The Burning Shore

Wilbur Smith - The Burning Shore

Synopsis:

Centaine screamed and drove the point of her stave down into the jaws with all her strength. She felt the sharpened end bite into the soft pink mucous membrane in the the back of its throat, saw the spurt of scarlet blood, and then the lion locked its jaws on the stave and with a toss of its flying mane ripped it out of her hands and sent it windmilling out and down to hit the earth below.

The passionate love of a beautiful French aristocrat for a courageous South African aviator is begun and extinguished in the blazing skies of war-torn France. But Centaine de Thiry is bent on realising some of the dreams which she and Michael Courtney had shared - and sets out to seek a future for his unborn child in the country of Michaels birth. But in a monumental odyssey of disaster and adventure she must first brave all the combined terrors of war, shipwreck, thirst , fever and the burning fastnesses of Nabia's Skeleton Coast before she sees another living soul...

WILBUR SMITH

The Burning Shore

So have I heard on Afric's burning shore, A hungry lion give a grievous roar.

William Barnes Rhodes, Bombastes Furioso, sc. IV

Michael awoke to the mindless fury of the guns.

It was an obscene ritual celebrated in the darkness before each dawn in which the massed banks of artillery batteries on both sides of the ridges made their savage sacrifice to the gods of war.

Michael lay in the darkness under the weight of six woollen blankets and -watched the gunfire flicker through the canvas of the tent like some dreadful aurora borealis.

The blankets felt cold and clammy as a dead man's skin, and light rain spattered the canvas above his head. The cold struck through his bedclothes and yet he felt a glow of hope. In this weather they could not fly.

False hope withered swiftly, for when Michael listened again to the guns, this time more intently, he could judge the direction of the wind by the sound of the barrage.

The wind had gone back into the south-west, muting the cacophony, and he shivered and pulled the blankets up under-his chin. As if to confirm his estimate, the light breeze dropped suddenly. The patter of rain on canvas eased and then ceased. Outside he could hear the trees of the apple orchard dripping in the silence, and then there was an abrupt gust so that the branches shook themselves like a spaniel coming out of the water and released a heavy fall of drops on to the roof of the tent.

He decided that he would not reach across to his gold half-hunter on the inverted packing-case which acted as a bedside table. It would be time all too soon. So he snuggled down in the blankets and thought about his fear.

All of them suffered under the affliction of fear, and yet the rigid conventions under which they lived and flew and died forbade them to speak of it, forbade them to refer to it in even the most oblique terms.

Would it have been a comfort, Michael wondered, if last night he had been able to say to Andrew as they sat with the bottle of whisky between them, discussing this morning's mission, Andrew, I'm frightened gutless by what we are going to do?

He grinned in the darkness as he imagined Andrew's embarrassment, yet he knew that Andrew shared it with him. It was in his eyes, and in the way the little nerve twitched and jumped in his cheek so that he had constantly to touch it with a fingertip to still it. All the old hands had their little idiosyncracies; Andrew had the nerve in his cheek and the empty cigarette-holder which he sucked like an infant's comforter. Michael ground his teeth in his sleep so loudly that he woke himself; he bit the nail of his left thumb down into the quick and every few minutes he blew on the fingers of his right hand as though he had just touched a hot coal.

The fear drove them all a little mad, and forced them to drink far too much, enough to destroy the reflexes of normal men. But they were not normal men and the alcohol did not seem to affect them, it did not dull their eyesight nor slow their feet on the rudder bars. Normal men died in the first three weeks, they went down flaming like fir trees in a forest fire, or they smashed into the doughy, shell-ploughed earth with a force that shattered their bones and drove the splinters out through their flesh.

Andrew had survived fourteen months, and Michael eleven, many times the life-span that the gods of war had allotted to the men who flew these frail contraptions of wire and wood and canvas. So they twitched and fidgeted, and blinked their eyes, and drank whisky with every thing, and laughed in a quick loud bray and then shuffled their feet with embarrassment, and lay in their cots at dawn, stiff with terror, and listened for footsteps.

Michael heard the footsteps now, it must be later than he had realized. Outside the tent Biggs muttered a curse as he splashed into a puddle, and his boots made obscene little sucking noises in the mud. His bull's-eye lantern glowed through the canvas as he fumbled with the flap and then he stooped into the tent.

Top of the mornin& Sir, his tone was cheerful, but he kept it low, out of courtesy to the officers in the neighbouring tents who were not flying this morning wind has gone sou'-sou'-west, Sir, and she's clearing something lovely, she is. Stars shining out over Cambrai - Biggs set the tray he carried on the packing case and bustled about the tent, picking up the clothing that Michael had dropped on the duck-boards the night before.

What time is it? Michael went through the pantomime of awaking from deep sleep, stretching and yawning so that Biggs would not know about the hour of terror, so that the legend would not be tarnished.

Half-past five, Sir. Biggs finished folding the clothes away, then came back to hand him the thick china mug of cocoa. And Lord Killigerran is up and in the mess already. I Bloody man is made of iron, Michael groaned, and Biggs picked the empty whisky bottle off the floor beneath the cot and placed it on the tray.

Michael drained the cocoa while Biggs worked up a lather in the shaving mug and then held the polished steel mirror and the lantern while Michael shaved with the straight razor, sitting up in his cot with the blankets over his shoulders.

What's the book? Michael demanded, his voice nasal as he pinched his own nostrils and lifted the tip of his nose to shave his upper lip.

They are giving three to one that you and the major take them both with no butcher's bill. Michael wiped the razor while he considered the odds.

The sergeant rigger who ran the betting had operated his own book at Ascot and Aintree before the war. He had decided that there was one chance in three that either Andrew or Michael, or both of them, would be dead by noon, no butcher's bill, no casualties.

Bit steep, don't you think, Biggs? Michael asked. I mean, both of them, damn it? I've put half a crack on you, sir, Biggs demurred.

Good on you, Biggs, put on a fiver for me. He pointed to the sovereign case that lay beside his watch, and Biggs pressed out five gold coins and pocketed them. Michael always bet on himself. It was a racing certainty: if he lost the bet, it wasn't going to hurt much, anyway.

Biggs warmed Michael's breeches over the chimney of the lamp and then held them while Michael dived out from under the blankets into them. He stuffed his nightshirt into the breeches while Biggs went on with the complicated procedure of dressing his man against the killing cold of flight in an open cockpit. There followed a silk vest over the nightshirt, two cable-stitched woollen fisherman's jerseys, then a leather gilet, and finally an army officer's greatcoat with the skirts cut off so that they would not tangle with the controls of the aircraft.

By this time Michael was so heavily padded that he could not bend to pull on his own footwear. Biggs knelt in front of him and snugged silk undersocks over his bare feet, then two pairs of woollen hunting socks, and finally eased on the tall boots of tanned kudu skin that Michael had had made inAfrica. Through their soft, pliable soles, Billy Michael had touch and feel on the rudder bars. When he stood up, his lean muscular body was dumpy and shapeless under the burden of clothing, and his arms stuck out like the wings of a penguin. Biggs held the flap of the tent open, and then lit his way along the duckboards through the orchard towards the mess.

As they passed the other darkened tents beneath the apple trees Michael heard little coughs and stirrings from each. They were all awake, listening to his footsteps pass, fearing for him, perhaps some of them cherishing their relief that it was not they who were going out against the balloons this dawn.

Michael paused for a moment as they left the orchard and looked up at the sky. The dark clouds were rolling back into the north and the stars were pricking through, but already paling out before the threat of dawn. These stars were still strange to Michael; though he could at last recognize their constellations, they were not like his beloved southern stars, the Great Cross, Achernar, Argus and the others, so he lowered his gaze and clumped after Biggs and the bobbing lantern.

The squadron mess was a ruined labourers chaurnire which they had commandeered and repainted, covering the tattered thatch with tarpaulin so that it was snug and warm.

Biggs stood aside at the doorway. I'll ave your fifteen quid winnings for you when you get back, sir, he murmured. He would never wish Michael good luck, for that was the worst of all possible luck.

There was a roaring log fire on the hearth and Major Lord Andrew Killigerran was seated before it, his booted feet crossed on the lip of the hearth, while a mess servant cleared the dirty plates.

Porridge, my boy, he removed the amber cigarette holder from between his even white teeth as he greeted Michael, with melted butter and golden syrup. Kippers poached in milk- Michael shuddered. I'll eat when we get back. His stomach, already knotted with tension, quailed at the rich smell of kippers. With the cooperation of an uncle on the general staff who arranged priority transport, Andrew kept the squadron supplied with the finest fare that his family estates in the highlands could provide, Scotch beef, grouse and salmon and venison in season, eggs and cheeses and jams, preserved fruits, and a rare and won erful single malt whisky with an unpronounceable name that came from the family-owned distillery.

Coffee for Captain Courtney, Andrew called to the mess corporal, and when it came he reached into the deep pocket of his fleece-lined flying jacket and brought out a silver flask with a big yellow cairngorm set in the stopper and poured a liberal dram into the steaming mug.

Michael held the first sip in his mouth, swirling it around, letting the fragrant spirit sting and prickle his tongue, then he swallowed and the heat hit his empty stomach and almost instantly he felt the charge of alcohol through his bloodstream.

He smiled at Andrew across the table. Magic, he whispered huskily, and blew on his fingertips.

Water of life, my boy. Michael loved this dapper little man as he had never loved another man, more than his own father, more even than his Uncle Sean who had previously been the pillar of his existence.

It had not been that way from the beginning. At first meeting, Michael had been suspicious of Andrew's extravagant, almost effeminate good looks, his long, curved eyelashes, soft, full lips, neat, small body, dainty hands and feet, and his lofty bearing.

One evening soon after his arrival on the squadron, Michael was teaching the other new chums how to play the game of Bok-Bok. Under his direction one team formed a human pyramid against a wall of the mess, while the other team attempted to collapse them by taking a full run and then hurling themselves on top of the structure. Andrew had waited for the game to end in noisy chaos and had then taken Michael aside and told him, We do understand that you hail from somewhere down there below the equator, and we do try to make allowances for you colonials. However- Their relationship had thenceforth been cool and distant, while they had watched each other shoot and fly.

As a boy, Andrew had learned to take the deflection of a red grouse, hurtling wind-driven only inches above the tops of the heather. Michael had learned the same skills on rocketing Ethiopian snipe and sand-grouse slanting on rapid wingbeat down the African sky. Both of them had been able to adapt their skills to the problem of firing a Vickers machine-gun from the unstable platform of a Sopwith Pup roaring through the three dimensions of space.

Then they watched each other fly. Flying was a gift.

Those who did not have it died during the first three weeks; those who did, lasted a little longer. After a month Michael was still alive, and Andrew spoke to him again for the first time since the evening of the game of BokBok in the mess.

Courtney, you will fly on my wing today, was all he said.

It was to have been a routine sweep down the line.

they were going to blood two new chums who had joined the squadron the day before, fresh from England with the grand total of fourteen flying hours as their combined experience, Andrew referred to them as Fokker fodder, and they were both eighteen years of age, rosyfaced and eager. Did you learn aerobatics? Andrew demanded of them. "Yes, sir. In unison. We have both looped the loop."How many times? Shamefaced they lowered their shining gaze. "Once, they admitted.

God! muttered Andrew and sucked loudly on his cigarette-holder.

Stalls? They both looked bemused, and Andrew clutched his brow and groaned.

Stalls? Michael interposed in a kindly tone. You know, when you let your airspeed drop and the kite suddenly falls out of the sky. They shook their heads, again in unison. No, sir, nobody showed us that. The Huns are going to love you two, Andrew murmured, and then he went on briskly, Number one, forget all about aerobatics, forget about looping the loop and all that rot, or while you are hanging there upside down the Hun is going to shoot your anus out through your nostrils, understand? They nodded vigorously.

Number two, follow me, do what I do, watch for my hand signals and obey them instantly, understand? Andrew jammed his tam o shanter down on his head and bound it in place with the green scarf that was his trademark. Come along, children. With the two novices tucked up between them they barrelled down past Arras at 10,000 feet, the Le Rhone engines of their Sopwith Pups bellowing with all their eighty horsepower, princes of the heavens, the most perfect flying fighting machines man had ever devised, the machines that had shot Max Immelmann and his vaunted Fokker Eindekkers out of the skies.

It was a glorious day, with just a little fairweather cumulus too high up there to hide a boche Jagdstaffel, and the air so clear and bright that Michael spotted the old Rumpler reconnaissance biplane from a distance of ten miles. It was circling low over the French lines, directing the fire of the German batteries on to the rear areas.

Andrew picked out the Rumpler an instant after Michael, and he flashed a laconic hand signal. He was going to let the new chums take a shot at her. Michael knew of no other squadron commander who would stand aside from an easy victory when a big score was the high road to promotion and the coveted decorations. However, he nodded agreement and they shepherded the two young pilots down, patiently pointing out the lumbering German two-seater below them, but with their untrained eyes neither of them could pick it out. They kept shooting puzzled glances across at the two senior pilots.

The Germans were so intent on the bursting high explosive beneath them that they were oblivious of the deadly formation closing swiftly from above. Suddenly the young pilot nearest Michael grinned with delight and relief and pointed ahead. He had seen the Rumpler at last.

Andrew pumped his fist over his head in the old cavalry command, Charge! and the youngster put his nose down without closing the throttle. The Sopwith went into a howling dive so abrupt that Michael winced as he saw the double wings bend back under the strain and the fabric wrinkle at the wing roots. The second novice followed him just as precipitously. They reminded Michael of two half-grown lion cubs he had once watched trying to bring down a scarred old zebra stallion, falling over themselves in comical confusion as the stallion avoided them with disdain.

Both the novice pilots opened fire at a range of a thousand yards, and the German pilot looked up at this timely warning; then, judging his moment, he banked under the noses of the diving scoutplanes, forcing them into a blundering overshoot that carried them, still firing wildly, half a mile beyond their intended victim. Michael could see their heads screwing around desperately in the open cockpits as they tried to find the Rumpler again.

Andrew shook his head sadly and led Michael down.

They dropped neatly under the Rumpler's tailplane, and the German pilot banked steeply to port in a climbing turn to give his rear gunner a shot at them. Together Andrew and Michael turned out in the opposite direction to frustrate him, but as soon as the German pilot realized the manoeuvre had failed and corrected his bank, they whipped the Sopwiths hard over and crossed his stern.

Andrew was leading. He fired one short burst with the Vickers at a hundred feet and the German rear gunner bucked and flung his arms open, letting the Spandau machine-gun swivel aimlessly on its mounting as the .303 bullets cut him to pieces. The German pilot tried to dive away, and Andrew's Sopwith almost collided with his top wing as he passed over him.

Then Michael came in. He judged the deflection of the diving Rumpler, touched his port rudder bar so that his machine yawed fractionally just as though he were swinging a shotgun on a rocketing snipe, and he hooked the forefinger of his right hand under the safety bar of the Vickers and fired a short burst, a flurry of .303 ball. He saw the fabric of the Rumpler's fuselage ripped to tatters just below the rim of the pilot's cockpit, in line with where his upper body must be.

The German was twisted around staring at Michael from a distance of a mere fifty feet. Michael could see that his eyes behind the lens of his goggles were a startled blue, and that he had not shaved that morning, for his chin was covered with a short golden stubble. He opened his mouth as the shots hit, and the blood from his shattered lungs blew out between his lips and turned to pink smoke in the Rumpler's slipstream, and then Michael was past and climbing away. The Rumpler rolled sluggishly on to its back and with the dead men lolling in their straps, fell away towards the earth. It struck in the centre of an open field and collapsed in a pathetic welter of fabric and shattered struts.

As Michael settled his Sopwith back into position on Andrew's wingtip, Andrew looked across at him, nodded matter-of-factly, and then signalled him to help round up the two new chums who were still searching in frantic circles for the vanished Rumpler. This took longer than either of them anticipated, and by the time they had them safely under their protection again, the whole formation had drifted further west than either Andrew or Michael had ever flown before. On the horizon Michael could make out the fat shiny serpent of the Somme river winding across the green littoral on its way down to the sea.

They turned away from it and headed back east towards Arras, climbing steadily to reduce the chances of an attack from above by a Fokker Jagdstaffel.

As they gained height, so the vast panorama of northern France and southern Belgium opened beneath them, the fields a patchwork of a dozen shades of green interspersed with the dark brown of ploughed lands. The actual battle lines were hard to distinguish; from so high, the narrow ribbon of shell-churned earth appeared insignificant, and the misery and the mud and the death down there seemed illusory.

The two veteran pilots never ceased for an instant their search of the sky and the spaces beneath them. Their heads turned to a set rhythm in their scan, their eyes never still, never allowed to focus short or become mesmerized by the fan of the spinning propellor in front of them. In contrast, the two novices were carefree and selfcongratulatory. Every time Michael glanced across in their direction they grinned and waved cheerfully. In the end he gave up trying to urge them to search the skies around them, they did not understand his signals.

They leveled out at 15,000 feet, the effective ceiling of the Sopwiths, and the sense of unease that had haunted Michael while he had been flying at low altitude over unfamiliar territory passed as he saw the town of Arras abeam of them. He knew that no Fokker could be lurking above them in that pretty bank of cumulus, they simply did not have the ability to fly that high.

He swept another searching glance along the lines.

There were two German observation balloons just south of Mons, while below them a friendly flight of DH2 single-seaters was heading back towards Amiens, which meant they were from No. 24 Squadron.

In ten minutes they would be landing, Michael never finished the thought, for suddenly and miraculously the sky all around him was filled with gaudily painted aircraft and the chatter of Spandau machine-guns.

Even in his utter bewilderment Michael reacted reflexively. As he pulled the Sopwith into a maximum-rate turn, a shark-shaped machine checkered red and black with a grinning white skull superimposed on its black Maltese cross insignia flashed across his nose. A hundredth of a second later and its Spandaus would have savaged Michael. They had come from above, Michael realized; even though he could not believe it, they had been above the Sopwiths, they had come out of the cloud bank.

