Andrew Wareham

by When Empires Collide (Innocents At War Series 1)

  “Hopeless, sir! One cannot see clearly, and the plugs will oil up if it is kept to a consistently low speed. Possibly useful in a bombardment role. It would probably be possible to fit a pivot in the rear cockpit and place the observer there with a Lewis gun and then use the machine as an escort to observing BE2s.”

  “I am glad to hear that, Mr Stark. Captain Paine recently submitted a paper to his superiors to say the same thing.”

  When Empires Collide

  Chapter Five

  Captain Paine conducted a final interview with each of the course, Tommy last for being alphabetical.

  “Farnborough, Mr Stark, Six Squadron, which only partly exists, due to a shortage of men, machines and money. There will be only one officer senior to you, and three junior – a grand total of five pilots for Six Squadron! The Commanding Officer will also be a flier, of course. There will be more – we have a very large budget promised for the coming year. For the while, we must make do. Where your squadron will finally be located is as yet undecided but you will be back here, or next door, relatively soon - there are plans for a ‘concentration camp’, in June, on the Plain here. It will be something like the navy does every few years with its mobilisation of the fleet. Every machine, every pilot in the Corps is to be located at the camp for the whole month, and possibly longer if the situation warrants. Flying solo and in twos and threes in the mornings, lectures and discussions in the afternoons. The most important activity, I suspect, will be getting to know each other; with so few pilots we are bound to meet each other time and again and it will be useful to get on terms before any war may begin.”

  If there was to be a war, then it must begin immediately after harvest – none of the countries of Europe would wish to pull reservists and conscripts from the fields before then. That left Germany working to a very tight timescale, Tommy knew – they had to complete their conquests before winter closed their army down. Horse, foot and guns alike would go nowhere in the mud of winter; Napoleon had proved that a century before. He was too junior to initiate any discussion, however.

  “Very good, sir. When do I report to my squadron?”

  “Take a couple of weeks of leave, Mr Stark. The last day of March will be best, I think. Not perhaps the First of April – All Fools Day is never an auspicious date on which to join.”

  “Thank you, sir. May I enquire, sir, what will happen to Mr Petersham?”

  Charlie had failed the practical examination, having come close to killing himself and Captain Becke. Flying the rotary Avro, he had made insufficient allowance for the torque of the spinning engine, had banked to starboard with far too much stick and been lucky to pull out before the machine stalled into the ground. The instructor had ruled that he was simply not good enough – he flew according to rules he had memorised rather than by feeling and understanding the aeroplane in flight.

  “He has requested to remain in the Corps as an observer. It is rare for an observer to be an officer, but it is not unheard of – and we make our own traditions in the Corps – so he will join Two Squadron in Montrose in Scotland for the next few months. He will do well there, I do not doubt. I thought it better for him and you that he should not fly with you for the while.”

  “Good. I am glad he will continue to be one of us, sir. A few months more of flying and he may well improve and make another attempt to gain his wings.”

  “I hope not, Mr Stark. He is simply not a pilot, and I suspect never will be. He has no feel for the air. I was amazed that he did not crash, you know, as was Captain Becke. He tells me that you gave him the advice when you first met?”

  “Throttle back and centralise the controls and hope, sir? It got me out of much the same situation years ago, sir, and I passed it on for all that it was worth. Mind you, sir, I was at two thousand feet when I fell into trouble. Charlie was at five hundred, he told me.”

  “He was at twenty when he levelled out!”

  “Over rolling downland; luckily for him – and for Captain Becke – he missed the crest and had another eighty feet available as he swept into the valley. But for that piece of good fortune he would have buried himself in the chalk. I suspect that the manoeuvre might be effective for a machine in a spin, sir, but I have no intention of finding out.”

  “I will give you a direct order not to experiment, Mr Stark. Spins kill. Almost invariably. If ever you fall into one, then you have my permission to try anything that will save your neck, but, sir, you will not intentionally put yourself into a spin to discover if your method may work.”

  Tommy smiled apologetically, said that he had had no desire to do so.

