A Wretched Victory (Innocents At War Series, Book 6)
Page 19
“The only men with the experience are Marble and Johnny. Their years as sergeants means they know how to give orders and aren’t frightened by responsibility. But, they haven’t got the time in as officers. Wing and Brigade would never accept them.”
“Fiddle it, Tommy. Make them acting, as soon as possible. Get Blue and David to stay on the ground with head-colds and put them across for a couple of days. Once they have previous acting experience on their records, they are the first choices for the real thing. Poacher is going back to England tomorrow, by the way – he doesn’t know it yet, nor does Drongo.”
“Poacher will be promoted to Major with a squadron of his own – he’s another man who will have problems going back home, Nancy. How does he fit into the New Forest after that?”
“He can’t, Tommy. The peacetime RAF will have no place for him, either. Noah has a wife with a powerful family, and they will make up for his background. But Poacher has nothing behind him – he will never be made permanent. It will have to be Australia or America for him, Tommy. There will be no place in England for an officer who is not a gentleman.”
They flew with just three Flights next day, an epidemic of colds in the head making it necessary to leave men on the ground and acting Flight Commanders to take their place.
Chapter Eight
A Wretched Victory
“Let me get this quite right, Father. The farms are Tommy’s by inheritance – his so-called half-brother having no other heir and so leaving them to him.”
“No, Grace. The farms cannot be ‘left’ to an heir. The entail means that they belong to the family in all its generations; they become the source of income to the current head of the family – but he does not ‘own’ them. When Tommy dies, irrespective of any Will he may have written, the farms pass to his eldest son.”
“That is a nonsense, Father. What if, for example, the family runs short of money to pay its taxes?”
“Then the family must sell other assets, Grace. If, however, the eldest son is of age, and has no son of his own to potentially be deprived of the land, then he may enter into an expensive legal process which enables the entail to be broken – provided both father and son are agreeable.”
“Why is it expensive?”
“Because lawyers wish it to be so, Grace – they claim that the law requires it to be so, but that is only because they have created precedents which they claim are binding upon them. Eventually, Parliament will act on entails – there is an increasing pressure for action. Within ten years they will be no more, that is almost a certainty. For the while, we must live with the irritation – and expense – of the entail. Tommy is the possessor of five farms totalling a significant acreage, and involving him in a financial loss, because farming is no longer profitable. They cannot be sold.”
Monkey was not pleased; Lord Moncur was sympathetic. Both wished to rid themselves of the burden of agricultural land which had come down to them, and neither could do so.
“Especially in time of war, Grace, we must pay out to keep the farmers busy in their work. We need wheat to feed the people of the country.”
She could accept her patriotic duty, but wondered why it must be wheat.
“It must be wheat because the farmers understand nothing else, Grace. Well before the war, I tried to persuade my tenants that there were other crops that would pay better than wheat. There are oilseeds that are in short supply and are far more profitable, as an example. Potatoes will crop well; peas and beans are possible, and will sell in the towns. But they would not – the land was for wheat and then barley and turnips in the third year, because that was the way it was and always had been – and that was what was proper, and there was no more to be said.”
There was no gain to arguing, Monkey accepted that, but after the war, things would be different. The farmers were tenants, and when their tenancies came to an end they would face a choice – change or get out. She would rather the land stayed uncultivated than that she should subsidise stuck-in-the-mud wastrels. Her father shook his head – that was the way to create a public fuss.
“The County will not be pleased, Grace.”
“The County, Father, may go and…”
She bit off the comment; her father was old-fashioned in certain ways, could be most upset by her use of certain words. She changed the subject.
“Has General Haig succeeded in losing the war yet, sir?”
“No. By luck, and little else, the Army has held. There has been a new attack, but not aimed towards the Channel ports. It would seem that Ludendorff is now desperate for any success, or for anything that may be presented to the Kaiser as a victory. I suspect that the Kaiser wishes to end the war, but only on favourable terms. The man is a fool – Germany is now clearly losing, will not be able to fight for more than another two, perhaps three, years without facing internal collapse. It is not impossible that the factories that produce the munitions of war will close their doors over the coming winter for lack of coal and iron and the other raw materials they need. The reduced flow of oil into Germany is already affecting their ability to fly, or so we understand. The German High Command is considering taking oil away from the Navy and refining it to produce the petroleum required by the fliers, but, apparently, that is not so easy a task as they imagine – it would seem that oil comes in different sorts – I know nothing of that, of course, I am no technical man.”
Monkey accepted that a country gentleman would have no concept of the workings of the internal combustion engine. Why should he have?
“How could the Kaiser end the war, Father?”
“Talks, in Switzerland or Holland. There have been any number of discussions in the neutral countries already. Not face to face, Britain and Germany yet, but the possibility is there. Lloyd George would do almost anything to end the killing – thousands die every day, and that could be ended if the Kaiser would allow it. But the crippled fool has his pride – he must be seen to win and if he cannot be victorious then he will be destroyed in some great Gotterdammerung, or some such Prussian nonsense. This damned Wagner has much to answer for, you know, Grace, and his music is damned tedious – sixteen hours of oompah for twenty minutes of good tunes!”
