The Black Mountains (51 page)

Ease up, ease out, and fall into formation. Stick together and you're invincible. Almost. A dark line, goose-like in the sky. Tuck in, stay vigilant. Look strong, and you'll be strong. And watch the sun. Too often they come out of the sun.

But he knew the formation was still too loose to be safe, and up ahead there was cloud that hadn't been there on the way in, high cumulus, ivory towers in the sky, and the sun coming through like arrow shafts. It worried him, and his skin prickled with an awareness that should have warned him but somehow didn't, until it was too late.

They came from nowhere, diving like hawks with folded wings, half a dozen Fokker biplanes with the vivid red fuselages of the Richthofen Circus. One moment the sky was clear, the next it seemed full of aircraft and tracers and spurts of orange flame that vied with the sun for brilliance. Two attached themselves to Jack's tail, and another came at him head on.

Startled, he made to fire his guns—the twin Vickers that he so seldom had the chance to use—but the triplane fired first and a bullet straight through the propeller arc put paid to one Vickers. Jack zoomed, but not in time to avoid another bullet that passed through the fabric of his flying jacket, scratching his skin in a long, painful tear.

Breath whistled through his teeth, and he twisted the rudder this way and that, trying to dodge the tracers of the following enemy aircraft. Up ahead, he saw one of the de Havillands begin a downward spiral, black smoke pouring from its tail. Seconds later, a triplane exploded into a ball of fire.

Sweat stood out on his face in crystal beads and rolled down the neck of his jacket, but he hardly noticed. His breathing was shallow and ragged, his heart pumping blood around his body at twice the normal rate. For long, timeless minutes he twisted, climbed and dived, doing all he could to keep the triplanes from getting beneath his tail, and giving Kelly his best chance of getting the sights of his Lewis guns lined up for a hit. But one of the Fokkers broke away from the others, coming in at him broadside, spraying the side of his fuselage with bullets and then diving away to safety.

At first, Jack was too concerned about damage to the aircraft to realize he, himself, had been hit, then, looking down, he saw to his surprise that blood was gushing in a scarlet stream from his thigh. Instantly he tried to move his foot, but the muscles refused to answer his command.

The wound was bad, he knew it instinctively without even investigating the sticky mess beneath the torn cloth. But there was no time now for speculation. Time enough for that when they had got away from the biplanes—if they ever did.

A sudden blast hit the de Havilland from beneath, tossing the aircraft like a toy and sending shock waves up Jack's spine so that the very core of him seemed to vibrate, his injured leg exploding into a furnace of pain. In that first surprised fragment of time the de Havilland's nose dropped sharply, and she went into a spin, but the air rushing past his face and the sensation of the dreaded spin brought Jack to his senses, and he went into the levelling-out procedure taught at training school and practised on numerous occasions: stick forward to gain speed, full opposite rudder—and pray!

Just when he thought the spin would never come under control, he felt the plane begin to right itself, and as sky and ground took their proper places on the horizon he realized that the shells bursting around him came not from the biplanes, but from the ground.

So that was it! The dogfight had driven them back over enemy lines, and the shell that had exploded right under the de Havilland had come from the anti-aircraft guns. Now the triplanes had left, thinking that the men on the ground could finish what they had started, and not wishing themselves to be used as target practice by their own anti-aircraft fire.

Hope leaped in Jack, firing his reflexes anew, and he pulled on the joy-stick, raising the nose and climbing once more.

Those of his formation who had escaped were away now, scampering for home, and of the fighter escort, there was no sign.

So I'm on my own, Jack thought, and by way of comfort and reassurance of at least one friendly soul in this cruelly alien wasteland, he risked a look over his shoulder to catch Maurice Kelly's eye. But what he saw horrified him. Kelly was slouched over his guns, his head lolling forward.

Sweating, he jerked his head round once more. He was alone, over enemy territory, in a damaged aircraft with a gun-layer who was either unconscious or dead, and he himself was bleeding badly. With no gun-layer to protect his vulnerable rear, he was a sitting target for any patrolling enemy aircraft who happened to spot him.

