The Professionals

by Max Hennessy

  The Germans had done what they had come for now and were swinging away in a slow flat turn towards the coast. Even as I watched they began to take up their formation again, heading east. I could see one or two spirals of smoke lifting up from the area of the river and I guessed it was where the bombs had hit, and I thought that if I could get one of the Gothas it might make up for the damage they’d done.

  I dived from the right rear of the last of the huge machines. The rear gunner seemed to have difficulty lugging his gun over from the left-hand side where I’d first appeared, so, as I reached within 300 feet of him, I slipped across to the other side of him and closed in to about fifty yards and fired before he could swing his weapon across. As I curved away, flat against the air, I half expected to see the Gotha going down in a gentle curving dive, but it appeared to be perfectly all right still and I realized that the fuselage was so big I should have to put a lot of bullets into it to hit something vital.

  I came down on him again from the right to swing once more over to the left before the gunner could get his gun across. I was close enough this time to see small flags of fabric lift on the fuselage and wings where the bullets had struck but still nothing happened. The pilot merely pushed his nose down a little and gained a little speed, and as I fired again the gun clacked twice then stopped.

  I pulled the hammer from its restraining strap and tried to knock down the cocking handle to force the faulty round into the breech but the handle just wouldn’t go down and for ten minutes I followed the Gothas while I hammered away at the gun. In the end I became so puffed I had to stop, realizing that at 16,000 feet the air was too rare for much exertion.

  I was still livid with the gun and with Crozier for taking my machine, because I knew an opportunity such as I’d just been presented with wouldn’t come again in a hurry, but all I could do now was give the Germans a good once-over in the hope of learning something for the next time.

  I flew abreast of the rearmost machine, therefore, still within gun range, but just below and beyond his wingtip so that the gunners couldn’t fire at me without hitting their own wings. It occurred to me that if Munro or Bull turned up, they’d notice that the gunners were watching me and might plunge in and knock down the Gotha while they were busy, but no one appeared and I flew alongside the German for a quarter of an hour unable to do a thing about it, and even got a few shots through my rudder from the front gunner when I allowed the Pup to slide a little forward of my position beyond the wings.

  In the end over Woolwich I grew bored with staring back at the Germans so I waved and turned away. The gunners waved back cheerfully and I did a tight turn and allowed the machine to fall over on its back in a spin and dropped well below the Gothas before I pulled out and headed home.

  Munro was down when I arrived. His engine had seized up.

  ‘It was trying to run on a square ball-bearing,’ he said. ‘We got one of them. Did you hear?’

  This was news. ‘We did?’

  ‘The anti-aircraft people saw one fall in a spin over Woolwich.’

  ‘You’d better ring them back,’ I said, ‘and tell ’em they’re mistaken. That was me. I was with ’em all the time and I didn’t see any of ’em come down.’

  ‘Did you get a shot at any of them?’

  ‘Yes. I did. And that reminds me.’

  I had seen Gumbell advancing on the Pup, his great moon smile across his face.

  ‘GUMBELL!’ For the first time in my career I managed to sound like a sergeant-major.

  He came to an abrupt halt. ‘Sir!’

  ‘Are you the armourer on this machine?’

  ‘Yessir. How did you know?’

  ‘Because I’ve just been flying it, and I had to sit up there being shot at with nothing to shoot back. This is the second time you’ve done this to me.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry sir, but I’m sure it wasn’t my…’

  I could have strangled him. ‘Gumbell,’ I said slowly.

  He blinked. ‘Yessir?’

  ‘Get out of my sight!’

  ‘Yessir. Certainly, sir!’

  ‘And damn Crozier, too,’ I said as he disappeared. ‘Is he back with my bus yet?’

  Munro had watched the exchange with interest. ‘No,’ he said. ‘And willnae be now. Telephone call came through. He’s got his new posting.’

  I was furious. ‘What about my bus?’ I bleated.

  Munro shrugged and cocked a thumb towards the office. ‘Better have it oot wi’ his replacement, laddie,’ he suggested. ‘He’s arrived.’

  ‘That’s quick!’

