Chapter Thirty-Six
The Flying Circus, Later that Historic Day
And so it came to pass, that on a fine and sunny March day we met up with the Flying Circus. We were cruising at one-twenty, as we patrolled, six Biffs, a pair of Camels and four SE’s at about 19,000 feet. We were over the lines approximately half an hour, when we saw it. It felt good to be back in my personal SE.
There was one hell of a fur-ball down there, south of us. It looked to be at about 12,000 feet, and there must have been fifty or a hundred planes down there. A huge balloon of planes. And yet the whole mess of them couldn’t have taken up more than a cubic mile of airspace. They were that tightly spaced. Imagine the difficulty of breaking off such an engagement if you suffered damage, and as we approached, one or two machines did indeed suffer a quick fate. Every loose plane that didn’t have an opponent already, seemed to go for these strays.
The cherry-pickers hovered at the edges of the fracas for just that reason.
As we got closer, they began to disappear under our bottom wings. I had time for one last, quick look around. The Camel boys were briefed to stay high, but you never know if they were listening.
No Hun in the sun, and by careful feel, timing it in my head, I rolled inverted and began a blistering dive on the mass below, and even as we dove, I could see machines burning and falling out of the fight.
There was music in my head. I was a man with his own theme music. But it was a moment I had prepared for all my life, or so it seemed. And there he was. The ‘fockinge Rote Kampflieger.’ Oh yeah, it was him all right. On my way down I throttled back, so there was a brief moment in time to think, to anticipate.
Due to my slow plummeting speed, other planes edged forward in my periphery.
This one’s all mine, boys.
I put my left eye up to the cold gun-sight, and gently used the elevators and ailerons, lining him up in the cross hairs. Momentarily, I couldn’t believe my luck.
It was just too fucking easy.
The safety was off the Vickers, the safety was off the Lewis.
Manfred tracked to the left. He was pulling up and onto the tail of a Camel Jockey, not one of my boys, from its big, bright cockades. Roll left ninety degrees, so that he’s going ‘straight up’ in relation to my nose, bright against the dull backdrop of the ground below.
Puffs of smoke hurled themselves backwards from the Baron’s red DR-1, but the Brit or whoever snapped into a barrel roll and spoiled the attack. Good for you, boy.
Placing my finger on the trigger of the Vickers, I took up the first tension, riding along with the sights just behind him now. Time to stroke through him as they turn yet again.
Pull the trigger…now. And nothing happened.
Not a God-damned thing happened.
“Fuck.”
I shouted in vain. Nothing fucking happened when I squeezed the trigger.
Man, I was pissed off. I was in also deep trouble, as every son of a bitch in the place suddenly sensed that I was the best target available.
Pulled hard to the left, and thank God, but my neophyte winger stuck with me, and he flies a Biff.
They’re pretty green, but they’ve stuck like glue, and I pointed at him and then to the west. We poked our way back into the fight, and just then a tri-plane came along and his gunner blasted away at it, and it seemed to think better. Two Albatros fighters appeared and they were in front. A quick glance confirmed that the Biff’s front gun was taking one of them on, and my Lewis thankfully fired enough times to discourage them.
I quickly let up before it jammed too. There’s only about four dozen rounds left.
You can almost count your shots, ‘one-Mississippi-stop’ is about thirty rounds.
“Fuck. Fuck.” I bellowed in rage in my cockpit.
I could have had the bastard.
Blam. Something whizzed past my head, and we went left this time, up into stall turns. The boy was learning, he’s still with me. We went tearing back. Some cocksuckers in Fokkers want us for trophies?
“Visualize this.” I ranted, blasting away, hosing them down good from thirty yards behind.
Vaguely I could hear the Biff’s rear gunner having a go at someone or something behind us…oh, God…
Smudges of black vaporous smoke leapt out of the enemy plane, bits flew off the gunner’s target…good lad.
Good instincts, get the fuck out of here. The pilot, driving ‘Shovelhead,’ waved and pointed west, making the question gesture.
“Yes,” I vigorously nodded. “YES.”
Roll hard and pull, check compass, 8,000 feet. Man is an organism. Once dinner is on the table, he just wants to live long enough to have it and wash it down with a beer.
Homo sapiens wants to have its cake and eat it too.
