Kissing Kin (25 page)

It was a desolate piece of land, bare of habitation, with no roads running through it, and not another living soul was visible. Raymond descended and made a tidy landing between the other two planes, and Fenton swerved towards him, waving. Together they ran at the German plane, where nothing stirred. The pilot was dead in the seat, and the plane had landed itself on a lucky fluke or by some reflex of the dead man’s hand. “Well,” said Fenton philosophically, “he’s no use to us now. Got room for a passenger? I’ll hang on to the cowl, my bus is done.”

“Take mine,” said Raymond, and began to haul the dead man out of the cockpit.

“Are you going to fly that thing in?” asked Fenton, assisting with the pilot’s booted legs.

“Let’s give her a spin,” said Raymond, climbing in. The Fokker engine answered. “What a lot of gadgets,” said
Raymond
, and began to play with them, and the engine died. “Oops, wrong one,” he said. “Spin it again.” Fenton spun it again, and this time it caught and held. “Now, let’s see,” said Raymond, and was busy for several moments on the
dashboard
. “Mm-hm,” he said at last. “Why, a child could take off in this thing. What’s that for? Oh, I see.” He mumbled at it a moment more, and then put his head over the side. “Can you fly a Camel, by any chance?” he inquired politely.

Fenton, with suppressed mirth, said he could.

“Then you escort me home,” said Raymond.

“You’ll catch hell over the lines, but I want to see the Old Man’s face,” said Fenton, and climbed into the Camel.

The two planes rose easily and headed westward. The
dogfight
had petered out and the group had gone home, sad about Fenton, uncertain where Raymond had got to. The two flew high with cloud beneath them. When they came out of it they had got off the course and were behind trenches which were held by the French.

The girlish Fokker, chaperoned by the red-nosed Camel, which waggled anxious wings in incomprehensible signals, brought the poilus out of the dugouts and there was some popping off with guns. Raymond circled and came down, and Fenton followed. The French ran up with revolvers, all agog. Raymond’s head appeared over the side and he removed his goggles and asked in pure French-Canadian for the loan of enough petrol to get home to his aerodrome. They recognized the accent and the uniform, and began to laugh. An officer arrived and saw the joke. Hospitality overflowed. The visitors were borne off to battalion headquarters, a small chateau nearby, and champagne appeared, while the story spread.

They were long overdue at their aerodrome when they finally arrived there, just in time to rescue their names from the list of missing. The Flight Commander came out in his pyjamas to see and hear for himself, and there was more champagne in the mess.

Just as each pilot had his secret dread—blindness, maiming, being wounded and taken prisoner, and in Raymond’s case, fire—there was hardly a man in the squadron who had not some talisman he held in superstitious favour, without which he would not fly. For one it was his old cavalryman’s riding crop, another carried his baby’s worn-out shoe, some wore lockets and religious medals. For Raymond it was always Jenny’s most recent letter, buttoned inside his tunic. Each one
was carefully destroyed when its successor arrived, so that no trace of her remained behind in his possessions.

Jenny wrote exactly as she pleased, without self-
consciousness
or caution. Her letters were spontaneous, artless, full of news of the people he knew, full of her love and confidence in their future. He read and re-read them with a mixture of rapture and embarrassment and incredulity. Any one of them spread their secret on every page—a girl’s steadfast devotion to a soldier was nothing new to the censor. But Raymond’s letters to her, addressed to Lady Jennifer Keane, and passing under the eyes of his C.O., gave nothing away beyond the most casual friendship and respectful admiration on his part, and were a perpetual exasperation to Jenny, who longed for one unguarded sentence from him to cherish in her loneliness and fortitude. It was all a part of loving Raymond. You did it at your own risk and you came all the way to him. Her
headlong
, imperious spirit chafed under the further discipline of their one-sided correspondence. Sometimes in a wilful mood of retaliation she tried to write in the same vein, but always tore it up and began again—it wasn’t his fault—he was thinking of the C.O.,
who was bound to recognize her name—he wasn’t in the habit of writing love letters—he’d never learned to let himself go on paper—oh, well, he was Raymond, that was all.

