Dusk Patrol

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  For himself, Boyd was also relieved to try his hand again so soon. He had spent the morning watching others take off on reconnaissance, artillery spotting and patrols, wondering how much of his success the first time had been due to incompetence of the enemy. It was customary to speak of German pilots with contempt, but, in reality, there was tacit acknowledgement that the majority of them were well trained; and resolute when in the company of their fellows, even if they did not display quite the same daring as the British in carrying the fight to them.

  There had been no formal instruction in air fighting at the training schools, largely because battles in the air had hitherto been fortuitous and not deliberate. An accurate assessment of the enemy aircrews was therefore lacking. Since joining the squadron the only evaluations Boyd had heard were those delivered by their fellows; inevitably prejudiced. Typical was Chandler’s assertion that, if attacked head-on, a German pilot would be the first to break. Boyd had found the Germans stubborn, well-disciplined and brave in the trenches. He had reservations about his flight commander’s view.

  Five pilots and two observers were already waiting in the flight commander’s office, of whom two pilots and one observer were sergeants. They leaned against the wall or perched on the desk, one filled the visitor’s chair. When Chandler entered the loungers straightened up, those seated rose to their feet.

  Chandler went straight to the blackboard on an easel in one corner of the room and picked up a piece of chalk.

  “We’re escorting two A Flight BE2s on a photographic reconnaissance over the Boche lines. We will fly at 4,000 feet, where we can expect a fair amount of Archie. The Hun seems to be building up fora big show, so we shall be less than welcome; which means he’ll most likely send over some Fokkers. Our job is to protect the BEs. As you know, I believe the best defence is attack. If we see the enemy we shall go for him. However, three of you will stay with the BEs at all times. Eastman, you will be in command of the close escort if I leave the formation. Boyd and Sergeant Jorkins will also stay with the BEs.”

  Boyd looked quickly at the others he had mentioned. Lieutenant Eastman was a beefy artilleryman who gave an impression of stolid reliability and had been on the squadron for four months. Sergeant Jorkins had ginger hair and a toothy grin under a waxed moustache he wore to make himself look older than his twenty years. He had been six months on the squadron and was known for his ability to keep badly damaged aircraft in the air. Two days earlier he had returned from a similar escort duty with half his wing canvas ripped off and part of his rudder missing, but he was still smiling when he landed. Boyd thought both men looked capable and dependable.

  Chandler continued: “Hannington and Holt will come with me if I detach to attack the enemy. The BEs will fly together and parallel. Our formation will be like this.” He turned to the board and drew crosses to show the positions of the two reconnaissance aeroplanes and their six escorts. “I will lead, with Hannington to starboard and Holt to port. We will fly 1,000 feet,above the BEs. The other three will fly 500 feet below us, Lieutenants Eastman and Boyd to port and starboard and Sergeant Jorkins in the rear, guarding everyone’s tails. You know how important that is, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t go to sleep.”

  “No, sir.” Jorkins was smiling already.

  Chandler drew a rough line on the blackboard and put a few circles here and there. “Our route will be Houdain ... Arras ... Bapaume ... across the Somme, and as far as the canal south of Saint-Quentin. These photographs are highly important, so we do not intend to attract the Boche’s attention by sending a large force: which means that each of us will have to fight like three men if we do meet trouble. Right, we’ll take off in fifteen minutes.” They began to file out. Chandler beckoned to Boyd.

  “I’ve put you with the close escort because I know you’ll keep your head, whatever happens.” He broke into his rare, crooked smile, showing teeth damaged in his various falls and crashes. “I know what the bloody Lancers are like: dashing into the fray like maniacs. Hannington hasn’t been in a fight yet, so I want to keep an eye on him. Holt is a wild American: I know he’ll enjoy letting rip. I know I can rely on you to keep the BEs covered. You had your bit of fun this morning.”

  If it was meant as praise, thought Boyd, it was the oddest put kind word he had ever had. But he knew it was well meant and his esteem for Chandler increased.

