At the beginning

Cecil Lewis

The following is taken from High Flyers: 30 Reminiscences to Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the RAF, edited by Michael Fopp (Greenhill Books, £15.95) Celebration is a jubilant word and the right one to mark the foundation of the Royal Air Force in 1918, older brother of the Royal Flying Corps (all but forgotten now except to the few who still remain) which had itself been hived off from the Army six years before.

But how to celebrate the beginning of such things, the feel of those earliest days when just to 'take off was a marvel and a mystery, and we who did it wore the paper crown of heroes?

Today it is a sort of secret, unique to all who flew the undiscovered air and now it whispers to us like the echo in a singing glass, evoking the memory of . . . a ritual, almost forgotten . ..

Back before dawn in the gloom of old Bessonneau hangars, mythical creatures are stabled. Stabled under roofs of dark brown canvas, flapping heavy in the dawn, roofs sloping crazily from iron poles held by ropes and tent-pegs tugging at the sullen grass. Stabled there like ghostly spirits haunting the damp without life or seeming- ly the remotest hope of motion, crouch awkward creatures, knocked up by children imitating insects, bits of linen, twisted wires, bicycle wheels, all sweating out the rancid breath of castor oil.

Along the hedge a row of these drab

`Stroke . . stroke . . stroke.' tentings stable each a pair of man-made miracles, the latest wonder of the age, an aeroplane. Around them young lads, like stable boys, are readying them for action, wheeling them out into the sunrise air. Lift- ing their tails high on their shoulders and slowly, carefully, pushing them out, so slim, so weightless — can this home-made toy of spruce and linen lift two young gods three miles high up into the infinite blue? — pushing them out so easily, tenderly, white wings swaying over the uneven grass, shiny cowlings catching the morning sun, to set them down in a line ready for the day's work.

Now the lads stand idle, worshiping their gawky dragons. Until late the night before they have been cosseting them by lantern light, trueing up fuselages, laboriously tightening turnbuckles, anxiously setting and re-setting tappets, polishing copper intake pipes, attending to their thousand and one imperious demands and needs. It is their pride and duty that these young strutters should be perfect in every detail, ready for the heroes who will whirl them away into the dawn.

Remember now! Recall those fearful days. Horizon haze hiding the battlefield. At hand French farmland, rolling, rich and easy, hedges of scented hawthorn, poplars lining the roads, river smells, a huge pale sky — but, under it, the dull thud thudding of ten thousand guns.

Romantic? Now, but not then. Then the dizzy catchbreath of expectancy, the won- der and the challenge of the days. What is coming? What awaits us? What is it fills the air? It is something escaping words, the dancing thrill of being alive, there, at that moment, the tumbril in the blood, life on a knife-edge, lived on the lip of nothing.

We are no gods, we young men of those days. Only the past gilds us in the eye of those who follow, gilds the stark simplicity of lonely death, gilds us with hero-gallantry and magic skill.

In life we are a scruffy casual lot. Fur- lined boots reach up almost to our thighs. Worn, tatty leather jackets flap about us as we walk. Fur-lined helmets, goggles and gauntlet gloves complete the shabby silhou- ette. So, strolling thoughtless, everyday, taking all adulation as routine, we shuffle over to our mounts, swing a leg over the cockpit and drop into our seats, turn on the petrol, set the altimeter and we are ready for take-off.

But not quite. First another ritual. Ten- sion rises now. A hundred horse-power jerked into life by a pair of strong young arms. The pilot stretches for the switch, outside, screwed to the body, in reach of his left hand and clearly visible. Mind. Down for OFF, up for ON, Careful. Make no mistake. A backfire can decapitate a man.

`Switch off. Petrol on. Suck in.'

Slowly the big heavy blades are pulled round backwards, priming the cylinders. Satisfied, the boy settles one blade high above his head and reaches up for it.

`Contact!' he calls.

Flipping the switch up, 'Contact!' the pilot echoes.

With all his strength the boy heaves on the blade, pulling it down. With luck — for it does not always happen — the engine catches with a roar and cloud of blue smoke. The pilot throttles back, runs it for a little to warm it up, then opens up testing his mags, and throttles down again.

Now this home-made toy, this gawky Pegasus, begins to pant hot breath and trembles, trembles all over with suppressed desire, trembles to be free, eager to be off, shakes with frustration, pawing against the chocks that hold the wheels, demanding to show his strength, his power, his speed. It is a moment full of wonder, never to be for- gotten, the end of all earthbound waiting and the way to heaven!

The pilot waves his arm from side to side. Chocks are pulled from wheels, an impatient run across the grass to face the wind, the engine opens up - And then!

A blur of grass, a rush of wind and Earth is gone! We are rising. Rising above the map-flat plate of Earth, up, up, up, into the everlasting emptiness of God! And, sitting there, holding my breath, hardly daring to believe, it is I who am here, master of power and speed and movement, I alone, lord of my purring Pegasus! The lightest touch, left, right, up, down. He swings, soars, sweeps, servant to my command, and free! Free of all bounds, all limitations, vouchsafed the miracle of liberty, sent forth a newborn god, a child, to bounce about the blue, turn somersaults in sapphire ...

We did not often have much time or opportunity to indulge these heady arabesques. The daily two-hour stints above the front line Somme (at 500 feet) had the knack of marvellously concentrat- ing the attention. It was a game to guess how many shots could puncture a machine without affecting it. Twenty to fifty was the usual count (the rigger carefully patching each with a neat square of irish linen, past- ed on). Shots came up through the floor, knocked the joystick out of the hand, but never (hardly ever) the one that cut the vital wires.

So, oblivious of the risks, we drifted there above it all, free of the horror, noting impartially the daily, dreary, deadly, drawn- out dance of death — and somehow uninvolved. Indeed I write it now with pain, remorse: it touched us not at all. We were . anaesthetised. Better so. Could we have faced it, witness to mass murder, done our jobs? No. We turned away, lit a cigarette, shrugged it all off. 'The old Hun's fairly going through it.' Don't look. Don't see what you are seeing. Carry on.

Such was our daily flying in those 1916 days until the odd machine-gun bullet or a passing shell brought down some luckless lad — another three-week hero, unknown, unsung, who died for King and Country.