fuselage—and a hot machine-gun barrel burnt blue with excessive firing—served to remind me that the recent events had not been some kind of brief but intense nightmare. I looked down at the camera. Good, it was intact still. We had lost one aeroplane but we had accomplished our mission. Oh yes, and we had also shot down Major di Carraciolo.
I suddenly remembered this with surprise—then with a flooding sense of dismay, as I recalled how I had last seen him, spinning down on fire. War was war, and I had far rather that it had been him than us; but all the same it seemed to me a scurvy thing to repay a chivalrous enemy for his generosity by burning him alive. I hoped that he might already have been dead as the Nieuport began its plunge, perhaps killed by a bullet of mine through the head. But I knew enough of aerial warfare to doubt it. Had he perished with his skin bubbling and sizzling as he struggled to bring the aeroplane down? Or had he managed to release his seat straps and fling himself out, to endure perhaps a minute of stark terror as he plummeted down to burst like a blood bomb on the pitiless rocks? Either way it seemed a wretched end. Death by fire was the secret dread of us all in those days before parachutes. Like most fliers, I carried a pistol; not for defence, but with a view to my own deliverance if I should ever find myself trapped in a burning aeroplane. I hoped that di Carraciolo had been able to use his, if that was what it had come to.
We landed at Caprovizza around midday. The boxes of photographic plates were handed over, we made our verbal reports and I then went straight to my tent to lie down. It never ceased to amaze me how fighting in the air, though it usually lasted only a few seconds, seemed to drain reserves of nervous energy that would normally suffice for several months. As I was taking off my flying overalls Petrescu stuck his head around the tent flap and respectfully reported that there was a telephone call for me in the Kanzlei hut. I got up wearily from my camp-bed. What on earth did they want now? Couldn’t the idiots leave me in peace for an hour at least? When I picked up the receiver from the Adjutant’s desk I found that it was a staff officer from 7th Corps Headquarters at Oppachiasella.
“I say, are you the fellow who shot down that Italian single-seater over Fajtji Hrib about an hour ago?” I answered that so far as I knew I had that melancholy honour. I was expecting to be told where the aeroplane had come down and to be offered some fire-blackened fragment as a souvenir—a trophy for which I must say I had no desire whatever. What came next was a complete surprise. “Well, the pilot’s here with us at Corps Headquarters: chap called Major Carraciolo or something—quite famous, I understand.”
“I’m sorry . . . I just don’t understand. The aeroplane was ablaze when I saw it go down . . .”
“Quite so. I understand that your Major Whatshisname climbed out of his cockpit and stood on the wing, steering the thing by leaning over the edge. Apparently he managed to slide it sideways to blow the flames away from the petrol tank, then brought the thing down in a field next to one of our batteries. Our fellows said they’d never seen flying like it—the Italian ought to be a circus performer.”
“Is he badly hurt?”
“Not in the least: dislocated shoulder and a few bruises and a bit singed, but that’s about it. The Medical Officer’s patching him up at the moment and when he’s finished we’ll send him over to you. I believe that he’s Flik 19F’s prisoner. You can have the aeroplane too, for what it’s worth. We’ve posted a sentry by the wreck to keep the village brats away, but frankly there’s not a lot of it left except ashes.”
Major Oreste di Carraciolo arrived in some state at Caprovizza flying field about an hour later, seated in the back of a large drab-coloured staff car. A sentry with rifle and fixed bayonet sat on each side of him and in the front seat was a staff colonel. The door was opened and he stepped down from the running-board to meet us. He wore a bandage about his head and had his left arm in a sling, but otherwise seemed undamaged except that his eyebrows and moustache and neat pointed beard were a little scorched. He wore the grey-green uniform of the Italian Air Corps and a leather flying coat, unbuttoned in the afternoon heat; also a pair of smart, and evidently very expensive, high lace-up boots.
