Chapter XIV: A Cushy Job 178 (5)

A third pilot had been badly wounded by a burst of bullets which had riddled and smashed one arm. He, too, might have pulled out and escaped; and he, too, hung on fighting to the end; flew his machine lurching and swerving home, landed, fainted, and died from loss of blood before the tourniquet was well on his arm.

A fourth, with a bullet-shattered foot, stayed in the fight and took another wound in the shoulder, and still fought on, saw it out, and came home--and went off to the Casualty Clearing Station with a laugh and a jest on his lips and the certainty in his heart that he was going to lose his foot or carry it mutilated and useless for life. But he refused to go until notes had been compared and he could be told their bag of Huns and the total it brought the Squadron up to.

What hit Jack hardest was that his new but firm friend Jerry was one of those crashed. And only an hour or two before he had been talking with Jerry and planning and taking his advice about joining up with the R.F.C., how to apply and how to get quickly through his training, and ways of wangling it to get to this Squadron--and--jumping far into the future--how he, Jerry, would put him up to any amount of fighting tips, and how to get your Hun and keep a whole skin and pile the Squadron's record up.

It had all sounded so good to Jack, and now--Jerry was gone, had fought his last fight, had died the death within an hour of his last laughing word to Jack on the 'drome, had flung himself flaming into a collision with his enemy and paid out his life for one more crashed Hun to the Squadron's tally. And the other one lost, the boy who had thrown away his chance by diving with a "conking" engine to help a friend, was the same boy who had fooled at the piano, had kept them all giggling and chuckling at his jokes and chaff at lunch that day; and then had gone out and played a man's grim part and sacrificed himself to give a friend a fighting chance.

That night Jack talked to his brother and told him he'd made up his mind to put in for an exchange. "Yes, Jerry told me all that--poor old Jerry," he said, when Tom warned him he'd been seeing the best side of the life in that particular Squadron, that they were rather a--well, swanky lot if you liked, but believed in doing themselves well; that any other Squadron he might go to might be much less particular about how they lived and might rough it a lot more. (Which, by the way, is very true; and there are many men who have lived in Squadrons at the Front for many months may scoff at this description of Squadron life as rank exaggeration. It is not, as others can testify.)

Jack heard it all out, but did not alter his determination.

"Whatever Squadron it is you admit they live better than we do in the line," he said, "and anyhow that's not my point now. I'd like to get even a bit with some of that crowd who downed poor Jerry."

"It is better than the line," admitted his brother, "and whatever the Squadron, at least we live decently and fight fairly and squarely."

"Yes," said Jack, "your C.O.'s right--live and fight--and, by the Lord," he added warmly, his mind on that day's fight, his two friends and the manner of their end, "he might have added 'die'--like gentlemen."

XII

"AIR ACTIVITY"

That "air activity," so frequently reported and so casually read in the despatches, means a good deal more than "fleets of aeroplanes darkening the sky," machines dashing and flashing around anywhere up to their "ceiling" of twenty odd thousand feet, shooting holes in and crashing each other, bombing and photographing and contact-patrolling and ground-strafing, and all the rest of it.

There is just as much "air" activity, or if you measure by hours, from two to ten times as much, amongst those men whose sole occupation in life is pushing other people into the air and keeping them there until they wish to come down, and who never have their own two feet off the firm earth. The outsider hardly thinks of this, and there are even a few pilots--a very few, as one is glad to know--who are apt to forget it, while the great majority of the others don't or can't very well make much show of their appreciation of or gratitude for the sheer hard labour of the groundwork in a Squadron that keeps them afloat. I know that most pilots will be glad to have even this one little bit of the limelight turned on a class of men who deserve a good deal more than they get.

No. 00 Squadron broke into the Air Activity period a full week before the Push began on the ground, but a certain amount of "dud weather" gave the pilots some intervening spells of rest and gave the Squadron mechanics a chance to catch up and keep level with their work. But in the last few days before the Push was dated to begin, the air work became more strenuous, because the Huns, evidently suspecting that something was coming off, set their air service to work trying to push over and see what was going on behind our lines, and to prevent our air men picking up information behind theirs. No. 00 was a single-seater fighting Squadron, and so was one of the ots whose mission in life was to down any Huns who came over to reconnoitre or spot for their guns, and, conversely, to patrol over Hunland and put out of action as many as possible of the Hun fighters who were up to sink our machines doing artillery observing or photographing. The more machines one side can put and keep in the air the better chance that side has of doing its work and preventing the opposition doing theirs--it is a pity many aircraft workers even now don't seem to understand the value of this sheer weight of numbers--and since both sides by this time were using their full air strength it meant that No. 00, like all the rest, was kept flying the maximum number of hours machines and pilots could stand.

