He waits another ten minutes. There are no more artillery barrages. He decides he must stalk the Tommies, rather than wait for them. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, he begins to descend from the treetop. There is a dip in the ground close to the eastern end of the forest – near his own lines. He will hide in there and kill as many of them as fate allows, then retreat.
He is fleet-footed and sure in his sense of direction. As the British soldiers comb through the northern side of the forest, he reaches the spot he remembers and quickly gathers together twigs, branches, brushwood, to hide his position and, most especially, the flash of his rifle.
He hears the patrol in the distance. They are good. They make barely a sound. But a group of men in a forest cannot help but give themselves away. The swish of feet in bracken. The crisp footfalls on dead leaves and brittle twigs. They are coming his way. The one in charge, the one with the great bristling moustache and the stripes on his tunic, he is at the front of the line. Perfect. Cut off the head and the body will cease to function. He studies them through the telescopic sight of his Mauser 98, waiting for them to come into range. Maybe he can get two shots off. The sergeant and the younger fellow behind him. They look similar enough to be related. Perhaps they are brothers. Is it right to deprive a mother of two sons in a single day? He thinks of his own mother, who lost her two youngest on the Marne, and his finger tightens on the trigger. On impulse he switches his target. The young one first, then as the older one turns he will kill him too. That way there will be less chance of detection. He studies his target. He is no more than a boy, but his two younger brothers were barely a year or so older. He breathes deeply, preparing for his shot, and shivers involuntarily as a cold wind blows over his position.
Something catches in his throat. He stifles the urge to cough. Too late he recognises the bitter taste. Gas, from an earlier bombardment. Most of it has dissipated, but a few pockets still linger in the hollows of the forest. The urge to cough is irresistible, and the more he coughs the more he breathes in – his lungs fill with chlorine. His eyes are streaming now, he is retching and bent double in breathless agony.
Sergeant Franklin hears the man and signals for Ogden and Weale to investigate. They run towards the sound and recognise their quarry in an instant. Blackened face, helmet and uniform covered in leaves and bracken. It is the sniper. He looks at them with desperate, pleading eyes, coughing blood and phlegm. Ogden levels his rifle to shoot, but Weale pulls on his arm and shakes his head. A shot might draw the attention of other snipers.
Poor dead Moorhouse has been his pal for the whole wretched war. Weale lunges forward, a livid rage coursing through his body, and clubs the choking man to death with the butt of his rifle.
CHAPTER 12
9.30 a.m.
High above their heads Eddie Hertz checked his compass and settled into his flight path. This close to the Front you could expect to be attacked at any time after you took off. Or even as you were taking off. That was how he had got his second ‘kill’, three months ago. They were strafing a Hun aerodrome and this bright red Fokker was taking off. Just one on his own, the brave little bastard, coming up to meet the whole squadron. Eddie was flying over and the craft came into his line of fire – tail up, just ready to leave the ground. Eddie let off a long burst from his machine guns. He was close enough to see the pilot’s head jerk back as the bullets tore into him, and he swerved away as the Fokker leaped into the air. The pilot must have pulled the stick back when the bullets hit. The plane flew up twenty feet then stalled, crashing to the ground and bursting into flames. Eddie saw the pyre he had created and felt a fleeting elation. But that wore off quick enough. It wasn’t very ‘sporting’, was it, shooting a man as he tried to take off? It was too easy.
The next kill, three days later, was a damn sight more deserving. That was a day he was really proud of. The story had even made The New York Times. That had been back in August. Eddie and two of his squadron, Flight Commander Doyle Bridgman and Lieutenant Irvin Dwight, had been close to the Front when Bridgman had spotted a Hun observation plane low down on the horizon: a twin-engine Rumpler by the look of it, little more than a black dot skirting to and fro along the edge of the clouds. They had screamed down and made short work of the two-seater plane. Bridgman had fired the only shots needed to kill the crew and see the clumsy plane nosedive down to the pockmarked mud below.
