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

by Andrew Wareham

  “Six hundred yards of clean, dry turf, Colonel – the O400 is slow and requires a lot of space. If you can choose an almost still night, it will save the need to turn into the wind to take off. It’s a tall plane and passengers must be shown how to get in and out and where to stand without sticking their feet through the canvas. The ladders are quite heavy and cumbersome, of course.”

  “Ladders?”

  “The plane stands twenty-two feet above the ground, sir – you don’t cock your leg over the side of the cockpit.”

  “Do you carry them in the cockpit?”

  Noah was rarely flabbergasted, but made a rapid recovery.

  “Not normally, sir. Perhaps you might like to come across to the hangars and see for yourself.”

  The hangars were full of vast aircraft; more were parked out on the concrete apron. Four wide ladders, fixed on wheeled trolleys, stood to one side.

  “Pilot and nose gunner go up and over the side of the cockpit. There is a tunnel from cockpit to nose gunner’s position. Observer/navigator and one or two gunners go through the trapdoor next to the bomb cells, sir.”

  “I see… I presume the passengers will take the place of two of the gunners… What if we wanted to carry six passengers, Major Arkwright?”

  “Possibly. One minute, sir.” Noah turned to a nearby private, industriously pushing a broom while he was in the sight of officers. “Ask the Engineering Officer to join me, please.”

  The private, overweight and at least forty, a recent and unwilling conscript, raised a reluctant trot.

  “Useless, sir. Not worth the rations he is fed. Why they send these conscripts out is beyond me – they are of no military value at all, sir.”

  “The politicians thought it was a good idea; they had worked out that the voluntary system had taken all of the best men from Britain and killed too many of them, leaving the dregs behind. They pursued the train of logic and decided that conscription would at least ensure that an equal proportion of useless mouths would die, not working out that the useless would never reach the front line, for being incapable.”

  Knell appeared, covered in grease, obviously pulled out from the middle of an engine. He raised an eyebrow.

  “This is Colonel Naismith, Knell. He wants to put six passengers and some baggage aboard an O400.”

  “When? Tonight – no. Tomorrow, unlikely. Give me four days and all things may be possible.”

  Noah smiled benignly – his prodigy performing for the benefit of the high-ranking outsider. He was struck by a sudden qualm.

  “How permanent would the changes be, Knell?”

  “Very. In effect, it would become a passenger or baggage-carrying aircraft. Useful as such, I might add. Far more valuable at that than throwing expensive bombs away at night. To fit the passengers in, I shall strip the bomb cells out and put in some canvas stretchers for them to lay out on. An extra layer of something under the fuel tanks, so they don’t drip petrol on the poor buggers, and all will be well, as long as they don’t smoke. No need to restrict yourself to six bodies, by the way. Six men, none too fat, makes half a ton. You could add three more men, or luggage to the same weight.”

  Colonel Naismith was impressed and hopeful.

  “How would they get in and out, sir?”

  “Stepladder to the trapdoor. Because she sits nose high and the trap door is a bit back, it’s not too high at all.”

  “Could they jump down?”

  “Easily, sir, provided they are within reason fit.”

  “Very good! Thank you, Knell! Could we aim to fly for five nights from today?”

  “Certainly, sir. I shall have one of the spares ready for you, everything on top line.”

  Back in the office, Colonel Naismith relaxed; he had been worried that he might not be able to carry out the operation he had sold in Downing Street, with great loss of face resulting.

  “Six German Reds to give our love to Kaiser Bill, gentlemen. What did your man mean by his comment about throwing bombs away, Major Arkwright?”

  “We cannot aim at night, unless we have a lit target, and if the moonlight is bright then Archie has a field day with a slow-moving target such as the O400. Even finding a target at night is no easy matter – how do you navigate in the dark? A squadron of sixteen planes is a waste of manpower and money, sir. Wiser to keep just a single Flight on each of four fields, well separate, to make tactical raids on local targets. Fly thirty miles and dead reckoning may take you close to the target. Fly three hundred and you won’t get within twenty miles except by using star fixes, which can’t be done in a bumping, unlit aircraft, especially by untrained men.”

