Cold front building, Michael thought, and then suddenly he was thinking of Centaine again, as though she had slipped in through the back door of his mind.
Why wasn't she there? She could be sick. Out at night in the rain and cold, pneumonia is a killer. The idea shocked him. He imagined her wasting away, drowning in her own fluids.
A red Very pistol flare arched across the nose of his machine, and he started guiltily. Andrew had fired theEnemy in Sight signal while he was dreaming.
Michael searched frantically. Ah! with relief. There it is! Below and to the left.
It was a German two-seater, a solitary artillery spotted, just east of the ridges, bustling down in the direction of Arras, a slow and outdated type, easy prey for the swift and deadly SE5as. Andrew was signalling again, looking back-at Michael, the green scarf aflutter, and that devilmay-care grin on his lips.
I am attacking! Give me top cover Both Michael and Hank acknowledged the hand signals and stayed on high as Andrew banked away into a shallow diving interception, with the other five aircraft of his flight streaming down behind in attacking line astern.
What a grand sight! Michael watched them go. Thrilling to the chase, that wild charge down the sky, cavalry of the heavens in full flight, swiftly overhauling their slow and cumbersome prey.
Michael led the rest of the squadron into a series of slow shallow S-turns, holding them in position to cover the attack, and he was leaning from the cockpit waiting for the kill when abruptly he felt a slide of unease, that cold weight of premonition in his guts again, the instinct of impending disaster, and he swept the sky above and around him.
It was clear and peacefully empty, then his gaze switched towards the blinding glare of the sun and he held up his hand to cover it, and with one eye only looked past his fingers, and there they were.
They were boiling out of the cloud line like a swarm of gaudy glittering poisonous insects. It was the classic ambush. The decoy sent in low and slow to draw the enemy, and then the swift and deadly onslaught from out of the sun and the clouds.
Oh, sweet Mother of God, Michael breathed, as he snatched the Very pistol out of its holster beside his seat.
How many? It was impossible to count that vicious host. Sixty, perhaps more, three full Jagdstaffels of Alba tros DIIIs in their rainbow colours dropping falcon-swift upon Andrew's puny flight of SESas.
Michael fired the red Very flare to warn his pilots and then winged over into a dive, aiming to intercept the enemy squadron before it could reach Andrew. Swiftly he estimated the triangle of speeds and distances and realized that they were too late, four or five seconds too late to save Andrew's flight.
Those four or five seconds which he had squandered in dreaming and fruitlessly watching the attack on the German decoy plane, those crucial seconds in which he had neglected his duty, weighed on him like leaden bars as he pushed the throttle of the SE5a to its stop. The engine whined, that peculiar wailing protest of overdriven machinery as the tip of the spinning propeller accelerated through the speed of sound, and he could feel the wings flexing and bending under the strain as the speed and pressure built up in that suicidal dive. Andrew! he shouted. Look behind you, man! and his as lost in the howl of wind and the scream of the voice w overdriven engine.
All Andrew's attention was fixed on his quarry, for the German decoy pilot had seen them and was also diving away towards the earth, drawing the SESas after him and transforming the hunters into unwitting prey.
The massed German Jagdstaffel held their diving attack, though they must have been fully aware of Michael's desperate attempt to head them off. They would know as well as Michael did that his attempt was futile, that he had left it too late. The Albatroses would be able to make an attacking run over Andrew's flight, and with complete surprise aiding them must destroy most of the SE5as in that single stroke before turning back to face Michael's avenging counter-stroke.
Michael felt the adrenalin surge burning in his blood like the clean bright flame of a spirit lamp. Time seemed to slow down into those eternal micro-seconds of combat, so that he floated sedately downwards, and the horde of enemy aircraft appeared to hang suspended on their multicoloured wings, as though they were set like gems in the heavens.
The colours and patterns of the Albatroses were fantastic, with scarlet and black the dominant colours, but some were chequered like bar1equins, and others had the silhouettes of bat wings or birds outlined on their wings and fuselage.
At last he could see the faces of the German airmen, turning towards him and then back towards their primary quarry.
Andrew! Andrew! Michael lamented in agony as each second made it clearer just how late he would be to prevent the ambush succeeding.
His fingers numb with cold and dread, Michael reloaded the Very pistol and fired another flare forward over his own nose, trying to attract Andrew's attention, but the red ball of flame fell away towards the earth, fizzling and spinning a pathetic thread of smoke, while half a mile further on Andrew lined up on the hapless German spotter plane, and Michael heard the tut-tut-tuttering of his Vickers as he attacked from astern.
In the same instant the wave of Albatroses broke over Andrew's flight, from above.
Michael saw two of the SE5as mortally struck in the first seconds, and spin away with smoke and pieces of fuselage flying from them; the rest of them scattered widely, each with two or three Albatroses racing after them, almost jostling each other for a chance to take the killing line.
Only Andrew survived. His response to the first crackle of the Spandau machine-gun was instantaneous. He kicked the big green machine into that flat skidding turn that he and Michael had practised so often. He went tearing back straight into the heart of the pack, forcing the Albatroses to swerve wildly away from his head-on charge, firing furiously into their faces, emerging from behind them seemingly unscathed.
Good on you! Michael rejoiced aloud, and then he saw the rest of Andrew's flight shot out of the sky, burning and twisting downwards, and his guilt turned to anger.
The German machines, having wrought quick destruction, were wheeling now to face the charge of Michael's and Hank's flights. They came together and the entire pattern of aircraft disintegrated into a milling cloud, turning like dust and debris in a whirlwind.
Michael came out on the quarter of a solid black Albatros with scarlet wings on which the black Maltese crosses stood out like gravestones. As he crossed, he laid off his aim for the deflection of their combined tracks and speeds, and fired for the radiator in the junction of the scarlet wings above the German pilot's head, attempting to cook him alive in boiling coolant liquid.
He saw his bullets hitting exactly where he had aimed, and at the same time noticed the small modification in the Albatros's wing structure. The Germans had altered the Albatros. They had been forcibly shown the lethal design fault, and they had relocated the radiator. The German ducked from Michael's field of fire, and Michael pulled up the nose of his machine.
An Albatros had picked on one of Michael's new chums, sticking on his tail like a vampire, within an ace of the killing line. Michael came out under the Albatros's belly and reached up to swivel the Lewis gun on its Foster mounting, aiming upwards, so close that the muzzle of the Lewis gun almost touched the bright pink belly of the Albatros.
He fired the full drum of ammunition into the German's guts, waggling his wings slightly to spray his fire from side to side, and the Albatros reared up on its tail like a harpooned shark, and then fell over its wing and dropped away in its death plunge.
The new chum waved his thanks to Michael, they were almost touching wingtips, and Michael signalled imperiously, Return to base! and then gave him the clenched fist. Imperative! Get out of here, you bloody fool! he shouted uselessly, but his contorted face emphasized the hand signal, and the novice broke off and fled.