No Wrath of Men

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Codrington had seen the second formation. Paxton could see him peering up at them.

  Now what?

  The FE2s flew steadily on, keeping close together.

  The nine enemy machines were almost within range. A few seconds later the leading flight of Fees opened fire. Two Albatroses spun out, emitting smoke; one began to burn.

  Smoke from a Verey pistol curved above the FE2 at the head of the squadron and a yellow flare burst. At once the three flights split up. Paxton followed Codrington in a climbing turn towards the more distant formation of 14 Albatroses, while his observer kept up bursts of fire at the surviving seven in the nearer one.

  There was a sudden rush of air overhead and Paxton jerked his concentration away from the larger enemy formation to look around him. An Albatros had hurtled past only ten or fifteen feet above. He sought Codrington’s machine again and found he had lost several yards in separation. He tried to force the throttle further open.

  His observer was reloading, twisting an empty pan off the top of the Lewis gun. A rush of tracer came from the port beam. Paxton’s observer subsided over his gun. His body folded with his head and chest resting on the gun, his arms hanging. His leather coat was pocked with bullet holes and stained with blood.

  He’s not going to tell me to go home! But what the hell am I going to do, hanging around with Codrington and no gun?

  Paxton stood the machine on its starboard wingtips and put its nose down, to spiral away in a steep corkscrew dive. For a while bursts of tracer swept past him. He held his whirligig descent for eight thousand feet and when he levelled off he was alone.

  Not quite alone. He spotted a diving Albatros behind and above.

  Let him come. I’ll fool him at the last second.

  It was a gentle dive. The Hun did not appear to be in any hurry. Paxton kept looking back. The Albatros was not directly behind: he could see, now, that it was fifty yards or so to his right. He watched it come closer, with suspicion; waiting for a last-second flick towards him. But it flew on. Its propeller was slowing down. Paxton could see the individual blades. It was only a hundred yards behind him.

  He took a chance and cut his engine. He listened. The Albatros wasn’t flying under power. It was gliding with a dead engine.

  The pilot was taking no notice of the Fee. He was gliding past it without even deigning to give it a look.

  Paxton watched the Albatros pass, then switched on his motor again and edged towards it.

  The pilot was leaning back and seemed to be staring up at the sky. Paxton looked up but there was nothing to be seen there. He closed to within a few yards. The German pilot was as dead as his own observer.

  With shells bursting around them the Albatros maintained its glide and the Fee weaved and switchbacked to avoid being hit. They crossed the British lines.

  Paxton stayed with the Albatros. British machine-gunners hit it but it did not falter. Perfectly trimmed and balanced, it came down at last in a big pasture and taxied to a stop.

  Paxton shuddered. It was the most eerie sight he had ever beheld.

  And he understood now why veteran observers were chary of trusting themselves to novice pilots. He felt humiliated and guilty, and was almost hoping that Codrington would not get back, he was so reluctant to have to face him.

  But what the hell could I have done? I obeyed orders: “Stay with me,” he said. “He will tell you if it’s time to go home.”

  Damn it, he didn’t see that bloody Hun any more than I did. And I wasn’t supposed to. I was told to keep my eye on my flight commander.

  It didn’t help, though. He still felt guilty and incompetent.

  Why the hell didn’t I stay in the Engineers?

  *

  Weisbach had enjoyed himself over the Somme battlefield that afternoon.

  The Albatros D3 was a delight to handle and the effect of the thousand rounds a minute poured out by its twin guns was devastating. He had taken that first FE2 pilot and observer totally by surprise. He gloated over it as he stood under the shower that evening. He had almost cut the poor devil of an observer in half. The pilot had reacted intelligently before he could kill him too. That quick spiral dive had been a perfect demonstration that discretion was the better part of valour. Not that there would have been any valour in halting on to his leader with no gunner.

  He had helped himself to another as well and that gave him as much satisfaction in retrospect as it had in the act. The FE2 stood up to a lot of punishment, but it was lamentably slow and clumsy. He was glad the second had been a clean kill also. He didn’t like to see anyone going down frying. One burst for the observer and one for the pilot and it was cleanly done with.

