“So, what do we do, sir?”
“Sopwith has… design. Needs… interrupter gear. Promised his engine.”
“When, sir?”
“Good… question, Stark!”
“Yes, sir. I intend to make a nuisance of myself out here for at least another week, sir. Give the machines a thorough test.”
“Good! Let’s have… a look at… them.”
They escorted Brigadier Trenchard to the hangar, showed him the civilian mechanics busy on the planes. The senior man spotted them and wiped his hands on a piece of rag so that he could shove them into his pockets; he walked across, shaking his head, addressed Tommy.
“You’re bloody grounded, guv! Just stripping the bloody wings off – going home on a bloody lorry, guv. Strained beyond bloody safety. You ain’t taking that bloody old cow off the bloody ground again!”
Brigadier Trenchard could hardly believe his ears; he was not one to be amused by the vulgarity of lesser mortals.
“Can you… not repair… them, man?”
“No.”
“But… we need… these planes.”
“No. I ain’t sending any bloody man up in a bloody death-trap. The young bloke’s machine ain’t never leaving the bloody ground again, and that’s bloody it! I don’t like the engine on the other bloody one, either. Need to strip it down, but odds are, that bloody one ain’t going up again.”
“We must… have these… aeroplanes!”
Trenchard was in full, strained voice, the bass-baritone reverberating through the hangars.
“You ain’t bloody getting ‘em. End of bloody story. They still belongs to de Havilland and I’m boss as far as letting them bloody fly. No!”
“Shit!”
The mechanic was unimpressed.
“That’s my middle bloody name, mister. They ain’t flying!”
Major Lewis took the risk of intervening before Trenchard called for a firing squad.
“What is wrong with Major Stark’s plane?”
“Wings, boss, like I bloody said. They needs a pair of pylons, struts you might bloody say, outside the first bay. Wires ain’t good enough. Not bloody strong enough. The boy wonder here throws the bloody machine about the sky like it was made of cast bloody iron – and it ain’t. Not that I’m blaming him, mark you! Does what he’s bloody got to, no doubt. But the bloody wing’s going to drop off if he bloody does it again. So, it ain’t going up again. I wants two lorries, boss, first bloody thing, and a ticket for them bloody boats back, or whatever. Sooner I gets them back to bloody de Havilland’s factory, sooner I can bloody rebuild ‘em and get them out here again, where they bloody belongs.”
“Do it… Major Lewis. How long… man?”
“Four weeks, at shortest, boss; might be three bloody months. Got to lay me hands on bloody dural – and that ain’t easy. Then make ‘em up to shape and work out the rake – the bloody stagger, that is; rebuild the wings from scratch will be best. Work straight bloody through, Sundays and all, but it won’t be no bloody quicker. Thing is, I ain’t got the bloody hands, boss. They went off, most of the boy apprentices, last August, and them what ain’t bloody dead is still in the bloody army, carrying a bloody rifle!”
Tommy spoke up.
“Beg pardon, Brigadier, but I have been told that by other manufacturers. Skilled men – brave lads – who joined up when the war started, and are still out here in France when they ought to be in the factories, using their skill to much greater advantage.”
“Baring!”
“Yes, sir. I have noted the problem and shall make quite certain that the question is raised, if necessary at the very highest levels. These men should be sent back to England, and quickly. The Army, sir, is already much exercised at the potential shortage of men, and will resist releasing any.”
“They must. Talk to… Henderson and… the politicians… if you really… must.”
“Today, sir.”
Brigadier Trenchard scowled at the civilian mechanic, then achieved the nearest he could get to a smile.
“You, Mr… Mechanic. Get… bloody busy!”
“Yes, boss. Just for you, boss, and for the boy here, I won’t take any bloody time off for Union meetings!”
The mechanic wandered off, quietly content that he could not have chosen a comment better guaranteed to cause outrage. The very thought of Unions always turned the boss class red in the face.
“Major Stark!”
“Sir!”
