amongst you, so it wasn't too dud a show."
"I don't care," said Blanky, tramping to the door and jerking it open.
"I don't care a tuppenny tinker's dash what Huns we got." He swung
through, and, turning in the doorway with his hand on the knob, shouted
back with all the emphasis of last-word finality: "I tell you it was a
ROTTEN formation, anyway."
Behind him the door _slammed_ tremendously.
VI
QUICK WORK
It is difficult, if not indeed impossible, to convey in words what
is perhaps the most breath-catching wonder of air-fighting work, the
furious speed, the whirling rush, the sheer rapidity of movement of the
fighting machines, and the incredible quickness of a pilot's brain,
hand, and eye to handle and manœuvre a machine, and aim and shoot a gun
under these speed conditions. I can only ask you to try to remember
that a modern fast scout is capable of flying at well over a hundred
miles an hour on the level, and at double that (one may not be too
exact) in certain circumstances, and that in such a fight as I am going
to try to describe here the machines were moving at anything between
these speeds. If you can bear this in mind, or even realise it--I
am speaking to the non-flying reader--you will begin to understand
what air men-o'-war work is, to believe what a pilot once said of air
fighting: "You don't get time to think. If you stop to think, you're
dead."
When the Flight of half a dozen scout machines was getting ready to
start on the usual "offensive patrol" over Hunland, one of the pilots,
"Ricky-Ticky" by popular name, had some slight trouble with his engine.
It was nothing much, a mere reluctance to start up easily, and since he
did get her going before the Flight was ready to take off he naturally
went up with it. He had a little more trouble in the upward climb to
gain a height sufficient for the patrol when it crossed the line to
stand the usual respectable chance of successfully dodging the usual
Archie shells. Ricky, however, managed to nurse her up well enough
to keep his place in the formation, and was still in place when they
started across the lines. Before they were far over Hunland he knew
that his engine was missing again occasionally and was not pulling as
she ought to, and from a glance at his indicators and a figuring of
speed, height, and engine revolutions was fairly certain that he was
going almost full out to keep up with the other machines, which were
flying easily and well within their speed.
This was where he would perhaps have been wise to have thrown up and
returned to his 'drome. He hung on in the hope that the engine would
pick up again--as engines have an unaccountable way of doing--and even
when he found himself dropping back out of place in the formation he
still stuck to it and followed on. He knew the risk of this, knew that
the straggler, the lame duck, the unsupported machine, is just exactly
what the Hun flyer is always on the look out for; knew, too, that his
Flight Commander before they had started had warned him (seeing the
trouble he was having to start up) that if he had any bother in the
air or could not keep place in the formation to pull out and return.
Altogether, then, the trouble that swooped down on him was his own
fault, and you can blame him for it if you like. But if you do you'll
have to blame a good many other pilots who carry on, and, in spite of
the risk, do their best to put through the job they are on. He finally
decided--he looked at the clock fixed in front of him to set a time and
found it showed just over one minute to twelve--in one minute at noon
exactly, if his engine had not steadied down to work, he would turn
back for home.
At that precise moment--and this was the first warning he had that
there were Huns about--he heard a ferocious rattle of machine-gun fire,
and got a glimpse of streaking flame and smoke from the tracer bullets
whipping past him. The Huns, three of them and all fast fighting
scouts, had seen him coming, had probably watched him drop back out of
place in the Flight, had kept carefully between him and the sun so that
his glances round and back had failed to spot them in the glare, and
had then dived headlong on him, firing as they came. They were coming
down on him from astern and on his right side, or, as the Navals would
put it, on his starboard quarter, and they were perhaps a hundred to a
hundred and fifty yards off when Ricky first looked round and saw them.
