THE GREAT STRAFE
BILLY BARCROFT would have been disagreeably surprised had the
R.N.V.R. sub given him an answer in the negative. He was perfectly
aware that Nigel Farrar was rightfully entitled to be sent home on
leave, following his escape from an enemy country. Yet, with
characteristic impetuosity and zeal, Farrar had jumped at the offer
to guide the "Avenger" to the secret U-boat base, and incidentally
"get his own back."
In less than twenty minutes the flying-boat returned to her base.
Barcroft made his report and obtained the squadron-commander's ready
permission to attempt another stunt. Sylvester, rigged out in new
civilian clothing and taking the baron's uniform with him as a
souvenir, lost no time in catching the first train to Milan, where,
with luck, he might join the through express to Paris--and home.
"You'll look me up directly you arrive home on leave, old man?" he
asked, when Farrar bade him farewell and a speedy journey, knowing
perfectly well that the latter wish was almost as hopeless as asking
for the moon.
"I'll certainly look you up before I rejoin my ship," replied the
sub evasively.
The Moke regarded his chum curiously.
"Wonder what the move is?" he asked himself. "Farrar's people aren't
in England. He has no relatives there as far as I am aware of. I
wonder--ah! the sly dog!"
As soon as the flying-boat had replenished her petrol tanks, taken
on board a stock of bombs and trays of ammunition, the flight began.
Barcroft was anxious to carry out the stunt in broad daylight. With
reasonable luck he hoped to be back again by sunset.
The "Avenger" was not alone. Following in V-shaped formation were
four of her sister craft, their load of bombs aggregating a little
more than a ton. They flew high--between 8,000 and 10,000 feet--with
very little noise: the motors were effectively silenced, and only
the purr of the pistons and the whirr of the huge propellers
disturbed the stillness of the rarefied atmosphere.
High over the Istrian coast they flew, keeping above, but just
inside, the chain of islands that had proved more than once the
salvation of a hard-pressed hostile vessel.
Presently Farrar pointed to a ridge of mountains slightly on the
"Avenger's" port bow.
"That's the show," he declared. "I recognise it by the conical
peaks."
"Sure?" asked Barcroft dubiously. "I've flown all along the coast
and across those hills, but not a trace of a U-boat base did I
twig--and I was mighty particular. Searched every inlet with my
binoculars. Not a sign of a wharf, workshop, or anything of that
nature."
"I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong," said the sub confidently, as he
reached for a pair of powerful glasses. "There you are! See those
patches of green in the water?"
"Yes," admitted Barcroft. "They were there last time. Reeds on the
mudbanks."
"Camouflage," corrected Farrar. "The whole show is covered with
boughs and branches to escape aerial observation. Each of those
patches screens a Fritz."
"Does it, by Jove!" ejaculated the flight-lieutenant. He swung round
and nodded significantly to his second-in-command. Not a word was
exchanged between Barcroft and Kirkwood. Old hands at the strafing
business each seemed to know instinctively the other's mind.
A slight depression of the horizontal rudders, a faint click as the
ignition was switched off, and the "Avenger" commenced her two-mile
glide, descending to two thousand feet, her consorts following her
example.
Fascinated, Farrar leant over the side of the hull. This sort of
warfare was new to him. It seemed a very one-sided business, for not
a shot was fired from the enemy base. Optically there was little to
be noted--merely a forked arm of the sea with an island lying almost
athwart the entrance, a range of hills enclosing the water, and a
number of what appeared to be patches of verdure on the surface of
the harbour and also on the sloping ground on the east side.
Suddenly the motor fired again. The flyingboat, quivering under the
powerful pulsations, changed her volplane to a horizontal movement,
Simultaneously Kirkwood released the first bomb.
For several hundred feet Farrar could follow its descent, until it
became a mere speck against the dark green background. Then another,
and yet another missile started in its devastating career.
A cloud of smoke, dwarfed to the size of a mushroom, announced that
the first bomb had got home fairly in the centre of the seaward tier
of moored U-boats. Like the rending of a veil the camouflage
vanished, revealing to sight seven of the modern pirates and an
ominous gap in the centre.
There was plenty of activity now. Men looking like ants swarmed
everywhere, emerging from the interiors of the Unterseebooten and
making for the doubtful shelter of dry land. Others, hesitatingly,
began to cast off bow and stern ropes, with the evident intention of
taking the trapped submarines into deep water and there
submerging until the danger was past.
The rapid shower of bombs completely frustrated their attempt. Long,
cigar-shaped hulls were shattered asunder, the floating pontoons
smashed to matchwood, as the five flying-boats manoeuvred to keep
above their much-desired objective.
Once during the strafing operations Farrar glanced at the
"Avenger's" skipper. Barcroft, his set features absolutely
unperturbed, was steering the flying-boat as coolly as if he had the
whole atmosphere to himself, notwithstanding that four other swiftly
moving aircraft were describing apparently erratic circles and
curves at a reduced rate of about fifty miles an hour within a
radius of half a mile. It was an aerial gymkana, in which the merest
collision would inevitably result in a tremendous crash, yet the
strafing continued systematically and continuously.
