The Two-Headed Eagle

The machine that stood before us in the half-light that morning at Caprovizza was a sturdy-looking, squarish, rather uncompromising bi­plane with curious inward-sloping struts between the wings. Its 160hp Austro-Daimler engine and attendant radiator completely blocked the pilot’s view forward, so that Toth had to crane his neck out and look along one side of the nose like an engine driver peering out of his cab. The two of us were to sit in a long, shared cockpit. For defence to rearward I had a stripped-down Schwarzlose machine gun mounted to slide on rails around the cockpit edge, while for attack—that is to say, something getting in front of us for long enough to be worth a shot—Toth had a second Schwarzlose, complete with water-jacket this time, mounted on a pylon above the top wing so that it could fire ahead over the radiator and propeller. Looking at it that morning I was not at all sure that this second machine gun was worth the trouble of lugging it along with us. Thanks to the lack of forward view for the pilot, the sights consisted merely of a brass eyelet and a pin fixed into the interplane struts while the firing mechanism—since the weapon was way above the pilot’s reach—was a lavatory chain and handle.

As for the photography which was our business that morning, I fore­saw little problem. The previous afternoon I had received such instruction as was considered necessary for an officer-observer to be able to work an aerial-reco

It looked like being a simple enough operation. Our orders were to be over Palmanova at 0630 precisely and then to fly northwards along the Udine railway line at exactly three thousand metres and a hundred kilo­metres per hour, taking photographs at precise five-second intervals. The reason for all this precision (I learnt) was that the Italians were stacking ar­tillery shells alongside the railway line in preparation for the great Isonzo offensive that was expected any day now. The intelligence officers at 5th Army Headquarters were keen to know exactly how much ammunition the Italians were accumulating, which might give them some indication as to which side of Gorz the blow would fall. We were to photograph the ammunition dumps at a precise time and height so that, by taking the alti­tude of the sun at that moment and measuring the length of the shadows cast, it would be possible to work out exactly how high the stacks were. To my mind this seemed a rather futile exercise: if you have ever been on the receiving end of an artillery bombardment (as I have several times and devoutly hope that you may never be) then it is largely of academic interest whether the enemy has a thousand shells to lob at you or only 973. But there we are: Old Austria was much addicted to such meaning­less precision; and anyway, orders are there to be obeyed no matter how inane they may appear.

Hauptma

The checks completed, I turned to wave to Schraffl in the other Brandenburger. He waved back, and I slapped Toth on the shoulder to signal him to get ready. Given our problems with language, it was at least some comfort that speech would soon be entirely redundant; since, once we were up in the air, we would be able to communicate only by hand sig­nals or at best by notes scrawled on signal pads. Toth nodded, and I leant out of the cockpit to call to Feldwebel Prokesch and the two mechanics waiting by the aeroplane’s nose.

“Ready to start?”

“Ready to start, Herr Leutnant. Electrical contacts closed?”

I glanced at the switch panel. “Electrical contacts closed: suck in.”

Prokesch turned the propeller to suck air-and-petrol mixture into the cylinders.

“Sucked in, Herr Leutnant. Open contacts now if you please.” I indi­cated the ignition switch to Toth, who flicked it down.

“Electrical contacts open. Start the engine.” With that, Toth began cranking the little starter magneto—“the coffee grinder”—on the cock­pit bulkhead while Prokesch took a swing at the propeller. It fired first time, the engine roaring into life as gouts of smoke and blue-green flame rippled from the six stub-exhausts. I let it warm up for a minute or so, looked to make sure that Schraffl’s engine was also ru

We turned into the wind—a faint westerly breeze this early in the morning—and Toth gave full throttle as the two mechanics waved to signal “All clear ahead” and slid back off the wings. The air began to sing past us as the Brandenburger gathered speed, wheels bouncing on the bumpy field. Take-off runs were minimal in those days when aeroplanes started to lift off at near-bicycle speeds: 150 metres or less if the aeroplane was lightly laden. Soon a faint lurch and sudden smoothing of the mo­tion signalled that we had left the ground behind. Toth lugged back the control column—not a modern joystick but a backward-and-forward post with a small wooden motor-car steering wheel on top—and soon we were climbing away from Fliegerfeld Caprovizza, banking to port to make the regulation two circuits of the airfield: a precaution against engine failure, since the probability was that if a piston was going to seize, it would do so now rather than later on. Meanwhile Schraffl and Jahudka had climbed into the air astern of us. Once I saw that they had made their circuits too I fired a green flare to signal that all was well, and we set off down the Vippaco Valley, heading for the town of Gorz and the enemy lines in the hills to west of it. We were on our way. Whether we would make the same journey in the opposite direction would become clear during the next ninety minutes or so.