Cavalry of the Clouds. Alan Bott
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FLYING TO FRANCE
All units of the army have known it, the serio-comedy of waiting for embarkation orders.
After months of training the twelvetieth battalion, battery, or squadron is almost ready for a plunge into active service. Then comes, from a source which cannot be trailed, a mysterious Date. The orderly-room whispers: "June the fifteenth"; the senior officers' quarters murmur: "France on June the fifteenth"; the mess echoes to the tidings spread by the subaltern-who-knows: "We're for it on June the fifteenth, me lad"; through the men's hutments the word is spread: "It's good-bye to this blinking hole on June the fifteenth"; the Home receives a letter and confides to other homes: "Reginald's lot are going to the war on June the fifteenth"; finally, if we are to believe Mr. William le Queux, the Military Intelligence Department of the German Empire dockets a report: "Das zwölfzigste Battalion (Batterie oder Escadrille) geht am 15 Juni nach Frankreich."
June opens with an overhaul of officers and men. Last leave is distributed, the doctor examines everybody by batches, backward warriors are worried until they become expert, the sergeant-major polishes his men on the grindstone of discipline, the C.O. indents for a draft to complete establishment, an inspection is held by an awesome general. Except for the mobilisation stores everything is complete by June 10.
But there is still no sign of the wanted stores on the Date, and June 16 finds the unit still in the same blinking hole, wherever that may be. The days drag on, and Date the second is placed on a pedestal.
"Many thanks for an extra fortnight in England," says the subaltern-who-knows; "we're not going till June the twenty-seventh."
The adjutant, light duty, is replaced by an adjutant, general service. Mobilisation stores begin to trickle into the quartermaster's reservoir. But on June 27 the stores are far from ready, and July 6 is miraged as the next Date. This time it looks like business. The war equipment is completed, except for the identity discs.
On July 4 a large detachment departs, after twelve hours' notice, to replace casualties in France. Those remaining in the now incomplete unit grow wearily sarcastic. More last leave is granted. The camp is given over to rumour. An orderly, delivering a message to the C.O. (formerly stationed in India) at the latter's quarters, notes a light cotton tunic and two sun-helmets. Sun-helmets? Ah, somewhere East, of course. The men tell each other forthwith that their destination has been changed to Mesopotamia.
A band of strangers report in place of the draft that went to France, and in them the N.C.O.'s plant esprit de corps and the fear of God. The missing identity discs arrive, and a fourth Date is fixed—July 21. And the dwellers in the blinking hole, having been wolfed several times, are sceptical, and treat the latest report as a bad joke.
"My dear man," remarks the subaltern-who-knows, "it's only some more hot air. I never believed in the other dates, and I don't believe in this. If there's one day of the three hundred and sixty-five when we shan't go, it's July the twenty-first."
And at dawn on July 21 the battalion, battery, or squadron moves unobtrusively to a port of embarkation for France.
Whereas in most branches of the army the foundation of this scaffolding of postponement is indistinct except to the second-sighted Staff, in the case of the Flying Corps it is definitely based on that uncertain quantity, the supply of aeroplanes. The organisation of personnel is not a difficult task, for all are highly trained beforehand. The pilots have passed their tests and been decorated with wings, and the mechanics have already learned their separate trades as riggers, fitters, carpenters, sailmakers, and the like. The only training necessary for the pilot is to fly as often as possible on the type of bus he will use in France, and to benefit by the experience of the flight-commanders, who as a rule have spent a hundred or two hours over Archie and the enemy lines. As regards the mechanics, the quality of their skilled work is tempered by the technical sergeant-major, who knows most things about an aeroplane, and the quality of their behaviour by the disciplinary sergeant-major, usually an ex-regular with a lively talent for blasting.
The machines comprise a less straight-forward problem. The new service squadron is probably formed to fly a recently adopted type of aeroplane, of which the early production in quantities is hounded by difficulty. The engine and its parts, the various sections of the machine itself, the guns, the synchronising gear, all these are made in separate factories, after standardisation, and must then be co-ordinated before the craft is ready for its test. If the output of any one part fall below what was expected, the whole is kept waiting; and invariably the quantity or quality of output is at first below expectation in some particular. Adding to the delays of supply others due to the more urgent claims of squadrons at the front for machines to replace those lost or damaged, it can easily be seen that a new squadron will have a succession of Dates.
Even when the machines are ready, and the transport leaves with stores, ground-officers, and mechanics, the period of postponement is not ended. All being well, the pilots will fly their craft to France on the day after their kit departs with the transport. But the day after produces impossible weather, as do the five or six days that follow. One takes advantage of each of these set-backs to pay a further farewell visit to one's dearest or nearest, according to where the squadron is stationed, until at the last the dearest or nearest says: "Good-bye. I do hope you'll have a safe trip to France to-morrow morning. You'll come and see me again to-morrow evening, won't you?"
At last a fine morning breaks the spell of dud weather, and the pilots fly away; but lucky indeed is the squadron that reaches France without delivering over part of its possessions to that aerial highwayman the forced landing.
It was at an aerodrome forty minutes distant from London that we patiently waited for flying orders. Less than the average delay was expected, for two flights of the squadron were already on the Somme, and we of the third flight were to join them immediately we received our full complement of war machines. These, in those days, were to be the latest word in fighting two-seaters of the period. Two practice buses had been allotted to us, and on them the pilots were set to perform landings, split-"air" turns, and stunts likely to be useful in a scrap. For the rest, we sorted ourselves out, which pilot was to fly with which observer, and improved the machines' accessories.
An inspiration suggested to the flight-commander, who although an ex-Civil Servant was a man of resource, that mirrors of polished steel, as used on the handlebars of motor-cycles, to give warning of roadcraft at the rear, might be valuable in an aeroplane. Forthwith he screwed one to the sloping half-strut of his top center-section. The trial was a great success, and we bought six such mirrors, an investment which was to pay big dividends in many an air flight.
Next the flight-commander made up his mind to bridge the chasm of difficult communication between pilot and observer. Formerly, in two-seaters with the pilot's seat in front, a message could only be delivered on a slip of paper or by shutting off the engine, so that one's voice could be heard; the loss of time in each case being ill afforded when Huns were near. An experiment with a wide speaking-tube, similar to those through which a waiter in a Soho restaurant demands côtelettes milanèses from an underground kitchen, had proved that the engine's roar was too loud for distinct transmission by this means. We made a mouthpiece and a sound-box earpiece, and tried them on tubes of every make and thickness; but whenever the engine was at work the words sounded indistinct as words sung in English Opera. One day a speedometer behaved badly, and a mechanic was connecting a new length of the rubber pitot-tubing along which the air is sucked from a wingtip to operate the instrument. Struck with an idea, the pilot fitted mouthpiece and earpiece to a stray piece of the tubing, and took to the air with his observer. The pair conversed easily and pleasantly all the way to 10,000 feet. The problem was solved, and ever afterwards pilot and observer were able to warn and curse each other in mid-air without waste of time. The high-powered two-seaters of to-day are supplied with excellent speaking-tubes before they leave the factories; but we, who were the first to use a successful device of this kind on active service, owed its introduction