by Max Hennessy
‘What’s it like?’ one of them asked Munro.
Munro shrugged. ‘Food’s awful, mon,’ he said gravely.
The gloom in the squadron seemed to be reflected everywhere and people were busy working out that a pilot’s life wasn’t more that twenty-three days. It didn’t seem to me a good way to pass the time but we all knew what the trouble was. The offensive spirit that was demanded of us was in effect an offensive strategy which demanded that we should fly deep into German territory all the time, inevitably returning against the prevailing wind which blew from the west. It was the old Nelson spirit they were demanding of us, but they weren’t giving us the machines to do it with.
‘It’s fine tae be offensive a mile over German territory,’ Munro said, ‘but it doesnae mak’ ye more offensive tae gae ten miles over. No’ in Pups.’
He was right, of course. Too much reliance had been placed on Government-built machines instead of allowing private manufacturers their heads. And as I’d noticed long since, those in power could see virtue only in machines so stable they could practically fly themselves. They hadn’t foreseen that conditions might change and that 1917 might be different from 1915, and that what we wanted now was a machine that didn’t fly itself but could do aerobatics itself and needed holding steady instead. They hadn’t noticed that the old days of home-made bomb-racks and seat-of-the-pants flying had gone. Things were growing more technical and the Germans had caught on and been ready for them, and we’d been left far behind.
* * *
There were rumours that Latta was due to go home, and I for one was itching to see the back of him. His obsession with physical exercise was ridiculous and he was a blusterer who could think only of reacting to the new conditions in an aggressive way that worried Bull.
‘I’d have thought that doing a bunk and hanging on until we got better machines would have been much more intelligent,’ he said.
‘Doing a bunk as quick as poss is always the best thing tae do in an emergency,’ Munro agreed solemnly.
With his future secure, Catlow could afford to regard Munro’s attitude as a little unsporting. He had a typical staff officer’s approach to the fighting and, if he ever made it as he hoped to the red-tab department, he had a ready-made built-in higher-command feeling. Despite his concern for his own skin, he clearly felt no one else should have any hesitation about tackling the enemy.
‘Bit lily-livered to do a bunk, isn’t it?’ he said.
Munro grinned. ‘Aye, mebbe,’ he agreed. ‘But, mon, mon, it does keep ye alive.’
Munro’s spirits were never down for long and he was always ready to thump on the mess piano. He couldn’t play for toffee but it was always possible to find him roaring out one of the mess songs – usually the most lugubrious he could think of.
‘Tak’ the cylinders oot o’ ma kidneys.
The connecting rod oot o’ me brain.
From the small o’ ma back tak’ the crankshaft,
And assemble the engine again.’
Somehow, however, in that squadron they never seemed to get anyone going and they stayed lugubrious instead of being defiant, as I’d noticed in other squadrons. The night it was announced that the Americans had entered the war, however, everyone went mad and a game of rugby was played with Catlow’s cap while Munro insisted on dancing a highland fling on the table. The next morning I was awakened by soft snortings and whispered voices and found myself looking at a cow he was trying to push into my tent.
Despite Munro’s efforts, however, the whole squadron was badly in need of a new spirit. The fitters and riggers hated Latta’s cross-country runs because they were already working half the night to put right magneto and sparking plug troubles, and defective oil pumps, valve springs and rocker arms, and they were surly and unhelpful. Even so, we were probably luckier than many because the squadrons who’d been caught with that cursed BE, a machine which meant virtually certain death every time they took off, were having a dreadful time. In desperation they were going in for all sorts of wild ideas to improve their chances of life – machine guns attached to the undercarriages; clusters of empty bottles which screamed like bombs as they fell, to frighten anti-aircraft gunners; devices to improve contact between the crews; flares, grenades, rockets, a whole host of things which made their machines look like Christmas trees and didn’t give them an hour longer of life.
