Andrew Wareham

by When Empires Collide (Innocents At War Series 1)

  “I don’t know yet, Sergeant Arkwright. I shall find out when we get there.”

  The lighters had been moored each to its own crane, for speed of unloading; it meant that they were very quick in shifting one lorry to each of the lighters at the front of the string. Three hours and they were loaded and securely roped down, the lighters all in line and properly tied, one to the next, and the tugs attached as well.

  “Weather is calming, sir. Wind easing and the rain has not got an hour left in it. Six-knot tow, sir, quite possibly. You may expect to be quayside in Calais in daylight, sir. No need to concern yourself with tides, either, lighters being shallow, sir. You will wish to board the leading tug, sir, senior master, in command for the passage.”

  “You have been very efficient, sir. I must express my gratitude for the efforts you have been to.”

  The assistant harbour-master was pleasantly surprised – he had been sworn at far more than he had been thanked over the previous days.

  “Long experience, sir. We have been moving loads in a hurry these many years, sir. Besides, sir, you are going off to fight in this war, sir, while I shall sleep in my own bed tonight. It is the least we can do, to try to help you on your way.”

  The short voyage was remarkably boring; there was nothing to do except look at the greenish-grey sea, peer up at the breaking clouds, listen to the occasional seagull and wait for the tedium to be over. Tommy leant back into a sheltered corner, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and watched the French coast grow slowly closer.

  They tied up eventually and Tommy stirred off the tug and onto the quay. An Army officer ran up to him, a major, he saw. Tommy saluted.

  “What’s this? Why are there lorries on our barges?”

  “Officer Commanding at Dover, sir.” Tommy did not specify what the gentleman was commanding. “Wished the barge to travel laden, sir. Too few ships, too many troops, sir. I have four aeroplanes which are needed here in France, sir, and was ordered aboard these barges, sir.”

  “Bloody typical! Get them off so that we can load up, man!”

  “Is there a harbourmaster, sir, to order the work done?”

  “Naval fellow, calls himself Port Officer, or some such. Did you say aeroplanes?”

  “Yes, sir. Lieutenant Stark, sir, RFC.”

  “Stark? Stark! Did I not hear of some damned fool of that name getting himself killed in a flying machine?”

  “Yes, sir. My father, sir!”

  “Oh! Sorry! I should have thought first!” The Gunner was embarrassed, tried to make amends. “The Port Officer – let me see. Bombardier Smith! Find the Port Officer and beg the pleasure of his company at soonest!”

  The soldier ran and the major tried to make conversation, asking the normal questions about flying and its risks.

  Ten minutes and a naval officer appeared, a lieutenant-commander with a pair of ratings in tow.

  “What is about here, gentlemen?”

  “Lieutenant Stark, RFC, sir. Sent with nine lorries containing four Sopwith Tabloid single-seaters together with parts and some petrol, sir, sufficient to assemble and fly them if necessary, and if the pilots have arrived.”

  “They have not, Lieutenant, or if they have, they did not report to my office. You have drivers?”

  “Two to each lorry, sir.”

  “Good. We are short of crane men here, but my ratings are versatile men and have taught themselves all that is necessary; I will send for a working party. If your artillerymen would assist, major, then we can get these lorries out and your guns aboard in short order. What do you intend to do with your aeroplanes, Lieutenant Stark?”

  “Brigadier-General Henderson is in France, sir, identifying landing fields for our use. I trust that at some time he will become aware of our presence and will tell us where to go. Have you had any contact with him, sir?”

  “Never heard of him! I’ll ask the Frogs if they know anything – be unusual if they do!”

  It boded well for international cooperation.

  The lorries were swung up onto the quayside in short order; the first took nearly half an hour as the naval men discovered where and how to put slings underneath it, the rest followed at ten minute intervals, as fast as the lighters could be manoeuvred under the cranes.

  “That was an impressive performance, sir. One has heard of the naval way of doing things, of course, but I have never seen it in action before.”

