Chapter Thirty-Two
A Thorough Pre-flight
After a thorough pre-flight of my new SE 5a, with its very own 275 brake horse-power Wolseley Viper engine, and a few other modifications, we were ready.
A wave was sufficient in daylight. Clouds of blue exhaust smoke veered off as the engines caught, one by one.
First the Biffs trundled out, bobbing and weaving as the line formed up for take-off. They started from way down at the far end. All that could be discerned were their shapes. Next it was the Camel Jockeys. There goes ‘Idaho Red,’ with a little potato-headed figure complete with cowboy hat and six-gun painted on the left side of the forward fuselage.
He thinks he’s a cowboy. Pretty much every plane had some kind of crazy artwork on the side.
Someone had painted a big tiger on the side of my plane, and they did a pretty good job, too.
That man had real talent.
‘Blood and Guts,’ it said, in white cartoon lettering.
“Thank you,” was all one could say, when they proudly showed me the plane for the first time.
I was really touched. It was a moment totally irreplaceable. When you get really, really old, you wish you could recapture certain moments, certain feelings from your youth. That moment was one of them. It was with a good warm feeling, that I centred her up on the end of our runway area. The plane was pointed into the western breeze. Three-forty-five p.m. Advancing the throttle, the plane was soon airborne and the mission proceeded shortly thereafter. As CO, I tended to take a few notes and trust the boys to follow along without a lot of supervision.
If they have engine problems, they’re smart enough to return to base on their own initiative. That’s one psychological advantage to being, experimental, there’s no question of cowardice or lack of moral fibre.
They’re under orders to use their heads.
We flew a semicircular route, relying on the northwest crosswind to help drive us to our battle position.
Right on time.
Noted.
After climbing at about three-quarters throttle the whole way, I was at 19,000 feet and the boys were right there. Ahead, 4,000 feet below, were the Camel Jockeys.
The Biffs could be seen further down and further ahead.
The other, lower groups were staggered off to the left of us. The sun was up over my shoulder, on the right.
Within a few short minutes we had our first brush with the enemy, who was also up in force. The sky is a vast and empty place sometimes. You really learn to use your eyes. The great blue bowl of the sky was cloudless and clear, the light harsh and unyielding. That could be deceptive. It was still a big place, and airplanes are very small objects. The few that could be seen, were way off to the south, and I preferred to turn north, keeping the sun at our backs. There was no sense in changing the plan now.
We were still heading east. We had to go about half a mile through the expanding puffs of black Archie smoke, over the enemy trenches. Just then, and I didn’t see them coming but someone must have, were two enemy heavy reconnaissance machines, heading more or less due west. Halberstadts. Wallace and Webster separated about seventy yards to the left of the Camel formation, and then I saw the enemy planes.
Wallace, without any hesitation at all, simply put his right wing up vertical, and pulled hard around on their tail. The Camels and the enemy must have been at the same altitude. He fired away at one, and it began to smoke and then burn, as his wingman hovered behind, taking the odd pot-shot when chance permitted. If the enemy had simply reacted a little quicker, they might have saved themselves.
I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I had to watch my own sky. But it was beautiful to see, a thing well done. And it wasn’t long after that, when a whole bunch of German fighters came down from up ahead of us to engage in a vicious little dog-fight that lasted ten minutes or so, and then the Boche broke for home and dinner.
Those head-on attacks were a nightmare, but we all seemed to have followed the proper procedures. During the engagement, I observed at least three enemy machines catch fire, send out smoke, or spin down out of control, but I didn’t go down low enough to verify where each one crashed.
Sometimes a spin is merely an escape mechanism.
I had my own little duel going, with a red machine of an unfamiliar type. He had a big white something painted on the side. That plane was fast and well-handled. We first met frontally. We both missed with our head-on shots. When he turned left, as I could see over my shoulder, naturally I turned left, and at the exact same time we both started climbing up the corkscrew. We were on opposite sides, but I sensed some small advantage.
There was no time for any fear.
All I wanted to do was to kill him quickly.
I’ve noticed that before.
The corkscrew became a more vertical rolling-scissors movement, and as the speed slowed, lots of other planes in the vicinity became a threat. We decided to plummet downwards for a while, still locked in a scissors maneuver. His plane had small, wide wings, and it seemed to handle a little heavy. It’s difficult to describe, but the second it became apparent that I was gaining on him, he reversed his turn, and flicked away towards Germany. We were down to about 10,000 by then. I couldn’t catch him, being on the far side of the circle at that point. At that point I checked for unwelcome attention from other fighters by rolling and snapping as I re-oriented myself to find the western horizon. It was gratifying to see my own wingman right there, wagging his wings.
