went down the pilot would be killed anyway. The difference was a sophistry.
On it went, almost like a three-dimensional dance. Up here it was noise, engines, bullets, wind ice-cold on the skin. They wheeled and climbed, juddered on the top of the ascent, careened sideways, swooped, guns chattering. Then they increased speed until the wind was screaming in their ears and the ground seemed to race up toward them. They struggled to break out of the dive and bank around again, caught the enemy in the gunsights and shot.
He lost all count of time. He shot in short, rapid bursts at other planes with no idea if he hit them or not. He was hardly even aware of it at first when the bullets struck them. It was even a moment or two before he realized with mind-numbing clarity that the smoke was their own. This long dive was not going to end in the swift turn and banking up into a climb again.
The ground came closer and closer. He could see trees clearly and a farmyard. Then he realized Vine was making for the fields beyond. He was going to try to land.
The seconds were endless. Joseph had no doubt that he was going to die in seconds now. He had expected to die in Ypres, certainly, but this was France now, a summer cornfield ready for harvest. Almost like Cambridgeshire. Almost as good as home.
Now he had no more time to do better, try harder. Soon he would know the truth, whatever it was. He ached with a blinding pain for what he left behind.
They leveled out, lower than the trees. There was nothing but fields ahead. Something tore at the wheels, pitching him forward so violently for a moment he could think of nothing but the weight of the blow. He felt bruised in every part of his body. They were still moving, tearing through the corn, ripping a path in it toward the little copse of trees.
Then everything was still, eerily silent after the noise.
He heard Vine’s voice shouting: “Get out! Run! Reavley, get out!” There was fear in it—high, sharp-pitched fear.
He was jerked out of his stupor. Awkwardly, oblivious of the pain, he scrambled to release himself and get out of the cockpit. He clambered over the edge and dropped into the corn. The black smoke was still pouring out of the engine.
He staggered to his feet. He must get as far away as possible. Then after a couple of steps he turned. Vine was still in his seat.
“Come on!” Joseph yelled at him. “Get out!”
“Can’t!” Vine called back. “Got a bust leg, old boy. Get going while you can. This thing could go up any moment. Good luck.”
Whatever it cost, Joseph knew he must try to get Vine out. He could not run for his own safety and leave the pilot to be burned to death. Vine was only here because of him. He stumbled back the few steps, climbed up onto the wing and over to the cockpit.
“Get out!” Vine said sharply. “Don’t you understand? I can’t stand anyway. My whole right leg is shot up. Go on!”
“I’m used to carrying wounded men,” Joseph told him. “It’s mostly what I do. Get that harness off and grab hold of me. This is not that much different from a mud crater, and God knows how many men I’ve pulled out of those.”
Vine hesitated.
“Come on, damn it!” Joseph shouted suddenly. “Don’t be a bloody hero. You’ll get us both killed! Hold on to me!”
Vine unfastened his harness and gripped Joseph. His face was white under the smears from the smoke, and there was a sheen of sweat on it.
Joseph looked down to see the blood-soaked leg, wanting to cause as little extra pain as possible. He was hideously aware that any moment the engine could catch fire and the fuel tanks explode, killing them both. He took hold of Vine and tried to heave him up. It was far more difficult than he had supposed. He knew he was hurting Vine, but the only alternative was to run and let him die. He could feel his own muscles tearing with the strain, and the sweat of fear running down his body.
Vine rose a little. The seconds were ticking by. Smoke billowed out, sharp, hot, and acrid.
Joseph pulled again, putting all his strength and weight behind it. Please God he could do it! He must!
With a bitten-off scream of pain, Vine came out of the cockpit. Joseph collapsed backward onto the wing and slid down it to land on his back in the corn, Vine on top of him.
Then he felt hands pulling him and heard voices. For a moment he did not understand. Then with blessed relief he realized people had come from the farmhouse and he was being lifted up. He and Vine were half-dragged, half-carried across the ripe ears of corn, their stalks catching and poking at them.
They were seventy yards away when the plane exploded. The blast knocked all of them off their feet, scorching them with its heat.
Joseph sat up slowly, at first his vision obscured by the tops of the corn. Then he saw the flames and the black column of smoke going up.
“Thanks,” Vine said hoarsely from beside him. “Thanks, old fellow. Wouldn’t have liked to be in that. Bit of a mess, eh?” His face revealed a pain so intense he could barely keep consciousness.
A couple of yards away an elderly man rose to his feet, muttering expletives in French. He was gray-haired, his shoulders sagging, and the stubble of a beard darkened his chin. He shook his head and looked regretfully at the scorched and trampled field, then he turned to Vine and apologized in broken English.
Vine was lying on his back. He looked crumpled, smaller. His eyes were closed, and it seemed as if the agony of his leg had finally overtaken him.
A broad-shouldered, handsome woman—possibly the old man’s daughter—staggered to her feet, yanking her skirt out of her way impatiently. She was clicking with her tongue, her face anxious.
Joseph spoke to her in French. “We need to stop the bleeding, and see if we can splint where the bone is broken,” he said urgently. “I expect there’ll be an army hospital not far away, but he’ll die if we don’t do that much immediately.”
“Yes, yes,” she agreed. “It looks bad. Poor man. And you, are you all right?”
“Fine. Only a few bruises,” Joseph replied. “He made a good job of landing. Sorry about your field.”
She waved her hand, as if dismissing the subject. Then she looked up in the sky where they could just make out the tangle of planes wheeling around each other. “Circus of the Red Baron!” she said disgustedly. “I suppose you are lucky to get out alive.”
Joseph remembered the red triplane. He had actually taken a shot at it himself! Even hit a piece off the tail. Manfred von Richthofen—but he would have time to think about that later. Now they must look after Vine.
It was an arduous job, but one at least that Joseph was accustomed to. With the help of the French farmer and his daughter—as she proved to be—they splinted Vine’s leg and then stopped the worst of the bleeding, at least for the moment. Then they put him in the one decent wagon left and hitched up the ancient horse.
It took them two hours of driving along mud-rutted lanes to get Vine to the French military field hospital behind the lines, but he was still alive—and conscious again—by then. The surgeon looked at the leg and said he thought he could save it.
“Thanks,” Vine said when he was alone with Joseph, after the farmer and his wife had gone. He was lying in a hospital cot, a sheet up to his neck. “Good luck in finding your fellows. Tell them from me they’d better come home and face the music. They owe you that.”
“They owe
Vine’s face tightened in momentary pain, then relaxed again into a smile. “I expected you to say ‘God be with you, my son,’ or something of that sort.”
“God be with you,” Joseph replied wryly. “I trust God. It’s the luck I’m a bit dubious about!”
He went to the commanding officer of the section, no more than half a mile from the hospital.
“We’ll find someone to give you a lift back to your regiment, Captain,” he said in excellent English. He was a slender man with a dark, intelligent face. He had an air of weary resignation, but he was unfailingly courteous.
“Thank you, sir,” Joseph replied, also in English. “But I was making my way to Switzerland, or at least in that direction.” And he explained his errand, showing him Colonel Hook’s letter as proof. Without it he could hardly
