The Bright Blue Sky

by Max Hennessy

  “And you’re not?”

  “I’m jealous when anyone looks at you,” she said with heartbreaking simplicity. “Even Marie-Gabrielle. I mustn’t be. I’ve admitted it at confession and I pray often to the Virgin when I go to bed. But she gives me no guidance and I’m bewildered.”

  She was struggling through a wilderness of emotions, all of which seemed to be a little out of control, and he felt a unique tenderness toward her.

  “Bewildered about what?” he asked gently.

  She looked up, her eyes moist. “I want to love you,” she said. “But I mustn’t.”

  Toward the end of the month, it seemed the German advance in France was slowing down. They were now suffering from the problem that had plagued the allies ever since the war began: they were attacking across the ground their own artillery had shattered and were trying to bring up supplies across the devastated area where fighting had taken place for nearly four years. Eventually they learned that the Germans had been held.

  “Us next,” Hatto observed. “They’re bound to try on the Piave now.”

  Sure enough, Diplock gave orders that the offensive against enemy aircraft was to be pursued with increased vigour.

  “He sure is an aggressive sonofabitch behind that desk,” Foote said.

  On April 1st, they found that the RFC and the RNAS had been united under one command, to be called the RAF.

  “It sounds to me like a forced marriage,” Hatto commented. “And April Fool’s Day’s hardly a happy augury for the future. I suppose we’ll become known as the Royal Air Farce.”

  The new régime seemed to have affected Diplock’s sense of balance because he started once more going out on what he called his supervisory patrols, though it was noticeable that they were all south of the Piave and most were in the direction of headquarters.

  “Buttering up the brigadier,” Hatto said as they filled in their reports in the empty squadron office.

  As the telephone rang, Foote answered it. His face changed abruptly as the telephone crackled and he grinned and made signs to Dicken. “It’s himself,” he whispered.

  “You want a tender sent over?” he went on. “Because your engine’s giving trouble?” His voice rose to a high falsetto. “My dear fellow, who do you think you are?”

  “This is Major Diplock.” The voice on the telephone rose until they could all hear it. “Who’s that?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No.”

  “And a damn good job, too,” Foote said, slamming down the telephone.

  No tender was sent and Diplock arrived back in the afternoon in such a bad temper, he put his machine down too far up the field so that it buried its nose in a pile of manure the Italian farmer, his wife and daughters were about to spread across their land.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Foote said. “That stuff sure has a fatal fascination for him.”

  As Diplock stalked toward the mess, Foote made a great show of moving to windward so that the Italian farmer and his family began to cackle with laughter, and it was good enough for Hatto to head for the mess piano and begin to play “Dan, Dan, the Lavatory Man”. A binge started; any excuse was good enough and they didn’t come often, because there was too much flying to do and nobody fancied bumping into an enemy formation while still sluggish after a heavy night.

  The attempt at humour rebounded a few days later when Foote was called to the office after a patrol. Diplock had suspected all along who’d been responsible for answering the telephone and Foote reappeared, looking shaken and furious.

  “He said I wasn’t pulling my weight,” he spluttered. “Because I’ve only got five and a half Huns down – mostly in bits shared with other guys. He said he was over the lines today and had a bunch of DVs dive on him when his guns were jammed, and I should have seen ’em and driven ’em away. He said he had to splitarse to frighten’em off.”

  “He couldn’t splitarse a Camel to save his life,” Dicken growled.

  “I doubt if he could splitarse a bicycle,” Hatto observed. “Just hang on, darlings. Your Uncle Willie’s had thoughts.”

  He returned half an hour later, smiling. “The armourer sergeant said no jam was reported to him. He even inspected the guns while I was there and couldn’t find anything wrong with them.”

  “Jesus,” Foote said. “Is he like that?”

  “He’s exactly like that,” Hatto pointed out. “I told you long ago. This is a dangerous type, and spite forms a large part of his make-up. You made too much of the smell, Walt, old fruit, when he plowed into the cowshit.”

