Читать книгу Cavalry of the Clouds - Alan Bott - Страница 7

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All units of the army have known it, the serio-comedy of waiting for embarkation orders.

After months of training the twelvetieth battalion, battery, or squadron is almost ready for a plunge into active service. Then comes, from a source which cannot be trailed, a mysterious Date. The orderly-room whispers: "June the fifteenth"; the senior officers' quarters murmur: "France on June the fifteenth"; the mess echoes to the tidings spread by the subaltern-who-knows: "We're for it on June the fifteenth, me lad"; through the men's hutments the word is spread: "It's good-bye to this blinking hole on June the fifteenth"; the Home receives a letter and confides to other homes: "Reginald's lot are going to the war on June the fifteenth"; finally, if we are to believe Mr. William le Queux, the Military Intelligence Department of the German Empire dockets a report: "Das zwölfzigste Battalion (Batterie oder Escadrille) geht am 15 Juni nach Frankreich."

June opens with an overhaul of officers and men. Last leave is distributed, the doctor examines everybody by batches, backward warriors are worried until they become expert, the sergeant-major polishes his men on the grindstone of discipline, the C.O. indents for a draft to complete establishment, an inspection is held by an awesome general. Except for the mobilisation stores everything is complete by June 10.

But there is still no sign of the wanted stores on the Date, and June 16 finds the unit still in the same blinking hole, wherever that may be. The days drag on, and Date the second is placed on a pedestal.

"Many thanks for an extra fortnight in England," says the subaltern-who-knows; "we're not going till June the twenty-seventh."

The adjutant, light duty, is replaced by an adjutant, general service. Mobilisation stores begin to trickle into the quartermaster's reservoir. But on June 27 the stores are far from ready, and July 6 is miraged as the next Date. This time it looks like business. The war equipment is completed, except for the identity discs.

On July 4 a large detachment departs, after twelve hours' notice, to replace casualties in France. Those remaining in the now incomplete unit grow wearily sarcastic. More last leave is granted. The camp is given over to rumour. An orderly, delivering a message to the C.O. (formerly stationed in India) at the latter's quarters, notes a light cotton tunic and two sun-helmets. Sun-helmets? Ah, somewhere East, of course. The men tell each other forthwith that their destination has been changed to Mesopotamia.

A band of strangers report in place of the draft that went to France, and in them the N.C.O.'s plant esprit de corps and the fear of God. The missing identity discs arrive, and a fourth Date is fixed—July 21. And the dwellers in the blinking hole, having been wolfed several times, are sceptical, and treat the latest report as a bad joke.

"My dear man," remarks the subaltern-who-knows, "it's only some more hot air. I never believed in the other dates, and I don't believe in this. If there's one day of the three hundred and sixty-five when we shan't go, it's July the twenty-first."

And at dawn on July 21 the battalion, battery, or squadron moves unobtrusively to a port of embarkation for France.

Whereas in most branches of the army the foundation of this scaffolding of postponement is indistinct except to the second-sighted Staff, in the case of the Flying Corps it is definitely based on that uncertain quantity, the supply of aeroplanes. The organisation of personnel is not a difficult task, for all are highly trained beforehand. The pilots have passed their tests and been decorated with wings, and the mechanics have already learned their separate trades as riggers, fitters, carpenters, sailmakers, and the like. The only training necessary for the pilot is to fly as often as possible on the type of bus he will use in France, and to benefit by the experience of the flight-commanders, who as a rule have spent a hundred or two hours over Archie and the enemy lines. As regards the mechanics, the quality of their skilled work is tempered by the technical sergeant-major, who knows most things about an aeroplane, and the quality of their behaviour by the disciplinary sergeant-major, usually an ex-regular with a lively talent for blasting.

The machines comprise a less straight-forward problem. The new service squadron is probably formed to fly a recently adopted type of aeroplane, of which the early production in quantities is hounded by difficulty. The engine and its parts, the various sections of the machine itself, the guns, the synchronising gear, all these are made in separate factories, after standardisation, and must then be co-ordinated before the craft is ready for its test. If the output of any one part fall below what was expected, the whole is kept waiting; and invariably the quantity or quality of output is at first below expectation in some particular. Adding to the delays of supply others due to the more urgent claims of squadrons at the front for machines to replace those lost or damaged, it can easily be seen that a new squadron will have a succession of Dates.

