No Longer A Game (Innocents At War Series, Book 3) Read online

  “Not in detail, Tommy.”

  Squire agreed, a few minutes later, that George had behaved correctly; better far a bullet in the brain than any public scandal.

  “Heard of one or two cases in the Army, before the war, where a man showed the yellow flag and then refused to do the honourable thing. Never said in so many words, but quite clear that one of the senior officers ‘spoke to him’, with a revolver in his hand, and solved his problems for him. Bit different with your chap, of course – you might argue that he was the opposite of yellow – I wonder what colour that would be, Tommy?”

  “I should think that true blue and bright red would both put in a claim, sir. I don’t really know.”

  “Nor me! Things are going to be very strange in Westminster after this war, Tommy. I can already see that our old world there has come to an end; no idea what the new will be like.”

  “Very thin of people, sir, especially young men.”

  “There will be a sufficiency of older men to proudly mourn their sacrifice, and dip their hands in the trough afterwards.”

  That went without saying, Tommy thought.

  The nursery maid appeared and smiled at them.

  “Time to join the ladies, it seems, we are bidden upstairs.”

  A week of training, interrupted by a series of summer thunderstorms so that flying took place only in the mornings and the queue of anxious young men, determined to qualify for their wings and get out to France before the war could end and deprive them of their chance of glory, became longer and more urgent in their wish to fly, to get up into the air, where they were sure they belonged.

  Major Richards hobbled into the Mess, where the instructors were sat, enjoying their release from tedium and terror.

  “We shall be flying all weekend, Tommy. But not you and Noah. Your replacements come in tomorrow and you are to go to Airco. Orders just arrived from above. From the office of the Under-Secretary in person. You are to get the DH2 into the air, come what may, and take a pair across to France as soon as may be for testing. They are finally awake to the fact that we have fallen behind and have lost the control of the air, for the first time since the war started. Trenchard is promoted Brigadier, by the way, and is demanding action. You know that Sykes has been sent out to the Dardanelles campaign and Henderson is back to London. A fairground merry-go-round! Report on Monday morning, and don’t read the newspapers – they are playing games again!”

  Major Richards sounded more than normally depressed; Tommy wondered whether his mangled legs were playing up again.

  “No more than always, old chap. Just sick of our masters in Whitehall and their antics – more concerned to keep political power than serve the country!”

  Tommy disobeyed orders to the extent that he read his Sunday newspaper, sat at ease at his breakfast table. The reporter, in a front-page spread, was able to reveal that the RFC was in receipt of new aircraft, which would be flown by its best and most decorated heroes, who were to put an end to the so-called Fokker Menace, which had, incidentally, been much exaggerated by those who attempted to make political footage out of the least set-back to the nation. All was well, let none doubt the resolve of the Prime Minister to serve his King by winning this war in short order. On a not-entirely-unrelated point of interest, the flying heroes Stark and Arkwright were to be decorated in person by His Majesty, at an investiture to be delayed until Mrs Stark could attend following her recent presentation of his first-born to Major Stark; no doubt Captain Arkwright would soon be emulating his closest friend in taking a wife.

  Noah had stayed the weekend at Wilton, was sat over his coffee, watching amusedly as Tommy exploded in wrath.

  “Just read this awful crap, Noah!”

  “My word, Tommy! What have I been doing that no one has told me about? I was not aware that I had been in the company of any young lady, still less was about to wed one.”

  “Sleepwalking, dear boy! Obvious!”

  “Of course. I should have realised. Are we to drive the Fokker from the air, Tommy?”

  “God knows. From the little I have been told, there are very few in the air, Noah. The word is that the engineering process of setting up the planes is very slow and there may be no more than three or four a month coming out to the German squadrons. Sufficient to do harm, too few to wipe us out.”

  “Luckily. What do you know of the DH2, Tommy?”

  “Pusher, of course. Little else to say until I have flown one. I did hear some nonsense about shifting the Lewis from one mounting to another to aim it left, right or centre. Bloody daft idea!”

  “Quicker, easier, more accurate to turn the plane itself, keeping the gun fixed. Have they got these hundred-round pans yet, Tommy?”

  “Ninety-seven, I believe, and they are probably now available – but I don’t know if it’s just a modification of the pan itself or whether it needs a different breech to the gun. They might be heavy to shift with one hand when reloading in the air. We shall see.”

  Major de Havilland greeted them at Airco, showed them a pair of DH2s, recently manufactured, waiting for them.

  “I could have another dozen inside the fortnight, and continue to produce at four or five a month, Tommy. I have airframes sat complete with everything except the engine, just waiting. But there are no damned engines in the country, or so it seems. Rolls-Royce will not share their patents, or permit their engines to be built on licence, and they refuse to expand into line production – they insist on the quality of hand construction for their engines, and so they are not turning out as many as ten a month at the moment. Beardmore lack the skilled hands, and their designer is not up to much anyway. Bentley are entering the market, but will need another year to get to full production. The other motor manufacturers are willing to go into aeroplanes, but need drawings to copy. Hispano-Suiza is considering opening a plant in England. The French will sell engines, but only the excess after meeting their own aerial needs. The Italians might sell to us, but their own engines are poor. The Americans are designing engines, but are a long way from production and are looking at things that are too heavy for anything other than a bombardment machine. I have managed to get hold of a pair of Clerget ninety hp rotaries for these machines. I have a promise of six Le Rhones for later this month – but it’s all hand to mouth. I want in-line six-cylinder engines to deliver one-hundred and twenty hp – but I might as well ask for the moon. The few there are of straight or vee engines are going to the FEs at the Royal Aircraft Factory, and they are having problems with their production – they will not deliver many, if any, before Christmas.”

