Chapter Nine
South Coast
For a boy who grew up in the flat farmlands of Lambton County in Ontario, Canada, the southern coast of England had a fascination that transcended its natural beauty.
This was the land of Shakespeare, the land of Chaucer, the source of so much of my own country’s culture and literature. So much myth, and legend, fairy tales and nursery rhymes. A land of heroic tales, and damsels in distress. A land of mystery, bidden goodbye, but not forgotten, by my ancestors long, long ago. Elves and trolls and fair maidens in towers.
“Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies.” And all that.
In my head I can hear the joyful voices of the children singing.
Keeping in mind that I had never lived on a seacoast, it was all new, and refreshing to the soul after northern France. Rolling hills, valleys, coves and harbors, fishing smacks at sea, and small ships coasting along. Cruising a few thousand feet over the water, you could see for miles. We could fly out to the Isle of Wight, or fly up to Southampton and come back by way of St. Alban’s Head.
The wheeling gulls, white against the azure water, seen from above. The shadow of an aircraft, speeding across a hammered metal sea, leaping the cliff in an instant. That same shadow bouncing along, up and over the hillside. Sheep scattering in panic. The look of a motorcar from above. A train, looking like a toy as it chugs along the embankment, with cotton-puffs of smoke hanging over it, and the shadows stretched out alongside.
Stick figures, children in a schoolyard, staring with upturned faces and waving in delight.
Flying is pretty enjoyable when there is no reason to fear. No one to shoot at you. I was totally relaxed in the air, and that came across to the students.
It came as something of a revelation that compared to the boys, and a few of the other instructors, I was smooth.
Dodging in and out of the clouds, waiting for the other training groups to be in just the exact position, then bouncing them. Out of the sun, from above and behind, using speed and surprise.
The fledgling pilots would just ignore us and soldier on, or sometimes they would break in every direction in panic. Sometimes they pounced on us in revenge, and while it was technically against the rules, we all did it.
Among the instructors there was a never-ending, ongoing, all-engaging feud to prove who was the best. All in good spirit, of course. I think it helped, in some way, or the boss would have put his foot down hard.
Sometimes I popped off a couple of flares at training flights led by the more asinine instructors. Once I caught a blast of shit from up the chain of command.
“I want my students to seize the initiative and to keep it.” This was my official reply. “My students have an offensive attitude engendered by a keen competitive spirit and a desire to win. And that’s why we won the rugger match we played against your lousy class last Sunday afternoon. So come on down and harass me again some time when you learn how to do it properly.”
Goddamn soreheads. Leave me alone.
I never heard another word about it.
***
Zoom along the country lanes, between the rows of trees. Up and over the telegraph lines. Smell the moist earth. In snatches of conversation try to advance the fledgling’s basic skills. Bring her right back down again, heading for the barn at the end, where the road turns to the left.
“Whoopsy-daisy.”
My student was thoroughly frightened.
Or at least he should be. This one’s a thoughtless little blighter, and I planned to soften him up just right, then have a little chat…pull up to 1,500 feet.
Snap off the master switch. The engine sputters to a stop.
“All right, laddie. What are you going to do now, Peter?”
Think quick, you little prick. Porridge in my flying boots. I know it was you, and if it wasn’t you, then you did something else. Somewhere along the line.
Peter was good, I’ll give him that much. Confronted with a maze of small fields, irrigation ditches, hedgerows, laneways and farmyards, he did a quick turn fifteen degrees to the right. He flicked in some down elevator as he did it. We touched to earth as light as a feather. To watch Peter sideslip into that little pasture, wind whistling gently through the wires, was rather enlightening.
I blipped the throttle several times in the descent, to keep the spark-plugs clear of oiling and fouling up. Each time I did, the sudden surge of power was swiftly and expertly controlled.
Nothing seemed to faze this fellow.
Why was he such a problem?
“Out you get.” I ordered, clambering over the cockpit side.
I gingerly tramped around in the long grass.
There were green, grassy hummocks and what looked like a fox-hole or some kind of ground-dwelling animal burrow. Everything else was a shade of brown or grey, faded in the winter sunshine. My lower back was pretty stiff. All the usual aches. I walked over to a dripping hedgerow and stood there to urinate. He stood beside the machine.
Making my way back, my mind was made up. Very little in my career had prepared or entitled me to exercise authority, or to impose discipline on anyone. Yet I had the right.
