by John Masters
A tremendous blow on the side of the head made him reel in the cockpit … von Rackow was turning again, no time to wonder where he was hit, how badly. He rolled over, spiralling. Von Rackow didn’t believe it and was lining up for another attack. Guy turned to face him, firing as he turned … something wet on his cheek, inside the flying helmet, dripping onto his hand when he leaned forward, head hurting … fearful smarting pain along the side somewhere … He jerked the S.E. out of its spin, fired again … more hits, but no visible sign of damage. Clouds everywhere now, rain, grey vapour scurrying past, the S.E. jumping all over the sky, sun gone … God, lightning behind von Rackow!
He could barely see now, for the blood running in his eyes, and turned blindly, kicking the rudder this way and that. There he was … yellow, seen for a moment, red stabilizer. He pressed the trigger, tracer flashing yellow fire in the dusk. He prayed for the red blossom of flame to erupt from the Albatros’s engine, but it flew on, turning tight, out of his sights, gone … he wiped desperately at his goggles with his gloved hand … tore off the gloves, tore off the goggles, wiped his face, his hand red and sticky. He saw von Rackow, coming at him again out of the black rain, and pressed the trigger button … the Vickers fired … he lifted his thumb off the trigger … the gun kept on firing. Oh God, trigger jammed, runaway gun! The belt was flying through the gun and he could not stop it. He had used the last of his Vickers ammunition, there was no possibility of being able to use the Lewis, and he ached all over with fatigue. The engine began to cough. Lightning flashed and he saw the Albatros plain. It was still shooting, while his own engine clattered and panted as if in despair. More lightning, and the engined failed – picked up – failed again. The S.E.’s nose dipped as power was lost. The propeller windmilled uselessly in front of him. He was done.
He pushed the stick forward to gain flying speed, so that he could have some control over the machine. Any moment now von Rackow would complete his turn, and – finis! He looked round, saw the Albatros coming at him, raised his hand in salute, and waited, trying not to cringe. The Albatros did not fire but passed by, very close, so that he could see the pilot’s thin blonde moustache under his goggles. ‘Get on with it,’ he shouted. He could just make out the earth below … a field, a farm building, near one corner … hard to judge his height. Why bother? Von Rackow came round again … sights on. Guy waited.
Again the Albatros swung past, this time close above, and Guy, looking up, saw that the struts of one of its landing wheels were shot through. Well, von Rackow would catch it when he landed … cartwheel at least, and with luck, catch fire … meanwhile, he was down to five hundred, the wind whistling and roaring loud now that the engine was silent … still raining – that, too, loud in his ears. Nose down a little more, he must keep up flying speed in the tight turns he’d have to make if he wanted to land in that big field …
If? He wiped more blood off his face and looked round. The Albatros was following him down … about a hundred yards back. Playing cat and mouse? Waiting till he thought he was at least going to make a safe landing, and then cutting him to pieces with those Spandaus? That wasn’t von Rackow’s reputation … but with Germans, you never knew.
He braced himself for the landing. Perhaps his own undercarriage was shot through … more likely his tail or upper wing struts damaged … one way to die wouldn’t be much different from another. Just don’t let it be a bad wound, crippling. The field rushed up in the dusk. Which way was the wind blowing? Impossible to tell in the near darkness, better assume it was south-west, as it had been when they took off, and still was when he’d seen the smoke from the chimneys toward Lille. He glanced quickly at his compass, once more brushed blood from his eyes and face with the back of his bare hand, and watched the earth take shape and form close ahead. Buildings loomed – no lights – nose down a touch more. He skimmed over a hedge and at once lifted the nose. The S.E. settled at once with a heavy bump, then rolled forward through some crop, dull green in the dusk, over hard earth, slightly ridged … He was down. Now von Rackow would fire … He heaved himself out of the cockpit, stumbled onto the wing, slipped and fell to the ground, struggled up and began to run toward the dark shapes of the buildings. The sound of the aircraft engine which had been in his ears all the way down – von Rackow’s engine – was now loud overhead, the Albatros a big dark silhouette against the lightning-shot clouds. The wings swept round and there was enough light for Guy to make out the yellow wheels and spinner. He stooped and turned, watching … von Rackow was coming down … Perhaps he could take him prisoner. He found his revolver, drew it and again started to run, this time toward the place where the Albatros would land.
