by Wilbur Smith
As soon as they were airborne, Michael signalled to his flight to close the formation into a tight ! and he followed Andrew, conforming to his slight left-hand turn that would carry them past the hillock beyond the chateau.
He lifted the goggles on to his forehead and slipped his scarf down off his nose and mouth so that Centaine would be able to see his face, and flying one-handed he prepared to make their private rendezvous signal to her as he passed. There was the knoll, he started smiling in anticipation, then the smile faded.
He could not see Nuage, the white stallion. He leaned far out of the cockpit, and ahead of him Andrew was doing the same, screwing his head around as he searched for the girl and the white horse.
They roared past and she was not there. The hillock was deserted. Michael peered back over his shoulder as it receded, making doubly sure. He felt the dull weight in his belly, the cold and heavy stone of forboding. She wasn't there, their talisman had forsaken them.
He lifted the scarf over his mouth and covered his eyes with the goggles, as the three flights of aircraft bore upwards, climbing for the vital advantage of height, aiming to cross the ridges at 12,000 feet before levelling out into the patrol pattern.
His mind kept going back to Centaine. Why wasn't she there? Was something wrong?
He found it hard to concentrate on the sky around him, She has taken our luck. She knows what it means to us and she has let us down. He shook his head. I mustn't think about it, watch the sky! Don't think about anything but the sky and the enemy. The light was strengthening, and the air was clear and icy cold. The land beneath them was patched with the geometrical patterns of fields and studded with the villages and towns of northern France, but directly ahead was that dung-brown strip of torn and savaged earth that marked the lines, and above it the scattered blobs of morning cloud, dull as bruises on one side and brilliant gold on the side struck by the rising sun.
To the west lay the wide basin of the Somme river where the beast of war crouched ready to spring, and in the east the sun hurled great burning lances of fire through the sky, so that when Michael looked away, his vision was starred with the memory of its brilliance.
Never look at the sun, he reminded himself testily.
Because of his distraction, he was making the mistakes of a novice.
They crossed the ridges, looking down on the patterns of opposing trenches, like worm castings on a putting green.
Don't fix! Michael warned himself again. Never stare at any object. He resumed the veteran fighter pilot's scan, the quick flitting search that covered the sky about him, sweeping back and forth, and down and over.
Despite all his efforts to prevent it, the thought of Centaine and her absence from the knoll crept insidiously back into his mind again, so that suddenly he realized that he had been staring at one whale-shaped cloud for five or six seconds. He was fixing again. God, man, pull yourself together! he snarled aloud.
Andrew, in the leading flight, was signalling, and Michael swivelled to pick out his sighting.
it was a flight of three aircraft, four miles south-west of their position, and 2,000 feet below them.
Friendlies. He recognized them as De Havilland twoseaters. Why hadn't he seen them first? He had the best eyes in the squadron.
Concentrate. He scanned the line of woods south of Douai, the German-held town just east of Lens, and he picked out the freshly dug gun emplacements at the edge of the trees.
About six new batteries, he estimated, and made a note for his flight log without interrupting the pattern of his scan again.
They reached the western limit of their designated patrol area, and each flight turned in succession. They started back down the line, but with the sun directly into their eyes now, and that line of dirty grey-blue cloud on their left hand.
Cold front building, Michael thought, and then suddenly he was thinking of Centaine again, as though she had slipped in through the back door of his mind.
Why wasn't she there? She could be sick. Out at night in the rain and cold, pneumonia is a killer. The idea shocked him. He imagined her wasting away, drowning in her own fluids.
A red Very pistol flare arched across the nose of his machine, and he started guiltily. Andrew had fired theEnemy in Sight signal while he was dreaming.
Michael searched frantically. Ah! with relief. There it is! Below and to the left.
It was a German two-seater, a solitary artillery spotted, just east of the ridges, bustling down in the direction of Arras, a slow and outdated type, easy prey for the swift and deadly SE5as. Andrew was signalling again, looking back-at Michael, the green scarf aflutter, and that devilmay-care grin on his lips.
