of them, so apparently lost over the line, and another came circling
back with her under-carriage swinging and twisting loose and hanging by
a stay. On the ground they noticed the casualty, and, fearing the pilot
might not be aware of the extent of the damage and try to land without
calculating on it, they fired a light and signalled him.
But it was quickly evident from the caution of his manœuvres
that he knew, and he came down and pancaked as carefully as he
could. He crashed, of course, but, as crashes go, not too badly.
Everyone was watching him with bated breath. As he touched the
ground--_cr-r-rash_--a tongue of flame licked and flickered, and
instantly _fouph_ it leaped in a thirty-foot gust of fire, dropped,
and before the horrified watchers could move tongue or foot, blazed up
again in a roaring, quivering pillar of fire. Then, as some scuffled
for fire-extinguishers and others ran with vague and crazy ideas of
dragging the pilot out, they saw a figure reel out from behind the
blaze, throw himself down, and roll on the grass. He was burned about
the hands and face, had a skin-deep cut across his brow, a broken
little finger--nothing that a few dressings and a splint would not make
as good as ever. He had leaped out as he landed.
His amazing escape brightened the shadow that would have lain on the
Squadron Mess that night from the loss of the other pilots, and for
the hour of dinner the talk ran free and mixed with jests and bursts
of laughter. In the ante-room there was another half-hour's talk over
the events of the day, a medley of air slang about revving, and Flaming
Onions, and split-arming, and props, and mags., and Immelman Turns, and
short bursts, and Hun-Huns, and conking, and all the rest. Then, about
9.30, the pilots began to drift off to bed, and at 10.30 the mess rooms
were clear and the lights out.
But in the hangars, the armoury, the carpentry and machine shops, the
electrics were at full blaze, the mechanics were hustling and bustling
for dear life. It grew colder as the night wore on, and by midnight men
who had been working in shirt-sleeves began to put on their jackets. By
2 a.m. they were shivering as they worked, especially those blue-lipped
and stiff-fingered ones who had to stand still over a lathe or sit
crouched, stitching and fumbling with numb fingers at fabric and tape
and string. Again the hangars were filled with a welter of stripped and
wrecked-looking outlines of machines, and all the apparent lumber of
dismantled parts and waiting spares. About 3 and 4 a.m. tenders began
to rumble in on their return from various errands, and at 5 orderlies
came from the cook-house with dixies of hot tea. The Flight Sergeants
confabbed and compared notes then and sent half the mechanics off to
bed and set the other half to work again; and by 6 the machines were
taking decently recognisable shape. And at half an hour before dawn
again the machines of the first Flight were out and ready, with engines
run up and warmed, and tanks full, and ammunition and bombs in place,
waiting for the shivering pilots stumbling out to them in the dark.
They were gone before the first blink of light paled the gun-flashes
in the sky, and they were barely gone before there came dropping into
the 'drome the pilots who had gone off the night before to fly in new
machines to replace the wastage. A second Flight went at 9, and then
the mechanics, who had turned in at 5.30, were turned out again and the
others sent to bed. They had an even shorter spell of rest, because new
machines somehow require an appalling amount of work and overhauling
and tuning up before any self-respecting Squadron considers them fit to
carry their pilots.
All that day the yesterday's performance was repeated, with the
addition that parties had to be sent off in tenders to bring in
machines that had made forced landings away from the 'drome and were
unfit to fly home. The mechanics, dismissed for an hour at dinner-time
and an hour at tea-time, spent about ten minutes over each meal, and
the rest in sleep. They needed it, for that night they had no sleep at
all, had to drive their work to the limit of their speed to get the
machines ready for the pilots to take in the morning. That day there
were more crashes, mild ones and complete write-offs, and it is hard
to say which the weary mechanics loathed the most. The pilots had
amazing luck. Man after man was shot down, but managed to glide back to
our side of the lines, crash his machine, crawl out of the splintered
wreckage, and make his way by devious routes back to the Squadron--to
take another machine as soon as it was ready, and go out again next day.
