“A great pity if that is so, Captain Stark. For the while, I suppose we at home must do all we can… Though what, I do not really know.”
Tommy could not imagine anything useful for a broken-down veteran to do, other than stand at the side of the road and cheer when a battalion marched by.
“We must save our money, sir, and try not to be a burden upon the fighting men.”
That seemed a sufficiently anodyne comment – enthusiastic and meaningless simultaneously.
Tommy finished his glass, a very sparse two fingers of whisky, and rose to go, commenting that he must be home to his wife.
“So would I be, if I was you, young man. A very pretty little girl, sir! Good family, too, I hear!”
“I am a very lucky man, Captain Postnett.”
“You are indeed, sir. I shall make very sure that the Constituency Chairman and Agent know your name, Captain Stark. We must stick together, you know; our country needs us.”
Tommy walked home trying to make sense of that last comment; he shrugged - what little brain the poor chap had ever had must have been baked out in the tropics. Rather sad, in fact, the old soldier with no wife and an empty house, what did the poor fellow do with his days?
His own wife met him at the door and made very clear what she wanted him to do with her days, and he had heard of far worse ideas; there was much to be said for the married state.
There was little to be said for interviews with Brigadier Sykes; he was a lean, pursed-mouthed, tight-lipped little man with a good enough brain and an unpleasant character. As far as Sykes was concerned the RFC was split into two factions – his active supporters and his enemies; there were no neutrals in his wars. He did not know where Tommy stood and his first business was to find out.
“What do you think of this proposal for bombardment machines, Captain Stark?”
“Building large aeroplanes like the Italians have, sir? Sending them across to bomb Germany?”
“Yes, that is the idea.”
“I have heard worse suggestions, sir, but not until we have the machines that the Army needs in France. We must I think first protect our own people and serve a direct military need. I do not doubt that bombardment must play a great part in the future of the RFC, sir. I have myself, as you know, taken part in such raids. But, not yet, sir. What is it they say, learn to walk before you run, sir?”
Tommy thought that kept him well into the middle ground, committed to no specific camp.
“I think as well, with respect, sir, that I have a lot to learn about the RFC yet. I am a pilot – a pretty good one, though I say it myself – but I have not spent my days learning all of the ins and outs of planning and running the Corps. I don’t think I wish to, not yet, sir. I think I shall do better learning how to fight this war for a year or two before I start telling other people how to do the job!”
“Good point, Captain Stark. You are, after all, still a young man. What have you seen in the last few days, Captain Stark?”
“Engines, sir. We need them, and we haven’t got them. The DH1 is of little value as it stands, sir. The DH2 will be – when it has an engine of at least one hundred and thirty horse power. Two hundred would be better. The FE has the identical problem – it’s a big machine with, I think, the potential to escort the BEs or to go out as a pursuiter, or to carry a load of bombs, but it must have the engine to push it through the air.”
“The French are persuaded that the answer must be the tractor, which will always be faster. A gun mounted high on the upper wing will do the job, they say.”
“Provided it can be aimed, sir, then it will. If not, then it will be a case of chasing until one is barely feet distant and then opening fire – and that demands a powerful machine with…”
“A big engine!”
“Yes, sir. I do not think I am very valuable in my present job, sir. A man who was an engineer could do far better, for understanding more of what he saw, in my opinion, sir.”
“The training fields need experienced pilots, Captain Stark.”
“They do, sir… With respect, sir, and not wishing to invite any personal investigations, a teacher needs to look older than his pupils, and I have a very young-looking face.”
“I suspect there is a reason for that, Captain Stark! But we cannot award you a Military Cross one month and then start asking your age the next. You will receive orders for France in a few days, Captain Stark. For the next week, I wish you to consider the matter of aerial bombs, here in London, and then go to Farnborough to discuss the new Reconnaissance Experimentals with Mr O’Gorman, who is much impressed by your general attitude, I would add. A very able man, Mr O’Gorman.”
“Vastly intelligent, sir, and a man of many skills. I could wish that he might take the manufacture of engines under his very capable wing, sir.”
“He will, I do not doubt, one day.”
Tommy discussed the matter of aerial bombs very gravely; he was one of the very few people actually to have dropped one, was almost uniquely expert in the field. The brasshats wanted bigger bombs as an urgency; Tommy was concerned rather to drop and aim them effectively.
“Held under the wings, gentlemen, in some sort of clamp that can be opened by a lever or wire or some such in the cockpit. Simple and lightweight, sir, so that the pilot can trigger it. We cannot afford the weight of an observer until we have more powerful aeroplanes. I suppose you could even stack the bombs in the space where the observer sat with a trapdoor underneath.”
“How did you drop your bombs, Captain Stark?”
“I picked them up and threw them out, sir. Backwards, of course, for having to miss my own wing, with a contact detonator. I would not like to try that with bigger bombs, sir.”
They tended to agree that the procedure was undesirably hazardous.
