Chapter Thirty-Four
The Research Planes Departed
After the pair of research planes departed for their foolishness, then it was the appointed hour. We sat listening as another batch of trouble was brewed up. Now came the awesome thunder of twenty-four aircraft engines, all running full-out for brief spattering seconds as they checked their revs, the thrust, the magnetos, and then the intermittent blast and roar when they took off in twos. Their mission was to blow up three enemy redoubts that were holding up the advance of our tanks. Then they would fly south, patrol for enemy machines and land at a new location. It sounds very simple, but my guts were tight.
If they saw a balloon they’d go after it. They seemed to like it.
So far we hadn’t lost a man.
The afternoon was heating up, but all the noise made any real talk impossible.
“The train is ready to go.” Howard-Smythe remarked.
After a time, the last rumble petered off into the distance.
“When do we leave?” Asked Bernie, back from being somewhere else.
“Oh, I don’t know.” I murmured. “Although we did get confirmation from Jackson’s boys that Von Krumholtz is in the neighbourhood.”
I’ve always wanted another crack at that bastard.
Von Krumholtz had a squadron of about thirty Pfalz fighters, and we were planning to test ourselves against them, but my men were still learning to work together. Our squadron leaders were still learning their trade, and I could only push them so hard. As soon as the experiment was over, and our fighter cover safely landed, we could bag up and book out.
“You know, what we can do with a train, the navy could do with a ship.” I mused.
“What do you mean?” Asked Bernie, no doubt aware that ships were sometimes equipped to launch a Sopwith Camel from a forward gun mounting.
“You could put all the machine shops, and fuel facilities, on a flat-decked ship, like a monitor with no guns.” I mused.
I thought further.
“They have seaplane tenders, with cranes and a hangar on the back,” I said. “You could have hangars below decks, with one of those fancy electric lifts like they use in hotels. A ship’s elevator could use steam, or hydraulics. Whatever.”
I was daydreaming aloud.
“Why not a ship that could take an entire air wing on board? Or maybe use steam for a catapult-like mechanism? And perhaps even an angled deck, for aborts and touch-and-goes. Maybe even some sort of angled, directional lighting system for night landings.”
When I got the time, I would try to write it up a little better. In the meantime, aircraft engines could be heard approaching the landing pattern. Almost time to knock down the tents and get on the road. First the men had to get cleaned up and write reports, and after supper we could be on our way. The aircraft needed to be stowed away. Since we were leaving a few of them here under guard, that took but moments.
The others should be well on their way by then.
***
The paperwork never ends.
As I sat on the train, there were quite a few items on the agenda. For starters, there was a need to firm up the squadron rosters, so the leaders knew who they were in charge of, and who needed extra work, and all that kind of stuff.
Mike Black was a tall, sparely-built, balding Englishman from London, and was in charge of our SE’s, number 192 Squadron. At this point he only had Anderson, his winger, then there was Snotty and Sampson, Brown and Earnhardt, Emery and Kowalski.
He needed more guys—a team, one that others might aspire to join.
He could have Swede, and Bianchi, and Williams and Carroll. That’s twelve.
Andrew Jay was in charge of 193 Squadron, flying our Camels. Andrew flew with ‘Big Bill’ Arnold. Then there’s Ron Wallace, Webster, Lawrence and Mootry. Nelson, Perry, Cowings and Dexter. Was that everyone? Have I forgotten anyone?
A couple more guys. Who do I have? Stevens…McGill. That’s enough for now. Seems to add up to twelve. Each squadron had experienced and inexperienced pilots, a nice even leavening throughout.
Powell has 194 Squadron. So far he has Biggsy, Dempsey and Brubaker. Normally Brubaker was Powell’s wing, then there was Leonard, Nicholson, Oliver, Bartlett, Greensmith, Duzek, King, who else? Seems we’re still short one.
Oh, yeah, there’s Jeff Lang, he’s flown with them guys. That’s twelve. I’ll have one of the corporals draw up a chart.
I still had a few boys in the pool. I should cast my thoughts over that situation for awhile, then write a few letters. Read some mail from home. I guess you could say I quickly fell asleep.
