Air Men o' War

For four days this sort of thing continued. In that time the mechanics averaged twenty and a half hours' driving hard work a day, the shop electrics were never out, the lorry-shop lathe, with relays running it never ceased to turn; the men ate their food at the benches as they worked, threw themselves down in corners of the hangars and under the benches, and snatched odd hours of sleep between a Flight going out and another coming in.

By the mercy, dud weather came on the fifth day, driving rain and blanketting mist, and the mechanics – no, not rested, but spurted again and cleared up the débris of past days, repaired, refitted, and re-rigged their machines in readiness for the next call, whenever it might come. At the finish, about midnight of the fourth day, some of them had to be roused from sleeping as they stood or sat at their work; one man fell asleep as he stood working the forge bellows and tumbled backwards into a tub of icy water.

Then they reeled and stumbled to their beds, and again by the grace – since once asleep it is doubtful if mortal man could have wakened them – the sixth day was also dud, and the mechanics slept their fill, which on the average was somewhere about the round of the clock.

By then the fury of the battle assault had died down, the Squadron's duties were eased, and the mechanics dropped to a normal battle routine of fourteen or fifteen hours a day.

The Air Activity speeded up again after a few days of this, and from then on for another fortnight the men in the air were putting in two and three patrols a day and with some of the Artillery Observing machines in the air for four and four and a half hours at a time, while the men on the ground in the Squadrons were kept at full stretch and driving hard night and day to maintain their machines' efficiency. No. 00's mechanics did an average of nineteen to twenty hours work a day for fifteen days, and it is probable that if the full fact were known so, or nearly so, did the mechanics of most of the other Squadrons on that front. For, as it always does in prolonged fine weather and continued air work, the "air supremacy" became much more than a matter of the superiority of the fighters or fliers, dropped down to a race between the German mechanics and our own, their ability to stand the pace, to work the longest hours, to put in the best and the most work in the least time, to keep the most machines fit to take the air.

The workshops at Home play a bigger and much more important part in this struggle than ever they have known, and are in fact fighting their fight against the German shops just as much as their air men are fighting the Hun fliers. A constant and liberal supply of spares and parts needed for quick repair obviously cuts down the Squadron's work and better enables them to keep pace with the job, and time and again in this period the Squadron mechanics were forced to work long hours filing and hammering and turning and tinkering by hand to repair and improvise parts which should have been there ready to their hand. As the struggle ran on it became plainer day by day that our men were gaining the upper hand, not only in the fighting – they can always do that – but in the maintenance of machines in the air. The number of ours dropped, perhaps, but the Huns' dropped faster and faster, until our patrols were entirely "top dog." The pilots will be the first to admit the part their mechanics played in this victory.

Through all this strenuous time "The Kiddie," for instance, played her full part. Time and again her pilot brought her in riddled with bullets, with so many controls and flying-and landing-wires and struts cut through, that it was only because she was in the first place well and truly built, and in the second place, so keenly and carefully looked after, that Solly was able to nurse her back and land her on the 'drome. And always, no matter how badly damaged she came in, she was stripped, overhauled, repaired, and ready for action when the time came round for her next patrol; and always the work was done so thoroughly and well that she went out as good, as reliable, as fit to fly for her life, as any 'bus could be.

In the first week of the show, which was the most strenuous period just described, Solly Colquhoun got a Military Cross for his share of the show, and on first receiving word of it the Major sent for him to come to the office, and gave him the news and his congratulations.

"May I borrow the message, sir?" said Solly Colquhoun. "I'll bring it back in five minutes."

The Major gave him the telegram.

"Off you go," he said laughingly. "Off to raise the mess, I suppose. Get along. I'll be over to wet the Cross with you in a minute. Tell the Mess Sergeant to get the fizz ready that I had in."

But Solly had not gone to rouse the mess. He went at a hard trot straight to the Flight hangars.

