Walk in Hell

"Puke is one thing," Dudley answered. "Getting blood out of a cockpit is a whole different business. But you know about that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know about that." Moss remembered Percy Stone, his observer. He remembered how much blood had splashed Stone's cockpit after he'd been wounded. He'd heard Stone had lived, but the photographer still hadn't returned to duty.

Enough thick wool blankets stood on Moss' cot to have denuded half the sheep in Canada. Living under canvas in Canada wasn't easy half the year. It was, however, a hell of a lot easier than living in the trenches. Aviators who groused too much about how tough they had it sometimes got handed a Springfield, which did wonders for shutting them up.

He took off his boots, burrowed under the blankets like a mole, and fell asleep. Waking up in gray twilight the next morning was something he would sooner have skipped. He gulped coffee and aspirin tablets and began to feel human, in a somber sort of way. Tom I

Sure enough, the day dawned clear. The pilots swaddled themselves in the leather and fur of their flying suits. It was cold at altitude even in scorching midsummer; during the worst of winter, the flying suits rarely came off. Moving slowly-bending your knees wasn't easy with all that padding around them-they went out to their aeroplanes.

Groundcrew men had already removed the canvas covers from the Martin one-deckers: U.S. copies of a German design. Also copied from the Fokker monoplane was the interrupter gear that let a forward-facing machine gun fire through the spi

Clumsily, Moss climbed into the cockpit. A couple of bullet holes in the side of the fuselage from his most recent encounter with an enemy aeroplane had been neatly patched. The machine could take punishment. Had the bullets torn through his soft, vulnerable flesh, he would have spent much longer in the shop.

He nodded to a mechanic standing by the propeller. The fellow, his breath smoking in the cold morning air, spun the two-bladed wooden prop. After a couple of tries, the engine caught. Moss studied his instruments. He had plenty of gas and oil, and the pumps for both seemed to be working well. He tapped his compass to make sure the needle hadn't frozen to its case.

When he was satisfied, he waved. The airstrip was full of the growl of motors turning over. Dud Dudley looked around to make sure everyone in his flight had a functioning machine, then taxied across the field-ruts through gray-brown dead grass. Moss followed, watching his ground speed. He pulled back on the joystick, lifting the fighting scout's nose. The aeroplane bounced a couple of more times. After the second bounce, it didn't come down.

He climbed as quickly as he could, going into formation behind his flight leader and to his left. Zach Whitby held the same place relative to him as he did to Dudley. On the right, Tom I

Down in the trenches, men huddled against cold and mud and frost. The line ran from southeast to northwest between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Behind it, on land the United States had had to fight to win, everything had been wrecked by stubborn Canadian and British defense and equally stubborn American attacks. On the other side, the terrain still showed what a fine country this was.

Machine guns spat fire at the aeroplanes from the enemy's trenches. That was futile; machine-gun bullets reached only a couple of thousand feet, and the Martin single-deckers flew a good deal higher. But soon Canadian and British Archibald-or Archie, as he was more familiarly known-would start putting antiaircraft shells all around them. A lucky hit could bring down an aeroplane. Moss knew that, as he knew of a thousand other ways he could die up here. He did his best to forget what he knew.

Dud Dudley wagged his wings to draw the flight's attention. He pointed to the south. The enemy was in the air, too. There, buzzing along contentedly, as if without a care in the world, was a Canadian-or perhaps a British-two-seater, an old Avro no longer fit for front-line combat but still good enough to take a photographer over the American lines to see what he could see.

As Moss swung into a turn toward the enemy reco

On flew the Avro, straight as if on a string. That meant the observer was taking his pictures, and the pilot, a brave man, wouldn't spoil them even if he was under attack. Moss knew what that took, since he'd piloted observation aircraft himself. He prepared to make the enemy pay for his courage.

He'd just fired his first burst when tracers streaked past him-not from the Avro, but from behind. Zach Whitby's fighting scout tumbled out of the sky, not in any controlled maneuver but diving steeply, a dead man at the controls, flame licking back from the engine. Sure as hell, the Canucks had had a surprise waiting.

Moss threw his own aeroplane into a tight rolling turn to the right. He was more maneuverable than the two-seater on his tail, but the biplane kept after him, firing straight ahead. That wasn't right-the enemy wasn't supposed to have an interrupter gear yet. And they didn't, but this enterprising chap had mounted two machine guns on his lower wing planes, outside the arc of the propeller. He couldn't reload them in flight, but while they had ammo he was dangerous any way you looked at him.

Then, all at once, he wasn't. Tom I

Moss' own turn brought him close to the decoy observation aircraft. The observer, done with photos now, blazed away at him from a ring-mounted machine gun. He fired a burst that made the observer clutch at himself and slumped the pilot over his joystick, dead or unconscious. If he was unconscious, he would die soon; his weight on the stick sent the aeroplane nosing toward the ground.

Jonathan Moss looked around for more foes. He found none. The last enemy two-seater had streaked away, and had gained enough of a lead while the Americans were otherwise engaged to make sure it would not be caught.

Got no guts, Moss thought with weary anger. But for himself and Dudley and I

Rain drummed down on the big canvas refugee tent. Here and there, it came through the canvas and made little puddles on the cold ground. One of the puddles was right in front of A

A couple of little wood-burning stoves in the open space in the middle of the tent glowed red, holding the worst of the chill at bay. One of the women who made the dreary place her home looked at a watch and said, "Five minutes to twelve."

A couple of women and girls murmured excitedly. A