Kitabı oku: «Air Men o' War», sayfa 13

XVII
THE SEQUEL

There was a strike in one of the aircraft factories; in fact, there were simultaneous strikes in many, if not most, of the factories, although for the moment this story is concerned only with one of them – or rather with its sequel. At the front they knew little or nothing of the strike, although, unfortunately, they knew a good deal of the result. On the other hand, the workers probably know nothing of what their strikes may mean to the front, and this is what I want to tell them. They have, it is true, been publicly told by a member of the Government that the strikes resulted in a waste of so many hours' work, a shortage or reduction of output of some hundreds of machines, and so on; but these things are a matter of cold figures. If they are told the result in flesh and blood, they may look at a strike in rather a different light.

One Squadron in France first "felt the breeze" of the strike in a drying up of the stream of "spares" and parts that are constantly required for repair, and the mechanics having to make good this shortage by many night hours' sheer hard labour, by working long shifts when they ought to have been sleeping, by hacking out with cold chisel and hammer, and turning upon overworked lorry-shop lathes, and generally making by hand what the idle machines in the factories should have been punching out in dozens on a stamping machine, or turning comfortably on automatic lathes.

That was a minor item of the strike's sequel. Another and more serious item in the same Squadron was that one or two machines, which had been marked off for return to the depots and complete overhaul and setting up, had to be kept in commission and hard at work. This was unpleasantly risky, because at this time the Squadron was very actively engaged in the preparation for a coming Push, and the machines were putting in even more than a fair average of flying hours. The life of a machine is strictly limited and countable in these "flying hours," and after a certain life machine and engine, with constant wear, and despite regular and careful looking after by the Squadron mechanics, come to be so strained and shaky that for safe flying they must have such a thorough overhaul and tuning up that it almost amounts to a rebuilding.

One particular machine in the Squadron – the old "Gamecock" – had for some time back been getting rather rickety and was to have been replaced before the anticipated heavy operations of the air activity that would open the way for the Push. One out of those hundreds of the strike's lost machines should have come to the Squadron to release the "Gamecock," but, of course, when it did not come there was nothing for it but to keep the "Gamecock" flying. She managed to get through her share in the work without any further trouble than a still further straining, and an engine which for all the labour lavished on it grew more and more unreliable. She carried on up to the actual morning of the Push, and her pilot and observer, the Flight and Squadron Commanders alike heaved sighs of relief to think that the rush was nearly over, that there would be no further urgent need to risk her in the air. But as it happened their relief was premature, and there was still a "show" and a serious one for the "Gamecock" to take a part in.

The Squadron was an artillery observing one, whose work it was to fly over the enemy's lines and observe the fire of our batteries on selected targets, and, "spotting" where their shells fell, wireless back to our guns the necessary corrections of aim to bring them on the target. The night before the Push a reconnoitring Squadron had discovered a fresh group of enemy batteries, and Headquarters allotted the destruction of these to various batteries in conjunction with certain artillery flying Squadrons. The "Gamecock's" Squadron was included, and since there was already a heavy morning's work portioned out to the Squadron, there was nothing for it but to detail the "Gamecock" to help handle the fresh job.

"Do it?" said her pilot scornfully in answer to a doubting question from the observer. "Course she can do it, and a dozen jobs on top of it. There's nothing wrong with her."

"Oh no, nothing whatever," said the observer sarcastically. "You'd claim there was nothing wrong with her if her engine turned round once a week, or if her planes were warped like a letter S. How many times did her engine cut out to-day? And she was rattling like a bag of old bones when you were stunting her to dodge those 'Archies,' till I thought she was going to shake herself into the scrap-heap right away."

"Rats," said the pilot stoutly. "She's strong as a house."

The Flight Commander evidently did not agree with him, to judge by the conversation he had that night with the C.O. "I hate sending the 'Gamecock,'" he said. "But I suppose there's no help for it."

"Afraid not," said the Major. "Every machine had enough to do before, and this new job will give them all their hands full. We just must send every machine we've got."

The Flight Commander sighed. "All right. I do wish they'd replaced her though, as they promised to do a week ago. Wonder why they haven't."

"Well, a machine isn't made as easy as knitting a sock, you know," said the Major. "I dare say it's a hard job to keep up to the wastage. Four machines we've had crashed and replaced ourselves in this last week. I suppose those people in the factories can't keep up the pace, even working night and day." (The Squadrons knew little or nothing of the strikes then. What they and the Major would have said if they had known, what they did say when they came to know, is a different story —quite a different story.)