She kept his letters in the bottom of a bureau drawer, and re-read their arid pages hungrily and folded them again with gentle, lingering fingers, for the paper had once been warm under his hand and she had nothing else of him to touch and hold. As usual he hid behind his preoccupation with flying—his letters to her harped on his idea of inventing a plane with no blind spot, a gun that could fire
down
, an escape device such as a reliable parachute so that an uninjured pilot need not be carried helplessly to his death by a disabled plane, and
something
about a wireless telephone which she made no attempt to understand. She knew that he spent most of his spare time in the workshop at the aerodrome, along with several other
crackpot pilot inventors, working on ingenious gadgets of one kind or another which were to revolutionize flying after the war. It would be just like him to hit on something really sound, Calvert always said, for he also got letters full of flying and the workshop. No one would be at all surprised if
Raymond
invented a new gun mount or some such useful gag, which would be worth a fortune if he only saw to his patents. Raymond was a wizard with machinery, Calvert would remind them with pride, you should have seen him doctor the gun when it went back on them….

At this time the blind spot had become Raymond’s
particular
preoccupation, and he gave a lot of time and thought to rigging up a mirror attached to the cowl which would show him his own tail and eliminate surprise attack from that quarter. His was the first machine in the squadron to wear one in combat, but after some scepticism and irreverent comment other men began to see its advantages and wanted mirrors on their own planes. To his obstinate conviction that there must be some easier way to find your way home, particularly after dark, than by compass and shaded landing lights, there seemed to be no answer so far—except possibly a better compass….

Meanwhile his score rose to seventeen and his rank to acting captain, and the ground people claimed that they could
recognize
his flying style anywhere. Even the little French dog which had attached itself to his heels and understood the
patios
he talked to it knew when Raymond was coming in and would run confidently up to the right plane, ignoring all the others, and be waiting in an ecstasy of welcome when he climbed out. He always nursed and valeted the plane himself when it returned to the hangar, and his mechanics were inclined to stand back respectfully. He and the plane were one. It was not she to him, it was not even we. I’ve got a bad skip somewhere, he would say, crawling stiffly out of the cockpit. Or, I’ve been holed in my tank, for God’s sake. Or, I’ve got a damned great piece of lead in my breech block and can’t shoot any more today.

Lens was again in Allied hands, for the first time since 1914, the Americans distinguished themselves at St. Mihiel, Germany had lost practically all the ground she had taken in the dreadful spring offensive, and the Hindenburg Line was rumoured punctured. Gradually it became apparent that the front was not going to stabilize again in the usual way. The Germans were on the run.

The airmen realized it first, gunning the roads choked with eastbound German transport, reporting supply dumps ablaze in the rear of the German lines, noting a thinning of the air squadrons which came up to meet them. A cautious, unspoken something which was not yet optimism was felt around the aerodromes, a sort of rising tension—once more—twice more—how many more times would they go out to combat? What were the odds remaining to them, what were their chances now, of living through it after all? Once more, twice more—deep, deep into Germany and out again, still whole, still flying, still chalking up their growing score….

When St. Quentin was taken, a ghost city emptied of its 50,000 souls carried away into captivity by the retreating German army, even the civilians at home in England began to realize that something had broken, and that it was not another false dawn—the Germans were rattled now, desperate, disorganization was setting in, peace proposals were being made—they wouldn’t talk peace while they were winning. But there was little visible rejoicing in London and Paris. People went about their daily lives a little grimly, unwilling to go off half-cocked. Austria wanted terms. Bulgaria collapsed—Dixmude was gathered in, then Passchendaele….

Until at last even Raymond began to look ahead, or rather had to try not to think ahead, and had to suppress within himself a rising hope where the knowledge of Jenny lived. It almost began to look as though he might be some good to Jenny after all.

It was just another day’s work when he went up on a foggy afternoon in the middle of October for a look round behind
Cambrai. He was paired with Fenton, and they ran into a flock of seven German planes and took them on. Fenton went down early in the fight, this time for keeps, and Raymond ticked off two Germans to keep him company. Four more drew off and limped away, but the fifth hung on. For what seemed like hours, but was only minutes of air time, the duel went on, in and out of cloud, diving, climbing, zigzagging, saving
ammunition
for the kill—Raymond’s controls were giving trouble and the plane moved sluggishly, so that he got a spray of lead over his shoulder which struck the dashboard and broken glass from the instruments spattered up into his face.

