The Bloody Red Baron: Anno Dracula 1918 Read online

  'When the time is right, things will get back to normal, old girl,' Bertie said. 'We're on the side of decency, you know.'

  The complacent smugness of these brave children was tragic. They were unlikely to survive the war, let alone the peace. Average life expectancy for a pilot on the Western Front was something like three weeks.

  Ginger looked at his wrist-watch and tutted. All the pilots kept consulting time-pieces, even glancing at the stopped grandfather clock. It had been a good two and three-quarter hours since the patrol passed over her on the road.

  'Never fear,' Bertie continued, 'it'll turn out for the best.'

  A Sopwith Snipe fighter could stay in the air for only three hours. That nasty little fact concerned the men of Maranique rather more than one stray dotty lady journalist.

  Kate knew it was rare for a whole patrol to be wiped out. Stragglers and survivors would always come through, limping home with smoking engines and singed wings.

  She was received at the airfield with comparative kindness because she served as a distraction. If not for her capture and casual interrogation, the pilots would have listened over and over to 'Poor Butterfly', nerves tighter with each passing minute.

  'I've an Aunt Augusta who was a suffragette,' Algy said. 'Chained herself to the railings outside Parliament. It rained like a drain and she caught a deathly chill. Had to turn vampire to come through it. Grew young again, ditched the old uncle, became a ballet dancer. Doesn't talk much about the vote and such these days. She wants to dance The Rite of Spring at Sadlers Wells. Slings around with that chap Nijinsky. You know, the bounder who shape-shifts in mid-pas de deux.'

  'Three hours,' Allard announced, eyes cold. 'The patrol is lost.'

  There was a long, wordless pause. The gramophone clicked, waiting to be rewound.

  'Steady on,' said Bertie, finally. 'Give a couple of minutes' grace. Old Tom and the rest have come through many a scrape in extra time, on fumes and prayers. No need to spread despond at dear old Wing.'

  'The three hours are up. No matter the quality of the men, the machines will fail.'

  Allard was an American. He did not seem part of the club. Even for a vampire, there was something strange in his eyes. Kate was suddenly aware again that it was a long time since she had fed. Her heart felt like a concrete lump.

  As the Captain picked up the telephone, Algy said, 'Come on, no need for that.'

  Allard ignored Algy.

  'Wing, Allard, Maranique,' he said, not wasting words. 'Cundall's patrol is missing. We have to assume they're lost.'

  A voice at the other end crackled.

  'Yes,' Allard said. 'All of them.'

  Ginger, Algy and Bertie were disgusted. It was bad form to say such things, as if talking out loud made the loss more likely. If Allard were not so blunt, they'd blithely expect their friends to turn up, a little bruised, with exciting yarns of hairsbreadth escapes and daring wheezes.

  Allard replaced the telephone. On a blackboard were listed the names of pilots, the serial numbers of aeroplanes, and a tally of individual victories. Several columns already ended with a chalked word, 'lost'. A column was not wiped out until a loss was confirmed. Allard wrote 'lost' against columns headed 'Ball', 'Bigglesworth', 'Brown', 'Courtney', 'Cundall' and 'Williamson'. His chalk scratched and skittered, setting Kate's sharpened teeth on edge.

  'Don't forget Courtney's supercargo,' Ginger said, gloomily.

  Allard nodded, acknowledging his omission but implying he had already thought of it. He chalked a new name on the board. 'Winthrop'.

  'Some hero from Diogenes,' Bertie explained. 'Poor blighter. First time up and he gets shot down.'

  Kate almost said something but thought better of it. Dravot's fixed expression did not change. She knew the sergeant must feel as keenly as it was possible for him to feel that he had not done his duty. He was supposed to protect Charles's protege and had been unable to do so. If anything could hurt Dravot, that would be it.

  When they had parted in Amiens, there had been something unfinished between her and Edwin. What was he doing in the air anyway? He was a staff officer, one of those stay-at-home souls never exposed to fire and blood.

  'It'll be a devil of a job to replace that little lot,' Ginger said, contemplating the blackboard. There were more 'lost' columns than active pilots. 'Probably have to haul in a whole flight of Yanks. No offence, Allard. It just won't be the same.'

