Winged victory, p.1
Winged Victory, page 1
First published in 1934 by Jonathan Cape
This edition first published in 2004 by Grub Street Publishing, 4 Rainham Close, London SW11 6SS
Copyright this edition © 2004 Grub Street, London
Reprinted 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
Copyright text © V. M. Yeates / Guy Yeates
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Yeates, V. M. (Victor M.), 1897–1934
Winged victory
1. World War, 1914-1918—Aerial operations—Fiction
2. War stories
I. Title
823.9′12[F]
ISBN 978-1-904010-65-4
eISBN 978-1-908117-99-1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
Cover design by Hugh Adams, AB3 Design
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
To
HENRY WILLIAMSON
at whose suggestion this book was begun, with whose encouragement and help it was written and ended
Contents
To Henry Williamson
Phase One
Phase Two
Phase Three
PHASE ONE
I
‘WHAT makes you think you think with your head?’ inquired Cundall, alluding to a remark of Williamson’s. ‘If ever you get a bullet in your seat, I’m sure you’ll find it very disturbing to thought. How could that be, if you think with your head only? You might as well say that all business is done in London because that is the seat of government. What about the solar plexus, or Birmingham; the liver, or Manchester? What the liver thinks to-day, the brain thinks tomorrow. After all, the brain is only part of the body, and cerebration is only part of thinking. Haven’t you noticed that a fat man never thinks in the same way as a thin man?’
The woman brought their eggs and chips and coffee and two bottles of wine, a Muscat and a claret, for their choice.
‘One bottle’ll be enough, won’t it?’ suggested Williamson.
‘To start with anyhow. Let’s have the Muscat,’ said Allen.
Cundall addressed the woman. ‘Nous voulons le Muscat si’l vous plait madame.’ Madame was the proprietress of the tiny estaminet in the tiny village of Izel-le-Hameau. It was a mile or so from the aerodrome by the path through the fields.
Two gunner subalterns came in for a quick drink. ‘Hullo Flying Corps,’ said one, ‘how’s life?’
‘Pretty quiet just now. The Huns have got wind up,’ Williamson replied.
‘Heard about this big push the Huns are supposed to be going to make any minute?’
‘Heard about it!’ exclaimed Tom Cundall, ‘my God, we hear of nothing else. We’re not particularly looking forward to it as we’ve got to go down and shoot it up when it does come.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said the other gunner. ‘Personally I don’t believe Jerry’ll dare come over at all, but if he does all the Flying Corps’ll have to do will be to count the corpses.’
‘H.Q. seems windy about it,’ Williamson commented. ‘Sending round reams of bumf.’
‘Don’t you believe it. They want everyone keyed up, that’s all. They know damn well Jerry can’t come over against field artillery and machine guns without getting shot to pieces. By God, I wish the old Hun would come over. We’ve got every yard zoned and he’ll never get as far as our wire. It’ll be the biggest shoot-up ever. They haven’t even got any tanks.’
‘They’ve got some guns though,’ Tom remarked.
‘Our front is stiff with them, too; and ammunition, I don’t mind telling you.’
The gunners swallowed their drink. ‘Well, we must be off. Cheerio.’
‘Cheerio.’
‘They seem confident enough,’ said Allen when the gunners had gone.
‘The wish is father to the thought,’ answered Williamson. ‘You get like that, all blooded up and longing to smash the fellow across the way. It’s a different life from ours.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said Cundall. ‘I took up flying with that hope. PBI certainly didn’t suit me.’
‘I wish I’d had the experience.’ Allen was very young, and out for the first time.
‘You should have mine if it were transferable,’ offered Williamson.
‘Marvellous how these Frenchwomen can cook,’ Cundall remarked. ‘Even a meal of fried eggs and potatoes has style about it. The French have always been attentive to the practical needs of life. In England we’ve been worrying our heads about political things and theories for a thousand years and neglecting the basis of living. Look how we are, or were, fed. Anyone can make a fortune in England by advertising a remedy for indigestion.’
