The Red Baron: A World War I Novel

by Richard Fox

  “Not trash. I’ll get back to him tomorrow.”

  “What will you use instead?”

  “Nothing, it’s a moot point. We’re getting ready for one last push. All the men from the Russian front will be here soon. It will be over by Christmas—again.”

  Katy took a folded piece of paper from her apron and put it on top of the stack of unsigned photos. Manfred grabbed it without looking, then turned it over in his hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “A transfer request. There’s an offensive brewing, and that means casualties. I want to be at a field hospital when that happens,” she said.

  Manfred looked from Katy to the request before him. He set his pen down.

  “I don’t want you to leave. You’re…you’re the only one I can talk to.”

  “I don’t want to leave either, Manfred. But you don’t leave me any choice,” Katy said. She dabbed a tear from her eye.

  “What are you talking about? Just stay.” He pushed the request back to her.

  “Manfred, every time you fly, it breaks my heart, because I don’t know if you’re coming back. As much as I—” she swallowed hard. “I know why you fly. I know why you won’t escape this war even though you could save yourself with a single phone call to headquarters.”

  She crossed her arms. “I’ve been selfish in staying for so long. I will follow your example and do what I can, where I can, for the war. The sad, stupid thing is that the reason you should send me away is the same reason I stayed for so long.”

  “Love,” Manfred said.

  “Maybe you aren’t as dense as I thought.”

  Manfred looked her, his eyes mourning. “There’s some boy out there, seventeen years old and in a uniform two sizes too big, a hand-me-down from the last man to die wearing it. He has a rifle he doesn’t know how to use and a stomach full of fear. Soon, he’ll charge over the top and charge across no-man’s-land with nothing to keep him going but the men at his side and hope that he might live to see tomorrow.

  “If he’s wounded, you should be there to save him. I can’t keep you here. His life outweighs my wishes.” He signed the request and handed it over.

  She took his hand and squeezed. He pulled his hand back and sprung out of his chair and away from her.

  “Go! I already regret what I’ve done. Go before I change my mind,” he said.

  She left for the door and stopped when her hand touched the doorknob.

  “Manfred, this war can’t last forever,” she said.

  He half turned to her. “No, it can’t.”

  “Then you had better make it.” She opened the door and left.

  Chapter 14— “Eighty!”

  Pilots of Squadron 11 huddled around a small fire, dawn a hint on the horizon. Frost spread across the dead grass airfield. The winter snow was gone, but its chill lingered.

  Manfred checked his wristwatch in the firelight.

  “Almost time,” he said.

  “Sir, not that we don’t love a good sunset, but some of us have been wondering…” Gussmann said, but didn’t finish his question.

  “Why are we up so early?” Lothar asked.

  “History, gentlemen. This is the beginning of the end, one way or another. Operation Michael, High Command’s plan to push the English into the sea and force Paris to surrender. Divisions from Russia, newly trained storm trooper units, all the artillery we can muster. Speaking of which…” Manfred pointed to the north.

  White flashes of light sparked in the distance, reflecting off the low clouds that promised fog. The flashes grew in intensity until they mimicked dawn’s early light. Seconds after the first flash, the rumble of artillery reached Manfred and his men.

  Udet pointed to the south, where another artillery park sent rounds east. The constant blast of artillery filled the air with a low growl.

  “Smack in the middle of it, aren’t we?” Lothar said.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Manfred straightened up. “The end of the war is on the other side of their trenches; we’re going to help our soldiers reach it. Suit up and be ready to take off in thirty minutes. All of us.”

  The artillery barrage had turned the English trench into a ruin. Lieutenant Otto led his men past steaming shell holes, splintered duckboards, and the remains of defenders caught in the barrage.

  “Dugout!” One of his men pointed to the top of a wooden doorway blocked by the collapsed trench. Otto ran over at a half crouch as his men found cover in the wounded earth. A soldier took a hand ax from his belt and chopped at the few inches of the door still visible. A plank broke loose and cries for help emerged from the bunker.

