The Bloody Red Baron: Anno Dracula 1918 Page 21

  Gloom spread.

  'Anything of Winthrop's?'

  Allard shook his head.

  'There can't have been much left of the lad then?'

  His born-dead boy might have grown to be a man like Edwin. Had he lived, his son might now have been a dead man like Edwin, lost to the war. He thought of Pamela, dead in childbirth, never knowing what would become of the world. And he thought of Genevieve, eternally between life and death, perhaps knowing too much.

  Kate was upset. The snooping stopped being a game when lines were drawn through the names of the dead. It was odd: she had been indignant about useless death for so long that this could not be her first practical experience of it. She had come through the Terror. She was working as an ambulance woman. She must have seen dozens die.

  'I'll talk to Mrs Harker. You'll be recalled to England. You'll be lucky to end up counting blankets in the Hebrides.'

  'It's no worse than I deserve,' she admitted.

  Beauregard was sorry. He had not expected her to give in. She could usually be depended on for an argument. As more and more lately, he was tired. At his age, this cruel game should be well behind him. But, as ever, England expected ...

  As far as could be gathered from scant reports and the German claims, Cundall's flight had made it to the Château de Malinbois and been surprised by the Flying Freak Show. It was a massacre. Six more victories for Richthofen's killers.

  'Charles, aren't we supposed to have command of the air?'

  Commander Hugh Trenchard of the Royal Flying Corps advocated a policy of offensive patrols. The skies over France were in theory so dangerous for the ordinary German flier that the German Imperial Air Service was useless as an instrument of observation.

  'Yes, Kate. On the whole, we do. In this particular engagement, pitting Condor Squadron against JG1, we have come up short.'

  'The enemy have done what you've tried to do, grouped together their best fliers, their worst killers, in one unit.'

  'You're well up on all this,' he said.

  'Condor Squadron was created to pick up intelligence about the spring offensive?'

  'A spring offensive, now there's an idea. I don't suppose you can tell me the date Dracula and Hindenburg intend to launch the attack?'

  'Don't be childish, Charles. Everybody knows there'll be an enemy offensive soon. Even Bottomley, and he thinks the war is won and the Union Jack flutters over Berlin.'

  'My apologies. I am quite tired, you understand . .

  Kate ignoring his sarcasm, continued. 'If Condor Squadron are to gather intelligence, then JG1 must be constituted to harbour it.'

  Allard laughed bitterly. 'Not necessarily. Richthofen commands a Circus. It's a show, a glamour machine. No matter how many victories they log, fighters make little difference. An unarmed spotter which brings back a clear photograph of defensive trenches can turn a battle round. The air ace is too busy adding to his score to deign to look at the ground.'

  Kate's little face scrunched in thought and she tutted. If she lost self-confidence of her looks, she was appealing in a bespectacled way. When warm, she had been Pamela's friend. Kate sometimes used expressions the women shared, which perturbed him. It was as if his truly dead wife spoke through her undead friend.

  'With respect, Captain, there must be more to it than headlines. It is all too elaborate. There is a secret purpose to JG1, just as there is a secret purpose to Condor Squadron.'

  Allard said nothing.

  'I think perhaps we should send you packing now,' Beauregard said.

  Kate's cheeks reddened. 'Am I not under arrest? Due for the stake?'

  'You'd like to be a martyr, wouldn't you?' Beauregard said. 'To what cause? The standard of the Graf von Dracula?'

  That was unfair: Kate had imperilled herself enough through the years to demonstrate opposition to Dracula. But he was still annoyed with her.

  'I certainly don't wish to die for Lord Ruthven and his kith and kind. The truth, perhaps. That might be worth spilling this vampire blood for.'

  'Oh, go away, Kate. I've not the heart for this row.'

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, Kate hugged him, face pressed to his chest. Her grip was fierce but not crushing. She measured exactly her strength.

  'I'm sorry, Charles,' she said to his collar, so low Allard and Dravot could not hear.

  His bites tingled. He held Kate to him. He remembered another vampire's arms: she reminded him of her sometimes, too. It was as if there were but one woman in the world, laughing at him from behind a dozen masks.

  'I'm sorry too, Kate.'