Theoretically, I had the right.
“You have some porridge or something on your tie.” And he gave a guilty start.
“I heard a funny story the other day. Some Bobbies in the village were pelted with rotten tomatoes and boy, oh, boy. Were they livid with rage. Luckily, that Corporal Hendry, he’s a good friend. You could say he’s the brother-in-law of one of them.” I added. “He was on duty at the gate, when those Bobbies showed up. About the same time you and your mates were coming in through the back fields.”
“Yes. Sir.”
The cub stood there, stock-still. He looked a little pale. But not contrite. Not yet.
“You know, Dilling, if you want to substitute a raw egg for a hard-boiled one, well, frankly I don’t see a whole lot of harm done. It’s actually pretty funny, especially when you have the sense to pull it on your bone-headed partner. I also appreciate the fact that the CO had the opportunity to witness what was indubitably, a star performance.”
The poor little fucker, and I’m a head taller than him, he’s beginning to sweat now.
It crosses my mind that he thinks I’m going to beat the shit out of him. He can think what he likes.
“I realize that it may, when required, be difficult in the extreme to un-substitute an egg. How could you know the CO would bring a friend? A lady friend? A very important lady friend?”
He’s definitely beginning to sweat now, and it’s mid-December.
“Um, um, I’m sorry, sir.”
“How could you know, that your chum would graciously pass off the offending egg? To the aforementioned lady? A very important lady she was, too. The daughter, and the apple of her daddy’s eye, of a very well-known figure in the government.”
Eggs were rationed, precious and priceless objects to a hungry flier, or even a lady.
A lady might like a soft-boiled egg.
“And what about that fountain pen?” I fumed, strutting back and forth in front of the prankster.
His guts were quaking now.
“Smith-Barry was signing leave chits. Our leave chits.” I bellowed and he flinched.
“You lack maturity. That’s what it is.” I told the fellow. “I don’t like it when people waste my time.”
Then I walked over and climbed up into the cockpit. I never even looked at him, but he did finally move around to the front of the plane.
“Have you taken a look at this field, boy?” I asked him in a more reasonable tone. “Do you know just exactly how you’re going to get us up out of here?”
“Yes, sir.”
Peter was very reserved and cool towards me, but you can’t really blame him.
Sometimes it’s not too pleasant to see ourselves through the eyes of another. I was only a couple of years older, after all.
He did fine on takeoff, which was just as I expected. Nothing seemed to disturb this young man’s equilibrium.
The blighter was ready. Not that it gave me any pleasure right now.
I don’t like being the hard case, but sometimes it’s a requirement. It’s all part of the job. Like I said earlier. I prayed a lot even during practice flying. Right now I prayed for his future.
Because while he could fly well enough, he had an arrogant streak that could kill him.
And I certainly didn’t want that to happen to any student of mine. Those old boots will wash out. And some of the other pranks were reasonably funny. At least I thought so.
***
The Avro 504 was by no means a crate. Around since the start of hostilities, it was obsolete. Originally used as a fighter, now it was a training ship. The airframe was covered in the finest Irish linen, and it was framed up with spruce spars, hickory and ash, braced with piano wire internally and braided aircraft cable externally. Bad writers say they were canvas and baling wire, but that’s bullshit.
First flown in 1913, Avros were involved in the bombing of airship hangars at Friedrichshafen in 1914. It was a fun plane to fly. I loved it, and wasn’t ashamed to say so.
Every once in a while, we had to wreck one. If a machine was less than fifty percent damaged, it would be taken to a depot for repair. Ah, but if it was more than fifty percent damaged, we could put in a claim and get a new one.
This was one of my favorite jobs. A little specialty of mine. Let’s face it, I don’t want to hurt anyone, least of all my students. The problem was, the rotary engine threw so much oil, and with the open cockpits, enough came inside to thoroughly soak some of the components. The aircraft gradually, over time, might become a little tail heavy, enough so that we couldn’t trim it out. Maybe even a little dangerous.
After dropping Peter off in front of our group’s buildings, I taxied her out for some practice at picking up a handkerchief. There were wire rods sticking out from the front of each lower wingtip for just this purpose.
I could see him watching.
I think he hated me right then.
He survived the war, incidentally. I heard later.
Sooner or later something has to go wrong, but it helps to keep the skills up. It also offered a chance to survey the aerodrome. Late Friday afternoon, on a bitter autumn day. The place was predictably deserted of senior officers, as I took a quick peek from above at areas where they might have a motor-car parked.