“We have it in mind to attach small vanes to the bombs, Captain Stark, to stabilise them in flight, and they might catch in your hands or in the sleeves of your flying coat. They must be attached to a proper device for releasing them.”
“Very lightweight, sir.”
They wondered what Tommy thought about attempting to bomb the Germans in their trenches. Both sides had dug in and the trenches stretched from the North Sea to Switzerland now.
“Low or high, Captain Stark?”
“Is there artillery in the trenches, designed to hit aeroplanes?”
“I think we can say that there will be within a very few weeks of you first attempting your raids.”
Tommy whistled and shook his head.
“It cuts both ways, sir. Low down, the artillery will not hear or see the machine coming, and will have very little time to aim, but will be in killing range. High up and most of the guns will be unable to reach the aeroplane, but those that can will have every opportunity to take their aim. Is there a simple and lightweight bomb sight that will enable a pilot to place a bomb in a narrow trench at ten thousand feet?”
“No.”
“Then we must raid at fifty feet, sir.”
“There is little choice, is there?”
“Yes, sir. There is the choice not to do it at all. What aeroplane do you envisage the RFC using for the purpose, sir?”
“Bristol Scout, Type C, the new biplane, Captain Stark. As a single seater it will carry eighty pounds of bombs, twice that with a certain loss of performance. Not a great deal, but dropped with precision on dug-outs and machine-gun posts, they will be of value.”
“I am forced to agree with you, sir. Can one drop them with precision? Possibly, after weeks of practice… I do not know, sir. An eighty, even a one hundred pound bomb? Four or five, though I do not like the uneven number, of twenty pound bombs, sir? Or perhaps twenty-five or thirty of far smaller shells, a mix of shrapnel and high-explosive and incendiaries to do the greatest damage to the gunners as well as their weapons?”
They thought that was a damned clever notion.
“There is some consideration of buying Nieuports or Caudrons from the French, Captain Sta
rk. We have some Morane-Saulniers already, single and two seaters. The singles are capable of carrying some bombs as well; they can take the weight of a Lewis Gun, I know.”
“Mounted high on the parasol wing, I presume, sir. Any success with them yet?”
“Very little, Captain Stark, but, of course, the Germans have very few machines in the air at the moment. The RFC and the French have mounted a policy of aggression, shooting at every German scout they see; they do not hit many, and have downed a bare handful, but they have driven them away. Colonel Trenchard has been particularly in favour of aggression.”
They talked the whole of a morning and decided it were best that Tommy should join them at an airfield or range where he could demonstrate the techniques of bomb dropping, with dummies, they hastened to assure him. They would have a Bristol Scout flown across to Netheravon – it would take a day or two to arrange – say on Friday.
For the while, Tommy went home. It was a very civilised way of conducting a war, he thought, with days off frequently available. He could not imagine that it would last.
“A letter from Long Benchley, Tommy. Poor old George has been moved to his nursing hospital and has assured Mama that he likes the look of the place and will come to enjoy being there.”
Monkey shook her head, eyes filling. Tommy held her, as unable to believe a word of it as she was.
“Brave man to say so, Monkey. Trying his best to set his mother’s mind at ease, poor fellow!”
She turned back to the letter.
“George is to be measured for an artificial arm later in the year, though the doctors say he is as yet too weak to use one. Lavinia is very well… Her husband has made his first speech in the House of Commons and has been assigned to some Committee or the other, something to do with finance. Father says that he is a rich man and so must be put on a money committee, although he is totally ignorant of finance or any other business. It is a strange way of running a war, Tommy!”
“Politicians are very strange people, Monkey.”
“Mr Joseph Stark has expanded his premises yet again and is now a very busy man; my father says that he is now buying in much of his produce and sending it out under his own label. He has some very large contracts with the Army – and Father says that he has been seen ‘wining and dining’ generals and colonels on the Quartermaster side; he suspects that some very substantial ‘brown-paper envelopes’ have changed hands. I do not quite understand the significance of that, Tommy.”
“Nor me, but I would guess that the anonymous contents would be paper Bank of England notes.”
“Bribery?”
“I think that is the implication. I must speak to the Squire, Monkey. Shall we take a trip over to Long Benchley in the morning? I could make a telephone call to discover if he will be at home. One can use the set at the Post Office, for a small charge, you know.”
She did not know, never having touched the telephone apparatus in her father’s house, nor having really considered that she might do so.
“We might think of having a line installed ourselves, you know, Monkey. Then you could actually talk to your mother.”
She thought about that, but decided that her mother would never be able to master the complexities of the machine.
“Thing is, sir, that I don’t think I really want to be known as Joseph Stark’s brother, not if he is to get himself a name as a corrupt profiteer. Could do me a lot of harm, you know, sir.”
Squire thought Tommy was being over-sensitive.
“It’s not so uncommon, Tommy! It’s the sort of thing that is known but is never talked about. People would not refer to you as Joseph Stark’s brother, because they would not mention his name at all in the ordinary way of things. His name will not be seen on an Honours List, or not until he is very rich. If he makes a million, then he will certainly pick up a knighthood – they will take his twenty thousand in Downing Street; if he makes ten millions, then they will take five hundred thousand from him and he will become Baron Stark. In both cases, nothing will be said, because there would be a scandal, and that is not acceptable. If he makes ten millions, then he will have laid out five, you may assume, around the War Office; that guarantees silence!”