The clickety-clatter of the train going down the tracks had a hypnotic effect.
Due to the sheer danger, balloons count as a air-to-air kill.
***
“It is better to be married, than to be inflamed with passion,” Howard-Smythe’s voice came at my side.
I awoke with a start.
“St. Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians.” He muttered.
He carefully folded up the multi-paged epistle he was reading, gingerly forcing the corners into its tight-fitting envelope.
“That’ll be the wife, then?” I murmured. “Are we there yet?”
“Soon. Coffee’s coming.” He added.
Another bleary-eyed face settled in beside us.
“Early to bed and early to rise, I yawn and stretch with bloodshot eyes.” He yawned.
We were just gulping down our second and third cups of coffee and chatting with Hastings, Bernie’s liaison, who was also up with the birds.
Corporal Bill brought a report and put it on my desk.
“The early bird gets the worm.” Hastings informed us confidently.
“Huh.” I muttered, feeling my grand old age today.
“Although what I’m supposed to do with the damned things when I get them is beyond me.”
Hastings was all right, and he could do things that Bernie couldn’t, like be taken seriously when talking to major Brass types. It was pleasing to find, when we finally ground to a halt, that all of our aircraft had made it to the new base. Admittedly, some were damaged, shot up pretty well, but still no casualties. I was even more pleased, as I examined our new aerodrome in the lengthening light of the new day.
“How many planes on hand?” I asked Howard-Smythe.
“Forty-two, counting spares and hacks.”
Holy shit.
“You’ve done very well, Captain.” I told the Adj.
The day started off ordinarily enough. We began with a few office chores, and watched the patrol depart. Twelve planes under the command of Black. They headed out and then Andrew and Powell took off with another group. There must have been eighteen or twenty of them. If numbers meant anything, then we were doing very well indeed. All of a sudden I was running low on pilots again.
“Who’s all with them?” I asked, and Howard-Smythe promised to put it in the report.
I had time to do a thorough pre-flight check on my own personal SE. The mechanics stood around and answered my questions about the servicing, and any problems they might have noticed. From time to time I made a request for a ‘half-inch,’ or a ‘seven-sixteenths,’ in order to check on the nuts, bolts and fasteners.
At some point an operation like ours does two things. It takes on a life of its own, and in some ways to operate by itself. It also spawns complications. People like Hastings, Bernie, Dawley, none of that was my idea. I ignored them when I could. If they came and went, that was less of a problem than if it were someone like Shifty and Ali Baba.
Now those two, by suborning them over to our side, they had adopted our ‘gang’. So we put them in charge of supply. This sobered them up as individuals, gave them a job they could actually do well at, and it made them feel like important father-figures to other members of the group.
It gave the younger lads someone to look up to.
You know, if I had simply signed up with all the boys in my county, they probably would have put me, a farmer, in charge of horses or something.
And it would have been sheer hell.
It would have been even worse than a mere infantryman, or a colonial lad in a Royal Army Regiment, lower than low. Yet everything had worked out, and I knew I was in the right place. It would have been sheer hell to see horses all shot up in some artillery barrage. Animals are truly innocent of any guilt or sin. Not that I hadn’t seen it—but it was some other poor bastard’s problem, not mine. What I saw…what I saw was more than enough.
All those enemy sound detectors were rolling around and around in my brain, already brimming over with ideas. Some of which might be useful, and some half-baked. My mind was like a cornucopia of ideas sometimes, a real jumble sale.
“Wounds my soul with a monotonous languor.” Thus came a voice in the background as someone patiently worked on a translation of a bad French poem by a bad French poet, writing in a particularly bad era of French literature, which was bad at the best of times, which weren’t very many or very often.
“You could learn more French by spending the weekend with a good whore.” A voice complained.
Desultory argument ensued, with the pair of them half-heartedly disputing the laurel crown of good-natured invective.
“Oh, God. A really good sport could let the other guy win one once in a while.” I heard an exasperated Corporal Whittington tell the pair. “Why don’t you guys walk north until your hats float?”
He suggested this not unkindly, and I could hear them rambling on as they moved away. I put the file down and checked the time.
“Ah.”
