The Air Patrol: A Story of the North-west Frontier

by Herbert Strang

As soon as Lawrence reached his turning-place he began to climb. In a few moments he caught sight of the enemy's aeroplane skimming round the bend below the mine. It was much lower than before, probably no more than three hundred feet above Lawrence, and as soon as the airmen caught sight of him, they dipped so suddenly as almost to suggest that the machine was beyond control. But Lawrence realised that the descent was intentional. They meant to come as close above him as they could in the half mile between them. He ceased to mount, and steered straight down the valley, hugging the cliff on the left hand. The enemy followed his manoeuvre, edging to their right in order to pass immediately above him. The two aeroplanes were only about a hundred yards horizontally apart when with a quick movement of his rudder, which threw a hazardous strain upon the planes, Lawrence shot out over the river. Before the enemy could alter their own course he had passed well outside them. Their bombs, dropped hurriedly while the pilot was striving to cope with Lawrence's sudden movement, fell harmlessly into the river.

The enemy's turning-place up stream being much nearer the mine than that in the opposite direction, there was no time to alight again and save expenditure of petrol. But there was time to lend aid to the defenders at the breastwork. Lawrence flew on, instructing Fazl to hurl a bomb among the enemy as he passed the bend. Two teams of horses were dragging more field guns up to the rampart. It was among these that Fazl let fall his bomb, and looking back, he shouted gleefully that one of the teams had stampeded and dashed with their gun over the bank into the river, while the other were plunging furiously amid a smother of smoke. At the same time the rattle of the machine gun announced that Gur Buksh was again at work.

Lawrence did not wish to fly six or seven miles down the river to the wide bay in which he was sure the enemy had turned. To wheel round earlier involved some risk, but it was a risk from which his strung-up nerves did not flinch.

About three-fourths of a mile beyond the bend, at the spot where the enemy had established themselves after their first repulse, the gorge curved to the west, and in the cliff-face there was an extensive depression, scooped out as it were by a landslip. He resolved to try his luck there. The margin was perilously narrow, and only a man absolutely familiar with the spot, as he was, and prepared for the turning movement at the very moment of reaching it, could have hoped to wheel in the space.

At the critical point he banked up at a sharp angle, and for one brief moment felt a cold shudder of fear as he recognised the beginning of the sideslip that had brought disaster on so many reckless or unfortunate airmen. But the planes recovered their grip; the machine swung round across the river, having shaved the cliff on the left by an appallingly fine margin; and flew lightly and evenly up stream again.

By this daring feat Lawrence had saved nearly ten miles and the equivalent quantity of petrol. He had also avoided a meeting with the enemy on the north side of the mine, where manoeuvring to dodge them would have been much more difficult. By alighting when they next passed him he would again save while they were expending, and however large their supply had been when they started, it could not much longer stand the drain of continual flight up and down the river. Even now, since entering the valley, they must have travelled a good deal more than a hundred miles; their flight from headquarters might have been three hundred. No doubt a further supply of fuel and oil had been despatched after them, but it would take a week or more to reach them over such rugged country. If he could only keep them fruitlessly employed until they were forced to leave the gorge through failing petrol, he would gain perhaps just enough time for the garrison to prolong their defence until the expected relief force arrived.

Thought is quicker even than an aeroplane's flight: these hopes, conjectures, volitions flashed through Lawrence's mind in the interval between his venturesome circuit and his arrival at the bend. The bombardment had recommenced. Two guns had been got into position; others were being hauled up the track. A hot rifle fire was opened upon the aeroplane, and both pilot and passenger were struck by fragments of bullets that had splintered on the metal work. Their great speed soon carried them out of further danger, but the bomb which Fazl dropped missed its aim, exploded on the rocky bank instead of on the track, and did little harm.

Lawrence guessed that the Kalmuck airmen would now suppose him to have risen, and would themselves be mounting in order to keep above him. He therefore resolved to keep low. The sequel showed that the enemy had been cunning enough to guess at his guess. When they reappeared, so far from ascending they were descending, yet gradually, so that they might adapt their course to the exigencies of the moment. They were now only two hundred feet above him.

This time he decided not to rush past and continue his flight up stream, but to wheel at the turning-place, and save time and petrol by flying back in their wake to his platform. He realised afterwards that he began his turning movement a trifle too soon, though, as the event proved, his indiscretion served him well. The enemy had not quite met him when he shifted his rudder for circling round the bay. He expected them to flash by as usual at express speed, but to his intense astonishment and alarm he found that instead of continuing on their direct course they had suddenly banked over, and were wheeling above him in the same direction as himself. It was a manoeuvre of extraordinary daring, for the larger aeroplane required a much wider circle than the smaller, and in order to clear the cliffs it had to remain banked up at a dangerously sharp angle.

Lawrence felt himself trapped. He could not fly out at either end of the bay, he thought, without being immediately followed by the enemy, who would then have him at their mercy. Yet he was in equal danger if he remained circling below them, for though their flight was swifter than his, at some moment their machine would be vertically above him, and they would doubtless seize that moment for hurling a bomb. He could not descend without shattering the aeroplane on the banks or plunging into the river. He felt as helpless as a pigeon beneath an eagle.