1915 Fokker Scourge (British Ace Book 2) (7 page)

The lamp was burning in Captain Marshall’s tent.  He smiled as I entered.  Before he could say a word I heard, from the major’s tent. “Captain, if Lieutenant Harsker is not here in thirty minutes I want him arrested.”

I grinned and Captain Marshall shook his head. I handed the map and the report and waited.  The major had obviously expected a reply for I heard his voice as he approached, “Captain Marshall did you hear…” He entered the tent and his mouth opened and closed.

“I have delivered the report and the map sir.  Was there anything else?”

He snatched the report and the map and stormed out. Captain Marshall stood and shook my hand.  “I take my hat off to you, Bill. You have got more nerve than anyone I have ever met but a word to the wise,” he lowered his voice, “don’t push him.  It will not take much to send him over the edge.”

“I think it has gone
beyond that, sir.  This is more than him just being a martinet.  I can live with that but we have dead pilots and gunners now.  That cannot be right.  Can it?” He shook his head. “Any news from the colonel?”

“The last letter I had said that he would be leaving England in the next week or two.”

“I just hope there is still a squadron for him to return to.”

The first week in July saw us spotting for the artillery.  It had been decided to soften up the Germans.  The rumours ran around the airfield like wildfire.  This was going to be the start of a push.  We would be attacking all along the front. For those of us for whom this was the second year of our war we were more sceptical. It might be a bluff.  It might be a diversion. However, whatever was the truth, our task remained the same; we were to position ourselves over no-man’s land and signal back to the gunners of the artillery below.

The major elected not to fly.  His Gunbus was used by one of the pilots whose aeroplane had been destroyed in the bombing raid.  We still only had eight serviceable aircraft and ten crews. It would be some time until we were at full strength again. The major put Billy Campbell in command. It was, of course, a snub to the three sergeant pilots but it did not bother us.  Lieutenant Campbell was a good egg and he was sensible.

He sought me out before we flew.  “Bill, I don’t like this.  You are a much better leader.  The colonel made you Flight Commander; it should be you in command. You are a First Lieutenant.”

I put my arm around his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t.  I think we all know how the major feels about me and the other two.
It is a snub to us but you are good enough to lead Billy. I think he would put someone who had never flown over enemy lines in command before one of us. You have combat experience. It will be good for your career. You will command one day.”

As we took off I realised that there was little to go wrong for Billy. We would be relatively safe from ground fire and we knew that our aircraft were better than the Germans we faced
.

We reached our allotted sectors. We were all within sight of another two aeroplanes and could mutually support each other.  We spotted the fall of shot and Sergeant Sharp would flash back if they were on target.  The Royal Artillery gunners were good and it did not take too many erroneous shots for them to find their range.  We then just had to fly up and down watching the shells rain down upon the enemy wire and trenches. We could have gone home but our orders were to stay for an hour and so we did.

It was close to the end of the hour when the Germans came. It looked to be a mixed Jasta. They had Fokkers and Aviatiks. Our problem was that we were spread out and they came in three flights of four each one targeting an individual aeroplane.  We were nicknamed Gunbus for good reason and we had little to fear, unless they found our blind spot.  Billy Campbell showed that he had what it took when he fired the flare to signal a retreat.

As it happened I was the rear aeroplane when they attacked. They found my blind spot.  I felt the bullets crack behind me. I pulled hard on the stick and went into a steep climb.  I had enough fuel to be able to use the maximum revs.  Two Germans tried to follow me but the others went for the next aeroplane in the line. I heard the guns as they chattered but I was too busy trying to escape from the Fokker and the Aviatik behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that they had fallen back a little. They would expect me to turn west, towards our lines. I did not do what they expected and I banked and dived east. It took them both by surprise.

Charlie was ready with the Lewis and, as we plunged down through the air he gave both aeroplanes a burst.  He missed the Fokker but struck the cockpit of the Aviatik.  I saw the gunner slump in his seat. I yanked the stick to bring us back on course and behind the other Germans who were pursuing my comrades.

I saw that Lieutenant Holt’s aeroplane was pouring smoke.  There were two Aviatiks beneath him and they were riddling him with bullets. I had the advantage that I was diving
with a superior aeroplane and, cocking the rear Lewis, I dived on to the tail of the first one. Sergeant Sharp emptied his magazine into the first one.  He took off the spent magazine. The gunner in the Aviatik saw this and he began to swing his gun towards us.  I fired a short burst from my gun and I saw the bullets stitch a line from the cockpit towards the engine. Oil began to spit out over the pilot and he took evasive action. The second German turned his attention to us.  I emptied my magazine towards him and then Charlie opened fire. The tail was shredded and the aeroplane began to spiral back towards the east.

The other aeroplanes had been beaten back and had to run the gauntlet of British small arms fire as they headed towards the safety of their own lines. 
I scanned the skies. Holt was in trouble and I stayed close to him as he took the aeroplane down in a shallow dive. He could not remain in the air. He would not make the airfield. He bounced the aircraft down on a short ploughed field. How he had found it I did not know. I thought he had made a good landing until the nose wheel broke and the right wing caught the ground. The Gunbus slewed into the ground. I brought our bus around and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the pilot and gunner emerge, somewhat unsteadily, it has to be said, and wave at me.

“Right, Sharp, let’s go home.”

As soon as we landed I saw the senior sergeant, “Sergeant Jackson, you had better get a lorry.  Lieutenant Holt has crashed in a ploughed field about six miles away.  They are both walking and I think we can save the engine.”

“Right sir, if we keep going on like this we’ll have to begin building aeroplanes ourselves.”

I left Sergeant Sharp and the mechanic to repair the holes in the bus and to service her. I had a report to write. I was half way through when Lieutenant Campbell came in. “That was a bit of a shambles today.”