  “Very wise, Mr Stark! Where will you go on leave?”

  “I have no plans, sir. I must visit relatives in Nevada one day – but that will require three months at least, so not for some time yet. I have never actually taken a holiday before, sir. What does one do?”

  Tommy suspected that Captain Paine had spoken to Charlie when, later in the day, he suggested that Tommy should ‘potter on up to Yorkshire’ for a week.

  “Meet the old chap and my mother, and have a look at some new scenery. Have you ever seen a coal pit, or been to an industrial town, Tommy? Might not be a bad idea to have a look around. It’s a different England up there. Take a train rather than drive, if I were you – it’s a long old haul by road. I am selling the Peugeot rather than try to take her up to Yorkshire and then on as far as Montrose.”

  “Have you a paddock that could make a landing ground, Charlie? I’ll see what Mr Sopwith has at Brooklands and, if I can lay hands on a machine, I shall fly up. What’s today? Thursday? Say on Tuesday, if the weather allows flying.”

  Tommy stayed the weekend with Squire, as was obligatory, enjoying a celebration of the wings that now graced his uniformed chest.

  “I have no present for you, Tommy!”

  Monkey was downcast – she should, she realised, have gone to that extra effort necessary to recognise the celebration’s importance.

  “Sit down to your easel, Monkey, with a mirror to hand. A self-portrait that I can put into a small frame to carry in my bag.”

  She blushed crimson – Tommy’s words amounted to a commitment – one never asked just any young miss for her picture. She nodded shyly, determining that it would be the best thing she had ever done.

  Her mother could not disapprove, but judged it high time to turn the conversation to the bland and banal.

  “You intend to fly as far as Yorkshire, Tommy. How great a distance is that?”

  “Perhaps one hundred and eighty miles, ma’am. A little more than two and one half hours. I intend to set down near to Boston in Lincolnshire where there is a farmer known to Mr Sopwith who keeps a store of petrol and will allow me to refuel. All arranged, ma’am, the telephone permitting one to work wonders these days. The gentleman will build a smoky bonfire for me, both to enable me to locate his landing field and to judge the wind. Mr Sopwith has one of his Tabloid aeroplanes equipped for land use, rather than sea, and has very kindly allowed me use of it for a few days. I am to take my father’s mechanic, Mr Bolton, with me, it being undesirable to fly a machine any distance without a skilled pair of hands on the ground. It will be useful to Mr Sopwith to discover how one of his machines behaves over a distance.”

  Tommy thought it unnecessary to mention that an aerial attack on a valuable target, a bombardment, would probably involve flying a substantial distance from one’s airfield. Experience would be useful in improving the design of aeroplanes made specifically for the purpose.

  “You are to return after one week, I believe, Tommy.”

  “I am, ma’am.”

  “There is an invitation open for you to attend the dinner at the Monktons which is to celebrate dear Lavinia’s betrothal to their eldest. That will be upon the Thursday. I should say that Mr Joseph Stark will also be present.”

  Squire intervened to say that Tommy must meet the man sooner or later and should not appear, in the eyes of the County, to intentionally avo
id him.

  “Best you meet at another man’s table, Tommy. The occasion will demand courtesy.”

  “He will always receive that from me, sir.”

  “That, dear boy, goes without saying. He is, by the way, a perfectly ordinary sort of gentleman, one who is at home in Society, though not perhaps much in the way of mixing in company.”

  “He does not look much like you, Tommy.”

  Monkey could not understand why her comment led to a dead silence.

  Tuesday dawned bright and with little wind – perfect flying weather. Tommy wrapped himself up in his flying coat and swathed his face in a scarf, put on his goggles and carefully placed a pair of clean towels to the side of his seat – he would need them to wipe the lubricating oil clear. He pulled his flying helmet low over his forehead; he would still be covered in castor oil, but hopefully only in a thin layer that would wash off easily. He had taken a swig from his bottle of kaolin and morphine mixture – carried by every pilot who flew a rotary – and was prepared for the side-effects of bathing in castor oil for the better part of three hours. Many of the older pilots swore that whiskey was a sovereign specific, would counter the castor oil far more efficiently than any medicine, but Tommy was not prepared to drink half a bottle a day quite yet.

