The Red Baron: A World War I Novel (5 page)

“Need to get him back before he loses that arm,” the first soldier said. They hoisted Haas onto the litter and lifted him into the air.

Haas gave Manfred’s hand a hard squeeze before he went slack on the litter. The medics took Haas over the landslide in the damaged communications trench and vanished into the night.

German soldiers crept back into the trench, heaving with exhaustion. Gregor and the soldier who’d lost control sat next to each other. Gregor wrapped his arm around the younger man’s shoulders and gave him a quick hug.

“See, you did just fine,” Gregor said. The other man said nothing.

Eisen was the last German back in the trench. His trench knife dripped blood and a black welt was forming under his right eye.

“Section sergeants, give me a casualty report now,” he said. “Where’s Haas? How bad is he?” he asked Manfred.

“The medics took him, I don’t know how bad it is,” he said.

Eisen approached a French corpse and gave it a strong kick to the ribs. The body shook from the impact, but did nothing else.

“The French love their tricks,” Eisen said.

Manfred looked to the Frenchman he’d shot. Still hunched over, like a marionette waiting for a puppet master to bring it to life. Killing a man was different than hunting wild game. There’d been a thrill, a sense of accomplishment when he took a deer or boar. Pride. The dead man evoked none of those emotions. A mote of ice formed in his chest, a point of regret that Manfred feared might never leave him.

“Dieter! Dieter, has anyone seen him?” Gregor asked, his voice rising in panic.

“I saw him go over with you,” a soldier said.

Gregor looked to the parapet and the growing darkness in the sky. He approached Eisen and stood at attention

“Sir, he might be out there. Let me go—”

“Quiet,” Eisen said. He cocked an ear. “Do you hear that?”

Manfred, the ringing in his ears nearly gone, did his best to listen. A faint wailing wafted in from no-man’s-land. The voice was indistinct but for one word, “Mama.”

“That’s him! That’s Dieter! Let me get him, please, sir,” Gregor said.

Eisen chewed his bottom lip as he considered. “Not alone, if someone else will volunteer then—”

“I’ll go,” Manfred said. He reloaded his pistol and climbed onto the fire step.

Gregor didn’t wait any longer. He pulled himself into no-man’s-land, doing his best to keep his body low and present less of a target to the distant French. Manfred followed suit.

Within a dozen yards, Manfred was lost. He stayed close to Gregor as they crawled through shell holes, moving in spurts toward the cries as they emerged. The cries were less frequent now.

Gregor came up on his knees to look into a massive shell hole. A burst of machine gun fire sent bullets snapping past Manfred’s head. He leapt into the shell hole a split second before bullets smacked into the spot he’d occupied. He rolled into the crater and tumbled into the puddle at the bottom.

He’d lost his pistol on the way down, and couldn’t see it in the darkness. He pawed through the puddle; the thought of losing his weapon filled him with panic. His hand wrapped around something he thought was a log. He looked up and came to face-to-face with a long dead soldier. The man’s eyes were gone—dark pits of nothingness that bored into Manfred’s soul. Lips pulled back into a horrible rictus grin mocked Manfred for daring to live in this place of death.

Manfred recoiled from the body with a yelp, arms spinning in fright. He fell back into the puddle, where he found his pistol. He pointed it at the body out of reflex, but the corpse presented no further threat.

It took several deep breaths to calm down. Manfred shook water from his pistol and made his way back to the corpse. If the dead man was German, he would bring the dog tag back to Eisen.

The uniform was blue, and Manfred decided to leave the body alone.

He crept to the lip of the crater and discovered a new problem. In the total darkness, he didn’t know which way led back to the German lines. The overcast sky offered no clues. The cries were silent. For the first time in his military service, Manfred felt completely alone.

“This is not how I want to die,” he whispered.

A machine gun ripped bullets into no-man’s-land. Manfred ducked out of reflex, and saw that the tracers sought a target dozens of yards away. Manfred gave a bit of thanks to the machine gunner, whose bullets pointed the way back to the German lines.

He crawled back as fast as he could, unsure how far he had to go. Crawling proved more arduous than riding a horse could ever be. He stopped next to a clump of barbed wire to catch his breath.

“Say something in German before I shoot you,” hissed a voice.

“Germany, Germany over all,” he said, hoping his Prussian accent and use of a patriotic song would save his life.

“Hurry, over here,” said the voice.

Manfred crawled the last few feet before a pair of hands reached out and pulled him into the trench.

He thanked the soldier that spared his life and brushed mud from his uniform.

“Richthofen?” said Eisen’s voice from the darkness.

