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

by Andrew Wareham

  Tommy thanked him, recognising exactly what he was saying. He might well be moved to replace some of his staff – which he was at liberty to do, they were still personal appointments in the old tradition of the military family.

  He was put down at his offices, at his request, wishing to show himself immediately rather than wait in his personal quarters until a reception had been arranged.

  The field was newly made, but next to a pre-existing set of barracks, brick-built and peace-time comfortable. The brigade offices were a block of their own, a dozen and more of rooms and a small mess and kitchens. Tommy discovered the administration officer, a captain, who performed the functions of an adjutant.

  “Cooks, Captain Plunkett.”

  “To be sure, sir, and we have several of them.”

  “Army?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Throw them out. Replace them by civilians, preferably Belgian refugees; if they are not to hand, then any local people will do, just as long as they are at home in a kitchen. I do not wish to spend my whole existence eating shoe-leather Beef Wellington and parboiled vegetables!”

  “But, how I am I to do that, sir?”

  “Telephone to George Richardson at my last Wing. He will assist – has done it for me previously. Use funds which I will make available – he will tell you how to organise it. Do it today – I wish to be eating food by Friday at latest. While you are doing that, your senior sergeant can escort me on an inspection of the facilities.”

  “Yes, sir. Might you prefer Lieutenant James, my second, for that function, sir? I believe he has worked for you previously, sir.”

  Tommy had recommended Sergeant James’ commission, had been shifted away before it had come through.

  “Good. Sensible suggestion. He is a very good man, Captain Plunkett – knows my way of doing things. I see you have wings, sir.”

  “Yes, sir. A tin foot as well, sir. Picked it up at the Somme on ground-attack.”

  Tommy was pleased to hear that – the man would be useful for knowing his way about.

  “Sorry for that, of course, but I must have men who know what’s what. What do you need?”

  Every adjutant had a list of necessary and useful changes, stores and extra staff.

  “Two more telephones, sir; four lorries and drivers – I act as adjutant to the squadron of DH4s at the field as well, sir. Besides that, a pair of clerks would be useful, but ain’t essential, and a dozen of officers’ servants, sir, having had to supply such to your staff. I was short six previously.”

  “Make out your requisitions, or whatever paperwork you need, and put them on my desk soonest. I will sign them immediately.”

  Lieutenant James appeared and led Tommy on his tour.

  “Your personal office, sir.”

  The room was large, contained a desk and comfortable chair and space for another six for daily briefings. There was a more formal conference room next door, for larger meetings.

  “Personal facilities, I see, Lieutenant James – brigadier-generals are not to pee in company, it would seem!”

  “No, sir. One never knows what senior officers may wish to hide.”

  “Nothing to say to that, sir!”

  There were six empty offices in a row along the corridor, each with a name freshly painted on the door.

  “One major, four captains and a solitary lieutenant, I see.”

  “Someone has to fetch the tea, sir.”

  “Of course. I don’t suppose you know where they are?”

  “Paris, sir. They decided that you would be required at Headquarters, sir, and would not reach here before Wednesday.”

  “Would you place a telephone call to HQ for me?”

  “Good morning, General. Yes, sir, fit and ready, sir. I wish, sir, to replace the staff with men of my own choosing – they are currently in Paris, sir, finding their offices uncongenial, it might seem. I am informed that none of the current appointments have wings, sir, and I will wish my staff to take responsibility for much in the way of operational duties – which does demand experience. To a great extent, and as possible, I wish to select the targets for my squadrons, so that attacks may be sensibly coordinated. Add to that, sir, I would wish to surround myself with men distinguished other than for poodle-faking in the nightclubs of Paris.”

  “Who do you want, Stark?”

  “Major Petersham, sir – an intelligent man and too able to waste commanding a squadron. Major Allen, because he knows ground-attack, and four others to include at least one each of Canadians and Australians, sir. I would like men who can speak the language of many of our best pilots, sir. I will ask Petersham and Allen to name two men apiece. Better to have a working group of men who know each other, sir. Fighting men, at that!”

  “They are yours, Stark. I will send immediate orders. Your brigade must be on top form three weeks from now. Can you do that?”

  “Given these men, yes, sir.”

  “Good. You will not, of course, so much as consider flying, yourself, other than to HQ or to London.”

  “Yes, sir. I shall not attempt to disobey, sir – I have seen all I want to of flying to war, sir. I am tired, I find, sir. But not too tired to know what must be done.”

  Tommy turned back to Lieutenant James.

  “Arrange to have those doors scraped clean, please. Major Petersham and Major Allen’s names to be put on the first two, but in black paint, not gold.”

  “With pleasure, sir. Decorations, sir?”

  “No. I have no wish to put a yard long list up on my own door – a little too much of a good thing.”

  Fred and Barbry were a little displeased to have been dragged away from their squadrons, Barbry especially, for having barely got to know them. They suspected that they might have been put into cotton-wool, given protection not afforded to their men.

