He swept another searching glance along the lines.
There were two German observation balloons just south of Mons, while below them a friendly flight of DH2 single-seaters was heading back towards Amiens, which meant they were from No. 24 Squadron.
In ten minutes they would be landing, Michael never finished the thought, for suddenly and miraculously the sky all around him was filled with gaudily painted aircraft and the chatter of Spandau machine-guns.
Even in his utter bewilderment Michael reacted reflexively. As he pulled the Sopwith into a maximum-rate turn, a shark-shaped machine checkered red and black with a grinning white skull superimposed on its black Maltese cross insignia flashed across his nose. A hundredth of a second later and its Spandaus would have savaged Michael. They had come from above, Michael realized; even though he could not believe it, they had been above the Sopwiths, they had come out of the cloud bank.
One of them, painted red as blood, settled on Andrew's tail, its Spandaus already shredding and clawing away the trailing edge of the lower wing, and swinging inexorably towards where Andrew crouched in the open cockpit, his face a white blob beneath the tam al shanter and the green scarf. Instinctively, Michael drove at him, and the German, rather than risk collision, swung away.
Ngi dIa! Michael shouted the Zulu warcry as'he came on to the killing quarter on the tail of the red machine, and then in disbelief watched it power away before he could bring the Vickers to bear. The Sopwith juddered brutally to the strike of shot and a rigging wire above his head parted with a twang like a released bow string as another one of these terrible machines attacked across his stern.
He broke away and Andrew was below him, trying to climb away from yet another German machine which was swiftly overhauling him, coming up within an ace of the killing line. Michael went at the German head-on and the red and black wings flickered past his head, but instantly there was another German to replace him, and this time Michael could not shake him off, the bright machine was too fast, too powerful, and Michael knew he was a dead man.
Abruptly the stream of Spandau fire ceased, and Andrew plunged past Michael's wingtip, driving the German off him. Desperately Michael followed Andrew around, and they went into the defensive circle, each of them covering the other's belly and tail while the cloud of German aircraft milled around them in murderous frustration.
Only part of Michael's mind recorded the fact that both the new chums were dead. They had died in the first seconds of the assault; one was in a vertical dive under full power, the maimed Sopwith's wings buckling under the strain and at last tearing away completely, while the other was a burning torch, smearing a thick pall of black smoke down the sky as it fell.
As miraculously as they had come, the Germans were gone, untouched and invulnerable, they disappeared back towards their own lines, leaving the pair of battered, shot-torn Sopwiths to limp homewards.
Andrew landed ahead of Michael and they parked wingtip to wingtip at the edge of the orchard. Each of them clambered down and walked slowly round his own machine, inspecting the damage. Then at last they stood in front of each other, stony-faced with shock.
Andrew reached into his pocket and brought out the silver flask. He unscrewed the cairngorm and wiped the mouth of the flask with the tail of the green scarf, then handed the flask to Michael.
Here, my boy, he said carefully, have a dram. I think you earned it, I really do. So on the day that Allied superiority was wiped from the skies above France by the shark-nosed AlbatrosD type scoutplanes of the German jagdstaffels, they had become comrades of desperate necessity, flying at each other's wingtips, forming the defensive mutually protective circle whenever the gaily painted minions of death fell upon them. At first they were content merely to defend themselves, then between them they tested the capability of this new and deadly foe, poring together at night over the intelligence reports that belatedly came in to them, learning that the Albatros was driven by a 160 horsepower Mercedes engine, twice as powerful as the Sopwith's Le Rhone, and that it had twin Spandau 7.92 `men machine-guns with interrupter gear firing forward through the arc of the propeller, against the Sopwith's single Vickers .303. They were outgunned and outpowered. The Albatros was 700 pounds heavier than the Pup and could take tremendous weight of shot before it fell out of the sky.
So, old boy, what we'll do is learn to fly the arses off them, Andrew commented, and they went out against the massed formations of the Jastas and they found their weaknesses. There were only two. The Sopwiths could turn inside them, and the Albatros radiator was situated in the upper wing directly above the cockpit. A shot through the tank would send a stream of boiling coolant hissing over the pilot, scalding him to a hideous death.
Using this knowledge, they made their first kills, and found that in testing the Albatros they had tested each other and found no fault there. Comradeship became friendship, which deepened into a love and respect greater than that between brothers of the blood. So now they could sit quietly together in the dawn, drinking coffee laced with whisky, waiting to go out against the balloons, and take comfort and strength from each other.
Spin for it? Michael broke the silence, it was almost time to go.
Andrew flicked a sovereign into the air and slapped it on to the table-top, covering it with his hand.
Heads, said Michael and Andrew lifted his hand.
Luck of a pox-doctor! he grunted, as they both looked down on the stern, bearded profile of George V.
I'll take number-two slot, said Michael, and Andrew opened his mouth to protest.
I won, I call the shot. Michael stood up to end the argument before it began.
Going against the balloons was like walking on to a sleeping puff-adder, that gross and sluggish serpent of the African veld; the first man woke it so that it could arch its neck into the S of the strike, the second man had the long recurved fangs plunged into the flesh of his calf.
With the balloons they had to attack in line astern, the first man alerted the ground defences and the second man received their full fury. Michael had deliberately chosen the number-two slot. If he had won, Andrew would have done the same.
They paused shoulder to shoulder in the door of the mess, pulling on their gauntlets, buttoning their coat's and looking up at the sky, listening to the rolling fury of the guns and judging the breeze.
The mist will hang in the valleys, Michael murmured. The wind won't move it, not yet. Pray for it, my boy, Andrew answered, and, hampered by their clothing, they waddled down the duckboards, to where the Sopwiths stood at the edge of the trees.
How noble they had once appeared in Michael's eyes, but how ugly now when the huge rotary engine, vomiting