  'Don't learn their names,' Allard said.

  Ginger was devastated by the advice.

  Kate had known too many truly dead, in the Terror and now in the war, to be entitled to feel any especial loss. But entitlement meant little. She had not earned the right to mourn, but she did. Her heart, starved of blood, ached.

  24

  Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire

  Too exhausted to stay awake, too hurt to sleep, Winthrop hung on the wall like the Sunday joint. The pain in his shoulders, neck and knee was still sharp, but otherwise he was numb. His mind drifted, his senses slurred.

  He and Ball were not immediately to be cut up and eaten. The troglodytes sat on their coffins and talked among themselves. Each retold his history as if blessing a class of children with a favourite fairy tale. Jules, an Austrian, recounted the story of his original separation from his unit. He had braved many perils before joining up with the tribe. Jim, the Frenchman, chipped in with his own variation on the theme, of desertion to escape the stake after ringleading a mutiny against General Mireau. Jim bitterly recalled the erosion of his patriotic fervour with each fresh injustice, inequity and corruption.

  Winthrop shifted on his hook. Shards of pain speared through his shoulders. He bit back his impulse to yelp.

  He could not pay attention to the deserters. Stories of privation, desolation and horror became scrambled and monotonous. Perhaps the narratives were embroidered with each retelling, incorporating favoured incidents from the stories of those who had passed on.

  Though savage and socialist, there was order in this vampire community. Mellors said there were no ranks, but others deferred to him. He was called to arbitrate in disputes, to decide courses of action, to pass judgement on the likeliness of a particular anecdote. Had it not been for his counsel, the troglodytes would have torn Winthrop to scraps on the spot rather than husbanded him against future need.

  Mellors was chieftain and the snouted Svejk his Holy Fool. After the story-telling, Svejk got up and acted out a story his audience already knew, the saga of the capture of the burned men from the sky, eliciting harsh laughter by aping the crooked Ball and the upright Winthrop. The creature had Ball's mangled voice exactly, and provoked howls of humour with his imitation.

  Ball's eyes were red and awake in the blackened mask of his face.

  When Svejk had finished his performance, Mellors stood up and walked over to the prisoners. He looked at Winthrop's swollen knee.

  'Nasty twist,' he said, not cruelly. 'But nothing broken.'

  He unlaced Winthrop's remaining flying boot and wriggled it off, then stripped away the thick, stiff socks. After being hung, Winthrop could not feel his feet but he saw them as purple and bulging.

  'The blood has rushed to your feet,' Mellors said, prodding an engorged toe. 'Perfect.'

  Mellors sprouted a barb from his thumb and pricked Winthrop's foot. There was a tingling and a dribbling gout of blood.

  'There's a taste for everyone, lads. Queue up for your char.'

  Svejk was first, lifting his gas mask for a quick guzzle. Winthrop felt a warm wetness on his foot. And sharp little prickles. By turns, the troglodytes came forward to lap his blood.

  He had known vampires, of course. But he'd never before given blood. This was not what he had imagined. This was not pleasure or sharing. He had thought he might catch the eye of an elder and offer her his neck. Kate Reed seemed an interesting prospect. Or perhaps he and Catriona would turn simultaneously, tasting each other in a red communion. There would be fluttering curtains and moonlight, and tiny points of p
ain in a pool of pleasant submission.

  Mouths battened on his feet, teeth tore, and his blood leaked. As he lost blood, there was less pain. His arms were ice-cold, his hands nerveless stone appendages.

  Mellors looked up at him as the troglodytes fed.

  'It's just nature,' the vampire explained. 'You can't complain of nature.'

  If one of the creatures was in danger of supping too deeply, Mellors detached him and shoved him back to the pack.

  'Hold steady, Raleigh. Not too greedy, now. Leave something for Voerman.'

  A mad-eyed English subaltern made way for a young German with a long tongue. There was a doggy malleability to the tribe. They were probably a good fighting force. Winthrop felt as if his foot had been laid open to the bone by razors of ice. Finally, it was over.

  Winthrop hung, drained and cold. One of the troglodytes produced a medical kit and expertly bandaged Winthrop's feet. As an afterthought, he took a poke at the knee, digging out fragments of grit, and bound it up tightly. When the medicine man had finished, he and Mellors were the only creatures out of their coffins. The others, fed if not satisfied, lay insensible under blankets or planks.

