The White Knight

by Gilbert, Morris

  At that moment the faint sound of airplane engines caught their attention, and everyone looked up at the ceiling.

  “Are they ours?” Señor Chavez asked with a worried expression.

  “No, not ours,” Luke said.

  “How can you tell?” Melosa asked.

  “These sound like heavy bombers,” Luke explained. “Our side doesn’t have any planes that big—only fighter planes.”

  “Are our fighter planes as good as theirs?” Victor asked. “Like the one you fly?”

  “No, they’re not. So our men have to make up with skill and daring what we lack in planes.”

  “Are we going to win, Luke?” Isadora asked, obviously frightened.

  Luke looked around at the Chavez family, seeing the fear in all of their eyes, and answered the little girl carefully. “I hope so, sweetheart.” Determined to lighten the mood, he said, “Let me tell you about a funny thing that happened when we were coming back yesterday. . . .”

  ****

  The moon was enormous as it climbed into the night sky. Luke and Melosa had played a game with the kids after supper and had finally escaped to take a walk about the village. It was a pleasant evening, and a light jacket was all they needed to stay warm. The town was quiet except for the sounds of laughter coming from one house. Luke gazed wistfully toward the windows and said, “Whenever I pass a house and hear people laughing like that, I think, They’ve got everything a person needs.”

  “Is that what you want, Luke?” Melosa asked, desperately wanting to know what was in the heart of this man. Their courtship had begun casually eight months ago but was turning into something more serious. Unlike most American men she had met, Luke was always very courteous with her parents, asking their permission to call on her, taking time to chat with them before the couple left on a date. On their first few dates, one of Melosa’s aunts had even accompanied them, acting as a chaperone. Luke had found this amusing but politely accepted their tradition. He had made no attempt for quite some time to even hold Melosa’s hand, and the family had been impressed with the tall American. Once when Luke had been visiting with the family, Señor Chavez had asked him, “Why are you so different from other Americans we’ve met?”

  Luke had answered with a grin, “Oh, I’ve won medals for my politeness and good behavior. I guess I just like the attention.” He had winked at Melosa as he said this.

  As their courtship developed, Melosa started looking forward to their long walks together, listening to Luke talk about his family in America, playing football in college, and his travels. She was fascinated by the stories and could never hear enough.

  Now as they walked along in the bright moonlight, Melosa remembered the first time he had kissed her. They had been holding hands as he walked her back to her house after a concert. When they stopped at her front door, she had thanked him for the nice evening and started into the house when he pulled her back. With a teasing smile he said, “Don’t you think that when friends part they should do something more?”

  “Something more? Like what? Shake hands, perhaps?” she said teasingly.

  “Perhaps even more than that. Doesn’t the Bible say to greet each other with a holy kiss?” Before she could think of an answer, he leaned forward and kissed her. She had been kissed before, but this time she could feel her heartbeat speed up as his lips lingered. When she stepped back with her hand on his chest, her eyes were dancing. “I’m not sure that kiss was holy.”

  “Why, sure it was,” Luke assured her, grinning. “But I’ll try again if you think it wasn’t.”

  That had been the beginning. Melosa was ready for love, and Luke Winslow was everything a woman could want in a man. He was handsome, fun to be with, honest, and respectful, and had proven his selfless character by coming to fight for a people who were not his own. She had fallen in love with him completely, and now she wondered what would come of it.

  The two were holding hands in the quiet village square. On the other end of the square, a man was playing the guitar and singing a sad love song. They listened to it silently, and when the song was over, Melosa felt completely vulnerable, open to whatever her love for this man would bring into her life.

  Luke was also moved by the moment. Living each day in the shadow of death, he had often thought about what he would miss in his future if he were to die in battle. One of the things he would miss most would be the love of a woman, and with Melosa’s eyes now gazing into his, he pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips onto hers. When he lifted his head after a moment, he realized that she was silently crying even as she clung to him. The dangers of his life flooded his mind and heart, and though he longed to surrender his life to the woman he loved, he was frightened by his own mortality. He feared death but longed for his life to be real, to have some purpose. That purpose seemed to lie in his arms at this very moment, but could he give his life to her when he might not even be here tomorrow?

