westerly wind and a strong hint of dirty weather in the air made it an
abnormally risky patrol for anything but the best of pilots and the
most reliable of machines and engines. But the Fo-Fums, whatever their
other faults, have at least the admitted merit of reliability, and the
quality of the pilots on this patrol is fairly shown by this story.
They were well over the lines and about 10,000 feet up when a circus of
about twenty Huns hove in sight well above them. The Flight Leader saw
them and, climbing a little as they went, he led the formation towards
the hostiles, or, as he put it, "beetled off to have a look at 'em."
The Huns evidently saw the Fo-Fums at the same time, and with natural
willingness to indulge in a scrap with odds of more than three to one
in their favour swooped up, "coming like stink," to quote the Flight
Leader again, to the attack.
The Fo-Fums knew how the ball would almost certainly open under the
circumstances--twenty Hun scouts with the advantage of superior speed,
height and weather gauge, against six Fo-Fums--and quietly slid into a
formation they had more than once proved useful in similar conditions.
The Huns, seeing no other enemies near enough to interfere, circled
above, collected their formation into shape, and made their leisurely
dispositions for the attack, while the Fo-Fums no less leisurely
straightened out their wedge-shaped formation, swung the head of
the line in a circle, which brought the leader round until he was
following the last machine of the Flight, and so commenced a steady
circling or--one can hardly refrain from quoting that expressive
Flight Leader--"chasing each other's tails in a blessed ring-o'-roses
giddy-go-round." The Huns drove up into a position which brought them
between the Fo-Fums and the sun, thereby, of course, gaining the
additional advantage of being able to aim and shoot with the sun in
their backs while the Fo-Fums had the light in their eyes.
The Fo-Fum men were not greatly disturbed by this, for several reasons,
because they were used to conceding the advantage in beginning a fight,
because knowing the Huns had the wings of them it was no use trying
to avoid it, and because they were contentedly sure that there were
so many beastly Huns there they couldn't all keep "in the sun" and
that each man would easily find a target sufficiently out of it. They
continued their "giddy-go-round," and a dozen of the Huns at top speed,
with engines full out and machine-guns rattling and ripping out a storm
of tracer bullets in streaking pencil-lines of flame and blue smoke,
came hurtling down like live thunderbolts. The sight alone might well
have been a terrifying one to the Fo-Fum men, and the sharp, whip-like
smacks and cracks about them of the explosive bullets which began to
find their mark on fabric or frame would also have been upsetting to
any but the steadiest nerves.
But the Fo-Fums showed not the slightest sign of panicky nerves.
They held their fire until the diving Huns were within reasonable
shoot-to-hit range, and met them with a sharp burst of fire from
observers' or pilots' guns as the position of each machine in the
circle gave a field of fire ahead or anywhere in a full half-circle
round to port, stern, or starboard.
It may help matters to explain here--and again it tells nothing to
the Hun that he doesn't already know well and to his sorrow--that
the fighting Fo-Fum mounts three machine-guns--one, which the pilot
handles, shooting ahead; another which the observer, sitting in front
of the pilot and to the side of the pilot's gun, shoots anywhere
outward in a half-circle round the bow and in any forward direction
down or up; and a third placed on the top plane, which the observer
also shoots by jumping up from his bow gun, standing almost man-high
clear of the "gun'l" of the machine's body, and aiming up or level
outward to either side and astern.
In meeting the attacking dive the observers stood up to their top
guns, and if their position in the Flight's circle allowed them to
bring their gun to bear on an enemy, they opened fire. If the machine
was full bow on to the rush the pilot fired; or if she was in such a
position that he could not see a target sufficiently ahead, or the
observer see sufficiently to the side, he dodged the machine in or out
of the circle enough to bring one of the guns to bear, and then wheeled
her back into position.
These tactics may sound complicated, but really are--so the Fo-Fums
say--beautifully simple when you know them and are used to them. What
they amount to is merely the fact that all six machines were able to
open fire within a second or two of one another, and that in some cases
the pilot was able to get in a second burst from his bow gun by dipping
his nose down after a hostile as she plunged past.