He was sticking like glue, no doubt giving the enemy pilot much food for thought.
Food for thought for me as well. That was one very quick-thinking fighter pilot, in my assessment. He knew he couldn’t win, and so he broke off as soon as he could.
No wasted heroics.
Very professional.
Hopefully we would meet again.
The Siemens Schuckert D-III.
***
There are sights and sounds that can never be forgotten. A fighter plane, shedding bits, pieces and chunks, all aflame, as it turns end over end.
The screaming, banshee wail of a runaway engine, way past its limit, shaking itself to pieces as it flicks past your own machine. Little black somethings, not smoke, not people, not airplane parts. Just little black things, falling in lazy spirals, drifting down.
Three planes, chasing around in a circle. No one dares to be the first to let go. It is bedlam, it is insanity. You’re all alone, and the plane that just passed over you smoking and flaming, could be your best friend. Sometimes you line up on someone, and only at the very last second do you see the cockades, the roundels on the wings or body of the plane.
All your senses are ablaze with the passion of living at death’s door.
You feel every emotion in a battle like that, a three dimensional battle of cut, thrust, slash, and parry. You feel love, and joy, and fear and hate, and envy, and pity. There are times you laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all. Sometimes you shout, scream and curse.
Everything happens all at once, and then it’s over in a heartbeat. Then you get to shepherd your flock home again, nursing one or two wounded ducks, trailing thin smoke trails.
If you’re lucky, God smiles on you, and all your boys get to live, to fight again another day.
***
“How do you feel about a little impromptu press conference?” Asked the Adj.
And so it came to pass. The press brigade had arrived en scene, as they inevitably must, sooner or later.
Howard-Smythe, only recently returned after a brief hiatus, setting up our next little operation, announced that there were several gentlemen waiting to speak to the CO. It was ‘de rigeur,’ under the circumstances.
News bulletins to the Home Front and all that rubbish.
“Send them in and close it behind them.” I told the Adj. “And then wait.”
“Yes, sir.” He said, and as the door shut behind him, I heard his voice.
I skittered out under the rear flap in three seconds or less, and silently trod my way around to the front of the tent. I arrived just in time to see the last of them filing into my office. The Adj gently closed the flap. He looked up in surprise.
“Yes?” He inquired in a low tone.
“You have about ten minutes to get the word out, so listen good.” I informed my minion, my churl, my esquire. “They can talk about anything they want, except the mission, the training, the operations, the equipment, the routine, or anything else you see around you.”
I thought briefly.
“Communications, off limits. Personnel, off limits.”
“Who, who? The men, you mean?” He gasped in surprise. “What are we supposed to talk about, then?”
Howard-Smythe lip-read carefully as I spoke.
“Home, wives, children, jobs. Plans for after our great victory.” I suggested. “Talk about anything but our work, and don’t use your last names.”
“If you have nothing nice to say, talk about the government.” I ventured.
He gave a quick nod and bolted for the door. His work was cut out for him.
Entering the office, the boys were looking a bit puzzled, but to hell with them.
They might figure out how I disappeared, and why. Who cares?
“Pee time.” I noted.
With engines being run up on test, it’s doubtful if they caught any of it. As long as they’re taking everyone else’s statements at face value, they could have a few of mine.
They were already raising hands and clearing throats, preparing to drive me batty with silly dumb questions. Bunch of brain-dead bottom feeders.
However…
When you have a captive audience, you might as well make the most of it.
“You people are free to go anywhere on this aerodrome. No photos will be allowed. You can talk to anyone you wish. If they have work to do, do not waste their time.” I started off. “Perhaps we can find you a picture opportunity. If you behave yourselves.”
“How much longer do you think the Huns will last?” Asked the nearest reporter, a pince-nez-wearing dandy with a trilby hat and gaiters, pin-stripe seersucker suit, and a long, trailing, golden watch chain.
A real ‘Teddy boy,’ which is what they were called. Yes, ‘a seersucker suit that he bought at Cox’s,’ or was it the other way around? Another silly tit wearing white spats.
That guy has an extra ‘X’ chromosome. Or was it a ‘Y’ chromosome? I can never remember.
“It will be over by Christmas.” I informed them with confidence and assurance.
They didn’t even blink.
They didn't even blink...
They just wrote it down.
This could be fun.
“What do you think should happen to the Kaiser after all this?” Asked another.