As the work speeded up the strain grew on pilots and machines, which also means on the mechanics. Some of the planes came home with bullet-holed fabrics, shot-through frames, and damaged engines. All the holes had to be patched, all the frames had to be mended, all the engines had to be repaired. The strain and pressure on a flimsy structure being hurtled through the air at speeds running from 100 to 200 miles per hour is bound to result in a certain amount of working loose of parts, stretching of stays, slackening of fabrics, give and take in nuts and bolts, yielding and easing of screws; and since the pilot's and the machine's life and the Squadron's efficiency alike depend on every one of the hundreds of parts in a machine's anatomy being taut and true, or free and easy-running, as the case may be, the mechanics began to find a full normal day's work merely in the overhauling and setting up of the machines, apart altogether from fight-damage repairs.

Two days before the Push began the mechanics put in a hard working day of fifteen hours out of the twenty-four; the day before the Push they started at 6 a.m. and finished at 1 a.m. next morning--and with the first patrols due to start out at dawn. But they finished with every machine trued to a hair-line, braced and strung to a perfection of rigidity, with engines running as sweet as oil, and giving their limit of revolutions without a hint of trouble, with every single item about them overhauled, examined, adjusted and tested as exhaustively and completely as if a life hung on the holding of every bolt, brace, and screw, the smooth, clean working of every plug, piston, and tappet--as, indeed, a life would hang that day.

The weather report of the day was not good, but a good half hour before dawn the mechanics had the machines out in line and the pilots were straggling out swaddled in huge leather coats, sheepskin-lined thigh boots, furred helmets and goggled masks. But before they arrived the mechanics had been out a full hour, putting the final touches to the machines, warming up the engines--for it was near enough to winter for the cold-weather nights to make an engine sulky and tricky to start--giving a last look round to everything.

The first two Flights went off before dawn, and the third an hour after them. The mechanics walked back into the empty hangars which, after the bustle of the last few days seemed curiously dead and desolate, and then to their waiting breakfasts.

For some of them the respite was short. Ten minutes after the last lot of machines had gone there was a shout for "A" Flight men. They hurried out to find the C.O. and the Flight Sergeant standing together watching a machine drive slowly up against the wind towards the 'drome. Plainly something was wrong with her; she had an air of struggling, of fighting for her life, of being faint and weary and almost beaten. It was hard to say what gave her this curious look of a ship with decks awash and on the point of foundering, of a boxer staggering about the ring and trying to keep his feet. It may have been the propeller running so slowly that it could be clearly seen, or the fact that she was losing height almost as fast as she was making way; but whatever it was, it was unmistakable.

As she drew near to the edge of the landing ground it was evident that it would be a toss-up whether she made it or touched ground in a patch of rough, uncleared field. The mechanics set off, running at top speed to where she was going to touch; the C.O. and the Flight Sergeant followed close behind them. They saw the pilot make one last effort to lift her and clear a sunk road and bank that ran along the edge of the landing ground. He lifted her nose, ... and she almost stalled and fell; he thrust her nose down again, ... and she hung, ... lurched, ... slid forward and in to the bank. Would she clear ... would she....

Then, in an instant, it was over. The wheels just caught the edge of the bank, her tail jerked up and her nose down, ... and the runners heard the splintering crash of her breaking under-carriage, of her "prop" hitting and shivering to matchwood, her fabrics ripping and tearing. She stood straight up on her nose, heeled over, and fell on her side with fresh noises of crackling, tearing, and splintering from her wrecked wings. Up to now the runners had thought of the machine, but in the instant of her hitting, their thoughts jumped to the pilot and--would he smash with her, or would the wreck catch fire? But before they reached the piled tangle of wood and fabric they saw a figure crawl out from under it, stand upright, and mechanically brush the dirt from his knees. They found he was untouched.

"Got a bullet in her engine somewhere, sir," he told the Major. "I caught a fair old dose from the machine-guns, and had the planes riddled; then this one got her, and I couldn't get my revs., and thought I'd better push her home. Poor old 'bus."

"Another one coming, sir," said the Flight Sergeant suddenly, and pointed to a machine whirling towards them at a thousand feet up. There was nothing wrong with this one, anyhow. She roared in over their heads, banked and swung, slid down smoothly and gracefully, touched and ran and slowed, and came to rest with the engine just running. It whirred up into speed again and brought her taxi-ing in towards the sheds and the mechanics running to meet her. The Major and the pilot, walking back towards the sheds, were talking of the show: "Something terriff., sir--never saw such a blaze of a barrage--and the place fair stiff with machine-guns. Yes, crowds of Huns--and ours--hardly pick a way without bumping--I put a good burst into one Albatross--didn't see----"

The Major interrupted: "Can you make out the letter--ah, there, 'K,'" as the machine, taxi-ing into the sheds, slewed, and they saw the big "K" on her side.

"'The Kiddie,'" said the pilot. "Morton's 'bus. Seemed to be running strong enough."

They quickened their pace, the Major with a growing fear that turned to certainty, as they saw men come from the sheds, clamber up on the machine, stoop over the pilot, and begin to lift him.

They found Morton hit in the foot and badly. But before he was well clear of the machine he was laughing and asking for a cigarette. "Yes, I stopped one, Major; but it doesn't feel too bad. Hullo, Solly, what's yours?"