  Toward the end of the month, a replacement from France brought them the news that Richthofen had been killed.

  In the fiercer furnace of the Western Front, enormous flights of machines were taking the air daily against each other. The big squadron ideas of Richthofen had taken root so that it was nothing, the man from France said, to see the sky full of airplanes. He was glad to be out of it where the fighting was done in smaller numbers by what was virtually an independent air force.

  “It was ground fire that got him,” he explained.

  Foote shrugged. “I expect there are plenty of others,” he said.

  “Sure.” The newcomer seemed anxious to frighten them to death. “Udet. Löwenhardt. Baumer. They haven’t run out of ’em by a long way. And, in spite of the death of the proprietor, the Richthofen mob’s still in business.”

  It was growing much warmer now and on the southern slopes of the mountains there were millions of gentians and buttercups among the grass, and massed clumps of dwarf hydrangea and soldanella between the rocks and the cushions of moss. By this time they felt they were old Italy hands, used to spaghetti, chianti, red tiles and swallows against the blue sky; even the awful Macedonia cigarettes which were so loosely packed one good drag finished them off in a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks and a fit of coughing.

  As the heat increased, Diplock issued orders that nobody was to be in the sun without suitable head cover and pith helmets were issued. They were useless for flying and the ground crews complained they were always knocking them off against the bracing wires. When mosquitoes began to appear, netting was erected over the beds and the sentries had to wear gloves and veils sprayed with repellent. Nobody thought very highly of it.

  “They use it as a sauce when they bite,” Hatto complained.

  With the creation of the RAF, a whole new set of regulations had been issued.

  “Most of the bloody things have nothing to do with the war,” Hatto objected. “I expect they were worked out by people like Parasol Percy who have nothing better to do.”

  Certainly Diplock was involved in a flurry of paperwork about uniforms and ranks. In the past, RFC and RNAS pilots had lived and worked together, while ex-infantry, cavalry and artillery officers had all worn their own uniforms, with the direct-entry people like young Foote wearing the double-breasted maternity jacket of the RFC. Now, they were informed, anyone buying a new uniform had to buy the RAF style, which, Hatto claimed, had been designed by an admiral with the assistance of a girl friend.

  “Probably the Hon. Maud,” he said.

  Diplock himself was the first to appear in one. It was of light blue with gold stripes on the cuffs.

  “Oh, Mother,” Hatto said. “Look at Dick!”

  Foote almost collapsed. “Those little gold things at the side of the badge!” he crowed. “I think they’re bananas!”

  “It should go a long way to heighten the dullness of wartime streets,” Hatto admitted. “Is he going to meet the Pope or something?”

  “More likely the Wing colonel,” Dicken said. “He’s probably aiming at a new gong to go with it.”

  The only good thing that emerged from the change was an increased freedom to travel about the countryside and the institution of leave to places away from the front for anybody
who could afford it.

  “You must join us in Venice,” Nicola said. “We always take a house there before the weather grows too hot.”

  With an Austrian offensive clearly in the air, they were occupied escorting the bombers and reconnaissance machines trying to find out where it was to come. Against Santa Giustina airfield, where a new Austrian squadron had been reported, they accompanied eleven Italian Capronis, sitting above, screened by a fringe of cloud, to watch for fighters. As the columns of smoke began to rise, Dicken saw a flash of light below him which he knew was the sunshine catching the doped wings of airplanes. Five Phönixes, sporting German crosses and the Austrian national colours, were sliding in beneath.

  The Capronis were speeding across the field, through the plumes of yellow smoke that leapt up from hidden gun positions. The Phönixes followed, totally unaware of the Camels falling out of the sky on them. Within seconds two of them were twisting to earth, and the Camels were howling after the Capronis to open fire on a line of Bergs just beginning to taxi across the front of a hangar. One of the Bergs was hit by an Austrian shell as it took off and slithered along the ground in a mass of wreckage, throwing debris in all directions like a chicken taking a dust bath.

