To Slip the Surly Bonds

by Chris Kennedy

  -Excerpt of a letter from the desk of the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. William F. McCombs

  * * *

  August 1915, Douai Aerodrome at the French-German Front

  The engineers who examined the Morane found a frozen fuel line and bullet holes. Officially, the credit for the capture went to no one. Unofficially, Leutnant Shultz and Lieutenant Marshall had yet to buy their own beer even months later. And even better, the weaponry on the French plane had proven inspirational for arming the remarkable single-seater Eindecker aeroplanes.

  Marshall and I soared, each in our own Eindecker, on our second flight in the new machines.

  The wonders of better and better gear made flying almost comfortable. My face had frozen again with my wool scarf not quite wrapped thickly enough on the warm morning before takeoff. Engine oil splattered at me in searing droplets, whipped over the small windshield, but my goggles and scarf saved me from the worst of it and icy wind chilled any burn instantly. A length of silk around my neck protected my skin from chafing against the cold-stiffened collar of my flight jacket.

  Lieutenant Marshall and I had flown for about an hour already. The controls felt light, turning so easily compared to an Albatros with half as many guide wires to throw my strength against, and the whole sky opened up with no upper set of wings to block my view.

  The openness brought back a sense of how truly fragile we were in the sky, and I’d convinced a harness maker to construct some straps to secure us to the aeroplane seats. Most of the pilots rolled their eyes, but when Boelcke accepted them, everyone else did too.

  Even better, we each had one of the new machine guns installed. Much like the Maschinengewehr 08s, which of course I remembered from the Port of Doula in Kamerun, these were Spandau LMG 08s—air-cooled in the chill of altitude instead of water-cooled. And Fokker’s clever timing belt made the gun fire in bursts between the propellers.

  We hadn’t used the guns on each other of course, but we’d taken practice targeting dives and done every other tag teaming maneuver we could think of. Leutnant Boelcke planned to go hunting in the twilight this evening, and Marshall and I were going with him.

  We turned now, low on fuel and tired, towards Labrayelle airfield just outside Douai.

  Where smoke rose in the distance.

  I stared, rubbed the surface of my goggles to clear them, and looked again. Black streaks smeared ugly lines in the bright blue sky.

  The heavily trenched front could not move so fast in just an hour for Douai to be shelled by artillery. The infantry, poor souls, would do well to move ten feet forward and take another trench without it be wrested back immediately in that time. To have moved over ten miles and now have field guns in position was impossible. And yet something, multiple somethings, burned.

  Lieutenant Marshall hand signaled that he’d also seen it.

  I nodded in an exaggerated motion to say, ‘Yes, I see it too and understand.’

  We dove for speed with Marshall leading. First the Douai cathedral spire and then the buildings of the town emerged, undamaged but eerie in the emptiness of their streets. My sense of dread grew as the smoke wisps darkened into arrows narrowing at the horizon just southwest of Douai, pointing at Labrayelle, at our own airfield.

  Tiny flashes peppered the ground followed by dirty puffs sometimes spreading into fires if a grounded aircraft or a cache of fuel caught flame. The smoke over the airfield fogged the sky.

  Marshall waved for my attention and pointed upward with urgent jerks of his arm. A moment later his machine began to gain altitude. I dragged the stick back to follow him up and held pressure on the rudder to counteract the Eindecker’s natural inclination to twist left and follow the spin of its propeller.

  The desperate struggle for altitude ate at our previous speed. Our engines rattled on in ear-splitting growls, but the pressing rush of the wind weakened.

  Specks above the horizon swirled through the billows of smoke.

  We climbed with increased desperation into the thinning air and blazing daylight. Marshall leveled out and pointed down.

  A half dozen aeroplanes circled below us. A few alternated taking a dive to release tiny specks and then climb again. Less brave ones scattered their bombs from altitude with no effort to aim.

  Not one looked up at the blinding noon sun to notice us.

