Читать книгу Biggles of the Camel Squadron - W E Johns - Страница 3

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A slight fall of snow during the night had covered the aerodrome of Squadron No. 266, R.F.C., with a thin white mantle, and a low-hanging canopy of indigo-tinted cloud, stretching from horizon to horizon, held a promise of more to come.

Captain Bigglesworth, from the window of the Officers’ Mess, contemplated the wintry scene for the tenth time with bored impatience, then turned to the group of officers who were gathered around the mess fire discussing such matters of professional interest as machine-guns, bullets, and shooting generally.

“You say what you like, Mac,” Biggles interrupted MacLaren, the popular flight-commander of “B” Flight, “but I am absolutely certain that not one pilot in a thousand allows enough deflection when he is shooting. Look at any machine you like after a ‘dog-fight’, and you will find nearly all the bullet-holes are behind the ring markings. The same thing happens if you’ve been trench strafing. If you look over the side, you can see a hundred Germans shooting at you with any old weapon they’ve been able to grab—machine-guns, rifles, revolvers, and all the rest of it. But where do the bullets go? I don’t know. But I’ll bet you anything you like they’re miles behind. Not one in a thousand touches the machine, anyway. And why? Because it takes a lot of imagination to shoot five hundred feet in front of your target and expect to hit it. You don’t expect the infantry to sit down and work out by mathematics the fact that you are travelling about two hundred feet a second, and that by the time his bullet reaches the place where the machine was when he pulled the trigger the machine is no longer there. And it’s the same with archie. Watch a machine in the sky being shelled. Where is all the smoke? In nine cases out of ten it’s about half a mile behind. Every now and then you get a gunner who knows his stuff; but a lot of them don’t. Look at it this way. Suppose you are diving at a hundred and fifty miles an hour at twenty thousand feet up. A hundred and fifty miles an hour is over two hundred feet a second. It takes about twenty seconds for a shell to reach twenty thousand feet, so if the gunner aims at the machine without allowing for deflection the machine is about a mile away when the shell bursts!” Biggles concluded emphatically.

“It’s purely a matter of mathematics,” said a quiet voice near at hand.

Biggles started, and all eyes turned towards the speaker, a small, round-faced youth who was reclining in a cane chair. He nodded solemnly as he realised that everyone was looking at him.

“Did you say something?” said Biggles, with a questioning stare.

“I said that deflection shooting was, in my opinion, purely a matter of mathematics,” replied the youth, blinking owlishly.

A bellow of laughter split the air, for Henry Watkins, the speaker, had joined the squadron in France direct from a flying training school about one hour earlier, and these were the first words he had been heard to utter.

“What makes you think so, laddie?” asked Biggles, with a wink at MacLaren, when the mirth had subsided.

“Well, I have analysed this very desideratum—theoretically, of course,” confessed Henry, “and I long ago reached the conclusion that Euclidian precision with a machine-gun can be determined by a simple mathematical, or I should say algebraical, formula.”

“Is that so? And you are going to do sums in the air before you start shooting, eh?” grinned Biggles.

“Why not?” returned Henry quickly. “Mental arithmetic is always fascinating, and logarithms will lick luck every time. I have evolved a pet theory of my own which will probably revolutionise the whole art of aerial combat, and I am anxious to test it in practice at the first available opportunity.”

“That’s fine. Well, you won’t have long to wait!” interposed Biggles grimly. “You’ll get your chance just as soon as this muck lifts!” He indicated the clouds with an upward sweep of his thumb.

“Good!” replied Henry calmly. “Perhaps you would like me to show you my idea. Now, for the sake of example, let us assume that a hostile aircraft, or Hun, if you prefer the common colloquialism, is proceeding along a path of flight which we will call A–B, banking at an angle of, shall we say, thirty degrees—so. These two coffee-cups will indicate the imaginary line,” he went on, arranging the two cups on a card-table in front of the fire. “Now, I am approaching in my Camel on a course which we will call C–D—two more cups, thanks!—at an angle of bank of sixty degrees. Now, by a combination of factors which I will presently explain I will demonstrate to you that a prolongation of the muzzles of my Vickers guns will intercept the geometrical arc A–C in X seconds plus the cube root of the square of the chord B–C—a very simple equation. Now, if I equal Y——”

“Why?” broke in Biggles, in a dazed voice.

“Yes, I said Y——”

“I mean, what for?” Biggles demanded.

“Well, call me Z if you like; it’s all the same.”

