He continued his starboard turn until the two diving Albatroses on his right were head-on; and while he turned, Wotton was able to traverse his gun and fire at one of the other pair, the rear machine.
Both of the pair which was diving from in front were shooting. Tracer sizzled close overhead and to either side. They were missing because Yardley had made a quick swoop which carried him 20 ft down. He pointed the DH4’s nose up once more and tried a shot at the leading aeroplane. His bullets hit the underside of the fuselage. A couple of seconds later the air directly above was churned into violent eddies as both enemy machines flashed overhead.
He skidded to starboard, glancing at the same time over his left shoulder Tracer curved away from Wotton’s gun and he saw it hit the second of the two machines which had first attacked them. It began to burn and the pilot went into a jerky downward spiral with no hope of landing before he and his whole aeroplane were consumed by the flames.
“Well done, Alec!” Yardley yelled.
It was insane to fight four Albatroses, or even three, if one did not have to. Yardley had had no choice at first, but now he knew that he would be a fool to stay. He had the legs of these merchants and his heavy machine would soon leave them far behind in a dive. Moreover, the Albatros D5 could not dive steeply in safety: its lower wing was weak and would crumple.
He turned to look behind him; in time to see two jets of Spandau tracer blast into the rear cockpit, almost cutting Wotton in half as he stood, firing back.
He put the DH4’s nose down almost vertically, opened the throttle wide and, with vomit rising, filled with anger and cursing at himself for not having dived away a few seconds sooner, kept staring over his shoulder.
The Lewis gun swung idly on its mounting.
Wotton hung with his head, shoulders and arms dangling over the side of his cockpit. Bullets had gone right through his body and a mass of exit holes had been torn in the back of his Sidcot suit.
Yardley pushed his goggles up onto his forehead and brushed the back of his hand across his eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
Oberfeldwebel Gratz was coming to supper. Frau Nauroth had invited his parents, knowing that he was coming home for the night. She had not told Ilse until late that morning because she knew how her daughter would react.
“I wish you would stop matchmaking, Mutti. It’s no use, you know. I shall make up my own mind about whom I marry. And it will never be Uwe Gratz.” She remembered, by comparison, the handsome officer she had seen at the concert when she went with Uwe.
Her mother smiled. That was something, at least. She had smiled for the first time since Vati’s death two days ago. Now Ilse came to think of it, it was the afternoon when she had been to have coffee with Frau Gratz. She must have invited them then.
“Ilse, I am concerned only with your welfare. You know I am a very sick woman and my illness is growing worse. I want to see you securely and happily settled before I... before I go.”
Frau Nauroth smiled bravely. Ilse, who had lately admitted to a growing cynicism which was new to her — and for which Uwe Gratz was responsible, with his clumsy but determined pawing and pestering — thought: She should have gone in for amateur theatricals; she has the talent.
She said, “Mutti, you must not talk like that. You are young yet, and you are putting up a good fight. You will resist the illness for many, many years yet. And in that time the doctors are sure to find a cure for it. Besides, Mutti dear, being securely settled and being happy are not the same thing.”
“You are too young to understand.” Her mother smiled sweetly. She was a very saccharine woman. In decades to come there would be wives like her in the White House and trying to get there: sickly in their public displays of affection for their husbands. Her affection was beamed at her daughter and at least there were no spectators, so it was less nauseating.
“I understand very well, Mutti. Of course Uwe offers security. Unless he is killed, of course. And even then, I suppose his widow would get a small pension. But he does not offer happiness. Not to me, he doesn’t.”
Frau Nauroth lowered her voice. “You are a good, Christian girl, my darling. You have led a sheltered and respectable life and you have not been a flirt who gave her kisses to a host of admirers. There are matters you do not yet understand. Believe me.” Frau Nauroth looked pink and bashful: the first time Ilse had seen any colour in her cheeks since the summer.
“Are you trying to tell me that love will grow after marriage?”
“Yes,” Frau Nauroth whispered, looking coy.