His first and most natural impulse was to get clear of the bullets
that were spitting round and over him, and in two swift motions he had
opened his engine full out and thrust his nose a little down and was
off full pelt. Promptly the three astern swung a little, opened out as
they wheeled, dropped their noses, and came after Ricky, still a little
above him, and so fairly astern that only the centre one could keep a
sustained accurate fire on him. (A scout's gun being fixed and shooting
between the blades of the propeller--gun and engine being synchronised
so as to allow the bullet to pass out as the blade is clear of the
muzzle--means that the machine itself must be aimed at the target for
the bullets to hit, and the two outer machines of the three could only
so aim their machines by pointing their noses to converge on the centre
one--a risky manœuvre with machines travelling at somewhere about a
hundred miles an hour.)
But the fire of that centre one was too horribly close for endurance,
and Ricky knew that although his being end-on made him the smaller
target, it also made his machine the more vulnerable to a raking shot
which, piercing him fore and aft, could not well fail to hit petrol
tank, or engine, or some other vital spot. He could do nothing in the
way of shooting back, because, being a single-seater scout himself,
his two guns were trained one to shoot straight forward through the
propeller, the other, mounted on the top plane on a curved mount which
allowed the gun to be grasped by the handle above his head and pulled
back and down, to shoot from direct ahead to straight up. Neither could
shoot backward.
Ricky, the first shock of his surprise over, had gauged the situation,
and this, it must be admitted, was dangerous, if not desperate. He had
dropped back and back from the Flight, until now they were something
like a mile ahead of him. A mile, it is true, does not take a modern
machine long to cover, but then, on the other hand, neither does an air
battle take long to fight, especially with odds of three to one. With
those bullets sheeting past him and already beginning to rip and crack
through his wings, any second might see the end of Ricky. It was no use
thinking longer of running away, and even a straight-down nose-dive
offered no chance of escape, both because the Huns could nose-dive
after him and continue to keep him under fire, and because he was well
over Hunland, and the nearer he went to the ground the better target he
would make for the anti-aircraft gunners below. He must act, and act
quickly.
A thousand feet down and a quarter of a mile away was a little
patch of cloud. Ricky swerved, dipped, and drove "all out" for it.
He was into it--400 yards remember--in about the time it takes you
to draw three level quiet breaths, and had flashed through it--five
or six hundred feet across it might have been--in a couple of quick
heart-beats. The Huns followed close, and in that half-dozen seconds
Ricky had something between fifty and a hundred bullets whizzing and
ripping past and through his wings. As he leaped clear of the streaming
wisps of the cloud's edge he threw one look behind him and pulled the
joy-stick hard in to his stomach. Instantly his machine reared and
swooped up in the loop he had decided on, up and over and round. At the
first upward zoom Ricky had pulled down the handle of his top gun and
brought it into instant action. The result was that as he shot up and
over in a perfect loop the centre machine, which had been astern of
him, flashed under and straight through the stream of his bullets.
Ricky whirled down in the curve of his loop with his gun still
shooting, but, now he had finished his loop and flattened out,
shooting up into the empty air while his enemy hurtled straight on and
slightly downward ahead of him. Instantly Ricky threw his top gun out
of action, and, having now reversed positions, and having his enemy
ahead, steadied his machine to bring his bow gun sights to bear on
her. But before he could fire he saw the hostile's right upper plane
twist upward, saw the machine spin side on, the top plane rip and flare
fiercely back and upward, the lower plane buckle and break, and the
machine, turning over and over, plunge down and out of his sight. One
of his bullets evidently had cut some bracing wires or stays, and the
wing had given to the strain upon it.
So much Ricky just had time to think, but immediately found himself
in a fresh danger. The two remaining hostiles had flashed past him
at the same time as the centre one, while he threw his loop over it,
but, realising apparently on the instant what his manœuvre was, they
both swung out and round while he passed in his loop over the centre
machine. It was smart work on the part of the two flanking hostiles.
