by Kim Newman
This was it. His last moments. If he could not be a vampire, he would have to settle for being a damned ghost. If nothing else, he would haunt his murderer.
Imagining a gap of inches between earth and wheel, he pulled back the stick, bringing up the nose. The wheels kissed ground but the tail ploughed into dirt, anchoring the machine. He was slammed against the seat as if by the slap of a giant's hand and bounced around the cockpit. He was sure the snapping he heard was his own bones. The Harry Tate screamed as it was ripped apart.
Earth was thrown up at his face. The RE8 dragged through No Man's Land. Broken wires twanged and whipped. A spar gashed the fuselage. The lower plane crumpled and was torn free. Winthrop threw his arms over his head and waited for the sudden thrust of death.
19
Biggles Flies West
Below, the British Snipes were torn apart by the fliers of JG1. Stalhein and Stachel were the high men, observing the dog-fight.
After gaining the air from the tower of the Château du Malinbois, they flew straight up and hovered over the battle. If any of the Britishers made an escape, Stalhein and Stachel were to swoop down for a quick kill. It was an honourable and necessary position but frustrating for fliers whose immediate bloodlust was up.
At this altitude, Stalhein could glide, only occasionally flapping to remain in position. The span of his upper wings was thirty feet; excluding his whiplike tail, twice the length of his body. This span, the strong crossbar of his shifted shape, corresponded to the shoulders and arms of his human form. Membranes grew from his wrists to his sides, billowing like full sails. Bunches of muscle clustered around his rudder-like breastbone, giving him subtle control of his wings.
The lower wings were shape-shifted ribs, extruded from his body, augmented by canvas sheets. The stubby, functional arms that grew from his torso and worked the Parabellum machine-guns slung on the harness round his neck were made from whole cloth, flesh and bone grown by force of will. Learning to fly in this shape was trickier than mastering the use of one of Tony Fokker's fighters, but Stalhein was more manoeuvrable and as fast as any machine.
In his bat-shape, he was cocooned against the bitter cold by a stiff layer of natural fur over leathery skin. Seven-league boots the height of his human legs were hooked together at the ankles and knees. Otherwise, he wore only in the apparatus that made him a flying weapon. The joints of his hips were locked and his vertebrae fused, turning the length of his body into an unbreakable spine.
The stink of discharged guns and burning fuel drifted up on the currents and caught in his huge open nostrils. His ears, thick-veined curls a foot across, picked up the chatter of discharged guns, the interrupted whines of failed engines, even the shouts of battling pilots.
One of the Snipes exploded. He saw a victorious Udet rise on the burst of hot air, swimming with his cloak-like wings. Stalhein heard the curtailed scream of a British pilot. Udet's score was level with Stalhein's again.
When word came in from observers that a full flight had left Maranique and was headed for Malinbois, Stalhein had assumed General Karnstein would again order a quiet night. Several times before, JG1 had been kept out of a fight because the time was not yet right to show their hand. Kretschmar-Schuldorff, whose job was to keep secrets, continually cautioned against premature deployment. Every man of the Baron's command devoutly wished to go into battle but they knew their duty. When the time came, they would serve the Kaiser as he saw fit.
The burning Snipe dwindled to a cinder as it plunged. Udet did a victory roll, easily slipping out of the path of a fusillade. There were still several Britishers aloft. JG1 was playing with them.
After consideration, Karnstein decided it was time to let slip the bats of war. He ordered Baron von Richthofen to take out eight fliers and destroy the patrol.
'Let us teach our enemy to fear us a little more,' the vampire elder explained.
Richthofen had been quiet as he accepted the order, but Stalhein and the others were unable to suppress their excitement. Stalhein began to shift even before he was picked for the flight, expanding inside his tunic until the buttons burst.
'Mark your man,' Richthofen told his fliers, 'and kill him.'
From his vantage, Stalhein saw how JG1 had carried out this simple order. Richthofen assigned his brother to the Snipe that flew the tip of the formation, taking for himself the spotter. An outsider might think this cowardice but Stalhein understood the Baron's decision. On its own, the RE8 was the easiest target, but it was also the most important. The Snipes were there to look out for the spotter and would protect it. By attacking the RE8, Richthofen made himself prime target. He would have to trust his men to make their kills and protect his back.
