Watching the Hawk
'There is nothing here,' Ewers said, tapping the folder of notes. 'Nothing at all.'
At Malinbois, a tiny room had been found for him, a cubic bubble in stone. He was issued with a desk and chair, paper and pens. Each night, he was required to sign a requisition form and exhibit a burned-down stub before he could receive a fresh candle.
Poe sat, collar loose. Ewers stood, bowed by the low ceiling.
'I had hoped for an opening chapter,' Ewers said sniffily, 'and a plan of the entire work.'
Poe had hoped for a great deal more. By now, he should have half-completed the slim book Dr Mabuse required of him.
'Have you enjoyed much opportunity to converse with the Baron?'
Ewers was surprised by the question. Unnerved by fliers, he avoided them.
'He is not communicative,' Poe elaborated.
If it were allowed, Ewers would have been angry.
'The Baron has not co-operated? Have you been denied interviews?'
'No, it's that... as you say, there is nothing there.'
When he looked at a blank sheaf of paper, Poe saw the grey- blue eyes of Manfred von Richthofen.
'You are purportedly noted for imagination. Where there is nothing, you must make something.'
This commission was proving damnable. Wonders and marvels were eternally out of reach.
'The Baron is, I should say, a cold man,' Poe ventured. 'His reserve is an obstacle to progress.'
'I'll tell Karnstein. Richthofen will be ordered to be forthcoming.'
I doubt if orders will help. It is not that the Baron is unwilling but that he is unable. He is not much in the habit of thinking. I sense he wishes not to ponder the darks of his life. Perhaps this is how he has been able to survive. On an unexpressed level, he fears that if he looks down, he will fall ...'
'Alienist nonsense, Poe. The man's a hero. Heroes have stories. Find his story.'
Ewers stood straight to look down on Poe. As he left, he bumped his head on the lintel.
Poe was enough of a fixture at the castle to pass unnoticed in the hall where the fliers gathered to pass the hours of daylight. Perhaps he could find the Baron's life from his comrades. Each must have some story, some insight, which could colour the narrative.
'As recording officer, I must be strict with myself,' Hermann Goring declaimed. 'My victory is confirmed but I may not claim a kill. Ball did not die in the crash but at dawn. The British are sparing with details. It seems he was injured. The sunlight finished him off.'
'The kill should be mine,' claimed Lothar von Richthofen. 'If I had not crippled him in our earlier engagement, he'd have been safely home by sun-up.'
'Just be glad Ball is gone,' Erich von Stalhein said. 'He was a dangerous man. The skies are safer without him in them.'
Poe could not imagine the skies being dangerous for these creatures. In their shapeshifted forms, they were masters of the jungle of the air.
'I am afraid there is no confirmation of your kill yet either,' Goring told Stalhein. 'We have found the Snipe but the pilot's body escapes us.'
'Bigglesworth fell separately. I am satisfied our debt is cancelled.'
Pilots on both sides were ranked by their score. Some fliers affected indifference but Poe noted how attention revolved around Goring's chalked display of engagements, victories and kills. None of the fliers of JG1 could match Richthofen's line of cups, but all had impressive records.
'The Baron's bag is increased again,' Goring announced, not surprising anyone. 'Another useful victory. Captain Courtney.'
'What about the observer?' asked Theo von Kretschmar-Schuldorff.
'The British do not list him as lost.'
The intelligence officer was perturbed. The point of the dogfight, from Theo's point of view, had been to keep intelligence from the allies.
'He cannot have survived No Man's Land. Like Albert Ball, he must be dead.'
'You don't understand the British, Hermann. Too gentlemanly to lie, they omit information. Who was this observer?'
Goring shrugged. 'He is not listed as lost, therefore he is not listed.'
'If he made it home then they know all about you.'
'Nobody knows all about us,' Lothar commented.
Theo smoked furiously, thinking. 'Since they do not claim the observer as a survivor, the British may simply wish us to believe he passed on his intelligence, encouraging us to show our hand.'
'About time,' Stalhein said. 'We should be let loose.'
'Soon, soon ...' Theo said. 'It's a clever game, and requires a cool hand.'
'I passed over the wreck of the Baron's RE8,' Goring said. 'There could be no survivor. The British wish to pretend they know our secrets. Typical of them.'
Poe saw shapes in the smoke-streams around Theo. The officer was disappearing in literal clouds of thought. Poe tried to follow his reasoning. Pleased his old knack for conundra had not deserted him, he penetrated the mystery just as Theo solidified his own conclusion.
'No,' Theo decided. 'The observer survived the crash and returned. It is the only possible interpretation of the facts.'
The fliers were mystified.
'You've lost me, Theo,' Lothar said.
'The observer must have perished,' Goring insisted.
Theo allowed a smoke ring to escape his mouth and smiled. 'Poe, would you care to explain our reasoning to these schoolchildren?'
Poe was surprised Theo realised he too had seen the answer. Fliers hauled their chairs around, very like children waiting for a story.
'The key is the fate of Ball,' Poe stated. 'The British claim he did not die in the crash of his aeroplane but later, some way from the wreck, at dawn. In No Man's Land, between the lines, during a bombardment.'
Going snorted. 'This I have told you. It is in the record.'