  Otto pulled the pin from a grenade and tossed it through the hole. The cries turned to panicked screams. The blast expanded the bunker beneath the dirt like a puff of air into a balloon. Moans of pain came from the darkness. Otto threw in another grenade and moved on before it exploded.

  “Sir! Sir, Tommy planes!”

  Dozens of English planes in tight formation, flights stacked on top of each other, were heading toward Otto and his men. Otto looked around for any kind of protection from the air. The moonscape of shell holes offered nothing.

  “Spread out, ready to defend against aircraft!” Otto yelled. Against that many planes, his orders would make the same difference as spitting on a forest fire. Otto dived into a shell hole and flattened himself against the earth. The brass casing he’d rescued from no-man’s-land years ago pressed against his chest.

  He gripped the earth, willing himself into its bosom as the sound of engines filled the sky. His men. He had fresh soldiers that lacked the fear and respect for enemy aircraft. He looked over the shell hole for errant soldiers, and he saw the distant English planes, too far to be heard.

  Otto rolled over and saw squadrons of Fokkers flying overheard. A riot of colors centered on an all-red Fokker.

  They were outnumbered. Even with four squadrons in the air, the English had half again as many planes. Lothar was on Manfred’s right, Udet, with twenty-three victories, on his left. Every German pilot in his wing was handpicked from the best of the best.

  His knights of the air readied to charge.

  The English Sopwith Camels and closed quickly, head on to Manfred’s wing. Manfred gunned his engine and flew straight toward a Camel. Bullets crisscrossed as the two planes slashed past each other. Manfred slammed his rudder, and his tail swung his Fokker around, robbing him of airspeed.

  The maneuver brought him around and behind the Sopwith, which hadn’t completed its turn. His engine shook the Fokker as he opened the throttle and pounced on the Sopwith. A five-second burst of fire was enough to send the Sopwith to the ground, tumbling end over end.

  Manfred didn’t have time to waste. He checked his tail for an enemy then looked to the rest of the battle. The air was a maelstrom of planes; bright yellow and green tracer rounds stitched across the sky.

  The Fokkers could climb and turn faster than the Sopwiths, an advantage his pilots used to the hilt. Two English planes burned in the air, Manfred spotted another crumbled against the battlefield in addition to his victory.

  He spotted Lothar, an Englishman on his tail, turning toward him. Manfred aligned with Lothar and flew straight for him; he prayed his brother had the same idea, as the distance between their collision evaporated in seconds. Bullets from Lothar’s pursuer snapped through Lothar’s wings and past Manfred’s head.

  Manfred dipped his Fokker on its right side, and Lothar did the same. Manfred, hidden from the Camel by Lothar’s plane, was now heading right for the Camel. Manfred fired his machine guns and looked up at his brother as they passed each other. They were close enough to see each other’s eyes as they passed within a few yards of each other. Damn Lothar for smiling like that.

  The pilot of the Camel panicked at Manfred’s sudden appearance, and pulled up into a loop, exposing the belly of his plane to Manfred’s guns. Manfred’s shots riddled the fuselage behind the cockpit, and it tore in half. The
engine and cockpit hurtled to the earth; the tail followed, flittering like a lost feather.

  Udet chased another Sopwith off Gussman’s tail. The neophyte Richthofen knew enough to be a danger to himself in the air, and not much else. Udet flew alongside Gussman and pointed back to their airfield. Gussman shook his head and looped into an Immelmann turn, back to the battle.

  Udet shook his head and followed suit. If the kid survived, Udet might start to like him.

  A wingless green-bodied Fokker plunged through the air ahead of Udet and Gussman, the pilot slumped against the controls. Udet cursed and climbed to get back into the melee.

  He didn’t see the direction of the bullets that hit his plane, but he saw them wreck his engine. A propeller blade broke off and tore through two wings. His Fokker surrendered to gravity; what remained of his engine pulled the craft’s nose down.

  Black smoke choking his lungs and fowling his goggles, Udet slapped at his restraints until they finally came loose. He leapt away from the cockpit, hoping his parachute would work as promised. The earth and sky spun around until a tremendous jerk slammed him back against his plane.