‘Let’s have another bottle of wine.’ Allen liked to get Cundall talking. He was young enough to admire his flow of verbiage, even if it was sometimes faintly professorial.
Williamson commented on what Cundall had been saying. ‘Doesn’t that show Englishwomen have failed in comparison with Englishmen? Englishmen have built up what men ought to build up. Look what they have done in science and literature. Yet their womenfolk can’t even feed them properly. They are a worthless lot.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Cundall agreed: but Allen revolted. ‘Women have been what men have let them be. What chance have they had in a man-ruled world?’
‘Plenty of chance to learn cooking,’ Cundall replied. ‘I agree with Bill. Women are inferior creatures, mentally, physically, morally.’ He had had the misfortune a few months previously to be in love with a married woman who used him to make her husband jealous, and then dismissed him. He had got over it, but it left him with a tendency to amuse himself with misogynistic talk; especially when Allen was listening.
‘Morally?’ Allen was almost indignant. ‘Don’t talk rot. Everyone knows they are better than men are.’
‘Good God,’ exclaimed Cundall. ‘Pass the wine, Bill. Isn’t England the paradise of the enthusiastic amateur, who has almost got official recognition as part of the war? Aren’t there already enough war babies to supply a division to the B.E.F. in a few years? And look at the way they gloat over the war.
But Allen interrupted indignantly ‘Gloat, you say. My God, d’you think a mother likes to hear of her sons being killed?’
‘Not usually, though they like the importance it lends them. They have to pay for their luxuries sometimes.’
‘Rot,’ said Allen; ‘you know you’re talking nonsense. It’s rotten for women. It’s worse to wait at home than go and get on with the war.’
‘You don’t seem to have convinced the lad, Tom,’ said Williamson. ‘It’s no use telling the truth to the very young. The bitter, old, and wrinkled truth. They won’t believe it. They have to find it out for themselves.’
‘Lot’s of them never do. I doubt whether Allen will ever grow up mentally, even if he lives to be seventy-seven. He will go on thinking women are angels, however much they cheat him sexually and upset his digestion.’
‘Oh shut up, Cundall. You talk like some old bird who’s been unhappily married for twenty years. Let’s have another bottle of wine. Cheer you up.’
‘You’ll get blotto, drinking at this rate, and in your love for all the sex you’ll probably assault the woman here.’
‘Not me. There’s only one I’m interested in.’
‘Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Williamson. ‘You’re neglecting a lot of deserving young women, I’m sure. An intrepid young birdman like you; tall, good-looking, plenty of money, in pink breeches and trench boots. You must have dozens of them running after you.’
‘Dry up, Bill. You and Cundall do nothing but rot. I like you, and all that, but I wish you’d talk sense sometimes. I’ve got the only girl that matters to me, and what do I care about the others?’
‘You’ll find out when you’ve been married a year or two,’ replied Cundall.
‘Rot, you arid cynic.’ Allen pulled a case from his pocket and tenderly took a photograph from it. He handed it to Cundall, who saw the representation of a passable young woman very like a million other passable young women. He glanced up at Allen, and, perceiving how he felt about it, said ‘Allen, my son, I congratulate you. Many happy years.’ He lifted his glass, and he and Williamson drank the toast.
Allen could hardly speak, being near to tears of alcoholic emotion. ‘Thanks,’ he said after a little, and then, ‘This bloody war’.
‘Hullo!’ exclaimed Williamson, ‘who wants cheering up now? You wait till it’s over and we go home conquering heroes. We won’t half have a time.’
‘Until our blood money’s spent, and then there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘Why?’
‘They’ll expect us to settle down to three hundred a year jobs while the profiteers have the good time. You’ll see.’
‘My God, we’re not going to put up with that!’ Allen said indignantly. ‘We’re doing the fighting and we’re going to have a say in things when it’s over. The first people who’ll have to be considered will be the fellows who’ve done the fighting. The profiteers will have to fork out or by God we’ll shoot ’em.’
‘I hope we shall. Meanwhile we’ve got the Huns to practise on. You ought to have been with us this morning, Allen, and seen that two-seater go down.’