He moved toward Eisen, and found him kneeling next to a pair of soldiers. Gregor and Dieter were there. Dieter laid against his friend’s chest, dead. Gregor held a hand against a bullet wound on his stomach, his life leaking out of him. Gregor’s pale skin seemed to shimmer in the night air. His breathing was shallow.

“I wish you hadn’t gone. Now I’ll lose you both; it wasn’t worth it,” Eisen said.

“It was worth it, sir,” Gregor said from a parched mouth. “When I found him, he said, ‘Gregor, I knew you’d come.’”

The dying man rested his head against Dieter and raised a bloody hand. “Water. Can I…have…” his arms went slack and dropped to his side.

Manfred felt a sob well up in his chest, but he choked it back.

Eisen reached out and closed Gregor’s eyes. He pulled dog tags from both the dead and snapped the ovals in half. He put the tags in his pouch and stood up. He pressed the pouch into Manfred’s hand.

“You’ll take these back for me?” he asked.

Manfred could only nod.

“Sir, got something for you,” a lanky soldier said to Manfred. The tall man gave him a brass button, the bomb symbol of the French infantry on it. “From the frog you killed. Figured you’d want to start a hate belt of your own.”

The men looked down at their hands, each holding remnants of the dead.

Manfred stood in front of Lieutenant Colonel von Weidemann’s desk. He’d been standing at attention for several minutes as the officer looked over his request. Weidemann adjusted his thick glasses and tossed the transfer form to his desk.

“Airplanes?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. I request a transfer to the aviation corps,” Manfred said.

“Lieutenant, those…things…are a fad. Once we breakthrough the French lines, cavalry officers such as yourself will find use once again,” he said. He stared at Manfred, waiting to see if his wisdom sparked an epiphany in Manfred.

Manfred remained unmoved.

“Why, again, would you give up being a staff officer in this command? You’ve done well for yourself in the communications section.”

“Sir, I did not join the army to shuffle papers and fetch coffee, but for another purpose,” Manfred said.

Von Weidemann shook his head and picked up a pen.

“Don’t think you can come back here once those contraptions are burnt for kindling,” he said as he signed the transfer form.

Manfred left the headquarters, and he took a deep breath. The weight of failure was off his shoulders; he had another chance at the war.

A pair of Taube aircraft flew overhead. Their lattice like wings made them look like something out of a renaissance sketch, and not modern weapons of war. Manfred’s spirits soared with the planes; he’d join them in the air soon enough.

Manfred stepped from the staff car, not waiting for it to come to a complete stop as it rolled up to the hangar. He had the day’s mission in hand, little more than a set of coordinates and instructions to capture photographic evidence of British troop movements. He jogged toward his new steed, a G.II officially called a “Large Battle Aircraft” by the German air corps. Despite the unimaginative name, the moniker fit. The plane was just over fifty feet wide and almost thirty feet long. Twin uncowled engines flanked his observer’s seat, a Parabellum machine gun attached to a ring mount on the nose of the plane.

His pilot, George Zeumer, was waiting for him. The tall, skeletal thin man took a last drag from a cigarette and flicked it into the dirt before climbing up a ladder to his pilot’s seat. The pilot sat behind the observer in the G.II, which proved problematic any time the pilot needed a decent view of the ground.

Zeumer burst into a fit of wet coughs as he settled into the cockpit. A consumptive, his tuberculosis worsened as summer ended. Manfred couldn’t understand why such a sick man insisted on remaining on active service, or his two-pack-a-day smoking habit.

Manfred trotted toward the G.II, his favorite hunting rifle in hand. He adjusted his new leather jacket as he approached the ladder leading up to his seat. He’d had the knee-length double-breasted jacket custom made once he’d graduated from the observer’s course. The wool lining had cost extra in the wartime economy, but the constant complaints from other pilots and observers about the freezing air had convinced him the expense was warranted.

“Where is the rest of the crew?” Manfred asked a mechanic. The G.II normally went up with a compliment of four.

“Not a bombing mission, sir, just you and the pilot,” the mechanic said.

He handed the rifle to the attending mechanic and put a foot on the ladder. This would be his first flight over enemy lines, and he took a moment to savor this triumph. The sky was opal blue, interrupted by a few clouds. The air smelled of burnt oil from the engines, the crisp smell of encroaching autumn on the breeze. He mounted the ladder.

“Richthofen, where is your map?” Zeumer asked.

Manfred froze. He’d left it in the car in his excitement. He let go of the ladder, ran back to the staff car, and found the map on the rear seat.

“The camera?” Zeumer said before Manfred made it back to the aircraft, his impatience obvious in his voice. Manfred spun around and ran to fetch the camera from the trunk of the staff car. Someone snickered behind him.

Sure that had everything, Manfred returned to the G.II. He made it to the top of the ladder and had swung one leg over the cockpit, when Zeumer asked, “Forget anything else?”