"Flight," he yelled as he neared them. "Fli-i-ght! Where's the Flight Sergeant? Oh, here, Flight – I want you and my rigger and my fitter. Fetch them quick."

They came swearing under their breaths. "The poor old 'Kiddie' for the air again," said the rigger. "Done her whack this trip, hasn't she?" returned the fitter.

"Look here," said Solly abruptly, hardly waiting for them to come to a halt before him. "Just read that wire, will you?.. I brought it straight here. You're the first in the Squadron to know. I wanted you to be, and I wanted just to say thank you to you fellows for getting me this Cross. I know what 'Kiddie' has stood up to, and why. I know what you did, … and … well, thank you."

He shook hands awkwardly but very heartily while the men stammered congratulations and disclaimers of any reason for thanks. "Must beetle off," said Solly. "Promised to take this paper over. Tell the other men, will you? A Military Cross for our Flight. And thank you again."

He turned to hurry out, but, passing "The Kiddie," stabled there with her fore-end swathed and blanketted, her sides sleek and glossy and shining, taut and trim, spotless and speckless as the day she came from her makers, he halted and ran a fondling hand down her rounded back.

"Thank you too, 'Kiddie,'" he said, nodded to the Sergeant, "I got a good old 'bus, Flight," turned, and ran off.

"A d – n good 'bus," said the Sergeant, "and a d – n good man flying her."

XIII

THE LITTLE BUTCHER

The C.O. was showing a couple of friends from the infantry round the Squadron, and while they were in the hangars having a look at the machines – one of our latest type fighting scouts – a pilot came to them on the run, and hardly pausing to make a jerky salute, spoke hastily: "Message just come in by 'phone, sir, that there's a Hun two-seater over our lines near Rorke's Camp, and will you warn the Flight when they go up presently to look out for him. And if you don't mind, sir, I'd like to go up at once myself and have a shot at him."

The Major hesitated a moment; then "Right," he said, and with a quick "Thanks" the pilot whipped round and ran off.

"Might walk over and see him start," said the C.O. "He'll be gone in a minute. Always has his bus standing by all ready. He's our star pilot – queer little chap – always desperately keen for Huns, and makes any number of lone-hand hunts for 'em. Crashed nearly forty to date, the last brace before breakfast yesterday."

"Hope it didn't spoil his appetite," said one of the visitors.

"Spoil it!" The C.O. laughed. "Gave him one, rather. You don't know him, but I tell you he'd sooner kill a Hun than eat, any day. We call him 'The Little Butcher' here, because he has such a purposeful, business-like way of going about his work."

They came to The Little Butcher as he was scrambling aboard his machine. He was too busy to glance at them, and the two visitors, looking at the thin, dark, eager face, watching the anxious impatience to be off, evident in every look and movement, saw something sinister, unpleasant in him and his haste to get to his kill. Their impressions were rather strengthened after The Little Butcher had gone with a rush and a roar, and they had asked the C.O. a few more questions about him.

"No, not a tremendous amount of risk for him this trip," said the C.O. "Y'see, he's on a 'bus that's better than their best, and can outfly and out-stunt anything he's likely to meet. He knows his job thoroughly, and it's a fairly safe bet that if he finds his Hun his Hun is cold meat."

Now, both the visitors had been fighting for rather a long time, had few squeamish feelings left about killing Huns, and were not much given to sparing pity for them. And yet they both, as they admitted after to each other, felt a vague stirring of something very like pity for those two German airmen up there unaware of the death that was hurtling towards them.

"I'm rather changing my notions of this air-fighting," said one. "I always thought it rather a sporting game, but – "

"So it is to a good many," said the C.O. "But there's nothing sporting about it to The Little Butcher. He's out for blood every time."

"Seems to me," said one, when the C.O. had left them to go and see the Flight get ready, "this Little Butcher of theirs is well named, and is rather an unpleasant sort of little devil."

