Air Men o' War

For a good ten minutes the machine circled and swung and darted to and fro, while the observer hung on and snapped his plates at such objects as he wanted on the ground below; and for all that ten minutes the Archies continued to pitch a stream of shells up round and over and under them.

Then the observer signalled "finished," and the machine jerked round and streaked off at top speed in a series of curves and zigzags that carried her westward and homeward as straight as the pilot dared drive in avoiding the shells that continued to follow them. The pilot kept her nose down a little as he went, so as to obtain the maximum speed, but when he began to run out of range of the Archies and leave their smoke bursts well astern, he tilted up and pushed straight west at top speed, but on a long climb that brought him up a thousand feet a mile. Presently he felt the signal cord looped about his arm jerk and jerk again, and, tilting the machine's nose slightly downward, he shut off his engine and let her glide and twisted round to the observer.

"Huns," yelled the observer. "Six of 'em, and coming like stink," and he pointed up and astern to half a dozen dots in the sky.

"Would you like a scrap, Spotty?" shouted the pilot. "Shall we take 'em on?"

"Don't ask me," shouted Spotty. "Ask the Hun. He'll scrap if he wants to, and you and your old 'bus can't help it, Barry."

"Thought you knew the old 'Marah' better," retorted Barry. "You watch"; and he twisted in his seat and opened his engine out.

Now the "Marah" was the pride of her Squadron, and, most inordinately, of her pilot. Built line by line to the blue-print of her class, fraction by fraction of an inch in curve, straight, and stream-line, to the design of her sisters in the Squadron, differing no hair's-breadth from them in shape, size, engine, or propeller, she yet by some inscrutable decree was the best of them all in every quality that counts for best in a machine. There are theories to account for these not uncommon differences, the most popular and plausible being that the better machine is so merely because of some extra skill and minute care in her and her engine's building, last touches of exactness and perfection in the finish of their parts and their assembling.

The "Marah" could outclimb anything in the Squadron with the most ridiculous ease, outclimb them in feet per minute, and in final height; she could outfly them on any level from 100 to 20,000 feet, could "out-stunt" them – although here perhaps the pilot had as much to say as the machine – in any and every stunt they cared to challenge her on. Barry, her young pilot, literally loved her. He lost no chance of trying her out against other types of machines, and there were few of the fastest and best types even amongst the single-seater scout machines that could beat her on a level fly, or that she could not leave with her nose held slightly down. No two-seater Barry had ever met could come anywhere near the "Marah" in stunting, in the ease and speed at which he could put her through all sorts of fancy spins, loops, side-slips, and all the rest of the bag of air tricks. How much of her superiority was due to her own qualities and how much to her pilot it is hard to say, because certain it is that Barry could climb her nearly a thousand feet higher, and drive her several knots faster, than any other pilot who had flown her.

It is because of all these things that Barry had preferred to make this particular photographing trip a lone-hand one. It was a long-distance journey far back behind the German lines, to a spot known to be well protected by long-range Archies, and of such importance that it was certain to order out fast fighting machines to cut off any flight taking back reports or photographs. Barry's arguments for his single-handed trip were simple, and, as the Squadron Commander had to admit, sound. "One machine stands much more chance of sneaking over high up without being spotted than a whole flight," said Barry. "When we're there I can chuck the 'bus about any old how to dodge the Archies, while Spotty snaps his pictures; and if we're tackled by any E.A.,2 the old 'Marah' could probably outfly them by herself. And since you're so beastly positive that this isn't a scrapping stunt, I'd sooner be on my own and free to dodge and run and use clouds and so on without having to think of keeping formation. Don't you worry. We'll come through all right."

The Squadron Commander gave in. "Right oh," he said reluctantly. "And do keep your eyes skinned for Huns and run from 'em if you've a chance. This information is wanted badly, remember, and you mustn't risk getting scuppered with it. And, besides we can't afford to lose the 'Marah' out of the Squadron. You don't count of course, but the old 'bus is too good to lose."

He hid a good deal of anxiety under his chaffing, and Barry, reading that and the friendship that bred it, laughed and took the same light-hearted tone. "You won't lose her," he said. "If a Hun punctures me and Spotty we'll just jump overboard and tell the old girl to push along home on her own. She's jolly near got sense enough to do it too, I believe."

