The Burning Shore (19 page)

How many of them? There was no time to count them, but it looked like a full Jasta. of the new-type Albatroses, twenty of them at least, in that swift and silent flock, their brilliant colours sparkling jewel-like against the sombre backdrop of cloud.

I’m not going to be able to keep my promise to Centaine, he thought, and looked down. The low cloud was 2,000 feet below him, it was a remote haven but there was no other. He could not hope to fight twenty of Germany’s most skilled aces, he would not last for more than a few seconds when they reached him, and they were coming fast, while the blue machine pinned and held him for the killing stroke.

Suddenly, faced with the death which he had deliberately sought, Michael wanted to live. He had been dragging back on the joystick with all his weight, holding the SESa into its turn. He flicked the stick forward and she was flung outwards, like a stone from a slingshot.

Michael was hurled up against his shoulder straps as the forces of gravity were inverted, but he collected the big machine and used its own impetus to push it into a steep dive, going down with a gut-swooping rush towards the low cloud bank. The manoeuvre caught his opponent off-balance, but he recovered instantly and the Albatros was after him in a blue flash of speed, while the swarming multicoloured pack was overhauling them both from above.

Michael watched them in the mirror above his head, realizing bow much quicker this new type of Albatros was in the dive. He glanced ahead to the clouds. Their grey folds which had seemed so clammy and uninviting a few seconds before were his only hope of life and salvation, and now that he had started to flee his terror came back and settled upon him like a dark and terrible succubus, draining him of his courage and manhood.

He wasn’t going to make it, they would catch him before he reached cover, and he clung to the joystick, frozen with his new and crippling terror.

The clatter of twin Spandaus roused him. In the mirror he saw the dancing red muzzle flashes, so close behind him, and something hit him a numbing blow low down in his back. The force of it drove the air from his lungs, and he knew he must turn out of the killing line of the blue Albatros’s guns.

He hit the rudder bar with all his force, attempting the flat skidding turn that would bring him face to face with his tormentors, but his speed was too great, the angle of dive too steep, the SESa would not respond. She lurched and yawed into a turn that brought him broadside on to the pursuing pack, and although the blue Albatros overshot, the others fell upon him one after the other, each successive attack a split second after the last. The sky was filled with flashing wings and bright-coloured fuselages. The crash of shot into his aircraft was continuous and unbearable, the SE5a dropped a wing and went into a spin.

Sky and cloud and patches of earth, interspersed with bright-coloured Albatroses with flickering, chattering guns, spun through Michael’s field of vision in dizzying array. He felt another blow, this time in his leg, just below the fork of his crotch. He looked down and saw that a burst had come up through the floor, and a bullet, misshapen and deformed, had ripped through his thigh.

Blood pumped from it in bright arterial jets. He had seen a Zulu gunbearer, savaged by a wounded buffalo, bleed this way from a ruptured femoral artery; he had died in three minutes.

Streams of machine-gun fire were still coming in at him from every angle, and he could not defend himself for his aircraft was out of control, flicking through the turns of the spin, throwing her nose up viciously, and then dropping it again in that sava e rhythm.

Michael fought her, thrusting on opposite rudder to try to break the pattern of her rotation, and at the exertion the blood pumped more strongly from his torn thigh and he felt the first giddy weakness in his head. He dropped one hand from the joystick and thrust his thumb into his groin, seeking the pressure point, and the great pulsing red spurts shrivelled as he found it.

Again he coaxed the maimed aircraft, stick forward to stop that high-nose attitude, and a burst of throttle to power her out of the spin. She responded reluctantly, and he tried not to think about the machine-gun fire that tore at him from every side.

The clouds and earth stopped revolving about him, as her tight turns slowed and she dropped straight. Then with one hand only he pulled her nose up and felt the overstressing of her wings and the suck of gravity in his belly, but at last the world tilted before his eyes as she came back on to an even keel.

He glanced in the mirror and saw that the blue Albatros had found him again and was pressing in close on his tailplane for the coup de grdce.