  One of the reconnaissance pilots and his observer were NCOs. The other crew were officers. All four looked hard-bitten, but pale with the fatigue and strains of their work. The BE2a was without proper armament. The pilot sat in the rear cockpit, where a machine-gun would have been useful in the hands of the observer to protect the beams and tail. The obsever sat in front and had to find spaces between the struts and bracing wires through which to take photographs with his hand-held camera. It was an absurd arrangement for both crewmen, Pilots and observers all flew with revolvers or rifles, although it was very difficult for a pilot to fly and shoot at the same time, unless he was a genius like Lanoe Hawker.

  The air was calm in the thin wintry sunlight and visibility good. Before they took off they saw four British observation balloons spaced widely four miles behind their own lines, and presently they were flying between two of them. There were German observation balloons deep behind the enemy trenches, silvery and innocuous-looking as Christmas decorations, swaying gently in the breeze with the sun flashing spasmodically on the binoculars of the spotters in the baskets that dangled beneath.

  When the eight British aeroplanes crossed the shell-torn strip of no-man’s-land, littered with barbed wire, abandoned weapons and dead bodies, the first anti-aircraft shells began to burst around them. At 4,000 feet, Boyd could smell the pungent aroma of sulphur and cordite that hung in a permanent haze over the German line. He could see the flashes at the gun emplacements and involuntarily tried to shrink himself in his seat as each one flickered and he imagined a shell coming directly at him. Now and again a shell would explode close enough to toss him about. All the aircraft were constantly rising and falling in the disturbed air, side-slipping a little now and then and climbing quickly back to regain their station. From time to time lumps of shrapnel would whistle past and once there was a thud behind him that made him jump and turn round in sudden alarm. A hole had appeared in the nacelle and torn canvas fluttered around it. Another few inches farther back, and his tank would have been holed.

  He huddled into his leather coat. The wind probed through the collar and under the earflaps of his helmet. His cheeks burned under the lash of the cold torrent of air that swept through the cockpit at eighty miles an hour. He flexed his fingers and toes to keep cramp at bay. He looked ceaselessly up and down and around the sky, searching for enemy aircraft. He saw the observers leaning out of their cockpits with their cameras and wondered how often a burst of Archie would fling a man over the side while he concentrated on his photography. He was glad he was a pilot.

  Mingled with the acrid miasma of gunfire that had accumulated and lingered over the trenches, were the sickly whiff of castor oil from his engine and the tang of fabric dope, the fumes of petrol and the leathery fustiness of his flying clothes. He told himself it was as well that he did not suffer from air sickness.

  The prevailing westerly winds of northern France bore them swiftly towards the Somme. They would lose ten or twenty miles an hour when they turned to plug their way home. But they did not have to think about that for another hour. The broken landscape slipped under their wings, Boyd saw men and vehicles moving behind both lines of trenches. He felt godlike, the battlefront spread underneath him as no general ever saw it.

  A searing light slashed across his vision, followed by a detonation that hurt his ears. He looked to the left, and where there had been a BE2a with two men in it, now there was only a cloud of smoke and flames and fragments of wood and canvas. The shock wave from the exploding shell and petrol tank had hurled the other BE high and wide and it had tipped vertically on
to its port wingtip.

  Pieces of aeroplane fluttered down from the boiling mass of smoke, trailing sparks.

  Boyd flew on, bracing himself for the next salvo. There was silence. He looked where he knew there were anti-aircraft guns, but saw no muzzle flashes.

  He raised his head and the three top-cover DH2s were not where he had last seen them. He shifted his gaze and there they were, throttles wide open, climbing. Above, and three miles to the east, there were several dark silhouettes against the clouds.

  Boyd slid a little closer to the remaining BE. He twisted round and was comforted to see Sergeant Jorkins weaving gently astern and a hundred feet or so above him. On the other flank, Eastman gave him a reassuring wave. He waved back. Eastman had also edged closer in.

  The dark specks in the sky to the east were growing larger. Behind them, Boyd now discerned another aircraft: higher still than they were and diving towards them. At this range it was impossible to identify it.