From twenty yards off he watched it swoop over the hedge just beyond where he had done so himself … then he heard the engine being cut … then a splintering crash … One wing dipped into the earth, the Albatros swung round and over, a giant moth thrashing in the night, groaning and screaming in pain. Guy stumbled forward. The Albatros was lying on its side, one wing torn off, the other crumpled. The pilot was crawling out of his cockpit. Guy pointed the revolver and shouted, ‘Hands up, von Rackow!’ The German crawled on, and Guy cried furiously, ‘Hands up!’ Something bright and metallic caught his eye and he saw that it was a belt of ammunition from one of the Albatros’s Spandaus, trailing down from the gun. Then he felt a peculiar sensation of lightness, his body rising in the night toward the clouds, rain dripping from him, and … he was fainting … what? … what …?
He was on his back, swimming up to consciousness, the earth cold beneath him. A dark human shape was kneeling beside him, the bluish glint of a revolver in his hand. Guy groaned, his head aching worse than it had since he was hit. The figure said, ‘How are you? I imagine it hurts.’
Guy felt his head and found a raw gash along the right cheek, starting just by his eye and going through the flap of his ear. It was still bleeding, but not much – the side of his head was a mess of congealing blood and raw skin.
Von Rackow said, ‘Do you want your revolver back? I’ve emptied it … You don’t give up easily, do you?’
‘You’re von Rackow,’ Guy said weakly.
‘I am, and you’re Guy Rowland … the Butcher. Thirty-seven kills, isn’t it?’
‘Thirty-nine now,’ Guy said. ‘And why didn’t you shoot me down when my gun ran away – and my engine stopped?’
‘Because I had used up all mine, too. That burst that hit you – I saw your S.E. practically leap in the air … were the last rounds I had. I knew you were wounded, too, and I thought I’d take you prisoner if you could manage to land without crashing … then I was the one to crash. Broke my wrist.’ He held up his left arm to show the hand dangling from the wrist.
Guy said, ‘I saw that your undercarriage was damaged, and knew you’d crash, wherever you landed.’
Von Rackow said, ‘Well, I should have had you a couple of times before that, but to tell the truth I’m not the best shot in the world. I’d have a better score than our Rittmeister Herr Baron if I were … You’re out of petrol?’ Guy nodded, then winced. Von Rackow said, ‘We’ll find out later … where are we?’
Guy sat up, von Rackow held out his hand and helped pull him to his feet. Guy said, ‘Somewhere between Lille and Douai, but a little farther east … I can hear the guns, but they’re miles off … I’m going to wash my face if I can find any water.’
The storm was passing over, stars emerging one by one. The two young men walked together toward the building. It was a barn, empty, straw piled in one corner, a cattle trough outside, spades and pitchforks stacked inside, with a wheelbarrow and a full haycart. Guy found his handkerchief and wiped his face clean of blood, nearly fainting again with the pain as he did so. Von Rackow said, ‘Do you have a first field dressing?’
Guy nodded and found it. Von Rackow said, ‘You’ll have to open it, then we can work together to put it on.’
Carefully in the faint starlight, with the sweet smell of hay about them, they opened the
little package, applied the disinfected pad to Guy’s cheek and fastened the khaki bandage strips round his jaw and head to hold it in place. Then Guy said, ‘You should have a splint … Look, I’ll take your shirt off … mine’s soaked with blood … and make a splint … break off one of the pitchfork tines – they’re all wood.’
Carefully he took off von Rackow’s tunic, with the Pour le Merité medal, and the Iron Cross ribbon disappearing between the buttons. Then the shirt; and as it came off, von Rackow wincing with pain as the sleeve slipped over his wrist, Guy caught the dull gleam of a gold ornament hanging round the German’s neck on a gold chain, next to his skin. He could see clearly what it was, and said, ‘That’s a swastika. It’s an Indian symbol … I didn’t know it was popular in Germany.’
