by Terry Deary
‘Great Red Baron?’ Colette Fletcher said, and raised her fine eyebrows in surprise.
Sergeant Grimm sniffed through his pointed nose. ‘One of the rules of warfare, Madame. Respect your enemy. He was a brilliant pilot, a brave man and a noble man too.’
Mater DuPont clutched the edge of the table and pulled himself to his feet. He spoke in a low voice, which the children in his class knew meant he was hanging on to his temper like a child hangs on to a kite in a gale. ‘He shot down eighty British and French planes. Some of those planes had a pilot and an observer. So let’s say he killed around one hundred of our men. How many wives and mothers have been left to grieve? How many children have been left without a father? He was a murderer and the world is a better place with Baron von Richthofen in his grave.’
Grimm’s large ears were red as he flushed. ‘You’re a teacher. You know everything, I suppose.’ He leaned forward so his stale breath blew in the teacher’s face. ‘When the Germans return you had better keep that opinion to yourself, teacher.’ He spat the last word like a pistol shot.
Master DuPont opened his mouth to reply but Colette stood and said sharply, ‘Well, Sergeant, you’ll be wanting to get back to your duties. You must be busy?’
Silver Hand stood up straight and his small dark eyes glinted in the light from the smoke-smutted windows. ‘I have a top-secret message to deliver from General Bruce.’
‘Where to?’
‘I can’t say. It’s top secret.’
‘Ah. It must be Amiens then,’ she said with a smile. ‘Maybe you’ll see Aimee there? Offer her another balloon ride, eh?’
‘I won’t see her,’ the sergeant said. He spun round on his heel and marched out of the door.
Colette Fletcher looked at the teacher – still shaking with rage – and said, ‘He’s not going to Amiens.’
‘Neither is Aimee,’ the teacher said. ‘That’s what worries me.’
26 August 1918: The road to Peronne
Sergeant Grimm stepped on to the rutted road to Peronne and raised his silver hand, and the steaming lorry stopped. The red-faced driver glared at the man with his backpack. ‘What do you want?’
Grimm’s eyes narrowed and he pointed to the three white stripes on the sleeve of his jacket. ‘I am a sergeant. You are a corporal. You will salute me and ask, politely, how you can help me.’
The driver’s mouth looked as if he were chewing a slug. ‘Yes, sir. How may I help you?’
Grimm waved the pass in front of him. ‘You can give me a lift towards Peronne. This pass says you must give me any help I need.’
The driver smirked. ‘That pass might say you’re a clown looking for a custard pie in the face... I wouldn’t know. I can’t read... sir.’
Grimm pulled himself into the passenger seat and said, ‘Drive.’
‘I’m not going as far as Peronne... sir.’
The sergeant shrugged. ‘I’m not going all the way by road. It would take too long. There’s a quicker way.’
The driver crunched the gear lever into place and set off. ‘Not on these roads there isn’t. They’re packed. You’ll only go as fast as the horse-drawn guns.’
Grimm’s thin lips turned down in a sort of smile. ‘Not me, driver. Take me to the nearest airfield. There’s one down by the Somme, isn’t there?’
‘Ah yes, sir. It used to be Baron von Richthofen’s airfield, they reckon. He’s gone now, of course. Have you ever flown in one of those planes? Wood and wire in the wind. You’d never get me up in one of them. Lord, no...’
‘Driver.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Shut up and drive.’
The rain began to fall and drummed on the roof of the cab so loud that Sergeant Grimm couldn’t hear the swear words the driver muttered.
26 August 1918: The Somme airfield
Sergeant Grimm ordered his driver, ‘Stop here,’ as they reached the gate to the airfield. Rain was streaming down from clouds that were rooftop low. Mechanics were throwing covers over the engines and cockpits of the planes that stood on the grass runways. The Germans had wrecked the tin-roofed sheds before they abandoned the airfield and flew east.
The lorry skidded to a stop. Grimm opened the door and jumped down into the puddled road without a ‘Thank you’ to the driver. He showed his pass to the miserable, dripping guard at the gate who pointed to a wooden hut fifty yards away by the fence. ‘You need to see Flight Commander Jackson, sir,’ he said.
