The Bloody Red Baron

Part Three: Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man Chapter 34

An Immelmann Turn
There was an unspoken truce between them: no more talk of banishing Kate from the war.
Charles wanted her about because he wanted an outside view. Through their link, fading as his blood assimilated, Kate knew she comforted him. It was disappointing to be allowed into the counsels of the Diogenes Club not on her own merits but because she reminded this decent old man of other women, the women of his youth: his wife, Pamela, the sainted Genevieve.
As they were driven in an open car to Maranique, Charles dozed, exhausted, drained. She kept a blanket wrapped round his legs and held him upright. In sleep, he had his arm around her.
Who did he dream she was? Having survived Frank Harris, the Terror and thirty years as a vampire, she knew her character was firm. But Charles's ghost women were threatening. She risked becoming one of the phantom sisters who haunted him. Besides Pamela and Genevieve, there were Penelope, Mrs Harker, Mary Kelly, the old Queen, Mata Hari. Apart from Pamela, dead before the Coming of Dracula, vampires all.
Vampire personalities were unstable, shifting. Constantly taking sustenance from others, they became a patchwork of their victims' traits, shrinking in themselves, losing their original characters. Kate's sisters-in-darkness withered in their minds before their bodies gave out.
When she turned, Penelope, Charles's fianc6e, became unrecognisable. A recluse now, she received warm young visitors in her dark house, clinging with tenacity to a life-in- death she despised.
Kate knew she was strong. She was still undead, still herself, still sane. Or as sane as she had ever been. If she'd lived, contrary to what the kindly Charles said, she'd have been a spinster freak, a dotty old aunt in trousers.
This was the road she had cycled the night Edwin was lost. Again the sky was muddy white. This time, it was near dawn not near dark. Again aircraft were aloft. Three Camel fighters returning to the field. They weren't flying from the lines, so they'd not been out on an offensive patrol. They were 'stunting', which was frowned on, turning wheels in the air, each trying to tie the circle tighter than his fellows. For every two pilots killed by enemy action, another died in training or recreational flight. Two Camels harried the third, hawks moving in on prey, trying to force him down.
A very few vampires could grow wings and fly. Kate was not one of those. Looking up, she felt the call of the sky. She'd like to fly one of these machines. As a child, she'd been teased mercilessly, by the same horrid Penelope whom Charles later failed to marry, when she admitted she wanted to dress as a boy and go to sea. This was the same impulse, something childish frozen in her by her turning.
The Camel which was leading its comrades in mock chase went into a spin, corkscrewing towards a line of shabby trees. She thought the fighter out of control. In her anxiety, she squeezed Charles awake, and pointed up.
'Damned fool,' he said.
The fighter brushed the tops of the trees (Kate heard branches snap, saw them fall) and, unbelievably, pulled out of the dive. Kate whistled. The Camel came up hard from beneath and behind, zooming up the tails of his fellows. If the pilot fired his guns, he could pot them both.
'That will be Edwin,' Charles said.
'Surely, that's an expert's flying. Edwin is a beginner.'
'An expert would know enough to be afraid.'
In aerial combat, the surest way to victory is to attack from below and behind, the position Edwin assumed against his mock enemies. Even a two-seater with a ring-mounted rear gun could rarely fire upon an attacker coming from below and behind. The tactics of the dog-fight, evolved in the last three years, boiled down to getting behind the target.
'Flies like a Hun, that fellow,' said the driver, not without contempt. 'A shooting star. VC in a fortnight, dead in a month.'
Edwin's quarry flew off in opposite directions: one tried to imitate his manoeuvre by throwing his Camel into a spin, the other made for the clouds.
'In a real dog-fight, they'd have escaped, despite his marvellous dive.'
Charles shook his head. 'In a real dog-fight, he'd have killed them before they could shake him off.'
There was a tiny chattering noise.
'Gordon Bennett,' the driver swore. 'That bloke just shot 'is mate.'
The Camel that was heading up was not hit, it seemed.
'It'11 just be some sort of noise-maker,' Kate said.
'Don't think so, miss.'
The diving fighter pulled up, ragged and wobbly, but found Edwin still on his tail. There was another chattering.
Tiny flame-puffs burst in the Camel's tail-plane.
'He shot 'im that time,' the driver said.
They were at the main gate of Maranique. The guard passed Charles's car but did not salute. He might be a VIP but he was also a civilian. The guard was the same corporal who had let Kate in last time.
