When he was dressed he found that he had been right. He was thinking clearly and well about every detail of what lay ahead and the way he had planned the patrol. Physically he felt ready to tackle anything. But he didn’t believe in the validity of the operation. He agreed that by the time the squadron could react to an attack by the Schlastas it would be too late to prevent it, but at least they would be in time to shoot several of the blighters down: which was their real function. Let the chaps in the trenches fend for themselves: there were plenty of dugouts at hand to duck into. This way, they might break up an attack; with a bit of luck: but in the process they were running an absurd risk of collisions.
He was not afraid. He hated unnecessary loss of life and aeroplanes.
Codrington was the first to arrive at the squadron’s flight line, as usual. He spent the few minutes talking to the ground crews.
Stokoe, Baird and Paxton turned up next. All were yawning and taciturn. The rest arrived on their heels. No one was talkative.
The engines warmed up, emitting sparks with the smoke from their exhausts. A flarepath had been laid and lit. Paraffin-soaked tow gave off a dull, smoky light, the nearest lamps showing up sharply, the ones beyond becoming increasingly blurred with distance.
Codrington led the squadron off the ground as soon as the sun was truly above the horizon and its rays were of some use in lighting the scene. He hoped that the mist would clear more quickly than it had during the past few mornings.
*
Dupuis drank his coffee in characteristic gulps.
Gabin, standing opposite to him in the group around the small table in a corner of the mess dining-room, told himself that if the C.O. weren’t always so hasty and impulsive he would be a much more comfortable leader behind whom to fly. Dupuis made an unpleasant sound when he sucked down his coffee so hurriedly. Gabin thought it odd that Dupuis did not offend his own ears: he, the prototypical career officer; as he liked to fancy himself. Gabin reflected that Dupuis was over-much enamoured with the cavalry image of dash and bravado. A blind charge was not going to do any of them any good on a morning like this. Thank God he himself was the best pilot on the squadron and could look after himself.
Dupuis and his pilots — the sergeants were admitted to the officers’ mess for the pre-take-off coffee — went through the customary French pantomime of politeness at the day’s first encounter. Everyone shook hands with everyone else. The contacts were perfunctory. They brushed palm to palm, using whichever hand was free. A man holding a coffee cup would offer his hand left hand to the right hand of a new arrival who was unburdened. Some merely linked their little fingers. It was a farcical ritual but obligatory. To ignore it gave great offence: a pitfall to visiting foreigners. On occasion they had British or American officers staying overnight and those who were ignorant of the custom were remembered with contumely.
Dupuis had a sharp eye for such omissions. He smoked his third cigarette of the day, sucked at his coffee, roved his eyes around the group; said nothing.
He never encourages anyone, Gabin thought. He has been conditioned to believe that “Follow me”, barked sternly, is enough. Well, it’s bad luck on the others this morning; but I’ll be flying rearguard, which’ll give me a little time to jink out of the way if there’s an aerial pile-up.
Dupuis put down his cup, lit one more cigarette to consume on the walk to the aircraft, didn’t look directly at anyone.
“Allons.”
They went, following him even if they had not finished their coffee. Gabin trudged at his side but Dupuis remained silent, his pale, taut face inscrutable.
*
Kaczinski and Andretti wolfed their breakfast cereal, pancakes, eggs, crisply fried bacon, jam — some of it spread on pancakes with bacon and egg on top of it — and drank huge cups of coffee. Everyone talked incessantly. A British officer encountering such a din at breakfast would have turned about and left the room.
Andretti had dosed himself with his poisonous brew: tentatively, for he found the consequences horrible. But he preferred vomiting and stomach pains to bullets. He was waiting for the ingested nicotine to take effect. In the meantime he bragged as loudly as the next man about what he was going to do to the goddam Sauerkraut-eaters if he saw any of them today.
He craved two things: permanent release from the Front, and an adolescent girl. Whether he stayed in France or returned to America was a matter of indifference. If only he could get away from the fighting line, he would become an instructor at some aerodrome near a big town; where he would be able to find the sort of girls he wanted. He would be able to show off to the pupil pilots and lie about his combat experience. If he returned to the States, the longer he stayed away the greater the glory to which he could pretend. And, of course, the supply of pubescent girls would be abundant.