Silver Hand hefted his pack on to his back and bent his head against the driving rain. His boots splashed over the wet grass and he trotted to the hut. He knocked sharply and was told to enter.
He stood at the door and shook off the rain. The commander was a sour-faced, thin man with a deep red scar on his left cheek. ‘Army, eh?’ he said, looking at Grimm. ‘What does the army want with us? More orders for ground support I suppose, eh? Well let me tell you, Sergeant, flying low over the enemy and shooting at soldiers is a dangerous job. We lost two good fighter pilots only yesterday. The German machine guns are waiting for us.’
‘No, sir...’
‘So where is it this time? Peronne again? Have you any idea how well the Germans are defending Peronne? They’re dug in. What do you want? You want our pilots to bomb them?’ The commander rose to his feet and leaned across the table that served as his desk. ‘Would you like to tell my pilots you want them to risk their lives to do the army’s job?’
‘No, sir...’
‘No, sir. You wouldn’t.’
Grimm cut in quickly. ‘I mean no, sir, I’m not here with army orders. I’m here to ask for your help. I am on an important mission. I need to get to Cléry and I need to get there quickly. The roads are jammed. It’s only ten miles but it could take me till noon tomorrow to get there.’
Commander Jackson looked puzzled. ‘Not my problem, Sergeant.’
Grimm gave his small smile. ‘I have this pass – orders from the highest command – anyone in the services has to help me.’
The airman’s eyes widened as he suddenly understood. ‘You want one of my men to fly you to this Cléry place?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Jackson bared his teeth and shouted, ‘Do you think the Royal Air Force is some sort of taxi service?’
‘No, sir, but orders are orders and you have to help me,’ Grimm said quietly with a hint of menace.
Jackson’s mouth widened and his snarl became a grin. ‘Sadly, Sergeant, I can’t fly anyone anywhere. If you were Prime Minister Lloyd George himself I’d have to refuse. My boys can’t fly when the clouds are so low, see? You can wave as many bits of paper as you want – you can wave them till you flap yourself into the air – but there will be no more flights till tomorrow.’
‘It’s urgent...’
‘You can sleep in the tent with the mechanics tonight. If I have a plane going to Peronne tomorrow I may let it set you down near Cléry. Now get out.’
Grimm looked angry and disappointed but knew he was beaten. He raised a tired hand to salute and left the hut to find a bed for the night.
26 August 1918: The school, Bray
General Bruce sat back in his chair and groaned. Colette Fletcher sat opposite him quietly. ‘So let me get this right, Mrs Fletcher, are you saying your daughter left with a backpack that held fake plans for a Whippet tank?’
She nodded. Captain Ellis stood in the corner of the office, his head bowed and his eyes on the dusty floor.
The general looked at him. ‘So our friend with the silver hand has the wrong backpack. And not only that, the real plans are missing from my safe.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It also means he has a pass that will allow him to go anywhere without question. You gave an enemy spy the greatest help possible.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Should I have you shot this afternoon or would you prefer tomorrow morning?’
Captain Ellis knew it was the general’s idea of a joke. ‘We have a man following him, sir. With or
without the pass he’ll lead us to Benedict and then we’ll destroy the whole spy network.’
General Bruce spoke softly. ‘You had better hope so, Captain. Because not only have you helped a spy... you have left Mrs Fletcher’s daughter without any help.’ The general stroked his thick moustache. ‘I am sure Mrs Fletcher would like to be holding a gun in the firing squad when we shoot you, Captain.’
Colette did not join in the joke. ‘Aimee will be fine. I wouldn’t have let her go if I thought she’d be in danger... well, no more danger than living in Bray. She’ll be fine.’
General Bruce answered her but was looking at the unhappy captain. ‘Let’s pray to God she is.’
27 August 1918: The drovers’ road to Cléry
Aimee awoke. It took her a while to remember where she was. Not much light spilled through the gas-curtain over the doorway. ‘Marius?’ she said. The boy groaned. ‘Are you all right?’
