“I say! Damned poor taste, don’t you think?”
“Typical of the man, sir. Another reason to be glad to be out here.”
“Only place for a man to be, Adj.”
“So it is, sir.”
“I suppose I must greet this little chap who came with you. Seems a meek little fellow, does he not?”
“Bit shaken up, I think, sir. There were four of them in a pair of BE2cs, sent off at the beginning of the week. They got on the booze in Dover and had to overnight at Swingate, the man there refusing them permission to take off. Then they got lost on the flight to Amiens, sir. Finally reached the Park and decided to make a race of it, for who would touch down first. They collided at twenty feet and Egmont was thrown out of the observer’s cockpit as they came down and caught fire. Sole survivor. Couldn’t be blamed, for not being at the controls. Not done him a lot of good, sir.”
“Best to put him in the cockpit of a plane as soon as possible, I suspect.”
“Might be too late, sir. He’s had a couple of days to mull it over in his mind.”
“Bugger! I hate sending them back unfit to fly. The base wallahs – fifty miles and more from the fighting line - look at it and say ‘coward’. They’ll strip him of his wings and dump him as a glorified stores clerk in the nastiest place they can find. Egypt or somewhere like that, out in the blue.”
They shrugged – not their problem in the end.
“Adj, have you got a manifest, or whatever they call it, for the bombs? Do you know what we’ve got?”
“No idea, Tommy. Ask the Armourer.”
“I have. He hasn’t taken an inventory yet, for having nothing to check them off against.”
“Perhaps Major Salmond knows.”
Major Salmond had not been told yet; he was sure he would be, one day.
The Adjutant telephoned Wing; they did not know but would speak to General Henderson’s office. Wing came back to them an hour later; the consignment had come direct from England – they should have a look at it and see what they had got.
The Armourer reported after dinner.
“Cooper bombs, sir, twenty pounds, high explosive, contact fuses; one hundred. Mark One grenades, sir, two pounds, high explosive and shrapnel, with either timed or contact fuses, sir; one thousand of them, sir. And something new to me, sir, with a contact fuse, stamped as ‘Incendiary’, sir, and seeming to be something like a quarter of a pound of high explosive inside a casing of petroleum jelly or something of that nature, sir. Two pounds weight, sir, and two thousands of them. All with a neck, sir, that will fit in the clips on the Bristol Scout, sir.”
“Four tons in total.”
“Yes, sir.”
The new planes arrived, their delivery pilots very pleased with themselves for finding the right airfield and demanding instant transport back to Wing where they could be put on express trains to their homes in France or sent back to England. They were not pleased to be ordered aboard the last of the munitions drays, unloaded so late that it had had to remain overnight.
“Five planes, Tommy! You now have three Bristols and six Parasols, sufficient to allow for the needs of servicing these rotaries and still leave you with some in the air.”
“Excellent, sir. We have worked out exactly what to do. Is that the new lad over there, sir? About to take off in the RE? Don’t look very happy, does, he?”
“He had a rough introduction to France, Tommy, and to flying. If he gets it off the ground, I shall be pleasantly surprised; if he lands again I shall be frankly amazed. How is Copper-Bum this morning?”
“Made five landings, the last three of which were acceptable. He is currently swanning about with Colin at his side, hopefully learning the landmarks. I have some hopes for him, sir. He might live longer than a week; he may even be useful. He tells me that he enjoyed shooting, was fairly good with a gun. He could be valuable, sir, unlikely as it seems.”
A Deadly Caper
Chapter Six
“All clear in your minds? You know what you are to do? No changes from the orders – everyone to do exactly as we have decided. Watch; work out what we should do better next time; most importantly, get an idea of what you would do if you were the Hun. They won’t let us do the same thing twice, you can bet on that, so we must do something different, and hope it’s not what they expect!”
Tommy was not very pleased with his impromptu and rather repetitive speech; he thought that he must make some effort to prepare what he was to say next time.
