The Snipe tumbled away, plunging through the fliers like a lead weight. The wings were torn off. The pilot was thrown out of the cockpit and fell independently, picking up speed. From this height, he would be smashed to useless fragments, sweet blood spread over a square mile.
Forgetting all else, Stalhein dived after his kill, clawing through the air. He folded his lower wings to decrease resistance and knifed down like a spear. Air screamed around his wings. H>s eyes, blobbed with fire-bursts, fixed on the falling pilot. It was hopeless. Bigglesworth had escaped him.
Unless he acted swiftly, he would plough into the hard earth on the very spot his victim fell. He, too, would be smashed to fragments. He struggled in the air, almost losing his mastery of the element. Extending his wings like sails, he halted his descent. It was as if his arms were wrenched out of their sockets. His tail lashed beneath him as he tried to attain an even keel. Finally, he pulled out of his dive. He drifted upwards on the current, scanning the black landscape for spots of burning light. He was somewhere this side of the lines, so there was no fire from the ground. His ears strained but he could not hear an impact. His foe was down somewhere, broken. The battle was over and Erich von Stalhein was unfulfilled. He began to growl.
20
Foreign Field
The stick was torn from his hands. Wind blast dashed his whole body. He realised the entire front of the RE8 had been wrenched off, ripped aside. His life was probably saved for a few seconds. The stove-hot engine was no longer three feet in front of his lap. Jolted out of its cowling, the contraption would have shot into the cockpit like a big bullet, punching through his soft body.
Winthrop was pushed back into his seat by the force of the crash, then thrown forward into dark. Hard ground thumped him in the chest and face. He reflexively grabbed earth as if it were eiderdown.
His ears were still assaulted by the roar of the air and the grinding of the RE8 coming apart all around him. Something heavy fell on his back, forcing him further into the dirt.
The goggles prevented his eyes from being mashed into his head but his mask was ribboned. Dirt went up his nose and into his mouth. A sharp spar worked its way through his Sidcot into his side. Every part of him hurt, as if he had been beaten about the belly, kidneys and groin. Death was a single breath, a heartbeat, away.
Cat, he thought. Sorry for the silly letter ...
He lifted his face from the ground, coughing and shaking loose matter from his mouth and nose. He breathed again. And again. His heart still beat. Maybe he would not die? Or maybe he was already dead?
This was something like the plain of hell he had imagined as a child, listening to the Reverend Mr Kaye, Catriona's father. There were distant screams and pillars of fire, and a deep darkness.
He shrugged violently, dislodging the broken wing-frame that had fallen on his back. His Sidcot tore as he extracted the spear-like end of a snapped strut.
On his knees, he froze, feeling only pain. His teeth rattled and were thickly smeared with blood and filth. He coughed and spat. His stomach rolled and emptied through his mouth. Being sick at least cleared his throat. He had no way of knowing which bones were broken and which just hurt. It might have been easier to determine which bones were unbroken.
A burst of intense light flared nearby, searing his eyes. Flame seemed to brush his face and dissipate in an instant. The engine had blown up but there wasn't enough fuel left to make a proper fire. Dribbles of flame spread along a dark shape revealed as the nose of the good old bloody old Harry Tate. The machine had died but somehow cherished his life to the last, bringing him alive to the ground.
He should get away from the wreck before there was another explosion, but he couldn't move. He knelt, but it was as if his legs were anchored in the ground. His hammering heart slowed. Fumbling at his sooty face, he dislodged the remains of his goggles. It was as if the clouds parted. Moonlight flooded, spreading sickly. He pulled off his helmet and balaclava and wiped his face with the woolly rag.
No Man's Land was a mad landscape. Before the war, Winthrop had toured this country. It had been pleasantly wooded. Now there were no trees. The earth was pitted and cratered and denuded of all but the scrubbiest plant-life. Rolls of barbed wire were savagely strewn. The RE8 had gathered trails of the rusty stuff and dragged it, scratching deep ruts.
Mud-coloured corpses were beaten into the ground. A few feet away, a fanged skull in a pickelhaube lay on its side. It must have been there since the first push. The Boche didn't wear helmets like that any more. Winthrop tried not to make out disembodied limbs, tattered scraps of uniform, exposed bones. These former fields, fought over for four years, were seeded with millions of dead.
He checked his arms and legs and, though he found bruises and pain, thought his major bones intact. A bullet had creased his bootsole, burrowing like a worm. His sock was stiff with blood but the shot had done no more than tear his skin.
Standing, his right knee jolted pain. His Sidcot was torn and the pyjama trousers underneath were shredded, though his breeches were merely mashed into his leg. His footing wavered, as if on land after a month at sea. In the air, he had got used to the nothing under his feet. His balance was off but he struggled to recover it. His head swam and he blinked, yawning to open up his aching ears. He fought to regain his relationship with the solid ground, with gravity.
A star-shell burst overhead. The brightness hurt his eyes. White trails showered like jellyfish tendrils. Such infernal devices were to light targets for night-snipers. With what seemed agonising slowness, he crouched against the broken side of the RE8, shadow wrapping around him. His ears still roared, so he could not be sure no one was shooting. The star-burst trails fizzled to the ground and he was still alive.
He looked up at the skies for the bat-shapes. Would the Boche comb the wreckage for survivors? That was absurd. His survival was so unlikely and flopping down in No Man's Land so dangerous that even the Red Baron should leave him be. But he knew enough about vampires to guess the shape-shifted fliers would have their red thirst up.
He was not deaf. Besides roaring and ringing, he heard engine noise. There was definitely a machine still in the sky. One of the Snipes. He wrenched off his helmet and shook gathered sweat out of his hair.
There was gunfire. Specks of light in the air. In the direction from which the engine sound was coming.
He could see little, but imagined a fleeing Snipe, flying low, one of Richthofen's bat-staffel things on his tail.
More gunfire. Nearer. A machine passed over. He had the impression of swooping wings and wheels, a Snipe shimmering briefly in moonlight. He turned to follow the fighter's course.
A silent shadow passed, spreading a heart-deep chill. Like a bottom-dweller looking up at a manta ray, Winthrop cringed as the Boche flew over, intent on his prey. The Snipe streaked towards the British lines, wings wavering. It was gaining a lead, leaving the Boche behind. The shape-shifter rose in the sky like a hawk, pouring down fire.
Winthrop couldn't look away. Fire took the fighter in the tail. The Snipe went into a sudden spin. The fire-burst hurt his eyes before he heard the explosion.