That they were effective tactics was promptly demonstrated to the Huns
by one of their machines bursting into flames, another rolling over
sideways and "dead-leafing" down in a series of side-to-side slips
which ended in a crash on the ground below, and by another continuing
his dive well down, changing it into a long glide to the eastward
and out of the fight, evidently with machine or pilot out of action.
Several of the Fo-Fums had bullet-holes in their machines, but nothing
vital was touched, and they had just time to connect up nicely into
their compact circle when the remainder of the Huns came tearing down
on them in similar terrifying fashion.
But the Fo-Fums met them in their similar fashion, and when the Huns,
instead of diving past and down as the first lot had done, curved up
in an abrupt zoom, the observers swung their gun-muzzles up after them
and pelted them out of range. One Hun lost control just on the point
of his upward zoom, flung headlong out until he stalled and fell out
of the fight for good. From the fact that his gun continued to fire at
nothing until he was lost to notice it was evident either that his gear
was damaged or the pilot hit and unconsciously gripping or hanging to
the trigger or firing mechanism. A fourth Hun at the top of his zoom up
lurched suddenly, fell away in a spinning nose dive, and also vanished
from the proceedings--whether "crashed" or merely "out of control" was
never known.
In a fight against this sort of odds, which our pilots so often have,
the need of keeping an eye on active enemies rather than on the
subsequent interesting fashion of an out-of-control's finish certainly
reduces our air men's score a good deal, since it is the rule only to
claim and record officially as a "crash" a machine which is actually
seen (and confirmed) to have smashed on the ground, to have broken
in air, or otherwise have made a sure and positive finish. Five Huns
down and definitely out of action was a good beginning to the fight,
especially as no Fo-Fum was damaged, and the odds were now reduced
to fifteen against six--quite, according to the Fo-Fums, usual and
reasonably sporting odds.
But the odds were to lengthen to such an extent that even the seasoned
and daring fighters of No. Umpty Squadron began to look grave and feel
concerned. Two Flights came looming up rapidly from eastward, and,
occupied as the Fo-Fums were with the first brush, the new enemies were
upon them almost the instant the second rush on them finished--before,
in fact, the first Huns shot down and hit the ground. The newcomers
converged on the fight and dashed straight at the Fo-Fum circle without
a pause. There were twelve of them in one lot and eight in the other,
and that, added to the twenty the Fo-Fums had counted at the beginning
of the fight, made a total of forty machines against their six.
After this the tale of the fight can no longer be told as a whole. It
developed into a series of rushes and dives on the part of the enemy in
large or small numbers, swift leaps and turns and twists, and plunges
and checks, repeated hot attacks and attempts by the Huns to break the
Fo-Fums' steady circle, determined and fairly successful efforts of the
Fo-Fums to foil the attempts. For long minute after minute the fight
swayed and scattered, flung apart, out and down and up, climbed and
fell and closed in again to point-blank quarters. It ran raging on and
on in a constant fierce rattle and roll of machine-gun fire, a falling
out, one fashion or another, of Hun after Hun, in occasional desperate
fights of single Fo-Fums forced out of the circle and battling to
return to it.
Some of these single-handed combats against odds are worthy subjects
for an air saga, each to its individual self. There was, for instance,
the Fo-Fum which was forced out of the circle, cut off, and fought a
lone-hand battle against eleven enemies. The observer stood and shot
over his top plane at one Hun who tried to cover himself behind the
tail of the Fo-Fum. The pilot at the same instant was lifting the
nose a little to bring his gun to bear on another Hun diving on him
from ahead, and this sinking of the Fo-Fum's stern gave the observer
a chance. He filled it with a quick burst from his machine-gun, and
filled the Hun so effectively full of bullets that his nose dropped and
he swooped under the Fo-Fum. The observer jumped down to his bow gun,
swung the muzzle down, and caught the Hun passing under with a burst
which finished him and sent him whirling down out of control.
The pilot's shooting at the same time was equally effective. The Hun
who had dived on his right front was met by a quick turn which brought
the bow gun to bear and a short burst of fire. The Hun continued to
dive past and under, and both pilot and observer caught a flashing but
clear-imprinted picture of the Hun pilot collapsed in a heap on his
seat before he also fell helplessly rolling and spinning down out of
the fight.
