Authors: Wilbur Smith
Tags: #Adventure, #Mystery, #Historical, #Thriller, #Military
You cannot sleep now, talk to me.
What about? Anything. Tell me about Africa. Tell me how we will go to Africa together. I’ve told you that already. Tell me again. I want to hear it all again And she lay against him and listened avidly, asking questions whenever he faltered.
Tell me about your father. You haven’t told me what he looks like. So they talked the night away cuddled in their cocoon of grey blankets.
Then, too soon for both of them, the guns began their murderous chorus along the ridges, and Centaine held him to her with desperate longing. Oh, Michel, I don’t want to go! then she drew away from him, sat up and began to pull on her clothes and refasten the buttons.
That was the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, Michael whispered as he watched her, and in the light of the lantern and the flickering glow of the guns, her eyes were huge and soft, as she turned to him again. We will go to Africa, won’t we, Michel? I promise you we will.
And I will have your son in the sunshine, and we will live happily ever after just like in the fairy stories, won’t we, Michel? They went up the lane clinging together under Centaine’s shawl, and at the corner of the stables they kissed with quiet intensity until Centaine broke out of his grip and fled across the paved yard.
She did not look back when she reached the kitchen door, but disappeared into the huge dark house, leaving Michael alone and unaccountably sad when he should have been joyous.. . .
Biggs stood over the cot and looked down fondly at Michael as he slept. Biggs’s eldest son who had died in the trenches at Ypres a year ago, would have been the same age. Michael looked so worn and pale and exhausted that Biggs had to force himself to touch his shoulder and wake him.
What time is it, Biggs? Michael sat up groggily.
It’s late, sir, and the sun’s shining, but we aren’t flyin& we are still grounded, sir. Then a strange thing happened.
Michael grinned at him, a sort of inane idiotic grin, that Biggs had never seen before. It alarmed him. God, Biggs, I feel good. I’m glad, sir. Biggs wondered with a pang if it might be fever. How’s our arm, sir? Our arm is marvelous, bloody marvelous, thank you, Biggs. I would have let you sleep, but the major is asking for you, sir. There is something important that he wants to show you. what is it? I’m not allowed to say, Mr Michael, Lord Killigerran’s strict instructions Good man, Biggs! Michael cried without apparent reason, and bounded from his cot. Never do to keep Lord Killigerran waiting Michael burst into the mess and was disapointed to find it empty. He wanted to share his good spirits with somebody. Andrew for preference, but even the mess corporal had deserted his post. The breakfast dishes still cluttered the dining-table, and magazines and newspapers lay on the floor where they had obviously been dropped in haste. The adjutant’s pipe, with malodorous wisps of smoke still rising from it, lay in one of the ashtrays, proof of how precipitously the mess had been abandoned.
Then Michael heard the sound of voices, distant but excited, coming through the open window that overlooked the orchard.
He hurried out and into the trees.
Their full squadron strength was twenty-four pilots, but after the recent attrition they were down to sixteen including Andrew and Michael. All of them were assembled at the edge of the orchard, and with them were the mechanics and ground staff, the crews from the antiaircraft batteries that guarded the field, the mess servants and batmen, every living soul was on the field, and it seemed that all of them were talking at once.
They were gathered round an aircraft parked in the No.
1 position at the head of the orchard. Michael could see only the upper wings of the machine and the cowling of the motor over the heads of the crowd, but he felt a sudden thrill in his blood. He had never seen anything like it before.
The nose of the machine was long, giving the impression of great power, and the wings were beautifully raked yet with the deep dihedral which promised speed, and the control surfaces were full, which implied stability and easy handling.
Andrew pushed his way out of the excited throng around the aircraft and hurried to meet Michael with the amber cigarette-holder sticking out of the corner of his mouth at a jaunty angle.
Hail, the sleeping beauty arises like Venus from the waves. Andrew, it’s the SE 5 a at last, isn’t it? Michael shouted above the uproar, and Andrew seized his arm and dragged him towards it.
The crowd opened before them and Michael came up short and stared at it with awe. At a glance he could see it was heavier and more robust than even the German Albatros, and that engine! It was enormous! Gargantuan!