  His parachute had caught on the rudder, fate seemed determined to send him down with his plane. Udet yanked at the parachute, hit his fist against the rudder, nothing. He looked down and saw the shell craters and gray earth that would be his gravesite if he didn’t do something constructive in the next few seconds.

  Udet braced his feet against the rear elevator and grabbed the risers. He thrust his legs against the elevators and pulled the risers with all he could muster. The rudder broke from the plane with a crack.

  Udet tumbled away from his plane, and the straps around his body squeezed the air out of him as air filled the canopy. He looked down and saw his burning wreck waiting to welcome him with smoke and fire.

  Udet grabbed one of the risers and pulled with everything he had left; the canopy tilted and swung him clear of the wreck.

  His right ankle hit the ground first, twisting as it caught against a splintered board. He flopped into the ground face first, his canopy dragging him over rocks and a bit of barbed wire that tore open his flight suit.

  Udet’s slide ended when his parachute tangled in a burr of razor wire. He pushed himself to his feet, favoring his left leg, and looked around. The fight continued in the air; mortars pounded German infantry a hundred yards away, machine guns and rifles cracked around him.

  Udet raised his arms over his head. “I’m alive!”

  “Get down, you idiot!” came from a shell crater. A bullet ricocheted off a rock a few feet away; the tiny whistle of the tumbling bullet missed his arm by inches.

  Udet took the advice and jumped into the crater. Two German soldiers greeted him and helped cut his parachute off him.

  “After what I just saw you do, I think I’ll stay in the infantry,” one of the soldiers said.

  Manfred’s Fokker came to a stop outside the hangars. The rest of his squadron, minus Udet, had landed before him.

  “Eighty!” Gussman announced.

  Pilots and mechanics shouted the number of Manfred’s victories as he dismounted; they pounded his plane in celebration, shook his hand, and slapped his back.

  Manfred pushed his way past them all, unable to hear their cheers over the ringing in his ears. He peeled off his gloves and cowl, leaving them in the dirt as he lurched to his room, a dribble of saliva at the corner of his lips. Light haloed around the lights in the hallway as he stumbled into his room and fell to the ground, gripped by the pain in his head.

  “Katy,” he said. But she wouldn’t come. He’d let her go.

  Chapter 15— “Where’s Manfred?”

  The English were kind enough to leave an intact airfield for Manfred and his squadron. Tents, a full kitchen and a hundred gallons of fuel were abandoned in their retreat. They managed to take all their bullets and planes, which Manfred could respect.

  Cappy airfield maintained its name. If the offensive continued at the current pace, the Flying Circus would move closer to Paris in the next few days.

  Fog kept Manfred and his planes grounded that morning. Manfred took the opportunity to walk through the airfield, testing the ground with the tip of his walking stick. Red poppies grew in clusters over the green field. Manfred stepped around the poppies, not wanting to disturb them out of respect for something so beautiful that dared to grow amid the violence.

  Manfred wandered far enough into the field that he’d lost sight of the tents and planes of the airfield. He was alone in the mist. Manfred put his hands on the brass cap of his walking stick and closed his eyes. He felt the fog tease his face with wet air, heard the pop of wood from an unseen fire. Moments of peace were rare; a gift to remember that there was anything else but war.

  He opened his eyes and saw a figure in the distance, wandering without a sense of direction. The figure froze, and then ran toward him. Metzger emerged from the fog, holding a letter.

  “Sir, what are you doing out here?”

  Manfred tapped his stick against the ground. “Checking for soft spots, rabbit holes. Old cavalry habit to keep horses from injury. Works the same for airplane wheels.”

  Metzger’s thick mustache twitched; anything beyond paperwork and Manfred’s well-being rarely interested him. “This came over the wires. General von Hoeppner asks that you take over as commandant at the Doberitz flight school, effective immediately.”

  Manfred laughed and shook his head.

  “Send my polite refusal,” he said.

  “Sir, think of all the pilots you could mentor. Every new pilot would learn straight from you, the whole German air corps just like your squadron, like the wing,” Metzger said.