“D’you mean you don’t know?” I gaped at him, playing it up a little. “Let’s hope he doesn’t suffer Roger Mortimer’s fate.”
No one laughed. Don’t they ever read a fucking book?
Buggered with a red-hot poker. Maybe it wasn’t him…Hotspur?
My mind is going. That’s scary. I should be able to remember a simple little fact like that.
“Well, um, well, er, well. What is your opinion, Lieutenant-Colonel Tucker?” The little bastard came at me again.
“How about exile in the Netherlands?” I suggested. “You can’t hang one single member of the nobility. It sets a bad precedent.”
Can’t hang the Royals can you?
“Really?”
“Yes.” I replied firmly, then began stuttering and stammering. “I, I mean, no.”
“In what way?” He kept at it.
“Well, we’ve all read the telegrams, the ones in the White Paper. Right?”
They wrote it down. Apparently they knew all about it. They’d splattered it all over the front pages years before, after all.
“Yes, of course. But what are you getting at?” He asked again.
Slow on the uptake.
“If you hang the Kaiser, there’s no telling where it will end.”
I tried to let him down gently.
I doubt if they read their own papers.
They kept writing it down.
Clearly, every head of state in Europe was threatening every other head of state in Europe, back in the summer of 1914. There was only one way it could end…or begin.
“Would you hang Franz Joseph?” I asked the room. “Would you hang the Czar?”
They stopped writing then. They all looked at me with blank faces.
“Surely we’re not going to hang Georgie, and Clemenceau, and good old Winnie…?”
They all smiled then. I think they got it then, in any case Howard-Smythe has had his ten minutes and I am a busy man. No doubt their stories will say I am valorous, and noble. Affable, sincere, and ‘just dying to get one in for King George and Merrye Olde Englande.’
In this case, maybe it is better if they misquote me.
The press filed out on their way to journalistic Nirvana, or Valhalla, or whatever the press dreams of. Whatever the fuck they dream of. Shangri-La, or those Victorian child-brothels, for all I know.
They would say I was a jolly good commander.
I was interviewed by a reporter once. He asked perfectly sensible questions, and was well informed, and he listened very carefully to what I had to say. He was a very good interviewer, and his questions followed up on every point I made, intelligently and well.
Apparently his editor punched up the story a little. It bore no resemblance to the conversation we had. None whatsoever. As far as Will Tucker is concerned, those bastards were completely on their own, as of now, Mister. And in the article, I came across as a pompous ass, something I figured was not entirely accidental. Someone had labeled me a radical, or something.
Editors, I guess they have their job as crypt-keepers or goalkeepers or something.
I wish ‘em luck, I really do.
The Adj came in.
“Lay on a big, fat lunch for them.” I said. “Tell Cookie to pull out all the stops. Not much food but plenty of booze.”
“Yes, sir.” He said. “Oysters, and crackers, and camembert cheese.”
Yuck. Glad I have a lunchtime appointment with some enemy fighter planes.
“Give them some of the fish eggs,” I suggested. “Toast, home-made butter. Bring out the champagne for these chaps. Make the fuckers sick to their stomachs, if you can. Give them some Boston cream pie on top of all that.”
I was chock full of ideas.
“Take it in turns. Give them a plane ride. Use McGill and that new guy.” I thought.
“Let ‘em take pictures of Ali Baba and Shifty. Tell the boys I said to talk about our personal contribution to the Empire’s war effort, and how proud to serve they are, and how every man-jack among them is an unsung but much-appreciated hero. Oh, yeah. Make sure they say how honored they are to serve their fellow man.”
“Do you mind if I tack on a few other points?” He asked, rather dumbfounded by all of this. “Do you really want them to say that?”
“Yes. Not at all, have a little fun with it. You earned it, buddy.” I said, slapping him a good one on the shoulder.
He winced under the impact.
“Sorry. How’s the bursitis?” I asked.
“Very good today.” He muttered in irony.
My own injuries should alert me to the pain others must feel sometimes, but often we’re so busy we don’t ask, and it’s kind of unnatural to bring it up. We don’t wish to complain, or be perceived as whiners.
“The Doc was supposed to show up with some pills,” he admitted.
“Well, maybe he took them himself.” I joked. “Probably fell asleep on the way over.”
The military mind has nothing but contempt for the truth.
Besides, this is my aerodrome, and the truth is what I say it is.
“What is truth?” Asked the Adj rhetorically as he left to go looking for the doctor.
“Hey Adj.’ I bellowed and he hurried back.
“Yes,” he asked.
