The Red Baron: A World War I Novel (7 page)

Two enormous oaks waited for him, each a silent and still disaster for his plane. Manfred worked the rudder as best he could and drove the plane between the trees. The wings were ripped free and what remained of the plane crashed down a hillside. Manfred threw his arms up in front of his face and prayed Zeumer would lie about the circumstances of his death when he wrote to his family.

His eyes shut, Manfred felt the plane careen off something then crash to a halt. He peeked from behind his arms, then patted his body to check for injuries. With nothing broken, he unsnapped his safety harness and stood up in the cockpit.

The plane was wrecked. It looked like sparrow ravaged by a house cat; torn fabric, splintered wood, and a dented engine.

“Manfred! Are you alive?” Zeumer asked. He and Fegelein stood at the edge of the woods, voyeurs to the disaster.

“Did I pass?” Manfred called back.

Fegelein slammed his clipboard to the ground and stomped off.

“No!” said Zeumer.

The Bertincourt airfield seethed as mechanics and pilots readied for the afternoon patrol. Manfred’s staff car stopped outside the chateau that served as the headquarters and barracks for Squadron 2, Boelcke’s squadron.

Manfred stepped from the staff car and smoothed out his uniform. His fingers danced over his pilot’s badge, still glistening from the morning’s polish. He watched as mechanics and enlisted men pushed the squadron’s Albatros D.II fighters from the hangars on to an unseen line at the end of the runway. The D.II had a rounded propeller spinner, giving it a sleek look compared to the flying boxes he’d flown in since the war started. “Aerodynamics” was a new word to the world of aircraft design and manufacture, and the D.I was one of the first planes to benefit. Pilots and crew of the new planes had nicknamed it “the shark.” Manfred had never flown the D.II. They were unavailable to the pilot’s school in Berlin, as they were needed at the Front. He’d receive ample instruction on the plane he’d fly into combat once he reached his unit, the instructors had insisted.

He made his way to a set of double wooden doors leading into the chateau. Reporting to the adjutant was the first order of business. Three pilots decked out in bulky flight suits burst from the doors and stormed past Manfred. One, with close-cropped dark hair and a strong jaw, turned and squinted at Manfred, still backpedaling toward the flight line.

“Go see Boelcke!” he said, pointing to an Albatros that had just landed. The man turned around and ran to the waiting planes.

He ran to the plane as it came to a rest outside the hangar and saluted the pilot. Boelcke, unrecognizable under his flight cap, goggles, and a face blackened by gun smoke, returned Manfred’s salute with his walking stick.
An odd thing to bring in the air
, Manfred thought.

“Manfred! Glad to have you with us,” Boelcke said as he removed his cap and goggles. He slapped the side of his plane to hurry his mechanic over. The man propped a ladder next to the plane.

“Did you score again, sir?” the mechanic asked as Boelcke climbed down. Daylight streaked through bullet holes on the top wing. Mismatched fabric patches dotted the fuselage.

“Is my chin black? If so, then I have another kill,” he said.

Boelcke was even larger than life to Manfred. With twenty-six victories to his credit, he was the top scoring ace in the entire war. Boelcke stripped off his gloves and overboots and handed them off to his mechanic with practiced ease.

“A Tommy observer over the trenches. I came at him with the sun at my back and shot his engine to pieces on my first pass. He never stood a chance,” Boelcke said. He snapped his walking stick under his armpit and led Manfred toward the hangar.

“Rip the wings from any more planes during your training?” he asked.

So much for Zeumer keeping that secret,
Manfred thought. Why would Boelcke bring him into his squadron after a mess-up like that? Manfred stammered a reply.

Boelcke laughed and gave Manfred’s shoulder a shake. “Don’t worry about it. I wrecked on my first solo flight too.” He led Manfred into the hangar, which smelled of wet straw and horses. They walked toward a pair of bullet-nosed biplanes in the corner. Both planes’ engines were uncovered, their internal workings exposed to the elements.

“She’s yours,” Boelcke said, gesturing to the plane on the right, rudder bare of fabric and engine parts laid out over a burlap sack. Manfred looked over the nearly obsolete and un-airworthy plane.

“No, not the latest model Albatros. The bean counters assure me that this squadron is first in line for the next batch fresh from the factory. We should get them next week, which is what they said two weeks ago.” Boelcke ran his hand along the spine of the fuselage as he walked toward the engine.