“Go back to… England. Bring out… another DH… 2, as soon… as possible.”
“Sir!”
“Captain… Arkwright!”
“Sir!”
“Return with… your closest… friend!”
“Bloody newspapers, sir!”
Trenchard left, chuckling merrily; Baring delayed a few seconds.
“That is the third joke I have ever heard him make, Captain Arkwright – the other two weren’t very good, either. Congratulations on your MC, sir – you make me very envious!”
Baring left, half a smile on his face.
Major Lewis took over.
“Party tonight, Tommy. We will arrange a tender to get you to Calais in the morning. I do not wish to tread on your toes, old chap, but I believe you know one or two men of influence, do you not? Members of your family. If they can pull a string or two, then it might be so much to the better for getting the skilled hands back where they belong.”
“The Army has refused point-blank, Tommy. They will not release men to civilian employment. The question is to be raised in the Cabinet and Asquith himself will have to take a side and make a decision, which is something he detests doing. Whenever he makes a decision, he offends the losing party, and he hates to make people angry with him. He firmly believes that there is a compromise for everything.”
Lord Moncur was open in his contempt for what he saw as weakness.
“Kitchener says that if the Army keeps the men then it will be able to win the war so that they won’t be needed in the factories. Then he says that he needs another five hundred thousand men if we are not to be defeated. He is demanding conscription, with no allowance for skills or needs. He also wants to cut the wages paid to servicemen, for they should not be encouraged to waste their substance chasing after loose women!”
“Is he mad, sir?”
“Only slightly, Tommy. The thing is that a ‘substantial number’ of men in France have been reported sick with ‘avoidable diseases’ – you can guess what he means by that! What you cannot guess, and cannot discover, is just how many men makes ‘substantial’. I have no way of telling just what the figure is – which means I cannot judge how important the problem is. Nor can anyone else - including Kitchener, I suspect. It don’t affect me – I am not a member of the Cabinet, and never will be; that’s for ambitious politicians, and that excludes me. I am doing a job of work for the government, at a level where I occasionally have to make a speech – a report, really - to the House of Lords. I am not, and will not be, a professional politician; I am not even a member of a political party, though neither of them has worked that out, yet.”
“I thought there were three parties, sir.”
“There are, Tommy. But a rich man like me has no business in the Labour Party; it exists to aid the poorest, not to patronise them!”
Tommy chose not to pursue that issue; he would never, he believed, take a role in politics.
“Should I have a word with Monkton about the manpower thing, sir? I promised that I would do all I could to get the skilled men back to the factories.”
“No, not you, Tommy. You don’t speak his language. I shall speak to him myself.”
That was entirely acceptable to Tommy – he had no wish ever to speak to his brother-in-law if he could avoid it.
“What of you, Tommy? What are you to do?”
“Report to de Havilland on the performance in the air of his machines, and then wait to be disposed of. Noah and I were sent back with the DH2s, but it makes no sense for us to kick our hee
ls in England for months waiting for them to be rebuilt. De Havilland will inform General Henderson in person of his needs, so I can expect a message from the very top within a few days. I shall take the opportunity to see the family, and hold Elizabeth Jane while I may, and count my blessings – many of the others in France would appreciate the chances I have had!”
De Havilland was of the opinion that he would have no planes rebuilt for testing before Christmas. With luck, he said, he would be able to put a whole squadron in the air in the New Year. Until then, the Fokker would remain untouchable.
Tommy and Noah were ordered to London, were granted an interview with the highest, General Henderson himself explaining what was to be demanded of them.
“In strictest confidence, gentlemen, literally not a word of this to go outside this office. There is to be an offensive, starting within one week, in which British forces will advance at the side of the French. The very most that can realistically be hoped for is a straightening of the line, tidying up in effect. The offensive is ill-timed, because of expected weather in this season, and is to take place more for the benefit of certain generals and politicians, of both nations, than for its practical value. The RFC has been tasked to support the offensive, and will do so. The need will be for bombardment of selected targets at low level in order to provide direct and indirect assistance to the soldiers on the ground.”