  “So, sir, we have a pair of DH2s, with rotaries and no more than ninety horses. The engines are so much lighter, of course, that they perform virtually as well as a water-cooled in-line of much greater output. But rotary pushers are not the easiest machines to fly.”

  De Havilland gloomily agreed; he had sent five to France and they had lasted less than a week – all lost through mechanical breakdown or pilot error.

  “I have had a report that one of them went down after the pilot started into a right turn at one hundred feet, Tommy!”

  “Not necessarily the wisest of tricks, sir.”

  “He won’t repeat it, that’s for sure. Crashed in with a full tank of petrol.”

  “Cheaper. It saves the need to purchase a coffin.”

  The pair of pilots inspected the machines, decided they seemed sufficiently conventional in design.

  “Shall we give them a try, sir?”

  “Both of you? Will you not wish to go first, Tommy, and then give your colleague a briefing?”

  “Noah is in many ways a better pilot than me, sir. He has the patience that I lack.”

  De Havilland was not convinced but raised no protest.

  They took off together, parallel, thirty feet apart, having a point to make, climbing to one thousand feet before dropping into line, Tommy leading.

  A careful bank to port, the pusher shifting very slowly against its natural inc
linations. Tommy turned towards Noah, raised a hand, received a thumbs up and then banked delicately to starboard, nose up and feeling every movement of the plane.

  It tried to snatch away from the very first second, almost determined to achieve a spin, but banking very quickly, faster far than anything that might possibly be chasing it. Half an hour, and flying the machine became easier for knowing just how much the nose must be raised to make the turn without losing height. It would never be a safe machine to fly, for a second’s inattention could turn it into a killer, but it would be effective in any sort of combat, in the hands of highly skilled pilots. Tommy waved to Noah, still in position, and pointed downwards, then led him into landing.

  “A fine machine, sir, in the hands of the best of pilots. A killer of any young man sent out from England with ten hours in his logbook. The Lewis, by the way, must be fixed; I could never find the seconds away from the controls to shift the gun from one position to another.”

  “Our lords and masters won’t like that, Tommy. They are convinced the gun should be moveable.”

  “Tell them that it is, and then lock it in position, sir. They don’t have to fly the machine.”

  “When can you go to France?”

  “I want a few more hours to get the feel of the plane. What do you think, Noah?”

  Noah scratched his head and addressed himself to de Havilland.

  “Two hours to discover how she climbs, sir, and how much fuel she drinks when she is being thrashed. Then another two to test her in the dive and zoom. Useful to have an idea of just when the wings will try to fall off. If it’s dry tomorrow, then we can do that, morning and afternoon. Take them across on Thursday, giving your mechanics the whole of Wednesday to work on them. Best to send four mechanics across in advance of us, sir. I like to have a mechanic who is familiar with the aircraft type, it at all possible; better than just putting her in the hands of some overworked chap who’s never seen the plane before.”

  De Havilland raised an expressive eyebrow.

  “I was under the impression that Tommy was a thinking and cautious flier, Captain Arkwright, but you are more than his match. What does the DH2 really need, as a first impression?”

  “An in-line engine, sir, with more power. I don’t know her rate of climb yet, but I doubt it will be good enough from the feel of her. Add to that, more power would make it possible to arm her with a Vickers, which has a lot more power than a Lewis.”

  Tommy demurred.

  “Twin Lewises would do better, Noah.”

  “Perhaps, but the Vickers has longer range…”

  “Pointless – can’t hit a plane at more than fifty yards – too many factors, trying to aim in three dimensions.”

  “Maybe – whichever, we need heavier armament.”

  “A single fifty calibre would be the best – something with a punch to the rounds. I suggested as much to Mr O’Gorman, but he was not keen.”

  De Havilland corrected him.

  “Lieutenant-Colonel O’Gorman, as he now is, does tend to know better than any of his inferiors, and the great majority of his superiors, too. He can get away with it to an extent when he is haranguing the uniformed chaps, but any politician has an even better opinion of himself than O’Gorman, and the top hats will break him within a year. He will be promoted to a position in Whitehall where he can make as much noise as he wants but will have no effect at all.”

  “Pity! With all his faults, he is an able man, sir. We will be worse off without his sheer intellect in the background, though better off without his arrogance, perhaps. A pity that he cannot be managed and used effectively.”

  De Havilland was unimpressed.

  “You can say the same for this whole damned war, Tommy – nothing in it is being used effectively. They are making a cock of this operation in the eastern Mediterranean – the Navy mostly at fault this time for panicking and pulling back when they lost a few old ships to Turkish mines. They were almost into position to bombard Constantinople when they cut and ran.”