Now all this was in Barry's mind when Spotty told him of the pursuing enemy, and so he set himself to take every ounce of advantage he could. The machines behind were travelling faster, because they had sighted him from a much higher level, and had all the additional speed that a downward slant gave them, while the "Marah," still held on a slightly upward incline, lost something of her top speed thereby.

Barry knew there were Archie batteries to be passed over on the way back, and if he meant to keep a straight course it was necessary that he should be as far above them as possible. He leaned out and peered down at the landscape wheeling and unrolling under them, picked out the spot he was watching for – a village where he knew Archie batteries were located – and altered course slightly to give it a wider berth. In another minute the Archie shells began to bark about them. At the first one that came dangerously close the "Marah" hoicked abruptly upward 500 feet, wheeled sharp south for half a mile, swung again and drove straight west. Twice she had to swerve and dodge in similar fashion before she cleared the zone of the Archies' range, and these swerves and their faster downward passage allowed the enemy craft to overhaul her considerably. Spotty swung his machine-gun round in readiness and trained it aft and up on the hostiles.

Two single-seaters were half a mile ahead of the other four and looming larger every minute. They were within long range now, and, presently, one of them loosed off a dozen rounds or so at the "Marah." Spotty jerked a signal that he was going to fire, and taking careful sight rapped off about twenty rounds. The range was too great yet for him, and the Huns made no sign of a swerve from their direct path, so Spotty ceased firing and waited, glancing over his sights at one machine that had forged slightly ahead of the other. Barry looked back over his shoulder and up at the two machines. They were still a good thousand feet above the "Marah," but Barry was satisfied enough with the way the game was running, because while they had dropped from perhaps 20,000 feet to 15,000, the "Marah" had gained 3,000 to 4,000 as she flew.

The advantage of height was half the battle, and Barry wanted to snatch every inch of it he could gain. For that reason he passed a signal back to Spotty to open fire again, and Spotty obediently began to rip out a series of short bursts. The two men had flown so long together that each knew the other's dodges and ideas to an extent precious beyond words, and had a code of brief signals in head-noddings and jerkings and hand motions that saved much waste of time and breath in shutting off engine to shout messages or yelling through the communicating 'phone. Spotty figured now just the plan Barry had in mind, a plan to hustle the enemy into making his attempt before he was at the closest effective range for a diving attack. The plan succeeded too. His bullets must have been going somewhere close, for Spotty saw the nearest machine swerve ever so slightly, as if her pilot had flinched or ducked instinctively. Then Spotty saw her nose dip slightly until it was pointed straight at the "Marah," the machine-gun firing through her propeller broke out in a long rapid burst of fire, and the "tracer" bullets3 came flashing and streaming past in thin pencils of flame and smoke. What followed takes a good deal longer in the telling than it did in the happening. All three machines were travelling, remember, at a speed of anything round a hundred knots, a speed that rose at times as they dipped and dived to nearer perhaps a hundred and thirty and forty. While they were flying on the same course with little difference in speed each airman could see the other closely and in detail, could watch each little movement, look over at leisure small items about each other's machines. Mere groundlings cannot get nearer to the sensation than to imagine or remember sitting at the window of a carriage on the slow lumbering sixty-mile-an-hour express, watching the almost equally slow mail rushing over the rails at sixty-five miles on a parallel line, and seeing the passengers at her windows scanning deliberately the shape of your hat or colour of your hair.

In just such fashion Spotty saw the pilot of the leading machine rise slightly and glance astern at his companion, saw him settle himself in his seat, saw him raise a hand and motion downward. Instantly he jerked the cord fast to Barry's shoulder, signalling "look out," and with swift clockwork motions snatched the almost empty drum of his machine-gun, and replaced it with the full one he held ready clutched between his knees.