I am attacking! Give me top cover Both Michael and Hank acknowledged the hand signals and stayed on high as Andrew banked away into a shallow diving interception, with the other five aircraft of his flight streaming down behind in attacking line astern.
What a grand sight! Michael watched them go. Thrilling to the chase, that wild charge down the sky, cavalry of the heavens in full flight, swiftly overhauling their slow and cumbersome prey.
Michael led the rest of the squadron into a series of slow shallow S-turns, holding them in position to cover the attack, and he was leaning from the cockpit waiting for the kill when abruptly he felt a slide of unease, that cold weight of premonition in his guts again, the instinct of impending disaster, and he swept the sky above and around him.
It was clear and peacefully empty, then his gaze switched towards the blinding glare of the sun and he held up his hand to cover it, and with one eye only looked past his fingers, and there they were.
They were boiling out of the cloud line like a swarm of gaudy glittering poisonous insects. It was the classic ambush. The decoy sent in low and slow to draw the enemy, and then the swift and deadly onslaught from out of the sun and the clouds.
Oh, sweet Mother of God, Michael breathed, as he snatched the Very pistol out of its holster beside his seat.
How many? It was impossible to count that vicious host. Sixty, perhaps more, three full Jagdstaffels of Alba tros DIIIs in their rainbow colours dropping falcon-swift upon Andrew's puny flight of SESas.
Michael fired the red Very flare to warn his pilots and then winged over into a dive, aiming to intercept the enemy squadron before it could reach Andrew. Swiftly he estimated the triangle of speeds and distances and realized that they were too late, four or five seconds too late to save Andrew's flight.
Those four or five seconds which he had squandered in dreaming and fruitlessly watching the attack on the German decoy plane, those crucial seconds in which he had neglected his duty, weighed on him like leaden bars as he pushed the throttle of the SE5a to its stop. The engine whined, that peculiar wailing protest of overdriven machinery as the tip of the spinning propeller accelerated through the speed of sound, and he could feel the wings flexing and bending under the strain as the speed and pressure built up in that suicidal dive. Andrew! he shouted. Look behind you, man! and his as lost in the howl of wind and the scream of the voice w overdriven engine.
All Andrew's attention was fixed on his quarry, for the German decoy pilot had seen them and was also diving away towards the earth, drawing the SESas after him and transforming the hunters into unwitting prey.
The massed German Jagdstaffel held their diving attack, though they must have been fully aware of Michael's desperate attempt to head them off. They would know as well as Michael did that his attempt was futile, that he had left it too late. The Albatroses would be able to make an attacking run over Andrew's flight, and with complete surprise aiding them must destroy most of the SE5as in that single stroke before turning back to face Michael's avenging counter-stroke.
Michael felt the adrenalin surge burning in his blood like the clean bright flame of a spirit lamp. Time seemed to slow down into those eternal micro-seconds of combat, so that he floated sedately downwards, and the horde of enemy aircraft appeared to hang suspended on their multicoloured wings, as though
they were set like gems in the heavens.
The colours and patterns of the Albatroses were fantastic, with scarlet and black the dominant colours, but some were chequered like bar1equins, and others had the silhouettes of bat wings or birds outlined on their wings and fuselage.
At last he could see the faces of the German airmen, turning towards him and then back towards their primary quarry.
Andrew! Andrew! Michael lamented in agony as each second made it clearer just how late he would be to prevent the ambush succeeding.
His fingers numb with cold and dread, Michael reloaded the Very pistol and fired another flare forward over his own nose, trying to attract Andrew's attention, but the red ball of flame fell away towards the earth, fizzling and spinning a pathetic thread of smoke, while half a mile further on Andrew lined up on the hapless German spotter plane, and Michael heard the tut-tut-tuttering of his Vickers as he attacked from astern.
In the same instant the wave of Albatroses broke over Andrew's flight, from above.
Michael saw two of the SE5as mortally struck in the first seconds, and spin away with smoke and pieces of fuselage flying from them; the rest of them scattered widely, each with two or three Albatroses racing after them, almost jostling each other for a chance to take the killing line.