“I don’t believe it. How could it? The very reverse, I should have thought.”
“There is a certain... a certain... a certain... intimacy... which is past all imagining. It changes one. A girl becomes a woman and her emotions are completely altered.”
“I should say there is a certain intimacy about marriage! And I don’t intend to indulge in it with Uwe Gratz. I cannot believe that licensed violation...” Her mother gave a little shriek and put both hands up to her mouth. “Well, that is just what it would be, Mother. And I cannot see how that could make me do other than hate him. As it is, I can just about put up with him, but if I ever had to let him do that to me, even politely sanctioned by law and sanctified by our mealy-mouthed pastor,” (her mother shrieked again) “it would sicken me, not turn my indifference to love.”
Frau Nauroth had a hand to her bosom, which rose and fell dramatically. There was plenty of it to do so. Her disease had not wasted her entirely. Ilse had inherited her dimensions.
“Young people nowadays think they know everything. You are all so sure of yourselves...”
“Uwe is!” said Ilse unpleasantly. “The Stoat! But he won’t get anything from me, but a bloody nose.”
“You may be a very intelligent girl...”
“Bright enough not to let that pig root any truffles out of me, I can tell you.”
“You are bright, but there are still things you do not know. You cannot know until you have experienced them.”
“Huh! I should think the mental asylums are full of women who have been sold that bill of goods.”
Frau Nauroth, struck by a fresh idea, looked anxious and asked, gently “You are not afraid of men, are you, dear?”
“Not in the way you mean, Mother. But I am a bit afraid of men... stoats like Uwe Gratz. I can tell you I wouldn’t want to be alone with him in a deserted place after he’d had a few drinks too many and not been near a bit of skirt for a few weeks.” Her mother went scarlet and began to gag. “Not that he’s ever likely to stay celibate for one week, from what I know of him.”
Her mother resorted to tears.
“I... I don’t know where you learned to talk like this... or where you got all these... these vulgar... these crude ideas from. Too many books, that’s what it is. You think you can learn about life from books, but you can only learn about life from living it.”
“I’d rather not learn anything from the Herr Oberfeldwebel, thanks very much.”
Her mother began to wail.
“Please, please don’t be rude to Uwe this evening. His mother is my best friend. Herr Gratz was a very dear friend of your dear father’s. Be kind to Uwe.”
“I’ll be polite to him, Mother. Don’t worry. And I’ll make the supper while you have a rest. You need it.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Frau Nauroth had not spoken so spiritedly for months.
“I’ll tell you whose fault it is: your precious Uwe’s; for strutting around like a rooster in a hen-coop all the time.”
“Where did you learn to be so coarse?” Another wail.
“And while I’m being coarse I may as well tell you that his breath is as foetid as a sewer and it makes me sick to have him breathing on me. Heavy breathing.”
*
At the supper-table Frau Nauroth extolled her daughter’s culinary skill.
I wish she’d give up, thought Ilse. I wish she would stop trying to sell me as though I were a prime cu
t in the butcher’s shop. Or offering me as a prize in a lottery. Whoever said marriage is a lottery didn’t know our friend Oberfeldwebel Stoat. His wife will know exactly what she is in for, poor creature.
“Delicious,” said Frau Gratz with a smile.
The good Herr Foreman beamed at his putative daughter-in-law.
“Never tasted better in my life.”
Their son, cheeks bulging, nodded vigorously, swallowed rather disgustingly and, with his mouth still over-full, added his encomium.
“You could make grass tasty on the palate, Ilse.”
Due tribute paid to their hostesses, father Gratz changed the subject in his son’s favour.
“Uwe had another victory this morning.”
“Not a victory, Vati. The English aeroplane got away. It probably managed to reach its base.”
“You saved a comrade’s life, son. That was even more worthy.”
“What happened?” Frau Nauroth asked brightly. Ilse looked bored.
