Kanone

By Edmund Leroy

In Kanone Homer's epic the Iliad lives again, its ancient war-cry now heard along a forgotten stretch of the Western Front. The Ste Helene Salient is strategically important to both Britain and Germany and, as winter descends upon 1917, both their great armies are locked in a fierce and bloody struggle for its possession. Soldiers fight and die while in the bronze-red skies above them heroes contest the heavens in search of glory. Oberleutnant Willi Buchner is one such hero, an ace with many victories to his credit. Nothing can stop him from becoming Germany's greatest fighter pilot, nothing that is except his pride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legend Press
• Release date: Oct 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781785072864

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

A glint! A sharp glint, intense for an instant, gone the next.

I saw it. I know I did.

He had. A flash to the south, bright enough to pierce through both shredded cloud and the early winter mists that crept over the festering pores of no-man’s-land like steam on the back of a breathless horse. It even outshone the morning sun as its bleary eye turned a thousand water-filled craters into a broad and endless expanse of broken mirrors.

It has to be a British machine.

From his divine height at two thousand metres above the Ste Helene Salient, Hantelmann knew it could be nothing else. What he had seen was a fragment of sunlight reflected fleetingly off the smooth and lacquered surface of a fabric-covered wing. This alone meant little. The real giveaway was the tickling filigrees of machine gun tracer rising from the ground and the puffs of flak that formed a ragged line of angry black dots moving east across the rim of the hard, varnished sky.

They’re shooting at something and it ain’t no pigeon.

Whatever it was, it was nearing the German trenches just south of the Austerschale, a huge crater gouged from the earth by a British mine a month earlier. Reckoning the distance to be perhaps a kilometre, Hantelmann held onto the spot, his eyes filled with the hunger of a bird of prey observing the faraway movement of its next meal.

I’ll lay cash it’s a two-seater sniffing about.

For days now standing orders had been to keep the sky on their side of the lines clear of enemy observation machines. All their patrols had been for that purpose alone and the reason could be clearly seen on the roads below; they were choked with German troops and supply wagons moving up to the lines.

High Command is up to something and they want us to stop the British finding out.

This was fine by Hantelmann but not with his pilots. Before receiving these new orders they’d been concentrating all their efforts against the airbase at Ste Helene, a spot they had once occupied themselves until it had been taken from them during a British attack. Now all they wanted was to take it back.

That’s the trouble with my Kanonen; they think only of their honour.

Hantelmann also harboured notions of honour. But the code by which he lived was markedly different from that of his men. His sense of honour was not a soldier’s but a politician’s; it was flexible, accommodating and open to interpretation and certainly didn’t include making Quixotic gestures like flying across the lines to seek out the enemy.

Why bother when they’re quite happy to come to us?

The two-seater on his port side, the one that he still couldn’t see, was more to his taste. Hunting it wouldn’t involve a long and dangerous trip into enemy territory. It was just where he wanted it and, of equal importance, it appeared to be flying without an escort.

Alone and defenceless! Just the way I like them.

Certain that there were no enemy scouts lurking about, Hantelmann adjusted his goggles then jiggled his wingtips up and down. This was a signal. It told his wingmen that he was preparing to attack and, by jabbing a gloved finger toward the south, he told them where.

Let the hunt begin!

Feeling excitement swell within him, Hantelmann eased forward the throttle lever. As he did so the power of his fire-forged engine grew until it seemed as if it would burst forth from its cowling. He could feel it vibrating through his feet as they operated the rudder pedals, and through his hands as they gently pulled the stick to the left.

Almost immediately the port wingtips dipped and his black-beaked Pflaz started to bank, the arc of its whirling propeller swinging away from the west and toward the south. As it turned, its black crosses stood out boldly on silvered wing and fuselage and from beneath Hantelmann’s open cockpit a mad-eyed gorgon glared belligerently at the empty sky.

Easing his stick forward, Hantelmann’s trim biplane slid into a shallow, curving dive. His intention was to follow a slow, circuitous route that would bring him down to the same altitude as the enemy machine, and to a position directly behind it.

Then you’ll see your pipe and warm slippers no more, my English friend.

Twisting his neck within the fur collar of his black leather flying coat, he glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, following the curve of his banking turn, were two silver Pfalz just like his own. Goggles, scarves and black leather helmets obscured the pilots’ faces, and it would have been hard to distinguish one from the other. But the Pfalz on Hantelmann’s left sported the word Angriffen! painted on its fuselage in bold, black letters.