  “I need you, in fact, gentlemen. The squadrons will be worked to death over the next six months – and that will be literally true if we allow them to be wasted on unnecessary or inappropriate raids. We will save a few necks by choosing their targets, on the basis of experience. Even to the extent of selecting what bombs to use – that may help. I want your two brightest men each – pilots or ground staff – to join us, to make up the numbers. Three Wings, eight to twelve squadrons – still uncertain, but we will need men who can go out and talk to them, explain what and why.”

  “They say that Jerry’s latest attack on the Marne is failing, Tommy?”

  “So I am told. We are due to counter-attack there soon, and will be required to pressure them here in the west of the line to prevent them sending reserves across. The word is that the flu’ is killing them faster than we can, by the way, which may be why they can be broken. If we push hard now, we may force Jerry back to the Rhine by the spring of ‘19 and invade Germany in the summer – but now is the opportunity, it seems.”

  Fred Petersham saw what must be required.

  “Work the pilots until they break, then replace them with boys, Tommy?”

  “It will be worse than Bloody April, Fred, and we will be giving the day-to-day orders.”

  “Then we shall, undoubtedly, do our duty, Tommy. My father would be most surprised if I did not – and I don’t think I wish to disappoint the old chap. He writes that he saw you in Salisbury, Tommy, and thought that you might be blaming yourself for James. Don’t, if you are, Tommy. James had the makings of a revolting beast – the epitome of all that is worst in the young officer; my father thought of getting him a commission in the Guards, you know, as the best place for his sort.”

  Tommy laughed – the Guards had many virtues, but were also renowned as infested with the worst parasites of the upper classes.

  “Bullying, sneering brats are two a penny there, I agree, Fred. Probably comes from being in frequent contact with royalty, you know!”

  Barbry had never frequented circles in which he was likely to come into contact with Guardees; additionally, he was loyal to his King, he believed. He was a littl
e upset, but knew that it was highly unlikely that Tommy could be wrong – he was the fountainhead of wisdom, in his mind. It was very difficult.

  As brigadier, Tommy gave orders, but he quickly found that to carry them out he relied upon others, who displayed more or less efficiency and willingness but generally could not be pushed into action. The colonels who commanded the Wings could and did query his instructions, and finally the majors in the squadrons would implement them according to their own understanding of what was correct.

  He could not force them to immediate action, except when there was some emergency. It did not help that the targets that he specified for each Wing came to him from the Army, and were often out of date or simply incorrect – there was often nothing to bomb at the location given. He spent his days arguing first with the Army and then with Wings, and meanwhile the squadrons flew and pilots died.

  “Sixty-four pilots dead or down and captured this week, Tommy, from our eleven squadrons, together with twenty-two of gunners. Ninety aircraft written off as gone down or brought back too damaged to repair. Seven pilots returned to England wounded, probably never to fly again, and twelve of gunners. Ten pilots grounded for up to a week with minor wounds and four more hospitalised in France for a month, perhaps. Eighty-one pilots replaced, in total, from fewer than two hundred.”

  The first week of September was the worst they had experienced, but the German army was in retreat and had lost much of the ground taken in the March attacks. The French army was pushing hard, with considerable American assistance and the help of only four British divisions. The British were pressing more slowly in the west, but were gaining a little ground, pushing harder each week, and relying on ground-attack aircraft to destroy strongpoints and bombers to damage the railway lines to the rear. A reduction in the efforts of the RAF might well bring the advance to a halt, might give Germany a winter in which to shore up its defences and create a new stalemate.

  “Make a telephone call to General Salmond’s office, Fred. We must have replacement pilots. Ask for two of the Australian squadrons that are training up, to replace our two worst-hit squadrons. Disband those two, in effect. Send them back to England to reform, but posting their pilots to make up the numbers here. Besides that, we need thirty boys from England – Canadians, if possible, or New Zealanders or South Africans if they are to hand. Bring them in as soon as possible; they are to fly as soon as they arrive.”

  Fred knew the reason why and obeyed his orders.

  “Barbry! What’s the weather forecast?”

  “Rain overnight, Tommy, not clearing till the afternoon.”

  “Bring in all of the commanding officers for eight o’clock in the morning. Squadron and Wings both.”

  Mail arrived and Tommy sat down to three envelopes postmarked Wilton, discovered to his pleasure that Monkey was within reason sure she was expecting again. The first two children seemed to him to be rather fine examples of the type – he was much in favour of a third and sat down to a joyful return letter.

  “We are losing pilots literally by the dozen, gentlemen. The worst rate of attrition ever known to RFC or RAF. It will not stop.”

  Tommy could feel the hostility of the room.

  “The German Army is in retreat, and Intelligence insists that it will not be able to halt and hold its ground. The French have already penetrated the Hindenburg Line and the Germans will be unable to hold there, for fear of being flanked. The expectation is that the next push will take us to the Dutch border by mid-October, and we will reach the Rhine by December. The main reason that the retreating army cannot hold is us, the RAF. As the infantry and tanks force the Germans back, we hit their every strongpoint that they could possibly turn into a new line of trenches. Infantry, tanks and air force are forming a new pattern of war, and it works. The tanks have lost at least one third of their number; the infantry have taken thirty thousand casualties; in our brigade, we have lost ninety pilots dead and a quarter as many gunners, though from far smaller numbers flying. I know how hard it is to keep flying. But you have no choice. You must fly all day, every day, and you must hit the targets given. We have no alternative. The end of the war is in sight and we must not give up now.”