Lothar von Richthofen took his Snipe without even firing, soaring up from beneath the squadron leader and ripping off its upper plane, twisting the machine around in the air. The Snipe was hurled towards the ground in a fatal spin, discharging guns at random. Lothar followed the spiralling Britisher and wrested the pilot from his seat. Stalhein heard the screech as Lothar's jaws clamped around the flight commander's head.
Stachel, kept out of the killing, howled in frustration. Ropes of spittle flew from his shark-mouth. His mad eyes shone like flaming stars. Stalhein knew his comrade would not do. He thought only of Bruno Stachel, never of JG1 or the Kaiser or honour.
Huge and slow like a flying pancake, Emmelman flopped on his Snipe. He chewed into the aeroplane with great shaking motions of his neck, ripping canvas and metal with talons and teeth. To him, the machine was the hard shell of the nut and the pilot the meat inside. He didn't even fly with guns. His vast shape absorbed almost any punishment, spitting out spent bullets like drops of sweat.
The fight would be over before Stalhein got into it. A disappointment, but it was his duty to live with disappointment. This victory would be shared.
Manfred von Richthofen elegantly disabled the two-man RE8, snatching the pilot and leaving the observer to go down with the ship. It was almost an artistic gesture, proof that aesthetic impulses did sometimes stir in the icy mind of the Red Battle Flier. Richthofen drifted lazily over the doomed spotter, looking down at the terrified observer. Waves of fear poured out of the man.
Schleich's Snipe was on the Baron's tail, trying to shatter him with gunfire. Whoever flew that machine was exceptional. No matter how far he shape-shifted from the human, Stalhein understood the mental adjustment that must be made by a man who expected to face a fighter aeroplane but was confronted by the fliers of JGl. Schleich's Snipe recovered from the shock and fought like a master. Schleich, left behind in the sky, fluttered awkwardly with a rip in one wing, trying desperately to get back on his man's tail.
It was not yet time to intervene, he judged. His orders were to stay out of it until it seemed a Britisher might be on the point of escaping. Schleich's Snipe dipped down and came up again, rattling off more fire. Richthofen danced in the air, not seriously endangered. The RE8 was still aloft, surprisingly. The observer had stopped screaming.
Stachel looked down, nodding ferociously. A fur ruff inflated around his head. His bat-shape had something of the howler monkey. Bold Bruno was eager to be in on the killing, keen enough to disobey the Baron's orders.
'Go down and you'll be dismissed,' Stalhein said. In this body, what seemed a normal speaking voice was loud enough to be audible over the wind. Stachel, desperate for blood and his Blue Max, shook his great head, but stayed in formation. Fear of loss of position was greater than the red thirst. No one had ever been asked to resign from JG1. Stalhein had the impression General Karnstein would insist on a permanent reassignment to Hades. Bound by fear and duty and bloodlust and honour, the fliers of JG1 were as much slaves as masters. They were not merely knights of the sky, but gladiators.
This is a waste,' Stachel yelled.
Goring's Snipe began to go after the RE8 and Fat Hermann huffed through the air after it. Weighed down by the whale-like blubber which increased his shape-shifted bulk. Goring was th
e slowest of the flight. Still, he was a deadly marksman, setting his guns for short bursts and bringing his prey down with a big game hunter's precision.
The remaining fight drifted upwards, forcing Stalhein and Stachel higher through thin clouds. As moonlight fell on Stalhein's wings, his whole body tingled. New strength coursed like electricity through nerves and veins. He understood this was a characteristic of the line of the English vampire Ruthven, the Graf's former ally and now hated foe, but he did not understand how the strain had come to him. It had been a part of his nosferatu make-up well before Karnstein introduced him to the sweet Faustine, who passed on to him something of the Dracula line.
His body swelled with light and his strength grew. The cold he felt around his eyes and in his ears dissipated. The sustenance he took from moonlight was almost like blood. If he was deprived by clouds, he became listless. Like the proverbial werewolf s, his strength waxed and waned with the phases of the moon.