Not much going on down there. Now was my chance. Time for some crazy flying.
Whack. Goes the left wing tip, then whack. Goes the right wingtip. This was a little hairy. I had to appear out of control, like the drunken man style of Asiatic fighting. And I grabbed up the old rag on a stick as I went by.
Up with the nose, down with the tail, wings at a drunken thirty-degree angle as I blipped the throttle on and off. I had the nose up way too high. She was in a stall, but at ground level, and the left wing scraping along the pavement was all that kept it from going over. That and a heck of a lot of hard right rudder kicked in frantically as the power came on and off.
The tail hit, crash, smack, whoa. One of my wheels took off and seemed to accelerate off to one side. Speed is relative. And I crunched the plane into a corner of the hangar, where by some strange coincidence a few baulks of timber were leaning up against the wall.
That’s because I had put them there earlier.
I sat in a cloud of smoke, shakily peeling off my gloves and goggles. From nowhere, a half-dozen men and a couple of vehicles arrived in a flurry of breathless activity.
“Nice work. A little more speed or a little more height, and you might have been injured.”
“What are you implying? Just pure, dumb luck.” I assured him.
Quiet English understatement.
Judging by appearances, this plane was about eighty-nine percent of a write off. No sense in doing it by halves.
“Well, sir. You nailed that hanky just so. Like pig sticking. Now where did it get off to?”
A willing set of hands searched around in the debris and gave it to me.
I promptly blew my nose on it, drawing a laugh from the assembled crowd.
“Are you injured?”
The crew around the plane simmered down in the presence of authority, parting like the Red Sea for Moses.
“No, sir.” I told the boss. “Just caught out by a burst of sneezing.”
“That’s a nasty cold that’s going around.” Smith-Barry muttered.
He frowned a little, and then asked, “What’s all that wood doing here?”
“Some idiot wants to make a rabbit pen.” I told him. “I thought we’d better ask for your position.”
A little sarcasm, but it went right over his head. He was famous for rabbits. He had ‘em in France, on the aerodrome.
“Yes, that’s fine.” His face once again cleared of doubt.
Smith-Barry had a lot on his mind. We tried not to heap additional problems on him.
That’s why I didn’t tell him my knee hurt, or that I had really smashed my funny bone.
I didn’t have a cold, but I had tears in my eyes. My left hand was totally numb, and I wondered if I would be able to get my boots off. Thank God for a fortnight’s leave.
“I can give you a lift, Old Boy.”
I gratefully accepted with one proviso.
“I need some time to get my things. Can you hold up for ten or twelve minutes?”
His intelligent face lit up with a huge grin.
“Have a shower and a shave. You’ll feel a lot more civilized.” He suggested. “I have a few calls to make. We’ll pick you up in an hour.”
Damn. Now I had to fake a cold, for the drive up to London, and then remember not to limp or do what I call an accidental curtsy, when my knee gave out on a set of stairs or getting out of the car.
***
 |
| Bob is on the left, and I believe his former commander, Waldron on the right. |
Smith-Barry was right.
A long hot shower, and I did feel better.
A good slug of Navy rum sure didn’t hurt my feelings either. He pulled up to the door in his big silver car with flags on the front fenders and red, white and blue roundels on the doors.
“Nice.” Was all I could say.
“This is Jennifer.” He said by way of introduction.
“I meant the car.” I said meekly.
That car smelled good inside.
“I know what you meant, old boy. Still, I thought you might like to know. Jennifer, would you meet Will Tucker?”
“Yes, I would.” She agreed.
Hmn. This trip might be interesting, as I gazed at her little feet peeking demurely out of her frock. Mmn. Dark as it was outside, the scenery in here was just fine. Even if one couldn’t see much of it. Yes, sirree, Bob.
Funny. I went to sleep for an hour, maybe more, and then discovered we had dropped her off somewhere. Perhaps I would get a better look some other time. Still thinking about Melissa. They say memory is a reconstructive process. The way we remember things cannot be exactly as they occurred. Memory is curiously subjective. My own recollection, and I’m not certain how I know this, is that at about 9:30 a.m., September 4, 1917, a door opened up and she walked in. The moment I saw her I just knew she was the one.
The perfection of her skin, her pink, shell-like ear. Her soft, berry-like lips.
The tiny glint of an earring against her elegant and supple neck.
