Cavalry of the Clouds Part 6

Having been told by telephone from my squadron that one of our pilots had been detailed to take the recently arrived bus to the Somme, I awaited his arrival and pa.s.sed the time to good purpose in watching the aerobatics and sham fights of the pool pupils. Every now and then another plane from England would arrive high over the aerodrome, spiral down and land into the wind. The ferry-pilot who had brought me left for Rafborough almost immediately on a much-flown "quirk." The machine he had delivered at Saint Gregoire was handed over to a pilot from Umpty Squadron when the latter reported, and we took to the air soon after lunch. The puppy travelled by road over the last lap of his long journey, in the company of a lorry driver.

The bus headed east while climbing, for we had decided to follow the British lines as far as the Somme, a course which would be prolific in interesting sights, and which would make us eligible for that rare gift of the G.o.ds, an air-fight over friendly territory.

The coloured panorama below gave place gradually to a wilderness--ugly brown and pock-marked. The roads became bare and dented, the fields were mottled by sh.e.l.l-holes, the woods looked like scraggy patches of burnt furze. It was a district of great deeds and glorious deaths--the desolation surrounding the Fronts of yesterday and to-day.

North of Ypres we turned to the right and hovered awhile over this city of ghosts. Seen from above, the sh.e.l.l of the ancient city suggests a grim reflection on the mutability of beauty. I sought a comparison, and could think of nothing but the skeleton of a once charming woman. The ruins stood out in a magnificent disorder that was starkly impressive.

Walls without roof, buildings with two sides, churches without tower, were everywhere prominent, as though proud to survive the orgy of destruction. The shattered Cathedral retained much of its former grandeur. Only the old Cloth Hall, half-razed and without arch or belfry, seemed to cry for vengeance on the vandalism that wrecked it.

The gaping skeleton was grey-white, as if sprinkled by the powder of decay. And one fancies that at night-time the ghosts of 1915 mingle with the ghosts of Philip of Spain's era of conquest and the ghosts of great days in other centuries, as they search the ruins for relics of the city they knew.

Left of us was the salient, studded with broken villages that became household names during the two epic Battles of Ypres. The brown soil was dirty, sh.e.l.l-ploughed, and altogether unlovely. Those strange markings, which from our height looked like the tortuous pathways of a serpent, were the trenches, old and new, front-line, support, and communication.

Small saps projected from the long lines at every angle. So complicated was the jumble that the sinister region of No Man's Land, with its sh.e.l.l-holes, dead bodies, and barbed wire, was scarcely distinguishable.

A brown strip enclosed the trenches and wound northward and southward.

Its surface had been torn and battered by innumerable sh.e.l.ls. On its fringe, among the copses and crests, were the guns, though these were evidenced only by an occasional flash. Behind, in front, and around them were those links in the chain of war, the oft-cut telephone wires. The desolation seemed utterly bare, though one knew that over and under it, hidden from eyes in the air, swarmed the slaves of the gun, the rifle, and the bomb.

Following the belt of wilderness southward, we were obliged to veer to the right at St. Eloi, so as to round a sharp bend. Below the bend, and on the wrong side of it, was the Messines Ridge, the recent capture of which has straightened the line as far as Hooge, and flattened the Ypres salient out of existence as a salient. Next came the torn and desolate outline of Plug Street Wood, and with it reminiscences of a splendid struggle against odds when sh.e.l.l-shortage hampered our 1915 armies.

Armentieres appeared still worthy to be called a town. It was battered, but much less so than Ypres, possibly because it was a hotbed of German espionage until last year. The triangular denseness of Lille loomed up from the flat soil on our left.

As we pa.s.sed down the line the brown band narrowed until it seemed a strip of discoloured water-marked ribbon sewn over the mosaic of open country. The trench-lines were monotonous in their sameness. The sh.e.l.l-spotted area bulged at places, as for example Festubert, Neuve Chapelle (of bitter memory), Givenchy, Hulluch, and Loos. Lens, well behind the German trenches in those days, showed few marks of bombardment. The ribbon of ugliness widened again between Souchez and the yet uncaptured Vimy Ridge, but afterwards contracted as far as Arras, that ragged sentinel of the war frontier.

