Free The Red Baron: A World War I Novel by Richard Fox Page A

With Boelcke watching, and his first true victory within his grasp, Manfred chose the deadlier option.
    The Fee pilot rolled his plane to the left, trying to give his gunner a shot, anticipating that Manfred would have gone with the safer choice. The gunner, with no way to engage his foe, slapped his pilot’s shoulder in a panic as Manfred lined up behind the Fee.
    From fifty yards away, Manfred poured rounds into the Fee; bullets sparked off the propeller and ripped into the pilot, who crumpled into his seat. The Fee lost airspeed and glided to the earth, the pilot hunched over at the controls. Manfred followed the plane down, ready to fire again if the distress was a ruse.
    He took a quick glance to the sky and saw one of the Fees explode. Two more explosions blossomed in quick succession as the bombs beneath the plane cooked off. He let the distance between him and his quarry stretch out, not wanting to be to close if it too exploded.
    The Fee landed in an open field. It skidded across the bare earth before rolling onto a side, wings shattered like a glass thrown against a wall before coming to a stop.
    Manfred landed his plane in the same field, and leapt from the cockpit before the propeller stopped moving. He ran toward the crashed Fee, the ripped belly of the fuselage all he could see. Two bombs were strapped to the undercarriage.
    A rush filled Manfred’s belly, a feeling he hadn’t had since his last hunting trip from before the war. He stopped a dozen paces from the plane; there was no sign of the two Englishmen from the plane. No moans of pain, cries for help, curses for their luck.
    Manfred pulled his pistol and cocked back the hammer. He sidestepped around the front, his pistol ready. The pilot lay half in, half out of his cockpit; blood stained the front of his uniform, a boneless arm flung over his face. The gunner hunched inside his seat, nestled against the side like a child hiding from a thunderstorm. Blood flowed from the seat well, pooling in the dirt beneath the plane.
    “Hello?” Manfred said. No response.
    He reached out and touched the observer’s shoulder. The body wavered, then returned to stillness.
    Manfred holstered his pistol and pulled a knife from inside his flight jacket. He cut away the plane’s serial number, 7018, and folded the fabric into a small square before shoving it into a pocket.
    He looked over his first true victory, at the two men he’d killed. Something tugged at him from deep within his heart, a modicum of sympathy for the dead. He tamped that feeling down and looked to the bombs beneath the aircraft. They were determined to kill Germans. They were the enemy and what he’d done was righteous. It was his duty to the Fatherland to shoot them down.
    Manfred returned to his plane, his pride growing as he imagined showing Boelcke proof of his bravery. He cast a last glance to the British Fee and something new twisted around his heart, something he never thought he’d feel. Regret.
     
     
    Manfred found Boelcke, Voss, and Wolff in discussion at the tail of Boelcke’s Albatros. He marched up to the group, his chest puffed with pride, and handed his commander the fabric serial number from his victory.
    “Very good, Manfred, well done,” Boelcke said.
    “I had a victory as well,” said Wolff.
    “Me too,” said Voss.
    Boelcke pointed to his chin, black from gun smoke.
    Manfred’s sense of élan melted away. At least he managed to hold his own among the best Germany had to offer.
    “Now that Richthofen has joined us, Mr. Voss, please tell us how you shot down your target and what you learned from the battle,” Boelcke said. The commander had each pilot explain, in laborious detail, how each pilot shot down the enemy and what tactics could be used in future dogfights. Manfred learned more in the following half hour about air combat than he’d learned in all his time training in Berlin.
    Boelcke excused his pupils and stripped off his flight jacket.
    “Manfred, a