The observer, dropping his forward gun as he saw his shooting
effective, scrambled quickly up to his top gun and was just in time to
open on another Hun not more than twenty feet away and with his gun
going "nineteen to the dozen, and rapping bullets all over the old
bus till she's as full of holes as a Gruyère cheese," as the observer
said. He only fired about a dozen rounds--the fight by now had been
running long enough and hot enough to make economy of ammunition a
consideration--but some of the dozen got home and sent another Hun
plunging down and out.
The observer just lifted his eyes from watching the "late lamented"
and trying to decide whether he was "outed" or "playing dead," in time
to catch a glimpse of a black cross streaking past astern of him. He
glued his eyes to the sights, jerked his muzzle round after the fresh
enemy, and just as he swung in a steep bank "slapped a hatful of lead
into him" and saw a strip of the hostile's cowling rip and lift and
beat flailing back against the struts until the enemy shut off engine
and glided out.
The pilot's gun was clattering again, and the observer, seeing all
clear behind him, turned and half jumped, half fell, down into his
cockpit as the Fo-Fum lay over on her beam-ends in a bank that brought
her almost sheer on her wing-tip. He was just in time to see the
pilot's fresh victim fall out of control, and dropping the bow gun he
had grabbed he hoisted himself to his top gun again.
It sounds a little thing when one speaks of all this jumping down and
scrambling up from one gun to another, but it is worth pausing to
consider just what it means. The place the observer had to jump from
at his top gun was about as scanty and precarious as a canary bird's
perch; the space he had to jump or fall down into was little bigger
than a respectable hip-bath; the floor and footholds on which he did
these gymnastics were heaving, pitching, and tossing, tilting to and
fro at anything between level, a slope as steep as a sharp-angled roof,
and steeper still to near the perpendicular.
And all the time the machine which carried out the acrobatic
performance was travelling at the speed of a record-breaking express
train, and if the performer mis-jumped or over-reached the enclosing
sides of his cockpit, sides little more than knee-high as he stood on
the floor, not ankle-high as he stood at the top gun, he had a clear
eight to ten thousand feet, a good mile and quarter, to fall before
he hit the ground. And this particular Fo-Fum stood on her head or
her tail, on one wing-tip or the other, dived and dodged, twisted and
turned and wriggled and fought her way through, over, under, and about
her eleven opponents, putting four well down and a fifth damaged in the
process, and picked up her place in the shifting, breaking, and ragged,
but always reforming, circle.
The fight flared on for full forty minutes, and still at the end of
that time the Fo-Fums were all afloat and able to make home and a good
landing, although some were so shot about and damaged that it was
only by a marvel of piloting skill they were kept going--and, let it
be added, as their crews never failed to add, because they were stout
buses well and honestly built of good material by skilled and careful
hands, driven by engines that were a credit to the shops they came from
and would "keep running as strong as a railway locomotive, into Hell
and out the other side, s'long's you fed oil and petrol to 'em."
One machine had the oil tank shot through, and yet the engine ran
long enough without "seizing up" (melting the dry metal by friction to
sticking point) to get home. There were other mechanical miracles--too
technical for explanation here--that the pilots tell of with wonder
and admiration, although they say little, or at most or no more than a
mild "good man" or "sporting effort" of the equal or greater miracle
of men enduring and keeping their wits and stout hearts, and carrying
on, whole or wounded as some were--one observer to his death soon after
landing--for that forty minutes' savage fight against odds. Full forty
minutes, and at the end of that time there were only some score Huns
left in the fight: and in the finish it was they who broke off the
action, and slid out and away down wind.
"Y'see," as the Flight Leader said after when he was asked why he
didn't pull out or battle his way out and home, "Y'see, the old Fo-Fums
are pretty well known on this slice of front, and they've got a
reputation for never chucking a scrap. I'd have hated to come plungin'
home with a crowd of Huns hare-in' after us. The line 'ud think we'd
been runnin' away from a scrap; and I wouldn't like my Flight to be
letting down the old Fo-Fums' reputation like that."
Most people will admit that the Flight didn't let it down. There are
even a good many who think it added a good-sized gilt-edged leaf to the
Fo-Fums' and the Umpty Squadron's plentiful laurels.