‘Good work,’ said Allen. ‘I shall be glad when I’ve got a Hun.’
‘Bloodthirsty young scoundrel. How can you be so unfriendly? Pity the poor Hun.’
‘Shoot first and pity afterwards. You’ve got six haven’t you, Bill?’
‘Counting all the odd quarters and fifteenths when the credit has been divided.’
‘Six is damn good. You’re a stout fellow, Bill. I wish I’d got six!’
‘Huns or bottles of wine?’ Tom asked.
A girl came into the room as Tom was speaking, followed at once by madame. She was short and fat and pleased to see the aviateurs anglais. She said a great deal they did not clearly understand about Boches and avions, while her mother smiled in the background. Cundall secured one of her hands, and Williamson the other. Allen, however, would have nothing at all to do with the girl, being heart-bound. Cundall used his French to advantage and was able to establish understanding. They discussed the amenities of Izel in war time very pleasantly. Then he said ‘Je serais tout à fait heureux si vous voudriez me donner un tout petit baiser, belle mademoiselle.’
Belle mademoiselle laughed and looked round to smiling madame, who agreed that the brave aviators deserved kissing. She would charge another three francs.
So mademoiselle kissed Cundall and Williamson, and would have done so to Allen, but he blushed and avoided.
‘No, I mean non. I say, Cundall, for goodness sake tell her not to.’
They all laughed. ‘Monsieur n’aime pas les baisers, hein?’ said mademoiselle with great good humour.
‘Il aime une demoiselle anglaise avec tout son coeur,’ explained Cundall. Soon afterwards they left and walked along the miry foot-path to the aerodrome. Williamson remarked that French footpaths always had double tracks, and English only single ones, which showed what unsociable pigs the English were.
‘You two seem sociable enough for anyone,’ said Allen; ‘what the devil you wanted to kiss that fat little French female for beats me. Do you kiss the servants when you’re at home?’
‘The very young Anglo-Saxon in love,’ Cundall commented.
‘I think we’d better strangle him, Tom, and bury the body here. No one will know. We will cut off his left ear and send it to his girl with the legend “Faithful unto Death” written in blood on the box.’
It was a cloudy blowy evening with occasional drizzle and an obscured gibbous moon. They were twenty miles behind the lines, and the only indication of war was the everlasting rumble and the distant flashes.
‘Looks as though tomorrow might be a washout,’ said Williamson.
‘Not at dawn, I bet. We’ve got the dawn show. You’re coming, aren’t you, Allen?’
‘Yes, I start my war tomorrow.’
Cundall and Allen were in C flight, and Williamson was in B flight. Allen was new to the squadron, only having been in France three weeks, which had been spent in practising flying and shooting and bombing. The squadron flew Sopwith Camels, single-seater scouts with rotary engines.
‘My engine’s been rotten since I over-revved it when we chased a Halberstater that got away.’
‘Mine’s a peach. It’s a genuine Le Rhone Le Rhone.’
‘The French are damn good at making engines….’
They arrived at the squadron mess, and Williamson joined in a game of slippery Sam. Allen went to the hut to write letters, as usual. Cundall joined the group sitting round the fire. Desultory talk about the war in the air was going on. Thomson was there, A flight commander, and Bulmer, commander of B flight, and Robinson, who called everybody ‘old bean’ or ‘old tin of fruit’, these phrases being brand new (in fact, he was the originator of them). And Franklin, vast and sleepy, who was utterly unaffected by the chances of war. He got into frightful scrapes, and would come home with his machine full of bullet holes and tears. Not content with the usual two shows a day, he often went out alone to look for something to shoot at; but unlike most sportsmen he appeared to enjoy being shot at also. To Tom Cundall he was a mystery. Did he think? Had life any value or meaning for him? He was completely good-natured and good-tempered, and did not appear to dislike anyone or anything; certainly not Germans. To him war seemed a not-too-exciting big game hunt, Tom imagined.
