Hornet’s Sting

by Derek Robinson

  “Sloppy workmanship, sir.”

  “Try not to be a greater idiot than nature created, McWatters.”

  “Yes, sir. They seem to have forgotten to give the pilot a Vickers, sir.”

  Cleve-Cutler nodded. It was true: where the Pup had a machine gun bolted on top of its nose, this had nothing – just a hand-held Lewis in the rear cockpit. He was looking at a hulking aeroplane with a vast spread of wings, a disturbingly experimental design and no weapon for the pilot. It was not the thrilling new fighter he had expected to see. He remembered other models that had disappointed: the DH2 Gunbus, soon known as the Spinning Incinerator; the BE12, which refused to dive with the engine full on, and if the engine was throttled back the interrupter gear failed and the pilot often shot his propeller off; the RE8, underpowered and a bitch to land because two fat exhaust pipes stuck up in front of the pilot ... Then he saw a familiar figure in a flying suit: Colonel Bliss.

  “Gather your chaps, Hugh,” Bliss said. “I bring them tidings of great joy and bloody slaughter.”

  While the pilots assembled, Bliss climbed into the pilot’s cockpit and stood on the seat.

  “This is the F2A, popularly known as the Bristol Fighter,” he announced. “No other aeroplane, in any air force, can fly as fast, and climb as fast, and fly as high, and stay up as long, and carry as many guns, as this machine. No Albatros can do it. No Fokker can do it. No Pfalz, no LVG, no Halberstadt. This machine, gentlemen, is the last word in fighters. And it is yours.”

  “Guns, colonel?” Cleve-Cutler said. “No sign of a Vickers.”

  “Absolutely none. That’s because the gun is tucked away inside, on top of the engine, which keeps it warm. A frozen gun is therefore a thing of the past. If you care to look above the propeller hub you will see a discreet hole in the radiator. From this orifice will emerge a string of bullets.” They surged to look. “Greatly to the shock and chagrin of the foe,” Bliss said; and thought: No, no. That’s too much. Keep it simple

  “Sir, some of us were wondering,” Ogilvy said. “The wings —”

  “Ah yes, the wings. Now, Captain Frank Barnwell designed this bus. Barnwell’s an R.F.C. man. He knows what you want when you go on patrol. Above all, you must see the enemy! If you can’t see him, you can’t kill him. But the wings obstruct your view. They’re a damned nuisance. So Barnwell did something so simple that it’s brilliant. He moved the top wing down. Down to the pilot’s eye-level. So now you’ve got perfect vision forward, sideways and upwards, because you can look over the wing! If you lower the top wing, you’ve got to lower the bottom one. And that, Captain Ogilvy, is why the lower wing is slung six or nine inches below the fuselage. Or, to put it another way, Barnwell left the wings where they were, but he put the fuselage midway between them. Very accessible. Makes dusting so much easier, don’t you know.”

  “Big aeroplane, sir,” Gerrish said. “Big engine?”

  “Rolls-Royce Falcon. One hundred and ninety horsepower. Treat it nicely and she’ll stay up for three hours. Maybe more.” Bliss allowed the rumble of comment to die down. “Now, Barnwell remembers the bloody awful layout of other two-seaters. The BE2c, for instance. More wires than a birdcage. Every time the observer fired his Lewis, bang went a wire.” He pointed at Heeley. “You, sir. Jump up and try this one on for size.”

  Heeley climbed into the gunner’s cockpit. Bliss slid down into the pilot’s seat. They were back-to-back, their shoulders only inches apart. “Can you hear me, gunner?”

  “Perfectly, sir!”

  “Give that gun a spin. See what you can see.”

  The Lewis was mounted on a Scarff ring, which was a hoop that fitted the circular cockpit. Heeley rotated it enthusiastically through a full circle, and then back the other way. “I can see everything, sir!” he cried.

  “Of course you can, my dear chap.” Bliss climbed onto his seat. “Notice how the fuselage tapers downwards towards the tail,” he said. “Observe how much of the rudder is placed below the level of the tailplane. All this gives the gunner a wonderful field of fire. He can hit virtually everything except his own pilot. And we’re working on a new design to let him do that ...” They laughed generously. “No further questions? Good. There will be a silver collection at the door, and meanwhile I’m looking forward very much to a large drink, major.”