Almost time for the briefing.
Despite the sunshine, it was still March, so I put on a sweater and went out and around to the briefing tent. Winds gusted to twenty-five, thirty-five knots sometimes. Treetops, still sporting as-yet unbroken red buds, waved and swayed in the blustering winds.
***
“Are we all here?”
Ground staff had rigged up a couple of good lights front and centre, and a table for all the photos. Bernie was doing a head count. The babble of voices slightly diminished at the sight of my raised hand.
“I make it fifty.” He said.
“Who’s missing?” I asked.
Whittington said, ‘the effin’ new guys,’ who were apparently out on an engine-test.
They weren’t needed, so I told Bernie to go ahead.
“Military intelligence is the art of analysis.” Bernie began. “We take unrelated and disconnected pieces of data and try to draw conclusions from them. This is how we can predict the course of the enemy’s next campaign. If we know how many men he has, we know how many men and guns to put in front of them. We know how many bullets we must buy. Do you understand?”
We all paid rapt attention. He was an excellent and well-prepared speaker, and the sublime dago accent didn’t hinder it a bit. It actually seemed to help. Everyone had to concentrate totally, just to catch and decipher his very words. He was keeping it nice and simple.
“The enemy has listening posts. At night, men creep out into no-man’s land, and try to overhear the opposition.” He lectured. “Sometimes they use a parabolic microphone, and attempt to eavesdrop on conferences.”
“Headquarters are usually pretty far back from the front.” He added. “Out of the reach of roaming cavalry, and in the modern sense, back from long-range artillery and balloon observation.”
A hoarse whisper came out of nowhere.
“With that accent, you really have to squint with your ears.” A few giggles emanated from the back of the group.
Bernie soldiered on, oblivious.
“This is most effective in the diplomatic setting. But the same principle is used, to varying degrees, upon the battle front. The gathering of data is a ceaseless process.”
He paused.
“In our Army, and in your own Observation Corps, we have a device called, a ‘sound detector,’ which is shown in this photo.”
He handed out a few copies, showing the thing from a number of sides. One photo had a man with head-phones sitting at a chair beside it. It looked to be seven feet tall, and two or three feet square. It was a devious device.
“You see the approximate size.” He said as we examined them. “The enemy uses them as well.”
One of the pilots put up his hand.
“Does that mean they can hear us coming, and even when we take off and land?”
“Yes.” Said Bernie.
Military intelligence is the art of analysis...
Elmer Duzek looked at me.
“That’s one of the reasons why we try to limit unnecessary flying.” I mentioned. “We’ve been varying our takeoff times quite a bit as well.”
But this was Bernie’s show. Elmer nodded, satisfied with the explanation so far.
“Also, in the early days, an aerodrome might have been four or five miles behind the lines, when aircraft flew at sixty or seventy flat-out. We’re ten or twelve or fifteen miles back, most of the time now.” Bernie added for their benefit.
Bernie waited half a minute, then went on.
“As you can see in the photograph, it resembles a funnel, squashed flat, but open in a slot or plane-like aperture. The sound waves are focused down the little tube so the operator can hear them. If you look closely you will see the table has a quadrant. They can level it and align it with North.”
The slot was in the vertical plane.
“The narrow slot limits the sound waves to a small area, and the operator aligns the turntable to the strongest intensity of the sound. He reads the dial to get a bearing. Then he will try to analyze further. For example, how far, how many, or whether it may be tanks, or aircraft.”
The operator had a field telephone in order to report his findings. The device also had an electrical pickup and, ‘a wire-recording device,’ which was ‘top secret.’
According to Bernie, this permanent recording was for subsequent analysis by intelligence experts and higher-ups; also in training operators...simple enough.
“The enemy can find us with a fair degree of accuracy.” He suggested, giving a significant look about the room. “A good operator can tell one engine-sound from another. They can estimate our strength, as few other units are operating at night.”
“We fooled them the other night.” He pointed out in closing. “But soon enough, the very fact of an impromptu artillery barrage would let them know we’re coming. And we cannot keep up a barrage twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week, when it isn’t a military necessity.”
