He could see men moving around, foreshortened, dun-colored like the clay. Up here it was ridiculous how anonymous they seemed, and yet he probably knew all of them. He understood what they were doing only because he knew; he had done it all himself: shoring up walls, carrying supplies, cleaning weapons. A few cars chugged slowly on pockmarked roads, sending little puffs of exhaust out behind them. Judith might be in one of them, seeming to crawl along compared with the crazy speed of the plane. Ambulances were easy to spot. Columns of men moved on foot, reinforcements going forward, wounded going back. It was also easy to see the field guns, the huts and tents, the dressing stations, and the first aid posts. Some of the humps in the ground he knew were dugouts.
The plane gained more altitude, and Joseph could see the German lines as well. He knew their trenches were deeper, their dugouts better organized—and better furnished, so he had heard. But the land was the same: shattered and poisoned. The men, such as he could see, were engaged in the same activities. They, too, when motionless, catching an hour or two of sleep, blended into the earth and became almost invisible.
The terrain was becoming less distinct as they climbed higher. Beyond, the green was visible again, in both directions: Trees had leaves; there were patches of grass. On toward the horizon to the south and west there were the dark scars of roads and railways, but they lay across cornfields and meadows, and soft, blurred patches of woodland. Here and there Joseph saw the silver curl of a river.
It was like looking at the track of a wound across the land, or the scorched path of shrapnel through flesh, leaving the rest oddly whole.
For three long, terrible years they had faced each other over those few thousand yards of ground, and killed —and killed—repeatedly. It was madness! In the silence up here with nothing but wind and sun and the shattering roar of the engine, it was so obvious he wanted to lean over and shout invectives at them. But of course no one could hear him. He might as well scream at an anthill.
They were moving east and south. He saw railway tracks and marshaling yards. He thought he recognized some of the features of the land, the curve of hill and river. He saw what he thought was Lille, but he was not sure how far they had come.
Half an hour passed in silence. He searched the sky nervously, but there were no other aircraft visible. The French lines below them looked the same as the British or Canadian: just gray mud, wreckage, what one could make out of men moving about the same midday duties.
When was Vine going to go low enough for him to have any idea if there were men moving eastward? So far they had followed the battle line southeast as it curved away from the advancing German army.
Had they not gone far enough yet? He had lost any sense of where they were. The ground was so far below he could barely make out the roads, let alone who was moving on them. Perhaps this was an idiotic cause anyway, and Jones-Williams had let him come only because he had no imaginable chance of succeeding.
He leaned forward and shouted at Vine, and as he turned for a moment, Joseph pointed downward.
Vine held out his hand, thumb up, and obediently swooped the plane low, hedgehopping, as Jones-Williams had called it. Details became sharper—roads, the colors of men, horses, and artillery—but Joseph saw nothing to indicate the presence of his eleven men. He thought they would have moved much farther eastward by now. They could have covered twenty or thirty miles a day with a little help—a lift here or there. They were all fairly fit and used to marching.
Suddenly and with absolutely no warning, the aircraft pitched and yawed like a tub in high seas. One minute the sky was above them, the next they rolled so the earth swung around, over their heads, then right and left wildly. Finally it fell away as they reared up and climbed steeply, racing toward the faint shreds of cloud, which were still far above.
Joseph thought he was going to fall out. Only the harness jerking violently on his body held him in. Bruised and shocked, he was sick over the side. They were still climbing. He clung onto the cockpit, knuckles white. Even yesterday, it had never occurred to him that he would die this way.
They swiveled around and dived, then climbed again. That was when Joseph saw them, black outlines against the sky like dragonflies, swooping and diving. They seemed angry, turning on each other, always going back again into the heart of the swarm. It was a great aerial dogfight, high above them, up almost to the thin layer of cloud.
Vine was keeping their plane lower, probably hoping that against the darker background of the fields and interlacing support trenches they would be almost invisible. The pilots in the dogfight would be concentrating on each other, looking for who was in their sights and who was on their tails.
The seconds seemed to stretch forever. They climbed a little. Joseph did not know why, but he assumed it would be to give them space to dive and evade if they were seen.
Joseph touched the Lewis gun experimentally. He was a noncombatant, a man who served the fighting soldiers, but did not possess a weapon himself. But if they were attacked now, not only Joseph’s life but Vine’s as well would depend upon Joseph shooting and doing it effectively. He did not even think of trying to find an escape from it.
The dogfight was still above them and only a short distance behind.
Vine put the aircraft into a climb again, trying to gain height in case they needed the speed of a dive to make a run for it.
From the whirling dance of the dogfight one plane exploded, red fire and black smoke staining the sky. The pieces of it plummeted downward. Another blossomed a long trail of smoke, smearing across the blue. Then it cartwheeled over and over, hideously slowly.
They were climbing again, then without warning another plane roared above them. It was probably fifty feet away, but seemed barely to miss them. It was so close Joseph could see the pilot’s face for an instant—his head bent forward, his muscles tense. Then it was gone, swinging away and up again. On its tail was a red-winged triplane, guns blazing.
Vine suddenly swung wide also, and for a moment—there and then gone again—Joseph had the red-winged plane in his sights. Too quickly it was away and there was nothing there but blue sky.
He was dizzy as they soared up, and he realized there had been another plane above and behind them. Bullets ripped through the very edge of the wing as they slithered sideways, around, and then up even higher.
Now there were planes all around them. The maelstrom had descended. More bullets streamed overhead and struck the tail of a plane above them.
Joseph was galvanized into movement at last and gripped the gun. Next time he saw anything in his sights, if it was German he would fire. If he had long enough to be sure.
The need came before he expected. Vine swung the plane around, over in a roll too close to a somersault, pitching Joseph almost over the side. He straightened up, bruised, heart pounding, and raised the barrel of the gun. It turned easily. He found he could follow the course of a plane for seconds. Long enough to hit it.
Except that Vine never kept them still. They surged and slithered across the sky. One minute Joseph was staring at fields, the next at gray trenches, then the sky. Other planes crossed his vision and by the time he was certain they were German, they were gone.
Then bullets tore the wing again, and the red triplane was there.
Joseph squeezed the trigger and bullets exploded out of the muzzle. They just caught the very edge of the red tail. An instant later it was gone.
Joseph sat hugging the gun, his heart pounding. It was the first time he had ever fired a gun at a human being, intending to kill. It was an extraordinary feeling, decisive, shameful, exhilarating. He had passed a certain barrier. How much did it matter that he had not hit the man? The wind rushed past him as the plane banked.
They were in the middle of a swarm, like angry hornets, engines roaring, bullets stuttering. Another plane whirled and cartwheeled, spiraling down with a black plume of smoke trailing behind it. He saw it strike the ground and explode in flames. He realized only then that he had not noticed whether it was British or German, only that the pilot would die.
There was another rattle of bullets. Several struck so close to him that he flung himself backward with a jolt, mouth dry, gasping to regain his breath. Then he grabbed the gun savagely. When the next German plane came into his sights, he let off a stream of fire in return and was elated to see the tracer bullets strike the back part of the fuselage. It tipped the balance wildly, the plane yawing like a sailboat in a bad sea.
Vine raced after the damaged plane, turning wide to give Joseph another shot. He hesitated, almost lost aim, then at the last second shot at the engine. It was a senseless distinction from shooting at the man. If the plane