  He counted nine in the enemy formation. Monoplanes, so they must be Fokkers. The lone aircraft, he made out, had a single sturdy V-shaped strut between the wings. Presently he could see that its lower wing was much smaller than the upper. It was a Nieuport 10. He knew all about the Nieuport 10, the envy of the RFC the year before, when French squadrons were equipped with them. It had been designed for the 1914 Gordon Bennett air race and its eighty horsepower Rhône engine gave it a top speed of ninety miles per hour. The declaration of war had meant cancellation of the race and the fast little biplane had at once been converted to military use, with a machine-gun mounted on the upper wing which the pilot aimed so as to avoid the propeller.

  Some British squadrons had been given one or two Nieuport 10s and the best pilots had a chance to use them. The French sector of the front was several miles to the east and south, so this must be one of the RFC’s most expert flyers. Everyone knew the names of the greatest among these, and Boyd wondered who it was. For a moment the thrill of seeing such a man in action made him forget the danger to the surviving BE.

  Although the Fokkers were diving, they had the wind against them. The slightly faster Nieuport was diving steeply and gaining on them.

  Before Chandler and his two wing men had come within firing range of the Germans, Boyd saw the winking light above the Nieuport’s upper wing as its pilot opened fire. The rearmost starboard Fokker’s nose slumped down and sideways and it began to spin. No smoke or flames came from it, so the pilot must have been killed and fallen against his control stick.

  The Nieuport veered to port, its gun flickered again, and the other rearmost Fokker caught fire.

  The next two in line broke violently to left and right. The Nieuport held its dive, then climbed beneath one of the Fokkers and Boyd saw smoke flick back from its gun muzzle. The third Fokker banked in alarm and began turning, but another belly shot must have smashed the control wires or done for the pilot, for it snapped over on to its back and began to corkscrew earthward.

  The three DHs had started shooting and the Fokkers flung themselves wildly about in desperate evasive action. The Nieuport continued to nip in and out among them, firing whenever there was a chance. The DH2s had separated and Boyd saw two of them shooting and two Fokkers trailing smoke and sparks.

  The surviving enemy turned eastward, and with the tail wind climbed rapidly away.

  The DHs reformed and descended in wide spirals to resume their former position.

  The Nieuport came rocketing down towards the BE and its three attendant DH2s. It levelled off and flew ten yards off Boyd’s wingtip. The pilot turned and raised a hand, smiling. Although goggles partly hid his face, Boyd recognised the much-photographed nineteen-year-old Albert Ball whose reputation had spread throughout the Service and was fast approaching Lanoe Hawker’s. Like himself, Ball was a former infantryman, a Sherwood Forester, and Boyd waved at him enthusiastically.

  Chandler gave the signal to return to base and Ball accompanied them for a while before suddenly diving away. Boyd wondered what he had seen, but although he followed his descent until he disappeared from sight he saw no sign of another enemy in the sky.

  The episode had held him enthralled. Ball, the notorious lone hunter, had given him a lot to think about. Not least, he envied him his fast and highly manoeuvrable aeroplane. He had heard that Ball had a practice of taking on greatly superior numbers of enemy, and thought them exaggerated. He had seen for himself that they were entirely true.

  When they landed, Holt parked his aeroplane next to Boyd’s and hurried over to him, looking pleased. “Oh, boy! Did you ever feel more like an amateur than when that guy in the Nieuport showed up?”

  “It was Ball. They say he sleeps with the breech block of his gun, wrapped in chamois leather, under his pillow. How did you get on?”

  “Well ... I got one ... but what the hell ... he got three before they even knew he was there.”

  “Well done, Elliot. Now you’ve got 100 per cent more than I have.”

  “I was lucky again: the Huns must have thought there were another bunch of us right behind them, the way they broke up.”

  “Do you know if Hannington broke his duck?”

  Holt looked nonplussed. “What duck?”

  “Sorry ... forgot you don’t play cricket ... did he bag one?”

  “Ducks ... cricket ... I’ll never understand you fellows ... yeah, I saw him knock one down. And Chandler got another.”

