The Bloody Red Baron

Part Two: No Man's Land Chapter 25

Dressing Down
'You are aware that under DORA it would be quite in order for me to have you shot,' Beauregard told Kate, meaning it. Under the Defence of the Realm Act, practically any lawfully constituted minion of Lord Ruthven had the gift of life and death over any civilian. 'Really, what were you thinking? If you were thinking?'
There was too much other grief to be dealt with in this sideshow, but here he was, lecturing like a cross schoolmaster. Kate looked groundwards and twitched her tiny nose.
'And it's no use impersonating a Beatrix Potter rabbit on the brink of tears. Miss Reed. Remember, I've known you ever since you were as wet behind the ears as you like the warm to think. You're fifty-five this year, dead girl.'
She tried a feeble fanged smile.
'There's no excuse,' he concluded.
As he dressed the reporter down, he was aware of Dravot's cold, deep-buried fury. The sergeant would cheerfully cut Kate's head off and use it for a football.
The mess at Maranique was not crowded. Surplus pilots had beetled off to their coffins for the day. Only Allard, the acting CO, was left to face the inevitable enquiries. On the squadron roster, the word 'lost' was chalked by the names of the men who had gone out but not come back.
Furious as Beauregard was with Kate, he was angrier with Winthrop. He had no business going up and getting shot down. After Spenser, he was the Diogenes Club's second crack-up of the young year. Something in this duty sent men off their heads.
Allard sat, scarf over his face against the sunlight that flooded through windowpanes, wide-brimmed hat pulled down. He seemed all beaky nose and penetrating eyes.
'There is no hope?' Beauregard asked.
'I've telephoned every other field in the line,' said Allard. 'It was possible some of the patrol might have come down somewhere else. That did not happen. Major Cundall's flight is lost.'
Beauregard shook his head and damned himself for a fool. Every one of the dead men could blame him.
'Might they be prisoners?' Kate put in.
'The Germans have claimed the victories,' said Allard. 'They have the serial numbers. It is almost certain they will be confirmed. They claim kills, not captures.'
'That's remarkably swift.'
'It usually takes a day or so, but they were right off the mark. The RE8 is claimed by Manfred von Richthofen. A package of personal items was dropped on the field at dawn. Courtney's watch and cigarette case.'
Gloom spread.
'Anything of Winthrop's?'
Allard shook his head.
'There can't have been much left of the lad then?'
His born-dead boy might have grown to be a man like Edwin. Had he lived, his son might now have been a dead man like Edwin, lost to the war. He thought of Pamela, dead in childbirth, never knowing what would become of the world. And he thought of Genevieve, eternally between life and death, perhaps knowing too much.
Kate was upset. The snooping stopped being a game when lines were drawn through the names of the dead. It was odd: she had been indignant about useless death for so long that this could not be her first practical experience of it. She had come through the Terror. She was working as an ambulance woman. She must have seen dozens die.
'I'll talk to Mrs Harker. You'll be recalled to England. You'll be lucky to end up counting blankets in the Hebrides.'
'It's no worse than I deserve,' she admitted.
Beauregard was sorry. He had not expected her to give in. She could usually be depended on for an argument. As more and more lately, he was tired. At his age, this cruel game should be well behind him. But, as ever, England expected ...
As far as could be gathered from scant reports and the German claims, Cundall's flight had made it to the Chateau de Malinbois and been surprised by the Flying Freak Show. It was a massacre. Six more victories for Richthofen's killers.
'Charles, aren't we supposed to have command of the air?'
Commander Hugh Trenchard of the Royal Flying Corps advocated a policy of offensive patrols. The skies over France were in theory so dangerous for the ordinary German flier that the German Imperial Air Service was useless as an instrument of observation.
'Yes, Kate. On the whole, we do. In this particular engagement, pitting Condor Squadron against JG1, we have come up short.'
'The enemy have done what you've tried to do, grouped together their best fliers, their worst killers, in one unit.'
'You're well up on all this,' he said.
'Condor Squadron was created to pick up intelligence about the spring offensive?'
'A spring offensive, now there's an idea. I don't suppose you can tell me the date Dracula and Hindenburg intend to launch the attack?'
'Don't be childish, Charles. Everybody knows there'll be an enemy offensive soon. Even Bottomley, and he thinks the war is won and the Union Jack flutters over Berlin.'
'My apologies. I am quite tired, you understand . .
Kate ignoring his sarcasm, continued. 'If Condor Squadron are to gather intelligence, then JG1 must be constituted to harbour it.'