“Tell us about this parabolic microphone.” Asked Bartlett, and the talk took a different turn.
Bernie explained that it was ‘a hemisphere,’ with a microphone mounted to catch the sound that it ‘collected, reflected and focused.’
“Imagine if a council of war was being conducted, and you could listen from a half a mile away.” Said Bernie. “Le chateau, le maison, the windows might be open and the perimeter guarded, but at what distance?”
Guards usually stood around, ‘close to what they were guarding,’ he added.
“There could be people in the long grass not five feet away.” He explained.
This was interesting enough, but I wanted to find a way to fool the enemy sound detection apparatus, and their observers. Comprende vous? I wanted them to overhear us, selectively.
I interrupted briefly.
“When we take off, we almost always have a pair of fighters overhead. They’re either a couple miles south, or maybe at most a mile north. When we take off, we circle quite widely, and we often fly parallel to the battle front for some distance.”
It doesn’t hurt to repeat one of my own lectures once in a while.
“Our sound is wider. More dispersed. We have all kinds of engines. You don’t always have to go down the same street when you go someplace, right? We don’t always go to the same place, or do the same things all of the time either.”
We also tried to disguise or limit the noise of our train, a sound that carries a hell of a long way on a quiet night. As for our present location, we had stopped in the middle of a brief thundershower. Simple, really.
Once, when I was camped on a lakeshore, on a quiet evening. On the opposite shore, the beach curved away in a ‘parabolic curve,’ just as Bernie said. The trees, which somehow shaped and reflected the noise of my dishwashing right back, amplified the sound of water and sand scrubbing greasy cast iron. It was maybe fifty or a hundred yards away, the other shore. The fact that we still get new pilots coming in made it essential to keep talking, to let them know who I am—even if I don’t know who they are sometimes. (That’s why we have badges and uniforms. I give an order and it is obeyed by perfect strangers.)
“To a certain extent, all of our activities are a compromise.” I added.
There was the germ of an idea cooking in my subconscious, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. All I could do was wait.
Education of the whole person is part of a commander’s job. I didn’t know much about eastern mysticism, at least not at the time. But I wanted to make them think, to open up their latent awareness, and expand their consciousness. While they continued pumping Bernie, and old Hastings, I went back to the command tent. The new one looked just like the old one. Just like in the infantry, one locale began to blend into another.
“Here you are, sir.” Reported Corporal Bill as he brought me a coffee and a batch of papers.
Paperwork was the bane of my existence, especially when the weather was bad.
Everyone else got to rest but I didn’t.
#193 Squadron ‘The Camel Jockeys’
#1, Andrew Jay, #2, ‘Big Bill’ Arnold, #3, Rod Wallace, #4, Mack X. Webster, #5,
Henry Lawrence, #6, ‘Mooch’ Mootry, #7, Jim Nelson, #8, Perry, #9, Cowings, #10,
Dexter, #11, Stevens, #12, McGill.
I signed the bottom.
#192 Squadron ‘Black Angels’
#1, Mike Black, #2, Tom Anderson, #3, Snotty, #4, Sampson, #5, Brown, #6, Dave Earnhardt, #7, Emery, #8, Kemsley, #9, Swede, #10, Bianchi, #11, Williams, #12, Carroll.
Sign that one as well.
#194 Squadron ‘The Biffs’
#1, Jack Powell, #2, T. Leonard, #3, Biggsy, #4, Dempsey, #5, Steve Bartlett, #6, Les
Greensmith, #7, King, #8, Duzek, #9, Nicholson, #10, Oliver, #11, Lang, #12, Davies.
Gunners: Malarkey, Kowalski, Smith, Jones, Patrick, Callahan, Wilson, Paul, Watson, Shane, Ellesmere and Aweemowep.
I must have miscounted. And I couldn’t even describe Davies.
Who the hell is Davies?
What happened to Brukaber? My mind kind of blanked out on that one. But he must have another job assignment…right?
The Adj was doing his best. Those on a roster would know where they stood. As for the list of pool pilots, it would be a good idea to speak to them boys, set them up with some kind of shadow structure. Use them creatively. They could be the ‘Ghost’ squadron we keep hearing so much about. Sign off on that last one as well.