When he thought about the avenue of escape with which he had provided himself his appetite sharpened. When the realisation of what he might have to endure that day thrust itself forward he almost choked on his food.
He eyed Kaczinski and hoped that he would report that the weather made any operational flying impossible. Anyway, the good old cigar juice should start to take effect in time to keep him on the ground all day.
Kaczinski got up from the table and swaggered out, calling back from the door. “Take your time, you guys. Just leave every little thing to the guy who can fly no matter what. Hey! Anyone wanna bet I’ll be the first one to shoot down a goddam German when we finally do get around to meeting the sons-o’-bitches up there?” He jerked a thumb upwards.
Several people called out to lay bets. In a flurry of wagers offered and taken, he went out to his Spad feeling heroic.
*
Rudel and his officers started the day with hot milk laced with brandy. The sergeants began theirs with tots of brandy in their tasteless coffee.
They could hear the din of the artillery barrage that was battering the enemy trenches in preparation for an assault. They could not go in until the barrage ceased. Rudel looked at his watch.
“Time to go, gentlemen. Good hunting.”
They found the sergeants already standing by their aircraft. Rudel’s and Weisbach’s machines were parked side by side and Ehrler and Seeckt were talking quietly. The mechanics had run up the engines and there was a smell of exhaust fumes and hot oil. By this time Rudel responded to them as eagerly as he used to react to the odours of horses and stables. For Weisbach they were always a nostalgic reminder of his days as a novice pilot in the Fatherland: when pilots were a novelty and attracted universal attention, all airmen belonged to an international brotherhood and anyone who had predicted an imminent war would have been laughed at.
Rudel parked his car behind the row of Hannover 3As. He, Weisbach and the three officers in the back seat climbed out, dropped their cheroot butts on the grass and trod them out. Rudel raised an arm and beckoned. Everybody gathered around him.
“Any last-minute questions?”
There were two or three. As always, the nervous ones had something to say. It was a palliative and a release, as he knew. He always kept a suspicious eye on those who showed this sign of anxiety.
They went aboard and restarted the engines. The Hannovers made a great deal of noise and puffed out an abundance of acrid exhaust fumes and smoke. The sun had begun to penetrate the mist. Perhaps it would clear at last. They had better hurry.
Ten minutes after they had taken off, the barrage ceased. Rudel saw that the flickering flashes that marked the artillery positions no longer showed through the mist. He could no longer hear the guns’ thunder above the noise of the aircraft engines. He checked the time on his watch and began turning towards the enemy positions.
Codrington’s squadron, patrolling east and west behind the reserve trenches to keep out of the way of falling shells, noted that the barrage had ceased. He led the Brisfits northward to patrol between the first line and support trenches.
To the east of them, Dupuis led his Spads from the south of th
e shell-wrecked village where the French reserve troops waited, towards the front line.
Kaczinski and Andretti sat in their cockpits while their engines warmed up, waiting for their C.O. to give the signal to start taxiing towards the down-wind side of the aerodrome. A few minutes after Kaczinski’s return from the weather flight a message had come to say that as soon as the enemy barrage lifted an attack was expected from the air.
Andretti had run to the lavatory and tried to vomit. He felt horribly bilious. But he could only retch. His stomach clenched so tightly that it could not reject its contents. He prayed that the nicotine would take effect, but it did not.
Rudel saw the Allied wire loom up, then the sandbagged parapet; and then the trench. He flew along it, guiding his machine up and down in a series of switchbacks while he and Ehrler alternately pumped bullets into the soldiers below. He carried four twenty-kilogram bombs under each wing. At intervals he pulled the toggle to release them in pairs. Ehrler, facing backwards, saw them burst with bright red flashes on the parapet and in the trench.
