HIGH NOON IN THE VALLEY OF VlROLANDO.
For thirty years, the sky beneath the zenith sun had been a kaleidoscope of multicolored gliders and balloons. Today, the blue was as unflecked as a baby’s eye. The River, which was always streaked with boats, with white, red, black, green, violet, purple, orange, and yellow sails, was today a solid green-blue.
The drums beat along both banks. Stay away from the air and the water and keep away from the banks.
Despite this, multitudes crowded the left bank. The majority, however, were on the spires or the bridges among the spires. They were eager to see the battle, their curiosity overriding their fear. No amount of exhortations by La Viro to stay on the hills could keep them away from this spectacle. They ignored-the wardens who tried to press them back to a safe distance. Not having experienced anything like twentieth-century weapons, or, indeed, any weapons more advanced than those of 1 A.D., they had no idea of what would happen. Few of them had seen violence on even a small scale. And so the innocents flocked to the plains or climbed the spires.
La Viro, on his knees in the temple, prayed.
Hermann Goring, having failed to console him, went up a ladder to the top of a rock tower. Though he hated this viciousness, he intended to watch it. And, he had to admit to himself, he was as excited as a child awaiting the first act of a circus. It was deplorable; he had a long way to go before the old Goring was completely destroyed. But he could not stay away from the battle and its bloodshed. No doubt, he would regret this bitterly. But then nothing like this had ever happened before on the Riverworld. Nor would it happen again.
He was not going to miss it. In fact, for a moment, he longed to be flying one of the airplanes.
Yes, he had a long way to go. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy this as much as he could. He was willing to pay for it with soul-suffering afterward.
The giant boats, the Not For Hire and the Rex Grandissimus, plowed through the waters, headed for each other. They were at this time separated by six miles. The agreement was that when they were five miles apart, they would stop. Unless, that is, the air battle was over before then. After that, everything went, no holds barred, may the best boat win.
Sam Clemens paced the deck of the pilothouse. For an hour, he had been checking all stations and had been rehearsing the battle plan. The crew assigned to the SW were in A deck now, waiting. When the signal came, they would bring up the SW and mount it behind the thick steel shield which had once protected the fore steam machine gun. This had been removed, and the platform which had held the gun was ready for the SW.
The steam-gun crew had been startled when the orders had come down to remove it. They had asked questions which were not answered. Rumors flew through the boat from prow to stern, from deck to deck. Why had the captain made this strange move? What was going on?
Meanwhile, Clemens had talked three times to William Fermor, the marine lieutenant guarding the SW crew. Sam had impressed on him the importance of his duty.
“I am still worried about John’s agents,” he said. “I know that everybody has been triple-cleared. But that doesn’t mean much. Any saboteur sent by John will be as full of duplicity as a Missouri barnyard is of crap. I want everybody who comes near the SW room checked.”
“What could they do?” Fermor said, referring to the SW men. “None of them are armed. I even looked under their kilts to make sure they’re not concealing anything there. They did not like that, I tell you. They feel that they should be trusted.”
“They should understand the necessity,” Clemens said.
The control-room chronometer indicated 11:30. Clemens looked out on the rear port. The flight deck was ready. The airplanes had been brought up on the elevators, and one was now mounted on the steam catapult at the far end of the deck. There were two, the only single-seaters to survive the long voyage, and these had been wrecked and repaired several times.
Both original single-seaters, monoplanes, had been destroyed, one in battle, one in an accident. The two replacements, constructed from parts from the storage rooms, were biplanes with in-line alcohol-burning motors capable of pulling them at 150 miles per hour at ground-level. Originally, they had been fueled by synthetic gasoline, but the supply of this had long ago run out. Twin belt-fed .50-caliber machine guns were on the nose just ahead of the open cockpit. They were capable of firing lead bullets from the brass cartridges at five hundred rounds a minute. The ammunition had been stored through the voyage for just such an event as today’s. Several days ago, the cartridges had been refilled with new charges and each had been rechecked for exact length, width, and straightness to insure against their jamming the guns.