  “They already know what they are doing with guns, Lieutenant Stark. They will have those two batteries aboard in a very few minutes. They know how to handle wheeled transport now, which will probably be useful over the next few weeks.”

  “There will be a regiment of cavalry coming over within a few hours, sir. They were loading at Dover when I passed through.”

  “God help us all! That will be a case of bringing them into the biggest of the quays and setting up companionways for them. The horses will get down easily enough but my men will have to show the officers how to walk that far! I was a midshipman in the Boer War, Mr Stark, saw them coming ashore after six weeks at sea; unforgettable!”

  Tommy tried to sympathise, but he regarded cavalry as simply too quaint to be taken seriously.

  “You have just brought the real cavalry ashore, sir. The blue-blooded boys on horses are no longer of use in warfare, sir.”

  “Do you really think so, Mr Stark?”

  “Two machine-guns, and a cavalry regiment will be stopped; I am told that many German infantry regiments have six or even eight of these Spandaus with them.”

  “Poor horses!”

  “I agree, sir.”

  “The British Expeditionary Force, the good old BEF, is under the command of Sir John French – a cavalry general.”

  “Poor men!”

  A rating came trotting down the quay, passed a message to the Commander.

  “Ah, jolly good show! There is a French landing field less than two miles away from the town, Mr Stark. You are invited to take your machines there. A hangar will be made available to you and there will be rations and billets temporarily. Your General Henderson is aware of your presence in France and will send you orders as soon as possible.”

  “My thanks again, sir. Can you put us on the correct road, sir?”

  “One of my lads will lead the way. He has a bicycle, if you could find room for it on one of your vehicles?”

  They pulled into the airfield and were directed into a vast wooden hangar within the hour.

  “Sergeant Arkwright! Lorries to be unloaded and the machines to be assembled as a matter of urgency. One at least to be available for flight at first light. I will speak to the French and will ensure that food is brought across and that you know where the beds are.”

  “Sir!”

  A rather scruffy French officer who spoke very fair English – presumably why he had been given the job – had directed them through the gates and into the hangar. Tommy, who had no French at all, turned to him.

  “Thank you for your help, sir. I am Lieutenant Stark, RFC. Is it possible to arrange a meal for my men? They must work much of the night, assembling the aeroplanes.”

  “My men can ‘elp, sir. The engines will be known to them – we all fly with the same ones. Food will be brought. Quarters, as you say, will be shown. Your name is Stark, sir? Your Papa was M. Joseph Stark?”

  “He was, sir. Did you ever meet him?”

  “I flew a Breguet to your Brooklands last year. M. Stark was there. You were taking off in a new machine, a Sopwith, soon after I spoke to him. Your Papa said that you tested many machines.”

  “I did, sir. The Sopwith was the first of the Tabloids. It needed some more work on it, but these four here are single-seater Sopwiths and fast and very snappy.”

  “Snappy?”

  “They roll and bank and dive and zoom very well.”

  “Ah! We have Nieuports here, and a new Morane-Saulnier. You will like to see them. They say, the RFC is to buy them.”

  “We need more m
achines, sir. Badly! As I remember, sir, your name was M. Mauret.”

  “Major, you would say now, sir.”

  “I am a mere lieutenant, of course, sir!”

  “Not ‘mere’, I think, sir!”

  The world of aviation was still tiny, a very few hundreds of pilots, many of whom had at least heard of each other. The French and British had been closer to each other than to German or Italian fliers and half a dozen other pilots wandered across in the night to shake Tommy’s hand and introduce themselves. The French senior engineering officer – whose name Tommy never discovered – appeared together with his best men and opened all of the tool boxes and the machine room to their use, not, as he explained because of any political Entente but because fliers needed to look after each other.

  Two of the Tabloids were ready to fly at dawn; there then came the question of where they might fly to.

