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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Winning His
Wings: A Story of the R.A.F.
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eBook.
Title: Winning His Wings: A Story of the R.A.F.
Author: Percy F. Westerman
Illustrator: E. S. Hodgson
Release date: April 27, 2018 [eBook #57056]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by R.G.P.M. van Giesen
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINNING HIS
WINGS: A STORY OF THE R.A.F. ***
[Illustration: cover (front)]
[Illustration: cover (spine)]
Winning his Wings
BY
PERCY F. WESTERMAN
Lieut. R.A.F.
"No boy alive will be able to peruse Mr.
Westerman's pages without a quickening of
his pulses."—Outlook.
Winning his Wings: A Story of the R.A.F.
The Thick of the Fray at Zeebrugge:
April, 1918.
With Beatty off Jutland: A Romance of
the Great Sea Fight.
The Submarine Hunters: A Story of Naval
Patrol Work.
A Lively Bit of the Front: A Tale of the
New Zealand Rifles on the Western Front.
A Sub and a Submarine: The Story of
H.M. Submarine R19 in the Great War.
Under the White Ensign: A Naval Story of
the Great War.
The Dispatch-Riders: The Adventures of
Two British Motor-cyclists with the Belgian
Forces.
The Sea-girt Fortress: A Story of
Heligoland.
Rounding up the Raider: A Naval Story of
the Great War.
BY
PERCY F. WESTERMAN
Lieut. R.A.F.
The Fight for Constantinople: A Tale of
the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Captured at Tripoli: A Tale of Adventure.
The Quest of the "Golden Hope": A
Seventeenth-century Story of Adventure.
A Lad of Grit: A Story of Restoration Times.
LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, Ltd., 50 OLD
BAILEY, E.C.
[Illustration: THERE WAS NO TIME FOR QUESTIONS. DEREK COULD
DISCERN SEVERAL FIELD-GREY FIGURES ADVANCING RAPIDLY]
Winning his Wings
A Story of the R.A.F.
BY
PERCY F. WESTERMAN
Lieut. R.A.F.
Author of "With Beatty off Jutland"
"A Lively Bit of the Front"
"A Sub and a Submarine"
&c. &c.
Illustrated by E. S. Hodgson
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
Contents
CHAP.
I. On Parade
II. Derek's First Flight
III. The Derelict
IV. The Night Raider
V. The Next Day
VI. Across the Channel
VII. When the Hun Pushed
VIII. The Hun Bomber
IX. A Slight Disturbance
X. Kaye's Crash
XI. The Jammed Machine-guns
XII. Bowled Out
XIII. The Count's Ruse
XIV. With the Tanks
XV. Outed
XVI. The Shell-crater
XVII. Turned Down
XVIII. The First Day at Sableridge
XIX. U-boat versus Motor-boat
XX. The Blimp and the Skate
XXI. An Independent Command
XXII. A Mouldy Station
XXIII. An Error of Judgment
XXIV. The Guard-ship
XXV. Salvage Work
XXVI. Christmas Eve
XXVII. Hard and Fast Aground
XXVIII. To the Sea-plane's Aid
XXIX. In the Interests of the State
XXX. The Choice
Illustrations
There was no Time for Questions. Derek could discern several
Field-grey Figures advancing rapidly Frontispiece
GV 7 to the Rescue!
In a Couple of Strides he overtook the Major, and bore him
backwards to the Earth
She presented a Puzzling Proposition to Fritz
The Task of getting him on board was not an easy one
It was a Case of taking One's Chance with the Approaching
Storm
WINNING HIS WINGS
CHAPTER I
On Parade
"On parade!"
The cry, taken up by a score of youthful voices, echoed and re-
echoed along the concrete-paved corridors of the Averleigh T.D.S.—
such being the official designation of the Training and Disciplinary
School—one of those mushroom-growth establishments that bid fair
to blossom into permanent instruction schools under the aegis of the
juvenile but virile Royal Air Force.
Ensued a wild scramble. The morning mail had arrived but five
minutes before the momentous summons. Some of the cadets had
seized upon their share of letters, and had retired, like puppies with
dainty tit-bits, to the more secluded parts of the building, in which
little privacy is obtainable. Others, with scant regard for their
surroundings, were perusing their communications when the order
that meant the commencement of another day's work brought them
back to earth once more.