“That really is very nasty, sir!”
“We live in a nasty world, Tommy. You to much less an extent than me, of course, but you are a famous man already – for a few weeks until the next hero comes along – and there are advantages to that. If you live, then you must be promoted and will find yourself making friends among the right sort of people, and that could be much to your benefit when the war ends.”
That was looking too far ahead for Tommy; it was easier to live from day to day.
“I should say, Tommy, that I am to feature in the Court Pages, myself. I shall make my bow to His Majesty and be made a baron, for services to the Crown. That will make it possible for me to sit on the Government benches in the House of Lords and make speeches on the subject of the supply of food to the country. Well inside a year I shall be made a junior minister, with actual responsibility for some parts of the government’s policy on rations and expenditure for the military. I shall keep my hands clean, and accept no offerings from the victuallers, but my own financial interests cannot suffer, although I shall employ a couple of managers to keep me at a respectable distance. You, of course, are an investor in my concerns, Tommy, and will add to your own riches, which, to be vulgar, ain’t going to be small!”
It seemed very strange to Tommy, the concept of being ‘rich’.
“Grace is in line to inherit heavily now, Tommy. George cannot expect to outlive me, after all. In fact, Tommy, I shall be amazed if I do not bury my lad this year; an unpleasant prospect – in the extreme! What I have in mind, Tommy, is to push the unentailed acres in Lavinia’s direction – which means to put them in the hands of her husband, of course! I do not think you will wish to become a farmer? My brother will be heir to the entail, and one must trust he will produce a son – his lady has shown willing, after all, to do her part, she must have fallen pregnant on their honeymoon! That will leave the financial business to Grace, and I suspect that she will do very well indeed for you both. I cannot talk figures, but the sums will not be small. I doubt you will end up as rich as your brother, of course, but you will be very likely to inherit from him, you know. He ain’t going to father a son, not without a substantial change in his habits!”
“He will not wish to name me in his Will, surely, sir.”
“There is an entail, Tommy, which is how he came into the land. You are nearest in blood to him – more or less, that is, and as far as the lawyers are concerned!”
A Deadly Caper
Chapter Four
It was the first time Tommy had flown the biplane Bristol Scout and he enjoyed the aeroplane itself. It had an eighty-horsepower rotary which delivered a sufficiency of performance for the light machine, offering a speed of more than ninety miles an hour and a climb of nearly five hundred feet a minute. He had been told that it had a ceiling of fourteen thousand feet, which he would believe when he had tested it himself and was in any case unnecessary in France. Importantly, the machine could carry eighty pounds of bombs and a Lewis Gun and reloads, for use after the bombs had been dropped, though the gun was not fitted for this morning’s trials.
He took the machine up for half an hour to familiarise himself with its behaviour before he attempted any low flying, rather to the disdain of the audience of pilots under training who were watching. There were comments to the effect that they had expected an experienced and decorated pilot to leap into the seat and instantly indulge in every kind of stunt. The instructors standing in a separate, close group a few yards distant from the trainees heard and ignored their stupidity.
Tommy landed and waited while the mechanics refuelled the Bristol, talking with the bombing experts the while.
“What do you intend for this morning, gentlemen?”
They pointed to a line of stakes which they said represente
d a trench.
“Fifty yards in length and what, six feet wide?”
That, they said, was correct.
“We have marked out a circle, Captain Stark, that represents a machine-gun position, and another two which are the entrances to dug-outs.”
The three targets had surface areas of less than twelve square feet apiece.
“What do you propose by way of bombs, gentlemen?”
“Bags of flour, Captain Stark. Two pounds, they weigh. Four of them to be released together, in little nets, so that you will have ten bombs in total. We have knocked up clips to hold them beneath the lower wing, with cords running separately, five on each side. You can therefore drop them in twos.”
“Be buggered for a joke! Excuse me, gentlemen, what I meant to say was that I am unwilling to fly the aeroplane no hands at a height of fifty feet. I shall require one hand on the control lever at all times. If you wish, you may pair the cords in some way so that two may be released with one tug.”
“But, it would only be for a matter of seconds, Captain Stark?”
“At fifty feet above the ground, sir, one does not have seconds to spare. No.”
They thought he was really being a spoil-sport, but, if he insisted, they would accept drops of one at a time.
“I shall take a couple of dummy runs, gentlemen, to satisfy myself with line and speed, and then I shall make a first real pass. Do not venture forward into the trench without warning me. You have a flare gun with you. Fire a red and I shall hold off; a green and I shall immediately bomb again. If I am satisfied with my first performance, I shall repeat it and then vary height and speed until I am persuaded that I have found the best technique.”
A Deadly Caper (Innocents At War Series, Book 2) Page 8
