Andrew Wareham

by When Empires Collide (Innocents At War Series 1)

  “Height?”

  “Keep us here, Tommy.”

  Three more minutes and nearly four miles closer and Charlie shouted that he was done.

  “Pair of biplanes closing from the north, Tommy!”

  “Home, Charlie!”

  Again, Tommy tried to coax speed from his machine, willingly trading off height, but the biplanes to the north slowly closed the gap. It was not a desperate situation, he thought, because the fire of a pair of rifles was hardly likely to do them harm.

  Charlie suddenly turned in his seat, leaning backwards.

  “To port, Tommy!”

  A two-seater Taube swept in not twenty feet higher, the observer leaning out over the fuselage to shoot down at them. Charlie raised his rifle, could see nothing other than his own upper wing.

  There was a shout of pain from the front cockpit and injured, Charlie dropped his rifle. Tommy looked about, trying to locate the Taube and the two biplanes, able to spot none of them. He assumed they were in the blind spots above and in front of him; he changed the angle of his dive, easing towards level flight for a few seconds and banked left and then right, hopefully. Still nothing. Possibly they were content to have driven him off.

  Charlie moved in his cockpit.

  They were perhaps twenty minutes from the airfield.

  There was pasture land below and it would probably be possible to land and bandage Charlie – he had some towels for wiping his goggles. It might be possible to take-off again, but more likely they would be stuck on rough ground, perhaps having damaged the machine on landing.

  There was an army whose location had to be notified to the BEF.

  “Hang on, Charlie! Be there in a quarter of an hour!”

  He might have a trivial flesh wound; he could be dying and beyond any help Tommy could offer. The balance said that they must return to the airfield.

  They were close enough to the wind to land directly. Tommy spotted a BE2 lining up for take-off, just beginning to roll; he slipped to the side, hauling his unresponsive machine just left of the man taking off, missing by a very few feet.

  Mechanics were running from the hangars, certain that there was something wrong, that there must be damage to man or machine to account for such dangerous flying.

  “Mr Petersham is shot!”

  Tommy ran to Major Salmond’s office; he too was waiting, believing there must be a reason for Tommy’s manoeuvre.

  “Another army, sir. Perhaps thirty miles from Mons to the north and east. Charlie said it had big guns with it; very big, he thought.”

  Major Salmond picked up the telephone.

  A mechanic came walking slowly across. He shook his head.

  “Gone, sir. Sorry, sir. Bled to death, from the looks of it, sir. Cockpit’s covered in it, sir.”

  If he had landed, then he might have been able to stop the bleeding; Charlie had died because of his choice to fly back to the airfield.

  The adjutant had heard, guided Tommy into his own tent and sat down at his desk.

  “Full report, Captain Stark. As precise a location as you can give for this army, now. What exactly did you see? Was there cavalry to its front? These guns, how many do you suppose? One corps or more, in your opinion?”

  The rattle of questions forced Tommy to concentrate, to turn his mind away from the might-have-beens, to step back from the path of self-indulgence in tragedy.

  Major Salmond came into the tent.

  “General French spoke to me in person, Tommy. Gave his thanks. Said he would report to the War Office on the great value of the RFC. You have a second Mention, by the way. What happened?”

  Major Salmond listened, saying nothing until Tommy had finished.

  “Ambush or coincidence? No way of telling. You were right to come directly back. Had you landed we might have heard nothing for the rest of the day. You probably did not see, but the field is empty apart from a few mechanics and us here. There is a Tabloid ready to take off and the mechanics are making your BE2 ready for me to fly out. We are on our travels again. Further west and south. Half-way to Calais, this time, to a French aerodrome before we are sent closer to Paris. Set your rifle up on the Tabloid, Tommy. You should fly out over Mons, discover what the BEF is doing and tell me if you see any other activity. The French aerodrome is here, on the map. I have marked it. I will speak to you there again in an hour or two.”

