Voices of Silence (27 page)

Sideslip, spin or loop,

He can’t evade my swoop;

In vain he’s up to his knavish games . . .

A burst! and he plunges down in flames;

I give him the hunter’s ‘whoop’!

Alone again in space

I turn to the earth my face;

The armies fight below

As ants on the warpath go . . .

. . . But if man’s works seem small to me and odd,

How mighty small these things must look to God.

Capt. ffrench

I journeyed to the east,

Rolled on the surgent airs of autumn days:

Below, the earth lay creased

With myriad meadows in the morning haze.

Far off, where lay the sea,

A silvered mirror beckoned to my bent,

And, moving orderly,

The high cloud-armies marched magnificent.

Some menace in the sky,

Some quick alarm did wake me as I sped:

At once, unwarningly

Streamed out repeated death, from one that fled

Headlong before my turn –

But, unavoiding of the answering blast,

Checked sudden, fell astern –

And unmolested fared I to the last.

Gordon Alchin

We were flying in formation and we kept our ruddy station,

Though the wind was trying hard to sweep the sky.

And we watched the puffs of powder, heard the Archies booming louder

And we didn’t need to stop to reason why.

With the German lines below us, and a gale that seemed to throw us

Into nowhere, as it would a schoolboy’s kite,

We went skimming through the ether always keeping close together

And we felt the joy of battle grip us tight.

Then from out of the horizon which we kept our eager eyes on

Swept the Fokkers in their deadly fan-wise dash.

Soon the Vickers guns were cracking and a couple started backing,

Whilst a third was sent down in a flaming flash.

How we blessed our Bristol Fighters, as we closed in with the blighters

And we zoomed and banked and raced them through the air.

We abandoned our formation, but we won the situation,

Won it easily, with four machines to spare.

Then Archie burst around us, and the beggar nearly found us,

But we dived towards our lines without delay,

And we finished gay and merry on a binge of gin and sherry,

For we knew we’d lived to see another day.

At a lofty elevation

Floating lazy in the sun,

What an ideal occupation

Keeping watch on brother Hun!

Though a ‘sausage’ is my villa

Far from angry whizz-bangs’ scream,

I can watch the caterpillar,

And all things are what they seem.

In a contemplative manner

When the ‘big push’ is begun,

’Tis from here I’d love to see it,

From my place up in the sun.

Our guns are a league behind us, our target a mile below,

And there’s never a cloud to blind us from the haunts of our lurking foe –

Sunk pit whence his shrapnel tore us, support-trench crest-concealed,

As clear as the charts before us, his ramparts lie revealed.

His panicked watchers spy us, a droning threat in the void;

Their whistling shells outfly us – puff upon puff, deployed

Across the green beneath us, across the flanking gray,

In fume and fire to sheath us and baulk us of our prey.

Before, beyond, above her,

Their iron web is spun:

Flicked but unsnared we hover,

Edged planes against the sun:

Eyes in the air above his lair,

The hawks that guide the gun!

No word from earth may reach us, save, white against the ground,

The strips outspread to teach us whose ears are deaf to sound:

But down the winds that sear us, athwart our engine’s shriek

We send – and know they hear us, the ranging guns we speak.

Our visored eyeballs show us their answering pennant, broke

Eight thousand feet below us, a whorl of flame-stabbed smoke –

The burst that hangs to guide us, while numbed gloved fingers tap

From wireless key beside us the circles of the map.

Line – target – short or over –

Come, plain as clock hands run,

Words from the birds that hover,

Unblinded, tail to sun;

Words out of air to range them fair,

From hawks that guide the gun!

Your dying shells have failed you, your landward guns are dumb:

Since earth hath naught availed you, these skies be open! Come,

Where, wild to meet and mate you, flame in their beaks for breath,

Black doves! the white hawks wait you on the wind-tossed boughs of death.

These boughs be cold without you, our hearts are hot for this,

Our wings shall beat about you, our scorching breath shall kiss;

Till, fraught with that we gave you, fulfilled of our desire,

You bank – too late to save you from biting beaks of fire –

Turn sideways from your lover,

Shudder and swerve and run,

Tilt; stagger; and plunge over

Ablaze against the sun:

Doves dead in air, who clomb to dare

The hawks that guide the gun!

Gilbert Frankau

Ten German aeroplanes coming from the Rhine,

One was shot down, and then there were nine.

Nine German aeroplanes sang the ‘Hymn of Hate’,

One burst his lungs up, and then there were eight.

Eight German aeroplanes travelling towards Heaven,

One lost his way there, and then there were seven.

Seven German aeroplanes in an awful fix,

One got fizzled up, and then there were six.

Six German aeroplanes trying how to dive,

One sank below the Thames, and then there were five.

Five German aeroplanes dodging round a store,

A British airman caught one, and then there were four.

Four German aeroplanes going out to sea,

One got ‘drownded’, and then there were three.

Three German aeroplanes, wobbling as they flew,

One over-wobbled, and then there were two.