A few bombs struck the surface of the water, but direct hits were
numerous and devastating. Of the twenty-four submarines only three
remained afloat. Some might have been submerged by design on the
part of their crews. Even then they stood a poor chance against the
enormous concussion of the powerful missiles. Even a buffer of
twenty feet of water was unable to save the steel hulls from being
shattered.
Ashore three distinct fires had been started, two in the sand-bagged
and camouflaged workshops, the third in a large liquid-fuel store,
from which the flames were mounting a couple of hundred feet in the
air. Crowds of German and Austrian soldiers, sailors and workpeople,
driven from their futile shelters, were running in all directions,
and still the bombs dropped remorselessly and destructively.
A passive spectator Farrar felt not the slightest qualms. A woodman
destroying a nest of young adders could not have shown less
compunction. The cold-blooded murderous record of the U-boats had
put them without the pale. Stamped with the brand of Cain, every
man's hand was against them, Allies and neutrals alike, for the
modern pirates, compared with whom Morgan, Lolonois, and Gramont
were gentlemen, had roused the indignation and horror of the
civilised world.
"No eggs left!" reported Kirkwood laconically.
Barcroft nodded. The other flying-boats had also exhausted their
stocks of bombs, but their task was not yet done. Photographs
showing the damage done had to be taken, from which enlargements
were to be subsequently made in order to confirm the observer's
reports.
Although the members of the Royal Air Force are the least given to
exaggeration, there have been instances in which observers have
unintentionally overrated the damage done by their bombs. Objects
seen through dust and smoke are apt to appear different from what
they actually are, while in the tension and excitement of a raid a
casual glance might convey an erroneous impression on the mind, upon
which inaccurate reports are based. But the camera, emotionless and
strictly impartial, records the scene with absolute fidelity; hence
the importance of photography as a necessary adjunct to the airman's
panoply of war.
Suddenly a cloud of white smoke mushroomed a few hundred feet below
the "Avenger." Another leapt seemingly from nothingness at an
unpleasantly short distance on her quarter. The anti-aircraft guns
were getting into action at last, and the strafe no longer promised
to be a one-sided business.
Soon the "air was stiff" with flying shrapnel, while shells of a
hitherto unknown type added to the flying-boats' peril. These
missiles, on bursting, liberated long tentacles of the lightness of
silk that floated in strings of fire in the air.
A burst of shrapnel, seemingly close under the "Avenger's" nose,
caused the flying-boat to pitch and roll like a tramp in ballast in
a heavy seaway. Before Barcroft could get her under control the
uppermost of the triplanes was foul of one of the burning tentacles.
The bight of the flaming tendril engaged against the forward
knife-edge of the plane, while the ends, swept backwards by the rush
of the flying-boat through the air, swung together like a
gigantic streamer of flame in the "Avenger's" wake.
No manoeuvre could possibly extricate the flying-boat from the fiery
embrace. A tail-spin, instead of enabling the plane to back away
from the tentacle, would result in the streaming ends winding
themselves round the spread of canvas; while in addition the falling
aircraft would lose all advantage of altitude ere she recovered from
the "spin."
Although the fabric of the planes was supposed to be of
fire-resisting material the prepared canvas was already smoking and
charring. Like a flash Farrar realised the danger. The time had come
for him to act, and with characteristic alacrity he seized upon the
chance.
Swarming aloft, with a knife between his teeth, he gained the upper
plane. The windage was terrific, smoke and embers were swept into
his face, the heat scorched his hair. Hanging on like grim death
with one hand he slashed at the fiercely-burning tow, through the
centre of which a fine flexible wire maintained cohesion of the
deadly firebrand. Hacking fiercely at the wire, regardless of the
flames that ate into his hand, his efforts were rewarded by the
sight of the severed tentacle disappearing like a streak of
lightning in the wake of the swiftly moving planes.
Then, and only then, did the burning pain assert itself. All power
to move seemed to have vanished from his arm. Muscles and sinews
were completely numbed, while the tightly contracted flesh throbbed
and plunged with the excruciating torture of the livid burns.
"I'm in the cart this time," he muttered, wincing with the agony of
the fire. "Hanged if I can climb back again, and the plane's still
smouldering."
Vainly he endeavoured to smother the charring fabric. His right arm
was as helpless as that of a new-born babe. Stealthily, yet
steadily, the patch of calcined canvas was increasing. At any
moment, fanned by the terrific draught, it might burst into flames.
Then he became aware of some one lying flat beside him: of Kirkwood
drenching the burning plane with a fire-extinguishing chemical, of
the spray of the liquid blowing back into his face.
"That's settled it, by Jove!" shouted Kirkwood in the sub's ear.
"Nip on down. Can't? Here, let me give you a hand."
As in a dream the injured officer found himself assisted to the hull
of the flying-boat. She had left the bursts of shrapnel far astern
and was heading homewards. Her consorts were also returning--all
four.
"Good man!" exclaimed Barcroft admiringly, as Farrar gained the
deck. "What, hit?"
The sub shook his head. Everything was growing very dim and misty.
"Not at all!" he replied, his voice sounding strange and distant.
"Not at all. A great strafe, wasn't it?"
"Mind his hand, Billy," exclaimed some one warningly--also dim and
distant seemed his voice. "It's pretty bad."
Barcroft was only just in time to save the injured sub from dropping
inertly at his feet as merciful oblivion overtook him.