In Line of Fire (Secret Soldiers of World War 1 Book 2)

by David Hough

  “It’s not your Château. You’re here on sufferance.” Wendel felt confident he would be in no danger from the boy now that Schatzenberger and the two soldiers were dead. But he was determined on finding out exactly where Pierre’s loyalties lay. “Your sister told me you ran away to Prince Rupprecht’s headquarters. How did you get back through the front line?”

  “That’s my business, not yours.”

  “Someone must have helped you. Your sister maybe?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” The boy sat down again, close beside his grandmother as if he was seeking protection from her. “There are ways through the line if you have the right information. If you know the right people.”

  “Ways that are well known to spies. You…” Wendel slapped a hand at his forehead. “Of course! Ways that are known to spies. Like the one they call Wood Wine!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Pierre turned his head away, but not quick enough to hide the tell-tale signs of guilt across his face.

  “This is an insufferable intrusion,” the Countess snapped in German. “How dare you speak to my grandson like this!”

  “I’ll do more than speak to him, Countess.” Wendel turned and opened the door. “Soldier! Come in here. I want this boy put under lock and key.”

  *

  Sophia came to him again that night. It was late and Wendel was in bed, unable to sleep when she slipped into his room. She carried a candle and sat on the end of his bed with her shadow shimmering across the walls.

  She came straight to the point. “I want you to let Pierre go free.”

  Pierre von Birkensaft was safely locked in an attic room with a British soldier on guard outside the door. Wendel wanted the boy kept safe until he could be handed over to Haig.

  “Why, Sophia? He’s one of Rupprecht’s spies.” He sat up and wondered what game the girl was playing.

  “Of course he is. He’s Grandmama’s favourite, I told you that, and Grandmama loves Rupprecht. But you have missed the obvious, have you not?”

  “What obvious?”

  “Pierre is a fool. He doesn’t know about my contact with Smith-Cumming, and he talks too much. I get some of my intelligence directly from him.” She drew a deep breath and went on in a sober voice. “But that’s not all. Pierre has links with important officers on Rupprecht’s staff. He introduces me and I get even more intelligence from them.”

  It all made sense now. Pierre was Wood Wine, the German spy, and the girl was Cumming’s agent. Why hadn’t he spotted it earlier?

  She shifted closer to him and began to undo her dress. “If you let Pierre go, I will be able to get information on Rupprecht’s latest plans.”

  “But he’ll run straight back to Rupprecht.”

  “Of course he will. He knows of ways to get across the front line.” She grinned. “And I shall go with him. This will be my opportunity to get back into Rupprecht’s headquarters and stay there.”

  Wendel shook his head. “Too dangerous, Sophia. Besides, they’ll probably work out that you killed Schatzenberger.”

  She grinned, an infectious grin that spread quickly across her face. “No, they will not, Captain Wendel. I shall tell them that you killed the Doktor. A much more credible story, do you not think? And God help you if they ever catch you.” She giggled as her dress fell onto the floor.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Marie Duval was in a quandary. She liked Charles DeBoise, liked him a lot. He wasn’t like the other men she had been with. He was so much more genuine. If she was honest with herself, she would go further and admit that she loved him, but what was the point of that? She would never be a fit person to spend a lifetime with him. The only thing she could do was to help him with his mission, and his struggle to stay alive.

  She clung to a wooden seat as the lorry bucked heavily over a patch of uneven road. The canvas cover was open at the rear. The nearest wounded soldier leaned out into the cool autumn air and vomited.

  There were a dozen passengers in the back of the vehicle, all being transported back to Dunkerque, but only Marie and a nurse were uninjured. One of the wounded soldiers fell forward, but the nurse grabbed at him and pulled him back onto his seat. The other men groaned as the movement heightened the pain of their injuries. One or two cried out.

  Marie felt sorry for them. They all had Blighty tickets, but none would ever again be the same men they were when they left England. Two had legs amputated. Three had lost an arm. Two more were blinded. The others seemed physically whole, but their minds were clearly damaged. One cried incessantly. Another stared into the distance and never stopped slapping his hands together.