Anyway, I needed to fly with backup. I needed to train the boys a little more. There was much that needed to be done. That left me a few men. We had Hubert, Reno, Nugent, Ilderim, Leroy and Bolton. Couple more new ones. All of those guys needed a job to do, and I’d start on their training as soon as possible. Just as soon as I got a minute. I put them in proper order and stuck them in the basket.
The Adj was taking good notes of virtually every briefing, lecture, and even a few ‘bull-sessions,’ along the way. I initialed most of these, made corrections in some, added marginal notes to others.
What else was there to do, when the winds were thirty-five from the northwest?
Gusting, turbulent, with a very low cloud ceiling, at best about seven or eight hundred feet. Flying wasn’t impossible on a day like this, it was merely very, very dangerous. The men were doing well and it was high time for a break. No sense losing anyone we don’t have to.
“Have you seen the papers?” Asked Howard-Smythe.
“No. Who’s Premier this week?” I responded.
The French changed Premiers about as often as I changed socks.
“I’m reading about, and I quote, ‘the gallant and determined defense of one of our aerodromes on the Western Front,’ by that Shmeffords character.”
Howard-Smythe read some of it aloud.
“Ah. It says he was privileged to witness a night attack by an overwhelming force of enemy bombers, or reisenflugzeug.”
He looked over with twinkling eyes.
“Well, that’s one way to get rid of the press.” He noted mischievously. “All it cost was a few sticks of dynamite, a half a dozen boxes of Brock and Pomeroy, and some engines revving in the darkness. Simply brilliant.”
“Seems like a bit of a waste.” I noted for the record.
“Well, they’re cheaper by the dozen.” He grunted. “Shit. They used your name. Oh, God, even your picture.”
“The really great part is the editorial.” I pointed out.
My name in there, that was all part of the plan.
“I haven’t got there yet.” He grimaced.
“Holy shit.” He said after a silence.
“They laud our efforts.” He laughed.
“Without even really knowing what it is that we actually do around here.” I added.
“Perception is reality.” He noted for the record.
Shit, I’ve known that for ten years.
“Try to figure out a way to fool those enemy observation people.” I suggested. “Their perception affects our reality.”
“Maybe we could fake them out somehow.” The Adj agreed.
I stood up to go. It would take a few minutes to get my flight gear on, and then it was a ‘full out, balls to the wall’ fighter-bomber sweep with every aircraft at our disposal. A cheap and desperate bid for attention, as the witch doctors and head shrinkers would say. We were hoping to get the attention of good old Von Krumholtz, in order to shoot him down.
It was our job to smite them and to strike fear into their hearts. One way to do that was the squadron circuses. We had a new satellite field, so this time we took advantage of the opportunity to separate and disperse the planes over two fields. As usual, we sent the train on with fifty or sixty guys to begin work on our next ‘wet-operation.’
***
It takes a long time to launch forty planes, even from two fields.
All the squadrons eventually rendezvoused over a fork in the river, and then we climbed to the west until we made 10,000 feet. Then we turned east.
A thrilling sight, for a commander. Down below, the ‘Shagbats,’ a dozen strong.
These were the Biff pilots, who had simply rejected the name given them and found their own.
They flew in front, at about 8,000 feet. Above, at 9,500, it was that most gay, the most ebullient, the most fractious, the most incorrigible group of unabashed and unashamed individuals, unrepentant individuals, to say the least, that it has ever been my highly-distinguished privilege to meet. The alleged, ‘Camel Jockeys.’
Swinging east, the late afternoon sun lowered itself gratefully into a dark mass of cumulus on the horizon behind us.
Then there were the ‘Black Angels,’ hovering over the errant, ‘Camel Jockeys.’ Steady, sober and reliable individuals who could absorb the first shock of an attack like the good old Saxon wall of shields. Older, more mature individuals, the technical aspects of their machines were important to them. They flew them very high, and very fast, and with a precision lacking in some of the Jocks. The Biff crews were selected for unusual personal physical courage, a kind of bulldog quality. These guys had to be able to work as a team. They had to be able to roll inverted at fifty feet and strafe well, if necessary.