Sam checked the chronometer again and then went down the elevator to the flight deck. A small jeep carried him to the planes, where the flight crew, the reserve pilots, and two chief pilots waited.
Both craft were painted white, and on the rudder and on the underside of the lower wings of each was painted a scarlet phoenix.
One bore on its sides a red stork in flight. Just below the cockpit were letters in black. Vieux Charles. Old Charlie. Georges Guynemer’s nickname for the planes he had flown during World War I.
On each side of the cockpit of the other plane was the head of a black and barking dog.
Both airmen were dressed in white palefish leather. Their knee-length boots were trimmed with red, as were their jodhpurs. Their jackets bore a scarlet phoenix on the left breast. The flier’s leather helmets were topped by a tiny spike, the tip of a hornfish horn. Their goggles were edged with scarlet. Their gloves were white, but the gauntlets were red. They were standing by Old Charlie, talking earnestly with each other, when Clemens got out of the jeep. As he approached them, they snapped to a salute.
Clemens was silent for a moment, eyeing them. Though the exploits of the two men had happened after he had died, he was thoroughly conversant with them.
Georges Guynemer was a thin man of medium height with burning black eyes and a face of almost feminine beauty. At all times, or, at least, outside of his cabin, he was as taut as a violin string or a guy wire. This was the man whom the French had called “the Ace of Aces.” There were others, Nungesser, Dorme, and Fonck, who had shot more Boches out of the sky. But then they saw more action, since Georges’ career had been ended relatively early.
The Frenchman was one of those natural fliers who automatically became part of the machine, an airborne centaur. He was also an excellent mechanic and technician, as careful in checking out his airplane and weapons or devising improvements as the famous Mannock and Rickenbacker. During the Great War, he had seemed to exist for nothing but flying and air-fighting. As far as was then known, he had nothing to do with women as lovers. His only confidante was his sister, Yvonne. He was a master of aerobatics but seldom used this talent in the air. He roared into battle using “the thrust direct,” as the French fencers called it. He was as wild and uncautious as his English counterpart, the great Albert Ball. Like him, he loved to fly alone and, when he encountered a group of the enemy, no matter how large it was, he attacked.
It was seldom that he did not return with his Nieuport or Spad full of bullet holes.
This was not the way to live a long life in a war in which the average life of a pilot was three weeks. Yet he managed fifty-three victories before he himself fell.
One of his comrades wrote that when Guynemer got into the cockpit to take off, “the look on his face was appalling. The glances of his eyes were like blows.”
Yet this was the man who had been rejected by the French ground services as being unfit for duty. He was frail and easily caught cold, coughed much, and was unable to relax in the boisterous conviviality of his mates after the day’s fighting was done. He looked like a consumptive and probably was.
But the French loved him, and on that black day of April 11, 1917, when he died, the whole nation went into mourning. For a generation afterward, the French schoolchildren were taught the legend that he had flown so high that the angels would not let him come back to Earth.
The truth, as known in those days, was that he had been alone as usual, and, somehow, a much lesser flier, a Lieutenant Wissemann, had shot him down. The plane had crashed into mud which was being churned by the shells of a great artillery duel. Before the thousands of explosions were done, Guynemer and his machine were blown to bits, mixed with mire, and completely disintegrated. Flesh and bone and metal became, not dust, but mud.
On the Riverworld, Georges had himself cleared up the mystery. While darting in and out of the clouds, hoping to surprise a Boche, or a dozen Boches—it made no difference to him—he had started to cough. The rackings got worse, and, suddenly, blood poured out of his mouth, running down his leather fur-lined combinaison. His fears that he had tuberculosis were now justified. But he could do nothing about it.