For four days this sort of thing continued. In that time the mechanics
averaged twenty and a half hours' driving hard work a day, the shop
electrics were never out, the lorry-shop lathe, with relays running it
never ceased to turn; the men ate their food at the benches as they
worked, threw themselves down in corners of the hangars and under the
benches, and snatched odd hours of sleep between a Flight going out and
another coming in.
By the mercy, dud weather came on the fifth day, driving rain and
blanketting mist, and the mechanics--no, not rested, but spurted
again and cleared up the débris of past days, repaired, refitted, and
re-rigged their machines in readiness for the next call, whenever it
might come. At the finish, about midnight of the fourth day, some of
them had to be roused from sleeping as they stood or sat at their work;
one man fell asleep as he stood working the forge bellows and tumbled
backwards into a tub of icy water.
Then they reeled and stumbled to their beds, and again by the
grace--since once asleep it is doubtful if mortal man could have
wakened them--the sixth day was also dud, and the mechanics slept their
fill, which on the average was somewhere about the round of the clock.
By then the fury of the battle assault had died down, the Squadron's
duties were eased, and the mechanics dropped to a normal battle routine
of fourteen or fifteen hours a day.
The Air Activity speeded up again after a few days of this, and from
then on for another fortnight the men in the air were putting in two
and three patrols a day and with some of the Artillery Observing
machines in the air for four and four and a half hours at a time, while
the men on the ground in the Squadrons were kept at full stretch and
driving hard night and day to maintain their machines' efficiency. No.
00's mechanics did an average of nineteen to twenty hours work a day
for fifteen days, and it is probable that if the full fact were known
so, or nearly so, did the mechanics of most of the other Squadrons
on that front. For, as it always does in prolonged fine weather and
continued air work, the "air supremacy" became much more than a matter
of the superiority of the fighters or fliers, dropped down to a race
between the German mechanics and our own, their ability to stand the
pace, to work the longest hours, to put in the best and the most work
in the least time, to keep the most machines fit to take the air.
The workshops at Home play a bigger and much more important part in
this struggle than ever they have known, and are in fact fighting
their fight against the German shops just as much as their air men are
fighting the Hun fliers. A constant and liberal supply of spares and
parts needed for quick repair obviously cuts down the Squadron's work
and better enables them to keep pace with the job, and time and again
in this period the Squadron mechanics were forced to work long hours
filing and hammering and turning and tinkering by hand to repair and
improvise parts which should have been there ready to their hand. As
the struggle ran on it became plainer day by day that our men were
gaining the upper hand, not only in the fighting--they can always do
that--but in the maintenance of machines in the air. The number of ours
dropped, perhaps, but the Huns' dropped faster and faster, until our
patrols were entirely "top dog." The pilots will be the first to admit
the part their mechanics played in this victory.
Through all this strenuous time "The Kiddie," for instance, played
her full part. Time and again her pilot brought her in riddled with
bullets, with so many controls and flying-and landing-wires and struts
cut through, that it was only because she was in the first place well
and truly built, and in the second place, so keenly and carefully
looked after, that Solly was able to nurse her back and land her on the
'drome. And always, no matter how badly damaged she came in, she was
stripped, overhauled, repaired, and ready for action when the time came
round for her next patrol; and always the work was done so thoroughly
and well that she went out as good, as reliable, as fit to fly for her
life, as any 'bus could be.
In the first week of the show, which was the most strenuous period just
described, Solly Colquhoun got a Military Cross for his share of the
show, and on first receiving word of it the Major sent for him to come
to the office, and gave him the news and his congratulations.
"May I borrow the message, sir?" said Solly Colquhoun. "I'll bring it
back in five minutes."
The Major gave him the telegram.
"Off you go," he said laughingly. "Off to raise the mess, I suppose.
Get along. I'll be over to wet the Cross with you in a minute. Tell the
Mess Sergeant to get the fizz ready that I had in."
But Solly had not gone to rouse the mess. He went at a hard trot
straight to the Flight hangars.
"Flight," he yelled as he neared them. "Fli-i-ght! Where's the Flight
Sergeant? Oh, here, Flight--I want you and my rigger and my fitter.
Fetch them quick."
They came swearing under their breaths. "The poor old 'Kiddie' for the
air again," said the rigger. "Done her whack this trip, hasn't she?"
returned the fitter.
