Winthrop went over to see. The orderlies withdrew, wiping their hands as if they had disposed of something messy. The girl's shawl was wrapped about her. Banknotes rolled into a cigarette-like tube were tucked into her bosom. A spatter of rain, like tears, brushed Cigarette's face. Red-rimmed eyes sprang open. She reached for the money and pushed it deeper into her bodice.
He made no motion to help her. She would not thank him.
With experienced fingers, Cigarette felt the bites on her throat and bosom, wincing as she probed ragged tears. She wrapped her shawl about her throat like a field dressing. The wool was spotted with old bleeding. She got deliberately to her feet, strangely dignified, like a drunkard doing his best to seem sober. She held the fence with one hand until she steadied. Her contemptuous gaze took in Winthrop, the farmhouse and the airfield. She was not squealing and giggling now. This girl could not hate the Boche more than she hated the Allied pilots who bled her for money.
He tasted blood in the rain.
Cigarette mounted her bicycle and pedalled off, leaning low over her handlebars, skirts tucked away out of the spokes. Did she have a family to feed? A husband? Children? Or was she a camp-follower, going wherever there were soldiers?
His sudden concern for the girl troubled him, then he realised it was the Kate in him. The rain washed it away. Only a fool stood outside in the rain when he didn't have to.
At sunset, Allard called a briefing. Winthrop knew at once that it was a serious matter. The board with details of the squadron's disposition was wiped clean. A large-scale map of the region hung from the wall. And Mr Croft sat by the captain, face unreadable.
Winthrop sat in Ball's chair, near Bertie and Ginger.
'Mr Croft would like to talk with you,' Allard said.
This was unusual. Winthrop could not recall the intelligence man actually saying a word.
Croft stood, bowing slightly to the room, and began, Gentlemen, conflicts of which you were not aware are taking place. A secret war, if you will. We have gulled the enemy. We have allowed him his knights of the air. We have helped build up the legends of men like Richthofen, have encouraged the enemy to trust in them, to prize them above their worth. It has been costly, but - as you will soon understand - a vital strategy.'
As Croft rasped, Winthrop burned. It was impossible to like this man. What he seemed to be suggesting was dreadful, that the Allies sacrificed good men like Albert Ball and Tom Cundall simply to lull the Boche into overvaluing their shape-shifting killers.
'You know that JG1 are stationed in Schloss Adler. On your last patrol, you brought back intelligence that a Zeppelin was moored above the castle.'
A great fuss had been made of that tid-bit.
'It is unusual for such machines to venture near the front. This is the flagship of the enemy's aerial fleet, the Attila. It is the position from which their commander-in-chief will observe their planned offensive.'
Winthrop remembered the black bulk of the thing.
'Are you saying Dracula's in that Zep?' Lacey asked.
Croft, annoyed to be questioned, continued. 'This is the endgame we have been manoeuvring. We have drawn Dracula out of his lair. We have brought him within our reach.'
Winthrop understood what Allard had meant by 'greater prey'. There were eagles in the sky, almost as common as sparrows. But there was also a dragon, the dracul.
'When the attack comes, it will be the purpose of this squadron to bring down the Zeppelin. Once the head has been cut off the beast, the body will wither. This single stroke will mean victory.'
'All very well, old thing,' said Algy, 'but we've nothing that can climb as high as a jolly Zep. One's eyes turn to iceballs in the upper climes.'
'He will come down to us. Lord Ruthven understands his arrogance. The Graf von Dracula loves this toy, this flying machine. He will want to be close enough to see his armies sweep across the lines. He feels secure in his guards, his shape- shifter aces. That childish overreaching will be the end of him. You men will assassinate Dracula.'
'I've always fancied a spot of Zep-busting,' Bertie said. 'Damned unsporting things, the Zeps. Bombing civilians and that sort of show.'
'This is not sport,' Croft said. 'This is war. In this instance, this is murder. Make no mistake.' 'What about dear old JG1?'
'Kill them if you must and if you can, but do not pursue any private campaign against them. The priority is the Zeppelin and Graf von Dracula.'
'Once Dracula's killed, will it be over?'
'This is his war. Without him, the Central Powers will collapse.'
'Without Dracula, who'll there be to surrender?'
Croft shrugged. 'There will still be the Kaiser. Without Dracula, he will be a lost child.'
Ruthven's man was convincing but his voice was hollow, his focus narrow. Croft said this was not sport but talked of endgames as if a continent of mud were a chess-board. From the air, in the air, Winthrop knew there was no order. Without its head, the beast might thrash until nothing was left alive in the jungle. All Europe might become a country of troglodytes. Winthrop could not think of that. He could think only of hunting hunters, of stalking eagles and dragons.
The telephone rang and was in Allard's hand. The captain listened, nodded, and hung up.
'It has begun,' he announced.
41
Kaiserschlacht
She could not breathe. Of course, breathing was a habit, not a necessity. Her chest was under something hard and heavy. All feeling was whipped out of her limbs. Jagged pain in her shoulder suggested silver.
Kate blinked in the dark. Her glasses, jammed to her face, kept dirt out of her eyes. Since turning, which had brought the vampire power of night sight, she had not known blackness so total. The silence of the grave was eaten by tiny, distant sounds. Screams, explosions, engines, single shots, machine guns.
She had been dead for years. Her condition was not changed.
A pain rushed through her shoulder, down her right arm to her hand. She made a clawed fist, digging her nails into the meat of her palm. It was hard to punch earth. She had no leverage. Her whole arm strained. Her injured shoulder wrenched. She had to press her lips tightly together to swallow the shriek that wanted to escape.
There was a crack in her coffin of earth and her arm could move. Her fingers scrabbled filth as she reached upwards. She jammed her claws into a dead man and had to reach round him. Holding the corpse's arm, bearing the pain, she pulled hard, trying to shift her whole body upwards. The bar across her chest wouldn't budge.
If she fell into her lassitude now, she might live insensible through years, centuries. Perhaps she would awake into a Utopia where mankind had outgrown war. Or perhaps she'd find Dracula absolute ruler of a desolate Earth. To sleep was to desert. Her responsibility was to the present.
Her fist burst through to the surface. She felt air on her hand and stretched out her fingers.
The thing on her chest was a beam, or maybe a heavy chunk of her ambulance. It was deeply embedded in the earth. She tried pressing herself down deeper, hoping to wriggle loose and burrow up like a worm.
If only her father could see her now.
Writhing her shoulders, she displaced soft earth beneath her. Everything was wet. Enough struggling turned packed-down dirt into moveable mud.
Someone took hold of her hand and gripped tight. She grasped a man's hand, trying to retract her nails so as not to pierce her rescuer. She tried to imagine the man. Hot pain came in her palm as a metal point - not silver - was forced through the skin into the flesh. Her saviour was shoving a bayonet into her. An eager mouth, tongue like a cat's, lapped blood from her hand, sucking greedily.