"Where's my cap?—Who's pinched my stick?—George, old son,
what did you do with those gloves of mine you had last night?—
Now, then, my brave, bold Blue Hungarian bandsman, get a move
on."
The wearer of the latest pattern of the R.A.F. blue uniform raised
his hands deprecatingly. One of a few similarly attired amid a swarm
of khaki-clad flight-cadets, he was beginning to feel sorry for himself
for having been up-to-date, and vindictive towards the Powers that
Be who had given instructions for him to appear thus attired.
"Chuck it!" he exclaimed. "Not my fault, really. If this is the R.A.F.
idea of a sensible and serviceable get-up, I'm sorry for the R.A.F."
"It'll come in handy when you sign on as a cinema chucker-out
après la guerre, George," chimed in another, as he deftly adjusted
his cap and made sure that his brightly-gilded buttons were fulfilling
those important functions ordained by the Air Ministry Regulations
and Service Outfitters. He shot a rapid glance through the window,
for the long corridor was now ejecting the crowd of cadets in a
continuous stream of khaki, mingled with blue.
"Buck up, George!" continued the last speaker, addressing a
slightly-built youth who, red in the face, was bending over his up-
raised right knee. "What's wrong now?"
The individual addressed as George—and in the R.A.F. it is a safe
thing to address a man as George in default of giving him his correct
name—explained hurriedly and vehemently, directing his remarks
with the utmost impartiality both to his would-be benefactor and to
a refractory roll of cloth that showed a decided tendency to refuse to
coil neatly round his leg.
"These rotten puttees, Derek!" explained the victim. "I've had a
proper puttee mornin'—have really. Got up twenty minutes before
réveillé, too. Razor blunt as hoop-iron; hot water was stone cold;
three fellows in the bath-room before me; an' some silly josser's
pinched my socks. Not that that matters much though," he added,
brightening up at the idea of having outwitted a practical joker. "I'm
not wearing any. Then, to cap the whole caboodle, I lost a button off
my tunic in the scrum at the mess-room door."
Derek Daventry, one of a batch of newly-entered flight-cadets at
Averleigh, was a tall, lightly-built fellow of eighteen and a few
months. Dark-featured, his complexion tanned by constant exposure
to sun and rain during his preliminary cadet training, supple of limb
and brimful of mental and physical alertness, he was but one of
many of a new type—a type evolved since the fateful 4th day of
August, 1914—the aerial warriors of Britain.
The second son of a naval officer, Derek had expressed a wish to
enter the Royal Air Force, or, rather, the Royal Naval Air Force as it
then was, from the moment when it became apparent that the
schoolboy of to-day must be a member of one of the branches of His
Majesty's Service to-morrow. Captain Daventry, R.N., D.S.O., and a
dozen other letters after his name, was equally keen upon getting
Derek into the navy by the post-entry of midshipmen process, thus
making good an opportunity that had been denied the lad at an age
when he was eligible for Osborne.
"It's not only now," declared Captain Daventry. "One has to
consider what is to be done after the war."
"Time enough for that, Pater," rejoined Derek. "The end of the
'duration' seems a long way off yet."
"Possibly," said his father. "On the other hand it may be much
sooner than most people imagine. Of course I know that there are
thousands of youngsters similarly situated to yourself, but the hard
fact remains that the war must end sooner or later."
"But the R.F.C. and the R.N.A.S. must carry on," persisted Derek.
"Flying's come to stay, you know."
"Quite so," admitted the naval man; "but unfortunately that doesn't
apply to flying-men. The life of an airman, I am given to understand,
is but a matter of three or four years, apart from casualties directly
attributable to the war. The nervous temperament of the individual
cannot withstand the strain that flying entails."
"You're going by the experience of pioneers in aviation, Pater,"
replied his son. "After the war, flying will be as safe as motoring.
When I'm your age I may be driving an aerial 'bus between London
and New York. In any case I don't suppose the Air Board will turn a
fellow down when his flying days are over. They'll be able to make
use of him."
"You are optimistic, Derek."
"Yes, Pater," admitted the flying aspirant, "I am. It's a new thing,
and there are endless possibilities. I only wish I were six months
older. It's a long time to wait."
