Heaven Is Too Far Away, Chapter One. Louis Shalako.

 

My first novel, which involved a lot of lucid day-dreaming...

 

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased; or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination.

 

 

Chapter One

 

S.E.5s over Valenciennes

 

 

 

Major Jenkins and I were climbing, full throttle, at 14,000 feet. We were heading southeast over Valenciennes.

The major waggled his wings. Enemy in sight. The signal, four fingers straight up.

He pointed left and down. We could see them through the patches of white vapor, like minnows swimming in a pool of crystalline mountain spring-water.

I gave him a nod and we kept climbing. Obscured by a thin layer of cloud, they were going west about 2,500 feet below. A couple more seconds now. I concentrated on keeping above and to his right, just close enough. I couldn’t drift too far back or I wouldn’t be able to see his signals.

Mad Dog glanced over. Holding the stick with both hands, ready to check the throttle, I watched him roll into a split-S. He must have been concerned about the inexperienced newcomer behind him. People always underestimate me.

“Don’t you worry, I’m right on you.”

We had the sun at our backs. On to the foes. Four Albatros D-III’s, from a rather colorful unit we were all too familiar with. We had a score to settle. This was only my sixteenth patrol in a single-seat fighter.

“Focus, lad, focus.”

The voice of my first instructor rattled in my head and it was well.

A sudden burst of smoke from Mad Dog’s plane startled me, but it was his guns. I could smell it. It was reassuring. Flying fifty yards behind as we plummeted, I kept in a good position. I had to follow the major and be able to see the bad guys too. One of the enemy aircraft, the one at the right and rear of the formation, burst into flames. It just dropped away. It folded up and started to burn.

This was the worst part, for some reason. It’s like being caught cheating by the income tax people. A real gut-wrenching feeling.

My engine was screaming. The airspeed indicator needle was getting close to the red.

I throttled back a microscopic fraction of an inch.

I crossed behind Mad Dog to fire at the second plane in from the far side. I don’t know if I got any hits. I was at extreme range. Altimeter 9,800 feet. Mad Dog was pulling away.

The wild, white-rimmed eyes of a terrified human being pleaded in silent supplication.

“You bastards killed my buddy.” I bellowed, plunging vertically towards him.

I doubt if he was listening. The airframe juddered from the recoil, and I could see tracers smashing into the center of the looming target. There were a lot of struts and wires, but not much to hit. Nothing really significant happened.

I was doing two-fifty-plus. It’s pretty exciting, diving at the earth while craning the head around to look for pursuit. The altimeter needle spun. As it went past the numbers, I tried to look and read, to figure out what it meant. It was impossible. Always looking behind.

They’re coming down now, but already Mad Dog was pulling out.

Grunting you son of a bitch, I pulled too.

He was rolling hard to the right. If we went left, the enemy would have the sun behind them.

Airspeed, a hundred-fifty miles per hour, at 11,000 feet and pulling hard in a climbing right turn.

Everyone was firing all at once. They came down, a pair in front and the third one was diving, but hanging back. Mad Dog pulled even harder as the leading pair dove past. He rolled inverted and went after them. I was head-on with the wounded bird. Sure enough, he pulled a boner and broke up and away.

“You poor stupid bastard.”

I could hear myself, barely.

He wouldn’t get away. Not this time. Practically hanging on the prop as I gunned him, I looked around in a hurry. If we could use the clouds for ambush so could someone else.

“Damn it.”

And there they were, too. Ruptured duck, riddled with holes, snapped into a spin and a lifeless body, spewing blood and trailing something that looked suspiciously like bloody, shitty entrails, fell into endless space, but I had to get out of there.

Airspeed, ninety. A bad situation.

A hard right rudder turn flipped her and we raced for the ground. Where the hell was Mad Dog? I had six, maybe seven sets of machine guns on my tail, barely five hundred yards back. No sense in weaving until they got closer. That was a last resort. I had a need for speed. Whack.

Something hit the strut ahead of me.

Jesus help me now…little thuds from the airframe. Cringing inside of my skin.

There was a cloud due west, about 4,000 feet below, and a mile on my left. Pull, pull, pull.

Airspeed, one-seventy and accelerating, altitude, 7,000, half a mile to go, a little more left.

Zip-zip-zip, clickety-smack, somebody’s on me. Another second. God damn you all to hell. I pulled into a hard loop as soon as I got into the cloud. If the enemy was smart, they would dive below the cloud, leaving top cover to watch the edges. I hoped Mad Dog wasn’t in here.

Watching the instruments.

Over the top.

Roll out. Do it now.

Out into the open again.

