The Bloody Red Baron: 1918

18

Hell's Angels

Something exploded quite near. Winthrop felt a brief thrash of hot air. The RE8 whizzed past blossoming black cloud. Archie. The spotter climbed sharply, faster than his stomach could manage. An unmeasurable distance below was a carpet of black bursts. The draught of explosions tossed the machine higher. Courtney rode the blast, keeping steady.

The RE8 was at its peak at 6,500 feet but its operational ceiling was 13,500 feet. Archie rarely got above 4,000. The weight of the shells dragged, thank God.

It suddenly occurred to him that they might not have the sky to themselves. In the circumstances, he was not best employed looking down. Most downed aeroplanes were shot from behind or above. He swivelled from side to side, turning through three- quarters of a circle. Nothing seemed to be creeping up on them.

They flew east, away from the sunset. The sky was red, darkness crowding around.

The RE8 tilted as Courtney executed a textbook aerial turn, following Cundall's lead. They were angling towards Malinbois.

The air whipped like a storm of fish-hooks. He tried to let go of the Lewis grips, but found his fingers wouldn't move. Biting on frustration, he forced his hands to work.

He fumbled for the camera toggle. He would have to sight the camera accurately, yet keep any spare eyes out for hostile fliers. Even by day, an enemy aircraft could seem the tiniest gnat in an unpeopled expanse of sky a couple of seconds before it was close enough to get in a killing shot. He needed a head like a multi-faceted sphere, with a compound eye on each facet. He wondered if there were vampires like that.

He turned round to his extreme right and saw the back of Courtney's helmet. The pilot held up his gloved hand, thumb up.

Beyond Courtney, the Snipes flew. Beyond them was shadow. The flight descended through thin cloud. A towered shape rose above the landscape. It was familiar from drawings and photographs as the Château du Malinbois.

Winthrop's arm tensed. He didn't know if he had the strength in his elbow to pull the camera toggle.

Something black and winged zoomed past. The RE8 banked, twisting away. The roaring in Winthrop's ears contained the tiny noise of gunfire. He adjusted to his new alignment. It was easier to think of whatever lay under his feet as down, even if the RE8 flew almost on its side. Sixty per cent of his field of vision was taken up by landscape. Against fields and roads, things were moving in the air.

He fixed on a field of virgin snow, a largeish patch of white in the muddy grey. Something black darted across it and he angled his Lewis to aim in its path. He depressed the trigger and was shaken by the mule kick of the gun. He knew enough to fire only a short burst rather than waste limited ammunition in a futile spray. He could not tell if he hit anything.

The Harry Tate climbed and whirled. Amazingly, the formation was intact. Dark shapes flitted around the edges of the arrow, darting up. A line of painfully bright flashes ripped by. Tracer bullets.

The RE8 wheeled round above the castle. Winthrop pulled the camera toggle, waited a few seconds, and pulled again. Shadows passed over the spotter. Winthrop took his last two exposures and forgot the camera. He had both fists around the gun- handles.

They were in the middle of a dog-fight, an aerial melee. God knows how many fliers darted around, popped off guns, swore under their breaths, wrestled wings through wind resistance, prayed for victory or even another night of life.

His last letter was entirely inadequate. Catriona deserved better than a few lines of scribble.

Something knifed downward in flames, screeching. He couldn't tell what markings were on its wings. It was impossible to count the shapes in the air.

Damn, he was going to die! Not in some remote white-haired future surrounded by grandchildren, but in the next few moments. He should have turned. But Courtney was a vampire and he was going to die too. Being undead was no use if you went down in flames.

They wove from side to side, up and down. Courtney must be some breed of genius to get so much out of a poor old bloody old Harry Tate. He dodged the best the Boche could put in the air. Clearly, Cundall's Condors were battling with Jagdgeschwader 1. Out there in the growing darkness was the Bloody Red Baron.

The Germans moved faster even than the Snipes, registering on the eye as an evil black blur. The darker it got, the more they blended with the night. Winthrop imagined the Snipes were luminous, attracting fire from all round.

The sky was beneath them and the castle was above his head. Courtney had flipped the spotter over. Winthrop's Lewis pointed down and backwards. Something climbed fast, a killer fish rising from the depths, eyes blazing red. Wings beat, displacing a great volume of air.

Tracer spurted up towards the RE8's tail. Winthrop returned fire, spitting bursts at the winged thing. Every tenth bullet was supposed to be silver. He realised he was firing not at an aircraft, but at a shape-shifted creature with multiple sets of batwings.

A creature with machine-guns.

He remembered the dark shape that had plucked Albright from his SE5a. And killed him.