  Marie was glad when Dunkerque came into view. In her coat pocket, she had Lieutenant Commander Oliver Polmassick’s reply to her telegram. He would meet with her to discuss DeBoise’s mission.

  She disembarked on the busy quay and hurried away towards the Hôtel du Nord. It was mid-day and she found several military officers eating in the dining room. Only one – a tall, bearded man – wore the uniform of the Royal Naval Air Service.

  She approached him warily. “Lieutenant Commander Polmassick?”

  “Yes.” He looked up with his fork paused halfway to his mouth.

  “Oh, good. I’m Marie Duval. I received your message.” She tucked her skirt beneath her as she sat down opposite him.

  “Yours was a rather enigmatic telegram, if I may say so, Miss Duval.” Polmassick put down his cutlery and wiped his bearded face with a white napkin. A puzzled look filled the visible part of his face. “But it’s a pleasure to meet you. We haven’t met before, have we?”

  “No. I learned about you from Lieutenant DeBoise. You flew him out of Antwerp.”

  “Oh, yes. I met him again just recently.” He grinned. “The poor man was airsick on that flight from Antwerp. Vowed never again to go up in an aeroplane.”

  “I think he may have to. He’s been ordered to complete a dangerous mission in German-held territory.”

  “I know. He told me all about it. I have permission to fly a two-plane mission to Gheluvelt as soon as the Lieutenant gives the word. We’ll bring both Captain Wendel and the Countess out from under the Huns’ noses.”

  “He told me about that. And he’s sent me here to give you the word. He’s ready to complete the mission. But there’s one other thing he didn’t tell you. He wants you to fly him into Gheluvelt.”

  “Fly him in? Why?”

  “The Countess has a granddaughter, Sophia von Birkensaft. Lieutenant DeBoise is ordered to stay with her to ensure she remains alive. He’s no other option but to get to Gheluvelt.” She omitted mentioning the part of the message that said the girl’s life was more important than his. She didn’t like those words at all.

  “Very well. He can fly into Gheluvelt with us. We’ll leave him there and bring Captain Wendel out. When does he want to go?”

  “As soon as possible. Tomorrow? Can you pick him up near Ypres tomorrow morning?”

  “We can do that.” Polmassick pulled out a map from his haversack. He pointed to the area around Ypres and then stabbed his finger at a precise location. “There’s a field here, just outside the town. Near this farm. Tell Lieutenant DeBoise to be there half an hour after daybreak tomorrow morning. I’ll land there and pick him up.”

  Marie studied the map and nodded. “I know that farm. One more thing. You will have two aeroplanes, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I want to fly into Gheluvelt as well.”

  “You?” He jerked back his head in surprise. “Why, in God’s name? You’re a civilian.”

  “I work for Commander Cumming, and I have good reason to want to get to Gheluvelt.”

  “You want us to fly you into that place and then fly an old woman out?”

  “Exactly.”

  Polmassick stroked his beards as he took a few moments to consider his reply. She was glad he made no attempt to interrogate her further. Finally, he made up his mind.

  “Ver
y well, Miss Duval. If you say it’s important, I’ll accept that it’s important. Be at the pick-up point with Lieutenant DeBoise tomorrow morning. You can go with Lieutenant Goodwin. He’ll fly the second aeroplane. But we can only bring back one passenger in each machine. The Countess will come with me and Captain Wendel will fly out in the other machine. We cannot bring back either you or Lieutenant DeBoise.”

  “I understand. That’s a problem we shall have to face together.”

  *

  It was dark when she got back to Ypres. She went straight to the billet where DeBoise was lying on top of his bed.

  “You got away from the hospital?” she said as she sank down on the bed beside him.

  “Signed myself out. Told them I couldn’t wait any longer.”

  “We’ll have tonight together, Charles. Tomorrow we shall face our mission together.”

  “Together?”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “You can’t!”