  Munro grinned. ‘He looks a quick sort o’ chap. He’s been asking for ye.’

  I was still angry and in no mood to tangle with any cocksure new C.O. just then, and as I stalked across to the office to make out my report I was ready for anything. Longford was sitting at his desk behind the typewriter and the new C.O. was on his knees with his head in a cupboard looking for papers.

  ‘Ah, Captain Falconer!’ Longford looked up. ‘Someone said there was a Pup over Woolwich having a go at the Gothas. Was it you?’

  A voice came from inside the cupboard.

  ‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ it said, and my jaw dropped.

  ‘Lulu!’ I shouted as Sykes turned round, grinning, and it was only hours afterwards that I realized what I’d called him.

  Chapter 6

  ‘Got home a week ago,’ Sykes said. ‘Went to Hathersett for a day or two to see Jane. Cracking girl.’

  It didn’t hurt me any more to hear him say such things and I grinned with him, delighted for them both.

  He looked no different from before – bland and confident, a self-assured member of the upper classes. So upper, there wasn’t a trace of snobbery or side about him. There didn’t have to be. He was so upper he was almost out of sight to most people and he didn’t have to do any pretending.

  ‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘You got a girl yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Not even Cousin Charley?’

  I smiled. ‘Not even Charley. She’s a nice girl…’

  ‘—but she’s not the right one.’ He shrugged. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we always did say in the family that Charley was destined to marry a duke. Got that sort of brain. Ah, well’ – he slapped my shoulder – ‘have to start soon, y’know. After all, they’ve got you drinking and smoking – well, occasionally, anyway. Heard you’ve even been bad-tempered here and there with the Hun, too.’ He looked at Longford. ‘Chap told me, in fact, that you manage to make ’em look so ordinary they seem to be floppin’ about the sky askin’ to be shot down.’

  I was so pleased to see him I couldn’t respond to his banter effectively, and he went on cheerfully.

  ‘Hear you were even being nasty to ’em this morning,’ he said.

  ‘I’d have got one,’ I said, ‘if that fool Gumbell had done his job properly.’

  His ears seemed to cock like a dog’s. ‘Gumbell?’ he asked. ‘Bad lot?’

  ‘Not really. Just a half-wit.’

  ‘I’ll get rid of him,’ he said. ‘Just give me time to dig in a bit. What are they like?’

  ‘Nasty,’ I said. ‘But big. Plenty to shoot at. But that means there’s a lot to absorb the bullets, too, without much damage being done. What I’d give for something firing explosive shells.’

  ‘From an aeroplane?’ Longford looked startled.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’d fall apart. From the recoil.’

  I was feeling stubborn. ‘You can’t shoot at armour-plated aeroplanes with a popgun,’ I said. ‘A cannon’d blow chunks off.’

  Sykes blinked. ‘Good Lor’,’ he said. ‘Aren’t we nasty-tempered these days? Perhaps we could go in closer.’

  ‘Doubt it.’ I grinned. ‘It’s a bit warm in there. They carry at least two gunners. One at the front and one at the back.’

  ‘What about blind spots?’

  After Latta and Crozier it was wonderful to hear someone taking an interest aga
in and asking shrewd and searching questions. ‘Under the wings,’ I said. ‘Or behind and below the tail. And that’s all. Because what the front gunner can’t hit, the rear-gunner can.’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘Ought to do it in twos,’ he suggested.

  ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

  He gave me his brilliant warming smile. ‘Boelcke’s old dodge. Amazin’ how basic it is. One to do the nasty-tempered bit and the other to guard his tail and distract the old foe. Fighters’ll still be doing it that way forty years from now.’ He rubbed his bony nose. ‘More replacements are due in a few days and I’ll be giving some of ’em to Munro to work up into a new flight. As for you, I want you to pick out a good deputy and let him run yours when you’re not there.’

  ‘Why? Where will I be?’

  ‘With me. You and I have a date with these jolly old Gothas, remember. Dates back to last winter when we were after Zeppelins. Even to when we were flying DH2s. Must try to wreak the old vengeance.’

  ‘I thought C.O.s weren’t supposed to fly.’