Before that dreadful rattling chatter of the Spandau could begin again, Michael felt the cold damp rush across his face as grey streamers of cloud blew over the open cockpit, and then the light was blotted out and he was into a dim, blind world, a quiet, muted world where the Spandaus could no longer desecrate the silences of the sky. They could not find him in the clouds.

Automatically his eyes fastened on the tiny glycerinefilled glass tubes set on the dashboard in front of him, and with small controlled adjustments he aligned the bubbles in the tubes within their markers so that the SE5a. was flying straight and level through the cloud. The be turned her gently on to a compass heading for Mort Homme.

He wanted to be sick, that was his first reaction from terror and the stress of combat. He swallowed and panted to control it, and then he felt the weakness come at him again. It was as though a bat was trapped in his skull.

The dark soft wings beat behind his eyes and his vision faded in patches.

He blinked away the darkness and looked down. His thumb was still thrust into his own groin, but he had never seen so much blood. His hand was coated, his fingers sticky with it. The sleeve of his jacket was soaked to the elbow. Blood had turned his breeches into a sodden mass and it had run down into his boots. There were pools of blood on the floor of the cockpit, already congealing into lumps like blackcurrant jam, and snakes of it slithering back and forth with each movement of the machine.

He let go of the stick for a moment, leaned forward against his shoulder straps and groped behind his back.

He found the other bullet wound, three inches to the side of his spine and just above the girdle of his pelvis. There was no exit wound. It was still in there and he was bleeding internally, he was certain of it. There was a swollen, stretched feeling in his belly as his stomach cavity filled with blood.

The machine dropped a wing, and he snatched for the joystick to level her, but it took him many seconds to make the simple adjustment. His fingers prickled with pins and needles, and he felt very cold. His reactions were slowing down, so that each movement, no matter how small, was becoming an effort.

However, there was no pain, just a numbness that spread down from the small of his back to his knees. He removed his thumb to test the wound in his thigh, and immediately there was a full spray of bright blood from it like a flamingo’s feather, and hastily he stopped it again and concentrated on his flying instruments.

How long to reach Mort Homme? He tried to work it out, but his brain was slow and muzzy. Nine minutes from Cantin, he reckoned, how long had he been flying?

He did not know, and he rolled his wrist so that he could see his watch. He found he had to count the divisions on the dial like a child.

Don’t want to come out of the cloud too soon, they’ll be waiting for me, he thought heavily, and the dial of his wristwatch multiplied before his eyes.

Double vision, he realized.

Quickly he looked ahead, and the silver clouds billowed around him, and he had the sensation of falling. He almost lurched at the stick to counteract it, but his training restrained him and he checked the bubbles in his artificial horizon, they were still aligned. His senses were tricking him, Centaine, he said suddenly, what time is it? I’m going to be late for the wedding. He felt panic surface through the swamp of his weakness, and the wings of darkness beat more frantically behind his eyes.

I promised her. I swore an oath! He checked his watch.

Six minutes past four, that’s impossible, he thought wildly. Bloody watch is wrong. He was losing track of reality.

The SE5a burst out of the cloud into one of the holes in the layer.

Michael flung up his hand to protect his eyes from the brilliance of the light, and then looked around him.

He was on the correct heading for the airfield, he recognized the road and railway line and the star-shaped field between them. Another six minutes flying, he calculated. The sight of the earth had orientated him again. He took a grip on the real world and looked upwards. He saw them there, circling like vultures above the lion kill, waiting for him to emerge from the cloud. They had spotted him, he saw them turn towards him on their rainbow-coloured wings, but he plunged into the cloud on the far side of the opening, and the cold wet billows enfolded him, bid him from their cruel eyes.

I’ve got to keep my promise, he mumbled. The loss of contact with the earth confused him. He felt the waves of vertigo wash over him again. He let the SESa sink slowly down through the layer of cloud, and once again came out into the light. There was all the familiar country side below him, the ridges and the battle lines far behind him, the woods and the village and the church spire ahead, so peaceful and idyllic.

Centaine, I’m coming home, he thought, and a terrible weariness fell over him, its great weight seemed to smother him and crush him down in the cockpit.