Two German aeroplanes turned their tails to run

Home to the Fatherland, and then there was one.

One German aeroplane travelling all alone,

He gave himself up, and then there were none.

Dawn . . .

And the dewy plain

Awakes to life and sound –

Where on the flying-ground

The ghostly hangars blaze with lights again.

The giant birds of prey

Creep forth to a new day,

And one by one

As morning gilds the dome

Leave the grey aerodrome –

– The day’s begun.

Dusk . . .

And the vanish’d sun

Still streaks the evening skies:

Below, the prone Earth lies

Darken’d, wherever warring Night has won.

The ’planes, returning, show

Deep black in the afterglow,

And one by one

Drop down from the higher airs,

– Down, down the invisible stairs –

The day is done.

Gordon Alchin

You who have seen across the star-decked skies

The long white arms of searchlights slowly sweep,

Have you imagined what it is to creep

High in the darkness, cold and terror-wise,

For ever looked for by those cruel eyes

Which search with far-flung beams the shadowy deep,

And near the wings unending vigil keep

To haunt the lonely airman as he flies?

Have you imaged what it is to know

That if
one
finds you
all
their fierce desire

To see you fall will dog you as you go,

High in a sea of light and bursting fire,

Like some small bird, lit up and blinding white

Which slowly moves across the shell-torn night?

Paul Bewsher

Every little while I crash a Camel,

Every little while I hit a tree;

I’m always stalling – I’m always falling,

Because I want to fly a posh S.E.

Every little while my engine’s conking,

Every little while I catch on fire.

All the time I’ve got my switch up

I’ve always got the wind up.

Every, every, every little while.

Captain Riddell, R.F.C.

Trying to land a bumble-bee

Broke an under carriage Vee.

First he blamed the E.L.C.,

Foiled in that the landing Tee . . .

. . . what a dreadful liar he.

O.C. Squadron said ‘Let’s see

That’s the tenth machine that he

Has destroyed most foolishly;

I shall recommend he be

Transferred to the A.S.C.’.

The moral of this tale is plain

Speak the truth and shame the devil

If you’re summoned to explain

Always do so on the level.

Beside a Belgian ’staminet when the smoke had cleared away,

Beneath a busted Camel, its former pilot lay,

His throat was cut by the bracing wires, the tank had hit his head,

And coughing a shower of dental work, these parting words he said:

‘Oh, I’m going to a better land,

They binge there ev’ry night,

The cocktails grow on bushes,

So ev’ryone stays tight.

They’ve torn up all the calendars,

They’ve busted all the clocks,

And little drops of whisky

Come trickling through the rocks.’

The pilot breathed these last few gasps before he passed away,

‘I’ll tell you how it happened – my flippers didn’t stay,

The motor wouldn’t hit at all, the struts were far too few,

A shot went through the gas tank, and let the gas leak through.

‘Oh, I’m going to a better land, where the motors always run,

Where the eggnog grows on the eggplant, and pilots grow a bun.

They’ve got no Sops, they’ve got no Spads, they’ve got no Flaming Fours,

And little frosted juleps are served at all the stores.

‘Oh, I’m going to a better land,

They binge there ev’ry night,

The cocktails grow on bushes,

So ev’ryone stays tight.

They’ve torn up all the calendars

They’ve busted all the clocks,

And little drops of whisky

Come trickling through the rocks.’

A handsome young airman lay dying,

lay dying
,

And as on the aer’drome he lay,

he lay
,

To the mechanics who round him came sighing,

came sighing
,

These last dying words he did say,

he did say:

‘Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,’

‘of his kidneys’

‘The connecting rod out of my brain,’

‘of his brain,’

‘The cam box from under my backbone,’

‘his backbone,’

‘And assemble the engine again.’

‘again’
.

You may prate of dashing Majors, or of gallant, grim old stagers,

When you’re sitting in the smoke-room of the Club;

You may laud the high endeavour of the warriors swift and clever,

From the Colonel to the smallest junior sub.

They are Britain’s vowed defenders; they have added to her splendours,

They are heroes in excelsis, one and all;

But the Trojan of our nation, who has soared to Fame’s high station,

Is the Nottinghamshire nugget – Albert Ball!

He has hewn a path to Glory; he shall shine in endless story;

He has triumphed in the conquest of the air;

He has wrought a thousand wonders ’mid the tumults and the thunders

Of a War with which no others can compare.

He was true to our traditions; he fulfilled the fiercest missions

With a bravery that nothing can efface;

Bringing Bosches down in plenty, he, a youth of only twenty,

Must be reckoned with the giants of the race!

He is gone – alas, for ever; yet his fame shall falter never,

And his deeds of dazzling daring shall endure,

To inspire each generation with a glowing admiration

For the ways of peerless pilots, swift and sure.

Though his innings here is finished, still with fervour undiminished

We will praise him, first and foremost in the van;

And wherever men may muster, they shall magnify his lustre,

For he proved himself a hero and – a man!