  Chandler sent the crew of the surviving BE to report to their flight commander and waved to his own pilots to follow him to his office.

  Tilting his chair back and sitting with his heels on his desk, he looked at them in turn, then asked, “Well, what did you learn from that?”

  “The value of surprise,” said Hannington.

  “That a good attack is like a bayonet charge,” Boyd suggested.

  “That we ought to have Nieuports,” Holt said.

  Chandler looked at Eastman, who scratched his head and ventured: “It seems to me the Hun is getting a bit overconfident. No decoy, no spotter behind the main body, and taking us on at odds of one-and-a-half to one instead of leaving it to his Archie to scare us off.”

  “Absolutely right, old boy. Which suggests that, despite what happened this morning, he thinks he’s got the measure of our DH2s. What about you, Sergeant?”

  Jorkins, smiling toothily and tugging the ends of his fine moustache, said “I knew it was Mister Ball, right off, because I’ve seen him do it before. What I learned from it was that if you creep up on the Hun and shoot him in the belly, you’ve got him cold. Even after Lieutenant Ball had brought down two of them, he was able to take another one by surprise that way.”

  “Good. So the moral seems to be ‘don’t take anything for granted’. Before you go making any bayonet charges, young Boyd, make damn sure no one is going to do the same to you. You can be sure Ball had had a bally good look around first. The most important thing is that we got our photographs.”

  Outside, Hannington said “I think we should celebrate with a damn good dinner: we’ve all lost our aerial virginity on the same day and on our first time in action. Leave it to me and be ready to move off at six pip emma.”

  Leaving it to Sir Anthony Harrington, Bt., meant a ride in a large black Delauney-Belleville limousine he had borrowed from an acquaintance, some duc or comte, who owned a château ten miles away in the direction of Amiens. The owner had wisely offered his home for use as a hospital before some general requisitioned it. He sought to ingratiate himself further with the British by returning old hospitality from Hannington by sending him a car, and a chauffeur medically exempt from military service. They drove to a restaurant that flourished far behind the rearmost lines. They ate a terrine of game, chunky, striated and redolent of garlic; duck that had been stuffed with chestnuts and truffles and basted with cider and honey; Camembert; almond and orange pancakes. They drank two bottles of Côte de Brouilly and half a bottle of Armagnac between them.

  When the table had been cleared
of everything but their brandy glasses and the bottle of Armagnac, Hannington said, a little thickly, “Only one comfort missing ... a well-scrubbed peasant girl ... and as there is no such thing as a well-scrubbed peasant, in this or any other country, I am resigned to forgoing the pleasure until I can get to Paris ... where I have friends ... you’ll like them ... they will like you ... by God! They’d better ...”

  Boyd, for no reason that he could attribute, thought suddenly of Marjorie Randall and felt uncomfortable. He had been looking forward to seeing Paris again, but even with his mind fogged by burgundy and brandy he did not particularly want the company of a rich and fashionable aristocrat six years his senior. Nor did he think that the baronet would find a middle-class suburban fledgling lawyer a congenial companion in his more sober moments.

  Holt said “Paris! I wish I had been there when Santos-Dumont was flying his airships and Demoiselles ... I wish I could have known Blériot and the Voisin brothers ...”

  Hannington looked pained. “You’ve got no soul. Paris means the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergère and beautiful mannequins, not aeroplanes.”

  “Oh, sure. But we have shows and mannequins back home, too. I’d rather see something I can’t see at home, like the Louvre, and Versailles, and ...”

  “My God! If you’re going to talk culture, it’s time we went home. And I don’t want to go home yet.”

  “All right,” Boyd put in before they started a half-tipsy quarrel and Holt invited Hannington to go outside, “let’s talk about flying. Do you think, Anthony, that if we practise every day we can learn to fly and shoot like Ball? Or do you think it’s a gift?”

  “Practice makes perfect, old bean.”

  Holt said, “Practice and a better aeroplane than the other guy has.” He looked at each of them for several seconds, then asked, hesitantly, “You fellows have been in battle before ... on the ground ... did you feel any different today ... when you shot down a Hun?”