And MacAndrews, C flight commander, who already had a bag of twenty-six Huns, and had been given a flight after only three months in France. He was Canadian, a dangerous man, a born fighter. His efficiency was tremendous, and he was a first-rate leader. He saw everything in the sky within ten miles, never led his flight into a bad position, and he was very successful at surprising unsuspecting Huns, often miles and miles over Hunland. He would drop on them out of the clouds or out of the sun, put an efficacious burst into his selected victim at point blank range, and away. It was too risky to stop and fight perhaps fifteen miles over the lines; one dive and away was the plan. Dog-fighting was an amusement for rather nearer home. Mac usually got his man when he could engineer one of these surprises, a thing which was not easy; and if it was a formation they attacked, the rest of the flight bagged one or two between them as a rule.
He was playing poker with some more of the Canadians of the squadron. At about ten o’clock he strolled over to the fire.
‘I guess I’ll turn in now. Don’t forget we’ve got the dawn show, Cundall. Bombs.’
‘Right you are, Mac. Are you taking Allen?’
‘Ay. He’s going to be a good lad. He’s keen.’
Tom wondered whether the last sentence was a hit at him. He was never quite sure how to take Mac.
II
TOM CUNDALL awoke unwillingly. ‘Half-past five, sir. Leave the ground at half-past six,’ the batman said, He grunted and turned over. ‘Six o’clock, sir,’ the batman said.
Tom sat up. His lamp was alight. Allen was washing himself. Williamson and Seddon were asleep in their comers.
‘What the hell are you washing for?’
‘Because I’m not a dirty pig like you,’ retorted Allen. ‘Get up, and don’t be so lazy and dirty.’
It was cold. Tom put on some clothes and brushed his teeth and his hair. Then he put on his sidcot suit and walked across to the mess with Allen for tea and eggs. The stars were fading, and the sky was clear. It seemed as if it would be one of those brilliant mornings before a dull or rainy day. He seized Allen’s arm and declaimed:
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
Allen did not interrupt him; then he said: ‘You’re a weird bloke, Cundall. As a rule you’re perfectly foul-minded, but I’ve never known anyone wallow in poetry like you do.’
‘Mind you,’ replied Tom, ‘the poet is not describing anything he ever saw. It is pure fake. No morning ever was so glorious as those lines, which are a showing forth of the poet’s glorious mind.’
‘I hope your egg’s hard boiled,’ Allen retorted. ‘Better buck up. They’re running engines.’
Mac and Debenham were already in the mess, and Miller, a compatriot of Mac’s, came in soon after. Mac gave out instructions.
‘Before we do O Pip we’re to reconnoitre the ground and look for something to drop bombs on and shoot up. The big push is due any time now and they want reports of all movements. So keep your eyes skinned for anything moving.’
Tom went back to the hut and donned overshoes, flying helmet, and gloves. He put his automatic pistol in his pocket. It might possibly be useful if he had to land on the wrong side of the lines. But he could hardly fight the whole German army with it. It might be better to leave it behind. After hesitation he pocketed it, and then walked to the hangars. It was almost half-past six, and light enough to take off. He climbed into his waiting Camel, which was marked W. Mac, in V, was already running his engine. Tom settled in his seat, and a mechanic called out ‘Switch off, petrol on’. Tom answered with the same words, and pumped up pressure, fastened his safety belt, waggled the joystick, kicked the rudder bar, and pulled up the CC gear piston handle, while they turned the engine backwards to suck in gas. He gave his goggles a rub up with his handkerchief. ‘Contact’ shouted the mechanic, and Tom switched on and answered ‘Contact’. The engine started at the first swing. He eased the throttle back and adjusted the petrol flow until it was ticking over. His goggles were misty and he gave them another rub. They would clear after a little. Looking round he saw Mac taxiing out to take off. Miller was following. Tom opened out with a roar, looked at the rev counter, throttled down, and waved his hand. The mechanics pulled away the chocks from the wheels of the under-carriage, and ran round to the rear of the planes to hold the rear struts in order to help him turn.