"Look here," said Solly abruptly, hardly waiting for them to come to
a halt before him. "Just read that wire, will you?... I brought it
straight here. You're the first in the Squadron to know. I wanted you
to be, and I wanted just to say thank you to you fellows for getting me
this Cross. I know what 'Kiddie' has stood up to, and why. I know what
you did, ... and ... well, thank you."
He shook hands awkwardly but very heartily while the men stammered
congratulations and disclaimers of any reason for thanks. "Must beetle
off," said Solly. "Promised to take this paper over. Tell the other
men, will you? A Military Cross for our Flight. And thank you again."
He turned to hurry out, but, passing "The Kiddie," stabled there with
her fore-end swathed and blanketted, her sides sleek and glossy and
shining, taut and trim, spotless and speckless as the day she came from
her makers, he halted and ran a fondling hand down her rounded back.
"Thank you too, 'Kiddie,'" he said, nodded to the Sergeant, "I got a
good old 'bus, Flight," turned, and ran off.
"A d----n good 'bus," said the Sergeant, "_and_ a d----n good man
flying her."
XIII
THE LITTLE BUTCHER
The C.O. was showing a couple of friends from the infantry round the
Squadron, and while they were in the hangars having a look at the
machines--one of our latest type fighting scouts--a pilot came to them
on the run, and hardly pausing to make a jerky salute, spoke hastily:
"Message just come in by 'phone, sir, that there's a Hun two-seater
over our lines near Rorke's Camp, and will you warn the Flight when
they go up presently to look out for him. And if you don't mind, sir,
I'd like to go up at once myself and have a shot at him."
The Major hesitated a moment; then "Right," he said, and with a quick
"Thanks" the pilot whipped round and ran off.
"Might walk over and see him start," said the C.O. "He'll be gone in
a minute. Always has his bus standing by all ready. He's our star
pilot--queer little chap--always desperately keen for Huns, and makes
any number of lone-hand hunts for 'em. Crashed nearly forty to date,
the last brace before breakfast yesterday."
"Hope it didn't spoil his appetite," said one of the visitors.
"Spoil it!" The C.O. laughed. "Gave him one, rather. You don't know
him, but I tell you he'd sooner kill a Hun than eat, any day. We call
him 'The Little Butcher' here, because he has such a purposeful,
business-like way of going about his work."
They came to The Little Butcher as he was scrambling aboard his
machine. He was too busy to glance at them, and the two visitors,
looking at the thin, dark, eager face, watching the anxious impatience
to be off, evident in every look and movement, saw something sinister,
unpleasant in him and his haste to get to his kill. Their impressions
were rather strengthened after The Little Butcher had gone with a rush
and a roar, and they had asked the C.O. a few more questions about him.
"No, not a tremendous amount of risk for him this trip," said the
C.O. "Y'see, he's on a 'bus that's better than their best, and can
outfly and out-stunt anything he's likely to meet. He knows his job
thoroughly, and it's a fairly safe bet that if he finds his Hun his Hun
is cold meat."
Now, both the visitors had been fighting for rather a long time, had
few squeamish feelings left about killing Huns, and were not much given
to sparing pity for them. And yet they both, as they admitted after
to each other, felt a vague stirring of something very like pity for
those two German airmen up there unaware of the death that was hurtling
towards them.
"I'm rather changing my notions of this air-fighting," said one. "I
always thought it rather a sporting game, but----"
"So it is to a good many," said the C.O. "But there's nothing sporting
about it to The Little Butcher. He's out for blood every time."
"Seems to me," said one, when the C.O. had left them to go and see the
Flight get ready, "this Little Butcher of theirs is well named, and is
rather an unpleasant sort of little devil."
"I can't say," admitted the other, "that the idea appeals to me of
going off, as it seems he's doing, to shoot down a couple of men in
cold blood. Butchering is about the right word. I'm out to kill Germans
myself, but I can't say I like doing it, much less gloat over the
prospect, as this youngster appears to do."
Their unfavourable impression of The Little Butcher was so much
stronger even than they knew that it really gave them a grim sense of
satisfaction when the C.O. told them later that word had just come in
that there were two Huns where one had been reported.
