by Nancy Carson
Development of aircraft was rapid and it soon became evident that the sort of reconnaissance aeroplanes that Ned and his fellow pilots were using, needed to defend themselves and also deny the enemy a look behind your own lines. A machine-gun was needed, ideally mounted centrally on the fuselage, so that the pilot could aim his whole aircraft at his target and fire when attacked. The problem was, such a machine-gun, when firing, needed some sort of interrupter gear, synchronised to shoot through the propeller without shooting the blades off.
The first Allied aeroplane so fitted, sporting a Hotchkiss machine-gun, was monumentally successful, killing many enemy aircraft in its first few days of operation; until it was downed by anti-aircraft fire over German territory and the wreckage salvaged and inspected by Fokker engineers.
In the middle of July in 1915 Ned and Jack were given the task of taking photographs of German positions around Champagne. Ned looked up to the sky as they approached the BE2c.
‘It’s a clear day for it, Jack,’ he commented, keen to be airborne.
As they reached the little biplane Ned tossed the camera nonchalantly to the flight sergeant who had been working on the craft with a team of mechanics. ‘How’d you like to fix that on for us?’ he said.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the NCO, and set to attaching the camera to the underside while the two flyers routinely checked the struts, wires and ailerons.
‘Have you topped her up with plenty of juice?’ Ned queried, recalling his antics caused by lack of it over Kates Hill a couple of years earlier.
‘Tank’s full, sir, as you ordered,’ came the reply.
They climbed aboard. Ned knew he would need a full tank of petrol to enable them to keep aloft for two and a half hours, even though its weight would limit their speed and rate of climb. He switched on his ignition and nodded to the flight sergeant who gave the propeller a sharp yank to start the engine. They let it warm up for a minute or two, Ned waved the chocks away and they tootled across the airfield till they began to rise. At ten thousand feet about forty-five minutes later they levelled off. It was cool at this altitude and he was thankful for his flying jacket. In another thirty minutes or so they reached their designated area and began their beat, flying first one way then the other to capture every inch of ground on overlapping film.
It’s a quiet day today, Ned thought.
Indeed it was quiet; unnervingly so. They had seen little activity from enemy aircraft. Certainly no Hun had tried to intercept them but, on a day like this, they must be clearly visible both from the ground and from aircraft that were capable of flying higher. Ned scanned the sky ahead, above and to either side of him. In the very far distance, possibly five miles away at about twelve thousand feet, he saw a tiny dark spot, ominous in the eastern sky.
Time to take evasive action. No sense in being a target over enemy lines. He banked the aircraft round sharply to the left to maintain a sensible distance between himself and his pursuer. The BE2c fell in a spectacular dive, designed to increase speed and Ned opened the throttle. The steep, sudden descent brought Jack’s stomach into his mouth, but he merely turned round to Ned and grinned. Ned signalled with his thumb that there was an enemy aeroplane heading towards them. At eight thousand feet, they levelled off. Jack lugged up the heavy Hotchkiss machine-gun they now carried to protect themselves and peered into the skies about him. He saw two other aircraft converging on them from below.
Jack gave Ned the signal and they dived again. The danger was that if an enemy aeroplane managed to get behind you and beneath you there was little you could do to defend yourself. If Ned could effect a quick turn and place his BE2c to the right or left of an assailant Jack could open fire with the machine-gun and there was a fair chance of scoring a hit. He turned sharply and two German Aviatiks passed above them going in the opposite direction. Ned saw them turn so they could follow and drive him away from home. He would have to disable both machines in order to escape. He turned again and the first Aviatik was at about the same height as himself. Jack took aim with the machine-gun. A hail of bullets strafed through the Aviatik and one evidently found the observer, for he slumped forward. Another rain of bullets, and they saw the enemy plane suddenly light up with flames flaring around it. With its engine spluttering it quickly fell away in a spectacular nose-dive.