At Arras we entered our own particular province, which, after months of flying over it, I knew better than my native county. Gun-flashes became numerous, kite balloons hung motionless, and we met restless aeroplane formations engaged on defensive patrols. With these latter on guard our chance of a sc.r.a.p with roving enemy craft would have been remote; though for that matter neither we nor they saw a single black-crossed machine throughout the afternoon.

From Gommecourt to the Somme was an area of concentrated destruction.

The wilderness swelled outwards, becoming twelve miles wide at parts.

Tens of thousands of sh.e.l.ls had pocked the dirty soil, scores of mine explosions had cratered it. Only the pen of a Zola could describe adequately the zone's intense desolation, as seen from the air. Those ruins, suggestive of abandoned sc.r.a.p-heaps, were formerly villages. They had been made familiar to the world through matter-of-fact reports of attack and counter-attack, capture and recapture. Each had a tale to tell of systematic bombardment, of crumbling walls, of wild hand-to-hand fighting, of sudden evacuation and occupation. Now they were nothing but useless piles of brick and glorious names--Thiepval, Pozieres, La Boiselle, Guillemont, Flers, Hardecourt, Guinchy, Combles, Bouchavesnes, and a dozen others.

Of all the crumbled roads the most striking was the long, straight one joining Albert and Bapaume. It looked fairly regular for the most part, except where the trenches cut it. Beyond the sc.r.a.p-heap that once was Pozieres two enormous quarries dipped into the earth on either side of the road. Until the Messines explosion they were the largest mine craters on the western front. Farther along the road was the scene of the first tank raids, where on September 16 the metal monsters waddled across to the gaping enemy and ate up his pet machine-gun emplacements before he had time to recover from his surprise. At the road's end was the forlorn stronghold of Bapaume. One by one the lines of defence before it had been stormed, and it was obvious that the town must fall, though its capture was delayed until months later by a fierce defence at the b.u.t.te de Warlencourt and elsewhere. The advance towards Bapaume was of special interest to R.F.C. squadrons on the Somme, for the town had been a troublesome centre of anti-aircraft devilries. Our field-guns now being too close for Herr Archie, he had moved to more comfortable headquarters.

Some eight miles east of Bapaume the Bois d'Havrincourt stood out noticeably. Around old Mossy-Face, as the wood was known in R.F.C.

messes, were cl.u.s.tered many Boche aerodromes. Innumerable duels had been fought in the air-country between Mossy-Face and the lines. Every fine day the dwellers in the trenches before Bapaume saw machines swerving round each other in determined effort to destroy. This region was the hunting-ground of many dead notabilities of the air, including the Fokker stars Boelcke and Immelmann, besides British pilots as brilliant but less advertised.

Below the Pozieres-Bapaume road were five small woods, grouped like the Great Bear constellation of stars. Their roots were feeding on hundreds of dead bodies, after each of the five--Trones, Mametz, Foureaux, Delville, and Bouleaux--had seen wild encounters with bomb and bayonet beneath its dead trees. Almost in the same position relative to the cl.u.s.ter of woods as is the North Star to the Great Bear, was a sc.r.a.p-heap larger than most, amid a few walls yet upright. This was all that remained of the fortress of Combles. For two years the enemy strengthened it by every means known to military science, after which the British and French rushed in from opposite sides and met in the main street.

A few minutes down the line brought our machine to the sparkling Somme, the white town of Peronne, and the then junction of the British and French lines. We turned north-west and made for home. Pa.s.sing over some lazy sausage balloons, we reached Albert. Freed at last from the intermittent sh.e.l.ling from which it suffered for so long, the town was picking up the threads of activity. The sidings were full of trucks, and a procession of some twenty lorries moved slowly up the road to Bouzincourt. As reminder of anxious days, we noted a few skeleton roofs, and the giant Virgin Mary in tarnished gilt, who, after withstanding bombardments sufficient to have wrecked a cathedral, leaned over at right angles to her pedestal, suspended in apparently miraculous fas.h.i.+on by the three remaining girders.

