Another dawn patrol, I’d lost count a long time ago but they never seemed to get any easier for me. I hated the dawn with a passion. Yes I know, the sun coming up over the trenches is a beautiful sight, especially with a cloud of mustard gas outlined by its rays but I would sooner be in bed with the blankets pulled up around my ears. It was bad enough up here 10,000 feet above the trenches but I could never forget what it was like down there, the mud, bullets and shells. I’ve not forgotten the gas although I would like to.
We were high and climbing higher, headed for the trenches and looking for trouble, I was leading the patrol, there was just me and Taki. Ichiro Takahashi had been with us long enough to have made a place for himself around the fireplace in the Mess, I liked the young Japanese lad, he had mettle, you knew he would stick with you in a fight. I say he was young but there was barely 6 months between us however I had been out here longer and that ages a man, we both arrived as boys but that seemed like a long time ago.
I saw them first, a pair of the new Halberstadt's and waggled my wings pointing at the enemy machines. Taki flying as my starboard wingman was awake and paying attention, he immediately waved a gloved hand indicating he’d seen them and we turned to attack.
I wondered briefly what they were doing over our side of the lines, that was unusual but we were in their blind spot and closing but not fast enough. Unfortunately we didn’t have advantage of height and I knew these planes were as fast as our own machines, we would be lucky to creep up on them without being spotted.
I’d turned in fast to try and close the gap, catching Taki by surprise and so we had swapped positions he was now on my port side and we were flying in the wake of the German planes.
We tried our best, but pretty soon it was obvious that we couldn’t catch them and so I fired a long range burst just to catch their attention.
That worked rather better than I expected because the two enemy performed beautifully executed Immelmann turns, perfectly coordinated and the blood ran cold in my veins wondering if we had caught a pair of tigers by the tail.
I could see Taki’s bullets striking the CDL machine and he must have hit an oil line or something because smoke suddenly started to emanate from the enemy plane, as I prepared to open fire on my target I watched out of the corner of my eye to see if the smoke would be followed by flames, but that didn’t happen.
There’s a ridiculous convention that one should never turn away from an enemy plane when it's flying head on a collision course. I’ve no idea where this came from, must be HQ, they are the only ones capable of dreaming up such a patently mad idea, but there it is.
Both Taki and I continued to fly straight at the Hun, unfortunately they had the same insane idea in their head’s and we just missed each other by the narrowest of margins. The only benefit was that we were closing so fast that we barely had time to fire and did no damage to each other, once again I blessed my brown fighting trousers that hid a multitude of sins.
As soon as I realised we were going to pass each other I pulled up and Immeled straight away, I’d expected the brown plane in front of me to Immel as well but he was starting to turn to port and was a sitting duck.
I never was very good at duck shooting, although I instinctively opened fire, and I could see holes appearing in his machine, we were that close. I knew I’d hit him but almost immediately my gun jammed. Damn and blast the thing, I knew I should have checked the bullets last night instead of having that last drink in the Mess.
C’est la vie, I think the French say, although merde was what actually went through my mind.
The blasted CDL Halberstadt had done a hard banking turn and he almost collided with me as he flew past, crikey things were getting hot around here.
We were spread all over the sky, jockeying for position, Taki achieved it first and was able to put some hurt on the brown plane which also started to smoke, I wondered if they had some sort of a design flaw, if they do I’m really pleased I’m not flying them.
I quickly forgot that thought as I saw one of the Hun flying into a huge cloud bank.
If only Taki and I can concentrate on the other one before he gets back into the fight, we might save our skins - perhaps.
I had the other one in my sights and opened fire first but I could feel his return bullets boring into my machine as we flew towards each other then I realized that maybe I’d come off second best in this exchange.
We both jinked to the right and that was all that saved us flying straight into each other. Hell's teeth and bugger to that idea of not flinching.
The CDL Halberstadt disappeared into the cloud formation, I wondered if maybe he would get lost in there and we’d never see him again.
Nope:- no such luck as he emerged right in front of his partner and headed our way.
Again planes were jockeying for position and eventually Taki and the brown plane exchanged shots.
Flying past each other I could see Taki shaking his fist at the German but with the amount of smoke coming from the Hun's engine he probably couldn’t see the futile gesture anyway.
Eventually the smoke stopped pouring forth and the Hun was able to bring his plane back into the fight without being half blind. That’s when Taki hit him again.
He and Taki continued their duel but then the DE4 was hit and like the Germans it started to smoke, but with the engine being behind the pilot he is not blinded as with the Hun.
We didn’t know it then but shortly the Brown Hun was going to turn for home, he’d either lost his bottle or his plane was badly damaged, you never really know.
