Dastral of the Flying Corps

"Dismiss, 'B' Flight. It's only Graham's party returning from their reconnaissance."

There was not a little disappointment at this announcement, for every one had been looking forward to a scrap before breakfast. The sun, which had just showed his upper edge above the ridge, however, revealed quite distinctly the rounded marks of the Allies on each of the 'planes.

Five minutes later the newcomers descended by rapid spirals, and, alighting on the aerodrome, taxied safely almost up to the very entrance of the sheds, and the pilots and observers alighted to report what they had discovered.

They had been away two hours, had traversed fifty miles beyond the enemy's lines, and had picked up several night signals by a prearranged code, using the Morse flash and the Klaxon Horn. This information, which was of the utmost importance, had been collected from some of our most daring intelligence officers, who controlled a network of British spies behind the German lines.

"Well done, Graham!" exclaimed the Major commanding the Squadron, as he grasped the Flight-Commander's hand on alighting. "Did you pick up anything?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then slip off your helmet and heavy coat, and make your report at once, and–hullo, there, Johnson!"

"Sir," replied the sergeant in charge of the officers' mess, springing smartly to the salute.

"Have breakfast ready in ten minutes in the private mess. Lay covers for all the pilots."

"Yes, sir," replied Johnson, saluting once more, and clicking his heels at the "about-turn" he disappeared to introduce a little thunder amongst the early morning "fatigues" in the cook-house.

A powerful and crafty foe, whose emissaries have never been surpassed in the espionage in the world, prevents me from giving the details of the reports brought home that morning by Graham and his pilots. Let it suffice, however, to say that amongst other information collected beyond the enemy's front, by a wonderful intelligence system of our own, it had been discovered in that dark hour before the dawn, by the Morse flash and the Klaxon Horn, that three German troop trains were to leave Liege that morning at eight o'clock, and, travelling via Mauberge and Cambrai, were to reinforce the hardly pressed German troops facing the British soldiers on the Somme.

There was a jovial breakfast party that morning in the officers' mess of the –th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, for in this wonderful Corps, which, in the short space of two years, has done the seemingly impossible, and taken the high jump from an insignificant detachment, and become the most brilliant service under the British flag, there is an esprit de jeu as well as an esprit de corps unsurpassed even by that of the Navy, with its centuries of tradition behind it.

"How shall I know a British 'plane, if I meet it suddenly in mid-air?" asked a German pilot once of his Flight-Commander.

"You'll know it because it will attack you!" was the reply.

And never yet has a British pilot, with a single round of ammunition left in his drum, turned tail upon the enemy, even though when outnumbered three to one. For such a pilot, there would be no room in the Royal Flying Corps.

So, during breakfast that morning at the aerodrome near Contalmaison, every flight-commander vied with his comrade for the post of honour. Maps and railway routes were carefully consuled, for there were no less than three routes by which the troop trains might arrive at the Somme front.

"Liège–Namur–Mauberge," said the Squadron-Commander, as he bent over the large map, and ran his fingers lightly along the route, whilst the eager youths with the pilot's wings on the left breast of their soiled and greasy service tunics listened and waited eagerly for their final orders, each hoping in his inmost soul that the route allotted to him might be the one by which the Huns would arrive.

"Let me see, now. After Mauberge and Cambrai the lines divide. Hum! Why, yes, they must come via Peronne, Velu or Lestrée. There now. Are you ready, boys?" asked the Commander, raising his head for the first time for five minutes, and looking keenly into the glowing faces of those lads, who, less than three years ago, in most cases, were at Marlborough, Cheltenham or Harrow.

"Aye, ready, sir!" they replied almost in one breath.

"Are you quite sure, Graham, you can manage it? You have already had two hours up there in the dark, you know."

"We could do another four, sir, quite easily," replied the Commander of "A" Flight, with just a shade of disappointment in his voice, as though he feared the C.O. might hold him back.

"How are the engines running?"

"Perfectly, sir; never better! They never misfired once, and there isn't a strut or control wire damaged."

"Right!" exclaimed the Commander laconically, who then rolled up the big map, touched a bell, and ordered the aerodrome Flight-Sergeant to run out the machines and to let the air mechanics, observers, wireless men and aerial gunners fall in and stand by the 'planes. Then, turning to the three Flight-Commanders he said:

"Graham, you will take 'A' Flight and patrol the Lestrée line. You, Dastral, will take charge of 'B' Flight and watch the Havrincourt-Bapaume route, and Wilson there will watch the Peronne loop-line. They may come by any of those three routes. Where they will detrain I cannot say. It will be for you to discover. Fill up with the twenty-pound bombs, as they're the handiest, for I expect it will be more of a bombing raid than anything else. But if the enemy is escorted by Fokkers or Rolands, you must be prepared for a fight in the air as well, and I want each Flight to act independently, but if necessary to co-operate, should Himmelman and his crowd turn up. Smoke signals will be the best, I think. Is that quite clear, boys?"