  Tommy had taken a few hours of sleep in the middle of the night, was present in his flying coat as their sole pilot, ready for anything the day might bring. Coffee came first, followed by hot rolls for breakfast and then a tedious wait until a despatch rider came in at mid-morning. The poor man was on horseback, ran a gauntlet of sneers and pointing fingers as he dismounted and enquired where the British fliers were to be found.

  There was a brief hand-written note, signed by General Henderson; agreement had been reached that the RFC should initially base itself at Amiens but facilities would not exist for at least four more days. The note ended with an order to Lieutenant Stark that he should return to Dover ‘with all speed’ to delay any flight to Amiens until the twelfth at earliest. Further orders would be sent by ordinary channels, later that day or the next.

  Tommy read the note, showed it to Major Mauret, considering it to be in no way secret.

  “I must return to Dover, very quickly, sir.”

  “You must indeed, Lieutenant Stark. I shall look after your people for you.”

  “Sergeant Arkwright! Is number one ready for a test flight?”

  “All checked, sir. Fully fuelled.”

  “Good. Wheel her out, please. I will give her ten minutes first, then land again and top up.”

  Arkwright accompanied Tommy on the visual inspection and confirmed that the ailerons had been connected correctly and that the rudder turned in the expected direction; it was easy enough to reverse the placement of control wires so that ‘up’ became ‘down’ and ‘left’ was ‘right’. Both men knew of pilots who had died for not checking their controls before taking off.

  Tommy taxyed cautiously and took off very gently before making careful turns and banks around the airfield until he was satisfied that all was correct; happy with the machine, he pushed it up into a loop followed by a sideslip to line up into the wind and land in the space of thirty yards precisely opposite the hangar. He was a known testing pilot – he had a point to make to the watching Frenchmen.

  “Top up, Sergeant Arkwright. Where is my travelling bag?”

  He tucked the bag behind his seat, shook hands with various French officers and took off again, heading out directly over the sea, the westerly wind convenient to his course.

  There was heavy cloud cover at six thousand feet and he could see patches of rain further down the Channel; he would take nearly twenty cautious minutes to climb to two thousand feet and that would see him three parts of the way across the water. No need to climb higher. He adjusted the petrol-air mix until he was satisfied and then looked out over the sea, full of naval and merchant vessels. It occurred to him that his aeroplane was completely unmarked, that there was no way for the ignorant who could not tell one machine from another to know his nationality; he did not think the navy had high-angle guns designed for shooting at aeroplanes, but it was uncomfortable to wonder.

  He crossed the coast to the north of Dover and lost height towards the landing ground on the cliffs; he could see no activity on the ground, no machines taxying, and could spot nothing in the air near him, lining up to land into the wind, so he pointed directly into the field, landing within a few yards of the command tent. He took off his castor-oil smelling flying coat as he stepped down from the machine, picked up his overnight bag and waved to a watching mechanic.

  “Take her over, if you please. I do not know that she will be flying again today, but make her ready.”

  Major Salmond was waiting outside his tent.

  “Orders from General Henderson, sir!”

  Tommy passed the note across.

  “Instructions to make all speed, sir.”

  “I can read, Mr Stark. I was under the possibly fallacious impression that General Henderson was in France?”

  “He is, sir. You instructed me, if you remember, sir, to move the convoy containing the four Tabloids to Dover and thence to France. We arrived in Dover yesterday morning and were ordered aboard ship – well, barges, actually – immediately. I could not leave the men under the command of a sergeant, sir, to be put down on the quay at Calais with no orders or officer. Once in Calais I was instructed to get the convoy out of the way of further traffic, sir, and took them to the French airfield I was told of. There, sir, we assembled the machines while waiting for orders. I received this instruction less than two hours ago, sir.”

  “And you flew here.”

  “No, sir. Can’t have done, sir. The Tabloid cannot cross the Channel, sir.”

  Tommy wondered if he was pushing his luck too far with that answer; Major Salmond started to laugh.