  He was missing Rudel. Rudel had been excellent company and was a reassuring companion in battle. When Weisbach first came to his new squadron he had encountered a coldness which was more exclusive than the lack of enthusiasm with which novice pilots were treated. He was looked on with suspicion and hostility. Who was this fellow from a two-seater reconnaissance squadron to think he would be accepted on equal terms by a Jagdstaffel flying the Albatros? And how had he earned his Iron Cross First Class and his Blue Max? His name and features were familiar from the newspapers and magazines, but what had he really done that was so meritorious?

  That summer, the Aviation Service had been reorganised. Single-seater scouts, now becoming known as fighters, were formed into a new type of squadron called a Jagdstaffel, consisting of fourteen aeroplanes. Jagdstaffel, hunting squadron, shortened to Jasta, sounded full of dash and menace. There was little connotation of either in reconnaissance work.

  Weisbach was not indifferent to his unfriendly reception but he was secure enough in his self-confidence not to worry about it. He was a sensitive man and he was a trifle hurt. He also resented such treatment from comrades of the same Service. But he knew that he flew like an angel and he had also practised assiduously at his gunnery: he was a most accurate shot. It was no surprise to him when he began to shoot down Nieuports and BE2s in numbers which quickly excited the envy and then the admiration of his fellows. It was then his turn to treat their friendly and sycophantic overtures with coolness.

  He had written to Rudel to let him know the number of his Jasta and Rudel had promptly replied.

  “I am enjoying the course. The standard must be low, because I am rated third among the pupils! I am already pulling strings to ensure that I join you on your Jasta when I qualify as a pilot. In the meanwhile, you will be pulling well ahead of me, piling up victories. I shall have to work hard to catch you up!”

  That was excellent news. He looked forward to flying with Rudel at his side once more. He had no doubt that Rudel would be able to arrange the posting he wanted. Rudel was very well connected in both military and Government circles.

  Meanwhile the great, prolonged battles of the Somme and Verdun continued. With the coming of the autumn rains the artillery barrages pounded the ground into a waste of mud. Whole villages were wiped out. The terrain was littered with the rotting bodies of men and horses, broken artillery pieces and abandoned rifles and machine-guns.

  The casualties mounted towards the total that would eventually reach one and three-quarter million men dead and wounded.

  In September Rudel arrived on the Jasta. He did not give the long-experienced single-seater pilots a chance to cold-shoulder him: it was he who ignored them.

  At table or in the mess ante-room, with a warning wink to him, Rudel would engage Weisbach in reminiscences of their days flying reconnaissance; with an air of being unaware that they were not alone. Their conversations gave the impression that their present work was almost a holiday in comparison. The other pilots took umbrage, and Rudel achieved his intention.

  Rudel also acquired a large black Delage limousine. Along one side of the bonnet he had a roundel, five centimetres in diameter, painted for each victory. He started with the 19 he had scored as an observer-gunner and had soon added half-a-dozen won as a pilot. He and Weisbach used to go o
ff into town without inviting anyone else. It was not long before there was competition among their comrades to be asked to join them.

  Seven

  Codrington was delighted by the Sopwith Pup. So much so that he composed a song about it, which the squadron shouted to the accompaniment of “We’ve All Come Up From Somerset” thumped on the mess piano.

  We’ve all come up from St. Sansue,

  We fly the Sopwith Pups you know

  And where’er you frightful Huns pursue,

  The Sopwith Pups will go.

  Now, if you want a real fight,

  Just let us know and you

  Will find we’re glad to take you on,

  For we are from St. Sansue.

  Although the Albatros D3 was the Pup’s equal in agility at heights up to twelve or thirteen thousand feet, when they fought at fifteen thousand and over it was the Pup which proved more nimble.

