The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur. Страница 28

The colours and patterns of the Albatroses were fantastic, with scarlet and black the dominant colours, but some were chequered like bar1equins, and others had the silhouettes of bat wings or birds outlined on their wings and fuselage.

At last he could see the faces of the German airmen, turning towards him and then back towards their primary quarry.

Andrew! Andrew! Michael lamented in agony as each second made it clearer just how late he would be to prevent the ambush succeeding.

His fingers numb with cold and dread, Michael reloaded the Very pistol and fired another flare forward over his own nose, trying to attract Andrew's attention, but the red ball of flame fell away towards the earth, fizzling and spinning a pathetic thread of smoke, while half a mile further on Andrew lined up on the hapless German spotter plane, and Michael heard the tut-tut-tuttering of his Vickers as he attacked from astern.

In the same instant the wave of Albatroses broke over Andrew's flight, from above.

Michael saw two of the SE5as mortally struck in the first seconds, and spin away with smoke and pieces of fuselage flying from them; the rest of them scattered widely, each with two or three Albatroses racing after them, almost jostling each other for a chance to take the killing line.

Only Andrew survived. His response to the first crackle of the Spandau machine-gun was instantaneous. He kicked the big green machine into that flat skidding turn that he and Michael had practised so often. He went tearing back straight into the heart of the pack, forcing the Albatroses to swerve wildly away from his head-on charge, firing furiously into their faces, emerging from behind them seemingly unscathed.

Good on you! Michael rejoiced aloud, and then he saw the rest of Andrew's flight shot out of the sky, burning and twisting downwards, and his guilt turned to anger.

The German machines, having wrought quick destruction, were wheeling now to face the charge of Michael's and Hank's flights. They came together and the entire pattern of aircraft disintegrated into a milling cloud, turning like dust and debris in a whirlwind.

Michael came out on the quarter of a solid black Albatros with scarlet wings on which the black Maltese crosses stood out like gravestones. As he crossed, he laid off his aim for the deflection of their combined tracks and speeds, and fired for the radiator in the junction of the scarlet wings above the German pilot's head, attempting to cook him alive in boiling coolant liquid.

He saw his bullets hitting exactly where he had aimed, and at the same time noticed the small modification in the Albatros's wing structure. The Germans had altered the Albatros. They had been forcibly shown the lethal design fault, and they had relocated the radiator. The German ducked from Michael's field of fire, and Michael pulled up the nose of his machine.

An Albatros had picked on one of Michael's new chums, sticking on his tail like a vampire, within an ace of the killing line. Michael came out under the Albatros's belly and reached up to swivel the Lewis gun on its Foster mounting, aiming upwards, so close that the muzzle of the Lewis gun almost touched the bright pink belly of the Albatros.

He fired the full drum of ammunition into the German's guts, waggling his wings slightly to spray his fire from side to side, and the Albatros reared up on its tail like a harpooned shark, and then fell over its wing and dropped away in its death plunge.

The new chum waved his thanks to Michael, they were almost touching wingtips, and Michael signalled imperiously, Return to base! and then gave him the clenched fist. Imperative! Get out of here, you bloody fool! he shouted uselessly, but his contorted face emphasized the hand signal, and the novice broke off and fled.

Another Albatros came at Michael and he turned out hard, climbing and twisting, firing at fleeting targets, turning, turning for very life. They were outnumbered six or seven to one, and the enemy were all veterans, it showed in the way they flew, quick and agile, and unafraid. To stay and fight was folly. Michael managed to reload the Very pistol, and he fired the green flare of the recall. In these circumstances it was the order to the squadron to break off and run for home with all possible speed.

He came round hard, fired at a pink and blue Albatros, and saw his bullets cut through the cowling of the engine a few inches too low to hit the German's fuel tank.

Damn! Damn it to hell! he swore, and he and the Albatros turned out in opposite directions and Michael had a clear run for home. He saw his remaining pilots already tearing away, and he put the yellow machine's nose down and went after them, heading for the ridges and Mort Homme.

He swivelled his head just once more, to make sure that his tail was clear, and at that moment he saw Andrew.

Andrew was a thousand metres out on Michael's starboard side. He had been separated from the main dogfight, engaged with three of the attacking Albatroses, fighting them single-handed, but he had given them the slip and now he too was running for home like the rest of the British squadron.

Then Michael looked above Andrew and he realized that not all the German Albatroses had come down in that first attacking wave. Six of them had remained up there under the clouds, led by the only Albatros that was painted pure scarlet from tail to nose, and from wingtip to wingtip. They had waited for the dogfight to develop and for stragglers to emerge. They were the second set of jaws to the trap, and Michael knew who piloted the allred Albatros.

The man was a living legend on both sides of the lines, for he had already killed over thirty Allied aircraft. It was the man they called the Red Baron of Germany.

The Allies were countering the legend, trying to smear the invincible image that Baron Manfred Von Richthofen was building, by calling him a coward and a hyena who had built up his score of kills by avoiding combat on equal terms and by singling out novices and stragglers and damaged aircraft before attacking.

Perhaps there was truth to that claim, for there he was, hovering above the battlefield like a scarlet vulture, and there was Andrew, isolated and vulnerable below him, his nearest ally, Michael, 1,000 metres away, and Andrew seemed unaware of this new menace. The scarlet machine dropped from above, the shark-like nose aimed directly at Andrew. The five other hand-picked veteran German fighter pilots followed him down.

Without thought, Michael began the turn that would carry him to Andrew's assistance, and then his hands and feet, acting without conscious volition, countered the turn and kept the yellow SESa roaring on its shallow dive for the safety of the British lines.

Michael stared over his shoulder and superimposed on the pattern of swirling aircraft was Centaine's beloved face, the great dark eyes dark with tears, and her words whispered in his head louder than guns and screaming engines, Swear to me you will be there, Michael! With Centaine's words still ringing in his ears, Michael saw the German attack sweep over Andrew's solitary aircraft, and once again miraculously Andrew survived that first deadly wave and whirled to face and fight them.

Michael tried to force himself to turn the yellow SE5a, but his hands would not obey, and his feet were paralysed upon the rudder bars. He watched while the German pilots worked the solitary green aircraft the way a pack of a sheepdogs might round up a stray ewe, driving Andrew relentlessly into each other's crossfire.

He saw Andrew fighting them off with a magnificent display of courage and flying skill, turning into each new attack, and facing it head-on, forcing each antagonist to break away, but always there were others crossing his flanks and quarters, raking him with Spandau fire.