Weisbach, half-way down the formation, which was flying in line astern, watched the others going up and down, firing tracer, releasing their bombs. He timed his own actions precisely to follow theirs. He heard the hammering of Seeckt’s machine-gun and he saw Allied soldiers falling under the tracer fire from his own.
He saw Spads dimly through the mist and low cloud, coming fast from the east at the same moment that Dupuis caught sight of the Hannovers.
Seeckt had seen them too. He swung his Parabellum around on its mounting and gave Dupuis’s machine a burst. That damned Frenchman must have thought he was still safely out of sight! Seeckt saw his tracer slam into the Spad, right through the port side of the cockpit. The Spad nosed down, hit the ground and its petrol and ammunition caught fire and exploded. A gust of hot air washed over the Hannover. Seeckt felt the heat on his face.
Codrington saw the Spad burning on the ground from a long distance away. He could see another fire also: he hoped it was a German machine.
Visibility was appalling. He had never been in a battle like this. The air was crowded with machines. He had fleeting glimpses of Spads and Hannovers. This was a crazy whirligig and there were bound to be collisions. He was staring until his eyes watered, trying to get in a shot.
Behind him, Stokoe was swinging his two Vickers guns from side to side, up and down, taking pot shots at every briefly glimpsed Hannover.
Suddenly there were more Spads. These had American markings and bore strange personal and squadron insignia on their fuselages. Codrington glimpsed Uncle Sam, a pair of dice, a royal flush poker hand, a red Indian’s profile and war bonnet, in quick succession.
Kaczinski, when he first saw the Hannovers, uttered a whoop of triumph and opened fire. He saw his bullets strike the nearest one, but it flew on. He chased after it, oblivious of all else. He kept firing and in a few seconds smoke began to trickle from it. Kaczinski whooped again. The last sound he was destined to utter.
Ehrler had seen the Americans. He had seen one of them totally preoccupied with pursuing one of the Hannovers. He saw the Hannover hit. He lined up his sights, fired and blew Kaczinski’s head clean off his shoulders. The Spad flew on, losing height.
Andretti saw Kaczinski killed, spewed his breakfast down his coat front, felt a burning intestinal pain and realised that the nicotine was doing its work. He felt dizzy. He would go home. He pulled up and banked away.
Seeckt, from a distance of a hundred yards, perceived through the gloom the plan outline of a turning Spad with American markings. He fired a snap burst and hit it in the fuel tank, which erupted with a vivid flash and scattered bits of Andretti and his aeroplane far and wide over no-man’s-land.
Gabin had shot down two Hannovers. He saw another and made towards it. Ehrler saw him coming. He turned, tapped Rudel on the shoulder and shouted in his ear.
“Don’t turn for a moment ... difficult head-on shot.”
Rudel had been turning to starboard in order to come round for another bombing and strafing run. At that moment he was on a northerly heading: towards the German lines. Only a hundred yards separated the Germans and Allies there.
Gabin fired. His bullets hit the Hannover’s tail.
Ehrler fired and his bullets chopped into the Spad’s propeller and engine.
Gabin heard the scream of the run-away air screw and felt its violent vibration. He cut the engine. He tried to turn the Spad back. It had not even half-completed the turn when it hit the ground close behind the German support trench in a shower of dust and stones.
German soldiers came running to take Gabin prisoner. He had not seen Dupuis killed. He told himself: My God! It’s going to be bad enough being a prisoner. I hope Dupuis gets back safely: I couldn’t stand being locked up in a prison camp with him for the rest of the war.
Paxton was bemused by the swarm of enemy and friendly machines which kept appearing suddenly and as suddenly disappearing. The turbulent air demanded such concentration on flying that he was leaving most of the shooting to Baird. Baird had shot down two Hannovers and was hardly noticing the pitching and yawing of the Bristol Fighter.
Codrington had had three narrow escapes from collision. The mist was clearing rapidly and the worst danger was past. Also there were fewer aeroplanes crowding the air space.
He saw a Hannover dart towards him from the German side and quickly turned to make a quarter attack from above. Ehrler saw him coming and prepared to open fire as soon as the Brisfit came into his sights.
