To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [234]
THE TRIPLANE TUMBLED AND ROLLED INTO A SHATTERED MASS, WAS surrounded quickly by the soldiers who had poured so much lead into the sky. They were Australians, men who knew little of Fokkers and Camels. But they knew this one, word quickly spreading that a solid red triplane had been brought down behind their lines. In the air above them, two Camels circled, one man breathlessly grateful to be alive, the other convinced he had sent the Red Baron to his death.
At Cappy, the men of JG-1 could only wait, pilots and mechanics taking turns staring into the empty sky, not knowing if their leader was still alive, the most optimistic of them praying that he had been captured. The German Air Service broadcast repeated messages to the Royal Flying Corps, while German infantrymen under white banners crossed no-man’s-land, carrying dispatches to the British trenches, asking for some definite word. A full day later that word came, a single message dropped into German lines by a solitary Camel.
Captain von Richthofen was fatally wounded in aerial combat and was buried with full military honors.
TOUL, FRANCE—APRIL 30, 1918
THE FIRST PATROL HAD COMPLETED THEIR MISSION, AND LUFBERY watched as they circled, made the instinctive head count, his mind registering the number . . . three, confirming that everyone had come home safely. He turned, saw the mechanics coming together, their usual routine, saw a hand go up, pointing.
He looked again at the circling Nieuports, was surprised to see a fourth plane, falling in behind them, mimicking their landing pattern. The Nieuports were coming down now, and Lufbery moved out into the open field, could see that the fourth plane wasn’t a Nieuport at all. It was a SPAD. The questions were coming from the men behind him, and he responded, said, “Seems we have a visitor.”
The three Nieuports taxied up close, the SPAD following, and Lufbery saw the Indian head on the plane’s fuselage, smiled. The pilot was looking at him, and Lufbery could see that beneath the man’s thick goggles spread the familiar bushy thatch of moustache. Lufbery walked out, waited for the SPAD’s motor to stop, said, “You get lost, Major Thaw?”
DURING THE PAST MONTH, THE NINETY-FOURTH AERO SQUADRON had received two new pilots, transfers from Thaw’s 103rd. David Peterson and James Norman Hall had been sent over to assist Lufbery in the ongoing training of the new flyers. A growing number of men were arriving from the States, taking their turn at the beginner courses at Issoudun before receiving assignment to the combat air squadrons. As the commanders of the AAS saw the numbers of pilots increasing, they wisely called upon the experienced veterans to make their contribution to the proper training of the fledgling pilots. Peterson and Hall fit the description perfectly. Both men had been members of the Lafayette Escadrille.
Peterson was the younger, a stoic twenty-three-year-old from Pennsylvania, a bright young man whose education had seemed to open the way to a lucrative career as a chemical engineer. To the other pilots, he was the picture of the college boy, and he accepted the ribbing without protest. In the air, he seemed to transform into something altogether different, an overeager pilot who sought out the disadvantage, who recklessly charged into fights most often when he was outnumbered. His time with the escadrille was marked by constant repairs to his bullet-ridden plane. There was little teasing about Peterson’s apparent need to kill himself in combat, and each time he returned to the airfield with a wounded aeroplane, the others had wondered if perhaps his final