  “So I recall. What of the key to a set of handcuffs, Mr Stark?”

  “In my pocket, sir.”

  “Return it to Farnborough, Mr Stark. No, give it to me instead. Better you should not be seen there in the immediate future. The gentleman who was placed in irons remained under restraint for the better part of six hours until a master key could be located; he has since been in hospital for treatment for a condition of the heart and will almost certainly be discharged as medically unfit for service. Better you should not be seen in the locality until he is gone. Funny, I must admit, Mr Stark, but senior, responsible officers should not do such things!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That said, get that Tabloid out of my sight. Take it back to the airfield you have just come from, which I know is not in France so do not tell me where it might be! A thought occurs to me, Mr Stark. Just how did you get the aeroplanes from the Calais quayside to their airfield?”

  “Well… On their lorries, sir.”

  “Eight of them, and their drivers?”

  “Nine, sir – we needed one for fuel and spares for the lorries. And to carry the men’s kit, sir, being as they thought they might be a few days away from their base, commandeered to assist at the harbour or up here, sir. Two drivers to each lorry, sir, so that we could drive through the night. And two mechanics, sir, though one of them is a rigger, more strictly.”

  Major Salmond stared silently, then shook his head. He was a serving soldier who had transferred to the RFC and who knew what was, and definitely what was not, possible in the Army.

  “I think I could work up five separate court-martial offences from your actions of the past two days, Mr Stark, and I have never made a study of military law. What a trained lawyer might find is beyond me! As your commanding officer, I might have a degree of responsibility for your actions, and for that reason - and none other – I find it wiser to save your neck. Go away, Mr Stark! Fly away! You were never here this morning and there will be no record of your landing or take-off. Where are we due to go, while I think of it?”

  “Amiens, sir. But not till the Twelfth at earliest. I suspect that you will receive the official order tomorrow, sir. There are Nieuports and Morane-Saulniers at the French field, sir. With your permission, I shall test them out and prepare an opinion on their use to us?”

  “If I thought that was a question, I would have to give an affirmative response, Mr Stark. Go! I shall send your bag after you, by one of the ferries. You should take your other bag now, I think; I suspect you w
ill find a need for it before too many weeks have passed. There will be an order for officers to carry sidearms in the near future; it has been discussed in my presence. By the way, you should take some pains to throw the Dum-Dum rounds away if you are forced to land where you may be captured. It is the habit to shoot out of hand any man found carrying them. They are useful, and I have no objection to them, but exercise a little care, eh?”

  “Thank you for the warning, sir. While I think of it, we have need for three more pilots, sir, for the Tabloids. Will you send them now or would it be better for them to come across on the Twelfth or Thirteenth?”

  “Good question – and one on which I must take advice from higher-up. If I am permitted, I will send them tonight; it should be possible to put just three bodies aboard any of the ships leaving the harbour.”

  “If they are instructed to report to the Naval Commander who is Transport Officer at Calais, sir, he will undoubtedly send them in the correct direction. A most helpful and efficient gentleman!”

  “What of mechanics, Mr Stark?”

  “Major Mauret knew my father, sir. He will help us out.”

  “Sod that for a game of skittles, Mr Stark! Three Squadron is not going begging from the French! I shall send three each of mechanics and riggers with the pilots, sir!”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Now I shall never know whether or not you intended to manoeuvre me into that decision, Mr Stark. Kindly bugger off, sir!”

  Tommy picked up his gunbag and started towards the Tabloid. Mr Paine was waiting outside the tent.

  “Excuse me, sir! Officers do not…”

  “Mr Paine!”

  Major Salmond stepped out of the tent, seemingly accidentally interposed his body between Tommy and the Warrant Officer.

  “Mr Paine, I believe I have requested you to make yourself useful in the running of this camp.”

  “Yes, sir. Regulations, sir, state clearly that an officer may not carry baggage. Officers must also wear hair on the upper lip, sir. Regulations, sir!”