  Tommy nodded, glanced at the map, at his destination; there was a canal and a railway line, easy to locate.

  “What’s to be done with Charlie, sir?”

  “I shall have the body taken away, Tommy. We do not have time to arrange a burial yet. Down to Amiens. There will be a padre at General Henderson’s headquarters who will do the job for us. Do not go killing yourself in reckless anger, Tommy!”

  “Charlie was a friend, sir. I have had too few of those, sir.”

  “Charlie is dead, Tommy. A soldier who died performing his duty. There may well be many more of them. Dwell upon Charlie’s fate and you might easily join him. Simple for me to say, you may think – I am ten years and more your elder – officially that is! I have seen men I knew and liked die for no purpose at all, killed by accident or by effectively random bullets. I saw the Boer War, and the stupidity there – one of my friends survived at Spion Kop and died of enteric fever three months later, a pointless waste. Don’t look for the sense of it, or the reason in it, Tommy. It’s all joss!”

  “You are probably right, sir. It still hurts!”

  “So it should. If it ever stops hurting, find another trade, for you will be no damned good as a soldier, Tommy! Off you go, now. I will see you in two hours, Tommy.”

  Tommy recovered his personal equipment from the BE2 and walked silently across to the Tabloid. His heavy rifle was already locked into the mounting on the wing, put there by the pair of mechanics who stood waiting to start him up. For the first time ever, he consciously checked his pistols. He taxyed and took off into the wind, climbed and made his careful, cautious bank onto course, almost unthinking. He had not seen the Taube that killed Charlie, because he had been concentrating on his flying, mind on nothing else. He needed to do better, to watch the skies for the enemy that was now present. He turned his head, quartering the sky to his front and sides, and looking behind as well every few seconds.

  He realised that he had offered a simple target to the Taube, flying in a straight line at a constant speed. He began to vary his speed by a few miles an hour and to swing left and right of his mean course. A little thought and he climbed fifty feet, settled for half a minute, then dropped one hundred for a while, before crabbing back up to his original altitude. He would never be a sitting duck again.

  He crossed the rear of the BEF and saw there was movement, the supply train all heading to the south, getting clear of the battlefield. A few minutes closer to the main action and he saw what had to be a brigade in reserve forming into a column and marching back. The BEF was in retreat again and the German pincers would close on empty ground.

  There was nothing else in the air; if there were German aeroplanes up, then they were elsewhere. He had no more business in this location; he turned away to find his new aerodrome.

  “Letter writing, Tommy?”

  “I stayed with Charlie’s family at the end of March, Adj. I must write to them, and I’m well overdue for my weekly missive to Monkey – and that will not be forgotten. I wish we had heard from home ourselves.”

  He explained who Monkey was, and the origin of her name.

  “Well, you are a captain now, Tommy! You can tell her to have the Banns read!”

  “You know, Adj, you’re right! I hadn’t thought of that. I bought a house on the edge of Salisbury Plain only a few weeks ago – my father left me some spare cash and I thought it better to use it than to waste it.”

  “A subaltern! With money sticking to his fingers! Are you sure you are not a changeling, old boy?”

  “Over-cautious, Adj! I was led into bad habits at an early age by peop
le who taught me to fly, and then to stay alive.”

  “Which was the bad habit, Tommy? Flying or staying alive?”

  “Better ask Charlie that one, Adj.”

  “Fair point – but you have buried a sufficiency of fliers to know better than that, Tommy! You are alive, and that’s all that counts when you come down to it.”

  Tommy shrugged and turned back to his letter; the old sod was right, he knew. He would thank him and buy him a drink… tomorrow.

  The first letter was torn up and another written; Charlie had been hit by rifle fire from a German aeroplane, bad luck, he had been a good friend. There was no need to suggest that he might have been saved, that Tommy had taken a necessary but harsh decision. His father was a soldier and knew the ropes.