Where is the enemy?

They say there are no atheists in a foxhole. There’s not too many around here either. I pray all the time up here. Believe me, boys. No one was there. Point the nose of my plane at the sun and take a hard look. Look around my clenched fist. Nothing. I want to go west. Where is the major?

“Fucking asshole.”

Weave like crazy.

Climbing into the sun in a hard right turn; when suddenly a plane appeared on the right. For some reason I was looking in every direction but that one. There was no one about, and then he just popped up. It gave me quite a shock, but then I saw it was my leader, the well-known Major Frederick Mad Dog Jenkins.

I breathed again, deeply.

He grinned, presumably, for his mask shifted perceptibly, and he shook his head in mock shame. He held up two fingers. Then he tapped his goggles. In pantomime he licked the tip of a finger and marked one up in the air in front of his face. He pointed at me, and then gave a thumbs-up and an approving nod.

All this took but seconds. I spent the next twenty minutes scanning the sky all around. All I wanted was to get back to the aerodrome and have a really good shit. Over our own lines, suddenly we were engulfed by snarling puffs of ominous black smoke. Mad Dog sailed serenely on, and I had to resist the impulse to dive, to veer, to climb. Go anywhere but through, ‘Archie.’ It’s as safe as anyplace, actually. What you can see is scary.

It’s the ones you can’t see that will kill you every time.

It makes your skin crawl.

It ended as quickly as it began. The gunners must have rubbed the sleep from their eyes by now. The watch attached to the instrument panel showed six fifty-two a.m. as the wheels touched the soft green paddock of our ‘drome.

 

***

 

And I lived through another one. One had to admire the way Mad Dog maneuvered his plane, even on the ground. There was no hesitation, no wasted throttle blips or cranking of the rudder back and forth. Eventually, I got my machine parked beside his, which was, oddly enough; more of a reward than a confirmed kill.

He stood beside the fuselage.

“I’ll give the report. Off you go and wash your face, get a hot cup of tea into you.”

“Yes, sir,” I said tiredly, sweat cooling in the armpits and down my chest where the little rivers ran, even in the bitter cold of the upper air.

“We can fill in the details later,” he said, not unkindly.

He gazed at my face for a moment. I was busy taking off my headgear, and wanted to talk to the crew.

“That was a good landing.” This before turning away, his dark and sardonic face clouded by doubts.

I liked the major. He was a nice guy. Too bad he got killed about ten or twelve weeks later, I’m not sure exactly when. He taught me a lot.

My aircraft fitter and engine mechanic came over to the side of the plane to help me out of the cramped and confined cockpit. When you’re in it, you can get at everything pretty easily. When you see those big feet coming out of that little hole, knocking a clump of dried mud off going past the control stick, you realize just how small it all really is. Funny, the little things you remember.

“Careful. The safety’s on, but you never know.” These were my boys, who were probably five and ten years older than I.

Watson was always a little impatient. He was a former businessman, and had probably employed guys my age as junior clerks.

“Yes, sir. We know the drill, sir.”

He must have hated calling me sir.

I wanted to slap him on the shoulder, help him to like me in some way. It would just make him more uncomfortable. He could never respect me. Never even bothered to ask why, either. It didn’t matter. Not really. He did his job.

I turned to Smitty, a more easy character.

“Well, we got one anyway. Thanks for your help, gentlemen.”

That sounded awfully cool, or flip. Or whatever. The working-class Englishmen had their own set of slang. It was quite distinct from the school-boys on the squadron. The pilots I mean.

As I walked towards the latrine there was one muttered oath and Smitty’s quick rejoinder.

“I’m sure it was kindly meant. And he did say he got one of the buggers.”

I ain’t exactly a gentleman either. Seated on the wooden bench over a rather frigid, yet still stinking hole in the ground, I pondered my own fate, and that of the other guy.

“Better than the infantry,” said the bleary-eyed pilot next to me. “At least we have a fucking roof over our shit house.”

His name eluded me.

“How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they’ve seen Paree?” I asked, and his laugh had the stench of early-morning alcohol. “You going to be all right?”

He was up for the next patrol.

“Of course. I have a little something in my boot.” He replied.

His tone clearly implied mind your own business.

It takes time to get to know these fellows.

Sometimes the people around you are more difficult to understand than the enemy.

“I’ll take your spot. I feel lucky today. I think I’ll get me another one.”

I didn’t mean to offend the guy, ill as he was.

“I’m just a little hung over, old cock.” He retorted, in no way mollified.

At least we got to throw a shit together. He was a nice guy. Too bad he got killed on the mission. I wish I could have said something. What, I don’t know. Something.