Vaguely in the swift ensuing seconds he felt the machine under him sway and leap and reel; but his whole mind was for that time concentrated on his gun sights, on keeping them full on the bulk of the machine astern of him, in pressing the trigger at the exact critical second. He saw the round bow of his nearest pursuer lift and for one long breath saw the narrow tapering length of her underbody behind it. That was a chance, and he filled it full and brimming with a fifty-round burst of which he saw the bullets flash and disappear in the fuselage above him. Then in a flash the underbody disappeared, and the rounded bow of the hostile came plunging down on him, growing and widening as it came full power and speed of engine and gravity pull. He was dimly conscious of her firing as she came, and he kept his own gun going, pumping bullets in a constant stream, his eye glued to the sights, his finger clenched about the trigger. Somehow he knew – just knew, without reasoning or thinking it out – that his bullets were going to their mark, and it gave him no slightest touch of astonishment when he saw his enemy stagger, leap upward, lurch and roll until she stood straight up on her wing-tip, and so, banking and deflecting from the "Marah's" course, flash in a split fraction of a second out of the fight.

He had no more than a glimpse of a gust of fire and gush of black smoke from somewhere about her before she vanished from his sight, and he was training his sights on a second shape that came swooping and plunging down upon him. This second enemy made better play with her gun. With deadly slowness and persistence, as it seemed, she closed, yard by yard. Spotty trained his gun full in the centre of the quivering light rays that marked the circle of her whirling propeller, and poured burst after burst straight at the jerking flashes of the machine-gun that blazed through her propeller. He felt an agonising jar on his ankle … but the drum of his machine-gun snapped out its last cartridge, and Spotty smoothly and methodically whipped off the empty drum, stooped and lifted a full one, fitted it in place, and looking over his sights rapped his gun into action again; while all the time the bullets of his adversary hailed and ripped and tore about and upon the "Marah," riddling the rudder, slashing along the stern, cracking in the whip-like reports of explosive bullets about the observer's cockpit, lifting forward and rap-rap-rapping about the bows and the pilot's stooped head. The "Marah" leaped out suddenly and at full stride in a hundred-foot side-slip, checked, and hurtled upward; and in that breath of time the pursuer flicked past and down and out of the vision of Spotty's sights.

It was all over so quickly that Spotty, looking overside, could still see the first enemy spinning down jerkily with black smoke whirling up from her fuselage, spinning helplessly down, as he knew, to hit the earth 15,000 feet below. Spotty felt suddenly and surprisingly sick and faint. His particular story blurs somewhat from here on, because he himself was never able to supply it in detail. He was able to answer Barry – Barry turning to shout his question while the "Marah" tore along at her full 110 knots – that he'd been hit somewhere about the foot or leg, and didn't feel much, except sick. This Barry was able to gather with some difficulty, after juggling with the wheel beside him that shifted angles of incidence, and more or less stabilised the "Marah's" flight, abandoning his controlling "joy-stick," clambering up on his seat, and hanging back and over to bring his head into the observer's cockpit and his ear within reach of Spotty's feeble attempts at a shout. He himself was rather unfit for these acrobatics, owing to certain unpleasant and punishing wounds just received. While he attempted to carry on his laboured inquiries, the "Marah," her engine throttled down and her controls left to look after themselves, swooped gently and leisurely, slid downwards on a gliding slant for a thousand feet, pancaked into an air-pocket, and fell off into a spinning dive.

While she plunged earthward at a rate of some hundred feet per second Barry finished his inquiries, dragged or pushed back into his seat – it was really down into his seat, since the "Marah" at the moment was standing on her head and his seat was between the observer's and the bows, but the wind pressure at that speed made it hard work to slide down – took hold of his controls, waited the exact and correct moment, flattened the "Marah" out of her spin, opened the throttle and went booming off again to westward a bare 5,000 feet above ground level.

He had, it is true, a moment's parley and a swift summing up of the situation before he turned the "Marah's" bows definitely for home. And the situation was ugly enough to be worth considering. Spotty (Barry thought of him first) was in a bad way – leg smashed to flinders – explosive evidently – bleeding like a stuck pig (wonder would the plates be spoiled, or was the camera built water-tight, or blood-tight?) – very doubtful if he'd last out the journey home. Then Barry himself had wounds – the calf of his left leg blown to shreds, and the toes of his left foot gone, and, most upsettingly painful of all, a gaping hole where his left eye should be, a blood-streaming agony that set his senses reeling and wavering and clearing slowly and painfully. This last wound, as it proved, was the result of a ricochetting bullet which, flicking forward as Barry had turned his head, cut his left eye clean from its socket.