There was just one hour of light before the time set for the attack, the "zero hour" when the infantry would go over the top, and that hour was filled with a final intensive bombardment that set the earth and air quivering like a beaten drum. The "Gamecock" and the rest of the Squadron were up and over the lines with the first glint of light, and the fighting scouts were out with them and busily scrapping with any Hun machines that came near or tried to interfere with the artillery and reconnoitring machines.

The "Gamecock" waddled off to her appointed place, and after picking up the targets with a good deal of difficulty, owing to the billowing clouds of shell smoke and dust, and getting in wireless touch with the first battery, the observer waited till the machine was in a favourable position to let him see the shot and signalled the battery to fire. For half an hour the "Gamecock" circled steadily with a fairly heavy "Archie" fire breaking about her, and the observer picking up one target after another and putting the guns on to it. As fast as he signalled back that a direct hit had been obtained he went on to the next target and observed for another battery, while the battery he had just finished with proceeded to pour a hurricane of high explosive on the spot it had "registered," and to blot the enemy battery there out of active existence.

Then the "Gamecock's" work was interrupted. A couple of Hun scouts dropped like plummets out of the clouds and dived straight for the "Gamecock," their machine-guns rattling rapidly as they came. The observer at the first sound of their shots whipped round from where he was hanging overside watching his target below, glanced up and grabbed for his machine-gun. He hastily jerked the muzzle in the direction of the coming Huns and ripped off a burst of fire, and at the same moment heard the sharp hiss of their passing bullets, saw the streaking flashes of fire from their tracers flame by. One hostile finished his dive in a sharp upward "zoom" just before he came down to the level of the "Gamecock," whirled round in a climbing turn, plunged straight down again at the "Gamecock," opening fire as he came, and before reaching her level repeated his tactics of zooming up and turning. The other Hun hurtled down past the "Gamecock's" tail, turned under her, and whirled upward, firing at her underbody. The observer ceased fire a moment and tapped back a message on his wireless to the battery saying the last round was "unobserved." He used the code of course which condenses messages into one or two Morse letters, and knowing that the battery would not fire until he passed the word that he was ready again, he turned his attention to driving off the two machines that plunged firing at them. The underneath one was practically concealed from him, so he first directed a carefully aimed burst of fire on the top one as once more it dived on them and its bullets whipped flaming past. He put in another burst as the Hun spun up and away again, then leaned out over the side and just caught a glimpse of the lower machine driving up at them. He swung his machine-gun round on its turret mounting and, thrusting the muzzle down, rattled off a score of rounds. At the same moment he heard the crack and rip of bullets tearing through their wings, and heard also the sharp rat-tat-tat of the overhead enemy's gun reopening fire. The observer swung his gun upward again, took a long breath, and directed careful aim on the body whirling down on them. He realised that the game was too one-sided, that with two fast enemies attacking in concert from above and below, it was merely a matter of minutes for the "Gamecock" to be sunk, unless he could down one of the two hostiles first. He opened fire carefully and steadily.

Up to now the pilot had been unable to take any part in the fight, because his gun only fired directly forward and the Huns had taken care to keep astern of him. But now he suddenly throttled down and checked the speed of the "Gamecock" by thrusting her nose up and "stalling" her. The move answered, and next instant the upper machine swept forward and up and ahead of them. The pilot opened his engine full out and drove for his enemy, pelting fire upon her. His bullets went straight and true to their mark, and the Hun, hearing them tear through his fabrics, dipped over and plunged hastily down a full thousand feet. The "Gamecock" heaved herself over and dived after him with the pilot's gun still going. Almost immediately he heard the observer's gun firing, and, stopping his own, glanced over his shoulder and saw the full width of the other Hun's wings wheeling close astern of them. Immediately he checked his dive and flattened out to give his observer a fair shot, and knew instantly from the long-sustained rattle of the observer's gun that the chance had been seen and taken.

