by John Masters
The PA said, ‘I imagine that Field-Marshal Haig is well aware of that, sir.’
‘The battle for the Hindenburg Line is the battle for victory. The enemy is at his last gasp, including his air force. All risks must be taken to keep up a relentless attack against him, and drive him finally out of the sky …’
There was much more in General Brooke-Popham’s order, but those were the only words that Guy Rowland remembered. ‘Drive him out of the sky’ might have been etched into his windscreen, so clearly were they written into his mind, as a sort of impalpable curtain between him and the enemy, mysteriously making each target more, not less, clear in his sights.
The Three Threes was returning to its field after a successful sweep over the Hindenburg Line and the area immediately behind it, which, comprising gun areas and ammunition dumps, was an integral part of the Line. The photographic and artillery-spotting machines were still up, flying leisurely along the Line, recording each pill box and bunker, each machine-gun nest and trench revetment. The German Air Force was not to be seen and the cumbrous British machines plodded up and down unmolested. Two squadrons of scouts patrolled the sky 10,000 feet above them, guarding, waiting.
Guy’s squadron landed by flights, blipping and roaring, taxied to the flight ramp, and switched off their engines. Guy hurried to the officers’ mess, which was set up in the village school house beside the field, and took his place at the table. It had been a good patrol – three enemy kills certain, one of the Three Threes downed but on the British side of the lines, and probably able to land without serious damage; there had been no telephone call in yet. He ate fast, as did the other pilots; today was the day he hoped to spring the great trap he had been planning for the past ten days. In conjunction with other squadron commanders, and with the overall supervision of the Wing Commander, the five scout squadrons had been working in a quite regular fashion to protect the RE 8s of the Corps squadrons that were doing the photography, aerial reconnaissance, and artillery spotting; one squadron out at such and such a time, to be replaced by another just one hour later, at an obvious rendezvous over St Quentin or Cambrai or Soissons … and so on during the day. But at the next changing of the guard on the patrol line, it wasn’t going to be one squadron going out, but four … two of Camels and two of the newer Snipes. With luck they’d catch the Hun trying to pounce with two squadrons on the one that they would expect to meet. He paused in his eating and looked round the table … Morton, Warner, Irwin, Duncan, Aldrich, Adams, Stuart, Beardsley, Greaves, Palmer-Reed, Scurlock, Gorringe, O’Grady, Hubbell … Gorringe, Duncan, O’Grady, and Stuart the adjutant, were the only ones left from the time he had joined; so, although he was just twenty-one and a half, he was one of the old hands. But he hardly needed the extra experience to make him the senior here. Apart from those four, only Greaves and Scurlock were in fact older than he was, both recent transfers from the army – Greaves a gunner and Scurlock a Seaforth Highlander, who wore the kilt at all times, certainly when flying and according to some of the fellows, in bed …
He got up, tapping his knife handle on the table for silence – ‘I think we’re all here but I don’t want to give out orders in mess except in emergency. Dandy, will you bring them all to my office in fifteen minutes, ready for takeoff?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Guy walked out; the details of the plan had been worked out over the past few days; the pilots had not been told anything except that there would be special sorties this day at 1 p.m. Now he had to make them understand the strategic plan – how they hoped to lure the Germans into the trap; and then, the tactical plan – how they meant to destroy them. It should not be difficult as they were all fairly experienced by now, except Morton and Hubbell, who had joined the squadron within the past month and both just nineteen. Hubbell particularly had to be strictly enjoined not to act like the British cavalry of Wellington’s day … with great dash, but no control.
Punctually at one o’clock, tanks full, machine-guns loaded, lightly oiled and wiped off, the squadron took off into the west wind, at once starting a slow spiral ascent, still over the town and airfield, that would carry them to 18,000 feet, just a thousand feet below their maximum operational altitude. The rendezvous was over Cambrai, at 1.30 in the afternoon. The sky was clear in the battle zone, but heavy cumulus and cumulo-nimbus had begun to form west of the Somme, behind them.