I could see smoke columns rising up from the ground below us.
Half a tank of gas, damage of some sort to the aircraft, and one fucked-up Vickers.
It’s time to go.
Just then, along comes another damned tri-plane. Again the Lewis fired off a few rounds. I watched the tri-plane. Head-on, slightly below…he flew right under me heading east, and he didn’t even fire back.
There can’t be any more bullets in there…can there?
Shit.
There was little choice but to split-S and go after him. Not the best situation, but it’s my job, and at least I still had a wingman.
There was no trouble catching the little fucker. I had all kinds of power in level flight compared to him. I was flat out, level, and doing one-forty-eight, by the dial, and I doubt if he could do much over one-ten, one-fifteen. With a twenty-foot wingspan, three wings, a big fat rotary nose, it’s like a big Venetian blind. A lot of drag. And he’s only got what?
A hundred-ten horsepower.
He was getting bigger, and he had a different-colored elevator.
It wasn’t Manfred, but he was a Circus clown, so he would have to do for today.
Taking careful aim, I squeezed the trigger on the Lewis. Bumpy turbulence threw off my first shots, and the rounds chopped away at the cabane struts, all around his head, but no killing shot. There came a sudden moment of clarity, and I felt real sympathy for the guy—he could see it better than I. He knew what was going on.
Just as I fired again, the gun ran out of ammunition. He frantically turned left, and right, and left again. We blew through the thinning fur-ball, headed towards Germany. He was diving. He made ‘S’ turns every few seconds, checking his tail.
I knew that was going to happen.
Fucking Lewis…fucking Vickers.
We were about 7,000 feet and he had the nose down, but I finally got the gun back up on the level with a new mag. I threw the old one out. No sense in having it tangled up with my feet and rudder pedals.
Once again, he was lined up. I put about twenty rounds into him, but he was turning again, and now he had some severe structural damage. I fired again, and again.
I was just fucking hacking away and couldn’t get a vital hit.
Finally the gun went silent. The Biff leapt forward, at my right side. I had literally and totally forgot about him. I hovered off to the left a little.
No other fighters behind us. I made double sure of that.
“Yes. Get him. Get him…Fuck.” I was shouting like a son of a bitch.
“Fire, damn you.” I shouted again in impatience.
Smoke, fire and noise ripped out of the Biff’s nose gun. I could see the top wing of the enemy plane fluttering and vibrating, and suddenly one end was lifting. The enemy pilot was frantically struggling in the cockpit…
Exactly then the top wing came off the tri-plane, and narrowly missed hitting my boys.
They ducked, pulling hard to the right. As they turned, I was just in the middle of changing the magazine. I stared in amazement. That tri-plane had suddenly become a biplane.
With no ailerons, it’s hard to say if he made it home or not. Theoretically he could fly with only rudder and elevator…right? So that’s why we never made a claim. Could have been Lothar, in my opinion. And I was in the middle of fumbling with the magazine for the damned Lewis.
I watched him fly off into the distance. I never would have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The magazine was being cranky and I cursed and swore at it.
Somehow, foolishly, I dropped it, and then I was well and truly fucked.
We blew right back through the goddamned fur-ball.
Oh, God, finally we went home, and this time I just followed my winger.
Whenever he hesitated, and looked over at me, I just kept pointing west.
I felt naked without my gun. I jiggled and juggled the plane, trying to get the mag to slide over to within reach. Finally, I pulled out my six-gun and kept it tucked under my thigh for the ride home.
It was better than nothing.
I was one pissed-off dude by that point.
***
We threw a little party for the whole camp.
“How can you tell the German officer from the British officer?” The riddle went.
“The British officer is the one with the umbrella.” Came the laughing reply.
“A Britisher walks into a bar, with a monkey on his shoulder. The bartender asks, ‘Where did you get that ugly thing?’ and the monkey replies, ‘I got it in England.’”
The jokes were flying fast and furious.
“And if little girls are made of sugar and spice, and everything nice, why do they smell like anchovies?”
Hoots and hollering, whistles and catcalls. As for me, I was grinning so hard it hurt.
“If a light sleeper sleeps lighter with the light on, does a hard sleeper sleep harder with a window open?”
More hoots.
