No Longer A Game (Innocents At War Series, Book 3) Page 9

  Tommy was impressed by that piece of tact; he had picked out two Australian accents and another three he thought were Canadian or American and one other that he could not place, perhaps a South African. All, no doubt, were citizens of the Empire; to call them foreigners was to insult them; they must have travelled thousands of miles to fight in this war and deserved better than that.

  The evening grew considerably less formal when they rose from the table, and Tommy shifted around the Mess, making the attempt to talk to all of his Flight, who included both of the Australians and a pair of North Americans.

  “I flew with an Australian on the short-lived Bombardment Squadron, earlier this year. Knew him as Drongo, which he said was a common nickname in New South Wales. He’s still alive, to the best of my knowledge – he was a first-rate pilot, had learned to fly in Australia and knew his way around, that was for sure. Where are you two from?”

  One from New South Wales and the other a Queenslander; Micky and Blue, by name.

  “Blue?”

  “Yeah – ginger hair, Tommy. Every man with red hair is called Blue. Logical, ain’t it.”

  “You’ll fit in the RFC – that’s the sort of logic we like. Did you come out to England to join the RFC or was it a bit of an accident?”

  “We was both here already, Tommy. At school. Our fathers - believing we would do better for a couple of years of ‘real’ education – sent us over when we was sixteen. Not uncommon when the Old Man’s got more money than sense. Time we reached eighteen, we put our heads together and volunteered, both of us, having become mates in the school. Had to be – the two of us against the bloody mob!”

  “Heard of it, Blue. Never went to school, meself, not after we came back to England from the States. You’ll both do well with us. While I think of it, have you been issued with side-arms yet?”

  “Yeah, bloody great revolver that weighs half a ton! And I had to pay for it meself!”

  “The privilege of an officer and a gentleman, sir. Load it and wear it when flying. Pass the word round, will you? I forgot to mention it today.”

  “Will do, mate.”

  “Good on yer! Told you I’d flown with a Digger!”

  The two from Canada had attached themselves to separate groups, were not a pair, which was unsurprising when Tommy discovered that one was from Vancouver and the other was Quebecois.

  “Long way from the Pacific Coast to England, Joe.”

  “Yeah, worth it, though. I always wanted to fly and couldn’t get near a machine down Seattle way.”

  “Seattle? Washington State? You’re American?”

  “Yep. Come from Vancouver – the little one across the border. You people in England never heard there was a second one, so it seems. I went into your RFC place, told them I could ride before I could walk – which ain’t too untrue – and that I could shoot anything that moved, and they said I was in, more or less. Asked me where I was from and I said Vancouver and started to open me mouth to explain and they just said good enough.”

  “Welcome to the RFC, Joe.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Tommy, Joe – never ‘sir’ in the Mess, and not outside it either unless there is some sort of brass about.”

  “Not like our lot, Tommy. I got my education at a Military College – my father wanted me to become an officer in the States. All saluting and stiff there.”

  “Not in the RFC, Joe. Life’s too short for bull.”

  Tommy found he was empty and signalled for another, making his way across to the fourth of his flock, sat on the edge of a noisy bunch of new men, water in his glass and silent.

  “Frank, is it not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tommy, not sir. You are Canadian, did I see?”

  “Yes, Tommy, one of the foreigners.”

  “I noticed that as well. Not the brightest of things to say. I know nothing about Quebec, except that many of the people there speak French by preference. Am I right?”

  “Some only speak French; most of us have a bit of both languages. It ain’t too important, most of the time. My family are English, anyway. My father is a pastor – which puts us on the outside to an extent. Mostly RC in Quebec.”

  “Didn’t know that. Most of us in the RFC aren’t too worried one way or the other – don’t matter how high we fly, we don’t see any angels.”

  “My father would not have approved of that comment, Tommy. He doesn’t approve of much, thinking about it. That includes flying – his last letter reminded me that there is no example of man flying to be found in the Good Book.”