Buchner! The big prick! And beside him his boyfriend, Frommherz!

Curling his lip in disgust, Hantelmann turned away and set his eyes once more in the direction of the enemy machine. This time he found that by staring hard he could actually see it.

There! At ten o’clock!

By now it was over the deep and well-dug German trenches, still flying east toward the road to La Basseé, seemingly unperturbed by the furious ground fire that followed in its wake. But at such a distance it was no more than a dark and barely discernible shape, a formless speck highlighted against the flat and drab terrain over which it was flying.

Like a midge hovering over some mangy carpet.

Hantelmann and his two companions continued their curving descent, swinging slowly round from west to south and from south to east until finally their quarry was directly ahead of them and more or less at the same height.

In the lead, Hantelmann levelled his wings and eased back on his throttle.

Now let’s see how close I can get before I’m spotted.

This kill was important to him, not only as a mark of personal accomplishment but also as a means of redeeming his reputation. He was commander of JG Nord, the largest air unit ever assembled on the Western Front, and he had to prove to his pilots that when it came to prowess he was more than their equal.

This would not be easy. Many of them were kanonen with five or more confirmed kills to their name. Some had twenty and more. Hantelmann had only the two he’d acquired during his previous command: hardly a score to boast about when in the company of men renowned for their skill and daring.

And even these two victories were tainted by rumour. Someone had put it about that they weren’t actually his at all, that rather than going to all the trouble and risk of shooting them down by his own efforts he had merely pulled rank and claimed for himself the victories that rightfully belonged to others.

Damn lies, of course! But what can I do?

He could hardly deny it. To do so would have meant explaining himself to his men and that would have been an unpardonable breach of military protocol, one that would have further damaged his standing within the unit. No! There was only one way to stop the whispering behind his back and that was to get a kill that no one could dispute.

And this one will do nicely.

Although the enemy aircraft was still some distance away, it was now near enough for Hantelmann to see that it was indeed an English two-seater; the observer in the rear cockpit left him in no doubt. But as he was looking at the machine end-on he couldn’t quite make out what type of two-seater it was.

There were some clues: the much greater span of the upper wing compared to the lower and also the exhaust pipe jutting up out of its engine. But then the pilot, still oblivious to the danger behind him, changed course to east-north-east, exposing an oblique view of the machine’s port side, and Hantelmann was given the clue he needed.

An RE8! My old friend the Harry Tate! That engine cowling is a dead giveaway. Looks like a fruit bat’s snout.

Hantelmann corrected his course to match the RE8’s but in the second or so his opponent’s port fuselage was still visible he saw something interesting. Next to the blue, white and red cockade was the word BRISEIS painted in large, white letters on the dark, olive-green surface.

Hantelmann had some knowledge of the English language, but he had never encountered this word before and had no idea what it could mean. Then a whimsical smile tightened the corners of his eyes.

Of course! You must be Harry Tate’s sweetheart, Fraulein Briseis. How charmed I am to meet you.

The distance to the RE8 was now down to a couple of hundred yards and its tail sat squarely between the ring-sights of Hantelmann’s belt-fed machine guns. Never once taking his eyes off the enemy biplane he reached forward stealthily, like an assassin sneaking up on his victim, and cocked the arming lever on each of the guns.

As each lever was cocked a bronze-tipped cartridge was extracted from the ammunition belt and fed into the gun’s firing chamber. At the same time the lubricated mechanism cranked the belt on, bringing the next cartridge into line. Both guns were now armed and ready to fire, their black, eyeless muzzles staring ahead with cold expectation like two war dogs waiting to be unleashed.

Any moment now, my beauties!

The distance was still too great. He needed to be well under a hundred yards. Forty would be preferable. Normally, he would have been unlikely to get that close without being spotted. But luck was on his side; the observer was so engrossed taking photographs of the troops below he was failing to keep a proper lookout.

That’s it! You keep at it.

It may have been that the observer had been leaning over the side for too long or he may have noticed for the first time that the anti-aircraft fire had fallen silent. Whatever the reason may have been, he chose that moment to straighten up from his large box camera and look around.

Seeing three Pfalz closing in on him, his mouth fell open in horror. Frantically, he thumped the pilot’s shoulder. The pilot turned. His mouth fell open in horror. Overreacting, he yanked his machine to starboard and with such suddenness the observer had to grab the machine gun’s ring-mounting to avoid being catapulted over the side.