“Your mechanic will be here in just a moment. He’ll take you through basic engine maintenance and the like. You’ll fly with me tomorrow. I have to make sure that you’re brave.” Boelcke winked at Manfred and strode from the hangar.

Manfred stared at the engine, caught flatfooted by Boelcke’s pronouncement.

“Don’t worry. He flies with everyone the first time,” a reedy voice said behind him.

A young man, just out of his teens, slight of build, and just over five feet tall, climbed from underneath the other Albatros.

“It’ll be my first time too,” his face was so youthful that Manfred wondered if his mother knew he’d joined the army. “Kurt Wolff, nice to meet you,” he said.

Manfred shook his greasy hand and introduced himself.

“Do the pilots do all the engine work in Boelcke’s squadron?” he asked.

“No, but we’re expected to know the basics. Boelcke says that if something goes wrong at ten thousand feet, there won’t be a mechanic up there to help us out.” Wolff wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

A plump mechanic walked into the hangar, his gait lopsided by a bulky toolbox in his hand. His bright red and droopy mustache reminded Manfred of a walrus.

“I’m Sergeant Savage. Where’s the other one?” he asked.

“Cherchez la femme,” Wolff said with a shrug.

Savage peered into the engine of Manfred’s plane with a frown, and then stuck his hand into one of the cylinders. He teased out a small piece of metal and dropped it into Manfred’s palm. It was a bullet, scarred by rifle striations and bent where it struck the engine.

“First, we will discuss oil. If there is one thing you must check before every flight, it is that,” Savage said with the enthusiasm of a tired schoolmaster.

A small engine snarled as a motorcycle and rider rolled into the hangar. The rider deployed the kickstand and swung off the bike before it had stopped moving. He ran over, sweaty and breathless. Lipstick stained the corner of his lips and his collar.

“What did I miss?” asked Werner Voss.

Manfred watched as the British troops swarmed from their trenches and into no-man’s-land. From his perch high atop the battlefield, the British advance looked like the advancing edge of a wave moving up a beach.

He reached out and ran his hand over his Spandau machine guns, ensuring the action was smooth and the bullets fed into the chamber. It was just as ready as the last dozen times he’d checked it since he, Voss, Wolff, and Boelcke had taken off for the morning’s mission. As much as he wanted to dive on the British soldiers and strafe them with the machine gun, his mission was to safeguard a more potent weapon.

He and the rest of his flight flew above an Aviatik observation plane as it waited for the British attack to move closer to the German lines. A single Aviatik was almost helpless before the British F.E.2b, “Fees” to the Germans, fighters that prowled the skies. Boelcke and his neophyte pilots were there to discourage any adversaries and ensure the Aviatik could carry out its mission unmolested. An artillery shell landed in front of the British advance, too far away to inflict any casualties. The wave front slowed, but kept advancing.

Lights flashed from the observer, range and deflection corrections sent to the distant battalion of German artillery. Manfred reached for the cocking lever on the Spandau; he could do something for the German soldiers in their trenches if the observer failed in his mission.

Seconds later, dozens of shells landed among the British attack. Manfred watched as a dozen British simply ceased to be as a shell exploded on top of them, their whole existence replaced by a patch of no-man’s-land. Thousands of British soldiers floundered as the shelling continued. Dirt and smoke from the shelling churned up a fog that clouded Manfred’s view.

British soldiers retreated to their lines, a trickle that gave way to a flood as the line receded. The German barrage shifted, walking back toward the British trench line. Manfred watched as a single British soldier, running for all his worth away from the carnage, went sprawling from a near miss. The man got back up and made it to a shell hole, where he didn’t move again.

Is he dead, or hoping to wait out the battle?
Manfred thought. The shelling subsided as the British limped back to their lines. Smoking craters and broken bodies littered no-man’s-land. Hundreds must have died, and for what? No territory gained and no damage to the German war effort other than a need to resupply the artillery battalion. Manfred shook his head at the futility of it all.

The Aviatik wagged its wings and turned east, its mission complete. Manfred was impressed by the power of one aircraft in the right place, at the right time. Glorified babysitting missions weren’t why he’d earned his pilot’s badge, but doing something to protect the German soldiers in their trenches was satisfying in its own way.