"Nasty surprise for your Little Butcher," said one, "if he bumps into
them. But I suppose he'll see them in time and wait for the Flight to
help him."
"Not he," said the C.O. "He'll tackle the two quick enough, and
probably outfly 'em and get one or both. Sheer off from a chance of
crashing two Huns instead of one? Not much."
This was late afternoon or early evening, and the two heard the story
of the fight that night, before and during dinner, between courses and
mouthfuls of food, over cigarettes and coffee, in snatches and patches,
in answers to questions and in translations of air terms they did not
clearly follow. And again their impression of The Little Butcher grew
firmer, that he was "a murderous little devil" and "a cold-blooded
young brute." There was no mistaking in The Little Butcher's telling
his huge satisfaction in his kill, his fretting impatience when he
thought he might be baulked of his prey, his eagerness to finish his
work; and frankly the two did not like it or him.
When he had gone off that afternoon, he had flown arrow-straight
for the locality the Hun was reported in, climbing in a long slant
as he went, looking out eagerly for any sign of his quarry. He found
them--or, as he still thought, the one--by sighting the puffing bursts
of our Archie shells, and took quick stock of the position. The sun
was still high and in the south-west; the Huns almost due south of
him. His great anxiety was to approach unseen to such a distance as
would prevent the Hun escaping on catching sight of him, so he swung
wide to his left to gain the cover of a slow drifting cloud that might
allow him to come closer without being seen. He passed behind and clear
of it, and continued his circle, south now and bearing west towards
another cloud, and as he flew he stared hard towards the puffing
shell-bursts and made out the tiny dots that he knew were two machines.
He was sure they were both Huns, because the way they circled and flew
about each other without any movements of a fight made it clear they
were not opponents. The Archie shells wrote them down Huns.
With the second cloud safely between him and them, The Little Butcher
swung and raced towards the two, reached the back of the cloud, and
went laddering up towards its upper and western edge. He figured they
could not be more than a mile from him then, but to locate them exactly
and make his best plan of attack he skirted round the side of the
cloud--a thick, solid, white cotton-woolly one--until he caught sight
of them.
The instant he did so he plunged into the cloud and out of sight. He
had kept so close to it that the one turn of his wrist, the one kick
on his rudder, flung him side-slipping into it, to circle back and out
clear behind it again. He looked down and round carefully for sight of
any of our machines that might be coming up to interrupt his work and
perhaps scare off his quarry, but saw none. But on the clear sunlit
ground far below he saw a puff of smoke flash out, and then another
close beside the hutments of Rorke's Camp, and concluded the two Huns
were "doing a shoot," were observing for their artillery and directing
the fire of their guns on to points below them. It gave him the better
chance of a surprise attack, because at least one man's attention on
each of the machines must be taken up in watching the fall of the
shells. The Little Butcher revived his hope of bagging the two, a hope
that at first had begun to fade in the belief that one might bolt while
he was downing the other.
The worst of the position now was that the two were rather widely
separated, that his attack on the one might bolt the other, and that
the second might reach the safety of his own lines before he could be
overtaken. The Little Butcher didn't like the idea, so he restrained
his impatience and waited, fidgeting, for the two to close in to each
other or to him. He climbed to the top of the cloud and circled with
engine throttled back, swinging up every now and again until he could
just catch sight of the two, ducking back behind the cloud edge again
without being seen.
He was so intent on his business that it was only instinct or long
habit that kept him glancing up and round for sight of any other enemy,
and it was this that perhaps saved him from the fate he was preparing
for the two. In one of his upward glances he suddenly caught sight
of another machine full three thousand feet above him, and racing to
a position for a diving attack. The Little Butcher, as he said that
night, "didn't know whether to curse or weep." The newcomer broke in
most unpleasantly on his careful plans. Two slow old Art. Ob. Huns
were one sort of game; with a fast fighting scout thrown in the affair
became very different. The two he had counted as "his meat," but now
with this fellow butting in.... He felt it served him right in a way
for not diving at them first shot instead of hanging about for a chance
to bag the two. He had been impatient enough, Lord knew, to get at
them, and he shouldn't have waited.