One of them, painted red as blood, settled on Andrew's tail, its Spandaus already shredding and clawing away the trailing edge of the lower wing, and swinging inexorably towards where Andrew crouched in the open cockpit, his face a white blob beneath the tam al shanter and the green scarf. Instinctively, Michael drove at him, and the German, rather than risk collision, swung away.

Ngi dIa! Michael shouted the Zulu warcry as'he came on to the killing quarter on the tail of the red machine, and then in disbelief watched it power away before he could bring the Vickers to bear. The Sopwith juddered brutally to the strike of shot and a rigging wire above his head parted with a twang like a released bow string as another one of these terrible machines attacked across his stern.

He broke away and Andrew was below him, trying to climb away from yet another German machine which was swiftly overhauling him, coming up within an ace of the killing line. Michael went at the German head-on and the red and black wings flickered past his head, but instantly there was another German to replace him, and this time Michael could not shake him off, the bright machine was too fast, too powerful, and Michael knew he was a dead man.

Abruptly the stream of Spandau fire ceased, and Andrew plunged past Michael's wingtip, driving the German off him. Desperately Michael followed Andrew around, and they went into the defensive circle, each of them covering the other's belly and tail while the cloud of German aircraft milled around them in murderous frustration.

Only part of Michael's mind recorded the fact that both the new chums were dead. They had died in the first seconds of the assault; one was in a vertical dive under full power, the maimed Sopwith's wings buckling under the strain and at last tearing away completely, while the other was a burning torch, smearing a thick pall of black smoke down the sky as it fell.

As miraculously as they had come, the Germans were gone, untouched and invulnerable, they disappeared back towards their own lines, leaving the pair of battered, shot-torn Sopwiths to limp homewards.

Andrew landed ahead of Michael and they parked wingtip to wingtip at the edge of the orchard. Each of them clambered down and walked slowly round his own machine, inspecting the damage. Then at last they stood in front of each other, stony-faced with shock.

Andrew reached into his pocket and brought out the silver flask. He unscrewed the cairngorm and wiped the mouth of the flask with the tail of the green scarf, then handed the flask to Michael.

Here, my boy, he said carefully, have a dram. I think you earned it, I really do. So on the day that Allied superiority was wiped from the skies above France by the shark-nosed AlbatrosD type scoutplanes of the German jagdstaffels, they had become comrades of desperate necessity, flying at each other's wingtips, forming the defensive mutually protective circle whenever the gaily painted minions of death fell upon them. At first they were content merely to defend themselves, then between them they tested the capability of this new and deadly foe, poring together at night over the intelligence reports that belatedly came in to them, learning that the Albatros was driven by a 160 horsepower Mercedes engine, twice as powerful as the Sopwith's Le Rhone, and that it had twin Spandau 7.92 `men machine-guns with interrupter gear firing forward through the arc of the propeller, against the Sopwith's single Vickers .303. They were outgunned and outpowered. The Albatros was 700 pounds heavier than the Pup and could take tremendous weight of shot before it fell out of the sky.

So, old boy, what we'll do is learn to fly the arses off them, Andrew commented, and they went out against the massed formations of the Jastas and they found their weaknesses. There were only two. The Sopwiths could turn inside them, and the Albatros radiator was situated in the upper wing directly above the cockpit. A shot through the tank would send a stream of boiling coolant hissing over the pilot, scalding him to a hideous death.

Using this knowledge, they made their first kills, and found that in testing the Albatros they had tested each other and found no fault there. Comradeship became friendship, which deepened into a love and respect greater than that between brothers of the blood. So now they could sit quietly together in the dawn, drinking coffee laced with whisky, waiting to go out against the balloons, and take comfort and strength from each other.

Spin for it? Michael broke the silence, it was almost time to go.

Andrew flicked a sovereign into the air and slapped it on to the table-top, covering it with his hand.

Heads, said Michael and Andrew lifted his hand.

Luck of a pox-doctor! he grunted, as they both looked down on the stern, bearded profile of George V.

I'll take number-two slot, said Michael, and Andrew opened his mouth to protest.

I won, I call the shot. Michael stood up to end the argument before it began.

Going against the balloons was like walking on to a sleeping puff-adder, that gross and sluggish serpent of the African veld; the first man woke it so that it could arch its neck into the S of the strike, the second man had the long recurved fangs plunged into the flesh of his calf.

With the balloons they had to attack in line astern, the first man alerted the ground defences and the second man received their full fury. Michael had deliberately chosen the number-two slot. If he had won, Andrew would have done the same.

They paused shoulder to shoulder in the door of the mess, pulling on their gauntlets, buttoning their coat's and looking up at the sky, listening to the rolling fury of the guns and judging the breeze.

The mist will hang in the valleys, Michael murmured. The wind won't move it, not yet. Pray for it, my boy, Andrew answered, and, hampered by their clothing, they waddled down the duckboards, to where the Sopwiths stood at the edge of the trees.

How noble they had once appeared in Michael's eyes, but how ugly now when the huge rotary engine, vomiting forward vision, was compared to the Albatros sleek shark-like snout, with its in-line Mercedes engine. How frail when considered against the Germans robust airframe.

God, when are they going to give us real aeroplanes to fly! he grunted, and Andrew did not reply. Too often they had lamented the endless wait for the new SEsa that they had been promised, the Scout Experimental No. 5a that would perhaps allow them to meet the Jastas on equal terms at last.

Andrew's Sopwith was painted bright green, to match his scarf, and the fuselage behind the cockpit was ringed by fourteen white circles, one for each of his confirmed victories, like notches on a sniper's rifle. The aircraft's name was painted on the engine housing: The Flying Haggis.

Michael had chosen bright yellow, and there was a winged tortoise with a worried frown painted below his cockpit and the appeal, Don't ask me, I just work here. His fuselage was ringed by six white circles.

Assisted by their ground crews, they clambered up on to the lower wing, and then eased themselves into the narrow cockpits. Michael settled his feet on to the rudder bars and pumped them left and right, peering back over his shoulder to watch the response of the rudder as he did so. Satisfied, he held up a thumb at his mechanic who had worked most of the night to replace one of the cables shot away on the last sortie. The mechanic grinned and ran to the front of the machine.

Switches off? he called.

Switches off! Michael confirmed, leaning out of the cockpit to peer around the monstrous engine.

Suck in" Suck in! Michael repeated, and worked at the handle of the hand fuel pump. When the mechanic swung the propeller, he heard the suck of fuel into the carburettor under the cowling as the engine primed.

Switches on! ContactV Switches on! At the next swing of the propeller the engine fired and blathered. Blue smoke blew out of the exhaust ports, and there was the stink of burning castor oil. The engine surged, and missed, caught again and settled down to its steady idling beat.

As Michael completed his preflight checks, his stomach rumbled and spasmed with colic. Castor oil lubricated the precision engines, and the fumes they breathed from the exhausts gave them all a perpetual low-grade diarrhoea. The old hands soon learned to control it; whisky had a marvellously binding effect if taken in sufficient quantity. However, the new chums were often affectionately referred to as treacle bottoms, or slippery breeks when they returned red-faced and odorous from a sortie.

Michael settled his goggles and glanced across at Andrew. They nodded at each other, and Andrew opened his throttle and rolled out on to the soggy turf. Michael followed him, his mechanic trotting at his starboard wing tip to help him swing and line up on the narrow muddy strip between the apple trees.

Ahead of him Andrew was airborne and Michael opened his throttle wide. Almost immediately the Sopwith threw her tail up, clearing his forward vision, Michael felt a prick of conscience at his earlier disloyalty. She was a lovely plane and a joy to fly. Despite the sticky mud of the strip, she broke swiftly free of the earth, and at 200 feet Michael levelled out behind Andrew's green machine. The light was just good enough by now for him to make out to his right the green copper-clad spire of the church of the little village of Mort Homme; ahead of him lay the T-shaped grove of oak and beech trees, the long leg of the T perfectly aligned with the squadron's landing strip, a most convenient navigational aid when coming in during bad weather. Beyond the trees stood the pinkroofed chAteau set in the midst of its lawns and formal gardens, and behind the chAteau the low knoll.

Andrew banked fractionally to the right, to pass the knoll. Michael conformed, peering ahead over the edge of his cockpit. Would she be there? It was too early, the knoll was bare, He felt the slide of disappointment and dread. Then he saw her, she was galloping up the pathway towards the crest. The big white stallion lunging powerfully under her slim girlish body.

The girl on the white horse was their good-luck talisman. If she was there waiting on the knoll to wave them away, all would be well. Today, when they were going against the balloons, they needed her, how desperately they needed her benediction.

She reached the crest of the knoll and reined the stallion down. just a few seconds before they drew level she whipped the hat off her head and the thick dark bush of her hair burst from under it. She waved the hat, and Andrew waggled his wings as he roared past.

Michael edged in closer to the crest. The white stallion backed up and nodded nervously as the yellow machine came bellowing at him, but the girl sat him easily, waving gaily. Michael wanted to see her face. He was almost at the same height as the top of the hillock and very close to where she sat. For an instant he looked into her eyes.

They were huge and dark, and he felt his heart trip. He touched his helmet in salute, and he knew now, deep down, that it would go well this day, then he put the memory of those eyes from his mind and looked ahead.

Ten miles ahead, where the low chalk ridges ran across their front, he saw with relief that he had been right, the breeze had not yet dispersed the morning mist that hung in the valleys. The chalk ridges were horribly chewed by shellfire, no vegetation remained upon them, the stumps of the shattered oak trees were nowhere as tall as a man's shoulder, and the shell craters overlapped each other, brimming with stagnant water. The ridges had been fought over, month after month, but at the moment they were in Allied hands, taken at the beginning of the preceding winter at a cost in human lives that challenged belief.

The leprous and pockmarked earth seemed deserted, but it was peopled by the legions of the living and the dead rotting together in the waterlogged earth. The smell of death home on the breeze reached even to the men in the low flying machines, an obscenity that coated the back of their throats and made them gag.

Behind the ridges the Allied troops, South Africans and New Zealanders of the Third Army, were preparing reserve positions as a contingency measure, for should the Allied offensive which was being prepared upon the Somme river further to the west fail, then all the fury of the German counter-attack would be unleashed upon them The preparation of the new line of defences was being seriously hampered by the massed German artillery to the north of the ridges, which deluged the area with an almost continuous barrage of high explosive. As they roared towards the front, Michael could see the yellow haze from the bursting howitzer shells hanging in a poison bank below the ridges, and he could imagine the anguish of the men toiling in the mud, harassed by the unremitting fall of explosives.

As Michael raced towards the ridges, the sound of the barrage rose above even the thunder of the big rotary Le Rhone engine and the buffeting rush of the slipstream.

The barrage was like the sound of storm surf on a rocky shore, like the beat of a demented drummer, like the fevered pulse of this sick, mad world, and Michael's fierce resentment at the men who had ordered them to go against the balloons abated as the roar of the barrage mounted. It was work that must be done, he realized it when he saw this dreadful suffering.

Yet the balloons were the most feared and hated targets that any man could fly against, that was why Andrew Killigerran would send nobody else. Michael saw them now, like fat silver slugs hanging in the dawn sky high above the ridges. One was directly ahead, the other a few miles further east. At this range the cables that tethered them to earth were invisible, and the wicker basket from which the observers obtained a grandstand view over the Allied rear areas were merely dark specks suspended beneath the shining spheres of hydrogen-filled silk.

At that moment there was a shocking disruption of air that hit the Sopwiths and rocked their wings, and immediately ahead of them a fountain of smoke and flame shot into the sky, rolling upon itself, black and bright orange, rising anvil-headed, high above the low-flying Sopwiths, forcing them to bank away steeply to avoid its fiery pillar. A German shell directed from one of the balloons had hit a forward Allied ammunition dump, end Michael felt his fear and resentment shrivel, to be replaced by a burning hatred of the gunners and of the men hanging in the sky, with eyes like vultures, calling down death with cold dispassion.

Andrew turned back towards the ridges, leaving the tall column of smoke on their right wingtips, and he dropped lower and still lower until his undercarriage was skimming the tops of the sandbagged parapets and they could see the South African troops moving in file along the Communication trenches, dun-coloured beasts of burden, not really human, toiling under the weight of their packs and equipment. Very few of them bothered to look up as the gaily painted machines thundered overhead. Those that did had grey, mud-streaked faces, the expression dulled and the eyes blank.

Ahead of them opened the mouth of one of the low passes that bisected the chalk ridges. The pass was filled with the morning mist. With the thrust of the dawn breeze agitating it, the mist bank undulated softly as though the earth was making love beneath a silver eiderdown.

There was the rattle of a Vickers machine-gun close ahead. Andrew was testfiring his weapon. Michael turned slightly out of line to clear his front and fired a short burst. The phosphorus-tipped incendiary bullets spun pretty white trails in the clear air.

Michael turned back into line behind Andrew and they hurtled into the mist, entering a new dimension of light and muted sound. The diffused light spun rainbow-coloured haloes around both aircraft and the moisture condensed on Michael's goggles.

He lifted them on to his forehead and peered ahead.

The previous afternoon, Andrew and Michael had carefully reconnoitred this narrow pass between the ridges, reassuring themselves that there were no obstacles or obstructions, and memorizing the way it twisted and turned through the higher ground, and yet it was still a perilous passage, with visibility down to 600 feet or less and the chalky slopes rising steeply at each wingtip.

Michael closed up on the green tailplane and flew on that alone, trusting Andrew to take him through, while the icy cold of the mist ate corrosively through his clothing and numbed his fingertips through the leather gauntlets.

Ahead of him Andrew banked steeply, and as Michael followed him round, he caught a glimpse of the barbed wire, brown with rust and tangled like bracken beneath his wheels.

No man's land, he muttered, and then the German front lines flashed beneath them, a mere glimpse of parapets beneath which crouched men in field-grey uniforms and those ugly coal-scuttle helmets.

Seconds later they burst out of the mist bank into a world lit by the first low rays of the sun, into a sky that dazzled them with its brilliance, and Michael realized that they had achieved total surprise. The mist bank had hidden them from the observers in the balloon and it had deadened the beat of their engines.

Directly ahead, the first balloon hung suspended in the sky, 1500 feet above them. Its steel anchor-cable, fine as a spider's strand of gossamer, led down to the ugly black steam winch half-buried in its emplacement of sandbags.

It looked utterly vulnerable, until Michael's eye dropped to the peaceful-seeming fields beneath the balloon, and there were the guns.

The machine-gun nests resembled anti-lion burrows in the African soil, tiny dimples in the earth, lined with sandbags. He could not count them in the brief seconds left to him, there were so many. Instead, he picked out the anti-aircraft guns, standing tall and ungainly as giraffes on their circular baseplates, the long barrels already pointed skywards, ready to hurl their air-burst shrapnel as high as 20,000 feet into the sky.

They were waiting. They knew that sooner or later the planes would come, and they were ready. Michael realized that the mist had won them only seconds, for he could see the gunners running to man their weapons. One of the long anti-aircraft barrels began to move, depressing and swinging towards them. Then, as Michael pushed the throttle lever hard open against its stop and the Sopwith surged forward, he saw a cloud of white steam spurt from the massive winch as the ground crew began desperately to haul the balloon down into the protective fire of the banks of guns. The shimmering sphere of silk sank swiftly towards the earth, and Andrew lifted the nose of his machine and roared upwards.

With the throttle wide open and the big rotary engine howling in full power, Michael followed him up, aiming his climb at the cable halfway between the earth and the balloon, at the spot where the balloon would be when he reached it, and that was a mere 500 feet above the heads of the gunners.

Andrew was four hundred yards ahead of Michael, and still the guns had not opened up. Now he was on line with the balloon and engaging it. Michael clearly heard the clatter of his Vickers and saw the streaking phosphorous trails of the incendiary bullets, lacing through the icy dawn air, joining the balloon and the racing green aircraft for fleeting seconds. Then Andrew banked away, his wingtip brushed the billowing silk and it rocked sedately in his slipstream.

Now it was Michael's turn, and as he picked up the balloon in his gunsight, the gunners below him opened up. He heard the rip-crash of shrapnel bursts, and the Sopwith rocked dangerously in the tornado of passing shot, but the shells were all fused too long. They burst in bright silver balls of smoke three or four hundred feet above him.

The machine-gunners were more accurate, for they were at almost point-blank range. Michael felt the solid his plane, and tracer flew thick and crash of shot into white as hail about him. He hit the rudder bar and at the same time threw on opposite stick, crossing controls to induce a gut-wrenching side-slip, throwing off the sheets of fire for a moment while he lined up for the balloon.

It seemed to rush towards him, the silk had the repulsively soft sheen of a maggot coated in silver mucus. He saw the two German observers dangling in their open wicker basket, both of them bundled in clothing against the cold. One stared at him woodenly, the other's face was contorted with terror and fury as he screamed a curse or a challenge that was lost in the blare of engines and the rattling clatter of machine-gun fire.

it was barely necessary to aim the Vickers, for the balloon filled all his vision. Michael opened the safety lock and pressed down on the firing lever; the gun hammered, shaking the entire aircraft, and the smoke of burning phosphorus from the incendiary bullet blew back into his face, choking him.

Now that he was flying straight and level, the ground gunners found him again, shooting the Sopwith to tatters - but Michael held on, pressing on alternate rudders to wing his nose slightly from side to side, directing his incendiaries into the balloon as though he was wielding a garden hose.

Burn! he screamed. Burn! Damn you, burn! Pure hydrogen gas is not inflammable, it has to mix with oxygen in proportions of I:2 before it becomes violently explosive. The balloon absorbed his fire without visible effect.

Burn! he screamed at it. His clawed hand locked on the firing handle, the Vickers hammering, and the spent brass shells spewing from the breech. Hydrogen must be pouring from the hundreds of bullet holes that both he and Andrew had shot in the silk, the gas must be mingling with the air.

Why won't you burn?" He heard the anguish and despair in his own wild cry. He was on the balloon, he must break away now, he must turn to avoid collision, it had all been in vain. Then, in that instant of failure, he knew that he would never give up. He knew he was going to fly into the balloon if he had to.