They needed a steel-nerved kind of workmanship in a plane.
In all the squadrons, we had the ones and twos, our buddy system.
‘You are your brother’s keeper.’ That’s the law around here.
The Ghost Squadron, with myself as lead hand, cruising back and forth. A little above and behind the Camel Jocks, below the Black Angels. We were in the slot, just the four of us.
It was a stirring moment, to see forty freaking airplanes, and they’re all mine.
People don’t mess with us anymore. We mess with them—and they sure don’t like it much.
The Front hove into view. Visibility was excellent. The cold breezes, still not fully blown out. But they cleared and cleansed the sky. It was five-ten p.m.
Just about when you’d expect them, there they were. Certainly no higher than us. It looked like they’d just been in a scrap and were trying to re-form. It’s amazingly hard to count aircraft in a hurry. I was pretty sure it was an odd number, perhaps twenty-seven.
I felt a little sorry for them, as several machines had large white fabric patches visible. The enemy had no time to re-paint. Imagine the poor pilots, or the commander, who had to mount up in Albatros or Pfalz D-III’s, when most of the squadron flew the D-V’s.
They were obviously pulling old, worn-out, reserve machines from the depot.
A long, straggling line of enemy machines, they tangled with the Camel Jocks head-on. Our thin line of Camels broke and the turning fight began. Ones and twos circling warily, with everyone trying to get on each other’s tail at once. For a few precious seconds the Boche had the numerical advantage. Their wide flanks meant they could envelop my Jocks. The four Ghosts were heading right into the mess.
It was a huge mushroom-head of planes, and we were in the midst of them. Blue-white smoke blurred the vision, as a smattering of castor oil hit my goggles, and a Pfalz zoomed past blazing from the engine area.
I hoped Ilderim wouldn’t run into him. The enemy machines circled around again, even as Camels climbed, and swooped, and dove at another damaged enemy machine, and the Biffs climbed like bandits to get in on the action. As I turned hard right, leading my boys, spin the head around and look for them, yippee. They were still right with me, and we threw our machines around hard, and went mucking in again.
An SE-5a hurtled past the nose of my plane, tightly followed by another.
Its guns were blazing at an unseen target. From certain indications I think it’s Earnhardt. I’d have to ask him later. He dove vertically and was lost from sight.
So far I hadn’t fired my guns. It was all happening too fast. Swinging my head and eyes about, I was trying locate my Ghosts.
Still with me. What the fuck, and I dove east, and then pulled south, and climbed up to the south with the sun on my right hand. Clench the fist and study the sun’s corona. Is there anybody in there? Come out, come out wherever you are.
Dirty little cocksuckers.
It is a fucking game. One of those moments of clarity. I suddenly understood the universe in all its infinite complexity. I should have written it down, but I didn’t have time.
And now I have forgotten. Sorry. If I ever get the chance again, I’ll try to do better.
So anyway, we turned north and circled back at a height of 14,500 feet, and of course we never fly more than ten or twelve seconds in straight and level flight in the zone.
I could see my boys below, and if I thought it was hard to count enemy airplanes, it’s even harder to count your own.
We had possession of the battlefield. We must have won.
On the surface of the land below, there were a number of smoke columns. Under these circumstances, there was really no way to tell who put them there. I did see a German plane shot down. There was no way to see everything all at once. The Ghost Squadron turned back into the sun. Down below, it looked like three squadrons all back together again. Some of my worries faded, for we were on the enemy side of the lines. Their fighters have been routed, and now we can take our photos in the shadows of late day.
These should be good photos.
We went to enough trouble.
***
The boys were really pumped.
The briefing tent on our main field was bedlam. One could only imagine the wild and crazy scene that must have ensued at the other field. The phone rang and then Sergeant Jaeckl was talking to someone, probably Bernie or Howard-Smythe.
The air in the command tent was blue with smoke, exhaled breath and cuss words.
He jammed a finger in one ear. I waited patiently while Jaeckl looked around.
He beckoned me over, with one hand over the mouth-piece.
“It’s Hastings.”
When I took it, there was a cacophony of voices in the background over there.
