty of mine are two-seaters – that’s inevitable. Noah has forty or so, and he would be the same. No, I’m glad I never ran into his circus.”

  Mac could not quite understand Tommy’s point – surely there would have been the chance to become known as the man who killed the Red Baron.

  “Shooting down the Red Baron would have made you the greatest of them all, Tommy!”

  “I’m happy enough as what I am, Mac. I’ll be content to be one of the lucky ones. I would estimate that one in three of the men I knew in ’14 is dead, and as many again are no longer flying, for being twitchy. When I go back to Brooklands after the war, there will be very few of familiar faces there. I shall count my blessings, Mac. What’s that noise?”

  Mac pulled back a curtain, glanced outside.

  “Rain, Tommy. Heavy.”

  “Good, if it continues to the morning, so much the better. The boys need the rest.”

  “But… do you not wish to fly, Tommy?”

  “Four times a day, seven days a week? Do you wish to do that?”

  “I wish to do my duty, Tommy.”

  “So do we all, Mac. But I could wish there was a little less of it to do.”

  The morning dawned bright – the rain had petered out in the small hours.

  Tommy brought the three Flight Captains into his office.

  “Squadron show this morning. Nancy has located a busy bridge for us.”

  The scowled; they had attacked four other bridges in the previous week and all four were still standing.

  “Bridges are bad targets, Tommy.”

  “Agreed, David. We might have a better chance at this one. It’s in a broader valley, more of a causeway than a bridge, taking a road over a sort of marshy area rather than a river.”

  Most river bridges were short and set, in the nature of things, in valleys – difficult to approach and with only narrow piers to hit.

  “We will be able to follow the road, to give us a line, and the bridge itself is the better part of a quarter of a mile long. It ain’t very broad, obviously, but it’s wider than a trench. The big drawback, is that we would have to run in line astern.”

  Blue shook his head – he did not fancy flying into the bomb blasts of the next man ahead.

  “A masonry bridge, Tommy – that means using the three-hundredweight bombs – anything smaller will do no bloody good at all, mate.”

  “Agreed, Blue. What I reckon is to fly in pairs, really close together, and first pair of the Flight drop towards the far end and the second pair at the near and peel off quickly. A minute between the Flights. First Flight to carry twenty-pound bombs only and try for Archie; last Flight to have a mix of twenties and incendiaries and go for traffic on the road – there ought to be some bunched up, with a bit of luck.”

  “What time of day?”

  “About an hour from now? Nancy says there’s an ammunition dump about five miles up the road to the north of the bridge. Jerry’s in the habit of bringing convoys down in daylight to distribution points out of artillery range, sending cartloads down to battalions and individual companies in the night. The dump is full of Archie, and the distribution points are hard to spot, so the bridge is a good place to hit.”

  David asked whether, if that was so, there would be a concentration of guns around the bridge.

  “Some, but the fact that it’s over marshland makes it difficult to place gunpits.”

  “So who does which, Tommy?”

  Barbry was not especially happy about the raid, but could see that it would be useful if it came off; it was worth trying.

  “Barbry for the guns. David and then me to hit the bridge. Blue, take your Flight along the road leading to the bridge looking for trade – there should be a convoy within reason close because they’re said to be using horse-drawn transport, which is slow. Short of petrol, according to Nancy.”

  They pored over the map, decided on a route in, Barbry leading and pointing to a useful railway line that crossed the same valley just three miles to the east.

  “Easier than a compass, Tommy. Height?”

  “Low. Drongo gets his Dolphins over the next two days and will be available for escort from next week, he says. For the while we still can’t poke our noses much above the treetops.”

  “When do we start night raids, Tommy?”

  “Probably when we get the DH9a, David. That won’t be until the end of the summer, according to current information, that is. There’s some mention of an American
engine, they call it the Liberty, for some reason best known to them. Four hundred hp, heavy and very powerful. It was due last month, but they have had problems with it and July seems more likely now – which means August in all likelihood and not out here till September. The winter to get used to night work and then a campaign in the spring of ’19, hitting the rear areas ready for a Big Push in the summer – mostly American and Indian battalions. There should be a million of Yanks and at least five hundred thousand of the Indian Army, in three separate attacks. Last letter I had from home said the talk was of advances along the North Sea coast, on the Somme and towards Verdun so that Jerry could not concentrate his reserves or aircraft, would be split three ways.”