  “Then the O400 is a waste of resources, you believe, Major Arkwright?”

  “It is here, sir. It might be useful in Mesopotamia, say, where I understand there are few fighter aircraft and even fewer guns. As a day bomber, I can see a lot of value in the plane, sir. I might want to use it to sweep the waters of the Channel, sir, hunting for submarines, backing up the blimps. It could be handy for carrying stores, sir. We sometimes need spares in a hurry – a plane that could fly across to England and back in a day with half a ton aboard could be handy.”

  “I will make your point in the highest quarters, Major Arkwright. I doubt it will be popular, however.”

  Noah laughed – it seemed naïve to him to expect the voice of reason to be popular among the High Command of this war.

  Noah was wrong, however; logic combined with the desire to do Trenchard in the eye and almost immediate action was taken, the squadron split up and three of its component Flights sent to different fields within days. The machines were replaced by more DH4s, which were at least of some practical value.

  Colonel Naismith returned, in his own staff car trailed by a Crossley tender carrying six German Reds and an armed guard.

  “Protection for them, Colonel Stark. The French have little liking for Germans, it seems.”

  Tommy was not at all sure he blamed the French, for once.

  “Barely two hundred miles distant, Colonel Stark, in a straight line, on the Rhine, near the Dutch border, but not too close, a racing stud, now empty of horses, of course, but with a half a mile stretch of turf, visible for a white pole fence to its side, like an English racetrack. Ten miles from the nearest large town, a place called Goch. A steam tug waiting on the river itself, indistinguishable from the many others working their barges at night. Two men with carbide lanterns to give you a set down point. They will be at the eastern end of the landing ground. The wind is expected to be no more than a faint breeze tonight, so the expectation is that you will touch down close to the lights and take off towards them. Your navigator will open the trap door and bundle men and baggage out and you should be on your way again inside five minutes.”

  They pored over the maps, set their courses and tried to identify landmarks that would show under the quarter-moon.

  “The Dutch border is a problem, Colonel Naismith. Due east to Aachen, then north to the Rhine – easily spotted, must be the biggest river in Europe, sir. If in doubt, follow the river and hope.”

  Tommy could see few problems – Aachen was so big that it was bound to show some lights.

  “Three hours and fifteen minutes, Tommy,” Chubby said. “The men are skinny buggers and they have only a small bag apiece, so we can carry an extra gunner and the rear positioned guns as well. No need for the ventral, as we said. I have picked a pair of gunners – they all volunteered. Two sergeants who have been out some time, flown in DH4s.”

  Tommy agreed; it would have been ill-mannered not to, even though he doubted they were necessary. He watched as Horatio, the armourer, loaded pan after pan of Lewis ammunition aboard, filling the three different storage spaces with several thousands of rounds.

  “If it’s too much, it’s easy to bring the spares back, Tommy. Send you out with too little and you’re buggered!”

  Tommy thought he should show willing and ordered the crew to carry their handguns and ensure that they w
ere loaded.

  The six agitators stayed silent, clustered together, clutching their bags. Knell ushered them to the trapdoor and led them up the steps, one by one, pointing each to his place and showing them where to set their bags down.

  Colonel Naismith followed, addressing them in German and, possibly, wishing them luck.

  The engines started, settled to a healthy growl and then Tommy taxyed out, bumping over the turf to the perimeter fence and turning into the length of the field. A pair of mechanics at the far end turned on small searchlights, aimed vertically, to give him a mark to keep straight on.

  Chubby made a final check on his course, and on the stars he would use as a guide, if he could spot them and the sky remained clear and they didn’t bump too much.

  They took off at about midnight, intending to make a landing back at home after dawn; Tommy climbed slowly and steadily, expecting to reach four thousand feet by the end of the first hour.