  Dravot had stood, ready to rip the reporter away from Beauregard and tear off her arms like a cooked chicken's wings. Beauregard motioned the sergeant to stay put.

  'I'm still having Mina Harker pull you out of this.' 'I know,' she said, patting his chest, 'it's your duty. You have your duty and I have mine. It is the curse of our generation. Duty. Remember, we are the last Victorians.'

  He was too empty to smile. Last night's losses were too terrible to shrug off.

  'Captain Allard can we find some means of transport to get Miss Reed back to her ambulance unit? Preferably something uncomfortable and undignified?'

  Allard conceded that a cart could be made available.

  'We'd better send a guard. In case she tries to make her escape.'

  Allard nodded. He had a good man in mind.

  'I'm doing you a great favour, Kate. Within the hour, we shall be answering to Mr Caleb Croft of the Prime Minister's office. You will remember the gentleman from the '80s, when he was given to placing prices on your head. Have all those insurgency charges been dropped?'

  Kate's eyes, magnified by her spectacles, goggled. A dimple of wickedness crept into her cheek.

  'I recall Mr Croft well. Does he still head the British Okhrana?'

  'Britain has no secret police,' Beauregard explained. 'Officially.'

  'Goodbye, Charles. Your loss is my loss.'

  Kate left the mess. Dravot's eyes followed her.

  'Keep her under observation,' Beauregard told Allard. 'She’s cleverer than she looks.'

  Allard nodded. He did not miss the implication.

  'Make sure your guard isn't a warm man. If you have one about, send a homosexual or a monk. On second thoughts, I wouldn't trust Kate Reed with a monk.'

  Weariness fell on Beauregard like a heavy mantle. He did not know what Croft would require of him but it was likely to be unpleasant. Old enmities lingered from the Terror. Croft's department would like to see the Diogenes Club wound up. A Whitehall school of thought held that the likes of Beauregard and Smith-Cumming were Boys' Own Paper anachronisms with no place in the harder, crueller secret wars of the twentieth century. That school did not appreciate how hard and cruel the secret wars of the nineteenth century had been.

  He had not yet written to Spenser's people. Now, he would have to compose a letter of condolence to Winthrop's family too.

  'Sir,' said Dravot.

  The sergeant's face betrayed no feeling, but Beauregard understood what a blow this would be. Dravot was not in the habit of losing officers.

  'There's no question of blame, Danny. If it rests anywhere, it must be with the dead. Major Cundall asked Winthrop if he wished to go on the flight. The mad, brave boy said yes.'

  Dravot nodded once, accepting what was said. Then, awkwardly, he produced a letter.

  'Lieutenant Winthrop gave me this.'

  Beauregard took the letter. It was addressed to Catriona Kaye, The Old Vicarage, Alder, Somerset. With a dead heart, Beauregard could imagine Catriona Kaye. And he could imagine what was in the letter.

  He hated: a directionless, all-encompassing hate. It was not enough to hate the war; he had to hate all the components of the engine that had ground up Winthrop and a million young men like him. He had to hate himself.

  'I'll see the letter is delivered,' he told Dravot.

  26

  A Walk in the Sun

  The tunnels were dark, but there
was light ahead. The sun was up outside. He propelled himself towards the glimmering. Ball stumbled in his wake, determinedly covering ground. The troglodytes, occupied with their fire, did not give immediate chase.

  As Winthrop ran, his knee hurt. The field dressing that had been applied was surprisingly sturdy. His booted feet were recovering sensation. He ignored pain.

  There were shot sounds but he did not think they were being fired on. Another ammunition case had exploded. Something howled like an animal.

  Only a few yards away now, the curtain hung over the tunnel mouth. White dots showed through the weave of camouflage netting. Once out in the sun, they should be safe. The troglodytes were newborns, not yet strong enough to stand daylight.

  And so was Albert Ball. The thought hit Winthrop just as he pushed through the curtain. It was too late to change course. He staggered, sprawling, outside and tripped, falling flat onto the pitted bottom of the shell-hole. After the dark, his eyes hurt in the milk-mild light. Blinking, he recovered quickly.

  It was a pleasant, quiet day. Not even much bombardment. The air was still sharp with February chill, but the clouds had drifted apart and the sun shone gently.

