That Quiet Earth: A First World War Tale by Bruce Fellows

Author:Bruce Fellows [Fellows, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: FICTION / General, Bisac Code 1: FIC000000
ISBN: 9781473837638
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

Some days after my excursion with Billy, I walked alone through pine-woods, a mulch of needles underfoot, a breeze through the branches overhead, far from the war at Paris-Plage, which I ventured to from 24 General Hospital at Etaples, where I was sent after my own crash.

We were a fairly good crash brigade all told in our squadron and three of us wrecked our machines that same day, though there were extenuating circumstances. A gale was blowing and merely to take off was difficult enough but the Aussies were attacking and needed our help. As we bombed and strafed the Hun trenches, the west wind buffeted us, throwing our fragile SEs up in the air and casting us down again, an absolutely terrifying experience while flying at two hundred feet.

I was low down and making very slow progress against the sixty mile an hour wind when, over the engine’s roar, I was confused to hear what sounded like branches tapping against a window. I glanced around and saw rents appearing in the lower wings and too late, for I heard the engine miss, threw the bus over to be swept at a hundred and sixty miles an hour away from the machine gun I must have been virtually stationary above. The engine continued to miss and I could only turn again and point the SE towards the lines and hope that nothing else vital was hit as we laboured back, far too low for safety, my speed reduced to forty miles an hour in the teeth of the wind.

I was not far over the enemy side but a very anxious two or three minutes followed. I was willing the engine on, expecting that at any moment it would seize up, and searching the sky behind and above in case a Hun had spotted me, while waiting for a bullet from one of the dozen machine guns below that must be firing at me.

Finally I crossed the lines but kept on with one eye all the time on likely open spaces to left and right until I reached our field. Someone else was landing so I did a circuit and was pleased to spot chaps running out of the mess to see who was coming back with such a dickey sounding motor. Coming over the hedge I switched off and looked over the side so that, as I had been taught, I could touch down when individual blades of grass became distinguishable.

When I woke up I was lying next to a pile of wood and olive drab fabric, surrounded by flying boots and puttees. A sudden crosswind, they told me later, had taken the powerless SE and cartwheeled it across the field. Something: gun butt, Lewis gun magazine, stone, had knocked me cold. ‘A5924’ was a write off. Afterwards I felt sorry as it was the best bus I flew in France. It had taken me high and flown me low without complaint until I steered it through a machine gun barrage.

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