  The great southward salient in the front line came in sight after twenty minutes, still without any formalised sets of trenches and very irregular in its geometry. Tommy had had more than three years of flying over the stalemate of the Trenches, found this unsettled zone rather disturbing. Particularly annoying was that he could not tell one set of anti-aircraft guns from the other, and both sides seemed to be shooting at him.

  “Just right, Tommy!” Chubby yelled. “Barrage with fuses set for six thousand feet – nothing at all close.”

  It was noisy and the bursts flared bright, but it was in fact harmless, apart from the tiny risk of a shell physically hitting the plane on its way up.

  “Airfield, Tommy, front and port, three miles, roughly.”

  There was a row of lights, turned on after the barrage, presumably for night fighters to take off. According to rumour, Jerry had some sort of listening device – bat ears, or some such – that could pick up an aircraft’s engines and establish its course, so that the fighters would take off with some idea of the bomber’s track.

  “Bear left ten degrees, Tommy, for five minutes. Then come back ten to the right for five and then return to track.”

  Easy to say, and in theory very simple. It required the most precise piloting to make the turns identical and the legs exactly equal.

  They plugged on, droning slowly through the night, never seeing the least sign of a fighter. It was possible for a lucky Fokker to see them against the half moon, or to spot the pair of exhaust flames – but the chances were tiny, and the likelihood of then making a successful interception was minimal. Night fighters might have a function patrolling a known target, in advance of the bombers arriving, but they could do very little against a passing single plane.

  Three tedious hours brought the Rhine in sight and set Chubby to discovering exactly where on the large river they were.

  “Slight southerly wind, Tommy. Bit faster than expected. Turn left, following the river, maybe nine minutes, losing height now.”

  A dive of four hundred feet a minute, not hard to maintain, though difficult to keep the speed down. It was cloudier here, to the northeast of their starting place, not so easy to pick out ground features. Tommy saw lights on the river, strings of barges being towed by steam tugs, he could pick out thrashing paddlewheels churning up white water; a mixed load of twenty and forty pound bombs might do some good, he thought, dropping from fairly low. He must talk to Knell about arranging for the bomb cells to empty over about five seconds, row by row, rather than dropping all together.

  “In sight, Tommy. The shape of the riverbank says it should be half of a mile distant.”

  Tommy swore quietly – he could see no lights, but did not want to fly over them and then have to circle round. He pushed the nose down and cut back on the throttles, still a little fast, but he must keep some speed in case he had to pull out of the landing glide.

  “Lights, Tommy!”

  Chubby shouted as he saw them flicker on.

  He dropped the nose and reduced power further, concentrated on bringing the big plane down on the turf. He lost more height and muttered obscenely as he bounced a little, no more than two or three feet, but not what he demanded of himself. He brought the plane almost to a halt and allowed it to trickle forward another hundred yards while Chubby dropped down through the fuselage to stand by the trapdoor. Tommy turned the plane to face back the way they had come.

  “Dump ‘em, Chubby!”

  Tommy leaned out over the cockpit coaming, saw movement on the ground, shadows trotting off, others coming towards them, calling quietly, too low for him to pick out words over the engine noise.

  Chubby appeared back in his cockpit and shouted that they were gone.

  Tommy pushed the throttles open, the plane began to roll and both gunners started firing, the four Lewises breaking the silence with sustained bursts. He felt and heard bullets coming in through the canvas. Something thumped his shoulder, a piece of debris, wood from the airframe, probably; it was insignificant.

  “On the river, Tommy. Some sort of boat with a machine-gun firing. Our gunners are onto it.”

  The plane accelerated and the nose gunner no longer had the angle to fire; the midships pair of Lewises continued to fire for a few more seconds. Tommy felt the tail lift and watched the marker lamps grow closer; he hoped he had left himself sufficient space to lift off, and watched with interest as the two men at the carbide lamps threw themselves flat to the ground. The O400 climbed slowly over the white railings of the gallops, Tommy was half-expecting undercarriage to hit the railings and wondered if they would survive if that should happen; then he sighed with relief as nothing checked their progress.

  “Come starboard as soon as you can, Tommy.”