"Engine hit, conked out, crashed her edge of the 'drome here," said Solly hurriedly. "I say, Major, can I take 'The Kiddie' and go back? I'm all right, and so is she--isn't she, Morton?"

"Better take a rest," said the Major. "After a crash like that----"

But Solly argued, protested so eagerly, that the Major gave in. The mechanics bustled and swarmed about "The Kiddie," filling the oil and petrol tanks, securing her light bombs on the racks fitted under her, replacing the expended rounds of machine-gun ammunition. And before Morton had finished his smoke or had the boot and sock cut from his foot, Solly was off. One might have imagined "The Kiddie" as eager as himself, her engine starting up at the first swing of the prop, roaring out in the deep, full-noted song that tells of perfect firing and smooth running. Solly ran her up, eased off, waved his hand to the two men standing holding the long cords of the chocks at her wheels. The chocks were jerked clear, "The Kiddie" roared up into her top notes again, gathered way, and moved out in a sweeping circle that brought her into the wind, steadied down, gathered speed again across the grass, lifted her tail, and raced another hundred yards, rose and hoicked straight up as if she were climbing a ladder. At a couple of hundred feet up she straightened out and shot away flat, and was off down wind like a bullet.

Then the "air activity" hit the Squadron on the ground. A tender and accompanying gang sped out to the crashed machine and set about the business of picking it up and bringing it home; telephone messages buzzed in and out of the Squadron office; another tender rolled out of the 'drome and started racing "all out" with a pilot bound for the Park, where a new machine would be handed over to replace the crash.

Before the crashed machine was in, the first lot out began to home to the 'drome. One by one they swept in, curved, slid down, and slanted smoothly on to the ground, and rolled over to the hangars. There was hardly one without a bullet-hole somewhere in her; there were some with scores. Planes were riddled, bracing and control wires cut, fuselage fabric and frames ripped and holed and cracked, propellers cleanly shot through. This was at 8 o'clock--and half of them were due to be up again at 1, and the others at 2. Every possible arrangement had been made for quick repairs and replacements, tools laid ready, spares brought out and placed to hand. The mechanics fell on the damaged machines like wolves on a sheepfold. Fuselages were ripped open, broken wires and controls torn out, badly damaged planes unshipped and slung aside, snapped and dangling bracing wires hurriedly unscrewed, suspected longerons and ribs stripped and bared for examination, holed or cracked propellers removed. In an hour anyone walking into the hangars might have thought he was in an airship-breaker's yard, and was looking at a collection almost fit for the scrap-heap. But at the appointed time the machines of the first Flight were ready, although it would take a decent-sized booklet to detail the nature and method of the repairs and replacements.

But every hole in a fabric had been patched, spare wing and tail planes had been shipped, new wires rove, damaged propellers replaced by new ones, fuselage covers laced up, guns examined and cleaned. At a quarter to one the pilots came from an early lunch and found their machines ready, fabrics whole and taut, wires and stays tight-strung and braced, engines tuned up and ready, everything examined and tried and tested, and pronounced safe and fit. And "The Kiddie," that had come in a full hour after the others, and had several bracing and control wires cut, and twenty-seven bullet marks to show for her two trips, was amongst the first to take off with the others.

As, one by one, the first Flight went up, the men were hard at work on the machines of the second, hoisting up tins of petrol and oil, and pouring them into the tanks, reloading the bomb-racks, packing away fresh stores of ammunition, trying and running up the engines.

At sharp two the second Flight took off, and at three the third (which had also brought home a miscellaneous assortment of injuries) followed them to the tick of time. But although all three Flights were out, the mechanics, with no faintest hope of a rest, set hastily about the business of mending and repairing those planes and parts which had been removed, and were now, or would be when they were done with, complete and ready spares.

They kept hard as they could go at it for a couple of hours, and then the first Flight began to drop in on them. One was missing--"crashed in No Man's Land"--another pilot reported, "Seemed to go down under control all right," and another was lost in Hunland.

The third Flight had even worse luck. Two were missing, nothing known of them, so apparently lost over the line, and another came circling back with her under-carriage swinging and twisting loose and hanging by a stay. On the ground they noticed the casualty, and, fearing the pilot might not be aware of the extent of the damage and try to land without calculating on it, they fired a light and signalled him.

But it was quickly evident from the caution of his manœuvres that he knew, and he came down and pancaked as carefully as he could. He crashed, of course, but, as crashes go, not too badly. Everyone was watching him with bated breath. As he touched the ground--_cr-r-rash_--a tongue of flame licked and flickered, and instantly _fouph_ it leaped in a thirty-foot gust of fire, dropped, and before the horrified watchers could move tongue or foot, blazed up again in a roaring, quivering pillar of fire. Then, as some scuffled for fire-extinguishers and others ran with vague and crazy ideas of dragging the pilot out, they saw a figure reel out from behind the blaze, throw himself down, and roll on the grass. He was burned about the hands and face, had a skin-deep cut across his brow, a broken little finger--nothing that a few dressings and a splint would not make as good as ever. He had leaped out as he landed.

