The Burning Shore Page 4

  In the berserker’s rage, Michael’s brain was clear, his thought so swift, that time seemed to run slower and still slower. The micro-seconds as he closed with the stranded silken monster seemed to last an eternity, so that he could follow the flight of each individual bullet from the muzzle of his Vickers.

  ‘Why won’t she burn?’ he screamed the question again, and the answer came to him.

  The hydrogen atom is the lightest of all in weight. The escaping gas was rising to mingle with oxygen above the balloon. It was so obvious then, that he was shooting too low. Why hadn’t he realized it before?

  He hauled the Sopwith up on her tail, streaming his fire upwards across the swelling side of the balloon, still up until he was shooting into empty air, over the top of the balloon – and the air turned to sudden flame. As the great exhalation of fire rolled towards him, Michael kept the Sopwith climbing into the vertical and jerked the throttle closed. Without power she hung for an instant on her nose and then stalled and dropped. Michael kicked hard at the rudder bar, spinning her into the classic stall turn, and as he opened the throttle again he was headed back, directly away from the immense funeral pyre that he had created. Beneath him he caught a green flash as Andrew banked on to his wingtip in a maximum-rate turn, breaking out left, almost colliding with Michael’s undercarriage, and then hurtling away at right angles to his track.

  There was no more ground fire; the sudden acrobatics of the two attackers and the roaring pillar of burning gas entirely distracted the gunners, and Michael dropped back behind the cover of the poplar trees. Now that it was all over, his rage abated almost as swiftly as it had arisen, and he swept the skies above him, realizing that the columns of smoke would be a beacon for the Albatros Jagdstaffels. Apart from the smoke, the skies were clear, and he felt a lift of relief and looked for Andrew as he banked low over the hedgerows. There he was, a little higher than Michael, already heading back towards the ridges, but angling in to intercept him.

  They came together. Strange what comfort there was in having Andrew on his wingtip, grinning at him and shaking his head in mock disapproval of the disobeyed order to return to base and the berserker fit which had seized Michael.

  Side by side they roared low across the German front lines again, contemptuous of the splattering of fire they drew, and then as they began to climb to cross the ridge, Michael’s engine spluttered and lost power.

  He dropped towards the chalky earth, and then the engine fired again, bellowed and surged, lifting him just clear of the crest, before missing and banging unevenly once more. Andrew was still beside him, mouthing encouragement – and the engine roared again, and then missed and popped.

  Michael nursed it, pumping the throttle, fiddling with the ignition setting, and whispering to the wounded Sopwith. ‘Come on, my darling. Stick it out, old girl. Nearly home, there’s my sweetheart.’

  Then he felt something break in her body, one of the main frames shot through, and the controls went soft in his hands, and she sagged, sick unto death. ‘Hold on,’ Michael exhorted her – but suddenly there was the pungent stink of petrol in his nostrils, and he saw a thin transparent trickle of it ooze from under the engine cowling and turn to white vapour in the slipstream as it blew back past his head.

  ‘Fire.’ It was the airman’s nightmare, but the vestiges of rage were still with Michael and he murmured stubbornly, ‘We’re going home, old girl. Just a little longer.’

  They had crossed the ridges, there was flat terrain ahead, and he could already make out the dark T-shaped wood which marked the approach to the airstrip. ‘Come on, my sweetheart.’

  Beneath him there were men, out of the trenches, lining the parapets, waving and cheering as the damaged Sopwith clattered and popped close above their heads, one of its landing wheels shot away, the other dangling and slamming against its belly.

  Their faces were upturned, and he saw their open mouths as they called to him. They had heard the storm of fire that heralded the attack, and seen the great balls of burning hydrogen shoot into the sky beyond the ridges, and they knew that for a little while the torment of the guns would ease, and they cheered the returning pilots, shouting themselves hoarse.

  Michael left them behind, but their gratitude was uplifting and ahead lay all the familiar landmarks – the spire of the church, the pink roof of the château, the little knoll.