Captain Daventry still hesitated. An experienced and thoroughly up-
to-date naval officer, he understood his own profession from top to
bottom. The navy, notwithstanding rapid and recent developments,
was a long-established firm. There was, in his opinion, something
substantial in a battleship, in spite of U-boats and mines. But the
wear and tear of an airman, the fragile nature of his craft, and above
all the uncertain moods of the aerial vault made flying, in his
estimation, a short-lived and highly-dangerous profession, albeit
men look to it with all the zest of amateurs following a new form of
pastime.
"Hang it all, Pater!" continued Derek, warming to his subject; "the
Boche has to be knocked out in the air as well as on the sea.
Someone's got to do it; so why can't I have a hand in the game?"
"I'm not thinking of the war, but after," replied his father. "Since
you're keen on it, carry on, and good luck. The after-the-war
problem must wait, I suppose."
And so it happened that in due course Derek Daventry presented
himself for an interview at the Reception Depot of the newly-
constituted Air Ministry. That ordeal successfully passed, and having
satisfied the Medical Board, after a strenuous examination, that he
was thoroughly sound in mind and body, the lad found himself an
R.A.F. cadet at a large training-centre on the south coast.
Here his experience was varied and extensive. In a brief and
transitory stage, the mere soldiering part of which he tackled easily,
thanks to his school cadet training, he was initiated into the
mysteries of the theory of flight, the air-cooled rotary engines,
wireless telegraphy, aerial photography, and a score of subjects
indispensable to the science of war in the air. Then, punctuated by
regular medical examinations—for in no branch of the service is the
precept mens sana in corpore sano held in higher esteem—came
additional courses in the arts of destructive self-defence: machine-
guns, their construction, use, and defects; bombs of all sizes and
varieties; aerial nets, their use and how to avoid them; the
composition of poison-gas and "flaming onions"; how to avoid anti-
aircraft fire; and a dozen other problems that have arisen out of the
ashes of the broken pledges of the modern Hun.
The days are past when the ranks of the old flying-corps were filled
by and rapidly depleted of hundreds of hastily-trained pilots—
specimens of the youth and manhood of the empire who were
passed through the schools in desperate haste and pitted against the
scientific but undoubtedly physically-inferior German flyers. Now the
R.A.F. trains its "quirks" deliberately and methodically. While on the
one hand there is no dallying, there is on the other no injudicious
haste, and before a cadet takes his wings he must thoroughly
master the intricacies of a 'plane while the huge monster lies pinned
to the earth. In due course, provided the most critical of instructors
are satisfied, the budding flying-man develops into a flight-cadet and
finally emerges, trained and provided with the best machines that
money and brains are capable of producing, to help to gain the
mastery of the air.
Derek Daventry had now entered into the flight-cadet stage, and
on the morning following his arrival at Averleigh T.D.S. he found
himself entering upon a new and highly-interesting phase of his
career—the actual experience of flight.
"I'll give you a hand," he said, addressing the youth with the
refractory puttee. "We'll lash the job up somehow. After all there's a
medical inspection after parade, so the jolly old thing'll have to come
off again. The main business is to fall in before the parade starts."
With Derek's assistance Flight-Cadet John Kaye contrived to encase
his leg in the long strip of khaki cloth. True, there were projecting
folds and creases that might cause sarcastic comment from his
flight-inspecting officer, but the fact remained that his attendance on
parade was an accomplished fact.
The cadets and airmen had fallen in in their respective "Flights"—
R.A.F. equivalent to platoon—when the bell gave out its four double
clangs, for at Averleigh they kept ship's time, possibly as a sop to
the naval element absorbed from the old R.N.A.S. The Sergeant-
Major, having satisfied himself as to the dressing and alignment,
advanced to within a few paces of the Adjutant, the latter a youth
who was within a few months of attaining his twenty-first birthday,
and on whom weighed the responsibility of a thousand odd men.
Round-faced and boyish in appearance, he already sported three
metal bars upon his sleeve—the only outward and visible signs of
three wounds received in action with the Huns in Flanders and on
the Somme.
The Sergeant-Major saluted. The soft south-westerly breeze carried
away the sound of his voice from the stiffly-motionless ranks. The
salute was returned, then—
"Parade—stand at—ease! Fall in the officers!"
Derek, standing by the side of his chum Kaye in the front rank of
No. 4 Flight, was conscious of the approach of his Flight-
Commander. Along the face of the Flight the Captain passed, swiftly
"overhauling" the appearance of every cadet. Yet, somehow, Kaye's
delinquency in the matter of the absent tunic button was passed
unrebuked.