Oh, what a couple of clowns.

Shaking his head with cruel compassion, Hantelmann watched the British pilot struggle to steady his machine while the hapless observer, his nerves unsettled by his glimpse of the abyss, strained to turn and aim his machine gun in Hantelmann’s direction.

He managed to fire off a lengthy burst, but the range was too great and his pilot’s erratic flying hampered his aim and he was too scared and inexperienced to adjust for wind and deflection. Hantelmann didn’t even bother moving out of the way as the streams of tracer curved away to scorch the empty sky.

But he knew he could not rely on such inaccuracy for long. Soon he would be close enough that even a stray bullet might prove fatal. He had to get into the one position where he knew the observer could not get at him.

Under his arse!

By anticipating every move and countering every evasion, Hantelmann managed to hang onto the enemy’s tail as he closed in. Then, gently coaxing throttle and rudder, he tucked his top wing under the RE8’s rear.

Now see if you can get me.

Matching his speed with the two-seater, he gazed up at its yellow underbelly stretching above him like a grubby ceiling, its two wheels the chandelier. He was so close he could see a patch repair on an underwing surface, some grass wrapped around the tailskid and a stone dent in one of the wheel caps. He was so close he couldn’t miss.

Not even with my eyes closed!

He was only moments from destroying two men and the machine they were flying, moments from showing all the strutting heroes he commanded that he was as good as any of them.

Let’s get it done!

Raising the nose of his black-beaked Pfalz, he pulled on the firing lever.

CHAPTER TWO

The door opened and Fuchs almost leapt from his chair, his crossed ankles raised and ready to spring off his desk. But when he saw that it was only an orderly entering the office, he relaxed and lowered his sleepy eyes once more upon his copy of La Vie Parisienne.

Raising a coalscuttle, the orderly smiled. ‘For the fire, Herr Oberleutnant.’

Fuchs looked up. Drawing upon his pipe and blowing a stream of smoke through the side of his mouth, his thoughtful gaze followed the orderly as far as the pot-bellied stove that sat in the corner by the door. Then he surveyed the rest of the office, noting with despondent familiarity its stark layout; the slatted walls; the rickety floorboards; blades of grass growing through the gaps; dusty cobwebs hanging from eaves and beams; the pervasive smell of creosote, sawdust and damp earth.

Nothing but a glorified potting shed!

It was bigger than that, but not by much: large enough perhaps to swing the black, fat-bellied stove the orderly was filling with coal. Why the man was bothering Fuchs couldn’t imagine; it threw out little heat at the best of times. In fact, it was useful only as a reminder of how inclement the interior of the office could be: cold and damp in winter, hot and dusty in summer.

The roof leaks, the windows rattle and it’s as draughty as a bandstand in the park.

The furniture was no less spartan: his desk, several wooden filing cabinets and a small table for the krieg diary. For decoration, a couple of oilcloth maps of the Ste Helene Salient hung from one wall and, screwed to the other, a large blackboard on which were chalked the names of all of JG Nord’s pilots and their individual scores.

My name once stood high on a board like that. Heinrich Fuchs, Kanone, jasta leader and rising star with eight victories to his credit.

Then a small piece of shrapnel lodged itself in the small of his back and his moment of glory as a scout pilot in the German Air Service was over. It had been brief, far too brief for him to acquire the sort of high-placed influence he would have needed to secure some cosy spot at command headquarters.

So I end up chained to a desk in a potting shed.

He could never quite figure out why anyone would have thought him suitable adjutant material. He wasn’t studious or scholarly. He’d never once read a book from cover to cover – La Vie Parisienne was about all he could manage – and he regarded form-filling with as much relish as a schoolboy translating Ancient Greek.

Torments of the devil.

Yet, deep down he was realistic; time had been against him. He’d just turned thirty-four when he was injured: far too old to be a scout pilot. If that piece of shrapnel hadn’t got him when it did his aging reactions would almost certainly have brought him to an untimely end.

Besides, being an adjutant isn’t entirely bad.

Fuchs’ guiding principle was to find good in any situation, no matter how dire. Even a job as monotonous and mundane as adjutant of Bois de Cheval airbase wasn’t without its perks and, like a pig searching for buried truffles, it didn’t take Fuchs long to sniff them out.