  Writing to Monkey was not so difficult as he had feared. They were flying hard and there had been a few casualties, as was to be expected, but he was well. Poor Charlie had been lost, and they would miss him. What of George, had he been sent to France? Had any others of the neighbourhood chosen to join? He did not mention Lavinia or her husband, or his brother, by name, but she would know who he was referring to. He had been so fortunate as to be promoted captain already, which opened all sorts of possibilities, as he hoped she would appreciate; he saw no reason to say that he had received a Mention, to scare her with the notion that he was committing wild acts of bravery. He ended by explaining that the squadron had been much on the move and the post had not yet caught up with them; he was much looking forward to reading her letters when they eventually arrived. Nothing about the progress of the war; not a word that a censor might object to. He signed with all his love – rather daring, but probably acceptable in wartime.

  Major Salmond held a formal briefing in the Mess.

  “I am told that three of our lads from Four Squadron, I think it was, managed to force a Taube down last week. They crowded it, left it no choice except to crash land or accept a mid-air collision. The pilot and observer ran for the bushes and hid away, I am told!”

  There was an appreciative laugh from the assembled pilots.

  “We are to continue our patrols, mostly due east. There seems to be a gap opening up between the German spearheads; if they correct it, well they will probably reach Paris inside the week. If they let the gap grow even a little wider, then the BEF and the French will push forward and hit them from their flanks. One way the French will probably call for terms; the other, the Germans will be pushed a long way back. General French is looking at the Marne as the region for the battle, if it comes. What happens will depend on what we see. The bulk of the French aircraft are to be found towards the Vosges, working with their army in Alsace and Lorraine, so it’s up to us. Notice, by the way, the word ‘aircraft’, which is believed to have a more military ring to it!”

  There was an anonymous mutter that General French could shove it up his military ring, aeroplane was good enough for the RFC.

  “I did not hear that, gentlemen!”

  None could hear very much for the roar of laughter.

  They flew, seeing German machines almost every day, but rarely coming close to them. Tommy never came with one hundred yards of a German, and made no attempt to force a meeting. He had orders to observe and was content to be obedient; there might be an opportunity to shoot at the enemy, there might not. He would leave it to chance; he was a professional flier and he would leave the revenge game to the kiddies.

  The gap between the German armies grew wider – possibly they were not aware of it, perhaps they were confident that the French and far smaller BEF were unable to mount an offensive. In early September, just one month after the war had started, the German armies were within twenty-five miles of Paris, but had allowed their flanks to become exposed. The RFC gave the word and General French launched a charge; he was a cavalryman and he executed the manoeuvre with surprising skill, rushing his infantry forward in every motor vehicle he could lay his hands on. The French Army followed and initiated a more general attack that punched the unsupported German armies many miles back to places where they could dig in and hold.

  Both sides dug temporary trenches, running to the east and starting to extend to the north and west, towards the Channel Coast.

  The Belgians still held a small portion of their country and dug in on the coast while cavalry and armoured cars skirmished in the gap and tried to hold until their infantry marched up. The RFC scouted and attempted to make sense of the confused, ever-changing scene below them. German aircraft did the same and inevitably they came into closer contact.

  Tommy flew the Tabloid more often than not, able to patrol further in the faster machine and willing to risk flying at two or three hundred feet where it was more easily possible to identify isolated units of cavalry who made up the bulk of the troops on the ground.

  Two replacement BE2cs arrived from the aircraft park at Amiens, together with a single pilot fresh from England. Sergeant Arkwright found himself to be a Flying Officer that morning and was instructed to select an observer from the squadron, on the grounds that he knew the abilities of the sergeants far better than any of the other officers. Arkwright was introduced into the Mess, welcomed casually because he had shown himself to be a flier.

  “My first name is Cuthbert, Adj – name’s been in the family since forever! Can’t say I like it much, but I didn’t choose it!”

  It didn’t matter, they called him Noah in any case.