Even as his vitality drained away and his eyesight faded, he saw a German fighter plane approaching. Though dying, or believing that he was dying, he turned toward the enemy. His machine guns chattered, but his deadly marksmanship had deserted him. The German zoomed upward, and Guynemer turned Old Charlie tightly to follow him. For a moment, he lost him. Then bullets pierced his windshield from behind. And then... unconsciousness.
He awoke naked upon the Riverbank. Now he did not suffer from the white plague, and his flesh had filled out a little. But his intensity was still with him, though not as much as in 1917. He shared a cabin with a woman who now sat crying in it.
William George Barker, a Canadian, was a natural flier who had performed the amazing feat of soloing after only one hour of instruction.
On October 27, 1918, as major of the No. 201 Squadron of the RAF, he was flying alone in the new Sopwith Snipe. At twenty thousand feet over the Marmal Forest, he shot down a two-seater observation plane. One of its crew saved himself by parachuting. Barker was interested and perhaps a little angered when he saw this. Parachutes were forbidden to the Allied fliers.
Suddenly, a Fokker appeared, and a bullet entered his right thigh. His Snipe went into a spin, but he pulled it out, only to find himself surrounded by fifteen Fokkers. Two of these he hammered with bullets and drove away. Another, hit within a range of ten yards, flamed out. But Barker was wounded again, this time in the left leg.
He lost consciousness, regaining it just in time to bring his plane out of another spin. From twelve to fifteen Fokkers were around him. At less than five yards, he shot the tail off of one, only to have his left elbow shattered by a bullet from a Spandau machine gun.
Once more, he fainted, came to his senses, and found himself in the midst of about twelve Germans. Smoke was pouring from the Snipe. Believing that he was on fire and so doomed, he determined to ram one of the Boches. Just as the two planes were about to collide, he changed his mind. Firing, he sent the other craft up in flames.
Diving away, he reached the British lines, crashing near an observation balloon but alive.
This was Barker’s last flight, reckoned by all authorities as the greatest one-man aerial battle of WWI against overwhelming odds. Barker was in a coma for two weeks, and when he awoke the war was over. He was given the Victoria Cross for this exploit, but for a long time he had to use canes to walk and an arm-sling. Despite his crippling pain, he returned to flying, and helped organize the Royal Canadian Air Force. In partnership with the great ace William Bishop, he established the first large Canadian airline.
He died in 1930, while making a test flight of a new plane which crashed for no determinable reason. His official score was fifty enemy aircraft, though other records tallied it as fifty-three.
Guynemer also claimed fifty-three.
Clemens shook the hands of the two men.
“I’m against dueling, as you well know,” he said. “I ridiculed the notion in my books, and I’ve talked to you many times of how I loathed the old Southron wickedness of settling disputes by killing. Though I suppose that anybody that’s foolish enough to believe in that kind of arbitration ought to be killed.
“Now, I wouldn’t have objected to this aerial duel at all if I knew that you’d be dead today and alive the next, as in the old days. But this is for real. I did have reservations, as Sitting Bull said to Custer, but you two seemed so eager, like war-horses hearing a trumpet call, that I saw no reason to turn down John’s offer.
“Still, I wonder what’s behind this. Bad John may be planning something treacherous. I gave my consent because I talked to one of his officers, men I knew or knew of, and they’re honest honorable men. Though what men like William Goffe and Peder Tordenskjold are doing on that boat, serving under that evil man, I can’t imagine. He must have changed his ways, though I refuse to believe that he has changed the inner man.
“In any event, they assured me that everything was on the up and up. Their two men plan to leave the boat at the same time you do. Their planes will carry only machine guns, no rockets.”
Barker said, “We’ve gone over all this, Sam. We think you’re—we’re—in the right. After all, John did steal your boat and he tried to kill you. And we know he’s an evil man. Besides...”
“Besides, you two can’t resist the chance to get into action again,” Sam said. “You’re suffering from nostalgia. You’ve forgotten how brutal and bloody those times were, haven’t you?”