  A tender carried them to the C.O.’s office. Bliss took off his flying suit while Cleve-Cutler poured the whisky.

  They toasted each other in silence, and drank in silence.

  “What’s wrong with it, Colonel?” Cleve-Cutler asked.

  “That’s for you to find out.”

  “So it’s not perfect.” He got no answer. “But if it out-flies and out-climbs and out-shoots —”

  “I never said that.” Bliss took his whisky to the fire. “I said no other aeroplane combines all the abilities you’ve got in this one fighter. The latest Albatros is slightly faster, but it has no rear gunner. The Fokker Triplane climbs faster, but it lacks endurance. The Halberstadt can stay up for ever, but the Bristol Fighter climbs faster. And so on and so on. Nobody else combines what we combine. That’s what I said.”

  “With respect, sir, a three-hour endurance is no damn use if you can’t catch the Hun.”

  “Well, every aeroplane is a compromise. If you want this one to go faster, jettison the wheels and you’ll get an extra ten miles an hour. Probably kill yourself when you land, but ...” Bliss kicked the coals and made sparks fly. “That’s part of the compromise, isn’t it?”

  His bland equanimity began to annoy Cleve-Cutler. “Sir: you just told my chaps they’ve got the best fighter in the world. How can I —”

  “No.” Bliss used his little finger to clear a stray lash from his eye. “No, I never said that. What I said was the F2A is the last word in fighters, and so it is. Tomorrow, there will be a new last word. Different. Maybe better, maybe worse; we shall have to wait and see.”

  “With respect, sir —”

  “Oh, bugger respect, Hugh. Half the battle up there is confidence. Men fight better when they believe they can win. You know that. Well, the F2A is a damn good bus, so they stand a damn good chance, provided they use the thing properly. Here.”

  He gave the C.O. a thick envelope, heavily sealed.

  “Read it carefully,” Bliss said. “Apply it faithfully. I dined with Frank Barnwell in Bristol last night. Salmon fresh from the Severn, new potatoes, mashed turnip; delicious. His fighter is built to a special design, and it works best when it’s flown in a special way.” He tapped the envelope. “Train your squadron until that way is second nature. Come the battle, they’ll do great slaughter.”

  “I see.”

  “And now I’m off. Incidentally, how are your Russians?”

  “One’s suicidal, sir, and the other isn’t.”

  “Yes. I think I saw the play. Chekhov, wasn’t it? Not many jokes.”

  * * *

  Cleve-Cutler announced that he himself would be first to fly this thundering brute. If it killed anyone, it should kill the C.O. The crews applauded.

  One ferry pilot had stayed at Gazeran to help the squadron convert to the F2A. Cleve-Cutler got into the rear cockpit and looked over the man’s shoulder. He was pleased to see that starting the engine was simple: a mechanic swung the prop while the pilot wound the magneto and with no reluctance at all the Falcon fired and uttered a huge, deep-throated roar. Cleve-Cutler watched the pre-take-off checks as the pilot pointed to them. Run up the revs and check oil pressure, water temperature, both magnetos. Set the tail adjustment. Test the controls. The rest was routine. They turned into wind, the throttle was eased open, the fighter bustled forward. Cleve-Cutler gripped the cockpit rim and braced himself against the torrent of air; he wanted to see what revs it took to get the tail up. Too late: the tail was already up. Now he wanted to know their take-off speed. Too late: the wheels had already unstuck. He looked down: the ground was falling away. Take-off had used less than two hundred yards. The thing was as big as
a bomber and it soared like a Pup.

  When it was his turn to fly it, he felt that this was the first real aeroplane he had ever known. Everything was beautifully balanced; the F2A actually felt graceful. The surge of power when he nudged the throttle was like nothing he’d ever got from a buzzing rotary. At seven thousand feet he was so happy that he felt anxious. He wondered: suppose I saw a couple of Huns down there? He eased the stick forward and the nose fell like a diver off the high board. Suddenly he remembered the sheer weight of this machine. The way the air-speed indicator was hustling around its dial was startling, and exciting, and then alarming. He got both hands on the stick and hauled, and the big elevators bit on the slipstream and sent the fighter curving into a pull-out that made the blood retreat from his eyeballs.

  After that he behaved himself. The Bristol Fighter, with a little help from its pilot, returned to earth, stalled nicely in a three-point position at forty-something miles an hour, and ran to rest in no distance at all.

