VI. “Tuppence Apiece”
The herring were in the bay, and the fleet of sailing smacks went trailing out on the light wind with their eager crews of old men and boys straining at the halliards to catch the last capful of wind. After them came the armed guard-boat of the little peaceful fleet, a stout trawler with a gun in her bows, fussing in the wake of her charges.
The skipper of the guard-boat was at the wheel, a tall, gaunt old man with a fringe of grey whisker round his jaws and a mouth as tight as a scar. He it was who located the herring and placed the fleet across their path, and all that day the smacks lay to their nets till the porpoises turned inshore and drove the silvery host eastward. After them went the smacks, with holds half-full, lured on by the promise of two quarters’ rent as good as paid. Finally, the old Trawler Reserveman checked the pursuit.
“Fish or no fish,” he cried. “Here ye
bide the night.” They had reached the limit of the safety zone in those waters, and he rounded up his flock like a sagacious sheep-dog, counting the little craft carefully ere he took up his position to seaward of them for the night. At the first hint of dawn he weighed anchor and counted again: his grim old face darkened. He turned to seaward where the sky was lightening fast, and searched the mist through glasses. Three smacks were discernible some miles outside their allotted area. The burly mate stood beside his father, and watched the delinquents hauling in their nets with a speed that hinted at an uneasy conscience.
“They’m drifted in a bit of a tide rip, mebbe?” he ventured.
The old man growled an oath. “Tide rip? Nay! They’m just daft wi’ greed. There’s no wit nor dacency in their sodden heads. An’ I’ll larn ’em both. By God I’ll larn ’em to disobey my orders.” ... He watched the far-off craft hoisting sail, with eyes grey and cold as flints beneath the bushy brows. “Aye,” he said threateningly, “I’ll larn ye ...” and clumped forward to the wheel-house.
The sun had not yet risen, and the thin morning mists wreathed the face of the waters. As the trawler gathered way a sudden flash of light blinked out of the mist to the northward. The report of a gun was followed by the explosion of a shell fifty yards on the near side of the most distant fishing-smack.
The trawler skipper measured the distance from the flash to the fishing fleet, and thence to the truants bowling towards them on the morning breeze.
“Man the gun!” he roared. “Action Stations, lads!” He picked up a megaphone and bellowed through it in the direction of his charges: “Cut your warps an’ get ter hell outer this!” Then he wrenched the telegraph to full speed and put the wheel over, heading his little craft towards the quarter from which the flash had come. The gun’s crew closed up round the loaded gun, rolling up their sleeves and spitting on their hands as is the custom of their breed before a fight.
“There’s a submarine yonder in the mist,” shouted the skipper. “Open fire directly ye sight her and keep her busy while the smacks get away.” Astern of them the small craft were cutting their nets away and hoisting sail. Three or four were already making for safety to the westward before the early morning breeze that hurried in catspaws over the sea.
Bang!
The trawler opened fire as the submarine appeared ahead like a long, hump-backed shadow against the pearly grey of the horizon. The breech clanged open and the acrid smoke floated aft as they reloaded.
“Rapid fire!” shouted the skipper. Shells were bursting all about the fleeing smacks. “Give ’em hell, lads. Her’ve got two guns an’ us but the one....” He glanced back over his shoulder at the little craft he was trying to save, and then bent to the voice-pipe. “Every ounce o’ steam, Luther. Her’ll try to haul off an’ outrange my little small gun.”
Smoke poured from the gaily-painted funnel; the “little small gun” barked and barked again, and one after the other the empty cylinders went clattering into the scuppers. A shell struck the trawler somewhere in the region of the mizzen mast, and sent the splinters flying. A minute later another exploded off the port bow, flinging the water in sheets over the gun’s crew. The sight-setter slid into a sitting position, his back against the pedestal of the gun-mounting, and his head lolling on his shoulder. They had drawn the enemy’s fire at last, and every minute gave the smacks a better chance. Shell after shell struck the little craft as she blundered gallantly on. The stern was alight: the splintered foremast lay across a funnel riddled like a pepper-pot. The trawler’s boy—a shock-headed child of fourteen who had been passing up ammunition to the gun—leaned whimpering against the engine-room casing, nursing a blood-sodden jacket wrapped about his forearm.