“Hold hard—hold hard!” cried Biggles. “What’s all this about? What is all this X Y Z stuff, anyway? I’m not a blinking triangle! You can be the whole blooming alphabet if you like, as far as I am concerned, and if you think you can knock Huns down by drawing imaginary lines you go ahead!”

“Well, there it is, and that’s all there is to it,” said Henry, with a shrug of resignation. “The whole thing is purely a matter of mathematics!”

“Mathematics, my eye! If you start working out sums on my patrol I’ll show you a new line of flight with the cube root of my foot when we get back on the ground!” promised Biggles, scowling.

The door opened, and Major Mullen, the C.O., entered.

“This stuff is not going to lift, I’m afraid!” he said, nodding towards the window. “But we shall have to try to put up a show of some sort or other, or Wing Headquarters will start a scream. What about dropping a few Cooper bombs on a Jerry aerodrome—Aerodrome No. 32, for instance—eh, Bigglesworth?”

“Good enough, sir! That suits me,” replied Biggles. “Anything for a quiet life. I’ll go crazy if I loaf around here toasting in front of the fire much longer!”

Henry sprang to his feet and started off towards the door.

“Hi, where do you think you’re off to?” called Biggles.

“I thought I was going to bomb Aerodrome No. 32. Am I not coming with you?” cried Henry, in dismay.

“You! I should say so! Sit down, and don’t be silly!” growled Biggles. “You’d be lost to the world in five minutes if you got into that soup. You get a pencil and paper and go on working out your sums!”

“Lost? Absurd!” snorted Henry. “With a good compass it is impossible to get lost. Cloud flying is purely a matter of mathematics.”

Major Mullen smiled. “Who told you that?” he asked, in surprise.

“Don’t you start him off on that A B C stuff again, sir,” protested Biggles quickly. “He reckons he’s going to shoot Huns down by algebra.” He turned to Henry. “Look here, kid,” he said, “I don’t want to discourage you, but do you think you could keep me in sight if I let you come with me?”

“Keep you in sight?” echoed Henry. “Of course I could!”

“By mathematics, I suppose?”

“Certainly!”

“All right, Professor. But you leave your copybook and pencil at home, and keep your eye on me. If you lose me in the fog, don’t sit around doing mental arithmetic, trying to work out where I am by your X Y Z stuff. You come home—quick, or you might run into somebody who draws lines—not imaginary ones, either—with Spandau guns. Come on, then. Come on, Algy. Three’ll be enough.”

Ten minutes later they took off in a swirl of snow, and, climbing swiftly, soon reached the gloom of the cloud-bank. At four thousand feet Biggles burst out at the top into brilliant sunshine with a suddenness that was startling, and looked around quickly for the other two Camels. Algy emerged from the opaque vapour about fifty yards away, and instantly took up his position close to Biggles’ right wing-tip. But of Henry there was no sign.

Biggles circled for a few minutes, grumbling at the delay, then spied the missing Camel among the cloud-tops about a mile away, heading on a course at forty-five degrees to his own. He raced after it, but just as he reached it the Camel once more disappeared into the cold-grey mist. He muttered an exclamation of annoyance as he pulled up to avoid a collision.

“Working out his blinking sums, I expect,” he mused.

Presently the Camel appeared again, far to the east, still heading out over hostile country. Biggles ground his teeth and let him go. He could not have caught him up, anyway. He made a despairing gesture to Algy in the other Camel, and then, turning, they sped away together towards the objective aerodrome.

For some minutes they held on their course; then a strong Albatross patrol came into view, sailing serenely through the blue sky at a tremendous height. It was heading farther in over its own lines. But Biggles kept a watchful eye on it, prepared to dive into the clouds for safety at the first indication that they had been seen.

Presently the black-crossed machines started diving, and disappeared into the mist some distance ahead. For another quarter of an hour Biggles and Algy cruised along just above the cloud-tops, keeping a wary eye on the sky, ready to dive for the cover the clouds would provide should the Albatrosses reappear.

“We should be there, or thereabouts,” Biggles decided at last, glancing at his watch and then at his compass.

With a warning wave to Algy, he throttled back and glided steadily downwards through the grey mist. Not until he was at less than five hundred feet was he clear of the clouds, and he examined the gloomy earth below anxiously.

So dark was it after the brilliant sunshine above that for a moment or two he could not see anything. Then he saw Algy, a hundred yards away, rock his wings violently, turn to the right, and plunge down, with a line of glittering tracer bullets leaping from his guns.