  “It could work, Tommy.”

  “It needs to, David. We’re coming close to the end of our manpower, you know. The Frogs are exhausted – they haven’t got anything left. The Italians have been hit hard as well. The War Office is so short of men now, they are talking about extending conscription into Ireland – and that will be asking for trouble.”

  They shook their heads in unison – Ireland was best not talked about.

  They left the office, brought the Flights together and gave a very quick briefing before leading them down to the hangars.

  Chapter Seven

  A Wretched Victory

  An easy flight to the target – the advantage of a campaign of movement, there had been little opportunity to set up anti-aircraft batteries, and there was no front line to defend. All that was required was to avoid large clusters of tents, noting their presence on the maps for future reference. Tommy spotted a field hospital, red crosses prominent, took extra care placing that – one mistake could be forgiven, a second set of headlines in neutral, and quickly thereafter, American, newspapers would not be popular at Brigade.

  He picked up the railway line, swung hard to follow it – the disadvantage of flying low was that he had to react instantaneously, there was no leisure, no time to think. The tracks were ruined, he saw, pitted by shell holes in at least four separate locations; no gain to following these lines in the hope of bashing a train, a course that had been occurring to him as potentially profitable.

  He spotted the railway bridge, turned through a right angle to port, checking the time on his cockpit clock. Sixty seconds and he turned through another ninety degrees, port again. He should, he thought, have completed two legs, each of a little more than a mile and a half, which, in theory, would bring him to the road just north of the causeway – probably. The wind was not too strong, ought not to have pushed them too far to the northeast – perhaps; at low level the wind swirled, was affected by local hills and valleys, could not be relied upon to hold its direction.

  Seventy seconds more and he found the road, which was, he thought, better navigation than he had expected. He hoped it was the same road. He throttled back, waved across to Barbry.

  Barbry’s Flight opened up and pushed ahead in tight line abreast.

  Tommy thought that line astern might have been better, would have given a little more time to choose targets, but that was the Flight Captain’s choice – that was why he existed, after all.

  ‘Don’t keep a dog and bark’, he said to himself, watching the road and thinking they were further north of the causeway than he had expected. The road took a bend, a sweeping curve to the left which probably explained the discrepancy in distance. Barbry’s four began to veer away from each other, in sight of targets and taking aim.

  Tommy raised his arm, pointed forwards; he opened the throttle, saw the pair keeping up with him. It was time a third pilot arrived to complete the Flight, more than time. Probably they had posted the available bodies to the Bristols and SE5as, their need being greater, their losses higher. It was a pity that he had sent the squadron’s sergeants to England to complete their training, even if unavoidable at the time.

  The road opened out to show the causeway – an ancient construction, little wider than a cart, local stone patched with old brick on a series of arches, and a battalion of infantry marching across and with nowhere to run to. He eased to starboard, set himself on an exact line, opened fire with his Vickers, allowing the natural vibration of the aircraft to spray rounds from side to side. Three hundred yards, coming to the end, and he dropped the bombs, watched the three-hundredweight hit the masonry carriageway and skid along almost straight, nearly one hundred yards to the end of the bridge and then off into the side of the roadway, colliding with a tree and finally exploding, quite harmlessly. The twenty-pounders that made up the load fell nose first and blew, but were too small to bring down the bridge, though doing a lot of harm to the marching soldiers.

  He took the risk of banking, rising to three hundred feet to see what damage had been done.

  Mac and Abe had dropped, had hit the side walls and blown holes in them, but the bridge still stood. David’s four bombs had done no better. Blue had machine-gunned his way across the bridge and was carrying along the road south, seeking a target for his small bombs.

  Tommy dropped back to fifty feet, headed home.

  “Didn’t work, Nancy. Dropping low and flat, the big bombs didn’t hit nose first, no impact to cause an immediate explosion. Mine skidded along the roadbed and bounced off and hit a tree. Pointless. We did have the luck to coincide with a battalion marching across and with no place to go – no cover at all. Shot them to hell and I should imagine David’s people would have blown them to bits. Battalion effectively rendered useless. What did Barbry claim?”