Ah, yes.
I was pretty well trained in the art of observation.
But Jennifer wasn’t bad.
Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.
 |
| Glasses off... |
Whoever said that never saw Jennifer, glasses perched on her nose, pale-blonde page-boy haircut and blue eyes twinkling. She had a nice chin, too. Full, pink pouty lips, perfect smile.
A man has to wonder where Melissa would be right now. Tending some wounded soldier, coughing his life out on a table? Or was she just going to bed, putting out the light and thinking of…him? Her fiancé. Oh-oh. Bad thought.
The man opposite was speaking and I wondered how long? What had I missed?
“Do you have any recommendations this week?” He asked, plucking a pad and pencil out of a bulging briefcase.
“I would have preferred to stay to see them graduate.” I said. “But Peter can go now, if you need him. One or two others, maybe Cochrane, and Gilchrist.”
My other classes were a month or so away from graduation.
“Any thoughts?” The boss murmured.
“Peter should go somewhere like maybe fifty-six, or sixty, or eighty-five squadron. Definitely somewhere on fighters.”
He scribbled in the dingy light of the car, silently purring over the motorway.
“And why is that?” He asked once caught up.
“Peter needs to be humbled. They’ll take care of that in a couple of minutes.”
Smith-Barry grinned.
“And he needs to be challenged. Surround him with a star-studded team, and he will shine. Or die quickly.”
Bob grimaced at that one.
God knows, the first squadron I was posted to had been a very humbling experience.
“Yes, I see.” Replied the boss. “And the other two?”
“Well, they’re competent enough to be sent where the complaints are loudest.” I said.
There was always a shortage of good pilots.
“That’s usually the way, isn’t it?” He admitted. “I looked at that Foster character, he seems to be coming along.”
“Yes, you were watching. I saw you. Foster did a couple of good landings that day. He needs another couple of weeks, in fact all the rest need two or three more weeks.”
He nodded. I tried to remember to sniffle from time to time.
“Where did you have this baby stashed? The car, I mean?”
“Hangar number one, old bean.” Came the absent-minded reply.
The boss’s thoughts were already elsewhere. Reports lay on the seat beside him. The boss man had a huge brain, I mean a really brainy guy, and he tended to work on fifteen jobs at once. He handed over a folder, and I clicked on the dome light, noting we were under superior-quality craftsmanship in terms of the cabriolet top.
Top Secret, it said.
I left it un-opened, being able to guess what was in it.
“There have been some troubling developments.” He reported. “Last year’s figures showed that pilots had a life expectancy of about two hundred and six hours before they became a casualty, whether from injury, death, capture, or a mental exhaustion case.”
I digested that thought.
“And that includes an average of seventy hours in training?”
“Right.” He acknowledged. “Although some efforts were made over the last year to improve the situation, we had to draft men out of the system as quickly as we were shoving men into the ‘improved,’ system. And this year, the life expectancy has dropped to a little over one hundred and eighty hours. The signs are, it will drop further.”
“That’s bad.” I said.
 |
“Very bad.” He noted.
“So what’s all this?” I asked, proffering the file.
He snorted.
“Those Who Must Be Obeyed. Rubbish, mostly. They think we don’t understand that aircraft cost money. They sacrifice tens of thousands of men in a day. If we lose twenty or thirty pilots in a day, that doesn’t sound too bad to their Lordships or to the public when reading about it in the paper.”
“In fact, it sounds gallant.” I prodded.
But pilots are free, sort of. They don’t come with an invoice of hundreds of pounds. They knock on your door and beg to be let in…
“I hate that word.” He groaned. “As we are all too aware, activity on the ground may come to a halt, but in the air it never ends.”
“Money, money, money.” I grumped. “Do they have any idea how long it takes to train these people? Do they have any idea of the average skill level of our opponents?”
Even in the midst of all the work, Smith-Barry never faltered, but drove himself even harder. It was well-known that from time to time he went to France. He kept in touch with developments at the Headquarters of the RFC. He was always conferring with Boom Trenchard. My boss believed deeply in the vital importance of our efforts, not just for England, but for aviators everywhere, even after the war. He was a real live wire.
“They don’t understand how fast pilots burn out.” I told him. “Flying at twenty thousand feet, means working at a temperature of about minus thirty, minus fifty.”
He grabbed his pad and pencil. No, he wouldn’t have done that, not on his old squadron.