“We’re getting them settled down, and we’ll have some reports for you in about half an hour.” Hastings said.
“Thanks.” I replied. “Are the guns on alert?”
“Yes.” He confirmed.
“Good.” And then I hung up.
“How come there was no Archie?” Nicholson asked.
“They were afraid of hitting their own. We met them right over no-man’s land, and it was the wind that drifted us over the guns. But by then, we were all mixed up like a dog’s breakfast.”
“Yes, sir…”
“You’ll get your fair share of Archie.” Joshed Whittington, handing Nicholson a sharpened pencil and some forms.
Nicholson had broad features, and a long torso, with big shoulders but short, bandy legs. Frizzy auburn hair, brown eyes. His eyes flicked around nervously, and he always seemed a bit more alert than anyone else in the room.
“Just try to put it down in logical sequence and if you can’t remember, don’t worry.” I suggested.
“Don’t worry.” Whittington repeated to Nicholson, who was claiming a kill.
“Name, date, type of aircraft you fly, type of aircraft you shot down,” the corporal explained.
They moved away, heads close together, murmuring back and forth.
The phone rang again and I grabbed it.
“Still waiting for a couple of planes.” Howard-Smythe blurted unceremoniously. “Shy about landing, I think.”
At a voice in the background, he shouted furiously, “Pipe down.”
There was a significant pause, as I tried to visualize what was going on over there, and then finally he said, “They’re down all right now.” A little garbled, but I got it.
“Call me back.” I told him, and hung up.
‘Give me a form.’ I beckoned to the corporal.
Dropping into a chair, I used a rag to wipe most of the oil off of my forehead, neck and in areas where it went down my clothing.
The boots could wait. As I sat there and looked at the form it was difficult to put it in words, or even to know where to start. Usually, once you begin with the routine details, it begins to flow. But poor old Nicholson had never written one before. I had, theoretically.
The room was quieter now as the men settled in to write it up, consulting with each other. Men went to the phone, and called over to the other squadron. Painstakingly, we pieced it all together. We figured for certain, that we had shot down three and damaged another three, probably more like five or six. That’s not bad for an engagement that by all accounts didn’t last more than two or maybe three minutes. Now it was just a hum of voices. I was finishing up my threadbare little write-up when the phone rang again.
“Are you sitting down?” Howard-Smythe inquired.
“What’s
up?” I asked. The line buzzed quietly in my ear.
“Bernie and Hastings are going over to Army HQ to check it out.” I heard him say.
He must have been consulting with someone at his elbow, also talking. For a deaf guy, listening to two conversations at once is the most frustrating thing, and it was easy to hear impatience in his voice as he argued with someone. If he was totally deaf, they would have booted him out of the Army. As it was, they gave him to us. Probably thought it was funny.
Finally he told me.
“There’s a wild rumor going around, that we might have gotten Von Krumholtz.”
“Oh, really.” I said. “Find out what you can.”
The line was silent for a while except for that buzzing, and low electrical voices on the other end as some kind of discussion was brought to a conclusion.
“We’re pretty sure we got Schumacher…one or two others.” He said hesitantly.
I understood his reluctance. It doesn’t pay to make wild claims. This type of thing always requires further investigation.
“Von Krumholtz always drives the black one.” I reminded the silent line.
“That’s what the boys are saying.” He advised. “A black one with a little yellow shield painted under the cockpit, left side…some kind of a crest…”
“That’s his family coat of arms.” I told the Adj.
“…last seen going down in flames.” The Adj said quietly. “Three pilots claiming hits so far…”
Sounds like we might have gotten him.
Holy, schmoley. Von Krumholtz must have had forty or fifty kills by now.
The enemy fighters had limited duration, and we must have caught them low on gas, out of ammo, and disorganized. Fuck, it almost seemed too easy.
Von Krumholtz just had a bad day.
It was going to get worse for his replacement.
We were planning another little rocket attack for tonight. No quarter asked, and none given. That’s just the way it is, and now my report must wait to be re-written.
It’s all up in the air, until we get more facts.
“Grab Hastings for me before they leave.” I told him. “I have a doozie of an idea.”
END
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