XI
LIKE GENTLEMEN
When Lieutenant Jack Smith, new come from a year of life in the
trenches and reserve billets, landed for a day or two's stay with his
brother in one of the squadrons of the R.F.C., he began to think he had
strayed into an earthly Paradise, was amazed that such an excellent
substitute for well-found civilised life could exist in the Field.
He got the first shock when he arrived at the 'drome about 8.30 a.m.
and found his brother still comfortably asleep. While his brother got
up and dressed he explained that, the Division being out on rest near
by, he had taken a chance of the long-standing invitation to come and
spend a day or two with the Squadron; and while he talked his eyes kept
wandering round the comfortable hut--the bookcase, the framed pictures
on the walls, the table and easy-chair, the rugs on the floor, all the
little touches of comfort--luxury, he called them to himself--about the
place.
"You're pretty snugly fixed up here, aren't you, Tom?" he burst out at
last.
"So, so!" said Tom, pouring a big jug of hot water into the
wash-basin--hot water, thought Jack Smith, not only for shaving, but to
wash in. "Being Flight Commander, I have a shack to myself, y'see. Most
of the pilots share huts. We'll fix a bed here for you to sleep. Hullo,
quarter-past nine! I must hurry--won't be any breakfast left. You had
brek?"
"Two hours ago," said his brother. "_We_ don't lie in bed till
afternoon, like you chaps."
Tom laughed. "Not my turn for dawn patrol," he said; "I'll be on
to-morrow. My Flight's due to go up at noon to-day." And he went on
outlining the methods of their work.
In the Mess they found half a dozen other pilots finishing breakfast.
"My brother Jack--going to spend a day or two with us"--was introduced,
and in ten minutes found himself pleasantly at home amongst the others.
He began to forget he was at the Front at all, and the attentive waiter
at his elbow helped heighten the illusion. "Tea or coffee sir?...
Porridge, sir?"
Jack had porridge, and fresh milk with it and his tea. Fresh milk--and
he'd nearly forgotten milk came from anything but a tin! Then he had
a kipper--not out of a tin, either--and bacon and eggs and toast and
marmalade. It was his second breakfast, but he did it full justice.
After breakfast he went out with Tom to the hangars, and had a look
over the machines and pottered round generally until after eleven. Then
Tom went off to get ready for patrol, and handed him over to "Jerry,"
one of the pilots. Jack spent a fascinating hour watching the patrol
start, and then being taken round by Jerry, who was bubbling over with
eagerness to show and explain and tell him everything.
Then they had lunch, and again Jack was led to forgetfulness that he
was at the Front. Sitting there with a dozen happy, laughing, chatting
companions at a table spread with a spotless cloth, with a variety of
food and drinks to choose from, with no sound of guns or any other echo
of war in his ears except the occasional hum of a plane overhead--and
that was pleasant and musical rather than warlike--he felt and said he
might as well be in a long-established Mess in barracks at home.
After lunch he sat in the ante-room with the others round the big, open
fireplace and smoked a cigarette and skimmed the plentiful weeklies
until Tom's Flight was about due in. Jerry picked him up again and took
him out and showed him the Flight when they were pin-points in the sky,
and explained the process of landing as they came in.
Jack found his brother's machine had brought home several bullet-holes,
and he was oddly thrilled at sight of them--oddly, because he thought
he was completely _blasé_ about bullet-holes and similar signs of
battle.
Tom made very little of it, merely saying Yes, they'd had a scrap, had
crashed one Hun and put another couple down out of control; and who was
on for an hour on the canal?
Jack went to the canal with them, and found they had there a wonderful
boat built by the pilots out of planks they had "found." The boat
held two comfortably, four uncomfortably, and on this occasion
carried seven. They fooled away a couple of hours very happily and
school-boyishly, landed, and went back at a jog-trot to the 'drome. The
wind had changed and they could hear the guns now, heavily engaged, by
the sound of them.
They were back just in time to see a patrol go up, and Tom hurried
Jack out to watch. "We've got another Squadron's Major here, staying
to dinner to-night, and the patrol is taking off in a fancy formation
that's our own special patent. It's worth watching. Come along."