Monkey concluded that she must not admit to an ambition to listen to the Ring Cycle one day.
“What specifically brought you to the question of the family land, Grace?”
“The normal, sir – scandal! It seems that there is something called the Land Girl, young ladies who should know better who have taken to the agricultural life, with the normal unfortunate side-effects for a very few. As so often, it is the few who attract attention away from the hard-working many!”
“Ah! I presume the question is one of illegitimate issue?”
She nodded, distastefully.
“The farmer in question is one of Tommy’s tenants, and he claims to know nothing of the whole affair – which would not be so great a problem was it not that two of the three young females working for him find themselves in the family way!”
“Oh dear! That cannot be hushed up by a quick wedding! I presume the man is single, Grace?”
“Not at all, Father! He is well married, with other children and a wife who is loudly displeased by the whole business. As a consequence, the story has spread far and wide. What I am to do, I know not, but it would seem that as landlord, Tommy must do something. What, is unclear, of course, and I have more than a suspicion that the only thing he would do is laugh. I shall not ask him for an opinion on the matter.”
Lord Moncur was reluctantly inclined to agree – the matter must be dealt with discreetly, and Tommy was not the person for that.
“The farmer must pay for his pleasures – I can see no other possibility, Grace. A few shillings a week until the child is of an age to earn a living. There is no other course possible. Are the girls’ parents in any way influential?”
“Very much middle-class, sir – the one a doctor, the other, perhaps unfortunately, a solicitor.”
Monkey was not pleased with that answer, the more because it confirmed her opinion that she was powerless in the matter. Even more she wished to sell the land – she was not, she thought, in the way of wishing to be the great lady dispensing soup and good works to her people. She wondered just how Tommy would have reacted; she would, on second thoughts, detail the whole business in her next letter. If that did not make him want to get rid of the land, she would be very surprised.
Next morning, she was further annoyed to be paid a visit by the third of the Land Girls, an eighteen year old who had defied her parents to contribute her mite to the war and found now that she did not wish to give anything to the farmer.
“So, ma’am, I took the trains here to speak with you. I cannot go home, my father, who is a rector, having informed me that I would come to a bad end and that he would do no more for me.”
Monkey made no comment on this example of Christian charity.
“Have you brought your trunk with you?”
“Two cases, ma’am, containing all I have.”
“Are you willing to assist with the children and the house, Miss Watkins? You could perhaps start to teach Elisabeth Jane her letters as well as assist in the garden…”
Miss Watkins was happy to do so – it was not her ideal but was far more to her taste than what the farmhouse had become.
She was a pretty girl, and quite bright, Monkey noticed. She could hardly remain as little more than a servant, but David Irvine was a captain now, and a friend who would certainly visit at River Cottage whenever he could. If not, there was always Fred Petersham, or even Drongo – she must discover his true name, she reminded herself - who was eligible as a major with a wealthy father, even though he was Australian. Miss Watkins might well find herself with a choice of young men, provided any of them survived the final years of the war.
“What am I to do in the garden, ma’am?”
“Supply the agricultural knowledge that I lack, Miss Watkins. One must put the great bulk of one’s garden down to vegetables now, as a patriotic duty, and I find myself to possess very few green fingers.”
Miss Watkins achieved a reluctant smile – she had not been in laughing mood recently, having spent her time keeping out of dark corners around the farm and never being inside the barns at the same time as her employer.
Tommy was more content than he had been in months; the squadron had lost not a single pilot in the preceding week – the first time since the beginning of the March offensive that he had kept his full complement for seven days. He inspected the men as they sat in the anteroom of a wet afternoon, relaxed for knowing that they would not fly till the morning.
Four new men, only one of them a Canadian, which was unusual, and all with twenty or more hours of flying on raids since they had arrived. Poor flying was less likely to kill them now, though they would still face bad luck – new hands were unluckier than the experienced, a peculiar fact but undeniable. Still no fourth captain, not any prospect of such arriving, which could be worse…
He stood to give a briefing.
“News, gentlemen! Boom is back and will be running an Independent Air Force, of which, in theory at least, we are part. The function of this new body will be to conduct strategic raids upon German industry and on specific military targets. How these targets are to be identified will be vouchsafed to us at a later date.”
“What aircraft, Tommy?”
“The new Handley-Pages, the O400, when it is available in numbers; DH4s, Dh9s, and, usefully, DH9as – when they come out of the factories! There will be FE2bs to fly at night – poor buggers! As well, we shall have Camels as escorts for daylight raids.”
“Not Dolphins, Tommy?”
“No, Blue. Camels. The theory behind it is that the Camel is no longer entirely suited to go out as a fighter on patrol, so it might be useful as escort to us as bombers. It may be the case that when Jerry is attacking us, he will be forced to slow down, and will then become vulnerable to the Camel. I ain’t convinced, but I won’t be in the Camels. Neither, of course, will Boom.”
“Starting when, Tommy?”
