If the plane had been miraculously hit, Barker himself was untouched. Now he banked away, altering slightly the curve. He throttled back, looking backward at the same time. Okabe was getting closer, but he was still too far away to use his weapon.
Barker’s machine, the wind howling over the edge of the windscreen, came around and behind Voss. The German did not look back, but he would see Barker in his rear-view mirror.
Evidently, he had, since he half-rolled and dropped back and away. Barker performed the same maneuver, and then he saw that Guynemer was going to be in Voss’ line of fire as Voss leveled out. For a second or two, Guynemer’s plane would be broadside to Voss’s guns. Twice, the Frenchman had been in the line of fire of Voss, both times by accident.
Barker still did not know whether or not his buddy had been hit. He and Voss zoomed past Guynemer; the back of Voss’ head was in Barker’s sight, the range only fifty yards, and he was closing the gap.
A glance in the mirror. Okabe was behind him by about fifty yards. And he was coming up fast. So fast that he would have only some seconds to fire unless he throttled back. Which he would do, of course, unless he was very sure of his marksmanship.
Barker pressed the trigger. Holes danced down the length of the fuselage from the tail, passed over the pilot, “whose head exploded in a gout of blood, and danced along the motor.
The spectators on the shore now saw a strange sight. There were three airplanes in a line, and then, suddenly, four. Guynemer had come up behind Okabe. He was not above, the best position, and he did not have the speed which Okabe had gained in his dive. But as Voss’ skull disintegrated, as Barker’s spine was severed and the top of his head removed, Guynemer fired three rounds. One struck Okabe in the small of his back from below, angling up, ricocheting off the backbone, moving out toward the front of the body, and rupturing the solar plexus.
After that, Guynemer’s vision failed, and he dropped forward, shoving the stick down though not knowing it, while blood poured from his arm and his side. Two of Voss’ bullets had found their mark.
The checkerboard plane spun in, just missing the top of a rock spire on the bank, crashing through level after level of the bamboo bridges, and smashed into a hut. Flame gouted from it, burning alcohol splashed over neighboring huts and the wind took the flames to other buildings.
The first of many fires that was to become a holocaust had started.
The plane marked with the dog’s head smashed into a spire and fell burning along its length, breaking through levels of bridges and huts, scattering pieces of hot metal and flaming fuel for many yards around.
The machine marked with the red ball whirled like a corkscrew into the beach, struck scores of screaming spectators as they dashed for safety, plowed through scores more, and ended up against the great dance hall. The fire danced, too, leaping and whirling along the front and quickly enmeshing the entire structure in unquenchable scarlet and orange.
Old Charlie descended in a shallow steep dive, turning over just before impact. It struck the edge of the bank of The River, dug a trench through the grass-covered earth while it flamed, smashed five people fleeing for their lives, and stopped at the base of an irontree trunk.
Goring, pale and shaking, thought matt nobody had proved anything except that courage and great skill were not guarantees of survival, that Dame Fortune plays an invisible hand, and that war is fatal to soldiers and civilians, belligerents and neutrals alike.
SECTION 10
Armageddon: The Not For Hire vs. the Rex
30
KING JOHN HAD JUMPED THE GUN.
Just before the four aviators formed their bucket brigade of death, he spoke into the microphone on the pilothouse control panel.
“Taishi!”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Attack! And may God ride with you.”
Fifteen minutes before, the huge hatch at the stern had opened. A large two-seater plane with folded wings had slipped down a runway into the water. Floating on its pontoons, it had waited while its wings were extended and locked. Then Sa-kanoue Taishi, sitting in the pilot’s seat forward of the wings, had started the two motors. While Taishi watched the aerial battle from the open cockpit, he warmed up the motors. Behind the wings, in the gunner’s station, stood Gabriel O’Herlihy.
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