THE DAY'S WORK.
For weeks we had talked guardedly of "it" and "them"--of the greatest
day of the Push and the latest form of warfare. Details of the twin
mysteries had been rightly kept secret by the red-hatted Olympians who
really knew, though we of the fighting branches had heard sufficient to
stimulate an appetite for rumour and exaggeration. Consequently we
possessed our souls in impatience and dabbled in conjecture.
Small forts moving on the caterpillar system of traction used for heavy
guns were to crawl across No Man's Land, enfilade the enemy front line
with quick-firing and machine guns, and hurl bombs on such of the works
and emplacements as they did not ram to pieces,--thus a confidential
adjutant, who seemed to think he had admitted me into the inner circle
of knowledge tenanted only by himself and the G.S.O. people (I., II.,
and III., besides untabbed nondescripts). Veterans gave tips on war in
the open country, or chatted airily about another tour of such places as
Le Catelet, Le Cateau, Mons, the Maubeuge district, and Namur. The
cautious listened in silence, and distilled only two facts from the
dubious mixture of fancy. The first was that we were booked for a big
advance one of these fine days; and the second that new armoured cars,
caterpillared and powerfully armed, would make their bow to Brother
Boche.
The balloon of swollen conjecture floated over the back of the Front
until it was destroyed by the quick-fire of authentic orders, which
necessarily revealed much of the plan and many of the methods. On the
afternoon of September 14 all the officers of our aerodrome were
summoned to an empty shed. There we found our own particular General,
who said more to the point in five minutes than the rumourists had said
in five weeks. There was to be a grand attack next morning. The
immediate objectives were not distant, but their gain would be of
enormous value. Every atom of energy must be concentrated on the task.
It was hoped that an element of surprise would be on our side, helped
by a new engine of war christened the Tank. The nature of this strange
animal, male and female, was then explained.
Next came an exposition of the part allotted to the Flying Corps. No
German machines could be allowed near enough to the lines for any
observation. We must shoot all Hun machines at sight and give them no
rest. Our bombers should make life a burden on the enemy lines of
communication. Infantry and transport were to be worried, whenever
possible, by machine-gun fire from above. Machines would be detailed for
contact work with our infantry. Reconnaissance jobs were to be completed
at all costs, if there seemed the slightest chance of bringing back
useful information.
No more bubbles of hot air were blown around the mess table. Only the
evening was between us and the day of days. The time before dinner was
filled by the testing of machines and the writing of those cheerful,
non-committal letters that precede big happenings at the front. Our
flight had visitors to dinner, but the shadow of to-morrow was too
insistent for the racket customary on a guest night. It was as if the
electricity had been withdrawn from the atmosphere and condensed for use
when required. The dinner talk was curiously restrained. The usual shop
chatter prevailed, leavened by snatches of bantering cynicism from those
infants of the world who thought that to be a beau sabreur of the air
one must juggle verbally with life, death, and Archie shells. Even these
war babies (three of them died very gallantly before we reassembled for
breakfast next day) had bottled most of their exuberance. Understanding
silences were sandwiched between yarns. A wag searched for the Pagliacci
record, and set the gramophone to churn out "Vesti la Giubba." The
guests stayed to listen politely to a few revue melodies, and then
slipped away. The rest turned in immediately, in view of the jobs at
early dawn.
"Night, everybody," said one of the flight-commanders. "Meet you at
Mossy-Face in the morning!"
In the morning some of us saw him spin earthwards over Mossy-Face Wood,
surrounded by Hun machines.
Long before the dawn of September 15, I awoke to the roar of engines,
followed by an overhead drone as a party of bombers circled round until
they were ready to start. When this noise had died away, the dull boom
of an intense bombardment was able to make itself heard. I rolled over
and went to sleep again, for our own show was not due to start until
three hours later.
The Flying Corps programme on the great day was a marvel of
organisation. The jobs fitted into one another, and into the general
tactical scheme of the advance, as exactly as the parts of a flawless
motor. At no time could enemy craft steal toward the lines to spy out
the land. Every sector was covered by defensive patrols which travelled
northward and southward, southward and northward, eager to pounce on any
black-crossed stranger. Offensive patrols moved and fought over Boche
territory until they were relieved by other offensive patrols. The
machines on artillery observation were thus worried only by Archie, and
the reconnaissance formations were able to do their work with little
interruption, except when they passed well outside the patrol areas.
Throughout the day those guerillas of the air, the bombing craft, went
across and dropped eggs on anything between general headquarters and a
railway line. The corps buses kept constant communication between
attacking battalions and the rear. A machine first reported the exploit
of the immortal Tank that waddled down High Street, Flers, spitting
bullets and inspiring sick fear. And there were many free-lance stunts,
such as Lewis gun attacks on reserve troops or on trains.