Ned was exhilarated at their success. He was the better aviator, he’d proved it; Jack was a better gunner. The second Aviatik appeared, coming at them from the starboard side, the observer firing directly at them. Jack took aim again and raked a row of perforations across the aircraft. This time the pilot’s head went back and Jack guessed it was his instant reaction to the pain of a bullet in the leg. That Aviatik, too, headed downwards with the observer struggling to get a hold of the controls.
Ned tapped Jack on the shoulder again and, with a wide grin, gave him the thumbs-up sign. They both leaned over, watching the killed Aviatik’s rapid descent. What neither of them saw was the first aeroplane they’d spotted at five miles distance, the aircraft that had induced Ned to head home in the first place. It suddenly appeared from the rear and above them, then dived at a tremendous speed in front of them, having overtaken them. Ned could see that it had a machine-gun mounted on top of the engine nacelle, so had the ability to fire through the propeller. He was aware that such developments were in hand and had heard rumours that the Germans might already be using them. Instinct told him that the pilot would next climb steeply, get behind them and machine-gun them from the rear. He had to prevent that at all costs.
Buoyed up by the success of two victories in succession, and in as many minutes, he was brimming with confidence and felt invincible. At once he side-slipped the aeroplane, falling away rapidly as the enemy aircraft, a Fokker M5K monoplane, obviously modified, sped away in the opposite direction. Ned turned and followed it, but it was out of range of Jack’s machine-gun. He caught up, not realising that the German ace had allowed him to, and was flying below the Fokker with the intention of machine-gunning it from underneath its tail. Jack lifted the machine-gun, steadied it, and Ned inched the BE2c to get within range.
But suddenly, the Fokker went into a steep climb and Ned, in his fear and excitement, made the instinctive mistake of following him to try and maintain his proximity, exactly as his opponent had intended. But his BE2c had neither the same manoeuvrability nor power and he struggled to keep up, having to abort his own steep climb to save stalling. Desperately, Ned tried to get his aeroplane back up to speed and dived again. Jack watched in dismay as he looked up and saw the Fokker turn hard to the side and dive straight for them, his machine-gun ablaze. Ned heard the bullets pepper the fuselage behind him, then felt a sudden dull thump in his back and witnessed his own liver and shreds of his coat splatter the instrument binnacle with red gore. In that fatal split second before he lost consciousness forever he felt the first lick of flames in his face, but had expired by the time his petrol tank had been ripped apart. Through the blue, summer sky the BE2c hurtled uncontrollably earthwards, exploding in a ball of flame.
Clover answered the door on Saturday morning to a boy in uniform who handed her the telegram. It was half past nine on 17th July. As she sat on the old armchair in the scullery she looked at it in a mixture of disbelief and sadness, for it could contain only bad news. Her heart started beating fast and her throat went dry. She turned it over and over in her fingers before she plucked up the courage to open it.
‘Oh, God, no!’ she said under her breath as she read it.
Her first thought was for Posy who played in the back yard trying to catch a butterfly that had settled on one of the rose trees Ned had planted. Should she tell her now and face the barrage of questions and the inevitable tears? Or should she say nothing? As the weeks and months of Ned’s absence had slipped by, Posy was asking less and less about the man she knew as her daddy, and his letters home had always been few and far between to remind her. Maybe Posy was forgetting him. Maybe, therefore, it was best to tell her straight away. The s
ooner she knew, the sooner she would get over it.
She dreaded having to tell Florrie and the old man. The grief would kill them. They were so proud of their younger son. But she would have to do it. There was no point in dilly-dallying either. So when she had spruced herself up she called Posy and told her they were going to see Granny and Granddad Brisco.
As they walked down Hill Street hand-in-hand, Clover said: ‘We’ve got to give a message to them, sweetheart. I had a telegram this morning to say that daddy’s aeroplane has been shot down.’