Two hundred gee-gees! Andrew patted the engine cowling lovingly.
Two hundred horsepower, Michael repeated. Bigger than the German Mercedes. He went forward and stroked the beautifully laminated wood of the propeller as he looked up over the nose at the guns.
There was a .303 Lewis gun on a Foster mount set on the top wing, a light, reliable and effective weapon firing over the arc of the propeller, and below it mounted on the fuselage ahead of the cockpit was the heavier Vickers with interrupter gear to fire through the propeller. Two guns, at last they had two guns and an engine powerful enough to carry them into battle.
Michael let out the highland yell that Andrew had taught him, and Andrew unscrewed the cairngorm and sprinkled a few drops of whisky on the engine housing.
Bless this kite and all who fly in her, he intoned, and then took a swig from the flask before handing it to Michael.
Have you flown her? Michael demanded, his voice hoarse from the burn of whisky, and he tossed the flask to the nearest of his brother officers.
Who the devil do you think brought her up from Arras? Andrew demanded. How does she handle? Just like a young lady I know in Aberdeen, quick up, quick down and soft and loving in between. There was a chorus of cat-calls and whistles from the assembled pilots, and somebody yelled, When do we get the chance to fly her, sir? Order of seniority, Andrew told them, and gave Michael a wicked grin. If only Captain Courtney were fit to fly! He shook his head in mock sympathy.
go Biggs. P shouted Michael. Where is my flying jacket, man? Thought you might want it, sir. Biggs stepped out of the crowd behind him and opened the jacket for Michael to slide his arms into the sleeves.
The mighty Wolseley Viper engine hurled the SE5a down the narrow muddy runway, and as the tail lifted Michael had a sweeping view forward over the engine cowling. It was like sitting in a grandstand.
I’ll get Mac to strip off this piddling little windshield he decided, and I’ll be able to spot any Hun within a hundred miles. He lifted the big machine into the air and grinned as he felt her begin to climb.
Quick up, Andrew had said, and he felt himself pressed down firmly into the seat, as he lifted the nose through the horizon and they went up like a vulture in a thermal.
There’s no Albatros been built that is going to climb away from us now, he exalted, and at five thousand feet he levelled out and swept her into a right-hand turn, pulling the turn tighter and tighter still, hauling back hard on the stick to keep the nose up, his starboard wing pointing vertically down at the earth and the blood draining from his brain by the centrifugal force so that his vision turned grey a nd colourless, then he whipped her hard over the opposite way and yelled with elation in the buffet of wind and the roar of the huge engine.
Come on, you bastards! He twisted to look back at the German lines. Come and see what we have got for you now! When he landed, the other pilots surrounded the machine in a clamorous pack. What’s she like, Mike? How does she climb?
gi Can she turn?
And standing on the lower wing above them, Michael bunched all his fingers together and then kissed them away towards the sky.
That afternoon Andrew led the squadron in tight formation, still in their shot-riddled, battered and patched old Sopwith Pups, down to the main airfield at Bertangles and they waited outside No. 3 hangar in an impatiently excited group as the big SE5as were trundled out by the ground crews and parked in a long line abreast on the apron.
Through his uncle at divisional headquarters, Andrew had arranged for a photographer to be in attendance. With the new fighters as a backdrop, the squadron pilots formed up around Andrew like a football team. Every one of them was differently dressed, not a single regulation RFC uniform amongst them. On their heads they wore forage caps and peaks and leather helmets, while as always Andrew sported his tam o’shanter. Their jackets were naval monkey jackets, or cavalry tunics, or cross-over leather flying coats, but every one of them wore the embroidered RFC wings on his breast.
The photographer set up his heavy wooden tripod and disappeared under the black cloth while his assistant stood by with the plates. Only one of the pilots was not included in the group. Hank Johnson was a tough little Texan, not yet twenty years old, the only American on the squadron, who had been a horse tamer, or, as he put it, a bronco buster, before the war. He had paid his own passage over the Atlantic to join the Lafayette Squadron, and from there had found his way into Andrew’s mixed bunch of Scots and Irish and colonials and other strays that made up No. 21 Squadron RFC.