  There was a silence, broken finally by a weary major who stood and asked whether Tommy expected any of them to see the end of the war.

  “Expect? Not really. I think there is a good chance that half of you will. That’s better than I thought even six months ago. In March I was sure that none of us would live to see peace. Now, there is a hope.”

  “Many of the boys coming out have barely twenty hours in their books, sir.”

  “In ’16, when we were over the Somme, eight hours was the normal.”

  Tommy did not say that he had seen it before, and that the boys would die by the score, the old hands only in a trickle. They knew that in any case.

  “Take back the message that we fly, gentlemen. It will end, one day soon, but until then, we fly, and hope that others die.”

  Tommy sat at his desk, wondered how it had happened. Haig might have been proud of the speech he had just made; he had joined the ranks of the butchers.

  “I’m no better than Haig, Fred.”

  “Yes, you are, Tommy. You know when you are being a complete shit, because it’s out of character. He doesn’t notice, because it’s normal for him. You told them that the end justified the means. It does… sometimes. I believe this is one of those times. I hope I will still think the same in ten years from now.”

  “Maybe.”

  The end of October was marked by a telephone call from General Salmond.

  “Bad news, I fear, Brigadier-General Stark. Your brother by marriage, the husband of your wife’s sister, Sir Charles Monkton, MP.”

  “Oh, have they caught the fat little bugger, sir? I do hope so!”

  “Well, no, not in that sense, Brigadier-General Stark. I am afraid he took the flu’ – one of very many to do so – and did not survive. His death was reported overnight. Will you wish to attend his funeral?”

  “No, thank you, sir. They might conscript me as a pall bearer, and my back ain’t strong enough to bear that much of a burden.”

  General Salmond had been frequently in Monkton’s company in the period leading up to the creation of the RAF. He stifled a laugh.

  “I shall make your official apologies, Brigadier!”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Keep going, Brigadier-General Stark. Intelligence reports hurried conferences in Berlin. There is an expectation of a proposal from the Germans.”

  “I say, sir, do they wish to marry us?”

  “Not that sort of proposal, Brigadier-General Stark. Keep the pressure up – we are winning, at long last.”

  The push forward continued, and the German machine-guns were as accurate as ever. Pilots continued to die.

  General Salmond passed word to Tommy on the tenth that he could cease to issue new targets for his squadrons.

  “There will be an announcement, a communique, later in the day, Brigadier-General Stark.”

  “Fred, Barbry, put out the word that there will be no further ground-attacks. Squadrons to be grounded until word comes from me.”

  The official word came that hostilities would be suspended at eleven o’clock next morning. General Salmond spoke to Tommy, told him to keep his squadrons on the alert, standing patrols over their fields in case the Germans chose to close their books with final, suicide attacks.

  “Why? And why have hostilities not ended immediately, sir?”

  “The Eleventh Hour, of the Eleventh Day, of the Eleventh Month, Brigadier-General Stark. Memorable, you know!”

  “But men will die unnecessarily waiting for the clock, sir.”

  “So, what does that matter to bloody Haig!”

  It was his birthday, Tommy remembered; he knew he was young in terms of years, but the strain of war had taken its toll. He began to unwind as eleven o’clock came and the guns finally stilled.

  �
�Happy Birthday, Tommy!”

  Fred raised a glass, the bar having opened early in recognition of the day.

  Tommy sipped at his whisky, relaxing and even relishing his successful war. He had survived and was a substantive lieutenant-colonel; he was much-decorated and had come out of the war with a name, one of the few with the VC, itself a passport to the heights. He was rich as well, and there was no limit to his future happiness.

  Three-quarters of a million British had died and as many more carried wounds that they would suffer from to some extent for the rest of their lives; they would never recover from this war, poor chaps. It had been a disaster, but not for him; he had come out of it well.

  He heard an engine, a plane landing, an RE8, horrible beast! He had no doubt they would all go to the scrap heap in very quick time. He wondered who it was come visiting.

  The door opened and Noah came in, stripping off helmet and flying coat. His face was blank, rigid.

  “Tommy? They thought I should tell you. The flu’, Tommy. Monkey died this morning.”

  # # #

  Please click to next page and then through to the Epilogue

  Perhaps the sun will shine on the morrow,

  And I will see that the skies are blue,

  And feel that I no longer live in sorrow,

  Although bereft of you.

  Epilogue added 4th of March, 2018

  Epilogue

  “Visitors, sir.”

  “I am not at home, Mrs Rudge. You know I am not at home… ever.”

  “Yes, sir. Come to give birthday wishes, sir.”

  Ignoring Tommy’s protest, Mrs Rudge stepped back and ushered Noah, David and Blue into the sitting room at Wilton.

  “Happy Birthday, Tommy. November Eleventh, 1920, old chap, in case you didn’t notice. We’ve booked a table at the Rose and Crown in Salisbury. Smivvels is laying out your evening dress.”