As he thought it, the balloon exploded in his face. it seemed to swell to a hundred times its size to fill the sky and at the same time turn to flame. A stunning dragon's breath licked over Michael and the Sopwith, scorching the exposed skin of his cheeks, blinding him, flinging both man and machine aloft like a green leaf from a garden bonfire. Michael fought for control as the Sopwith tried to turn on her back, then tumbled down the sky. He caught her before she smashed into the earth and as he climbed away he looked back.

The hydrogen gas had burned away in that single demoniac gust, and now the empty, fiercely burning silk shroud collapsed, spreading like a fiery umbrella over the basket and its human cargo.

One of the German observers jumped clear and fell 300 feet, his greatcoat fluttering about him, his legs kicking convulsively, disappearing abruptly, without sound or The second trace, into the short green grass of the field.

observer stayed with the basket and was enveloped by the billows of burning silk.

On the ground the crew were scrambling from the winch emplacement, like insects from a disturbed nest, but the burning silk fell too swiftly, trapping them in its fiery folds. Michael felt no pity for any of them, but was overcome instead by a savage triumph, a primeval reaction from his own terror. He opened his mouth to shout his warcry, and at that moment a shrapnel shell, fired from one of the guns near the north edge of the field, burst beneath the Sopwith.

Again it was tossed upwards, and humming, hissing shards of steel tore up through the belly of the fuselage.

As Michael struggled to control this second wild surge and drop, the floor of the cockpit was ripped open so that he could see the ground below him and arctic winds howled up under his greatcoat, making the folds billow.

He held her on even keel, but she was hard-hit. Something was loose below the fuselage, it banged and whipped in the wind and she was flying one wing heavy, so he had to hold her up by brute force, but at least he was out of range of the guns at last.

Then Andrew appeared on his wingtip, craning across at him anxiously, and Michael grinned and whooped with triumph. Andrew was signalling for his attention, and stabbing his thumb in the signal, Return to base! Michael glanced around him. While he had been fighting for control, they had been roaring northwards, deeper and still deeper into German territory. They flashed over a crossroads jammed with animal-drawn and motorized transport, startled field-grey figures scattered for cover in the ditches. Michael ignored them and swivelled in the cockpit; three miles away across the flat and featureless green fields the second balloon still sailed serenely above the ridges.

Michael gave Andrew the cut-out negative and pointed at the remaining balloon. No, continue the attack. Andrew's signal was urgent. Return to base! and he A pointed at Michael's machine, and gave him the cutthroat signal.

Danger! Michael looked down through the hole between his feet where the belly had been shot out of her. That banging was probably one of his landing wheels dangling on the bracing wires. Bullet holes had peppered the wings and body of the aircraft, and loose ribbons of torn fabric fluttered like Buddhist prayer flags as the slipstream plucked at them, but the Le Rhone engine roared angrily, still under full throttle, without check or stutter in its warlike beat.

Andrew was signalling again, urging him to turn back, but Michael gave him a curt flick of the hand, Follow me!'- and threw the Sopwith up on one wingtip, bringing her round in a steep turn that strained her damaged bodywork.

Michael was lost in the raptures of fighting madness, the berserker's wild passion, in which the threat of death or fearful injury was of no consequence. His vision was heightened to unnatural clarity, and he flew the damaged Sopwith as though it were an extension of his own body, as though he were part-swallow skimming the water to drink in flight, so lightly did he brush the hedgerows and touch the stubble in the fields with his single remaining landing wheel, and part-falcon, so cruel was his unblinking gaze as he hated at the ponderously descending balloon.

Of course, they had seen the fiery destruction of the first balloon, and they were winching in. They would be down before Michael reached the site. The gunners would be fully alerted, waiting with finger on the trigger. It would be a ground level attack, into the prepared positions, but even in his suicidal rage, Michael had lost none of the hunter's cunning. He was using every stick of available cover for his approach run.

A narrow country lane angled across the front, the row of slim, straight poplars that flanked it was the only feature on this dreary plain below the ridge. Michael used the line of trees, banking steeply to run parallel with them, keeping them between him and the balloon site, and he glanced up at the mirror fixed to the wing section above his head. Andrew's green Sopwith was so close behind him that the spinning propeller almost touched his rudder. Michael grinned like a shark and gathered the Sopwith in his hands and lifted it over the palisade of poplar trees the way a hunter takes a fence at full gallop.

The balloon site was three hundred yards ahead. The balloon itself had just reached ground level. The ground crew were helping the observers out of the basket and then running in a group for the cover of the. nearest trench. The machine-gunners, their aim frustrated up to that moment by the row of poplar trees, had a fair target at last, and they opened together.

Michael flew into a torrent of fire. It filled the air about him, and the shrapnel shells sucked at the air as they passed, so that his eardrums clicked and ached with the pressure drops. In the emplacements he saw the faces of the gunners turned up towards him; they were pale blobs behind the foreshortened barrels that swung to follow him and the muzzle flashes were bright and pretty as fairy lights. However, the Sopwith was roaring in at well over 100 miles an hour and he had barely 300 yards to cover. Even the solid crunch of bullets into the heavy engine block could distract Michael as he lined up his sights with delicate touches on the rudder bars.

The group of running men escaping from the balloon was directly ahead of him, racing back towards the trench.

In their midst the two observers were slow and clumsy, still stiff with the cold of the upper air, burdened by their heavy clothing. Michael hated them as he might hate a venomous snake, he dropped the Sopwith's nose fractionally and touched the firing lever. The group of men blew away, like grey smoke, and disappeared into the low stubble. Instantly Michael lifted the aim of the Vickers.

The balloon was tethered to earth, looking like a circus tent. He fired into it, bullets streaming on silvery trails of phosphorus smoke into the soft silken mass without effect.

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 in.

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 I 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 sweeheart. 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 chAteau, 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 gabardine 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 nautilus shell, but her knee-caps were smudged with mud where she had knelt to help him.

Above the knees she wore a pair of carni-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 brfiW. 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 franqais! 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 tianslated.

Ah, you do talk French. She clapped her hands J-n_ nn 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.

Wiens 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 chateau.

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 Enchante, 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 drole, 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 lightheartedly, 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 marvelous 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 chateau 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 Arniens. 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 broad with a backside like a percher on 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, I 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, kleintjie, 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! Centained 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.

A dozen chefs could have prepared a banquet for five hundred guests in this kitchen, but there was only a tiny wood fire burning in one of the ranges and they seated Michael on a stool in front of it.

Get some of your famous ointment, Centaine ordered, and Anna hurried away.

You are Flemish? Michael asked. He was delighted that the language barrier had evaporated.

No, no. Centaine was busy with an enormous pair of shears, snipping away the charred remnants of the shirt from his burns. Anna is from the north, she was my nurse when my mother died, and now she thinks she is my mother and not just a servant. She taught me the language in the cradle. But you, where did you learn it? Where I come from, everybody speaks it. I'm glad, she said, and he was not sure what she meant, for her eyes were lowered to her task.

I look for you every morning, he said softly. We all do, when we fly. She said nothing, but he saw her cheeks turn that lovely dusky pink colour again.

We call you our good luck angel, I'ange du bonheur, and she laughed.

I call you le petit jaune, the little yellow one, she answered. Theyellow Sopwith, Michael felt a surge of elation. She knew him as an individual, and she went on, All of you, I wait for you to come back, counting my chickens, but so often they do not come back, the new ones especially. Then I cry for them and pray. But you and the green one always come home, then I rejoice for you I You are kind, he started, but Anna bustled back from the pantry carrying a stone jar that smelled of turpentine and the mood was spoiled.

Where is Papa? Centaine demande&.

In the basement, seeing to the animals.

We have to keep the livestock in the cellars, Centaine explained as she went to the head of the stone stairs, otherwise the soldiers steal the chickens and geese and even the milk cows. I had to fight to keep Nuage, even She yelled down the stairs, Papa! Where are you? There was a muffled response from below and Centaine called again, We need a bottle of cognac. And then her tone became admonitive. Unopened, Papa. It is not a social need, but a medicinal one. Not for you but for a patient, here. Centaine tossed a bunch of keys down the stairs and minutes later there was a heavy tread and a large shaggy man with a full belly shambled into the kitchen with a cognac bottle held like an infant to his chest.

He had the same dense bush of kinky hair as Centaine, but it was woven with grey strands and hung forward on to his forehead. His moustaches were wide and beeswaxed into impressive spikes, and he peered at Michael through a single dark glittering eye. The other eye was covered by a piratical black cloth patch. Who is this? he demanded. An English airman. The scowl abated. A fellow warrior, he said. A comrade-in-arms, another destroyer of the cursed boche! You have not destroyed a boche for over forty years, Anna reminded him without looking up from Michael's burns, but he ignored her and advanced on Michael, opening his arms like a bear to envelop him. Papa, be careful. He is wounded. Wounded!

cried Papa. Cognac! as though the two words were linked, and he found two heavy glass tumblers and placed them on the kitchen table, breathed on them with a decidedly garlicky breath, wiped them on his coat-tails, and cracked the red wax from the neck of the bottle.

Papa, you are not wounded, Centaine told him severely as he filled both tumblers up to the brim.

I would not insult a man of such obvious valour by asking him to drink alone. He brought one tumbler to Michael.

Comte Louis de Thiry, at your service, monsieur. Captain Michael Courtney. Royal Flying Corps. A votre sont6, Capitaine! A la v6tre, Monsieur le Comte! The comte drank with undisguised relish, then sighed and wiped his magnificent dark moustaches on the back of his hand and spoke to Anna.

Proceed with the treatment, woman. This will sting Anna warned, and for a moment Michael thought she meant the cognac, but she took a handful of the ointment from the stone jar and slapped it on to the open burns.

Michael let out an anguished whinny and tried to rise, but Anna held him down with one huge, red, work-chafed hand.

Bind it up, she ordered Centaine, and as the girl wound on the bandages, the agony faded and became a comforting warmth.

It feels better, Michael admitted.

Of course it does, Anna told him comfortably. My ointment is famous for everything from smallpox to piles. So is my cognac, murmured the comte, and recharged both tumblers.

Centaine went to the wash basket on the kitchen table and returned with one of the comte's freshly ironed shirts, and despite her father's protests, she helped Michael into it. Then as she was fashioning a sling for his injured arm, there was a buzzing clatter of an engine outside the kitchen windows and Michael caught a glimpse of a familiar figure on an equally familiar motor-cycle skidding to a halt in a spray of gravel.

The engine spluttered and hiccoughed into silence and a voice called agitatedly, Michael, my boy, where are you? The door burst open and admitted Lord Andrew Killigerran in tam o shanter, followed closely by a young officer in the uniform of the Royal Medical Corps. Thank God, there you are. Panic not, I've brought you a sawbones Andrew pulled the doctor to Michael's stool and then, with relief and a shade of pique in his voice, You seem to be doing damn well without us, I'll say that for you. I raided the local field hospital. Kidnapped this medico at the point of a pistol, been eating my heart out about you, and here you are with a glass in your hand, and- Andrew broke off and looked at Centaine for the first time, and forgot all about Michael's condition. He swept the tam o shanter from his head. It's true! he declaimed in perfect sonorous French, rolling his Rs in true Gallic fashion. Angels do indeed walk the earth. Go to your room immediately, child, Anna snapped, and her face screwed up like one of those fearsome carved dragons that guard the entrance to Chinese temples.

I am not a child, Centaine gave her an equally ferocious glare, then recomposed her features as she turned to Michael. Why does he call you his boy? You are much older than he is! He's Scots, Michael explained, already ridden by jealousy, and the Scots are all mad, also, he has a wife and four children. That's a filthy lie, Andrew protested. The children, yes, I admit to them, poor wee hairns! But no wife, definitely no wife. Ecossais, murmured the comte, great warriors and great drinkers. Then, in reasonable English, May I offer you a little cognac, monsieur? They were descending into a babble of languages, crossing from one to the other in mid-sentence.

Will somebody kindly introduce me to this paragon among men, that I may accept his fulsome offer? Le Comte de Thiry, I have the honour to present Lord Andrew Killigerran. Michael waved them together and they shook hands. Tiens! A genuine English milord. Scots, my dear fellow, big difference. He saluted the Comte with the tumbler. Enchanted, I'm sure. And this beautiful young lady is your daughter, the resemblance beautiful- Centaine, Anna intersposed, take your horse to the stable and groom him. Centaine ignored her and smiled at Andrew. The smile stopped even his banter, he stared at her, for the smile transformed her. It seemed to glow through her skin like a lamp through alabaster, and it lit her teeth and sparkled in her eyes like sunlight in a crystal jar of dark honey.

I think I should have a look at our patient. The young army doctor broke the spell and stepped forward to unwrap Michael's bandages. Anna understood the gesture, if not the words, and she interposed her bulk between them.

Tell him, if he touches my work, I will break his arm. Your services are not required, I'm afraid, Michael translated for the doctor.

Have a cognac, Andrew consoled him. It's not bad stuff, not bad at all. You are a landowner, milord? the Comte asked Andrew with subtlety. Of course? Bien sfir- Andrew made an expansive gesture which portrayed thousands of acres and at the same time brought his glass within range of where the Comte was filling the doctor's glass. The Comte topped him up and Andrew repeated, Of course, the family estates, you understand? Ah. The Comte's single eye glittered as he glanced across at his daughter. Your deceased wife has left you with four children? He had not followed the earlier exchange all that clearly.

No children, no wife, my humorous friend, Andrew indicated Michael, he likes to make jokes. Very bad English jokes.

Ha! English jokes. The Comte roared with laughter and would have clapped Michael on his shoulder had not Centaine rushed forward to protect him from the blow. Papa, be careful.

He is wounded. You will stay for lunch, all of you, the Comte declared. You will see, milord, my daughter is one of the finest cooks in the province. With a little help, Anna muttered disgustedly.

I say, I rather think I should be getting back, the young doctor murmured diffidently. I feel rather superfluous."We are invited to lunch, Andrew told him. Have a cognac. Don't mind if I do. The doctor succumbed without a struggle.

The Comte announced, It is necessary to descend to the cellars."Papa - Centaine began ominously.

We have guests! The Comte showed her the empty cognac bottle and she shrugged helplessly.

Milord, you will assist me in the selection of suitable refreshments? Honoured, Monsieur le Comte. As Centaine watched the pair, arms linked descend the stone staircase, there was a thoughtful look in her eyes.

He is a drole one, your friend, and very loyal. See how he rushed here to your aid. See how he places a charm on my Papa. Michael was surprised by the strength of his dislike for Andrew at that moment. He smelled the cognac, he muttered. That's the only reason he came. But what of the four children? Anna demanded. And their mother? She was having as much difficulty as the comte in following the conversation.

Four mothers, Michael explained. Four children, four different mothers. He is a polygamist! Anna swelled with shock and affront, and her face went a shade redder.

No, no, Michael assured her. You heard him deny it.

He is a man of honour, he would not do such a thing. He is married to none of them. Michael felt not a qualm, he had to have an ally somewhere in the family, but at that moment the happy pair returned from the cellars laden with black bottles.

Aladdin's cave, Andrew rejoiced. The comte has got it filled with good stuff! He placed half a dozen bottles on the kitchen table in front of Michael. Look at this!

Thirty years old, if it's a day! Then he peered closely at Michael. You look awful, old boy. Death warmed up. Thanks, Michael grinned at him thinly. You are so kind. Natural brotherly concern - Andrew struggled to draw the cork from one of the bottles, and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. By God, isn't she a corker! He glanced across the kitchen to where the women were at work over the big copper pot. I'd rather feel her than feel sick, what? Michael's dislike for Andrew turned to active hatred.

I find that remark utterly revolting, he said. To talk like that about a young girl, so innocent, so fine, so so- Michael stuttered into silence, and Andrew held his head on one side and peered at him wonderingly.

Michael, my boy, this is worse than just a few burns and bruises, I'm afraid. It's going to need intensive treatment. He filled a glass. To start with, I prescribe a liberal dose of this excellent claret! At the head of the table the comte had the cork out of another of the bottles, and refilled the doctor's glass.

A toast! he cried. Confusion to the damned boche! A has les boches!

they all cried, and as soon as the toast was drunk the comte placed his hand over the black patch which covered the socket of his missing eye.

They did this to me at Sedan in 7o. They took my eye, but they paid dearly for it, the devils, Sacrg bleu, how we fought! Tigers! We were tigers-, Tabby cats! Anna called across the kitchen.

You know nothing of battle and war, these brave young men, they know, they understand! I drink to them! He did so copiously and then demanded, Now, where is the food? It was a savoury ragofit of ham and sausage and marrow bones. Anna brought bowls of it steaming from the stove and Centaine piled small loaves of crisp new bread on the bare table.

Now tell us, how goes the battle? the comte demanded as he broke bread and dipped it into his bowl. When will this war end? Let us not spoil good food. Andrew waved the question away, but with crumbs and gravy on his mustache the comte insisted. What of a new Allied offensive? It will be in the west, on the Somme river again. It is there that we have to break through the German lines. It was Michael who answered; he spoke with quiet authority, so that almost immediately he had all their attention.

Even the two women came from the stove and Centaine slipped on to the bench beside Michael, turning serious eyes up to him as she struggled to understand the English conversation.

How do you know all this? the comte interrupted.

His uncle is a general, Andrew explained.

A general! The comte looked at Michael with new interest. Centaine, do you not see that our guest is in difficulty? And while Anna gruffed and scowled, Centaine leaned over Michael's bowl and cut the meat into manageable portions so that he could eat with one hand.

Go on! Continue! the comte urged Michael. What then? General Haig will pivot right. This time he will succeed in cutting across the German rear, and roll up their line. Ha! So we are secure here. The comte reached for the claret bottle, but Michael shook his head.

I am afraid not, not entirely anyway. This section of the line is being stripped of reserves, regimental fronts of the line are being reduced to battalion strength, everything that can be spared is being moved to take part in a new push across the Sornme. The comte looked alarmed. That is criminal folly surely the Germans will counter-attack here to try and reduce pressure on their front at the Somme? The line here, it will not hold? Centaine asked anxiously and involuntarily glanced up at the kitchen windows. From where they sat, they could see the ridges on the horizon.