Guynemer said impatiently, “If they were not evil, they would not be on the Rex. Besides, we would be cowards if we did not accept their challenge.”
Barker said. “We have to warm up the motors.”
Sam Clemens said, “Well, I shouldn’t even be talking like this. So long, boys. And good luck. May the best men win, and I’m sure you’ll be the best!”
He shook hands again and walked to one side. This was both brave and foolish, he thought, but he had given his consent. The last-minute resumming up of the situation was due to his nervousness. He shouldn’t have said anything. But, to tell the truth, he was looking forward to this. It was like the jousts of the knights of old. He hated those knights, since, historically, they were oppressors and bleeders of the peasants and the lower classes and rather murderous to their own class. A filthy bloody-minded bunch in reality. However, there was the reality, and there was the myth. Myth always put blinders on men, and perhaps there was something good to be said for myth. The ideal was the light; the real, the shadow. Here were two exceptionally capable and courageous men, going to fight to the death in a prearranged duel. For what reason? Neither had to prove himself; they had done that long ago when the proving meant something.
What was it? Machismo? Definitely not.
Whatever their motive, they were secretly pleasing Clemens. For one thing, if they could down John’s fliers, then they could go on to strafe the Rex. Of course, if they lost, then John’s pilots would be raking the Not For Hire. He preferred not to think about that.
But the main source of pleasure was watching the combat. It was childish, or, at least, not mature. But like most men and many women, he enjoyed sport as a spectator. And this was a sporting event, however fatal for the participants. The Romans certainly knew what they were doing when they put on the gladiatorial combats.
Sam was startled when a trumpet call rang out. This was immediately followed by the stirring “Up in the Wild Blue,” composed by Gioacchino Rossini for the boat’s air force. The music, however, was electronically produced.
Barker, as commander, was the first to climb into the cockpit. The propeller turned slowly with a whine, then began whirling swiftly. Guynemer got into his plane. The people lining the edge of the flight deck and crowding the lower two rooms of the pilothouse cheered. Presently, the roar of the motor of Barker’s fighter drowned out the huzzahs and hurrays.
Sam Clemens looked up at the control room. The executive officer, John Byron, stood at the stern port of the control room, ready to signal the captain. As soon as the chronometer indicated 12:00, he would drop a scarlet cloth from the port.
A woman burst from the crowd by the edge of the deck and threw bouquets of irontree blooms into the cockpits. Guynemer, looking through goggles, smiled and waved his bouquet. Barker raised his blooms as if to throw them out, then changed his mind.
Sam looked at his watch. The blood-colored cloth dropped. He turned and gestured that the catapult should be activated. There was a whoosh of steam and Barker’s machine, released, was hurtling forward. Fifty feet before reaching the edge of the deck, it lifted.
The Frenchman’s plane soared up eighty seconds later.
The crowd spread out over the flight deck as Clemens hurried tp the pilot-house. From the control room he would climb a ladder through a hatch on the top of the structure. A chair and table were bolted down there, waiting for him. While he watched the dogfight he would drink bourbon and smoke a fresh cigar.
Nevertheless, he could not keep from worrying about King John. It was inevitable as a belch after beer that John was planning some sort of trickery.
THE REX GRANDISSIMUS WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LAKE, ITS nose pointed into the wind, its paddle wheels rotating to drive it at ten miles per hour. This, added to the five-mph headwind, gave the airplanes a fifteen-mph wind to climb into during takeoff.
King John, clad in a blue kilt, scarlet cape, and blackjack-boots, was on the flight deck. He was talking to the two pilots while the deck crew was readying the aircraft. These were dressed in black leather uniforms similar to those of the enemy fliers. Near them were the fighter craft, being readied. These were also biplanes, though the noses were blunter than their counterparts. The wings and fuselage of one plane were covered with a blue-and-silver checkerboard pattern, on which were imposed the three golden lions of King John. Its crimson nose bore a white skull and crossbon^s. The second machine was white with the three lions on the wings and rudder. On both sides and the underside of the cockpit was a red ball, the rising sun of Japan, Okabe’s sign.
