by John Wilson
I drop my pack and work the two blades out of the wood. As I hand them back to him, I say, “Whereabouts in the States are you from?”
“Kansas,” he says in an exaggerated drawl as he takes the knives from me.
“So what are you doing over here in the RFC?”
“Was bored looking down on that flat prairie all the time. Thought I’d come and see what a bit of history looks like from up there.” He jerks his thumb toward the barn roof. “But you’re no limey yourself, kid.”
“Canadian,” I say.
“The Canadian Kid. This place’s real international. Ever heard of a place called Moose Jaw?”
I can hardly believe my ears. “My dad’s farm is thirty-five miles west of there.”
Bowie hauls his leg back over the arm of the sofa and leans forward with interest. “Then you must know Horst.”
“He’s my uncle!” I say, amazed to hear his name here. “How do you know him?”
“Well, I’ll be.” Bowie jumps to his feet, and in two strides, he has me in a bear hug. When he lets me go, he looks me up and down. “This Canadian Kid is Horst’s nephew,” he says in wonderment, ignoring my question. “How is the old German?”
“He was fine, according to the last letter I received. How do you know him?” I repeat.
“Oh, he sent me a letter, must be seven or eight years ago now. He’d got my name from somewhere and knew that I had worked with the Wrights. He wanted to know how to build a flying machine.” Bowie laughs, a deep, resonant sound. “Like it was some kid’s toy. Still, I put him onto some things, and before I know it, he writes back to say he’s flown his homemade machine. Strange name—Bessy or Bella, or something like that.”
“Bertha,” I say.
“Yeah, that’s it. Bertha! Anyway, we’ve been writing back and forth ever since. I don’t build my own machines, but Horst sure gave me lots of advice when it came to modifying the ones I had. Did he teach you to fly?”
“He did. Him and Ted down in Montana.”
“Ted still run that flying school?”
“He did.”
“Did?”
“He died a few weeks back. Went down in a storm coming home from Bismarck.”
“Aw, now that’s a shame. He was a good guy, and a fine pilot.” Turning to Wally, Bowie says, “You look after the Canadian Kid. If he’s half the flyer Horst is, he’ll run rings around any of that crowd of lunatics you call a squadron.” Bowie suddenly tilts his head to one side and listens. “Speaking of lunatics, here’s one coming now.”
I can’t hear anything, but I follow the other two outside. The bagpipes have stopped and everyone is staring off to the east. Eventually I see a black dot against the darkening sky. The dot grows until I recognize it as a Parasol flying just above the treetops. Silence descends as the engine cuts and the Parasol glides in and bumps to a halt. Everyone rushes forward, but they stop when the pilot lifts his goggles onto his forehead, sticks his arm out of the cockpit and gives a thumbs-down. Grumbling, the others turn and head back to the barn.
“That’s Mick,” Bowie says as the pilot hauls himself out of his cockpit. “A mad Irishman, but a fine flyer. Right now he’s the squadron’s best chance of getting an ace. Only man here who actually enjoys the war. That right, Mick?”
“I’m thinking I should be back in Ireland fighting the English,” Mick says. He’s short and powerfully built, with a shock of ginger hair. “Now that I would enjoy. I got nothing against Fritz personally, but I didn’t like the way he invaded Belgium without so much as a by-your-leave. We small countries got to stick together, and the Irish know what it’s like to be invaded. And once you decide to fight, there’s no point in going at it halfway. You don’t start a fight, but if one breaks out, you fight to win.”
Mick has carried on walking as he speaks and I can barely hear what he is saying by the end.
“See what I mean?” Bowie says. “Mad as a hatter. Thinks the kaiser was trying to annoy him personally by invading Belgium.”
“What did you mean when you said Mick was the squadron’s best chance of getting an ace?”