The mate was at the gun, round which three of the crew lay. One had raised himself on his elbow and was coughing out his soul. The other two were on their backs staring at the sky.
In the face of the trawler’s fire, the submarine turned and drew out of range, firing as she went. One of the British shells had struck the low-lying hull in the stern, and a thin cloud of grey smoke ascended from the rent. Figures were visible running aft along the railed-in deck, gesticulating.
“Ye’ve hit her,” shouted the skipper from the wheel. “Give ’em hell, lads——”
A sudden burst of flame and smoke enveloped the wheel-house, and the skipper went hurtling through the doorway and pitched with a thud on the deck.
The mate ran aft and knelt beside him. “Father,” he cried hoarsely.
The inert blue-clad figure raised himself on his hands, and his head swayed between his massive shoulders.
“Father,” said the mate again, and shook him, as if trying to awaken someone from sleep. “Be ye hurted terrible bad?”
The grim old seadog raised his head, and his son saw that he was blind.
“Pitch the codes overboard,” he said. “I’m blind an’ stone deaf, an’ my guts are all abroad under me, but ye’ll fight the little gun while there’s a shell left aboard....”
The mate stood up and looked aft along the splintered, bloody deck, beyond the smoke and steam trailing to leeward.
“The gun’s wrecked,” he said slowly, as if speaking to himself. “The little smacks are clear o’ danger.... The destroyers are comin’ up.... Ye have fought a good fight, father.” The submarine had ceased fire, and as he spoke, she submerged and vanished sullenly, like a wild beast baulked of its prey.
. . . . .
An old woman sat knitting beside the fire in the heart of a Midland town next day. The door opened and a girl came in quickly, with a shawl over her head and a basket on her arm.
“There’s a surprise for supper,” she said.
The old woman looked inside the basket. “Herrin’!” she said. “What did they cost?”
“Tuppence apiece,” replied the girl lightly, as she hung up her shawl.
“They was cheap,” said the old woman as she fell to larding the frying-pan.
But all things considered, perhaps they were not so very cheap after all.
CHAPTER III
THE NAVY-THAT-FLIES[A]
The Royal Naval Air Service found itself “over the other side” about the time that the shells of the British monitors began feeling for the hidden batteries of the Boche behind the Belgian coast.
“I can’t see where they’re pitching,” said the Navy-that-Floats, referring to the shells of the monitors bursting twelve miles away. “What about spotting for us, old son?”
“That will I do,” replied the Navy-that-Flies. “And more also. But I shall have to wear khaki, because it’s done, out here; by everybody apparently. Even the newspaper reporters wear khaki. Also I must have the right machines and lots of ’em.”
“Wear anything you like,” replied the Navy-that-Floats, “as long as you can help us to hit these shore batteries. Only—because you wear khaki and see life, don’t forget you’re still the same old Navy as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”
The Navy-that-Flies added “Amen,” and said that it wouldn’t forget. It garbed itself in khaki, but retained the ring and curl on the sleeve, and the naval cap (with the eagle’s wings in place of the crown and anchor in the badge), plus a khaki cap-cover. Wherever its squadrons were based they rigged a flagstaff and flew the White Ensign at the peak. They erected wooden huts and painted them service grey, labelling them “Mess-deck,” “Wardroom,” “Gunroom,” etc., as the case might be.
They divided the flights into port and starboard watches, and solemnly asked leave to “go ashore” for recreation. Those who strayed from the same stern paths of discipline suffered the same punishments as the Navy-that-Floats. And at the conclusion of each day’s work the wardroom dined, and drank to their King, sitting, according to the custom and tradition of the naval service.
They filled in shell-holes and levelled the ground for aerodromes, they ran up hangars and excavated dug-outs—whither they retired in a strong, silent rush (the expression is theirs), when the apprehensive Boche attempted to curtail their activity with bombs.
And by degrees the right machines came along. The Navy-that-Flies swung itself into them critically, flung them about in the air three miles high, testing and measuring their capabilities. Then they fought them, crashed them, improved on them till they were righter still, and finally proceeded (to quote another of their expressions) to “put the wind up Old Man Boche” in a way that helped the Navy-that-Floats enormously.