Even when the machines are ready, and the transport leaves with stores, ground-officers, and mechanics, the period of postponement is not ended. All being well, the pilots will fly their craft to France on the day after their kit departs with the transport. But the day after produces impossible weather, as do the five or six days that follow. One takes advantage of each of these set-backs to pay a further farewell visit to one's dearest or nearest, according to where the squadron is stationed, until at the last the dearest or nearest says: "Good-bye. I do hope you'll have a safe trip to France to-morrow morning. You'll come and see me again to-morrow evening, won't you?"

At last a fine morning breaks the spell of dud weather, and the pilots fly away; but lucky indeed is the squadron that reaches France without delivering over part of its possessions to that aerial highwayman the forced landing.

It was at an aerodrome forty minutes distant from London that we patiently waited for flying orders. Less than the average delay was expected, for two flights of the squadron were already on the Somme, and we of the third flight were to join them immediately we received our full complement of war machines. These, in those days, were to be the latest word in fighting two-seaters of the period. Two practice buses had been allotted to us, and on them the pilots were set to perform landings, split-"air" turns, and stunts likely to be useful in a scrap. For the rest, we sorted ourselves out, which pilot was to fly with which observer, and improved the machines' accessories.

An inspiration suggested to the flight-commander, who although an ex-Civil Servant was a man of resource, that mirrors of polished steel, as used on the handlebars of motor-cycles, to give warning of roadcraft at the rear, might be valuable in an aeroplane. Forthwith he screwed one to the sloping half-strut of his top center-section. The trial was a great success, and we bought six such mirrors, an investment which was to pay big dividends in many an air flight.

Next the flight-commander made up his mind to bridge the chasm of difficult communication between pilot and observer. Formerly, in two-seaters with the pilot's seat in front, a message could only be delivered on a slip of paper or by shutting off the engine, so that one's voice could be heard; the loss of time in each case being ill afforded when Huns were near. An experiment with a wide speaking-tube, similar to those through which a waiter in a Soho restaurant demands côtelettes milanèses from an underground kitchen, had proved that the engine's roar was too loud for distinct transmission by this means. We made a mouthpiece and a sound-box earpiece, and tried them on tubes of every make and thickness; but whenever the engine was at work the words sounded indistinct as words sung in English Opera. One day a speedometer behaved badly, and a mechanic was connecting a new length of the rubber pitot-tubing along which the air is sucked from a wingtip to operate the instrument. Struck with an idea, the pilot fitted mouthpiece and earpiece to a stray piece of the tubing, and took to the air with his observer. The pair conversed easily and pleasantly all the way to 10,000 feet. The problem was solved, and ever afterwards pilot and observer were able to warn and curse each other in mid-air without waste of time. The high-powered two-seaters of to-day are supplied with excellent speaking-tubes before they leave the factories; but we, who were the first to use a successful device of this kind on active service, owed its introduction to a chance idea.

One by one our six war machines arrived and were allotted to their respective pilots. Each man treated his bus as if it were an only child. If another pilot were detailed to fly it the owner would watch the performance jealously, and lurid indeed was the subsequent talk if an outsider choked the carburettor, taxied the bus on the switch, or otherwise did something likely to reduce the efficiency of engine or aeroplane. On the whole, however, the period of waiting was dull, so that we welcomed comic relief provided by the affair of the Jabberwocks.

The first three machines delivered from the Rafborough depôt disappointed us in one particular. The movable mounting for the observer's gun in the rear cockpit was a weird contraption like a giant catapult. It occupied a great deal of room, was stiff-moving, reduced the speed by about five miles an hour owing to head resistance, refused to be slewed round sideways for sighting at an angle, and constantly collided with the observer's head. We called it the Christmas Tree, the Heath Robinson, the Jabberwock, the Ruddy Limit, and names unprintable. The next three buses were fitted with Scarff mountings, which were as satisfactory as the Jabberwocks were unsatisfactory.