A huge head, grinning bloodily, soared towards him, darting through gunfire. Terror reached out from the flying thing and clutched his heart. He was frozen, hung upside-down in his cockpit, unable to press with his thumbs.

Cat!

He did not know if he had shouted or prayed. There was a savage twist and the Harry Tate rolled right-side-up again. Winthrop saw two Snipes diving towards the Boche, spitting tracer.

Courtney climbed, trying to get above the fight. Winthrop looked down and saw dots of movement. There were bullet- holes in the underside of the spotter. His left foot stung; he wondered if he had been shot.

Before sunset, he had only fired guns in training. His whole war had been a staff officer's, fought in meetings and at desks. Dying and killing were not a part of it.

Courtney was clearing out. Though he could not know for sure, he must assume Winthrop had got his photographs. The primary objective achieved, it was now his duty to get home intact.

Red Albright had got his photographs too.

The problem was that, though the fighters offered more of a challenge and thus more opportunities for honourable victory, it would now be the duty of the German creatures to bring down the contemptible Harry Tate and prevent intelligence getting back to the Allies.

Winthrop still heard gunfire. His Lewis had been alarmingly loud and the echoes of his own fire-bursts tumbled around his skull. Forcing numbed fingers to unimaginable dexterity, he lifted the empty ammunition drum off the spike and replaced it with the fresh one stored under his seat. He fired a few shots to keep the barrel clear, hoping for a lucky hit on a darting batwing.

Little tears in the fabric of the upper fuselage flapped as they flew. The bat-thing had comprehensively shot them. Winthrop was sure the warm stickiness in his boot was blood. When would agony would set in?

He looked down the tail at the Château du Malinbois. The famous tower was open to the skies, vast bats swarming around it. With a gasp, Winthrop realised what the diving-board arrangement was for. The shape-shifted fliers used it for takeoff, leaping away from the tower to catch wind under their wings.

There were still at least three Snipes aloft, maybe more. The flaming thing that had rushed past had been one of Cundall's Condors. There was a bonfire on the ground near the castle, where the Snipe had crashed.

The creatures were as fast as Snipes and much more manoeuvrable. In the instant when the thing was bearing up at the RE8, Winthrop had taken it all in. Now, he remembered details. Slung round a thick neck was a harness with twin guns, hanging below a knife-edge breastbone. The large red eyes were those of a night-sighted beast. A human intelligence, a malevolence, made the vampire creature seem a refugee from Fuseli's nightmares. When he had called the shadow on Albright's photograph a gargoyle, Courtney had not been far wrong.

Winthrop shivered with fear, eyes forced open by the cold. He was not thinking clearly. It was important he live to report this development. It was important to live.

Albright had been pursued back as far as Maranique before being killed. That showed a fine sporting instinct. The flier who claimed that victory was Baron von Richthofen. Could the bat- creature that had swooped up at the RE8 be the Red Baron? Winthrop doubted he would still be alive if that were so. Richthofen was not one to let a juicy victory escape him. He must have Harry Tates for breakfast.

Luck or providence was with them so far. He vowed not to die. He could not let Catriona read his silly letter. He had to describe this engagement to Beauregard. And he had unfinished business with Kate Reed.

There was an explosion over the castle. Another comet streaked to the ground. A Snipe had fallen. The formation was broken, though machines were fast catching up with the RE8. Snipes could manage a hundred and twenty miles per hour. Surely, nothing remotely human could match that over a distance.

Tracer caught his attention and he swung to the right, wrenching his gun round. He had little ammunition left. Machine-guns used bullets quickly. There wasn't space in the machine to store many extra drums.

A bat-shape plunged fast, wings rigid. The German vampire had three sets of wings, fixed together by some kind of twine. A human triplane. Winthrop got a fix and emptied his gun.

Light darts shot at the vampire, who turned easily in the air to avoid the flow. His underside was lit up and Winthrop saw guns, dragging towards the ground, hanging below a coat of reddish fur. Was this the Red Baron? Arms reached like a diver's, claws extended in a point. He thought the vampire intended to shear through the canvas and wood of the RE8 like a living knife.

He kept his eyes open and thought of Catriona, of her taste, of her eyes. She said her hair was auburn, but he thought of it as red. There was nothing wrong with red hair. Damn, but this was silly. Dying.

The spotter was thumped and spun. Canvas tore and struts buckled. Wind slapped him in the face. The empty ammunition drum clipped his chin and fell upwards. He realised the RE8 was upside-down again. He smelled the animal scent of the flying thing and clutched convulsively at the gun-handles. His thumbs pressed and the empty gun clicked. Something long and leathery, like a whip, slithered across his cheek, tearing skin. The vampire had a tail. The blasted thing was a rat with wings. And the Pour le Merite, no doubt. Then the vampire was gone.