He leaned out and peered down for sight of the other machine, and then – his heart jumped at the unmistakable sound and throb – his engine missed, picked up, missed again, cut out, and stopped completely. The "Gamecock's" speed, held as she was at the moment on a slightly upward slant, began to fall away, and the pilot hurriedly thrust her nose down and went off in a long glide, while he tried desperately every device he knew to get his engine started again. There was no sign of the petrol leaking, so he knew the tanks were not hit, but on the off-chance he switched on to the emergency tank – without result. Oil pressure was all right, and – he broke off to glance round as the rattle of fire came again to his ear. His observer was standing up blazing at one machine which swooped after them closing in on the one side, while the other climbed and swung in from the other. The pilot groaned. There was just a last faint chance that they might manage to glide without engine back over the line, provided the observer could stand off the two attackers and prevent the "Gamecock" being shot to pieces. The chance was so small that it was hardly worth taking, but since it was the last and only chance the pilot swept round until his nose was for home, gave the "Gamecock" a good downward plunge to get her speed up, eased into a glide, and turned his attention to the engine again. The two hostiles, supposing his engine hit or at least seeing it out of action, leaped after and past the "Gamecock," and, whirling inward, each poured a burst of fire upon her. They were repeating the tactic, which shielded them from the observer's fire, and the "Gamecock's" chances began to fade to nothingness, when the game took a fresh turn. A scarlet-nosed grey shape flashed up out of nowhere apparently, past the "Gamecock" – as swiftly past her as if she were standing still – and hurtled straight at the nearest Hun, spitting a stream of fire upon him. The Hun, with the bullets hailing and cracking about him, checked and wheeled; but without a break the stream of drumming bullets beat and tore in under his fuselage, and just as the red and grey scout zoomed up and over him he dived, a spurt of fire flashed out from him, and he whirled down out of the fight with black smoke pouring from him in clouds. The other hostile spun round and streaked off, with our victorious scout tearing after him. And at that moment the "Gamecock's" engine sputtered, stopped, spat and sputtered again, picked up and droned out in full song.

The observer seized the communicating 'phone and shouted into it. "Are we damaged, d'you know?"

"Lord knows," the pilot shouted back. "She seems to be running all right though. What next?"

"Back where we broke off the shoot," yelled the observer. "Three batteries to put 'em on yet; and look at the time."

The pilot glanced at his clock. It was nearing the "zero hour," the moment when the infantry would be swarming out into the open No Man's Land – and into the fire of those enemy batteries upon which the "Gamecock" had not yet directed our guns. Both pilot and observer knew how much it meant to have those hostile batteries silenced. The word had come from Headquarters and had passed down to the Squadron that it was very certain, from the fact that the batteries had been kept concealed and had not fired up to now, they were meant to be used for repelling the attack, that they would be reserved and unmasked only when the infantry began their advance, that they would then unloose a tempest of destroying fire on the attackers.

And because both pilot and observer had served a time in the infantry before they joined the Flying Corps, they knew just what it meant to the infantry to have such a fire to make way against, and both turned anxiously back to complete their job.

Down below the ground was hidden under a drifting haze of smoke and dust, and the "Gamecock" circled slowly while pilot and observer searched for their objectives. They found the other spots on which they had directed the guns – spots which now were marked by whirling, eddying clouds through which the bursting high-explosive still flamed red at quick intervals. From there at last they found the next target, and the observer hastily signalled back to his battery to fire. The engine was giving trouble again, missing every now and then, running slowly and laboriously, while the pilot fiddled and fretted about throttle and spark and petrol feed and tried to coax her into better running. The observer failed to catch the puffing smoke of the battery's first shot and signalled the code to fire again. Before the next shot came, a stutter of machine-gun fire broke out overhead, and pilot and observer glanced quickly up at the clouds that drifted over and hid the fighters. The machine-gun fire rose and fell in gusts, and then out of the cloud 1,000 feet up a machine whirled and spun down past them, recovered an instant and shot eastward in a steep gliding plunge, fell away suddenly, and crashed amongst the trenches.

Immediately after her there fell out of the sky a cluster of machines, wheeling and circling and diving at each other like a swarm of fighting jackdaws. The "Gamecock" suddenly found herself involved in a scrimmaging mix-up without her crew knowing who or what was in it. A pair of wings, with thick black crosses painted on them, whizzed across the "Gamecock's" bows, and the pilot promptly ripped off a quick burst of fire at her as she passed. "Never mind them," shouted the observer, "get on with the shoot," and leaned out from his cockpit to watch for the fall of the next shell. The "Gamecock" resumed her steady circling, while the fight raged round and over her and drifted in wheeling rushes clear of her and away quarter, half a mile to the south.

