The Lion and the Baron

by Simon Brading

  Ironically, it was a young Gwenevere Hawking who had come up with that particular design innovation and it had undoubtedly saved his life that day because it looked like he was going to set a new record for how badly damaged an aircraft could be after hitting the ground and the pilot still be able to walk away; his Harridan was missing both wings, the airscrew and most of its nose, and all of its tail, leaving only a few scraps of Duralumin attached to the cockpit. Miraculously, and to his vast relief, the casing for the spring hadn’t been damaged, or at least not catastrophically; of all aircraft crashes, damage to the spring was the biggest cause of pilot death - the razor sharp brass ribbon unravelling at great speed could rip through the metal fuselage with ease and did unspeakable damage to the much softer person within.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t technically on the ground yet. He was stuck in the boughs of a tree, some twenty yards up. Thankfully, though, he was more or less the right way up, so he didn’t have to worry about falling when he undid his straps - he’d heard of too many pilots flipping their aircraft on landing, surviving intact, then undoing their safety harness and breaking their necks.

  However, he needed to assess how bad his injuries were before he could even think about how to get down. It was no use putting effort into climbing down only to bleed to death in the snow, if he was going to do that he might as well do it in the comfort of his cockpit while enjoying the brandy from his survival pack.

  His arm was the main source of pain and the way it was bent half-way between his wrist and elbow told him quite clearly that it was broken, but a quick once over of the rest of his body surprisingly found nothing else serious, just a pretty big lump on his temple, a pounding headache and the expected bruises from being knocked around like the sparring partner of the heavyweight champion. He was extremely cold, though, and gently shivering, his thermals and greatcoat not quite adequate for the weather, but that was a comfort; he’d be more worried if he felt warm, because that would most likely mean hypothermia was setting in.

  It was truly remarkable how lucky he had been, but there was one last piece of the puzzle to slot into place before he could truly celebrate - he had to work out where the hell he was and more importantly what side of the border he was on.

  The Barons had been attacking the Muscovite ground troops, so the initial engagement had taken place over friendly territory, but he couldn’t be sure if he’d crossed the border during the following fight and he had no idea which way he’d been heading when he’d climbed away after chasing Gruber back to the river.

  With no way of knowing for sure which side of the lines he’d come down on, he decided not to risk anything. When he got out of the tree he would head east as stealthily as he could and hope for the best. If he ran into Muscovites he had been armed with a few phrases in Russian to stop them from shooting him and there was a patch on his flightsuit from Wolfpack squadron in case he mangled the phrases so badly as to be unrecognisable. If he ran into Prussians on the other hand... Well, he would have to deal with that eventuality as best he could.

  A sudden violent bout of shivering reminded him of how cold he was and he realised that he had to get moving before he became too stiff to move.

  He turned his attention to the straps holding him in his seat and a shudder, which had nothing to do with the temperature, ran though him when the clips popped out of the quick release wheel as soon as he touched it; it had been almost fully unlocked and if he’d managed to turn it just a fraction of an inch more he would have been unstrapped when the Harridan hit the trees.

  He grinned grimly; the Dark Scythesman must be gnashing his teeth in his skull at being so narrowly cheated of his prize. Then again, he wasn’t exactly out of the Scythesman’s clutches yet; he still had to make it down to the ground.

  Past tree-climbing adventures flashed through his mind and he grimaced when he realised just how many of them had ended in some mishap or other, even with two good arms, but it wasn’t as if he had any choice in the matter; he couldn’t stay where he was. At least, if he did fall, there was no annoying seven-year-old girl to laugh at his clumsiness.

  He carefully slid his bad arm inside his greatcoat to keep it out of the way and stop him forgetfully trying to use it before pulling off his helmet and mask. He then unclipped the cushion-sized knapsack containing a survival kit from its place attached to his glidewings and slung it over his shoulder.

  He stood, somewhat unsteadily, and peered over the side of the cockpit.

  It was a daunting task and a hell of a long way down, but the trees were perfect for climbing with plenty of branches to choose from so, even one-handed, he was fairly confident of making it to the ground in one piece.

  He swung a leg over the side of the cockpit and froze when the fuselage shifted below him, his weight upsetting its delicate balance. He waited for the worst to happen, but aside from a few creaks of frozen wood and the groan of already stressed metal twisting further, nothing did. For more than a minute after the noises died down he held still, reluctant to try his luck any further, but his muscles started to ache and he realised that he couldn’t remain where he was, he was going to have to chance it.

  He just gritted his teeth and leaned out to grasp a branch with his good hand, ignoring the renewed sounds of distress from his poor Harridan then, as smoothly as possible, stepped out, transferring his weight onto the nearest bough.

  The luck that had kept him alive up till then ran out in that moment.

  The branch he had chosen to grab onto snapped and he lurched. His toe caught on the lip of the canopy and he fell forwards onto the bough. He hit it hard, knocking the wind out of him and sending a sharp pain through his broken arm. He clutched at it and for a second thought he was going to be alright, but then the fuselage shifted, settling into a new position and there was an ominous crack.

