The Red Baron: A World War I Novel (2 page)

Manfred led his cavalrymen through the French countryside. The mission to find their retreating enemy was stymied by thick fog. Manfred couldn’t see more than a hundred yards; the morning sun was little more than a smudge behind gray skies.

“I think the English brought the fog with them, sir. Some sort of new weapon,” said Steiner, Manfred’s top sergeant and the most experienced cavalryman in the platoon.

Manfred ignored the comment as a structure materialized through the fog, a small wooden barn at the end of a neglected patch of farmland. The snap of twigs from a tree line adjacent to the barn caught his attention. A lone figure dashed from the woods into the barn.

“Now we’ve got something,” Manfred said. His heart pounded in his chest as he pulled his pistol from its holster. “Palz, Heinrich, Baumer, Schwehr, follow me,” he said to the cavalrymen nearest him. He knew each member of his platoon, and picked out the most aggressive for what he had planned.

“The rest of platoon will remain here unless I signal you,” Manfred said as he cocked his head toward Palz’s bugle.

“Sir, best we keep together in case—” Steiner’s objection was cut off as Manfred spurred his horse and took off across the field. His chosen entourage hefted their lances, ten feet of rolled steel sharpened on either end, and fell in behind him.

Halfway across the field, a single gunshot rang out. A yellow flash from the barn’s window and snap of the bullet’s passing was Manfred’s first true taste of war. He spurred his horse into a gallop and crossed the field. Adrenaline pounded in his veins as he charged on, the thump of hooves into the dirt sent a thrill up his spine.

He dismounted beside the barn and handed the reins to Palz. Heinrich and Baumer lowered their lances and took up positions at either end of the barn. Manfred readjusted the grip on his pistol; whatever
franc-tireur
was inside that barn was going to learn a lesson for taking a potshot at him and his men.

Manfred approached a side door of the barn and gave it a fierce kick. The door shuddered in its frame, then swung open with a lazy creek. Manfred realized it hadn’t been locked at all, and he could have just pulled the door open. He charged into the doorway, holding his pistol in front of him.

He found two teenage boys, their mouths agape at the sudden appearance of an armed German officer. Manfred kept the pistol trained on the nearest, a lanky boy with slick black hair and an upper lip struggling to grow a moustache that would mark him as a
poilu
.

A rifle lay against the wall next to a broken window.

The other teenager, shorter than his compatriot and with the build of a farmhand, kept glancing at the weapon.

“Which one of you shot at me?” Manfred asked.

“Va te faire foutre, boche,”
the tall one said.

“You, eh?” Manfred said. He didn’t speak French, but he picked up the sentiment.

The shorter teenager took several quick and shallow breaths, then charged at Manfred with balled fists raised high.

Manfred pointed the pistol at the boy. Despite years of military education, countless hours perfecting his aim with his pistol, and faced with an enemy, Manfred hesitated. Pulling the trigger to end a life proved more difficult than he’d ever imagined.

The charger made it to Manfred and shoved him out the door. Manfred’s heel caught on something and he fell back into a muddy patch. Manfred struggled to his feet as he heard the door open on the other side of the barn, followed by the sound of two pairs of feet crashing through high grass.

Manfred brushed mud from the seat of his pants as he made way for his horse. This was not how he’d envisioned his first contact with the enemy. He maintained some dignity as he mounted his horse with ease.

“After them!” he said.

He and his men swung around the barn. The two French had nearly crossed a wheat field, trying to escape to a tree line flooded with fog.

Manfred’s men brought their horses alongside his and lowered their lances as they sped into a charge. The thunder of hooves sent Manfred’s spirits soaring as they closed on their quarry. The exhilaration of the charge, of leading his men into battle, made the long years of military schooling and garrison drudgery finally worthwhile.

The teenagers suddenly fell to the ground and were enveloped by the wheat. Manfred kept the charge going, uncaring for the enemy’s strange actions.

