Free The Wings of Morning by Murray Pura

the same time. When the other Jenny went after him, Jude in his turn stalled the plane deliberately so the Jenny with starred wings overflew him, and he swiftly gunned the engine and pounced on his back.
    From then on, no matter what the other pilot did, up and down, using the stall again or putting on speed, he could not shake the Canuck. It was as if a rope had been tied from one plane to another, and nothing either one did could sever it. Even when the other Jenny did a barrel roll, hoping to confuse the Canuck, Jude simply matched the roll and then did a second one so that he was suddenly right on top of the other plane.
    Unable to lose Jude, the Jenny waggled its wings and slowed down, and the pilot made indications with his hands that he intended to land on the Stoltzfus hay field. Jude waggled his wings in return, but remained above and in a position of advantage, obviously not trusting the other aviator. He let the man’s Jenny drop slowly. When its wheels had touched grass he came in behind it and landed a couple of hundred feet away. The colony ran toward the planes and swarmed over them once the propellers had stopped turning. Lyyndaya lifted the hem of her dress and ran with them, racing past Emma, who had never been fast, even as a thin, skinny teenager.
    She saw Jude working his way through the crowd to get to the other pilot, who was similarly surrounded. Jude finally got up to the man. When Lyyndaya looked at his face, it was a thundercloud, and for a moment she thought Jude was going to throw a punch. Instead she heard him snap, “Who are you and what was all that about?”
    The pilot, shorter than Jude and sporting a mustache, dressed in a uniform under his leather flying jacket, extended a hand through the crush of bodies. “Cook, Lieutenant Brendan Cook, old boy, His Majesty’s Royal Flying Corps. Sorry about that. I had some of you Yanks on a training flight and there was a decoy we were supposed to attack. Thought it was you.”
    Jude did not immediately take the hand. “You staged a mock attack over an Amish colony during a summer picnic? Suppose one of the planes had been forced down or crashed? Look at all these women and children—”
    “No chance of that, we keep our Jennys in tip-top shape—as you do, obviously. Sorry again. The chaps I was leading will be going to France in the fall. That’s why the mock combat. I expect we missed our target aeroplane some miles north of here.”
    The pilot’s hand was still extended. Jude got his emotions under control, thought briefly about what the man had said, then shook his hand. Lynndaya could see that many of the people thought this was all part of the act. They smiled and clapped their hands softly.
    “What about the American pilots?” asked Jude.
    “I indicated they should head back to base. That I’d finish you off. Well, that didn’t happen, did it? Where did you learn to fly like that, may I ask?”
    “I took lessons in Philadelphia. I’m a member of a flying club there.”
    “And you stage mock aerial attacks?”
    “No, we don’t. But we—I—like to do loops and dives and—I’ve read some of the aviators’ accounts of the flying in France and Germany in the New York newspapers—”
    The Royal Flying Corps officer raised his eyebrows. “What? You mean you’re self-taught in your aerial combat skills?”
    “Well—” Jude hesitated. “I have no desire to be a combat pilot. But I do like the exciting maneuvers.”
    “No desire to be a combat pilot?”
    “No.”
    “Then you’re not registered for the U.S. Selective Service?”
    “I’m twenty.”
    “And when you turn twenty-one?”
    “I’ll register. And I’ll be exempted.”
    “Exempted?” The officer put his hands on his hips. “A healthy lad like you? On what grounds?”
    “Religion.”
    “Religion?” Lt. Brendan Cook laughed and looked about him as if expecting support. “Plenty of the lads who are flying are religious—Catholics, Church of England,