Uwe said, “We intercepted this cheeky fellow... these cheeky fellows, for there were two of them in the machine... well inside our frontier. It’s always tricky against the English machines: they bristle with guns and can fire in every direction. The gunner in this one shot down one of ours: Otto Brutelin; we trained together. He was shooting up another comrade when I gave him a burst and that was that.”
He looked around, pleased with himself.
“You let the enemy aeroplane get away?” asked Ilse.
“I didn’t let it...”
“How many of you were there?”
Uwe started to redden and look annoyed. “Three.”
“Before or after the Englishman shot one of you down?”
“There were four of us,” he admitted brusquely.
“It sounds to me as though the only victory was scored by the enemy.”
Her mother and Herr and Frau Gratz looked at her with indignation. Uwe’s face wore a sullen expression.
Frau Nauroth said, “Are you defending the enemy, my child?”
“Of course not. I’m just trying to get at the facts.”
“The facts are,” said Frau Gratz heatedly, “that my Uwe lost a comrade and immediately, with his customary bravery, avenged him. In doing so he saved another comrade from death.”
“Ah! I see, now. And as the English pilot was deprived of his gunner your Uwe and his two surviving friends gallantly allowed him to go free.”
“He bolted,” Uwe shouted, his voice choked by partly-swallowed home-reared duck and home-grown pickled red cabbage.
“Just as you are bolting your food?” Ilse asked pleasantly. “It would be more of a compliment to my cooking if you lingered over it and extracted the full flavour.”
Uwe’s parents regarded her in shocked unbelief. Her mother’s lips were trembling.
Unexpectedly, Uwe’s face broke into a grin. He said, “You are always provoking me, Ilse. And you always get a rise out of me. You know, I am known on the Kest — on every unit on which I’ve served, in fact — for being good-humoured. I shouldn’t let you ruffle me. I know it’s only done in affection.”
If you believe that, you’ll believe anything, thought Ilse.
The others, watching them, heads turning like spectators at a tennis match, began to look easier in mind and a smirk even flickered across Herr Gratz’s lips; which were distinctly greasy by now.
“It must be a strain,” Herr Gratz said meaningfully. “It is a well known fact that young men and women who are thrown much together spar in a light-hearted way. It relieves their tension.”
Holy God! He’s implying that I’m all bottled up and longing to leap into bed with his precious son. Dirty old devil. He’s as good as saying that long engagements are hard on the nerves. He and that complacent wife of his probably think Uwe and I have had an understanding for a long time but haven’t told anyone about it. The thoughts rapidly crossed Ilse’s mind as she stared Herr Gratz down blankly.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she lied.
He began to turn a mottled red. He stuttered under that pseudo-innocent stare and his wife glared at him as though he had been more than indiscreet; downright indecent. One did not allude to sexual repression, however obliquely, in conversation with a young virgin. Or was she? She had no illusions about her eldest son. No, no, this was a good girl; palpably so.
Herr Gratz said, “W-w-what I m-m-meant was that... that... when young people have known each other s-since childhood... their adult friendship is... more complicated. Yes, more complicated.”
“But Uwe and I were not friends as children. He was nearly seven years older than I, and treated me like a baby. He never took any notice of me until I was seventeen.”
“Fifteen,” Uwe said quickly, laughing.
Dirty lecher, she thought. If the truth were known, he was probably eyeing me speculatively when I was thirteen.
She said, “You didn’t show any interest until I was a good seventeen years old; I remember well. It was at the Easter dance just before you went off to join the Air Service.”
Gaily, Frau Nauroth, determined to restore all upset applecarts to the level, cried, “There! You see? At least she confesses how long she has been interested enough to notice whom Uwe pays attention to.”
“And Uwe, the sly one, keeping it to himself all these years!” her friend Frieda exclaimed, looking roguish.
“Well, well,” said Herr Gratz. “This is very heart-warming indeed. Yes, thank you,” he added as his hostess pushed a third carafe of wine towards him to replenish his glass.
