Chapter Three
I sensed a little resentment…
Seven has never been my lucky number. My first mission with Mick’s flight did nothing to contradict that assumption, and everything to confirm it. It all started off badly enough. Lieutenant Wilson-Pantry had been liked by his squadron mates and he had crashed and burned. I sensed a little resentment on the part of Dinwiddie and crew. Flight leaders are quite ruthless when dealing with members of their own flight.
He’d always been friendly before. But back then, I wasn’t his responsibility.
There were five of us that morning. Mick had managed to beg one replacement aircraft, and borrowed a spare from a luckier flight. Chris McKillen had been up with them before, but he was another new member of the squadron.
I was assigned a plane with a big white 7 painted on the nose. McKillen was flying good old number 13. He seemed happy enough, though. He was in the class ahead of me, beating me to France by a month.
***
Dinner the night before was a pretty somber affair, as one might well imagine. The latest missing pilot, Jimmy Wilson-Pantry, was about eighteen. While he certainly wasn’t a born killer in any sense of the word, Jimmy had survived twenty or thirty missions. And Jimmy was a hell of a nice guy. I guess people had sort of gotten used to having him around. Some losses were harder to take than others. If some new guy was lost on his first or second mission, well, that’s just too bad.
The squadron lost two pilots today. Jimmy and the other one, the one I saw for the last time in the latrine. And I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to his name. It’s a sad thing. I often wondered what the major would find to say in a letter to the dead boy’s mother.
Any of them, really. Any boy, any letter. Any mother.
Our squadron had twenty planes, at least on paper. We started today with seventeen, and now we’re down to fifteen.
Who’s next?
The mechanics have a busy night ahead.
At some point the CO was having a quiet puff on his old briar when the putt-putt-putt of a motorcycle sounded in the distance. The rain beat quietly down outside the open window. Your guts begin to tighten up. This was when I learned to eat fast.
You want most of it inside you.
The dispatch rider strutted into the room, a little stiff from the ride, and no doubt quite conscious of the omen of ill tidings he brings. The shoot the messenger school of thought had been popular lately.
The CO signed for it.
“Thank you.”
A snappy salute and the rider was gratefully gone. We were all holding our breath.
“Another beer, sir?” Murmured the adjutant.
“Yes, thank you.” Replied the Skipper as the evil envelope lay in state beside him, and it was almost like the candles and oil lamps were conspiring to spotlight it.
Very casually, he opened it and perused the contents.
Looking up, and scanning the room, he muttered.
“Ah, yes, whose turn is it?”
Then he went back to the orders from on high.
Singh slurped his tea noisily. He’s not a heavy drinker like some of the others. His turban looked a tad incongruous here in the mess, but it looked incongruous anywhere.
Mad Dog spoke.
“B flight gets the dawn patrol, a deep offensive patrol between six a.m. and seven thirty.” He muttered and read some more. “All right. A flight provides top cover to tactical reconnaissance around eight a.m. And other flights are to fly normal battlefield contact patrols throughout the day.”
So, we’re for it then. The proverbial high jump.
Singh and Dinwiddie were studiedly casual. Singh called for another cup of tea and Mick fiddled with his cigarettes and matches. Dinwiddie looked at me, nodded at a couple of the others.
“Might want to make an early night of it, boys.” He grinned. “I want to see you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first thing.”
“I promise not to be too hung over.” I promised him – and myself.
“How about a game of pool, Sid?” Someone asked.
The room got a little noisier, as three or four of us drifted out the door.
Tommy Watkins grabbed my shoulder.
“Hold up. Let’s go to the armorer’s shack.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Have you ever had your guns jam up? Not yet?”
“No…” I said uncertainly. “I could use a good long sleep. Twelve hours, if I can get it.”
“I think Jimmy’s guns jammed up. That, and Numbnuts leading us into an ambush.”
“Alright, alright.” I said. “Well, I’m not going to sleep now. Let’s go to the fuckin’ armorer’s.”
Tom was quite short, to me that meant anything under six feet. He came up to about my shoulder as we strode through the gloom. Latched onto me, another lost soul.
“What do you think of the wing-mounted Lewis?” I asked.
“Well, it’s light and automatic. Never got the hang of it, personally. I just keep one because it’s available. And the Huns know it’s there. They can see it.”
“They’re always behind me anyway.” He added, giving me a look.