Then, late in the evening, one of the new craft was crashed beyond repair. At early dawn a pilot and his observer left their beds, walked through the rain to the aerodrome, and sneaked to the flight shed. They returned two hours later, hungry, dirty, and flushed with suppressed joy. After breakfast we found that the crashed bus had lost a Scarff mounting, and the bus manned by the early risers had found one. The gargoyle shape of a discarded Jabberwock sprawled on the floor.

At lunch-time another pilot disappeared with his observer and an air of determination. When the shed was opened for the afternoon's work the Jabberwock had been replaced on the machine of the early risers, and the commandeered Scarff was affixed neatly to the machine of the quick-lunchers. While the two couples slanged each other a third pilot and observer sought out the flight-commander, and explained why they were entitled to the disputed mounting. The pilot, the observer pointed out, was the senior pilot of the three; the observer, the pilot pointed out, was the senior observer. Was it not right, therefore, that they should be given preferential treatment? The flight-commander agreed, and by the time the early-risers and quick-lunchers had settled their quarrel by the spin of a coin, the Scarff had found a fourth and permanent home.

The two remaining Jabberwocks became an obsession with their unwilling owners, who hinted darkly at mutiny when told that no more Scarffs could be obtained, the Naval Air Service having contracted for all the new ones in existence. But chance, in the form of a Big Bug's visit of inspection, opened the way for a last effort. In the machine examined by the Big Bug, an exhausted observer was making frantic efforts to swivel an archaic framework from back to front. The Big Bug looked puzzled, but passed on without comment. As he approached the next machine a second observer tried desperately to move a similar monstrosity round its hinges, while the pilot, stop-watch in hand, looked on with evident sorrow. The Big Bug now decided to investigate, and he demanded the reason for the stop-watch and the hard labour.

"We've just timed this mounting, sir, to see how quickly it could be moved for firing at a Hun. I find it travels at the rate of 6.5 inches a minute."

"Disgraceful," said the Big Bug. "We'll get them replaced by the new type." And get them replaced he did, the R.N.A.S. contract notwithstanding. The four conspirators have since believed themselves to be heaven-born strategists.

Followed the average number of delays due to crashed aeroplanes and late stores. At length, however, the transport moved away with our equipment, and we received orders to proceed by air a day later. But next day brought a steady drizzle, which continued for some forty-eight hours, so that instead of proceeding by air the kitless officers bought clean collars. Then came two days of low, clinging mist, and the purchase of shirts. A fine morning on the fifth day forestalled the necessity of new pyjamas.

At ten of the clock we were in our machines, saying good-bye to a band of lucky pilots who stayed at home to strafe the Zeppelin and be petted in the picture press and the Piccadilly grillroom. "Contaxer!" called a mechanic, facing the flight-commander's propeller. "Contact!" replied the flight-commander; his engine roared, around flew the propeller, the chocks were pulled clear, and away and up raced the machine. The rest followed and took up their appointed places behind the leader, at a height chosen for the rendezvous.

We headed in a south-easterly direction, passing on our left the ragged fringe of London. At this point the formation was not so good as it might have been, probably because we were taking leave of the Thames and other landmarks. But four of the twelve who comprised the party have since seen them, and of these four one was to return by way of a German hospital, a prison camp, a jump from the footboard of a train, a series of lone night-walks that extended over two months, and an escape across the frontier of Neutralia, while two fellow-fugitives were shot dead by Boche sentries.

Above the junction of Redhill the leader veered to the left and steered by railway to the coast. Each pilot paid close attention to his place in the group, for this was to be a test of whether our formation flying was up to the standard necessary for work over enemy country. To keep exact formation is far from easy for the novice who has to deal with the vagaries of a rotary engine in a machine sensitive on the controls. The engine develops a sudden increase of revolutions, and the pilot finds himself overhauling the craft in front; he throttles back and finds himself being overhauled by the craft behind; a slight deviation from the course and the craft all around seem to be swinging sideways or upwards. Not till a pilot can fly his bus unconsciously does he keep place without repeated reference to the throttle and instrument-board.