  Marshall picked a target, pushed his nose over, and began a shallow dive. I followed.

  The leather straps pushed against my shoulders keeping me with my machine rather than floating out of the cockpit. I fervently hoped these suddenly very important straps did their part and held me in.

  Staying with Marshall required me to focus every ounce of attention I had on his craft. His wing bent, and I must bend mine immediately too.

  But this did no good, I realized. I was too close to watch for danger without becoming a collision danger myself.

  I climbed and added gradual s-turns to slow my forward progress until his machine was another hundred feet ahead. Continuous stick and rudder adjustments kept me in position behind him.

  I stole a look out ahead of the lieutenant’s machine now that I had a little more room to maneuver. A fine mist of engine oil covered the little windscreen at the top of my cockpit, but better covering the windscreen than my goggles. I leaned out to get a better view.

  The enemy aircraft continued their bombing runs oblivious to us still.

  Marshall angled towards one of the non-diving aeroplanes. It circled unaware of any danger. The double wings weren’t right for a Morane. And the paint, oh, these were the British B.E.2c biplanes! Two seaters, but the one in front of us held only a pilot.

  The British pilot reached down, paying no attention to the sky above his upper wings, and lifted up a bomb.

  I realized why the observer and his seat were gone. They’d made room for the weight of the bombs and the fuel needed for a long flight by doing without a second crew member.

  The British pilot lobbed the bomb over the side in the direction of our maintenance crew’s tents.

  Marshall’s hand came up to prime his Spandau machine gun.

  I itched to do the same, but my barrel pointed far too close to his Eindecker.

  The rat-a-tat of his attack was a long vicious growl louder even than our engines.

  The B.E.2c banked to lift his wings even as Marshall’s Eindecker raked him with machine gun fire. The pilot brandished a pistol and fired it, not at the lieutenant, but at me!

  I released my hold on the stick in shock and my Eindecker turned immediately to the left. Even that reaction was more than a second too slow to matter.

  Shaking, I took hold of myself. No one had ever looked me square in the eye while trying to kill me before. At once terrified and furious, I longed for a target of my own and cursed the orders keeping me glued to the lieutenant’s side.

  My arms ached from an hour of forcing the guidewires this way and that in close maneuvers, but I’d let them ache ten times worse and be happy for it if I could shoot at someone bombing our home.

  People boiled out of the tents below. One lone Eindecker rolled around burning aircraft onto the airfield and launched into the sky.

  I pointed my nose ahead of the Lieutenant Marshall’s aeroplane so I could catch up to him. He aimed for another Brit heading to the southwest toward Arras. This bomber flew in a straight line and seemed unaware of the lieutenant stalking him.

  Another rat-a-tat announced Marshall’s next attack. Realizing I was catching up a little too quickly, I pulled back on my stick to get above them both and slow down.

  The pilot of this second biplane must have seen the lieutenant fire from hundreds of feet away. It would’ve taken a miracle to hit anything from that distance. All that Marshall had accomplished was to alert his target.

  The lieutenant flew closer and fired again.

  The British pilot jerked his bomber left and right in a desperate erratic zigzag that made my back ache in sympathy, and my eyebrows lif
t in slow understanding.

  Marshall didn’t fire. He closed.

  The enemy’s wild evasion had slowed him so much he became almost still.

  Marshall released a single burst dead into the British machine. The biplane propeller stuttered and stopped as smoke wafted off the engine.

  Lieutenant Marshall, still moving faster, came alongside his victim to hold position next to him.

  The smoke grew thicker and flickers of flame emerged. The fire crawled towards the cockpit.

  Marshall waved his arm at the man, pointing downward. He needn’t risk a field or sheep pasture landing. A mowed well graded airfield waited beneath him. And he must land immediately!

  The man stared out at nothing.

  “Land for God’s sake!” I shouted uselessly into the wind.

