Eastern Nights - and Flights Part 1

Eastern Nights - and Flights.

by Alan Bott.

PROLOGUE

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLa.s.s

Most of us who were at close grips with the Great War will remember the habit of speculation about life on the far side of the front. Somewhere beyond the frontier of trenches, we realized, were our opposite numbers--infantrymen, gunners, aviators, staff officers, mess orderlies, generals, captains, lance-corporals--each according to character, rank, and duties, and to the position he occupied by reason of ability, courage, initiative, old age, self-advertis.e.m.e.nt, or wire-pulling. We saw them through a gla.s.s, darkly--a gla.s.s that, being partly concave, partly convex, and almost impenetrable throughout, showed us our opposite numbers as distorted reflections of ourselves.

We knew well that a journey through, round, or over this gla.s.s would take us into an unnatural world where we should be negative instead of positive, pa.s.sive instead of active, useless sc.r.a.p-iron instead of working parts of a well-constructed machine. Yet we never considered the possibility of being obliged, in that unreal world, to live a life of impotence. Our companions, now, might have the bad luck to be dragged there; but our sense of normality would not let us reckon with such an unusual happening in our own case.

And then, perhaps, one fine day or night found us isolated in an attack, or shot down in an air fight; and we would be in the topsy-turvy country of captivity. Some of us, who pa.s.sed into this country from the curious East, tumbled head over heels upon adventures fantastic as those of any imaginative explorer of the wonderland Through the Looking Gla.s.s of fancy.

We were a small band of six scout pilots, one monkey-mascot, and a team of Baby Nieuports, hangared in a large meadow that was the nearest aerodrome to the then front in Palestine.

Slightly to the south was the one-time German colony of Sorona, with houses empty but for ugly furniture and ornaments, left behind when the routed Turco-Germans scurried up the coast-line after Allenby's victory at Gaza. A few miles north was the trench-line, a few miles west were row upon row of sand-dunes, a sea of that intense blue which is the secret of the Syrian coast, and the ancient port of Jaffa, misnamed "The Beautiful."

The particular task of our detached flight of Nieuports was always to be ready, between dawn and sunrise, to leap into the air at a moment's notice and climb toward whatever enemy aircraft were signalled as approaching from the north. Usually we flew in pairs, for the work was of the tip-and-run variety, and needed, above all things, speed in leaving the ground and speed in climbing; and a larger party would have been slower, because of the exigencies of formation flying.

"A A A four H.A. flying S. toward Mulebbis 10,000 feet A A A," would be telephoned by an anti-aircraft battery. The bell (made out of a Le Rhone cylinder) would clang, the "standing by" pilots would fasten caps and goggles as they raced to their buses, the mechanics would swing the propellers into position as the pilots climbed into the c.o.c.kpits, the engines would swell from a murmur to a roar; and, three minutes after the sentinel-operator had scribbled the warning, two Nieuports would be away across the sun-browned gra.s.s and up into the cool air. A climbing turn, at about 100 feet, and they would streak upward, at an angle of 45 degrees, to the air country above Mulebbis. And the next two pilots on the waiting list would come within easy reach of their flying kit.

Even with the fast-climbing Nieuport it was difficult indeed to reach a height of 10,000 to 12,000 feet in time to get to grips with machines which were at that height while we were reading month-old newspapers on solid earth. But practice and cooperation with anti-aircraft gunners, by means of directional shots, enabled us to find the black-crossed trespa.s.sers often enough to inoculate them with a wholesome fear of venturing any distance beyond the lines.

At the period of which I write--March to May, 1918--it was not too much to say that enemy machines in Palestine, even when in superior force, never fought our Bristol Fighters, S.E. 5's, or Nieuports, unless there was no chance of keeping at a safe distance. Once, three of us were able to chase five German scouts and one two-seater for twenty miles over enemy country until they reached their hangars at Jenin, out-dived us because of their heavier weight, and landed without the least pretence of showing fight; while we relieved our feelings by looping the loop over their aerodrome.

Those were pleasant days, in pleasant surroundings. Our tents were pitched in an orange grove, which provided shade from the midday sun, privacy from the midnight pilfering of Bedouins, and loveliness at all times. The fruit had just ripened, and by stretching an arm outside the tent-flap, one could pick full-blooded giant oranges. Pa.s.sing troops bought at the rate of five a penny the best Jaffas, stolen from our enclosure by young imps of Arabs.

In the heat of afternoon the four of us who were not waiting for the next call would mooch through the orange-trees for a siesta; and in the cool of evening we would drive to the sands for a moonlight bathe in the Mediterranean. For the rest, one could always visit Jaffa, where were some friendly nurses, and a Syrian barber who could cut hair quite decently. Apart from these attractions, however, and the mud hovel that may or may not have been the house of Simon the Tanner, Jaffa was just like any other town in the Palestine zone of occupation, with its haphazard medley of Arabs, Jews, and Syrians, all bent on getting rich quick by exploiting that highly exploitable person, the British soldier.

