Winged Victory by V M Yeates

Author:V M Yeates [Yeates, V M]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-06-23T16:00:00+00:00

VII

The major being away, Wing seemed to think that the squadron needed supervision. The colonel himself telephoned at 8 o’clock next morning and demanded of Wall, one of B flight’s newest men, who was doing orderly dog and so answered the telephone, what the squadron was doing. Wall answered, with truth that is fatal to diplomacy, that the squadron wasn’t doing anything. Wall was a captain in his regiment and had seen a good deal of service, and had no use at all for hot-airing colonels who sat at telephones a long way from the war and chivvied combatants. Perhaps his voice sounded a trifle laconic; the colonel demanded to know who he was, and told him to fetch the adjutant at once. Wall strolled down to James’s hut and roused him, and James went hurrying to the office in pyjamas and British warm imploring deity to spare his teeth. The colonel asked him why the squadron was doing nothing when a patrol was due to go up at eight o’clock. James explained that the weather was too bad; there was a thick layer of clouds not above a thousand feet, and they had decided a patrol was impossible.

The colonel considered the weather was fit for flying. The patrol must go up at nine and take bombs.

It was C flight’s job. Mac was furious when he heard of it. He cursed Wing with every curse known to an erudite Canadian. He had been called at seven, looked at the sky, told the batman not to call anyone else, and gone to sleep again. There was no chance of meeting any Huns, so he left Miller and Cundall to their repose, and had Smith, Dubois, Cross and Baker roused, and at nine o’clock they took off.

Tom got up leisurely soon after the noise of their engines had died away. What on earth was the good, he wondered, of sending people out on a morning like that? It was as bad as their worst days of ground-strafing on the Somme. The clouds must be below a thousand feet; there was a fresh north wind; drops of rain fell occasionally. Well, thank the Lord, Mac was decent enough to let him off it.

He shaved peacefully, discussing with Williamson and Seddon the progressive foulness of nearly everyone as they rose in rank and removed further from contact with the enemy. How they all loved to win the war for their own honour at other peoples’ risk. The bravery of back-area generals was terrific, and of base colonels very little less. Look at their decorations and their pay.

C flight came back while they were at breakfast; evidently Mac had found it quite hopeless to stop out. Cross was the first to come in to second breakfast.

‘Hullo Cross,’ Tom said lightly, ‘enjoy your trip?’

‘Bloody awful. Had to cross the lines at five hundred. We just dropped our bangers and came back. Smith’s gone.’

‘What!’

‘Yes, poor old Smith. I was flying behind him and he suddenly did a sort of roll and then spun.

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