Ashton Park (23 page)

“I’m not so sure.”

“Well, we’re both in the same boat. They expect me to marry Lady Caroline Scarborough and I want to marry a French girl whose father is a humble baker of bread and
croissants.
We both have to win my mum and dad over. Let’s try and buck each other up.” Kipp pulled on his leather flying helmet. “See you up there.”

The squadron’s planes roared over the grass airfield, taking off one after the other while Ben stood by his Sopwith Camel, watching them go. Kipp flashed a thumbs-up as he swept past and Ben returned the gesture without much enthusiasm.

“Any luck?” he asked his chief mechanic.

“We’ll test fire the guns against the brick wall in twenty minutes. But we can’t be sure they’ll be spot on.”

“All right. Keep at it.”

The sun rose higher and blazed over the aerodrome. The blades of grass that were beaded with the morning rain sparked and burned.

Fifteen minutes out Kipp had not seen any enemy aircraft except a German observation plane a good distance to the north. Woodlands below the squadron that hadn’t been blasted to stumps by artillery glowed orange and red as blue or green rivers and streams wound between them.

Stretching his neck, looking all around him, especially to his back, he had just begun to wonder about the thick white clouds high and to the north, when black shapes hurtled through them and dived on his men.

He recognized the yellow and black wasp camouflage of one of the newer German
Jagdstaffels—Jastas
for short
—
led by Wolfgang Zeltner. They flew Germany’s most modern fighter, the Fokker D.VII. Except for Zeltner—he would not relinquish his Fokker triplane, and Kipp watched it swoop, guns flashing, three wings of yellow and black.

Bullets scorched the air around his cockpit. He frantically signaled his squadron to break, slashing with his arm, but the sleek black-crossed aircraft had already fastened onto the Sopwiths like claws, and one of his airmen went into a spin, gray smoke pouring from his plane’s engine. As Kipp watched the aircraft wind itself into tighter and tighter circles, another of his men was struck out of the sky, his plane bursting into flames and streaking to earth like a shooting star.

Tracers cut through the fabric of his top wing and he shot a look over his left shoulder. One of the
Jasta
had locked onto his tail, guns crackling. More shells smacked into his seat and he thanked God the back had been reinforced with a plate of steel. But the German’s bullets found his engine and blue flame spurted up and began to run along the cowling like water. Kipp threw his plane into a steep dive but the D.VII stayed with him. A corkscrew to the left did nothing to shake Kipp’s pursuer. Hole after hole appeared in his wings. The dive put out the fire but oil still gushed into the air.

Banking sharply to the right, he looked at the black and yellow plane that was about to claim him as its victim. It banked with him, guns firing, tracers making their way toward his Sopwith Camel, floating and bobbing at first, then appearing to come faster and faster until they were howling past his head. Suddenly a plane with blue and white and red RAF roundels painted on its wings swooped down and raked the German with bullets, blowing off the D.VII’s tailfin and riddling the fuselage so that fabric began to tear away in great pieces. Kipp could see that the German pilot was as surprised as he was, snapping his head around to look, swinging his plane from side to side to avoid the British plane’s guns. But when he went to the right, fighting to control his damaged fighter, the shells that had been tearing into his tailfin and fuselage slammed into his engine and the front half of the Fokker broke away, flinging the pilot into the air while the torn halves of his plane tumbled in sparks and smoke to the ground.

The Sopwith Camel streaked through the debris and jumped on two D.VIIs that were flying side by side and pouring fire into three British planes just ahead and below them. It hammered both the D.VIIs at close range, setting one ablaze when several lucky shells broke open the engine so that oil and flame flew everywhere. The second German plane simply fell out of the fight and out of the sky, its pilot slumped in the cockpit, twisting down to the French farm fields without smoke or fire until it crashed into a small hill and exploded in red and black.

The Sopwith then went head to head with three D.VIIs, guns spurting yellow light. One of the German planes immediately streamed purple smoke and went into a dive from which it could not recover before plowing into a field of rocks and flying apart. Almost ramming the other two, the Sopwith scattered them to the left and right and carried on into the cluster of black and yellow aircraft behind them.

Now it seemed as if all the other German planes pulled away from their targets to concentrate their fire on this menace that had dropped out of the heavens like an avenging angel. Five D.VIIs converged on the Sopwith Camel’s tail, guns chattering and flashing. The Sopwith pilot lowered his airspeed sharply, fighting a stall, and let the Germans sweep over him. Then he fired at their underbellies. One of them exploded twice and dropped like a stone. As the Sopwith turned away, Kipp could make out the letter B on the fuselage.

“Madness!” shouted Kipp. “Break clear, Ben! You’ve done enough!”

He knew he could not be heard. Nothing could be heard in a sky full of wheeling aircraft and pillars of dark smoke except the rush of wind over wings and the cracking of machine guns. Ben Whitecross would not disengage and the
Jasta
finally got him, two latching onto his tail and shattering his plane with gunfire until black smoke, shot through with waves of orange heat, wreathed the entire aircraft. Following him down, the Germans were quickly pounced upon by other Sopwith Camels in the squadron and a new air battle began to twist and turn through blue sky and gray clouds. It did not go on for long. Having lost seven planes in less than ten minutes, mostly due to one reckless British flier, the wasp-colored D.VIIs formed up and headed east behind German lines.