I have perhaps made the man sound a trifle foppish. It is true that he was trim and not very tall; but his powerful shoulders and hands were clearly those of a sculptor. He stepped up grim-faced and saluted with his good hand, giving us a glare of intense hatred as he did so. I stepped forward and saluted in return, then held out my hand. Any remaining doubts about the Major’s powerful build were immediately dispelled as the bones in my hand were crushed against one another. Trying not to betray my pain I welcomed him to Fliegerfeld Caprovizza in Italian, rearranging the bones of my hand as I did so. He glowered at me, his intense black eyes boring into mine—then broke into a radiant smile.
“Ah, Herr Leutnant, was it then you who . . . ? ”
“Yes,” I answered, “I have the honour to be the one who shot you down this morning. But believe me, my dear Major, it gives me a thousand times more pleasure to see that you are alive and unharmed. I apologise. But you will understand, I hope, that war is a ruthless business.”
“Ah, my dear Tenente, please do not reproach yourself, I beg you. You were only doing your duty—and you may comfort yourself with the fact that you will be able one day to tell your grandchildren that it was you who brought to an end the career of Major di Carraciolo . . .” He smiled, “. . . Or perhaps I should rather say, caused a temporary interruption in the career of Major di Carraciolo, until such time as he escapes from prison and returns to fight again for his country.”
“Your confinement need not be close, Major, if you gave your word not to escape. You are now in your forties, I understand, and might easily be repatriated on parole.”
“I would never give it. In an ordinary war such things might be permissible, but a patriot fighting for the final liberation of his people has a sacred duty to escape and fight once more, so long as there is breath left in his body.”
“Very well. But you must at least be the guest of honour in our mess this evening. I and my brother-officers insist upon it. Surely you can give your word not to try to escape just for these few hours.”
He smiled broadly. “Then you may consider it given, and I shall be delighted to accept your hospitality. I have always considered myself to be fighting against the Austrian Monarchy and not against the Austrians, whom I regard as an intelligent and artistic people like ourselves.”
“Splendid. But tell me one thing if you will, Major. How exactly did I manage to shoot you down? The sun was in my eyes and I was quite unable to take aim, and I fired only a few shots anyway. You had us in your sights and could hardly have missed, yet you veered away at the last moment. What went wrong? I ask as one aviator to another.”
“It is the fortunes of war, my dear . . . er . . . ?”
“Prohaska. Otto Prohaska. Lieutenant of the Imperial and Royal Navy.”
“Ah yes, Prohaska. Well, as I attacked I knew that you could not aim at me because of the sun, and also that your Schwarzlose gun is as much use as a garden syringe. But there, even random shots sometimes find their mark. One of your bullets severed an oil-feed pipe and hot oil sprayed back in my face. By the time I had regained my sight I was flying past your tail and you were shooting at me again. Then I saw fire coming at me from the engine cowling—and after that I lost all interest in you, as I think you will understand. But the rest of the story I believe you already know?”
“Yes, the Intelligence Officer at Oppachiasella told me all about it. You are to be congratulated by all accounts on a magnificent piece of flying. But, dear Major, I am doubly glad to meet you because it was you who escorted us back across the lines a few days ago when our engine failed.”
He looked puzzled for a moment—then laughed loudly and slapped my shoulder.
“So it was you? I remember now: your Brandenburg Zoska if my memory serves me right? Then we are acquaintances already. My sergeant wanted to shoot you down but I headed him away from you. ‘Why did you let the Austrian pigs escape, Maggiore?’ he asked me later. ‘No,’ I said, ‘to spare the life of an enemy in distress will bring us luck. And who knows? he may well do the same for us one day.’ Well, you certainly brought me luck.”
It was as convivial an evening in the mess as our increasingly meagre rations would allow. The food might have been poor, but the local wine flowed freely and we were entertained by Flik 19F’s gypsy orchestra, drawn from its Hungarian ground crewmen; also by Potocznik, who played a good deal of Schubert very well indeed on the mess piano. Even Hauptmann Kraliczek was there, looking as unhappy as an owl forced into daylight, and only present because Meyerhofer and Potocznik and I had arm-locked him into attending. As for Major di Carraciolo, he provided us with magnificent entertainment of his own. He spoke German tolerably well, and I was able to help him out in Italian when needed, so the evening was one long succession of anecdotes about his days in Africa. His time there, it appeared, when he was not discovering lakes or being mauled by lionesses, had been spent mostly in the
