At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [112]
The terrain was becoming less distinct as they climbed higher. Beyond, the green was visible again, in both directions: Trees had leaves; there were patches of grass. On toward the horizon to the south and west there were the dark scars of roads and railways, but they lay across cornfields and meadows, and soft, blurred patches of woodland. Here and there Joseph saw the silver curl of a river.
It was like looking at the track of a wound across the land, or the scorched path of shrapnel through flesh, leaving the rest oddly whole.
For three long, terrible years they had faced each other over those few thousand yards of ground, and killed—and killed—repeatedly. It was madness! In the silence up here with nothing but wind and sun and the shattering roar of the engine, it was so obvious he wanted to lean over and shout invectives at them. But of course no one could hear him. He might as well scream at an anthill.
They were moving east and south. He saw railway tracks and marshaling yards. He thought he recognized some of the features of the land, the curve of hill and river. He saw what he thought was Lille, but he was not sure how far they had come.
Half an hour passed in silence. He searched the sky nervously, but there were no other aircraft visible. The French lines below them looked the same as the British or Canadian: just gray mud, wreckage, what one could make out of men moving about the same midday duties.
When was Vine going to go low enough for him to have any idea if there were men moving eastward? So far they had followed the battle line southeast as it curved away from the advancing German army.
Had they not gone far enough yet? He had lost any sense of where they were. The ground was so far below he could barely make out the roads, let alone who was moving on them. Perhaps this was an idiotic cause anyway, and Jones-Williams had let him come only because he had no imaginable chance of succeeding.
He leaned forward and shouted at Vine, and as he turned for a moment, Joseph pointed downward.
Vine held out his hand, thumb up, and obediently swooped the plane low, hedgehopping, as Jones-Williams had called it. Details became sharper—roads, the colors of men, horses, and artillery—but Joseph saw nothing to indicate the presence of his eleven men. He thought they would have moved much farther eastward by now. They could have covered twenty or thirty miles a day with a little help—a lift here or there. They were all fairly fit and used to marching.
Suddenly and with absolutely no warning, the aircraft pitched and yawed like a tub in high seas. One minute the sky was above them, the next they rolled so the earth swung around, over their heads, then right and left wildly. Finally it fell away as they reared up and climbed steeply, racing toward the faint shreds of cloud, which were still far above.
Joseph thought he was going to fall out. Only the harness jerking violently on his body held him in. Bruised and shocked, he was sick over the side. They were still climbing. He clung onto the cockpit, knuckles white. Even yesterday, it had never occurred to him that he would die this way.
They swiveled around and dived, then climbed again. That was when Joseph saw them, black outlines against the sky like dragonflies, swooping and diving. They seemed angry, turning on each other, always going back again into the heart of the swarm. It was a great aerial dogfight, high above them, up almost to the thin layer of cloud.
Vine was keeping their plane lower, probably hoping that against the darker background of the fields and interlacing support trenches they would be almost invisible. The pilots in the dogfight would be concentrating on each other, looking for who was in their sights and who was on their tails.
The seconds seemed to stretch forever. They climbed a little. Joseph did not know why, but he assumed it would be to give them space to dive and evade if they were seen.
Joseph touched the Lewis gun experimentally. He was a noncombatant, a man who served the fighting