  He helped Mr Bolton adjust the set of his flying gear and tucked their bags and the larger toolkit away at the rear of the cockpit. The Tabloid had a greater carrying capacity than most aeroplanes and could easily take eighty pounds weight as well as two fliers. It had an unusually wide cockpit as well, seating the pair side by side.

  Mr Bolton positioned himself by the propeller while Tommy set the fuel and air mixture according to Mr Sopwith’s instructions; he would adjust it to his own satisfaction once in the air, making the tiniest of changes and feeling how the engine responded and how the whole machine felt.

  Tommy shouted to Mr Bolton who responded by heaving the propeller as hard as he could, dancing back from its spin as he did so. It was as well to have one’s feet set firmly – a slip into the propeller could kill the mechanic starting the engine, had done so on occasion in the past.

  The engine started and reached its full revolutions almost immediately; Mr Bolton ran to the cockpit and the mechanic on the chocks pulled them clear. They were taxying within the minute, necessary to avoid overheating on the ground. Rotaries ran cooler than the in-line engine, their own spin generating an airflow around them, but it was as well to have motion to add to the effect.

  They took off into the wind, heading to the west, almost at right-angles to the course Tommy intended to fly, but he would not attempt to make the right-hand turn to the north until he had at least five hundred feet below him. Three minutes and he banked, very carefully, and set his course for Boston. There was a compass fitted; it was spinning merrily, might possibly be of some use in half an hour or so, for the moment was valueless. He could see the Thames in the distance, and the Southern Railway line running north-east to Woking much closer, and he would be able to pick up London in a few minutes; then it would be a simple matter of locating King’s Cross station and the mainline to the north, following the rails to Peterborough, easily identified by its cathedral, and making a line from there to the coast, keeping an eye out for Lincoln, again with a massive cathedral, remarkable for three spires, keeping that well to the north while tracing the line of the Wash to the port of Boston. One of the lessons at the school had been the ‘Cathedrals of England’, followed by ‘Notable Rivers’.

  The landing ground was just four miles north and west of the harbour and should be marked by the smoking fire. It was a simpler run than the leg that would follow; he would be forced to use the chart for that.

  The field at Boston was almost two hundred yards long, more than sufficient for Tommy’s needs. The petrol cans were emptied into the fuel tank in quick order, the farmer having brought three of his hands to assist. He waved away the offer of payment for the fuel but turned a blind eye to Tommy slipping a half sovereign to each of his men, a total far in excess of the cost of the petrol.

  “I have an anemometer, Mr Stark,” the farmer proudly announced. “Close to the sea as we are, it makes sense to know the wind speed!”

  “Eighteen miles an hour from the south-west, sir. That would drive me east of my destination by what, nine or ten miles in an hour at my cruising speed. Thank you, sir – that is well worth knowing!”

  The farmer nodded his thanks in return. Tommy wondered just who and what he was – he was certainly no rent-paying tenant – too much of the upper-classes in his accent, and his hands showed little evidence of toil; he much suspected an aristocratic agriculturalist, taking a close interest in his many thousands of acres. None of his business if the gentleman did not wish to give his name – though it smacked of a scion of royalty – a minor grandson of Victoria’s by one of her several younger sons perhaps, one who did not wish to use his birth to take a place in public life. The man was into his forties, so his age fitted.

  Tommy made his thanks again and supervised as the machine was turned into the wind and positioned at the start of a carefully mowed stretch of the meadow that acted as a runway. A labourer, obviously experienced in the task, heaved at the propeller and another pulled the chocks away and they took off again, listening anxiously to the engine noise. Petrol cans could be used too often, refilled after they had started to rust, and the fuel could be contaminated; refuelling from an unknown source was always nervous-making.

