Just to show there was no ill-feeling, the Major that afternoon
proposed some excitement of an entirely different sort. There was no
patrol marked down for us, so the Major took another pilot and myself
out on a sort of Cook’s tour. We called it “seeing the war.” We all
piled into an automobile, drove through poor old shell-torn Arras,
which was fairly stiff with troops moving up toward the front and with
relieved divisions that were coming out of the line for hard-earned
rest. Occasionally there was the screech of a “Whistling Percy”
overhead--a shell from a long-range 16-inch naval gun some miles beyond
the German lines. It was vastly different from flying, this motoring
through Arras, threading your way tediously in and out of the marching
troops and the interminable traffic of offensive warfare.
Finally, we passed the railway-station, which had long been a favourite
target for the German gunners, but still showed some semblance of its
former utility; turned “Dead Man’s Corner” into the road for Cambrai,
proceeded over what had once been our front line, then over the old
No Man’s Land, and finally came to a halt some miles beyond the city.
There we left the car behind the crest of a hill, and out of direct
observation from the enemy trenches, which were not very far away. We
were very bold, we three musketeers of the upper air, as we set out
afoot, without a guide, to make our way toward a German machine that
had been brought down a few days before just inside our lines.
On the way we had to pass about thirty batteries of artillery, and as
no one said anything to us we presumed we were all right in strolling
along in front of them. The guns seemed harmless enough, sitting there
so cold and silent. However, before we had gone so very far, a man
crawled out of a hole in the ground and told us that if we were going
anywhere in particular we had better hurry, as a battle was due to
start in just five minutes. We questioned him about the “show,” and
then decided to walk on as fast as we could and reach the village of
Monchy, which sat a mass of ruins on a little hill, and was just 200
yards within our lines.
Monchy-le-Preux, to give the little town the full dignity of its
Artois name, is about five miles east of Arras, and was the final
fixed objective of the Easter drive. It is the highest bit of ground
between Arras and the German border. Around it swirled some of the most
desperate fighting of the entire war. It had been a pretty little place
up to a few days before, but the moment the Germans had been driven
from their defensive works about the village, many of them at the
point of the bayonet, the German artillery was turned on Monchy in a
perfect torrent of explosive shells. What had once been houses quickly
disappeared, or were dissolved into jagged ruins. Our infantry had
found three bed-ridden French civilians still living in Monchy when we
took it, but fortunately for them they had been passed back to one of
our hospitals before the Boche started his destructive bombardments.
It was just 3 o’clock when all the guns behind us opened fire over
our heads. I must admit that I was at least “nervous” for the next
half-hour. Shells were going over us by the thousand, and pretty soon
the Germans started their retaliatory fire. Many of the Boche shells
landed quite near to us. We could see them explode and throw up from
the ground great fountains of earth and débris, but we could not hear
them on account of the roar of our own artillery.
There we were, the three of us, in the midst of a battle that we
didn’t know a thing on earth about. My nervousness grew perceptibly as
I looked around and realized that in the whole of the country there
was not another soul walking about. Everyone was under cover, or dug
in somewhere, except us three. However, we decided there was no going
back; so we went on.
Our taking refuge in Monchy was surely a case of ignorance being bliss.
We crawled into the wrecked village, having passed, without knowing
it, another “Dead Man’s Corner” far deadlier than the one in Arras
itself. This Monchy corner had a speciality of its own--machine-gun
fire. The Germans used to rake it many times a day. Evidently they were
engaged in some other nefarious occupation as we walked blithely by the
place, on into the village, then down the main street, picking our way
carefully in a zigzag course among the débris. About this time another
good Samaritan hailed us. He came dashing out of a house and told us
to run for cover. Not knowing any cover of our own, we followed him to
his. He led us into a deep dugout the Germans had built during their
occupancy of the town. We told our guide and friend that we wanted to
move on very shortly, but he laughed and said we would have no choice
in the matter for the next few hours. He knew the habits of the Huns in
that particular locality. Promptly at 4 o’clock the Germans began their
daily bombardment. Our friend and guide, now turned philosopher, told
us the Germans had the dugout “registered” very accurately, and it
would be unsafe to move from it until the firing was over for the day.
We were shut up in this hole for an hour or more, when we decided to
take our chances and go home.
We were very much worried, in the meantime, that our car, resting on
the high-road, might have been hit. Everything pointed to the fact
that it was time for us to go. So, in a temporary lull, we crawled out
and made a dash through the village. We did not leave by the same way
we had come. We knew too much by this time of “Dead Man’s Corner.”
Once clear of Monchy we noticed that a large number of shells were
dropping in a sort of barrier about 400 yards in front of us. We
pressed on, nevertheless, in the hope that there would be a sufficient
lull in the firing to let us slip through the shell line. No lull
appeared imminent, however, so we turned away to the right to avoid
the particular spots that apparently had aroused the Germans’ ire. We
had not gone far when a huge shell dropped about 30 yards from us. It
knocked two of us clean off our feet and on our backs in the mud.
