Eleven Eleven - By Paul Dowswell Page 0,28

to rouse himself, leaning forward in his cockpit to beat at the flames with one hand. Black smoke thickened, and he began to cough in great heaving spasms. The flying machine lurched sharply to the right and Eddie knew he would never see Doyle Bridgman again.

A Fokker screamed past him and Eddie immediately noticed bullet holes in the fabric of his right wing. Pushing his stick down, he wheeled his Camel into a tight right turn and searched the sky for his opponents. The odds were not good. Four Huns against him and Dwight. And this kind of Fokker, the D.VIII, was well matched with the Camels.

Eddie was too low. Too low to make an escape back to his own lines if his engine was hit and failed, too low to have any tactical advantage over his attackers. Pulling the Camel into a climb he desperately scanned the sky. He banked left, then right, but they were still nowhere to be seen. Irvin Dwight had vanished as well. Had they got him too?

The rattle of machine-gun fire and the spatter of bullets hitting canvas caught him by surprise. Even over the roar of the engine he could hear it. Two Fokkers screamed past again to his right. Eddie knew his luck was running out. Two passes, two hits on his machine. Next time, he was sure, he would be riddled with bullets. As he looked down, he saw both the Fokkers taking a tight right turn, in close formation. He jerked his control column and flew to meet them head on. This was a manoeuvre neither of the German pilots was expecting. Eddie started to fire, well before he was in effective range, but the sight of his tracer bullets hurtling towards them must have unnerved one of his opponents, because the right-hand plane immediately veered to the left. It was a disastrous move. Catching his fellow pilot on the wing, his propeller sheered off great chunks of wood and fabric, and both planes began to plummet to earth. Eddie pulled his stick back, climbing out of the path of the two aircraft.

The plane that had been hit was doomed. Its starboard wing now barely half its normal length, it dropped from the sky. The one that had crashed into it was luckier. Although its propeller had been lost, the plane was still airworthy, and the pilot put it in a steep dive to build up speed and enable him to glide to earth.

Eddie wondered if he should chase the blighter and finish him off. But there were other German planes to worry about. He decided to leave the man to his fate. If he survived, he would have to live with the shame of his clumsy manoeuvre.

Banking swiftly to port, Eddie could see two, no, three planes a thousand feet below. It was Dwight, he was sure of it, pursued by the two other Fokkers. The odds were even now. Eddie took his Camel into a steep downward curve and within moments he was close behind the two German planes. He kept expecting them to veer off, but neither pilot seemed to have noticed him. Maybe they had assumed their comrades had shot him down. They were closing in on Dwight, and certain of a kill. The lead Fokker began to fire his guns, and Eddie decided he could wait no longer. Although he was still out of effective range, he pressed the trigger on his two Vickers machine guns and sprayed the sky with bullets and tracer.

He had arrived too late to help Irvin Dwight. As he flew closer, Eddie could see Dwight’s plane peppered with bullets from nose to tail and the pilot slumped forward in his cockpit. Eddie changed his target, aiming now at the lead Fokker and cutting a long burst into the centre of the airplane. He guessed he had caught the pilot completely unawares because he took no evasive action. Eddie’s shots hit home, and the engine immediately caught. Within a few seconds the entire front was enveloped in flame. Eddie cried out in savage glee as the plane set into a deep dive, smearing the sky with oily black smoke. Now there were just two of them left. One to one.

The final Fokker had vanished again. Eddie hurriedly searched around and found him soon enough. He was climbing, maybe a quarter of a mile ahead. Eddie gave chase, the two planes circling in great wide arcs all alone in the vast blue