But they were not to be left unmolested. A Hun two-seater dropped out of the fight and raced at the "Gamecock," putting in a burst of fire from his bow gun as he came, wheeling round the "Gamecock's" stern and pouring bullets on her from the observer's gun. The hostile was tremendously fast, and the "Gamecock" with her crotchety engine was no match for him. The observer, for all his anxiety to finish the shoot, was forced to defend himself, and he turned to his gun with black rage in his heart. "Brute," he growled, and loosed a stream of bullets at the shape astern. "I'd like to down you just for your beastly interference," and his gun rattled off another jet of bullets. The enemy swooped down and under the "Gamecock's" tail with his gun hammering viciously. The pilot lifted her nose so as to sink the tail planes and rudder clear of the observer's line of fire and give him a shot, but the "Gamecock" had barely speed enough for the manœuvre, lost way, stalled badly, slid backward with a rush, and plunged down.

They were dangerously low for such a fall, and the pilot waited heart in mouth for the instant when she would right herself enough for him to resume control. He caught her at last and straightened her out, and at the same instant her enemy following her down dived past and up under her, where he was out of reach of the observer's gun. The pilot wrenched her round in a narrow circle that brought her pivoting on her wing-tip, and allowed the observer to look and point his gun straight overside and directly down on the enemy. He got off one short burst, and this time saw some of his tracer bullets break in sparks of fire about the fuselage and pilot's cockpit. They did damage too, evidently, because the Hun broke off the action, drove off full pelt to the eastward just as the "Gamecock" dropped in a dangerous side-slip. Again her pilot caught and steadied her, and began to climb her slowly and staggeringly to a higher level. Those last wrenching turns and plunges had been too severe a strain on her shaken frame, and now, as she climbed, both pilot and observer could hear and feel a horrible jarring vibration. They were not more than 3,000 feet up, but the engine threatened to refuse to lift them higher, and when it choked and stuttered and missed again, the "Gamecock" shivered and almost stalled once more. The pilot hurriedly thrust her nose down and swept down in a long rush to pick up flying speed again. "Get on," he yelled back. "Get on with your shoot. I daren't try'n climb her, and there's no stunt left in her if another Hun comes. A brace parted in that last scrap" – and he turned to his engine again, and swung the "Gamecock" in a wide circle.

Once more the observer signalled his battery to fire. This time there was no difficulty in finding his target, because the "zero hour" had come; there were little dots swarming out over the No Man's Land below, and the hostile batteries the "Gamecock" was looking for were flaming out in rapid sheets of vivid fire, and their shells pounding down amongst our infantry. The "Gamecock" circled slowly over the batteries, losing height steadily, because her pilot had to keep her nose down so that the glide would help out her failing engine and maintain her flying speed. Her observer was picking out shell-burst after shell-burst with greater and greater difficulty in the reek below, signalling back the corrections to the guns.

By now the "Gamecock" was low enough to come within range of the rifles and machine-guns turned up on her. The batteries below her knew that she was "spotting" on them, and did everything possible to knock her out; while their gunners, having at last got the word of the beginning of the attack, opened a furious rate of fire barraging the No Man's Land. The observer above them saw those streaming flashes, and knowing what they meant, stuck doggedly to his task, although now the bullets were hissing close and thick about them, and the windage from the rushing shells of our own heavy guns and the air-eddies from the guns firing below set the "Gamecock" rocking and bumping and rolling like a toy boat in a cross tide. The observer felt a jarring crash under his hand, a stab of pain in his fingers and up his arm. The wireless instrument had been smashed by a bullet as he tapped a signal. He shouted to the pilot, and the pilot slowly turned a white, set face to him and called feebly into the 'phone. "Hit" was the only word the observer caught; and "Get her back as far as you can and shove her down anywhere," he shouted instantly in answer. The "Gamecock" swung slowly round and lurched drunkenly back towards their own lines. The observer looked at his clock. It was already past the "zero hour."

Down below in the front line the battalions had waited for that moment, crouched in the bottom of their trenches, listening to the rolling thunder of the guns, glancing at watches, examining and re-examining rifles and bombs and equipment. One battalion in the Elbow Trench had been shelled rather heavily about dawn, but the fire had died away before the moment for the attack, smothered probably by the greater volume of our artillery fire. At last a word passed down the trench, and the men began to clamber out and form into line beyond their own wire. They could see nothing of the enemy trench, although it was only little more than 150 yards away. Its outline was hidden in a thick haze of smoke, although its position was still marked by spouting columns of smoke and flying earth and débris from our bursting shells. But exactly on the "zero hour" these shell-bursts ceased and over the heads of the infantry the lighter shrapnel began to rip and crash, pouring a torrent of bullets along the earth in front of the line as it started to move forward.