It was rude, we thought, to treat three unoffending airmen out for a
holiday like this, so we were more than ever anxious to get out of it
all. At last we arrived at some derelict tanks, left over from last
week’s battles, and there we found an ammunition column passing back
from the guns. We climbed aboard one of the empty limbers, glad of the
lift, and gladder still of the company of these imperturbable khaki
soldiers who were taking the events of the afternoon with that strange
spirit of boredom one so often finds up near the firing-lines.
We told the drivers we had left our car over the hill near a stranded
tank, and they assured us they were going in that very direction. So
we sat peacefully on the rattling limber for a mile or more. Then,
being quite certain we were going the wrong way, we inquired of the
ammunition-column men how far it was to their tank. They said it was
just ahead of us. We looked. There was a tank, quite all right, but it
was not _our_ tank. A little more explaining to the soldiers that were
now quite plentiful about us, and we were informed that our tank was
at least a mile and a half away. We had made a stupid mistake, but we
paid for it in the muddy walk we had back.
The car was perfectly safe when we got to it, and some time later we
returned to the aerodrome right as rain. We had picked up a lot of
souvenirs during our walk into Monchy and out again, and felt like
Cook’s tourists indeed when Tommies on the way would look at us with a
tolerant smile.
These were wonderfully interesting days to me. Late the next afternoon
I had the good fortune to be a spectator of the greatest fight in the
air I have ever seen. Thrilling fights are often witnessed from the
ground, but more of them take place at heights so misty that ground
observers know nothing of them, unless one or more of the combatants
should come tumbling down in a crash. More than often fights in the air
would go unobserved if it were not for the “Archie” shells breaking in
the sky. These shells play about friend and foe alike, but when you are
really intent upon an air duel the “Archies” make no impression upon
you whatever.
It was my privilege this day to see the spectacular fight from my
machine. I had been idling along in the afternoon breeze, flying all
alone, when I saw in the distance a great number of machines, whirling,
spinning, and rolling in a great aerial mêlée. I made toward them as
fast as I could go, and as I approached watched the fight carefully.
It was very hard to tell for a time which machines were ours and which
were the Huns’. Coming nearer it was easier, for then the Huns could be
distinguished by the brilliant colouring of many of their machines.
Hunting the Huns had taken on a new interest at this time because
suddenly their machines had appeared painted in the most grotesque
fashion. It was as if they had suddenly got an idea from the old
Chinese custom of painting and adorning warriors so as to frighten
the enemy. We learned afterward that it was just a case of the spring
fancies of the German airmen running riot with livid colour-effects. We
wanted to paint our machines, too, but our budding notions were frowned
upon by the higher officers of the Corps. But every day our pilots
were bringing home fresh stories of the fantastic German creations
they had encountered in the skies. Some of them were real harlequins
of the air, outrivalling the gayest feathered birds that had winged
their way north with the spring. The scarlet machines of Baron von
Richtofen’s crack squadron, sometimes called the “circus,” heralded
the new order of things. Then it was noticed that some of the enemy
craft were painted with great rings about their bodies. Later, nothing
was too gaudy for the Huns. There were machines with green planes and
yellow noses; silver planes with gold noses; khaki-coloured bodies with
greenish grey planes; red bodies with green wings; light blue bodies
and red wings; every combination the Teutonic brain could conjure up.
One of the most fantastic we had met had a scarlet body, a brown tail,
reddish brown planes, the enemy markings being white crosses on a
bright green background. Some people thought the Germans had taken on
these strange hues as a bit of spring camouflage; but they were just as
visible or even more so in the startling colours they wore, and we put
it down simply to the individual fancies of the enemy pilots.
The battle seemed to be at about evens, when suddenly I saw a German
machine, brightly coloured, fall out of the mêlée, turning over and
over like a dead leaf falling from a tree late in autumn. I watched it
closely for what seemed an awful length of time, but finally it crashed
a complete wreck. Turning my eyes to the fight again, I saw one of our
own machines fall out of control. Half-way between the scrimmage and
the ground I thought it was coming into control again, but it turned
into another dive and crashed near the fallen Hun. A moment later a
second German machine came tumbling out of the fight. Eaten up with
anxiety to get into the fight myself, I could not help having a feeling
akin to awe as I watched the thrilling struggle. A mass of about twelve
machines was moving around and around in a perfect whirlwind, and as I
approached I could see our smoking bullets and the flaming missiles of
the Huns darting in all directions.
Just as I reached the scene, the fight, unfortunately for me, broke up,
and my participation in it was limited to a short chase and a few shots
after the fleeing Germans.