Biggles swung his Camel round in its own length and tore down after him, leaning well over the left side of his cockpit to see what Algy was shooting at. A quiver of excitement ran through him, and a grunt of surprise escaped his lips. They had emerged from the clouds immediately over the enemy aerodrome. But it was not that which caused him to stiffen, every nerve tense, and crouch low in the cockpit.

On the aerodrome, taxi-ing towards the sheds, were a dozen Albatrosses, evidently the high patrol they had seen in the air, and which had just landed. It was at once evident that the two Camels had been seen, for pandemonium reigned on the ground. Groups of grey-clad German troops were racing towards what Biggles rightly assumed to be mobile machine-guns.

Several pilots jumped out of their machines and flung themselves on the ground, with their arms over their heads as the tracer bullets from the Vickers guns started tearing up the turf around them. Two Albatrosses tried to turn up-wind to take off, and collided with a crash that Biggles could hear above the noise of his engine.

Another black-crossed machine was whirling a blinding cloud of snow over a group of mechanics as it tore across the aerodrome on a down-wind take-off.

Biggles saw the first of Algy’s bombs explode on the tarmac, and the second within ten feet of a blue Albatross, smothering it with a shower of debris. With a grin on his face, he turned to pick out his own target.

Straight along the line of hangars he flew, working the bomb-toggle rhythmically until the eight 20-lb. Cooper bombs had left their racks. At the end of the sheds he whirled the Camel round in its own length, and, pointing his nose down at the still taxi-ing machines, sprayed them with a shower of lead. The hangars were in flames, blazing furiously in two or three places.

Several figures were prone on the ground, and Algy was busy scattering another group with his guns. A third Albatross had become entangled with the two that had collided, and Biggles raked all three of them with a stream of bullets. Two of the pilots leaped from their cockpits and sprinted out of the withering blast. Clouds of smoke from the fires and bombs drifted across the scene of destruction and rose upwards to the cloud-bank, which reflected the orange glow of the inferno below.

“I think that’ll about do,” thought Biggles. “We’ve certainly given ’em a warm time. Pity that ass Henry got lost, though. He’d have made things very much warmer still!” He sprayed the tarmac with a final burst, and then, waving joyously to Algy, pulled up in a steep zoom into the opaque mist.

Bursting out into the sunlight, he swerved violently to avoid colliding with a green-striped Albatross—evidently the one that had succeeded in taking off down-wind—and he had perforated its wooden fuselage with a neat row of bullet-holes before the pilot recovered from his surprise.

Algy, emerging from the cloud-bank a few yards away, pumped a stream of bullets into the black-crossed machine from the other side as it slowly turned over on to its back and plunged out of sight into the fog.

Side by side, the two Camels sped back towards the Lines, the pilots waving to each other from time to time out of sheer lightheartedness.

Meanwhile, Henry was not having such a happy time. Somehow or other his carefully prepared plans were not panning out as he had fondly imagined they would. His trouble started early—in fact, from the very moment that he lost sight of his companions in the clammy, impenetrable fog.

After the first shock of discovery that he could no longer see his leader, he fixed his eyes on the instrument board and prepared to keep the machine on its course until he had climbed above the snow-cloud. But he quickly discovered this was not so easy as a careful study of his Flying Training Manual had led him to believe.

In spite of his efforts to prevent it, the compass needle jerked all over the place, and he soon gave it up as hopeless and concentrated his attention on the inclinometer in an endeavour to keep the machine on even keel. This again was far more difficult than he expected, for the bubble swung continually from one side to the other. The monotonous rush of the mist swirling past his cockpit began to make him feel dizzy, and he prayed fervently that he would not collide with one of the other two machines which he never doubted were flying alongside, although he could not see them.

Steering an erratic course, he at last broke through the surface of the fog, like a whale coming up for air, and looked around eagerly for the other machines. They were nowhere in sight. His jaw sagged foolishly, and he steered in turn at the four points of the compass in comical consternation. A terrible feeling of loneliness gripped him as he slowly realised that he was alone in the sky.

He got out his map and with some difficulty worked out a compass course to the German aerodrome, confident that he would find the other machines there. He flew along with a worried frown on his face, looking for a possible enemy or the other two Camels.

He had just made a mental note that the dangers of war flying had been grossly exaggerated by the other pilots who had spoken to him about it, when a strange noise reached his ears above the powerful roar of his Bentley rotary engine. It sounded like someone knocking on a stone with a hammer at incredible speed. He was wondering vaguely what it could be, when, with a loud whang, the altimeter, which he happened to be watching, flew to pieces in a little shower of broken glass and metal.