From above, the Snipes of the squadron on routine patrol, nearly 10,000 feet below, were barely visible against the chequered background of the earth; only now and then a glint of the sun on wings or engine nacelles betrayed their presence. The aircraft the Snipes were protecting, the RE 8s, could not be seen at all. Guy peered at his watch … time for the patrolling squadron to go home, at the end of their fuel. This had happened before, by chance, leaving the RE 8s and the ground troops unprotected for ten minutes … This time it was planned. Yes, they were forming up. He could just make out twelve of them, in four Vs, heading west … gone … exactly 1.35 … The ambush would have a better chance if there were some clouds here, but then the Germans might be able to slip in unseen. The wing man from the leading flight, D, drew level and waggled his wings. Glancing over, Guy saw the pilot – it was Greaves – pointing downward. He stared down … nothing … looked further west … nothing … looked east. Suddenly they sprang out of the background, black dots racing across the fields – five … ten … twenty … two squadrons at least. He licked his lips with glee, and eased the Camel over, waggling his wings – exactly what he had hoped for. The other squadrons, ordered to take their initial cue from 333, nosed over behind and to both flanks. The four squadrons of fighters, forty-eight aircraft, dived faster and faster towards the earth and the German machines low above it. Now they were to the east of them, between them and their bases. Now the Germans must stand and fight it out.
The British squadrons came out of the sky in the formation they had waited in over the rendezvous, two squadrons ahead, two behind. The two ahead, Guy’s 333 on the left and 60 on the right, engaged the enemy – Fokker triplanes and … ah, shiny metal, Junkers CL 1s, the first aircraft of all metal construction, fast, manoeuvrable, very hard to knock down, heavily armed, two machine-guns forward and one on a ring for the observer, firing backwards … The flights of 60 and 333 were engaging, two at a time. Guy held off, D following him, as he circled a thousand feet above the melee. This must be Jagdgeschwader 1, led by Hermann Goering, Richthofen’s successor and according to Werner von Rackow, an absolute four-letter man, but a capable pilot and commander, though as self-centred as the Baron … Three Junkers were breaking away from the fight, using their tail gunners to keep the attacking Snipes at a distance. Guy waved a hand, and dived, followed by the three green-wheeled, green-spinnered Camels of D Flight. They came up under the Junkers as they headed east at full speed, and all four planes opened fire at 400 feet, and struck home … but the Junkers’ metal skins seemed to absorb the bullets … the Junkers flew on … the Camels fired again … again … The Junkers seemed to be unaware that they were being attacked. Furiously, Guy closed to a hundred feet and fired a long burst directly into the engine area from behind and below … At last, a tongue of fire spread from the machine, trailing behind like flaming silk as for a moment the leaking petrol burned all along its length, then the machine itself caught fire … Guy banked sharply, and looked over his shoulder … no one … Another Junkers was down … He turned and began to climb. One by one the other pilots of D Flight joined him … The two upper squadrons had come down further east, and were engaging the survivors of the dogfight, and some Triplanes near ground level, which were heading for home as fast as they could. Guy remembered seeing four trails of smoke going down, but didn’t know whether all had been German. He could confirm the one Junkers he had got, for that had nosed over and was even now burning in a wood five miles behind and two miles below him … Reform over Cambrai … two o’clock. The squadrons were nearly all there; stragglers would have to make their own way home. He waggl
ed his wings and the four squadrons, two up and two down, each squadron in stepped-up echelon of flights, headed west for their airfields.
