No Man

There are no monsters like those born of an undeveloped conscience. There are few motivators like those bred in a moment of intense fear.

At no time during the descent did Charles Partridge feel guilty. Flak guns had torn the rudder to ribbons, and Nash, the pilot, had taken shrapnel to the chest. Slumped against the stick, the wounded man's weight sent them spiraling. But Partridge sat still. He remained calm. To climb across the fuselage of the BE2c would have been suicide. This was not a time for heroics.

Mum, tell Dad I tried.

It was a letter from George Partridge, a veteran of the Boer War — a man of influence who was certain that his son could serve some better purpose than as a clerk at a military hospital — that had gotten Charles attached to the photographic unit of the Number 6 Squadron. There, the young man was trained as an observer. At the age of 21, Partridge claimed distinction as one of the more competent reconnaissance photographers in all of His Majesty's Royal Flying Corps. But he was certainly no daredevil. Not like Nash. No, Charles was better suited to the front seat: the observer's seat.

He had learned how to recognize artillery and infantry from thousands of feet above the ground, and how to pinpoint the enemy's position unlike any scout on horseback ever could. He was shown how to steady a heavy plate camera over the cockpit's edge, and how to focus on targets. It was an opportunity to serve his country without carrying a rifle. That by doing so he could avoid the misery of fighting and dying in the muck of the trenches, well, that was a welcome bonus, and one for which he would make no apology. He was no hero.

Oculi Exercitus. Theirs were the eyes of the army.

Let others be the balls, thought Partridge.

The trenches terrified him. He had heard the horror stories from the wounded — tales of lice and vermin and blood and offal. It made his stomach churn. But service in the Royal Flying Corps — facing danger in the skies without ever having to set foot in the trenches — this could at least preserve his dignity and, perhaps, make his family proud.

It was a privilege to serve as an observer in the RFC. To be sure, the romance appealed to him. That no one had ever adequately prepared him for the crashing part was of minor concern. Pilots, it seemed, never really gave the matter much consideration. If you crashed, it was just accepted — with a peculiar arrogance — that you would simply walk away. It was an attitude that the observer found oddly reassuring. To even acknowledge the potential for calamity was bad luck.

To date, Partridge had, indeed, been lucky: eight successful reconnaissance flights with Nash at the controls. There was no reason to believe his ninth mission would be any different. Spring had arrived early. The weather was unusually mild for mid March. It was to be a routine mission: a few passes in the Belgian dawn to support the Second Army. Reassigned from Flanders, Canadian troops were assisting the French and digging in north of the tiny town of Ypres. With enemy howitzers pounding the Allies daily, aerial photographs of German artillery positions along the Ypres salient were needed.

Ypres. Looking at the map, Nash pronounced it "wipers". It was only when the Major corrected his pronunciation at the briefing that Partridge realized that the name of the town sounded more like "jeepers."

How appropriate it seemed now, listening through clamped palms as pieces of the wings came apart in the trees. Jeepers indeed. Intelligence had underestimated the number of guns that the Germans had set up in and around Ypres. It was only minutes into their flight when the popping of the flak cannons began. Partridge could hear them still as he opened his eyes.