Michael hesitated. Oh, I am sure that we will be able to hold them long enough, especially if the fighting round the Somme goes as well and as quickly as we expect. Then the pressure here will swiftly be relieved as the Allied advance swings across the German rear.

But if the battle bogs down and is stalemated once again? Centaine asked softly in Flemish.

For a girl, and one with little English, she had a firm grasp on the essentials. Michael treated her question with respect, answering, in Afrikaans, as though he was speaking to another man.

Then we will be hard-pressed, especially as the Huns have aerial superiority. We may lose the ridges again. He paused and frowned. They will have to rush in reserves.

We may even be forced to pull back as far as Arras- Arras! Centaine gasped. That means- She did not finish, but looked around at her home as though already taking farewell of it. Arras was far to the rear.

Michael nodded. Once the attack begins, you will be in extreme danger here. You will be well advised to evacuate the chateau and go back south to Arras or even Paris."Never! cried the comte switching back into French. A de Thiry never retreats.

Except at Sedan, Anna muttered, but the comte did not deign to hear such levity.

I will stand here, on my own land. He pointed at the ancient chassepot rifle that hung on the kitchen wall. That is the weapon I carried at Sedan. The boche learned to fear it there. They will relearn that lesson. Louis de Thiry will teach it to them! Courage! cried Andrew. I give you a toast. French valour and the triumph of French arms! Naturally the comte had to reply with a toast to General Haig and our gallant British Allies!'Captain Courtney is a South African, Andrew pointed out. We should drink to them."Ah! the comte responded enthusiastically in English. To General, what is your uncle, the general, called? To General Sean Courtney and his brave South Africans."This gentleman, Andrew indicated the slightly owl VIA eyed doctor swaying gently on the bench beside him, is an officer in the Royal Medical Corps. A fine service, and worthy of our toast! To the Royal Medical Corps! The comte accepted the challenge, but as he reached for his glass again, it trembled before he touched it, and the surface of the red wine was agitated into little circular ripples which lapped against the crystal bowl. The comte froze and all their heads lifted.

The glass of the kitchen window-panes rattled in their frames and then le of the guns rolled down from the north. Once again the German guns were hunting along the ridges, clamouring and barking like wild dogs, and as they listened in silence, they could imagine the misery and agony of the men in the muddy trenches only a few miles from where they sat in the warm kitchen with their bellies filled with food and fine wine.

Andrew lifted his glass and said softly, I give you those poor blighters out there in the mud. May they endure. And this time even Centaine sipped from Michael's glass and her eyes swam with dark tears as she drank the toast.

I hate to be a killjoy, the young doctor stood up unsteadily, but that artillery barrage is the work-whistle for me, I'm afraid, the butchers vans will be on their way back already. Michael tried to rise with him, but clutched quickly at the edge of the table for support. I wish to thank you, Monsieur le Comte, he began formally, for your gentility - The word tripped on his tongue and he repeated it, but his tongue blurred and lost track of his speech. I salute your daughter, Mademoiselle de Thiry, Pange du bonheur - His legs folded up unde r him, and he collapsed gently.

He is wounded! Centaine cried as she leaped forward and caught him before he hit the floor, supporting him with one slim shoulder under his armpit. Help me, she pleaded. Andrew reeled forward to her assistance, and between them they half-carried, half-dragged Michael through the kitchen door.

Careful, his poor arm, Centaine gasped under the weight, as they lifted Michael into the side-car of the motor-cycle. Do not hurt him! He lolled in the padded seat with a beatific grin on his pale features.

Mademoiselle, rest assured he is beyond all pain, the lucky devil. Andrew tottered around the machine to take the controls.

Wait for me! cried the doctor as he and the comte, giving each other mutual support, bounced off the door jamb and came crabbing down the steps in an unintended sideways charge.

Climb aboard, Andrew invited, and at the third attempt kick-started the Ariel in a roar of blue smoke.

The doctor clambered on to the pillion behind him, and the comte thrust one of the two bottles of claret that he carried into Andrew's side pocket. Against the cold, he explained.

You are a prince among men. Andrew let out the clutch and the Ariel screeched into a tight turn. Look after Michael!

cried Centaine.

My cabbages! screamed Anna, as Andrew took a short cut through the vegetable garden.

A has les boches! howled the comte and took a last surreptitious pull at the other claret bottle, before Centaine could confiscate it from him and relieve him of the cellar keys once more.

At the end of the long drive that led down from the chAteau Andrew braked the motor-cycle and then at a more sedate pace joined the pathetic little procession that was trickling back from the ridges along the muddy, rutted main road.

The butchers'vans, as the field ambulances were irreverently known, were heavily loaded with the fruits of the renewed German bombardment. They chugged through the muddy puddles, with the racks of canvas stretchers in the open backs swaying and lurching to each bump.

The blood from the wounded men in the upper tiers soaked through the canvas and dripped on to those below.

On the verges of the lane little groups of walking wounded straggled back, their rifles discarded, leaning on each other for support, lumpy field dressings strapped over their injuries, all their faces blank with suffering, their eyes dead of expression, their uniforms caked with mud and their movements mechanical, beyond caring.

Beginning to sober rapidly, the doctor climbed down off the pillion and selected the more seriously hurt men from the stream. They loaded two of them on to the pillion, one astride the petrol tank in front of Andrew and three more into the side-car with Michael. The doctor ran behind the overloaded Ariel, pushing it through the mud holes, and he was completely sober when a mile up the road they reached the VAD hospital in a row of cottages at the entrance to the village of Mort Homme. He helped his newly acquired patients out of the side-car and then turned back to Andrew. Thanks. I needed that break. He glanced down at Michael, still passed out in the side-car. Look at him.

We can't go on like this forever."Michael is just slightly pissed, that is all. But the doctor shook his head. Battle fatigue he said. Shell shock. We don't understand it properly yet, but it seems there is just a limit to how much these poor has tards can stand. How long has he been flying without a break, three months? He will be all right, Andrew's voice was fierce, he's going to get through. He placed a protective hand on Michael's injured shoulder, remembering that it was six months since his last leave.

Look at him, all the signs. Thin as a starvation victim, the doctor went on, twitching and trembling. Those eyes - I'll bet he is showing unbalanced illogical behaviour, sullen dark moods alternating with mad wild moods? Am I correct? Andrew nodded reluctantly. One minute he calls the enemy loathsome vermin and machine-guns the survivors of crashed German aircraft, and the next they are gallant and worthy foes, he punched a newly arrived pilot last week for calling them Huns. Reckless bravery? Andrew remembered the balloons that morning, but he did not answer the question.

What can we do? he asked helplessly.

The doctor sighed and shrugged, and offered his hand. Goodbye and good luck, major. And as he turned away, he was already stripping off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves.

At the entrance to the orchard, just before they reached the squadron's bivouac, Michael suddenly heaved himself upright in the side-car and with all the solemnity of a judge pronouncing the death sentence, said, I am about to be sick. Andrew braked the motor-cycle off the road and held his head for im.

All that excellent claret, he lamented. To say nothing of the Napoleon cognac, if there was only some way to save it! Having noisily unburdened himself, Michael slumped down again and said, just as solemnly, I want you to know that I am in love, and his head flopped back as he passed out cold once more.

Andrew sat on the Ariel and drew the cork from the claret bottle with his teeth. That definitely calls for a toast. Let's drink to your true love. He offered the bottle to the unconscious form beside him. Not interested? He drank from it himself, and when he lowered the bottle, he began unaccountably and uncontrollably to sob.

He tried to choke back the tears, he had not wept since he was six years old, and then he remembered the young doctor's words, unbalanced and illogical behaviour, and the tears overwhelmed him. They poured down his cheeks, and he did not even attempt to wipe them away.

He sat on the driver's seat of the motor-cycle, shaking with silent grief.

Michael, my boy, he whispered. What is to become of us? We are doomed, there is no hope for us. Michael, no hope at all for any of us, and he covered his face with both hands and wept as though his heart was breaking.

Michael awoke to the clatter of the tin tray as Biggs placed it beside his field cot.

He groaned as he tried to sit up, but his injuries pulled him down again. What time is it, Biggs?"All past seven, sir, and a lovely spring morning."Biggs, for God's sake, why didn't you wake me?

I've missed the dawn patrol- No, we oven't, sir, Biggs murmured comfortably, we've been grounded."Grounded? Lord Killigerran's orders, grounded until further orders, sir. Biggs ladled sugar into the cocoa mug and stirred it.

"Igh time too, if I may be allowed to say so. We've flown thirty-seven days straight. Biggs, why do I feel so bloody? According to Lord Killigerran, we were severely attacked by a bottle of cognac, sir."Before that, I smashed up the old flying tortoise Michael began to remember. Spread her all over France, sir, like butter on toast, Biggs nodded. But we got them, Biggs! Both of the blighters, sir. The book paid out, I trust, Biggs? You didn't lose your money? We made a nice packet, thanking you, Mr Michael, and Biggs touched the other items on the cocoa tray.

"Ere's your loot- There was a neat sheaf of twenty onepound notes.

Three to one, sir, plus your original stake. You are entitled to ten percent commission, Biggs. Bless you, sir. Two notes disappeared magically into Biggs pocket. Now, Biggs. What else have we here? Four aspirins, compliments of Lord Killigerran. He is flying, Biggs, of course?

Gratefully Michael swallowed the pills.

Of course, sir. They took off at dawn. Who is his wingman? Mr Banner, sir. A new chum, Michael brooded unhappily. Lord Andrew will be all right, don't you worry, sir. Yes, of course, he will, and what is this?

Michael roused himself.

Keys to Lord Killigerran's motor-cycle, sir. He says as you are to give the count his salaams, whatever those may be, sir, and his tender admiration to the young lady Biggs - the aspirins had worked a miracle, Michael felt suddenly light and carefree and gay. His wounds no longer pulled and his head no longer ached. Biggs, he repeated, you could lay out my number ones and give the brass buckles a lick and the boots a bit of a shine? Biggs grinned at him fondly. Going calling, are we, sir? hat we are, Biggs, that we are.

Centaine woke in darkness and listened to the guns. They terrified her. She knew she would never become accustomed to that bestial, insensate storm that so impersonally dealt death and unspeakable injury, and she remembered the months of late summer the previous year when, for a brief period, the German batteries had been within range of the chateau. That was when they had abandoned the upper levels of the great house and moved below stairs. By then the servants had long since fled all except Anna, of course, and the tiny cell that Centaine now occupied had belonged to one of the maids.

Their whole way of life had changed dramatically since the stormwaves of war had swept over them. Though they had never kept the same grand style as some of the other leading families of the province, there had always been dinners and house-parties and twenty servants to sustain them, but now their existence was almost as simple as had been that of their servants before the war.

Centaine threw off her forebodings with her bedclothes, and ran down the narrow stoneflagged corridor on bare feet. In the kitchen Anna was at the stove, already feeding it with split oak.

I was on my way to you with a jug of cold water, she said gruffly, and Centaine hugged her and kissed her until she smiled, and then went to warm herself in front of the stove.

Anna poured boiling water into the copper basin on the oar and then added cold. Come along, mademoiselle"

she ordered.

Oh, Anna, do I have to? Move! Reluctantly Centaine lifted the nightdress over her head, and shivered as the cold raised a fine rash of goosepimples on her forearms and over her small rounded buttocks.

Hurry. She stepped into the basin and Anna knelt beside her and dunked a flannel. Her movements were methodical and businesslike as she soaped down Centaine's body, starting at the shoulders and working to the fingertips of each arm, but she could not conceal the love and pride that softened her ugly red face.

The child was delightfully formed, though perhaps her breasts and bottom were a little too small, Anna hoped to plump them out with a good starchy diet, once that was freely obtainable again. Her skin was a smooth, buttery colour, where the sun had not touched it, though where it had been exposed, it tended to take on a dark bronze sheen that Anna found most unsightly.

You must wear your gloves and long sleeves this summer, she scolded. Brown is so ugly Do hurry up, Anna. Centaine hugged her soapy breasts and shivered, and Anna lifted her arms one at a time and scrubbed the dense bushes of dark curly hair under them.

The suds ran in long lacy lines down her lean flanks where the rack of her ribs showed through.

Don't be so rough, Centaine wailed. And Anna examined her limbs critically: they were straight and long, though much too strong for a lady, all that riding and running and walking. Anna shook her head.

Oh, what now? Centaine demanded.

You are as hard as a boy, your belly is too muscular for having babies. Anna ran the flannel down her body. Ouch! Stay still, you don't want to smell like a goat, do you? Anna, don't you just love blue eyes? Anna grunted, knowing instinctively where the discussion was headed.

What colour eyes would a baby have, if its mother's eyes were brown and its father's a lovely shimmering blue? Anna slapped her bottom with the flannel. That is enough of that. Your father will not like that kind of talk. Centaine did not take the threat seriously, she went on dreamily. Airmen are so brave, don't you think, Anna?

They must be the bravest men in the world. She became brisk. Hurry, Anna, I'll be late to count my chickens. She sprang from the basin, scattering water drops on the flagged floor, while Anna wrapped her in a towel that she had heated in front of the stove. Anna, it's almost light outside.

You come back here immediately after, Anna ordered. We have a lot of work to do today. Your father has reduced us to starvation level with his misplaced generosity."We had to offer a meal to those gallant young airmen. Centaine pulled on her clothes and sat on the stool to hook up her riding boots. Don't go mooning off into the woods- Oh, hush, Anna. Centaine jumped up and went clattering down the stairs. You come straight back! Anna yelled after her.

Nuage heard her coming and whickered softly. Cen tame flung both arms around his neck and kissed his velvety grey muzzle.

Bonjour my darling. She had stolen two cubes of sugar from under Anna's nose and now Nuage salivated over her hand as she fed them to him. She wiped her palm on his neck and then when she turned to lift down the saddle from its rack, he bumped her in the small of the back, demanding more.

Outside it was dark and cold, and she urged the stallion into a canter, revelling in the icy flow of air across her face, her nose and ears turning bright pink and her eyes beginning to stream tears. At the crest of the hillock, she reined Nuage to a standstill and looked into the soft gunmetal sheen of dawn, watching the sky above the long horizon turn to the colour of ripe oranges. Behind her the false dawn caused by the harsh, intermittent glow of the artillery barrage flickered against the heavens, but steadfastly she turned her back to it and waited for the planes to come.

She heard the distant beat of their engines, even over the sound of the guns, and then they came snarling into the yellow dawn, as fierce and swift and beautiful as falcons, so that, as always, she felt her pulse race, and she rose high in the saddle to greet them.

The lead machine was the green one with its tiger stripes of victory, the mad Scotsman. She lifted both hands high above her head.

Go with God, and come back safely! she shouted her blessing, and saw the flash of white teeth under the ridiculous tartan tam o shanter, and the green machine waggled its wings and then it was past, climbing away into the sinister sombre clouds that hung above the German lines.

She watched them go, the other aircraft closing up around the green leader into their fighting formation, and she was overwhelmed with a vast sadness, a terrible sense of inadequacy.

Why couldn't I be a man! she cried aloud. Oh, why couldn't I be going with you! But already they were out of sight, and she turned Nuage down the hill.

They will all die, she thought. All the young and strong and beautiful young men, and we will be left only with the old and maimed and ugly. And the sound of the distant guns counterpointed her fears. I wish, oh, how I wish, she said aloud, and the stallion flicked his ears back to listen to her, but she did not go on, for she did not know what it was she wished for. She knew only that there was a void within her that ached to be filled, a vast wanting for she did not know what, and a terrible sorrow for all the world. She turned Nuage loose to graze in the small field behind the chateau and carried his saddle back on her shoulder.

Her father was sitting at the kitchen table and she kissed him casually. His eyepatch gave him a rakish air despite that fact that his other eye was bloodshot; his face was a baggy and wrinkled as a bloodhound's and he smelled of garlic and stale red wine.

As usual, he and Anna were bickering in a companionable fashion, and as Centaine sat opposite him cupping the big round coffee bowl in her hands, she wondered suddenly if Anna and her father mated together, and immediately after she wondered why the notion had never occurred to her before.

As a country girl, the processes of procreation were no mystery to her. Despite Anna's original protests, she was always there to assist when mares from the surrounding district were brought to visit Nuage. She was the only one who could manage the big white stallion once he smelt the mare, and calm him sufficiently to enable him to perform his business without injuring himself or the object of his affections.

By a process of logic, she had reached the conclusion that man and woman must work on similar principles.

When she had questioned Anna, she had at first threatened to report Centaine to her papa and wash her mouth out with lye soap. Patiently Centaine had persisted until at last Anna had in a hoarse whisper confirmed her suspicions, and glanced across the kitchen at the comte with a look on her face that Centaine had never seen before, and at the time could not fathom, but which now made logical sense.

Watching them argue and laugh together, it all fell into place, the occasions when after a nightmare she had gone to Anna's room for comfort and found her bed empty, the puzzling presence of one of Anna's petticoats under her father's bed when she was sweeping out his bedroom.

Only last week Anna had come out of the cellar after helping the comte clean out the improvised animal stalls with straw sticking both to the back of her skirts and to the bun of greying hair on the top of her head.

The discovery seemed somehow to increase Centaine's desolation and her feeling of emptiness. She felt truly alone now, isolated and without purpose, empty and aching.

I'm going out. She sprang up from the kitchen table.

Oh no. Anna barred her way. We have got to get some food into this house, since your father has given away all we possess, and, mademoiselle, you are going to help me! Centaine had to escape from them, to be alone, to come to terms with this terrible new desolation of her spirit.

Nimbly she ducked under Anna's outstretched arm and flung open the kitchen door.

On the threshold stood the most beautiful person she had ever seen in all her life.

He was dressed in glossy boots and immaculate riding breeches of a lighter tan colour than his khaki uniform jacket. His narrow waist was belted in lustrous leather and burnished brass, his Sam Browne crossed his chest and emphasized his wide shoulders. On his left breast were the RFC wings and a row of coloured ribbons, on his epaulettes sparkled the badges of his rank, and his cap had been carefully crushed in the manner affected by veteran fighter pilots and set at a jaunty angle over his impossibly blue eyes.