  Tommy grinned, said he had never read enough of that tome to know what was or was not in it.

  “You should talk with Noah, one day – I gather he had it stuffed down his throat in his schooling.”

  “He has my sympathy. My father told me only ever to drink water. Do you think I should try some of this beer?”

  “Every man should – but, if I can play the old Uncle, giving good advice – keep to just one tonight. You want a clear head in the morning.”

  “Right. What’s the trick of flying a rotary, Tommy?”

  “Be the boss – you say where it’s going, it don’t make up its own mind. Be on top of it all the time. Throw it about, by all means, but never relax. Always remember that it will spin to the right if it possibly can.”

  Frank nodded, soberly. He had the look of an old man in a young body, Tommy thought – which might not be a bad thing.

  “They say that a spin will always kill you, Tommy.”

  “Probably. I have never been in a spin – so it hasn’t had the chance to kill me yet. But I think that I might try to centralise the controls – not try to turn out of it – and throttle back on the blip switch, maybe even switch off, though I don’t much like that idea, and try to put the nose down and see if it will ease up then and try to pull up and out. The best rule is never start spinning. Where’s James? I must have a natter with him as well.”

  Frank shook his head.

  “He went out just now, Tommy. Simon was his best friend from school – they met when they were twelve and have been inseparable since, so they told us at the training field. I think he was badly shaken up when Simon crashed in this afternoon. He had taken off before Simon and knew nothing of it until he landed, could not even help pull him from the flames. Most upset, he is.”

  “Well bugger that! Men die flying, Frank. Simon was lucky – he lived. James won’t if he has his mind fixed on that crash. Did you not notice at dinner tonight? No empty place at the table. The men who are gone simply never existed, Frank – we forget their names by bedtime.”

  “That’s hard, isn’t it?”

  “That’s flying, Frank. The man who died wasn’t good enough, or he would still be here. We have no memory for failures. Live for tomorrow in this game, Frank – today has been a success, every day. Your sole interest as a pilot is to make tomorrow as good as today – and that simply means being alive when the sun goes down. Noah is as close as I have ever had to being a friend – and when he dies, I shall spend ten seconds grieving for him. He would do the same for me, I very much hope.”

  “’Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’, Tommy?”

  “Not quite. Make it ‘today, we didn’t die’.”

  Major Wilbraham joined Tommy later, commented that he had always understood one did not talk shop in the Mess. Tommy shook his head.

  “Flying out here, Major, you live shop. Back in England, you can keep to the old rules. At the Front, there are no rules.”

  Major Wilbraham was displeased.

  “There are standards, however, Major. They are universal, I believe.”

  “For fliers, only the Law of Gravity is a constant, Major. Everything else can be ignored or changed. Are you flying tomorrow? Good idea to keep your hand in, you know.”

  “I shall endeavour to find the time, Major. I am kept very busy in the office, you know. I am trying to write a little speech for breakfast, for
the poor young fellow who was so grievously hurt today. You will wish to comment as well, I have no doubt.”

  Tommy stood tall and formally stiff, almost offering his challenge.

  “I much trust, Major Wilbraham, that you will not do something so foolishly ill-advised. We do not remember the lost in the RFC – they are part of yesterday, and yesterday is gone.”

  Major Wilbraham was frankly shocked.

  “What was your previous posting, Major?”

  “Central Air Park at Amiens, since I came out, Major Stark.”

  “Then it is understandable that you do not know how we go on in the squadrons, Major. Only thirty miles away, but a lifetime distant for many of us. By the way, did you know a Colonel there, Bressingham, I think? A complete bloody fool, whatever.”

  Major Wilbraham in turn stood his tallest, made his rebuttal in the clearest aristocratic diction.

  “Colonel Bressinghall is a very fine officer, Major Stark; one who is committed to the creation of an RFC that is the match of the Guards for standards and traditions.”

  “I thought that was what I said, Major.”