But the cloud mass was there now, a wall of white across their path, and Guy knew that there would be no flying over the top of it. It must reach 30,000 feet, far above the ceiling of any of the scout planes fast approaching them. He signalled to spread out and the machines spread to a hundred yards apart, completing the manoeuvre just as they entered the cloud. At once the familiar lurching and heaving began, mostly upward as the column of rising air carried his Camel up with it in the heart of the cloud. Guy kept an easy hand on the control column, and gentle feet on the pedals, moving them by instinct rather than thought, as the instruments told him what was happening. If you lose confidence in your machine, the instructor at Upavon had said, that’s bad; if you lose confidence in yourself, that’s worse; but if you lose confidence in your instruments, you’re lost … and you won’t be found … It was hard to believe that the Camel was strongly nose down, but the artificial horizon said so, so it must be … Now it was hard to believe that he was falling at 500 feet a minute, but the instrument said so … now he was on his left ear, so correct accordingly with rudder pedals and ailerons … a fearful drop, the altimeter down to 8000 … an even more fierce rise … eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, the air was getting thin in his lungs as it had been up there at 18,000, waiting to spring the ambush … Levelling off at thirteen, so ease the nose down … twelve … eleven … he burst out into murky light, between two cloud towers, so thick that they were obscuring the afternoon sun and sending trailers of dense vapour across the gap between them … Something flashed out of the far cloud five hundred feet below him, and he gasped – Fokker Triplane! Jasta 16, yellow marks, large number 12 under the cockpit, nothing outside the crosses, not Werner … he was already in an attacking dive. The Fokker was crossing his front, full deflection, now a hundred feet below, 300 feet range. He pressed the trigger as the German pilot saw him and raised an arm. Why did he do that? His tracer arched into the engine, the cockpit; the arm dropped. The Fokker turned suddenly nose down, burst into flames and dived towards the ground, faster and faster … just before it disappeared into the eastern cloud mass, its wings were torn off by its speed. It vanished, a flaming rocket. Guy resumed course and at once reentered cloud. Twenty minutes later he landed at his airfield, where Frank Stratton was waiting, jubilant, with the bucket. He waved it away – ‘Don’t need it today, Frank … don’t know why.’
‘Didn’t you get any, sir? Mr Greaves said you got a Junkers CL 1.’
Guy nodded – ‘I did. And a Triplane of Jasta 16 … just now. Its number was 12. It’s a certain, but … I feel all right.’
He walked away. He didn’t feel all right. He felt depressed and uneasy, but the vomit had not come up into his throat as it always had, from the beginning, when he landed after killing. What was the matter with him?
The adjutant met him at the door of his office, looking concerned. Guy said, ‘What’s the matter, Dandy? Didn’t we do well?’
‘I haven’t had all the reports in yet, sir, but apparently we did very well … it looks as though we have four certain and one possible, for the loss of one … Morton.’
Guy swore under his breath; the youngest of all his pilots.
The adjutant continued – ‘But while you were all up, the Germans attacked Army Headquarters with twenty-four big bombers – they seem to have been Friedrichshafen G. IIIs – escorted by Jasta 16 … The Bristols managed to shoot down two of the Friedrichshafens on their way home … but we would have got most of them if your four scout squadrons hadn’t been elsewhere … or so the army commander says, with some heat, I gather.’
Guy said, ‘We seem to have come out about even then … Werner von Rackow and I. He had some nerve to bring the Friedrichshafens over in daylight. But he …’
The telephone bell on the adjutant’s desk rang. Dandy Stuart raised an interrogative eyebrow. Guy nodded and Dandy picked up the machine – ‘Three Threes squadron – Adjutant speaking … It’s for you, sir. General Brooke Popham.’
Guy held the earphone to his ear. The general was saying, ‘Rowland? You’ve heard about Jasta 16 and the Friedrichshafens?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Bombing Army Headquarters does less for them than destroying German aircraft does for us … I’ll be expecting the report on your ambush within an hour or so, right? Good. Now – the King has awarded you the Victoria Cross …’ Guy heard the words but they did not register. He had won Britain’s highest award for gallantry – the VC. The simple Maltese cross, made of bronze from melted-down Russian guns captured in the Crimean War, bore the simple inscription – FOR VALOUR. The ribbon was plain crimson, and in the middle of it the holder wore a tiny miniature of the cross itself. The general was still speaking – ‘I’d have liked to recommend you for it for your leadership, for your sixty-four kills.’
‘Sixty-six, now, sir,’ Guy said.