Von Rackow said, ‘It isn’t. They’ve never heard of it in Germany.’ Guy saw he was smiling, his teeth white and close and the eyes snapping – ‘That little good luck charm has C.J.C. Rowland inscribed on the front …’
‘Boy!’ Guy exclaimed.
‘Quite … On the back is To Boy with love from Naomi… His lady friend?’
‘His sister,’ Guy said. ‘They’re my cousins.’
‘He gave me that at the Christmas Day truce in 1914, when I was still in the infantry. Is he …?’
Guy said, ‘As far as I know.’
‘If he lived through the Somme battles he’s a lucky man … as that swastika charm has made me. And it was given to me by an enemy!’
Guy remembered something, and said suddenly, ‘Your ammunition isn’t finished. You let me live because of this.’
‘Nonsense, my dear fellow! Do you think I’d let a beastly Englander go free?’
‘I saw a full belt in one of your guns, just now.’
The German did not answer for a time, then he put out his good hand, ‘I am a sentimental fellow. I wanted to meet you.’
Guy said, ‘Thanks … I’m sorry about those fellows my first day.’
Von Rackow said, ‘I am sorry I was so … angry. Of course, you were only doing your job … but one of them was the brother of a lady I am very much in love with and hope to marry. We had known each other all our lives.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Guy said.
After a time von Rackow said, ‘C’est la guerre.’ And Guy said, ‘Sit down till I get the splint and tear up your shirt to the right size. Are you warm enough?’
‘Quite,’ von Rackow said. ‘And soon we’ll be warmer still.’
Twenty minutes later, the damaged wrist held in a splint, von Rackow said, ‘In the wreckage of my beautiful Albatros is a large flask of French brandy. Also a length of German sausage, and some rye bread. I often have a snack while flying.’
‘I eat biscuits,’ Guy exclaimed. ‘Bourbons or Nice … sweet ones. And how do you speak English so well – Werner, isn’t it?’
‘Mother’s English,’ von Rackow said, briefly – ‘Let’s get the flask.’
They walked together to the smashed Albatros and soon extracted the food and drink, returned to the barn, sat down, and in intimate silence drank water from the cattle trough, sipped brandy, and ate sausage, rye bread, and sweet biscuits.
‘My head feels better now,’ Guy said. ‘Not good, just not unbearable.’
Von Rackow nodded. Now, having spent two hours in the starlight they could see each other almost clearly, and distinguish all but the smallest changes of expression.
Von Rackow said, ‘Do you know what this war’s about?’
Guy thought for a while and said, ‘Treaties, I suppose. Belgium …’
‘We are told it is for our survival as a people,’ von Rackow said, ‘but I think it is more an expression of energy. Ever since I was a small boy I have felt that we are somehow constricted … bound in.’
Guy said, ‘And we wouldn’t let you expand.’
‘No. Because that meant sea power … which you dare not grant – though you will have to grant it to the Americans.’
Guy said, ‘Well, if that’s true, we’ve lost or are going to lose our sea power … and you’re going to lose all chance of expanding.’
‘And more treaties are being broken every day – the Hague Convention by us, the Treaty of London by you and the Americans … and countless thousands of soldiers and sailors and civilians are being shot or starved or drowned to death …’
Together they said, ‘For what, then? ’
Von Rackow was the first to speak again – ‘What can we do about it? ’
Guy said, ‘Nothing. We’ve decided to make this a test … à l’outrance … and the people want it. Even the soldiers do. There’s talk of a negotiated peace at home now, but …’
‘In Germany, too, since Bethmann-Hollweg suggested the possibility.’
‘My uncle – Boy’s father – is in the pacifist movement, I know … and a lot of people are asking, why go on with the slaughter? But the moment anyone mentions actual terms, everyone says “Not on your life.”’
‘Same in Germany,’ von Rackow said. ‘So, slowly, we’ll bleed to death … and the world with us … What on earth do you think it will be like when the war does end – whichever way it does?’