His amazing escape brightened the shadow that would have lain on the Squadron Mess that night from the loss of the other pilots, and for the hour of dinner the talk ran free and mixed with jests and bursts of laughter. In the ante-room there was another half-hour's talk over the events of the day, a medley of air slang about revving, and Flaming Onions, and split-arming, and props, and mags., and Immelman Turns, and short bursts, and Hun-Huns, and conking, and all the rest. Then, about 9.30, the pilots began to drift off to bed, and at 10.30 the mess rooms were clear and the lights out.

But in the hangars, the armoury, the carpentry and machine shops, the electrics were at full blaze, the mechanics were hustling and bustling for dear life. It grew colder as the night wore on, and by midnight men who had been working in shirt-sleeves began to put on their jackets. By 2 a.m. they were shivering as they worked, especially those blue-lipped and stiff-fingered ones who had to stand still over a lathe or sit crouched, stitching and fumbling with numb fingers at fabric and tape and string. Again the hangars were filled with a welter of stripped and wrecked-looking outlines of machines, and all the apparent lumber of dismantled parts and waiting spares. About 3 and 4 a.m. tenders began to rumble in on their return from various errands, and at 5 orderlies came from the cook-house with dixies of hot tea. The Flight Sergeants confabbed and compared notes then and sent half the mechanics off to bed and set the other half to work again; and by 6 the machines were taking decently recognisable shape. And at half an hour before dawn again the machines of the first Flight were out and ready, with engines run up and warmed, and tanks full, and ammunition and bombs in place, waiting for the shivering pilots stumbling out to them in the dark. They were gone before the first blink of light paled the gun-flashes in the sky, and they were barely gone before there came dropping into the 'drome the pilots who had gone off the night before to fly in new machines to replace the wastage. A second Flight went at 9, and then the mechanics, who had turned in at 5.30, were turned out again and the others sent to bed. They had an even shorter spell of rest, because new machines somehow require an appalling amount of work and overhauling and tuning up before any self-respecting Squadron considers them fit to carry their pilots.

All that day the yesterday's performance was repeated, with the addition that parties had to be sent off in tenders to bring in machines that had made forced landings away from the 'drome and were unfit to fly home. The mechanics, dismissed for an hour at dinner-time and an hour at tea-time, spent about ten minutes over each meal, and the rest in sleep. They needed it, for that night they had no sleep at all, had to drive their work to the limit of their speed to get the machines ready for the pilots to take in the morning. That day there were more crashes, mild ones and complete write-offs, and it is hard to say which the weary mechanics loathed the most. The pilots had amazing luck. Man after man was shot down, but managed to glide back to our side of the lines, crash his machine, crawl out of the splintered wreckage, and make his way by devious routes back to the Squadron--to take another machine as soon as it was ready, and go out again next day.

For four days this sort of thing continued. In that time the mechanics averaged twenty and a half hours' driving hard work a day, the shop electrics were never out, the lorry-shop lathe, with relays running it never ceased to turn; the men ate their food at the benches as they worked, threw themselves down in corners of the hangars and under the benches, and snatched odd hours of sleep between a Flight going out and another coming in.

By the mercy, dud weather came on the fifth day, driving rain and blanketting mist, and the mechanics--no, not rested, but spurted again and cleared up the débris of past days, repaired, refitted, and re-rigged their machines in readiness for the next call, whenever it might come. At the finish, about midnight of the fourth day, some of them had to be roused from sleeping as they stood or sat at their work; one man fell asleep as he stood working the forge bellows and tumbled backwards into a tub of icy water.

Then they reeled and stumbled to their beds, and again by the grace--since once asleep it is doubtful if mortal man could have wakened them--the sixth day was also dud, and the mechanics slept their fill, which on the average was somewhere about the round of the clock.

By then the fury of the battle assault had died down, the Squadron's duties were eased, and the mechanics dropped to a normal battle routine of fourteen or fifteen hours a day.

The Air Activity speeded up again after a few days of this, and from then on for another fortnight the men in the air were putting in two and three patrols a day and with some of the Artillery Observing machines in the air for four and four and a half hours at a time, while the men on the ground in the Squadrons were kept at full stretch and driving hard night and day to maintain their machines' efficiency. No. 00's mechanics did an average of nineteen to twenty hours work a day for fifteen days, and it is probable that if the full fact were known so, or nearly so, did the mechanics of most of the other Squadrons on that front. For, as it always does in prolonged fine weather and continued air work, the "air supremacy" became much more than a matter of the superiority of the fighters or fliers, dropped down to a race between the German mechanics and our own, their ability to stand the pace, to work the longest hours, to put in the best and the most work in the least time, to keep the most machines fit to take the air.

