Like Father Like Son Ch 02

April 1916

Bertangles

The freezing air stung Phillip’s face as the elderly BE2c clawed its way back towards the British Lines. He tried to duck down further behind the cockpit coaming and shuffled his feet to try and restore some feeling. He was feeling nauseous from the effects of the castor oil fumes and light-headed from cold and the after-effects of the adrenaline rush he experienced when the Hun ‘archie’ – anti-aircraft fire – erupted in the sky around him. At first he had watched in astonishment when the little brown and red puffballs had appeared ahead and above the labouring aircraft. Then the German gunners had found their range and the very air about him seemed to split and convulse.

The old plane staggered under the impact of the blast and the pilot, ‘Pinky’ Harris, had flung them into a series of violent manoeuvres to throw the gunners off the scent. It hadn’t lasted that long but, to Phillip, it had seemed an eternity. He had a clear vision of being killed on his very first mission. He could imagine the BE just coming apart at the seams and saw himself tumbling through the clear air for eight thousand feet. He fought back the images and concentrated on working the camera.

They had been sent, together with an escort of the new DH2 fighters, to photograph the German Trench system north of Albert. Pinky Harris was Phillip’s Flight Commander and one of the most experienced pilots on 14 Squadron.

“Might as well break your duck, Phillip!” Pinky had said that morning and once the escort from 24 Squadron arrived, they set off over the battlefield. Phillip was amazed at how contained the war was. The whole sordid area of the trenches seemed barely a hand’s span wide as he gazed down from nearly three miles up. The cold was numbing despite his thigh-length ‘fug boots’ and leather flying coat. He pulled the scarf up around his face more and wiped the smears of oil and lubricant from his goggles with one trailing end. Pinky Harris pounded on his shoulder and gestured for him to look out for enemy aircraft. He nodded dumbly; neither could make themselves heard above the racket of the Renault engine.

Apart from the sudden storm of anti-aircraft fire, the flight had been uneventful. They had descended to eight thousand feet and taken their photographs. There was so little room in the cockpit that the camera was strapped to the outside of the fuselage and operated by a lanyard. Now, having turned tail, they were battling back westwards against the prevailing wind. Phillip’s mind had gone numb. He gazed about apathetically, conscious only of the abiding misery. Suddenly, Pinky was pounding his shoulder again and pointing aft behind the port tail-plane. Phillip squinted and made out a cluster of black dots. Enemy fighters! The shock jerked him out of his dismal reverie and he stood to swing the rearward-facing Lewis gun round to track the oncoming aircraft. Pinky waggled the BE’s wings to attract the attention of the escorting British fighters then dropped the aircraft’s nose and opened the throttle to the stops.

A sudden steep turn caught Phillip off-balance and he crashed against the side of the cockpit. He managed to grab at one of the struts and barely prevented himself from being catapulted clean out of the plane. He could now identify the Germans as Fokker ‘eindekkers’. The 24 Squadron fighters howled down into their path and soon the sky was a confused melee of circling aeroplanes. The elderly reconnaissance BE2 had no place in a dogfight and Pinky continued to hold them in a shallow dive. The engine thundered and the wind screamed through the bracing wires. A piece of patched fabric on the lower main-plane ripped off with a snap and Pinky eased the nose up. The old crate would only take so much.

A sudden gout of bright fire blossomed in the sky behind them and Phillip watched an aeroplane tumble, a blazing firefly vivid against the faded blue of the heavens. A black cruciform shape detached itself from the burning plane and spun and tumbled silently to earth. His mouth filled with bile and he vomited over the side. Although he had only been in France again for five days, he had already heard the discussions in the mess as to whether it was better to jump or burn.

The dogfight receded slowly and Phillip was overcome with a wave of relief when he saw they were crossing the British Lines. Pinky, too, had noticed, for he throttled back and the engine resumed its customary throaty snarl. They turned south towards Bertangles and the wheels touched just as the sun was setting. Mechanics ran to the aircraft and helped the two men out. Phillip’s legs gave way beneath him and he would have fallen had not a burly corporal grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. Phillip turned to see that Pinky was wiping stray globules of vomit from the front of his flying coat and, at first, Phillip thought that the pilot had been sick as well. Then it dawned on him that it was his own and he reddened with shame.

“Don’t worry, old fruit. Took me the same the first time I saw a flamer. Was it one of ours or theirs?”

“I’m most awfully sorry, Pinky.”

“Nah, don’t mention it. Was it one of ours or theirs?”

