The Wings of Morning (28 page)

Jude fully understood why Lyyndy had written what she had. But she wasn’t in his shoes. She hadn’t lost anyone dear to her, she didn’t feel the responsibility he felt for failing to keep so many of his men alive. Now, with Sharples’ death, he had been promoted to squadron leader, and he had no intention of losing another good man. Nor did he have any intention of letting Schleiermacher live to fight another day. No torn wings or broken rudder. He would not be satisfied with the blue Fokker landing inside Allied lines and Schleiermacher being captured and afforded every mark of honor and respect by the French or British. Death was what Jude wanted for the German pilot. Death at his hands.

I’m sorry, Lyyndy. This is the way it has to be. If you were here and if you could see what I saw in these grim summer skies you might find yourself feeling as I do about taking this man’s life
.

Some days Jude flew in formation with two or three others. There had been dogfights. Billy Skipp had wreaked havoc on the German Albatros and Fokker triplanes and was now a double ace credited with 12 victories. Jude had chased and intimidated and harried whatever enemy fighters came his way and had kept his squadron alive and intact. Yet he was always scanning the sky for the Fokker biplane with the nine of diamonds on one side of its fuselage and the number 9 painted big and black on the other.

He had only spotted Schleiermacher twice, both times from far away. One evening Jude saw the Blue 9 gliding down from a high elevation toward Metz. He knew he could never catch it. Still, he made an effort, racing through tall banks of cloud tinged purple and bronze by the lowering sun. Another morning, Jude was flying solo through puffs of cloud white as his silk scarf and saw the distinctive blue-and-black camouflage splotches of Schleiermacher’s wings above him. Jude was already at nineteen thousand feet and could not attain the German’s height of twenty thousand no matter how he coaxed his Nieuport. The other pilot didn’t descend and attack him; he continued on his way, looking for different prey, shadowed by Jude a thousand feet below until the Blue 9 vanished in a tower of snow-white cumulus.

David fought. Gideon fought. No doubt the Roman centurion whose servant Jesus healed had fought in many campaigns. Had God condemned any of these persons? Had Jesus confronted the centurion and commanded him to stop being a soldier? Had he ever pointed out the error of taking up arms in the defense of the nation of Israel? I have a better reason than most to fight, Lyyndy. If I stop Schleiermacher then more boys live and go home to the families that love them. The world is a better place without a man like him
.

The very day Frank Sharples went down, Major Jackson had told him, “Whetstone, I’m making you captain in his place and promoting you to squadron leader.”

“Yes, sir,” Jude responded.

Jackson had stood looking at him while Jude remained at attention. “No doubt you’re feeling a lot of things inside, Captain, things you never felt in Lancaster County. In a way I’m sorry. Yes, you needed to see how ugly and unromantic war can be, but nevertheless I’m sorry.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I still want you to bring me the Pegasus, Captain. But I will release you from one restriction—I don’t care how you do it. If you must bring the winged horse down in black smoke and fire, then do it. I know the newspapers want you to remain the white knight until this brutal war comes to an end. I know you’re a symbol of purity and hope to America in the middle of a conflict that oozes blood and hate. If you can maintain your integrity in the face of the death of your men and the enemy’s guns, guns that have none of your pity, do so. But if not, you are no longer bound by my command. Instead, my order now is for you to do what you must to save your squadron and the victims of the Kaiser’s tyranny in Belgium and France.” With a final salute exchanged between them, the major said, “Dismissed!”

Jude looked down on a formation of Fokker D.VIIs just like Schleiermacher’s aeroplane. None of them had the blue paint scheme he was so familiar with. He let them pass on their way back to the German lines. Checking his gas gauge he realized it was time he returned to his own aerodrome. He banked right and began to drop slowly from nineteen thousand feet to sixteen thousand, then ten thousand.

Soon he saw the buildings and houses and chimneys of Nancy.

Circling the landing strip he noticed six new planes lined up at one end of the runway. Each of them had distinctive markings of green and brown camouflage as well as red, white, and blue roundels on top of their wings. A group of mechanics was swarming over one of the planes, painting a number. Jude decided to circle again to take a better look. Three number ones in a row were being placed on the right wing. He came down for a landing nearby and hopped out as his ground crew ran up.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“We got our first batch of SPADs,” they told him. “The new ones that Eddie Rickenbacker and the guys at the 94th Aero Squadron are using.”

He smiled for the first time in days. “These are the S.XIIIs?”

“Right.”

Jude began striding toward the six aircraft. “Talk to me about them.”

Mickey, his chief mechanic, chided him. “You remember the briefing about the XIII, Skipper.”

“Tell me again.”

“Well, top speed is 135, engine is an eight-cylinder Hispano-Suiza, so now you have 220 horses to rein in.”

“Quite the Lancaster buggy,” Jude responded. “What about ceiling?”

“At least twenty-two thousand feet. You can probably coax another thousand out of it, who knows?”

“Twenty-two thousand! What about rate of climb?”

“Six feet per second.”

He came up to the plane the men were painting with the white number 111 on the top right wing and both sides of the fuselage. Jude could almost feel the strength and energy bristling in its struts and engines.

“What’s this?” he asked them.

They grinned down at him. “Your plane, Captain. We decided to make you Triple One. Now the Heinies will know who’s chasing their tails back to the Rhine.”