All this went through his mind in a flash, even as his eyes were taking
in the details of the scout rushing to position above him, his mind
figuring out the other's plan of attack. He wasn't worrying much for
the moment about the attack, because he was still circling slowly above
his cotton-wool cloud, had only to thrust forward the joy-stick to
vanish as completely from sight as if he were in another world. But he
wanted to frame the best plan that would still give him a shot at the
artillery machines, and--
The scout above pointed at him and came down like a swooping hawk, his
guns clattering out a long burst of fire. The Little Butcher flipped
over and sank like a stone into the thickness of the cloud. He went
plunging down through the rushing vapour, burst out of it into the
sunlight below, opened out his engine, and, turning towards the sun,
was off with a rush.
As he swept out clear of the cloud he looked round and up, to locate
his enemies, size up the position, and figure the chances of his
contemplated plan working. The scout was not in sight yet, was circling
above the cloud still, probably waiting for him to emerge. The two
artillery machines were closer together, as if they had noticed the
signs of fight and were in position to support each other. They were
out on his right hand and about a mile away. He kept straight and hard
on his course--a course that was taking him into a line that would pass
between them and the sun.
He saw the scout again now, high up and circling above the cloud still.
The Little Butcher paid no further heed to him, but drove on at his
top pace, with his head twisted to the right and his eyes glued on the
slow swinging artillery machines. They gave no sign of seeing him for
ten long seconds, or if they saw him concluded he was running away. "My
luck held," said The Little Butcher in his telling of the tale, and
the savage ring in his voice and glint in his dark eyes gave a little
shiver to the two listening infantrymen.
He gained the point he was aiming for, shot up into "the eye of the
sun," kicked the 'bus hard round, and came plunging and hurtling down
on the nearest of the two machines. As he dived he heard the whip of
bullets past him, knew the scout above had sighted him, was probably
diving in turn to intercept him. He paid no heed; held hard and
straight on his course, keeping his eye glued on the nearest machine
and his sights dead on him, his fingers ready to start his guns at
first sign of their seeing him. And because he was coming on them "out
of the sun," because even if they had smoked glasses on and looked at
him it would take a second or two to accustom themselves to the glare
and be sure of him, he was within 300 yards before the farthest one
suddenly tilted and whirled round and dived away.
The Little Butcher was on him before he had well begun his dive, had
gripped the trigger lever of his guns and commenced to hail a stream of
bullets ahead of him. He saw the Hun swerve and thrust his nose down,
so changed course slightly to hold him in his sights, and kept his guns
going hard. He was close enough now to see the observer swinging his
gun round to fire on him, and then, next instant, to see a handful of
his bullets hit splintering into the woodwork of the Hun's fuselage.
The Hun fell spinning and rolling, and The Little Butcher thrust
his nose down and ripped in another short burst as his target swept
underneath. Then he lifted and swung, and went tearing straight at the
second artillery machine, which was nose on to him and firing hard from
its forward gun. At the same moment he heard the whipping and cracking
of bullets about him and the clatter of close machine-guns, looked up,
and saw the scout turn zooming up from a dive on him.
The Little Butcher held straight on, opening fire at the Hun ahead.
The Hun side-slipped, ducked and spun down a thousand feet, The Little
Butcher diving after, spitting short bursts at him every time he
thought he crossed the sights, aware again that the scout above was
following him down and shooting uncomfortably close. He was forced to
turn his attention to him, so next time a dive came, he pulled his top
gun down and let drive at the shape that plunged down, over, and up,
then hoicked up after him and engaged hotly.
The two-seater below made no attempt to climb and join the combat,
but swinging east hit for home as hard as he could go. The Little
Butcher broke off his fight with the scout and went, full out, after
the two-seater, the scout whirling round and following gamely. Because
The Little Butcher had by far the faster machine, and had besides the
added impetus of a downward slant from his thousand-foot higher level,
he overhauled the two-seater hand over fist, forced him into a spinning
dive again, and in a moment was mixing it in a hot fight with him
and the scout. Again, because he had the faster and handier machine,
he secured an advantage, and whipping round astern of the scout and
"sitting on his tail" drove him to escape his fire in a steep spin.