The Wings of Morning (22 page)

That’s our field. That’s where my Aero Squadron is located
.

Are the other pilots nice?
she asked.

Most of them
, he responded.

Oh, the green grass is all gone
, she said in a surprised voice.
Now everything is gray and black
.

That’s because we’re right over the front now
, he explained.
This is what four years of artillery bombardments and trench fighting have done to the earth
.

It’s terrible. It looks like a place where only the devil could be comfortable
.

Shall I turn around?
he asked.

Yes, turn around
, she agreed,
but first I want to dive
.

Now? Here?

Yes, now, here
, she insisted.
I have missed the dives and loops and rolls so much. Will you not take us down into a dive? Please?

All right
, he told her.
Hang on, Lyyndy
.

Jude’s squadron leader was repeatedly thrusting his arm downward, trying to get his attention. Jude looked below and recognized four German Pfalz D.IIIs flying in formation and protecting a German two-seater observation aircraft. It was taking photographs of the Allied lines. Jude glanced back at Lt. Frank Sharples and nodded in an exaggerated way so that the squadron leader could see it. Sharples put his plane into a dive. Jude and Billy Skipp, the young man with flaming red hair Jude had met in the truck that first night, put their Nieuports into dives right after him.

How’s this?
Jude asked the imaginary Lyyndaya.

She had closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Blonde hair was tugging loose from her leather flying helmet and streaming backward like streaks of light. She smiled.
Perfect
, she said.

It was Jude’s sixth time up in almost two weeks. Bad weather had prevented any more sorties than that. He had been over the lines before, faced antiaircraft fire that had exploded in angry blackness all around him, had seen different formations of German aeroplanes, but this was the first time he was being directed to attack. He had dreaded this moment. He could not let the Germans kill his friends without intervening. Yet he had no desire to kill Germans for being in the sky at the same time and in the same place for the same bad reasons.

Sharples had opened fire on one of the Pfalz D.IIIs. It had not seen him and tried to pull out of his sights. But another burst from the squadron leader’s guns and flame sprang up over its engine cowling. The Pfalz began to spin and fall. Sharples followed the stricken plane down to see if it would crash and he could claim it as a victory. The first American claims had taken place only a few weeks before on April fourteenth at another squadron. Jude had heard Sharples say many times in the mess hall that he wanted to be the first American ace.

Billy was on the tail of another Pfalz and blazing away. Bits of wood and fabric flew into the air. Jude saw that the observation plane had turned tail and was heading east for the German lines. One Pfalz was shadowing it and shielding it from attack.
Where was the other German fighter?
Jude wondered. Then he saw it latch onto Sharples from behind and begin to shoot at the American pilot.

For an instant Jude felt like asking Lyyndaya what he should do. But he couldn’t imagine her being with him during aerial combat so he found it no longer possible to conjure up her presence. It didn’t matter. There was only one thing he could do. Try to save Frank Sharples’ life.

Jude placed his Nieuport into a steep dive and swooped in on the Pfalz. Perhaps his attack would frighten the pilot into breaking away. But the German was intent on blasting Sharples out of existence and didn’t pay any attention to Jude’s approach. Even when he closed the distance to the point where his propeller could have chewed off the Pfalz’s tail rudder the German didn’t budge, but kept maneuvering and firing bursts at Sharples.

I’m going to have to use my guns, Lyyndy
.

But she didn’t reply.

I will shoot under him and over him. Perhaps that will be enough
.

Jude prayed and triggered his twin .303 Vickers machine guns. He deliberately aimed high. The German didn’t even seem to notice. He pressed his attack on Sharples, who was twisting and turning frantically. The German was finally rewarded with a trail of black smoke.

I don’t have any choice, Lyyndy. Blood is on my hands either way
.

He fired at the Pfalz practically point-blank and shattered the rudder. The German plane suddenly skewed to the left and began to fall in a spinning motion like a dead leaf.

You still have your ailerons
, Jude said to the pilot.
Use them. Get to your lines and put your plane down
.

As if they could communicate, Jude saw the hinged wooden ailerons move on the back edges of the Pfalz’s wings as the German fought to stabilize his aircraft. He managed to pull out of the spin and, in a rolling and wobbly fashion, his wings dipping down to the left and then down to the right, only a few thousand feet above the ground, head toward the German trenches and a patch of level ground. Satisfied he would make it, Jude turned away to check on Sharples and Billy Skipp.

Sharples was erratically moving west toward Nancy and their aerodrome, still trailing gray and black smoke. Jude quickly got into position above and behind him to make sure he was shielded from any further attacks. Then he craned his neck and scanned the sky for Skipp. He finally spotted him miles away in the direction of St. Mihiel, still tangling with his Pfalz, refusing to break off the engagement even though he was dangerously close to the German trenches and might tempt other enemy fighters to climb up after him.

Again, it was as if the German pilots could read Jude’s mind. One, two, three—Jude spotted a trio of Pfalzes rising from below in such a way as to get behind Billy and swing the odds in the dogfight.
What am I supposed to do?
Jude asked himself anxiously. This time his imaginary Lyyndaya was in the cockpit with him.
Why are you looking to me for help, Jude Whetstone?
she demanded, her eyes sparking.
You are here now, aren’t you? Then make a difference. You have saved Frank Sharples’ life. Now save Billy Skipp’s
.