Centaine fell back a pace and stared up at him, for he towered over her like a young god, and she became aware of a sensation that was entirely new to her. Her stomach seemed to turn to jelly, hot jelly, heavy as molten lead that spread downwards through her lower body until it seemed that her legs could no longer support the weight of it. At the same time she had great difficulty breathing.

Mademoiselle de Thiry. This vision of martial splendour spoke and touched the peak of his cap in salute. The voice was familiar, and she recognized the eyes, those cerulean blue eyes, and the man's left arm was supported by a narrow leather strap Michel, her voice was unsteady and she corrected herself. Captain Courtney, and then she changed languages, Mijnheer Courtney? The young god smiled at her, and it did not seem possible that this was the same man, tousled, bloodied and muddied, swaddled in ill-fitting charred rags, trembling and shaking and pathetic, that she had helped load in a stupor of pain and weakness and inebriation into the sidecar of the motor-cycle the previous afternoon.

When he smiled at her, Centaine felt the world lurch beneath her feet. When it steadied, she realized that it had altered its orbit and was on a new track amongst the stars. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Entrez, monsieur. She fell back, and as he stepped over the threshold, the comte rose from the table and hurried to meet him.

How goes it with you, captain? He took Michael's hand. Your wounds? They are much better. A little cognac would help them, the comte suggested and looked at his daughter slyly. Michael's stomach quailed at the suggestion and he shook his head vehemently.

No, said Centaine firmly, and turned to Anna. We must see to the captain's dressing. Protesting only mildly, Michael was led to the stool in front of the stove and Anna unbuckled his belt, while Centaine stood behind him and eased his jacket off his shoulders.

Anna unwrapped the dressings and grunted with approval.

Hot water, child, she ordered.

Carefully they washed and dried his burns, and then smeared them with fresh ointment and rebandaged them with clean linen strips.

They are healing beautifully, Anna nodded, while Centaine helped him into his shirt.

She had not realized how smooth a man's skin could be, there down his flanks and across his back. His dark hair curled on to the nape of his neck, and he was so thin that each knuckle of his spine stood out as cleanly as beads on a rosary, with two ridges of lean muscle running down each side of it.

She came round to button the front of his shirt.

You are very gentle, he said softly, and she dared not look into his eyes, lest she betray herself in front of Anna.

His chest hair was thick and crisp and springy as she brushed it almost unintentionally with her fingertips, and the nipples of his flat hard chest were dusky-pink and tiny, yet they hardened and thrust out under her gaze, a phenomenon which both amazed and enchanted her. She had never dreamed that happened to men also.

Come, Centaine, Anna chided her, and she started as she realized that she had been staring at his body.

I came to thank you, Michael said. I didn't mean to make work for you. It is no trouble. Centaine still dared not look into his eyes. Without your help I might have burned to death."No! Centaine said with unnecessary emphasis. The idea of death and this marvelous creature was totally unacceptable to her.

Now she looked at his face again at last, and it seemed that the summer sky showed through chinks in his skull so blue were his eyes.

Centaine, there is much work to do. Anna's tone was sharper still.

Let me help you, Michael cut in eagerly. I have been grounded, I am not allowed to fly. Anna looked dubious, but the Comte shrugged. Another pair of hands, we could use. A small repayment, Michael insisted.

Your fine uniform. Anna was looking for excuses, and she glanced down at his glossy boots.

We have rubber boots and overalls, Centaine cut in swiftly, and Anna threw up her hands in capitulation.

Centaine thought that even the blue serge deNim, or denim as it was colloquially known, and black rubber boots looked elegant on Michael's tall lean body as he descended to help the Comte muck out the animal stalls in the cellars.

Centaine and Anna spent the rest of the morning in the vegetable gardens, preparing the soil for the spring sowing.

Every time Centaine went down to the cellars on the flimsiest of excuses, she paused beside wherever Michael was working under the Comte's direction, and the two of them made halting and self-conscious conversation until Anna came down the staircase.

Where is that child now! Centaine! What on earth are you doing? As if she did not know.

All four of them ate lunch in the kitchen, omelettes flavoured with onions and truffles, cheese and brown bread, and a bottle of red wine over which Centaine relented, but not enough to hand over the cellar keys to her father. She fetched it herself.

The wine softened the mood, even Anna took a glass of it and allowed Centaine to do the same, and the talk became easy and unrestrained, punctuated with bursts of laughter.

Now, captain, the Comte turned to Michael at last with a calculating glitter in his single eye - you and your family, what do you do in Africa?

Farmers, Michael replied.

Tenant farmers? the Comte probed cautiously. No, no -'Michael laughed.

We farm our own lands. Landowners? The Comte's tone changed, for, as all the world knew, land was the only true form of wealth. What size are your family estates? Well- Michael looked embarrassed quite large.

You see, it is mostly held in a family company, my father and my uncle-'Your uncle, the general? the Comte prompted. Yes, my Uncle Sean-'A hundred hectares? the Comte insisted.

A little more. Michael squirmed on the bench and fiddled with his bread roll.

Two hundred? The Comte looked so expectant that Michael could not evade him longer.

Altogether, if you take the plantations and the cattle ranches, and some land we own in the north, it's about forty thousand hectares. Forty thousand? The comte stared at him, and then repeated the question in English so there could be no misunderstanding. Forty thousand? Michael nodded uncomfortably. It was only recently that he had begun to feel a little self-conscious about the extent of his family's worldly possessions.

Forty thousand hectares! The comte breathed reverently, and then, and, of course, you have many brothers? Michael shook his head. No, unfortunately I am an only son. Ha! said the comte with transparent relief. Do not feel too badly about that! I And patted his arm in a paternal gestur The comte shot a glance at his daughter, and for the first time recognized the expression on her face as she looked at the airman.

Quite right too, he thought comfortably. Forty thousand hectares, and an only son! His daughter was a Frenchwoman, and knew the value of a sou. and a franc, sacrg bleu, she knew it better than he did himself. He smiled lovingly across the table at her. A child in many ways, but a shrewd young Frenchwoman in others. Since the comte's factor had fled to Paris, leaving the accounts and books of the estate in chaos, it had been Centaine who had taken over the purse-strings. The comte had never bothered much with money anyway, for him land would always remain the only true wealth, but his daughter was the clever one. She even counted the bottles in the cellar and the hams on the smoke-rack. He took a mouthful of red wine and mused happily to himself.

There would be so few eligible young men left after this slaughter, this charnel-house ... and forty thousand hectares!

Cherie, he said. If the captain were to take the shotgun and get us a few fat pigeon, and you were to fill a basket with truffles, you might still find some, what a dinner we could have this evening! Centaine clapped her hands with delight, but Anna glared at him in red-faced indignation across the table.

Anna will go with you as chaperone, he said hastily. We don't want any unseeming scandal, now, do we? Might as well sow a seed, he thought, if it wasn't already ripely germinating. Forty thousand hectares, merde!

The pig was named Kaiser Wilhelm, or Klein Willie, for short. He was a piebald boar, so gross that as he waddled into the oak forest, he reminded Michael of a bull hippopotamus. His pointed ears drooped forward over his eyes and his tail curled like a roll of barbed wire up over his back, exposing ample evidence of his gender, contained in a bright pink sac that looked as though it had been boiled in oil.

Willie! Cherchel cried Centaine and Anna in unison; at the same time it required both of them on the leash to restrain the enormous beast. Cherche! Seek up! And the boar snuffled eagerly at the damp, chocolatebrown earth under the oak trees, dragging the two women behind him. Michael followed them, a spade over his good shoulder, laughing delightedly at the novelty of the hunt, and trotting to keep up with it.

Deeper into the forest they came across a narrow stream, running strongly with discoloured water from the recent rains, and they followed the bank, with snorts and cries of encouragement. Suddenly the pig let out a gleeful squeal and began rooting in the soft earth with his flat wet snout.

He's found one! Centaine shrieked with excitement and she and Anna hauled unavailingly on the leash.

Michel! she panted over her shoulder. When we get him away, you must be very quick with the spade. Are you ready? Ready! From the pocket of her skirt Centaine pulled a wizened nub of a truffle that was mildewed with age. She pared off a sliver with a clasp knife, and held as close to the boar's snout as she could reach. For a few moments the pig ignored her, and then it got the fresher scent of the cut truffle and grunted gluttonously, tried to take her hand in his streaming jaws. Centaine jerked away and backed off with the boar following her.

,Quickly, Michel! she cried, and he went at the earth with the spade. In half a dozen strokes he had exposed the buried fungus and Anna dropped to her knees and freed it from the earth with her bare hands. She lifted it out, crusty with chocolate soil, a dark knobbly lump almost the size of her fist.

Look, what a beauty! At last Centaine allowed the pig to take the sliver of fungus from her fingers, and when he had gulped it, she let him return to the empty hole and snuffle around in the loose earth to satisfy himself that the truffle had disappeared, then Cherche! she shouted at him, and the hunt was on again. Within an hour the small basket was filled with the unappetizing-looking lumpy fungi, and Anna called a halt.

More than this will merely spoil. Now for some pigeons. Let's see if our captain from Africa can shoodThey hurried after the boar, laughing and panting back through the open fields to the chAteau, where Centaine locked the truffles in the pantry and Anna returned the boar to his stall in the cellars and then lifted the shotgun down from its rack on the kitchen wall. She handed the weapon to Michael and watched as he opened the breech and checked the barrels, then snapped them closed and put the gun to his shoulder and tried the balance. Despite the burns that hampered his swing a little, Anna could tell a good workman by the way he handled his tools, and her expression softened with approval.

For Michael's part he was surprised and then delighted to discover that the weapon was a venerable Holland and Holland, only the English gunsmiths could fashion a barrel that would throw a perfectly even pattern of shot no matter how fast the gun was traversed.

He nodded at Anna. Excellent! And she handed him the canvas bag of cartridges.

I will show you a good place. Centaine took his hand to lead him and then saw Anna's expression and dropped it hurriedly. In the afternoon the pigeons come back to the woods, she explained.

They skirted the edge of the forest, Centaine leading and lifting her skirts over the mud puddles so that Michael had an occasional flash of her smooth white calves, and his pulse accelerated beyond the exertion of keeping up with her. On her short, stubby legs, Anna fell far behind and they ignored her calls to Wait, wait for me. At the corner of the forest, in the angle of the T that the pilots used as the landmark for the return to the airfield, there was a sunken lane with high hedges on each side.

The pigeons come in from there, Centaine pointed across the open fields and vineyards, all of them overgrown and neglected. We should wait here The hedgerow afforded excellent cover, and when Anna came up they all three hid themselves and began to search the sky. Heavy low cloud had begun to roll in again from the north, threatening rain, and forming a perfect backdrop against which the tiny specks of a pigeon flock showed clearly to Michael's trained eye.

There, he said, coming straight in. I don't see them. Centaine searched agitatedly. Where - oh yes, now I see them. Although they were quick on the wing, they were flying straight and descending only gently towards the forest.

For a marksman of Michael's calibre, it was simple shooting. He waited until two birds overlapped each other, and took them both with his first shot. They crumpled in midair and as the rest of the flock flared up and scattered, he knocked down a third pigeon in a burst of feathers with his second barrel.

The two women raced out into the open field to bring in the birds.

Three with two shots. Centaine came back and stood close beside him, stroking the soft warm body of the dead pigeon and looking up at Michael.

It was a fluke, said Anna gruffly. Nobody shoots two A pigeons by intention, not if they are flying. The next flock was a larger one, and the birds were bunched. Michael took three of them with his first barrel and a fourth bird with his second, and Centaine turned triumphantly to Anna.

Another fluke, she gloated. What luck the captain is having today. Two more flocks came within range in the next half hour, and Centaine asked seriously, Do you never miss, Mijnheer? Up there, Michael looked into the sky, if you miss, you are dead. So far I have never missed. Centaine shivered. Death, that word again. Death was all around them, on the ridges over there were for the moment the sound of the guns was just a low rumble, death in the sky above them. She looked at Michael and thought, I don't want him to die, never! Never! Then she shook herself, driving away the gloom, and she smiled and said, Teach me to shoot. The request was inspired. It allowed Michael to touch her, even under Anna's jealous gaze. He stood her in front of him, and coached her into the classic stance, with her left foot leading.

This shoulder a little lower. They were both electrically aware of each contact. Just turn your hips this way slightly. He placed his hands upon them and Michael's voice sounded as though he were choking as she pushed back with her buttocks against him, an untutored but devastating pressure.

Centaine's first shot drove her back against his chest, and he clasped her protectively while the pigeons headed untouched for the horizon.

You are looking at the muzzle of the gun, not the bird, Michael explained, still holding her. Look at the bird, and the gun will follow of its own At her next shot a fat pigeon tumbled out of the sky, amid shrieks of excitement from both women, but when Anna ran out to pick it up, the rain that had been holding off until that moment fell upon them in a silver curtain.

The barn! cried Centaine, and led them scampering down the lane. The rain slashed the tree-tops and exploded in miniature shell bursts on their skin so that they gasped at its icy sting. Centaine reached the barn first, and her blouse was sticking to her skin, so that Michael could see the exact shape of her breasts. Strands of her dark hair were plastered against her forehead, and she shook the drops off her skirts and laughed at him, making no attempt to avoid his gaze.

The barn fronted on to the lane. It was built of squared attered yellow stone blocks and the thatched roof was t and worn as an old carpet. it was half-filled with bales of straw that rose in tiers to the roof ,This will set in, Anna groused darkly, staring out at the streaming rain and shaking the rain off herself like a water buffalo emerging from the swamp. We will be stuck here. Come, Anna, let's clean the birds. They found comfortable perches on the straw bales, Centaine and Michael with their shoulders almost touching, they chatted.

and while they plucked the pigeons Tell me about Africa, Centaine demanded. is it really so dark? It's the sunniest land in the world, too much sun, even, Michael told her.

hate the I love the sun, Centaine shook her head cold and the wet. There could never be too much sun for me. He told her about the deserts where it never rained. Not as much in a year as it does here in a single day."I thought there were only black savages in Africa."No, he laughed. There are plenty of white savages too - and black gentlemen, and he told her about the tiny yellow pygmies of the Ituri forests, tall as a man's waist, and the giant Watusi who considered any man under two metres tall to be a pygmy, and those noble warriors of Zulu who called themselves children of heaven.

You talk as though you love them, she accused.

The Zulu? he asked, and then nodded. Yes, I suppose I do. Some of them, anyway. Mbejane- Mbejane? She did not pronounce the name right.

A Zulu, he has been with my Uncle Sean since they were lads together. He used the Zulu word Umfaan and had to translate for her.

Tell me about the animals. Centaine did not want him to stop talking. She could listen to his voice and his stories for ever. Tell me about the lions and the tigers. No tigers, he smiled at her, but plenty of lions. And Even Anna's hands, busy with plucking the birds, stilled as she listened while Michael described a camp on the hunting veld where he and his Uncle Sean had been besieged by a pride of lions, and had had to stand by the horses heads all night, protecting and soothing them, while the great pale cats prowled back and forth at the edge of the firelight, roaring and grunting, trying to drive the horses into the darkness where they would have been easy prey.

Tell us about the elephants. And he told her about those sagacious beasts. He described how they moved with that slow somnambulistic gait, huge ears flapping to cool their blood, picking up dirt to dash it over their heads for a dust bath.

He told them about the intricate social structures of the elephant herds, how the old bulls avoided the uproar of breeding herds. Just like your father, said Anna. And how the barren old queens took upon themselves the duties of nanny and midwife: how the great grey beasts formed relationships with each other, almost like human friendships, that lasted their lifetimes; and about their strange preoccupation with death, how if they killed a hunter who had plagued and wounded them they would often cover his body with green leaves, almost as though they were trying to make atonement. He explained how when one of the members of the herd was stricken, the others would try to succour it, holding it on its feet with their trunks, supporting it from each side with their bulks, and when it fell at last, if it was a cow, the herd bull would mount her, as though trying to frustrate death with the act of generation.

This last tale roused Anna from her listening trance and reminded her of her role of chaperone; she glanced sharply at Centaine.

It has stopped raining, she announced primly, and she began to gather up the naked caracasses of the pigeons.

Centaine still watched Michael with huge shining dark eyes.

One day I will go to Africa, she said softly, and he returned her gaze steadily and nodded. Yes, he said. One day. It was as though they had exchanged a vow. It was a thing between them, firm and understood. In that moment she became his woman and he her man.

Come, Anna insisted at the door of the barn. Come on, before it rains again, and it took a vast effort from both of them to rise and follow her out into the wet and dripping world.

They dragged on leaden feet up the lane towards the chateau, side by side, not touching but so acutely aware of each other that they might as well have been locked in each other's arms.

Then the planes came out of the dusk, low and swift, the thunder of their engines rising to a crescendo as they passed overhead: In the lead was the green Sopwith. From this angle they could not see Andrew's head, but they could see daylight through the rents in the fabric of his wings, through the lines of bullet holes which the Spandaus had torn.

The five aircraft that followed Andrew had all been shot up as well. There were tears and neatly punched holes in their wings and fuselages.

It's been a hard day, Michael murmured, with his head thrown back. J Another Sopwith trailed the others, its engine popping and missing, vapour trailing back in a stream behind it, one wing skewed out of line where the struts had been shot through. Centaine, watching them, shuddered, and crept closer to Michael.

Some of them died out there today, she whispered, and he did not have to reply.

Tomorrow you will be with them again. Not tomorrow. Then the next day, or the next Once more it was not necessary to reply.

I Michel, oh Michel! There was physical agony in her i voice. I must see you alone. We might never, we might never have another chance. From now on we must live each precious minute of our lives as though it is the last. The shock of her words was like a blow to his body.

He could not speak, and her own voice dropped.

The barn, she whispered.

When? He found his voice, and it croaked in his own ears.

Tonight, before midnight, I will come as soon as I am able to. it will be cold. She looked directly into his face social conventions had been burned away in the furnace of war. You must bring a blanket She whirled then and ran to catch up with Anna, leaving Michael staring after her in a daze of disbelief and uncertain ecstasy.