The workshops at Home play a bigger and much more important part in this struggle than ever they have known, and are in fact fighting their fight against the German shops just as much as their air men are fighting the Hun fliers. A constant and liberal supply of spares and parts needed for quick repair obviously cuts down the Squadron's work and better enables them to keep pace with the job, and time and again in this period the Squadron mechanics were forced to work long hours filing and hammering and turning and tinkering by hand to repair and improvise parts which should have been there ready to their hand. As the struggle ran on it became plainer day by day that our men were gaining the upper hand, not only in the fighting--they can always do that--but in the maintenance of machines in the air. The number of ours dropped, perhaps, but the Huns' dropped faster and faster, until our patrols were entirely "top dog." The pilots will be the first to admit the part their mechanics played in this victory.

Through all this strenuous time "The Kiddie," for instance, played her full part. Time and again her pilot brought her in riddled with bullets, with so many controls and flying-and landing-wires and struts cut through, that it was only because she was in the first place well and truly built, and in the second place, so keenly and carefully looked after, that Solly was able to nurse her back and land her on the 'drome. And always, no matter how badly damaged she came in, she was stripped, overhauled, repaired, and ready for action when the time came round for her next patrol; and always the work was done so thoroughly and well that she went out as good, as reliable, as fit to fly for her life, as any 'bus could be.

In the first week of the show, which was the most strenuous period just described, Solly Colquhoun got a Military Cross for his share of the show, and on first receiving word of it the Major sent for him to come to the office, and gave him the news and his congratulations.

"May I borrow the message, sir?" said Solly Colquhoun. "I'll bring it back in five minutes."

The Major gave him the telegram.

"Off you go," he said laughingly. "Off to raise the mess, I suppose. Get along. I'll be over to wet the Cross with you in a minute. Tell the Mess Sergeant to get the fizz ready that I had in."

But Solly had not gone to rouse the mess. He went at a hard trot straight to the Flight hangars.

"Flight," he yelled as he neared them. "Fli-i-ght! Where's the Flight Sergeant? Oh, here, Flight--I want you and my rigger and my fitter. Fetch them quick."

They came swearing under their breaths. "The poor old 'Kiddie' for the air again," said the rigger. "Done her whack this trip, hasn't she?" returned the fitter.

"Look here," said Solly abruptly, hardly waiting for them to come to a halt before him. "Just read that wire, will you?... I brought it straight here. You're the first in the Squadron to know. I wanted you to be, and I wanted just to say thank you to you fellows for getting me this Cross. I know what 'Kiddie' has stood up to, and why. I know what you did, ... and ... well, thank you."

He shook hands awkwardly but very heartily while the men stammered congratulations and disclaimers of any reason for thanks. "Must beetle off," said Solly. "Promised to take this paper over. Tell the other men, will you? A Military Cross for our Flight. And thank you again."

He turned to hurry out, but, passing "The Kiddie," stabled there with her fore-end swathed and blanketted, her sides sleek and glossy and shining, taut and trim, spotless and speckless as the day she came from her makers, he halted and ran a fondling hand down her rounded back.

"Thank you too, 'Kiddie,'" he said, nodded to the Sergeant, "I got a good old 'bus, Flight," turned, and ran off.

"A d----n good 'bus," said the Sergeant, "_and_ a d----n good man flying her."

XIII

THE LITTLE BUTCHER

The C.O. was showing a couple of friends from the infantry round the Squadron, and while they were in the hangars having a look at the machines--one of our latest type fighting scouts--a pilot came to them on the run, and hardly pausing to make a jerky salute, spoke hastily: "Message just come in by 'phone, sir, that there's a Hun two-seater over our lines near Rorke's Camp, and will you warn the Flight when they go up presently to look out for him. And if you don't mind, sir, I'd like to go up at once myself and have a shot at him."

The Major hesitated a moment; then "Right," he said, and with a quick "Thanks" the pilot whipped round and ran off.

"Might walk over and see him start," said the C.O. "He'll be gone in a minute. Always has his bus standing by all ready. He's our star pilot--queer little chap--always desperately keen for Huns, and makes any number of lone-hand hunts for 'em. Crashed nearly forty to date, the last brace before breakfast yesterday."

"Hope it didn't spoil his appetite," said one of the visitors.

"Spoil it!" The C.O. laughed. "Gave him one, rather. You don't know him, but I tell you he'd sooner kill a Hun than eat, any day. We call him 'The Little Butcher' here, because he has such a purposeful, business-like way of going about his work."

They came to The Little Butcher as he was scrambling aboard his machine. He was too busy to glance at them, and the two visitors, looking at the thin, dark, eager face, watching the anxious impatience to be off, evident in every look and movement, saw something sinister, unpleasant in him and his haste to get to his kill. Their impressions were rather strengthened after The Little Butcher had gone with a rush and a roar, and they had asked the C.O. a few more questions about him.

"No, not a tremendous amount of risk for him this trip," said the C.O. "Y'see, he's on a 'bus that's better than their best, and can outfly and out-stunt anything he's likely to meet. He knows his job thoroughly, and it's a fairly safe bet that if he finds his Hun his Hun is cold meat."