  “Colonel Bliss was right,” he told the crews. “This is what we’ve been waiting for.” His conscience could live with those words.

  * * *

  “Teamwork kills,” Cleve-Cutler said. “That is our new motto.”

  He had studied the tactical orders delivered by Bliss, and selected his crews. Six Bristol Fighters needed twelve men. For pilots, he chose his flight commanders plus Snow, McWatters and Simms. As gunners he chose Munday, Dash, Heeley, Maddegan and the two Russians. Since the fall of the Tsar, London seemed to have lost interest in them. Cleve-Cutler let them keep their Nieuports but he took away their extra servant. Duke Nikolai did not complain.

  Cleve-Cutler assembled the crews. “This is a new kind of fighter,” he said. “It’s been tested in mock combat in England, and it scored best as a killing machine when it was flown in close formation. That’s because, if you give the pilot freedom to manoeuvre, he can give his gunner the best shot at the enemy. Apply those tactics to a whole formation, and the gunners can provide crossfire, so they can attack the enemy from several quarters at once. Of course the pilot still has the Vickers. If he can get in a burst too, that’s a bonus. But what makes the F2A so lethal is teamwork. The pilot concentrates on flying the bus, because he knows his gunner is protecting him. And his gunner knows he’ll be perfectly positioned to hammer the Hun. Two experts are better than one. Teamwork kills.”

  For the next five days they practised formation flying. Every morning, weather permitting, the six fighters flew westward, away from the risk that any stray German reconnaissance machine might see them, to a disused landing ground at Braye. The C.O. came with them, in a Pup. They flew box formations, arrowheads, echelons to left or right, single file, double file, diamond, line abreast. They learned hand signals to change from one formation to the next. They got to know and like the Bristol Fighter, which was too much of a mouthful. They called it the Biff.

  On the sixth day, Cleve-Cutler introduced simulated fighting. The flight commander fired a flare to signal an attack, and they altered formation so as to be broadside to the imaginary oncoming machines. The method worked well. When a colour arched across the sky, all six fighters swung into their new positions as if worked by wires. Six Scarff rings rotated and six Lewis guns ranged on the supposed Huns.

  Cleve-Cutler was impressed. He watched through binoculars and wished he could see six beady lines of tracer pulsing into one cocky Boche. When the flight landed, he mentioned this to Plug Gerrish. “I keep hoping some lost Halberstadt will wander by,” he said. “Give you something to blow to bits.”

  “We saw a French Spad yesterday.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “The bastards shoot at us.” But Plug knew it was a lost cause. “Balloons,” he suggested. “Not observation balloons. Small things. Five or six feet across would do. You send them up, we knock ’em down.”

  Amazingly, the Royal Flying Corps had a stock of balloons, aerial, disposable, size medium. “Six-foot diameter,” the quartermaster told Cleve-Cutler on the telephone. “How many d’you want?”

  “Can I have fifty?”

  “You can have five thousand. They’ve been cluttering up my stores for the last two years. I suppose you’ll want gas cylinders too?”

  The balloons were a great success. They zoomed up to four thousand feet, by which time they had been picked up by whatever wind was going and sent bounding and spinning and still climbing. The gunnery was not a great success. The first six balloons sailed through a spray of bullets. Each time Gerrish, leading the flight, had to cut short the attack and change formation because a fresh balloon was racing towards them from a different angle. By the time the seventh balloon came blowing along, most gunners were out of ammunition.

  They landed at Braye to re-arm.

  “I think you may have slightly wounded a small white cloud,” Cleve-Cutler said, “for which, since it was French, we shall have to pay compensation.”

  “The damn balloons don’t fly straight,” Crash Crabtree said. “They bobble about like lunatics.”

  “It’s hard to gauge distance when the target’s spherical,” Spud Ogilvy said. “I think we’re far too far away from it.”

  “Then get closer,” Cleve-Cutler said, trying to be thrustful and sounding petulant. He wondered why. Perhaps he was jealous. Perhaps he was getting old, losing his grip. “Get very close. If you can’t shoot it, then bite it to death.”

  Sandwiches and coffee, while the armourers worked.

  McWatters sat on an oil drum and threw small stones at the sparrows hunting for crumbs. Duke Nikolai joined him. “I made secret army,” he said quietly. “Bring back Tsar. You join my air force.”