Balloon attacks now came into fashion again, and for a short time we
were told to attack them every day. In my case most of these attacks
were unsuccessful. One day I crossed after a balloon only 2,000 feet
up. Although I flew as fast as I could to reach the “sausage,” it had
been hauled down before I got to it. Despite this, I flew low and
attacked the gasbag, but with no apparent results. The balloon still
sat there peacefully on the ground. Some enemy machines were in the
distance attacking one of the men of my squadron who was after another
“sausage,” and I flew to his assistance and managed to frighten them
off. I then returned to the balloon, had another go at it--but again no
result. It was discouraging work.
That day, out of three of us who crossed to attack the balloons, one
man was lost. His experience was rather a bitter one, but he fought
death under such a heavy handicap and with such bravery that his
story is worthy of relation as one of the traditions of the Royal
Flying Service. It was his first attack on the balloons, and he crossed
the lines with me. We separated when about half a mile over. When he
dived after his balloons, two Hun machines got on his tail, and with
their first burst of fire managed to hit both of his legs, breaking
one. A second afterwards a shot went through his petrol tank, and the
inflammable liquid poured over his helpless legs. But, wounded as he
was, he fought back at the Germans and managed to get back over our
lines. The two Germans, realizing he was badly hit, kept after him, and
with another burst of fire shot away all his controls and at the same
time set fire to the machine. It dived to the earth a flaming torch,
and crashed. Some brave Tommies who were near rushed frantically into
the blazing wreckage, and pulled the unfortunate pilot out. He was
taken to a hospital, where we found him, badly burned, one leg and one
arm broken, and several bullet wounds in his body.
For two weeks he improved steadily, and we all had high hopes of his
recovery. Then the doctors found it necessary to amputate his broken
leg, and two days later the poor lad died. He had been in France but a
few weeks.
“I came half-way round the world from Australia to fight the Hun,” he
told one of our men in hospital. “I served through the campaign at
Gallipoli as a Tommy, and at last I got where I longed to be--in the
Flying Corps. It seems hard to have it end like this so soon.”
* * * * *
There was joy in flying these later day in April when a tardy spring
at last was beginning to assert itself. The hardness of the winter
was passing and the earth at times was glorious to see. I remember
one afternoon in particular when the whole world seemed beautiful. We
were doing a patrol at two miles up about six o’clock. Underneath us a
great battle was raging, and we could see it all in crisp clearness,
several lines of white smoke telling just where our barrage shells were
bursting. The ground all about the trenches and the battle-area was
dark brown, where it had been churned up by the never-ceasing fire of
the opposing artillery. On either side of the battle-zone could be seen
the fields, the setting sun shining on them with the softest of tinted
lights. Still farther back--on both sides--was the cultivated land. The
little farms stood out in varying geometric designs, with different
colours of soil and shades of green, according to what had been sown in
them and the state of the coming crops. There was no mist at all, and
one could see for miles and miles.
From Arras I could see the Channel, and it resembled more a river of
liquid gold than a sea. Across the Channel it was possible to make
out England and the Isle of Wight. The chalk cliffs of Dover formed a
white frame for one side of the splendid picture. Toward Germany one
could see a tremendous wooded country, a stretch of watered lowlands
beyond the trees, and the rest indistinct. To the south I could make
out a bit of the River Seine, while to the north lay the Belgian coast.
The marvellous beauty of it all made the war seem impossible. We flew
peacefully along for miles in the full enjoyment of it all, and I shall
always be glad we did not have a fight that evening. It would have
brought me back to stern reality with too sudden a jerk.
A few days later I was away from the beauties in life and after the
grossly hideous balloons again. Success rewarded one of my earnest
efforts. It happened one morning when we had been patrolling the air
just above the trenches. It was a very dull morning, the clouds being
under 3,000 feet. Well across the lines I could make out the portly
form of a German balloon sitting just under them. The sight of the
“sausage” filled me with one of those hot bursts of rage I had so often
in these days against everything German in the world. After the finish
of the patrol, I had my machine filled up with petrol, and, with a good
supply of special ammunition, started out on a voluntary expedition to
bring down that fat and self-satisfied balloon. Upon nearing the lines
I flew up into the clouds, having taken a careful compass bearing in
the exact direction of my intended victim. Flying slowly at a rate of
sixty miles an hour, I crept steadily forward, taking reckonings now
and then from the compass and my other flying-instruments. I figured
the balloon was six miles over the lines, and as I had climbed into
the clouds about one mile behind our own lines, I reckoned that seven
minutes should let me down just where I wanted to be. I popped out of
the clouds with every nerve tense, expecting to find the sausage just
beneath me. Instead, I found nothing, not even a familiar landmark. I
felt pretty sick at heart when I realized I had lost myself. My compass
must have been slightly out of bearing, or I had flown very badly.