Out of several hundred candidates interviewed in the past seven years, John had picked two to fly for this long-expected day. Kenji Okabe was a short husky slim man who radiated determination. Yet, most of the time he was congenial, interested in others besides himself. At this time, he looked grim. Voss, with Barker, was distinguished as having fought the two greatest one-man stands against superior forces in the aerial history of World War I.
On September 23, 1917, Voss, a destroyer of forty-eight Allied aircraft, was flying alone in one of the new Fokker triplanes when he encountered seven S.E.S. fighters of the RVC Squadron No. 56. Their pilots were among Britain’s finest fighter pilots. Five were aces, McCudden, Rhys-Davids, and Cecil Lewis being the best-known. Their leader, McCudden, immediately led his men into a circling attack. Voss was seemingly doomed to be shot down at once, the target of fourteen machine guns. But Voss flew his plane as if it were a gyrfalcon. Twice, just as McCudden had Voss in his sights, Voss went into a quick flat half-spin, a maneuver which none of the British had ever seen before. Performing outrageous yet perfectly controlled tricks, and also riddling some of their planes, Voss eluded the seven. But he could not break through the circle. Then Rhys-Davids, a superb marksman, kept him in his sights long enough to empty a drum of .50-caliber bullets from his Lewises into him. Voss’s plane fell, not without the regrets of the British. If it had been possible, they would have preferred to have brought him down alive. He was the finest fighter pilot they had ever seen.
Voss was of partly Jewish descent. Though he had encountered some prejudice in the German air force, his splendid flying abilities and determination had brought him recognition which he deserved. He had even served for a while under Richthofen, the so-called Red Baron, who had made him a flight leader and assigned him to fly top cover in the formation.
Kenji Okabe, the captain of King John’s air force, had been, during World War II, a noncommissioned officer, Naval Aviation Pilot First Class. He was one of his country’s greatest fighter pilots, and he’d set the Navy’s all-time record when, over Rabaul, the Bismarck Archipelago, he’d shot down seven American planes in one day. But while attacking a bomber over Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, he was surprised by an American plane diving from a high altitude. It shot off one of the wings of the Zero and set it on fire. Burning, Okabe fell.
John chatted with his two finest pilots for a few minutes. Then he shook Voss’s hand and returned Okabe’s bow, and the two got into the cockpits. Five thousand feet altitude, at a point halfway between the two boats, a spire with an onion-shaped top, was the agreed rendezvous.
The four biplanes spiraled upward. On reaching the designated height, as indicated by the altimeters, they straightened out. None of them thought of cheating, since they were honorable men. Nor had John suggested to his pilots that they go even higher to get the advantage. He knew them too well.
Now they headed toward each other. The sun was on the right of Voss and Okabe; on the left of Barker and Guynemer. All four would have preferred to have the sun to their backs and in their opponents’ eyes. That was the classic method of attack. Hide in ambush in sun or cloud, then, after spotting the victim below, dive down, taking him by surprise.
The airplanes reached the stipulated five thousand feet. The two pairs, with two miles between them, headed straight for each other at a combined three hundred miles an hour. Perhaps five thousand people were watching the last aerial dogfight of Terrestrials.
Werner Voss headed straight for Bill Barker; Georges Guynemer and Kenji Okabe, for each other.
It was a coolly near-suicidal maneuver. Keep the machine dead-on a collision course. Hold the fire until within 1700 feet. Press the trigger button on the joystick. Loose about ten rounds. Hope that the burst would hit a propeller, knock it out of line a little, perhaps pierce an oil line or electrical wires. Maybe even skim the cowl, pierce the windshield and hit the pilot.
Then, at the last possible second, roll and turn away to the right. If there was a miscalculation, if the other pilot did not turn but continued on his course, smash!