  He beamed. ‘Blood’ll run in the gutters if they try to stop me,’ he said.

  I gave the flight to Bull and told him to get it in shape. He responded magnificently and didn’t hesitate to come and ask advice, though occasionally it seemed odd to me to be giving orders to a man several years older than I was.

  With Sykes I worked out plans. He was involved in refitting and bringing the squadron up to scratch and he left most of them to me.

  ‘How about firing a Very light?’ I suggested. ‘So that the other chap will know just when to go in.’

  ‘Too complicated,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Ought to be able to keep it simpler than that. Suggest I go in first. Offer the old body as a target, as you might say, for Hun spite. Then when they’re busy with me, you nip in and shoot one of the engines out.’

  ‘Why not let me go in first?’

  He smiled his gentle smile. ‘Can’t be done, old boy. You’re the expert.’

  ‘You’re a good pilot.’

  ‘Be better if aeroplanes had reins. Besides, I couldn’t hit a bull in a barn door. Better leave it to you.’

  I didn’t fancy Sykes setting himself up as a target, and I had sudden visions of having to face Jane with bad news as I’d once had to with her sister when my brother was killed. ‘Suppose I object?’ I asked.

  Sykes smiled. ‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m the C.O.’

  So we worked it out. Sykes had no nonsense about personal scores and made his pilots practise in pairs. He gave them the choice of their partners and for the most part the teaming up was easy. Then he got down to map work and, remembering the ideas we’d discussed during the winter, he gave each pair a square of sky to patrol. This way he felt sure someone ought to stumble on a Gotha eventually.

  But suddenly the Gothas seemed loathe to return. We heard of them appearing at other points of the compass but no successes were chalked up, and to cover the deficiencies of planning in the past the newspapers kept up a permanent tirade of hatred against the Germans as barbarians who killed women and children. They were careful, of course, not to mention we were doing exactly the same thing every night over Germany, but if it did nothing else it took the civilians’ attention off the inefficiency of the people who had left Britain unguarded the year before with only BE12s to combat the Zeppelins.

  Sykes was a good C.O., easy-going with anyone who did his job well but coming down like a ton of bricks on slackers and the inefficient, and there was a keen alert feeling in the air when he visited the hangars, yet at the same time a watchful wariness to make sure nothing went wrong. Knowing him well, it was odd to think of people being scared of him, but they were, even while they thought the world of him. The squadron seemed to pull itself up by its bootstraps overnight and eventually, to everyone’s delight, Sykes announced that normal week-end leave would start again.

  As I hurried off to pack my bag, he laid a hand on my arm. ‘Going anywhere special?’ he asked.

  ‘Home,’ I said. ‘That’s all. Seems ages since I saw my father and he’s home, too, at the moment.’

  ‘Bit of a family get-together at Hathersett on Sunday,’ he said casually. ‘Think you could manage to get away for lunch and come and see us all?’

  I grinned at him. ‘Nothing I’d like better: The Bartelott-Dyveton-Sykeses in their natural habitat.’

  ‘Terrifying sight.’ His face never slipped. ‘I’ll send a conveyance over for you.’

  * * *

  Sykes’ ‘conveyance’ turned out to be a horse and trap driven by an elderly groom who behaved as if he were the fifth or sixth generation of his family to look after the Sykeses.

  ‘Master Ludo says he’s sorry he couldn’t send the car,’ he explained. ‘But it’s difficult to get petrol these days and he hoped you wouldn’t mind the trap.’

  Considering it was a spanking affair of yellow and black with brown leather cushions and highly-polished brass fittings and the day was a magnificent one, I had no objection at all to a slow clop-clop across-country. But I thought it amusing that the old man should refer to Sykes as Master Ludo, when Master Ludo wore a major’s crown, a wound stripe and a pair of wings and three ribbons on his chest, and was known as a holy terror round the hangars.

  The family were just returning from church when I arrived and, since they owned the living, even that was impressive. They arrived in a large charabanc drawn by two horses and there seemed to be dozens of them. Cousin Charley was among them and, whether she was aiming at a duke for a husband or not, she seemed pleased enough to see me and flung her arms round me with a yell of pleasure.