Kipp nursed his plane lower and lower. He watched as Ben’s wounded Sopwith spiraled to earth boiling black smoke. It leveled out before it struck and mowed a path through a field of uncut hay before cracking open and belching fire. Kipp saw Ben stagger from the wreck and run through the hay. His plane exploded a second time, vanishing in flames.

Victoria set down her cup sharply.

She was having mid-morning tea with Aunt Holly and Lady Grace. Both of them looked up.

“What’s the matter, child?” asked Aunt Holly, her cup to her lips.

Victoria put a hand over her eyes. “I don’t know.”

Reds and blacks stormed through her mind. She saw Ben standing in the middle of it all in a leather jacket and boots.

Lady Grace stared at her as if she were far away. Aunt Holly placed her cup in its saucer and moved to Victoria’s side, taking her hand.

“What is it?” she asked again.

“I keep seeing Ben. I feel sharp and unpleasant things. When the
Titanic
went down there were stories of people far away sensing that something was wrong long before there was any news of the sinking. They had such an overpowering feeling that their loved ones were in danger.”

Aunt Holly nodded, squeezing Victoria’s hand. “I read several of those stories. Is that what you’re feeling about Ben right now?”

“I think…I think it is. Many of the people prayed and their loved ones survived. I wish someone would pray for him…”

“I’m not the one to take the lead in such matters, dear, lapsed Anglican that I am. I wouldn’t know what to pray for Ben.”

“
O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come. Our shelter from the stormy past and our eternal home.
”

It was Lady Grace quoting the words from the hymn. Victoria hardly recognized her voice it was so calm and sure, as if from another person much younger. She was looking straight at Victoria and spoke a second time.

“Lord, we beseech thee, safeguard our family this day. Safeguard those we love. That death may not have dominion. That destruction may not wear us down with sorrow and loss. May your grace be triumphant. We beseech thee, have mercy, O Lord.”

She still held her teacup in one hand but with the other she tapped upon the table. “
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
”

Kipp landed his plane in a field only fifty yards from where Ben’s Sopwith lay burning. The hay had ignited and dark smoke laced with white fire towered over the wreckage. Vaulting from the cockpit, Kipp ran toward the hayfield, having no idea where Ben was. As he came closer he saw a body in the grass and dirt. The flames were only yards away. He lifted Ben’s head off the ground. It was slippery with blood.

“Ben!”

The eyelids flickered. “Kipp—you all right?” The voice was a rough whisper.

“I’m all right,” Kipp responded, wiping blood from Ben’s face with his gloved hand. “You saved my neck. You saved the whole squadron’s neck. It was madness. Absolute madness.”

He picked Ben up in his arms and staggered from the hayfield, which was exploding with fire and heat.

“Your plane won’t take…us both…” rasped Ben. “There’s…no room—”

“There’s room.”

Kipp laid Ben in the cockpit and crammed himself in beside him. He gunned the engine and his Sopwith rolled across the field away from the inferno. It struggled and wobbled and finally lifted into the wind. The squadron dropped into formation to the front, back, and sides of Kipp and Ben. They maintained this box of protection all the way to Amiens and their airfield. Smoke curled from Kipp’s plane and flames began to appear on the fuselage. He had scarcely landed and bounced to a stop before the engine blew apart in blue and red fire. Mechanics ran across the field and hauled Kipp and Ben clear. An ambulance roared up and Kipp and the mechanics placed Ben in it.

Kipp slapped the roof of the truck. “Get him to the dressing station!”

“He’ll need to go to the hospital in Amiens,” the driver said.

“Then he’ll go the hospital in Amiens! But get him patched up here first!”

The ambulance raced toward the chateau and hangars. The rest of the squadron were landing, their planes jolting across the grass. Kipp counted them. Two were missing. White, gray, and black smoke rolled over him as a tanker truck pumped water onto his burning plane. He looked down at his hands and saw they were red from fingertip to palm to wrist.

November 1918

Lady Elizabeth stood stiffly at the manor doors with Victoria as Todd Turpin drove the coach up. Sir William jumped down in the twilight, the lamps on the coach making the grimness of his features obvious. He came up the steps, pecked his wife on the cheek, and took Victoria into his arms.

“I’m sorry, my dear. I couldn’t send the news by cable. I could not. Only that you should expect me. And that Ben was alive. Follow me into the library. Both of you.”

Tavy opened the oak doors.

“Good to see you, Tavy,” said Sir William quickly.

“Thank you, sir. May I say the servants’ prayers are with young Ben.”

“I’m grateful. Please tell them that.”

A fire was burning in the library’s small fireplace. Tavy lit three or four large candles and a lamp and withdrew. Sir William stood with his back to the fire.