  “I can and I will.” She put a finger against his lips. “Neither you nor Captain Wendel will persuade the Countess to fly away from the Château. You know well enough that she would never listen to two British officers. But she will listen to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I shall become Mariele Bach once again. I shall be the German girl I pretended to be when we first met. And I shall tell the Countess I have come from Prince Rupprecht with instructions for her to return to her Belgian royal family. She won’t have a clue where she’s being taken until she reached Ypres.”

  “She won’t believe you.”

  “I can be persuasive when I try.” Marie kissed him to stop him protesting, and she hoped he would not realise her real reason for going with him… to help keep him safe.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The sun was hovering just above the horizon when the two Royal Naval Air Service aeroplanes landed near Ypres. The noisy clatter of the engines bit sharply into the cold morning air. DeBoise eyed the machines with growing feelings of unease. He hated the idea of having to fly again, but he was determined to show Marie he could stand against his fears.

  Marie kissed him before she boarded Lieutenant Commander Polmassick’s Avro 504. He felt a blush run through his cheeks when he saw that the two pilots were watching. The second pilot – flying one of Geoffrey De Havilland’s BE2 biplanes – was Lieutenant John Goodwin. He looked too young to be caught up in this war, smooth-faced with wide blue eyes. DeBoise wondered if he would last out the year, let alone the war.

  To help keep him warm, DeBoise had borrowed a heavy trench coat from an officer at the communications centre in Ypres. He also wore a wool-lined hat and had a thick scarf tightly wound around his neck. The smell of castor oil and leather bombarded his senses as he climbed into the aeroplane’s front seat. His leg pained him, but he made an effort to hide his reaction.

  He glanced across to where Marie was clambering into the other machine, lifting her legs awkwardly over the cockpit surround. She wore borrowed trousers because the machine was not built with a woman’s modesty in mind.

  As they took off, DeBoise crouched down and hoped he would not disgrace himself again by being airsick again. He closed his eyes and silently prayed that the flight would not last long.

  The engine noise rose to a roar and the aeroplane began to bump and jolt across the grass. DeBoise gritted his teeth and then gasped as he felt the BE2 lift itself from the ground and rise up into the morning air. He let out a brief cry of alarm when the wings wobbled and the fuselage swayed first one way and then the other. He closed his eyes again and opened them only when he felt the aeroplane settle into level flight. Hesitantly, he peered over the side of the cockpit and watched in fascination as fields and roads flew past beneath them. At first, puffs of smoke rising up from the ground ahead puzzled him. Then he realised he was looking at shells bursting on the battlefield. He caught a quick glimpse of a long trench and figures crouched within it, but the scene was quickly whipped away as they sped on towards Gheluvelt.

  They had been flying no more than ten minutes when he heard a sharp cry behind. He turned his head towards the pilot and gasped in alarm. The young flier had been hit by rifle fire. A bullet had ripped into his left arm and blood spurted freely across his sleeve. Moments later, another bloody patch appeared on his chest. Instinctively, DeBoise cried out, but the sound was dragged away by the slipstream.

  He screamed louder. “Can you keep control?” Again, his words were stolen by the wind.

  Before they took off, Goodwin had warned DeBoise he was a firm believer in flying at low altitude when near the front line. Sometimes very low altitude. He said it gave the Huns less time to aim their guns accurately. Later, when he had time to think about it, DeBoise wondered if Goodwin had changed his mind after he was shot.

  Still crouching low in the aircraft’s front cockpit, he was uncertain how badly the pilot was injured. Would he survive long enough to get the aeroplane back on the ground? DeBoise reached out and grabbed hold of the cockpit surround when the aircraft’s nose dropped sharply. Then he raised his head until his scarf was dragged out into the wind, streaming behind him like a banner. Anxiously, he fixed his gaze upon Goodwin, peering back over the doped canvas to where the pilot was slumped forward in the rear seat. His left arm seemed to be hanging loose at his side.

  “Lieutenant! You all right?” Once more, his words were whipped away in the seventy-miles-an-hour slipstream, drowned by the loud, reverberating racket of the engine. The ground was even closer now.