They must have instantly divined Ricky's dodge to get astern of them
all, and their immediate circle out and round counteracted it, and as
he came out of his loop brought them circling in again on him. For an
instant Ricky was so concentrated on the centre machine that he forgot
the two others; but, the centre one down and out, he was suddenly
roused to the fresh danger by two following short bursts of fire which
flashed and flamed athwart him, and caught a glimpse of the other two
closing in again astern of him and "sitting on his tail."
Both were firing as they came, and again Ricky felt the sharp rip and
crack of explosive bullets striking somewhere on his machine, and an
instant later knew the two were following him and hailing lead upon
him. He cursed savagely. He had downed one enemy, but here apparently
he was little if any better off with two intact enemies in the worst
possible position for him, "on his tail," and both shooting their
hardest.
A quick glance ahead showed him the white glint of light on the
wheeling wings of his Flight, attracted by the sight of his battle,
circling and racing to join the fight. But, fast and all as they came,
the fight was likely to be over before they could arrive, and with the
crack and snap of bullets about him and his own two guns powerless
to bear on the enemy, it looked uncomfortably like odds on the fight
ending against him. Another loop they would expect and follow over--and
the bullets were crippling him every instant.
Savagely he threw his controls over, and his machine slashed out
and down to the right in a slicing two-hundred-foot side-slip. The
right-hand machine whirled past him so close that he saw every detail
of the pilot's dress--the fur-fringed helmet, dark goggles, black
sweater. He caught his machine out of her downward slide, drove her
ahead, steadied her, and brought his sights to bear on the enemy a
scant twenty yards ahead, and poured a long burst of fire into her.
He saw the streaking flashes of his bullets pouring about and over
her top planes, dipped his muzzle a shade, and saw the bullets break
and play on and about the pilot and fuselage. Then came a leaping
flame and a spurt of black smoke whirling out from her; Ricky had a
momentary glimpse of the pilot's agonised expression as he lifted and
glanced wildly round, and next instant had only in his sight a trailing
black plume of smoke and the gleam of a white underbody as the enemy
nose-dived down in a last desperate attempt to make a landing before
his machine dissolved in flames about him.
With a sudden burst of exultation Ricky realised his changed position.
A minute before he was in the last and utmost desperate straits, three
fast and well-armed adversaries against his single hand. Now, with two
down, it was man to man--no, if he wished, it was all over, because the
third hostile had swung left, had her nose down, and was "hare-ing" for
home and down towards the covering fire of the German anti-aircraft
batteries. Already she was two to three hundred yards away, and the
first German Archie soared up and burst with a rending "Ar-r-rgh" well
astern of him.
But Ricky's blood was up and singing songs of triumph in his ears.
Two out of three downed; better make a clean job of it and bag the
lot. His nose dipped and his tail flicked up, and he went roaring
down, full out, after his last Hun. A rapid crackle of one machine-gun
after another struck his ear before ever he had the last hostile fully
centred in his sights. Ricky knew that at last the Flight had arrived
and were joining in the fight. But he paid no heed to them; his enemy
was in the ring of his sight now, so with his machine hurling down at
the limit of speed of a falling body plus all the pull of a hundred
and odd horse-power, the whole fabric quivering and vibrating under
him, the wind roaring past and in his ears, Ricky snuggled closer
in his seat, waited till his target was fully and exactly centred
in his sights, and poured in a long, clattering burst of fire. The
hostile's slanting nose-dive swerved into a spin, an uncontrolled
side-to-side plunge, back again into a spinning dive that ended in a
straight-downward rush and a crash end-on into the ground.
Whether it was Ricky or some other machine of the Flight that got
this last hostile will never be known. Ricky himself officially
reported having crashed two, but declined to claim the third as his.
On the other hand, the rest of the Flight, after and always, with
enthusiastic unanimity, insisted that she was Ricky's very own, that he
had outplayed, outfought, and killed three Huns in single combat with
them--one down and t'other come on. If Ricky himself could not fairly
and honestly claim all rights to the last Hun, the Flight did for him.