  The course was laid out on the map sheet clipped to the board in Mr Bolton’s lap; north within sight of the coast, then to cross the Humber and run north-west until York came in sight. From York a simple cruise to Northallerton, along the railway line, followed by ten miles to the north of west until they reached the village of Norton, which had a branch line and a small station. The house would be in sight then; Tommy had noted that it was sufficiently great to be spotted easily.

  He circled Northallerton at three hundred feet, waving back to the passengers on the platforms, while Mr Bolton read the name-board at the station, just to double-check, then set out, watch to hand. Six minutes and they must look for Norton. The second small station along the branch line was the one they wanted; the country house was barely half a mile away, a very substantial manor. There was a flag flying to give a wind direction and Charlie could be seen standing by a fence and waving them into a paddock. The wind allowed them a landing run of eighty yards, quite sufficient for the little Tabloid and Tommy tucked it down neatly, without a bump. There was an empty barn and Charlie pointed him towards it.

  “Bath will be drawn for you in the house, Tommy. Knew you were flying a rotary and would need to make yourself human first. Mr Bolton? If you will go with the footman, he will take you to your quarters for the week and he will show you your bathroom – again, there are orders to have a bath running. You will be eating in the Servants’ Hall and one of the garden boys – a bright lad – will be working with you all week. If you could teach the lad something more about engines, it would be much appreciated – he knows a little about cars already. I suspect he wants to join the Corps as a mechanic when he’s old enough, Mr Bolton.”

  Bolton would be pleased to help, he said – it would give him something to do during the week, as the engine on the Tabloid should need only a very few hours of maintenance, he having worked on it in the past few days.

  A bath and a thorough scrub and Tommy changed into slacks and a blazer, with the Corps tie, suitably informal for a country house, or so he had been told.

  Charlie was waiting with his parents, his father close to sixty, mother perhaps twenty years younger; the elder Petersham was straight backed, army written all over him.

  “My Father, Major-General Sir Sydney Petersham, and my mother, Lady Petersham. Lieutenant Thomas Stark.”

  “Son of Mr Joseph Stark, I believe, sir. I met your father many years ago, Mr Stark, when he was prospecting in South Africa. He found a little gold, enough I believe to return to En
gland where he rescued his father’s estate. Your grandfather, you may know, was a spendthrift.”

  This was news to Tommy – he knew nothing of his grandfather. He said so, smiling quietly.

  “My father was never one for family ties, sir. We were on very close terms, he and I, but he never that I can recall once mentioned his father.”

  “Not so very surprising, I suspect, Mr Stark. Charlie tells me that you are one of our leading pilots, despite still being rather young?”

  Tommy smiled deprecatingly.

  “Charlie is given to exaggeration, sir. I have the advantage of having grown up on an airfield and of flying since I was a boy of fourteen. One tends to grow competent, or dead, rather quickly in such circumstances, sir. I have tested a number of new machines, selected often for being light and less of a burden to an aeroplane than its designer, commonly a gentleman into, shall we say, the spread of maturity.”

  The older man was able to see through the façade of diffidence; he was used to dealing with young subalterns.

  “Well and good, as far as it goes, young man! Charlie tells me he has no more than half a wing, Mr Stark.”

  “He is to be an observer, sir, in many ways the more militarily important of the pair aboard a two-seater. The scout plane is to perform the tasks that used to belong to the cavalry, in the days before the machine-gun. We are to discover what the enemy is up to and where exactly he is and then hurry back to the airfield to telephone the news to the higher command. The observer, as the name implies, is to watch and annotate his maps; the pilot is to be no more than the chauffeur.”

  “Your aeroplanes are unarmed, I believe, Mr Stark.”

  “Weight, sir. Very few machines have an engine sufficiently powerful to carry an observer and a gun and ammunition. Such being the case, then to carry a gun they must do without an observer, leaving the pilot to aim the gun while simultaneously outflying the enemy. Given another fifty horsepower, sir, and armed, fighting aircraft become eminently practical. A pusher plane with a powerful engine and a gun in the nose might be a dangerous weapon, sir. But it does not exist yet.”