Talk she’d heard over the past few months had expanded Posy’s vocabulary. She’d heard people saying words like, telegram, Zeppelin, Dreadnought, explosion, troops, massacre, retreat, tragedy; phrases like, killed in action, tactical withdrawal, German offensive. She wasn’t sure what they meant but nowadays they were familiar words and they gave her a distinct impression of gloom for nobody smiled when they uttered these words. At only six years old, she knew already that war was not a pleasant thing, that everybody feared it and its consequences. Thus, she did not expect to feel any great elation at what her mother was trying to tell her. Rather, she expected to hear something bad.
‘Does that mean he’s dead?’
‘Yes, he’s dead. Killed in action.’
‘That means we won’t see him again, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid it does.’
‘Are you sad, Mommy?’
‘Yes, I’m very sad. Of course I’m sad.’
Posy looked up at her mother anxiously. ‘Are you going to cry?’
‘Well…I might, but I’m trying not to.’ She looked down on her daughter with love and care in her eyes, and sniffed. If only she could protect her from this scourge of war and the turmoil of emotions it roused in folk. ‘How about you?’
‘I’ll try not to as well.’
‘It doesn’t matter if you do, sweetheart. Sometimes it’s better to cry over something as sad as this. We have to tell Granny and Granddad and if they start crying, I might.’
They arrived at the house in Watson’s Street and went in.
‘It’s Clover and our Posy,’ Florrie said, stating the obvious, but rather coldly, Clover thought. Had she upset Florrie somehow?
Posy went in and draped herself over the arm of Granddad Brisco’s chair, all the time anxiously watching her mother.
‘Well? Have yer heard from him this wik?’ Florrie asked pointedly. There was definitely a chill in the atmosphere.
‘No, Florrie…But I…I had a telegram a few minutes ago…’ As she fished in her pocket for it, Florrie looked aghast and the colour drained from her face. Clover handed it to her mother-in-law and held back the urge to weep. ‘It’s bad news, Florrie.’
Florrie read it and, without a word, handed it to her husband. A tear trickled from one eye, rolled down her cheek and dripped off her chin as she watched his reaction to the news. He sighed heavily, closed his eyes in despair and handed the telegram back to Clover.
‘Am yer surprised?’ Florrie asked with a great shuddering sigh.
‘I suppose not,’ Clover responded quietly. ‘Flying over enemy lines in wartime must be one of the most hazardous things anybody could do. I read that we’ve lost scores of aviators already.’
‘Then why did you let him go?’ Oh, there was acid there all right, burning to get out of Florrie, to be spat at Clover.
‘I couldn’t stop him, Florrie,’ Clover answered defensively. ‘Flying was in his blood. It’s what he wanted to do. You know that.’
‘Piffle! I never heard such damn piffle.’ She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and pointed a finger at Clover accusingly. ‘You could have kept him here if you’d only loved him.’ Clover looked down at her shoes to avoid Florrie’s piercing gaze and wagging finger. ‘Less than a wik ago he wrote to me and told me the truth of how things stood between you pair. He wanted me to know the truth. The last confessions of a chap as knew he was about to die, it strikes me. He told me as you’ve never loved him, that you never even wanted to marry him, even though you was carrying his babby. He told me as how you’ve been having it off again with that chap what you was engaged to before, and how you was leaving young Posy here wi’ me so’s you could slope off and meet him. He told me as you was leaving him in the house at night to look after her while you went about your dirty business. Well, I never heard of anything so damned wicked and deceitful. He told me an’ all as how you ain’t lived a proper married life since the day you wed. Well, you drove him to his death, Clover, and no two ways.’ She prodded her forefinger animatedly into Clover’s shoulder. ‘By God, you did. As sure as God med little apples. You drove him away from his child, from his own mother and father to volunteer, knowing full well as he might never come back…’ Florrie broke down and a flood of tears ran down her anguished face. ‘You should be ashamed…’ she blubbered.