  For this reason, the squadron climbed to seventeen thousand feet whenever it went on patrol. Even in August, when the squadron finally had all its Pups, the pilots sometimes got frost on their eyebrows. In the autumn and winter, when great ranges of cloud filled the sky and every drop of moisture in the wrinkles of a pilot’s leather coat, gauntlets and fleece-lined thighboots froze, the lack of oxygen seemed to make the Arctic chill more noticeable.

  After twenty minutes of flying above fifteen thousand feet in a cold that penetrated all the layers of garments he wore, a pilot became prey to delusions. This was when men began to imagine that the cloud banks had turned into mountains, that the landscape beneath them had changed from solid earth to sea; when they thought they could see other aircraft where none existed and where, sometimes, they had a sudden illusion that they were about to fly into a solid obstacle: like Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament; and took violent evasive action; which, at that altitude, could put their aircraft into a spin.

  Any physical activity caused exhaustion. Movement brought on laboured breathing. Pilots gasped and panted as they threw their machines around in combat.

  Guns froze or jambed and all a pilot could do was dive to an altitude at which the oil turned back from solid to liquid and freed the mechanism.

  On a bitter day in early December, a fortnight after the Battle of the Somme was officially considered over and the opposing armies lay bogged down in a morass of glutinous mud, Codrington was leading his flight on a patrol on a triangular course between Beaumont-Hamel, Bapaume and Courcelette, when seven Albatroses came in view three thousand feet below.

  This was what Codrington had come looking for. He led his flight in a steep plunge towards the enemy.

  Paxton was directly astern of him, bringing up the rear of the diamond-sly-Ted box. He was pleased with Paxton, who had beaten the odds against survival — which had been somewhere around three weeks at the time he came to the squadron — and was now the third-senior member of the flight. Paxton had, in just over four months, accounted for eight Huns and established a reputation for being imperturbable and good-humoured.

  He needed those qualities in full measure that morning. The Albatros pilots were fully aware of the Pups’ presence and as soon as all eleven machines were at the same level a sprawling dogfight began.

  Codrington knew that he was in serious trouble from the moment that he positioned himself to fire his opening burst. He pressed the trigger of his Vickers and nothing happened. It did not even judder. He pulled at the cocking mechanism, jerked at the drum and tried again. Still the gun would not fire and by this time he was within twenty yards of his intended victim.

  The Albatros pilot had jinked away but Codrington had followed him. The German knew at once that his adversary’s gun must have jambed. The German happened to be Rudel and a broad grin spread across his big face under the smothering woollen scarf that covered it from the nose down.

  From his first operational sortie, Paxton had formed the habit of constantly looking for his leader. He had fired a short burst at one of the Albatroses and peppered it just in front of its tail unit. It was Weisbach who was flying it.

  Now Paxton looked for the flight commander’s red streamers on the struts, identified Codrington and saw that he was barrel rolling out of the way of a Hun on his tail.

  Rudel flashed past Codrington. Another Albatros came in.

  So hard-pressed, Codrington simply had to fire his gun. The Vickers, when mounted on an aeroplane which was fitted with the Ross interrupter gear, retained its normal trigger as well as the special one which synchronised it with the air screw. The drawback in resorting to it was that it restored the rate of fire to the normal six hundred rounds a minute and no longer avoided the propeller blades.

  With two opponents coming for him, Codrington had no choice. He fired. The second Hun flicked into an inverted spin as bullets tore away the control cables and control surfaces. Giving off smoke and flames it hurtled down to destruction.

  Simultaneously, chunks of his shattered airscrew came whizzing past Codrington. The Pup was wonderfully buoyant and a sweet glider: hence its pilots took just that risk when a gun jambed and they were in a tight corner.

  Paxton caught a glimpse of what had happened to Codrington. He also saw four of the Royal Naval Air Service’s Sopwith One-and-a-half Strutters come slanting up towards the milling aircraft around him.

  He did not see Weisbach on his starboard beam. But he felt Weisbach’s bullets as they punched through his fuselage and tore through his legs.

  He twisted and turned for another couple of minutes, by which time the R.N.A.S. machines were in the thick of the fight; but he did not get a good shot at any of the Albatroses. His legs were becoming numb, so he pulled out and made for home with blood trickling through his boots onto the cockpit floor.

