1916 Angels over the Somme (British Ace Book 3) by Griff Hosker Page A

give the pilot some protection.  How they saw over it I do not know.  I banked slightly to the right which allowed Lumpy to stitch a line of bullets along from the engine.  He must have hit the pilot for he savagely pulled the nose up and away.  He barely missed colliding with a second Fokker.  The second German had to swerve and Gordy could not miss.  He and his gunner opened up and the aeroplane plunged to the earth.  We now had a gap in their lines and we flew on.  It would be down to my new pilots now and their gunners.
    Sergeant Hutton was enjoying the number of targets he had.  I continued with my gentle bank.  A Halberstadt came into my sights.  They were a faster and a better aeroplane than the Fokker but with just a fixed gun facing forward he had no defence against an oblique attack such as mine.  I watched as he tried, in vain, to bring the nose of his aeroplane around to hit me.  I waited until the last moment and then I gave him a long burst.  My bullets ripped into his engine and then along the cockpit.  I saw him slump in his seat and the aeroplane began to spiral down. 
    We were gradually heading towards Archie and his flights.  There were six aeroplanes between us and we hit them with a wicked crossfire.  It was hard to see who hit what but four of them were hit. I could not see which ones were actually destroyed but four of them were out of the equation. As our flights converged we began to head west. I signalled for my two rookies to ascend. “Hutton get on the rear Lewis and see if those lads have followed orders.”
    “Sir.”
    He did his usual struggle and then, after he had cocked his Lewis he gave me the thumbs up. He frowned and then he shouted, “Lieutenant Steadman isn’t there.” Lieutenant Steadman was from Gordy’s flight. I saw him scanning the ground and then he pointed behind me.  I craned my neck and saw the burning Gunbus. A fire like that normally meant no one was walking away. I had thought that we had had a perfect mission but we had lost a good pilot and gunner.
    Freddy and Johnny were waiting for us as we landed. I nodded, “The new boys did well.  Thanks for giving them the talk.”
    “You are welcome, sir.”
    Freddy looked at the others who were just landing.  The numbers on the front made it easy to see who was missing. “I see Geoff Steadman bought it.  Did he land safely?”
    Hutton came up behind me and mimed an explosion, “Boom!”
    It brought my pilots up sharply.  Geoff had joined the squadron just after they had and they had been friends.  Losing friends was always hard but when you lost pilots with less experience it made you question your own mortality.
    When I reached Captain Marshall’s office Archie and Ted were there already. “Good show out there.”
    I gave him the figures for the aeroplanes we had damaged and destroyed. He began to tot them up. “How many bombers did we lose?”
    “I made it four.”
    “So with Geoff’s aeroplane we lost five in total.”
    “Not a bad return, Bill.”
    “But not good enough, sir.  Our tactics worked fine.  We caught them on the hop and we had them.  I know we couldn’t do anything about the bombers over the targets; the ones hit by ground fire but we shouldn’t be losing any in air combat.  The only advantage they have over us now is speed and a head on attacks negates that.”
    Archie shook his head. “You are looking for perfection, laddie.”
    “I know sir. I just think it is better than accepting second best.”
    Gordy came in, “What happened to Geoff?”
    “One of the Hun rolled between Steadman and Carstairs.  It was a nice manoeuvre. He got Geoff when Carstairs gunner couldn’t fire for fear of hitting Steadman.”
    “But he could have fired!”
    Gordy looked at me and shook his head, “Bill, you weren’t there how do you know?”
    “The same way that you know, Gordy; the gunner can traverse his gun. Lumpy and Sergeant Laithwaite could have done it.”
    “They are the