  ‘Oh, sh...’

  The words were ripped from him, along with his breath as the bough broke.

  As he fell he hit branch after branch, sending him tumbling head over heels, and he screamed as his arm was struck repeatedly. The world around him faded to a single white point in his vision, the pain receding with his consciousness, but then a cold shock and sudden deceleration as he hit a snow bank face down brought him rushing back.

  He screamed again, but this time it was muffled by the snow that surrounded him and it filled his mouth when he drew in a ragged breath. He struggled onto his side, coughing out slush then panted through gritted teeth, fighting to retain consciousness. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, clutching his arm to him as the agony slowly subsided and his racing heart slowed.

  When he was finally able to take normal breaths again he opened his eyes and it was then he noticed the high boots planted in the snow in front of him.

  He looked up and found the blue eyes of a man in a grey and white camouflage snowsuit gazing down at him. He then took note of the very Prussian insignia on his shoulders and the rifle in his gloved hands, the barrel of which was dark and menacing and pointed directly at his head.

  The man smiled and spoke in a very thick, very Prussian accent. ‘Hello, Tommy. Thank you for dropping in.’

  Drake grinned in return. ‘What oh, Fritz! Is it time for tea?’

  Chapter 3

  There were four Prussian soldiers, one of the patrols that had been sent out to track the downed aircraft from the dogfight going on overhead, in search of survivors, both friend and foe. They had apparently been waiting for him to come down for a couple of hours, making bets on whether he was alive, how long it would take him to get down to the ground and whether he would make it in one piece. As they marched Drake between them they congratulated those of their number who had won, while commiserating with those who had lost, all the time making jokes at the expense of the “foolish Englishman” in German, never for one moment suspecting that Drake understood them. He had taken German for several years at Eton, then practised it on a Prussian girlfriend, Rebekka, while at university, but had decided not to let on
that he spoke their language, thinking that they might reveal something he could use if they thought he didn’t know what they were saying. Instead he just grinned at them like the fool they thought he was as he staggered along, trying to keep up a good pace through the snow so that he man behind him had as few excuses as possible to poke him in the spine with his rifle.

  Every step he took sent shards of pain coursing through his body from his arm, no matter how tightly he held it to him, and his strength was fading fast, black dots coming to life in his vision and crowding in on him. It was all he could do to put one foot in front of another, which was why he missed the grey shadow detach itself from a tree and it wasn’t until a fearful shout from one of the Prussians became a gurgling scream that he stumbled to a halt.

  He turned slowly, wondering what he would encounter, and recoiled in shock at the gory tableau that the stark landscape had become.

  The pristine snow that he had only just trudged past was stained a brilliant red in a wide circle and the Prussian soldiers who had been following him were now no more than four crumpled bundles of cloth. Standing over them, blood dripping into the snow from two wicked-looking knives, was a figure dressed in grey.

  ‘What...? Who...? How...?’ His mouth was forming the words before his brain, dulled by the cold and the pain was fully able to take in the details of the scene before him. He trailed off as he finally managed to look beyond the blood and see the light grey flightsuit and darker grey Muscovite parka the figure was wearing. It was a pilot and, by the patch that matched the one on his own flightsuit, one of the Wolfpack.

  Dark blue eyes crinkled beneath the hood of the parka. ‘Which of those questions would you like answered first, Lieutenant?’ The voice was muffled by a scarf and the accent thick, but it was perfectly understandable and recognisably female.

  ‘Huh? Oh, um... Who. I mean, who are you?’

  A bloody hand, still clutching a knife, pulled down the scarf then pushed back the hood, revealing a young woman in her early twenties. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, but many of the strands had escaped and framed her oval face in a way that wasn’t unattractive. It wasn’t a face he recognised, though, and he frowned.

  She saw his expression and smiled. ‘Praporshik Guseva, sir. Wolfpack Nine.’ She nodded respectfully and drew herself up to something approximating attention, revealing that she was tall, only a couple of inches shorter than him.

  One of the new recruits, thought Drake. That morning’s flight would have been her first time ever in a Harridan and even the best pilot in the world would have been hard pressed to survive against the Barons in an unfamiliar machine. She had most likely been one of the first shot down.

  ‘Um, and, er, how?’ He gestured at the bodies with his good hand. ‘How did you do this?’

  She shrugged, as if to say that she didn’t really know why he even needed to ask. ‘They were stupid. They didn’t expect enemies here behind their lines. Also, I was a hunter before the war - I know how to kill animals.’

  Drake looked at the long blades in her hands, then down at the Prussians. Despite the amount of blood there was very little sign of violence, only cleanly slit throats or spreading patches of red on the backs of their snowsuits. The woman had wielded her weapons expertly, taking the men down with precise strikes before they could even think to bring their guns to bear. In Drake’s limited experience it didn’t so much seem the work of a hunter, but rather an assassin. Before he could question her on it, though, she threw her knives into the snow point first, then bent down and started searching the bodies, pulling out things and tossing them onto one of the few patches of clean snow. She worked efficiently and soon had a pile of items including food, water bottles, firelighters and spare clothing. She didn’t take any of their rifles, though.