"Rear rank, one pace step back—march!"
Cadet Kaye breathed freely once more. The ordeal, as far as the
front rank men were concerned, was over.
But before the inspection was completed came an unexpected
diversion. It was all the fault of Gripper, the Major's bull-terrier and
mascot-in-chief to the Averleigh T.D.S. If Gripper hadn't forgotten
time and place, and hadn't taken it into his head to chase the mess-
room cat across the parade-ground, the inspection would doubtless
have gone on without a hitch. But the bull-terrier was off, nearly
capsizing the Colonel, while in his wake a heavy cloud of dust rose
sullenly in the air. Gripper had no intention of hurting Satan—the
huge black cat. It was merely an effort on his part to pass the time
of day with his feline chum; but unfortunately Peter, the large sheep-
dog, and Shampoo, the Skye terrier, had misgivings on the score, or
perhaps they felt that they were being left out in the cold by
Gripper's sudden disappearance from the parade. They, too, joined
in the chase.
Evidently Satan regarded three tormentors as being beyond the
limit. Climbing upon the balustrade of the verandah in front of the
officers' mess the cat eyed the three excitedly-leaping dogs for
nearly a quarter of a minute. Then, before the animals realized what
it was about, Satan gave the bull-terrier a smart scratch on the tip of
his nose just as Gripper reached the zenith of a prodigious leap.
Then, following upon the initial success, the feline sprang fairly and
squarely upon Peter's woolly back, administered a cuff with a
taloned claw, and immediately directed his attention to the luckless
Shampoo.
The Skye, finding himself pursued by the namesake of the Prince of
Darkness, bolted precipitately towards the ranks of No. 4 Flight;
while Gripper and Peter, having first shown an inclination to chastise
each other for being the cause of their discomfiture, started in
pursuit of Satan.
So far, officers, cadets, and men had thoroughly enjoyed the
diversion, but when the terror-stricken Skye ran yelping between the
lines, and Satan, finding himself exposed to a rear attack, promptly
leapt upon the shoulders of a cadet-sergeant, No. 4 Flight began to
grow unsteady on parade. To make matters worse Gripper and Peter,
dividing their attention between the cat and themselves, were
scrapping and yelping around the men's feet. Later on many of the
cadets faced Hun "anti" and machine-gun fire with equanimity, but
the knowledge that only a few folds of puttees intervened between
their calves and two jaws armed with particularly aggressive teeth
was too much for their newly-instilled habits of discipline.
For quite a minute pandemonium reigned in the shattered ranks of
No. 4 Flight, until the Colonel, in stentorian tones, suggested that it
was time that the performance drew to a close.
It was not until Gripper had been enmeshed in the folds of a
leather flying-coat, and Peter deftly capsized by a sergeant who
seized him by his legs, that things began to assume a normal aspect.
Satan's claws were disengaged from the cap of the cadet who had
formed his pillar of refuge, while Shampoo was curtly bidden to clear
out; and once more No. 4 Flight formed up and "right dressed".
"Parade—'shun!"
Accompanied by the characteristic clicking of hundreds of heels,
the parade stood rigid while the C.O. received and acknowledged the
Adjutant's salute. Then—
"Parade—stand at ease; caps off!"
Every head was bared as the Colonel began to read the short form
of Divine Service. Simultaneously the "church pennant"—another
concession to the naval side of the R.A.F.—was hoisted to the yard-
arm of the flagstaff.
"... we pray Thee to give thy Fatherly protection to us and to our
Allies on land, on the sea, and in the air."
The drone of a biplane two thousand feet overhead served as a
fitting accompaniment to the invocation. It reminded the budding
airmen that ere long they, too, would fall within this category of
suppliants for Divine protection. Soon they would be tasting of the
joys and perils of flying; of life, perhaps of death, in that domain
that was every day becoming more and more under the sway of
man.
"Parade—caps on! March off!"
The morning ceremonial was over.
"No. 4 Flight: move to the right in fours. Form fours—right! Left
wheel—quick march!"
It was not until the cadets were marched to a remote corner of the
vast parade-ground and ordered to stand easy that Daventry turned
to his chum.
"You got through that all right, old man," he observed. "The
Captain didn't spot your missing button."
"Didn't he, by Jove?" replied Kaye, a broad smile overspreading his
features. "He did—but he couldn't say a word. He'd a button missing
himself. What's the move now?"