“My physician has provided me with something called ‘Preparation F,’ I asked him what became of preparations, ‘A-through-G?’ But all he would tell me, is that now I can poop with confidence.”
Oh God, that voice, that accent.
“A woman accosted me on the street. She told me she would give me oral sex for a pound,” he went on without pause or rest. “I asked her what do I get for fifty pounds?”
The room was very quiet now, as everyone strained to catch every word, every inflection.
“‘Why mister, I would do just about anything for fifty pounds,’ she replied. I said, good, come over and help me to paint my house…”
We all broke up in a huge roar.
“A little boy goes into the bathroom while his mother was having a shower,” Aweemowep started another one. “’Mommy, what’s that?’ he asked, pointing at her crotch. Unable to think what to say, she tells him, ‘Mommy and daddy were fighting and daddy hit her with an axe…’”
We’re all laughing like idiots.
With deadly accuracy, and unerring timing, he hits us again:
“And the little boy says, ‘What, right in the cunt?’”
The place went nuts.
Thank heaven for little girls...
It was amateur night in the mess, and this guy was so good we broke the rules about ‘fraternization,’ between enlisted men, NCOs and officers. Normally, ‘ne’er the twain shall meet.’
‘East is east and West is west,’ that sort of Kiplingesque, Khyber Pass thing. Well, there were other reasons for separate messes. He had a glass in his hand, and swallowed the contents at a gulp.
“Two men were sitting on a ship and it caught on fire…”
Aweemowep began another round.
“A Catholic priest went up and down through the salon, saying in a firm voice, ‘do not panic, everything is under control’…the one fellow says to the other, ‘why do we need a Catholic priest at a time like this?’ and the second fellow says, ‘Oh, I think he used to be a fireman…’”
That room just broke up. This guy was bleeding hilarious. It probably helps that most of his audience members have had a couple of drinks, and don’t get out much.
We were cooped up when the weather was bad, one good reason of many to break up into smaller camps. I should send this guy on a tour. I should tell the general about him.
He had a million of them. I wish I could remember them all, like when he said he joined the Royal Army, ‘in order to get off of disability.’ Or when he said the officer class was, ‘a product of too much inbreeding.’
“The boy says, ‘Mommy, where do babies come from?’ and she says, ‘The stork.’ The little boy asked her, ‘So who fucked the stork?’”
He warned us, after the war, when we got home, “Remember, the next time you shoot someone, you could get arrested.”
Some kind of social commentary there.
“The Last Supper is the sacrament administered to a dying Catholic.” You had to hear it in that pedantic, Indian-Oxford accent.
“A home is where you live with your loved ones and a house is a big mansion on a hill where there is plenty of trouble.”
Oh, Jesus, people were falling in the aisles. They were rocking back and forth on the floor, holding their sides.
“Henry the Fifth was a good king, only like many other kings he went mad. Edward the Third would have been King of France if only his mother had been a man. The Romans made their roads straight so that the Britons could not hide around the corners.”
Stop, stop. Just stop.
“In the middle ages the Pope had very great sexual powers…”
Holy cow, this bugger just don’t quit, but it’s the speed of delivery that cracks you up.
The man just keeps hammering away, and if the one don’t get you the next one will, or the next.
“In a recent survey of homosexuals, ninety percent figured they were born that way and the other ten percent figured they got sucked in…”
The room was bedlam, but he kept going on, and on, and on…
Roars of laughter. I just had to get out of there. That man could warp your mind.
I swear to God. I had to run from the tent, and that hypnotic voice. I have never seen anything like it, before or since. Funny thing is, you forget what he said almost as soon as he said it.
A roar of laughter as I walked away, and I overheard, “…where are you measuring from?” and another huge roar.
What the hell. They earned it.
The thoughts rolled around in my mind. Another figure materialized at my side as I fumbled my way through the sudden darkness.
“I recognize what you were doing there.” Said Dr. Scolz. “Thank you for letting me observe.”
I remained silent, for I have that right. He went on, uncomfortable with the quiet, as psychiatrists often are.
“That seems like an excellent way to break down class barriers.” He informed me and the lowering night, black with mist and overcast and puffing breezes left and right.
“There’s a real bond there. A camaraderie.” He added.
It is so hard to be accepted around here.
He would probably like the way I re-frame every failure. One of the keys to my success.