"Yes, sir. Quite clear," they replied, for they were all in high glee, and regarded it all as nothing more or less than a boyish adventure, though more than one of those brave youths was going forth to his death. And what a death it is to be hit in mid-air by bursting shrapnel, and hurled seven thousand feet to the earth! But such a death they faced daily without flinching.

"Then fill up your glasses, boys, and I will give you The King! God bless him!"

And standing up they drank confusion to the King's enemies, and if a stranger had been there to note it, he would have seen that many a glass was filled with water, for the continuous demand upon the pilot's nerve and intelligence forbids his frequent use of alcohol.

Soon afterwards, the pilots, observers and gunners were carefully examining their machines, guns, fixing bombs, waterproof maps, and arranging every detail with care and skill. A faulty strut or control wire, a defective bomb release, or a leaking petrol tank might mean failure or disaster.

At last all was ready, and the final words of command were given to the air mechanics.

"Stand clear! Away!"

"Good-bye, lads, and good luck!" called the Squadron-Commander cheerfully, though at that very moment he was inwardly cursing his bad luck at having had his left arm seriously damaged in a recent crash. For of all things upon earth Major Bulford loved to lead his brave lads and to wheel them into action against the enemy squadrons.

"Whir-r-r! Whir-r-r!" went the first propellor, as the air-mechanic who had started it sprang back to safety. Then, one after another the machines of the three Flights taxied across the level ground of the aerodrome, and sprang into the air at the first movement of the elevator.

"Goodbye!" waved the pilots in answer to the last greeting of their chief, for the human voice could not carry two feet in that wild roar of propellors and engines, which seemed to make the whole atmosphere pulsate with a whirring sound.

After a few rapid spirals a height of two thousand feet was quickly attained, and then, still climbing, the 'planes, like huge birds of prey, disappeared for a while behind the British lines as though for a cross-Channel flight to England, in order to confuse the enemy observers. Then, by a wide sweep at seven thousand feet, the flights became detached, and each, under its own commander, went its own way by a circuitous route to the appointed station.

Dastral, with the four Sopwiths of "B" Flight, crossed the enemy's lines at nine thousand feet, somewhere between Ligny and Grévillers. As he did so he received his first baptism of fire from "Archie."

White puffs of smoke and fierce red jets of flame seemed to burst noiselessly around them, for the roar of the propellors drowned or subdued even the sound of the shrapnel as it exploded. Heedless of such small things, however, Dastral and his brave comrades sailed on, sometimes doing a spiral or a rapid nose-dive, if the enemy appeared to have found the range too closely.

Soon, however, they were ambushed in a friendly cloud, which hid them from the Huns far below, and when they had emerged from the clinging moisture, they were far beyond the enemy's third line trenches, and out into the open, with smiling fields and vineyards beneath them.

"Is that it?" yelled Dastral to his observer, jerking his head sideways, and pointing with his finger to something like a railway cutting far below.

"Yes. The Bapaume-Havrincourt railway line!" shouted his companion through the speaking-tube which ended close to the pilot's ear, for although only a few feet away, that was the only possible method of communication without shutting off the engines.

"Good!" nodded the pilot, for, despite the speaking-tube, conversation was chiefly carried on by well understood cabalistic signs.

A few minutes later Dastral pointed to a cluster of red roofs about a little church.

"What is that place?"

The observer, with one finger still on the little waterproof map in front of him, shouted back, "Beugny on the left. Haplincourt on the right."

"Yes, yes!" nodded the pilot, edging a little more south-east, as though the railway were not his objective. In so doing he alarmed Fisker, his companion, who feared he had misunderstood him.

"What's the matter?" he shouted. "You're leaving the target. The bridge-head and the ravine is over there, east-nor'-east. That's where the junction is, at Velu."

"Right-o, old man! Glad you're awake. Keep your eyes well skinned away to the east for Fokkers and Rolands. This is Himmelman's favourite hunting-ground. He'll be down on us from the clouds like a thunderbolt, if we're not careful. I want to get up to twelve thousand, and come back on to the junction from the east."

"Oh-ay!" came the laconic rejoinder from Fisker, who quickly understood the manoeuvre. Then, leaving his map for a moment, he swept the horizon for any signs there might be of the enemy's 'planes.

So for nearly an hour the machines, playing at "follow-my-leader," swept round and round, watching and waiting in an altitude where, to put it mildly, it was cold enough to freeze a kettle of boiling water in ten minutes.

Cold? Yes, it was bitterly cold. Both Dastral and Fisker felt it through their thick leather, wool-lined coats.