For a start, he got to hear all the gossip. Officers and men were forever in and out of the office, making reports, updating logbooks or studying the scoreboards. And being a sociable fellow, Fuchs always delayed them long enough for a chat and to hear the latest news.

The office also served as a Starthaus. Jasta leaders gathered their pilots there and briefed them prior to a mission. Fuchs always offered them the benefit of his experience and, invariably, they listened in grave silence, flattering his vanity and bolstering his self-worth.

Then there’s the financial opportunities.

As JG Nord’s adjutant he was responsible for the ordering and storing of all supplies used by the airbase. No item of food, box of ammunition or can of gasoline entered or left the stores without his signature, and this provided him with ample scope for making a bit on the side.

Not that I actually do anything.

He was more the silent partner; the real power behind the enterprise was Oscar Klintmann, JG Nord’s supply sergeant. He not only had keys to the pantry, the armoury and the fuel depot; as mess sergeant he also possessed the most important key of all: the one that unlocked the kasino’s basement store.

An Aladdin’s cave of cognac and fine cigars!

Never arousing suspicion by taking too much, Klintmann diverted what he could and sold it to his numerous black market contacts, usually at local restaurants and cafes. The amount made varied, but for merely providing his signature and turning a blind eye, Fuchs got half the take.

Soon I’ll have enough to retire.

With a sigh of financial contentment, his eyes focused once again on the much-used pages of La Vie Parisienne. Dog-eared and coming apart, it had passed through so many hands no one now knew for sure the identity of the original owner. But no amount of wear and tear could detract from the lascivious charms of its delicately shaded drawings.

Fuchs had a favourite. It was of a pretty redhead reading a letter as she lounged in an armchair. The letter was a clever device. While her attention was thus diverted it was possible to linger longingly on the young woman’s black-stockinged legs, draped with insouciant abandon over one arm of the chair and in such a way as to reveal a seemingly endless expanse of naked thigh.

That reminds me! I must visit Mimi in town tonight.

Mimi was also a redhead and she too was inclined to drape her stockinged legs insouciantly over the arms of chairs.

And other things if asked nicely.

Fuchs’ amiable face started to loosen into a daydream of wistful anticipation, but it didn’t last long. He was snatched back to reality by the distant buzz of a single aircraft approaching from the west.

Scheisse! Who the hell’s that?

Six pilots were on patrol: none were due to return for another half-hour. Fuchs listened intently. The engine note deepened; the pilot was throttling down; he was coming in to land. And by now Fuchs had also identified the type.

It’s a Pfalz!

But there was something about the sound of this particular Pfalz, something that singled it out from every other machine on the base: it sounded angry. And there was only one pilot at Bois de Cheval who flew an angry Pfalz.

Oh God! It’s Hantelmann!

Moving faster than a grasshopper leaping clear of a lizard’s tongue, Fuchs sat bolt upright, shoved the redhead into the drawer, buttoned his tunic, extinguished his pipe and snatched up a document from the in-tray beside his typewriter: a list of that day’s deliveries.

Adopting an air of diligence, the one he always adopted in the presence of Hantelmann, Fuchs examined the list with all the vigilant intensity of a shopkeeper who suspects the delivery boy has light fingers. But beneath the mask of concentration coiled a twisted knot of colonic agitation.

Hantelmann! The Scheiskopf!

Whatever good points may have come with the job of being JG Nord’s adjutant, as far as Fuchs was concerned, working for Hantelmann wasn’t one of them. He found him fussy, irascible, contradictory and temperamental. A man easily vexed or slighted, he was a strict disciplinarian and stickler for military etiquette, demanding obedience in all things, instantly and without question.

He’s also a braggart and a drunk. And rumour has it that he nicks other men’s kills.

Most of the officers in JG Nord avoided Hantelmann like the plague, but as his adjutant, Fuchs had no choice in the matter; he had to put up with the man’s foul temper and shifting moods day after day.

The only time I’m rid of him is when he’s out chasing the enemy.

These brief periods of tranquillity had become vital to Fuchs’ peace of mind, so vital in fact that he often stood before the stern portrait of Generaloberst von Hoeppner at the rear of the office to offer up a prayer that they might be extended.

Please! Just ten minutes more! That’s all I ask.

But ten minutes was never going to be enough. Soon he was praying for fuel leaks and forced landings at distant air bases, then impenetrable fogs and sudden storms and, finally, engine failure and captivity.

