“Extremely short: I was over in Kanzlei before dinner and we still haven’t got your posting papers, only a telephone call from the War Ministry. What have you been up to, old man? Caught in bed with the Heir-Apparent’s wife or what? ”
I smiled. “No such luck I’m afraid: just a minor disagreement with the Marine Sektion. It looks as if I shall be off U-Boating for a while. I’m here as an officer-observer I believe, though I can fly if needed: I’ve had a licence since 1912.”
“Splendid—you’ll certainly find that useful. All the pilots except for me are rankers.”
“What about the Kommandant?”
Rieger smiled wryly. “Herr Kommandant? Oh, not him I’m afraid: he says that flying would get in the way of his duties as commanding officer.”
“What duties? Surely in an air unit the commanding officer’s main duty is in the air? ”
“Perhaps so in most units. But not in ours. I suspect that our man would get dizzy standing on the edge of the kerb. Anyway, you’ll see what I mean when you meet him, so don’t let me prejudice you. But going back to what I said before, I certainly advise you to get some flying time in on your own as soon as ever you can, even if you only intend flying as a passenger. Life’s getting pretty hectic now and more than once we’ve had officer-observers landing their own plane when their pilot’s been knocked out. Oh yes, my dear Prohaska, I assure you that flying over the South-West Front is no easy number these days: we live fast here in the k.u.k. Fliegertruppe.” He rose and picked up his leather flying helmet. “Anyway, can’t sit here all day. I hope that you’ll excuse me but we’ll talk further this evening. The Kommandant presents his compliments and says that he’ll see you at fourteen-fifteen hours when he gets back from Haidenschaft. He’s been at the printers it seems, looking at the proofs of a new form for us to fill in. As for me, I’ve got to go and look at a machine with the Technical Officer. It came back from the repair shops only this morning and I want to see that everything’s as it should be before I sign for it. Auf wiederschauen.”
Rieger went out, and I was left on my own. The mess orderly brought me a cup of that black, bitter infusion of roasted acorns described as “kaffeesurrogat” and I picked up a day-old copy of the Weiner Tagblatt. I felt a good deal happier now than I had done after my oafish reception at Flik 19 a couple of hours before. I had just walked into a tent and had immediately run into someone I already knew, so perhaps this would be a congenial posting—at least for as long as I survived to enjoy it. I glanced at my watch: five-past two. I would go back to my tent and change out of my travel-grimed uniform into field dress for my interview with the commanding officer.
I emerged from the stuffy mess tent into the glaring sunlight to be greeted by the drone of an aero engine. An aeroplane was coming in to land on the field: a Hansa-Brandenburg CI to judge by the characteristic inward-sloping wing struts. It lined up to land, about fifteen metres up and as steady as could be. But as I watched, something went terribly wrong: the aeroplane suddenly lurched over on to one wingtip, which struck the ground with a splintering crash, kicking up a cloud of dust. I thought that the pilot had managed to right the aeroplane, but the thing simply cartwheeled into the ground before my horrified gaze, nosed over and then skidded crazily across the field to end up in the bushes on the bank of the river. I ran towards the wreck, joined on the way by a number of ground crewmen. But as we neared it, whumpf!—the whole thing went up in a bright orange puffball of flame. We ducked and stooped about the bonfire, eyebrows singeing from the heat, coming in as close as we dared to peer into the blaze and see whether the pilot might still be dragged clear. In the end we were driven back by the crackle of ammunition going off in the inferno.
By the time a hand-pumped fire engine had been brought up and a thin spray of water was playing on the wreck there was hardly anything left to burn, just a smoking tangle of bracing-wire and steel tubing jumbled up with glowing embers, a blackened engine and the upturned, tyreless bicycle wheels of the undercarriage. Gingerly we approached it, fearful of finding what we knew we must find. In the end I almost tripped over the ghastly thing before I recognised it for what it was. It lay twisted and grinning horribly, smoking gently as its charred fingers gripped the smouldering remains of the steering wheel. Fighting back a desperate urge to be sick, I knelt down, trying not to smell the stench of burning bacon. Only the boots and the steel goggle-frames remained intact; that and the metal identity tag hanging on a chain around the shrivelled throat. Without thinking I bent to pick it up—and yelped with pain. In the end I had to lever a stick under it and twist. The chain snapped and it went flying, to land hissing in the damp grass by the edge of a streamlet. I walked over and picked it up. It was the usual Austrian identity tag: a small metal case like a girl’s locket, embossed with the two-headed eagle and containing a little booklet giving the wearer’s personal details. I prised open the case, and found the paper toasted brown by the flames but still legible. It read, Rieger. Karl Ferdinand. Oblt Geb. 1885 Leitmerit%. Rm Ktlsch. Not fifteen minutes before, I had been chatting in the mess with this fire-blackened obscenity smouldering among the embers. As he had so recently observed, in those days we lived fast in the k.u.k. Fliegertruppe.
I left the scene of the crash feeling very weak at the knees. The birds had now resumed their interrupted chirping in the under-growth by the riverbank, and two ground crewmen—both Poles I could hear—were heading towards the wreck with the tarpaulin-shrouded handbarrow reserved for such errands. They did not seem unduly awed by the solemnity of their gruesome task, which I learnt later they were often called upon to perform. As they neared the site of the crash they met a fellow- countryman coming the other way.
“Carbonised this time, Wojtek?”
“Completely. But never mind—it was only an officer.”
Hauptmann Rudolf Kraliczek, commanding officer of Fliegerkompagnie 19F, was not at all pleased that I had arrived three minutes and twenty-seven seconds late for my interview with him. Still shaky from the terrible sight I had seen only a few minutes before, I blurted out my apologies and reported that I had just witnessed a crash on the other side of the flying field. He waved my excuses aside irascibly.
“Herr Linienschiffsleutnant, please refrain from bothering me with such trifles.”
“But Herr Kommandant, your Chief Pilot Oberleutnant Rieger has just been killed . . .” He rolled up his eyes in despair behind his pince-nez. “Oh no, not another one. Rieger, did you say?”
“By your leave, Herr Kommandant, Oberleutnant Rieger.”
“Are you sure? ”
“Perfectly certain, Herr Kommandant: burnt beyond recognition. I saw his remains with my own eyes and removed his identity tag myself.” He got up from his desk and selected a crayon.
“Which aeroplane was it? ”
“A Hansa-Brandenburg just back from repairs. It seemed to go out of control just as he was coming in to land. From what I could see of it . . .” “Be quiet,” he snapped peevishly, turning to face a board which covered the entire back wall of his office and which was itself covered by twenty or so sheets of squared paper with jagged rising and falling lines of various colours and with a rainbow-hued array of bars. He had a red crayon in his hand and seemed to be talking to himself.