The car drew up at the farmhouse just as the Camels approached the field. Captain Allard, in a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat, stood outside watching, along with a cadre of pilots, including old friends Bertie and Ginger. Allard was grimly silent, but the others argued heatedly. She guessed their point of controversy. Another staff car was parked by the farmhouse, chauffeur standing by. Kate caught the smell of Distinguished Personage, and wondered what else there was to worry about.
As the sun rose, the Camels landed. Edwin touched down first and taxied neatly towards the sheds. He was completely masked by helmet and goggles, but she knew at once it was the man who had drunk from her. A hot needle pierced her heart, reminding her of unfinished business.
The second fighter, tail-plane dotted with smoking holes, thumped down, one wheel slipping into a rut. It limped, turning awkwardly, to a halt. An incensed pilot jumped out and ran across the field, stripping off helmet and gauntlets. His big boots, designed for warmth not agility, made him as dumpily clumsy as a kinema comic.
As the third Camel made a careful landing, the angry pilot of the second tore up to Edwin, who was calmly lifting his goggles. Kate heard a blue streak of abuse.
She helped Charles across the field. Allard and the pilots also moved in on the argument.
'You shot me, you cold-hearted devil bastard! What the bloody hell are you trying to do? Win the war for the Hun?'
'Steady, Rutledge,' Ginger said. 'Give Winthrop time to explain.'
Rutledge, a vampire with tiny horns and a fierce moustache, was a new face.
'Well ...?'
Rutledge looked up to Edwin. The pilot unwound his scarf, detached his mask and shifted his goggles. Black soot circles outlined cold eyes.
'He would have claimed victory,' Edwin said to Allard. 'I chose to mark my man.'
'Confounded dolt, you could have done for me!'
'I tagged you. I did not kill you.'
Allard, called upon to judge the issue, considered.
'Allard, if I'd meant to shoot Rutledge down, he'd be shot down.'
Allard, eyes burning, seemed to look into Edwin's heart.
'That is true,' he said.
Rutledge's mouth opened in protest. He thumped the side of Edwin's fighter. The canvas shook. The pilot was near hysteria.
'Captain, he shot me! An Englishman shot me!'
'He is telling the truth. He knew he would not kill you.'
'He damaged HM Government property.' 'Fined a day's flying pay.'
Edwin accepted Allard's verdict. There was cold understanding between the acting flight officer and the new pilot.
Rutledge stormed off. Edwin hauled himself out of the cockpit, hanging like a monkey from the cross-strut of the upper wing.
'Not a docile kite, the Camel, not like the Pups we trained on. This bird has to be broken in. Turns like a dream, though.'
Allard nodded.
The third pilot, a vampire American, had landed and ambled over. He was pale with excitement, but more exhilarated than angry.
'Lockwood, do you regret going for me like that, with such a comrade?' Edwin asked.
Lockwood shrugged. 'Seemed like a good idea at the time.'
The American walked off. Edwin took off his helmet.
'Hullo, Beauregard,' he said, acknowledging the visitors. 'Miss Reed.'
Miss Reed!
Kate, her Irish flaring, guessed a great many people would be in a permanent state of rage around this new, improved Edwin Winthrop.
'How did you enjoy the show?'
'You fly as if you were born to it.'
'I am reborn, Beauregard.'
Edwin dropped to the ground like a circus tumbler and stood straight. He was still warm, but there was a vampire sharpness to his smile, a thin coldness in his eyes.
She'd seen the look before: in the warm servants some elders impressed into their service, feeding them drops of blood and the promise of eventual turning. But Edwin was no vampire's slave. Certainly not hers.
'You fly like Ball,' Bertie said, stating a fact rather than giving a compliment. The new pilot accepted the judgement. There was something of Albert Ball in him, just as there was something of Kate Reed. But he ruled himself. There was an iron determination that all was down to Edwin Winthrop.
'Probably shouldn't have popped off at old Rutledge, though,' Ginger remarked. 'That sort of stunting's bad for morale. Never know when you'll have a Hun on your tail and Rutledge will be the only one who can shoot the blighter down.'
'I think that unlikely.'
Bertie and the others admired Edwin but did not accept him yet. They could not trust him not to value his own unfathomable cause over that of the squadron. Kate knew how they felt.
'I think it would be useful if we had a chat, Winthrop,' Charles said. 'You, myself and Kate. I wish to clarify a certain situation.'
'Is this a personal matter?'
'If you choose to make it so.'
Jiggs, the mechanic, opened up the cowling of Edwin's fighter. He tutted as a wave of oily heat wafted out.
'I have a patrol to fly in an hour. I'm the only warm man in the squadron. We're under strength for day-flying.'
Kate was not sure how warm Edwin was.
'This need not take long.'
'Very well.'