The RE8 was gone from sight, though Stalhein still distinguished the sound of its stuttering engine. In the observer's place, he thought he would go mad before hitting the ground. Goring's Snipe followed the spotter, Fat Hermann closing on his tail.
Only Schleich's Snipe was still in the battle. Schleich limped in flight, the rent in his wing expanding with each flap, too serious to heal instantly. The rest of the flight was in the Snipe's wake.
Schleich's Snipe climbed towards Stalhein and Stachel. Stalhein saw the tiny white face of the British pilot. It was Bigglesworth, the ace who tallied Erich von Stalhein among his victories. It was fitting that he should ascend to the heavens and find Stalhein waiting for him.
Stalhein waved Stachel back. This fight was his. Stachel was having none of it, so Stalhein shouldered his way in front of the other flier. He heard but ignored Stachel's scream of rage.
The whirring propeller of Schleich's Snipe rose. Bigglesworth fired bursts from his twin Vickers. Stalhein saw the flash of silver tracer and flew out of the path of the bullets. Stachel slipped to one side but caught the last of the fire with his wingtip. Enraged, Stachel lunged. Overcompensating for his wound, he disappeared into cloud, falling hundreds of feet.
Stalhein and Bigglesworth were alone. With calm excitement, he circled the Snipe, looking down into the cockpit. He saw the pilot's head swivel, the blessed moon reflected in his goggles. Before the kill, he paid homage to his valiant foe. This was a victory worth having.
The other fliers were climbing in a rough formation and would be here soon. There was no time to savour combat. He flew up on the Snipe's tailplane and took hold with his jaws, rows of teeth ripping through wood and fabric. With a toss of his neck, he wrenched the whole rear end off the fighter. He spat the dry stuff from his mouth and clawed his way forwards to the cockpit, thirsty for English vampire blood. With this kill, he would take on the valour of his enemy. With every kill, he grew stronger. That was the power Faustine had passed on with her Dracula-blessed blood.
With astonishing cool, Bigglesworth turned in his seat and levelled a thick-barrelled handgun, a Verey pistol. Stalhein laughed. Bigglesworth smiled. The other fliers were all around. Bigglesworth shot Stalhein in the mouth. Fire exploded on his tongue and burst around his snout, singeing the bristly fur of his face, searing his eyes. The smell was worse than the pain. He spat out the burning cartridge but had lost his grip on the wrecked Snipe. His body cried out for blood. His mouth still burned and his heart thumped like a war-drum with the vampire ache. He had vanquished, now he must feed. More than the victory, more than a medal, more than the mission, he needed blood*.
The Snipe tumbled away, plunging through the fliers like a lead weight. The wings were torn off. The pilot was thrown out of the cockpit and fell independently, picking up speed. From this height, he would be smashed to useless fragments, sweet blood spread over a square mile.
Forgetting all else, Stalhein dived after his kill, clawing through the air. He folded his lower wings to decrease resistance and knifed down like a spear. Air screamed around his wings. H>s eyes, blobbed with fire-bursts, fixed on the falling pilot. It was hopeless. Bigglesworth had escaped him.
Unless he acted swiftly, he would plough into the hard earth on the very spot his victim fell. He, too, would be smashed to fragments. He struggled in the air, almost losing his mastery of the element. Extending his wings like sails, he halted his descent. It was as if his arms were wrenched out of their sockets. His tail lashed beneath him as he tried to attain an even keel. Finally, he pulled out of his dive. He drifted upwards on the current, scanning the black landscape for spots of burning light. He was somewhere this side of the lines, so there was no fire from the ground. His ears strained but he could not hear an impact. His foe was down somewhere, broken. The battle was over and Erich von Stalhein was unfulfilled. He began to growl.
20
Foreign Field
The stick was torn from his hands. Wind blast dashed his whole body. He realised the entire front of the RE8 had been wrenched off, ripped aside. His life was probably saved for a few seconds. The stove-hot engine was no longer three feet in front of his lap. Jolted out of its cowling, the contraption would have shot into the cockpit like a big bullet, punching through his soft body.