‘But there has to be some special occasion … and the award is specifically for your actions on August 10th, when you led your squadron to attack thirty Fokkers who were chewing up that Bristol squadron. As I said in the citation, you were wounded again, but you led your pilots into the attack and pressed it home, shooting down two enemy yourself, so that the much superior force of Germans finally broke off and fled. I won’t read the whole citation to you – you’ll see it in the paper, when you get one … but, congratulations … and I’ll see that your squadron is off the roster till 6 a.m. tomorrow.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Guy hung up. Now, he’d have to get Dandy to call up airfields all around to see if anyone had got Morton.
‘What did he say, sir?’ Dandy asked.
‘Oh, I have the VC.’
Dandy took his side cap and hurled it out of the open window, yelling ‘Hooray!’ He rushed out at his distinctive limping run, his wooden leg creaking loudly, bellowing, ‘The CO’s got the VC … the CO’s got the VC …!’
They were still at it in the mess at two in the morning, singing raucously in chorus. They had raided the messes of the other squadrons sharing the field. They had torn off Scurlock’s kilt and escorted Guy down the village street carried in a dusty armchair like an oriental potentate, flanked by all the other pilots waving flaming torches. The mess waiters’ little cubbyhole at the back of the house was knee-deep in champagne bottles – several cases of which had been brought in by a Bristol fighter from Amiens, on a mission officially unauthorised; but official enough so that the Wing Commander had personally telephoned the wine merchant in Amiens to have the champagne out at the designated airfield before the Bristol arrived … Morton had been returned, concussed by an emergency landing on a pavé road, and unable to give any account of himself when he was finally found. The congratulations had been said a hundred times, and Guy was sitting near an open window, thinking. It had been like this when Sulphuric Sugden was CO, and got his second bar to the DSO, and I got my first … tonight is wilder, because this was the Three Threes’ first VC … yet, not so lightheartedly happy. Too many months had gone by, too many good men – boys – not come back; too many uncles and brothers ‘gone west’ here, in other squadrons, or in the trenches. In a day or so, as soon as the news had had time to percolate through to Germany … it would probably be in the London papers tomorrow and the German ones the next day … Werner would know of it. He already had his Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, Swords, Diamonds, and Oak Leaves, and he already had the Pour le Mérite, which they nicknamed the Blue Max. Perhaps he’d come over and drop a present of some sort. It would be a shame if the machine-gunners on airfield defence got him, after all he’d been through. Quite possible, though. The Australian infantry claimed that it was one of their ground machine-guns that got Richthofen.
He felt old and weary. The side of his face where Werner’s bullet had cut the tendon was drooping, and though he had been laughing and smiling all eveni
ng, he knew that he looked terrifying. The officers were scared of him. Twenty-five-year-old captains – afraid to meet his eye, terrified he would find fault with them. How did he do it? ‘The Butcher wants to see you in his office,’ they’d say to each other. ‘He’s sharpening his knife now.’
In the chair beside him Dandy Stuart said, ‘You look tired, sir. I think that if we give them another half hour I’ll be able to shepherd them to bed and you can get some sleep … And tomorrow you can start out after Mannock and Bishop and McCudden.’
‘I’ll never beat Mannock,’ Guy said. ‘The war’ll be over too soon.’
‘You’d beat him if you let the other pilots herd the Huns on to you, instead of vice versa.’
Guy made to answer but a private soldier was edging his way round the door, looking about him. He recognised one of the squadron clerks and at the same time the man saw him and came over, a message form in his hand. He saluted and said, ‘Hawthorne, duty clerk, sir. This just came in.’
Stuart took the message and read while Guy leaned back, sipping his champagne and staring at the ceiling … sleep … but in that sleep what dreams might come … even though it was not a sleep of death … yet?
The adjutant’s voice was strange – ‘Sir …’
‘H’m?’
‘It’s from Air Headquarters. One of the Corps has reported that a burning Fokker triplane crashed in its rear areas this afternoon. The pilot was burned beyond recognition but there is definite identification that it was von Rackow.’
Guy closed his eyes. Here was the dream, the dream of horror. He said softly, ‘A locket … inscribed To Boy from Naomi with love.’ He jumped up, his heart racing, his body suddenly cold – ‘It can’t be … It didn’t have yellow wingtips … It was No. 12 and Werner’s is No. 1.’