Tommy led his Flight out to their planes where they performed their pre-take-off rituals, walking around the machines to count the number of wings and satisfy themselves that the wheels were attached. They checked as well that the ailerons worked and the rudder waggled, which some thought was more important.
They did not look at the charred grass out in the middle of the field, except to be sure that all of the debris had been cleared away. The new man – Egghead or something – had shown himself incapable of landing his RE – which was no great surprise, he had made a shaky take off. Flying had always been a dangerous game to play, unforgiving of mistakes and amateurism to the extent that Fred Jane put up a list of pilots killed in the year in his reference books. Luckily, Major Salmond had not sent the new man up with an observer, so it was just a slow old plane lost, and newly trained pilots seemed to arrive frequently enough; it was really not worth the bother of discovering their names until they had been two or three days in the Mess.
Colin, Hell-For and Copper-Bum started their Parasols and took off thirty seconds ahead of Tommy, Noah and Jack in the Bristols. They would maintain that separation as they climbed up to three thousand feet behind their own trenches where Colin would fire a green flare to say that he was leading his three across and into Hunland. The Parasols had a Lewis fitted within the pilot’s reach, pointing out obliquely to avoid the propeller; each had three spare pans and had practised the reload on the ground.
The Bristols were fully laden with bombs; four twenty pound Coopers, two under each lower wing, and five each of incendiaries and shrapnel grenades on each side of the fuselage, behind the cockpit. The lanyards had been grouped together so that one tug released the larger bombs, a second dropped a shower of the smaller, all with contact detonators.
The weather was good for their purpose, small clouds down to about five thousand feet and almost no wind; cold and clear in the sun. Observation weather, which was rare in winter.
Tommy scanned the German trenches, saw the clump of balloons was up; they should have been in such conditions. Not too high - he had been told that they generally worked at around three thousand feet but could on occasion go beyond four. Today they were perhaps slightly less than three thousand, within effective range of the machine-guns on the ground. He led the Bristols up by one hundred feet and took a course somewhat to the south of the balloons, seemingly giving them the go-by as was normal practice, apparently avoiding their danger.
Colin brought the Parasols in from the north, three or four hundred yards distant from the balloons and firing his Lewis as soon as he was within extreme range. He was followed by Hell-For and then Copper-Bum, holding their line and firing wildly, Hell-For dropping a wing and spraying the ground beneath the balloons. It was an apparently pointless exercise, doing no damage to the balloons and probably very little to the ground crews. It attracted the attention of every gun on the ground. Colin dived and zoomed and banked hard away, Hell-For tight on his tail, Copper-Bum losing distance and height on the turn but surviving and doing his best to regain formation.
Tommy watched as he banked the Bristol hard and lined up with the balloons, perhaps a couple of hundred feet above them. He put the Scout into a shallow dive. Four balloons, as was normal practice, he had been told. He waited until he had the second in line where he wanted, filling the sky in front of the propeller.
The Drachen was not huge as balloons went, far smaller than a Zeppelin; it was a sausage in shape, about seventy feet long and thirty in
diameter, but that was many times the size of the Bristol and seemed unmissable.
He tugged on the lanyards, Coopers first, felt the plane kick up into the air as the weight fell away; he climbed hard. Noah and Jack were to have dropped as soon as they saw him release his bombs, giving a slight delay and scatter to their own pattern.
They came together at four thousand feet and half a mile distant, craning out of their cockpits to see what, if any, damage they had done.
The very last in line of the four balloons was drifting free on the gentle westerly wind; its winch had been destroyed, and probably the crew of strong men who turned the handles with it. No doubt the observers would come down eventually, but the sausage might wander many miles, would almost certainly be damaged when it finally descended. One balloon out of commission. The first was untouched, as was expected. The second was being hauled down, the ground crew winding frantically, trying to save the observers; the balloon itself was collapsing slowly, the fabric ripped by shrapnel, perhaps. The third seemed to be rippling; a few seconds and Tommy realised it was the pale flames of hydrogen crawling over the skin; ten more seconds and there was a great burst of fire and the balloon collapsed over its basket, hurtling down to the mud, the winch crew running from underneath.