We flew once more over a countryside of multi-coloured crops and fantastic woods, and so to the aerodrome.

s.n.a.t.c.hes of familiar flying-talk, unheard during the past ten days of leave, floated from the tea-table as I entered the mess: "Folded up as he pulled out of the dive--weak factor of safety--side-slipped away from Archie--vertical gust--choked on the fine adjustment--made rings round the Hun--went down in flames near Douai."

The machine that "went down in flames near Douai" was piloted by the man whose puppy I had brought from England.

CHAPTER VI.

A CLOUD RECONNAISSANCE.

Clouds, say the text-books of meteorology, are collections of partly condensed water vapour or of fine ice crystals. Clouds, mentioned in terms of the newspaper and the club, are dingy ma.s.ses of nebulousness under which the dubious politician, company promoter, or other merchant of hot air is hidden from open attack and exposure. Clouds, to the flying officer on active service, are either useful friends or unstrafeable enemies. The hostile clouds are very high and of the ice-crystal variety. They form a light background, against which aeroplanes are boldly silhouetted, to the great advantage of anti-aircraft gunners. The friendly or water-vapour clouds are to be found several thousands of feet lower. If a pilot be above them they help him to dodge writs for trespa.s.s, which Archibald the bailiff seeks to hand him. When numerous enough to make attempts at observation ineffective, they perform an even greater service for him--that of arranging for a day's holiday. And at times the R.F.C. pilot, like the man with a murky past, is constrained to have clouds for a covering against attack; as you shall see if you will accompany me on the trip about to be described.

The period is the latter half of September, 1916, a time of great doings on the Somme front. After a few weeks of comparative inaction--if methodical consolidation and intense artillery preparation can be called inaction--the British are once more denting the Boche line. Flers, Martinpuich, Courcelette, and Eaucourt l'Abbaye have fallen within the past week, and the tanks have made their first ungainly bow before the curtain of war, with the superlatives of the war correspondent in close attendance. Leave from France has been cancelled indefinitely.

Our orders are to carry through all the reconnaissance work allotted to us, even though weather conditions place such duties near the border-line of possible accomplishment. That is why we now propose to leave the aerodrome, despite a great lake of cloud that only allows the sky to be seen through rare gaps, and a sixty-mile wind that will fight us on the outward journey. Under these circ.u.mstances we shall probably find no friendly craft east of the trenches, and, as a consequence, whatever Hun machines are in the air will be free to deal with our party. However, since six machines are detailed for the job, I console myself with the old tag about safety in numbers.

We rise to a height of 3000 feet, and rendezvous there. From the flight-commander's bus I look back to see how the formation is shaping, and discover that we number but five, one machine having failed to start by reason of a dud engine. We circle the aerodrome, waiting for a sixth bus, but n.o.body is sent to join us. The "Carry on" signal shows up from the ground, and we head eastward.

After climbing another fifteen hundred feet, we enter the clouds. It is now impossible to see more than a yard or two through the intangible wisps of grey-white vapour that seem to float around us, so that our formation loses its symmetry, and we become scattered. Arrived in the clear atmosphere above the clouds my pilot throttles down until the rear machines have appeared and re-formed. We then continue in the direction of the trenches, with deep blue infinity above and the unwieldy cloud-banks below. Familiar landmarks show up from time to time through holes in the white screen.

Against the violent wind, far stronger than we found it near the ground, we make laboured progress. Evidently, two of the formation are in difficulties, for they drop farther and farther behind. Soon one gives in and turns back, the pilot being unable to maintain pressure for his petrol supply. I shout the news through the speaking-tube, and hear, in reply from the flight-commander, a m.u.f.fled comment, which might be "Well!" but it is more likely to be something else. Three minutes later the second bus in trouble turns tail. Its engine has been missing on one cylinder since the start, and is not in a fit state for a trip over enemy country. Again I call to the leader, and again hear a word ending in "ell." The two remaining machines close up, and we continue. Very suddenly one of them drops out, with a rocker-arm gone. Its nose goes down, and it glides into the clouds. Yet again I call the flight-commander's attention to our dwindling numbers, and this time I cannot mistake the single-syllabled reply. It is a full-throated "h.e.l.l!"