  Goodwin raised his head slowly. His eyes were hidden behind his goggles, but his mouth was open and blood oozed from between his lips. He seemed dazed as he heaved himself upright and used his right arm to pull back on the joystick, bringing the frail craft into level flight. The BE2 was a good aeroplane – as far as any such frail contraption could be rated as good – but it was utterly dependent upon the pilot’s skill in keeping it airborne. In his fright, he knew that the pilot’s skill was now badly eroded. And he could do nothing about it.

  “Damn!” He shivered in the icy-cold air and turned his gaze aside to where dew-laced fields flashed by, far too close for comfort.

  How near to Gheluvelt were they? Had the aeroplane strayed across the line of the salient, the frontier between the British and German armies? Were they now flying low over enemy-held territory? He had no way of telling. They should still be on the Allied side of the line, but the pilot seemed to be no longer be in control of his navigation.

  The hazy sun, still low in the morning sky, lit up a rapidly changing array of light and shade, brown woodland and green meadows, each tainted by that thin overlay of morning dew. The shadows of isolated clouds darkened irregularly-shaped patches of landscape that whipped past beneath the wings, and were gone in an instant.

  Still DeBoise could do nothing but tightly grasp the cockpit surround and pray. With no dual controls and no flying skill, prayer was his only option. His prayers came to him so easily now. He scanned around until he spotted a small, dark shape, high up and vaguely outlined against an area of hazy blue sky. Was that Lieutenant Commander Polmassick’s Avro 504, the aircraft carrying Marie Duval? Even as he watched, the shape turned away and vanished in the haze.

  DeBoise cursed out loud once again. So this was what it was like to be shot at in an aeroplane! This was what it felt like to have your life hanging by a thread with no control over what happened next! He felt a sudden burst of anger towards Cumming and his own stupidity in agreeing to make this flight. And he cursed the old Countess of Birkensaft.

  Was he going to die this morning? Or would he be badly injured when the aircraft flew into the ground out of control? Badly injured and captured by the Hun? Tortured and forced to betray the purpose of this mission? He felt his whole body stiffen.

  The noisy engine rattled on without complaint, but they were far too low now, almost level with the tops of a long avenue of poplars. The wings wobbled alarmingly, a sign that Goodwin was losing wh
at little control he still had.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” DeBoise peered anxiously over the side of the cockpit. A line of German infantry marched down the middle of the road between the trees. Germans! The aeroplane must have flown across the front line!

  He caught a brief glimpse of grey-uniformed men pointing up at the little aircraft as it flew past them, skimming over the treetops so close as to leave the upper branches waving in the slipstream. There were no more gunshots and, within a couple of minutes, the German soldiers were out of sight behind the tall poplars. DeBoise stared ahead at a vista of empty fields, a couple of isolated farmhouses and a small scattering of trees. The view stretched far into the distance.

  He looked round again at the pilot. “Lieutenant! Can you get us down?” He pointed franticly towards the ground. They were probably nowhere near Gheluvelt, but it would be better to be alive here than dead at the right place.

  Goodwin made no reply. The pilot stared straight ahead blankly. The only indication he was still alive was the irregular movement of his right arm as he fought to keep the aeroplane flying. His head slumped briefly to one side before jerking upright again. Blood was now spurting freely from his mouth.

  “Down, Lieutenant! Get us down, for God’s sake.” DeBoise screamed at him, stabbing a hand towards the ground. “Get us down now!”

  He had no indication that Goodwin understood, except that the aircraft began to sink lower still and the engine went suddenly quiet, the propeller wind-milling in the slipstream. The pilot must have cut the main ignition switch. The angry rattle of an eight-cylinder engine was replaced by the high-pitch singing of icy air through the wing struts and wires as the BE2 glided towards the earth below.

  DeBoise stared straight ahead as they sank lower, gritting his teeth, hoping, praying. The field came up fast to meet them, the tail sank and then the wheels banged down with a sudden reverberation that sent shudders up through DeBoise’s spine. The aircraft bounced twice before it settled firmly onto the ground. It rolled a further few yards before it came to rest. The only remaining sound was the odd crackle of the engine cylinder blocks cooling in the cold air, and the cawing noise of crows disturbed from a nearby tree.