“Oh, Gosh, Pinky, I really couldn’t tell. It was too far way and I couldn’t really make out anything very much, just the fire.”

“Poor bastard, whoever he was. I heard of a chap in 11 Squadron who sideslipped his machine all the way down. He stood on the main-plane and flew it from there. Kept the flames away from him.”

“Golly, did he get away with it?”

“Nah, the kite somersaulted on landing and the poor old sod got thrown back into the fire. Still, it might be worth a try. Anything’s better than burning and I don’t think I’d have the courage to jump. Let’s go get some tea. I heard the mess servant’s got some fresh eggs!”

Phillip stumbled after Pinky’s retreating back. The castor oil used to lubricate the Renault engine seemed to have seized his stomach and twisted it into a queasy knot and he had to detour to the latrines at a shambling run, fumbling with the fastenings of his coat as he ran. After what seemed like an eternity, he began to feel better and pausing only briefly at the bell tent that served as his home to strip off his flying clothes, he donned his ‘maternity jacket’ and made his way to the Officers’ Mess. As he approached the wooden hut that housed the Mess, he heard Pinky’s voice.

“He’ll be all right. Got the wind up a bit but didn’t shirk when the Huns appeared. Silly young sod spewed all over me, though. Sometimes I wish they would put observers in the back.”

Another voice sounded in agreement.

“I say, Pinky, did you hear what happened over in 16 Squadron? Some poor bastard took up an air mechanic as gunner, got into a bit of a scrap with some Huns and the bloody ‘erk’ shot their own tail off in an excess of enthusiasm.”

“No! What happened then?”

“The entirely predictable, old chap, large smoking hole in the bosom of La Belle France.”

“Good God, what a way to ‘buy it.’ Still, he won’t do it again, what?”

A loud gust of laughter greeted Phillip as he walked through the door. Curious eyes turned towards him.

“Ah, it’s our very own former virgin. And how was it for you, young sir?”

Phillip recognised the squadron commander, Major Wigram.

“It was, uh, educational, sir.”

“Bless my soul! Educational, eh? Where are the precious pictures, then?”

With a look of horror, Phillip realised that he had left the camera on the aircraft. He was about to explain when Pinky said:

“Gave ‘em to the adjutant, Wiggy. The adj had some hound from Corps HQ who was mad for them and couldn’t wait.”

Phillip shot Pinky a grateful look and was rewarded by the pilot’s broad wink. The CO stood and warmed his backside by the fire. He nodded at Phillip and called for the mess servant to give him a brandy.

“Better get Mr Welford-Barnes one too, Jenkins. Sovereign remedy for a gippy tummy.”

More officers came into the Mess and someone wound up the gramophone. Phillip was desperately trying to put names to faces as the gong sounded for dinner. He was struck again by the contrast with his experiences in the front line. If one had to go to war, he supposed, this was certainly the most civilised way of doing it. Good food and a clean, if not always totally dry, bed at the end of every day. After dinner and the Loyal Toast had been drunk, the port circulated and pipes and cigars were lit. No mention of the war or flying was permitted over dinner. Phillip had asked an innocent question on his first night and had been sternly reprimanded and told to ‘shut the hangar doors.’ Conversation instead turned to those staple subjects of Mess life, home and what they would do when ‘this lot’s over.’

“What about you, Phillip?” Pinky asked to bring him into the conversation, “Have you any plans?”

“I’m going to build a house. There’s this hill. It overlooks the village and isn’t much good for anything else. It’s part of my father’s land so there won’t be any problems. Anyway. I’m going to build my house up there.”

“Sounds idyllic. But won’t you be lonely?”

“I’ve rather a mind to ask someone to share it with me.”

“Anyone in particular or just someone in general?”

“Oh, one in very particular, Pinky. A nurse who looked after me when I was crocked…”

He had been about to say ‘when I was crocked at Loos,’ but the stricture against mentioning the war prevented him. Instead he smiled and Pinky felt a pang of envy.

“Wish there was someone waiting for me,” he said. Phillip smiled again, a sort of self-deprecating smile.

“Truth is, Pinky, she’s not exactly waiting for me, not yet anyway. I hope to change that in the fullness of time. Just at the present, she’s, well, more of a dream than a reality.”

Pinky smiled and lurched uncertainly to his feet.

“Gentlemen, I give you a toast! To dreams of home and to the ladies who sustain them!”

There was a general shuffling of chairs and the young airmen stood and drank, solemnly repeating Pinky’s toast.