But this was a short-lived victory. These observation planes were often there as bait, and as the patrol regained height Eddie suddenly heard the rat-a-tat of machine guns and saw glowing tracer bullets curve past his plane. At once they were surrounded by brightly coloured Fokkers. The four Hun fighter planes had come in straight out of the sun – just as American pilots had been warned in their training manuals. Eddie’s flight commander was in trouble. Bridgman had been wounded, that much was apparent, and his Camel was banking over to the right. Eddie could see him slumped against the side of his cockpit. He wondered if he was already dead. But then his engine caught and the man began to rouse himself, leaning forward in his cockpit to beat at the flames with one hand. Black smoke thickened, and he began to cough in great heaving spasms. The flying machine lurched sharply to the right and Eddie knew he would never see Doyle Bridgman again.
A Fokker screamed past him and Eddie immediately noticed bullet holes in the fabric of his right wing. Pushing his stick down, he wheeled his Camel into a tight right turn and searched the sky for his opponents. The odds were not good. Four Huns against him and Dwight. And this kind of Fokker, the D.VIII, was well matched with the Camels.
Eddie was too low. Too low to make an escape back to his own lines if his engine was hit and failed, too low to have any tactical advantage over his attackers. Pulling the Camel into a climb he desperately scanned the sky. He banked left, then right, but they were still nowhere to be seen. Irvin Dwight had vanished as well. Had they got him too?
The rattle of machine-gun fire and the spatter of bullets hitting canvas caught him by surprise. Even over the roar of the engine he could hear it. Two Fokkers screamed past again to his right. Eddie knew his luck was running out. Two passes, two hits on his machine. Next time, he was sure, he would be riddled with bullets. As he looked down, he saw both the Fokkers taking a tight right turn, in close formation. He jerked his control column and flew to meet them head on. This was a manoeuvre neither of the German pilots was expecting. Eddie started to fire, well before he was in effective range, but the sight of his tracer bullets hurtling towards them must have unnerved one of his opponents, because the right-hand plane immediately veered to the left. It was a disastrous move. Catching his fellow pilot on the wing, his propeller sheered off great chunks of wood and fabric, and both planes began to plummet to earth. Eddie pulled his stick back, climbing out of the path of the two aircraft.
The plane that had been hit was doomed. Its starboard wing now barely half its normal length, it dropped from the sky. The one that had crashed into it was luckier. Although its propeller had been lost, the plane was still airworthy, and the pilot put it in a steep dive to build up speed and enable him to glide to earth.
Eddie wondered if he should chase the blighter and finish him off. But there were other German planes to worry about. He decided to leave the man to his fate. If he survived, he would have to live with the shame of his clumsy manoeuvre.
Banking swiftly to port, Eddie could see two, no, three planes a thousand feet below. It was Dwight, he was sure of it, pursued by the two other Fokkers. The odds were even now. Eddie took his Camel into a steep downward curve and within moments he was close behind the two German planes. He kept expecting them to veer off, but neither pilot seemed to have noticed him. Maybe they had assumed their comrades had shot him down. They were closing in on Dwight, and certain of a kill. The lead Fokker began to fire his guns, and Eddie decided he could wait no longer. Although he was still out of effective range, he pressed the trigger on his two Vickers machine guns and sprayed the sky with bullets and tracer.
He had arrived too late to help Irvin Dwight. As he flew closer, Eddie could see Dwight’s plane peppered with bullets from nose to tail and the pilot slumped forward in his cockpit. Eddie changed his target, aiming now at the lead Fokker and cutting a long burst into the centre of the airplane. He guessed he had caught the pilot completely unawares because he took no evasive action. Eddie’s shots hit home, and the engine immediately caught. Within a few seconds the entire front was enveloped in flame. Eddie cried out in savage glee as the plane set into a deep dive, smearing the sky with oily black smoke. Now there were just two of them left. One to one.