Weisbach was making a final run along the Allied front trench. He had dropped all his bombs. Now he was spraying the trench with long bursts of his Spandau.
Seeckt saw a Bristol Fighter dive through the thinning mist. He raised his Parabellum, which had been lowered in readiness to strafe the trench. Tracer came towards him from the observer’s gun. He acknowledged another brilliant marksman. That enemy observer was damned good ... at the range and in such visibility ...
Baird, shooting at Weisbach’s machine, shifted his aim a fraction. His bullets riddled Weisbach, who toppled sideways and half-out of his seat. Seeckt’s last burst of fire hit the Brisfit and tore through Baird’s legs from ankle to hip. Seeckt traversed his gun, prolonging his final effort while the Hannover dived gently towards the front trench. His last few bullets hit Paxton in the shoulders and chest. The two machines were both diving and on converging courses. They collided above the front line trench. Locked together they struck the ground, tearing away fifty yards of parapet, burning fiercely, their unused ammunition making staccato explosions and giving off puffs of smoke and flashes of tracer.
Rudel had saved two bombs for a parting attack. He enjoyed strafing but best of all he liked to see the bright explosions of his bombs when he looked back over his shoulder.
Ehrler had shouted a warning that a Bristol Fighter was coming in from astern and above. Rudel shouted “I leave him to you,” and gave all his attention to the business of bombing.
Codrington and Stokoe both fired at the Hannover.
Codrington put in a burst, then turned enough to give Stokoe a shot; turned again to take another shot himself.
Their bullets hit the Hannover along the whole length of the port side of its fuselage, severing control cables and breaking up the engine.
The Hannover tipped onto its side in a sideslip. Fifty yards behind the British support trench, its wingtips hit the ground and crumpled, cushioning the impact. It pivoted in a semi-circle and subsided.
Rudel, with blood oozing from a wound in the shoulder, and Ehrler, clutching his bullet-shattered left arm with his right, clambered out with the crackling of fire in their ears. They stood, surrounded by British infantrymen with fixed bayonets, watching the fire spread. Some of the British troops, with a vague idea that an enemy machine would be of value to Intelligence, tried to quench the fire with earth and water scooped in their steel helmets from a shell hole.
Rudel turned angrily to Ehrler.
>
“What the hell are you grinning at?”
“Grinning, sir? I’m laughing. In a prisoner of war camp, I’ll be well beyond my wife’s reach.”
Rudel, weakened by shock and in the euphoria of surviving a very close brush with a violent death, began to laugh as well.
They were still laughing when they saw two airmen in British uniform approaching them. Looking past them, they saw the Bristol Fighter where Codrington had landed it on a patch of flat waste ground.
One of the enemy officers was of medium build and wore a long leather coat. The other, who wore a Sidcot suit, was as tall and broad as Seeckt.
For a fleeting moment Ehrler wondered how Seeckt had fared. He hoped Leutnant Weisbach, who would take command of the Schlasta, would send him on leave
Codrington and Stokoe came up to them and looked them over.
Rudel clicked his heels.
“Hauptmann Rudel.”
Codrington sketched a salute and announced his rank and name.
“Do you speak English Hauptmann?”
“Nein.”
“Français?”
“Oui.”
“Good. I’m sorry to see you both wounded.”
“You would prefer to see us dead, perhaps?”
“That is not what I meant.” Ehrler was standing at attention, still clutching his wounded arm. “Tell your observer to stand easy, please.”
“Sergeant Ehrler ...”
Ehrler’s knees gave way and he fell in a faint from pain and loss of blood.
Medical orderlies began to attend to him and to Rudel while Codrington and Stokoe watched.
Rudel gave his vanquishers a wry look.
“It was a good fight, ja?”
“You did well. We outnumbered you, with the French and Americans showing up unexpectedly.”
“Thank you, Herr Major, I appreciate that. Magnanimity in victory is more gracious than in defeat. I envy you but without resentment. You are lucky: you can go on fighting.”
Stokoe asked “What did he say?”
No Wrath of Men Page 16