  Ball shot out of the tunnel mouth and, smitten, fell. His limbs twisted as tendons shortened, giving him the look of an ossified Pompeiian. His chest and head began to emit tendril wisps of smoke. His face contorted further and stiffened in a scream that came out only as a gasp of escaping gas. He held his hand over his face.

  Winthrop scrambled upright and ripped the curtain from the tunnel mouth. He draped it over Ball, wrapping the vampire in cool shadow. The ace's writhing stopped. Ball couldn't last long. Winthrop had seen men burst into flames on days more overcast than this. Vampires were frail immortals, he reminded himself. You had to get a good few years behind you before you could stroll in the sunshine.

  The dark cave of the tunnel mouth was alive with eyes. A cruel laugh wafted across No Man's Land. Winthrop helped Ball stand, feeling growing heat in the vampire's body.

  'Lovely day,' Mellors said. He stood in the darkness, watching his prey struggle. 'Just right for potting a few grouse.'

  Winthrop choked on smoke. He had to get Ball into shadow.

  In the tunnel mouth, Mellors raised a revolver. Winthrop pushed Ball to one side and shoved after him, getting out of the line of fire. Mellors fired a shot, which lifted a divot a dozen yards off. He could not draw a bead on them without stepping out into the killing sun.

  The troglodytes would not come out until nightfall. But Ball wouldn't be able to make any distance in the daytime. He was shaking, containing an explosion by force of will. Winthrop had a vision of the vampire bursting. He was so close to Ball that his body would be riddled with shrapnel-like bone fragments. That would, at least, be mercifully swift.

  Nearby was an isolated patch of wall, remnant of an unidentifiable building. In the lea of the wall was a deep, cool pool of dark. Winthrop gathered his strength and determination, then dragged Ball across the ground. Ball missed his footing but did not become a dead weight.

  The wall would afford a shield against fire from the tunnel mouth, but they had to dash across the open to get there. Mellors fired again, with a countryman's accuracy. A red gobbet exploded in Ball's burned-black side. It was a plain lead bullet, for the wound did not slow the pilot.

  Before the troglodyte chieftain could draw a bead on the living man, Winthrop was behind the wall, back slammed to shaking bricks. Darkness cloaked around and Ball collapsed. He tried to reach his wound with his remaining hand, but his elbow would not bend as required. Winthrop looked at the mawlike gape. Flesh and skin swarmed actively over shattered ribs. A tiny twig of new growth sprouted from the stump of Ball's lost arm, ending with a bud which might in time be a fresh hand. His healing faculties were exerted, but his wounds were too many and profound.

  Having made it behind the wall, it was hard to feel the situation much improved. They had to wait for nightfall to move on. The troglodytes would then be able to bear down on them with despatch. It was unthinkable that Winthrop leave Ball here.

  Shots thwacked against the wall, shaking the loose bricks. A few well-placed bullets and the wall would collapse on their heads. Winthrop dug out his cigarette case. He stuck two cigarettes in his mouth, lit them from his last-but-one match, and eased one between Ball's broken teeth. They sucked smoke and shook their heads.

  'Really, this is foolish. You pop off home and send back for me.'

  Winthrop coughed.

  'Not likely help would arrive in time, I admit,' Ball said. Slabs of burned face had chipped away from his soot-blackened skull. One of his eyes was burst and congealed.

  Slumped, Winthrop was overcome with weariness. He slid down the wall and hung his head. He wasn't sure he could even continue under his own steam. He had lost blood and been battered extensively. And, discounting his period of hung-up- to-dry unconsciousness, he'd not slept in nearly two days. It was also over a day since he had eaten anything.

  'I always intended to have children-in-darkness. I wanted to pass on the gift.'

  In his current state, Ball was not a good advertisement for the gift of vampirism. One of his legs was dead, broken in several places, slowly resolving itself to skin flakes, flesh dust and bone chips.

  'If I hadn't accepted the Dark Kiss, I'd have been done for when Lothar von Richthofen shot me down. I've stayed on well past my time. Now it's over.'

  Winthrop tried to contradict the pilot.

  'No, old thing. I can tell I'm done for. There's less and less of me to save, and what's left is not much worth saving.'