He started so violently that he automatically jerked back in his seat, unconsciously pulling the control-stick back at the same time. The movement undoubtedly saved his life, for, looking over the side of his cockpit, he was just in time to see two lines of glittering sparks streaking across the spot where he had been a fraction of a second before. Then his eye fell on something else—something that brought his heart to his mouth and made him stare in blank astonishment.

He would have been prepared to swear that there was not another machine in the sky except his own, but there, not fifty yards away, was a large green aeroplane with a huge black cross on its side. It was a two-seater, and as he stared in horrified amazement the gunner in the rear cockpit was calmly removing empty ammunition drums and replacing them with new ones.

Vaguely, at the back of his mind, Henry felt sure that he ought to do something, but for the life of him he could not think what it was. His brain refused to act. Uppermost in his mind was the certain knowledge that within the next three seconds that calm, dispassionate, muffled figure in the back seat would direct a deadly stream of bullets at him. He shifted his gaze to the pilot, and stared fascinated at the distorted eyes of the German glaring at him through the big round goggles above a flowing blond moustache.

Henry waited for no more. Just what stunt he did he could never afterwards say, but he admitted frankly that he pulled, pushed, and stepped on everything within reach. Even as he shot up in a crazy loop came the knowledge that he, too, had a gun, and could shoot back. Quivering with excitement he levelled out, gripped the Bowden lever of his guns, and tore back at the green machine. It was not there. He pushed up his goggles and looked again, unable to believe his eyes. Where the green machine had been there now stretched an infinite expanse of gleaming white mist, and, above, the pale-blue wintry sky.

“This isn’t flying; it’s conjuring!” he groaned. “Where the dickens can he have got to?”

He leaned far over the side of the cockpit, searching high and low for his attacker. He had just decided, with infinite relief, that in some unaccountable manner it had disappeared, when a sharp staccato stutter, louder than before, smote his ears. He jumped violently and looked again over the other side. The green machine was almost on top of him, bearing straight down on him, a streak of orange flame leaping from the pilot’s gun on the engine-cowling. At the sight a feeling of uncontrollable rage swept over him.

“What do you think you are—a jack-in-the-box?” he snarled furiously, and flung the Camel round in its own length, at the same time grabbing for his gun-lever. The chattering throb of his own guns almost startled him.

In his heart he felt quite certain that they were going to collide. It seemed unavoidable. But, remembering Biggles’ instructions about not turning away from a head-on-attack, he did not swerve an inch. He had a fleeting vision of two wheels missing his top plane by six inches as the other machine swept up over him. He was round in a flash, blind rage swamping all other emotions.

“Go about smashing people’s altimeters, would you, you dirty dog?” he muttered, as his eye fell on the German diving steeply towards the clouds.

He thrust his control-stick forward in an endeavour to overtake it, but before he could reach it the other plane had plunged out of sight into the mist, where he knew it would be useless to follow, and he turned away disconsolately. As he looked around, he realised with something of a shock that he was by no means certain of his position, but he struck off in what he thought was the right direction for the German aerodrome. He kept a wary eye on the sky, and got the fright of his life when three S.E.5s burst out of the fog just in front of him. His heart was still palpitating when the pilots waved a cheery greeting to him as they passed.

“Well, according to my reckoning, that German aerodrome can’t be far away now!” he thought, and, throttling back, he dropped down through the unbroken sea of cloud. As he came out, he looked below hopefully. It was nearly dark, but there, sure enough, was a row of drab hangars on the edge of an aerodrome. “And Biggles said I couldn’t find my way!” he scoffed, as he put his nose down in a deep dive. “They haven’t found it themselves yet, any way!” he muttered, noting the undisturbed atmosphere on the ground.

To and fro across the sheds he dived, working his bomb-toggle swiftly until all eight bombs had been released. He looked below with profound interest as he climbed once more for the clouds, but found to his bitter disappointment that the smoke from his bursting bombs had obscured the view. Dimly, he could just make out groups of men rushing about like ants, pouring out of hangars and huts and waving their arms at him furiously.

“Ha, ha!” he smiled. “Hold that little lot!” And then, realising it would be unwise to tempt Providence by staying in the vicinity too long, he soared into the sunlight above the clouds and headed for home.

He was not quite certain of the direction, but he knew that by flying on a south-westerly course he would at least reach the British Lines and safety, after which it would not take him too long to find his own aerodrome at Maranique. With his lips pursed in an inaudible whistle and heart bounding with the joy of a job well done, he dropped once more through the mist in search of home.

