Open Cockpit by Arthur Gould Lee

Author:Arthur Gould Lee [Lee, Arthur Gould]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Aviation
ISBN: 9781909808836
Publisher: Grub Street Publishing
Published: 2012-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

COMBAT REPORT

I was the second to touch down, and as I taxied to the hangars I saw Odell follow me and make a neat landing. Two other Pups were circling above prior to coming in. Outside ‘C Flight hangar I pulled up alongside Scott’s machine, unloaded my Vickers, made sure the armourer retrieved the ejected rounds, then inspected the splintered fairing at the right-hand side of the cockpit. A close group of three or four bullets had gone neatly through, having passed close over my right shoulder. Another bullet had scraped along the side of the Vickers, leaving a streak of lead, but so far as I could see, it had done no damage.

While I clambered down, my rigger gave the machine a quick look-over.

‘A bunch of nine bullets through your starboard lower wing, sir,’ he announced, ‘and four on each side of the fuselage. One lot in at an angle, the other going out. But until I open the fabric I can’t say whether there’s any damage.’

I pointed to the splintered fairing, and told him to make a thorough check forward. Then I called the armourer, and asked him to inspect the gun, and preferably try it out on the butts. I flung off my leather coat and helmet and gloves, and dumped them on a wing, then went to Scott’s machine. There I found why he’d had to fire a green Very light and return. His interrupter gear had gone wrong while he was firing, and he’d shot away half his propeller. Hence the glide home from 18,000 feet from nearly five miles over, with the rest of the patrol acting as escort.

Meanwhile the two others had landed and taxied in. Only five all told so far. The missing pilot was Ferrie, a Canadian, the most recent arrival in the squadron, who had already shown his mettle in previous patrols. He’d certainly not been shot down, we’d seen him at the end of the fighting. Maybe he’d had a forced landing. We forgot him for the moment while we gathered in an animated group around Scott’s machine.

We’d had a stirring fight towards the end of the patrol, and everyone was talking loudly and rapidly about what had happened. Some were almost incoherent, others gesticulating wildly, everyone laughing easily. We were in that excited, voluble condition that always followed a patrol with a scrap in it, as though we’d actually enjoyed the thrill of danger.

‘Where’s Ferrie?’ suddenly asked Scott. ‘Not back yet? Anybody see him drop out?’

Nobody had noticed when he’d left us when we streamed home in a loose formation after Scott’s washout.

‘Any distress signal?’ continued Scott. ‘Well, a dud engine perhaps. Or maybe he was hit. . . .’

We gaze eastwards. No plane in sight. Then again putting him out of our minds we turned to each others’ accounts of the encounter of twenty minutes ago.

We’d gone out on the second morning patrol, five of us from ‘C’ Flight, including the leader, Captain Scott, and one, Ferrie, from ‘B’.

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