Ilse smiled, although she did not feel like smiling.
“Not sixty, Mother.”
“No, at that age they aren’t much use in the house, either. But in their fifties they still go traipsing off to make Army boots or leather accoutrements or operate a machine to stitch uniforms, rather than do housework. Not that I blame them. They see a bit of life, enjoy company and earn better money. But it’s not a very Christian attitude, is it?”
“Is it a Christian war, Mutti? Was the invasion of Belgium a Christian act, in the first place?”
Frau Nauroth looked shocked. Her hand shook so much that she had to put down her cup of milk.
“Never let your father hear you say such things. Why, if he suspected that you even had such thoughts he would be horrified. There is nobody more patriotic than he is.”
“There are many ways of being a good German. I believe my views are the most truly patriotic of all...”
“I don’t wish to hear any more, Ilse. I support your father’s views entirely.”
Ilse’s beautiful hazel eyes shone with affection and amusement.
“Even when you don’t happen to share them, Mutti?” she said gently, teasing her mother out of her intense mood and her distress over her husband.
“It is a wife’s duty,” Frau Nauroth said primly. She pursed her lips, which were still sweet and full, despite the ravage pain had done to her once pretty face. But she was not the lip-pursing kind and she caught her daughter’s eye and began to smile. Then she started to giggle gently.
“That’s better, Mother darling.”
“You are right, Ilse dear. It does not do any of us any good to be too serious. But don’t upset your father, I beg of you. He is such a good man, and he is so loyal to his views and his principles.”
Her father was 11 years older than her mother. As a young man he had served for many years in the cavalry; until a horse threw and rolled on him, crushing his internal organs and breaking his leg; he was lucky it was not his pelvis. Discharged, he had joined the railway. Within three years, an accident in the shunting yard had broken his other leg so badly that it left him with a permanent limp. But for that, he might well have been recalled to the colours in the Fatherland’s present dire extremity, even at his age.
Ilse said, “I love him too, Mother: just as much as you do.”
“I know you do, my child. But a daughter’s love and a wife’s are not the same. Of course you love him and you are a wonderful daughter to us both. But you are an independent thinker and I am a dutiful wife who accepts her husband’s opinions as her own.” She smiled. “When you marry, you will find that is not a bad course to follow. It avoids a lot of arguments, and harmony in the home is worth any amount of self-expression.”
“I’ll remember that, Mother. Now, are you ready to go back to sleep?”
“I’m very tired,” Frau Nauroth said with a yawn.
“Then let’s go upstairs.”
They were halfway up the stairs when a loud knock sounded at the front door.
Frau Nauroth, who was climbing laboriously with one hand on the banister, stopped.
Ilse, close behind her, gripped the banister and turned to look towards the door.
Someone outside knocked loudly again.
Ilse hurried down to unlock and open the door, snapping out the switch of the hall light as she did so.
Enough light from the landing washed down to allow her to recognise the caller, Gratz, the night-shift foreman from the railway yard.
“Herr Gratz!”
She heard her mother whimper. Casting a swift look over her shoulder, she saw her shuffle round and start to descend the staircase.
Ilse stood aside.
“Come in, please, Herr Gratz.”
Gratz took a long step over the threshold and stood fiddling with his cap while Ilse shut the door and he stared worriedly at her mother, who was standing two steps up, clutching the banister with both hands as she leaned over it and gazed at him with her eyes wide and tears already trickling from them.
“What is it, Herr Gratz?” asked Frau Nauroth.
“Good evening, gnädige Frau. I have a message.” He was twisting his cap around uneasily. “May I sit down and talk to you for a moment, please?”
He had been thinking, all the fifteen minutes it had taken him to cycle unhurriedly from the station, about the best way to handle this mission.
“What is it? Is it my husband?”
Frau Nauroth took the last two steps down and stood clinging to the newel-post and shaking in body and limbs, her lips quivering.
“There is no cause to distress yourself, Frau Nauroth. Please, may we sit down?”
Ilse took her mother’s arm and said, “Come into the parlour, Herr Gratz.”
He, looking grateful for something to do which would help to conceal his distress, hurriedly went to open the door of the nearer front room: square, over-furnished and redolent of furniture and floor polish; stuffy, a room used only on Sundays. The curtains were impregnated with the aroma of cigars.
Ilse led her mother inside, seated her, then turned and asked, “Well, Herr Gratz, what is your message? Oh, please sit down.”
He waited until she had seated herself, then lowered himself apologetically onto the edge of a chair and leaned forward, elbows on knees, still twirling his cap.
“Thank you... yes, well... I’m sorry to disturb you at this hou...”
“What has happened to my husband, Herr Gratz?” Frau Nauroth’s hands were clenched tightly together but her arms shook.
“Yes... as I said, there is no cause to distress yourself... he is being well looked after... that is to say...”
Frau Nauroth cried out in exasperation.
“Tell me... please tell me...”
“You no doubt heard the enemy aeroplanes and the bombs.” Gratz’s chins wobbled, his dewlaps trembled, he looked from one woman to the other.
“Was Father hurt?” asked Ilse unemotionally.