But apart from spotting duties, which were necessarily intermittent, the R.N.A.S. undertook a photographic reconnaissance of the entire Belgian coast from Nieuport to the Dutch frontier. The work in progress at Ostend and Zeebrugge, the activities of submarines and destroyers inside the basins; locks, quays, and gun-emplacements, and the results of bombs dropped thereon the night before, were all faithfully recorded by these aerial cameras. The negatives were developed and printed, the resultant bird-pictures enlarged, studied through stereoscopic lenses, and finally given to the monitors “for information and guidance.” Since it is not given to everyone to recognise the entrance to a dug-out or a group of searchlights as they appear from a height of 20,000 feet, the photographs were embellished with explanatory notes for the benefit of anyone unaccustomed to such unfamiliar aspects of creation.
The Germans claim to be a modest people. They were as busy as beavers, and they resented these importunate photographers with all the fervour that springs from true modesty. Their anti-aircraft guns plastered the intruders with bursting shrapnel, and from every coast aerodrome Boche machines rose like a cloud of angry hornets to give battle. Yet day after day fresh plates find their way to the developing trays, and a comparison between the official reports of the flight—couched in a laconic terseness of phrase that is good to read—and the amazing results obtained gives perhaps the truest measure of the work performed by these very gallant gentlemen.
Not a spadeful of earth can be turned over, nor a trowel of cement added to a bastion along the coast, but a note appears a day or two later upon the long chart which adorns the record office of this particular squadron. A crumpled escorting machine may have come down out of the clouds, eddying like a withered leaf, to crash somewhere behind the German line; there may be somewhere near the shore a broken boy in goggles and leather lying amid the wreckage of his last flight. Such is the price paid for a few more dots added in red ink to a couple of feet of chart. But as long as the photographic machine returns with the camera intact, the price is paid ungrudgingly.
The work of these photographic recorders, pilot and observer alike, differs from all other forms of war flying. Their sole duty is to take photographs, not haphazard, but of a given objective. This necessitates steering a perfectly steady course regardless of all distractions such as bursting “Archies” and angry “Albatross” fighters. They leave the fighting to their escorts, and their fate to Providence. The observer, peering earthwards through his view-finder, steers the pilot by means of reins until he sights the line on which the desired series of photographs are to be taken: once over this, the pilot flies the machine on an undeviating course, and the observer proceeds to take photographs. When all the plates have been exposed, they turn round and return home with what remain of the escort. On occasions the escort have vanished, either earthwards or in savage pursuit of resentful though faint-hearted Boches; this is when the homing photographers’ moments are apt to become crowded with incident.
One such adventure deserves to be recorded. It happened about 12,000 feet above mother-earth: the official reports, typed in triplicate, covered some dozen lines; the actual events, an equal number of minutes; but the story is one that should live through eternity.
“While exposing six plates” (says the official report of this youthful Recording Angel) “observed five H.A.’s cruising.” (“H.A.” stands for Hostile Aeroplane.) “Not having seen escort since turning inland, pilot prepared to return. Enemy separated, one taking up position above tail and one ahead. The other three glided towards us on port side” (observe the Navy speaking), “firing as they came.
“The two diving machines fired over one hundred rounds, hitting pilot in shoulder.” As a matter of sober fact, the bullet entered his shoulder from above and behind, breaking his left collar bone, and emerged just above his heart, tearing a jagged rent down his breast. Both his feet, furthermore, pierced by bullets, but the observer was not concerned with petty detail.
“Observer held fire until H.A. diving on tail was within five yards.”
Here it might be mentioned that the machines were hurtling through space at a speed in the region of one hundred miles an hour. The pilot of the “H.A.,” having swooped to within speaking distance, pushed up his goggles and laughed triumphantly as he took his sight for the shot that was to end the fight. But the observer had his own idea of how the fight should end.
“Then shot one tray into pilot’s face,” he says, with curt relish, and watched him stall, sideslip, and go spinning earthward in a trail of smoke.