Machine gun fire erupted from the tree line. The bang-bang-bang of shots and phalanx of bullets ended the charge. Heinrich grunted as a bullet smacked into his shoulder. He dropped his lance and fell from his horse. He landed with a thud and was immediately trampled by his panicked horse. Schwehr’s mount screamed and pitched forward, sending the rider tumbling to the ground. Schwehr sprang back to his feet as more gunfire popped from the tree line. The staccato of a dozen more unseen French soldiers joined the din of the machine gun. Schwehr jerked as bullets found their mark; he managed two more steps before falling.

Manfred had accomplished his mission; he’d found the retreating French army. A bullet zipped past his head as he turned about. More shots rang out, each new crack convincing Manfred that the French were here in force. Blue-clad soldiers crept from the woods by the dozen.

He and Palz raced back toward the barn. The rest of his platoon emerged from the fog and formed into a line to charge the enemy.
Damn Steiner for not following orders
, Manfred thought.

“Signal retreat! Now!” Manfred ordered Palz.

Palz nodded and brought the bugle to his lips. A bullet caught him in the back and exploded out of his chest before he could blow a note, spraying blood onto Manfred’s face. Palz looked down at the wound and wobbled in his saddle. Manfred lunged for the bugle as Palz fell back. The bugle bounced from Manfred’s fingertips and tumbled to the ground.

Manfred looked up and saw his platoon advancing toward him at a gallop.

“No! No, go back!” he shouted. He waved his arms and stood in the saddle and waved his pistol, hoping they would recognize their lieutenant through the fog. He earned the attention of several French soldiers as more bullets cracked in the air.

Manfred collapsed against his horse to minimize the target he presented and slammed his spurs into his mount.

His platoon broke into a charge. The French machine gun roared back to life, and his men started to die. Men and horses crumbled under the withering fire of hundreds of Frenchmen. His platoon disintegrated in less than a minute.

He saw Corporal Vogel, who insisted Manfred attend his newborn’s baptism, hit twice before he fell from the saddle. Private Bergmann, whose family tended land on the Manfred estate, took a bullet to the head. Fischer survived the death of his mount, but was trampled by a horse gone berserk from a bullet wound.

Sergeant Steiner, on foot and clutching a broken arm to his side, attempted to shout orders to what remained of the platoon. Manfred extended his hand to Steiner as he finally rejoined his platoon. He’d pull Steiner onto his horse and get him out of the kill zone.

Steiner reached for Manfred’s hand, then a bullet grazed Manfred’s horse. She screamed and bucked as Manfred held on for dear life. His mount, no longer caring for her rider’s commands, galloped past Steiner and away from the carnage.

Manfred managed a glance behind him; a half dozen cavalrymen were with him as they retreated. Six of twenty.

Manfred waited outside the squadron headquarters, just another tent in the mud of the sprawling German field command. Manfred huddled closer to the tent walls as the rain increased. Staff officers scurried from tent to tent, delivering running tallies of casualties, supply amounts, and intelligence on the French armies’ movements. The German army had lost effective contact with the French, which meant the French were in full retreat or preparing a counterattack against a vulnerable flank in the German advance. Both possibilities meant frantic action on part of the Germans.

Manfred caught rumors about a battle brewing on the Marne River and English counterattacks near the Channel. Yesterday, that news would have filled him with excitement, but the promise of battle now rang hollow.

He shivered as the rain soaked through his uniform. He stayed hunched over, protecting the list inside his breast pocket. He hadn’t been told why the commander wanted to see him, but Manfred was pretty sure that his career in the Imperial German army had reached a quick and ignoble conclusion.

The shame of telling his father of his failure would hurt the old man. Yet Manfred dreaded encountering the families of his lost platoon even more.

A staff officer stuck his head out of the tent, and then looked up at the rain with a sneer, as if angry with the weather. The staff officer looked at the wet officer before him with pity. “Lieutenant, he’ll see you now.”