Jude ran his hand over the fuselage and examined the engine, the strip of blue paint that made a circle around it, and the two Vickers machine guns. “Did you pick me out a good one?”

“Yes, I did.” Major Jackson appeared from the behind the long row of aircraft. Jude and the others sprang to attention, but he waved them down. “Stand easy. Keep at your work. I looked them over and this seems to be the one for you, Captain.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“How was your sortie?”

“Nothing to report.”

“It may be that the extra height the SPAD will give you can change that.”

“I think it might, sir.”

“You can get above the D.VII now. I looked into it.”

“That’s good news.” Jude looked up at the men finishing the paint job. “Is it ready to go?”

“What? Now?” one of them asked in surprise. “You just landed.”

“It’s only ten in the morning.” He turned to Mickey. “Can you make sure she’s in the pink?”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“They were flown here, weren’t they?”

“Of course.”

“Then they’re ready to go. Gas ’em up.” He put his hand on his armorer’s shoulder. “Stan, check the guns out, will you?”

“You bet.”

“Have you assigned the other planes yet, sir?” he asked Jackson. “Will we be getting any more of them?”

Jackson nodded. “The whole squadron will be flying them within the week. For now I made sure your second in command, Zedediah, had one, and of course, Billy.”

“Where are they?”

“Still up with a few recruits.”

Jude looked around at his mechanics. “I’m going to freshen up, grab a coffee and a roll, and then I’ll be ready to head out. Twenty minutes. All right?”

Mickey laughed and shook his head. “Whatever you say, sir.”

Jude drank his coffee in the dining room alone. Then, chewing on a freshly baked bun, he wandered over and looked at the Squadron Bible, still deliberately left open to the last verse from Isaiah that Frank Sharples had read from the day before he went down.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint
.

“Amen,” he whispered to the empty room.

In less than half an hour Jude was back winging his way toward Pont-à-Moussan and the front. He felt an odd sense of elation. It came not only from flying a stronger and better plane than the Nieuport. It also came from a sense of destiny—that now, soon, God would deliver Schleiermacher into his hands, and the deaths of his men would be avenged.

“I must put you through your paces, Lucille,” he said out loud.

He was not sure why he suddenly decided to name the plane that. He had not named the Nieuport. But this aircraft seemed to beg for a way to address it beyond the terms “aircraft” and “aeroplane” and “SPAD.”
Why not Lyyndy?
he wondered. Because, he realized, he did not think Lyyndaya would wish to have a warplane named after her.

Now I have two women in my life. But when I am back in the States, God willing, if I can ever get my hands on my own aeroplane, that will be the day to put LYYNDY on the fuselage in bright yellow paint
.

He shoved the joystick forward and thrust the SPAD into a fast dive.
They said you were good when it came to dives. This morning we will see how good
. Jude imagined himself closing in on the Blue 9 and fired several quick bursts from his guns into the empty air. Then he continued to dive as steeply as possible. At three thousand feet he pulled up sharply. The wings and struts held firm despite the enormous forces being exerted on them.

“Good girl,” he said and patted the left side of the plane with a gloved hand.

Next he climbed as swiftly as he could—eighteen thousand, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one—and finally leveled the SPAD out at twenty-two thousand, four hundred. Cold stung his nose and cheeks, but he felt wonderful at that height, all the battlefields spread out under his feet, locations in German territory like Metz and Mars-la-Tour recognizable. He listened carefully to the pitch of the engine. The roar was steady and consistent. Perhaps a bit of a tune-up by Mickey to bring it up to snuff was in order, but otherwise everything seemed right as rain. Time for a barrel roll.

Are you ready?
he asked.

Ready for what?
Lyyndaya responded.

A barrel roll
.

Without waiting for an answer he threw the SPAD over on its left side and then had it flying upside down. He went like that for one long minute before flipping it right side up in one long smooth movement. It was easy to imagine Lyyndaya shrieking or biting her finger.

How was that, Barrel Roll Kurtz?

I loved it. Are you going to do it again?

Why not?

Oh, Jude, can’t we just leave the war behind? Can’t you stop thinking about this Heinrich Schleiermacher for an hour or two? The sky is empty and as perfect as—as perfect as—

Your eyes?
he suggested.

She laughed.
Can’t we just fly for the rest of the morning? Can’t you give yourself time to get used to this new plane and act like it was July of last year again and neither of us had a care in the world?

What do you want to do?

Drop into a spin. Do loops. Dive. Try three barrel rolls in a row. I don’t know. Go fast. Oh, yes, please—go as fast as you can
.

It will be twice as fast as you’ve ever flown before
.

I don’t care. Open her up, as you like to say. And never mind if you hear me screaming. It means I’m happy
.

So, imagining Lyyndaya shrieking with delight beside him, her golden hair streaming behind her in the wind, Jude threw the plane about the sky as if it were a brand-new toy he couldn’t keep his hands from. He dove down to eight thousand feet and opened the throttle, watching the speed dart forward from 100 to 110 to 125 to 137 miles per hour. Then he climbed as quickly as a skylark. Dove. Barrel-rolled. Straightened out and loop-de-looped. Dove again. Climbed. Fell into a spin so that the ground hurtled at him in faster and tighter circles of green and brown. Waited till the last minute and then pulled up, the engine howling and, Jude was sure, an imaginary Lyyndaya howling right along with it.