"_Three!_" they said vociferously in mess that night, and would brook
no modest doubts from him. And to silence all doubts the Squadron
poet composed a song which was sung by the mess with a fervour and
a generous slurring over of faulty metre (a word the poet didn't
even know the meaning of) that might have stirred the blood of a
conscientious objector. It was entitled, "Three Huns Sat on his Tail,"
and was sung to the tune of "There were Three Crows Sat on a Tree," or,
as the uninitiated may prefer, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," and
it detailed the destruction of the Huns one by one, verse by verse.
When I tell you it was sung chanty fashion, with the first, second,
and last lines chorused by the mess, I can leave you to imagine the
loud-pedal, full, fortissimo effect of the "Hurrahs," and (helped out
with feet, with fists, spoons, and anything else handy to resound upon
the table) of the final rolling "Cr-r-r-ash."
There were three Huns sat on his tail,
_Hurrah, hurrah_!
But he looped over one and gave him "Hail
_Colum-bi-a_!"
He shot up the Hun so full of lead
That before he knew he was hit he was dead,
And our Archie look-out reporting said:
One!--CR-R-R-ASH!
But all this was later, and is going a little ahead of the story. As
the last Hun went reeling down, Ricky, in the official language of
the combat reports, "rejoined formation and continued the patrol."
He pulled the stick towards him and rose buoyantly, knowing that he
was holed over and over again, that bullets, and explosive bullets at
that, had ripped and rent and torn the fabrics of his machine, possibly
had cut away some strut or stay or part of the frame. But his engine
appeared to be all right again, had never misbehaved a moment during
the fight, was running now full power and blast; his planes swept
smooth and steady along the wind levels, his controls answered exactly
to his tender questioning touch. He had won out. He was safe, barring
accident, to land back in his own 'drome; and there were two if not
three Huns down on his brazen own within the last--how long?
At the moment of his upward zoom on the conclusion of the fight he
glanced at his clock, could hardly believe what it told him, was only
convinced when he recalled that promise to himself to turn back at the
end of that minute, and had his belief confirmed by the Flight's count
of the time between their first turning back and their covering the
distance to join him. His clock marked exactly noon. The whole fight,
from the firing of the first shot to the falling away of the last Hun,
had taken bare seconds over the one minute.
That pilot was right; in air fighting "you don't get time to think."
* * * * *
Quick is the word and quick is the deed
If you would live in the air-fight game;
Speed, give 'em speed, and a-top of it--speed!
(Man or machine exactly the same).
Think and stunt, move, shoot, quickly; or die,
Fight quick or die quick; when all is said,
There are two kinds of fighters who fly,
Only two kinds--the quick, and the dead.
VII
THE AIR MASTERS
It is hardly known to the general public--which seems a pity--that the
Navy has, working on the Western Front, some Air Squadrons who fly only
over the land and have not so much as seen the sea, except by chance or
from a long distance, from year's end to year's end. They have carried
into their shore-going lives a number of Navy ways, like the curt
"Thank God" grace at the end of a meal, or the mustering of all hands
for "Divisions" (Navalese for "Parade") in the morning, marking off the
time by so many "bells," hoisting and lowering at sunrise and sunset
the white ensign flown on a flagstaff on the 'drome; they stick to
their Navy ratings of petty officers and sub-lieutenants and so on, and
interlard their speech more or less with Navy lingo--a very useful and
expressive one, by the way, in describing air manœuvres--but otherwise
carry out their patrols and air work with, and on about the same lines
as, the R.F.C.
Naval Number Something is a "fighting scout" Squadron, which means
that its sole occupation in life is to hunt for trouble, to find and
fight, "sink, burn or destroy" Huns. At first thought it may seem
to the Army which fights "on the floor" that this job of a fighting
machine is one which need interest no one outside the Air Service, that
it is airman fighting against airman, and that, except from a point
of mere sporting interest, the results of these fights don't concern
or affect the rest of the Army, that the war would roll on just the
same for them whichever side had the upper hand in the air fighting.