One fragment struck and cracked the left glass of his goggles, and a warm trickle ran down into his collar, and there was a prickling pain from temple to jaw. Missed my eye, he thought. That’s luck. He was losing height rapidly, and the German was still there, apparently as fresh as ever, crowding him. Another burst of lead struck his engine and flame flickered up where the tracer bullets landed, and his stomach fluttered with his own particular private dread—fire. Blood was running into his goggles now, so that it was hard to see, and his lips were salty with it. The engine coughed and quit, and there was a
screaming
of wind in the wires as he fell, and the machine-gun behind him chattered on.

Getting dizzy, he thought impatiently—falling too fast—tail going round—makes your head swim—I shall be sick in a minute—bleeding like a pig, everything’s red—no, it’s the fire, gaining—I heard of a man who got out on the wing and flew lopsided and kept the flames the other side—not for me, I can’t see well enough—wisht I was a German now, they have parachutes—sometimes—if I get out of this by God I’ll invent a parachute that will work—I’ll never fly without one again, after this war is over, it’s suicide—mustn’t jump without one, though—got to take what comes, but there must be an easier way to die than this—wires shot away, damn him, I can’t get my nose up—poor Jenny, we almost made it, didn’t we—I wonder what’s below, won’t know till I hit it—ground coming
up very fast, but I can’t see much—can’t see beyond my own prop—did he get my eyes?—well, here it is,
shot
down
in flames
—so now I know—let’s not blackout yet, I might still manage a pancake—

He landed hard, with a crashing jolt, and heard the roar of flames in the silence that followed, and flung himself over the side of the cockpit with another sickening jar and began to crawl.

A long time later he roused slowly, unwillingly, and put up a hand to the sticky mess where his goggles were—jagged pain made him gasp as he pulled them away, feeling as though his face came with them. Was it dark, or was he blind? He waited, motionless, holding his breath—a few feet away in front of him the ground was streaked with moonlight. Some sight remained to him, then. He raised his head by main force—saw the broken, ragged boughs of a small copse, and the
smouldering
ruin of his burnt-out plane.

They’ll come for me, he thought, and dragged himself to his knees. They always come—for souvenirs. Must get away from here. His head throbbed and reeled, but the idea of hiding persisted in him, holding him to consciousness. Crawl off into the woods a bit, away from the plane—no one could tell that he hadn’t been burned up in it—get away—hide—no time to rest now—keep moving….

He paused, listening. Footsteps, light and uncertain, were coming towards him through the dim moonlight. No German walked like that. He waited, gasping with effort, labouring against the pain and dizziness. A small dark-clad figure showed in the faint glow near the plane, cast a shadow among the shadows under the trees.

“Mam’zelle,” said Raymond quietly, and with a little sound quickly stifled she ran towards him.

He was flooded with anxious, whispered French and answered in the accented Canadian speech he had learned from his first gun crew. She understood, her hands were warm and strong, she mentioned her father’s barn, not far away, the hayloft, bandages, a light, some food—sanctuary. There were
no Germans nearby, she said they were beyond—to the west. No main roads ran near. They might not come for the plane, they were seldom seen any more in the neighbourhood, though it was said they were nearer now than they had been. Some town had been retaken by the Allies—yes, some town the Germans had held a long time—they would fall back—but not yet—there would be time for him to rest a little—to eat—to dress the wound—yes, yes, time to hide, he was to leave it to her—her father was willing, she had told him she was coming out to the plane with the cart—he was old, but very brave—he would be glad—he would help them decide what to do.

Hazily Raymond allowed her to help him to his feet, swayed, bore heavily on her thin shoulder with a mumbled apology—it was of the height and fragility of a child—and devoted himself to the grim task of putting one foot in front of the other over rough ground in the dark. After what seemed like hours of this, they came to a lane and a crude cart. He fell into it, and it moved forward jerkily at a snail’s pace, raising all the echoes. Years later, hands pulled him out again, held him up, urged him forward until he sank into sweet dry hay and fainted again.