  The Capronis were flying boldly backward and forward now, dodging by inches each other’s wheels and wingtips, while the Camels held off the Austrian fighters. Diving on a wagon-wheel gun mounting, Dicken saw the crew roll away like collapsed dolls, their gun swinging impotently, then, as he lifted upward, something big and ugly with three tails staggered across his vision. It was a Caproni and, as the pilot misjudged his pull-up, it disappeared into the open maw of a hangar which promptly burst into flames. A truck came tearing across the field toward it and a Camel swung around low down to fire at it so that it slid into a ditch and turned over. As it did so, the Camel touched a wingtip against the ground and cartwheeled across the field, so that a Berg which was just taking off, slammed into it and burst into flames.

  His heart in his mouth, he saw a green Very light flare up, and thankfully swung away as the remaining planes reformed and fell in behind the Capronis to scurry through the smoke for the south.

  The increased reconnaissance brought in what seemed to be growing evidence of the impending offensive and the Camels were occupied with machine gunning grey columns and bombing wagons and trucks moving toward the front.

  “They can’t win the battle even if it comes,” Diplock insisted. “They’ll be advancing over the ground abandoned after Caporetto, and the Italians know all the holes and corners where they’re likely to hide.”

  It didn’t seem as easy as that to everybody else, and the following day Hatto was wounded again in another attempt to bomb the power station at Lugagnano. They knew something was wrong as soon as the Bristols returned. Only two out of the three which had taken off had appeared and, as the first one landed, the pilot jumped out and started shouting at the flight sergeant who turned and yelled into the hangar. Almost immediately, the ambulance hurtled out of its shed and began to roar toward the far end of the field. Men began to run, and the tender appeared around the end of the headquarters hut, with Foote clinging to the side. As it slowed down, Dicken jumped aboard.

  “Willie’s in trouble,” Foote yelled.

  As Hatto’s Bristol turned above the trees, they could hear the engine making a strange whirring noise, and could see wires hanging loose. There was no sign of the observer.

  Its wheels skimmed a hut, then it slammed down hard, bouncing into the air. Settling again, it swung in a ground loop and jerked to an abrupt stop. The ambulance roared up alongside and the tender stopped with such a jerk both Dicken and Foote were flung to the grass.

  The airplane was canted to one side and Dicken saw that the tire had been shot away and the tireless wheel had collapsed. They were hoisting Hatto out and lowering him to the grass.

  “Never mind me,” he kept saying. “It’s getting to be a habit. Look after Henry.”

  Dicken had scrambled on to the wing to peer into the after cockpit but the observer was huddled in a heap on the floor, his face grey, a thin trickle of blood across his cheek.

  “It’s too late, Willie,” he said. “Henry’s dead.”

  Hatto scowled. “What’s so special about a bloody power station?” he snarled. “Sending three of us in is like sending a bunch of gnats.”

  Foote looked toward the headquarters hut, where Hallowes, the Recording Officer, stood outside the door with Diplock, who was using a pair of binoculars to see what had happened.

  “You’d think the sonofabitch could be bothered to come across to see what had happened,” he said. “Instead of using goddam glasses.”

  Hatto’s wound wasn’t serious, but was made to look worse by the amount of blood it shed, and he sat on his bed, his leg bandaged, glaring at the floor in a way Dicken had never seen before, his eyeglass screwed in as if it were the single orb of a cyclops.

  “Hallowes told me,” he said harshly, “that these bloody bombings are Diplock’s idea. He’s after another gong or something. Top marks for efficiency.”

  The Bristol crews were silent in the mess that night and when Diplock arrived with orders for the following day, they pointedly didn’t bother to look up.

  “Visual and photographic evidence,” Diplock said, “shows the growing scale of the Austrian preparations for a ground offensive. We’ve made preparations to counter it, though. Camel squadrons will make a combined bombing attack on troops concentrated in hutments in the Val D’Oro. Three squadrons will provide thirty-five machines loaded with Cooper bombs. X Flight will attack the Lugagnano power station again.”