Officiously he topped up everyone else’s glasses, cleared his throat and grasped the stem of his own.
He looked at Ilse and flinched.
She was regarding him with compressed lips and a red spot burning on each cheek. You just dare give a toast to Uwe and me, she was thinking. Just you dare, you fat old busybody, and see what sort of a toast you’ll get from me: right in the kisser. Her hand tightened in readiness about her wine glass.
Uwe’s father, hope fled, at least momentarily, shifted his gaze. His jowls drooped. He gave up and tamely sipped at his Mauerwein. He had a cowed air. Bit of a tartar on the quiet, this one, he thought. More spirit than I’d expected. Uwe will have his hands full; and not exactly in the way he likes to have ’em full of nubile maiden.
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m coming in Alec’s place,” said Tearle.
He and Yardley were alone in the anteroom, drinking their second glass of cognac. The mess was empty, after lunch. They both bore the angry, stern look which was the only permissible expression of grief.
“I really ought to take one of the spare observers.”
“That means breaking up a spare crew, Eric. You know damn well I was an observer before I became a pilot.”
“That was more than two years ago, Harold.”
“It makes no difference. I was at the Front as an observer for six months, man. I can shoot a Lewis on a Scarff ring as well as anyone. A spot of practice this afternoon will get my eye in.”
“Officially, you’re not fit. You’re still grounded.”
Tearle relaxed into a grim smile. “I’m grounded as a pilot. Nobody’s said anything about my being unfit as an observer.”
Yardley smiled briefly in his turn. “All right, Harold. I’ll take you with me.”
“Good. Then let me get at a Lewis gun straight away.”
They emptied their glasses and left the mess.
Walking to the squadron offices, they did not talk. Yardley, although he had lost so many friends in the past three and a half years, was badly shaken by Wotton’s death. They had served on the same squadron for 18 months and flown together for 15 of them. He could think of nothing derogatory that anybody could rightfully say about him. Wotton had never, in his hearing, said a bad word about anybody, either. He had visited Wotton’s parents once when they were both on leave. The father owned a draper’s shop in Nottingham and he and Wotton’s mother were imm
ensely proud of their son’s commission. Writing this particular letter of condolence was going to hurt him more and be more difficult than any of the scores he had had to write.
All the way back to base, with Wotton’s corpse lolling half out of the aeroplane, Yardley had reproached himself for not having shot down the pilot who had killed him. But that kind of vengeance was inspired by an emotion that had to be ignored. It was his duty to save his aircraft from further damage or destruction, to deliver a weather report and to ensure that he was still alive to lead that night’s raid. If he had stopped to fight, with no rear gunner, he would have failed in all those duties. Still he accused himself bitterly of not even having tried to avenge Wotton. He reminded himself that Wotton had already killed an enemy pilot before he himself was killed. The score was even. It didn’t work: he felt no better for this piece of reasoning.
Tearle trudged beside him, still limping slightly, guiltily trying to suppress his elation at having persuaded Yardley to let him take Wotton’s place. He also felt a personal bereavement. He was one of the very few who had overcome Wotton’s shyness, and he had, as people used to say in those days, drawn him out of his shell. They had shared many interests. Wotton had a great appetite for adding to his general knowledge. They were both interested in politics. Apart from that, they both understood books and paintings. He was going to miss his long arguments with young Alec Wotton very badly. He felt that by replacing him on tonight’s sortie and as many more as he could wangle before he returned to fulltime flying, he was both paying a tribute to him and doing what he would have wished. Wotton would not have cared to entrust Yardley to any other gunner. But, Tearle thought to himself, he might just about have admitted that he would be fairly well looked after in my hands.
Although he was not yet allowed to take it off the ground, he taxied Yardley’s machine across to the butts, transferred to the rear cockpit and re-familiarised himself with the Lewis gun and changing its ammunition pan quickly without fumbling. He kept practising with his eyes shut until he was confident: it would be dark when he had to do it in earnest and there was little use in practising in daylight with his eyes open.
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