Beyond Redhill we met an unwieldy cloudbank and were forced to lose height. The clouds became denser and lower, and the formation continued to descend, so that when the coast came into view we were below 3000 feet.

A more serious complication happened near Dovstone, the port which was to be our cross-Channel springboard. There we ran into a mist, thick as a London fog. It covered the Channel like a blanket, and completely enveloped Dovstone and district. To cross under these conditions would have been absurd, for opaque vapour isolated us from the ground and cut the chain of vision which had bound together the six machines. We dropped through the pall of mist and trusted to Providence to save us from collision.

Four fortunate buses emerged directly above Dovstone aerodrome, where they landed. The other two, in one of which I was a passenger, came out a hundred feet over the cliffs. We turned inland, and soon found ourselves travelling over a wilderness of roofs and chimneys. A church-tower loomed ahead, so we climbed back into the mist. Next we all but crashed into the hill south of Dovstone. We banked steeply and swerved to the right, just as the slope seemed rushing towards us through the haze.

Once more we descended into the clear air. Down below was a large field, and in the middle of it was an aeroplane. Supposing this to be the aerodrome, we landed, only to find ourselves in an uneven meadow, containing, besides the aeroplane already mentioned, one cow, one pond, and some Brass Hats.[1] As the second bus was taxiing over the grass the pilot jerked it round sharply to avoid the pond. His undercarriage gave, the propeller hit the earth and smashed itself, and the machine heeled over and pulled up dead, with one wing leaning on the ground.

Marmaduke, our war baby, was the pilot of the maimed machine. He is distinctly young, but he can on occasion declaim impassioned language in a manner that would be creditable to the most liver-ridden major in the Indian Army. The Brass Hats seemed mildly surprised when, after inspecting the damage, Marmaduke danced around the unfortunate bus and cursed systematically persons and things so diverse as the thingumy fool whose machine had misled us into landing, the thingumy pond, the thingumy weather expert who ought to have warned us of the thingumy Channel mist, the Kaiser, his aunt, and his contemptible self.

He was no what-you-may-call-it good as a pilot, shouted Marmaduke to the ruminative cow, and he intended to leave the blank R.F.C. for the Blanky Army Service Corps or the blankety Grave-diggers Corps. As a last resort, he would get a job as a double-blank Cabinet Minister, being no blank-blank good for anything else.

The Brass Hats gazed and gazed and gazed. A heavy silence followed Marmaduke's outburst, a silence pregnant with possibilities of Staff displeasure, of summary arrest, of—laughter. Laughter won. The Brass Hats belonged to the staff of an Anzadian division in the neighbourhood, and one of them, a young-looking major with pink riding breeches and a prairie accent, said—

"Gentlemen, some beautiful birds, some beautiful swear, and, by Abraham's trousers, some beautiful angel boy."

Marmaduke wiped the foam from his mouth and apologised.

"Not at all," said the Brass Hat from one of our great Dominions of Empire, "I do it every day myself, before breakfast generally."

Meanwhile the news of our arrival had rippled the calm surface of the daily round at Dovstone. Obviously, said the good people to each other, the presence of three aeroplanes in a lonely field, with a guard of Anzadians around the said field, must have some hidden meaning. Perhaps there had been a German air raid under cover of the mist. Perhaps a German machine had been brought down. Within half an hour of our erratic landing a dozen people in Dovstone swore to having seen a German aeroplane touch earth in our field. The pilot had been made prisoner by Anzadians, added the dozen eye-witnesses.

Such an event clearly called for investigation by Dovstone's detective intellects. We were honoured by a visit from two special constables, looking rather like the Bing Boys. Their collective eagle eye grasped the situation in less than a second. I happened to be standing in the centre of the group, still clad in flying kit. The Bing Boys decided that I was their prey, and one of them advanced, flourishing a note-book.

"Excuse me, sir," said he to a Brass Hat, "I represent the civil authority. Will you please tell me if this"—pointing to me—"is the captive baby-killer?"

"Now give us the chorus, old son," said Marmaduke. Explanations followed, and the Bing Boys retired, rather crestfallen.