They were being withdrawn at last, of course, but the changeover was slow and the RE8s, which were taking their place, were just as bad – heavy, cumbersome and sluggish – and they were being lost not in ones and twos but in fives and sixes. It had been my luck to arrive in France the first time at the height of the Fokker scare and the second time at the beginning of what was to become known as Bloody April. It was the usual trouble of too little too late, and we knew that inept politicians, some of them downright dishonest, were playing ducks and drakes with half-baked air policies, while the heads of the army and the navy quarrelled enough over aeroplanes to breed discord. Contracts were not being met and strikes at home meant that the new machines we needed were coming through only in a trickle.
‘The Navy’s flying good machines,’ Bull said, still puzzled. ‘Why can’t we get ’em?’
‘Because Winston Churchill made sure the Navy got ’em all,’ Munro said.
‘Can’t they let us have a few?’
‘They do, mon. The ones they dinnae want.’
By the middle of the month everyone was low in spirits. Orgill and Le Petit had grown more and more silent and Munro more noisy for the same reason. The older men were grave and worried while the youngsters, under their laughter and practical jokes, were anxious and indignant and angry with a feeling of being let down. As for me, I was neither flesh nor foul nor good red herring. I belonged nowhere, neither to the men nor to the unfledged boys. I was still young enough to long for irresponsibility, for a chance to act the fool but eighteen months of war flying had made me an experienced pilot who’d been given responsibilities and I was conscious that if I once let go, if I once started behaving with the callowness of my age, the older men who looked to me for direction might believe I knew nothing of the things they expected me to show them. I was a boy inside a man’s skin. I had the undisciplined instincts of a youngster beneath the drilled instincts of an old soldier. I was mixed up, muddled, shy, and at the same time certain I must act as if I were not – as if I were as sure of myself as I was of my skill – and there were times when I felt young enough to weep and times when I felt so old I felt my feet dragged.
Of the others, Bull learned fast but Catlow, I noticed, always seemed to be suffering from ‘oil pressure trouble’ or a ‘missing engine’ and always seemed to be turning back. I knew perfectly well what was wrong. Facing the Germans in the freezing upper air was a different matter from bullying small boys at school and he was afraid. So was I, of course, and despite the fact that I didn’t like him and was never likely to, I managed to feel sympathy for him. Better men than Catlow had felt the same.
By this time we were longing for the arrival of the new machines which were supposed to be coming through. New single-seater and two-seater scouts were said to be on their way which were supposed to be more than a match for anything the Germans had, but they seemed to be a long time arriving.
‘Yon strikers,’ Munro growled. ‘Worryin’ aboot a few extra bob tae spend on booze. Ah wish they’d sent ’em oot here tae tak’ a chance wi’ us.’
Three more men – all newcomers – failed to return, but as we entered the third week of the month Bull and Peckett were beginning to look more sure of themselves, and we even had a few small successes. Le Petit shot down an old LVG and, to his surprise, so did Bull. They found three of them wandering around the lines and, judging by their behaviour, they were newcomers and did little about taking evasive action.
Munro had moved to A Flight by this time as deputy and he and I had taken to going out late in the longer evenings looking for lost or wandering Germans. We were both
old hands at the game by now and were careful not to look for trouble, and we waited as high as we could get, looking for late-flying photographic two seaters heading homewards in the rosy glow of a job well done. Since there seemed to be little chance of joining Sykes, I’d decided to teach Munro the game I’d practised long since with him.
The very first night we knocked down an Aviatik. While Munro went in bull-headed from one side to keep the observer busy, I sneaked up underneath it from the other. It reared up at once as I fired then fell limply over on its side and began a long curving dive towards the darkening earth. As I leaned over to watch the stricken machine dwindling beneath me, at first I thought it was going to fall in the woods near Rochy but the steep jerking fall carried it beneath me until it finally looked as though it were going to end up in Pommier instead. Then as the arc changed once more, it moved back again towards Rochy. It was now nothing more than a moving speck against the hazy earth and had passed the woods and was moving as though it had levelled off and was heading home. Then, as it passed beyond the trees, it suddenly stopped and I saw a small speck of light glow briefly against the dusky earth.
That night Munro was noisy with delight. ‘Laddie,’ he said, ‘this air fighting business is like golf. Once ye get the knack, it’s a great sport.’