‘I can’t imagine,’ Guy said. ‘I was seventeen when it began … I can remember what it was like then, as though it were yesterday … myself, my sister, mother, maid, the flat, Turf, Wellington, jallyhoes, everything … And I can see this – the war, here, now … but the future, no. I try, but no picture comes. It’s blank.’
‘The world is going to need help, or it will never recover,’ von Rackow said. ‘And where’s it going to come from, if we’re all knocked out?’
‘America, Werner,’ Guy said. ‘They’re not going to suffer much – there isn’t time, now. They’ll have to help the rest of us afterward, for their own sakes.’
Von Rackow said, ‘It’s people who are going to need help, as well as nations … and much more urgently. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we – you and I … could do something together, for people? We would symbolize the new world … the war gone and forgotten, old enemies, new friends … healing wounds, healing minds … free from hate as well as fear.’
‘I wish I could help the infantry now,’ Guy said. ‘I feel guilty every time I fly over the trenches … I’ve been in them. My father’s in them now. Boy’s in them … the ordinary men, the private soldiers … what they suffer and endure … on both sides, French, Russians, Germans, Italians – all infantry … in the mud, the cold, freezing … and for what? How much does a German private get? No comforts, no women, except those beastly maisons de tolérance and the fat bloated whores who work in them … wounds, disablement, death.’
They did not speak again until nearly half an hour later von Rackow said, ‘I’m going to sleep in the hay now, Guy.’
Guy got up from the cart and said, ‘Me too.’ His head was aching and burning and he said, ‘Can I have another swig of the brandy?’ Von Rackow handed over the flask wordlessly and Guy drank. Then together they went to the back of the barn, and lay down side by side in the hay, and went to sleep.
In the first light of before dawn they went out together, having awoken an hour earlier and lain there in the hay, talking in low tones about their homes and families, about Florinda Gorse and Maria Rittenhaus and their homes in Kent and the Altmark.
Together they examined the smashed Albatros. ‘The fuel tank hasn’t burst,’ said Guy.
‘Good German workmanship. If it had I would probably have fried.’
They looked at the S.E., and after a few minutes von Rackow said, ‘It really seems quite serviceable, though I put a lot of holes in you. You must have the luck of the devil. All it needs to get you home is a few gallons of petrol.’
‘I’ve got an aeroplane,’ said Guy, ‘and you’ve got petrol.’
‘You have stated the technical problem very clearly. Do you suppose we can do anything about it, like looking for a container in the barn, before the farmer wakes?’
‘Worth trying, if you’re
prepared to explain to your people.’ Guy’s head was splitting, and he was only an unskilled helper to von Rackow’s efficient transfer of petrol from the German to the British plane. At last von Rackow had to help him up into the cockpit. ‘Sure you’re all right to fly?’ he asked; then, ‘And what on earth are you going to tell old Sulphuric?’
‘Don’t know … I’ll think of something … say my engine stopped because of dirty plugs and I spent the night cleaning them, then she started … or, I landed beside a crashed plane, out of fuel, but passed out and couldn’t go and look for a bucket till near dawn, to transfer petrol from it …’
‘Well, good luck.’ Von Rackow turned the propeller half a dozen times, and called up – ‘Ready?’
Guy cried ‘Contact!’ and switched on. Von Rackow bent over and turned the propeller with an awkward jerk of his body and good arm. The engine spluttered once and died. Again … again. At the third swing the cylinders caught. Von Rackow came up to the edge of the cockpit. Guy leaned out and shouted, ‘I’m not going to fire at you again, Werner.’
Von Rackow shouted back, ‘Nor I … Now get back to hospital or you’ll get gangrene.’
Guy shouted, ‘I’ll tell Boy I met you … Good luck!’ He waved his hand, pushed the throttle forward, taxied to the end of the field, turned into the slow morning wind. A farmer was coming up the lane behind, driving four brown cows. Smoke rose from a cottage half a mile away beside a dense copse. Guy pushed the throttle wide and the S.E. bounced and jumped across the shallow furrows, the farmer gazing in astonishment at the darting English plane, the wrecked Albatros and the German officer waving one hand in the air, the other dangling. The S.E. climbed away, heading west. Von Rackow watched it disappear and then walked slowly toward the cottage.