  The other men were walking back to the aircraft. A bird came zigzagging at high speed, a foot above the grass, stunted around a deckchair, landed and raced away, simultaneously it seemed, with a bit of bread in its beak. “Clever little devil,” McWatters said. “Makes our bus look like a rather tired slug. How much will you pay me?”

  “I have million dollars.”

  McWatters picked up his helmet and goggles. “Why dollars? Why not sovereigns?”

  “Is secret army. Secret dollars.”

  “All right, I’ll join your secret air force and fight in secret for the Tsar and all his inbred family. Now that I’m part of the secret, you can tell me. Where did you get the money?”

  “Yankee government.”

  “No, no. The Yanks don’t like royalty. They even revolted against George the Third, a perfectly decent king, slightly mad when there was an R in the month, but not a cruel and tyrannical brute like your chap. America won’t support the Tsar. Americans don’t like Tsars.”

  “Don’t like Bolsheviks also,” Nikolai said. “Bolsheviks give Yankees big jitters.”

  Crabtree was shouting at them to hurry. “A much-maligned man, the Tsar,” McWatters said. “We should not be too hasty in passing judgement on him.”

  The second gun-practice was more successful. They destroyed five balloons out of twelve. But they missed seven. “If the Kaiser ever decides to attack us with toy balloons, we’re done for,” Cleve-Cutler said to the sergeant armourer.

  “It’s a different skill, sir, firing to the beam. Your gunners up there are used to firing forward, in the Pup. Not the same thing at all, sir.”

  Cleve-Cutler telephoned Wing. Next day six gunnery instructors arrived at Braye. After that, the score improved.

  * * *

  A high-pressure system drifted in from the Atlantic and sat over central Europe as if it had nothing better to do than spoil an elaborate and expensive war by dumping fog on it.

  The officers strolled to breakfast. The air tasted both smoky and clammy. A hurricane lamp hung outside the mess, but its glow was muffled and the smell of grilled bacon was a better guide. This was an excellent fog. It might well last all day.

  “I shall celebrate with a fried egg,” Munday told a mess servant. “No, dammit, let joy be unconfined. Two fried eggs.”

  “Give
him some sausages too,” the medical officer said. “Fry him some bread. Devil a kidney for him, hell’s teeth, put some black pudding on the poor fellow’s plate, throw in some bubble-and-squeak! What are you being so stingy for?”

  “No, no.” Munday waved the waiter away. “Just the eggs. Perhaps a slice of toast.” A newcomer called Dufee watched with interest. “This fog could be gone by ten,” Munday said to him. “It pays to be careful.”

  “Munday has a gut like a raging compost heap,” Spud Ogilvy explained. “At five thousand feet his fried breakfast turns to gas and blows both his boots off.”

  “Well!” McWatters declared. “Did you see this?” He was reading an old copy of The Times.

  “Knew a chap in hospital,” Crash Crabtree said. “Ate nothing but fresh tomatoes for six months.”

  “It says here the Duke of Beaufort has suffered a nasty accident,” McWatters announced. “Look.” He showed the headline to Duke Nikolai. “Very worrying.”

  “Doesn’t worry me,” Snow said.

  “You’re just a crude Canadian,” Simms remarked from behind the Daily Mail. “You don’t appreciate the implications.”

  “Yeah? So implicate me.”

  Munday’s eggs arrived. “I shall regret this,” he said.

  “Think how the eggs feel,” Dash said.

  McWatters shook The Times, loudly. “While hunting with the Beaufort Hounds, the duke had the misfortune to fall from his horse. His Grace was a good deal shaken and badly bruised, but luckily no bones broken.”

  “Next time you blighters feel like complaining,” Spud Ogilvy said, “thank your lucky stars you don’t live in the Cotswolds. Can’t go for a walk without a fat duke falling on you.”

  “Russia’s worse,” Crabtree said. “The Tsar fell in Russia. Made a hell of a dent.”

  “Dando ...” Simms, deep in his newspaper, had heard nothing. “What’s the first thing you ask your patients?”

  “Money. Can the patient pay the bill?”

  “Wrong. The bowels. First thing the doctor always asks about is the bowels. Says so here. Are the bowels in good order? If the liver is right you will always be cheery and well. Don’t wait to be bilious, take Carter’s Little Liver Pills.”