“No, all set,” he said. The mechanic handed him the camera and his rifle.

“Why the hunting rifle? Is that machine gun the Kaiser has so generously provided you not enough?” Zeumer asked.

Manfred swung the machine gun from side to side on the ring mount. He depressed and raised the barrel. The field of fire was limited by the presence of the engines on either side of the cockpit. Observers who shot out their propellers or engines rarely got to make the same mistake twice.

“The machine gun is for targets to our front.” Manfred pointed his rifle into the air above and behind the G.II. “This is for everything else.”

Zeumer gave a huff and shook his head. “If you can hit anything with that, it would be a miracle.”

The mechanics each grabbed a propeller blade.

Zeumer pulled his goggles over his eyes and asked, “Ready?”

“Let me get my—”

“I’m going anyway. Contact!” Zeumer said.

The mechanics spun the propellers, and the twin engines roared to life. A mechanic removed the chocks from the wheels, and the G.II kicked forward as Zeumer guided the plane down the grass field that served as the runway. The engines drowned out all other sound as the plane gained speed, rumbling toward a line of unfriendly looking trees at the end of the field.

The G.II wobbled over the uneven earth before taking flight. Manfred’s hands snapped out and took a death grip on the lip of his cockpit. He peered over the front of the plane and watched the world fall away.

They gained elevation slowly. Manfred watched as France morphed to resemble the country as he knew it from maps. He could almost trace his finger over roads, rail lines, trenches, and clusters of farming villages. He looked to the west and saw the steeple of the a cathedral, right where the cartographer promised it would be.

Icy cold air bit into the exposed flesh of his face. He fumbled with the scarf under his jacket as his unprotected eyes teared up in the constant gale. He remembered the goggles tight against his forehead and pulled them over his eyes.
This won’t be any easier once winter rolls around
, he thought.

Zeumer tapped him on the shoulder, and then brought his hands into the air in a gesture of confusion. Manfred had neglected his job of navigation. After consulting his map and a compass, he pointed toward the southwest.

The next half hour passed without incident, Manfred kept himself busy watching for airborne threats and double-checking their heading. Zeumer had a habit of meandering off course, which was either out of carelessness or his way of making sure Manfred stayed on his toes.

The target of their reconnaissance, a railhead feeding thirty miles of the Entente Front, splayed across the land like a smashed spider. Manfred took his camera from its case and unbuckled himself from the seat. He leaned over the side of the cockpit and prayed for no sudden moves from Zeumer. He snapped a photo of the railhead and replaced the photo plate.

He crept over the nose of the aircraft and brought the camera around for another picture. His heart skipped a beat when he looked through the eyepiece; there was another plane in the air. A British Farman plane was a few hundred yards away, the thin rods connecting the tail to the rest of the plane nearly invisible at that distance. The Farman maintained a steady course, no indication it knew Manfred’s G.II shared the same sky. An icy rush of adrenaline hit Manfred; unaware prey was always the easiest to hunt.

He turned to Zeumer and pointed frantically toward the British plane. He held up a single finger. The G.II could handle a single foe, but lacked the maneuverability for multiple threats in a dogfight.

Zeumer shrugged his shoulders and nosed their aircraft into a dive. Manfred racked a round into the machine gun breech and waited. The Farman held a single pilot, who remained oblivious to Manfred’s approach and intent.

At two hundred yards, Manfred fired. The burst from the machine gun did nothing more than alert the Englishman that he was under attack. The Farman banked toward the earth, evading another series of shots.

Manfred cursed as the Farman disappeared beneath the G.II. Zeumer followed suit, Manfred searched for the enemy by looking over each side of the fuselage as they lost altitude. He kept his hands on the machine gun. Zeumer rolled the plane to the right, and Manfred saw their foe, who was gaining altitude in front of them.

Manfred lined up the machine gun and fired. He didn’t let up on the trigger as the Farman flew through the machine gun’s firing arc, no effect on his target. The gun clicked empty as their foe flew right at them.

He fumbled for a new ammo drum as the Farman fired. Bullets zipped in front of Manfred; a white-hot tracer round missed him by a foot and skewered the nose of the G.II. The fabric skin showed the wound with two smoking holes, like a bed sheet scarred by errant cigarette ashes. Manfred was about to slam the new drum into the machine gun when Zeumer jerked their plane into a dive. The drum flew from Manfred’s hand and hit the propeller. Wood splintered and the drum was lost to gravity’s clutches.

The Farman kept firing as it bore down on the G.II. Manfred gritted his teeth as the Farman approached, preparing for the bullet or collision that would end his brief and unremarkable career as an observer. It flew across their nose, close enough that Manfred could hear the rumble of the Farman’s Renault engine.