  The new pilot was recently trained, had entered the RFC a week before the war with his civilian licence in hand and had been given a much-attenuated course at the Flying School; he had thirty hours to his name but was sure it would all be jolly good sport and the BE2 was a jolly fine machine, better than those the Huns would have. His name was Cecil Roberts – no relation to the Field Marshal – but mother was a Salisbury, you know, one of the Cecil family, and he was a cornet of the Blues.

  Tommy looked blank; he was aware that Lord Salisbury had been prime minister some years since, but he had not the least idea what a Blue was.

  “Dragoon Guards, Tommy! Renowned for their ability to fall off their horses in Hyde Park, but having little other military function.”

  Major Salmond was not especially impressed.

  “Tommy, take Cecil out on a patrol, would you. He will be one of yours. He can follow you for a couple of hours and his observer can show him the ground while you keep an eye open.”

  The squadron had developed a system of flights, each of its three captains taking responsibility for two or three of the junior men.

  Tommy nodded, called the young gentleman across to him.

  “You will be in my flight, Cecil. Patrol in half an hour. Your observer is Sergeant Jackson, who is experienced in France and will tell you what to do, if need arises.”

  “I beg your pardon, old chap! I am an officer and sergeants do not give me orders!”

  “Quite right too, Cecil. Sergeant Jackson will know what is the correct course of action and will suggest that you follow it. I strongly recommend that you follow his instructions. If you hazard your aircraft by failing to do so, then I shall ground you. I shall meet you at your machine in twenty minutes. Full flying gear, of course, and sidearm, loaded.”

  Cecil was a tall, thin man, not more than twenty years of age – only a little older than Tommy, though he did not realise the fact – and he looked like a pilot, at least, lean and keen. He made a proper show of inspecting the machine on the ground.

  “I am flying the Tabloid, Cecil – it has certain limitations but is faster than a BE2 and far more nippy in the air. If we should see a German machine, then I may attempt to drive it away. You will not get involved if I do. Sergeant Jackson – you have our courses and heights?”

  “Yes, sir. North to Ypres, holding clear of the actual town, and then work towards Dunkirk, sir, turning for the field after no more than fifty minutes, sir. Height not to exceed two thousand feet and not to be less than one thousand.”

  “Note that Cecil. I climb far fa
ster than a BE2 and so will take off after you and will come alongside you from your starboard when you reach two thousand feet. Watch for my signals. A raised right arm, turn slowly to the right; left arm opposite, of course. Increase height, left arm pumping upwards; go down, left arm pointing down. If I raise both hands, go home, quickly!”

  “Yes, sir. Why might I be sent home, sir?”

  “Weather, normally. If there is too much cloud for us to see clearly, or if it comes on to rain heavily, or if I don’t like the wind, then we cancel the patrol. Other than that, we may see something important which headquarters must know about as soon as possible.”

  “They talked of wireless machines, at the Flying School, sir, so that we could pass a message immediately.”

  “They will be useful when they arrive. I wish we had them now.”

  “One last question, sir. If I see you in trouble with German machines – may I come to your assistance?”

  “No. If the Tabloid cannot deal with them, then the BE2 will not have a lot of hope. Get back and report what you saw and where. It won’t always be like this, Cecil – there is talk of a bigger engine and the power to carry a Lewis gun and ammunition. Newer aircraft will seat the pilot in front so that the observer will have a far better field of fire from the rear cockpit. But, for now, we accept that we do not go up to have a scrap – we are reconnaissance machines. Off you go now!”

  Tommy checked that his rifle was loaded, for the form of it – he could not imagine that he would score any hits with it. The pistols might be a better bet, if he could get almost within touching distance of an enemy.

  He watched Cecil take off, unimpressed by his performance. He made the normal mistake of trying to raise his nose while still a little too slow and actually bounced before making it into the air, then he wobbled, presumably looking away from what he was doing, and finally tried to climb too steeply, almost achieving a stall. He pushed his nose down in time and managed to regain full control.