Anything. And you wish you had taken the time to get to know them a little better.

When I got to the office, the adjutant had some papers to sign, and he congratulated me on my victory.

“The poor fucker was already dead.”

He crossed out Albatros and wrote in Fokker. A combat incident report.

For some reason the words already dead, repeated in my mind.

“Wouldn’t worry about it, old chap,” he said wryly. “No one actually reads them anyway.”

Now, I knew that wasn’t true, having read a few of them myself, before becoming a flying officer. As an observer, you want to know what’s going on. Even if you have no control over the machine, or your fate.

It helps when you go to brief your pilot.

“It was a mistake to leave myself vulnerable, with no airspeed,” I allowed.

“Probably,” he agreed. “But it’s never a mistake to fire your guns at the enemy. Remember what Nelson said before Trafalgar…?”

“Don’t give up the ship?” I joked.

“No. I believe he said, whoever lays his ship alongside of the enemy, shall be considered to have done his duty.”

I gave him a goofy grin.

“When in doubt, ram?” I asked.

He chuckled at that one. The bottle came out.

“The Old Man’s pleased. That’s all that really matters.” He reckoned, shoving a small glass of liquor over the desk.

He put his cavalry boots up on the scarred surface and picked up another page.

Over the top of it, he surveyed me through his pince-nez, squinting through the bluish smoke from a thin cheroot. Grey eyes, thick eyebrows. Wrinkled forehead, crow’s feet.

“Did you hear the one about the admiral? Oh well, the punch line is, I’m sorry sir, I don’t think we have enough flags for that one…?”

I was giddy, for no particular reason.

“No. Tell it in the mess sometime. I promise I won’t ruin it.” He grimaced as the liquor halted suddenly in his stomach.

I slumped a little more in the chair. The booze burned its way down my throat.

“What the heck is that stuff?” I murmured.

No reply. Apparently, he had a lot of paperwork.

“You’ll be flying with B Flight tomorrow.” He advised. “The Old Man asked me to tell you. He has to take a couple of the new boys up.”

That was good, up to a point. The first squadron I had been posted to, they never did get around to assigning me to a Flight. Although I did get in a few missions, I was bumped so somebody’s brother could fly with them.

That may have been a mistake, but maybe he felt differently about his brother.

I told my brothers to stay home.

“Thanks.”

I stood up.

“Have something to eat and have a good nap, this afternoon.” He suggested.

“Yes, sir.” I said.

“Run along and see Dinwiddie, or if he’s not there, Singh is sort of his unofficial deputy,” the adjutant said, waving me away.

I was only half listening.

“Singh is the one with the turban.” He smiled.

For some reason I didn’t laugh.

I remember thinking, I’m still alive, and tomorrow is another day.

Still, the thought of going up with anyone but the major was enough to cause some nervousness. At least the major could fly.

When I got back to the hangar, the plane was already in the process of repair.

“A hundred and thirteen holes in the lower wing.” Smitty. “That’s not a problem, but the strut will take a while to fix.”

“A hundred and thirteen.” I gaped. “You’re shitting me.”

Watson seemed in a better mood now. He beckoned me over, and pointed at the strut, shattered by the impact of a bullet. His inquisitive blue eyes gleamed in mischief.

“That must have missed your ear by a half a fucking inch.” He grinned, showing a gap between his upper front teeth.

From the faint aroma on his breath, he had been eating garlic-sausage. Oddly enough, it reminded me of a certain girl I knew, briefly, when I was growing up in Canada. Was it only a year ago? No, a year and a half. Two years? Fuck it.

“I’ve been posted to B Flight.” I announced. “I hear Dinwiddie is a stickler for the book, so I doubt if I’ll get to fly this one again.”

I didn’t give a shit if he liked me. He was a good mechanic, and that was worth putting up with some crap.

“It’s not my place to comment, sir.” So quipped Watson with a funny little gleam in his eye.

“You’ve worked with him before?” I asked.

“Actually, no.” Allowed Watson.

“We’ve worked for him.” Noted Smitty with a certain emphasis.

“It’s been a pleasure, and I hope my next machine is as well-prepared.” I said it a trifle awkwardly.

“Thank you sir.” In unison, and then they looked at each other.

“The cook has just oodles and oodles of bacon and eggs for you,” Smitty said.

They were good lads.

 

END

 

Images. Louis, mostly public domain or stolen from the internet.

 

Louis has books and stories available from Kobo. He’s got some art on Fine Art America.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Aircraft_Factory_S.E.5#/media/File:SE5A_at_Old_Warden.jpg