  “Nothing at the bridge, Tommy – no guns emplaced, but there was, of all bloody things, a regiment of cavalry waiting to cross! He cut them to pieces.”

  “Jerry must believe that the breakthrough is imminent, that’s the sole use for cavalry – which means he is about to make a push somewhere, as he is stopped to all intents and purposes. Word to HQ to expect a major attack, Nancy?”

  “General Salmond will believe us, Tommy. Haig won’t. He has already published an Order of the Day congratulating the Army on throwing back the attack – that means that it’s over, there can’t be another one.”

  “What about Blue, Nancy?”

  “Nothing on the road for three miles, so he reversed and hit the infantry on the bridge again, fairly well finished the job. Must have been massive casualties.”

  Tommy shook his head – it was an unpleasant sort of war. He made his way to the offices, instantly forgetting about the tribulations of the German infantry.

  George was waiting with a replacement pilot.

  “Good morning, Tommy! Second Lieutenant Petersham, James, who is here to fly.”

  Tommy wondered why else the young gentleman might have arrived; presumably the boy was possessed of a mouth and had announced his intentions, at length. The face was familiar.

  “Petersham? James? Are you Fred’s brother? I thought you were to join the Yorkshires, or something?”

  “KOYLI, sir. I did, sir. The battalion received orders for Shanghai, sir, garrison against the possibility of marching into Russia, sir, against these Reds, the Bolshies, sir. No action there, sir, so I volunteered for the RFC, RAF now, of course, sir, and my father arranged it for me. I hoped to get to Fred’s squadron, of course, sir, but, if I can’t, then yours is next best thing!”

  “You will be part of my Flight, Jim, is it?”

  “Well, at the training field they called me Tyke, being a Yorkshireman, sir.”

  “Tyke it is – a name once given must stick. The DH4 is simple enough to fly – very few bad habits. Almost all of our work is low level, so you will have some learning to do. Fred’s located just a few miles away – he might be able to get across and see you. He should be changing to Dolphins this week – Drongo is now and they were supposed to get them together. The old Camel is knackered now, but the Dolphin might do better. Get yourself fixed up and be ready to fly this afternoon, Tyke.”

  George sent the young man away and rolled his eyes up.

  “That bad, George?”

 
“War cannot last forever, Tommy. He must make his mark quickly. He had feared he would be too late, you know – hadn’t really intended to join the fliers, but he had no choice if he was to pick up a gong or two. Do no end of good to his career, you know, having an MC – at least – to display in later years. He was curious why you ‘only’ had the lesser decorations, by the way – surely you would have been able to collect a VC by now? He wanted to know how, being crippled, I had come across mine. I didn’t kick him once.”

  “I might have. Whistle David and Blue and Barbry to come to the office, please, George. Post mortem, old chap.”

  “Raid a failure, Tommy?”

  “Half, George. There was a regiment of cavalry waiting and a battalion actually marching across when we arrived. We did them a lot of no good. But the bloody bridge is still standing. Sodding bombs bounced off!”

  David was equally displeased – they had wasted their time.

  “Too low a trajectory, Tommy. They hit the sides, or fell off into the marsh, even. The bridge is still rock solid.”

  “The big bombs must land nose first, David – and that will demand either that we drop from a height, or dive with them. The first way we miss, the second way we can’t pull out if we dive low enough to be sure of a hit.”

  “All sixteen of us at six thousand feet, Tommy?” David answered his own question with a brief headshake. “If we could live at six thousand feet even – and with the D7s rampaging, that would require a deal of luck – then it would be unlikely that we would manage a pair of hits, and small chance of those being close to each other.”

  Barbry agreed, there was no way that they could hit a bridge. Buildings, with vertical walls, were a different matter, but a flat bridge was almost untouchable.

  “Bloody shame, ain’t it,” Blue contributed. “What about getting Horatio to make those time fuses he talked about, Tommy? Then we could drop into the boggy ground next to the bridge and see if they would shake up the footings.”