Again she just got a groan. Aimee had slept in her clothes. She climbed down from the top bunk and opened the curtain to let in a little light. It had stopped raining and the air was cooler.
In the half-light she found matches and the little stove that the British had left behind. She poured water from her own water bottle into a pan. She would have to fill the bottle again when they reached a fresh stream.
The water boiled and she poured it on some dusty tea leaves from a cupboard. There was a full packet of sugar but no milk. She passed the steaming cup to Marius as he struggled to sit up. ‘The sugar will give you strength,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ he croaked and tried to drink the sticky brew.
‘Can you manage five kilometres today do you think?’ Aimee asked as she dropped a slice of bacon into the pan, held it over the stove and let it fry in its own fat. The smoke drifted out through the door. She tore a piece of bread from the loaf her mother had given her and prepared to make a sandwich.
Marius sat on the edge of his bunk and held his head in his hands.
A shadow dimmed the morning light. Marius looked up and gave a soft cry. Aimee swung round a moment later and looked into the barrel of a rifle. A German soldier was holding it. His uniform was mud-stained and torn. The man’s gaunt face had not been shaved for a week or more and his eyes were sunken pools. He spoke in German and Marius answered quickly. To Aimee he said, ‘He won’t harm us if we give him our food.’
She held out her two sandwiches and the man pushed one into his pocket and the other between his ruined teeth in bleeding gums. He chewed and muttered. Marius tried to help Aimee understand.
‘He says all the men – even the officers – have been eating bread that is as damp as a bath sponge. The food is fried in butter that’s as old and rotten as war-fever. They’ve had to dig green potatoes out of the fields – not new potatoes, but green roots. The flu and the Flanders Fever are leaving us too sick to march or fight.’
‘But he’s behind British lines. Where is he going?’ Aimee asked.
‘He says British tanks rolled over his dugout and buried him. By the time he’d dug his way out they had all passed him by. He’s going to surrender – hand himself over to the British if we can tell him which way to go.’
‘But he could escape back to Germany with you,’ Aimee said.
When Marius told the soldier the man laughed till he coughed. Marius nodded. ‘He says there is nothing in Germany but hunger and anger. The war is lost. Our soldiers have lost hope. Our troops are thin, the horses have not had a grain of oats for days. The men live on dry barley-bread. But what makes it worse is we know what’s coming... thousands of tanks, tens of thousands of airmen, hundreds of thousands of fit, new men from America.’
‘Es ist fertig,’ the man breathed. ‘Wir leben, um den Frieden zu sehen.’
The boy looked at Aimee. ‘He says it’s over. All we can hope for is to live to see the peace.’
Aimee walked to the door and pointed towards the woods they’d walked through the day before. With signs she made him understand that was the way he had to go. ‘Bray,’ she said. ‘Bray-on-Somme.’
The man stumbled towards the wood and left Aimee to return and cook a little more of her precious food.
At the edge of the wood the watcher quickly pulled down the tent and rolled it up when he saw the German soldier head up the track towards him. The man in the black cloak had watched as Aimee had pointed the way back to Bray, so he knew the soldier hadn’t harmed her.
The watcher hid behind the stump of a shell-shattered tree until he heard the soldier splash past.
27 August 1918: The Somme airfield
Silver Hand woke to the smell of oil and wood, sweat and sausages. The aircraft mechanics were already out of bed and frying their breakfast on a stove in their tent.
He took no part in their talk of sprockets and notches, flanges and cogs, pistons, pipes, pilots and plugs. He chewed silently on the single sausage and bread they gave him.
A flight sergeant came into the tent and pinned a paper list to the tent pole. The mechanics gathered round. ‘What’s that?’ Grimm asked.
‘The flights going out today – the pilots, their targets and missions, the planes they’ll be flying, the times they’re off and which planes we mechanics have to get ready.’
‘Any heading for Peronne?’ Silver Hand asked.
The mechanic ran an oil-stained finger down the list. ‘Pilot Officer Brand is taking an RE8 two-seater over Peronne to drop leaflets at ten a.m.’
‘Where will I find this Brand?’