“Next week. We have just four more days of being our own masters. From the sixth, we fly where and when we are told. I doubt that will mean four raids a day any more – which can only be a good thing!”
There was general agreement that they could not keep up the pace for much longer – fatigue was getting to them. All of the more experienced pilots could remember recent examples where they had made mistakes in the air that could have killed them – poor judgement, occasionally bad flying, caused by tiredness. They knew, and felt guilty, that they worked only a few hours of each day, unlike the men in the front line who were never off-duty, but they also believed that their fewer hours were far harder. It was difficult for them – very young and not in the way of philosophising – to reconcile their status as part of the elite, the gilded youth, with the fact that they were becoming simply worn-out and middle-aged.
“What’s for tomorrow, Tommy?”
David thought it might be as well to avoid any open discussion of their problems – he knew that two of his Flight were close to breaking point, and could not be grounded because every plane must fly, which meant stuffing pilots into them whatever their mental state might be. Thinking of their fatigue, bringing it into the open, might be the last straw for his men. Better to talk about something else.
“Nancy thinks his people have located a gas depot. Heavily defended by big guns at a distance – about a quarter of a mile out in batteries. No machine-guns, which is the giveaway – they don’t want a garrison within reach of little leaks from the shells or bottles. He can explain it to you.”
Nancy rose and pinned a sheet of cartridge paper to the wall, to the annoyance of the Mess Sergeant, who was responsible for the paintwork.
“Tucked away in a little valley, a small river running down to the main river, the Lys, winding most inconveniently for us. Probably deliberately sited where most squadrons, who are perhaps less experienced in such matters, would not wish to make a low-level attack. Anti-aircraft guns on the surrounding hillsides, six batteries of four or five. Seventy-five millimetre, or thereabouts – three inch, more or less. Under orders to fire a barrage rather than to attempt to aim at individual planes, fused for six to eight thousand feet – they know about the Drift Sight. Any attack at height, day or night, will probably take a hammering. A raid at low-level, all of you together, no second bite at the cherry, into the wind, should succeed, provided that the navigation is precise and the bombs are dropped simultaneously. There will be a cloud of gas forming within seconds of the first accurate bomb. Fly into it and you die.”
“How far is it behind the German front line, Nancy?”
“About six miles, Barbry. The shells are brought up by lorry, in special carrying crates. They are taken to the guns a few at a time by horse-drawn wagons – very well-sprung, packed in straw so that they don’t bounce about. They are fired only by the medium and heavy guns, which are situated behind the lines. There is nothing within a mile of the depot to the east, where the prevailing wind blows. We think they have made a mistake, though. The river valley winds to the north, and the wind may well channel along it. There is a good chance that the gas cloud will drift as far as a fairly large camp of front line troops in rest, provided there is a good, but not too strong, wind. The forecast for tomorrow is for Force Three or Four winds, south-westerly, which is ideal.”
Nancy sat to silence. They did not like gas, did not especially wish to use it as a weapon, even at second-hand.
Tommy rose.
“Better them than us. The bar is open.”
There were more important matters than gas – the first beer being prominent among them.
Tommy briefed the Flight Captains before
they took off.
“We must bomb in a tight box. Not so much for placing the bombs – far more important that none of us get caught in gas. I shall take us well northeast of the target, to the Lys itself, and then will follow the side stream we want and make a single pass across it, climbing up the hillside and directly into the wind – whatever course that may be. We can turn for home when we are safe from the gas. Because we are bombing as a squadron, and the target is reasonably big, I am going to come in at two hundred feet, which will give an extra couple of seconds before the gas can rise, and that should be all we need. Three of hundred pounders, and eight of twenties, a full load – that puts the better part of two and a half tons down on the ground, and if that don’t do some good, nothing will. Bomb when I do. Under no circumstances take a second run.”
All sixteen took off and settled into formation, flying low and trusting to Sergeant Ormerod to navigate Tommy to the Lys and then discover the correct tributary. Tommy was uncomfortably aware that David was far better with maps and navigation than he was, but felt that he should not dump his responsibility onto the young man. David, equally aware, followed the route on his own map, Very pistol ready to draw Tommy’s attention if the need arose.
Thirty minutes found them on the Lys, and noting an amount of narrowboat traffic for future reference, and then turning into the correct side valley. The valley was narrow and winding, spurs intersecting every mile, all covered in thick forest. Tommy brought them up to one hundred feet, making the flying far less fraught.
“Two miles, sir!”
Tommy raised a hand in acknowledgement, took out his own flare pistol, ready loaded with a green, and fired. He throttled down to allow the three Flights to form up tightly to either side and thirty feet off his tail, each Flight line abreast. He led them over a spur, low to the hillside, passing over a silent battery at no more than twenty feet, too fast and too low for the big guns to react. The typical high barbed wire fence was in sight, down by the road leading up from the Lys. He climbed a little, reached an exact two hundred feet and dropped as the fence slid underneath him. He opened up to full throttle and put the DH4 into a fast climb. He could see buildings inside the fence, mostly timber huts, some no more than canvas tent roofs on scaffolding poles. He heard the first explosions and Ormerod shouting.