Barker said. "We have to warm up the motors."
Sam Clemens said, "Well, I shouldn't even be talking like this. So long, boys. And good luck. May the best men win, and I'm sure you'll be the best!"
He shook hands again and walked to one side. This was both brave and foolish, he thought, but he had given his consent. The last-minute resumming up of the situation was due to his nervousness. He shouldn't have said anything. But, to tell the truth, he was looking forward to this. It was like the jousts of the knights of old. He hated those knights, since, historically, they were oppressors and bleeders of the peasants and the lower classes and rather murderous to their own class. A filthy bloody-minded bunch in reality. However, there was the reality, and there was the myth. Myth always put blinders on men, and perhaps there was something good to be said for myth. The ideal was the light; the real, the shadow. Here were two exceptionally capable and courageous men, going to fight to the death in a prearranged duel. For what reason? Neither had to prove himself; they had done that long ago when the proving meant something.
What was it? Machismo? Definitely not.
Whatever their motive, they were secretly pleasing Clemens. For one thing, if they could down John's fliers, then they could go on to strafe the Rex. Of course, if they lost, then John's pilots would be raking the Not For Hire. He preferred not to think about that.
But the main source of pleasure was watching the combat. It was childish, or, at least, not mature. But like most men and many women, he enjoyed sport as a spectator. And this was a sporting event, however fatal for the participants. The Romans certainly knew what they were doing when they put on the gladiatorial combats.
Sam was startled when a trumpet call rang out. This was immediately followed by the stirring "Up in the Wild Blue," composed by Gioacchino Rossini for the boat's air force. The music, however, was electronically produced.
Barker, as commander, was the first to climb into the cockpit. The propeller turned slowly with a whine, then began whirling swiftly. Guynemer got into his plane. The people lining the edge of the flight deck and crowding the lower two rooms of the pilothouse cheered. Presently, the roar of the motor of Barker's fighter drowned out the huzzahs and hurrays.
Sam Clemens looked up at the control room. The executive officer, John Byron, stood at the stern port of the control room, ready to signal the captain. As soon as the chronometer indicated 12:00, he would drop a scarlet cloth from the port.
A woman burst from the crowd by the edge of the deck and threw bouquets of irontree blooms into the cockpits. Guynemer, looking through goggles, smiled and waved his bouquet. Barker raised his blooms as if to throw them out, then changed his mind.
Sam looked at his watch. The blood-colored cloth dropped. He turned and gestured that the catapult should be activated. There was a whoosh of steam and Barker's machine, released, was hurtling forward. Fifty feet before reaching the edge of the deck, it lifted.
The Frenchman's plane soared up eighty seconds later.
The crowd spread out over the flight deck as Clemens hurried tp the pilot-house. From the control room he would climb a ladder through a hatch on the top of the structure. A chair and table were bolted down there, waiting for him. While he watched the dogfight he would drink bourbon and smoke a fresh cigar.
Nevertheless, he could not keep from worrying about King John. It was inevitable as a belch after beer that John was planning some sort of trickery.
29
THE REX GRANDISSIMUS WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LAKE, ITS nose pointed into the wind, its paddle wheels rotating to drive it at ten miles per hour. This, added to the five-mph headwind, gave the airplanes a fifteen-mph wind to climb into during takeoff.
King John, clad in a blue kilt, scarlet cape, and blackjack-boots, was on the flight deck. He was talking to the two pilots while the deck crew was readying the aircraft. These were dressed in black leather uniforms similar to those of the enemy fliers. Near them were the fighter craft, being readied. These were also biplanes, though the noses were blunter than their counterparts. The wings and fuselage of one plane were covered with a blue-and-silver checkerboard pattern, on which were imposed the three golden lions of King John. Its crimson nose bore a white skull and crossbon^s. The second machine was white with the three lions on the wings and rudder. On both sides and the underside of the cockpit was a red ball, the rising sun of Japan, Okabe's sign.
Out of several hundred candidates interviewed in the past seven years, John had picked two to fly for this long-expected day. Kenji Okabe was a short husky slim man who radiated determination. Yet, most of the time he was congenial, interested in others besides himself. At this time, he looked grim. Voss, with Barker, was distinguished as having fought the two greatest one-man stands against superior forces in the aerial history of World War I.
On September 23, 1917, Voss, a destroyer of forty-eight Allied aircraft, was flying alone in one of the new Fokker triplanes when he encountered seven S.E.S. fighters of the RVC Squadron No. 56. Their pilots were among Britain's finest fighter pilots. Five were aces, McCudden, Rhys-Davids, and Cecil Lewis being the best-known. Their leader, McCudden, immediately led his men into a circling attack. Voss was seemingly doomed to be shot down at once, the target of fourteen machine guns. But Voss flew his plane as if it were a gyrfalcon. Twice, just as McCudden had Voss in his sights, Voss went into a quick flat half-spin, a maneuver which none of the British had ever seen before. Performing outrageous yet perfectly controlled tricks, and also riddling some of their planes, Voss eluded the seven. But he could not break through the circle. Then Rhys-Davids, a superb marksman, kept him in his sights long enough to empty a drum of .50-caliber bullets from his Lewises into him. Voss's plane fell, not without the regrets of the British. If it had been possible, they would have preferred to have brought him down alive. He was the finest fighter pilot they had ever seen.
Voss was of partly Jewish descent. Though he had encountered some prejudice in the German air force, his splendid flying abilities and determination had brought him recognition which he deserved. He had even served for a while under Richthofen, the so-called Red Baron, who had made him a flight leader and assigned him to fly top cover in the formation.
Kenji Okabe, the captain of King John's air force, had been, during World War II, a noncommissioned officer, Naval Aviation Pilot First Class. He was one of his country's greatest fighter pilots, and he'd set the Navy's all-time record when, over Rabaul, the Bismarck Archipelago, he'd shot down seven American planes in one day. But while attacking a bomber over Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, he was surprised by an American plane diving from a high altitude. It shot off one of the wings of the Zero and set it on fire. Burning, Okabe fell.
John chatted with his two finest pilots for a few minutes. Then he shook Voss's hand and returned Okabe's bow, and the two got into the cockpits. Five thousand feet altitude, at a point halfway between the two boats, a spire with an onion-shaped top, was the agreed rendezvous.
The four biplanes spiraled upward. On reaching the designated height, as indicated by the altimeters, they straightened out. None of them thought of cheating, since they were honorable men. Nor had John suggested to his pilots that they go even higher to get the advantage. He knew them too well.
Now they headed toward each other. The sun was on the right of Voss and Okabe; on the left of Barker and Guynemer. All four would have preferred to have the sun to their backs and in their opponents' eyes. That was the classic method of attack. Hide in ambush in sun or cloud, then, after spotting the victim below, dive down, taking him by surprise.