On the evening before my capture I bathed in the company of a German cadet; a circ.u.mstance which I thought unusually novel, not foreseeing that my next bathe would also be in the company of a German, although under very different conditions.

One Offizierstellvertreter Willi Hampel had been shot down and captured, and was in the prisoners' compound at Ludd. It was decided that before forwarding Hampel to Egypt, the best way to milk him of information would be for another aviator to discuss aeronautics on a basis of common interest; and I was detailed for the duty. This rather went against the grain; but Willi knew neither French nor English, and I was the only pilot in the brigade who could speak German, so that there was no alternative. From his cage I motored Willi to lunch in our mess, showed him our machines and our monkey, and even took him to tea with an agreeable compatriot, a beautiful German Jewess who was the landlady of some houses at Ramleh.

The information he let slip was not very illuminating--a few truthful statements about machines, pilots, and aerodromes, and a great many obvious lies. But his opinions on our aviators and machines were interesting. Our pilots were splendid, but too reckless, he thought. As for the machines, the Bristol Fighter was the work of the devil, and to be avoided at all costs; the R.E.8 might safely be attacked unless it were well protected; the British single-seaters were good; but the German Flying Corps regarded the B.E. types as _sehr komisch_.

As Willi was well-behaved and occasionally informative, and as he had been a flying contemporary of mine on the Western front in 1916 and 1917, I took him for a sea-bathe before he went back to his cage, while taking the precaution to swim closely behind him.

Next day the heat was intense, so that I was glad indeed when the arrival of an A.E.G. from the north gave me the chance to climb to the cool levels of 8,000 to 10,000 feet, flying hatless and in shirt-sleeves. The trespa.s.sing two-seater spotted us, and retired before we could reach its height.

But the next turn of my flying partner and me, in the late afternoon, brought us the good fortune of sending a Hun bus to earth--from sheer fright and not out of control, unfortunately--in open country. I was well content on landing, for the atmosphere was cooler and almost pleasant, and my day's work should have been done.

But a pony, a monkey, and mischance conspired to send me beyond the lines for the third time that day, and the last time for many months.

Instead of leaving the aerodrome at once I remained to play with Bohita, the marmoset mascot. Ten minutes later the bell clanged a warning. One of the waiting pilots raced to his machine, and was away; but the other, mounted on an energetic little pony, was chasing a polo ball. The pony, being jerked backward suddenly, reared up and threw its rider. Seeing that he must be hurt, or at any rate shaken, I climbed into his machine and sent word that I would replace him, so that no time should be wasted. It was then about one hour before sunset.

The first Nieuport had a good start, but the pilot was new to the game, and failed to see the white puffs from directional shots fired by the nearest A.A. battery. The last I saw of his bus was as it climbed due east, with the apparent intention of sniffing at a harmless R.E.8 to see if it were a Hun, and without noticing when I continually switch-backed my machine fore and aft, as a signal that a real Hun was near. I therefore left what should have been my companion craft to its own amus.e.m.e.nt, and climbed toward the British anti-aircraft bursts.

At about 9,000 feet I reached their level, and picked up the intruder--a gray-planed two-seater of the latest Rumpler type. When I was still some 800 yards distant its pilot swerved round, and, holding down his machine's nose for extra speed, raced back northward rather than be forced to fight. I streaked after it, beyond the trenches.

Now the Rumpler was faster than my Nieuport, but was slower on the climb. My only chance of catching up, therefore, was first to gain height and then to lose it again in a slanting dive, with engine on, in the direction of the Boche; and to repeat the tactics. Although each dive brought me a little closer, this method was a slow business. I remember pa.s.sing Kilkilieh and seeing Shechem, and still being outside machine-gun range of the black-crossed bus ahead.

It was at a spot west of Shechem, and about twenty miles from the lines, that I got my chance. By then we had nosed down to 6,000 feet.

Being able to manoeuvre twice as quickly as the big two-seater, the little Nieuport was soon in a "blind-spot" position, and I could attack from a sideways direction, opening fire at 80 yards. The Rumpler dived almost vertically out of the way, and I overshot.

I was turning again, when from above came a succession of raps--_tatatatatat, tatatat, tatatatatat_--the unmistakable tap-tapping of aerial machine-gun fire. I looked up, and saw three scouts dropping toward me from a cloud-bank.