  Mellors dismissed the doctor and checked Winthrop's wrists. With his full weight on the hook, he was not able to lift himself up and free. Ball hung like dried meat, twisted back and arms giving him a crucified appearance. His exposed eyes were unmoving. Satisfied, Mellors retreated to his coffin, hauling his camouflage cloak around him. In an instant, he was sleeping like a dead man. Winthrop fought exhaustion. His body weighed several tons. It dragged his mind down into the depths.

  A stab of pain cut through his drowsiness. A barb gouged his wrist. The fires had burned to embers, lending the troglodytes' cavern a red-lit, infernal glow. The creatures lay unmoving in their coffins. Winthrop had no way of knowing what time, or what day, it was.

  Something was moving. Unable to turn his neck, he swivelled his eyes, looking as far as possible to his left and right. Rats could not climb up to where he hung.

  Ball was contorted on his hook. Winthrop realised the pilot's eyes were open and his mouth red. He had hauled himself up, further bending his already bent arms, turning on his side to press his hip to the wall. He had got his teeth to the twine around his wrists. No, he had got his teeth to his wrists.

  Ball saw Winthrop was awake and gave a deliberate, silent nod. His mouth scraped at his left wrist, peeling back cooked skin to show red flesh. He chewed white tendons and exposed bone. As Ball bit deeper into himself, vampire blood dripped to the floor. Svejk snorted in his sleep. Ball was still for a moment, awaiting an attack, but renewed his efforts.

  Winthrop felt useless. There was nothing he could do. The meat was gnawed away from Ball's wrist. His skeleton hand, gloved in flesh, flexed into a fist. The twine loop was loose but unbroken. Silver wire glinted inside the string. Only in this war would chandlers manufacture rope specifically for binding the nosferatu.

  Ball hung on to the hook with his right hand. Setting his red teeth together in a jagged grin, cheek-muscles clenching with determination, the pilot pulled sharply, lodging twine between the bones of his left wrist, and swallowed a groan. The fist opened like a starfish, sticking out dead fingers. An artery gushed. Ball tugged again and the hand came off, falling with a wet smack to the ground. Blood welled from the stump. Ball, free, hung from the hook, twisting his legs in agony.

  Even Winthrop smelled the rich vampire blood. Troglodytes stirred in their slumbers, nostrils twitching, mouths watering, claws scratching lids. When he let go of the hook, Ball did not so much fall as slide down the wall. For an instant, Winthrop was afraid his comrade had exerted himself so much that the shock of clumping against the earth had knocked him unconscious.

  Ball held his stump with his unhurt hand. Blood oozed between his fingers. Shamefully, he dipped his head and licked his wound, sucking his own juice like Isolde at the Theatre Raoul Privache. It was a perverse act among vampires, but clearly brought relief.

  A troglodyte sat up stiff as a board, fencepost fangs sprouting from his mouth. It was Plumpick, a mad Scot with gentle eyes.

  With a loose-limbed, liquid movement, Ball stabbed Plumpick's chest with his stump. The jagged edge of bone sank through the ribs and pierced the heart. Life died in the deserter's eyes and teeth crumbled like humbugs in his mouth. The weight of the dead vampire dragged Ball over and he was fixed in place over Plumpick's coffin.

  With a quick fist-clench, Ball snapped his arm at the elbow and pulled free, leaving the spars of his forearm bones stuck through Plumpick's heart. He was coming apart fast.

  Winthrop writhed on his hook, trying to edge up the wall with his shoulders and back. He knew he could not hope to duplicate Ball's stunt.

  Ball silently and swiftly crossed the cavern, weaving between coffins, and stood before Winthrop. A man of his undead strength could easily take Winthrop by the hips and lift him bodily off the hook. A man of Ball's undead strength with two arms, that was.

  It was awkward. Ball slipped his remaining arm between Winthrop's legs and made his hand into a seat which he jammed upwards. The slight, bent man stood up as straight as he could, making of his spine and arm a column which hoisted.