Michael washed at the pump outside the kitchen and changed back into his uniform. When he entered the kitchen again, the pigeon pie was rich and redolent of fresh truffles under its crumbly brown crust, and Centaine was filling and refilling her father's glass without a protest from him. She did the same for Anna, but with a lighter more cunning hand, so that Anna did not seem to notice, though her face became redder and her laughter more raucous.

Centaine placed Michael in charge of the His Master's Voice gramophone, her most prized possession, and made it his duty to keep it fully wound up and change each of the wax discs as they ended. From the huge brass trumpet of the machine blared the recording of Toscanini conducting the La Scala orchestra in Verdi's Afda, filling the kitchen with glorious sound. When Centaine brought his plate laden with pigeon pie to where he sat opposite the comte, she touched the nape of Michael's neck, those dark silky curls, and she purred in his ear as she leaned over him, I love Afda, don't you, Captain? When the comte questioned him closely on the production of his family estates, Michael found it difficult to concentrate on his replies.

We were growing a great deal of black wattle, but my father and uncle are convinced that after the war the motor car will completely supersede the horse, and therefore there will be a drastic reduction in the need for leather harness, and consequently the demand for wattle tanningWhat a great shame that the horse should have to give way to those noisy, stinking contraptions of the devil, the comte sighed, but they are right, of course. The petrol engine is the future. We are replanting with pines and Australian blue gums. Pit props for the gold mines and raw material for paper. I Quite right. Then, of course, we have the sugar plantations and the I cattle ranches. My uncle believes that soon there will be ships fitted with cold rooms that will carry our beef to the worldThe more the comte listened, the more pleased he became.

Drink up, my boy, he urged Michael, as an earnest of his approval. You have had hardly a drop. Is it not to your taste? Excellent, truly, however, le fbie, my liver. Michael clasped himself under the ribs and the comte made sounds of sympathy and concern. As a Frenchman he understood that most of the ills and woes of the world could be attributed to the malfunctions of that organ.

Not serious. But please don't let my little indisposition prevent you. Michael made a self-depracating gesture, and obediently the comte recharged his own glass.

Having served the men, the two women brought their own plates to the table to join them. Centaine sat beside her father, and spoke little. Her head turned between the two men as though in dutiful attention, until Michael felt a light pressure on his ankle and with a leap of his nerves realized that she had reached out with her foot beneath the table. He shifted guiltily under the comte's scrutiny, not daring to look across at Centaine. Instead, he made that nervous gesture of blowing on his fingertips as though he had burned them on the stove, and he blinked his eyes rapidly.

Centaine's foot withdrew as secretly as it had advanced, and Michael waited two or three minutes before reaching out his own. Then he found her foot and took it between both of his; from the corner of his eye he saw her start and a flush of dark blood spread up her throat to her cheeks and ears. He turned to stare at her, so enchanted that he could not pull his eyes away from her face, until the comte raised his voice.

How many? the comte repeated with mild asperity, and guiltily Michael jerked his foot back. I am sorry. I did not hearThe captain is not well, Centaine cut in quickly and a little breathlessly. His burns are not healed, and he has worked too hard today. We should not keep him unnecessarily, Anna agreed with alacrity, if he has finished his dinner. Yes. Yes. Centaine stood up. We must let him go home to rest. The comte looked truly distressed to be deprived of a drinking companion, until Centaine reassured him. Don't disturb yourself, Papa, you sit here and finish up your wine. Anna accompanied the couple out into the darkness of the kitchen yard and stood close by, eagle-eyed and arms akimbo, while they said their shy goodbyes. She had taken just enough of the claret to dull the razor-edge of her instincts, or she might have wondered why Centaine was so eager to see Michael on to his motor-cycle.

May I call upon you again, Mademoiselle de Thiry? If you wish, Captain.

Anna's heart, softened by wine, went out to them. It took an effort to harden her resolve.

Goodbye, Mijnheer, she said firmly. This child will catch a chill. Come inside now, Centaine.

The comte had found it imperative to wash down the claret with a fine de champagne or two. it cut the acidity of the wine, he explained seriously to Centaine. It was, therefore, necessary for the two women to help him to bed. He made this rather perilous ascent singing the march from Aida with more gusto than talent. When he reached his bed, he went down like a felled oak, flat upon his back. Centaine took each of his legs in turn, straddled it and pulled off the boot with her knees.

Bless you, my little one, your Papa loves you. Between them they sat him up and dropped his nightshirt over his head, then let him collapse back on to the bolster. His decency preserved by the nightshirt, they removed his breeches and rolled him into the bed.

May angels guard your sleep, my pretty, the comte mumbled, as they spread an eiderdown over him and Anna blew out the candle.

Under cover of darkness, Anna reached out and caressed the tousled wiry brush of the comte's head. She was rewarded by a reverberating snore and followed Centaine from the room, softly closing the door behind her.

Centaine lay and listened to the old house groan and creak around her in the night.

Wisely, she had resisted the temptation to climb fully clothed beneath her bedclothes, for Anna made one of her unannounced visits just as Centaine was about to extinguish her candle. She sat on the edge of the bed, garrulous with wine, but not so befuddled that she would not have known if Centaine had not been in her nightclothes. By yawning and sighing Centaine tried telepathically to make her feel sleepy, but when that didn't work, and she heard the distant chimes of the church clock at Mort Homme strike ten o'clock, she herself feigned sleep.

It was agony to lie still and regulate her breathing, for she burned and itched with excitement.

At last Anna realized that she was talking to herself, and she moved around the tiny chamber, picking up and folding Centaine's discarded clothing, and finally stooping over her to kiss her cheek and then pinch out the wick of the lamp.

As soon as she was alone, Centaine sat up and hugged herself in a ferment of anticipation and trepidation.

Although it was very clear in her mind what the final outcome of this meeting with Michael must be, the precise mechanics were at this stage still tantalizingly obscure. A process of logic had suggested to her that the broad concept could not differ too widely from what she had witnessed countless times in field and barnyard.

She had received confirmation of this one drowsy summer afternoon, when a mild commotion in one of the disused stables had attracted her attention. She had climbed into the loft and through a chink watched Elsa, the kitchenmaid, and Jacques the undergroom with amazement, until gradually it had dawned upon her that they were playing rooster and hen, stallion and mare.

She had thought about it for days afterwards, and then eavesdropped with more attention upon the gossip of the female servants. Finally, she had taken her courage in both hands and gone to Anna with her questions.

All these researches had left her confused and puzzled by the contradictions. According to Anna, the procedure was extremely painful, accompanied by profuse bleeding and dire danger of pregnancy and disease. This conflicted with the unrestrained glee with which the other female servants discussed the subject, and with the giggles and muffled cries of delight that she had heard coming from Elsa as she lay beneath Jacques on the straw of the stable floor.

Centaine knew that she had a high threshold of pain, even the good doctor Le Brun had remarked upon it after he had reset her broken forearm without benefit of chloroform. Not a cheep out of her, he had marvelled. No, Centaine knew she could bear pain as well as any of the peasant girls on the estate, and apart from her monthly courses she had bled before. Often, when she was certain that she was unobserved, she would take the cumbersome side-saddle from Nuage's back, tuck up her skirts and ride him astride. The previous spring, riding bareback, she had put the stallion to the stone wall that bordered North Field, jumping him from the low side and dropping down seven feet to the deep side of the wall. As they landed, she had come down hard on Nuage's withers, and a pain like a knife blade had shot up through her body. She had bled so that Nuage's white shoulders were stained pink and she was so ashamed that despite the pain she had washed him off in the pond at the end of the field before limping home, leading Nuage behind her.

No, neither pain nor blood frightened her. Her trepidation had another source. She was deadly afraid that Michael might find her disappointing, Anna had also warned her of that.

Afterwards men always lose interest in a woman, les cochons. If Michael loses interest in me, I think I will die, she thought, and for a moment she hesitated. I will not go I will not take that chance.

Oh, but how can I not go? she whispered aloud, and felt her chest swelling with the strength of her love and her wanting. I must. I simply must. In an agony of impatience she listened to the sounds of Anna preparing for bed in the chamber next door. Even after there was silence, she waited on, heard the church clock strike the quarter and then the half hour before she slipped from under the eiderdown.

She found her petticoats and cami-knickers where Anna had folded them away, and then paused with one foot in the leg of the knickers.

What for? she asked herself and smothered a giggle with her hand as she kicked them off again.

She buttoned on the thick woollen riding skirts and jacket, then spread a dark shawl over her head and shoulders. Carrying her boots in her hand, she slipped into the passage and listened outside Anna's door.

Anna's snores were low and regular and Centaine crept down into the kitchen. Sitting on the stool before the fire she buckled on her boots and then lit the bull's-eye lantern with a taper from the stove. She unlocked the kitchen door and let herself out. The moon was in its last quarter, sailing sharp-prowed through wisps of flying cloud.

Centaine kept to the grassy verge, so that the gravel would not crunch under her boots, and she did not open the shutter of the lantern, but hurried down the lane by the moon's faint silvery light. In the north, up on the ridges, there was a sudden brilliance, a dawn of orange light, that subsided slowly, and then came the rumble of the explosion muted by the wind.

A mine! Centaine paused for a moment, wondering how many had died in that monstrous upheaval of earth and fire. The thought spurred her resolve. There was so much death and hatred, and so little love. She had to grasp at every last grain of it.

She saw the barn ahead of her at last, and started to run. There was no light showing within, no sign of the motor-cycle.

He has not come. The thought left her desperate with desire. She wanted to scream his name. She tripped at the threshold of the barn, and almost fell.

Michel! She could restrain herself no longer, she heard the panic in her own voice as she called again, MicheW

and opened the shutter of the lantern.

He was coming towards her, out of the gloom of the barn. Tall and broad-shouldered, his pale face beautiful in the lantern light.

Oh, I thought you were not coming.

He stopped in front of her. Nothing, he said softly, nothing in this world could have kept me away. They stood facing each other, Centaine with her chin lifted to look up at him, staring at each other hungrily and yet neither of them knowing what to do next, how to bridge those few inches between them that seemed like the void of all eternity. Nobody saw you? he blurted. No, no, I don't think so. Good. Michel? Yes, Centaine. Perhaps I should not have come, perhaps I should go back? It was exactly the right thing to say, for the implied threat galvanized Michael and he reached out and seized her, almost roughly.

No, never, I don't want you to go, ever. She laughed, a husky breathless sound, and he pulled her to him and tried to kiss her, but it was a clumsy attempt. They bumped noses and then their teeth clashed together in their haste, before they found each other's lips. However, once he found them, Centaine's lips were hot and soft, and the inside of her mouth was silky and tasted like ripe apples. Then her shawl slipped forward over her head, half smothering them both and they had to break apart, breathless and laughing with excitement.

Buttons, she whispered, your buttons hurt, and I am cold. She shivered theatrically.

I'm sorry. He took the lantern from her and led her to the back of the barn. He handed her up over the bales of straw, and in the lamplight she saw that he had made a nest of soft straw between the bales and lined it with grey army blankets.

I went back to my tent to get them, he explained, as he set the lamp down carefully, and then turned to her again, eagerly.

Attends! She used the familiar form of address to restrain him, and then unbuckled his Sam Browne belt.

I'll will be covered in bruises. Michael tossed the belt aside and seized her again. This time they found each other's mouths and clung together.

Great waves of feeling washed over Centaine, so powerful that she felt giddy and weak. Her legs sagged but Michael held her up and she tried to match the flood of kisses that he rained on her mouth and her eyes and her throat but she wanted him to go down on to the blankets with her. Deliberately she let her legs go and pulled him off balance, so that he fell on top of her as she tumbled into the blanket-lined nest in the straw.

I'm sorry. He tried to disentangle himself, but she locked one arm around his neck and held his face to hers.

over his shoulder she reached out and pulled the blankets to cover them both. She heard herself making little mewing sounds like a kitten denied the teat, and she ran her hands over his face and into his hair as she kissed him. His body weight on top of her felt so good that when he tried to roll off her, she hooked her ankle into the back of his knee to prevent him.

The light, he croaked, and groped for the lantern to close the shutter.

No. I want to see your face. She caught his wrist and pulled his hand back, holding it to her bosom as she looked up into his eyes. They were so beautiful in the lamplight that she thought that her heart might break and then she felt his hand on one of her breasts, and she held it there while her nipples ached with the need for his touch.

It all became a delirium of delight and wanting, becoming more and more powerful until at last it was unbearable , something had to happen before she fainted away with the strength of it, but it did not happen, and she felt herself coming back off the heights and it made her impatient and almost angry with disappointment.

Her critical faculties that had been dulled by desire returned to her, and she sensed that Michael was floundering in indecision, and she became truly angry. He should have been masterful, taking her up there where she longed to go. She took his wrist again and she drew his hand downwards, at the same time she moved beneath him so that her thick woollen skirts rode up and bunched about her waist.

Centaine, he whispered. I don't want to do anything that you don't want. Tais-tai! she almost hissed at him. Be quiet! , and she knew that she would have to lead him all the way, she would have to lead him always, for there was a difference in him that she had not been aware of before, but she did not resent it. Somehow it made her feel very strong and sure of herself.

They both gasped as he touched her. After a minute, she let go his wrist and searched for him and when she found him she cried out again, he was so big and hard that she felt daunted. For a moment, she wondered if she was capable of the task she had taken upon herself, then she rallied. He was awkward above her, and she had to wriggle a little and fumble. Then abruptly, when she was not expecting it, it happened, and she gasped with the shock.

But Anna had been wrong, there was no pain, there was only a breathtaking stretching and filling sensation, and after the shock abated, a sense of great power over him.

Yes, Michel, yes, my darling. She encouraged him as he butted and moaned and thrashed in the enfolding crucifix of her limbs, and she rode his assault easily, knowing that in these moments he belonged to her completely, and revelling in that knowledge.

When the final convulsion gripped him, she watched his face, and saw how the colour of his eyes changed to indigo in the lamplight. Yet although she loved him then with a strength that was physically painful, still there was a tiny suspicion in the depths of her consciousness that she had missed something. She had not felt the need to scream as Elsa had screamed beneath Jacques in the straw, and immediately after that thought she was afraid.

Michel, she whispered urgently, do you still love me?

Tell me you love me. I love you more than my own life. His voice was broken and gusty, she could not for an instant doubt his sincerity.

She smiled in the darkness with relief and held him close, and when she felt him going small and soft within her, she was overcome with a wave of melting compassion.

My darling, she whispered, there, my darling, there, and she stroked his thick springing curls at the back of his head.

It was a little time before her emotions had calmed enough for her to realize that something had changed irrevocably within her during the few brief minutes of that simple act they had performed together. The man in her arms was physically stronger than she was but he felt like a child, a sleepy child, as he cuddled against her.

While she felt wiser and vital, as though her life up until that moment had been becalmed, drifting without direction, but now she had found her trade winds and like a tall ship she was at last bearing away purposefully before them.

Wake up, Michel. She shook him gently and he mumbled and stirred.

You cannot sleep now, talk to me.

What about? Anything. Tell me about Africa. Tell me how we will go to Africa together. I've told you that already. Tell me again. I want to hear it all again And she lay against him and listened avidly, asking questions whenever he faltered.

Tell me about your father. You haven't told me what he looks like. So they talked the night away cuddled in their cocoon of grey blankets.

Then, too soon for both of them, the guns began their murderous chorus along the ridges, and Centaine held him to her with desperate longing. Oh, Michel, I don't want to go! then she drew away from him, sat up and began to pull on her clothes and refasten the buttons.

That was the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, Michael whispered as he watched her, and in the light of the lantern and the flickering glow of the guns, her eyes were huge and soft, as she turned to him again. We will go to Africa, won't we, Michel? I promise you we will.

And I will have your son in the sunshine, and we will live happily ever after just like in the fairy stories, won't we, Michel? They went up the lane clinging together under Centaine's shawl, and at the corner of the stables they kissed with quiet intensity until Centaine broke out of his grip and fled across the paved yard.

She did not look back when she reached the kitchen door, but disappeared into the huge dark house, leaving Michael alone and unaccountably sad when he should have been joyous.. . .

Biggs stood over the cot and looked down fondly at Michael as he slept. Biggs's eldest son who had died in the trenches at Ypres a year ago, would have been the same age. Michael looked so worn and pale and exhausted that Biggs had to force himself to touch his shoulder and wake him.

What time is it, Biggs? Michael sat up groggily.

It's late, sir, and the sun's shining, but we aren't flyin& we are still grounded, sir. Then a strange thing happened.

Michael grinned at him, a sort of inane idiotic grin, that Biggs had never seen before. It alarmed him. God, Biggs, I feel good. I'm glad, sir. Biggs wondered with a pang if it might be fever. How's our arm, sir? Our arm is marvelous, bloody marvelous, thank you, Biggs. I would have let you sleep, but the major is asking for you, sir. There is something important that he wants to show you. what is it? I'm not allowed to say, Mr Michael, Lord Killigerran's strict instructions Good man, Biggs! Michael cried without apparent reason, and bounded from his cot. Never do to keep Lord Killigerran waiting Michael burst into the mess and was disapointed to find it empty. He wanted to share his good spirits with somebody. Andrew for preference, but even the mess corporal had deserted his post. The breakfast dishes still cluttered the dining-table, and magazines and newspapers lay on the floor where they had obviously been dropped in haste. The adjutant's pipe, with malodorous wisps of smoke still rising from it, lay in one of the ashtrays, proof of how precipitously the mess had been abandoned.

Then Michael heard the sound of voices, distant but excited, coming through the open window that overlooked the orchard.

He hurried out and into the trees.

Their full squadron strength was twenty-four pilots, but after the recent attrition they were down to sixteen including Andrew and Michael. All of them were assembled at the edge of the orchard, and with them were the mechanics and ground staff, the crews from the antiaircraft batteries that guarded the field, the mess servants and batmen, every living soul was on the field, and it seemed that all of them were talking at once.

They were gathered round an aircraft parked in the No.

1 position at the head of the orchard. Michael could see only the upper wings of the machine and the cowling of the motor over the heads of the crowd, but he felt a sudden thrill in his blood. He had never seen anything like it before.