"I can't say," admitted the other, "that the idea appeals to me of going off, as it seems he's doing, to shoot down a couple of men in cold blood. Butchering is about the right word. I'm out to kill Germans myself, but I can't say I like doing it, much less gloat over the prospect, as this youngster appears to do."

Their unfavourable impression of The Little Butcher was so much stronger even than they knew that it really gave them a grim sense of satisfaction when the C.O. told them later that word had just come in that there were two Huns where one had been reported.

"Nasty surprise for your Little Butcher," said one, "if he bumps into them. But I suppose he'll see them in time and wait for the Flight to help him."

"Not he," said the C.O. "He'll tackle the two quick enough, and probably outfly 'em and get one or both. Sheer off from a chance of crashing two Huns instead of one? Not much."

This was late afternoon or early evening, and the two heard the story of the fight that night, before and during dinner, between courses and mouthfuls of food, over cigarettes and coffee, in snatches and patches, in answers to questions and in translations of air terms they did not clearly follow. And again their impression of The Little Butcher grew firmer, that he was "a murderous little devil" and "a cold-blooded young brute." There was no mistaking in The Little Butcher's telling his huge satisfaction in his kill, his fretting impatience when he thought he might be baulked of his prey, his eagerness to finish his work; and frankly the two did not like it or him.

When he had gone off that afternoon, he had flown arrow-straight for the locality the Hun was reported in, climbing in a long slant as he went, looking out eagerly for any sign of his quarry. He found them – or, as he still thought, the one – by sighting the puffing bursts of our Archie shells, and took quick stock of the position. The sun was still high and in the south-west; the Huns almost due south of him. His great anxiety was to approach unseen to such a distance as would prevent the Hun escaping on catching sight of him, so he swung wide to his left to gain the cover of a slow drifting cloud that might allow him to come closer without being seen. He passed behind and clear of it, and continued his circle, south now and bearing west towards another cloud, and as he flew he stared hard towards the puffing shell-bursts and made out the tiny dots that he knew were two machines. He was sure they were both Huns, because the way they circled and flew about each other without any movements of a fight made it clear they were not opponents. The Archie shells wrote them down Huns.

With the second cloud safely between him and them, The Little Butcher swung and raced towards the two, reached the back of the cloud, and went laddering up towards its upper and western edge. He figured they could not be more than a mile from him then, but to locate them exactly and make his best plan of attack he skirted round the side of the cloud – a thick, solid, white cotton-woolly one – until he caught sight of them.

The instant he did so he plunged into the cloud and out of sight. He had kept so close to it that the one turn of his wrist, the one kick on his rudder, flung him side-slipping into it, to circle back and out clear behind it again. He looked down and round carefully for sight of any of our machines that might be coming up to interrupt his work and perhaps scare off his quarry, but saw none. But on the clear sunlit ground far below he saw a puff of smoke flash out, and then another close beside the hutments of Rorke's Camp, and concluded the two Huns were "doing a shoot," were observing for their artillery and directing the fire of their guns on to points below them. It gave him the better chance of a surprise attack, because at least one man's attention on each of the machines must be taken up in watching the fall of the shells. The Little Butcher revived his hope of bagging the two, a hope that at first had begun to fade in the belief that one might bolt while he was downing the other.

The worst of the position now was that the two were rather widely separated, that his attack on the one might bolt the other, and that the second might reach the safety of his own lines before he could be overtaken. The Little Butcher didn't like the idea, so he restrained his impatience and waited, fidgeting, for the two to close in to each other or to him. He climbed to the top of the cloud and circled with engine throttled back, swinging up every now and again until he could just catch sight of the two, ducking back behind the cloud edge again without being seen.