Winthrop was pushed back into his seat by the force of the crash, then thrown forward into dark. Hard ground thumped him in the chest and face. He reflexively grabbed earth as if it were eiderdown.
His ears were still assaulted by the roar of the air and the grinding of the RE8 coming apart all around him. Something heavy fell on his back, forcing him further into the dirt.
The goggles prevented his eyes from being mashed into his head but his mask was ribboned. Dirt went up his nose and into his mouth. A sharp spar worked its way through his Sidcot into his side. Every part of him hurt, as if he had been beaten about the belly, kidneys and groin. Death was a single breath, a heartbeat, away.
Cat, he thought. Sorry for the silly letter ...
He lifted his face from the ground, coughing and shaking loose matter from his mouth and nose. He breathed again. And again. His heart still beat. Maybe he would not die? Or maybe he was already dead?
This was something like the plain of hell he had imagined as a child, listening to the Reverend Mr Kaye, Catriona's father. There were distant screams and pillars of fire, and a deep darkness.
He shrugged violently, dislodging the broken wing-frame that had fallen on his back. His Sidcot tore as he extracted the spear-like end of a snapped strut.
On his knees, he froze, feeling only pain. His teeth rattled and were thickly smeared with blood and filth. He coughed and spat. His stomach rolled and emptied through his mouth. Being sick at least cleared his throat. He had no way of knowing which bones were broken and which just hurt. It might have been easier to determine which bones were unbroken.
A burst of intense light flared nearby, searing his eyes. Flame seemed to brush his face and dissipate in an instant. The engine had blown up but there wasn't enough fuel left to make a proper fire. Dribbles of flame spread along a dark shape revealed as the nose of the good old bloody old Harry Tate. The machine had died but somehow cherished his life to the last, bringing him alive to the ground.
He should get away from the wreck before there was another explosion, but he couldn't move. He knelt, but it was as if his legs were anchored in the ground. His hammering heart slowed. Fumbling at his sooty face, he dislodged the remains of his goggles. It was as if the clouds parted. Moonlight flooded, spreading sickly. He pulled off his helmet and balaclava and wiped his face with the woolly rag.
No Man's Land was a mad landscape. Before the war, Winthrop had toured this country. It had been pleasantly wooded. Now there were no trees. The earth was pitted and cratered and denuded of all but the scrubbiest plant-life. Rolls of barbed wire were savagely strewn. The RE8 had gathered trails of the rusty stuff and dragged it, scratching deep ruts.
Mud-coloured corpses were beaten into the ground. A few feet away, a fanged
skull in a pickelhaube lay on its side. It must have been there since the first push. The Boche didn't wear helmets like that any more. Winthrop tried not to make out disembodied limbs, tattered scraps of uniform, exposed bones. These former fields, fought over for four years, were seeded with millions of dead.
He checked his arms and legs and, though he found bruises and pain, thought his major bones intact. A bullet had creased his bootsole, burrowing like a worm. His sock was stiff with blood but the shot had done no more than tear his skin.
Standing, his right knee jolted pain. His Sidcot was torn and the pyjama trousers underneath were shredded, though his breeches were merely mashed into his leg. His footing wavered, as if on land after a month at sea. In the air, he had got used to the nothing under his feet. His balance was off but he struggled to recover it. His head swam and he blinked, yawning to open up his aching ears. He fought to regain his relationship with the solid ground, with gravity.
A star-shell burst overhead. The brightness hurt his eyes. White trails showered like jellyfish tendrils. Such infernal devices were to light targets for night-snipers. With what seemed agonising slowness, he crouched against the broken side of the RE8, shadow wrapping around him. His ears still roared, so he could not be sure no one was shooting. The star-burst trails fizzled to the ground and he was still alive.
He looked up at the skies for the bat-shapes. Would the Boche comb the wreckage for survivors? That was absurd. His survival was so unlikely and flopping down in No Man's Land so dangerous that even the Red Baron should leave him be. But he knew enough about vampires to guess the shape-shifted fliers would have their red thirst up.
He was not deaf. Besides roaring and ringing, he heard engine noise. There was definitely a machine still in the sky. One of the Snipes. He wrenched off his helmet and shook gathered sweat out of his hair.