  Major Wilbraham left the Mess, stamping out in a dudgeon and taking up his telephone. He demanded to speak with Colonel Brancker despite the late hour.

  The Bristol Flights sat to breakfast soon after dawn on a bright sunny morning. Major Wilbraham was not present; they heard a plane land part way through their meal.

  “What’s that, Tommy?”

  Noah was sat looking inward, could not see the field.

  “Clapped out old Shorthorn. I don’t know who it is in it. Pilot and some sort of brasshat. One of the Major’s pals, I do not doubt.”

  Tommy ate another slice of toast, peering in horror at the jam pot.

  “What is this stuff?”

  “Stark’s best Plum and Raspberry Jam, old chap. The family’s finest!”

  “I’ll kill that bastard – and I might add, Noah, that I am speaking quite literally when I make that description!”

  “Ah! I had wondered, putting two and two together, you know.”

  “Mathematics was always a weakness of mine, but there are some conclusions one cannot deny!”

  Tommy stood, tapped on the table.

  “Flying in twenty minutes, gentlemen.”

  The young pilots shifted towards the door, all having already learned the wisdom of a last pee before flying. They held back, coming to attention, as a tall brasshat swept through.

  “Carry on, gentlemen. Major Stark, Captain Arkwright, a word with you, if you please. Sit down, gentlemen.”

  “Have you breakfasted, sir?”

  “An hour ago. I could do with a cup of coffee, if you would be so good.”

  One of the mess waiters had positioned himself in hearing range, scurried off to the kitchen.

  “Wilbraham managed to train his waiters well, at least. I am Sefton Brancker. I have met you before, once that I recall, Major Stark. You, Captain Arkwright, I have merely heard about, and all to the good, I would add. I saw you at the Concentration Camp, Major Stark, though we were not introduced; I knew your name, of course, had met your father in fact, a fine man! I could not work out how in hell you had been commissioned at your age.”

  “A trivial technical error, sir. I was born in the States, in the West, and never had a birth certificate.”

  “And gained a pilot’s licence at fourteen, I believe.”

  “Something like that, sir. Hardly relevant now, sir.”

  Brancker nodded, looking pointedly at the ribbons on Tommy’s chest.

  “Agreed. I am here because Major Wilbraham has left the squadron, having tried my patience a little too far. He gave me a choice on the telephone last night – you must go or he would. He will take the boat to Dover this afternoon.”

  “Bearing in mind the assignment for Saturday, sir, I am not sure I might not have preferred to be the one to go.”

  “Scared?”

  “Changing my underwear every hour, sir!”

  Brancker laughed aloud.

  “Then you might come through the experience. I am ordering you now to make no attempt at low-level bombardment without clear target marking. The soldiers have been instructed to lay out white markers to show where they are and where you should put your bombs. If they do so, then they will immediately be identifying themselves to the enemy guns. They will be fools if they put out their markers.”

  Tommy nodded while Noah let out a sigh of relief.

  “Then we should concentrate on the rear areas, sir. Attempt to attack the railways and roads where possible?”

  “Go out and examine the area, from a height. If you see markers, then you must respond to them, provided they are clear. In their absence, you will proceed to the rear and seek targets of opportunity. Marching battalions will be the best; if none available, then guns or supply dumps or railways, whatever you can identify. Weather permitting, four patrols a day – which in itself will break your youngsters, but we have no choice other than to fly. Are they any good?”

  “All could be, sir, given another two hundred hours in their logbooks. Bright, brave and enthusiastic, all the things I was once, a year ago.”

  “Poor lads! Tell them I am with them in spirit. I’ll send up a rum issue, shall I?”

  “Christ, no, sir! They are boys. Well, the English are – I would not like to bet on the Australians and the American. Most of them will fall into an alcoholic coma at a sniff of issue rum!”

  “Go off and train them, Major Stark. Try to keep them alive – we are losing too many boys who could become good pilots, given time.”