He turned his attention to his own pilot. The British machine was barely under control, but as the observer rose in his seat to investigate, the foremost gun fired, and the aggressor ahead went out of control and dived nose-first in helpless spirals. Suspecting that his mate was badly wounded in spite of this achievement, the observer swung one leg over the side of the fuselage and climbed on to the wing—figure for a minute the air pressure on his body during this gymnastic feat—until he was beside the pilot. Faint and drenched with blood, the latter had nevertheless got his machine back into complete control.
“Get back, you ass,” he said, through white lips, in response to inquiries as to how he felt. The ass got back the way he came, and looked round for the remainder of the “H.A.’s.” These, however, appeared to have lost stomach for further fighting, and fled. The riddled machine returned home at one hundred knots, while the observer, having nothing better to do, continued to take photographs. “The pilot, though wounded, made a perfect landing.” Thus the report concludes.
The Navy-that-Flies had been in France some time before the Army heard very much about its doings. This was not so much the fault of the Army as the outcome of the taciturn silence in which the Navy-that-Flies set to work. It had been bidden to observe the traditions of the silent Navy, and it observed them, forbearing even to publish the number of Boche machines it accounted for day by day.
But there came a time when its light could no longer be hid under a bushel. “Hullo,” said the generals and others concerned with the affairs of the entrenched Army, speaking among themselves, “what about it?” They consulted the Army-that-Flies.
Now the Army-that-Flies had been confronted in the early days of the war with perhaps the toughest proposition that was ever faced by mortals of even their imperturbable courage. In numerical inferiority to the enemy it had been called upon to maintain a ceaseless photographic reconnaissance far behind the enemy’s trenches; to spot for the guns of the Army along a suddenly extended front: to “keep the wind up” the Boche so that for every ten of our machines that crossed the German lines, barely one of his would dare to cross ours. This is called aerial supremacy, and they established and maintained it with fewer and worse machines than they care to talk about to-day.
“Of course we know all about these naval Johnnies,” said the Army-that-Flies. “They’d steal grey paint from their dying grandmothers, and they fear nothing in the heavens above, nor the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth. They are complaining that things are getting a bit dull along the coast.... We might show them a thing or two if they cared to join up with us for a while.”
“Let’s ask them,” said the Army.
So the Navy-that-Flies was invited “to co-operate with the Royal Flying Corps on such portions of the line where its experience of escort work and offensive patrols would prove of the greatest value.” Or words to that effect.
The Navy-that-Flies accepted the invitation with suppressed exultation, and detailed certain squadrons of fighters. It admits having selected picked pilots, because there was the credit of the old Navy to consider. Each squadron was entrusted to the care of a seasoned veteran of fully twenty-five summers, and of the flight leaders there was one that had even turned twenty-one. In short the Navy-that-Flies was sending of its best; and its worst was very good indeed.
They flew away from the coast and the sea, and their motor transport rumbled through the empty plains of France, till they closed upon the fringe of the entrenched army. Here perched above the surrounding country on some plateau or hill-side, with the ceaseless murmur of the guns in their ears, each of the squadrons rigged its flagstaff and hoisted the White Ensign, set up the grey-painted huts and the ship’s bell that divided the day into ship-watches, slung their hammocks, and announced that they were ready to “co-operate” with anybody or anything.
The Army-that-Flies laughed at the ship’s bell and the rest of the naval shibboleth, but it took the visitors to its heart. With hands deep in the pockets of its “slacks” and pipe in mouth it came over and examined the fighting machines of the Navy-that-Flies and the “doo-hickies” thereof, and it said things under its breath.
The Navy-that-Flies did not waste much time looking about it. One fire-eater setting off to explore the country some thirty miles behind the German lines came upon a school of “Quirks.” Quirks, it may be explained for the benefit of bipeds, are young Boche aviators in an embryonic stage. From the convenient ambush of a cloud he watched their antics for a while, as they flopped about above their aerodrome; and then, descending like a thunderbolt, he tumbled three over, scattered the remainder and returned to make his report. The squadron listened gravely to the story and concluded that the Golden Age had dawned.
But sterner work lay ahead, and a fair sample of it is contained in the report of another young gentleman who went scouting singlehanded over the German lines what time the “gentlemen of England” were, if not abed, cracking the first of their breakfast eggs.