The final Fokker had vanished again. Eddie hurriedly searched around and found him soon enough. He was climbing, maybe a quarter of a mile ahead. Eddie gave chase, the two planes circling in great wide arcs all alone in the vast blue canopy of the sky. There were few clouds in this sector, and Eddie was certain he would catch this fellow if he kept on his tail.
He looked around, anxious that he should not be jumped by more German fighters but there was no one else there. His opponent had made a fatal tactical error. The Camel and the D.VIII were well matched in speed and armament, but the Camel could go a couple of thousand feet higher. If the Fokker kept climbing, Eddie would eventually get above him and then the German pilot would be at his mercy.
Soon Eddie was flying at a height he rarely reached. His opponent was still there in front of him. Eddie steeled himself to keep his eyes firmly on the aircraft ahead and not become distracted by the great panorama below. He was so high now he could see past the wasteland of the Western Front, beyond the pockmarked mud, the livid scars of the trenches, to greener land beyond.
It was getting really cold now, and Eddie noticed how deeply he was having to breathe. His engine was struggling too, beginning to splutter. He was finding it difficult to stay focused on his quarry. He wondered if the Hun pilot was having the same problem with lack of oxygen at this altitude. He adjusted his fuel mixture and hoped his Camel would not let him down.
Perhaps it was a momentary loss of concentration, or even consciousness, but all at once Eddie could no longer see his enemy. Willing himself to raise his body up and further into the freezing slipstream, he leaned over his cockpit and spotted him. The Fokker was making a steep dive towards the German lines. Eddie waited until his opponent was slightly below his height, then turned his Camel and pulled his throttle to its full extent. The engine screamed in its housing, and the struts began to sing as the small plane strained against the forces of momentum and gravity. Eddie worried that the bullet holes in his wing might have fatally damaged the canvas, but his erks had done a good maintenance job. As far as he could tell, there was no tearing of fabric, and the Camel’s airframe seemed to be holding up to this punishing treatment.
As he closed in on the Fokker, Eddie prepared to fire his guns. He was low on ammunition now, he reckoned, so this time he would wait until he was well within range.
The German pilot was certainly not making it easy for him. Whenever Eddie lined up for a shot, the Fokker veered off to the left or right. It took four attempts for Eddie to finally get close enough to the German plane to be able to follow him into his turns and dives, and by then the altimeter told him they were down to five thousand feet.
Eddie was level behind the Fokker when he unleashed his bullets. The tracer shots showed him he had found his target and immediately he had to veer sharply right to avoid being hit by debris peeling off the stricken plane. The Fokker slowed down as its engine spluttered and stopped, and Eddie sped ahead, fearing he might fly in front of his foe and allow him to fire his own guns. But the pilot had enough on his mind.
The Fokker’s nose dropped and it dived towards the ground. Once more above his opponent, Eddie followed him down. There was no smoke, no flames. He wondered whether to fire again, but he couldn’t see the point. The Fokker was gliding now. He could see its stationary propeller. His opponent would be lucky to survive his landing.
Eddie could see hedgerows and lanes below, and the German pilot was trying to line up his machine to land on a straight empty road through the middle of a field. Eddie circled, wondering where they were. He guessed they were several miles behind the German lines – certainly somewhere as yet untouched by fighting.
The Hun was going to do it – he was flying above the road, and gently placed his Fokker down, coasting for a couple of hundred yards or so as the powerless machine lost momentum. In a flash Eddie realised he had missed his ‘kill’. Once the engine had been repaired the machine would still be flight-worthy. The pilot might have been injured, but he couldn’t have been that badly hurt to execute such a good dead-stick landing.