  Marshall fired his machine gun at nothing, and at last, the British pilot looked up and saw the urgent gesturing down towards the airfield.

  Too slowly, he started to descend. Lieutenant Marshall followed him down.

  The flames licked over the biplane more quickly now and I knew there would be no escape for this British airman. The fire engulfed the fabric and frame of the 2-seater, burning its way to the cockpit. I looked on in horror as the engine fell away, the wings folded upward, and the flaming fuselage plummeted earthward.

  Marshall broke off even as Leutnant Boelcke joined us in the sky, dodging around the falling wreckage of aeroplane.

  A deadly dance ensued as other German pilots found the remaining unburned machines and launched after us. The former attackers became the attacked and Fokker’s guns proved every bit as deadly as the British bombs.

  * * *

  “I do believe Rear Admiral Fiske is quite as stunned as the rest of us. As for ‘Our Boy,’ I say if the man wants to fight, let him fight. And for the United States, I see no reason to overturn President Wilson’s past decisions. He kept us out of the war, and if America would like to continue that they shall be free to say so in the coming election.”

  -Excerpt of a letter from the desk of the Vice President of the United States, Mr. Thomas R. Marshall

  * * * * *

  Joelle Presby Bio

  Joelle Presby is a former U.S. naval officer who was born in France but not while it was occupied by Germany. She also did not serve during the Great War. She cowrote The Road to Hell, in the Multiverse series, with David Weber. She has also published short stories in universes of her own creation, Charles E. Gannon’s Terran Republic, and David Weber’s Honor Harrington universe. Updates and releases are shared on her website, joellepresby.com, and on social media through MeWe, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

  https://www.mewe.com/i/joellepresby

  https://www.facebook.com/joelle.presby

  https://www.linkedin.com/in/joellepresby/

  https://twitter.com/JoellePresby

  * * *

  Patrick Doyle Bio

  Patrick Doyle graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1993 with a degree in History, a commission as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy, a love of flying, and no pilot slot. Pat’s desire to be a pilot won out, and he left active duty back when peace was breaking out in the mid-90s to eventually become a commercial airline captain at a large regional airline. As a member of the Navy Reserve, and with the downturn in the airline industry in the 2000s, he resumed his Navy career, serving in various active duty assignments. He recently returned to the airlines as a Captain and simulator instructor teaching the next generation of commercial pilots how to throw themselves at the Earth and miss. In his spare time, he writes, travels, and designs games. He currently lives in Minnesota with his wife, Linda, and son, Matthew.

  # # # # #

  In Dark’ning Storms by Rob Howell

  31 March 1915

  The band started playing the moment they could see the famous mustache rise above the deck. The normally bright eyes over that mustache were hard and black. They flicked from the officer at attention in front of him to a group of men clustered at the bow of the ship. He turned to the officer, “Permission to come aboard?”

  Captain Washington Irving Chambers of the USS Langley saluted. “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Thank you, Captain Chambers.” Teddy Roosevelt returned the captain’s salute. “And I’ll thank you for dismissing this band. We have too much to discuss for all the normal formalities.”

  “Of course.” He glanced at his executive officer. “Dismiss the welcome party.”

  Commander Pope Washington saluted, turned to the band, and commanded, “Welcome party, dismissed!”

  The band and honor guard saluted and left.

  President Roosevelt gestured at the men who had followed him aboard the Langley. “Have you met Admiral Fletcher?”

  “No, sir.” Chambers saluted the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Navy’s Atlantic Fleet.

  “I apologize, Captain,” said Admiral Frank F. Fletcher. “These aren’t the circumstances in which I had hoped we’d meet.”

  “I understand, sir. I appreciate you coming to see us personally.”

  “President Roosevelt has convinced me that your project has great potential. I have, of course, seen all the reports that suggest the Langley is a waste of money. However, I remember my time with the Bureau of Ordnance, and I had to see what you’re doing here before we make any decisions.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Chambers turned to the other admiral and saluted. “Welcome aboard again, Admiral Mayo.”