There was little rifle or machine-gun fire to oppose the advance, and although many shells were passing over, only odd and ill-directed ones were dropping in the open No Man's Land. It began to look as if the steadily-moving line was going to reach the first trench with very little loss. But suddenly, with sharp whooping rushes, a string of shells fell in a precise line exactly across the path of the advancing battalion; and before their springing smoke-clouds had fairly risen, came another crashing and crackling burst of shells along the same line; and then there fell a thick curtain of smoke and fire along the battalion's front, a curtain out of which the rapidly falling shells flamed and winked in red and orange glares, and the flying splinters screeched and whined and whirred.

The left half of the battalion came through fairly lightly, for the barrage was mainly across the path of the right half, but that right half was simply shot to pieces. The bursting shells caught the men in clumps, the ragged splinters cut others down one by one in rapid succession. The line pressed on doggedly, stumbling and fumbling through the acrid smoke and fumes, stunned and dazed by the noise, the crashing shock of the detonations, the quick-following splashes of blinding light that flamed amongst them. The line pressed on and came at last – what was left of it – through the wall of fire. Behind it the torn ground was littered thick with huddled khaki forms, with dead lying still and curiously indifferent to the turmoil about them, with wounded crawling and dragging themselves into shell-craters in desperate but vain attempts to escape the shells and shrieking fragments that still deluged down from the sky amongst them. The remains of the line staggered on, the men panting and gasping and straining their eyes eagerly for sight of the parapet ahead that marked their first objective, that would give them cover from the raging shell-fire, that would need nothing more than a few minutes' bomb and bayonet work to make their own.

They were just taking vague comfort, such of them as had thought for anything but the trench ahead and the hope of clearing the deadly No Man's Land, at finding themselves through that barraging wall of flame and rending steel, when the yelling rushes of the overhead shells paused a moment, to burst out again with full renewed violence next instant as the enemy guns shortened their range. The barrage had dropped back, the curtain of fire was again rolling down, spouting and splashing and flaming across the path of the shattered battalion. The broken line pushed on and into the barrage again … and from it this time emerged no more than a scattered handful of dazed and shaken men. But the parapet was close ahead now, and the handful took fresh grip of their rifles and ran at it. Some fifty men perhaps reached it; the rest of a full 500 were left lying on the open behind them, waiting for the stretcher bearers – or the burying parties.

The "Gamecock's" pilot managed to bring her back into the lines of our old trenches and pancaked her, dropped her flat and neatly into a thicket of barbed wire that clutched and rent her to ribbons, but held her from turning over.

The observer clambered, and the pilot was lifted down from the cockpits and taken to a dug-out where a First Aid Post had been established. The Post and the trenches round it were crowded with wounded men. The pilot was attended to – he was already far spent with two bad body wounds – and the observer while he had his hand dressed asked for news of the attack. "Don't know much," said the doctor, "except that my own battalion had a bad doing. Left half got over with little loss but the right half had to go through a barrage and was just about wiped out. These" – with a jerk of his head to the casualties – "are some of 'em. But most are out there – killed."

"I saw the barrage as we came back," said the observer bitterly. "Across the Elbow Trench? Yes, and about the only bit of the whole line they managed to barrage properly. And they could only do that because we couldn't out the guns that laid it down. Couldn't do our job properly and counter-battery them because we were up on a crock of a 'bus that the Huns could fly rings round, and that let us down into rifle range and got him" – nodding his head at the recumbent pilot – "his dose. All just for want of a good machine under us."

"Chuck it, old man," said the pilot faintly. "The old 'Gamecock' did her best … and stood to it pretty well considering."

"Mighty well," said the observer hastily, suddenly aware that he had spoken louder than he meant. "I'm not grousing. It's a sheer matter of luck after all. How d'you feel now? Any easier?"

But he was wrong. It was not luck. It was the Sequel. The doubtfully efficient machine sent on dangerous work, the unsilenced batteries and high-explosive barrage, the hundreds of dead men lying out in the open, the "Gamecock's" pilot dying slowly there in the trampled mud of the dug-out under the flickering candles' light were all part of the Sequel – a sequel, of which the aircraft strikers had never thought, to a strike of which the dead and dying men had never even heard.

 
"We were battered all round the ring at first,
We were hammered to hell and back,
But we stood to old Frightful Fritz's worst
And we came for another whack.
Now the fight's swung round; now we're winning fast,
And we'll make it a knock-out too,
If Home doesn't let us down at the last,
If our backers will see it through."