Page 29 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm
“We also do it,” Crabbe said, his voice a little slurred from an entire day of drinking, “because the War Ministry was smart enough to promote men young enough to believe in their own immortality. At least we believed in it when we arrived. A few weeks of seeing squadron mates pancake into the ground or catch fire in the cockpit and jump rather than burn and you become all too familiar with mortality.”
“By then it’s too late,” Thistledown said, knocking back the last of his drink. “You’re at once horrified and desensitized to death andjust carry on. You just try not to think that your number is ever going to come up, but know deep down that it already has. It’s just that fate hasn’t caught up with you yet.”
“Also,” Crabbe said with a gleam in his eye to turn around the solemnity of their previous answers, “and my man Thistledown can attest that nothing peels off a French girl’s knickers faster than a man in a Royal Flying Corps uniform.”
“Truer words have never been spoken. And also let’s not forget the pay, Geoff. That twenty-five shillings a day makes it all worthwhile, eh?”
“A king’s ransom.”
Bell shook both airmen’s hands. “I don’t know if I will have a seat at the table here in Europe when America enters the war, but if I do I hope to face it with both your integrity and your humor.”
“You think you will throw in with the Allies?”
“I don’t think the Germans have left us much choice.”
“Good.” Thistledown grinned. “ ’Bout time you’re the poor sods taking our place.”
The following morning, Bell watched with Uncle Baskers as the patrol left the airfield. This time, the two-seat Bristol joined the patrol, though there was no gunner in the rear cockpit. The instructor, Whiddle, watched it fly off while leaning against the doorframe of the hangar across the grass strip. He noticed Bell standing with Baskers, shook his head, and turned away before the fighters flew out of view.
As before, all the planes returned in under an hour, and as before, they hadn’t spotted a single German aircraft.
“Are the Huns taking a holiday we know nothing about?” asked one of the pilots as they huddled around Crabbe in the shadow of his S.E.5. “National Sauerkraut Day, or something?”
“I bet their new lederhosen are too tight,” offered another.
“I say they got some bad food, and all the pilots have the schnitzel shitzens.”
Crabbe chuckled before giving his opinion. “My guess is they were moved north in order to support their defenses against our spring push. They need to protect their observation planes and balloons as best as they can in order to blunt our attack. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
The others nodded at their leader’s assessment.
“Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth,” Crabbe added. “If the Huns don’t want to come up and play, that is perfectly fine with me. Gives the new boys more hours in the cockpit and our mechanics a break from having to fix up our kites. Oh, and Cotswold, much better today.”
“Thank you, sir,” the boy said, beaming.
Since dogfighting wasn’t something best done on a full stomach, the pilots ended their meeting to go and get some breakfast in the big stone barn.
“Ready for your tour, Isaac?” Crabbe asked after a sip from a silver hip flask. “Won’t be as fancy as a Thomas Cook outing, but you’ll see the highlights.”
Crabbe’s batman, a lance corporal whose name Bell never caught, came out with a spare flying suit while mechanics topped up the Bristol’s fuel and oil tanks as well as its radiator. Bell pulled the bulky fleece-lined suit over the clothes he already wore. He understood how cold it would be up at the operational ceiling of the Bristol fighter, somewhere above fifteen thousand feet. He was sitting on the grass putting on his boots over a second pair of socks when Lieutenant Whiddle made his way over at a leisurely pace.
His eyes gave Bell a dismissive flicker before turning to thesquadron leader. “For the record, Captain Crabbe, I want you to know my opposition to this irregular request.”
“Noted, along with your other protest at this morning’s ops meeting,” Crabbe said a little tightly.
Bell finally got his left boot on comfortably and stood. Bell was a tallish man at six feet, but when he stood he felt like one of the Brobdingnagian giants fromGulliver’s Travels. Whiddle barely reached the level of his Adam’s apple. He was reminded of some of the professional jockeys he’d known. He was also reminded how many of them resented a world in which they were forever looked down upon, literally, if not figuratively at times.
Bell extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant. Bell is the name. Isaac Bell.”
Whiddle reluctantly took it. “Know anything about flying?”
Crabbe answered for Bell. “I told you this morning that Isaac is a pilot. He showed me his card from the Aero Club of America. Claims five hundred–plus hours.”
“Not only that,” Bell said with a note of pride, but not boastfulness, “I’ve downed two planes. One from the deck of a ship with a Lewis gun like the one mounted there in the rear cockpit and the other in aerial combat.” He omitted the fact that during the dogfight over San Francisco his opponent actually blew apart his propeller with a blast from his own shotgun.
Whiddle showed little interest. “The gun is loaded, but you are not to charge it or fire it. You’re likely to blow off our tail or shred our upper wing. By the odd chance you spot another plane, tap me on the shoulder and point. Too much noise to shout back and forth. And just don’t do anything stupid. Bloody civilians in a combat plane. What’s next? A new iteration of the Children’s Crusade?”
Bell let the pilot’s gripes go unanswered. There was no point. Whiddle had his orders and in the British military that was final. A mechanic held a ladder steady for Bell to climb into the rear cockpit, while Whiddle vaulted up to the forward slot right behind the engine and the big Vickers machine gun.