The three squadrons attached to our aerodrome had to the day's credit
two long reconnaissances, three offensive patrols, and four bomb raids.
Six Hun machines were destroyed on these shows, and the bombers did
magnificent work at vital points. At 2 A.M. they dropped eggs
on the German Somme headquarters. An hour later they deranged the
railway station of a large garrison town. For the remaining time before
sunset they were not so busy. They merely destroyed an ammunition train,
cut two railway lines, damaged an important railhead, and sprayed a
bivouac ground.
An orderly called me at 4.15 A.M. for the big offensive patrol.
The sky was a dark-grey curtain decorated by faintly twinkling stars. I
dressed to the thunderous accompaniment of the guns, warmed myself with
a cup of hot cocoa, donned flying kit, and hurried to the aerodrome.
There we gathered around C., the patrol leader, who gave us final
instructions about the method of attack. We tested our guns and climbed
into the machines.
By now the east had turned to a light grey with pink smudges from the
forefinger of sunrise. Punctually at five o'clock the order, "Start up!"
passed down the long line of machines. The flight-commander's engine
began a loud metallic roar, then softened as it was throttled down. The
pilot waved his hand, the chocks were pulled from under the wheels, and
the machine moved forward. The throttle was again opened full out as the
bus raced into the wind until flying speed had been attained, when it
skimmed gently from the ground. We followed, and carried out the
rendezvous at 3000 feet.
The morning light increased every minute, and the grey of the sky was
merging into blue. The faint, hovering ground-mist was not sufficient to
screen our landmarks. The country below was a shadowy patchwork of
coloured pieces. The woods, fantastic shapes of dark green, stood out
strongly from the mosaic of brown and green fields. The pattern was
divided and subdivided by the straight, poplar-bordered roads peculiar
to France.
We passed on to the dirty strip of wilderness which is the actual front.
The battered villages and disorderly ruins looked like hieroglyphics
traced on wet sand. A sea of smoke rolled over the ground for miles. It
was a by-product of one of the most terrific bombardments in the history
of trench warfare. Through it hundreds of gun-flashes twinkled, like the
lights of a Chinese garden.
Having reached a height of 12,000 feet, we crossed the trenches south of
Bapaume. As the danger that stray bullets might fall on friends no
longer existed, pilots and observers fired a few rounds into space to
make sure their guns were behaving properly.
Archie began his frightfulness early. He concentrated on the leader's
machine, but the still-dim light spoiled his aim, and many of the bursts
were dotted between the craft behind. I heard the customary _wouff!_
_wouff!_ _wouff!_ followed in one case by the _hs-s-s-s-s_ of passing
fragments. We swerved and dodged to disconcert the gunners. After five
minutes of hide-and-seek, we shook off this group of Archie batteries.
The flight-commander headed for Mossy-Face Wood, scene of many air
battles and bomb raids. An aerodrome just east of the wood was the home
of the Fokker star, Boelcke. C. led us to it, for it was his great
ambition to account for Germany's best pilot.
While we approached, I looked down and saw eight machines with black
Maltese crosses on their planes, about three thousand feet below. They
had clipped wings of a peculiar whiteness, and they were ranged one
above the other, like the rungs of a Venetian blind. A cluster of small
scouts swooped down from Heaven-knows-what height and hovered above us;
but C. evidently did not see them, for he dived steeply on the Huns
underneath, accompanied by the two machines nearest him. The other group
of enemies then dived.
I looked up and saw a narrow biplane, apparently a Roland, rushing
towards our bus. My pilot turned vertically and then side-slipped to
disconcert the Boche's aim. The black-crossed craft swept over at a
distance of less than a hundred yards. I raised my gun-mounting,
sighted, and pressed the trigger. Three shots rattled off--and my Lewis
gun ceased fire.
Intensely annoyed at being cheated out of such a splendid target, I
applied immediate action, pulled back the cocking-handle and pressed the
trigger again. Nothing happened. After one more immediate action test, I
examined the gun and found that an incoming cartridge and an empty case
were jammed together in the breech. To remedy the stoppage, I had to
remove spade-grip and body cover. As I did this, I heard an ominous
_ta-ta-ta-ta-ta_ from the returning German scout. My pilot cart-wheeled
round and made for the Hun, his gun spitting continuously through the
propeller. The two machines raced at each other until less than fifty
yards separated them. Then the Boche swayed, turned aside, and put his
nose down. We dropped after him, with our front machine-gun still
speaking. The Roland's glide merged into a dive, and we imitated him.
Suddenly a streak of flame came from his petrol tank, and the next
second he was rushing earthwards, with two streamers of smoke trailing
behind.