For my part I compare the party to the ten little n.i.g.g.e.r boys, and wonder when the only survivor, apart from our own machine, will leave. I look towards it anxiously. The wings on one side are much lighter than those on the other, and I therefore recognise it as the Tripehound's bus. There is ground for misgiving, for on several occasions during the past ten minutes it has seemed to fly in an erratic manner. The cause of this, as we find out on our return, is that for five minutes the Tripehound has been leaning over the side, with the joystick held between his knees while attempting to fasten a small door in the cowling round the engine, left open by a careless mechanic. It is important to shut the opening, as otherwise the wind may rush inside and tear off the cowling. Just as a short band of the trench line south of Arras can be seen through a gap, the Tripehound, having found that he cannot possibly reach far enough to close the protruding door, signals that he must go home.

I do not feel altogether sorry to see our last companion leave, as we have often been told not to cross the lines on a reconnaissance flight with less than three machines; and with the wind and the low clouds, which now form an opaque window, perforated here and there by small holes, a long observation journey over Bocheland by a single aeroplane does not seem worth while. But the flight-commander, remembering the recent order about completing a reconnaissance at all costs, thinks differently and decides to go on. To get our bearings he holds down the nose of the machine until we have descended beneath the clouds, and into full view of the open country.

We find ourselves a mile or two beyond Arras. As soon as the bus appears it is bracketed in front, behind, and on both sides by black sh.e.l.l-bursts. We swerve aside, but more sh.e.l.ls quickly follow. The shooting is particularly good, for the Archie people have the exact range of the low clouds slightly above us. Three times we hear the hiss of flying fragments of high explosive, and the lower left plane is unevenly punctured. We lose height for a second to gather speed, and then, to my relief, the pilot zooms up to a cloud. Although the gunners can no longer see their target, they loose off a few more rounds and trust to luck that a stray sh.e.l.l may find us. These bursts are mostly far wide of the mark, although two of them make ugly black blotches against the whiteness of the vapour through which we are rising.

Once more we emerge into the open s.p.a.ce between sky and cloud. The flight-commander takes the mouthpiece of his telephone tube and shouts to me that he intends completing the round above the clouds. To let me search for railway and other traffic he will descend into view of the ground at the most important points. He now sets a compa.s.s course for Toutpres, the first large town of the reconnaissance, while I search all around for possible enemies. At present the sky is clear, but at any minute enemy police craft may appear from the unbroken blue or rise through the clouds.

The slowness of our ground speed, due to the fierce wind, allows me plenty of time to admire the strangely beautiful surroundings. Above is the inverted bowl of blue, bright for the most part, but duller towards the horizon-rim. The sun pours down a vivid light, which spreads quicksilver iridescence over the cloud-tops. Below is the cloud-scape, fantastic and far-stretching. The shadow of our machine is surrounded by a halo of suns.h.i.+ne as it darts along the irregular white surface. The clouds dip, climb, twist, and flatten into every conceivable shape.

Thrown together as they never could be on solid earth are outlines of the wildest and tamest features of a world unspoiled by battlefield, brick towns, ruins, or other ulcers on the face of nature. Jagged mountains, forests, dainty hills, waterfalls, heavy seas, plateaux, precipices, quiet lakes, rolling plains, caverns, chasms, and dead deserts merge into one another, all in a uniform white, as though wrapped in cotton wool and laid out for inspection in haphazard continuity. And yet, for all its mad irregularity, the cloud-scape from above is perfectly harmonious and never tiring. One wants to land on the clean surface and explore the jungled continent. Sometimes, when pa.s.sing a high projection, the impulse comes to lean over and grab a handful of the fleecy covering.

After being shut off from the ground for a quarter of an hour, we are able to look down through a large chasm. Two parallel ca.n.a.ls cut across it, and these we take to be part of the ca.n.a.l junction below Toutpres.

This agrees with our estimate of speed, wind, and time, according to which we should be near the town. The pilot takes the machine through the clouds, and we descend a few hundred feet below them.

To disconcert Archie we travel in zigzags, while I search for items of interest. A train is moving south, and another is entering Toutpres from the east. A few barges are dotted among the various ca.n.a.ls. Bordering a wood to the west is an aerodrome. About a dozen aeroplanes are in line on the ground, but the air above it is empty of Boche craft.