  ‘We are going to make it, my sweetheart,’ he called to the Sopwith, but under the engine cowling a dangling wire touched the metal of the engine block and a tiny blue spark arced across the gap. There was the whoosh of explosive combustion, and the white trail of vapour turned to flame. Heat washed over the open cockpit like the pressure flame from a blow lamp, and Michael instinctively flung the Sopwith into another side-flip so that the flames were pushed out obliquely away from his face and he could see ahead.

  Now he had to get her down, anywhere, anyhow, but fast, very fast, before he was cooked and charred in the burning carcass of the Sopwith. He dipped towards the field that opened ahead of him, and now his greatcoat was burning, the sleeve of his right arm smouldered and burst into flame.

  He brought the Sopwith down, holding the nose up to bleed off speed, but she hit the ground with a force that cracked his teeth together in his jaw, and instantly she pivoted on her one remaining wheel and then cartwheeled, tearing off one wing and crashing into the hedgerow that bordered the field.

  Michael’s head slammed against the edge of the cockpit, stunning him, but there were flames crackling and leaping up all around him now and he clawed himself out of the cockpit, fell on to the crumpled wing and rolled on to the muddy earth. On his hands and knees he crawled desperately away from the flaming wreckage. The burning wool of the greatcoat flared and the heat spurred him to his feet with a scream. He ripped at the buttons, trying to rid himself of the agony, running and flapping his arms, wildly, fanning the flames and making them fiercer and hotter.

  In the crackling roar of the burning wreckage, he did not even hear the galloping horse.

  The girl put the big white stallion to the hedge and they flew over it. Horse and rider landed in balance and immediately plunged forward again after the burning, screaming figure in the centre of the field. The girl unhooked her leg from the pommel of the side-saddle, and as they came up behind Michael she pulled the stallion down to a sliding halt and at the same time launched herself from his back.

  She landed with her full weight between Michael’s shoulder-blades, and both arms locked around his neck, so that he was knocked sprawling flat on his face with the girl on his back. She rolled to her feet and, whipping the thick gaberdine skirt of the riding-habit from around her waist, spread it over the burning figure at her feet. Then she dropped to her knees beside him and wrapped the voluminous skirt tightly around him, beating with her bare hands at the little tendrils of flame that escaped from around it.

  As soon as the flames were snuffed out, she pulled off her skirt and heaved Michael into a sitting position on the muddy ground. With quick fingers, she unbuttoned the smoking greatcoat and stripped it off his shoulders and flung it aside. She pulled away the smouldering jerseys – there was only one place where the flames had reached his flesh. They had burned through across his shoulder and down his arm. He cried out with the pain when she tried to pull the nightshirt away. ‘For the love of Christ!’ The cotton shirt had stuck to the burns.

  The girl leaned over him, took the cloth in her teeth and worried it until it tore. Once she had started it, she ripped it open with her hands and her expression changed. ‘Mon Dieu!’ she said, and jumped up. She stamped on the smoking greatcoat to extinguish the last of the smouldering wool.

  Michael stared at her, the agony of his burned arm receding. With her long skirt removed, her riding jacket reached only to the top of her thighs. On her feet she wore black patent-leather riding boots fastened up the sides with hooks and eyes. Her knees were bare, and the skin at the back of them was smooth and flawless as the inner lining of a nau
tilus shell, but her knee-caps were smudged with mud where she had knelt to help him. Above the knees she wore a pair of cami-knickers of a sheer material through which he could distinctly make out the sheen of her skin. The legs of the knickers were fastened above the knee with pink ribbons, and they clung to her thighs and lower body as though she were naked – no, the semi-veiled lines were even more riveting than naked flesh would have been.

  Michael felt his throat swell, so that he could not breathe, as she stooped to pick up his charred coat, and he was allowed a brief vision of her small, firm buttocks, round as a pair of ostrich eggs, gleaming palely in the early-morning light. He stared so hard, he felt his eyes begin to water and as she turned back to him, he saw in the fork framed by her hard young thighs a dark triangular shadow through the thin silk. She stood with that mesmeric shadow six inches from his nose while she spread the coat gently over his burned shoulder, murmuring to him in the tone a mother uses to a hurt child.