  ‘What about the weapons? Shouldn’t we take a gun?’

  ‘If you want to carry one, be my guest, but if you use it we’re as good as caught, because you will bring every Prussian in miles.’ She plucked one of her knives from the snow and brandished it with a diabolically enthusiastic grin. ‘My way is better.’ The snow had removed the blood from the blade and it glinted in the weak winter sunlight filtering through the trees. If anything the knife looked more wicked clean than it had covered with blood and Drake swallowed as she gave it a last flourish before making it disappear somewhere among her clothes.

  She bent again and stuffed the provisions into a backpack that she pilfered from one of the soldiers, then got to her feet. ‘Come on, Lieutenant, we should go before these idiots are missed.’

  She began to walk away, along the path the Prussians had brought Drake, back towards the crashed Harridan.

  Drake glanced at the compass on his wrist and frowned when he saw she was going west, away from Muscovy. He called out to her, trying to keep his voice as low as possible. ‘Guseva! The border is that way.’ He pointed east.

  The woman stopped and sighed in exasperation, dropping her head to her chest before turning back to him. ‘Home may be that way, yes, but so is the entire Prussian army. Did you have some plan to get through them and across the border without being shot?’

  Drake groaned inwardly, cursing his own stupidity. ‘No.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘Sorry, I’m not good at this kind of thing.’

  The Muscovite rolled her eyes. ‘So I see. Now shut up and walk.’

  He chuckled. ‘Yes, ma’am!’

  She grinned at him, then started away again.

  He trudged after her through the snow, but any energy that he’d recovered during the brief rest was soon gone and after less than an hour, when the mainly deciduous trees near the river had given way to evergreens, he finally stumbled and fell flat on his face, biting back a scream as the bones in his arm grated together sickeningly.

  He must have blacked out again, because the next he knew, he was lying on frozen earth with a thick roof of evergreen needles only a few feet above him.

  The woman’s face appeared in his vision and glared at him accusingly. ‘You’re hurt. You didn’t tell me you were hurt. Is it your head? You have a lump there, but it’s no more than a child would get falling over.’

  Drake grimaced and struggled to sit up. ‘It’s not my head, no - my wing’s clipped.’

  ‘Your wing? What does that mean?’

  ‘My arm, Guseva. It’s a way of...’ Drake sighed, not quite up to the effort of explaining British expressions to the woman. ‘Never mind. I have a broken arm.’

  ‘Ah! I can look at it if you would permit?’

  Drake shook his head. ‘I don’t think...’

  ‘I trained as a nurse before the war, sir. Do not worry, I can help. And please, call me Tatiana.’

  ‘Thank you, Tatiana.’

  The woman chuckled softly. ‘Do not thank me yet; there is nothing to dull the pain.’

  ‘In my bag.’

  The Prussians soldiers hadn’t bothered taking Drake’s knapsack from him and there was a small, but fairly comprehensive medical kit in it. He found it next to him and began fiddling with the clasp, trying to open it with one hand.

  Tatiana watched him for a few moments then tutted, took the bag from him and opened it.

  ‘There should be a tin with a red cross on it.’

  ‘I have it.’ She pulled the tin out and flipped it open. It was about the size of a cigar box and packed full with greaseproof paper packages and small metal cases.

  ‘We’re going to need one of those.’ Drake pointed to one of three silver metal cylinders, like the ones used to hold expensive cigars, marked with a green dock leaf. ‘But first, you’re going to have to help me take my top off, I’m afraid.’

  The struggle to get his broken arm out of several layers of clothing caused his vision to blur for a second, but finally, between the two of them they managed to get his arm free of its encumbrance.

  He nodded his thanks to Tatiana. ‘Well done. Alright, pop the top and pull the contents out carefully.’

  Tat
iana did as she was told, bringing out a tightly rolled tube of fabric.

  ‘Good. There’s a green flap on it, hold it by that and let it flop open. Make sure you don’t touch the white parts, just the green ones.’

  She did as he said, holding it up in front of her while gravity unrolled it for her. It stuck a couple of times and she had to give it a bit of a shake, but it was soon fully extended to a white cloth, about three inches wide and six long with two green “safe zones” at the ends.

  Drake took a deep breath and nodded to her. ‘Now lay it over the break lengthwise.’

  She placed the cloth gently on his arm.

  He gasped as even that slight pressure ignited sparks behind his eye, the agony almost unbearable, but then a tingling sensation spread up his arm as thousands of tiny needles loaded with a strong natural local anaesthetic pricked his skin and the pain faded to nothing. He counted to five, like he’d been told in basic training, then added an extra second for luck. ‘That’s enough, take it off.’

  She placed the cloth to one side before touching his arm around the break experimentally. ‘Can you feel this?’