“Why, that can certainly be arranged, Kirby! Coxswain!”
Peter’s bellow brought Biggs at the run.
“Be so good, Mr Biggs, as to take this little shit and deposit him outside the gate with his baggage. If a tender happens to be passing by it can dump him at the railway station. Immediately, if you would be so good, Mr Biggs!”
Biggs summoned his best disciplinary roar and marched the boy out, delaying only to call a rating to discover his bags and throw them after him.
Peter reached for the telephone.
“Captain Troughton? Awful line, sir. can barely hear your voice. The horrible little object Kirby objected to the thought of flying with an officer from the lower deck. I have had him kicked out of the gate. He may well be able to make his way to the station. I do not want him, sir. Do with him as you will.”
“A bloody midshipman thinking he can choose his officers for himself? He can lose his damned warrant and the Army can have him as far as I am concerned. The tender with the extra pair of boys should reach you soon. Put him on it rather than leave him to wander around the countryside. He might not have a fare in his pocket.”
Peter sent Payne to inform the gatehouse that Kirby should wait for a tender to pick him up.
“He can stand out in the rain, Payne. He will remain outside the gate.”
Payne grinned and ran.
“Never heard the like in my life, Patterson! A midshipman daring to object to the nature of a lieutenant? Outrageous!”
Patterson fought back a smile.
“I believe Mr Kirby is very well bred, sir. The second son of a viscount and only going to war because it is the proper thing to do. He told me that his elder brother has joined a Guards battalion and is in Flanders just now. He thought there was a good chance he would become heir as a result. That was why he had joined the Navy, sir, so that he could serve in some safety. He did not expect to be sent to the RNAS, thought he would be placed aboard a battleship, being who he was.”
“Poor lad! Such a comedown for him to be posted into the balloons. Still, he need have no further fear of lowering himself so far – he will be found surplus to our requirements, an administrative decision, and will be given the old heave-ho. I suspect he will not be permitted to return to civilian life having once volunteered. I do not know where he may end up. There is a strong possibility he may be broken down to the lower deck and sent as a rating aboard a ship out of Dover, that being conveniently close. Ordinary seaman on an armed trawler is not unlikely.”
Patterson struggled even more to suppress his smile.
“Didn’t like him, Patterson?”
“No, sir. Not my type at all, sir. My family are shopkeepers, though I never mentioned the fact to him. My father owns more than twenty stores now, in the London suburbs. Greengrocery and provisions. He agreed that I should join up before the war ended, was able to speak to an acquaintance and get me accepted in the Navy. I asked for the RNAS, sir. I wanted to fly an aeroplane. A balloon will do very well.”
“I don’t think they accept pilots for training on aeroplanes until they are eighteen, Patterson. If you still want to try it, we might be able to organise something in a couple of years.”
“Will the war last that long, sir?”
“I see nothing to stop it doing so, Patterson. I hope I am wrong, mind you.”
The boy was upset at the prospect. He squared his shoulders and showed all the signs of making the best of an unexpectedly bad job.
“Gives me the chance to make my promotions, sir. They say that rank comes more quickly in wartime.”
“So it does, Patterson. Go across to the Cottage now, that’s the wardroom. One of the ratings will have taken your bags across and put them in a room – the mids are in the huts at the back. Still so few of us that you will get a single room. Much preferable to a shared cabin.”
“Thank you, sir. Which officer will I fly with, sir?”
“The two will speak to you and come to their own decision. Where possible, I prefer the pairing to be decided between you – you are very close in the air and it helps if you like each other.”
Two very different youngsters, Peter reflected. He expected Patterson to settle in and do well. Unlike Kirby, that one was likely to be a pain in the fundament for whoever got him next. If he ended up on the lower deck, he would be sporting bruises within the week if he did not change his attitude.
“Farnsworth, will you put Patterson on the roll. Note that a Midshipman Kirby was rejected as unsuitable for the service.”
That entry on Kirby’s record should suffice to damn him for all of his time in the Navy, carrying connotations of personal inadequacy and perhaps cowardice.
Two more mids arrived, Bacon and Lapstone, neither of them distinguished by vast intelligence or idiocy, either probably capable of doing a good job. Horrocks chose Lapstone, on the grounds that the nearest place to his home in Hampshire was Lapstone Farm and it was pleasant to have a familiar name. Patterson was pleased to be taken by Davies on the grounds that his grandmother was Welsh.
It seemed the right way of doing things, all agreed.
“Patrols, sir.”
“Yes, Mr Tubbs.”
“It seems to me that the ideal is to run two of eighteen hours and three of twelve each day. The two longer runs to be taken in rotation, of course. One balloon to take off at two o’clock and head directly towards Ushant at a steady forty miles an hour. Something like six hours places it in sight of the French coast. From there a sweep out to sea and back in a box pattern. One hour northwest followed by thirty minutes due easterly and then a line southeast almost to the French coast. Then half an hour due east and the same nor’west and back to the coast again. Repeat twice and make course for the South Coast, probably making land somewhere towards Portland. Wind will have an effect. From there thirty minutes out to sea and a run back to Polegate. Covers a broad area. The second balloon takes off at four o’clock. Being summer, it can just get home in daylight having followed the same pattern. As we get into the autumn we make the patrols progressively shorter.”
Peter followed the pattern shown on the chart. It seemed overly complex but Tubbs was sure it would cover a given area thoroughly.
“Have we the petrol for that long a patrol?”
“Just, sir, since Mr Pickles worked on the fuel tanks.”
Peter was not entirely pleased with the idea of coming home with no more than half an hour left in the tank. It was wartime, they must accept it.
“What of the other three?”
“Take off within minutes of each other around dawn on a line for Normandy. Off the tip of Normandy head directly across to Plymouth then make their way back along the Channel, zigzagging out to sea. Wind will cause them to drift apart, increasing the area covered. Take off at about six o’clock, return for six. Being twelve hour patrols, they can use a higher speed, up to fifty, perhaps.”
“Long hours for the crews.”
“If we are unlucky, we will have a blistering hot calm summer which will mean flying every day. More likely, being England, the summer will have its storms. I expect us to be grounded on average one day a week, sir. Young Bacon will rotate around the balloons to give one day in six off for the second hands. Nothing to be done for us pilots, sir.”
Peter shrugged. There were men in the Trenches who would be more than happy to change places with his pilots.
“Right. I shall inform the Captain that we will introduce the new rota at his convenience. He has to arrange for the coastal convoys to be covered. We have the new Aldis lamps now – are all of the second hands familiar with them?”
“Yes, sir. I shall be training the new mids this afternoon.”