Now, both the visitors had been fighting for rather a long time, had few squeamish feelings left about killing Huns, and were not much given to sparing pity for them. And yet they both, as they admitted after to each other, felt a vague stirring of something very like pity for those two German airmen up there unaware of the death that was hurtling towards them.

"I'm rather changing my notions of this air-fighting," said one. "I always thought it rather a sporting game, but----"

"So it is to a good many," said the C.O. "But there's nothing sporting about it to The Little Butcher. He's out for blood every time."

"Seems to me," said one, when the C.O. had left them to go and see the Flight get ready, "this Little Butcher of theirs is well named, and is rather an unpleasant sort of little devil."

"I can't say," admitted the other, "that the idea appeals to me of going off, as it seems he's doing, to shoot down a couple of men in cold blood. Butchering is about the right word. I'm out to kill Germans myself, but I can't say I like doing it, much less gloat over the prospect, as this youngster appears to do."

Their unfavourable impression of The Little Butcher was so much stronger even than they knew that it really gave them a grim sense of satisfaction when the C.O. told them later that word had just come in that there were two Huns where one had been reported.

"Nasty surprise for your Little Butcher," said one, "if he bumps into them. But I suppose he'll see them in time and wait for the Flight to help him."

"Not he," said the C.O. "He'll tackle the two quick enough, and probably outfly 'em and get one or both. Sheer off from a chance of crashing two Huns instead of one? Not much."

This was late afternoon or early evening, and the two heard the story of the fight that night, before and during dinner, between courses and mouthfuls of food, over cigarettes and coffee, in snatches and patches, in answers to questions and in translations of air terms they did not clearly follow. And again their impression of The Little Butcher grew firmer, that he was "a murderous little devil" and "a cold-blooded young brute." There was no mistaking in The Little Butcher's telling his huge satisfaction in his kill, his fretting impatience when he thought he might be baulked of his prey, his eagerness to finish his work; and frankly the two did not like it or him.

When he had gone off that afternoon, he had flown arrow-straight for the locality the Hun was reported in, climbing in a long slant as he went, looking out eagerly for any sign of his quarry. He found them--or, as he still thought, the one--by sighting the puffing bursts of our Archie shells, and took quick stock of the position. The sun was still high and in the south-west; the Huns almost due south of him. His great anxiety was to approach unseen to such a distance as would prevent the Hun escaping on catching sight of him, so he swung wide to his left to gain the cover of a slow drifting cloud that might allow him to come closer without being seen. He passed behind and clear of it, and continued his circle, south now and bearing west towards another cloud, and as he flew he stared hard towards the puffing shell-bursts and made out the tiny dots that he knew were two machines. He was sure they were both Huns, because the way they circled and flew about each other without any movements of a fight made it clear they were not opponents. The Archie shells wrote them down Huns.

With the second cloud safely between him and them, The Little Butcher swung and raced towards the two, reached the back of the cloud, and went laddering up towards its upper and western edge. He figured they could not be more than a mile from him then, but to locate them exactly and make his best plan of attack he skirted round the side of the cloud--a thick, solid, white cotton-woolly one--until he caught sight of them.

The instant he did so he plunged into the cloud and out of sight. He had kept so close to it that the one turn of his wrist, the one kick on his rudder, flung him side-slipping into it, to circle back and out clear behind it again. He looked down and round carefully for sight of any of our machines that might be coming up to interrupt his work and perhaps scare off his quarry, but saw none. But on the clear sunlit ground far below he saw a puff of smoke flash out, and then another close beside the hutments of Rorke's Camp, and concluded the two Huns were "doing a shoot," were observing for their artillery and directing the fire of their guns on to points below them. It gave him the better chance of a surprise attack, because at least one man's attention on each of the machines must be taken up in watching the fall of the shells. The Little Butcher revived his hope of bagging the two, a hope that at first had begun to fade in the belief that one might bolt while he was downing the other.

The worst of the position now was that the two were rather widely separated, that his attack on the one might bolt the other, and that the second might reach the safety of his own lines before he could be overtaken. The Little Butcher didn't like the idea, so he restrained his impatience and waited, fidgeting, for the two to close in to each other or to him. He climbed to the top of the cloud and circled with engine throttled back, swinging up every now and again until he could just catch sight of the two, ducking back behind the cloud edge again without being seen.

He was so intent on his business that it was only instinct or long habit that kept him glancing up and round for sight of any other enemy, and it was this that perhaps saved him from the fate he was preparing for the two. In one of his upward glances he suddenly caught sight of another machine full three thousand feet above him, and racing to a position for a diving attack. The Little Butcher, as he said that night, "didn't know whether to curse or weep." The newcomer broke in most unpleasantly on his careful plans. Two slow old Art. Ob. Huns were one sort of game; with a fast fighting scout thrown in the affair became very different. The two he had counted as "his meat," but now with this fellow butting in.... He felt it served him right in a way for not diving at them first shot instead of hanging about for a chance to bag the two. He had been impatient enough, Lord knew, to get at them, and he shouldn't have waited.