Dodging acrid bursts of high explosive and climbing higher, he tried to think.

Perhaps it would be better if he flew north to Holland rather than battle against the west wind all the way home. The people there would be friendly, he knew. But with his gun-layer unconscious, and his own leg badly injured it could be difficult for the peasants to hide them both as they had done other pilots in the past. And today, instead of friendly Dutch country people, he might find himself surrounded by German soldiers. Even leaving his wounded leg and poor old Kelly out of it, Jack had no wish to spend the rest of the war in a prison camp like Ted, and besides …

“I don't believe I've got any matches to set light to the aircraft,” Jack said aloud, talking to himself to keep his mind off the pain. “I'm sure I didn't put any in my pocket this morning. And I'm not leaving a de Havilland there as a showpiece for every Fritz within miles. They can find someone else to make them a present of an instructor's exhibit.”

He gritted his teeth against the now-excruciating pain in his leg and climbed to five thousand feet. Then he set his nose for home. “You can make it, Jack,” he told himself. “ Dig your heels in and keep going. Every mile is a mile nearer. Every mile is a mile you won't have to fly again.”

He ran into the cumulus again over enemy lines, and blessed it. Here, in the valleys between the towering cliffs of fluffy white cloud he was quite hidden from the anti-aircraft guns on the ground, and from enemy fighters. The problem was that they would be hidden from him, too. There could be any number of them just above him, waiting to pounce, and he would never know it.

Beads of sweat rolled down his face, and he curled his hands tightly round the controls, fighting the urge to go down and get beneath the cloud bank. That would be pointless, for he would then make a perfect target for any enemy fighter who chose to sit hidden in the edges of the cloud, watching for aircraft in the sky beneath.

He checked his compass and flew on, and after a while the cloud began to thin so that beneath him he could see patches of barren winter ground. His tongue was back between his teeth, and fierce concentration drove all else from his mind. Keep going. Just keep going. Maybe you'll do it yet. Maybe …

The German fighter must have been hiding behind one of the last patches of cumulus. As he crossed the pool of clear sky it dived towards him, an Albatros with a tiger's head emblazoned on its fuselage. For a moment it seemed to him that his heart had ceased beating and his throat and mouth had folded inwards, choking him.

This was it then, the end, and just as he had feared. An Albatros was coming in for the kill and he was defenceless, with one of his Vickers guns out of action and the gun-layer unable to fire the twin Lewis. The Albatros closed, its guns spitting orange fire. But as the planes passed, so did Jack's moment of panic. Adrenaline burst like shell-fire in his veins, and he was filled with the fiercest determination he had ever known.

I don't want to die, he thought—not here, not like this. And while there's life in my body, I won't give up.

The Albatros came closer, the sun flashing on its wings. As it dived, Jack pushed hard on the rudder, swinging round sharply, and the Albatros fell away beneath his starboard wing, out of range. It turned to come in again and so did he, so that they faced each other head-on. It was his only chance, Jack reckoned, to keep the German from getting behind him where he could shoot at his vulnerable, exposed rear. The Albatros came in, and Jack fired at him with his one remaining Vickers gun, but the shots went wide, scorching holes in the wing fabric but doing no real damage. The German's shot was more accurate. As they swooped away from one another again, Jack saw his temperature gauge shoot up, and he knew his radiator had been holed. His heart sank, but still he refused to give up. In a situation like this, he had nothing to lose. He would probably die in the end, but at least he could try to take the German with him.

He turned again, but the Albatros was quicker. It banked hard, with full throttle, the pilot risking a spin in order to manoeuvre himself into a position behind and beneath Jack's vulnerable tail. Jack sucked in his breath, trying to squirm out of danger, but although the Albatros was unable to get under him, it was now directly behind him, the very thing he had been so desperately trying to avoid.

He glanced over his shoulder. Yes, here it came. And the pilot was grinning, damn him. As clear as if he were sitting beside him on a bus, Jack saw the satisfied curl of his lips. Already, no doubt, he had counted the de Havilland as another notch on his wings. Again, but without much hope, Jack grasped the joy-stick, pulling it hard towards him, and as he did so, he heard the sharp crackle of gun-fire.