With the British jabbing their bayonets up his arse.

Fuchs actually stopped short of praying for Hantelmann’s death. That was one particular line he was not yet willing to cross. Though, as he listened to the angry Pfalz land and trundle across the grass to the hangars, even that resolve began to waver.

After the machine fell silent, Fuchs sat motionless, staring at the door, his ears analysing the still air like a hare that senses the approaching fox. But his expression was one of puzzlement.

Why is he back so early? And where’s Buchner and Frommherz?

So intense was his concentration that his imagination saw what lay beyond the door: a dirt path; a gentle slope; the top of a low hill; a line of canvas hangars, their open ends facing westward; a wall of trees behind them.

Fuchs’ imagination added to the scene a hollow-framed Pfalz parked in front of the hangars, a mad-eyed gorgon staring from its fuselage, and striding down the path toward the office the tall figure of Hauptmann Hantelmann.

Fuchs had walked along the path often enough to know its length to the nearest inch. And he knew just as precisely how long it would take for Hantelmann’s long, stiff-legged gait to cover such a distance. And, knowing more or less the exact moment when the door to the office would be flung open, he steeled himself. But the door wasn’t flung open. Instead a familiar voice lashed against its other side like the crack of a bullwhip.

‘YOU! YOU THERE!’

Convinced that Hantelmann was shouting at him, Fuchs instinctively assumed the rigid posture of a guilty man, never once asking himself why anyone would choose to shout through a closed door. He only realised his mistake when Hantelmann barked once more.

‘Yes, you, Herr Langmayer. I want a word with you in your office.’

Langmayer! What’s he done to upset Hantelmann?

Suddenly, things started to make sense. Langmayer was unit armourer. It was his job to make sure all airborne machine guns were in good working order. Maybe Hantelmann was in a nasty mood because his guns had jammed at some critical moment.

It would certainly explain why he’s back early.

At this point Hantelmann and the armourer moved beyond earshot so Fuchs heard no more. Frustrated at being denied the whole story, he sat back and tried to make the most of the short reprieve another man’s misfortune had given him. But he couldn’t relax. Hantelmann wouldn’t be delayed for long. As soon as he’d finished chastising Langmeyer he would be back and likely twice as angry as ever.

All I can do is sit and wait.

But then he was seized by a novel idea.

Get out! Get out before the bugger gets back!

And he had the perfect hiding place: the basement storeroom. Hantelmann would never look for him down there and if he later asked where he’d got to he could tell him he’d gone to the storeroom to check his supply list. Who could argue with that?

And if I play my cards right, I can be missing for hours enjoying a cup of Klintmann’s strong coffee and one of his splendid Havana cigars. Maybe even a wedge of his wife’s homemade fruitcake.

With such delights stretching before him Fuchs grabbed his pipe and headed toward the door. It was only a few feet away. Soon he would be outside and in the fresh air. But then, as his fingers reached out for the handle, the door flew open in his face.

A dark and menacing figure filled the doorframe, its imposing form silhouetted against a backdrop of bright and unreachable daylight. It stood stock-still, regarding all before it with disdain, and from the shadow of the head emerged a low and sour voice.

‘Where the hell do you think you’re going, Fuchs?’

Cursing himself for not acting sooner, Fuchs gave Hantelmann a watery smile. ‘Just stretching my legs, Herr Hauptmann.’

‘Well, get back to your desk and stretch them there.’

Wrenching off helmet and goggles, Hantelmann stormed past Fuchs, his long black leather flying coat crackling furiously as he disappeared through a back door into the gloom of his own office.

‘I need you to write up a report,’ he called out.

‘A report, Herr Hauptmann?’ Fuchs called back. ‘What sort of report?’

A dim light was switched on and a voice boomed through the still open door. ‘A disciplinary report.’

Feeling sorry for Langmayer, Fuchs felt obliged to at least put up some token defence on his behalf. ‘Is that absolutely necessary, Herr Hauptmann? I mean, jammed guns aren’t always someone’s fault.’

Hantelmann reappeared, buttoning the high collar of his grey double-breasted lancer uniform with its orange piping, black clasp belt, Iron Cross first class and white metal Prussian pilot’s badge with its wreath and crown.

‘What are you going on about?’ he asked sourly.

