We made our way back to the mess tent in silence. The two delivery pilots were already there, being plied with drinks by the orderlies like two unhurt but still intensely shocked survivors of a train crash. One was a Hungarian called Terszetanyi, if I remember rightly, the other a Pole called Romanowicz. The latter was still chalk-faced as he poured himself yet another schnapps with a trembling hand.
“Holy Mother of God,” he said, “I’m volunteering for the trenches tomorrow. Anything: storm-battalion, flame-thrower company, gas, burying corpses—I don’t care.”
“Was it that bad? ”
“Bad? Jesus Christ I’ve never flown anything like it. Not even the Aviatik Rocking-Chair. The thing’s a disaster. The first time I took it up was yesterday afternoon, and it got me into a spin at two thousand metres. I managed to pull out just above the ground, God alone knows how. It wanders from side to side like a snake, while as for landing the thing, I don’t know how I managed not to tip over on my head like poor old Belounek. We took off from Marburg well enough—the pig climbs quite decently if nothing else—but we were hardly out of sight of the airfield when Metzger’s plane went into a spin for no reason at all.”
“I suppose that must have been Air Liaison’s ‘problems on take-off’?” Romanowicz smiled grimly and gulped his drink. “Yes, I suppose you could call it that. Only for Metzger it’s the end of his problems for ever. The poor bugger dived straight into the ground and went up like a firework: ‘strengthened the ranks of the angels,’ as we say back home.” “Why didn’t you turn back?”
“No choice, old man: orders and all that. Terszetanyi and I were with Flik 14 in the Ukraine, you see. We had some trouble there earlier this year over another flying abortion, the Aviatik BIII of blessed memory, commonly known as ‘the Rocking-Chair’ or ‘the Fairground Swingboat.’ The thing killed so many of our chaps that in the end we had a little mutiny—‘mass refusal of duty’ is the polite term among officers, I believe—and said that we weren’t going to fly it any more. So they broke up the unit and moved us all to other Fliks. We were officers and not rankers so they couldn’t shoot us all or stick us into a penal battalion. But I tell you, we’re marked men. One more refusal of duty and we’re for the high jump and no mistake.”
“What do you think the KD will be like as a fighting machine?” asked Potocznik. Romanowicz found this immensely amusing.
“A machine that will rapidly carve for itself a lasting niche in the brief annals of aerial warfare, if you ask me: the Italians will either think we’ve all gone mad and stop fighting or crash into the ground following us down. Here . . .” he rummaged inside his tunic. “Here’s my will, made out ready and signed. Be a good chap and leave it in the Kanzlei safe, will you? As for my personal effects, you can auction them here among yourselves to save you the bother of sending them back to Marburg.”
The mist was clearing from the valley the next morning as the remnants of Flik 19F took off from Caprovizza airfield, accompanied by their two ungainly escorts. I was in the leading aeroplane with Toth as pilot, while Potocznik and Leutnant Szuborits followed in the unit’s other serviceable Brandenburger. Low cloud lay over the Vippaco Valley, but the Meteorological Officer had assured us by telephone that it was clearing rapidly west of the Isonzo and giving way to bright autumn sunshine: ideal conditions for photography. We droned around in circles to gain height, entering the cloud at about a thousand metres and emerging at two thousand to form up with our escorts. We watched the two KDs pop up from the fleecy white carpet, then got into line with them on either side of us and about fifty metres above. I watched them anxiously from my place behind the machine gun. They seemed a little unsteady to be sure. I supposed that Terszetanyi and Romanowicz were sitting in the cockpits, knuckles white with gripping the control column and waiting for the first tell-tale lurch that would presage the fatal spin down to disaster. Not for the first time I was glad that, whatever the hazards of front-line aviation, at least the Brandenburg two-seater was an easy and gentle old bus to fly, with no conspicuous vices; sturdily built and tolerant of wayward piloting.
I waved to them, but they did not wave back: mainly (I suppose) because they were too frightened to take a hand off the controls. At least they seemed to be managing the aircraft a little better than on the previous day. Perhaps it was just that the KD took some getting used to for pilots who had previously flown only two-seaters. It certainly seemed to have adequate speed. We were flying at seven-eighths throttle to gain height, but the two KDs seemed to be ambling along at only about three- quarters to judge by the exhaust smoke, which used to turn black at high revs. Perhaps things would not work out so badly after all.
We met with a little ill-directed flak as we crossed the Monte Cosbana ridge north of Gorz. As agreed, we then made a wide circle over the town of Cormons and approached Gradisca from the rear. So far there was no sign of any hostile aircraft. We flew over the target at three thousand metres; Toth and I first, then Potocznik. We were covering the same area with our cameras, but the whole operation was judged so important that it had been decided to have two aeroplanes carry it out in case one failed to return. Try as I might I could see no sign of the railway gun on its carriage in the wood below, only the spur of railway track leading off the main line into the trees. But that was not my affair: my job was to work the camera, get the twenty or so plates back to Haidenschaft and then leave it to the intelligence experts with their magnifying-glasses and stereoscopic viewers to detect where exactly Waldschani was lurking. After about two minutes of ambling over the area as instructed, I fired a green signal rocket to indicate that we were finished. Potocznik waggled his wings in answer, and we all turned to give full throttle and run for home, the two Brandenburgers and their escorts who had been circling overhead. We had got away with it so far, but surely the Italians must be coming up after us by now. Being of a naturally rather suspicious cast of mind, it worried me more than a little that we had been allowed to fly over the target, quite obviously engaged in photography, without attracting so much as a single flak shell from below.
We found out as we crossed the Isonzo that it had indeed all been too good to be true: three Nieuports fell upon us out of a patch of cloud. I abandoned the camera and stood behind the Schwarzlose, ready and hoping that the ammunition feed would not seize up like last time. Remember, I thought, don’t fire too soon: rely on Toth to fly the aeroplane and just fire defensively when a target presents itself. Our real hope of salvation lay in getting up enough speed in a shallow dive to outrun the Italians. We were not far from our own lines after all. Weaving and jinking to throw them off their aim before it was absolutely necessary would only lose us speed and make us easier to catch. The Italians needed to close to thirty metres or less to be sure of hitting, and their gun magazines only held about fifty rounds . . . It was with thoughts such as these that I tried to hearten myself as the three familiar shapes closed with us. Yet when all is said and done, no thoughts are really cheering enough to console a man who will shortly be required to stand up full-length with only a thin plywood sheet for protection, three thousand metres above the ground, and face an assailant armed with a machine gun at a range less than the length of most people’s back gardens.