Only Andrew survived. His response to the first crackle of the Spandau machine-gun was instantaneous. He kicked the big green machine into that flat skidding turn that he and Michael had practised so often. He went tearing back straight into the heart of the pack, forcing the Albatroses to swerve wildly away from his head-on charge, firing furiously into their faces, emerging from behind them seemingly unscathed.
Good on you! Michael rejoiced aloud, and then he saw the rest of Andrew's flight shot out of the sky, burning and twisting downwards, and his guilt turned to anger.
The German machines, having wrought quick destruction, were wheeling now to face the charge of Michael's and Hank's flights. They came together and the entire pattern of aircraft disintegrated into a milling cloud, turning like dust and debris in a whirlwind.
Michael came out on the quarter of a solid black Albatros with scarlet wings on which the black Maltese crosses stood out like gravestones. As he crossed, he laid off his aim for the deflection of their combined tracks and speeds, and fired for the radiator in the junction of the scarlet wings above the German pilot's head, attempting to cook him alive in boiling coolant liquid.
He saw his bullets hitting exactly where he had aimed, and at the same time noticed the small modification in the Albatros's wing structure. The Germans had altered the Albatros. They had been forcibly shown the lethal design fault, and they had relocated the radiator. The German ducked from Michael's field of fire, and Michael pulled up the nose of his machine.
An Albatros had picked on one of Michael's new chums, sticking on his tail like a vampire, within an ace of the killing line. Michael came out under the Albatros's belly and reached up to swivel the Lewis gun on its Foster mounting, aiming upwards, so close that the muzzle of the Lewis gun almost touched the bright pink belly of the Albatros.
He fired the full drum of ammunition into the German's guts, waggling his wings slightly to spray his fire from side to side, and the Albatros reared up on its tail like a harpooned shark, and then fell over its wing and dropped away in its death plunge.
The new chum waved his thanks to Michael, they were almost touching wingtips, and Michael signalled imperiously, Return to base! and then gave him the clenched fist. Imperative! Get out of here, you bloody fool! he shouted uselessly, but his contorted face emphasized the hand signal, and the novice broke off and fled.
Another Albatros came at Michael and he turned out hard, climbing and twisting, firing at fleeting targets, turning, turning for very life. They were outnumbered six or seven to one, and the enemy were all veterans, it showed in the way they flew, quick and agile, and unafraid. To stay and fight was folly. Michael managed to reload the Very pistol, and he fired the green flare of the recall. In these circumstances it was the order to the squadron to break off and run for home with all possible speed.
He came round hard, fired at a pink and blue Albatros, and saw his bullets cut through the cowling of the engine a few inches too low to hit the German's fuel tank.
Damn! Damn it to hell! he swore, and he and the Albatros turned out in opposite directions and Michael had a clear run for home. He saw his remaining pilots already tearing away, and he put the yellow machine's nose down and went after them, heading for the ridges and Mort Homme.
He swivelled his head just once more, to make sure that his tail was clear, and at that moment he saw Andrew.
Andrew was a thousand metres out on Michael's starboard side. He had been separated from the main dogfight, engaged with three of the attacking Albatroses, fighting them single-handed, but he had given them the slip and now he too was running for home like the rest of the British squadron.
Then Michael looked above Andrew and he realized that not all the German Albatroses had come down in that first attacking wave. Six of them had remained up there under the clouds, led by the only Albatros that was painted pure scarlet from tail to nose, and from wingtip to wingtip. They had waited for the dogfight to develop and for stragglers to emerge. They were the second set of jaws to the trap, and Michael knew who piloted the allred Albatros.
The man was a living legend on both sides of the lines, for he had already killed over thirty Allied aircraft. It was the man they called the Red Baron of Germany.
The Allies were countering the legend, trying to smear the invincible image that Baron Manfred Von Richthofen was building, by calling him a coward and a hyena who had built up his score of kills by avoiding combat on equal terms and by singling out novices and stragglers and damaged aircraft before attacking.