He rolled his head and he saw the chAteau. Its pink roof was a beacon, drawing him irresistibly, the nose of his aircraft turned towards it seemingly without his bidding.

Centaine, he whispered. I’m coming, wait for me, I’m coming. And the darkness drew in upon him, so that it seemed that he was receding into a long tunnel.

There was a roaring in his ears, like the sound of surf heard in a seashell, and he concentrated with all his remaining strength, staring down the ever-narrowing tunnel through the darkness, looking for her face, and listening over the sea sounds in his ears for her voice.

Centaine, where are you? Oh God, where are you, my love?

Centaine stood before the heavy mirror in its walnut and gilt frame, and she looked at her reflection with dark and serious eyes.

Tomorrow I will be Madame Michel Courtney, she said solemnly, never again Centaine de Thiry. Isn’t that a formidable thought, Anna? She touched her own temples. Do you think I will feel different? Surely such a momentous event must alter me can never be the same person after thatV Wake up, child, Anna prodded her. There is still so much to do. This is no time for dreaming. She lifted the bulky skirt and dropped it over Centaine’s head, then, standing behind her, she fastened the waistband.

IT, I wonder if Mama is watching, Anna. I wonder if she knows I am wearing her dress, and if she is happy for me? Anna grunted as she went down on her knees to check the hem. Centaine smoothed the delicate old lace over her hips and listened to the muffled sound of men’s laughter from the grand salon on the floor below.

I am so happy that the general could come. isn’t he a handsome man, Anna, just like Michel? Those eyes, did you notice them?

Again Anna grunted, but with more emphasis, for a moment her hands faltered as she thought about the general.

Now that is a real man, she had told herself, as she watched Sean Courtney step down from the Rolls and come up the front staircase of the chdteau.

He looks so grand in his uniform and medals, Centaine went on. When Michel is older, I will insist that he grows a beard like that. So much presence There was another burst of laughter from below. He and Papa like each other, don’t you think, Anna? Listen to them!

I hope they leave some cognac for the other guests Anna gnunped, and hoisted herself to her feet, then paused with one hand on the small of her back as a thought struck her.

We should have laid out the blue Dresden service rather than the Sevres. It would have looked better with the pink roses. You should have thought of that yesterday, Centaine cut in quickly. I’m not going to go over all that again. The two of them had worked all the previous day and most of the night to reopen the grand salon which had been closed ever since the servants left. The draperies had been floury with dust, and the high ceilings so laced with cobwebs that the scenes from mythology that decorated them were almost obscured.

They had finished the cleaning red-eyed and sneezing before beginning on the silver, which had been all tarnished and spotted. Then each piece of the red and gold Svres dinner service had to be washed and hand-dried.

The comte, protesting volubly, A veteran of Sedan and the army of the Third Empire forced to labour like a common varlet’, had been dragooned in to assist.

Finally it had all been done. The salon once again splendid, the floor of intricately fitted and patterned wooden blocks glossy with wax, the nymphs and goddesses and fauns dancing and cavorting and chasing each other across the domed ceiling, the silver aglitter and the first of Anna’s cherished roses from the greenhouse glowing like great gems in the candlelight.

We should have made a few more pies, Anna worried, those soldiers have appetites like horses. They are not soldiers, they are airmen, Centaine corrected her, and we have enough to feed the entire Allied army, not merely a single squadron, Centaine broke off. Listen, Anna! Anna waddled to the window and looked out. It is them! she declared. So early! The drab brown truck came puttering up the long gravel drive, looking prim and old-maidish on its high narrow wheels, the back crowded with all the off-duty officers from the squadron, the adjutant at the wheel with his pipe clamped in his jaws and a fixed and terrified expression on his face as he steered the vehicle on an uneven course from one verge of the wide driveway to the other, loudly encouraged by his passengers.

Have you locked the pantry? Anna demanded anxiously. If that tribe find the food before we are ready to serve Anna had enlisted her cronies from the village, those who had not fled the war, and the pantry was an Aladdin’s cave of cold pies and pAstas and the wonderful local terrines, of hams and apple tarts, of pigs trotters with truffles in aspic, and a dozen other delights.