He was suddenly calm. The RE8 was flying evenly and the wind slowed to a breeze. His stomach unclenched and he sucked in sweet air. He could still breathe. He felt nothing. Even his foot did not hurt. Was he dead? And if not, why not? Had the German spared the Harry Tate? If so, why?

He wrenched round to look at Courtney. His calm turned to ice. The horizon was up beyond the upper wing, a tiny wedge of sky at the top of an expanse of ground. Beyond the spinning propeller, darkness was dotted with fire. The forward cockpit was empty, straps and flaps of torn canvas streaming up.

The RE8 climbed, its balance shifted with the loss of the pilot. The flight was almost peaceful. Winthrop's skull rang with his own gunfire, but the rush of the wind seemed to quieten. There was still fire, a distant chatter. The fight was below the Harry Tate. He was out of it. Unless the engine died, the spotter would climb until there was no air to breathe. When it came down, he would be slumped lifeless in the rear cockpit and not even f«l the inevitable fireball.

For a moment, he relaxed. His hands eased off the gun- handles and slipped into his lap. The fear and excitement that turned every muscle and tendon to taut wire soothed away. Engine drone accompanied his drift into reverie.

He thought of the smell of Catriona's hair, damp after rain. It was goodbye to all that.

The RE8 flew in shadow. Between it and the moon was a bat- shape. The creature that had taken Courtney was still up there. The Boche's wings gave a leisurely flap. Was the monster entertained? Amused?

The RE8 angled, one wing raised slightly. Hundreds of feet below, tracer criss-crossed. A cloud of orange flame burst inside a Snipe. The fighter tore to burning fragments which fluttered downwards to the Château du Malinbois, fireflies around a fairy castle.

A tiny scream began inside his head. It grew, painfully shrill, popping his ears, forcing his eyes open wide. His lungs hurt, his throat caught. He realised he was shrieking at the top of his voice. His breath condensed with brief damp warmth in his mask and stinging droplets of ice formed in his moustache.

The Boche peeled away and flew off, leaving him to his fate. Given the choice of going down in flames or being sucked empty like Red Albright, Winthrop did not know which to pick.

The RE8 was not a dual-stick machine like the trainers he had been ferried around in. If he was to take control, he would have to be in the forward cockpit. The stick was all of a yard off. If the now-useless Lewis were not in the way, it would have been perhaps nine inches beyond his reach. The stick shuddered as wind streamed over loose ailerons. Courtney's hands had been wrenched away but the Harry Tate still flew on the vanished pilot's last course. It was a miracle the machine had not instantly gone into a spin. The miracle could not last much longer. Winthrop did not have minutes. He might not have seconds.

He tried to get a grip on either side of the scarf-ring, but his gloved hands were stubborn. Concentrating hard, he made fingers curl until he had hold. Then he pushed with his upper arms, lifting his bottom off its seat, shoving his feet against interior struts as he stood in the fuselage. If he slipped, his boot would tear through fabric and he'd be trapped like a fox in a snare.

As he stood, the RE8's balance changed. He leaned forwards and the nose came down. His legs grew heavier, pulling him back into the cockpit. Wind streamed hard against his chest as if he stood neck-deep in a stormy sea. His goggle-rims pressed around his eyes like biscuit-cutters.

Cruel, cold air tore at his agnosticism, ripping it off like a wrapping. Dear God, if there is a Dear God, please preserve the life of this, thy servant ...

He was struck across the face by what felt like an iron bar. The barrel of the Lewis gun. His nose and mouth filled with blood. One lens of his goggles whitened into a spiderweb. If his head had not been triple-wrapped, he could have been pitched, unconscious, out of the machine.

He prayed with his mind and swore with his tongue.

The Harry Tate was nose-heavy now. He saw the whirring blades of the propeller The engine was slowing. At any moment, it could choke and die.

Clinging fast to the rim of the cockpit, he hauled his legs out of the body of the RE8. The wings were wavering. A triangular tear in the upper plane grew larger by the second. Snow and mud rushed by.

The nearer the spotter got to the earth, the more aware he was of the speed. In the heights, there was nothing to judge by except the instruments. As landmarks whizzed past below, it was possible to judge swiftness.

He rode the fuselage as if it were a horse, gripping with his knees. Catriona, a horsewoman from birth, said he had a good seat. The Lewis was in his way. Horrible silences broke up the drone of the engine.

Curse it, Edwin Winthrop did not intend to die.