Sharples had his craft under control, though he and Jude both knew it could explode into flame at any moment. Jude felt the lieutenant ought to put down somewhere near Nancy, or even Toul, which was closer, but obviously the squadron leader was intent on getting back to his aerodrome. The sky was empty of aircraft—all the excitement was taking place behind them where Billy Skipp was about to take on half a
Jagdstaffel
of German fighters single-handed. Jude swooped alongside Sharples and signaled that he was heading back, shouting as loudly as he could,
Billy Skipp, Billy Skipp
, though he knew he couldn’t be heard above their engines and the wind scream. Finally Sharples nodded and waved Jude back. Jude could distinctly see his lips forming the name in reply—
Billy Skipp
. He banked his Nieuport left and raced north and east, leaving Sharples to carry on alone.

The three Pfalzes were still climbing, but Jude wouldn’t arrive on the scene before they had engaged Billy. The boy, not even seventeen, who had admitted to the other pilots weeks ago he had lied about his age and forged his documents, was stuck to his Pfalz like an iron shoe to a hoof, and minutes before Jude showed up he saw the German plane suddenly flash like a lit match and tumble in black and orange smoke from the sky.

Now run for home, Billy
.

But Billy, in following the burning Pfalz down for a short distance, had run right into the Germans rising up to engage him, and instead of trying to disentangle himself, had decided his best course of action was to attack these planes as well. He quickly drew one into his sights, for Jude could see tracers leaving the front of Billy’s Nieuport. He could also see that two of the Pfalzes had swiftly pounced on Billy’s tail while he was firing on the third. At top speed, his Gnome rotary engine howling, Jude still might not get there in time. Both of the planes on Billy’s back were firing, the one stacked above the other and shooting from a few hundred feet farther up, straight into the top of Billy’s aircraft.

Twist and turn, Billy. Forget your target
.

It was actually the Pfalz that Billy had targeted that saved his life. It went into a steep dive and banked hard to the right, closely followed by Billy, and this rapid maneuvering caused the other Pfalzes to overshoot the American pilot. By the time they had pulled up and were hunting for the Nieuport again, Jude was upon them in a screaming dive, firing purposely over their heads but bearing down in such a way as to ensure a midair collision if either he or the Pfalzes did not break off. Unnerved by the sudden appearance and hard assault of another Nieuport, guns blazing, the Pfalzes split away to the east and to the west and left the airspace to Jude.

Coming out of his dive, he saw the two heading after Billy again and climbed quickly after them, triggering his guns before he was close enough to be accurate, yet clearly seeing his tracers arcing over the tops of their wings and falling in front of their propellers. The Germans saw them too. When by sheer chance several tracers tore into a wing and a large strip of fabric ripped loose and began to flap in the wind, they decided enough was enough. With Billy’s Pfalz trailing sparks and now another Pfalz dropping rapidly in elevation and weaving wildly from side to side, it was time to head for German territory. The Pfalz that had lost its wing cover was shielded by his companion, who kept twisting his neck and looking back and above at Jude, obviously expecting a fresh attack at any moment. Jude knew that a plane could be flown with fabric gone, for American aviators had already done this with damaged Nieuports. He prayed the German would make it back safely and turned away to see what Billy was up to.

The youth was either out of ammunition or had, for whatever reason, chosen to stop firing at the Pfalz in front of him that had also turned toward the German trenches. Every few moments it spurted thick black smoke from its engine, and white sparks continued to spray the air in its wake. Billy followed closely behind, probably willing it to blow up or go into a death spin, whereas Jude was praying that the enemy plane would make it back and land within the German lines. After all, how did he know there wasn’t a red-haired youth like Billy in the Pfalz cockpit, someone who ought to still be in school or working a plow horse on a farm in the Rhine valley? A boy too young to be out sparring with death in the sky over France, as if all the nonsense about knights jousting in the spring air really were true.

Jude came alongside Billy and kept pointing at the cockpit controls with large hand movements, trying to get him to look at his gas gauge. There was barely enough to get back to their aerodrome. At first the boy did nothing. Then, finally, as the German plane showed no signs of crashing and was still sputtering east toward Chateau-Salins and the German lines, Billy, quite obviously out of shells, waved to Jude and began to turn his Nieuport. Flying virtually side by side, the two finally sped back over Nancy at five thousand feet and began to descend to their Aero Squadron’s field near the Moselle River.

They got a hero’s welcome. Pilots and ground crew ran across the landing field to welcome them back. Men vigorously pumped Jude’s hand, grinned, and slapped him on the back.

“Well done, Lieutenant!”

“Bravo, sir!”

“That’s showing the Hun who’s boss!”

Jude smiled awkwardly as he shook hands. “What’s all this about?”

One of his mechanics thumped him on the shoulder. “British troops have confirmed Sharples’ kill. They’ve also confirmed Billy’s first plane and that his second Pfalz crashed in no-man’s-land.”

Jude felt a coldness in his chest. “Crashed?”

“You bet. Kaput. The pilot ’chuted down and he’s a POW now.”

Jude put his hands in his pockets, struggling to keep the smile on his face. “I’m glad to hear that. But what does this have to do with me?”

“Are you kidding?” It was Billy, throwing his arm over Jude’s shoulders. “You saved my life. You saved Sharples’ life. The Huns were all over us. You fought them off.”

“They would have left soon anyway,” Jude argued. “They were low on gas.”

Billy shook his head. “They wouldn’t have left before shooting me and Sharples down. You saved our necks.”

Jude let them lead him off to a celebratory meal of steak and potatoes in the mess. He could hardly avoid it. But while others shouted back and forth and raised their knives as if they were swords in their excitement, he picked at his food. He kept asking himself,
What am I doing here in Europe? What is an Amish boy doing fighting in a war in Europe? What blood have I helped shed today?