Perhaps there was truth to that claim, for there he was, hovering above the battlefield like a scarlet vulture, and there was Andrew, isolated and vulnerable below him, his nearest ally, Michael, 1,000 metres away, and Andrew seemed unaware of this new menace. The scarlet machine dropped from above, the shark-like nose aimed directly at Andrew. The five other hand-picked veteran German fighter pilots followed him down.
Without thought, Michael began the turn that would carry him to Andrew's assistance, and then his hands and feet, acting without conscious volition, countered the turn and kept the yellow SESa roaring on its shallow dive for the safety of the British lines.
Michael stared over his shoulder and superimposed on the pattern of swirling aircraft was Centaine's beloved face, the great dark eyes dark with tears, and her words whispered in his head louder than guns and screaming engines, Swear to me you will be there, Michael! With Centaine's words still ringing in his ears, Michael saw the German attack sweep over Andrew's solitary aircraft, and once again miraculously Andrew survived that first deadly wave and whirled to face and fight them.
Michael tried to force himself to turn the yellow SE5a, but his hands would not obey, and his feet were paralysed upon the rudder bars. He watched while the German pilots worked the solitary green aircraft the way a pack of a sheepdogs might round up a stray ewe, driving Andrew relentlessly into each other's crossfire.
He saw Andrew fighting them off with a magnificent display of courage and flying skill, turning into each new attack, and facing it head-on, forcing each antagonist to break away, but always there were others crossing his flanks and quarters, raking him with Spandau fire.
Then Michael saw that Andrew's guns were silenced.
The drum of his Lewis gun was empty, and he knew that it was a lengthy process to reload it. Clearly the Vickers machine-gun on the cowling had overheated and jammed.
Andrew was standing in the cockpit, hammering at the breech of the weapon with both fists, trying to clear it, and Von Richthofen's red Albatros dropped into the killing line behind Andrew.
Oh God, no! Michael heard himself whimpering, still . for safety, stricken as much by his own cowardice running as by Andr
ew's peril.
Then another miracle happened, for without opening fire the red Albatros turned away slightly, and for an instant flew level with the green SE5a.
Von Richthofen must have seen that Andrew was unarmed, and he had declined to kill a helpless man. As he passed only feet from the cockpit in which Andrew was struggling with the blocked Vickers, he lifted one hand in a laconic salute, homage to a courageous enemy - and then turned away in pursuit of the rest of the fleeing British SE5as.
Thank you, God, Michael croaked.
Von Richthofen's fight followed him into the turn. No, not all of them followed him. There was a single Albatros that had not broken off the engagement with Andrew. It was a sky-blue machine with its top wing chequered black and white, like a chessboard. It fell into the killing line behind Andrew that Von Richthofen had vacated, and Michael heard the stuttering rush of its Spandau.
Flame burst into full bloom around the silhouette of Andrew's head and shoulders as his fuel tank exploded.
Fire, the airman's ultimate dread, enveloped him and Michael saw Andrew lift himself out of the flames like a blackened and scorched insect and throw himself over the side of the cockpit, choosing the swift death of the fall to that of the flames.
The green scarf around Andrew's throat was on fire, so that he wore a garland of flame until his body accelerated and the flames were snuffed out by the wind. His body turned with his arms and legs spread out in the form of a crucifix, and dwindled swiftly away. Michael lost sight of him before he struck the earth 10,000 feet below.
In the name of all that is holy, couldn't anyone have let us know that Von Richthofen had moved back into the sector? Michael shouted at the squadron adjutant. Isn't there any bloody intelligence in this army? Those desk wallahs at Division are responsible for the murder of Andrew and six other men we lost today! That is really unfair, old man, the adjutant murmured, as he puffed on his pipe. You know how this fellow Von Richthofen works. Will-o'-the-wisp, and all that stuff. Von Richthofen had devised the strategy of loading his aircraft on to open goods trucks and shuttling the entire Jagdstaffel up and down the line. Appearing abruptly, with his sixty crack pilots, wherever he was least expected, wracking dreadful execution amongst the unprepared Allied airmen for a few days or a week, and then moving on again.