He snatched his hunting rifle and aimed at the Farman. It would take blind luck to hit a target moving at speed, but using the hunting rifle was the only thing Manfred could do.

The first shot did nothing, as did the second. After the third shot, the Farman reared up like a scared horse. It hung in the air, nose straight up, then flipped over and tumbled to the earth. The heavy Renault engine led the dive toward the ground. Manfred, his mouth agape under his scare, watched the Farman shrink away before it smashed into a shell crater. The tail stuck straight into the air. There was no movement from the pilot.

I must have hit him
, Manfred thought.

Zeumer slapped Manfred’s shoulder and gave him a shake in congratulations.

Manfred nodded furiously and fumbled around his seat for the last ammo drum. His first air-to-air victory—his father would be so proud. For the first time since the war started, Manfred had a sense of satisfaction.

His satisfaction turned to terror when he saw another Farman flying straight at them. The new Farman’s bullets alerted Zeumer to the fresh threat before Manfred could. Zeumer opened the throttle to maximum and steered east. This time they’d run for their lives.

Manfred reloaded the machine gun and held on to the handle for dear life. Bullets ripped through the air from below, a round pierced the floor and splintered the wood on the lip of his cockpit.

The Farman pulled up behind their G.II, right on their tail. Manfred immediately cursed the designers who put the machine gun in front of the plane, instead of in the back, where it could defend from more maneuverable foes.

The Farman fired a quick burst into the G.II, riddling the tail and fuselage. Manfred undid his seat belt and tried to turn around in the cramped cockpit to aim his hunting rifle. Before he could, the Farman wiggled its wings and banked away.

Zeumer, who’d ducked completely into his cockpit, tentatively sat back up. He and Manfred searched the sky for their assailant—nothing.

Zeumer turned them east toward the German lines.

Manfred, his nerves on a knife’s edge, clutched the machine gun as adrenaline coursed through his veins. He told himself that this was a fight, not flight, reaction to his first air battle.

They made their way back to German lines without incident. Zeumer brought the G.II down hard, the right wing skimming the ground on the second bounce. Zeumer killed the engine and brought it to a halt well short of the hangar. Mechanics ran toward them carrying ladders.

“God damn you, Richthofen! We almost died thanks to your lousy aim!” Zeumer said.

Manfred pulled the goggles from his face and threw them to the ground.

“It’s hard to aim when you’re flying like a drunken goose,” Manfred said. “I shot one of them down, in case you didn’t notice!” The mechanics placed the ladders next to the G.II and backed away. Arguments between officers were not the business of enlisted men.

Manfred climbed down. His adrenaline high hadn’t subsided and he’d give Zeumer a fight if he wanted one.

“Even a blind squirrel can find a nut,” Zeumer said as he mounted the ladder. “You’d—” a sudden coughing fit cut him off. He managed a ragged breath before he slipped from the ladder. Manfred stepped in and broke his fall. Zeumer shook Manfred off and held himself up against their plane.

A piece of Zeumer’s coat sleeve had burst, down feathers marking a snow-white exit wound. A bullet had missed Zeumer’s arm by a hair’s breadth.

“Zeumer, your arm,” Manfred said.

“Your boot,” Zeumer croaked. He sunk to the ground, and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. It came away stained with blood.

The front of Manfred’s right boot had a bullet hole in it. He could see his sock moving when he wiggled his toes. The adrenaline must have kept him from feeling the cold after the near miss.

Manfred looked over the G.II. It was riddled with bullet scars. Palm-sized hunks of fabric hung from the wooden frame.
How did we survive? Why did the second Farman break off its attack?
Manfred thought.

He held out a hand to Zeumer, all malice gone. Zeumer accepted the hand up.

The mechanics did their own examination of the G.II, grumbling about the amount of time it would take to repair it.

“Next time…next time we skip the dogfighting, all right?” Zeumer said.

“Not if we’re in this crate,” Manfred said. His first taste of air-to-air only made him want more, especially if he was in a plane designed for the task.

“Come on; who knows how many generals are waiting for those pictures you took,” Zeumer said.

“Sir, about that,” a mechanic said from Manfred’s cockpit. He held up the camera, nothing more than a tangled mess of broken glass and metal fragments.

“Another victim of this senseless war,” Zeumer said. He turned away and walked slowly toward the command post on the opposite end of the airfield.

“Manfred, it’ll cost your next leave chit for me to claim your victory was anything but a lucky shot,” Zeumer said.

“What? How many rabbits and deer have I supplied to the mess kitchen with that rifle?” Manfred said. He caught up to Zeumer and kept a steady hand on his shoulder.