He was attacked by two single-seated “Albatross” machines and a Halberstadt fighter. Into the engine of the latter he emptied a tray of cartridges, with the result that it immediately went spinning down; to make assurance doubly sure he fired another fifty rounds into the whirling wreck as it fell.
By this time a veritable hornet’s nest appears to have risen about his ears; three more “Albatross” machines whirred to the attack, and in his subsequent report he notes with artistic enjoyment that the head of one pilot precisely filled the ring of his sight. This eye for detail enabled him to recall the fact that he actually saw three bullets strike the pilot’s head, with the not surprising result that the would-be-avenger heeled over and sped to the ground.
By this time he had been driven down to a height of 200 feet above German-occupied territory, and, having lost sight of the remainder of his aggressors, he decided to return home at that height.
As was to be expected, his adventures were by no means terminated by this decision. An astonished company of German cavalry drew rein and peppered him with rifle-shots as he whisked over the tops of their lances. Five minutes later another “Albatross” attacked him.
He rocked the machine in giddy sweeps until within fifty yards of his opponent, and side-looped over him (this, remember, at 200 feet from the ground), fired a short burst and drove the Hun off for a moment while he regained equilibrium. Then once more the enemy swooped upon him.
From this point onwards the reader may be warned against vertigo. The pilot’s own version, the bald official report of the affair, requires no embellishment or comment, though the latter is not easy to suppress.
“These operations,” he states, “were repeated several times with a slight variation in the way I looped over him (flying against a head wind). When he was about 150 yards behind me, I looped straight over him, and coming out of the loop dived at him and fired a good long burst. I saw nearly all the bullets go into the pilot’s back, just on the edge of the cockpit. He immediately dived straight into the ground.
“I then went over the German trenches filled with soldiers, and was fired on by machine guns, rifles, and small field guns, in or out” (Ye Gods and Little Fishes!) “of range. There were many shells bursting in and about the German trenches.”
The report concluded with estimates of the strength of various bodies of infantry and cavalry, movements of convoy and artillery noticed during the intervals between aerial somersaults. The pilot landed at the first aerodrome he saw—adding, in explanation of such an irregular proceeding, that his machine was badly shot about.
The squadrons co-operating with the R.F.C. commenced by faithfully recording all aerial combats in which their machines were engaged. But after a while such events became too commonplace to chronicle. They fought from dawn to dusk, generally a day’s journey for a horse behind the German lines. They fought at altitudes at which in spring a thermometer registered 50° of frost, returning with petrol tanks frozen, and hands and feet and ears swollen by frost-nip. One squadron had a hundred decisive fights in a month (omitting skirmishes), and accounted for twenty-five Boche machines. Its log (unofficially termed “Game-book”) contained such entries as the following: “Four machines went up: managed to bag five Huns before breakfast.”
For the first time in their lives the pilots got all the fighting they wanted, and revelled in it gluttonously. They grew fine-drawn, with the accentuated brilliancy of eye common to men in perfect condition living at the highest tension. They met Winged Death hourly in the blue loneliness above the clouds; the rustle of his sable wings became a sound familiar as the drone of their own engines, so that all terror of the Destroyer passed out of their souls—if indeed it had ever entered there.
And Death in his turn grew merciful, amazed. At least this is the only explanation to offer for certain tales that are told along the Front, where the White Ensign flies.
But hear for yourselves and judge.
A Naval pilot—a Canadian, by the way—attacked a single-seater “Albatross” scout at 8,000 feet above the German lines. He disposed of him after a short engagement, and was then attacked by seven others who drove him down to 3,000 feet and shot his machine to pieces. He plunged to the ground and crashed amid the wreck of his machine a couple of hundred yards behind the Canadian lines, breaking a leg and dislocating a shoulder. A furious bombardment from German heavy artillery was in progress at the time, and he crawled into a shell-hole, where he remained from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Fire then having slackened, a party from the trenches went in search of his body with a view to burying it, and found him conscious and cheerful, though very thirsty.
The Navy-that-Flies is witness that I lie not.
As far as bombing operations are concerned, the Navy-that-Flies confines its attentions principally to the German bases along the Belgian coast, and any lurking submarines or vagrant destroyers observed in the vicinity. Bombing is carried out by both aeroplanes and seaplanes, and differs from other forms of war flying in that it is principally performed at night.