“An ace is someone who’s shot down five enemy planes,” Bowie explains. “Squadron’s been here five months now. Be nice if we had an ace on the roster. I’ve got two kills; Wally and Jock, the bagpipe player, have three each. But Mick’s got four. One more and he’ll be an ace. We all want to get there, for the pride of the squadron”—Bowie winks at me—“and because you get leave when you reach five. Anyway, Mick’s our best chance.” His brow furrows in worry. “Trouble is, he’s taking it too serious. He’s always taken risks, but he’s becoming obsessed. Goes up every chance he gets, flying deep over the lines looking for something. Does crazy things. Dangerous things. I’ve seen him come back with a lot less plane than he left with. We all pray that he gets number five soon.” He looks uneasily at Mick’s plane. “But listen to me, whining on about our problems when you just got here. Come on over to the barn and meet the others. And I want to hear some stories about Horst.”
I follow Bowie back across the field, feeling overwhelmed. The talk of kills is jarring. I’ve thought a lot about shooting down enemy planes, but calling victories “kills” reminds me that there’s another human being flying the opposing aircraft, even if he is a Fritz. I suppose it’s something I’m going to have to get used to.
I also wonder if everyone in the RFC is as eccentric as the characters I’ve met here so far—a fanatical Irishman, a knife-throwing American and a Scot who takes his bagpipes on patrol for luck. Well, maybe the last isn’t that crazy. After all, I plan to take Horst’s Pour le Mérite up with me. I shrug. It doesn’t matter. I’m here for better or worse. These are the men I’m going to have to live and fight with. This is my family from now on.
CHAPTER 11
The Immelmann Turn—March 1916
“Okay, Kid,” Bowie says. In the past two weeks, my nickname has shortened from the Canadian Kid to simply Kid. We’re standing in the dawn light beside two Parasols with their engines warming up. A fitter and a rigger—the mechanics whose job it is to keep the Parasols repaired and flying—stand beside each machine. “Keep your distance,” Bowie instructs. “A couple of hundred yards behind and the same above. Never stop scanning the sky around you. I’ll not be flying flat out, so if you see something, pull up beside me and point.”
I’ve heard all this before, but this will be my first time flying over the trenches into enemy territory, so I listen hard. Most of the other pilots are out on reconnaissance duty. Bowie’s idea is for us to go hunting, as Mick does on his own.
“You’ve done good so far,” Bowie continues, “but this ain’t the same as pretending to shoot me down. I plan to climb as high as these things’ll go and see if we can surprise Fritz. Do exactly as I do, and if we get in a fight, try not to shoot me down. Get within one hundred yards of Fritz before you open fire, else you won’t hit a thing.” He turns to me and places a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “In a fight, you’re not going to remember any of this. It all happens too quickly. Just don’t let anyone get on your tail. Don’t fly straight. Keep turning and keep looking. You ready, Kid?”
I nod and we climb into our machines. I’ve taken to tying Horst’s Pour le Mérite to one of the exposed struts inside the cockpit. I figure that if it brings me luck in my pocket, it’ll bring even more luck out in the open. We’re all superstitious—Bowie takes his knives with him, Jock his bagpipes. Even Mick has a routine of walking round his plane three times and touching certain pieces before he climbs in. We all profess to believe it does no good, but we all do it every flight. Who knows?
I take off and climb into the lightening sky. At first I’m so nervous that all I can do is concentrate on keeping my position behind and above Bowie, but then I relax and look around. I’ve seen the front lines before—the zigzag network of trenches, the shell craters, the huge tethered observation balloons. It all looks so peaceful from up here. It’s hard to believe that just below, tens
of thousands of men are cowering in holes in the ground, unable to lift their heads without being killed. I smile as I watch the lines drift past below me. I am over enemy territory now. Odd how it looks the same. I abruptly remember where I am and start scanning the sky around me. There’s little danger on our side of the lines—the Fokkers are forbidden to cross into our territory in case they crash and the secrets of their synchronized machine guns fall into our hands—but here …
My neck soon hurts from craning around. I don’t need to look so often. Much as they’re feared, the Fokkers aren’t magical. They can’t appear from nowhere. They have to approach us at about the same speed we’re flying, so there’s usually plenty of time to see them. I settle into the rhythm that Bowie has taught me, checking each quadrant of the sky systematically every thirty seconds or so. Often enough to prevent anyone from sneaking up on me.