I gestured fo
r him to sit on my cot. “Don’t be daft, man.  Holt is a young pilot.  He will get better and you got the rest back, didn’t you?”

“I suppose so but what can we do when
they come on our blind spot like that? Head on or flying alongside we are superior but once they get below us even the Aviatik can have a pop at us.”

I had been thinking about this.  “The problem is, Billy, if we loop it works in their favour, they can fire at us as we go up and around and I have never tried to loop the other way.  I suspect we might lose a few observers.”

I put the report to one side and took out a fresh piece of paper. I drew a crude FE 2. “Let’s try to visualise it.” I drew a Fokker beneath and behind the Gunbus and dotted lines to the engine. “Well that is the problem.  The question is, how to solve it.”

When I had left home after my last leave my dad had given me a short pipe. He had been so pleased with his Christmas present that he had a spare which he wanted me to have. “It’s a good little smoker
and, when you smoke it, it will remind you of home.” He had given me some bar tobacco.  I had smoked it a couple of times already and, as well as making me think of home it helped me think. I filled the pipe while Billy looked at my drawing.

He took my pencil and said, “Do you mind sir?”

As I puffed I said, “Go ahead.”

He drew another FE 2 attacking the Fokker. “Now if we could do that then we would not have a problem.”

The pipe was drawing well.  The pipe seemed to slow me down but that, in turn, made the brain work better.  At least that is what I thought.

“Of course that wouldn’t work. The other Gunbus would have to be flying in the opposite direction.”

It suddenly dawned on me. “Not necessarily. Here give me the pencil.”  I took the paper and drew a circle of aeroplanes.  “If we flew in a circle this would work.” He looked at my drawing.  “When I was in the cavalry we had a manoeuvre we sometimes used.  It had a fancy name that I can’t remember now but it basically involved the troop riding in a circle and each man firing when they reached the same spot.  We were all protected by the man behind.  If we flew in a circle we could still move forwards but just a little slower. The gunner in the front could fire on any German which attacked another.”

Billy pounced on the paper.  “It wouldn’t be a flat circle it would be like a spiral so that the vulnerable aeroplane; the one on the bottom would only be there briefly and another Gunbus would come up to help him.”

“Damned good idea!”

We must have been making a noise for Ted and Gordy came in.  “Are you two ladies having a party in here and if so why weren’t we invited?”

Lieutenant Campbell proffered the sheet of paper.  “Bill has just come up with a way of eliminating the blind spot. Look.”

“Actually lads, we both came up with it.”

Billy nodded his thanks and explained to the two of them how it worked.  They looked at it and I said, “Well?”

“It will work but I don’t think his lordship will wear it.”

Ted’s comment deflated us. “You may be right but the four of us know about it and if we are jumped then we can try it.  The beauty of it is that the system works as long as you have at least four aeroplanes.  More would be better but it gives us more of a chance and we might avoid ending up like Johnny Holt in a ploughed field.”

They nodded their agreement.  Gordy put his right hand out, “We’ll be the four who watch each other’s backs.”

We all put our hands together and a bond was formed that night in the lamp lit tent. When I went to sleep later that night I felt much better.  I no longer felt alone. The camaraderie of the cavalry was back; hopefully it would not end in the same slaughter as that experience had.

There were only four aeroplanes ready to fly the next day and as luck would have it those four were ours.  We were ordered to patrol the front line and prevent enemy aeroplanes from observing our lines or attacking our field. Perhaps they had the same damage as we had because, disappointingly, no German aeroplanes appeared and we had no opportunity to try our new idea out.

The major had been noticeable by his absence and we almost had a normal squadron life.  By the end of the week, when the eight aeroplanes we had were serviceable, all of that changed. The two pilots without aeroplanes were sent back to England to collect their new Gunbuses and to bring back the two replacement pilots. The rest of us, including our observers, were gathered in the large mess tent.

“There is going to be a big push in about a month or so.” We all looked at each other.  There had been rumours running around the squadron for the last
few weeks.  “Quiet down! You sound like a bunch of excited school girls.” We were all suitably chastened and looked at his board again. “Our task is to prevent the German reconnaissance aeroplanes from observing the movements behind our lines.  We have been given twenty miles of the front to cover.”

Captain Marshall marked on the map where the sector was.

“Your route will be a square. You are not to cross no-man’s land and you are not to initiate combat. If German aeroplanes attempt to cross our front lines then you can engage but I want to make it quite clear, gentlemen
, that you will not take your aeroplanes to attack the Germans on their side of the front.” As he was staring at the three of us, ‘the old sergeants’, we knew that he meant us in particular.”We have the chance to build a great squadron but we need well trained pilots who gain the right sort of aerial combat experience.  Not just lucky pot shots. Be patient gentlemen.”

I rolled my eyes at Gordy as we left.  Words were immaterial.  He was having another dig at us and attempting a rousing speech for the troops. He failed in both.  The lieutenants did not look inspired and we were now immune to his criticisms.

Johnny Holt walked with me to the aircraft.  “I say, I am to fly next to you.  I feel safer already, Bill.”

Since I had watched over him
when he had crash landed he had become my semi-permanent shadow. He was immensely grateful for what he saw as a life saving intervention by me.  He had made too much of it. It was what soldiers had always done; watch out for their comrades.

“Don’t worry Johnny.  You will find it much easier today.  The first combat is always the hardest. If you see any Germans just make sure they can’t get in your blind spot. How is your sergeant?”

“Oh he is a good sort.  Still he is not as good as Sergeant Sharp but I have high hopes for Bert.”

I wagged a finger in his face.  “Now do not let the major hear you being so familiar with the staff!”