“Well... the signalbox was damaged...” Frau Nauroth was sobbing, her bowed head supported on her hands. Ilse went to kneel beside her. “Your husband has been taken to hospital, gnädige Frau.”
Through her sobs, Frau Nauroth said, “How... how badly was... was he hurt?”
“He is all right, dear lady, in hospital, and...”
Another loud knocking at the door interrupted him. He dropped his cap in surprise. As he bent to pick it up, Ilse said, “I don’t want to leave my mother. Please see who that is.”
Gratz went quickly to the front door, glad to abandon for a moment his bad tidings.
Ilse, watching the door, saw him open and close it and a man she knew from the station step into the house. She heard the two men muttering in low tones. Then Gratz returned to the parlour with the other man at his heels.
He stood in front of the two women and said in a low voice, “The hospital telephoned the Station Master. It grieves me to have to tell you that...”
“No!” shrieked Frau Nauroth. “No, no, no, no. My Horst! I won’t believe it... no...”
Ilse, both arms around her mother, began weeping uncontrollably also.
Chapter Three
Brigadier-General Pollard asked, “What sort of trip was it, Yardley?”
Damnably cold, was what Yardley would have liked to reply. He said, “Rather difficult, sir. We managed to keep together all the way there, but we ran into a snowstorm on the way back and a couple of the chaps lost contact altogether.”
“You found the target?”
“Yes, sir; pretty much on time.”
“Do much damage?”
“Archie was quite heavy, sir. We lost one machine over the target and mine was hit; others as well, I expect. We bombed extensively over the marshalling yard.”
They had counted four more machines in. One more was approaching. Its engine sounded rough.
Lieutenant-Colonel Quinn said, “This chap sounds in trouble.”
Ogilvy-Smith, the staff capta
in, standing at his Brigadier’s elbow suggested, “Icing up probably.”
“More likely a chunk of Archie in the works,” said Yardley shortly.
He had no time for staff officers who aired professional opinions on the foundation of insufficient knowledge. Ogilvy-Smith had been an instructor for the first year of the war and flown over the Western Front in BE2s and FE2s for a few months after that, until he crashed and spent a long time in hospital. In Yardley’s eyes he was not only inexperienced but also out of touch. And he had never flown long distances or at high altitude. The work the squadron was doing was greatly different from what they had all done over the Western Front.
The war had entered a new phase at the end of 1917. Several new squadrons were formed and the emphasis shifted from fighter patrols to bombing. The plan was to build up a bomber force which could penetrate deep into Germany from bases in both France and England, by day and night.
The DH4 and its immediate successors the DH9 and DH10 were to be the last single-engined machines on such operations. The future bombers would have two engines and herald a new era in aviation. There was even talk of a four-engined type.
Yardley and all his officers and men, whether they flew the aircraft or serviced them on the ground, looked on themselves with pride as the pioneers of modern strategy and technology; an elite who could do without half-baked suppositions proffered by those who were outside their mystique.
The engine note of the sixth DH4 to return died suddenly and a silence fell over the clusters of watching men. In the stillness they could hear the shriek of the wind in its bracing wires and struts as the pilot steepened his approach to avoid a stall and glide to land.
Tearle was watching Yardley. If ever anyone was awaiting calamity with bated breath, he thought, the Squadron Commander was doing so now. A prime example of breath-bating and he had often wondered just what the devil it meant precisely.
He looked from Yardley to the Wing Commander. Quinn was scowling but there was the suggestion of a twist at the corners of his mouth which betrayed malicious amusement.
No love lost there, Tearle told himself. God! I’m thinking in clichés tonight. Must be the cold numbing my grey matter.
The howling of the wind through the aircraft’s rigging ceased abruptly with a loud thud and a succession of rending and snapping sounds as fuselage and wings buckled and broke into pieces.
By the light of the goosenecks and a searchlight the onlookers saw the DH4 pitch forward onto its nose and flip right over onto its back.
Yardley, Alec Wotton his observer and Tearle began to run. They kept pace with one another: Wotton, slim and lissom, ran with the long stride of an accomplished athlete but was hampered by his heavy clothing and soft, clumsy boots. Yardley, similarly encumbered, ran with the determination to lick everyone else which he showed in everything he undertook. Tearle, the best-clothed for the exercise, was handicapped by his gammy leg. The various factors made it an even race.
They arrived, with hearts and lungs pounding, together.
The Squadron Medical Officer was already on the spot with an ambulance and two medical orderlies. Several men were hauling the crew out of the wreckage. Two fire-tenders stood by but there was no smoke or flame.
“How are they, Doc?” Yardley gasped, panting huge gouts of white breath.
“I’m all right,” the pilot said, shakily. He struggled upright, aided by two of the rescuers.
The observer was on a stretcher. Yardley bent over it, feeling useless.
“He’s all right,” the MO said. “Knocked out. He’ll come round in a jiffy.”
Service doctors were always like that, Yardley reflected. One could never tell how badly hurt a man was: they always gave optimistic assurances. He had heard one telling a pilot who had lost both legs and an arm that they would soon have him right as rain. The pilot had died ten minutes later.