The summing up was very clear and simple. They were a good thirty miles from the lines; Spotty might easily bleed to death in less than that; he, Barry, might do the same, or might faint from pain and exhaustion. In that case done-finish himself, and Spotty, and the "Marah," in a drop of 5,000 feet and a full hundred-mile-an-hour crash below. On the other hand, he had only to move his hand, push the joy-stick out and sweep the "Marah" down, flatten her out and pick a decent field, land, and he and Spotty would be in the doctor's hands in a matter of minutes, both of them safe and certain of their lives at least. In seconds they could be "on the floor" and in safety – and in German hands … the two of them and … and … the "Marah." It was probably the thought of the "Marah" that turned the scale, if ever the scale really hung in doubt. "We can't afford …" – what was it the Squadron Commander had said? – "can't afford to lose the old 'Marah' from the Squadron." No (Barry's vision cleared mentally and physically at the thought), – no, and, by the Lord, the Squadron wasn't going to lose the "Marah," not if it was in him to bring the old 'bus home.

He knew it was going to be a close thing, for himself and for the "Marah"; and carefully he set himself to take the last and least ounce of the chances in favour of his getting the "Marah" across the line. It would be safer to climb high and cross the fire of the Archies that waited him on the line; safer so far as dodging the shells went, but cutting down the limit set to his strength and endurance by the passing minutes. On the level, or with her nose a little down, the "Marah" would make the most of the time left her, or rather left him. His senses blurred and swam again; he felt himself lurching forward in his seat, knew that this was pushing the joy-stick forward and the "Marah's" nose to earth, shoved himself back in his seat and clutched the stick desperately to him … and woke slowly a minute after to find the "Marah's" bows pointed almost straight up, her engine struggling to lift her, his machine on the very verge of stalling and falling back into the gulf. He flung her nose down and forward hastily, and the "Marah" ducked gracefully over like a hunter taking an easy fence, steadied and lunged forward in arrow-straight flight.

After this Barry concentrated on the faces of the clock, the height and the speed indicators. Once or twice he tried to look overside to locate his position, but the tearing hurricane wind of the "Marah's" passage so savaged his torn face and eye that he was forced back into the cover of his windscreen. Five minutes went. Over, well over a hundred the speed indicator said the "Marah" was doing. Nearly 5,000 up the height indicator said (must have climbed a lump in that minute's haziness, concluded Barry), and, reckoning to cross the line somewhere inside the 500 up – which after all would risk machine-gun and rifle fire, but spare them the Archies – would allow him to slant the "Marah" down a trifle and get a little more speed out of her. He tilted her carefully and watched the speed indicator climb slowly and hang steady.

And so another five minutes went. Two thousand up said the indicator; and "woof, woof, woof" grunted a string of Archie shells. "Getting near the line," said Barry, and pushed the joy-stick steadily forward. The "Marah" hurtled downward on a forty-five degree slant, her engine full out, the wind screaming and shrieking about her. Fifteen hundred, a thousand, five hundred pointed the needle of the height indicator, and slowly and carefully Barry pulled the "Marah's" head up and held her racing at her top speed on the level.

Fifteen minutes gone. They must be near the lines now. He could catch, faint and far off through the booming roar of his engine, the rattle of rifle fire, and a faint surprise took him at the sound of two strange raps, and the sight of two neat little round holes in the instrument board and map in front of him. He looked out, carefully holding the joy-stick steady in one hand and covering his torn eye with the other, and saw the wriggling white lines of trenches flashing past close below. Then from the cockpit behind him broke out a steady clatter and jar of the observer's machine-gun. Barry looked round to see Spotty, chalk-faced and tight-lipped, leaning over the side with arms thrust out and pointing his gun straight to earth with a stream of flashes pouring from the muzzle. "Good man," murmured Barry, "oh, good man," and made the "Marah" wriggle in her flight as a signal.

Spotty looked round, loosened his lips in a ghastly grin, and waved an arm signalling to turn at right angles. "Nothin' doin', my son," said Barry grinning back. "It's 'Home, John' for us this time. But fancy the priceless old fellow wanting to go touring their front line spraying lead on 'em. Good lad, Spotty."

