The depleted squadron took off for the dawn patrol in the grey half-light. Hank Johnson was now second- incommand, and he flew on the other wing.
Michael turned out slightly, as soon as they were above the trees, and headed for the knoll beyond the chateau.
Somehow he knew that she would not be there this morning, yet he pushed up his goggles and searched for her.
The hill top was deserted, and he did not even look back.
It's my wedding day, he thought, searching the sky above the ridges, and my best man is dead, and my bride- He did not finish the thought.
The cloud had built up again during the night. There was a solid ceiling at I2,000 feet, dark and forbidding, stretching unbroken to every reach of the horizon. Below that it was clear to 5,000 feet where straggly grey cloud formed a layer that varied in thickness between 500 and
1,000 feet.
Michael led the squadron up through one of the holes in this intermittent layer, and then levelled out just below the top bank of cloud. The sky below them was empty of aircraft. To a novice it would seem impossible that two large formations of fighter planes could patrol the same area, each searching for the other, and still fail to make contact. However, the sky was so deep and wide that the chances were much against a meeting, unless the one knew precisely where the other would be at a given time.
While his eyes raked back and forth, Michael reached with his free hand into the pocket of his greatcoat and assured himself that the package he had prepared just before take-off was still there.
God, I could use a drink, he thought. His mouth was parched and there was a dull ache in his skull. His eyes burned but his vision was still clear. He licked his dry lips.
Andrew always used to say that only a confirmed drunkard can drink on top of a hangover. I just wish I'd had the courage and common sense to bring a bottle. Through the holes in the cloud beneath him he kept a running check on the squadron's position. He knew every inch of the squadron's designated area the way a farmer knows his lands.
They reached the outward limit and Michael made the turn, with the squadron coming round behind him, and he checked his watch. Eleven minutes later he picked out the bend in the river, and a peculiarly shaped copse of beech trees that gave him an exact positional fix.
He eased the throttle a fraction and his yellow machine drifted back a few yards until he was flying on Hank Johnson's wingtip. He glanced across at the Texan and nodded. He had discussed his intentions with Hank before take-off and Hank had tried to dissuade him. Across the gap Hank screwed up his mouth as though he had sucked a green persimmon, to show his disapproval, then raised a war-weary eyebrow and waved Michael away.
Michael backed the throttle a little further and dropped below the squadron. Hank kept leading them eastwards, but Michael made an easy turn into the north and began to descend.
Within a few minutes the squadron had disappeared into the limitless sky, and Michael was alone. He went down until he reached the lower layer of broken cloud and then used it as cover. Dodging in and out of the cold damp banks and the intervening open patches, he crossed the front lines a few miles south of Douai, and then picked out the new German gun emplacements at the edge of the woods.
The old airstrip was marked on his field map. He was able to pick it out from a distance of four miles or more, for the wheels of the German Albatroses on landing and take-off had traced muddy ruts in the turf. Two miles out, he could see the German machines parked along the edge of the forest, and in the trees beyond he made out the rows of tents and portable sheds which housed the German crews.
Suddenly there was a woof and a crack of bursting explosive, and an anti-aircraft shell burst above and slightly ahead of him. It looked like a ripe cotton pod, popping open and spilling fluffy white smoke, deceptively pretty in the muted light below the clouds.
Good morning, Archie, Michael greeted it grimly.
It was a ranging burst from one of the guns, and was followed immediately by the thud and crack of a full salvo. The air all around him was studded with shrapnel bursts.
Michael pushed his nose down and let the speed build up, and the needle of the rev counter in front of him began to wind upwards into the red sector. He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out the cloth package and placed in on his lap.
The earth and forest came up swiftly towards him, and he dragged a long smear of bursting shrapnel behind him.
Two hundred feet above the tree-tops he levelled out, and the airfield was directly ahead of him. He could see the multicoloured biplanes standing in a long row, their shark-like snouts pointed up towards him. He looked for the sky-blue machine with the chequered wings but could not pick it out.
There was agitated movement all along the edge of the field. German ground crews, anticipating a torrent of Vickers machine-gun fire, were running into the forest, while off-duty pilots, trying to struggle into their flying jackets, were racing towards the parked aircraft. They must know it was useless to take off and try to intercept the British machine, but they were making the attempt nonetheless.
Michael reached for the firing-handle. The aircraft were parked in a neat line, the pilots crowding towards them - and he smiled without humour and depressed his nose, picking them up in the ring sight of the Vickers.
At 100 feet he levelled again, dropped his right hand from the firing handle and picked up the cloth package from his lap. As he passed over the centre of the German line, he leaned from the cockpit and tossed the package overboard. The ribbon he had attached to it unrolled in the slipstream of the SESa and fluttered down to the edge of the field.
As Michael opened the throttle and climbed away again towards the cloud layer, he glanced up into the mirror above his head and saw one of the German pilots stoop over the package, and then the SESa bounced and rocked as the German anti-aircraft guns opened up on him again, and a shell burst just below him. Within seconds he was into the haven of the cloud bank with his guns cold and unfired, and a few shrapnel tears in the belly and the underwings.
He turned on to a heading for Mort Homme. While he flew he thought about the package he had just