Guynemer’s blazing black eyes looked out of his goggles and through the ring-sight just .ahead of the windscreen. The white plane was edge-on, seemingly flattened out. The whirling propeller gave a clear view of the other man; his teeth showed whitely in the sun. Then, the plane was huge, swelling at a speed that would have frightened most men. The Frenchman pressed the button. At the same time, the muzzle of the gun of his opponent shot red.
The two airplanes rolled simultaneously, and their wheels almost collided. Both brought their craft up and around in a turn so tight that the blood drained from their heads.
For a second, as he circled, Guynemer had the checkerboard machine in his sights. But he did not waste any bullets. It was gone too quickly.
Barker and Okabe crossed, almost hitting each other, so close they saw each other’s faces.
It was a mad scramble now, each climbing with all the power of his motor, at an angle just short of a stall. Their motors sang with the labor.
Then Okabe slid off, dropping, and as his sight crossed Guynemer, he triggered a burst of four bullets.
The Frenchman ducked involuntarily as a hole was punched in his windscreen. Banking, he followed Okabe down, hoping to get on his tail. The plane displaying the red ball had taken a chance and almost succeeded. But now he was lower than Guynemer, and he must pay.
The Japanese came back up in a tight loop which almost stood the plane on its tail. It fell back, and Okabe, upside down, fired as Guynemer came into his sights again. The Frenchman was rolling then. Bullets stitched across the fuselage, just missing him. His fuel tank was hit, but it was self-sealing, a feature he didn’t have in his old Spad. Okabe straightened the plane out and climbed again. Guynemer curved his machine around, sped up, hung it on its nose for several seconds, and loosed four bullets. One shot through the cockpit, burning the Japanese’s hand on the stick. Grunting with pain, Okabe snatched his hand away. His plane fell off to the right, out of control for a moment.
Guynemer had fallen into a spin, though he brought it out quickly.
The Frenchman and the German were, without planning it, for a few seconds side by side, both climbing. Then Guynemer banked toward Voss, and, to prevent a collision, Voss also banked. Instead of turning away, as Guynemer had expected, Voss turned toward him but went down instead of up.
Voss’ wingtip missed Guynemer’s tail elevator by a half-inch.
The German drove down and then up in a loop, a maneuver not recommended when the enemy was on your tail. At its top, he rolled over and then dived.
Guynemer had thought, when Checkerboard turned into him, that it was all over. Quickly recovering, no time for thought about narrow escapes here, he started to climb, looking over his shoulder. For a moment he could not see Checker—board. Then both it and Barker’s machine flashed by him. His friend was behind Checkerboard, having somehow gotten on his tail. Checkerboard went into a barrel roll, lost speed in the maneuver, and then did a flat half-spin. Voss was quick as a cat at the controls. Suddenly, he was pointed in the opposite direction. Barker’s plane shot by him, their wingtips almost touching.
Guynemer had no time for further looking except for the plane with the red ball. Now the fellow was behind him but below, climbing as fast as he but still unable to decrease the distance between them. His foe was about seven hundred feet, Guynemer estimated. Close enough to reach him with his fire but too distant for accurate shooting in the air.
Nevertheless, Red Ball did give him a burst. Holes walked across Guynemer’s right wing as he raised it to turn. Red Ball also turned, jockeying his machine so that he could zero in on the man in the cockpit. Guynemer pushed in on the throttle until it was flat against the panel. If only his motor had more power than Red Ball’s, he could pull away slowly even in this steep climb. But there was no use wishing. They were evenly matched in this respect.
He pulled the stick back with a smooth savagery. He decreased the angle of his climb, thus allowing Red Ball to narrow the gap between them. But Guynemer could not curve up and over onto his back without more power. To try that without flattening out his inclination to the horizon would send his ship into a stall. For about thirty seconds, he had to take a chance that his enemy’s fire would miss vital parts of his target.
