To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [46]
He took pride in his flying, had come to feel each plane as a part of himself, adjusting to each craft’s own personality. They were all different, each one an individual. The pilots were loud in their opinions, which planes were better, but Richthofen was comfortable in either the Fokker or the Albatros. He had listened with silent impatience to the pilot who complained about their “boxes,” had believed more often than not that if a man had difficulty flying his plane, it was his own fault. But when the beer loosened the tongues, and the pilots competed with each other over the right to complain, Richthofen would remember why he preferred the solitude of the forests.
The plane rolled to a stop, and he was surprised to see several men running toward him, some waving. He raised his goggles, lifted himself up, one leg swinging out onto the side of the plane. They were close now, excited voices, “Manfred! Captain Boelcke’s coming! He’ll be here tonight! Boelcke himself!”
The name shot through him and he said, “Boelcke? Here? Why?”
“He’s visiting his brother, wants to share dinner with the squadron. You will come, yes?”
He jumped down from the plane, unstrapped his helmet, looked at the faces, suspected a joke. “Oh, certainly, I will be there. I am positive the great Boelcke has come to this odd corner of nowhere just to have a meal with his brother.”
The men seemed unaware of his sarcasm, began to move away, flowing back toward the barnlike hangar. The mechanics were there now, hovering around the plane like two bees at a flower.
“Any problems with her, Lieutenant?”
He glanced back. “I smelled a bit more oil than usual. Nothing else.”
He followed the others, knew there would be heat and much beer in their quarters, saw his observer already telling his friends of the great victory over the fleeing Russian cavalry. Richthofen would make his own report, matter-of-fact, the enemy regiment diverted, delayed in their crossing of the river, certainly something the commanders would appreciate. He did not think of the bridge now, knew that no one would care except him.
HIS QUARTERS WERE SIMPLE AND CRUDE, AND THEY PROMPTED much talk behind his back. He had pitched a large tent in the thick woods that ran up to the edge of the aerodrome, preferred to sleep to the sounds of the night. There had been jokes of course, the man who hated the indoors, but it was old now, the others used to his lack of social enthusiasm. It was not the men who drove him to the tent, something they had not understood at first. He was not rude or unfriendly, was happy to accept their invitations to dinner, would even share a beer afterward. But the other pilots seemed too willing to use the nighttime as the excuse for celebration, and he placed much more value on sleep. For him, the day began well before the first light, and he would be airborne before the sun rose. It was the most glorious time of day, the soft red glow spreading out before him as he prowled the air near the Russian lines. It was different in the West, the French and Belgian countryside so often obliterated by fog. It had been maddening to him, to be forced to sit and wait beside his plane, staring into thick gray soup. No pilot could risk flying above the fog, the vast blanket that would hide not only your target, but the route home, and, possibly, the aerodrome itself. The pilots all knew that if the fog surprised them, rolled in at sunset, there could be nowhere to go, nothing to do but wait helplessly as you exhausted your fuel. It wasn’t the thought of the crash that bothered him. He had already smashed up more than one training craft, had walked away sheepishly from broken aeroplanes that had stood up on their noses, victims of his