At the moment I had no idea where I was. I flew in a small circle,
and then spied another balloon quite near me. The balloon had seen me
first, the “S.O.S.” had gone out, and it was being hauled down with
miraculous swiftness. I dived for the descending German as hard as I
could go, and managed to get within 50 yards while it was still 800
feet up. Opening fire, I skimmed just over the top of the balloon,
then turned to attack again, when, to my great joy, I saw the bag was
smoking. I had seen no one leap from the observer’s basket hanging
underneath, so I fired a short burst into it just to liven up anybody
who happened to be sitting there. The sausage was then smoking heavily,
so I flew south in the hope of finding some landmark that would tell me
the way home.
Suddenly another balloon loomed before me, and at the same time I
recognized by the ground that it was the “sausage” I had first set out
to attack. I fired the remainder of my ammunition at it at long range,
but had no effect so far as I could see. I then came down to 15 feet of
the ground and flew along a river-bank that I knew would lead me home.
I had found this low flying over enemy-land quite exhilarating, and
rather liked the sights I used to see.
During the next week I had three or four very unsatisfactory combats.
My work consisted mostly of sitting patiently over the lines, waiting
for an enemy to appear. Then, after it had put in an appearance, I
would carefully watch for an opportunity and attack, only to have the
Hun escape. I was mostly concerned with my old friends the enemy
two-seaters, especially the ones that would fly at low altitudes doing
artillery observation work. I would try to get behind a cloud, or
in one, and surprise them as they went by. I managed to pounce upon
several machines from ambush, but had no luck at all in the succeeding
combats. On such occasions I would return much disgusted to the
aerodrome and put in more time at the target.
I began to feel that my list of victims was not climbing as steadily
as I would have liked. Captain Ball was back from a winter rest in
England and was adding constantly to his already big score. I felt I
had to keep going if I was to be second to him. So I was over the enemy
lines from six to seven hours every day, praying for some easy victims
to appear. I had had some pretty hard fighting. Now I wanted to shoot
a “rabbit” or two. Several times while sitting over the lines I was
caught badly by anti-aircraft fire, and had to do a lot of dodging and
turning to avoid being badly hit by the singing shrapnel shells. As it
was, I frequently returned with scars, where bits of shell had pierced
my planes and fuselage.
One day I saw a two-seater flying calmly along about three miles high.
I started to climb up under him, and it seemed to me I was hours on the
way, for he had seen me and was climbing as well. Eventually I reached
his level, but we were then nearly four miles from the earth. The air
was so thin I found it difficult to get my breath. It was coming in
quick gasps and my heart was racing like mad. It is very difficult to
fly a single-seater at such altitudes, much more to fight in one. The
air is so rare that the small machines, with their minimum of plane
surface, have very little to rest upon. The propeller will not “bite”
into the thin atmosphere with very much of a pull. But despite all
this, I decided to have a go at the big German two-seater, and we did
a series of lazy manœuvres. I realized I was unable to put much energy
into the fighting, and the only shot I got at the Hun I missed! At the
height we had met, the Hun machine was faster than mine, so in a few
minutes he broke off the combat and escaped.
I spent half an hour under another enemy machine, trying to stalk him,
but he finally got away. During the time I was “hiding” under the
two-seater I was quite happy in the belief that he could not bring a
gun to bear on me. But when I landed I found several bullet-holes in
the machine close to my body. After that I kept a sharper look-out on
the fellows upstairs.
One day, after climbing slowly to 17,000 feet and still finding no
victims, I flew fifteen miles inside the German lines, hoping to catch
some unwary enemy aloft. At last, about half a mile beneath me, I saw
a lone scout. I carefully manœuvred to get between him and the sun,
for once there I knew he could not see me and I would have all the
advantage of a surprise attack. I was within 20 yards, and going about
130 miles an hour, when I opened fire. Not more than ten shots had sped
from my gun when the Hun went spinning down in a nose-dive, seemingly
out of control. I dived after him, firing steadily, and we had dropped
something like 3,000 feet when the enemy machine burst into flames.
During my dive I had seen a black speck in the distance which looked as
if it might be a Hun. So I climbed again and made in the direction of
the speck, hoping it would turn out to be an enemy machine. It did, and
I succeeded in getting in another surprise attack, but my shots hit no
vital spot and the German slid away in safety.
A few minutes later I saw a third Hun, and again I manœuvred for the
advantage of the sun position. But the pilot either saw me before I got
into the blinding rays, or else he saw the other machine diving away
and thought something was wrong, for he, too, dived steeply before I
could get within effective range.
However, I was very well pleased with the day’s work, for I had sent my
second machine down in flames. Such an incident has never failed to put
me in a good humour. It is so certain and such a satisfactory way of
destroying Huns.