Hank stood behind the tripod with a thick black Dutch cigar in his mouth giving bad advice too the harassed photographer.
Come on, Hank, Michael called to him. We need your lovely mug to give the picture some class Hank rubbed his twisted nose, kicked into that shape by one of his broncos, and shook his head.
None of you old boys ever hear that it’s bad luck to have your picture took? They booed him, and he waved his cigar at them affably. Go ahead, he invited, but my daddy got himself bit by a rattle snake the same day he had his picture took for the first time. There aren’t any rattle snakes up there in the blue, one of them taunted.
No, Hank agreed. But what there is, is a whole lot worse than a nest of rattle snakes. The derisive cries lost their force. They glanced at each other and one of them made as if to leave the group.
Smile, please, gentlemen. The photographer emerged from beneath his black cloth, freezing them, but their smiles were just a shade fixed and sickly as the shutter opened and their images were burned into silver nitrate for posterity.
Quickly Andrew acted to change the sombre mood that held them as they broke up. Michael, pick five, he ordered. The rest of us will give you ten minutes start, and you’re to try and head us off, and make a good interception before we reach Mort Homme. Michael led his formation of five into the classic ambush position, up sun and screened by wisps of cloud, blocking the return route to Mort Homme. Still, Andrew almost gave them the slip; he had taken his group well south and was sneaking in right down on the ground. It would have worked with duller eyes than Michael’s, but he picked up the flash of the low sun off the glass of a windshield from six miles and fired the red Very flare to signal Enemy in Sight to his group. Andrew, realizing that they had been spotted, climbed up to meet them, and the two formations came together in a whirl of turning, diving, twisting machines.
Michael picked Andrew’s SE5a out of the pack and went for him, and the two of them locked into an intricate aerial duet, pushing the big powerful machines harder and still harder, seeking their outer limits of speed and endurance; but evenly matched in skill and aircraft, neither was able to wrest the final advantage, until quite by chance as Andrew came up on his tail, almost into the killing line, Michael kicked on full rudder without bank and the SE5a tail skidded, turning flat, whipping him around with a force that almost dislocated his neck, and he found himself roaring back head-on to Andrew’s attack.
They flashed past each other, only the lightning reflexes of veteran fighter pilots saving them from collision, and instantly Michael repeated the flat skid turn and was flung violently against the side of the cockpit, striking his partially healed shoulder on the rim so that his vision starred with the pain, but he was round in a flash and he fastened on to Andrew’s tail. Andrew twisted desperately, but Michael matched every evasive twist and held him in the ring sight of the Vickers, pressing closer until the spinning boss of his propeller almost touched Andrew’s rudder.
Ngi dla! Michael howled triumphantly. I have eaten! the ancient Zulu war cry that King Chaka’s warriors had screamed as they put the long silver blade of the assegai into living flesh.
He saw Andrew’s face reflected in the rear-view mirror on the cross struts of the wing above his head, and his eyes were wide with dismay and disbelief at that incredible manoeuvre.
Andrew fired a green Very flare to signal the recall to the squadron and to concede victory to Michael. The squadron was scattered across the sky, but at the recall they re-formed on Andrew and he led them back to Mort Homme.
The moment they landed, Andrew sprang from his machine and rushed to Michael, seizing him by both shoulders and shaking him impatiently.
How did you do that, how the hell did you do that? Quickly Michael explained.
It’s impossible. Andrew shook his head. A flat turn if I hadn’t seen it- He broke off. Come on. Let’s go and try it again. Together the two big scout planes roared off the narrow strip, and only returned as the last light was fading.
Michael and Andrew jumped down from their cockpits and fell on each other, slapping each other on the back and dancing in a circle, so padded by their flying clothes that they looked like a pair of performing bears. Their ground crews stood by with indulgent grins until they sobered a little and then Mac, the head mechanic, stepped forward and tipped his forage cap.
Begging your pardon, sir, but that paint job is like my mother-in-law’s Sunday-go-to-meeting dress, sir, dull and dirty and God-help-us. The SE5as were in factory drab. A colour that was intended to make them inconspicuous to the enemy.
Green, said Andrew. A few of the pilots on both sides, German as well as British, desired the opposite effect.