  Tommy knew it would be wise to avoid flying over the town but he was unwilling to bank the monster below four hundred feet, would have preferred twice as much. He started the manoeuvre tentatively, still not entirely at home with the plane. They came slowly to course, the port engine coughing twice in the process.

  “Come further right, Tommy. Take us parallel with the Dutch border. If she breaks, we can drop into Holland – I had rather be interned, given the choice.”

  Tommy obeyed the navigator’s orders, feeling much the same. Internment was known to mean different things to different people, and it was common for more senior officers to find themselves aboard a ship to England within a very few days. Holland imported a large amount of coal and of industrial products through the neutral channel across the North Sea, but received almost nothing from Germany; trade was more important than strict considerations of neutrality, the more especially now that it seemed that Germany’s last offensive had failed.

  The nose gunner clambered through his tunnel, crouched at Tommy’s side.

  “Police boat, I think, sir. Petrol engined, not steam; wooden, decked over at the front, the bows that is – not much more than twenty feet long. Small crew, I think. Couldn’t really see their uniforms, but it looked like peaked caps and blackish – more like coppers than soldiers. The bullets hit home, sir; they were sinking as we left and the men I could see were either dead or floundering in the water. I doubt they would have been able to interfere with the blokes we just delivered, sir.”

  “Well done. Go back and keep an eye out now. Any shout from me, come back, quickly.”

  The engine continued to fire, a little ragged, but still giving most of its power. North of Maastricht Chubby shouted for another course change, almost southwest, crossing Holland for a few miles to reach the border with Belgium.

  “Only a short distance, and they ain’t going to catch us in the dark, Tommy.”

  The Dutch heard them and their anti-aircraft batteries announced they were unwelcome, distant shell bursts suggesting they were being warned off and that there was no particular intention to bring them down.

  “Showing neutrality without wishing to give too much offence, Tommy. They know we are taking a short cut, and they don’t like it – but they don’t want a major incident. They won’t
know who we are, or our nationality, and don’t want to find out the hard way.”

  “Makes sense. What course now?”

  “Cross onto the Belgian side and follow the Dutch border to the sea, then along the coast, offshore, until we reach Dunkirk and can make a direct line home.”

  Another hour, the Dutch border easily spotted for the existence of lights north of it while Belgium was black. The North Sea came in sight and the port engine started to run hot and their speed slowly fell.

  “We can’t fly on one engine, Chubby. Into Holland or out to sea and hope?”

  “Both! The Neutral Channel runs up from the southwest and it’s busy. There’s a chance of an escorted convoy to the west in sight. If not, we can turn and come down close to shore, with a bit of luck.”

  The nose gunner shouted and crawled through his tunnel a few minutes later.

  “Down the coast, sir. Shore bombardment going on. Big guns.”

  “Chubby, can you see it?”

  Chubby looked to the south, agreed there was a large ship firing at the shore.

  “Coastal monitor, Tommy. Carries two big battleship guns in a single turret. She’ll have an escort of destroyers to keep the submarines off.”

  “Give it a try?”

  “The plane might float for a minute or two, time to get into a boat, if you can bring her down close to a ship.”

  “Gunners to your cockpit, Chubby, as high as possible. What do you reckon? Eight miles?”

  “About. I’ll get into the nose position, Tommy. Flash our light at them.”

  They had a small electric lantern, battery powered, for use of the navigator, providing a reading light and little more.

  “Too small to bother with, Chubby. Green flare at two miles, then more as we come to the water.”

  “From the nose?”

  “No need. Fire from my side. The nose is likely to go under first, or break off when we hit. I don’t want you there.”

  The gunners jammed into Chubby’s cockpit and located struts they could grab hold of as they hit. Tommy bled off speed, mentally debating whether to wear his lap belt or sit free and able to scramble out more quickly. The landing speed was low, little more than forty; he should not bounce too much without a belt and did not fancy wasting so much as five seconds while the plane was sinking. He shrugged out of his heavy flying coat, not wanting to tread water weighed down; he noticed that the shoulder was torn and bloody.