‘In the officers’ dining hut... but of course you aren’t an officer so they won’t let you in. You’ll have to wait outside. He’s a new boy. Young. Fair floppy hair. Went to a very posh private school – talks like there’s a tennis ball in each cheek. Nice lad. Bad pilot though. He’ll not last long.’
Sergeant Grimm swallowed hard. ‘Anyone else?’
‘Plenty of fighters heading that way to bomb and machine-gun the Germans… but the Camels and SE5s have only one seat. No, your best bet is with Pilot Officer Brand.’
Sergeant Grimm walked over the wet grass. The clouds were clearing and Sopwith Camel fighter planes were already taking off to scour the skies for enemy planes just as the Red Baron had done, from the same airfield, a few months before.
Carpenters were hammering at planks to build new huts, and lorries were bringing in fuel for the planes as workers patched bullet holes in aircraft, checked the wires that held wings together, tested engines and loaded bullets into the machine-gun drums. No one but Grimm was standing around looking at the muddy waters of the Somme or the watery sunlight struggling through the clouds.
His backpack sat at his feet. He wished he could report on the airfield activity to his German friends. It might earn him extra pay. Maybe it would be enough to simply tell the Germans where the airfield was so they could bomb it.
A tall, fair-haired young man stepped out of the officers’ hut. He was as thin as rainwater and his long nose sniffed the morning air. ‘Pilot Officer Brand?’ Grimm asked.
‘That’s me. Who wants him?’ His voice was rich and slow.
‘Flight Commander Jackson said you could take me to Cléry near Peronne this morning,’ Grimm lied.
‘Really?’
The sergeant showed him the precious pass. ‘Oh, I say, top-secret stuff, what?’
‘And urgent,’ Grimm said.
‘Peronne is a battleground, old chap. Not sure I can land you there.’
‘It’s Cléry village I need to be. That’s a few miles away from the fighting. There must be a field you can land in?’
The pilot sniffed down his long nose. ‘If our tanks haven’t been across it and chewed it to hell, my friend. Can’t have my undercart smashed and have you thrown on to your top-secret head, what?’
‘Undercart?’
‘The wheels. Fragile fellers. Still I’d be jolly pleased to have you along for the ride. We have to fly over the enemy trenches and drop leaflets.’
‘Why?’
>
‘Ah, good question. Hang on and I’ll fetch them.’ He marched off with spider-leg strides and returned with a stack of printed pages. Grimm read them. They were messages to the German troops.
‘Sorry.’ The pilot sighed. ‘They’re in German of course... you’ll not understand them.’
‘I speak German. My grandparents were German,’ Grimm said quietly and read on.
Soldiers of Germany
We urge you to give up
Throw down your rifles and come across to our side
You will receive a warm welcome
You will be taken to a comfortable prisoner-of-war camp
The food is better than what you eat now
Our guests hold jolly concert parties
You know by now that you cannot possibly win the war
The Americans are arriving
Don’t risk your life for a lost cause. Surrender NOW!
Grimm’s face was sour. ‘They won’t believe these lies,’ he muttered.
‘Oh but they do. The German officers are so worried they pay the men to collect these leaflets so they can be destroyed. The leaflets are like money... the Huns fight over them. So of course they read them before they hand them over.’
‘I see,’ Grimm said.
‘Come along and I’ll show you my bus.’
‘Bus?’
‘My plane.’ Brand led the way across to an aircraft much larger than the Sopwith Camels. The observer sat behind the pilot and there was a machine gun for the passenger to use. The pilot officer pointed to the seat. ‘I’ll be glad to have you on board. Commander Jackson wanted me to fly over the German positions and throw the leaflets out myself. Of course I can’t do that and watch out for enemy fighters, can I?’
‘No, sir. Wasn’t there an air force observer to do it for you?’
‘There was... but he didn’t make it back from my last trip. An enemy aircraft sneaked up behind us and shot him before I could get out of the way. I mean to say, I heard the chap scream something but the noise of the engine and the wind in the wires made me half deaf. I thought he was screaming because he’d seen a friend called Albert Ross. “Albert Ross,” he was yelling.’