'Who saw the crash?'
'Only myself. I would have finished Ball by drinking his blood, but there was fire. I judged it unwise to touch ground.'
'You have not recently been in communication with British Military Intelligence?'
Goring snarled, pig-like tusks sharp. 'You upstart cur, I'll have you whipped ...'
'He's right, Hermann,' Theo said, calming the recording officer. 'Someone gave the British an accurate account of your victory over Albert Ball. It could only have been the observer of the Baron's RE8.'
Poe, vindicated, continued, 'if he gave his account to his superiors, he must ergo have survived and returned to his lines.'
The completed puzzle hung in the air. Theo waved his cigarette holder and his cloud drifted apart.
Lothar whistled. 'Manfred will not be pleased. It's rare that his little jokes backfire.'
The fliers seemed cheered that Baron von Richthofen had made a mistake. Maybe it proved the Red Battle Flier was made of the same stuff as they. Human stuff, after all,
'The Baron should have killed pilot and observer,' Theo agreed. 'It may be a great error on his part.'
'There is still no proof the observer survived, Theo,' Goring said. 'It is most unlikely.'
'There is no proof, but I am satisfied. And so is Herr Edgar Poe.'
The fliers regarded him with a mix of admiration and contempt.
'I understand you find my brother hard going? Can you imagine what it has been like having Manfred as an example for a whole lifetime?'
Lothar von Richthofen leaned against the battlements. The breeze riffled an aviator's scarf away from his casually worn Pour le Merite. With white grin, shiny-peaked cap, black leather boots and breeches and loose crimson blouse in the Russian style, he looked far more the dashing hero than his brother.
'Even if the gods of battle will it and Manfred falls, I will never be the Red Baron. I will always be the Red Baron's brother. I have my medals. I have my score. But I fly in his shadow.'
The afternoon was overcast but Poe wore tinted spectacles with side-panels. He heard the minute sounds of distant birds more acutely than the nearby din of war. To his ears, the castle was a living thing of creaking stone and breathing wood.
'We are very different, he and I,' Lothar declared. 'Even when warm, Manfred was not "warm". Given that I have chosen a life of service which will, in all probability, not last long, I feel entitled to take my pleasures to excess. As a poet, you will understand what I mean. But I doubt Manfred has ever been with a woman except for feeding. Even then, he prefers his dogs. And his fallen foes.'
Lothar was his brother's opposite. He described exploits in embroidered detail, making an uneventful patrol one of Sinbad's voyages. In the Great Hall, he would give thrilling accounts of his battles, performing rather than reciting. Other fliers hung on every word, every turn of combat. It would be a simple matter to make of Lothar von Richthofen's reminiscences a heroic autobiography.
'He is a good soldier,' Poe suggested. 'He flies by the rules, fights by the rules . .
'The sacred dicta of Boelcke?' Lothar said, eyebrows arching.
'Manfred has made them his Bible, a manual for survival, for victory. As for the soldiering, it's hard to say. I fly close to the wind. I was always the boy who got in trouble while Manfred did his duty, or enough of it to get by. But it's open to debate whether he is really the better soldier.'
'I don't understand.'
Lothar watched a hawk wheel and circle over pigeons. Perhaps he was studying the tactics of aerial predators?
'Ask Theo if Manfred is a good soldier. That business with the RE8. You know what he did?'
'He took the pilot in mid-air and drained him.'
'And he left the observer. The man could not possibly have got control of the aircraft. Imagine his panic, his fear, as the RE8 went into a spin. Consider his frustration, his powerlessness.'
Poe thought it must be like being buried alive. Having written of the condition while warm, he had experienced it upon his turning. The stinking closeness still tormented his imaginings. No, that was a more protracted fate. To go down in an aeroplane must be like waking in a coffin as it is conveyed into the furnace of a crematorium.
'To Manfred, that man's fear was almost as rich as the pilot's blood. He feeds on that as he feeds on the fawning of his admirers. Secretly, he is delighted you are to write this book.'
'That is not my impression.'
Lothar's grin was wolfish. 'Make no mistake. He has heard of you, Poe. If only for The Battle of St Petersburg. You've been well chosen.'
One of the hawks took one of the pigeons. Poe heard the tiny neck snap. The sensations of the world crowded in on him. Little sounds from the countryside all around. The water lapping in the lake. Footsteps on frozen grass.
'It was impossible that the British observer could survive, but in war the impossible is commonplace. It is customary to kill one's foe as many times as possible, to be sure. It was important the observer be killed. It was the primary objective of the flight. Yet Manfred took delight in torturing him rather than going for a clean, certain kill. His pleasure, his feeding, his score... these were more important to him than executing his mission. In this case, that may have consequences we shall all regret.'
'This must be a constant complaint against heroes.'
'I am a hero too, Poe,' Lothar said, hands on hips, a deadly Adonis. 'I concede you are right. This is a part of all of us. Certainly, all of us in JG1. But it is all of Manfred. He is not a man, he is a weapon. I love him for he is my brother, but I would not trade hearts with him, not for his score, not for his fame.'
The hawk soared higher. Poe and Lothar both followed its path, turning to keep the bird in in their sights.
'Manfred kills, Poe. That is what he does. That is what he is.'