Manfred looked to Boelcke’s Albatros; he had the latest model D.III Albatros, complete with stronger engine and shorter, lower wings, while the rest of the pilots flew D.IIs. Boelcke’s Albatros didn’t turn east to follow the observer, but turned north. Manfred and the rest followed suit, gaining altitude as they went.

They continued over German lines. The railhead at Villers lay ahead of them. Manfred’s gaze crept from Boelcke, waiting for his signal, to their rear to scan for threats, and toward the sun, where the most devastating attack would originate. His silk scarf wasn’t for looks, as Lothar would accuse; it kept his neck from rubbing raw as he kept his head on a swivel.

Boelcke’s Albatros undulated, and then wagged its wings. Once he had the rest of the pilots’ attention, Boelcke pointed ahead and below his aircraft.

Manfred saw them immediately, half a dozen F.E.2b bombers, the propeller mounted on the back of the cockpit to push the plane through the air, flying in a diagonal formation toward the railhead. Boelcke pointed at Manfred with his walking stick, then toward the rearmost Fee.

Manfred wagged his wings in acknowledgment and pitched forward into a dive. His heart quickened as air rushed over the wings, the engine straining as he opened the throttle. The Fee grew closer—no reaction from the pilot or the gunner/observer sitting in front of him. He cocked his guns and forced himself to wait. The closer he was, the more likely he’d hit his target. Two hundred yards…one hundred fifty…at a hundred yards, the pilot and observer burst to life. The rear gunner swung his machine gun toward Manfred.

Manfred pressed both triggers, firing as he dove past the Fee. He pulled up from the dive and found his target. With no smoke or other signs of distress, his shots must have missed. Voss and Wolff had made their attacks. One of the Fees belched gray smoke as it spiraled toward the earth.

His Fee was above him and had rolled to the side, giving the gunner a shot at Manfred. Flashes burst from the Fee; bullets zipped past each other as Manfred’s Albatros came level with the Fee.

Manfred had two choices, dive again and try for another attack from below the Fee’s defilade, or stay level and trade shots with the gunner. With Boelcke watching, and his first true victory within his grasp, Manfred chose the deadlier option.

The Fee pilot rolled his plane to the left, trying to give his gunner a shot, anticipating that Manfred would have gone with the safer choice. The gunner, with no way to engage his foe, slapped his pilot’s shoulder in a panic as Manfred lined up behind the Fee.

From fifty yards away, Manfred poured rounds into the Fee; bullets sparked off the propeller and ripped into the pilot, who crumpled into his seat. The Fee lost airspeed and glided to the earth, the pilot hunched over at the controls. Manfred followed the plane down, ready to fire again if the distress was a ruse.

He took a quick glance to the sky and saw one of the Fees explode. Two more explosions blossomed in quick succession as the bombs beneath the plane cooked off. He let the distance between him and his quarry stretch out, not wanting to be to close if it too exploded.

The Fee landed in an open field. It skidded across the bare earth before rolling onto a side, wings shattered like a glass thrown against a wall before coming to a stop.

Manfred landed his plane in the same field, and leapt from the cockpit before the propeller stopped moving. He ran toward the crashed Fee, the ripped belly of the fuselage all he could see. Two bombs were strapped to the undercarriage.

A rush filled Manfred’s belly, a feeling he hadn’t had since his last hunting trip from before the war. He stopped a dozen paces from the plane; there was no sign of the two Englishmen from the plane. No moans of pain, cries for help, curses for their luck.

Manfred pulled his pistol and cocked back the hammer. He sidestepped around the front, his pistol ready. The pilot lay half in, half out of his cockpit; blood stained the front of his uniform, a boneless arm flung over his face. The gunner hunched inside his seat, nestled against the side like a child hiding from a thunderstorm. Blood flowed from the seat well, pooling in the dirt beneath the plane.

“Hello?” Manfred said. No response.

He reached out and touched the observer’s shoulder. The body wavered, then returned to stillness.

Manfred holstered his pistol and pulled a knife from inside his flight jacket. He cut away the plane’s serial number, 7018, and folded the fabric into a small square before shoving it into a pocket.

He looked over his first true victory, at the two men he’d killed. Something tugged at him from deep within his heart, a modicum of sympathy for the dead. He tamped that feeling down and looked to the bombs beneath the aircraft. They were determined to kill Germans. They were the enemy and what he’d done was righteous. It was his duty to the Fatherland to shoot them down.