The words ‘low level’ made Tommy wince.
“How will these direct targets be designated, sir?”
“The plan is for the soldiers to identify themselves by laying out white sheets on the ground, and by placing arrows to point towards the area to be attacked. It is expected that these ‘targets of opportunity’ will be strongpoints – machine-gun nests and such, which are holding up the advance.”
“What aircraft, sir?”
“Any and every that we have in France; one hundred and fifty at last count. There is no choice, no discretion; the order comes from the highest level in the Army in France, and in London. There will still be a call for artillery spotting and normal reconnaissance, so I would envisage the remaining Bristol Scouts and Parasols and Martinsydes to take the bulk of the bombardment work. In addition, some of the BE2cs are being modified to fly without an observer but with a man’s weight of bombs. Indirect targets will include railway junctions and supply dumps, that sort of thing. You, both of you, are among the leading exponents of bombardment tactics and know what can be achieved.”
“We are indeed experts, sir. We have missed more railway junctions than any other pilots in the RFC. Is our opinion of this scheme sought?”
“No.”
“Well, I made my Will on the day before I married, sir. As long as you don’t expect me to start hitting things, there is little else that requires tidying up.”
General Henderson shrugged his fatalistic acceptance of Tommy’s comment.
“You are the best. You have a greater chance of survival doing a job that is probably impossible, but cannot be avoided. What do you recommend? You are to be sent out to the same squadron, as Flight Commanders, and will have some influence on the pilots also to be sent out.”
“Newly trained youngsters, sir. Send out a dozen tomorrow; they won’t know the odds against them and will willingly fly low. Are the machines already available, sir?”
“They are, lined up at Number Thirty Squadron, which has eight pilots, currently, and twelve Bristol Scouts and ten BE2cs.”
“We will need six at least of extra machines, sir. The boys, as I say, to go out as soon as possible so that they can at least be shown how to fly a rotary. That will give four days of intensive training, which we must hope six will survive to make up our two Flights of four.”
“I say, Major Stark! Is that not unduly pessimistic?”
“No, sir. Any mistake may err on the side of optimism.”
“I could send out instructors from one of the training fields, closing it temporarily.”
“Why kill valuable men, sir?”
Henderson was left at a loss, finally telling them to take two more days at home, to go out to France then. They could fly a new BE2c out to the Park at Amiens, take a tender from there.
“Certainly, sir. Can you, perhaps, send a specific order to that effect, to Amiens, sir? We might just have caused some slight offence when passing through recently, sir. Trod on the toes of a colonel; Bressinghall, I think the name was.”
“It will be done, Major Stark. You are becoming rather senior for these pranks, you know, Major. By the way, you do not seem to be sporting a moustache, and King’s Regulations do demand that an officer should wear hair upon the upper lip.”
“They do indeed, sir. However, sir, Nature has, one might say, the upper hand here – I am so fair-haired on the face that my moustache is well-nigh invisible. I have considered boot-blacking, but it would be difficult to apply. Captain Arkwright, of course, is properly embellished and can perhaps serve for the pair of us?”
“It will have to do – you are close friends, after all!”
“Bloody newspapers!”
Tommy telephoned Monkey, the instrument installed at his insistence, and they took the trains to Wilton where Noah had the good fortune to bump into Mrs Wyndham near the station and have a long chat with her as they walked to the Cottage. Monkey invited her to dinner next evening, received a pleased acceptance.
Noah was thoughtful as he said his farewells and accompanied Tommy to Croydon where they tossed a coin, the loser having to take the controls of the BE2c to Amiens.
They arrived at the Central Air Park two hours after dawn on the third day, as ordered. They climbed down from the BE2c to be met by a lone sergeant who accepted the papers for the aircraft.
“If you would just step across to the office at the end of the hangars, sir, you will see a Crossley tender, with a driver.”