The following night, as though our luck were almost too good, we brought down two of them. The first of them was an LVG which crashed near Givenchy, sliding along on its belly, with pieces of wing and fuselage flying off, until it finally dropped into a shell-hole and stood on its nose. The second was a lonely lost Albatros two-seater which ought never to have been where it was. As we fired at it I saw a plume of leaking petrol trail out behind but the Albatros made no attempt to manoeuvre and it was still flying straight and level when I saw a red glow start under the fuselage. Black smoke followed almost at once, and a darker streamer of it trailed behind the stricken machine. Then there was a flare of flame and I saw the observer gesticulating wildly. As the flame blew back, the pilot half-lifted himself out of the cockpit, his arms across his face, his mouth open and wind-blown, and the machine, now just a mass of oil-stinking smoke from wingtip to wingtip went down in a slow curve, small burning fragments falling off to follow it down in smaller tighter curves. I had to fly through the smoke and as I came out at the other side there was a puff of flame and the machine seemed to fall to pieces, and out of the centre I saw burning pieces of wing and half the fuselage with the wheels still attached fall away. The tail section went whirring down behind and, his coat blown open as though he were trying to use it as a kite to glide to earth, the observer dropped clear. We watched him dwindle in size below us, turning over and over like a small wriggling spider until he vanished from sight.
Munro was silent as we landed and that night he got drunk. ‘Ye know,’ he said solemnly, ‘Ah never really thought there was a man inside ’em until taenight. Ah’m no’ so sure it’s a guid sport after all. Yon feller was alive all the way doon.’
* * *
With his thick shoulders and the broad heavy head that went with his name, Bull was developing into a sound flyer. He was not skilful but he was determined and full of courage. Peckett remained what he had always been – a pale indeterminate figure – while Catlow remained just Catlow and no one was surprised when he went sick with neuralgia.
Munro made no bones about what he thought. ‘Och, mon, he’s scared he’ll miss his staff posting,’ he said. ‘And neuralgia’s a guid disease. No visible symptoms.’
Catlow disappeared to hospital but they sent him straight back, indifferent to his protests, and he took to mooching about alone, because even Peckett seemed sick of him.
I flew a lot of different types of machine to gain experience and, as I’d never handled one, I got permission from the FE squadron to take up one of theirs.
‘Ye’ll mind tae be careful, laddie,’ Munro advised. ‘Ah had three months flyin’ yon things and if ye stand it on its nose, the engine’ll fall out, and squash ye flat, like a fly.’
I took off safely but it seemed odd after flying tractors to fly a pusher again, sitting out in front with nothing between me and the sky but a little piece of plywood and the great 120-horse Beardmore engine thundering away behind. I flew it carefully. The year before I’d wrecked a DH2 trying to do tricks with it and I’d never since completely trusted that open framework that held a pusher’s tail on.
When I got down Munro was thoroughly contemptuous. ‘Yon’s no way to fly a Fee,’ he said. ‘They’re as tough as Old Nick’s nag-nails. They’ll stand anything. Watch me, laddie. Ah’ll show ye.’
He took off with a great deal of flourish in a climbing turn, trying to make the FE behave as if it were a Pup. He could certainly fly it but when he was about a thousand feet up just beyond the edge of the aerodrome someone shouted in alarm.
‘He’s on fire,’ he yelled.
Sure enough the FE was trailing smoke behind it, but Munro seemed to have caught on at exactly the same moment because the big machine banked sharply and fell out of the sky like a stone. At first we could see the flames trailing behind him and I was clenching my fists, praying he’d get down before they reached the fabric of the tail surfaces and destroyed them. But the speed of his dive appeared to put them out and as he came in they seemed to have disappeared entirely. He was still trailing a lot of smoke, however, and was taking no chances of the flames starting again and enveloping the machine. He shot across the field at full speed, bouncing as he hit the grass.
Beyond the hedge there was a vast manure heap and a duck pond covered with ducks, and he went between the trees like a rocket, tearing off twigs and leaving the wings hanging like old washing on the branches. Through the flying pieces of wood and leaves and scraps of fabric I saw a great sheet of water go up and the ducks bursting away in all directions, then there was a colossal thump and a cloud of steam, and as we rushed across the field we saw Munro heaving himself out of the wreckage of the machine in the middle of the manure heap.