Evidently the Huns below had not expected a visit from hostile machines on such a day, for Archie allows several minutes to pa.s.s before introducing himself. A black puff then appears on our level some distance ahead. We change direction, but the gunners find our new position and send bursts all round the bus. The single _wouff_ of the first shot has become a jerky chorus that swells or dwindles according to the number of sh.e.l.ls and their nearness.

I signal to the flight-commander that I have finished with Toutpres, whereupon we climb into the clouds and comparative safety. We rise above the white intangibility and steer north-east, in the direction of Pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie. I continue to look for possible aggressors. The necessity for a careful look-out is shown when a group of black specks appears away to the south, some fifteen hundred feet above us. In this area and under to-day's weather conditions, the odds are a hundred to one that they will prove to be Boches.

We lose height until our bus is on the fringe of the clouds and ready to escape out of sight. Apparently the newcomers do not spot us in the first place, for they are flying transverse to our line of flight. A few minutes later they make the discovery, turn in our direction, and begin a concerted dive. All this while I have kept my field-gla.s.ses trained on them, and as one machine turns I can see the Maltese crosses painted on the wings. The question of the strangers' nationality being answered, we slip into a cloud to avoid attack.

The flight-commander thinks it advisable to remain hidden by keeping inside the clouds. He must therefore steer entirely by compa.s.s, without sun or landmark to guide him. As we leave the clear air a left movement of the rudder, without corresponding bank, swings the machine to the north, so that its nose points away from the desired course. The pilot puts on a fraction of right rudder to counteract the deviation. We veer eastward, but rather too much, if the swaying needle of the compa.s.s is to be believed. A little left rudder again puts the needle into an anti-clockwise motion. With his attention concentrated on our direction, the pilot, impatient at waiting for the needle to become steady, unconsciously kicks the rudder-controls, first to one side, then to the other. The needle begins to swing around, and the compa.s.s is thus rendered useless for the time being. For the next minute or two, until it is safe to leave the clouds, the pilot must now keep the machine straight by instinct, and trust to his sense of direction.

A similar mishap often happens when flying through cloud. Pilots have been known to declare that all compa.s.ses are liable to swing of their own accord when in clouds, though the real explanation is probably that they themselves have disturbed the needle unduly by a continuous pressure on each side of the rudder-bar in turn, thus causing an oscillation of the rudder and a consequent zigzagged line of flight. The trouble is more serious than it would seem to the layman, as when the compa.s.s is out of action, and no other guides are available, one tends to drift round in a large circle, like a man lost in the jungle. Should the craft be driven by a rotary engine, the torque, or outward wash from the propeller, may make a machine edge more and more to the left, unless the pilot is careful to allow for this tendency.

Such a drift to the left has taken us well to the north of a straight line between Toutpres and Pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie, as we discover on leaving the clouds for a second or two, so as to correct the error with the aid of landmarks. But the compa.s.s has again settled down to good behaviour, and we are able to get a true course before we climb back to the sheltering whiteness.

A flight inside the clouds is far from pleasant. We are hemmed in by a drifting formlessness that looks like thin steam, but, unlike steam, imparts a sensation of coldness and clamminess. The eye cannot penetrate farther than about a yard beyond the wing tips. Nothing is to be seen but the aeroplane, nothing is to be heard but the droning hum of the engine, which seems louder than ever amid the isolation.

I am bored, cold, and uncomfortable. Time drags along lamely; five minutes masquerade as half an hour, and only by repeated glances at the watch do I convince myself that we cannot yet have reached the next objective. I study the map for no particular reason except that it is something to do. Then I decide that the Lewis gun ought to be fired as a test whether the working parts are still in good order. I hold the spade-grip, swing round the circular mounting until the gun points to the side, and loose five rounds into the unpleasant vapour. The flight-commander, startled at the sudden clatter, turns round. Finding that the fire was mine and not an enemy's, he shakes his fist as a protest against the sudden disturbance. Even this action is welcome, as being evidence of companions.h.i.+p.

When the pilot, judging that Pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie should be below, takes the machine under the clouds, I feel an immense relief, even though the exit is certain to make us a target for Archie. We emerge slightly to the west of the town. There is little to be observed; the railways are bare of trains, and the station contains only an average number of trucks.