Yardley was still looking suspiciously at the observer when he was lifted into the ambulance. With relief, he saw him open his eyes and attempt to sit up as soon as the stretcher was set down.
He turned away and stared at the sky but there was no sign of any more homing aircraft.
Six home out of nine, and one of the six a write-off. It had been an expensive operation and the Colonel would take a lot of convincing that it had been worthwhile: even if the Brigadier thought it was.
It was Lieutenant-Colonel Quinn who was the baleful influence over Yardley’s reputation: he was on the spot; all the time. The Brigadier was based many miles away. And by their natures they tended to take disparate views; the Brigadier’s notably more kindly than Quinn’s.
*
They were in the Nissen hut belonging to the Intelligence section. In fact there were two of these semi-tubular corrugated iron huts end-to-end. Half was offices, the other an information room where briefings and debriefings were done.
The Brigadier, the Wing Commander and Yardley sat at one end behind a table, facing the body of the room. The Staff Captain and Tearle, squadron adjutant, sat at opposite ends of the table. The squadron Intelligence Officer sat between Yardley and the Wing Commander. He and the two Captains took notes.
The crews who had just returned were drinking cocoa and eating cheese sandwiches while awaiting their turn at the table to give their account of the operation.
Yardley was debriefed first and Wotton joined him at the table, facing him, while they went through the story of their sortie.
Tearle, reading the look on Yardley’s face, foresaw a stormy night in the mess. It would be half past three by the time they finished here. Everyone would have to go to bed; not that Eric Yardley would be too tired for a party; but the Brig was sleeping on camp and a riot in the mess would be unseemly. The Brig joined in riots of that kind gleefully, but not when they started in the small hours. Tomorrow night’s should be a classic: all the requisites and signs were present: a pasting over Hunland, anger on Yardley’s part over this, that and the other; and Yardley brimming over with pent-up frustration. When an essentially cheerful man was seized by anger, the eruption was more formidable than when a habitually bad-tempered one let himself go.
The IO was the routine interrogator: about heights, courses, speeds, aircraft behaviour, weather, flak sites, searchlight dispositions, enemy aerodromes active, time and direction of attack, bombing accuracy. All the stereotyped information for which a printed form provided. The crews contributed their own spontaneous observations.
When the Colonel was present, he delved deeper. When the Brigadier-General was also there, he did his own digging and the Colonel went right down to the marrow. He always jumped through the hoop in the presence of his seniors; even when they weren’t guardsmen and therefore in his estimation inferior stuff in essence, despite their rank.
Tearle, thinking of the Colonel’s prejudice against Yardley, prepared for some cutting exchanges.
They did not come until all the crews had been dealt with and dismissed. Wotton went with them. Tearle wondered whether he and Ogilvy-Smith would be released as well; but evidently whatever the Colonel intended to say was not to be phrased as a rebuke or reprimand: so the presence of Yardley’s juniors could not be regarded as improper.
“Didn’t really work out, did it?”
Quinn was looking at Yardley. He had two prominent upper front teeth and a habit of raising his upper lip. This gave him the look of a moustached ferret. He was doing it now.
“We all reached the target, sir. We all bombed it.”
“Quite. But three aircraft scattered their bombs too far from the centre of the target area. One even demolished the signalbox and another two fell well wide of the mark. So it was not a satisfactory performance.”
“Considering the weather and the distance, I think it was satisfactory, sir.”
“With forty-five percent casualties?”
“To aircraft, sir.”
“And thirty-three percent of crews missing.”
The Colonel spoke coldly and his upper lip k
ept lifting.
“We only know for sure that we lost one over the target, sir. The other two may have made forced landings: off course and out of fuel. They may turn up tomorrow... later this morning.”
“I hardly think it will be worth sitting up in that expectation.”
“I think I will, sir. I was there.”
The Brigadier looked startled and Quinn’s complexion became dark red.
“Of course there is always a chance they’ll turn up,” the Brigadier said. “They may have come down in the snowstorm.”
“Quite, sir,” said Yardley.
“In my view, the distance was excessive,” said Quinn. “The damage inflicted was unimpressive. I do not consider that your squadron, Yardley, is ready for long-range operations by night.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir. I cannot agree with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
The Brigadier said, “Well, it’s your decision, Quinn. I don’t think we should discard this type of operation entirely, however. The DH4s did enough tonight to show they can reach a distant target and they can bomb with fair accuracy.”
“Yes, Brigadier, but the operation proved to be over-ambitious, I feel.”
Quinn said “ambitious” as though ambition were a heinous quality. A fine piece of duplicity from probably the most ambitious Lieutenant-Colonel in the RFC.
“The snowstorm was unforeseeable, surely? That seems to have been the cause of any trouble.”
“It didn’t cause bombing error, sir.”
Quinn, the guardee, judiciously dropped a “sir” for every ten or twelve times that he said “Brigadier”. Tearle made a practice of counting them.
“We must persevere. The Fees carry too small a bomb-load and they’re becoming too vulnerable as the Hun improves his night shooting. It’s an antediluvian aeroplane, dammit, Quinn. Slow as a tortoise. Sitting target for the Boches. The DH4 must fill the gap until we get something more suitable.”
Night Raiders Page 2
