The Two-Headed Eagle

“Might I request that comment in writing, if you wish me to convey it to my commanding officer?” I said, as stiffly as I could. “You understand I’m sure: duels and courts of honour and all that sort of thing.”

The Adjutant smiled. “Certainly. There’s a note under the saddle springs already. As for duels between our CO and yours, I doubt very much whether it’d ever come to that. But if it did I certainly know where I’d place my bet.”

I felt after this last insult that there was little point in prolonging this sour and uncomradely exchange. So I swung myself on to the bicycle— which mercifully still had rubber tyres instead of the hemp-filled canvas tubes which were now being supplied as substitutes—and pedalled away down the side road and across the railway line as instructed. Soon I was skimming along a level, poplar-fringed road among the flat maize fields of the valley bottom: one of the very few bits of the Vippaco Valley (I soon discovered) level enough for airfields. A couple of kilometres outside the town I stopped and shaded my eyes against the sun to watch the approach of an aeroplane, coming in low to land at Flik 19’s flying field. It was a Lloyd two-seater by the looks of it. As it roared overhead I saw that a good half of one of its lower wings had been reduced to a chaos of splintered ribs and tatters of trailing fabric. Dark drops plopped into the dust of the road as the aeroplane passed overhead, and one of them splashed warmly on to my forehead. Damn it! Engine oil, I thought, hoping that none had got on my clothes. I wiped it off with my handkerchief—and saw that it was not oil but blood.

I arrived at k.u.k. Fliegerfeld Caprovizza at sixteen minutes past twelve, according to my wristwatch. Not that anybody seemed to mind very much. I made my report to the duty warrant officer and was led to my quar­ters—a distinctly threadbare tent—by a private soldier. The base of Flik 19F was not at all an imposing sight: a stony stretch of more-or-less level field on the edge of the River Vippaco with four or five canvas hangars and two wooden ones under construction, a Stationskanzlei hut, a small marquee which I took to be the officers’ mess and a few rows of tents for accommodation. At the edge of the field stood a row of log-and-earth shelters whose purpose entirely escaped me. A motor lorry and one or two horse-drawn wagons stood near by; likewise a field kitchen and a couple of barrows with petrol drums for fuelling aircraft (standing dangerously near the field kitchen, I considered). The only aeroplane that I could see was a Hansa-Brandenburg two-seater being rolled out of one of the can­vas hangars. Otherwise the place seemed deserted in the midday heat that wobbled above the field, stilling even the cicadas in the riverside thick­ets and making the barren karst hills to southward appear to dance and undulate like the waves of the sea.

I put down my bags on one of the two camp-beds—the soldier obedi­ently reported that I would be sharing the tent with a certain Oberleutnant Schraffl—then washed and brushed the dust off my clothes as best I could, combed my hair and straightened my bow-tie before making for the mess tent. I found it to be deserted except for one officer in flying kit smoking a pipe with his back turned to me. The mess cook reported that di

The officer in flying kit turned round—and we both recognised one another. It was Karl Rieger, late captain in the 26 th Jager Regiment and a close friend of my elder brother Anton. We shook hands and embraced, not having met since 1912 or thereabouts. My first enquiry was after my brother, who had been missing in Serbia since August 1914, when the 26th Jagers had been wiped out in the fighting around Loznica. Since then I had questioned every survivor I could find in the faint hope that my brother might have been taken prisoner. But Rieger could offer no help: he had gone down with dysentery just after Potiorek’s army had crossed into Serbia and had been lying in a hospital bed back in Sarajevo when the regiment had gone to their doom. Having no unit left to rejoin when he came out of hospital, he had volunteered for the Fliegertruppe and had served as an officer-observer on the Russian Front before training as a pilot. He was now the recently formed Flik 19F’s “Chefpilot”: in theory the only officer in the unit apart from the Kommandant who could fly an aeroplane, since all the rest of the pilots on the strength were NCOs.

“I haven’t been here that long myself,” he said. “Only arrived last month when they split us off from Heyrowsky’s lot over at Haidenschaft. As you can see, we’re still using canvas hangars and the pens are only half finished.”

“The what? ”

“The pens: those log-and-sandbag things over on the other side.” “Please tell me—what on earth are they for? Surely you don’t expect the Italians to start shelling the place: we must be a good twenty kilome­tres behind the lines here.”

“If it was only shelling we had to worry about! They’re against the bora. It’s not too bad now in summer, but believe me, come the autumn the wind’ll be howling along this valley like anything. Flik 4 had their en­tire aircraft strength written off in five minutes last winter because they left them outside with nothing but tentpegs and a few sandbags to hold them down. One of them blew so far away they still haven’t found it. I can tell you, Mother Nature’s not going to catch us like that: we’ve taken enough losses from the Italians lately without having to worry about storm damage as well.”

“How are things on this sector then—in the air I mean?”

He drew reflectively on his pipe before answering.

“Not too bad until the past few weeks. In fact for the first twelve months of this war we had it pretty well our own way over the Isonzo: hardly saw the Italians at all, which is scarcely surprising, since I believe they came in with only about fifty serviceable planes in the whole country. But since about Easter things haven’t been so bright. They’ve been setting up aircraft factories over there like nobody’s business and buying up every­thing they can lay their hands on abroad, so now we’re pretty well equal as regards numbers. But I’m giving away no secrets if I say that the quality’s got much better on their side these past few months. I reckon our fellows have still just about got the edge, man for man. But the Italians have been getting Nieuport single-seaters from the French lately and, believe me, they’re a handful if you meet one when you’re flying one of our old furni­ture vans: nimble as a bluebottle and climb so fast you wouldn’t believe it. We’ve had a hot summer of it so far in Flik 19F: forty-one aircrew joined the unit so far, of which twenty-three killed, wounded or missing and ten aircraft written off, five in crashes and five from enemy action. But that’s enough of me rambling on, Prohaska. Tell me, what’s our newest Maria- Theresien Ritter doing honouring our humble unit with his presence?” “Sent here at short notice I’m afraid.”

“Extremely short: I was over in Kanzlei before di

I smiled. “No such luck I’m afraid: just a minor disagreement with the Marine Sektion. It looks as if I shall be off U-Boating for a while. I’m here as an officer-observer I believe, though I can fly if needed: I’ve had a licence since 1912.”

“Splendid—you’ll certainly find that useful. All the pilots except for me are rankers.”