I’d got the CDL machine in my sights and could see my tracers boring into it’s cockpit, the plane lurched and I was sure that I’d hit the pilot, but he quickly recovered control.
As we flew past each other I could see blood spattered across his goggles, it was either that or droplets of oil.
I know it’s a bad thing to say but I hoped it was blood.
As before I immediately did an Immelmann turn and was on his tail, firing into a chap with no returning fire always feels cowardly, safe but cowardly.
But he was good, - good and brave, he turned on me, we were at point blank range, neither of us missed but I saw he was hit again and lost control of his machine plummeting to earth like a dead pheasant.
I think I said I wasn’t much good shooting ducks but I’m the devil shooting pheasants.
Just a gratuitous close up before the Halberstadt spirals down out of control in to our side of the lines, if he survives I thought I would invite him to dinner with the squadron as he was my 7th victim and as luck would have it, I was our flights leading scorer, for the time being at least.
We had our lunch and a bottle of wine, I was waiting to hear what had happened to my Hun when Taki remarked that the afternoon patrol should have returned by now so we went over to see if Uncle had heard any news.
Just as we arrived his phone rang and it was Biff on the line, “Sorry Uncle we’ve lost both planes and I don’t know what’s happened to Jerome yet”. “We were both downed over no mans land and he’s not reported in, have you heard from him”. Uncle just looked saddened but said “no, tell me what happened and then get yourself back here, the drinks are on young Vagabond he’s just claimed his 7th and I’ve had confirmation from the infantry so it’s official, he’s in the chair tonight”.
I could hear Biff’s laugh, strangely tinny, distorted by the phone line but then he responded to Uncle, “well we were returning from our patrol, it had been uneventful we didn’t see a sign of the Hun until we were within sight of the lines and then there were 2 of those pretty EIII’s coming straight at us”.
We all opened fire at each other, at fairly long range, I know it’s not good practice but you never know when a lucky shot will take down a plane, I’m pretty sure I hit the pilot in my target Fokker.
We all flew a straight course and while that’s a bold thing to do, it’s also bloody stupid and we all collided, Jerome went straight down.
But none of the rest of us seemed to take much damage.
The collision must have distracted my Hun because when I Immeled he was still flying a straight line homeward and I had him right in front of me. I opened fire immediately and could see I had damaged his plane, well before he could take evasive action.
I pulled back on the stick to slow my plane a little and continued to pour lead into him causing some more damage but the fool in the grey EIII was turning fast, I don’t think he even saw me.
Both these have +1 damage not shown.
I nearly had kittens when he flashed past, I was concentrating so hard with the CDL Fokker in my sights that I wasn’t ready for him. It’s lucky for me that he didn’t know his arse from his elbow, excuse the similarly. Any way I got the CDL Fokker, think the lads in the trenches should be able to confirm a kill as he went down right in front of me. Very timely as my blasted gun jammed, so I Immeled and tried to clear the damned thing.
I wasn’t quick enough clearing the jam, I’d forgotten to take the wooden mallet up with me, anyway the grey EIII had also Immeled and opened fire first, luckily he missed. I think I may have hit upon a couple of novices because they seemed pretty inept, but it only takes one lucky bullet, as we both know.
We flew close, almost wing tip to wing tip and I think if we hadn’t both dipped our wings at the same time we would have collided.
After a bit more jinking about the sky he was able to get the drop on me and that lucky shot started a small fire.
I waited with bated breath for it to get worse and did every acrobatic trick I knew to put the damn thing out.
Of course I was concentrating on the fire so much that I missed the fact that he was coming in again and it was only when he started blowing lumps off my plane that I realised he was so close. I have to say I was a bit worried because as you know the Morane's are pretty fragile at the best of times and this wasn’t helping at all.
Well I wasn’t having any of that, the fire had caused very little damage when it blew out and I was still in the hunt. Eventually I'd got him lined up but I guess I was a bit jittery from the fire, the smoke, well maybe not, I’m not really sure, well all I’m trying to say is that I managed to miss a fairly easy shot and unfortunately for me he didn’t.
Then yet again the fool flew straight in my path and we collided with a hell of a bang, I went down in no mans land, but those EIII’s must be solidly built because he just flew off home.
So not a good show, I heard Biff say over the phone, we got one of them and they got both of us.
I’ll try and find out how Jerome fared before I come home. There was a pause before Biff said, “He flew straight into the Hun you know, he’s either very brave or too frightened to not be brave” “Just tell Henry he was brave”
“OK wilko” was Uncles laconic response. “Just get a lift home quickly because you know how tight young Vagabond is and the drink will taste so much better when he has to let the moths out of his wallet then we'll probably have to hold him up by his heals to shake the money out of him to pay for a second round.
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