“I thought we could use a bit of a party.” I stated neutrally.
Doctor Scolz followed me into the command tent.
“So anyway, how are you today?” He asked earnestly.
“Fine, fine, Doc.” I waved him to a seat, and I could have been wrong, but it sounded like he muttered, sotto voce, something like, “So we’re still in denial, then…?”
He whipped out a little book and made a notation.
Every day, and in every way, things just kept getting better and better. Now, this guy was all personality—and you can quote me on that.
“What are you working on now?” He asked.
Oh. Damn.
“Well, I’m going to write up instructions to paint the leading edges of my plane yellow. I want all the struts filed to an aerofoil shape, sanded with two hundred grit, then four hundred, then eight hundred, and then sixteen coats of hand-rubbed lacquer.”
He nodded.
“I also have to begin sending a few men on leave.” I sighed. “I have so many men, we’ll be sending some who’ve been with us less than two weeks, and some others who have been with us right from the start. Doesn’t seem fair, but I can only spare so many at a time.”
So many from each section, mechanics, pilots, troops.
“He’s pretty funny.” Said the shrink.
“Yeah, Doc. He’s got the second biggest inferiority complex in the world, and he’s wildly overcompensating. But that’s not my fucking job, not my problem. If his buddies, or if his wife can handle it, so can I.”
He regarded me soberly.
“He knows his audience.” I said. “He thought I was a junior pilot. He walked in, saw all those British officers, all those men. And he figured, ‘I’m sunk.’ And then he thought, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound…’”
“What about you?” He inquired.
“I think he’s going to pull it off.” I admitted. “Whoever would have thunk it?”
This man could analyze the hind leg off of a dog.
A little advice to the unwary would be in order.
Do not give in to the temptation to tell a shrink, ‘I like to dress up as a wolf in old woman’s clothing and eat little girls.’
They will take it literally and send you for a long period of, ‘observation.’
It’s a waste of your time, trust me. I’ve been there.
“Why don’t you tell me?” I glowered.
There’s work to do, couldn’t he see that?
“You seem a little insecure.” He noted. “In this society disabled people have to become overachievers in order to have a level playing field.”
“Who’s disabled?” I asked.
What was I supposed to say?
‘You seem well educated?’
“How is your back?” He countered.
“I suppose I can’t keep any secrets around here?” I glowered some more.
He studied me, a specimen, or something.
“Tell me, Doc, was I expected to set up a nice, safe and cozy little training field, and then putter around, just killing time until the war was over?”
No response. He just stared at me.
“Look, either the Air Ministry has no ideas of their own, and they’re desperate, or maybe I just had a hell of a good idea. And who better to try and carry it out?” I asked.
No one else need take the risk.
“I’m not debating that.” He murmured calmly and coolly. “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.”
“St. Paddy’s day is long over,” I told him. “That German philosopher ripped him off and now everyone thinks he said it first. But I can pronounce, ‘St. Paddy,’ and I can’t even spell that other guy.”
“A man of enormous courage.” He noted inconsequentially. “Well, as long as you can continue to adapt, improvise and overcome, your squadrons will do very well.”
He was quiet for a brief moment, lost in thought.
“As for the Air Ministry, they’ve never run up against anything quite like you.” He allowed, and then he got up and left without further ado, except for one murmured remark as he turned his back. “It is the hardest thing to be accepted around here.”
As he left I called after him in some desperation.
“Hey Doc, how do you recycle a condom?”
He turned, standing there patiently. I could see him thinking, ‘You can’t recycle a condom…’
“Turn it inside out and shake the fuck out of it.” I barked, almost doubling up in laughter.
This guy pissed me off to no end. His face went all red.
“That is not particularly funny. Think about the girl, and the fact that she might get pregnant.” He scolded with white-lipped fury, and then he visibly controlled himself.
Get real. Every joke has a victim, buddy. It’s part of the format. I just wanted him to take things a little less seriously. Hell, even once in a while would have been nice.
You would have to be some kind of masochist to want his job. Just an observation.
He brushed by another figure as he left.
Howard-Smythe came in.
“Priceless.” He noted. “What’s up? And did you see that act with Carson and his boys…?”
There’s one in every crowd, sometimes two or three.