I was unable to see the end of this vertical dive, for two more
single-seaters were upon us. They plugged away while I remedied the
stoppage, and several bullets ventilated the fuselage quite close to my
cockpit. When my gun was itself again, I changed the drum of ammunition,
and hastened to fire at the nearest Hun. He was evidently unprepared,
for he turned and moved across our tail. As he did so, I raked his bus
from stem to stern. I looked at him hopefully, for the range was very
short, and I expected to see him drop towards the ground at several
miles a minute. He sailed on serenely. This is an annoying habit of
enemy machines when one is sure that, by the rules of the game, they
ought to be destroyed. The machine in question was probably hit,
however, for it did not return, and I saw it begin a glide as though the
pilot meant to land. We switched our attention to the remaining Hun, but
this one was not anxious to fight alone. He dived a few hundred feet,
with tail well up, looking for all the world like a trout when it drops
back into water. Afterwards he flattened out and went east.
During the fight we had become separated from the remainder of our
party. I searched all round the compass, but could find neither friend
nor foe. We returned to the aerodrome where hostile craft were first
sighted. There was no sign of C.'s machine or of the others who dived on
the first group of Huns. Several German machines were at rest in the
aerodrome.
Finding ourselves alone, we passed on towards the lines. I twisted my
neck in every direction, for over enemy country only a constant look out
above, below, and on all sides can save a machine from a surprise
attack. After a few minutes, we spotted six craft bearing towards us
from a great height. Through field-glasses I was able to see their black
crosses, and I fingered my machine-gun expectantly.
The strangers dived in two lots of three. I waited until the first three
were within 300 yards' range and opened fire. One of them swerved away,
but the other two passed right under us. Something sang to the right,
and I found that part of a landing-wire was dangling helplessly from its
socket. We thanked whatever gods there be that it was not a flying-wire,
and turned to meet the next three Huns. We swerved violently, and they
pulled out of their dive well away from us. With nose down and engine
full out, we raced towards the lines and safety. Three of the attackers
were unable to keep up with us and we left them behind.
The other three Germans, classed by my pilot as Halberstadts, had a
great deal more speed than ours. They did not attack at close quarters
immediately, but flew 200 to 300 yards behind, ready to pounce at their
own moment. Two of them got between my gun and our tail-plane, so that
they were safe from my fire. The third was slightly above our height,
and for his benefit I stood up and rattled through a whole
ammunition-drum. Here let me say I do not think I hit him, for he was
not in difficulties. He dived below us to join his companions, possibly
because he did not like being under fire when they were not. To my
surprise and joy, he fell slick on one of the other two Hun machines.
This latter broke into two pieces, which fell like stones. The machine
responsible for my luck side-slipped, spun a little, recovered, and went
down to land. The third made off east.
In plain print and at a normal time, this episode shows little that is
comic. But when it happened I was in a state of high tension, and this,
combined with the startling realisation that a Hun pilot had saved me
and destroyed his friend, seemed irresistibly comic. I cackled with
laughter and was annoyed because my pilot did not see the joke.
We reached the lines without further trouble from anything but Archie.
The pink streaks of daybreak had now disappeared beneath the whole body
of the sunrise, and the sky was of that intense blue which is the secret
of France. What was left of the ground-mist shimmered as it congealed in
the sunlight. The pall of smoke from the guns had doubled in volume. The
Ancre sparkled brightly.
We cruised around in a search for others of our party, but found none. A
defensive patrol was operating between Albert and the trenches. We
joined it for half an hour, at the end of which I heard a "Halloa!" from
the speaking-tube.
"What's up now?" I asked.
"Going to have a look at the war," was the pilot's reply.
Before I grasped his meaning he had shut off the engine and we were
gliding towards the trenches. At 1200 feet we switched on, flattened
out, and looked for movement below. There was no infantry advance at the
moment, but below Courcelette what seemed to be two ungainly masses of
black slime were slithering over the ground. I rubbed my eyes and looked
again. One of them actually crawled among the scrap-heaps that fringed
the ruins of the village. Only then did the thought that they might be
Tanks suggest itself. Afterwards I discovered that this was so.
The machine rocked violently as a projectile hurtled by underneath us.
The pilot remembered the broken landing-wire and steered for home. After
landing, we compared notes with others who had returned from the
expedition. C., we learned, was down at last, after seventeen months of
flying on active service, with only one break for any appreciable time.
He destroyed one more enemy before the Boches got him. In the dive he
got right ahead of the two machines that followed him. As these hurried
to his assistance, they saw an enemy plane turn over, show a white,
gleaming belly, and drop in zig-zags. C.'s bus was then seen to heel
over into a vertical dive and to plunge down, spinning rhythmically on
its axis. Probably he was shot dead and fell over on to the joystick,
which put the machine to its last dive. The petrol tank of the second
machine to arrive among the Huns was plugged by a bullet, and the pilot
was forced to land. Weeks later, his observer wrote us a letter from a
prison camp in Hanover. The third bus, perforated by scores of
bullet-holes, got back to tell the tale.