  Michael caught only the words ‘froid’ and ‘brûlé’. She was so close that he could smell her; the natural musk of a healthy young woman sweating with the exertion of hard riding was mingling with a perfume that smelled like dried rose petals. Michael tried to speak, to thank her, but he was shaking with shock and pain. His lips wobbled and he made a little slurring sound.

  ‘Mon pauvre,’ she cooed to him, and stepped back. Her voice was husky with concern and exertion, and she had the face of a pixie with huge dark Celtic eyes. He wondered if her ears were pointed, but they were hidden by the dark bush of her hair. It was windblown and kinked into dense springy curls. Her skin was tinted by her Celtic blood to the colour of old ivory and her eyebrows were thick and dark as her hair.

  She began to speak again, but he could not help himself, and he glanced down again to that intriguing little shadow under the silk. She saw the movement of his eyes and her cheeks glowed with a dusky rose colour as she snatched up her muddy skirts and whipped them around her waist – and Michael ached more with embarrassment at his gaffe than he did from his burns.

  The overhead roar of Andrew’s Sopwith gave them both respite and they looked up gratefully as Andrew circled the field. Painfully and unsteadily Michael clambered to his feet, as the girl settled her skirts, and he waved up at Andrew. He saw Andrew lift his hand and give him a relieved salute, then the green Sopwith circled out and came in on a straight run not higher than fifty feet above their heads – and the green scarf, with something knotted in one end, fluttered down and plunked into the mud a few yards away.

  The girl ran to it and brought it back to Michael. He unknotted the tail of the scarf and grinned lopsidedly as he brought out the silver flask. He unscrewed the stopper and lifted the flask to the sky. He saw the flash of Andrew’s white teeth in the open cockpit and the raised gauntleted hand – and then Andrew turned away towards the airfield.

  Michael lifted the flask to his lips, and swallowed twice. His eyes clouded with tears and he gasped as the heavenly liquid flowed scalding down his throat. When he lowered the flask, she was watching him, and he offered it to her.

  She shook her head, and asked seriously, ‘Anglais?’

  ‘Oui – non – Sud Africain.’ His voice shook.

  ‘Ah, vous parlez français!’ She smiled for the first time, and it was a phenomenon almost as stunning as her pearly little bottom.

  ‘A peine – hardly.’ He denied it swiftly, staving off the flood of voluble French that he knew from experience an affirmative would have brought down on his head.

  ‘You have blood.’ Her English was appalling; only when she pointed to his head did he understand what she had said. He lifted his free hand and touched the trickle of blood which had escaped from under his helmet. He inspected his smeared fingertips.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Buckets of it, I’m afraid.’

  The helmet had saved him from serious injury when his head had struck the side of the cockpit.

  ‘Pardon?’ She looked confused.

  ‘J’en ai beaucoup,’ he translated.

  ‘Ah, you do talk French.’ She clapped her hands in an endearing, childlike gesture of delight and took his arm in a proprietorial gesture.

  ‘Come,’ she ordered, and snapped her fingers for the stallion. He was cropping the grass, and pretended not to hear her.

  ‘Viens ici tout de suite, Nuage!’ She stamped her foot. ‘Come here, this instant, Cloud!’

  The stallion took another mouthful of grass to demonstrate his independence and then sidled across in leisurely fashion.

  ‘Please,’ she asked, and Michael made a stirrup of his cupped hands and boosted her up into the saddle. She was very light and agile.

  ‘Come up.’ She helped him, and he settled behind her on the stallion’s broad rump. She took one of Michael’s hands and placed it on her waist. Her flesh under his fingers was firm and he could feel the heat of it through the cloth.

  ‘Tenez, hold on!’ she instructed, and the stallion cantered towards the gate at the end of the field nearest the château.

  Michael looked back at the smoking wreckage of his Sopwith. Only the engine block remained, the wood and canvas had burned away. He felt a shadow of deep regret at her destruction – they had come a long way together.

  ‘How do you call yourself?’ the girl asked over her shoulder, and he turned back to her.

  ‘Michael – Michael Courtney.’

  ‘Michel Courtney,’ she repeated experimentally, and then, ‘I am Mademoiselle Centaine de Thiry.’

