Centaine fluffed out her skirts and settled on to the bed beside Anna. She took the antique ivory-coloured lace of the wedding dress into her lap, and then held the needle up to the light and squinted as she threaded it.
I have decided, she told Anna as she recommenced work on the hem of the dress, I will have only sons, at least six sons, but no daughters. Being a girl is such a bore, I don't wish to inflict it on any of my children. She completed a dozen stitches and then stopped. I'm so happy, Anna, and so excited. Do you think the general will come? When do you think this silly war will end, so that Michel and I can go to Africa? Listening to her chatter Anna turned her head slightly to hide her doting smile.
The yellow SE5a bored up powerfully into the soft grey belly of the sky. Michael chose one of the gaps in the lower layer of cloud, roared swiftly through it and burst out into the open corridor. High above there was still the same high roof of solid cloud, but below it the air was limpid as crystal. When his altimeter registered 8,000 feet, Michael levelled out. He was in the clear, equidistant from the layers of cloud above and below him, but through the gaps he could pick up his landmarks.
The villages of Cantin and Aubigny-all-Bac were deserted, shell-shattered skeletons. Only a few stone chimney-pieces had survived the waves of war which had washed back and forth over them. These stuck up like funeral monuments from the muddy torn earth.
The two villages were four miles apart, the road that once joined them had been obliterated, and the front lines twisted like a pair of maimed adders through the brown fields between them. The shell holes, filled with stagnant water, blinked up at him like the eyes of the blind.
Michael glanced at his watch. It was four minutes to four o'clock, and his eyes immediately returned to their endless search of the empty sky. One at a time he lifted his hands from the controls and flexed his fingers, at the same time wriggling his toes in the kudu-skin boots loosening up like a runner before the pistol. He reached up to the firing-handle with both hands, to test the trim of the machine, and she flew on straight and level. He fired both his guns, a short burst from each of them, and he nodded and blew on the gloved fingers of his right hand.
I need a drink, he told himself, and took Andrew's silver flask from his pocket. He took a mouthful and gargled it softly, and then swallowed. The fire of it bloomed in his bloodstream, but he resisted the temptation to drink again. He stoppered the flask and dropped it back into his pocket. He touched the left rudder to begin his turn into the square patrol pattern and at that moment he picked up the flea-black speck on the grey mattress of the clouds far ahead and he met the turn, holding her steady while he blinked his eyes rapidly and checked his sighting.
The other machine was at 8,000 feet, exactly his own height, and it was closing swiftly, coming in from the north, from the direction of Douai, and he felt the spurt of adrenalin mingle with the alcohol in his blood. His cheeks burned and, his guts spasmed. He eased the throttle open and flew on to meet it.
The combined speeds of the two aircraft hurled them together, so that the other machine swelled miraculously in front of Michael's eyes. He saw the bright blue of the nose and propeller-boss hazed by the spinning blades, and the wide black hawk's wings outstretched. He saw the helmeted top of the pilot's head between the two black Spandau machine-guns mounted on the engine cowling, and the flash of his goggles as he leaned forward to peer into his sights.
Michael pushed the throttle fully open and the engine bellowed. His left hand held the joystick like an artist holding his brush with the lightest pressure of his fingertips, as he positioned the German exactly in the centre of the concentric rings of his own gun-sight, and his right hand reached up for the firing-handle.
His hatred and his anger grew as swiftly as the image of his enemy, and he held his fire. The battle clock in his head started to run so that the passage of time slowed.
He saw the muzzles of the Spandau machine-guns begin to wink at him, bright sparks of fire, flickering red as the planet Mars on a moonless night. He aimed for the head of the other pilot, and he pressed down on the trigger and felt the aircraft pulse about him as his guns shook and rattled.
No thought of breaking out of that head-on charge even occurred to Michael. He was completely absorbed by his aim, trying to stream his bullets into the German's face, to rip out his eyes, and blow his brains out of the casket of his skull. He felt the Spandau bullets plucking and tugging at the fabric and frame of his machine, heard them passing his head with sharp flitting sounds like wild
locusts, and he ignored them.
He saw his own bullets kicking white splinters off the German's spinning propeller, and in anger knew that they were being deflected from his true aim. The two aircraft were almost in collision, and Michael braced himself for the impact without lifting his hand from the firinghandle, without attempting to turn.
Then the Albatros winged up violently, at the very last instant avoiding the collision, flicking out to starboard as the German hurled her over. There was a jarring bang that shook the SE5a. The two wings had just brushed each other as they passed. Michael saw the torn strip of fabric trailing from his own wingtip. He kicked on full rudder, into that flat skidding turn that only the SESa was capable of, and felt the wings flex at the strain, and then he was around. The Albatros was ahead of him, but still out of effective range.
Michael thrust with all his strength on the throttle handle, but it was already wide open, the engine straining at full power and still the Albatros was holding him off.
The German turned and went up left, and Michael followed him. They climbed more steeply, going up almost into the vertical, and the speed of both machines began to bleed off, but the SE5a more rapidly so that the German was pulling ahead.
It's not the same Albatros. Michael realized with a shock that the relocation of the radiator was not the only modification. He was fighting a new type of aircraft, an advanced type, faster and more powerful than even his own SE5a.
He saw the wide sweep of those black and white chequ ered wings, and the head of the German pilot craning to watch him in his mirror, and he tried to bring his guns to bear, swinging his right sight in a short arc as he wrenched his nose across.
The German flipped his Albatros into a stall-turn and came straight back at Michael, head-on again with the Spandaus flicking their little red eyes at him, and this time Michael was forced to break, for the German had height and speed.
For a crucial moment, Michael was hanging in his turn, his speed had dwindled and the German rounded on him, and dropped on to his tail. The German was good, Michael's guts tightened as he realized it. He pushed his nose down for speed, and at the same time flung the SE5 a into a vertical turn. The Albatros followed him round, turning with him, so that they were revolving around each other like two planets caught in immutable orbits.
He looked across at the other pilot, lifting his chin to do so, for each of them was standing on one wingtip.