  A morning of sheer tedium, sending the boys up and watching their performance, telling them their mistakes, congratulating their improvement and sending them up again. Lunch, which few could stomach, the strain starting to gnaw at them, then the first essay at banking to starboard.

  Tommy and Noah addressed their Flights separately, but said essentially the same thing.

  “Do not, under any circumstances today, attempt to make a right turn at less than one thousand feet. Watch what you are doing, memorise it! Lift the nose, make the turn, gently, discover how much height you are losing or gaining so that you know what you must do next time. You are used to hauling your plane to the left; to the right, you gently tickle the control lever. Move it by the tiniest amount possible on the first turn. On the second, you will move it even less. I am one of the best pilots in the RFC – I started flying more than five years ago and gained my pilot’s licence when I was fourteen years old. When I bank to starboard in a Bristol Scout, I am exactly as careful as I am ordering you to be – and I still frighten myself sometimes. I have watched you flying and I know that I am lucky in commanding you; I will tell you that three of you have the capacity to be at least as good as me, and the other two of you are not naturals but have good hand and eye coordination and fly well and have every prospect of standing in my shoes before too many months are passed.”

  Tommy knew that his last statement was a lie – one of the two had lost confidence, he feared. If the boy was able to sit back and take a deep breath and get over it, then he would be as able as any. Perhaps he should ground him, but then he would be stigmatising him forever as ‘not up to it; not quite the thing when it came to danger’; that would never leave the boy, would blight his time in the Army, would destroy his civilian life.

  The sneers and smears would never end; twenty years hence the word would pass in the City, or the Civil Service or wherever he ended up, that he had been ‘not quite the thing’ in the war and promotion would escape him. Socially, he would be finished; he would simply be cut if he showed his face in the sphere of the County. Tommy had heard of all that would happen to the coward Travers, and he could not do that to the boy while there was a chance that he might make good.

  “We can become the best Flight in the RFC, and a damned sight better than any spotty, sausage-eating Hun, but only if you stay alive today. Now, take off in alphabetical order of y
our first names, and keep in that sequence – don’t overtake each other. Try to remain the same distance apart – it’s a good exercise. Take off and climb straight to one thousand feet – take four minutes for the climb. Blue, you are first in the list, you have the job of timing that climb.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, should that be Tommy?”

  “Yes. If I call you Lieutenant Whoever, then I’m sir – for the benefit of an audience. Otherwise, we don’t stick to any of the rules in the RFC. Correction! I don’t – you do as I tell you!”

  They had the kindness to laugh.

  “You will turn right through ninety degrees, and then you will return to one thousand feet. If you have stayed at one thousand feet – free beer tonight! Bring yourself through five more turns until you are back into the wind and then land. Taxy across to the hangars and come over to me and I will take you through your performance. Then, when you’ve got your breath back, you will do it again.”

  Blue, Frank, Joe and Micky nodded thoughtfully and walked across to their planes. James licked his lips and visibly forced himself to take his first pace.

  Tommy turned away and joined Noah.

  “I’m going to see that one die, Noah. He’s best friends to the lad who crashed in yesterday and he’s lost it. He’s spent all night worrying and he knows it’s going to happen to him. I’ll bet you ten to one it will.”

  “It happens, Tommy; it’s not your fault. They should all be in England, nursing a Shorthorn. They need another month, but we shall take them to war the day after tomorrow.” He smiled, somewhat nervously. “Changing the topic, Tommy, I wrote a letter before dinner. To Mrs Wyndham; not saying a lot, just that we are out here and busy and all that. Do you think I should post it? She’s a lady. You know what I am, by upbringing.”

  “Times have changed, brother. You are you, nothing else now. Post it. She’s a lovely woman, and damned near as bright as Monkey – cleverer than me, that’s for sure. I would like to see you living down the road from me. Our children could play together!”

  “I am not entirely sure that persuades me, Tommy. A family… They’re ready now. Your Aussie is taxying.”