No longer so certain what he was going on about, Fuchs pressed on regardless, ‘You were speaking to Herr Langmayer earlier. I assumed the report was to be about him.’

With an impatient gesture, Hantelmann stepped back into the outer office. ‘As usual, you’ve got it arse upwards, Fuchs.’

‘It’s not about Herr Langmayer?’

‘No. It’s not about Herr Langmayer. This is a matter more serious than jammed guns.’

‘Then who are we talking about, Herr Hauptmann?’

‘Why, Buchner, of course!’ Hantelmann almost spat out the name as if saying it aloud was an affront to common decency. ‘Who the hell else would we be talking about?’

‘Oh, I see.’ Fuchs felt stupid. He should have guessed from the start that Buchner was the cause of Hantelmann’s agitation. ‘And what has he done this time?’

‘What has he done!’ Hantelmann flared. ‘I’ll tell you what he’s done. The insolent bastard nearly blew my fucking head off.’

‘I don’t understand. How did he do that?’

‘Get your notebook. You can write it all down.’

As Fuchs hurried to his desk to equip himself with pad and pencil, Hantelmann lit a cigarette, pacing back and forth as he ran the incident through his mind. When he saw that Fuchs was ready he stopped pacing and began.

‘We’d swooped on a two-seater, an RE8, on our side of the lines. Got myself under its tail and let rip with a short burst. Bullets tore into wood and fabric. The buggers were done for, but when I tried to give them one more burst for good measure my guns jammed.’

As Hantelmann paused, Fuchs looked up. ‘What did you do?’

‘Cursed the fucking gods, that’s what I did. Don’t write that down, you idiot. I dragged the cocking levers back and forth and hit the gun butts with my fist. One of Langmayer’s duff bullets must’ve got stuck in the breach. I couldn’t get it free. But it was then that I noticed smoke spilling along the two-seater’s port fuselage.’

‘You must have hit something vital.’

Hantelmann puffed excitedly on his cigarette. ‘I must have! All I needed was one more burst to finish it off.’

‘But your guns?’

‘I prayed to the gods and pulled on the trigger bar.’

‘What happened?’

‘The air was filled with the sound of gunfire.’

‘You’d cleared them!’ Fuchs interjected, caught up in the excitement of the story.

Hantelmann winced with irritation. ‘No, I hadn’t cleared them. The bullets weren’t mine. They were coming from behind me. Tracers were streaking over my top wing.’

‘My God! You were under attack?’

Something resembling a smile passed fleetingly across Hantelmann’s thin lips. ‘You know, that’s exactly what I thought. What other explanation could there be? The two-seater was bait in a trap, and a flight of English Sopwiths were now diving down on me.’

‘But what of Buchner and Frommherz? Surely they were protecting your back?’

Quite unexpectedly Hantelmann chuckled, though it was little more than a cold and joyless cackle. ‘You would have thought so, wouldn’t you? I certainly did. But when I turned to have a look I was amazed to find that there weren’t any Sopwiths.’

‘But ...’ Fuchs was about to ask who was doing the firing, but then the question answered itself and he fell silent.

‘Frommherz was still flying on my portside like some faithful dog.’

‘And Buchner?’

‘Oh, Buchner’s no faithful dog. Faithful dogs stay where you put them, but Buchner’s the sort of dog that’s always on the sniff for juicy bones. Buchner’s the sort of dog you have to keep on a short leash or it shits all over the place.’

Fuchs’ voice became flat with inevitability. ‘He was the one doing the firing, wasn’t he?’

Hantelmann’s eyes blazed with fresh fury. ‘The fucker was shooting over my top wing. And not once either. He let loose four bursts into that RE8. Splinters and fabric were flying everywhere. A strut disintegrated and its top wing collapsed with me still underneath.’

Fuchs distorted his mouth to disguise an involuntary smile. ‘That must have been alarming.’

‘Alarming! If I hadn’t side-slipped when I did the RE8 would have dragged me down with it.’

‘What of the English crew?’

‘Both dead. Killed by my first burst.’

Hantelmann’s eyes glazed as his imagination presented him with the sight of the RE8’s slow, spiralling descent, thick, black smoke trailing behind it like a corkscrew of dark blood issuing from a shark-wounded whale as it sinks helplessly into the deep.

‘Where are Buchner and Frommherz now?’

Still lost in the death of the RE8, Hantelmann shrugged. ‘Still out there, I suppose.’

‘They didn’t come back with you?’