It is embarrassing enough to be mistaken for a German airman. It is more embarrassing to be mistaken for an airman who shot down a German airman when there was no German airman to shoot down. Such was the fate of the four of us—two pilots and two observers—when we left our field to the cow and the conference of Brass Hats, and drove to the Grand Hotel. The taxi-driver, who, from his enthusiastic civility, had clearly never driven a cab in London, would not be convinced.

"No, sir," he said, when we arrived at the hotel, "I'm proud to have driven you, and I don't want your money. No, sir, I know you avi-yaters are modest and aren't allowed to say what you've done. Good day, gentlemen, and good luck, gentlemen."

It was the same in the Grand Hotel. Porters and waiters asked what had become of "the Hun," and no denial could fully convince them. At a tango tea held in the hotel that afternoon we were pointed out as the intrepid birdmen who had done the deed of the day. Flappers and fluff-girls further embarrassed us with interested glances, and one of them asked for autographs.

Marmaduke rose to the occasion. He smiled, produced a gold-tipped fountain-pen, and wrote with a flourish, "John James Christopher Benjamin Brown. Greetings from Dovstone."

But Marmaduke the volatile was doomed to suffer a loss of dignity. He had neglected to bring an emergency cap, which an airman on a cross-country flight should never forget. Bareheaded he accompanied us to a hatter's. Here the R.F.C. caps of the "stream-lined" variety had all been sold, so the war baby was obliged to buy a general service hat. The only one that fitted him was shapeless as a Hausfrau, ponderous as a Bishop, unstable as a politician, grotesque as a Birthday Honours' List. It was a nice quiet hat, we assured Marmaduke—just the thing for active service. Did it suit him? Very well indeed, we replied—made him look like Lord Haldane at the age of sixteen. Marmaduke bought it.

The monstrosity brought us a deal of attention in the streets, but this Marmaduke put down to his fame as a conqueror of phantom raiders. He began, however, to suspect that something was wrong when a newsboy shouted, "Where jer get that 'at, leftenant?" The question was unoriginal and obvious; but the newsboy showed imagination at his second effort, which was the opening line of an old music-hall chorus: "Sidney's 'olidays er in Septembah!" Marmaduke called at another shop and chose the stiffest hat he could find.

By next morning the mist had cleared, and we flew across the Channel, under a curtain of clouds, leaving Marmaduke to fetch a new machine. When you visit the Continent after the war, friend the reader, travel by the Franco-British service of aerial transport, which will come into being with the return of peace. You will find it more comfortable and less tiring; and if you have a weak stomach you will find it less exacting, for none but the very nervous are ill in an aeroplane, if the pilot behaves himself. Also, you will complete the journey in a quarter of the time taken by boat. Within fifteen minutes of our departure from Dovstone we were in French air country. A few ships specked the sea-surface, which reflected a dull grey from the clouds, but otherwise the crossing was monotonous.

We passed up the coast-line as far as the bend at Cape Grisnez, and so to Calais. Beyond this town were two sets of canals, one leading south and the other east. Follow the southern group and you will find our immediate destination, the aircraft depôt at Saint Gregoire. Follow the eastern group and they will take you to the Boche aircraft depôt at Lille. Thus were we reminded that tango teas and special constables belonged to the past.

The covey landed at Saint Gregoire without mishap, except for a bent axle and a torn tyre. With these replaced, and the supplies of petrol and oil replenished, we flew south during the afternoon to the river-basin of war. Marmaduke arrived five days later, in time to take part in our first patrol over the lines. On this trip his engine was put out of action by a stray fragment from anti-aircraft. After gliding across the trenches, he landed among some dug-outs inhabited by sappers, and made use of much the same vocabulary as when he crashed at Dovstone Marmaduke shot down several Hun machines during the weeks that followed, but on the very day of his posting for a decoration a Blighty bullet gave him a return ticket to England and a mention in the casualty list. When last I heard of him he was at Dovstone aerodrome, teaching his elders how to fly. I can guess what he would do if at the Grand Hotel there some chance-introduced collector of autographs offered her book. He would think of the cow and the Brass Hats, smile, produce his gold-tipped fountain-pen, and write with a flourish, "John James Christopher Benjamin Brown. Greetings from Dovstone."