The nose of the machine was long, giving the impression of great power, and the wings were beautifully raked yet with the deep dihedral which promised speed, and the control surfaces were full, which implied stability and easy handling.

Andrew pushed his way out of the excited throng around the aircraft and hurried to meet Michael with the amber cigarette-holder sticking out of the corner of his mouth at a jaunty angle.

Hail, the sleeping beauty arises like Venus from the waves. Andrew, it's the SE 5 a at last, isn't it? Michael shouted above the uproar, and Andrew seized his arm and dragged him towards it.

The crowd opened before them and Michael came up short and stared at it with awe. At a glance he could see it was heavier and more robust than even the German Albatros, and that engine! It was enormous! Gargantuan!

Two hundred gee-gees! Andrew patted the engine cowling lovingly.

Two hundred horsepower, Michael repeated. Bigger than the German Mercedes. He went forward and stroked the beautifully laminated wood of the propeller as he looked up over the nose at the guns.

There was a .303 Lewis gun on a Foster mount set on the top wing, a light, reliable and effective weapon firing over the arc of the propeller, and below it mounted on the fuselage ahead of the cockpit was the heavier Vickers with interrupter gear to fire through the propeller. Two guns, at last they had two guns and an engine powerful enough to carry them into battle.

Michael let out the highland yell that Andrew had taught him, and Andrew unscrewed the cairngorm and sprinkled a few drops of whisky on the engine housing.

Bless this kite and all who fly in her, he intoned, and then took a swig from the flask before handing it to Michael.

Have you flown her? Michael demanded, his voice hoarse from the burn of whisky, and he tossed the flask to the nearest of his brother officers.

Who the devil do you think brought her up from Arras? Andrew demanded. How does she handle? Just like a young lady I know in Aberdeen, quick up, quick down and soft and loving in between. There was a chorus of cat-calls and whistles from the assembled pilots, and somebody yelled, When do we get the chance to fly her, sir? Order of seniority, Andrew told them, and gave Michael a wicked grin. If only Captain Courtney were fit to fly! He shook his head in mock sympathy.

go Biggs. P shouted Michael. Where is my flying jacket, man? Thought you might want it, sir. Biggs stepped out of the crowd behind him and opened the jacket for Michael to slide his arms into the sleeves.

The mighty Wolseley Viper engine hurled the SE5a down the narrow muddy runway, and as the tail lifted Michael had a sweeping view forward over the engine cowling. It was like sitting in a grandstand.

I'll get Mac to strip off this piddling little windshield he decided, and I'll be able to spot any Hun within a hundred miles. He lifted the big machine into the air and grinned as he felt her begin to climb.

Quick up, Andrew had said, and he felt himself pressed down firmly into the seat, as he lifted the nose through the horizon and they went up like a vulture in a thermal.

There's no Albatros been built that is going to climb away from us now, he exalted, and at five thousand feet he levelled out and swept her into a right-hand turn, pulling the turn tighter and tighter still, hauling back hard on the stick to keep the nose up, his starboard wing pointing vertically down at the earth and the blood draining from his brain by the centrifugal force so that his vision turned grey a nd colourless, then he whipped her hard over the opposite way and yelled with elation in the buffet of wind and the roar of the huge engine.

Come on, you bastards! He twisted to look back at the German lines. Come and see what we have got for you now! When he landed, the other pilots surrounded the machine in a clamorous pack. What's she like, Mike? How does she climb?

gi Can she turn?

And standing on the lower wing above them, Michael bunched all his fingers together and then kissed them away towards the sky.

That afternoon Andrew led the squadron in tight formation, still in their shot-riddled, battered and patched old Sopwith Pups, down to the main airfield at Bertangles and they waited outside No. 3 hangar in an impatiently excited group as the big SE5as were trundled out by the ground crews and parked in a long line abreast on the apron.

Through his uncle at divisional headquarters, Andrew had arranged for a photographer to be in attendance. With the new fighters as a backdrop, the squadron pilots formed up around Andrew like a football team. Every one of them was differently dressed, not a single regulation RFC uniform amongst them. On their heads they wore forage caps and peaks and leather helmets, while as always Andrew sported his tam o'shanter. Their jackets were naval monkey jackets, or cavalry tunics, or cross-over leather flying coats, but every one of them wore the embroidered RFC wings on his breast.

The photographer set up his heavy wooden tripod and disappeared under the black cloth while his assistant stood by with the plates. Only one of the pilots was not included in the group. Hank Johnson was a tough little Texan, not yet twenty years old, the only American on the squadron, who had been a horse tamer, or, as he put it, a bronco buster, before the war. He had paid his own passage over the Atlantic to join the Lafayette Squadron, and from there had found his way into Andrew's mixed bunch of Scots and Irish and colonials and other strays that made up No. 21 Squadron RFC.

Hank stood behind the tripod with a thick black Dutch cigar in his mouth giving bad advice too the harassed photographer.

Come on, Hank, Michael called to him. We need your lovely mug to give the picture some class Hank rubbed his twisted nose, kicked into that shape by one of his broncos, and shook his head.

None of you old boys ever hear that it's bad luck to have your picture took? They booed him, and he waved his cigar at them affably. Go ahead, he invited, but my daddy got himself bit by a rattle snake the same day he had his picture took for the first time. There aren't any rattle snakes up there in the blue, one of them taunted.

No, Hank agreed. But what there is, is a whole lot worse than a nest of rattle snakes. The derisive cries lost their force. They glanced at each other and one of them made as if to leave the group.

Smile, please, gentlemen. The photographer emerged from beneath his black cloth, freezing them, but their smiles were just a shade fixed and sickly as the shutter opened and their images were burned into silver nitrate for posterity.

Quickly Andrew acted to change the sombre mood that held them as they broke up. Michael, pick five, he ordered. The rest of us will give you ten minutes start, and you're to try and head us off, and make a good interception before we reach Mort Homme. Michael led his formation of five into the classic ambush position, up sun and screened by wisps of cloud, blocking the return route to Mort Homme. Still, Andrew almost gave them the slip; he had taken his group well south and was sneaking in right down on the ground. It would have worked with duller eyes than Michael's, but he picked up the flash of the low sun off the glass of a windshield from six miles and fired the red Very flare to signal Enemy in Sight to his group. Andrew, realizing that they had been spotted, climbed up to meet them, and the two formations came together in a whirl of turning, diving, twisting machines.

Michael picked Andrew's SE5a out of the pack and went for him, and the two of them locked into an intricate aerial duet, pushing the big powerful machines harder and still harder, seeking their outer limits of speed and endurance; but evenly matched in skill and aircraft, neither was able to wrest the final advantage, until quite by chance as Andrew came up on his tail, almost into the killing line, Michael kicked on full rudder without bank and the SE5a tail skidded, turning flat, whipping him around with a force that almost dislocated his neck, and he found himself roaring back head-on to Andrew's attack.

They flashed past each other, only the lightning reflexes of veteran fighter pilots saving them from collision, and instantly Michael repeated the flat skid turn and was flung violently against the side of the cockpit, striking his partially healed shoulder on the rim so that his vision starred with the pain, but he was round in a flash and he fastened on to Andrew's tail. Andrew twisted desperately, but Michael matched every evasive twist and held him in the ring sight of the Vickers, pressing closer until the spinning boss of his propeller almost touched Andrew's rudder.

Ngi dla! Michael howled triumphantly. I have eaten! the ancient Zulu war cry that King Chaka's warriors had screamed as they put the long silver blade of the assegai into living flesh.

He saw Andrew's face reflected in the rear-view mirror on the cross struts of the wing above his head, and his eyes were wide with dismay and disbelief at that incredible manoeuvre.

Andrew fired a green Very flare to signal the recall to the squadron and to concede victory to Michael. The squadron was scattered across the sky, but at the recall they re-formed on Andrew and he led them back to Mort Homme.

The moment they landed, Andrew sprang from his machine and rushed to Michael, seizing him by both shoulders and shaking him impatiently.

How did you do that, how the hell did you do that? Quickly Michael explained.

It's impossible. Andrew shook his head. A flat turn if I hadn't seen it- He broke off. Come on. Let's go and try it again. Together the two big scout planes roared off the narrow strip, and only returned as the last light was fading.

Michael and Andrew jumped down from their cockpits and fell on each other, slapping each other on the back and dancing in a circle, so padded by their flying clothes that they looked like a pair of performing bears. Their ground crews stood by with indulgent grins until they sobered a little and then Mac, the head mechanic, stepped forward and tipped his forage cap.

Begging your pardon, sir, but that paint job is like my mother-in-law's Sunday-go-to-meeting dress, sir, dull and dirty and God-help-us. The SE5as were in factory drab. A colour that was intended to make them inconspicuous to the enemy.

Green, said Andrew. A few of the pilots on both sides, German as well as British, desired the opposite effect.

With them it was a matter of pride that their paintwork should be bright enough to advertise their presence to the enemy, a direct challenge. Green, Andrew repeated.

Bright green to match my scarf, and don't forget the flying haggis on the nose. Yellow, please, Mac, Michael decided.

Now what made me think you would choose yellow, Mr Michael? Mac grinned.

Oh, Mac, while you are about it, take that awful little windshield off her and tighten up the rigging wires, won't you? The old hands all believed that by screwing up the rigging wires and increasing the dihedral angle of the wings, they could put a few knots on their speed.

I'll see to it, Mac promised.

Trim her to fly hands off, Michael added. The aces were all fusspots, everybody knew that. If the SESa flew straight and level with hands off the controls, the pilot could use both hands for the guns.

Hands off it is, sir! Mac grinned indulgently.

Oh, and Mac, train the guns for fifty yards- Anything else, sir? That will do for now, Mac, Michael answered his grin, but I'll work on it.

I'm sure you will, sir. Mac shook his head with resignation. She'll be ready by dawn. There's a bottle of rum for you if she is, Michael promised.

And now, my boy, Andrew threw his arm around Michael's shoulders, how about a drink? I thought you would never offer, Michael said.

The mess was full of excited young men all eagerly and loudly discussing the new machines.

Corporal! Lord Killigerran called over their heads to the mess servant. All drinks tonight will be on my book, please, and his pilots cheered him delightedly before turning back to the bar to make the most of the offer.

An hour later when all eyes were glittering feverishly and the laughter had reached that raucous pitch which Andrew judged to be appropriate, he hammered on the bar for their attention and announced solemnly, As Grand Bok-Bok Champion of Aberdeen and greater Scotland, not to mention the outer Hebrides, it behaves me to challenge all corners to a bout of that ancient and honourable sport. Behaves, forsooth! Michael cocked a mocking eye at him. Kindly pick your team, sir. Michael lost the toss and his team was required to form the rugger scrum against the far wall of the mess, while the mess servants swiftly stowed away all breakables.

Then one at a time Andrew's lads took a run across the mess and landed with all possible force upon the scrum, endeavouring to collapse it for an outright win. If, however, any part of their anatomy touched the ground in the process, it would have meant an immediate disqualification of their team.

Michael's scrum withstood the weight and violence of the onslaught, and finally all eight of Andrew's men, making sure that not a toe or finger touched the ground, were perched like a troop of monkeys on top of Michael's pyramid.

From the top of the pile Andrew asked the crucial question which would decide glorious victory or ignoble defeat. Bok-Bok, how many fingers do I hold up? His voice, muffled by the weight of bodies above him, Michael guessed. Three. Two! Andrew claimed victory and with a dismal groan the scrum deliberately collapsed itself, and in the ensuing chaos Michael found Andrew's ear within inches of his mouth.

I say, do you think I might borrow the motor-cycle tonight? he asked.

Pinned as he was, Andrew could not move his head, but he rolled his eyes towards Michael.

Going out for a breath of air, my boy, once again? and then when Michael looked sheepish and could find no clever reply, he went on, All I have is yours, go with my blessing and give the lucky lady my deepest respects, won't you?

Michael parked the motor-cycle in the woods behind the barn, and carrying the bundle of army blankets sloshed through the mud to the entrance. As he stepped in there was a flash of light as Centaine lifted the shutter of the lantern and shone it in his face.

Bonsoir, monsieur.

She was sitting up on top of the bales of straw with her legs tucked under her and she grinned impishly down at him. What a surprise to meet you here.

He scrambled up to her and seized her.

You are early, he accused.

Papa went to bed early- she got no further, for his I mouth covered hers. I I I saw the new airplanes, she gasped when they broke apart to breathe, but I didn't know which was you. They are all the same. It troubled me not to know which was you.

Tomorrow mine will be yellow again. Mac is re-doping it for me. i We must arrange signals she told him, as she took the blankets from him and began to build their nest in between the bales of straw.

If I lift my hand over my head like this, that will mean that I will meet you in the barn. tonight, he suggested.

That is the signal I will look for hardest. She smiled up at him and then patted the blankets. Come here, she ordered, and her voice had gone husky and purring.

A long time later as she lay with her ear against his naked chest and listened to his heart pumping, he stirred slightly and then whispered, Centaine, it's no good! You cannot travel to Africa with me. She sat up quickly and stared at him, her mouth hardening, and her eyes, dark as gunmetal, gleamed dangerously.

I mean, what would people say? Think of my reputation, travelling with a woman who was not my wife. She went on staring at him, but her mouth softened into the beginning of a smile.

There must be a solution, though. He pretended to puzzle over it. I have it! He snapped his fingers. What if I were to marry you! She put her cheek back against his chest.

Only to save your reputation, she whispered. You have not yet said "yes"."Oh, yes.

Yes! A million times yes! And then, characteristically, her next question was pragmatic. When, Michel? Soon, as soon as possible. I have met your family, but tomorrow I will take you to meet mine. Your family? She held him at arm's length. Your family is in Africa. Not all of it, he assured her. Most of it is here. When

1 say most I don't mean numbers, I mean the most important single part of it. don't understand. You will, ma cheri, you will! he assured her.

Michael had explained to Andrew what he had in mind.

If you get caught I will disclaim any knowledge of the whole nefarious scheme. I will, furthermore, preside with great enjoyment at your court martial, and will personally command the firing-squad, Andrew warned him.

Michael had paced out the firm ground at the edge of North Field on the side of the de Thiry estate furthest from the squadron base. He had to slide-slip the bright yellow SE5a down behind the line of oaks that guarded the field, and then as he skimmed over the seven-foot stone wall, he shut the throttle and let her drop to the soft earth. He pulled up quickly, and left the engine idling as he clambered out on the wing.

Centaine was running out from the corner of the wall where she had been waiting. He saw she had followed his instructions and was warmly dressed: fur-lined boots under her yellow woollen skirt, and a yellow silk scarf at her throat. Over it all she wore a lustrous cape of silver fox fur, and the hood dangled down her back as she ran.

She carried a soft leather bag on a strap over one shoulder.

Michael jumped down and swung her in his arms. Look! I am wearing yellow, your favourite. Clever girl. He sat her down. Here! He pulled the borrowed flying helmet from the pocket of his greatcoat and showed her how to fit it over her thick dark curls and buckle the strap under the chin.

Do I look gallant and romantic? she asked, posing for him.

You look marvelous And it was true. Her cheeks were rouged with excitement, and her eyes sparkled.

Come on. Michael climbed back on to the wing and then lowered himself into the tiny cockpit.

It is so small. Centaine hesitated on the wing. So are you, but I think you are also afraid, no? Afraid, ha! She flashed a look of utter scorn at him, and began to climb in on top of him.

This was a complicated business. which involved lifting her skirts above her knees and then balancing precariously over the open cockpit, like a beautiful bird settling on its clutch of eggs. Michael could not resist the temptation, and as she came down on top of him, he ran his hand up under the skirts, almost to the junction of luscious silk-clad thighs. Centain squealed with outrage. You are forward, monsieur! and she plopped down on to his lap.

Michael fastened the safety-belt over both of them and then nuzzled her neck below the edge of the helmet. You are in my power now. You cannot escape. I am not sure that I wish to, she giggled.

It took some further minutes for them to arrange all Centaine's skirts and furs and petticoats, and to make sure that Michael could manipulate the controls with her strapped on to his lap.

All set, he told her, and taxied to the end of the field, giving himself every inch of runway that he could, for the earth was soft and the strip short. He had ordered Mac to remove the ammunition from both guns and drain the coolant from the Vickers, which saved almost sixty pounds in weight, but still they were overloaded for the length of runway available to them.

Hold on, he said in her ear, and opened the throttle and the big scoutplane bounded forward.

Thank God for the south wind, he murmured as he felt her unstick from the mud and strive mightily to lift them into the air.

As they scraped over the far wall, Michael banked slightly to lift his port wing over one of the oaks, and then they were climbing away. He felt how rigid Centaine was in his lap, and he thought she was really afraid. He was disappointed.

We are safe now, he shouted over the engine beat, and she turned her head, and he saw in her eyes not fear but ecstasy.

It's beautiful, she said, and kissed him. To know that she shared his passion for flight delighted him.

We will go over the chateau, he told her, and banked away steeply, dropping down again.

For Centaine it was the second most marvelous experience of her whole life better than riding or music, almost as good as Michael's loving. She was a bird, an eagle, she wanted to shout her joy aloud, she wanted to hold the moment for ever. She wanted to always be on high with the wild wind howling around her and the strong arm of the man she loved holding her protectively.

Below her lay a new world, familiar places that she had known since her earliest childhood, now viewed from a different and enchanting dimension. This is the way the angels must, see the world! she cried, and he smiled at the fancy. The chateau loomed ahead of them, and she had not realized how big it was, or how pink and pretty was the roof of baked tiles. And there was Nuage in the field behind the stables, galloping ahead of them, racing the roaring yellow aircraft, and she laughed and shouted in the wind, Run, my darling! and then they passed over him, and she saw. Anna in the gardens, straightening up from her plants as she heard the engine, shading her eyes, peering up at them. She was so close that Centaine could see the frown on her red face, and she leaned far out from the cockpit. Her yellow scarf flowed behind her in the slipstream as she waved, and she saw the look of crumpled disbelief on Anna's face as they flashed by.