Allard laughed bitterly. 'Not necessarily. Richthofen commands a Circus. It's a show, a glamour machine. No matter how many victories they log, fighters make little difference. An unarmed spotter which brings back a clear photograph of defensive trenches can turn a battle round. The air ace is too busy adding to his score to deign to look at the ground.'
Kate's little face scrunched in thought and she tutted. If she lost self-confidence of her looks, she was appealing in a bespectacled way. When warm, she had been Pamela's friend. Kate sometimes used expressions the women shared, which perturbed him. It was as if his truly dead wife spoke through her undead friend.
'With respect, Captain, there must be more to it than headlines. It is all too elaborate. There is a secret purpose to JG1, just as there is a secret purpose to Condor Squadron.'
Allard said nothing.
'I think perhaps we should send you packing now,' Beauregard said.
Kate's cheeks reddened. 'Am I not under arrest? Due for the stake?'
'You'd like to be a martyr, wouldn't you?' Beauregard said. 'To what cause? The standard of the Graf von Dracula?'
That was unfair: Kate had imperilled herself enough through the years to demonstrate opposition to Dracula. But he was still annoyed with her.
'I certainly don't wish to die for Lord Ruthven and his kith and kind. The truth, perhaps. That might be worth spilling this vampire blood for.'
'Oh, go away, Kate. I've not the heart for this row.'
Suddenly, unexpectedly, Kate hugged him, face pressed to his chest. Her grip was fierce but not crushing. She measured exactly her strength.
'I'm sorry, Charles,' she said to his collar, so low Allard and Dravot could not hear.
His bites tingled. He held Kate to him. He remembered another vampire's arms: she reminded him of her sometimes, too. It was as if there were but one woman in the world, laughing at him from behind a dozen masks.
'I'm sorry too, Kate.'
Dravot had stood, ready to rip the reporter away from Beauregard and tear off her arms like a cooked chicken's wings. Beauregard motioned the sergeant to stay put.
'I'm still having Mina Harker pull you out of this.' 'I know,' she said, patting his chest, 'it's your duty. You have your duty and I have mine. It is the curse of our generation. Duty. Remember, we are the last Victorians.'
He was too empty to smile. Last night's losses were too terrible to shrug off.
'Captain Allard can we find some means of transport to get Miss Reed back to her ambulance unit? Preferably something uncomfortable and undignified?'
Allard conceded that a cart could be made available.
'We'd better send a guard. In case she tries to make her escape.'
Allard nodded. He had a good man in mind.
'I'm doing you a great favour, Kate. Within the hour, we shall be answering to Mr Caleb Croft of the Prime Minister's office. You will remember the gentleman from the '80s, when he was given to placing prices on your head. Have all those insurgency charges been dropped?'
Kate's eyes, magnified by her spectacles, goggled. A dimple of wickedness crept into her cheek.
'I recall Mr Croft well. Does he still head the British Okhrana?'
'Britain has no secret police,' Beauregard explained. 'Officially.'
'Goodbye, Charles. Your loss is my loss.'
Kate left the mess. Dravot's eyes followed her.
'Keep her under observation,' Beauregard told Allard. 'She's cleverer than she looks.'
Allard nodded. He did not miss the implication.
'Make sure your guard isn't a warm man. If you have one about, send a homosexual or a monk. On second thoughts, I wouldn't trust Kate Reed with a monk.'
Weariness fell on Beauregard like a heavy mantle. He did not know what Croft would require of him but it was likely to be unpleasant. Old enmities lingered from the Terror. Croft's department would like to see the Diogenes Club wound up. A Whitehall school of thought held that the likes of Beauregard and Smith-Cumming were Boys' Own Paper anachronisms with no place in the harder, crueller secret wars of the twentieth century. That school did not appreciate how hard and cruel the secret wars of the nineteenth century had been.
He had not yet written to Spenser's people. Now, he would have to compose a letter of condolence to Winthrop's family too.
'Sir,' said Dravot.
The sergeant's face betrayed no feeling, but Beauregard understood what a blow this would be. Dravot was not in the habit of losing officers.
'There's no question of blame, Danny. If it rests anywhere, it must be with the dead. Major Cundall asked Winthrop if he wished to go on the flight. The mad, brave boy said yes.'
Dravot nodded once, accepting what was said. Then, awkwardly, he produced a letter.
'Lieutenant Winthrop gave me this.'
Beauregard took the letter. It was addressed to Catriona Kaye, The Old Vicarage, Alder, Somerset. With a dead heart, Beauregard could imagine Catriona Kaye. And he could imagine what was in the letter.
He hated: a directionless, all-encompassing hate. It was not enough to hate the war; he had to hate all the components of the engine that had ground up Winthrop and a million young men like him. He had to hate himself.
'I'll see the letter is delivered,' he told Dravot.