The driver took their travelling bags, pointed out the Officers Ablutions, assuming they would have the need, then drove them to the Guard Room where he noted in the Gate Log that he was taking the two officers off the field, signing and timing the entry.
“The Colonel said you was to be out of the gate within ten minutes of landing, sir. Done it in nine.”
“What it is to be well-loved, Private. We receive the best of service everywhere.”
The driver sniggered and accelerated hard out of the gate.
“Likes doing that, sir. It throws out black smoke from the exhaust pipe, sir, and gets smears all over the Military Police’s whites, so they have to blanco their belts and webbing all over again, sir. Really pisses them off, and they can’t get me on a charge for it!”
“What an excellent idea, Private. Should happen to all policemen!”
“Yes, sir. Come out for the Big Push at Loos, have you, sir?”
“That is supposed to be highly secret, driver!”
“Every bugger’s known about it this last fortnight, sir. Dawn on the 25th, sir, three months before Christmas. According to the brasshats, we shall open our presents on the Rhine, sir, and celebrate Easter in Berlin. So they say.”
“If you know about it, then the Germans will.”
“Of course, sir. They will ‘ave known before any of us did. You know ‘ow it goes, sir – ‘s obvious, ain’t it. We drives brasshats into Paris each Friday, regular as clockwork, sir, picks ‘em breakfast time Monday. They gets a leg over a bit of fluff Saturday and Sunday and shouts their mouths off about ‘ow they knows everything, and the tarts gets paid by the Huns on Monday afternoon for passing on all they hears. No need to send aeroplanes over from the Hun side to look – they get told everything anyway.”
Tommy could only hope that the driver was wrong – it sounded depressingly probable.
“Thirty Squadron, sir, about a mile away now, five minutes up the track ‘ere, sir.”
They turned off the highway and onto a farm track, already well rutted by the military traffic.
“New field, sir. Seen worse, sir.”
There w
as a large country house – forty or fifty bedrooms, at a guess, a mansion, chateau the Frogs called them - sat on a hillside overlooking an expanse of what had once been wheat fields, large and level, the few hedges torn out to give a landing ground some three hundred yards long and one hundred wide, with flat land in front and behind, room for mistakes to be made.
A cinder track, newly laid, led from what had been a big farmyard to the field. It seemed probable that three existing barns had been converted to workshops while a dozen of canvas hangars would shelter two planes apiece overnight or against the rain. There was a group of barracks huts newly erected to the rear of the house.
“Officers sleeps in the chateau, sir. See them trees over the back, sir? Bombs and fuel behind them, far enough back from the sleeping quarters, sir. Got a steam Foden, sir, what drags a wagon with a bowser or carts with the bombs in. Dugouts for machine-guns, and two of them three-inch guns, sir. Reckons it how all the new fields is going to be, so they says, sir. Really, sir, what ‘appened is what the Frogs built it, when this was going to be in their part of the Front, so we took it over, like.”
“Do you know who the CO is?”
“New in, sir. They all are. Straight from England and Amiens, sir.”
“Could be amusing. Thank you for the drive, Private!”
“Pleasure, sir. They reckon the Colonel was pissed off with you for a week, sir! Biggest laugh since Ma, sir!”
They stepped down from the tender at the front doors to the chateau, reached for their bags. The driver shook his head. They stepped back, shaking theirs.
The double doors swung open, the Mess Sergeant overseeing two older privates who trotted down to pick up their luggage.
“Major Stark and Captain Arkwright – your trunks arrived from England this morning, sirs. Mess dress at meals, gentlemen, full fig on Fridays when the Mess Dines In, sirs.”
“Full Dress, Sergeant? Don’t have it with me, left it in England. Not normally used on a posting at the Front.”
“The Major has his standards, sir, which he believes should be maintained in all conditions.”
“No doubt we shall discuss the matter. Where is the Adjutant’s Office?”
No Longer A Game (Innocents At War Series, Book 3) Page 7