It was worth watching, although Jack, perhaps, was not sufficiently
educated in air work to appreciate it properly. The Flight was drawn up
in line facing into the wind, and, after a preliminary run up of their
engines, a signal was given, six pairs of chocks jerked simultaneously
clear of the wheels, and the six machines began to taxi forward over
the ground, still keeping in line.
Their speed increased until they were racing with tails up, and then,
suddenly, the whole six lifted together and took the air, keeping their
straight line and climbing steadily. The right-hand machine swept round
to the right, and one after another the rest followed him, each banking
steeply and, as it seemed from the ground, heeling over until their
wings stood straight up and down. As they straightened they opened out
and dropped into their places, and the Flight swept circling round
above the 'drome in correct and exactly-spaced formation.
"Pretty good show," said Tom critically.
"You wouldn't understand rightly, Jack, but it's a fancy stunt we've
never heard of another squadron being able to do. Sheer swank, of
course, I'll admit, but rather sport."
Later, Jack was able to appreciate better what the "stunt" was worth
from the admiring and amazed comments of the much-impressed visiting
Major.
Tea followed, and after it the pilots drifted off to such occupations
or amusements as they desired. Some lounged in the ante-room, with the
gramophone singing, whistling, and band playing; others went off to the
hangars to see to something being done to their machines, engines, or
guns; others vanished into their huts, and, reappearing stripped, began
strenuous work on a punching-ball or disappeared over the surrounding
fields on a cross-country run. The brothers wandered round, and
finished an idle hour with a brisk turn at the punching-ball.
"Gets a good sweat up," explained Tom, "and helps keep you in
condition. That's the curse of this job--not getting any exercise
unless you do something of this sort."
"Curse of it!" said Jack enviously. "Blest if I see much of a curse of
any sort about it. It's amazing to think anybody can be in the middle
of a big push in this war and be able to have such a ripping fine time
of it."
Tom laughed. "Our C.O. always swears this is the only end of the old
war where a man is able to live like a gentleman and fight like a
gentleman," he said. "And I don't know he isn't right."
"It's the only side I've seen where you can," agreed Jack. "You
certainly live like gentlemen, anyhow."
"Oh, it's gentlemanly enough fighting, too," said Tom. "Anyhow, you
do go out to scrap with your face washed and a clean shirt to your
back, and come straight home to a hot bath inside half an hour after,
if you like. And in the actual fighting it's clean scrapping--putting
your skill against the other fellow's, and the best man winning, as a
rule. None of your blind floundering through mud and shell-fire for me,
thank'ee, and getting scuppered without a notion who did it or how you
got it."
That evening they changed for dinner, Tom lending a pair of slacks to
his brother. "Might as well," said Tom. "Not that it matters about
you, because I could tell the C.O. you didn't bring kit. But he likes
everyone to dress properly for Mess, and so do we all. Dunno he isn't
right, too. Now, will you bath first, or shall I?"
The bath arrangements were explained to him--the bath being a
curtained-off corner of the hut with hot water in a canvas bath on the
floor and a shower operated by pulling a string to a tank on the roof.
"We're having the band for dinner to-night," said Tom, as they
dressed. "We rather pride ourselves on our band, y'know; eleven
instruments, and all real good performers picked up all over the shop,
and in the Squadron as batmen or mechanics or something. Lots of 'em
were part or whole professionals in civvy life."
"I feel as if I were going to a ball or a banquet or a box at the opera
or something," said Jack, as they walked down to the Mess--"I feel so
amazing clean and groomed and sleek. And you lucky beggars have this
any old night, and right in the middle of the war, too!"
The evening "put the tin hat on it" as he said. There was a champagne
cocktail before dinner, and then the Major led the way into a Mess that
made Jack blink his eyes. The table down the centre was big enough to
take the whole score of diners and of generous enough width to allow of
stretched legs without kicking opposite shins and toes. It was covered
with a spotless cloth, glittering cutlery, and shining glass, and down
the centre were shaded electrics and vases made from polished brass
shell-cartridges filled with flowers. The C.O. sat at the head of the
table with the Major-guest on the one side and Jack on the other with
his brother beside him. There was a full-course dinner most excellently
cooked and served, and there was almost any drink available you liked
to call for, although Jack noticed that his brother and most of the
others drank fresh-made lemonade or something of the sort.