The Attila was monstrously large. Its presence over France was an insult, but Winthrop didn't care about the Zeppelin or its passenger. His sights were on the creature that flew ahead of the airship, the Bloody Red Baron. Tonight, Richthofen would be destroyed.
The battle passed swiftly beneath the observation port. Stalhein saw fire dots as guns were fired at the Attila. The picture enlarged so that individual skirmishes could be seen. A tank rumbling through a farmhouse, rising to get over the hump of smashed brickwork. Infantry creeping up on a gun position, stick grenades falling closer to the target.
Dracula stood at the nose of the gondola, hands linked in the small of his back, surveying the scene, unsmiling as Camel fighters swarmed closer, spreading out to speckle the entire panorama of the sky.
The kapitan spoke urgently with Robur, who leaned on his sticks and impatiently shook his head. There was a disagreement between the airship men. Strasser, reluctant and concerned, relayed more orders to his crew.
Stalhein's constricting sleeves split at the seams as his forearms swelled with sinew.
The first of the Camels fired. Tiny flashes popped around propellers. They were well out of range but the English liked to get a man's attention before engaging in combat. Stalhein respected that, though he thought it foolish.
Fliers came up from the sides of the Zeppelin and joined Richthofen in the forward position.
There was a loud cracking rip. Airmen looked around. Stalhein's tunic had burst up the back. He shrugged out of the ruin and allowed himself a deep breath. His wings were forming, membranous folds blossoming in his armpits, running along the undersides of his arms.
The Attila was ahead of the German advance. The roads below were thronged with retreating British and American troops.
Strasser was briefly engaged in conversation with Reitberg, the master bombardier. Vital gun positions were to be destroyed. Such actions would transform the Entente's retreat into a rout. Reitberg tottered along a walkway to the bomb bay, muttering to himself.
A Camel, ahead of its pack as forlorn hope, swooped at the Zeppelin. Two fliers converged on it from above and below, firing Spandaus. The aeroplane's engine burst in a fireball that scorched Stalhein's eyes. Fliers flapped backwards away from the explosion and the burning machine spiralled towards the ground.
Strasser's men gave a hearty cheer which was frozen by Robur's glower. It did not do for an airshipman to hail the achievements of mere wing-jockeys. Strasser went to Robur again, grabbing his sleeve and insisting.
'We are too low,' Strasser said, 'too close to the ground.'
The engineer shook the kapitan off but could not rid himself of dawning doubts. Robur, another Zeppelin fanatic, knew the limitations of the vessel he had designed.
Dracula half-turned, motioned with his hand. Lower still. Strasser almost protested but it was unthinkable that an order from the Graf be questioned. He stood back, unable to think, so Robur issued instructions, effectively usurping command. Airmen snapped to, pulling levers and wires that released pockets of gas, allowing the Attila to settle nearer the ground. Strasser threw up his hands.
Stalhein stepped forwards, round the observation port. Though only a little taller than in his man-shape, he was transformed into a flying beast, a man-bat. He spread his wings to steady himself.
He stood beside Dracula, watching his comrades engage the Camels in a dog-fight. Several more fighters blew to pieces, raining fiery debris on to the countryside.
Robur settled into his chair by the organ, enjoying his authority. Airshipmen, awed by this legend of their calling, deferred to him. Strasser was cut entirely from the chain of command.
There was a rap at the window. A crack ran through the thick glass. A bullet-lump was lodged close to Dracula's head, tip sparkling silver. The Graf shrugged but Stalhein was close enough to notice the slight shiver of his shoulders. The commander-in-chief interlaced his fingers tighter behind him, quelling shaking hands.
Something was wrong. Dracula was not afraid. Dracula was fear.
Strasser was with them, awaiting the order to take the ship up. It was clearly time to withdraw to frozen heights and observe inevitable victory.
Dracula turned his face to the fire-blotched darkness.
'We go down more,' he said.
Winthrop had expected the Attila to begin ascent as soon as Condor Squadron hove into view. Allard had prepared them for an attack on the Zeppelin's belly, warning of the thinning air and gathering cold that would form a ceiling beyond which an airship was safe and an aeroplane was doomed.
Instead the Attila hugged close to the crowded ground, bombing retreating troops. It was insane. Something as dangerous as a million gallons of flammable gas should never be allowed this close to a firefight. Dracula, of course, was insane.
Winthrop's Camel climbed on the first pass, breaking formation. Allard's plan, to concentrate fire from below at the engine and fuel supplies, would have to be abandoned.
He passed over the gasbag, wheels almost brushing an acre of stiffened silk. One bomb could destroy the whole leviathan. But the Camel was not a bomber.
Knowing the terrible strain that would be put upon his upper plane, Winthrop angled the Camel nose down and pressed his thumbs on the firing buttons. His Lewis guns strafed the top of the Attila, ripping parallel lines of tiny holes in the gasbag. It was about as effective as sticking hatpins into Moby-Dick. Incendiary bullets must strike something solid to explode. The tiny charges spent uselessly in the empty bloat.
Winthrop overshot the Attila and ceased fire. He wheeled in the air for another assault. A batwinged thing had been on his tail. Now he faced it. Guns fired. He flew into a swarm of bullets.
Stalhein saw the faces of the Entente soldiers who fired up as bombs burst among them. The gondola rattled with direct hits.
Rifle fire would do little harm. The gondola was armoured and the gasbag big enough to sustain a million fleabite wounds before it was seriously ruptured.
But one explosive shell. One mortar bomb ...
Reitberg, staggering back along the bucking walkway, tripped and fell, clinging to rigging. Blood burst from his collar. A stray bullet had sunk in his neck. The bombardier pitched off the walkway on to the observation port. The glass jarred in its frame but did not break. Trickles of blood ran across the circle, spreading over the scene below.
'We must climb,' Strasser shouted, looking urgently at Dracula, torn apart. The kapitan could not question an order, only wait for it to be rescinded. Dracula watched the dog-fight, rigid as a statue. Strasser looked to Robur. The engineer was too delighted to have control of his creation to heed his subordinate's qualms.
Miraculously, Winthrop's engine was not hit. There were whistling holes in his fuselage, but he had come through. The shape-shifter he faced was not the Red Baron, but some smaller Prey-
Winthrop turned the Camel on its side and fired. He sliced past the flier, ripping into his wings with an accurate burst. The creature tumbled in the air, shoulders dislocated as wind caught his wings wrong. Winthrop did not see him recover, so he assumed the German fell.
He flew fast, darting around the huge shape of the Attila, and kept losing sight of the battle. For a moment, as he replaced his ammunition drums, he thought he was alone in the air with the Zeppelin. Then he rounded the bulk of the gasbag, and saw Condor Squadron mixing with JG1 in a scramble of flame and wings. Aeroplanes exploded like comets.