The function of the bombing machine is to reach its given objective in as short a time as possible, without provoking more “scraps” on the way than are inevitable, to “deliver the goods,” and, if not brought down by anti-aircraft fire, to return with all speed. They are not primarily fighters, and when laden with bombs are not theoretically a match for a hostile fighting machine with unfettered manœuvring powers.
Engine-trouble or loss of stability over enemy territory means almost infallible capture or death for the pilot of a bombing aeroplane. Yet in cases of disablement, rather than come down on the ground and suffer themselves or their machine to be taken prisoner, it is their gallant tradition to try to struggle out to sea. Here they stand about as much chance of life as a pheasant winged above a lake, but the machine sinks before German hands can touch it.
Now it happened that on one such occasion the descent into the sea of a bombing machine was observed by two French flying boats which were out on patrol. The distressed machine was still within range of the shore batteries, and the Boches, smarting under the effect of the bombs she had succeeded in dropping, were retaliating in the most approved Germanic manner by plastering the helpless machine with shrapnel as she slowly sank.
The two French flying boats sped to the rescue and alighted in the water beside the wrecked British machine. One embarked the observer, who was wounded, and, in spite of redoubled fire from the shore, succeeded in returning safely. The other French flying-boat actually embarked the remaining occupants of the bombing machine, but was hit as it rose from the water and fell disabled. The French pilot, seeing a Boche seaplane approaching, and a bevy of small craft in-shore coming out against them, scribbled a message to say that his venture had failed; he found time to add, however, with true Gallic dauntlessness of spirit, “Vive la France!” This missive he fastened to the leg of his carrier pigeon, and succeeded in releasing it before rescuers and rescued were taken prisoners.
From time to time curt official announcements of successful bomb-raids upon German destroyer and submarine bases appear in the press. It may be that the Naval honours or casualties lists are swelled thereby. But no one who has not stood in the wind that blows across the bombers’ aerodrome at night, in those last tense moments before the start, can form any idea of the conditions under which these grim laurels are earned.
One by one the leather-clad pilots conclude their final survey and climb up into their machines. They adjust goggles and gloves: there is a warning “Stand clear!” and the darkness fills with roaring sound as No. 1 starts his engine. For a moment longer he sits in the utter isolation of darkness and the deafening noise of his own engine. No further sounds can reach him; not another order nor the valedictory “Good luck!” from those whose lot it is to only stand and wait. He settles himself comfortably and fingers the familiar levers and throttle; then with a jerk the bomber starts along the uneven ground, gathers way, and rising, speeds droning into the darkness like a gigantic cockchafer. A moment later No. 2 follows, then another, and another. The night swallows them, and the sound of their engines dies away.
A couple of hours later in one of the grey-painted huts that fringe the aerodrome a telephone bell jangles. The squadron commander picks up the receiver and holds converse with a tiny metallic voice that sounds very far away; the conversation ends, he puts on his cap and goes out into the darkness; a few minutes later a sudden row of lights across the aerodrome makes bright pin-pricks in the darkness. From far away in the air comes the hum of an engine growing momentarily louder. It grows louder and clearer as the homing machine circles overhead and finally comes to earth with a rushing wind and the scramble of men’s feet invisible.
The pilot climbs stiffly out of his seat, pushing up his goggles, and puckers his eyes in the light of the lanterns as he fumbles for his cigarette case. “Got ’em,” he says laconically. “Seaplane sheds on the mole. Time for another trip?”
There is time, it appears. He drinks hot coffee while the armourers snap a fresh supply of bombs into the holders and test the release gear. He answers questions curtly and his replies are very much to the point.
Their “Archies” are shooting well, and they’ve got a lot more searchlights at work than they had last time. Rather warm work while it lasted. He thinks No. 1 was hit and brought down in flames. No. 2 seemed to have engine trouble this side of our lines on the way back. No. 3 ought to be along soon. And while he gulps his coffee and grunts monosyllables there is a whirring overhead and No. 3 returns, loudly demanding a fresh supply of bombs with which to put an artistic finish to a row of blazing oil-tanks.
They climb into their machines again and lean back resting, while the finishing touches (which sometimes come between life and death) are put to the machines and their deadly freight. Then once more they soar up into the night.