He would reach the blessed stick, fly home to blast Maranique, marry the sainted Catriona, become a damn vampire, return to filthy Hunland, slaughter the evil bat-thing that had taken Courtney, and drink the Kaiser's stinking blood from a bowl made of the fucking brainpan of the Graf von Dracula.

His left knee lost its grip. He wrenched round entirely at the waist. His legs flailed backwards. His fingers tore dope-stiffened linen. The propeller revolved as slowly as a windmill. Blood flew from his nose and mouth. He had lost his scarf. His Sidcot filled with cold air and he was a human balloon. If he let go, perhaps he would float to safety? No, if he let go, he'd be ripped into darkness and death. The air was infested with monsters. The Red Baron was still on his tail.

With his right hand, he let go of the cockpit rim and grasped for the back of the pilot's seat. His fingers slipped off greasy leather, then he found a purchase. He dragged himself eighteen inches forwards. It was like a mile. Hand over hand, he pulled himself over the cockpit. The stick was within his reach.

He must not touch it yet.

His back sang with pain. His eardrums must have burst. The blood on his chin was ice. He felt nothing from his legs.

Below the Harry Tate, the ground was near. He could see no sky.

One boot was hooked into the forward cockpit. He was crouched above Courtney's seat, wind rushing between his legs, looking down. There were rips in the floor. To get into the seat, he had to do an impossible thing. He had to let go and trust to gravity. He knew he would be torn away from the Harry Tate and whisked off to death.

He thought of God, Cat, duty and revenge. And he opened his Hands.

The seat slammed his spine as he fell. He bit his tongue. His elbows thumped the rim of the cockpit. His arms flapped in front of him like empty sleeves. He accidentally struck the stick. The Harry Tate, loyal for so long, betrayed him, banking sharply. With a terrible, slow rip, canvas detached itself from the upper plane.

He gripped the stick as if it were Excalibur's hilt and pulled it back. One of his feet found a stirrup under the rudder-bar and he pushed, flattening out the ailerons.

Once, he had kept a trainer up in mild skies for five minutes. That was not remotely preparation for this. For a start, he had never landed anything.

He pulled the stick back and pushed the rudder forwards, willing the nose up. Ignoring everything but the spirit-level, he tried to wrestle the bubble into position by force of will. The wind caught the dying propeller and whirled it. The coughing engine cleared and sounded healthier. A press of air below the Harry Tate tossed it upwards.

There was murderous ground below. Winthrop would have to deal with it. The upwards lurch was a temporary freak. Without a wing, the Harry Tate was liable to go tail-up and bury its pilot in the earth.

'Curse you, Bloody Red Baron von Richthofen, curse you and all your bloody batwing bastards.'

The thing was to get out of the sky without the petrol tank exploding. Fighting instinct, he let the stick out and relaxed his foot in the bar-stirrup. His air-speed gauge was broken, but he felt the slowing.

The important thing was to hit the ground slowly, with enough weight behind to stop the tail flipping up over the nose. The likelihood of a smooth and safe patch of earth this near the lines -if he wasn't yet over No Man's Land - was minimal.

For the moment, incredibly, he was not dying. How many of Cundall's Snipes were still aloft? Any survivors of the engagement should be making their way home. Somehow, he doubted Richthofen's Flying Freak Show - Mata Hari's apt expression - had let any prey escape. They were confident | enough to leave him to this torture. Snatching the pilot from a two-seater must seem a fearfully good joke.

A stream of fire burst up from below but Winthrop laughed as the RE8 staggered past it. He was over the lines. Beyond his failing prop was home.

He flew low enough and slowly enough to be shot at from the ground. There were only a few seconds when the men in the trenches would be able to draw a bead. They passed and he was still alive, gulping down breaths that felt like draughts of iced water laced with splinters of broken glass.

His laughter tore at the air. He had to swallow it. He fixed his mind on home.

God Save the King ... Britannia Rules the Waves ... Dieu et mon Droit... Love you, Cat...

His wheels were only feet above the earth. Bursting shells and fire pillars revealed a landscape as pitted and cratered as the surface of the moon. Bad as it had looked from on high, it Was worse from lower down. As soon as the RE8 touched a wheel to this surface, it'd be ripped off and the spotter would be strewn in pieces over a hundred yards of No Man's Land. There would not be enough left of him to bury.

He looked up. Dark shapes circled. Had the Red Baron kept pace, hoping to see the conclusion of his little jest? Another engine sounded. There was still at least one Snipe up there. The battle was not done.

He was sure the shape-shifter that had taken Courtney was Manfred von Richthofen. The fur had been reddish and the eyes had been ice-evil. No other Boche could be so complete a monster.

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.