  Several other cousins had arrived for the week-end too, and most of the young males seemed to be in the uniform of the Guards or one of the crack cavalry regiments, so that Sykes seemed very small fry with his wings. Most of them had ribbons of some sort and there were several wound stripes and one empty sleeve. And none of them, I noticed, wore the red tabs of the staff, as though they considered it their duty not to direct from the back but to lead from the front where the danger was.

  ‘Always were a little weak in the head,’ Sykes explained with a bland smile, as though courage were something to be slightly ashamed of.

  His mother greeted me like an old friend and put up her cheek to be kissed as if I were part of the family. Jane was there, of course, and I saw her eyes were bright and happy, and then to my surprise I saw her parents too.

  At the end of lunch, Sykes’ father stood up with his glass in his hand. ‘I have a small and very happy announcement to make,’ he said. ‘And that is Lulu’s engagement to Jane.’

  There were a lot of ‘Ohs’ and ‘Ahs’ and cries of delight and ‘When’s it to be’s?’ from the women, then everyone was crowding round Sykes and Jane, kissing them and shaking hands. Mrs Widdows was dabbing at her eyes but Sykes’ mother, regal and a little vague, seemed quite unmoved, as though engagements were everyday stuff in her family.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘the wedding won’t be for a year or two.’

  ‘That’s a long time, Mother,’ Sykes objected.

  ‘Oh, no, dear.’ She shook her head. ‘Not really. And Jane’s still very young.’

  ‘We’re all a little young these days, Mother,’ Sykes said gravely. ‘We have to get what we can out of life while we’re still around to grab it.’

  It was a sad commentary, but our generation was one that knew no such thing as a peaceful passing away and there was a long awkward silence. Sykes’ mother tried to restore the gaiety of the gathering.

  ‘Dear,’ she explained, ‘she’s got to have time to get used to us.’

  Sykes grinned. ‘Go into training, you mean?’ he said.

  His mother remained unperturbed. ‘Well, after all, Lulu,’ she pointed out, ‘I suppose some people would call us a funny lot really. If we had any sense we’d have long since realized that we’ve had our day and belong really in the last century.’

  She may have been
vague but she was no fool, because it had long since become obvious to a lot of people that much of what they stood for had already been lost in France.

  The moment, sad and a little nostalgic, passed quickly, and everyone was soon laughing again, and Charley gave me another kiss. ‘Infectious, I hear, this gettin’ married,’ she said in the same inconsequential manner of all the Sykeses. ‘Everybody’s at it. If we’re not careful, we’ll be killed in the rush.’

  I felt touched that Sykes had bothered to include me in such a personal occasion but he seemed to think it only right and proper.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the same without you,’ he said. ‘Besides, you had a sort of personal interest in the affair.’

  The rest of the day was a hectic affair with everyone a little light-headed with happiness and all I could remember of it afterwards was a sort of rosy glow of well-being. If this was how the upper classes lived, I thought, then it suited me to be a hanger-on. Despite his concern for Jane, Sykes never forgot me, and I never felt for one moment left out of it and found myself chattering away quite happily with captains in the Grenadiers as though I’d known them all my life.

  ‘If you survive the war, old boy,’ Sykes said, ‘there’s quite a bit of influence around this family that might be able to help you when you go into architecture.’

  I shrugged. ‘I shan’t be going in for architecture,’ I said. ‘Not now.’

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I’d considered transferring,’ he pointed out.

  ‘From the cavalry?’

  ‘Horsed charges are a bit out of fashion these days,’ he pointed out. ‘And gees are a bit tame after aeroplanes, don’t you think? Any Tom, Dick or Harry can join a four-legged outfit. Takes an epic masculinity to go in for one with wings.’

  ‘Will you be able to?’ I asked.

  ‘Shouldn’t be difficult. There’s talk of making the Flying Corps a separate service. Probably next year. The Old Man has it on good authority from a friend at the War House. There’s been a commission sitting on it. To stop all the squabbling that’s been going on between the army and the navy for the aeroplanes.’