Clover did not know how to respond. It was bad enough merely trying to deal with the loss of a husband, however unloved he might be; now she was being blamed for that loss. There seemed little point in telling Florrie that, from the outset, Ned had known that she didn’t love him, that she’d made him no promises, that she had never misled him. Now Clover was the villain, poor Ned the victim of her audacious duplicity. But at least he’d withheld some things; he hadn’t confessed he was not Posy’s father. Obviously, it would not have been in his best interests to do so.
‘I can’t deny it, Florrie,’ Clover said softly, reeling from the unexpected tirade but trying to maintain her composure. She glanced at Posy, lolling over Granddad’s arthritic knees now, but with a worried expression. ‘I won’t deny it. Any of it. But I question Ned’s judgement in believing that you needed to know…In any case, I don’t think we should be discussing this in front of Posy.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you do.’
‘Look, Florrie, he knew I never loved him in the first place. I held nothing from him.’
‘Except yourself.’
‘Yes…Except myself…But he knew what to expect. His judgement in the first place must have been questionable for him to take me on, knowing I didn’t love him.’
‘And yours wasn’t for accepting? For Christ’s sake, Clover, do me the courtesy of not blackening his character, especially now he’s dead and gone, fighting like a hero for king and country…’Cause our Ned was brave, and no two ways.’
‘He was brave, Florrie,’ she agreed inadequately. ‘He was very brave…’ He was also an incredible fool, she wanted to say.
‘Well, there’s your telegram…Tek it and I hope you’m proud of yourself, young Clover.’
‘I can’t help the way I am, Florrie…’
‘Praps it’d be better if you left us alone now, so’s we can grieve in peace.’
Clover hesitated, unable to believe that she was being dismissed so abruptly, not being allowed to share their grief for just a little while, not being allowed a few words to make her own position understood. But they would never understand. They would never see it from her viewpoint. He was their son; and now they had lost him. She must take the blame because she had been having an affair with another man. The war was not to blame. The enemy was not to blame. She alone was to blame. She was as much to blame as if she had shot him down herself.
‘If that’s what you want,’ she answered eventually. ‘I’ll call back in a day or two to see how you are. I might have some more news by then.’
‘The only news we want to hear is that it’s all been a big mistake and he’s still alive.’
‘That would be the best news of all, Florrie, I agree…Come on Posy. We’d better leave Granny and Granddad to themselves.’
What were you supposed to feel when you learnt that your unloved husband had been killed in action? Sorrow? Regret? She felt all those things but it was obvious she did not feel them with the same intensity as would a woman who truly loved and wanted her man. She was immensely sad that the gangly lad she had helped build aeroplanes in Joseph Mantle’s old stables was dead
and gone. He had been her friend, her companion. She had liked him as a friend. And yet that very friendship, which she had truly valued, had evaporated like steam when they married.
Now, she felt relief that he was out of her life, and she did not like herself for it. Rather, she felt somewhat ashamed; ashamed that maybe she had been too self-centred, ignoring Ned’s aspirations for their marriage. God knows what emotions he must have felt that he was unable to express in words, for he was not a person who might know how to phrase his innermost feelings. Maybe she had treated him too shabbily. Maybe she should have tried harder to understand him, to accommodate his hopes and dreams. But at what cost? At the cost of her own hopes and dreams?
It had been impossible, being married to Ned. He had been such a fool. Always a fool. But he did not deserve death even though he had stood on death’s path. Now, she would be branded the villain of Kates Hill, for no doubt Florrie would blab everywhere the truth of the matter – as she saw it. She would be denounced as a whore, spoken of in the vilest terms. She would have to be strong to withstand the affronts, the insulting comments, and the sneering folk who would soon shun her and Posy. And what of Posy? Would all this anticipated hostility manifest itself in the children of those who were about to ostracise her?
They were due to visit Tom and Daniel later that morning. Clover was yearning to see him, to discuss everything, to wallow in his support, for she needed it. So, at about quarter to one they left home and walked to his studio where Daniel would also be. As soon as Tom saw her he could see she was perturbed although he said nothing, apprehensive of what it might be. She would tell him what was on her mind soon enough.