Bowie waves his arm above the wing and indicates that he is going to turn. Gently we ease to the right until we are flying south, parallel to the line of observation balloons in the distance. The sun is rising in the sky to my left, a huge orange ball of fire that is painful to look at. I keep scanning. Then I see it—a biplane far below us and to my right, flying in a steady course parallel to ours.
I adjust the fuel mixture to speed up, then drop down until I am flying beside Bowie. I point to the biplane. I’m close enough to see Bowie smile. He points to his chest and holds up two fingers. It’s one of ours, he’s telling me—a B.E.2c. I feel like a fool. To gain altitude, I maintain my speed and begin a climbing turn away from Bowie. The sun is right in front of me, and something catches the edge of my vision. I complete my turn and scan. Nothing. Wait, there is something! A black dot at the bottom of the sun. I squint against the glare. The dot becomes a shape as it moves away from the sun. It’s a plane, a monoplane, and it’s diving toward the B.E. It’s a Fokker, a hunter just like us!
I look for Bowie. He’s below me and behind. After my turn I forgot to reduce speed and I’ve overtaken him. By the time I slow and drop into formation beside him, it’ll be too late for the B.E. I make a snap decision and drop the Parasol’s nose into a dive toward the Fokker.
Bowie quickly picks up what I’m doing. Before I get to the Fokker, he flashes over me with a wave. I try to keep up and watch. The German pilot is focused on his prey and hasn’t seen us. Bowie’s on the German’s tail and closing fast. Why doesn’t he fire? He wants to get close enough to be certain. I’m almost holding my breath. Finally, I hear the rattle of his Lewis gun. At the same instant, the German pilot flips the Fokker into a twisting, diving loop. In a flash, he’s reversed direction and is flying straight at me. He isn’t expecting me to be here, and I’m close enough to see the shocked look on his face. I fire my own Lewis gun. The Fokker roars past only feet above me. Something splashes onto my windshield. Oil! I must have hit him. I strain to look back and see the Fokker spinning out of control. I watch until it hits the ground in a tiny puff of dust. I try not to think that there was a man in that plane.
Bowie is beside me, grinning and waving a thumbs-up. He points toward home. I turn to follow him, still stunned by what has happened. I’ve shot down an enemy plane on my first sortie across the lines! The thrill is almost as great as going solo the first time or looping the loop. I whoop with delight, and then remember that we’re not home yet and return to scanning the sky.
Bowie lands first, and by the time I stop my plane outside the barn, a crowd has gathered. Everyone wants to shake my hand and pat me on the back. Only Mick holds back, staring sullenly from the shadows of the barn door.
“Well done, Kid,” Bowie says, clasping me in his trademark bear hug. “And you got the mark of an ace on your windshield.”
I look at the dark spots as Bowie releases me. “I must have hit him in the engine to get splashed with oil like that.”
“Oil?” Bowie laughs. “That’s not oil, Kid. That’s blood. The mark of an ace is to get close enough to get blood on your windshield from the kill.”
A wave of nausea overwhelms me, and I fall to my knees and retch on the ground. I feel Bowie’s arm round my shoulder.
“It’s always bad the first time, Kid. You’ll get used to it.”
Will I?
“That, Kid, was an Immelmann turn.” Bowie and I are sitting on an overstuffed sofa in the middle of the barn. High wooden partitions mark off bunk space for the pilots around the walls, but the center is a communal area. It’s furnished with a wild assortment of articles: the sofa, various chairs, a long oak table and several standard lamps with wires trailing across the floor to a generator outside. At one end, several pilots are congregated round a scuffed pool table. The others lounge about, reading or talking. The wall behind the pool table is decorated with broken propellers, fragments of planes and pieces of fabric bearing numbers or, in one case, a black Maltese cross. This is our trophy wall, a place to display whatever mementos pilots have been able to salvage from their victories.