So this was it, he thought, waiting for the inevitable sickening fall or the smell of burning. He's got me.

But instead the de Havilland rose at his bidding, coughing, protesting, but still obedient, and beneath him he saw to his amazement the spiralling wreck of the Albatros, trailing black smoke as it fell. Half bemused and weak from loss of blood, he watched it until it hit the ground and exploded into a mass of vivid flame.

What happened? he wondered senselessly. What in the world happened? Automatically he glanced over his shoulder to where the inert figure of Kelly had slumped a few moments earlier, and he was rewarded by the weak but unmistakable thumbs-up of his gun-layer.

Kelly was not dead after all! And by some miracle he had managed to shoot the enemy aircraft down in flames!

A wave of weakness threatened Jack, and looking down he saw his cockpit was awash with blood. So dizzy did he feel that now, at the very moment of triumph, it was all he could do to keep from giving up. But the knowledge that Kelly was still alive drove him to one last effort. Kelly had saved him, now it was up to him to save Kelly.

With an enormous effort he turned the nose for home once more. The temperature gauge was now showing zero and he guessed that most of his water had gone. If so, his engine would probably seize. As he flew, he listened to it knocking and groaning, and somehow the ominous noise kept him on the edge of consciousness. He began muttering to himself again.

“A little further … a little further. Hell, these engines are marvellous to take a hammering like this! Ease her on, ease her on. Drop a little, look around. Why is everything red, even the sky? And the mist—not mist too! Come on Jack, hold on. A little further. You can do it.”

And then, beneath him, he saw the airfield, spread out like the arms of a waiting mother. He came in, almost unable to believe now that he and the de Havilland were home. His wheels skimmed the hangars, and then he was down, pancaking on to the tarmac. The nose fell forward, buried itself in the ground, and the tired tail tried to rise, then fell back. Men ran out towards the crippled aircraft, the heat from the engines scorching their faces, but mercifully there was no fire.

In the rear Maurice Kelly was unconscious once more, but alive.

And in the cockpit, his leg almost severed, awash in his own blood, Jack too hung on.

As they approached him, he looked at them with eyes weary, but feverishly bright in his white face.

“Thank the Lord,” he said.

And passed out.

JACK WAS taken to hospital first in France, then, when he was fit enough to be moved, hospital train and boat brought him to London, where the battle to save his leg continued.

At first he was too ill to know or care. As he surfaced from the black-edged hell of pain, the threat of losing a limb refused to seem real to him. It was still there, his leg, and it would mend. He was in England now, and English doctors could do anything.

But it was what went on inside his head that was the reality—the battles he still fought over and over again with the German triplanes, the bombs he had to drop, the air raids night after night on his base.

It was some time before the nightmares stayed at bay for long enough for him to notice what was going on around him. And the first person he became aware of as a flesh-and-blood reality and not a fevered hallucination was a girl.

She was tall and well-built, and her VAD uniform suited her. But there was something about her which seemed familiar—an impression he hastily dismissed as fanciful. He couldn't know her, a nurse in a London hospital. But he watched her all the same, his eyes drawn to her by the vague chord she struck somewhere deep in his memory.

After a while he asked the young, curly-haired flier in the next bed to his if he knew her name. But he shook his head.

“Sorry, can't help you. I haven't seen her much myself before. But she's got a pretty sharp tongue for all that she looks like the proverbial angel of mercy. I heard her giving that chap down at the end a piece of her mind earlier on.”

Jack smiled, and the young flier, who introduced himself as Nick Morland, went on, “ Just leave it to me. I'll find out for you.”

This offer, Jack hastily declined. In lucid moments he had noticed Nick fancied his chances with the nurses, and he had no wish for him to begin heavy-handed advances on his behalf. If he had met the girl before, which he doubted, he'd no doubt find out all in good time. If not, well, in his present state, it didn't matter much one way or the other.

At midday, however, when lunch arrived, he was pleased to see that it was the tall, attractive nurse who came to serve him. “ I hope you're going to eat this all up today, Lieutenant. I understand your appetite isn't all it should be!”