  Admiral Henry T. Mayo returned the salute. “Captain Chambers, you look like hell. When did you last get some sleep?”

  “Last night.”

  “How many hours?”

  Chambers looked embarrassed. “Two, sir.”

  “And the night before?”

  “Even less.”

  Roosevelt shook his head. “I appreciate your dedication, but we’re going to need you to have a clear head.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  Roosevelt gestured at the last person behind him, a civilian. “In any case, you’ve met Mr. Curtiss, I’m sure.”

  “Yes, sir. Welcome aboard.” Chambers held out his hand.

  “Thank you, Captain,” replied the spare man with deep-set eyes.

  The President tugged down his vest. “Now that the introductions are over, let’s get to it.”

  “Yes,” agreed Fletcher. “I read the report from the yard, but I wanted to come see the damage myself.”

  “If you’ll follow me.” Captain Chambers gestured, and they walked to the bow. Several men in cheap suits and loose ties pointed at various things. A number of workmen bustled around. The bulk of the damage had been to the forward starboard strut holding up the flight deck. A temporary replacement had been fitted to hold up the undamaged wood planks of the deck and sheets of plywood had been laid to cover the scorched, damaged portions.

  “I’d like to hear your description of what happened.”

  “Yes, sir. We were trying out the new bomb racks for our BE.2.cs. When Lieutenant Bronson started to pull up to fly, the left-hand bomb fell off the rack and landed on its fuse. It exploded, as you can see, and flipped the plane over the bow. We assume both Bronson and Lieutenant Welsh, riding in the front seat, were killed instantly.”

  “We can hope for that small favor, Captain.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “What engine did you have on her?” asked Curtiss.

  “A Liberty L-8. We’ve needed the extra power-to-weight ratio for increased payloads. With those, the BE.2.cs can even carry the short Bliss-Leavitt Mark Sevens. Without an observer, of course.”

  Curtiss sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I worry about those.”

  “What do you mean, Mr. Curtiss,” asked Roosevelt.

  “Well, Mr. President, thanks to your efforts getting appropriations for aviation in general, we’ve managed incredible advances. The Aircraft Production Board has done great work these past five years. Those Liberty engines wouldn’t ha
ve been available so quickly without it, nor for that matter the aerial torpedoes. However, I wonder if we’re going too fast.”

  “With all that’s happening in Europe, I don’t think that’s unwarranted,” said Admiral Mayo.

  “I don’t disagree, Admiral. However, my first guess at what happened here is the power of the L-8 and the acceleration these pilots have to use to lift off from the Langley torqued or twisted the airplane’s wing, which was originally designed for an engine a third the horsepower. That twisted wing then caused the rack prototype to release the bomb. I’ll bet anything that the engineers designing the new racks didn’t take that into account.”

  “Makes sense, Mr. Curtiss,” agreed Chambers. “We’ve been adding and upgrading these birds since we got them, and they bear little resemblance to the original ones we bought in 1913.”

  “We’re pushing the mechanics as well,” mused Mayo. “We keep accelerating their training, but we’re expanding naval aviation so fast they almost have to learn on the go.”

  “Then we should slow down the program,” stated Fletcher.

  “With respect, sir. I disagree,” blurted Washington. He looked as startled as anyone at his presumption in this assemblage.

  “Continue, Commander Washington,” directed Roosevelt.

  “Well, Mr. President…,” he hesitated.

  “Too late now, Pope,” said Chambers with a smile. “But I have an idea what you’re about to say, since you’ve said it to me often enough during these past months. They’ll want to hear it.”

  “Yes, sir.” The commander straightened. “Mr. President, I was on the Maine at Santiago de Cuba.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes, sir. I was sent by Captain Crenshaw to lead the lifeboat party to safety.” His eyes dropped. “I was the highest-ranking survivor.”