Andrew Wareham - The Balloonatics - A Tale of the Great War

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.”

Tubbs was taking his position as second-in-command seriously, was looking for ways to be useful.

“Well done. We shall see you as lieutenant commander with your own station in no time, Tubbs.”

“Unbelievable, sir! The family will be irate, of course.”

“Why? I would have thought they would be delighted at your success.”

“The youngest brother has no business being senior to his two elders, sir. That is not the correct way of doing things.”

“If we ever get leave, Tubbs, do you intend to go home?”

“Not bloody likely, sir! I have a respectable allowance on top of my pay and I have had no chance to spend any of it. If we get a week, then it’s up to London and see what might happen!”

“If the day comes, I will give you the name of an acquaintance of mine, one of Lord Lancing’s daughters. I am sure she would make sure you enjoyed a leave.”

Peter was fairly sure that Charlie would be kind to the lad, at minimum introducing him to one of her friends. She was a big-hearted lass, among her other attributes.

The mind-numbing routine of patrols commenced; within the week they were praying for rain. Two patrols of eighteen hours followed by three of twelve then start again with no break. Hours of staring out at an empty sea, nothing in sight other than the occasional fishing smack or drifter and the rare sighting of the surface ships also on patrol. The Channel looked small on a chart; it was one hundred miles wide from Normandy to Portland and two hundred and fifty from Polegate to Ushant. Thousands of square miles of sea for a submarine to be lost in.

Staying awake was the greatest problem. The blimps almost flew themselves at cruising height, making few demands on the pilot. The second hand sat up front had even less to do, physically. Scanning the sea, brain active, examining every change of colour that might be a distant submarine – it was too easy to fall into a daze, the brain failing to register what the eyes saw.

“Thirty minutes, sir! Next leg.”

Fanny Adams was in charge of the course, noting the time of each change in his log. It helped keep him alert, gave him something to do.

Peter responded, bringing SS9 slowly round onto the new track.

“North northwest, sir! Eleven o’clock. Something on the sea, sir! Distant maybe two miles.”

Binoculars up on the bearing given and all fatigue forgotten.

“Sighting report, Fanny! Time and position, ‘surfaced submarine. Attacking’.”

Down in a hard, turning dive, bringing the blimp bows on, reducing the apparent size of the balloon, hopefully harder to spot. Throttle full open and fins at maximum elevation, the blimp bouncing and juddering against the sudden tug on the cables.