“I’ve ceased to be amazed at what little excuse it takes to get a man to dress up as a woman.” I told the Adj.
Time to move on with our business. The weather could clear up anytime.
“Excruciatingly funny, though.” He guffawed. “Did you see when someone took a photo?”
If I was him I’d burn that. The last thing you need is to have someone get hold of that picture.
Imagine your grandkids asking, ‘What did you do in the War, grandpaw?’ and then someone whips out that photo of you in drag.
“I find myself confounded by this McGill business.” I admitted to the Adj.
“Ah, yes.” And he went to the filing cabinet. “It’s a strange one, with controversial implications, and a hyper-sensitive dependence on existing conditions.”
“You’ve been talking to that shrink again.” I sighed.
“The quintessential complainer.” He judged.
“We’re opening up a whole new can of worms here.” I started off, opening up the folder.
***
According to the report, McGill took a plane, not his own, but one of the SE’s up for a ‘test’ flight.
A nice easy daylight patrol over several of our ‘dromes.
To my mind, this was a good thing. Men got more hours in the air, and there is no substitute for hours of experience. They got to try out different machines, and the SE was a real thoroughbred compared to the hacks we usually let him and some others fly.
With no dual-control trainers, it showed confidence. It was valuable experience for a new pilot to drag a winger up on some semi-official, voluntary patrol.
At 20,000 feet, he and his buddy got lucky and came across an Albatros, the C-VII variant. This was a two-seat reconnaissance and light bomber aircraft. Somewhere in the fight, his Lewis gun, mounted on the top wing, came loose as he rolled inverted for reasons which were unclear. The gun whacked him right on the noggin. He blacked out, spinning out of control, with his bewildered wingman following him down and keeping a watchful eye in case of enemy fighters, all the while hoping and praying McGill would pull out.
Which he did, at a height of less than five hundred feet. According to McGill, he was still unconscious. He had a real welt on him.
“A head like a half-chewed caramel.” I told the Adj.
Howard-Smythe nodded seriously.
“McGill wasn’t too good-looking to begin with.” He mentioned.
I grinned, but he wasn’t as near as funny as Aweemowep.
‘Be careful who you follow,’ as the comics say.
McGill was claiming that the plane ‘pulled itself out,’ and it was technically possible.
Falling from that height, his wingman’s report confirmed the climbing and diving of a plane flying on its own. Assuming they didn’t hit the ground too soon, an airplane will sometimes recover itself. We had a report, early in the war, of an enemy machine making a perfect touchdown on an Allied aerodrome, and the pilot and observer had clearly both been dead for quite some time. The fuel tank was bone-dry.
In combat, I once observed a plane, looping, and looping, and looping. That guy must have been dead. Really, it’s just a question of how much altitude it gains or loses as it climbs and dives. How much fuel is in the tank? Will his frozen hands fall off the stick?
The problem with McGill’s report, was that we couldn’t quite see how it happened. I don’t know if you know anything about the Billy Bishop controversy. He had a machine gun fall off of his plane in mid-flight. It happened on the mission where he earned the Victoria Cross. Some people used it as an excuse to carp, to cast doubt on the whole thing. Jealous, bitter, miserable little people, I might add. Billy did us a favor by taking some of my students into his shooting school. Part of the problem of perception was that Billy took off on his own and did it purely as a kind of stunt, I think.
Perhaps we could return the favor in the best possible way. At the unofficial inquiry, there were one hundred and eighty-seven witnesses who weren’t there. They spent one-point-six million pounds, and it was, ‘inconclusive.’
It was a kind of make-work project for flunkies, none of whom would have the balls to make the final call, one way or another.
“Put a fucking SE upside down on some big horses, or A-frames, or something. Use McGill’s…or whoever’s plane.” I ordered.
“Maybe we can get to the bottom of it.” He agreed.
“I have a theory.” I vowed. “We’d better hang on to this report for a while. Tell them guys not to talk about it. If they haven’t blabbed it all over the place already.”
Time to put it to the test.
“There’s a big spider in here.” The Adj muttered, looking askance up into the corner of the tent.
“Spiders are cool.” I grunted. “Let him live a little longer. They eat ticks and fleas, chiggers, lice, cockroaches, biting flies…you name it, and they eat it.”
END
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