  'I can't go on either. I'm about done in.'

  A shot ricocheted off bricks and spanged across the crater.

  The pilot reached down to his leg and crumbled his thigh in his fingers. The skin came apart like burned paper, the muscle wafted to dust and the bone snapped into fragments like a length of chalk. A breeze scattered the dust.

  'I'm finished, Winthrop.'

  His jaw was loose at the hinges. Blood leaked from his mouth.

  'Who turned you?'

  Slug-like muscles over Ball's cheekbones twitched. Winthrop realised his lipless, fleshless face was trying to smile.

  'A girl on Brighton pier.'

  'Was she an elder?'

  He was thinking of the centuried Isolde.

  Ball shook his head. His scalp and helmet were fused into a loose, fragile covering. 'Just a new-born. An "artist's model". She said her name was Mildred.'

  Winthrop could imagine a Mildred.

  'Some vampires can regenerate entirely after decapitation.'

  Ball's larynx clicked in an approximation of laughter.

  'You're welcome to give it a bash, but I doubt you'd have much joy. I've an indifferent bloodline, I think.'

  The dying vampire sat up, crinkling his stomach. Winthrop bent his ear to listen. Ball reached out and got a grip on Winthrop's shoulder. He still had strength in his wrist.

  'There's only one way I can go on,' Ball whispered.

  Thinking he understood, Winthrop loosened his collar. He would not mind Ball drinking his blood.

  'It's too late for that.'

  Ball's teeth were loose. One or two had slipped out of their holes. His purple tongue was swollen. He let go of Winthrop's shoulder and drew a sharp, thick nail across his throat, stabbing the jugular vein. Viscid blood oozed out. It was more like a jelly than a liquid.

  Take my strength, Winthrop. What's left of it.'

  His throat rebelled at the thought. The vampire blood was strong-smelling. In shadow, it caught the sun and shone a pulsing mauve.

  'You'll be stronger. You'll take a part of me with you.'

  A cloud passed across the sun.

  'Evening draws on, my boys,' shouted Mellors.

  Ball's eye glowed. 'Winthrop, do it quickly.'

  The decision was made for him. He held up the insubstantial Ball, feeling bones dissolving inside him, and touched his tongue to the snake tr
ickle of blood. It was not the familiar, salt tang he knew. It was not human blood. A sherbet-prickle numbed his tongue, and he found himself lapping thirstily at the wound, swallowing ropy, sweet liquid.

  Ball shivered in Winthrop's embrace but his slow blood continued to flow. Then, he came apart completely. A bad taste hit Winthrop's mouth at the instant of true death. Ashes fell away from his face.

  He coughed, trying hard to keep the lumpy stuff in his stomach. His mind was cleared as if by a dose of salts. His eyes quickened, catching dozens of tiny movements. It was a sensation he associated with the early, pleasant stages of being drunk on champagne.

  Ball looked as if he had been dead and forgotten for years. He decomposed drily. His head shrivelled to a thinly parchmented skull. It was detached from the body.

  To turn vampire, you have to drink vampire blood at the same time as a vampire is drinking your blood. What he had done with Ball would not make a new-born of him. He was just like those old fools who dose themselves with vampire bloodsalts to retain their vigour. But he did feel changed. His knee ceased to trouble him, and the wire-gouges on his wrists healed over. His weariness was washed away and his hunger soothed.

  'Come, civil night, thou sober-suited matron, all in black,' quoted Mellors.

  'Romeo and Juliet, very good for a grammar school oik.'

  'Which of you said that?'

  It was strange: as if Albert Ball had spoken through Edwin Winthrop. In his mind, Winthrop remembered flying. Not his own memories, but those of the vampire.

  'Both of us, Mellors, and a very good day to you.'

  Winthrop stood up and stepped out of the shadow, keeping the wall still between him and the cave mouth. Sunlight did not hurt him, though his face tingled as if he had the beginnings of a tan.

  'Ah, it's Winthrop, the observer. Do you plan to run off and leave your comrade. Surely, that's not cricket, not the school spirit.'

  'Ball is dead,' he said, not sure.

  There was no answer. Then, a shot dislodged some bricks.