  “Why?” Hatto’s word snapped out and Diplock’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Because it supplies electricity to the Austrian armies,” he said. “That should be obvious. We all regret the losses, of course, but there seems to be no alternative. However, Headquarters express their appreciation and I’d like to, also–”

  “Why?” It was Foote this time. “Why should you be so bloody pleased, you sonofabitch? You’ve done nothing toward the goddam war except buy a new uniform that makes you look like a Hungarian Hussar. You’ve no right to be pleased about anything, you Limey bastard. Your experience of war flying is nil.”

  There was a dead silence. Diplock stared at Foote for a while, then, without a word, he turned and walked out of the mess. For a moment, Hallowes remained, uneasy and embarrassed, then he followed.

  Foote stared about him. Nobody spoke and he looked faintly ashamed.

  “You’re Limeys, too,” he mumbled. “You’re all bloody Limeys! But at least you’re not bastards.”

  Three

  News from France indicated that the German push had been held. The forward movement had been halted north of the Somme and, at long last, instead of each allied army fighting as and when it pleased, a commander-in-chief had been appointed to co-ordinate the whole allied effort.

  “What was obvious to every fighting soldier from the day the war started,” Hatto observed, “seems at last to have filtered through to the generals.”

  With nothing happening on the Italian front, it began to look as if the Austrians were having second thoughts about their offensive, especially since they were considered to be in no condition to launch anything without German help, and with the general easing off of tension, leave was allowed. Dicken took advantage of it to accept the Aubrey’s invitation to visit them in Venice.

  The city was like a beautiful playhouse closed for repairs. The gondolas had vanished because the gondoliers had gone into the army, and there were no lights and no merriment and, because of the frequent air raids, everybody disappeared at dusk. The narrow streets were lit only by purple bulbs, and most of the great tourist hotels had been turned into hospitals. There had been some damage, and one or two churches had been destroyed, while St Mark’s looked like a warehous
e, sheathed from top to bottom in planking and asbestos, the bronze horses removed.

  “Napoleon said they weren’t any good for cavalry, anyway,” Aubrey smiled, “and were far too light for artillery.”

  One or two theatres were still open, giving performances during the afternoon, and Nicola managed to drag Dicken to a performance of Tosca. The soprano spent most of the first act manoeuvring the tenor’s back to the audience, but in the second, the tenor, no less powerful, rebelled and did the same to the soprano, so that for the rest of the performance they struggled together in the centre of the stage like Japanese wrestlers. When the tenor gallantly kissed the soprano’s hand after the final curtain, to Nicola’s disgust Dicken almost collapsed. “I think he’s taking a bite out of it,” he said.

  The pavement cafés were full as everybody crowded in for a drink before darkness came. There was no wind and the smell of the stagnant water was strong. But there was a violinist who played “Addio, mia Napoli” and “Ciri-Biri-Bi” and Nicola was won around sufficiently to suggest a visit to Murano.

  “The glass and lace factories are having to close down because of the war,” she said. “If we don’t go now, there’ll be nothing to see.”

  “I don’t want to visit anything,” Dicken said. “I just want to be with you.”

  He had a feeling somehow that time was growing short. When they sang their bawdy ballads about dying in the mess they were scoffing at the possibility of a messy end, but they were nevertheless well aware that the likelihood of suffering one was great. Every week brought news of someone else they knew who’d been killed – Roode had gone, they’d heard, shot down flying an SE5 in France, and Lewis had collided with a DH9 in mid-air – and they were well aware that only sheer chance prevented it being them. And Dicken had been in the war almost from the beginning so that his chances of survival grew less, by the sheer weight of the odds against it, with every day it continued. At that moment, the only thing he wanted was to remain within the aura of gentleness that surrounded Nicola and the idea of sharing it with other people was one he couldn’t bear.