The Burning Shore

Sky and cloud and patches of earth, interspersed with bright-coloured Albatroses with flickering, chattering guns, spun through Michael's field of vision in dizzying array. He felt another blow, this time in his leg, just below the fork of his crotch. He looked down and saw that a burst had come up through the floor, and a bullet, misshapen and deformed, had ripped through his thigh.

Blood pumped from it in bright arterial jets. He had seen a Zulu gunbearer, savaged by a wounded buffalo, bleed this way from a ruptured femoral artery; he had died in three minutes.

Streams of machine-gun fire were still coming in at him from every angle, and he could not defend himself for his aircraft was out of control, flicking through the turns of the spin, throwing her nose up viciously, and then dropping it again in that sava e rhythm.

Michael fought her, thrusting on opposite rudder to try to break the pattern of her rotation, and at the exertion the blood pumped more strongly from his torn thigh and he felt the first giddy weakness in his head. He dropped one hand from the joystick and thrust his thumb into his groin, seeking the pressure point, and the great pulsing red spurts shrivelled as he found it.

Again he coaxed the maimed aircraft, stick forward to stop that high-nose attitude, and a burst of throttle to power her out of the spin. She responded reluctantly, and he tried not to think about the machine-gun fire that tore at him from every side.

The clouds and earth stopped revolving about him, as her tight turns slowed and she dropped straight. Then with one hand only he pulled her nose up and felt the overstressing of her wings and the suck of gravity in his belly, but at last the world tilted before his eyes as she came back on to an even keel.

He glanced in the mirror and saw that the blue Albatros had found him again and was pressing in close on his tailplane for the coup de grdce.

Before that dreadful rattling chatter of the Spandau could begin again, Michael felt the cold damp rush across his face as grey streamers of cloud blew over the open cockpit, and then the light was blotted out and he was into a dim, blind world, a quiet, muted world where the Spandaus could no longer desecrate the silences of the sky. They could not find him in the clouds.

Automatically his eyes fastened on the tiny glycerinefilled glass tubes set on the dashboard in front of him, and with small controlled adjustments he aligned the bubbles in the tubes within their markers so that the SE5a. was flying straight and level through the cloud. The be turned her gently on to a compass heading for Mort Homme.

He wanted to be sick, that was his first reaction from terror and the stress of combat. He swallowed and panted to control it, and then he felt the weakness come at him again. It was as though a bat was trapped in his skull.

The dark soft wings beat behind his eyes and his vision faded in patches.

He blinked away the darkness and looked down. His thumb was still thrust into his own groin, but he had never seen so much blood. His hand was coated, his fingers sticky with it. The sleeve of his jacket was soaked to the elbow. Blood had turned his breeches into a sodden mass and it had run down into his boots. There were pools of blood on the floor of the cockpit, already congealing into lumps like blackcurrant jam, and snakes of it slithering back and forth with each movement of the machine.

He let go of the stick for a moment, leaned forward against his shoulder straps and groped behind his back.

He found the other bullet wound, three inches to the side of his spine and just above the girdle of his pelvis. There was no exit wound. It was still in there and he was bleeding internally, he was certain of it. There was a swollen, stretched feeling in his belly as his stomach cavity filled with blood.

The machine dropped a wing, and he snatched for the joystick to level her, but it took him many seconds to make the simple adjustment. His fingers prickled with pins and needles, and he felt very cold. His reactions were slowing down, so that each movement, no matter how small, was becoming an effort.

However, there was no pain, just a numbness that spread down from the small of his back to his knees. He removed his thumb to test the wound in his thigh, and immediately there was a full spray of bright blood from it like a flamingo's feather, and hastily he stopped it again and concentrated on his flying instruments.

How long to reach Mort Homme? He tried to work it out, but his brain was slow and muzzy. Nine minutes from Cantin, he reckoned, how long had he been flying?

He did not know, and he rolled his wrist so that he could see his watch. He found he had to count the divisions on the dial like a child.

Don't want to come out of the cloud too soon, they'll be waiting for me, he thought heavily, and the dial of his wristwatch multiplied before his eyes.

Double vision, he realized.

Quickly he looked ahead, and the silver clouds billowed around him, and he had the sensation of falling. He almost lurched at the stick to counteract it, but his training restrained him and he checked the bubbles in his artificial horizon, they were still aligned. His senses were tricking him, Centaine, he said suddenly, what time is it? I'm going to be late for the wedding. He felt panic surface through the swamp of his weakness, and the wings of darkness beat more frantically behind his eyes.

I promised her. I swore an oath! He checked his watch.

Six minutes past four, that's impossible, he thought wildly. Bloody watch is wrong. He was losing track of reality.

The SE5a burst out of the cloud into one of the holes in the layer.

Michael flung up his hand to protect his eyes from the brilliance of the light, and then looked around him.

He was on the correct heading for the airfield, he recognized the road and railway line and the star-shaped field between them. Another six minutes flying, he calculated. The sight of the earth had orientated him again. He took a grip on the real world and looked upwards. He saw them there, circling like vultures above the lion kill, waiting for him to emerge from the cloud. They had spotted him, he saw them turn towards him on their rainbow-coloured wings, but he plunged into the cloud on the far side of the opening, and the cold wet billows enfolded him, bid him from their cruel eyes.

I've got to keep my promise, he mumbled. The loss of contact with the earth confused him. He felt the waves of vertigo wash over him again. He let the SESa sink slowly down through the layer of cloud, and once again came out into the light. There was all the familiar country side below him, the ridges and the battle lines far behind him, the woods and the village and the church spire ahead, so peaceful and idyllic.

Centaine, I'm coming home, he thought, and a terrible weariness fell over him, its great weight seemed to smother him and crush him down in the cockpit.

He rolled his head and he saw the chAteau. Its pink roof was a beacon, drawing him irresistibly, the nose of his aircraft turned towards it seemingly without his bidding.

Centaine, he whispered. I'm coming, wait for me, I'm coming. And the darkness drew in upon him, so that it seemed that he was receding into a long tu

There was a roaring in his ears, like the sound of surf heard in a seashell, and he concentrated with all his remaining strength, staring down the ever-narrowing tu

Centaine, where are you? Oh God, where are you, my love?

Centaine stood before the heavy mirror in its walnut and gilt frame, and she looked at her reflection with dark and serious eyes.

Tomorrow I will be Madame Michel Courtney, she said solemnly, never again Centaine de Thiry. Isn't that a formidable thought, A