A few more pieces of paper and he took a stroll across to the hangars.
“Pickles, old chap, the wireless set is powered off its own tiny little petrol motor, is it not? A generator, do you call it?”
That was so, Pickles agreed.
“Produces electricity, Pickles?”
“Yes, that is what generators tend to do, sir.”
“Excellent! Would it be feasible to work an Aldis signalling lamp off the generator, rather than having heavy batteries, which don’t last that long anyway?”
“Damned good question, sir. I am not an electrical man, myself, but I have a PO who is a wizard at all things sparking. Harrison! Over here, please.”
The petty officer was young and wore spectacles, a rarity in the Navy and instantly forbidding him from shipboard service. A man whose glasses were broken a thousand miles out to sea was a liability.
“Commander Naseby wants to run an Aldis off the generator. Batteries are too heavy for onboard use.”
“Don’t know, sir. Have to discover what the Aldis runs on – it might have different power requirements to the wireless.”
Peter vaguely understood.
“That’s those amps and volts things, is it?”
“Yes, sir. That’s one way of putting it.”
He had been long enough in the service to know that the PO thought he had made a fool of himself.
“That’s why we have people like you, PO. I’ll just fly the thing and pull the triggers. You make ‘em work.”
“Yes, sir. I can have an answer for you by tomorrow, sir, after flying. If it won’t work, I might be able to come up with an alternative. It might be possible to run a wire off the engine, sir, if the jenny won’t do it.”
“Good, it would be useful to be able to talk to a destroyer at sea, much better than having to send a message here then make a telephone call to Dover for them to send a signal out to the ship that I can see half a mile away from me.”
“Right, sir. We’ll see what can be done.”
Harrison bustled off to his own little workshop, leaving the officers to inspect the busy scene.
“Modifying the petrol tanks, using the couple of days off, sir. Slinging them higher under the envelope, gravity feed, no need for a pump. Made them lighter by a few pounds as well which means we can add a few gallons to them. It all helps.”
“It does. Any word on when these Coastals will come into service?”
“Not for a few months, sir. Bigger balloons by a long way, built as a triple lobe rather than a single like the SS. Might be able to carry six or seven in the crew and a second Lewis. Something like three times the weight of depth bombs as well. Should be in service by the end of the year.”
Peter was almost sure that they would spell the end of his career as a pilot. He would be too senior to fly, would spend his days ashore organising his flotilla, or whatever they decided to call them.
“A short life and a merry, somebody said, Pickles. I might even be sent back to sea, you never know.”
“On one of the seaplane carriers, perhaps, sir. I hear there will be more of them as well.”
“Heavier-than-air – I know nothing about them, Pickles. Very comforting, having a gasbag over one’s head and knowing that even if the engine cuts out, we shall still be flying. Blown where the wind takes us, mind you, but that’s a damned sight better than going straight down!”
He made his way across to the magazine, deciding it was time he actually poked his nose inside and saw what was what for himself. He found Handsworth and Sargent outside, sat astride bombs and working on their fuses, each with a cigarette in his mouth. It seemed a cavalier attitude to take to hundreds of pounds weight of high explosive.
“’Afternoon, sir. Come to see the troglodytes in their cave, sir?”
“Thought I should poke my nose in, just to be able to claim that I had been here, you know.”
“Not much to look at, sir. Bombs on racks in the main tunnel.” Handsworth waved his hand at a cavern, going back a distance into darkness in the chalk. “Lewis Guns stored dry in a wooden shack in the mouth here. Ammunition behind them. A few rifles as well as the official cavalry carbine we must carry. Some of the lads have bought their own sporting rifles instead, following Griffiths’ example. A very nice Holland and Holland express young Leburn has picked up – seems his father was into big game hunting. Double barrel, fifty-six calibre, rounds the size of my thumb! All most enthusiastic!”
“Not quite regulation, but not to worry about that. What is your opinion of the sixteen pounder bombs?”
“Valueless for our purposes, sir. They might be useful if ever you wished to indulge in anti-ship work, or for attacking a military camp, both of which are unlikely activities for us. The hundred and twelves are far more the thing. There is word of a one hundred and thirty pounder in the making, sir. Pickles thinks the blimp could carry it. Almost all of the extra eighteen pounds would be explosive, very little weight used up on the casing. A useful device, I would suggest, sir. The new Coastals will carry two of the one hundred and thirty pounders, sir.”
“Dropping them separately or together?”
That was a good question. They would enquire of their own people.
Sargent was a little upset.
“I was asked why I was wearing working dress at luncheon, sir. Seems it might be a disciplinary.”
“I will speak to Commander Cairncross, Sargent. For the while, continue with our habits.”
Peter reached his cabin just before five o’clock, found Cairncross packing up for the day, an eye to the large timepiece on his wall.
“Luncheon, Cairncross. Can’t afford to waste my people’s time changing in and out of mess dress, you know. Very much our habit to remain in working dress until work is finished for the day. For the men in the magazine, of course, that means from before dawn when they bomb up to after dusk when they disarm the blimps before they go into the hangars. Long days, the gunnery party works.”
“But they cannot conceivably enter the wardroom dressed in rags! They must look the thing, Naseby!”
“We are a working base, Cairncross. They must look like working men.”
“That was the problem. That was exactly what they did look like, gutter oiks from a factory, not naval officers.”
“Both wore working dress, they assure me, Cairncross. Sargent had an oil stain on the cuff of his shirt, from working on a Lewis. Handsworth had a faint smear of grease on one trouser leg. That is hardly the depths of degradation.”
“Mess dress demands snowy white linen and a precise uniform on top, Naseby. They are the standards which we as officers must maintain. What will the lower deck think if they see us oil stained?”
“They will be amazed to see that we have been working for our living, I expect, Cairncross. We are all in this war together, you know. We should all be doing our best.”
“Maintaining proper standards is doing our best, Naseby!”
Peter gave up the argument.
“As you wish. Operational requirements demand that officers from the hangars and magazine shall wear working uniforms to luncheon. Flying officers may do the same if they are about to fly or have come down from a flight. Only those officers not flying maybe expected to change into mess dress. As a general rule, they will be off the field in such leisure time, in any case.”
“I shall inform Troughton that you are being entirely unreasonable in your demands, Naseby. Officers who are not flying should be properly occupied. They should be inspecting the messdecks and parading their divisions at least once a week.”
“The pilots have no divisions, Cairncross. The midshipmen have a nominal responsibility for the lower deck, they need the training. Most of the time, they are flying and their petty officers take charge.”