‘Have a crash?’ someone asked with heavy sarcasm.
Munro was equal to the occasion. ‘Did ye not know, mon?’ he said. ‘Ah always land like this.’
Apart from a wrenched ankle, he appeared to be perfectly sound, but he was covered with filth and the smell was appalling as he leaned on me.
‘Can you come to the other side?’ I suggested. ‘It’s best to keep to windward of you at the moment.’
Munro grinned, hobbling painfully on his injured legs while someone ran to fetch his walking sticks.
‘Och, dinnae fash yersel’,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Yon’s naethin’. An’ sure, did Ah no’ put the fire oot?’ He indicated the duck pond where there were a lot of feathers still floating down to the water and a few motionless white forms spread-winged on the troubled muddy surface. ‘An’, mon, mon,’ he chuckled. ‘Do ye no’ see? There’s duck for supper taenight.’
Chapter 5
Despite the small successes, it turned out to be a ghastly month and we lost six men in the last few days. Peckett was the first of them and when Bull was told he and Catlow and two newcomers were to carry the coffin he came into the mess with his head down between his shoulders as though ready to charge someone in his helpless rage. There seemed little hope for us because the RFC was trying to fight with machines that were slow, obsolete and useless and the end of April came in a holocaust.
The FE squadron across the field was withdrawn from daytime flying because they lost seven machines in one day and they were moved south to form a new group which was to concentrate solely on bombing Germany. None of them was looking forward to it very much but they seemed to consider it better than flopping around over the line in daylight waiting to be shot down. Then on the 28th, Latta persuaded some fool at Wing that the squadron would have a better chance if it flew squadron-sized patrols and decided that Le Petit, as the oldest member of the squadron, should lead the first with C Flight, with Orgill next with B Flight, and me in the rear with A. I did
n’t like it at all. It seemed to be asking for trouble.
Bull was grim faced – ‘I shall bolt for home,’ he said, ‘after I’ve put in my threepenn’orth’ – and Catlow made a bleated protest that he didn’t feel well. But we were already too many men short and Latta insisted on him going. He went out to his machine sullenly, only too well aware that he’d been deliberately placed right in the middle of the formation so that he couldn’t drift off and make his way home with ‘engine trouble’.
We took off in the afternoon twelve strong – twelve drab blunt-nosed little machines moving up and down like moored dinghies in a choppy harbour. There were a lot of heavy-bellied clouds about like wet grey sails, majestic and threatening and filled with purple valleys and pinnacles. I didn’t like the look of them. There were too many places for the Richthofen outfit to hide in and I didn’t trust Le Petit.
As we climbed higher and higher, I caught glimpses of the earth between the clouds, the corner of a wood, a curve of the Scarpe, and once the stark ruins of Lens. I was watching for black specks against the cloud or the brief movements against the land which probably meant death. Eventually, Le Petit saw a group of seven Albatroses below and fired a Very light to draw attention to them. I was staring round the sky now, the hairs on my neck prickling – standing on end, I suppose you’d call it – and a sick hollow feeling of nervousness in the pit of my stomach as though I were waiting to start a race. I could see nothing but I knew there were Germans about somewhere. It was a sort of sixth sense I’d developed and, looking at Munro, I could see his head moving like mine was as though he were worried too.
But we were supposed to follow Le Petit down and I could see the black crosses on the machines growing in size. One of them swam out of the way of Le Petit’s men right in front of me and I fired at once, and it wheeled round and fell over on its back, trailing a graceful curl of black smoke, and disappeared from sight. I felt a little better and decided that perhaps Le Petit had not made a mistake. Then out of the corner of my eye, instinctively almost, because I wasn’t looking at them, I saw a whole new bunch of Albatroses coming down on us. There seemed to be about twenty or thirty of them, probably two whole Jagdstaffeln. Le Petit had led us into an ambush and they had sprung the trap.