Those who think so are very far wrong, because it is on the fighters
pure and simple that the air mastery depends. Air work is a business,
a highly complicated, completely organised and efficient business, and
one bit of it has to dovetail into another just as the Army's does.
The machines which spot for our guns, and direct the shooting of our
batteries to destroy enemy batteries which would otherwise destroy our
trenches and our men in them; the reconnaissance machines which fly
up and down Hunland all day and bring back reports of the movements
of troops and trains and the concentration or removal of forces, and
generally do work of which full and true value is known only to those
Heads running the war; the photographing machines which bring back
thousands of pictures of all sorts--the line knows a few, a very few,
of these, and their officers study very attentively the trench photos
before they go over the top in a raid or an attack, and so learn
exactly how, why, and where they are to go; the bombing machines which
blow up dumps of ammunition destined for the destruction of trenches
and men, derail trains bringing up reinforcements or ammunition to
the Hun firing line, knock about the 'dromes and the machines which
otherwise would be gun-spotting, reconnoitring, and bombing over our
lines--and perhaps some day one may tell just how many Gotha raids
have been upset, and cancelled by our bomb-raids on a Hun 'drome--all
these various working machines depend entirely for their existence
and freedom to do their work on the success of the fighting machines.
The working machines carry guns, and fight when they have to, but the
single-seater fighting machines are out for fight all the time, out
to destroy enemy fighters, or to put out of action any enemy working
machine they can come across.
The struggle for the air mastery never ceases, and although it may
never be absolute and complete, because the air is a big place to sweep
quite clear and clean, the fact that scores of our machines spend
all their flying hours anywhere over Hunland from the front lines to
fifty miles and more behind them for every one Hun who flies over ours
and, after a cruise of some minutes, races back again, is fairly good
evidence of who holds the whip hand in the air.
All this introduction is necessary to explain properly the importance
of the fighting squadrons' job, and why the winning of their fights
is of such concern to every man in the Army, and to every man, woman,
and child interested in any man in the Army. It also serves to explain
why it was that three machines of Naval Number Something "leapt into
the air" in a most tremendous hurry-skurry, the pilots finishing the
buckling of their coats (one going without a coat indeed) and putting
on goggles after they had risen, when the look-out at the Squadron
telescope reported that there were four Hun two-seater machines
circling round at about 10,000 or 12,000 feet and just far enough over
our front lines to look suspiciously like being on a gun-spotting or
"Art.-Ob." bit of business.
That such a performance should be taking place almost within sight of
their own 'drome doorstep naturally annoyed the Navals, and led to the
immediate and hurried steps which took the three machines and pilots
who were first ready into the air in "two shakes of the jib-sheet."
The three men were all veteran fighters, and their machines three of
the Squadron's best, and if the four Huns had known their reputations
and calibre it is doubtful if they would have dared to hang about and
carry on with their work as they did. There was "Mel" Byrne, a big
man with a D.S.C. and a Croix de Guerre ribbon on his breast, and a
score of crashed Huns notched to his credit, flying his "Kangaroo";
"Rip" Winkle, who had once met and attacked, single-handed, seven
Huns, shot down and crashed three hand-running and chased the others
headlong as far over Hunland as his petrol would take him: he was in
his "Minnenwerfer"; and the "next astern" was the "'Un-settler" flown
by "Ten-franc" or "Frankie" Jones, a youngster of--well, officially,
twenty, so called, not because he was in his baptism named Frank,
but because of a bet he had made with another Naval Squadron as to
which Squadron would "crash" the most Huns by a stated date. He was
desperately keen to win his often-referred-to wager--so much so in fact
that the other pilots chaffed him constantly on it and swore he would
risk more to win his bet than he would to win a V.C.