A minute later he felt his senses reel, and his sight blacken again, but he gripped his teeth on his lip and steered for the clump of wood that hid his own Squadron's landing ground.

He made his landing there too; made it a trifle badly, because when he came to put rudder on he found that his left leg refused its proper work. And so he crashed at the last, crashed very mildly it is true, but enough to skew the wheels and twist the frame of the under-carriage a little.

And as Spotty's first words when he was lifted from his cockpit were of the crash – "Barry, you blighter, if you've crashed those plates of mine I'll never forgive you… You'll find all the plates exposed, Major, and notes of the bearing and observations in my pocket-book" – so also were Barry's last of the same thing. He didn't speak till near the end. Then he opened his one eye to the Squadron Commander waiting at his bedside and made an apology … ("An apology … Good Lord!.." as the Major said after). "Did I crash her badly, Major?" And when the Major assured him No, nothing that wouldn't repair in a day, and that the "Marah" would be ready for him when he came back to them, he shook his head faintly. "But it doesn't matter," he said. "Anyhow, I got her home… And if I'm 'going West,' the old 'Marah' will go East again … and get some more Huns for you." He ceased, and was silent a minute. Then "I'm sorry I crashed her, Major … but y'see, … my leg … was a bit numb."

He closed his eye; and died.

A pilot lost doesn't very much count.(But don't tell his girl or his mater this!)There's always another to take his mount,And push the old 'bus where the Archies miss.But a 'bus that's lost you can't renew,For where one works there's the want of twoAnd all they can make are still too few,So we must bring home the 'bus.

III

A TENDER SUBJECT

The telling of this tale in the Squadron Mess came about through (1) a mishap, (2) a joke, and (3) an argument. The mishap was to a fighting two-seater, which landed on the Squadron's 'drome with a dud engine. The pilot and observer made their way to the Squadron office and, after a brief 'phone talk to their own C.O., borrowed a tender and pushed off for their own 'drome. The leader of "A" Flight walked down to the tender, chatting to them, and four of the Squadron's pilots took advantage of the chance of a lift in to a town the tender had to pass on the journey. All of them heard and all were a little surprised, at "A" Commander's parting word to the two visitors. "I've told the driver to go slow and careful," he said. "You fellows just watch he does it, will you?"

The joke began to dawn on the four just after the tender had carefully cleared the first bend of the road from the 'drome and the driver began to open her up and let her rip. The joke grew with the journey, and the four on their return to the Squadron that afternoon burst into the full ante-room and, announcing it "Such a joke, oh, such a joke!" went on to tell it in competing quartette to a thoroughly appreciative audience. It appeared that one passenger – "the pale-faced nervy-looking little 'un with pink eye-rims" – had showed distinct uneasiness when the tender rushed a dip-and-rise at top speed, and his observer – "a reg'lar Pickwick Fat Boy, quakin' like a jelly" – complained openly and bitterly when the tender took a corner on the two outside wheels and missed a country cart with six inches and a following gust of French oaths to spare.

When, by the grace o' God, and by a bare hand's-breadth, they shaved past a lumbering M.T. lorry, "Pink Eye" and "Fat Boy" clung dumb to each other and plainly devoted themselves to silent prayer. The dumbness deserted them and they made up all arrears of speech, and to spare, when the tender took four heaps of road-metal by the wayside in a series of switch-backing hand-springs. "'Course we twigged your joke by then," said the four to "A" leader. "I suppose you delivered the driver his go-slow order with a large-sized wink and he savvied what you meant." It appeared that Pink Eye had asked the four to make the driver slow down, or to kill him or something. They pretended innocence and said he was a most careful man, and so on. Fat Boy nearly wept when they met a Staff car travelling fast and, never slacking an ounce, whooped past with a roar; and after a hairpin bend, which the tender took like a fancy skater doing the figure-of-eight, Pink Eye completely broke up and swore that he was going to get off and walk. "He'd have done it too," said the four delightedly, "if we hadn't eased her up. But you never saw such a state of funk as those two were in. Kept moppin' their brows, and apologisin' for their nerves, and fidgetin' and shiverin' like wet kittens every time we took a corner or met a cart. It was too funny – really funny."