  ‘Enchanté, mademoiselle.’ Michael paused to compose his next conversational gem in his laboured schoolboy French. ‘Centaine is a strange name,’ he said, and she stiffened under his hand. He had used the word ‘drôle’, or comical. Quickly he corrected himself, ‘An exceptional name.’

  Suddenly he regretted that he had not applied himself more vigorously to his French studies; shaken and shocked as he still was, he had to concentrate hard to follow her rapid explanation.

  ‘I was born one minute after midnight on the first day of the year 1900.’ So she was seventeen years and three months old, teetering on the very brink of womanhood. Then he remembered that his own mother had been barely seventeen when he was born. The thought cheered him so much that he took another quick nip from Andrew’s flask.

  ‘You are my saviour!’ He meant it light-heartedly, but it sounded so crass that he expected her to burst into mocking laughter. Instead, she nodded seriously. The sentiment was in accord with Centaine’s own swiftly developing emotions.

  Her favourite animal, apart from Nuage the stallion, had once been a skinny mongrel puppy which she had found in the ditch, blood-smeared and shivering. She had nursed it and cherished it, and loved it until a month previously when it had died under the wheels of one of the army trucks trundling up to the front. Its death had left an aching gap in her existence. Michael was thin, almost starved-looking under all those charred and muddy clothes; apart, then, from his physical injuries, she sensed the abuse to which he had been subjected. His eyes were a marvellous clear blue, but she read in them a terrible suffering, and he shivered and trembled just as her little mongrel had.

  ‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘I will look after you.’

  The château was larger than it had seemed from the air, and much less beautiful. Most of the windows had been broken and boarded up. The walls were pocked with shell splinters, but the shell craters on the lawns had grassed over – the fighting last autumn had come within extreme artillery range of the estate, before the final push by the Allies had driven the Germans back behind the ridges again.

  The great house had a sad and neglected air, and Centaine apologized. ‘Our workmen have been taken by the army, and most of the women and all the children have fled to Paris or Amiens. We are three only.’ She raised herself in the saddle and called out sharply in a different language, ‘Anna! Come and see what I have found.’

  The woman who emerged from the vegetable gardens behind the kitchens was squat and b
road with a backside like a percheron mare and huge shapeless breasts beneath the mud-stained blouse. Her thick dark hair, streaked with grey, was pulled back into a bun on top of her head, and her face was red and round as a radish; her arms, bare to the elbows, were thick and muscular as a man’s and caked with mud. She held a bunch of turnips in one large, calloused hand.

  ‘What is it, Kleinjie – little one?’

  ‘I have saved a gallant English airman, but he is terribly wounded—’

  ‘He looks very well to me.’

  ‘Anna, don’t be such an old grouse! Come and help me. We must get him into the kitchen.’

  The two of them were gabbling at each other, and to Michael’s astonishment, he could understand every word of it.

  ‘I will not allow a soldier in the house, you know that, Kleinjie! I won’t have a tomcat in the same basket with my little kitten—’

  ‘He’s not a soldier, Anna, he’s an airman.’

  ‘And probably as randy as any tomcat—’

  She used the word ‘fris’, and Centaine flashed at her, ‘You are a disgusting old woman – now come and help me.’

  Anna looked Michael over very carefully, and then conceded reluctantly, ‘He has nice eyes, but I still don’t trust him – oh, all right, but if he so much as—’

  ‘Mevrou,’ Michael spoke for the first time, ‘your virtue is safe with me, I give you my solemn word. Ravishing as you are, I will control myself.’

  Centaine swivelled in the saddle to stare at him, and Anna reeled back with shock and then guffawed with delight.

  ‘He speaks Flemish!’

  ‘You speak Flemish!’ Centaine echoed the accusation.

  ‘It’s not Flemish,’ Michael denied. ‘It’s Afrikaans, South African Dutch.’

  ‘It’s Flemish,’ Anna told him as she came forward. ‘And anybody who speaks Flemish is welcome in this house.’ She reached up to Michael.

  ‘Be careful,’ Centaine told her anxiously. ‘His shoulder—’ She slipped to the ground and between the two of them they helped Michael down and led him to the door of the kitchen.