  “I had heard nothing of that, sir.”

  “Neither will you. The newspapers say exactly as they are told these days.”

  Tommy could not be surprised; he had never had any great belief in the self-styled ‘free press’, having only met them sniffing around the sites of crashes at Brooklands seeking sensationalism for their readers. Now he was confirmed in all of his doubts.

  “What about the landings to the north of Holland, sir, around the Friesian Islands?”

  “Abandoned. The Navy again. Minefields and submarines, they say. Impossible to get as many as half of the troops ashore and then to resupply them; add to that they might lose the bulk of their Dreadnoughts.”

  “If we win the war, they won’t need their bloody battleships!”

  “But the post-war government might not build them more toys to play with, Tommy, so they can’t afford to throw away the ones they have got.”

  “Build some big bombardment machines, sir, and then we can sink the German fleet at anchor and make their games pointless. Damned admirals are the same as the generals, more interested in their political games than in saving their country!”

  “You are right, of course, Tommy, but, don’t say so where you can be heard by the unsympathetic – they would break you just as happily as they will General French, perhaps more so for daring to win decorations while their battleships swing at anchor.”

  Tommy pricked his ears up.

  “Is French to go, sir?”

  Major de Havilland put his finger to his lips, looked theatrically about him.

  “Speak it not, Tommy – or you Captain Arkwright – but his closest friend and most loyal subordinate, Haig, is sticking the knife in his back. Wully Robertson is aiding him, and he, at least, can be trusted to act in good faith; he won’t get French’s job himself, of course – he joined as a private soldier and his accent is still less than perfect!”

  Noah grimaced – he had taken pains since being commissioned to speak like the nobs.

  “Say no more, sir!”

  “You as well, Captain Arkwright? I did not know.”

  “It’s not something I care to hide, sir, but, equally, I do not mention it except when asked directly. Robertson has made Lieutenant-General, has he not?”

  “He will probably be made full General soon. Vastly intelligent and able, they tell me, unlike Haig who is merely vastly rich. The whisky family, you know?”

  They were not aware, but were hardly surprised; the brewers and distillers between them exercised a great deal of political power in Great Britain, and took few pains to hide the fact.

  “General French has no great desire to commit to another offensive, particularly in the light of the shell shortage which still exists, but he will do so next month because he knows that if he wins the next battle then he is safe.”

  Tommy nodded thoughtfully.

  “’Knows’, or ‘believes’, sir?”

  De Havilland shrugged, he could not answer that with any certainty.

  “French has his enemies, you know, Tommy. He is a cavalryman, and not especially bright even for that breed; add to that he is a womaniser and has been cited in more than one set of divorce papers – all hushed up, of course – and finally he was rescued from debt in the Nineties, rather noisily. Haig dropped him a ‘loan’ that may have been of five figures, and has never asked for repayment, but he has never quite kept it secret. In the end, French may be regarded as ‘unsound’. There are rumours that the King – who likes French - has been informed and might be inclined to give an opinion; the politicians will never forgive French if he brings the King down from the pedestal of neutrality.”

  “Thank you, sir. You have not told us a word of this, and we do not know it and will not mention it to any of our acquaintance.”

  “Of course, not, Tommy. Moncur is your father-in-law, is he not?”

  “Yes, sir. I shall farewell my wife on Wednesday and expect to see him then.”

  “
I hoped you might.”

  No more was said on the topic.

  Monkey was not entirely pleased that Tommy should go back to France after less than five full months in England; she said so at some length.

  “I did not volunteer to return, love. It’s the old problem of give a dog a good name…”

  “It is still not fair, Tommy!”

  He had never quite understood the expectation that life might be fair. What had been fair, for example, about her brother’s death when lesser men like Monkton, or his own brother, profited in safety?

  “It is my duty, Monkey.” He sought for some way of changing the conversation. “Is it time to take Elisabeth Jane for her airing?”

  “Yes. You may walk with us, sir! Noah, will you come too?”

  Formality had long disappeared between them.

  “Yes, please, Monkey; a last chance to take the civilian air, and perhaps talk with some of your friends in the village.”

  She grinned, wickedly.

  “Such as Mrs Wyndham, Noah? She was widowed in September, by the way, nearly a year ago and she will soon be out of all mourning.”

  “Poor lady! I had hardly thought her old enough to wed.”

  “Three years my senior, I believe, Noah. A year or two younger than you, is she not?”

  They said no more, and Monkey kicked Tommy’s ankle when he seemed likely to open his mouth. Mrs Wyndham was a handsome young lady, childless and possibly possessed of an income of her own; she lived in a very pleasant cottage in the village, at least. Monkey thought she might be very good for Noah, he being far too much alone in her opinion.

  They ambled slowly down the road and Mrs Wyndham appeared in her front garden and they naturally fell into conversation with her.

  “My husband and Captain Arkwright return to France tomorrow, Mrs Wyndham.”

  She expressed her surprise and disappointment – they had hardly been any time in England.

  “It is only for a short attachment, ma’am,” Noah assured her. “We are to take a pair of new aeroplanes across for testing.”