He opened up the door and we went into the armorer’s hut.
A hot blast of fetid air hit us in the face.
“You guys never change your socks?” I griped.
Criticism is a privilege of rank. No reply, just a grim look.
“Righty then. One for you and one for you.” So said the bald, sweating NCO in charge of the place. “Links, Verey pistols and flares, et cetera and et cetera. What kind of rounds are you using?”
The Vickers, thank God, no longer used the old canvas ammo-belts, which would stretch, or fray et cetera.
“Sign the form.” As if we should forget.
Someone owes the government for all this stuff.
“One third of each.” Said Tom. “What about you?”
“Give me a couple of boxes of everything,” I said glumly. “I need to think about this.”
We went to a side table and began to lay out our kit. I was checking every round and noted Tom hesitate and begin to do the same. The Lewis gun was gas-operated. The combustion gases of each cartridge forced the bolt back, and cocked a spring; which shot it forward to fire the next bullet.
Wonderful stuff, but the thing did occasionally jam. Fine if you’re on the ground, in a nice cozy hole in the muck. We checked the bullets for length, size of shell casing, size of bullet diameter. We checked the shoulder where the bullet fit the casing, and we checked the primer area as well. A lot of jam-ups were caused by dud rounds. That’s because the slug fits tightly in the chamber. If it doesn’t fire, it won’t cause gas pressure to eject the round. It’s also hard to withdraw. The retractor on the firing pin is meant for an empty casing, not a full cartridge, especially not one that has been whacked with the firing pin…this is a situation which requires manual re-cocking under intense psychological pressure.
It’s better if the gun fires properly.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness, when it comes to machine guns.
I had a little block of metal, with holes drilled in it. One of the boys made it. The different-sized holes represented different parts of the cartridge. It speeded up the job. We collected a surprising number of funny-looking rounds.
Interesting, very interesting.
Tom and I were sort of awed. We hadn’t even started on my belt yet.
“I think we just bought ourselves a few more hours, or minutes, of life expectancy.”
He said it quietly and thoughtfully and introspectively.
“This is part of my routine from now on.” I agreed. “And you think Jimmy’s guns jammed?”
“Welcome to the suicide club.” The NCO, from behind a thin wall where we could hear a kettle heating up.
“Yeah.” Said Tom with a sickly grin.
He looked awfully young right about then.
It takes a while to prepare two or three magazines for the Lewis, as well as a full belt for the Vickers. This was made up of separate aluminum links. We also had our pistols and flare guns. It was time well spent. I cleaned my pistol once daily. Just habit.
“I had a jam-up last week.” Tom noted. “Luckily, I opened up at extreme range. The thing misfired immediately. She got off a couple of rounds.”
It took the Fritzies some time to catch on, turn and come back around…
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Shit razor blades and ran for it, skimming the mud all the way home. Don’t try to turn with the fuckers.”
“I’ll be right behind you all the way.”
He laughed at that one.
“That’s up to Mick. But I will ask for you. We fly on the right. We used to, Jimmy and I.”
“I liked him,” I said. “I’m real sorry to see him go.”
“You never get used to it.” Tom said, then turned away.
The armory NCO offered me a cup of tea.
“He’ll be fine.”
Tom stumped noisily out the door with his kit.
“Well, that looks good.” I muttered. “Where there is tea, there is hope.”
I started off my belt with three bullets, then a tracer, then three bullets, then a tracer, and followed it through for the whole five hundred rounds.
“This spring is weak, get me another magazine.” I told the sergeant.
I put about fifty of the Brock and Pomeroy incendiary rounds into the best of my Lewis drums, after starting off the drum with regular bullets, tracer every third round.
Sooner or later it would be my turn to bust a balloon.
Everyone has to take a turn. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not. If forced down in enemy territory, it doesn’t pay to have too many explosive-type bullets in your ammunition. It causes bad feelings. Pilots have been hanged, et cetera. Or worse.
It’s a kind of gentlemen’s agreement.
“Goodnight, sir.” Said the NCO, as a couple more of the boys came in looking thoughtful.
“Goodnight.” I stepped out into the moist cool breeze on the evening air.
And so to bed, perchance to sleep.
END
Images. Begged, borrowed, stolen. Hell, if things get bad enough, Louis does them himself.
Louis has books and stories available from Barnes & Noble. He has some pictures on Fine Art America.
Thank you for reading.
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