“Your hands and feet go first, then the back and the chest, then finally the abdomen and legs.” As I watched him write it all down. “I remember one occasion, when I felt the cold through five pairs of gloves. Warming up involves quite a painful process. Everyone agrees with it. But do they understand it? It exhausts a man. Shaking and shivering. It just wears you out.”
People who have never been there, they just don’t get it.
“We lose pilots due to exhaustion as much as any other cause.” I explained. “Even in training.”
Like it or not, Smith-Barry was the man. Everybody wanted him, and it was crucial that he succeed. That’s a lot of pressure. And all of his personal knowledge was out of date as well. A kind of revelation.
“Anything I can do to help?” I asked.
He waved an arm at the pile of papers in the car.
“Read on, MacDuff.”
It’s all part of the job.
“Oh.” I had almost forgotten, just a silly little idea that had been running round in the back of my mind for a few days. “I’m sorry.”
“What is it, Will?” He asked with a grin. “Piles acting up again?”
“No. No. It’s just an idea, a little hard to put into words.” I began rather hesitantly.
This was a good, or at least semi-original idea.
“We need to shoot down some of the enemy aces.” I explained. “Knock some of their top scorers out of the sky, thus proving our, or, excuse me, your methods.”
“Go on.” Smith-Barry murmured in his cultured voice, with his eyes downcast, and I felt somehow shabby, a kind of ruffian.
Taking a deep breath, I went on.
“I know it’s not sporting, and of course it would have to remain, ah, Top Secret, but just think about the blow to enemy morale.”
“Have you been working on this? Could you put it in writing?” He asked casually.
“I’m not illiterate, sir.” I quipped, drawing a quick glance and a grin from Bob.
“What sort of resources you might need, how many pilots? I suppose that’s easy. Easy enough to say.” He corrected. “I can’t promise anything, anything at all…”
“I figure maybe a couple of squadrons.” I started off, thoughtfully, but picking up speed as my things clarified. “A license to roam along the front, good intelligence of the whereabouts of various units, et cetera.”
“Anything else?” He asked casually. “As if that weren’t enough?”
An independent command would go very much against the grain in certain quarters.
He had a quizzical grin on his face, and I guess I didn’t think my idea would go too far. If he even remembered it.
“I need at least a dozen Camels, a dozen SE’s, and a dozen two-seaters would be nice.”
I outlined my ideas.
 |
| May I please have a dozen Sopwith Camels. |
“Think about it, Bob. Real two-seaters, doing real missions, escorted by nice, competent pilots with good training.” I told him as he stared into my eyes.
Presumably in disbelief.
“And I need to train the SE pilots how to kill Camels, and I want to train Camel jockeys how to kill SE’s. And then train them all how to kill each other. Only then take to the air over the Western Front.” I noted somewhat superfluously. “Bear in mind that I might not be the man to lead it. I have a few ideas on the training and tactics.”
“And if it was all nice and secret?” Robert asked.
“We could nail the Red Baron, or Kaiser Willy if you want. We could nail Jesus H. Christ Himself, if He came down with all the angels of heaven.”
The boss reddened a mite at that. Let him stew on it a while.
How about a drink, I thought in silent prayer.
“Have a drink, old top.” He said it carelessly, eyes glazed over with something in his head, and I reached for the little cooler box between the rear seat and the jump seats.
Obviously, the idea intrigued him. Little did I know what a juggernaut had just been set in motion. Grateful to see a cold bottle of wine, as I had been working very hard myself in the previous months. Ever since my crash, rehabilitation and return to duty.
“You do realize that heroes are officially discouraged.” He muttered. “When you say Top Secret, I don’t think you quite realize what that may imply.”
Oh, I think I do.
But I left it unsaid. Some things are better that way. It would require a very special group of people. The kind of men who could live away from the limelight, and stick to it like glue. Professionals.
The lights of yet another wet village swung by as the vehicle slowed over the cobbles. Our chauffeur was silent. Presumably a trusted friend, for the man across from me didn’t appear to care if we were overheard.
“If…when this war ends.” He began, in an almost dream-like tone. “The world must change. It can’t stay the way it is.”
I never discuss politics with my employers.
Experience has taught me.
“Yes, sir.” I said politely, watching the world of darkness speed by as we made our way through the night.
“Of course, we have to win first.” He added with a significant look.
Now, what the fuck does that mean?
END
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Louis. Sopwith Camel by this guy.
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