All this went through his mind in a flash, even as his eyes were taking in the details of the scout rushing to position above him, his mind figuring out the other's plan of attack. He wasn't worrying much for the moment about the attack, because he was still circling slowly above his cotton-wool cloud, had only to thrust forward the joy-stick to vanish as completely from sight as if he were in another world. But he wanted to frame the best plan that would still give him a shot at the artillery machines, and--

The scout above pointed at him and came down like a swooping hawk, his guns clattering out a long burst of fire. The Little Butcher flipped over and sank like a stone into the thickness of the cloud. He went plunging down through the rushing vapour, burst out of it into the sunlight below, opened out his engine, and, turning towards the sun, was off with a rush.

As he swept out clear of the cloud he looked round and up, to locate his enemies, size up the position, and figure the chances of his contemplated plan working. The scout was not in sight yet, was circling above the cloud still, probably waiting for him to emerge. The two artillery machines were closer together, as if they had noticed the signs of fight and were in position to support each other. They were out on his right hand and about a mile away. He kept straight and hard on his course--a course that was taking him into a line that would pass between them and the sun.

He saw the scout again now, high up and circling above the cloud still. The Little Butcher paid no further heed to him, but drove on at his top pace, with his head twisted to the right and his eyes glued on the slow swinging artillery machines. They gave no sign of seeing him for ten long seconds, or if they saw him concluded he was running away. "My luck held," said The Little Butcher in his telling of the tale, and the savage ring in his voice and glint in his dark eyes gave a little shiver to the two listening infantrymen.

He gained the point he was aiming for, shot up into "the eye of the sun," kicked the 'bus hard round, and came plunging and hurtling down on the nearest of the two machines. As he dived he heard the whip of bullets past him, knew the scout above had sighted him, was probably diving in turn to intercept him. He paid no heed; held hard and straight on his course, keeping his eye glued on the nearest machine and his sights dead on him, his fingers ready to start his guns at first sign of their seeing him. And because he was coming on them "out of the sun," because even if they had smoked glasses on and looked at him it would take a second or two to accustom themselves to the glare and be sure of him, he was within 300 yards before the farthest one suddenly tilted and whirled round and dived away.

The Little Butcher was on him before he had well begun his dive, had gripped the trigger lever of his guns and commenced to hail a stream of bullets ahead of him. He saw the Hun swerve and thrust his nose down, so changed course slightly to hold him in his sights, and kept his guns going hard. He was close enough now to see the observer swinging his gun round to fire on him, and then, next instant, to see a handful of his bullets hit splintering into the woodwork of the Hun's fuselage.

The Hun fell spinning and rolling, and The Little Butcher thrust his nose down and ripped in another short burst as his target swept underneath. Then he lifted and swung, and went tearing straight at the second artillery machine, which was nose on to him and firing hard from its forward gun. At the same moment he heard the whipping and cracking of bullets about him and the clatter of close machine-guns, looked up, and saw the scout turn zooming up from a dive on him.

The Little Butcher held straight on, opening fire at the Hun ahead. The Hun side-slipped, ducked and spun down a thousand feet, The Little Butcher diving after, spitting short bursts at him every time he thought he crossed the sights, aware again that the scout above was following him down and shooting uncomfortably close. He was forced to turn his attention to him, so next time a dive came, he pulled his top gun down and let drive at the shape that plunged down, over, and up, then hoicked up after him and engaged hotly.

The two-seater below made no attempt to climb and join the combat, but swinging east hit for home as hard as he could go. The Little Butcher broke off his fight with the scout and went, full out, after the two-seater, the scout whirling round and following gamely. Because The Little Butcher had by far the faster machine, and had besides the added impetus of a downward slant from his thousand-foot higher level, he overhauled the two-seater hand over fist, forced him into a spinning dive again, and in a moment was mixing it in a hot fight with him and the scout. Again, because he had the faster and handier machine, he secured an advantage, and whipping round astern of the scout and "sitting on his tail" drove him to escape his fire in a steep spin.

But at that moment The Little Butcher felt a spray of wet on his face, found it was oil, and concluded, wrathfully, that his oil tank or pipe must be shot through. His engine, he knew, would quickly run dry, might seize up at any moment, and leave him helpless. And the two-seater was off tearing for the lines again, the scout still spinning down to escape him. He wanted that two-seater, wanted him badly. He had bagged the one and meant getting the other.

There was a last chance--if his engine would stand for a few minutes. He opened her out and shot off after the two-seater. He caught him up and dropped astern, the oil still spraying back, misting his goggles and nearly blinding him, the Hun observer pouring a long steady fire at him. He stooped forward with his face close to the windscreen, dropped to a position dead astern of the two-seater where the observer could not effectively fire at him without shooting away his own tail, and poured in a long clattering burst from both guns. His bullets, he knew, were tearing stern to stem through the Hun; but the Hun held on, and The Little Butcher felt his engine check and kick. The oil spray had ceased, which meant the last of the oil was gone and the engine running dry. The Little Butcher gritted his teeth, and kept his guns going.