Centaine laughed in the wind and called to Michael, Go higher. Go up higher. He obeyed and she was never still for a moment, twisting and hopping about in his lap, leaning out of the cockpit first on one side, then on the other.

Look! Look! there is the convent, if only the nuns could see me now. There, that is the canal, and there is the cathedral at Arras, oh, and there- Her excitement and enthusiasm were infectious, and Michael laughed with her, and when she turned her head back to him, he kissed her, but she broke away.

oh, I don't want to miss a second! Michael picked out the main airforce base at Bertangles; the runways formed a cross of mown green turf through the dark forest, with the cluster of hangars and buildings nestling in the arms of the cross.

Listen to me, he shouted in her ear. You must keep your head down while we land. She nodded. When I give you the word, jump down and run into the trees. You will find a stone wall on your right. Follow it for three hundred metres until you reach the road. Wait there. Michael joined the Bertangles circuit in textbook fashion, taking advantage of his sedate down-wind leg to scrutinize the base for any activity which might indicate the presence of high-ranking officers or other potential troublemakers. There were half a dozen aircraft parked in front of the hangars, and he saw one or two figures working on them or wandering about amongst the buildings.

Looks as though it's clear, he muttered, and turned crosswind and then on to final approach, with Centaine scrunched down on his lap, out of sight from the ground.

ichael came in high, like a novice; he was still at fifty feet when he passed the hangars, and he touched down deep at the far end of the runway and let his rollout carry them almost to the edge of the forest before he swung broadside and braked hard.

Get out and run! he told Centaine, and boosted her out of the cockpit, Hidden from the hangars and buildings by the fuselage of the SE5a, she hoisted up her skirts, tucked her leather bag under her arm, and scampered into the trees.

Michael taxied back to the hangars and left the SE5a on the apron.

Better sign the book, sir, a sergeant mechanic told him as he jumped down.

Book? New procedure, sir, all flights have to log in and out. Damned red tape, Michael groused. Can't do a thing without a piece of paper these days. But he went off to find the duty officer.

Oh yes, Courtney, there is a driver for you. The driver was waiting behind the wheel of a black Rolls-Royce parked at the back of No. 1 hangar, but as soon as he saw Michael he sprang out and stood to attention.

Nkosana! he grinned with huge delight, his teeth gleaming in his dark moon-shaped face, and he threw Michael a sweeping salute that quivered at the peak of his cap. He was a tall young Zulu, taller even than Michael, and he wore the khaki uniform and puttees of the African Service Corps.

Sangane! Michael returned the salute, grinning as widely, then impulsively hugged him.

To see your face is like coming home again. Michael spoke easy fluent Zulu.

The two of them had grown up together, roaming the grassy yellow hills of Zululand with their dogs and hunting-sticks.

Naked they had swum together in the cool green pa ols of the Tugela river, and fished them for eels as long and thick as their arms. They had cooked their game on the same smoky fire, and lain beside it in the night, studying the stars and seriously discussing the occasions of small boys, deciding on the lives they would live and the world they would build when they were grown men.

What news from home, Sangane? Michael demanded as the Zulu opened the door of the Rolls. How is your father? Mbejane, Sangane's father, was the old servant companion and friend of Sean Courtney, a prince of the royal house of Zulu, who had followed his master to other wars, but was now too old and infirm, and was forced to send his son in his place.

They chatted animatedly, as Sangane drove the Rolls out of the base and turned on to the main road. On the back seat Michael stripped his flying gear to reveal his dress uniform, complete with wings and decorations, that he wore beneath.

Stop over there, Sangane, at the edge of the trees. Michael jumped out and called anxiously, Centaine! She stepped out from behind one of the tree trunks and Michael gaped at her. She had used the time since he had left her to good effect, and he realized now why she brought the leather bag. Michael had never seen her wearing make-up before, but she had applied it so artfully that he could not at first fathom the transformation. It was simply that all her good points seemed enhanced, her eyes more luminous, her skin more glowing and pearly.

You are beautiful, he breathed. She was no longer a child-woman, she was possessed of a new poise and confidence, and he felt awed by her. Do you think your uncle will like me? she asked. He will love you, any man would. The yellow suit was of a peculiar shade that seemed to gild her skin and throw golden reflections into her dark eyes. The brim of the billy cock hat was narrow on one side and full on the other, where it was pinned up to the crown with a spike of green and yellow feathers. Beneath the jacket she wore a blouse of fine creamy crepe-dechine, with a high lace collar, that emphasized the line of her throat and the dainty set of her small head above it. The boots had been replaced by elegant shoes.

He took both her hands and kissed them reverently, and then handed her into the back of the limousine.

Sangane, this woman will be my wife one day soon. The Zulu nodded in approval, judging her as he would a horse or a young thoroughbred heifer.

May she bear you many sons, he said.

When Michael translated, Centaine blushed and laughed.

Thank him, Michael, but tell him I would like at least one daughter. She looked about the luxurious cab of the Rolls. Do all the English generals have such motor-cars? My uncle brought it from Africa with him. Michael ran his hand over the fine soft leather seat. It was a gift from my aunt. Your uncle has style to go to war in such a chariot, she nodded, and your aunt has good taste. One day I hope I will be able to give you such a gift, Michel. I should like to kiss you, he said.

Never in public, she told him primly, but as much as you want when we are alone. Now tell me, how far is it? Five miles or so, but with this traffic on the road, God alone knows how long it will take us. They had turned into the main Arras-Arniens road, and it was clogged with military transport, guns and ambulances and heavy supply lorries, horse-drawn wagons and carts, the verges of the road crowded with marching men, hunch-backed beneath their heavy packs, with the steel helmets giving them a mushroom-headed uniformity.

Michael caught resentful and envious glances as Sangane threaded the big glistening Rolls through the slower traffic. The men trudging in the mud looked into the interior and saw an elegant officer with a pretty girl on the soft leather seat beside him. However, most of those sullen stares turned to grins when Centaine waved to them.

Tell me about your uncle, she demanded, turning back to Michael.

Oh, he's a very ordinary chap, not much to tell actually. He was thrown out of school for beating up his headmaster, fought in the Zulu War and killed his first man before he was eighteen, made his first million pounds before he was twenty-five and lost it in a single day. Shot a few hundred elephant while he was a professional ivory hunter, killed a leopard with his bare hands. Then, during the Boer War, he captured Leroux, the Boer general, almost unaided, made another million pounds after the war, helped negotiate the charter of Union for South Africa. He was a cabinet minister in Louis Both's government, but he resigned to come to this war. Now he commands the regiment. He stands a few inches over six feet and can lift a 200-lb sack of maize in each hand. Michel, I am afraid to meet such a man, she murmured seriously. Why on earth-'I am afraid I might fall in love with him. Michael laughed delightedly. I also am afraid. Afraid he will fall in love with you!

Regimental Headquarters was temporarily located in a deserted monastery on the outskirts of Arniens. The monastery grounds were unkempt and overgrown, for they had been abandoned by the monks during the fighting of the previous autumn, and the rhododendron bushes had turned to jungle. The buildings were of red brick, mosscovered and with wistaria climbing to the grey roof. The bricks were pocked with old shell splinters.

A young second lieutenant met them at the front entrance.

You must be Michael Courtney, I am John Pearce, the general's ADC. Oh, hello. Michael shook hands. What happened to Nick van der Heever? Nick had been at school with Michael, and he had been General Courtney's aide-de-camp ever since the regiment arrived in France.

Oh, didn't you hear? John Pearce looked grave, the familiar expression so often these days when someone asked after an acquaintance. Nick bought the farm, I'm afraid. Oh God, no! Afraid so. He was up at the front with your uncle.

Sniper got him."But the lieutenant's attention was wavering. He couldn't keep his eyes off Centaine. Obligingly, Michael introduced him and then cut short the lieutenant's pantomime of admiration.

Where is my uncle?

He asked you to wait. The young lieutenant led them through to a small enclosed garden which had probably belonged to the abbot. There were climbing roses on the stone walls and a sun-dial on a sculptured plinth in the centre of the small neat lawn.

A table had been laid for three in the corner where the sun penetrated. Uncle Sean was keeping his usual style king's pattern silver and Stuart crystal, Michael noticed.

The general will be with you as soon as he can, but he asked me to warn you that it will be a very short lunch.

The spring offensive, you know-, The lieutenant made a gesture towards the decanter on the small serving table.

In the meantime, may I offer you a sherry, or something with claws? Centaine shook her head, but Michael nodded. Claws, please, he said. Although he loved his uncle as much as he did his own father, yet e always found his imminent presence after a long absence unnerving. He needed something to soothe those nerves.

The aide-de-camp poured Michael a whisky. Will you forgive me, but I do have a few things- Michael waved him away and took Centaine's arm.

Look, the buds are beginning to form on the roses and the narcissusShe leaned against him. Everything is coming to life again. Not everything, Michael contradicted softly.

For the soldier, spring is the time of death. Oh, Michel, she began, and then broke off and looked towards the glass doors behind him with an expression that made Michael turn swiftly.

A man had stepped through them, a tall man, erect and broad-shouldered. He stopped when he saw Centaine and looked at her with penetrating appraisal. His eyes were blue and his beard was thick but neatly trimmed in the same style as the king's.

Those are Michel's eyes! Centaine thought, staring back into them, but so much fiercer, she realized.

Uncle Sean! Michael cried and released her arm. He stepped forward to shake hands, and those fierce eyes swivelled to him and softened. My boy. He loves him- Centain understood. They love each other very deeply, and she studied the general's face. His skin was sun-darkened and tanned like leather, with deep creases at the corners of his mouth and around those incredible eyes. His nose was large, like Michael's, and hooked, his forehead broad and deep, and above it was a dense dark cap of hair, shot through with silver threads, that glistened in the spring sunlight.

They were talking earnestly, still gripping each other's hands, exchanging the vital assurances, and as Centaine watched them, the full extent of their resemblance came through to her.

They are the same, she realized, differing only in age and in force. More like father and son, than- The fierce blue eyes came back to her. So this is the younglady. May I present Mademoiselle de Thiry. Centaine, this is my uncle, General Sean Courtney. Michel has told me much, a great deal- Centaine stumbled over the English.

Speak Flemish! Michael cut in quickly.

Michel has told me all about you, she obeyed, and the general grinned delightedly.

You speak Afrikaans! he answered in that language.

When he smiled, his whole person changed. That savage, almost cruel streak that she had sensed seemed illusory.

It isn't Afrikaans, she denied, and they fell into an animated discussion and argument, and within the first few minutes Centaine found that she liked him, liked him for his resemblances to Michael, and for the vast differences that she detected between them.

Let's eat! Sean Courtney exclaimed, and took her arm. We have so little time- He seated her at the table.

Michael over here, and we'll let him carve the chicken. I'll take care of the wine. Sean gave them the toast. To the next time the three of us meet again, and they all drank it fervently, all too aware of what lay behind it, though here they were out of earshot of the guns.

They chatted easily, the general quickly and effortlessly smoothing over any uneasy silences, so that Centaine realized that for all his bluff exterior he was intuitively gracious, but always she was aware of the scrutiny of those eyes, the valuations and appraisals that were in progress behind them.

Very well, mon General, she thought defiantly, look all you want, but I am me and Michel is mine. And she lifted her chin and held his gaze, and answered him directly and without simperings or hesitations, until she saw him smile, and nod almost imperceptibly.

So this is the one Michael has chosen, Sean mused. I would have hoped for a girl of his own people, who spoke his own language and observed the same faith. I would have wanted to know a damned sight more about her before I gave my blessing. I would have made them take their time to consider each other and the consequences, but there is no time. Tomorrow or the next day, God knows what will happen. How can I spoil what might be their only moment of happiness ever? For a moment longer he looked at her, searching for signs of spite or meanness, for weakness or vanity, and saw only the small determined jaw, the mouth that could smile easily but just as easily harden, and the dark intelligent eyes. She's tough and she's proud, he decided, but I think she will be loyal, with strength to stay the full distance. So he smiled and nodded and saw her relax, and he saw also true affection and liking dawn in her eyes before he turned to Michael.

All right, my boy, you didn't come all this way to chew on this stringy little bird. Tell me why you came, and see if you can surprise me. Uncle Sean, I have asked Centaine to be my wife. Sean wiped his moustaches carefully and then laid down his napkin.

Do not spoil it for them, he warned himself. Don't put the smallest cloud on their joy.

He looked up at them and he began to smile.

You don't surprise me, you stun me! I had given up expecting you to do something sensible. He turned to Centaine. Of course, young lady, you had too much good sense to accept, didn't you? General, I hang my head when I admit that I did not.

I have accepted him. Sean looked fondly at Michael. Lucky brighter!

She is too darned good for you, but don't let her get away."Don't worry, sir.

Michael laughed with relief. He hadn't expected such instant acceptance. The old boy could still surprise him. He reached across the table to take Centaine's hand, and Centaine looked at Sean Court they with puzzlement. Thank you, General, but you know nothing about me, or my family. She remembered the catechism to which her own father had subjected Michael.

I doubt that Michael is intending to marry your family, Sean said drily. And about you, my dear. Well, I am one of the best judges of horseflesh in Africa, and that's not false modesty. I can judge a likely filly when I see one. You are calling. me a horse, General? she bridled playfully.

I'm calling you a thoroughbred, and I'll be surprised if you aren't a country girl and a horsewoman, and if you haven't got some pretty fancy bloodlines, tell me that I'm wrong, he challenged.

Her papa is a count, she rides like a centaur, and they have an estate that was mostly vineyards before the Huns shelled it. Ha! Sean looked triumphant, and Centaine made a gesture of resignation.

He knows everything, your uncle.

Not everything- Sean turned back to Michael. When do you plan to do it? I would have liked my father- Michael did not have to finish the thought, -but we have so little time. Sean, who knew truly how little time there was, nodded. Garry, your father, will understand. We want to marry before the spring offensive begins, Michael went on.

Yes. I know. Sean frowned and sighed. Some of his peers could send the young men out there with dispassion, but he was not a professional as they were. He knew he would never grow hardened to the pain and the guilt of it, sending men to die. He began to speak and stopped himself, sighed again and then went on.

Michael, this is for you alone. Though you'll learn of it soon enough, anyway. A field order has been issued to all fighter squadrons. That order is to prevent all enemy aerial observation over our lines. We will be throwing in all our squadrons to keep the German spotters from following our preparations over the next weeks. Michael sat quietly, considering what his uncle had told him. It meant that as far ahead as he could anticipate, the future would be an incessant and ruthless battle with the German Jagdstaffels. He was being warned that few of the fighter pilots could expect to survive that battle.

Thank you, sir, he said softly. Centaine and I will marry soon, as soon as we can. May I hope that you will be there? I can only promise you that I will do my level best to be there. Sean looked up as John Pearce came back into the garden. What is it, John? I'm sorry, sir. Urgent despatch from General Rawlinson I'm coming. Give me two minutes. He turned to his young guests.

Bloody awful lunch, I'm sorry. The wine was excellent, and the company was even better, Centaine demurred.

Michael, go and find Sangane and the Rolls. I want a word with this young lady in private. He offered Centaine his arm, and they followed Michael out of the small garden and down the cloisters towards the stone portals of the monastery. Only when she stood at his side did Centaine realize how big he was, and that he had a slight limp, so that his footfalls on the stone paving were uneven. He spoke quietly but with force, leaning over her slightly to make each word tell.

Michael is a fine young man, he is kind, he is thoughtful, he is sensitive. But he does not have the ruthlessness that a man needs in this world to get to the top of the mountain. Sean paused, and she looked up at him attentively.

I think you have that strength. You are still very young, but I believe that you will grow stronger. I want you to be strong for Michael Centaine nodded, finding no words to reply.

Be strong for my son, Sean said softly, and she started.

Your son? and she saw the consternation in his eyes, which was swiftly masked, and he corrected himself.

I'm sorry, his father is my twin, sometimes I think of him that way I understand, she said, but somehow she sensed that it had not been a mistake. One day I will follow that until I find the truth, she thought, and Sean repeated, Look after him well, Centaine, and I will be your friend to the gates of hell. I promise you that I will. She squeezed his arm, and they had reached the entrance where Sangane waited with the Rolls. Au revoir, Gn&al, Centaine said.

Yes, Sean nodded. Until we meet again, and helped her into the back seat of the Rolls.

I will let you know as soon as we decide the day, sir. Michael shook his uncle's hand.

Even if I can't be there, be happy, my boy, said Sean Courtney, and watched the Rolls purr sedately down the driveway, then with an impatient shrug, he turned and marched back down the cloisters with that long uneven stride.

With her hat and jewellery and shoes packed back into the soft leather bag, and with the fur-lined boots on her feet and the flying helmet on her head, Centaine crouched at the edge of the forest.

When Michael taxied the SESa down to where she waited and swung it broadside to the distant airport buildings, she sprinted out from cover, tossed the bag up to him, and scrambled on to the wing. This time there was no hesitation and she clambered up into the cockpit like an old hand.

Head down, Michael ordered and swung the aircraft on to line for the take-off.

All clear, he told her once they were airborne and she popped her head up again, just as eager and excited as she had been on the first flight. They climbed higher and still higher.

See how the clouds look like fields of snow, and the sunshine fills them with rainbows. She wriggled around in his lap, to look back over the tailplane, and then a quizzical look came into her eyes and she seemed to lose interest in the rainbows.

Michel! She moved again in his lap, but with deliberation.

Michel! No longer a query, and her tight round buttocks performed a cunning little oscillation that made him squirm.

Forgive me! He tried desperately to move out of contact, but her posterior hunted after him, and she twisted her upper body around so that she could place both arms around his neck and she whispered to him.

Not in broad daylight, not at five thousand feet! He was shocked by her suggestion.

Why not, mon cheri She kissed him lingeringly. Nobody will ever know, and Michael realized that the SE5a had dropped a wing and was starting a shallow spiral dive. Hastily he corrected the machine, and she hugged him and began to move in a slow voluptuous rhythm in his lap.

Don't you want to? she asked.

But, but, nobody has ever done it before, not in an SE5a. I don't know if it's possible. His voice was becoming weaker, his flying more erratic.