A glance at the ground showed men down, casualties from the bulk of the bombs that had missed the balloons themselves. There was a hydrogen gas generation plant set a few yards back from the winches; Tommy watched the men run as it showed flames. He did not know what the process was, but the soldiers on the ground had no doubt it was dangerous. Possibly some hydrogen was stored in cylinders, an excess produced each time they inflated them.
They returned to the airfield, landing with no apparent losses.
The Parasols had come in first and the three pilots were clustered around the intelligence officer, shouting their reports at him, too excited to take turns.
“Hold it! Stop! One at a time. Colin, you first!”
Major Salmond came running across, followed more slowly by the adjutant.
“Telephone call from Wing, Tommy! They have been told by the observers in the trenches that three of the four balloons have been put out of action and the fourth has been winched down out of harm’s way! Full of congratulations!”
“Good. That was the aim of the exercise, sir.”
Major Salmond was thoughtful for a second as he wondered exactly what the response actually meant.
“We’re not all of us fighting this war for the benefit of our next promotion, old chap!”
Tommy grinned and raised a hand in half-apology.
“They will not be directing artillery fire in this area for a few days, anyway, sir. That may save a few soldier’s necks. I thought that the Germans had parachutes for their balloonatics, sir?”
“Parachutes don’t work as often as not, Tommy, and they get in the way of the men when they’re trying to move about and use binoculars and speak on the telephone. They are heavy, as well, so they don’t wear them until they think they are needed. If they had them in the baskets they were probably stacked at the side and they might not have had time to put them on.”
“Bad luck for them, then. Bad way to go, burning at three thousand feet.”
“Jump or fry, Tommy. Not good either way. Better that than directing aimed artillery fire at our chaps.”
“Point taken, sir. No casualties and a successful raid. I don’t think we took any fire in the Bristols. What about the Parasols?”
Colin finished his report and came across to the group.
“Well done, Tommy! Worked a treat! I took nothing at all; Hell-For says he might have felt a round or two through the tail and Copper-Bum’s got a hole about the size of his fist a foot behind his cockpit. Be patched inside two hours, sir.”
They made their reports and trooped across to the Mess where they spent the rest of the afternoon telling each other and anyone else who would listen exactly what a brilliant success they had had.
After three or four hours, euphoria wearing off, they wondered what would come next. The Adjutant joined them, offering more congratulations.
“No balloons in this part of the world for a few days, so we can’t expect to do the same thing twice. In any case, when they come back they will have changed their defences. Set more machine-guns, nests of them a quarter of a mile distant, and some of the bigger guns as well, firing air-burst shells, and you would be in trouble before ever you got close to them. Makes them waste resources, of course. Guns and men that could be put into the trenches have got to be held back for defence of their balloons, so it’s not a loss in itself, as far as we are concerned – we will still be harming their ability to attack us.”
Captain Alford made it clear why they should not be downcast that they would not be able to perform the same attack twice.
“The word has been sent out to the other squadrons as well, and they will be balloon-bursting as soon as they can work out how with their planes. For the poor buggers with their slow old Farmans and BE2cs it will be a hell of a trick to pull!”
“What do we expect here, sir? Will the Hun send out scout planes, do you think?”
“No choice, Tommy. Their gunners will want information – no great gain to firing blind, after all. They will have scouts up from tomorrow, any money you like.”
The six pilots sat together to work up a response, a proposal for the next few days.
It rained next morning and flying was cancelled for the day. Even if the weather cleared by midday the grass would be too wet and soft for take offs or landings. Tommy waited until after lunch before seeking Major Salmond’s permission to take his pilots out on a beano.