“Now! Who’s for a game of Mess Rugby?”

They spilled out into the adjoining anteroom and someone seized an over-stuffed cushion from one of the armchairs and was immediately swamped by the rest. Major Wigram emerged from the pile up with the cushion and started off across the room. Three or four officers tackled him furiously and the pile up began again. Chairs and tables were overturned and jackets got ripped. More than one eye was blackened over the next half hour before Pinky, shrugging off a couple of bodies, finally won control of the now tattered cushion and crossed the length of the anteroom to score a ‘try.’ That signalled the end of the game and the participants righted the furniture and began bellowing for more drinks.

Phillip weaved his unsteady way back to the bell tent he shared with another ‘new boy,’ an Irish lieutenant named Jamie Flanagan who was universally known as ‘Seamus.’ Seamus Flanagan had transferred to the RFC, like Philip, from the infantry. He was small and dark with a pencil moustache but, despite his size, seemed to have a limitless capacity for alcohol. He caught Phillip up as they approached the tent and clapped him on the back.

“So, Phillip, me boy. Tell us what it was like over the lines.”

“I don’t think it was too bad, today, really, but I still had the wind up when the archie found us. It was a bit like lying there under the morning ‘hate.’ Bloody great bangs all round but not a thing you can do about it. It was strange at first. I mean, when I first saw the archie exploding, it was well away from us and it was sort of picturesque, like flowers in the sky. Then they found the range and I nearly wet myself.”

“And is it true what they’re saying – that you puked all over Pinky Harris?”

Phillip nodded, shamefaced.

“That was later, when I saw the flamer. I watched him jump, Seamus; I saw him fall all the way. It was horrible. No-one should die like that.”

Seamus was instantly sober. He grunted and turned away. When he turned back, Phillip saw his eyes were streaming tears.

“My brother died in a flamer last month, while I was still in training. His Flight commander said he thought Mick had been killed by the opening burst. He didn’t jump anyhow. We always said we would, if it happened to us.”

Phillip bowed his head and patted Seamus’s arm. He couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘I’m sorry’ seemed so inadequate.

They didn’t fly much that April. The weather closed in and the west wind brought stinging sheets of rain as one Atlantic depression after another flowed across the Western Front. Phillip sat in his dripping bell tent and wrote a series of long letters to Bethan. At first he was concerned that she would find them boring; that his talk of BE2’s and Martinsyde ‘Elephants’ was not the proper way to write to a woman – especially one you were determined to woo. The lack of operational flying also gave him a chance to become more familiar with the surrounding area and once, he ventured as far as Arras on a borrowed motorcycle. He had hoped to find his old regiment in reserve near the town but they had moved on to another part of the front. Rumour had them back in the Ypres salient and he felt a pang of guilt over his comfortable existence.

If it hadn’t been for the muttering of the guns as both sides’ artillery indulged in the morning ‘hate,’ the war had almost receded below conscious thought. 14 Squadron had been invited to dine at 24 Squadron’s base at Courcelles. The Squadron Mess was a transportable hut on which the walls hinged. 14 Squadron found this out the hard way when their hosts manoeuvred the post-prandial Mess Rugby scrum against the wall and it swung outwards, depositing most of the visitors in the mud outside. Battle was then joined as two man crews rushed around in armchairs, one standing on the seat with a soda siphon while the other – the ‘engine’ - pushed. It was nearly dawn when the squadron returned to Bertangles, exceedingly drunk but in high spirits.

The weather improved towards the end of the month and then they were flying almost non-stop. Phillip flew three, sometimes four, times a day. They bombed the German supply dumps behind Beaumont Hamel and took part in several photographic missions. The ‘brass’ seemed to want the entire enemy front photographed. Inevitably, there were casualties. ‘Seamus’ Flanagan failed to return from one such mission and Phillip went through the heart-breaking procedure of auctioning off his effects so the money could be sent home. The airmen bid silly prices for useless articles. Major Wigram paid £10 for a pair of silver-backed hairbrushes and another pilot gave £5 for Seamus’s collection of pornographic postcards.

It was Phillip who gave the peculiar toast that night:

So stand by the table steady

And raise your glasses high:

Here’s a toast to the dead already

And a health to the next man to die.

The RFC policy was ‘no empty chairs’ so it was without surprise that Phillip found a new officer in his tent when he returned from another reconnaissance the following morning. Phillip flung himself down onto his cot and barely grunted a ‘Good morning’ at the newcomer.