“See if you can locate a few sticks of dynamite. And fuse. We need lots of fuses.” I asked. “One of them crates of rockets got damaged somehow. Right?”
It’s just a thought. Never know when it might come in handy. Like if the press decides to stay the night.
“We probably have all that.” He acknowledged.
***
Another unwelcome visitor. This time it was a goddamned psychiatrist, sent by the Air Ministry to conduct some kooky study. Sure hope he has his own transport.
“Oh, God.” I sighed, as I studied the documents.
Well, it was all legit. Signed, sealed and delivered. Hope he’s not after me. Those guys have reputations to make, just like fighter pilots. Like cops, they have no sense of humor. And like cops, they never believe a God-damned word you say.
“How many shrinks does it take to change a light bulb?” I joked.
He looked deadly serious.
"Only one, but the light-bulb really has to want to change."
“Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change.” He answered.
Yikes. A control freak.
“I hope you’re not after me.” I joked, but he looked deadly serious.
Earnest, and sincere.
“Hmn. Our personnel will be instructed to give you nothing but their fullest and most cheerful cooperation.” I informed the gentleman, a certain Dr. Scolz.
A man of borrowed importance, but a real insignificance. You have to be careful, or you might find yourself in luke-warm water. One of those totally-useless men that naturally gravitate to the circles of power. Well-connected to some authority figurine. He was also a member of the Young Whigs or some such nonsense, as I recalled from news coverage.
My personal opinion is that the group was formed so that their leader would have an audience to address when he needed, and not much else. I should ask him about the usefulness of glory. Maybe I’m ‘just having my monthlies and in a bitchy mood.’
That’s a little joke we used to make.
“I find myself, above all, very tired.” I informed Scolz. “You should meet Doc, he’s a fellow professional man. You guys might get along well.”
It doesn’t pay to get too tired.
“I was up at the butt-crack of dawn today.” I noted. “And it’s unlikely I’ll get to bed before midnight or two a.m.”
The camp was flooded by a heavy spring rain the day before. The muck and the mud trails everywhere. It sticks like poop to everything. It makes walking very tiring.
“Feel free to get out and around, and talk to the men.” I offered. “The Doc’s tent is down two, then left.”
I beckoned vaguely to the left side of my tent. After a few more minutes of desultory chit-chat the Adj came in. By the way he situated himself on the arm of a chair I knew it was something. But not too urgent, due to the fact that he took his silvery wire-rimmed spectacles off and polished them. This was code. All was taken care of regarding the shrink’s visit. Same deal as the press. Be careful what you tell them. That way it can’t come back to haunt you. Unless you want it to, for the press does have its uses.
That was my job, not theirs.
The men knew what to do. Theoretically, head-shrinkers have their uses. The key thing is to be more stable than them. If they can provoke you, they win.
Life is a sport. Thirst is nothing, and image is everything. If we operate on our own, then we have to be trusted, and if we have to die for, ‘them,’ then Jesus H. Christ, we’re entitled to an opinion. The establishment hadn’t learned the lessons of the Boer War.
Half-trained Boer infantry in dug-in positions, armed with rifles and machine guns stood off the weight of the British Empire, and why?
Smokeless powder.
Nice, simple, rational consideration, and they never got it until it was too late. This psychiatrist was preparing to put a paper together. It was for the next war, not the one we were fighting now. And it would be forgotten anyway, gathering dust on some back shelf in Whitehall. Hey, other than that, he was some mother’s nice college boy.
I had no patience for this shit, that much seems clear.
Because of smokeless cartridges, a war of mobility was impossible. Because now men could shoot, and see through the smoke to shoot again, and again, and again, and so on, ‘ad infinitum.’ A new way had to be found, and the shrinks could not do it.
As far as this boy is concerned, take ‘em all out and drown ‘em.
It’s a point of view.
***
Now what?
No sooner had I gotten rid of the witch doctor, when there was yet another visitor.
“What now?” I barked at the Adj, who in reality hadn’t done anything wrong, and couldn’t control which bleeding idiot the Air Ministry sent to bother us next.
“This is Mr. Phil McAffee, from the Research and Historical Section.” The Adj informed me as diplomatically as possible under the circumstances.
Poor Mr. McAffee must have overheard my outburst. But he seemed a decent enough chap, perhaps a little embarrassed at what he’d heard. Short, lightly-built, big head.
Itty-bitty, teeny-tiny hands and feet. Standard-issue, ill-fitting grey suit. Poverty-stricken. Could have made ten times the money by dropping down a notch in the social rankings, and if he did some actual work.
The usual.