C. was one of the greatest pilots produced by the war. He was utterly
fearless, and had more time over the German lines to his credit than any
one else in the Flying Corps. It was part of his fatalistic creed that
Archie should never be dodged, and he would go calmly ahead when the
A.-A. guns were at their best. Somehow, the bursts never found him. He
had won both the D.S.O. and the M.C. for deeds in the air. Only the
evening before, when asked lightly if he was out for a V.C., he said he
would rather get Boelcke than the V.C.; and in the end Boelcke probably
got him, for he fell over the famous German pilot's aerodrome, and that
day the German wireless announced that Boelcke had shot down two more
machines. Peace to the ashes of a fine pilot and a very brave man!
Two observers, other than C.'s passenger, had been killed during our
patrol. One of them was "Uncle," a captain in the Northumberland
Fusiliers. A bullet entered the large artery of his thigh. He bled
profusely and lost consciousness in the middle of a fight with two Huns.
When he came to, a few minutes later, he grabbed his gun and opened fire
on an enemy. After about forty shots the chatter of the gun ceased, and
through the speaking-tube a faint voice told the pilot to look round.
The pilot did so, and saw a Maltese-cross biplane falling in flames. But
Uncle had faded into unconsciousness again, and he never came back. It
is more than possible that if he had put a tourniquet round his thigh,
instead of continuing the fight, he might have lived.
A great death, you say? One of many such. Only the day before I had
helped to lift the limp body of Paddy from the floor of an observer's
cockpit. He had been shot over the heart. He fainted, recovered his
senses for ten minutes, and kept two Huns at bay until he died, by which
time the trenches were reached.
Imagine yourself under fire in an aeroplane at 10,000 feet. Imagine that
only a second ago you were in the country of shadows. Imagine yourself
feeling giddy and deadly sick from loss of blood. Imagine what is left
of your consciousness to be stabbed insistently by a throbbing pain. Now
imagine how you would force yourself in this condition to grasp a
machine-gun in your numbed hand, pull back the cocking-handle, take
careful aim at a fast machine, allowing for deflection, and fire until
you sink into death. Some day I hope to be allowed to visit Valhalla for
half an hour, that I may congratulate Paddy and Uncle.
We refreshed ourselves with cold baths and hot breakfast. In the mess
the fights were reconstructed. Sudden silences were frequent--an
unspoken tribute to C. and the other casualties. But at lunch-time we
were cheered by the news that the first and second objectives had been
reached, that Martinpuich, Courcelette, and Flers had fallen, and that
the Tanks had behaved well.
After lunch I rested awhile before the long reconnaissance, due to start
at three. Six machines were detailed for this job; though a faulty
engine kept one of them on the ground. The observers marked the course
on their maps, and wrote out lists of railway stations. At 3.30 we set
off towards Arras.
Archie hit out as soon as we crossed to his side of the front. He was
especially dangerous that afternoon, as if determined to avenge the
German defeat of the morning. Each bus in turn was encircled by black
bursts, and each bus in turn lost height, swerved, or changed its course
to defeat the gunner's aim. A piece of H.E. hit our tail-plane, and
stayed there until I cut it out for a souvenir when we had returned.
The observers were kept busy with note-book and pencil, for the train
movement was far greater than the average, and streaks of smoke courted
attention on all the railways. Rolling stock was correspondingly small,
and the counting of the trucks in the sidings was not difficult. Road
and canal transport was plentiful. As evidence of the urgency of all
this traffic, I remarked that no effort at concealment was made. On
ordinary days, a German train always shut off steam when we approached;
and often I saw transport passing along the road one minute, and not
passing along the road the next. On September 15 the traffic was too
urgent for time to be lost by hide-and-seek.
We passed several of our offensive patrols, each of which escorted us
while we were on its beat. It was curious that no activity could be
noticed on enemy aerodromes. Until we passed Mossy-Face on the last lap
of the homeward journey we saw no Hun aircraft. Even there the machines
with black crosses flew very low and did not attempt to offer battle.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened until we were about to cross the
trenches north of Peronne. Archie then scored an inner. One of his
chunks swept the left aileron from the leader's machine, which banked
vertically, almost rolled over, and began to spin. For two thousand feet
the irregular drop continued, and the observer gave up hope. Luckily for
him, the pilot was not of the same mind, and managed to check the spin
by juggling with his rudder-controls. The bus flew home, left wing well
down, with the observer leaning far out to the right to restore
equilibrium, while the icy rush of air boxed his ears.
We landed, wrote our reports, and took them to headquarters. The day's
work had been done, which was all that mattered to any extent, and a
very able general told us it was "dom good." But many a day passed
before we grew accustomed to the absence of Uncle and Paddy.
And so to bed, until we were called for another early morning show.