What was stopping him strafing the plane on the ground and killing the pilot? Should he do it? Two kills in one day. That would impress the girls back home, and the stuffed shirts at Yale. Eddie decided he would do it. Hell, all was fair in love and war, they kept saying. Maybe this bastard would have done the same to him, and two of his pals had just slaughtered Bridgman and Dwight. He turned the Camel into a tight curve, feeling himself pressed hard into his seat, and flew low towards his target. As he approached, he could see the Hun nimbly leaping from the cockpit. Eddie thought he was going to run for his life. Good. Then he could destroy the machine at least, and claim his kill. But the pilot didn’t run; he stood there by the wing, stiffly to attention, and saluted. You won, he seemed to be saying, and I respect you. That was it. Eddie pulled back the control stick and waggled his wings as he flew over. He wasn’t going to kill a man like that.
As he climbed into the sky, he noticed the scar of the Western Front to the west. It was time to head for home.
He landed to a hero’s welcome – the squadron carrying him back to the mess on their shoulders, but not before his aircrew had told him his Camel had fifty-eight bullet holes in it. One of them had almost severed a control wire to his ailerons. The steel wire was barely held by a thread. If that had gone, then he would have lost control of his plane and almost certainly plunged into a fatal spiral.
‘We thought you’d bought it with Dwight and Bridgman,’ said his erk. ‘We’d heard about them already. Bridgman crashed behind the British lines. Dwight came down just inside Hunland. And reports on the ground say you got three Huns.’
Eddie couldn’t lie. When he presented his flight report and claimed his kill, he told his squadron leader that two of the Fokkers had crashed into each other, and one had definitely gone down. The fourth had escaped with a dead-stick landing.
‘Bad luck, Hertz,’ he said. ‘As your commanding officer, I’m duty bound to tell you I would have polished him off on the way down,’ he said with a wink, ‘or got him on the ground, but I suppose your guns jammed, eh?’
Eddie nodded and laughed. He wasn’t going to tell his CO the story about the saluting pilot. But he wondered again if he should have shot him and destroyed the plane.
That night in the mess, as they celebrated his return and his third victory with a bottle of champagne, Eddie raised a glass to propose a toast to his absent friends Dwight and Bridgman, and felt a pang of admiration for the German pilot he had outwitted. He wished all aerial combat could end like that.
Since then he had mainly flown infantry support missions – shooting up the Huns on the ground as they fled before the might of the Allies, who seemed unstoppable now. All the way to Berlin. The landscapes had changed. When he first arrived, it was all bombed-out farmhouses and villages, great pockmarked landscapes and charcoal trees. Now the Germans were retreating through fresh countryside which had been untouched by war for four years.
And that sort of action didn’t seem very sporting either. Eddie knew some of the pilots thought it was funny to shoot at fleeing men. When they boasted about it in the officer’s mess, they would imitate the actions of terrified soldiers, running here and there in blind panic, and laugh. Those sorts of men loved to shoot up troop trains too – watch the locomotive explode in a great geyser of compressed steam, and all the carriages
career off the lines. It was a cold-blooded business, and a single plane could destroy the lives of hundreds of men, with a well-placed bomb or a long burst of machine-gun fire. Shooting down planes was far better. Each man had a chance, not like the poor bastards trapped inside a train carriage or a cattle car. Eddie couldn’t stomach this kind of boasting.
Eddie checked his watch. An hour had passed. Clearly the Huns were not sending any of their men up this autumnal morning. He felt his chances ebbing away. Four Huns. It wasn’t enough. Then he remembered the attack on Aulnois and took a quick look at his map. The village was a couple of kilometres away from the town of Saint-Libert and just south of a dense forest. He was sure he had flown over that earlier. It would be easy enough to spot, even on a day like this.
He dived away from the blue vista back through the clouds and into the gloom of a dismal November day. Eddie had a good sense of place and direction and quickly spotted the forest and the church tower close by. He looked at his watch. 09.55. The attack was due at any moment.
A short burst of artillery fire blossomed on the ground beneath him, and he wondered about the wisdom of flying too close to that. What an ignominious end – to be hit by your own artillery on the last day of the war. Plenty of pilots he knew had been shot down by their own side in the previous few months.
Eleven Eleven Page 7