Swerving right round on an Immelman turn I managed to get underneath the nearest scout as it flattened out. I had just pulled down my top-plane Lewis gun, and was preparing to fire a long burst upward into the belly of the scout, when--_p.o.o.p!_--my petrol tank opened with a dull thud. The observer in the Rumpler had fired from a distance of more than 300 yards (far outside what is the normally effective range for aerial fighting), and some of his bullets had ripped through my tank--the only circ.u.mstance which, at that moment, could have put my Nieuport out of action. The petrol gushed over my trousers, and swirled round the floor of the c.o.c.kpit.

I turned south, and was ready to make a last-hope effort to reach the trenches before all the fuel had disappeared, when I received a second shock. On looking over the side, I was horrified to find that underneath the tank the fuselage was black and smouldering. Next instant some wicked-looking sparks merged into a little flame, licking and twisting across the centre of the fuselage.

A thrill of fear that was so intense as to be almost physical went through me as I switched off, banked the bus over to the left as far as the joystick would allow, and, holding up its nose with opposite rudder, went down in a vertical side-slip--the only possible chance of getting to earth before the machine really caught fire.

The traditional "whole of my past life" certainly did not flash before me; but I was conscious of an intense bitterness against fate for allowing this to happen one week before I was to have returned to Cairo the Neutral, where they dined and c.o.c.ktailed, and where the local staff officers filled the dances arranged for the poor dear lonely young officers on leave from the front. And I shouted blasphemies into the unhearing air.

I have no hesitation in saying that I was exquisitely afraid as the Nieuport slid downward at a great speed, for of all deaths that of roasting in an aeroplane, while waiting for it to break up, has always seemed to me the least attractive. But the G.o.ds were kind, for by the time I reached a height of 500 feet the violent rush of air--which incidentally boxed my ear painfully--had overwhelmed the flame and swept it out of existence. The fuselage still smouldered, however, and after righting the bus (now completely emptied of petrol) I lost no time in looking out for a landing-place.

This was a hopeless task. Below was rocky mountainside, contoured unevenly, and possessing neither level nor open s.p.a.ces, and scarcely any vegetation. There was just one patch of gra.s.s, about fifteen yards long; and although this was much too small for a landing-ground, I chose it in preference to bouldered slopes or stony gorges.

After pancaking down to the fringe of the brown gra.s.s the Nieuport ran uphill. It was heading for a tree trunk, when I ruddered strongly to avoid a collision, swerved aside, and--_crash_! _crack_!

_splinter_!--banged into the face of a great rock. Of what came next all I remember is a jarring shock, an uncontrolled dive forward against which instinct protested in vain, an awful sick feeling that lasted a couple of seconds, and the beginnings of what would have been a colossal headache if unconsciousness had not brought relief.

Consciousness returned dimly and gradually. First of all I saw the rock on which my head was lolling; but I had no sense of unity, nor could I feel any bodily sensations except an oppressive want of breath. I twisted my neck and looked up at the sky, and somehow realized that the sun must have set. Then I noticed, quite impersonally, that a band of ragged Arabs were climbing toward me. Most of them carried rifles, and all had pistols or knives protruding from their sashes and ammunition belts. The foremost had unsheathed a long blade, which he fingered appraisingly as he advanced at a quick walk.

CHAPTER I

PAIN, PURGATORY, AND A PLAN

As my senses became clearer the feeling of oppression in my chest grew more and more acute, and I had to struggle desperately for breath.

Yet I failed to realize that I was directly concerned in the Arabs'

intentions and actions, and looked at the motley group from the detached point of view of a film spectator. They were an unkempt group, with ragged robes and dirty headdresses and straggling beards and unfriendly eyes--the sort of nomads who, during the lawless days of war would, and did, cheerfully kill travellers for the sake of a pair of boots, a dress, or a rifle. They had between them a strange variety of arms--guns of every size and shape, belts of close-packed ammunition, revolvers and bone-handled pistols, and curved knives.

And the foremost Arab continued to advance, while fingering the drawn blade of his knife. He was only a few yards distant when another and older man stopped him with a shout. The man with the shining blade answered heatedly. A general argument followed, in which most of his companions took part.

At that time my knowledge of Arabic was of the slightest, and in any case I was not in a condition to grasp the meaning of their words. Yet instinct and deductions from their pantomime made me certain that they were debating a rather debatable point, namely--whether somebody should be killed and stripped, or merely stripped, or whether it would be more worth while to hand him over alive to the Turks, in return for _baksheesh_.

And again I did not regard myself as interested in the deliberations, nor was I the least bit afraid, being still under the spell of cinematographic detachment. When the Arabs' argument was settled beyond question by the sudden appearance, on a near-by slope, of a detachment of Turkish soldiers, I regarded the scene much as if it had portrayed a film sheriff, with comic sheepskin-booted posse, riding to rescue the kidnapped maiden from the brigands.

The dozen Arabs stood sullenly aside as four mounted officers arrived, followed by a body of running soldiers.