Dawn is breaking when No. 4 returns, tired-eyed, and more monosyllabic than ever. It came off all right, but No. 3 had seemed to lose control and slid down the beam of a searchlight with shells and balls of red fire (some new stunt, he supposed) bursting all about her. However, she got her bombs off first, and touched up something that sent a flame 200 feet into the air. He himself bombed a group of searchlights that were annoying him, and some trucks in a railway siding. The speaker has an ugly shrapnel wound in the thigh and observes with grave humour that his boots are full of blood—this is a Navy joke, by the way. Also that he could do with a drink.
But it came off all right.
Now the seaplanes, who undertake much the same sort of job, keep pigs, and contemplate their stern mission with an extinguishable and fathomless sense of humour. This may be accounted for by the fact that in life and death they are more in touch with the native element of the Navy-that-Floats and share much of its light-heartedness in consequence.
Aerial gymnastics are not in their line. They fight when they must, and the straightest shot wins. If hit, unless hopelessly out of control, they take to the water like a wounded duck. If the damage is beyond temporary repair they sit on the surface and pray for the dawn and a tow from a friendly destroyer.
No aerial adventure is ever recounted (and the array of medal ribbons round their mess table is witness to the quality of these blindfold flights) without its humorous aspect well-nigh obliterating all else. One who fought a Zeppelin single-handed with a Webley-Scott pistol and imprecations found himself immortalised only in the pages of a magazine of Puck-like humour they publish (Fate and funds permitting) monthly. Another, disabled on the water off an enemy’s port, succeeded in getting his engine going as the crew of an armed trawler were leaning over the bows with boat-hooks to secure him. He rose from the water beneath their outstretched hands, and recalled with breathless merriment nothing but the astonishment on their Teutonic faces. A third, similarly disabled, was approached on the surface by a German submarine. He raked her deck with his Lewis gun and kept her at bay—by the simple expedient of picking off every head that appeared above her conning-tower—until she wearied of the sport and withdrew. From a seaplane point of view it was a pretty jest.
At the conclusion of a day’s aerial fighting on the Somme front a certain officer of the Navy-that-Flies was asked how he felt about it.
“Wa-al ...” he drawled, and paused, groping in his mind for metaphor. “It’s jest like stealing candy from a kid.”
Making all allowances for poetic licence, this is a very fair illustration of the spirit in which the Navy-that-Flies went about the business. On the other hand there were a few who took a graver view of their responsibilities.
Among the possessions of one of the naval squadrons co-operating with the Army-that-Flies along the front is a foolscap manuscript notebook bearing the superscription Notes on Aerial Fighting. The youthful author of these notes will never handle either pen or “joy-stick” again, but he has left behind him a document that is, in its way, one of the epics of war literature. It has since been printed (in expurgated form), and has doubtless found its way into textbooks and treatises on the subject. But to be appreciated to the full it should be read in the original round, rather boyish handwriting, within hearing of the continuous murmur of the British guns and the drone of a scouting fighter passing overhead.
It contains ten commandments, which, for a variety of reasons, need not be recapitulated here. But the introduction epitomises the spirit of them all:
“The man who gets most Huns in his lifetime is the man who observes these commandments and fights with his head. The others either get killed or get nerves in a very short time and the country does not get the full benefit of having trained them.”
The commandments conclude with the following exhortation: “A very pleasant (sic) help in time of trouble is to put yourself in the enemy’s place and view the situation from his point of view. If you feel frightened before an attack, just think how frightened he must be!”
The Navy-that-Floats possesses for its “pleasant help” an awesome volume of some 946 pages (not counting Addenda), entitled The King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions. Yet in all its pages there is not one clause which can compare with this brave sentence: for this is youth speaking to youth, for the guidance and comfort of his soul.
Now in one of the squadrons of the Navy-that-Flies there are three flight leaders, and the sum total of their ages is fifty-nine. The youngest, whatever his birth certificate may testify, looks something under sixteen. Of him it is related that in his early youth, having brought down a hostile machine within the British lines and captured the two occupants (with Iron Crosses complete), he approached a certain general, demanding transport for his prisoners—covering them the while with an automatic pistol.