  “You heard what I said earlier about war being a bad time to marry,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Yes, I heard, Luke.”

  He pulled away from her gently and looked intently into her eyes. Hesitating at first, he then made up his mind. “If you would marry me when the war is over, Melosa, I would be greatly honored. I love you very much.”

  She cried out happily and threw her arms around him, laying her cheek against his chest. She held him tightly, savoring the strength of his arms.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked again, stroking her hair. “Yes—I would like to marry you. But we’re so different. Your people . . . they would never accept me.”

  “Your people have accepted me.” He thought for a moment and then said, “After the war I’ll take you to America. I know you’ve always wanted to go there.”

  “I’m afraid for my family.”

  Luke did not answer but held her tightly, savoring the smell of her hair and the softness of her body. “America is a big country. There’s plenty of room for one fine Spanish family.”

  And then Melosa lifted her head, and he saw the pride in her eyes. “Come,” she whispered, taking his hand, “you must ask my father’s permission.”

  “What if he says no?”

  “He won’t.” She laughed and threw her hands wide in a motion of pure joy. “He will say yes. Come. You must ask him now.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Little Fly

  Luke strode toward his fighter plane, admiring the paint job as he approached. A knight in full armor, spear poised to strike, adorned the otherwise bright white I-16. He grinned as he thought of how the German pilots of the Condor Legion had dubbed him the White Knight. They were incensed that he had shot down a number of their planes, and they had vowed to bring him down.

  Luke turned and waited while the three other pilots from his squadron caught up to him and gathered around him. They had been ribbing him ever since he had told them he was getting married. These men were all that were left of the full squadron Luke had commanded only a month earlier. The other eight were either dead, wounded, or captured by the fascists. One of his best pilots had been a fellow American named Thad Turner, but only three days earlier Turner had been wounded so severely he’d been sent back to the States for medical care. The loss of his men made Luke fiercely determined to keep the rest of them alive.

  Roscoe “Streak” Garrison, now his most skilled pilot, was an oversized man with a mop of reddish hair and a pair of bright blue eyes. Everything about him was large, including his hands. It never ceased to amaze Luke how Streak’s huge fingers could handle the delicate pieces of an engine. Luke and Streak had played football together in college and had managed to stay in touch since then. When Streak had learned that Luke was going to fight in the Spanish war, Streak had decided in an instant that he would join the effort. Streak was a talented flier and knew when to fight and when to run away—which some of the men he had lost from the squadron had never learned.

  “I’ll tell you what, Luke,” Streak told him, grinnin
g broadly. “I’ve got this book I’m gonna loan you called On Your Wedding Night. It’ll tell you just what to do. I’m afraid if you don’t read it, you’re gonna make a mess of things.”

  “I appreciate that, Streak. It’s just the sort of help I can always count on from you.”

  “You don’t need a book to help you out.” The speaker was Nicolai Dubrovsky, a Russian with wild hair and even wilder eyes. His English was bad, and he was an aggressive pilot. He never hesitated to throw himself against any collection of fascist planes no matter what the odds. It was a continual miracle that the Russian had survived this long.

  Luke and his squadron used to communicate in Spanish, back when the majority of the group were Spaniards. Now, with two Americans, a Spaniard, and a Russian, they alternated between Spanish and English—and even bits of Russian from time to time.

  Luke shook his head, saying, “What do I need, Nick?”

  “Just go after her like she was one of those Messerschmitts we’re going to be facing today.”

  “Go in with all guns blazing, eh?” Luke grinned. He had developed a great affection for the Russian but had more confidence in his flying than in his advice to the lovelorn!

  “Oh yeah. I have loved so many women I have lost count, and they all keep coming back for more.”

