Heaven Is Too Far Away, Chapter Two. Louis Shalako.

  

Chapter Two

 

B Flight

 

Captain Mick Dinwiddie was on patrol with four planes of the flight. Other than the mechanics, sitting bored in the shade of a tree beside the hangar, there was no one to talk to. Singh was flying today as well. There were a few glances in this direction, but lieutenants outrank privates. We don’t have to explain our presence.

With no aircraft to look at, and not much to talk about, there was time to observe the men around me. Most of them were older, although several were about the same age as I, and one poor little fellow looked about fourteen years old.

Their lot could be worse. They often worked far into the night repairing aircraft.

Sometimes their sleep was disturbed by the Hun’s nightly bed check.

At least they got to eat at a table and sleep in a bed.

It’s better than a trench.

Not that they weren’t brave, or courageous. But they looked somehow contented in this brief respite from the noise, the dust. The constant hazard of the whirling props, and all the machines maneuvering on the ground.

I had never seriously worried about being killed by a bomb. Not after the trenches. Not after April 22, 1915. I was at the Second Battle of Ypres. That was the first gas attack in history. It must have been understood by these fellows that some might get killed by machine guns or bombs, artillery, or gas. They had seen it all before, and they would see it again. No doubt. Appalling as the losses in pilots were, it was like nothing compared to the trenches. At some point you just accepted that you probably will be killed by a bomb, a shell, a fragment of flying metal. Then it somehow feels better. The matter has been settled. It was the suspense that was killing you. It was the uncertainty that was eating you up inside.

For now, the men were happy in each other’s company, with pipes comfortably held in callused palm, a chipped, enameled-tin mug of hot tea on an empty box. I didn’t know any of their names, but I didn’t feel like a stranger here. We heard engines in the distance.

“There’s only three of them.” Someone said it, very quietly.

They all stood up and shuffled out to the flight-line. I tagged along because there wasn’t much else to do until someone said otherwise. Anyhow, I didn’t want to be asleep when the Flight Commander called. Sure enough, one of the aircraft of our flight was missing. Believed shot down. Overhearing snatches of talk, it was said the plane had gone down in flames. To say the mood was somber was an understatement.

The mood was infectious.

Now, now I felt like a stranger, there on the verge of the crowd milling about the planes.

Small groups of aircraftmen began to service and replenish them, while the three surviving pilots went to the office-hut to make their reports and get rid of their heavy clothes. I helped a few of the lads push planes around. They liked to have them just so, easy to refuel and re-arm, easy to dispatch, hard to hit from the air. Dispersed from enemy observation and enemy artillery.

The S.E. 5 was probably the best aeroplane designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory.

Certainly a couple of years of war experience had benefited this machine. It was an exceptionally steady gun platform. Agility was good, although some enemy aircraft could out-turn it. It also possessed good performance without sacrificing structural integrity.

The plane could take a few hits without folding up, as I had just proven.

The S.E. 5 began to enter squadron service in April 1917. The early versions had an inline Hispano Suiza 150-h.p. engine. This was joined and replaced in the front line by the Wolseley Viper 200-h.p. S.E. 5a version. B Flight was equipped with early variants of this airplane. This was much superior to the tired old machines I’d been flying.

Is it any wonder that I wanted to get a closer look at my new mount? And hopefully, to at last have a personal aircraft and crew dedicated to me.

Water cooled, very slick.

A fairly effective machine.

With that massive chunk of propeller out front, and the tail sitting down low, the impression it gave was one of speed and power. The plane was capable of surviving a two-hundred-fifty-plus mph terminal-velocity dive, if you believed the stories. It just won’t go any faster. That’s what terminal velocity means. Too much wind resistance from the front of the propeller disc.

As I stood looking at the plane, watching the chaps working on it, my ears were still ringing from the morning flight. The nearest plane, one with a big white 4 on the nose, had the bonnet open and the boys were tweaking the engine.

It sputtered up and roared, then backfired and they shut it off.

Smoke rolled away on the light breeze. One of the boys got his eyebrows singed by the carburetor backfiring. Curses and laughter.

She sure was a beauty. I shuffled off to see if Dinwiddie or Singh were ready to talk yet.

That’s when I noticed them. The kid, and another fitter or mechanic. The older one standing there disconsolately by the empty hangar door. And the kid sobbing. Like a kid.

Oh, yeah. One plane missing. Another fellow sitting inside, on a stool by the workbench. His head was hanging.

This may sound awfully self-centred, but I wondered if this was my new crew?

And just exactly how good they were.

I wanted them to be at their best.

 

 

 

END

 

ChapterOne.

 

Images: The video is from YouTube.

 

Louis has books and stories available from Google Play. See his art on ArtPal.

 

Thank you for reading.