The squadron commander, an older man well into his fifties, looked at a map of northern France, bracing himself over the map with locked-out arms. Rumor had it that his eyes were shot, and he kept his command only thanks to a distant kinship with the Kaiser.

Manfred stopped two paces from the table and gave the requisite stomp and salute. “Sir, Lieutenant von Richthofen reports as ordered.”

Colonel von Schwerin glanced up at his subordinate, and then turned his attention back to the map. Manfred lowered his salute.

“Sir, I regret to inform you that—”

“Shh!” von Schwerin hissed. He took a wooden marker, a cavalry sword painted on it, and placed it on the map.

“Where did you encounter the enemy?”

Manfred approached the map, the place of battle a few inches away from the marker. Manfred took a pencil from the table and pointed to the location. His career might be over, but he had enough self-respect to never point to the map with a finger, a lesson drilled into him at Wahlstatt.

“How many enemy soldiers did you encounter?”

“At least two hundred, sir.”

“Any special equipment? Just infantry? No cavalry?”

“A machine gun, it…it killed…”

Von Schwerin silenced him with a wave of his hand. The commander moved the marker to the location and sighed heavily.

“Bring me the troop commanders,” the commander said to the staff officer, who promptly left the tent.

Manfred pulled a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. “I have a list of my missing soldiers here, sir.” Some of the inked names smudged from the rain, some from Manfred’s tears as he wrote the list.

“Give it to the adjutant at regimental headquarters. Go, Lieutenant.” Von Schwerin’s ample mustache twitched as he spoke.

“Sir, will you need me for—“

“I haven’t decided what to do with you yet. The longer you stand here and annoy me, the more inclined I am to put you in charge of the draft horses,” he said. Manfred blanched at the idea of leading the supply section, full of broken-down horses and the simplest of German soldiers.

Manfred saluted smartly. Von Schwerin adjusted his glasses in response, and then returned his attention to the map.

The rain had worsened. Manfred hunched over and made his way up the row of evenly spaced tents.

“Richthofen!” someone called from the rain.

A pair of soldiers stood beyond the outermost tent next to a horse-drawn cart. One of the soldiers waved to Manfred. The other slouched against the cart.

Manfred trotted over, his boots splashing through the growing puddles. The soldier by the cart, his back facing Manfred, was missing a boot, but he didn’t seem to care that he was barefoot in the mud.

“Sir, this is one of your men, right?”

All of his surviving men were holed up in the stables, taking care of their stressed-out horses. Had someone else survived the battle?

“I don’t know,” he said.

Manfred touched the shoeless man on the shoulder. Sergeant Steiner slowly turned to face his platoon leader. The right side of Steiner’s head was covered in clotted blood, the rain doing little to wash it away. Even though he looked right at Manfred, he looked past him with stunned eyes.

“Steiner! Thank God you’re alive—who else made it back with you? What happened?”

Steiner managed a croak as he reached out to claw at Manfred’s arm. Manfred wrapped his arm around the man’s waist before he could fall over.

“Sorry, sir. I think he took a good blow to the head. Can you take him to the field hospital? They aren’t in a hurry, but they have one last place to be and damned if everyone around here doesn’t want everything done by yesterday,” the soldier said as he motioned to the cart. Several dead Germans were stacked atop each other like planks of wood.

Manfred looked at the dead; his heart refused to beat.

“Are those…mine?”

“No, sir. Artillerymen hit by the French, if that makes you feel any better.” He shrugged and took the reins of the mule and led the cart away. The cart lurched through a depression, jostling the bodies.

Steiner’s knees buckled; Manfred struggled to keep him on his feet.

“Come on, Sergeant Steiner, let’s get you to the doctor,” Manfred said. Steiner didn’t acknowledge Manfred, but he managed to move in the direction Manfred half-dragged, half-pulled him.