“I see life at the sharp end hasn’t improved your manners,” the stranger said. Phillip sat up blinking and saw his old friend Peter Riley, with whom he had shared the monotony of training and the visit to Bentley Hall.

“Peter! By all that’s wonderful, what are you doing here?”

“Requested a transfer out of 16 Squadron. Our masters sent me to this God-forsaken hole.”

Riley grinned and the two men shook hands warmly.

“What’s the CO like?”

“Wiggy? Oh, he’s topping. Brilliant pilot and a thorough good egg.”

“Glad to hear it. ‘Stuffy’ Dowding wasn’t at all my cup of tea. Morale on 16 was awful. I was lucky to get out. It’s only because I’m an ‘O’ and not a pilot that they let me go.”

Phillip was shocked. Things must indeed have been bad on 16 Squadron for one of its former officers to criticise the squadron. No matter their private thoughts, convention dictated that a man defend his squadron’s honour without question. He was too pleased to see Peter to dwell long on the subject and before long they were both deep in conversation about conditions on that part of the front. Like Phillip, Peter had come against the ‘Albatros’ once or twice and both had learned a healthy respect for this latest German machine.

“We got bounced by three ‘Albatrae’ a couple of weeks back. The Fees (FE’s) are no match for them even with the new Rolls Royce Engine. I just don’t think ‘pushers’ are the way forward, Phillip. I know all the arguments about unrestricted vision and movable guns but I know I’d rather have a ton of metal in front of me than a lot of fresh air when the bullets are flying.”

“Yes, old fruit. And I don’t see if it makes much difference whether one is crushed by the bloody engine from the front or the back if you spear in. Either way, you end up just as dead.”

“Have you come across a chap called Albert Ball? Feisty little so-and-so, by all accounts. He creeps underneath the buggers in his Nieuport and then lets ‘em have it from below. He’s got a Fletcher mounting for his Lewis and Lanoe Hawker’s lot have found a way of welding two drums together so he has borrowed that idea as well. He’s now got 94 rounds and he can pull the gun down to reload; none of that standing up and flying with your knees nonsense.”

“I have heard a little of him. Don’t they call him ‘Johnny Lonely’ or some such?”

“Yes, something like that. He’s always going up on his own looking for a scrap. Silly little bastard can’t count! Doesn’t matter how many of them there are, he takes ‘em on. I heard he took on six Rolands not long ago and got three of them. Would have had the rest but he’d run out of ammo!”

“Hmm. A short life but a happy one, what?”

“You said it, chum. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots!”

Phillip took Peter to the Mess and introduced him around the squadron. Peter had an easy manner and was soon chatting happily with a group of pilots. There were only three fully trained observers on the squadron. As a result, they had plenty of work. The latest rumour was that 14 Squadron was going to receive two flights of RE8s to replace the superannuated BE2’s. They would keep one flight of Martinsyde ‘Elephants.’ Even though these big aircraft had failed as fighters, the Elephant was a successful ground attack machine and was popular with its pilots. It had the reputation of being warm, comfortable and hard to knock down.

As Phillip and Peter walked back to their tent that night after dinner, the conversation turned again to the rumoured replacement aeroplanes.

“Harry Tates would be top-hole, Phillip. The ‘O’ goes in the back seat for a start so we’ll be able to see what’s going on for a change.”

“We’ll still be facing forward, though. I just don’t see why the ‘O’ doesn’t face aft like in the Hun two-seaters.”

“Oh, I agree it’s handy when it comes to a scrap but it’s difficult to navigate if you’re not looking where you’re going.”

“How much navigation do we actually do? I mean, it’s different on the long range bombing squadrons but we’re always over the front. Pinky hasn’t asked me for a steer once yet.”

“Are you still keen to train as a pilot, Phillip?”

“Absolutely. Keen as mustard, old chap. Wiggy says I can go home once I’ve completed fifty missions. Only another thirty-four to go!”

Events, in the shape of the Battle of the Somme, were to intervene and it would be almost six months and over one hundred missions later before Phillip got his wish.

********************************

Summer 1916

Into the Fire

The ‘Harry Tates’ – RE8’s - arrived towards the end of May and were greeted with much excitement. They could fly higher and faster than the old BE2’s and were altogether more comfortable to fly in. Two of the machines were also fitted with wireless transmitters for artillery-spotting purposes and Phillip and Peter were sent to the depot at St Omer to learn how to use the equipment. It was a welcome break from the intensive days of flying that eroded the nerves and wore out the spirit.