He was so intent on his business that it was only instinct or long habit that kept him glancing up and round for sight of any other enemy, and it was this that perhaps saved him from the fate he was preparing for the two. In one of his upward glances he suddenly caught sight of another machine full three thousand feet above him, and racing to a position for a diving attack. The Little Butcher, as he said that night, "didn't know whether to curse or weep." The newcomer broke in most unpleasantly on his careful plans. Two slow old Art. Ob. Huns were one sort of game; with a fast fighting scout thrown in the affair became very different. The two he had counted as "his meat," but now with this fellow butting in… He felt it served him right in a way for not diving at them first shot instead of hanging about for a chance to bag the two. He had been impatient enough, Lord knew, to get at them, and he shouldn't have waited.

All this went through his mind in a flash, even as his eyes were taking in the details of the scout rushing to position above him, his mind figuring out the other's plan of attack. He wasn't worrying much for the moment about the attack, because he was still circling slowly above his cotton-wool cloud, had only to thrust forward the joy-stick to vanish as completely from sight as if he were in another world. But he wanted to frame the best plan that would still give him a shot at the artillery machines, and —

The scout above pointed at him and came down like a swooping hawk, his guns clattering out a long burst of fire. The Little Butcher flipped over and sank like a stone into the thickness of the cloud. He went plunging down through the rushing vapour, burst out of it into the sunlight below, opened out his engine, and, turning towards the sun, was off with a rush.

As he swept out clear of the cloud he looked round and up, to locate his enemies, size up the position, and figure the chances of his contemplated plan working. The scout was not in sight yet, was circling above the cloud still, probably waiting for him to emerge. The two artillery machines were closer together, as if they had noticed the signs of fight and were in position to support each other. They were out on his right hand and about a mile away. He kept straight and hard on his course – a course that was taking him into a line that would pass between them and the sun.

He saw the scout again now, high up and circling above the cloud still. The Little Butcher paid no further heed to him, but drove on at his top pace, with his head twisted to the right and his eyes glued on the slow swinging artillery machines. They gave no sign of seeing him for ten long seconds, or if they saw him concluded he was running away. "My luck held," said The Little Butcher in his telling of the tale, and the savage ring in his voice and glint in his dark eyes gave a little shiver to the two listening infantrymen.

He gained the point he was aiming for, shot up into "the eye of the sun," kicked the 'bus hard round, and came plunging and hurtling down on the nearest of the two machines. As he dived he heard the whip of bullets past him, knew the scout above had sighted him, was probably diving in turn to intercept him. He paid no heed; held hard and straight on his course, keeping his eye glued on the nearest machine and his sights dead on him, his fingers ready to start his guns at first sign of their seeing him. And because he was coming on them "out of the sun," because even if they had smoked glasses on and looked at him it would take a second or two to accustom themselves to the glare and be sure of him, he was within 300 yards before the farthest one suddenly tilted and whirled round and dived away.

The Little Butcher was on him before he had well begun his dive, had gripped the trigger lever of his guns and commenced to hail a stream of bullets ahead of him. He saw the Hun swerve and thrust his nose down, so changed course slightly to hold him in his sights, and kept his guns going hard. He was close enough now to see the observer swinging his gun round to fire on him, and then, next instant, to see a handful of his bullets hit splintering into the woodwork of the Hun's fuselage.

The Hun fell spinning and rolling, and The Little Butcher thrust his nose down and ripped in another short burst as his target swept underneath. Then he lifted and swung, and went tearing straight at the second artillery machine, which was nose on to him and firing hard from its forward gun. At the same moment he heard the whipping and cracking of bullets about him and the clatter of close machine-guns, looked up, and saw the scout turn zooming up from a dive on him.

The Little Butcher held straight on, opening fire at the Hun ahead. The Hun side-slipped, ducked and spun down a thousand feet, The Little Butcher diving after, spitting short bursts at him every time he thought he crossed the sights, aware again that the scout above was following him down and shooting uncomfortably close. He was forced to turn his attention to him, so next time a dive came, he pulled his top gun down and let drive at the shape that plunged down, over, and up, then hoicked up after him and engaged hotly.