Okabe closed up, wondering why Vieux Charles had slowed down. By now he assumed that its pilot was Guynemer. Like all airmen, he knew Guynemer’s history well. For some moments after seeing the name, he had felt strange. What was he doing up here trying to kill the famous Frenchie, to shoot down Old Charlie!
Okabe looked through the sight. When he came within fifty yards, he would shoot. Now, now he was in range. He depressed the button on top of the joystick; his craft shook as the machine gun spat. He wasn’t close enough to see if he had hit, but he doubted it. And now the white ship emblazoned with the red stork was pulling its nose up. Now, it was standing on its tail, and now, it had flipped over and was shooting at him.
But Okabe had kicked rudder and pushed the stick. At this altitude, the plane did not respond as swiftly as in straight flight. But it performed the half-roll and then he was diving away. He looked back and saw that Old Charlie was coming out of the dive in the opposite direction.
He turned steeply and headed toward it, hoping to catch it before it could get above him.
Voss, finding the plane marked with the dog’s head behind him, had little time to determine which maneuver might shake it off his tail. He doubted that any conventional aerobatics would do it. This man would just perform the same or would hang back a little and pounce on him when he came out of it.
Savagely, he yanked the throttle half-back.
Barker was surprised to come so close so suddenly. But he did not stop to think. Checkerboard was in his sight; the range was fifty yards and becoming less. Then the helmet of the pilot was inside the ring of his sight. He pressed on the trigger button.
Checkerboard, as if reading his mind, suddenly increased power and at the same time half-rolled. Barker’s bullets sped by where the head had been, scorching the bottom of the fuselage, knocking off the tail skid.
Immediately, the Canadian half-rolled. If he had to shoot while on his side, he would do so.
Checkerboard righted itself but continued into a half-roll to the right. Doghead followed it. Checkerboard regained horizontal attitude, and Doghead pressed on the trigger button again.
But Checkerboard slid on into a turning dive. He must be desperate, Barker thought. I can turn and dive as fast as he. He also thought that Checkerboard must be Voss. He had to be.
But Checkerboard pointed his nose up quickly, barrel-rolled, and fell down again. Barker refused to emulate the maneuver. He pushed on the stick, his thumb ready to press, sticking to Checkerboard as closely as a duckling to its mother.
Guynemer, coming out of the dive, was in Checkerboard’s line of fire. And Voss, estimating in a flash the vectors of his plane and Old Charlie’s, the wind and the range, let loose a burst. There were only six bullets fired, and Guynemer was gone by. But one struck the Frenchman in the thigh, penetrating it at a downward angle.
Barker did not know that Voss was shooting until he saw Georges throw up an arm and snap his head backward. Then he closed his thumb on the button, but Voss had zoomed up and into a flat half-spin, suicidally throwing his wings around so that Barker had to bank away to keep from collision.
But he was around, turning as swiftly as a leopard fearing a hamstringing by a wild dog. Voss had momentarily escaped him, though at a cost. Forced to dive again to regain speed before Barker could get to him, he was below him again.
Barker slid down toward him, looking around at the same time for Red Ball.
He saw it. It was headed for him from above, coming to aid its fellow, now that Guynemer was momentarily, perhaps permanently, hors de combat.
It was vital to abandon Voss for the moment. Barker turned his plane up, its nose pointed on the same plane and in the same direction as Okabe’s. Collision course.
But having to climb put him at a disadvantage. The enemy did not have to stay at the same level, nor did he. He banked slightly, turning to the left. Barker banked to the left. Okabe rolled to the right and then flattened out the dive. Evidently, he was trying to circle around to get on his tail. The Canadian looked down on both sides. Guynemer was climbing away now. He wasn’t so badly wounded he was out of the fight. And the German was heading toward the Frenchman, who was almost at the same level. He was underneath him, in a perfect position for Barker to attack him. Unfortunately, Barker was in the same situation as Voss with respect to Okabe.
Barker turned his plane while still climbing. Within about thirty seconds, Okabe would come screaming down and around and behind him.