  “You are an idiot, Nicolai!” Joaquin Varga charged as he broke into the conversation. The man was a true Spaniard in every way. He looked Spanish, he spoke Spanish, he thought Spanish, and he lived for one purpose: to kill the pilots of the Condor Legion. He was small, thin, and wiry, with a pencil-like mustache and glittering black eyes. “Women are like a violin,” he said, his voice growing gentle. “You need a soft, sure, but certain touch—like mine!”

  Luke stood listening with a smile as the three gave him contradictory and confusing instructions. It was good in his judgment that they had something to think about, for the fight that lay ahead of them was sure to be, as always, grim and bloody. Anything to take their minds off the odds they faced.

  Luke was acutely conscious of the other squadrons that were warming up their planes, and he thought about how their numbers had been whittled down too. The air was filled with the sound of coughing engines and men shouting. Finally he said, “Fellows, after we get back, we’ll get together for a drink and you can give me more advice. Now it’s time to go kill some Germans—as many as we can!”

  “Good!” Nicolai agreed with satisfaction. “We go right at them is what I say.”

  “No. We don’t ‘go right at them,’ ” Luke countered. This wasn’t the first time they had had this discussion. “We’ll do exactly as I say.”

  “You’ve always been too choosy about how to kill Germans,” Streak complained. “What difference does it make as long as they’re dead?”

  “The difference is, if we don’t do it right, we’ll be the dead ones. Now, pay attention to me.” Luke’s tone grew serious. “We don’t attack unless we get above them, you got that?”

  “Above, below, beside. What’s the difference?” The Russian shrugged. “We kill them any way we can—that’s the way we do it in Russia, you see.”

  “Pay attention, Nick. You’re not in Russia. We’re going to fly at the absolute maximum today. When we see the enemy down below us, then we go in. We stay out of dogfights if at all possible.”

  “Why?” Varga asked, his eyes flashing. He made a handsome figure as he stood in the sunlight. “We can outfly any of the stupid Huns. The White Knight must be bolder.”

  “There’ll be more of them than there are of us. That’s the one thing we can be sure of. What we need to do is come out of the sun together in close formation, then fire together. We knock down a plane and then run like the devil.”

  “That’s no way to fight a war,” Varga protested. “We need to attack when we see them.”

  “No!” Nicolai said. “We can only get four that way.”

  “We can always get four more.” Luke lowered his voice, letting them know he was serious. “I don’t want any dead heroes, do you hear me? I want some live cowards who will kill the enemy, run away, and live to fight another day.”

  Streak shrugged his beefy shoulders and said in a sour tone, “If we just had some better airplanes than these little flies, we wouldn’t have lost so many men.” The Spanish liked to call the I-16 the mosca, or little fly, while the Nationalists called it the rata, or rat.

  The Germans flew the Messerschmitt Bf-109, which was, in all likelihood, the finest fighter plane in the world, and Hitler had sent a large number of them to fight in the Spanish war. Luke had learned to respect the airplane and the men who flew it. He despised their politics, but the German pilots were probably the best trained in the world. Germany had been forbidden to have an air force after the Great War, but in secret they had taught young men to fly by using gliders and had later managed to build a formidable air force despite the limitations imposed. Now Hitler had no fear at all and was building an air force in exactly the same way he had built a magnificent army.

  “They’ve got better planes, but we’re better men,” Luke said. “Now, remember. We get above them. You stay on me, and no flying off to become heroes. When we sight the enemy, we go down, hit them, and run.”

  “Is crazy.” The Russian shook his bushy head, and Luke knew that Nick would disregard everything he’d been told and do exactly as he wanted once the madness of battle had seized him.

  “All right. It’s time to go,” Luke said with grim finality. “Good hunting.”

  Luke watched as the three pilots jogged to their planes, then climbed into his own, patting the side affectionately as he did. He loved his white plane with the knight on the side. He had argued about it with Streak many times. “They’ll pick you out and come for you first, Luke,” Streak had argued. “They know you’ve shot down more planes than any of us, and you’ll be their number one target.”