Hantelmann’s eyes glazed into yet another painful scene. ‘After the RE8 went down, Buchner pulled alongside me. He could see that I wasn’t amused by his reckless antics. But that didn’t bother him. Before he and his pal flew off the cocky shit just grinned and raised his hand in some sort of jaunty salute.’

‘Maybe he was congratulating you on downing the two-seater, Herr Hauptmann.’

The suggestion was not a serious one, but Fuchs made every effort to make it appear so. Unfortunately, the effort was not quite convincing enough and Hantelmann fixed him with his glacial blue eyes. ‘Make no mistake, Fuchs, if I suspect for one minute that you’re taking the piss, you’ll rue the day you were born.’

‘I assure you, Herr Hauptmann, I wasn’t.’

Hantelmann stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Buchner endangers my life by firing over my top wing and you reckon he was congratulating me. If I’d chosen that precise moment to climb his bullets would have been going up my arse. And it would have been me going down in flames, not that damned two-seater.’

‘I find it hard to believe that Buchner would have deliberately put your life at risk, Herr Hauptmann.’

‘So do I, Fuchs.’ Hantelmann lit a fresh cigarette. ‘But that doesn’t alter the fact that he did. And from his grinning face it was clear to me that he wouldn’t have cared a pfennig either way. You are taking this all down, aren’t you?’

Glancing down at his notepad and seeing that he had written very little, Fuchs decided to arbitrate. ‘Buchner has acted outrageously, Herr Hauptmann, but are you sure you want to start disciplinary proceedings against him?’

‘Why the hell shouldn’t I?’

‘Well, he’s the best scout pilot we have.’ Fuchs pointed to the blackboard. ‘He has over forty kills to his name already and is well on the way to becoming one of Germany’s top Kanonen.’

‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’

‘He’s a legend to the English.’

‘They’re welcome to him.’

‘And he’s also well connected at High Command. Many there won’t take kindly to what you’re about to do.’

Hantelmann stared at Fuchs with an expression of uncompromising outrage. ‘Then they’ll just have to put up with it, won’t they? Damn the sensibilities of those stiff-necks at High Command. The issue here is too important for such nonsense. Buchner exceeded his orders. He showed a lack of discipline. In my book, Fuchs, everything takes a back seat to discipline - even talent and good connections.’

Fuchs bowed his head. ‘Yes, Herr Hauptmann.’

‘Buchner was there for one purpose only: to protect my arse, not shoot me up it. Anyone would have thought I was little more than an obstacle in his way.’

‘But, Herr Hauptmann ...’

‘No ‘buts’!’ Spinning on his heel, Hantelmann stomped toward his office. ‘Just prepare the report. I want it on my desk ready for signature within the hour.’

Face wreathed in the smoke from a fresh cigarette, Hantelmann’s unblinking eyes stared with blind intensity at a spot on his desk to the left of his wife’s photograph as he struggled vainly to engrave upon his memory every last detail of that morning’s patrol.

My case against him needs to be convincing. It needs to be watertight!

Buchner was guilty. He had no doubt of that, though, as yet, he hadn’t quite figured out the exact nature of his guilt. It would never have occurred to him to question his own motives: that his persecution of Buchner might be driven more by personal animosity than righteous indignation, or that the whole business was just a petty-minded attempt on his part to discredit a better pilot.

Grinning at me like that! Who the fuck does he think he is?

The image kept intruding upon his thoughts and disrupting the narrative of events that he was trying to construct. On the day they first met Buchner had grinned at him and Hantelmann had not liked it then. Nor had he much liked his youthful bravado, his cocky self-assurance, his air of entitlement, the effortless way in which he made friends and the ease with which he shot down the enemy.

Though loath to admit it, Hantelmann disliked these things because they highlighted his own shortcomings: his average skills as a war pilot, his dismal combat record, his inability to win the respect of his officers. He liked to swagger about and pretend he was a real hero, but Buchner’s grin seemed to mock such poses.

That bastard has dogged me at every turn.

And as he sat there it seemed to him that Buchner was the cause not only of his personal failings but also of every setback and misfortune that had befallen him since he’d taken command of JG Nord. He was Hantelmann’s nemesis and all of the things he disliked about Buchner - his talent, his good looks, his well-bred connections, the ease of his achievements, and the off-hand manner in which he accepted such good fortune – coalesced into burning hatred.

And most of all I