  His bound wrists unhooked from their perch. His arms flopped down behind him and his whole weight fell on Ball, who staggered forward and bent at the waist. In a tumble, Winthrop landed on dirt. His hands were on fire and his bandaged feet stung.

  Other troglodytes stirred. Ball, with no regard for injury, scooped up a fistful of red embers from a fire drum and tossed it into Svejk's coffin. A nest of straw caught fire in an instant. The Bohemian hopped and yelped in the smoke.

  Winthrop wriggled like a worm. He twisted his wrists round to free himself from the barbed wire. The damned stuff came off in a curl, leaving scabby stigmata on his wrists. He found his boots and hauled one on, ignoring the pain in his knee, then hopped upright and thrust his foot into the other.

  Ball had a firebrand and was waving it from side to side, keeping the troglodytes back. Mellors was up, furious but amused.

  Winthrop and Ball had their backs to the tunnel through which they had come. If they turned and ran, the troglodytes would bear down on them and rend them a part. But if they stayed where they were, Ball's torch would soon go out.

  Mellors hissed curses in Derbyshire dialect. Surprisingly, Ball returned the favour in kind. Svejk rolled in the dust, stifling the flames that licked around his bulk. His coffin still burned.

  Winthrop saw the opportunity. Shoving the surprised Ball from behind with his shoulder, he pushed vampire and torch into the faces of the troglodytes, who cringed backwards. Winthrop advanced and took hold of the casket of burning straw, which he pitched upwards, scattering fiery matter across the cavern.

  Ball got the idea and touched the torch to the nearest troglodyte, Raleigh. A dirt-starched uniform caught light in an instant, fire swarming up to a bird's-nest beard and long straggle of hair. A high-pitched screech burst from the vampire. In torment, he ran back to his fellows, colliding with them, tripping over coffins, spreading fire.

  The netting hanging from the cavern roof caught. Flames swarmed over the mural. The paper elements of the collage burned in flashes. A heated case in a corner exploded, stored bullets popping. Winthrop took to his heels, dragging Ball away from the cavern. They ran upwards.

  25

  Dressing Down

  'You are aware that under DORA it would be quite in order for me to have you shot,' Beauregard told Kate, meaning it. Under the Defence of the Realm Act, practically any lawfully constituted minion of Lord Ruthven had the gift of life and death over any civilian. 'Really, what were you thinking? If you were thinking?'

  There was too much other grief to be dealt with in this sideshow, but here he was, lecturing like a cross schoolmaster. Kate looked groundwards and twitched her tiny nose.

  'And it's no use impersonating a Beatrix Potter rabbit on the brink of tears. Miss Reed. Remember, I've
known you ever since you were as wet behind the ears as you like the warm to think. You're fifty-five this year, dead girl.'

  She tried a feeble fanged smile.

  'There's no excuse,' he concluded.

  As he dressed the reporter down, he was aware of Dravot's cold, deep-buried fury. The sergeant would cheerfully cut Kate's head off and use it for a football.

  The mess at Maranique was not crowded. Surplus pilots had beetled off to their coffins for the day. Only Allard, the acting CO, was left to face the inevitable enquiries. On the squadron roster, the word 'lost' was chalked by the names of the men who had gone out but not come back.

  Furious as Beauregard was with Kate, he was angrier with Winthrop. He had no business going up and getting shot down. After Spenser, he was the Diogenes Club's second crack-up of the young year. Something in this duty sent men off their heads.

  Allard sat, scarf over his face against the sunlight that flooded through windowpanes, wide-brimmed hat pulled down. He seemed all beaky nose and penetrating eyes.

  'There is no hope?' Beauregard asked.

  'I've telephoned every other field in the line,' said Allard. 'It was possible some of the patrol might have come down somewhere else. That did not happen. Major Cundall's flight is lost.'

  Beauregard shook his head and damned himself for a fool. Every one of the dead men could blame him.

  'Might they be prisoners?' Kate put in.

  'The Germans have claimed the victories,' said Allard. 'They have the serial numbers. It is almost certain they will be confirmed. They claim kills, not captures.'

  'That's remarkably swift.'

  'It usually takes a day or so, but they were right off the mark. The RE8 is claimed by Manfred von Richthofen. A package of personal items was dropped on the field at dawn. Courtney's watch and cigarette case.'