The Hun observer's fire stopped suddenly, and he fell limp across the edge of his cockpit. The Hun pilot was helpless. With a fast scout on his tail, with no gunner or gun to shoot astern, he could do nothing--except perhaps escape in a spin down. But astern of him the guns continued to chatter, the bullets to rip and tear and splinter through his machine.

The Little Butcher was in an agony of suspense as to whether he could get his man before his engine failed him, and as he told his story it was plain to see the intensity, the desperate uncertainty, and the eagerness he had felt. "I knew my engine was going to conk out any second--could feel a sort of grate and grind in her, and that my revs. were dropping off. The Hun was drawing away a yard or two ... and I tell you I cursed the luck. I hung on, dead astern and pumping it into him and seeing my bullets fairly raking him. But he _wouldn't_ go down...." (His eyes gleamed as he spoke, his brows were drawn down, his whole face quivering with eagerness, with the revived excitement of the chase, the passionate desire for the downfall of his quarry.) "I began to think he'd get away. I'd never have forgiven myself--having him dead helpless like that, right at point-blank, and then losing him.... But I got him at last--and just in time. Got him, and crashed him good...."

It all sounds very brutal perhaps--did certainly to the two infantrymen listening, fascinated. But--this was The Little Butcher; and he was out to kill.

The end had come a few seconds later. The Hun pilot lurched forward; his machine plunged, rolled over, shot out and up, tail-slid, and then went spinning and "dead-leafing" down. The Little Butcher shut off his crippled engine, looked round and saw the Hun scout streaking for the lines, put his machine into a long glide and watched his second victim twist and twirl down and down, watched until he saw him hit and crash.

He came down and made a landing on another 'drome, borrowed a tender, and in an hour was eating his dinner.

I have said the two visitors did not like the story or the teller. They were, in fact, a little disgusted and sickened with both, and they said as much to their friend the C.O. when the others had left the table, and they three lingered over liqueurs.

"Silly of me perhaps," said one, "but I hated the way that boy sort of licked his lips over the chance of catching that Hun unawares and shooting him down."

The other wrinkled his nose disgustedly. "It was fifty times worse his hanging to that fellow who couldn't shoot back--when the observer was dead--and bringing him down in cold blood. Poor devil. Think of his feelings."

"Little Butcher," said the first, "you named him well. Bloody-minded little butcher at that."

"But hold on a minute," said the C.O. "I can't let you run away with these wrong notions of The Little Butcher. Have you any idea why he is so keen on killing Huns? Why he jumped at the chance to go up and get that one to-day, why he was in such a hurry to tackle the two, why he--well, why he is The Little Butcher?"

"Lord knows," said one, and "Pure blood-thirstiness," the other.

"I'll tell you," said the C.O. "It is because he was once in the infantry, as I was; and because he knows, as I do, what it means to the line to have an artillery observing machine over directing shells on to you fellows, or taking photos that will locate your positions and bring Hades down on you. Every Hun that comes over the line, _you_ fellows have to sweat for; every minute a gun-spotter or photographer or reconnaissance machine works over you, _you_ pay for in killed and wounded. Lots of our pilots don't properly realise that, and treat air fighting as more or less of a sporting game, or just as the job they're here for. The Little Butcher knows that every Hun crashed means so many more lives saved on the ground, every Hun that gets away alive will be the death of some of you; so he's full out to crash them--whenever, wherever, and however he can."

The two guests fidgeted a little and glanced shamefacedly at one another. "I hadn't thought----" began one, and "I never looked at it----" said the other.

"No," said the C.O., "and few men on the ground do, because they don't know any better. P'raps you'll tell some of 'em. And don't forget--although I admit that, as he told the story, it mightn't sound like it--his isn't the simple butchering game you seem to think. You didn't see his 'bus when it was brought in? No. Well, it had just thirty-seven bullet holes in it, including one through the windscreen, a foot off his head. Any one of those might have crashed him; and he knows it. Some day one of them will get him; and he also knows that. But he takes his risks, and will keep on taking 'em--because every risk, every Hun downed, is saving some of you fellows on the floor. There's a-many women at home to-night who might be widows and are still wives; and for that you can thank God--and The Little Butcher."

"I see," said the one listener slowly--"I see."

"So do I," said the other. "And I'm glad you told us. Now," thrusting his chair back, "I'm going to find The Little Butcher, and apologise to him."

"Me too," said the first--"apologise, and thank him for all he's done, and is doing--for us."

XIV

A CUSHY JOB[5]

[5] Cushy=easy, soft.

A Ferry Pilot once told me that he had a very pleasant and "cushy" job, especially when you compared it with the one in a Squadron working over the lines. Because we had just made an ideal flight across Channel on a beautiful summer day, and were sitting in comfortable deck-chairs, basking in the sun outside the Pool Pilots' Mess after a good lunch, I was inclined at first to believe him. A little later he told a story which made me revise that belief, the more so as it was not told to impress, and was accepted by the other Ferry Pilots there present so casually and with so little comment that it was apparently an experience not at all beyond the average.