To hell with Okabe. He was going to attack Voss anyway.
Barker’s plane dived in a long curve.
The wings shook with the speed of the descent. He glanced at his speedometer. Two hundred and sixty miles per hour. At ten miles per hour more, the wings would be under an intolerable strain.
He glanced back. Okabe was following him now but not that closely. Probably his wing’s had about the same tolerance as his own plane. Barker flattened out a little, decreasing the rate of descent. This would allow Okabe to narrow the gap between him and Barker. But Barker wanted to come up on Voss at a speed which would give him time for a long burst.
Now Voss, seeing Barker diving, the only target himself, turned his machine toward the swooping nemesis. For a few seconds, they were on the same line, and the muzzles of Voss’ guns spat flame. He was taking a long chance, the odds high against success, since the range was four hundred yards. But there was little else he could do.
If the plane had been miraculously hit, Barker himself was untouched. Now he banked away, altering slightly the curve. He throttled back, looking backward at the same time. Okabe was getting closer, but he was still too far away to use his weapon.
Barker’s machine, the wind howling over the edge of the windscreen, came around and behind Voss. The German did not look back, but he would see Barker in his rear-view mirror.
Evidently, he had, since he half-rolled and dropped back and away. Barker performed the same maneuver, and then he saw that Guynemer was going to be in Voss’ line of fire as Voss leveled out. For a second or two, Guynemer’s plane would be broadside to Voss’s guns. Twice, the Frenchman had been in the line of fire of Voss, both times by accident.
Barker still did not know whether or not his buddy had been hit. He and Voss zoomed past Guynemer; the back of Voss’ head was in Barker’s sight, the range only fifty yards, and he was closing the gap.
A glance in the mirror. Okabe was behind him by about fifty yards. And he was coming up fast. So fast that he would have only some seconds to fire unless he throttled back. Which he would do, of course, unless he was very sure of his marksmanship.
Barker pressed the trigger. Holes danced down the length of the fuselage from the tail, passed over the pilot, “whose head exploded in a gout of blood, and danced along the motor.
The spectators on the shore now saw a strange sight. There were three airplanes in a line, and then, suddenly, four. Guynemer had come up behind Okabe. He was not above, the best position, and he did not have the speed which Okabe had gained in his dive. But as Voss’ skull disintegrated, as Barker’s spine was severed and the top of his head removed, Guynemer fired three rounds. One struck Okabe in the small of his back from below, angling up, ricocheting off the backbone, moving out toward the front of the body, and rupturing the solar plexus.
After that, Guynemer’s vision failed, and he dropped forward, shoving the stick down though not knowing it, while blood poured from his arm and his side. Two of Voss’ bullets had found their mark.
The checkerboard plane spun in, just missing the top of a rock spire on the bank, crashing through level after level of the bamboo bridges, and smashed into a hut. Flame gouted from it, burning alcohol splashed over neighboring huts and the wind took the flames to other buildings.
The first of many fires that was to become a holocaust had started.
The plane marked with the dog’s head smashed into a spire and fell burning along its length, breaking through levels of bridges and huts, scattering pieces of hot metal and flaming fuel for many yards around.
The machine marked with the red ball whirled like a corkscrew into the beach, struck scores of screaming spectators as they dashed for safety, plowed through scores more, and ended up against the great dance hall. The fire danced, too, leaping and whirling along the front and quickly enmeshing the entire structure in unquenchable scarlet and orange.
Old Charlie descended in a shallow steep dive, turning over just before impact. It struck the edge of the bank of The River, dug a trench through the grass-covered earth while it flamed, smashed five people fleeing for their lives, and stopped at the base of an irontree trunk.
Goring, pale and shaking, thought matt nobody had proved anything except that courage and great skill were not guarantees of survival, that Dame Fortune plays an invisible hand, and that war is fatal to soldiers and civilians, belligerents and neutrals alike.