“Off to the flesh-pots, gentlemen! We shall take a tender down the road as far as St Omer!”
It was not perhaps the world’s most exciting town, but it made a change.
They found a café – the Piccadilly, recently renamed, it seemed – and drank foreign beer, which was not as bad as it might have been, and ate plates of chips with unidentifiable lumps of fried meat, tolerated because it was holiday, time out. The proprietor presented his bill and was inclined to be upset when they discovered that they had no francs; Tommy raised a finger to him and beckoned. The Frenchman stalked across to him and started to smile as Tommy produced gold sovereigns.
“How many?”
Purely by coincidence, Tommy eased the revolver at his waist; the bill suddenly became very reasonable. Copper-Bum exchanged a few words with the proprietor, smiled with him.
“I think that comes to twenty-two shillings, Tommy.”
“Do you speak Frog, Copper-Bum?”
The bashful young man admitted that he had studied the language at school, had in fact considered reading it at university, but that had had to wait.
“Very wise. Tell the Frog that I have no change and will therefore, as a gesture of goodwill, give him two sovereigns. In exchange, he will tell us where to find a cabaret or something interesting.”
Copper-Bum flushed scarlet as the proprietor gave him a comparison of the three best brothels in town, outlining their prices.
“Ah… Tommy, he’s telling me about those places – where the wicked women are to be found!”
The others thought that sounded very interesting.
“Not me, thank you. I am a married man!”
Copper-Bum was listening intently, asking for explanation of words he had not learned in his schoolroom. He became even brighter in the face.
“He says that he wouldn’t go to any of them, Tommy. The girls have all become diseased since the English soldiers came.”
They were inclined to be indignant at that, apart from Colin who was somewhat older and had served five years in the Army.
“I expect there’s a battalion of the Guards somewhere nearby, Tommy. That would explain it. They always said that if the Guards were in the area then everything cost twice as much and the girls had the clap.”
“But these are officer’s houses, Colin!�
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“Then they’ll have crabs as well, I expect. I shan’t be going anywhere near them, that’s for sure.”
Tommy had not intended to and Copper-Bum was far too nervous to consider the possibility; the other three regretfully agreed that continence was the wiser course. They found the Crossley and returned to the airfield, still sober, to the amazement of all there.
Major Salmond collared Tommy, led him to one side.
“Tommy, you remember Charlie Petersham? Friend of yours, was he not?”
“He was, sir. He was my observer when he died.”
“That’s right – difficult to remember the names and faces from two or three months ago. His young brother, Fred, has just arrived here.”
“Pilot?”
Major Salmond nodded.
“Another seven-hour man?”
“No, this one has got the better part of twenty hours in. He managed to get some intensive flying in for three days when the field was in between courses, instead of going home on leave. Mostly BE2s but a couple of hours on Avros.”
“I met him once. Seemed a bright lad. Must be if he had the sense to get the extra hours in. You’ll put him onto the BE2cs, sir?”
“That’s where we have the need, Tommy. Unless you want to take him on with Gun Flight, for old time’s sake.”
“Not if it means getting rid of one of my existing lads, sir. That would be wrong. All he needs do is wait, anyway.”
Major Salmond made no comment.
“Weather should be dry tomorrow, Tommy. This rain is expected to pass over before morning.”
“Then we should get the Lewises put up on the Bristols, sir. Still can’t make my mind up where is the best place for them.”
“Obliquely on the lower wing, Tommy. At least you can reload there and continue to make a noise. Shows willing, whatever the outcome. I expect a visit from General Henderson tomorrow, Tommy, with a photographer, coming to give us three cheers, you know. He’ll probably want a shot of himself in conversation with the brave boys, a Bristol with a Lewis Gun as a background. The Bristol shows up as more modern – the Parasol smacks of string and sealing-wax.”
A Deadly Caper (Innocents At War Series, Book 2) Page 14