Biggles and Algy were also racing home above the mist, with that curious certainty of position which some airmen seem to possess. After gliding through the concealing curtain of cloud they picked up the aerodrome, landed, and taxied quickly towards the waiting mechanics.

“What a mess we made!” laughed Biggles, as they climbed out of their machines, “Hallo, the Professor’s back—there’s his bus.”

As he opened the door of the ante-room, he turned to Algy, finger on lips. A voice was speaking. It was Henry’s.

“No, sir,” Henry was saying. “I didn’t see them again after we entered the clouds, so I followed my own course. I found the Hun aerodrome and dropped my bombs, but visibility was so bad that I was unable to form a reliable estimate of the damage.”

Biggles pushed the door wide open. Henry and Major Mullen were standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by a circle of pilots.

“So you found it all right?” said Biggles, keeping a straight face with an effort.

“Of course. Worked out mathematically, it was impossible to miss it,” replied Henry casually.

Biggles turned to a window to watch an S.E.5 land on the aerodrome and taxi, tail-up, towards the mess. A moment later, Major Sharp, of Squadron No. 287, breathing heavily, stood swaying on the threshold. He appeared to have some difficulty in finding his voice. Biggles, a grim suspicion already forming in his mind, turned a questioning eye on Henry, and showed his teeth in a mirthless grin.

“Which of you fools has been fanning my aerodrome?” barked the major.

There was a silence which could be felt.

“Eight confounded holes all over the aerodrome! Fortunately nobody hurt. It’ll take my men all day to fill ’em in. It was a Camel—we saw it—no argument! Its number was—er—er—”

“J-7743,” muttered Biggles involuntarily.

“How do you know that?” cried Henry hotly. “That’s the number of my machine!”

“Oh, mathematics—purely a matter of mathematics!” said Biggles softly.

The telephone rang shrilly, and Major Mullen picked up the receiver.

“Hallo!” he said. “Yes—what’s that? Good show—just a minute, and I’ll ask them.” He turned towards the other pilots in the room. “Did you have a go at a green Hannoverana this afternoon, Biggles? The artillery are on the line, and they report a green Hannoverana crashed on landing about half an hour ago, near Saint Pol. The engine was shot to bits and the gunner was dead.”

“No, I haven’t seen a two-seater,” replied Biggles, in astonishment.

“Nor I,” admitted Algy.

“It’s all right—I got it,” said Henry casually.

“What? Did you shoot at a green Hannoverana this afternoon?” cried Biggles, in amazement.

“I did,” replied Henry modestly, “and the last I saw of it, it was going down through the clouds.”

“By the anti-clockwise propeller of my sainted aunt, you must have hit it! How on earth did you manage that?” almost shouted Biggles.

“Oh, mathematics—it was purely a matter of mathematics,” replied Henry, grinning, as a howl of laughter split the air.

“Mathematics, my eye! How did you work it out, anyway?” snorted Biggles.

“Well, it was this way,” replied Henry modestly. “This Boche thought he was smart. He seemed to think that one Hannoverana plus one Camel only equalled one Hannoverana, which, as Euclid would say, is absurd. I got angry, and decided to show him where he was wrong, and that one Camel plus one Hannoverana equalled one Camel!”

“Yes, I know!” jeered Biggles. “So you placed the point A upon the point B, so that the line A–B fell along the line—— Bah! Never mind about the A B C stuff. Whereabouts along the Lines did he fall? That’s what I want to know.”

“I don’t know, and that’s a fact,” admitted Henry, grinning. “Our position was not included in the data. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know where I was—and I didn’t much care. The thing that annoyed me was that he popped about so fast that I hadn’t time to prove my theorem.”

“I had an idea you’d discover that,” grinned Biggles. “But how did you get him at the finish?”

“Well, if I must tell the truth,” Henry grinned, “I threw my copybook at the cloud and went for him baldheaded. I let drive with my Vickers, and down he went, and that was that. I didn’t know I’d hit him. He just buzzed off into the soup, where I couldn’t follow him, and that’s the last I saw of him. Then I beetled around until I found the aerodrome and unloaded my eggs——”

“I think the less you say about that the better,” advised Biggles, with a sidelong glance at the Major. “The point is, you got a Hun, and if you’ll leave your copybook at home in future, follow me, and do your fighting by the baldheaded method, you can come with me tomorrow. Is it a go?”

“It is!” declared Henry emphatically.