  Rudel had gone after Codrington, but this had brought him within range of the naval pilots’ guns. He barely had time for a parting shot at Codrington before he had to loop quickly to get himself out of danger.

  Some of Rudel’s last bullets took Codrington in both thighs.

  Within a few hours Codrington and Paxton were in an ambulance on their way to hospital in St. Omer. Thence they went by hospital train to Calais, where they were put into adjacent beds in a surgical ward and told they would stay in hospital there for a few days before being put on a hospital ship for England.

  *

  The year 1910 had seen the foundation of an aeroplane manufacturing company called Société des Productions Armand Deperdussin, or S.P.A.D. In 1915 it changed its name to Société Anonyme Pour l’Aviation et ses Dérivés; still S.P.A.D.

  The company produced sundry undistinguished aircraft which varied from the ordinary to the eccentric and dangerous: until, in 1916, it brought out the Spad VII, a big tough new fighter. In September of that year the Spad VII was issued to squadrons. One of the first to get it was the squadron on which Dupuis and Gabin served and were conducting their professional rivalry and the personal feud which arose from their discongruent characters and mutual dislike.

  It was armed with a Vickers machine-gun along the fuselage on the right hand side, between cockpit and engine cowling. The sight was positioned centrally, in front of the pilot, and there was a Hispano mechanism to synchronise the gun with the propeller. The eight-cylinder engine gave it a maximum speed of 120 m.p.h.

  On the day that Codrington and Paxton fought an aerial battle against Rudel and Weisbach, Dupuis and Gabin were both in the air somewhere in the Péronne region, at the other end of the Somme Front, when they intercepted four Rumplers reconnoitring the French forward positions. The Spad VIIs were in a formation also of four, led by Dupuis.

  Cloud base in the area was low and the Rumplers were at between two and three thousand feet. The Spads were a little higher, brushing through the lower edges of the cloud banks.

  As usual when they were in the same formation, Dupuis and Gabin raced each other to see who could get in the first shot.

  Ehrler was flying in one of the Rumplers and Seeckt in another.
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br />   Both Dupuis and Gabin saw Seeckt’s tall bulk projecting from the Rumpler at the rear of the formation and were drawn towards it. They had never seen an observer so much exposed, unless he was standing: and from this one’s attitude he appeared to be seated. Curiosity impelled them both to take a close look at this strange spectacle.

  Seeckt, the countryman, had exceptionally good vision. He had developed into a better than average marksmen with a Parabellum machine-gun. He opened fire before either of the Frenchmen. Traversing, he sprayed them both.

  Each was so intent on closing the range so as to start shooting before his rival, that they were neck-and-neck and only a few yards apart.

  The Rumpler’s fire took them by surprise and both swerved to port. Gabin was on Dupuis’s starboard side. The tail of Dupuis’s machine swiped Gabin’s port lower wingtip. The fin became entangled in the wing fabric, a piece of tailplane broke off.

  Both Spads began to stagger and yaw. They collided again. The wings overlapped, breaking spars and wires. Locked together, the two pilots brandished their fists and shouted. Neither could hear the other but each could guess what the other was saying: mostly “merde” and “imbécile”.

  The Spads crashed into the French support trenches.

  The pilots were dragged from the wreckage unconscious.

  Presently doctors diagnosed fractured skulls and various broken bones.

  They reached a hospital in Rheims at about the same time as Codrington and Paxton wound up in hospital at St. Omer.

  *

  Stokoe saw the new year in with Baird. He greeted 1917 in a West End hotel and an advanced state of inebriation. Baird was in tow, fascinated by this boisterous and larger than life Australian. They had met at the training school where Stokoe, recovered from his bayonet wound incurred on the Somme and his broken legs resulting from the last of his three accidents as a pupil pilot, was enlivening an observers’ course.

  They had a short leave, which Baird had intended to spend with his cousin-fiancée at her home in Hertfordshire.