  “Metzger, back there is not out here. How could I live with myself if I left the battle now, spent the rest of my life as a pensioner of my own dignity? No, old friend, we’re here to the end.”

  The sun burned through the fog, and the shadow of the airfield emerged in the distance. Wind blew in from the east, a rare occurrence at this time of the year, and helped ease the fog from the sky.

  Manfred watched as his pilots materialized from the gray, like an old memory coming back with concentration. Men lounged around a small fire. Most part dressed in their flight suits as they sat on cots and fine Scottish pinewood chairs left by the previous occupants. A dachshund leapt from a warm lap and charged into the underbrush, the panicked squeaks of a mouse mixed with nervous laughter from the men.

  One pilot wore his gloves and cowl, his flight suit buttoned up to his neck. His edge of the blade level of readiness was misplaced; they wouldn’t be airborne for another half hour at least. The English, suffering from the same weather, weren’t an imminent threat. Manfred’s cousin, Wolfram, would only exhaust himself while sitting around in his full kit.

  “Look at him, Metzger. A lamb in a field full of bulls.” Wolfram had joined the squadron two weeks ago after minimal training and no kills to his credit. A manning decision, not from Manfred, that played well to headlines and not to Wolfram’s odds of survival.

  “He has a respectable combat record,” Metzger said.

  “Not in aircraft. I pick the best pilots because I lead them to wherever the fighting is thickest, where we can make a difference. To throw children into that fight would be…cruel. Someone at headquarters thought it would make a great Sanke card to have three Richthofens standing in front of a twisted plane and dead man,” he said.

  “Lothar worked out,” Metzger said.

  Manfred grunted and made his way to the fire. Cousin Wolfram would live up to expectations or die trying. Without proving himself before joining Manfred’s squadron, the odds were stacked against Wolfram.

  “Come, time to get ready,” Manfred said.

  The men kept up their conversations as Manfred approached, nothing talk meant to keep nerves at bay before they took to the air. Only Wolfram jumped to his feet and saluted Manfred.

  “Stop that, Wolfram. No need for such formality while the b
ig brass is away,” Manfred said.

  “Yes, Manfred—sir! Sir. I meant sir,” Wolfram said. Only three years Manfred’s junior, they’d spent summers at their grandmother’s forest cabin together. Wolfram started shivering, and under the down flight suit, Manfred knew it wasn’t from the cold. Manfred put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder.

  “I told your mother you wouldn’t get into the fight until you’re ready. Are you ready, Wolfram?”

  Wolfram’s shivering got worse. “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ll be fine. I got two kills on my first flight, no pressure,” Lothar said.

  “I got shot down,” Udet said.

  “I crashed into a lake,” Reinhard added.

  “Gentlemen,” Manfred put an edge of command into the word. He squeezed Wolfram’s shoulder. “All I require on your first flight with me is that you prove you’re brave. Results can come after that.”

  Manfred looked up at the grey sky, corroded with paths of blue. The breaks in clouds favored gave whoever saw the enemy first a distinct advantage in the attack.

  “Mount up,” Manfred said.

  Manfred climbed into his cockpit and looked over at Wolfram, already seated and ready to go.

  “Wolfram, you stay close to me and return to the air field if I give you the signal. Understood?”

  “Of course, sir,” Wolfram said. Even from ten feet away, Manfred could see Wolfram shaking. Good, fear and adrenaline meant Wolfram didn’t take air combat lightly.

  Lothar leaned against Manfred’s plane, scratching the stitches on his thigh. “You want me and half the squadron over Villers? Doing what?”

  “Keep the fighters off the advancing infantry first, go after observers second, don’t get into a fight you can’t win,” Manfred said as he handed Lothar his walking stick.

  “Fair enough.” Lothar gave his brother a punch on the shoulder and walked off.

  Manfred checked his six and caught an eyeful of direct sunlight. A web of pain spread from his temples and crept around his head, it felt like the bones of his skull were grinding like tectonic plates. Each tremor a new wave of pain.