“What’s an Immelmann turn?” I ask. I’m still feeling confused by this morning’s events, but Bowie and the others have assured me that it’s a common reaction, and that I’ll soon get over it. The feeling of being part of a close-knit group is powerful. Only Mick hasn’t shaken my hand.
“It’s named after Max Immelmann, the German ace. He invented it as a way of turning on your opponents to get a second attack in, but as you saw, it works when you’re in trouble too. Or it would have if you hadn’t been following along behind me.” Bowie thoughtfully scratches the stubble on his chin. “How do you feel about becoming a team?”
“A team?”
“Yeah. You and me. Like this morning. You’re a good flyer, Kid. You’ve got a natural instinct. With a bit of practice and a long enough life, you could become a great ace.” He looks over at Mick, who’s on his bunk staring at the ceiling. “We’ve always hunted alone—especially him. But things’re changing. Fritz is beginning to hunt in packs. If you’re on your own and you come up against Immelmann and a couple of his buddies, you won’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting home. But if there’s two or three or four of us, we could make a fight of it.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” I say.
“Okay, then. I’ll run the idea by Wally and see what he says.”
A loud wail sounds from outside. Groans echo round the barn.
“I swear,” Bowie says, “if Fritz doesn’t get that Scotsman, I’ll shoot him myself before this war is over.”
CHAPTER 12
An Ace at Last—April 1916
For two weeks it rains steadily. It’s all we can do to keep dry and stop our planes from rotting. There’s very little flying. Then, on April 1, we wake up to clear skies.
“Come on, you lazy lot,” Wally shouts, rattling a stick along the wall of the barn. We crawl out of our bunks as the generator coughs to life and our lights flicker on. “It’s a perfect day for flying, and we want to get in the air by sunrise. HQ want some photographs of our section of the Hun’s trenches to see what he’s been up to in the past two weeks. Usual pattern. Three parallel lines along the front—A above their trenches, B back over the reserves and C over their artillery. We’re to provide cover for three B.E.2cs. We rendezvous with them in an hour.”
It’s a tense moment because no one wants line C. With lines A and B, you have at least a fighting chance of getting back over our territory if you’re forced down. With line C, if you survive the fight, you’re a prisoner.
“Now, we’re going to do this a bit differently today,” Wally explains as we each struggle into our flying kit. “Bowie has this idea that we should fight in groups, and I think it’s a good one. We don’t have a lot of planes, but there will be two over each of the 2cs.”
Wally and an Englishman he knows from school take line C, the most dangerous one. Despite his protests that he fights alone, Mick is assigned to the B line with Jock, and Bowie and I are given A. I suspect I’m put on the safest line because I’m the newest recruit.
FLYING IN FORMATION.
We finish dressing and carry out a final check on our planes as the sky lightens to the east. The six Parasols rumble and bump along the grass runway and up into a glorious sunrise. Wispy clouds are painted dramatic shades of orange as the huge red disk of the sun hauls itself above the horizon and we climb toward our rendezvous. On magnificent mornings like this, I know I was born to fly.
Bowie and I set ourselves up in the formation that we used before, with me above and behind him. To the east, against the glare of the sun, I can just make out Jock and Mick flying line B. Wally is too far off to be seen.
Our progress is painfully slow, and if it weren’t for the need for constant vigilance, it would be boring. Our 2c, far below, must fly slow and steady to get the photographs needed. I know that the pilot is working hard. The camera is a large wooden box attached to the side of the fuselage. While he’s flying the plane, the pilot must lean out of his cockpit to take photographs at regular intervals while his observer keeps a lookout for the enemy. As I watch, I see small black clouds forming near the 2c. It looks strange in the clear sky, but I know that it’s anti-aircraft fire from the trenches below—or Archie, as it is commonly called. The clouds look peaceful, but they’re deadly if they get near their target. Fortunately, none form close to the 2c we’re protecting.
Below us and slightly to the east, several black enemy observation balloons are performing the same function we are, looking hard for any changes behind our lines. Their crew has an easier job because the basket beneath the balloons is much steadier than our fragile aircraft. Their problem is that they can’t run away if attacked.