  “Exactly what I want. I want them to know who’s killing them,” Luke had replied. He climbed into the mosca, a low-wing monoplane with retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit, and went through the procedure of getting the engine started. When it caught and roared, he eased the machine forward with a touch on the throttle. The cockpit was as narrow and uncomfortable as a designer could possibly make it. There were few instruments. Those that did exist were poorly arranged. The controls, however, were sensitive, and the featherlight ailerons gave a high rate of roll.

  Taxiing out into position, Luke felt the thrill he always did just before a takeoff. The mosca was responsive to his touch, and he gave it full power. He knew the plane well. It was an agile airplane and had an outstanding climb capability. It was faster than most fighters, except for the Messerschmitt, and at ten thousand feet it could go as fast as three hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately, there were flaws. The acceleration was surprisingly poor in a dive, and its rigidly mounted engine caused the whole airplane to vibrate and rattle, which made it a poor gun platform. It was all a pilot could do to hold the plane steady when firing at the enemy.

  Despite these aspects, the I-16 did well against German and Italian fighters, and to everyone’s surprise proved to be more than a match for the Bf-109. As he left the ground, Luke started into a steep climb. Glancing around, he saw the other three were staying right with him. They’re all good pilots or they’d all be dead, he thought, fully realizing the odds were stacked against them.

  As they climbed rapidly, Luke allowed himself to think about Melosa for just a moment. His engagement had surprised him more than anyone else. He hadn’t been planning to ask her to marry him, but while holding her on that romantic night, it had seemed to be the right move. He knew his odds of living through the war were not great. After all, he had been living on the brink of death for the two years he’d been in Spain. He had seen many of his fellow fliers meet death in gruesome ways and knew that such a fate was always close at hand. At times he wondered if he was crazy or if his idealism had unbalanced his mind. When he first came to Spain, h
e had done so with high hopes and had joined an international group of pilots, all of them convinced they would win the war.

  Now, however, Luke knew with dead certainty that Franco was going to win this battle, which meant that Hitler would win as well. The futility of such thoughts dulled his senses, and he shook himself to put his mind on the fight before him.

  The planes reached their maximum altitude, and the search began. Luke’s eyes roved constantly, searching for the enemy—not only down below but also above, where the Messerschmitts could operate at a higher ceiling. He also checked the mirror he had mounted to his left. The quickest way to get killed was to let the enemy get behind you. The mirror was an innovation Luke had brought to the Republican air force. Many of the pilots who had rejected the idea were now dead.

  Luke’s squadron flew for half an hour without spotting anything. Then finally Luke spotted a group of black dots below—deadly black dots. He counted six of them and was happy they were not flying in their usual groups of twenty or thirty. “Just right for us,” he muttered, smiling grimly. He waggled his wings to catch the attention of the other fliers, then pointed down. They were close enough he could see the wild excitement on the faces of Nicolai Dubrovsky and Joaquin Varga. Streak edged in close to him, looking as nonchalant as ever. There was little battle madness about Streak Garrison. He was merely an efficient killing machine.

  Luke led the three into a good position, then motioned downward. He threw his plane into a steep dive and concentrated on the six dots far below. They grew larger as his dive took him closer, and he noticed with a thrill of excitement that one of them was painted jet black.

  “Ritter!” he cried out and his heart beat faster. He was glad he had instructed his pilots to leave Erich Ritter alone.

  The wind whistled like a banshee as the four aircraft fell upon the enemy at top speed. He hoped the other three had picked out different targets, for there was no point in all four of them shooting at the same plane. The Messerschmitts were flying steadily on, but suddenly their formation changed, and one of them swung into a position over Ritter’s plane. Disappointment enveloped Luke, but he shook his head and put his sights dead center on the plane guarding Ritter. I’ll have to kill him to get to Ritter, he thought.