“Transport?” said the general. “Where d’you want to take them?”
“To my squadron headquarters,” was the grave reply. “I’d like to keep ’em for a bit. I’d like the others to see ’em.”
“Damn it,” replied the General, “they ain’t canaries. Certainly not. Send ’em to the cages with the rest of the prisoners.”
The victor flew sorrowfully homewards, and on arrival gave it as his opinion that professional jealousy was the ruination of the Junior Service....
They are not given to talking over-much of their achievements in the hearing of a stranger within their gates. The second youngest of the trio admitted, contemplating his cow-hide boots, to have “done-in” twelve hostile machines in single combat—and lapsed into agonised silence.
“Of course,” said the third, coming to the rescue of a comrade in palpable distress, “N., the star Frenchman, is the fellow to talk if you want to hear some good yarns.” The speaker had the grave, sweet face of a mediæval knight, and the owner of the cow-hide boots shot him a swift glance of gratitude.
“He’s done-in fifty Huns,” he confirmed, nodding.
It was on the following day, as it happened, that Fate introduced the Frenchman to the Stranger within the Gates of the Navy-that-Flies. The flying man landed on one of the aerodromes of the Navy-that-Flies, a florid-faced young man, chubby and blue-eyed. The squadron strolled out to greet him with ready hospitality and hero-worship.
“Bon jour, N.,” said the squadron commander. “How goes it?”
The famous French fighting pilot swung himself out of his machine and pulled off his gauntlet. He wore, in addition to the regulation flying helmet, a bright-blue muffler wound with many turns round the lower part of his face, and a soiled aquascutum with a row of medal-ribbons reaching half-way across his breast. The wind fluttered its skirts, disclosing a pair of tight red breeches above top-boots of a light yellow. As an additional protection against the cold his feet were encased in fur moccasins. He greeted the Navy-that-Flies in rapid French and threw their ranks into some disorder.
“Translate, George,” said the squadron commander.
“He says he’s on sick leave,” explained one of the hosts. “He’s just flying to keep his eye in. He scuppered five Boches last week.”
“Si,” said the Frenchman, nodding, and held up his hand with outstretched fingers, “Cinq!”
“Good on you, old sport,” said the squadron commander. They shook hands again, and the remainder clustered rather curiously round the sinister machine with the black skull and cross-bones adorning its fusilage.
“Makes one sort of sorry for the Hun, doesn’t it?” said one musingly.
“George,” said another, “ask him what that doo-hickie on the muzzle of his gun’s for.” He indicated a detail on the mounting.
The Frenchman explained at some length, and the interpreter interpreted.
“Bon!” said the squadron commander.
“Oui,” said the Frenchman, “tres bon! You ’ave not eet—cette—comment dites vous?—doo-hickie? No?”
“No,” was the reply, “mais nous blooming well allons——”
The Frenchman presently climbed back into his machine and took his departure. The squadron commander summoned his chief armourer, and for a while deep called to deep.
“He’s a red-hot lad, that Frenchman,” said the squadron commander, when the chief armourer had gone. “I fancy he only came down to let us see that doo-hickie of his on his gun. You ought to hear some of his yarns, though.”
The Stranger within the Gates of the Navy-that-Flies gazed after the aerial speck against the blue of heaven, and his soul was glad within him, because it was all the purest Navy.
“That’s all right,” he said. “But what I should like to know is, what the deuce is a doo-hickie?”
“A doo-hickie?” replied the squadron commander. “A doo-hickie? H’m’m. George, how would you describe a doo-hickie?”
The officer appealed to puffed his pipe in silence for a moment. “Well,” he said at length, “you know more or less what a gadget’s like?”
“Yes.”
“And a gilguy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, a doo-hickie is something like that, only smaller as a rule.”
There was a silence. Then the squadron commander leaned forward and flicked a speck of fluff off the shoulder of the Stranger within their Gates.
“There you are!” he exclaimed triumphantly—“that’s a doo-hickie!”
“Have a drink, anyway,” said the officer who answered to the name of George, soothingly.
The Stranger within the Gates of the Navy-that-Flies had the drink, and from then onwards forbore to ask any more questions.
But he still sometimes wonders what the functions of a doo-hickie might be.