Free Beneath the Dover Sky by Murray Pura Page A

touch down. Pray choose an unpopulated area if that is the case. Any questions?” He paused. “No?” He brought out his pocket watch. “Gentlemen, to your planes. The air race from Liverpool to Dover is about to begin. May the best man win!”
    Kipp climbed into his cockpit. Ben ran fifty yards to his SPAD and swung himself up.
    Contact! Contact! The words were shouted from one end of the meadow to the other as pilots started their engines. Roars and rumbles and exhaust filled the July air. Suddenly a flare gun was fired, and a red ball of fire arched over the field. The heavy man in tweed shouted through a megaphone above the growl of engines: “Von Zeltner! St. Laurent! Hugo! You are cleared for takeoff!”
    Kipp watched the three SPADs taxi, lift off, streak south, and then head east as they gained altitude. Von Zeltner’s plane had a distinctive paint scheme of black and yellow. Kipp muttered, “The same colors your squadron used. The same colors you plastered all over your Fokker triplane. It’s not 1918, Wolfgang. I suppose if there hadn’t been a rule that you had to use a SPAD you’d have a D.VII or an Albatros up there.”
    Three or four minutes later a second set of names was called, and three more SPADs took to the air. Kipp opened and closed his hand onthe stick and gritted his teeth. A third set of names rang out, and another three aircraft took off. He squeezed his eyes shut and counted to sixty. Nine planes were already up and zooming through the sky for Dover.
    “Whitecross! Dickens! Danforth! You are cleared for takeoff!”
    Kipp waved his hand in the air and gunned the engine. His ground crew whipped the chocks away from his wheels and the SPAD rolled forward. Ben was on his left; Dickens on his right. They left the ground in unison, as if they’d been practicing the maneuver for weeks. Kipp adjusted his goggles and tightened the white silk scarf around his neck. It was the scarf he’d worn in France during the war. He nudged the SPAD higher and higher, leaving Dickens and Ben quickly behind. Then he aimed his plane towards the English Channel.
    “All right, Wolfgang,” he hissed through clenched teeth, “where are you?”
    Dover Sky
    Lord Preston stood by dozens of red, blue, and white balloons—the same colors as the Union Jack that flew from a pole next to a brand-new Quonset hut. He slapped a rolled-up newspaper against the side of his leg as he kept an eye on the northern horizon and glanced occasionally at the crowd of people spilling over onto the airfield.
    “Shouldn’t they be here by now?” he asked out loud. “Eh?”
    Victoria laughed. “Oh, Papa! You haven’t got anywhere to go. It’s your birthday. Relax and enjoy it.”
    “I’d relax a lot more if this race were over and done with and no one was injured. Your mother feels the same way.”
    “Well, you put up the cup and the two-thousand-pound purse, Dad,” Victoria reminded.
    “In a moment of weakness, I assure you.” He glanced about him. “Where have the children disappeared to?”
    “You can’t expect an empty sky to hold their attention. Only grown-ups are keen on that sort of thing. Aunt Holly and Harrison have the lot of them down to feed bread crumbs to the swans.”
    “The swans! I hope Harrison keeps his wits about him. The pond is deeper than it looks and—”
    “Father, I think Harrison knows a thing or two about ponds. And if he’s forgotten anything, Aunt Holly will be quick to remind him. Catherine, Christelle, and Char are at the pond as well. Please don’t fret about that along with the air race.”
    “Hmm…” Lord Preston turned to his son-in-law, who was at his left elbow. “Jeremy, you and Emma have news?”
    Jeremy looked at him in surprise, sunlight glinting off his round eyeglasses. “Who told you that?”
    Emma put a gloved hand on her husband’s arm. “I did, Jeremy, dear. But I said we’d tell him at his party when everyone was present—not out here by the