His big, brown, puppy-dog eyes stared at me sadly from over the desk.
“Sorry about that.” I apologized. “Whitehall has been on our case quite a bit lately.”
I asked the man what I could do for him. They were probably all ringers.
“Our mutual friend H.G. mentioned your name,” he began. “He suggested you first, to be frank. I’ll be earnest if you’d rather.”
Huh. Funny, but not too funny.
“H.G. Wells?” I inquired, “I only met the gentleman once.”
It was at a party with Betty. H.G. and I hit it off. I was interested in the future of technology, especially as in how it related to air matters, and he was a science writer and social commentator. So our historian, by some strange serendipity, was a friend of H.G. Wells. H.G. wrote, Outline of History, a Bolshie sort of history book, of a kind that is not written in the west anymore.
He asked about our record-keeping. He stressed the need to keep meticulous records, ‘properly tabulated, collated and cross-referenced,’ in order that the Air Ministry ‘get the most out of it.’
He mentioned, ‘transparency,’ and, ‘ease of access,’ for his fellow researchers at Whitehall. He used the term ‘actuaries,’ like the guys who compiled ‘Evetts’s Rates,’ which listed the rate at which men would be ‘wasted’ in combat. You know, the famous ‘light combat, medium combat,’ and, ‘heavy combat,’ people.
(For heavy combat, use hot water and a stronger brand of soap.)
“You are, after all, engaged in research of your own.” He pointed out reasonably.
“My men do their best, and we question them thoroughly about their reports.” I told him. “In the case of aerial combat, there really isn’t time to write down serial numbers, or to decide if the enemy was shot down by two bullets from one gun, as opposed to three bullets from another gun. Ultimately, who cares?”
“I care.” He said, affably enough.
Wise, guy, eh?
“We’ll do our best.” I allowed. “But I want something back?”
“Quid pro quo?” He asked.
“I wouldn’t know about that. Call it, ‘up’n the ante,’ if you wish. How do you feel about Gibbon’s compilers’ of history?” I queried obliquely.
It wasn’t an attempt to alienate the gentleman, but his face flushed.
“What would you have me do?” He murmured grumpily.
“When you guys get around to writing the Official History, make sure to put in something about…let me get this right…how, at all levels there was inter-service cooperation that was exemplary…cheerful acceptance of low pay and dismal working conditions…et cetera…”
Poor guy just stared at me with his jaw a-hanging.
“Let me think…there was never anything other than friendly rivalry between services at all ranks…”
He had nothing to say to all this.
“Let’s call it a, fuck, I don’t know, a spirit.” I suggested.
"We always do that, old bean."
Yeah: an R.A.F. spirit…
“Haw, haw. H.G. and the Pope will get a kick out of that one.” He returned, baring his fangs for a moment.
I laughed at his joke. It was, quite literally, the least I could do for the man.
He deserved nothing more.
“We always do that, old bean.” He pouted.
Profit stems from self-denial. I denied myself the pleasure of throwing him out.
Perhaps it may result in some profit someday.
“Um, where do you live?” I asked semi-courteously.
Noted the name of the town, but it has gotten lost over the years. I think it was in Wales. That is to say he told me but I forgot it instantly. Some grimy northern industrial town in the northern hemisphere. Somewhere in the Temperate Zone.
“Oh.” I cried, as if perturbed. “I thought you might be going back to the twenty-first century.”
He flung his head back and laughed in a high-pitched hysterical tone, just like a girl, or that guy over at MI-6. You know, the one who specializes in Middle Eastern Terror Groups.
I fumbled the name, once or twice. “Bill… Chosser. That’s it.”
H.G. wrote, The Time Machine, he wrote, When the Sleeper Wakes, and stuff like that. Chosser works over there in MI-6.
“Chaucer?” He asked with raised eyebrows, no doubt thinking me completely mad.
“Geoffrey Chaucer?”
Finally it clicked in.
“No, Chosser, Bill Chosser…” I told him. “MI-6…”
“MI-6 is outside the pale. My department doesn’t have much truck with those boys.” And he shivered.
“Absolutely ruthless.” He advised. “And they prefer not to keep records.”
I had a moment of sympathy, thinking of the Countess.
“Absolutely ruthless.” I agreed. “So they don’t want their history written down either, eh? Bastards.”
We ended up on fairly innocuous terms. My diplomacy was improving, which is a good thing, sometimes.
END
Images. Louis finds stuff on the internet.
Louis has books and stories on iTunes. See his works on ArtPal.
See the #superdough blog.
Thank you for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to comment on the blog posts, art or editing.