The Map Of Honour. Max Carmichael

contours of his head. He caught a brief view of Bennett standing by his vehicle; then he was gone. Below him, the grass rushed past in an emerald blur; the posts of the fence that bounded the airfield flashed by in a staccato of light and dark forms. Then with a leap that seemed to leave Green’s stomach behind, they were airborne. He looked down in amazement at the rapidly receding airfield and then out toward the horizon. It was fantastic—he was actually flying! He glanced over his shoulder and saw they were heading toward a huge fluffy cloud, and then suddenly they were inside it, encased in a world of white. Moments later, the aircraft punched through the cloud mass, into brilliant sunshine.

      Green gazed in wonder as an almost magical world of fluffy hills and valleys formed by the clouds below them was revealed to him. The sensation of speed that had so mesmerized him as they took off was gone and he felt he could step off the aircraft and walk around. Momentarily, he felt that he was an intruder, and he looked about half expecting to see some kind of guardian of the heavens, an angel, even God, watching him. But the feeling vanished in a throaty growl from the Sopwith’s engine.

      Rosher climbed to about one thousand feet, and then banked the aircraft away toward the southeast and the Somme. He looked back toward Green just as the Sergeant looked forward. Rosher smiled cheerily and waved. Green waved back.

      After about five minutes flying time, Rosher put the Sopwith into a gentle dive, levelling off at about one hundred feet. He turned back to Green and shouted at him to attract his attention. Finally, Green heard and looked over his shoulder toward the pilot. Conversation was impossible, so Rosher began a brief pantomime, the point of which was to remind Green that he had to be on the lookout for enemy aircraft. Green immediately understood and turned back to his Lewis gun and began to scan the sky, swinging the muzzle of the gun in the same direction he was looking. Satisfied, Rosher turned back to his own task, bringing the aircraft lower and lower, until the Sopwith was around fifty feet off the ground, and then he opened the throttle a little to achieve a cruising speed of about one hundred miles an hour.

      For Green, the sensation of speed returned as the aircraft rocketed across the countryside. Rosher dodged trees, leap frogged hedges, and just missed the roofs of farm houses. Every twist and weaving, every sudden brief climb and rapid decent, made Green’s stomach heave. He had to force himself to concentrate on his allotted task and not to lean over the side and lose himself in a heaving vomit.

      The glare of the sun came from their left front and it was in this quarter that Rosher was keeping his own watchful vigil, and after approximately half an hour into the journey, he was rewarded by a tiny flash of reflected light. Green, concentrating his watch to the rear, saw nothing, and the first warning of any alarm he received was a renewed bellow from the Sopwith’s engine as Rosher opened the throttle to its full extent and began to climb toward a thick bank of cloud.

      Green looked over his shoulder toward his pilot. Rosher pointed frantically upwards with his left arm. Green swung the Lewis gun in that direction, staring into the blinding sunlight. He could see nothing. He looked again and then through the eye stinging glare of the morning sun, he saw two dark shapes wheeling like eagles above the Sopwith, and in sudden fear, he realized the shapes were enemy aircraft. Even as he watched, one of the aircraft began diving to cut the Sopwith off, while the other was positioning itself to come at its rear. Green concentrated all his attention on the aircraft making toward their rear.

      The aircraft Green was watching was much closer now, and as it banked to come directly behind the Sopwith, he saw a large black cross painted on its fuselage. He swung the Lewis gun toward the black cross, but his aim was spoiled as Rosher threw the Sopwith on its side and let loose with a prolonged burst of fire from his own machine gun. A split second later, the other enemy aircraft tore past, its own machine gun blazing.

      Green had only just enough time to regain his composure when the second enemy aircraft began its attack. He could see the blaze of deadly light coming from its machine gun. Rosher was still desperately climbing for the cloud bank, twisting the Sopwith first one way and then another. A row of holes suddenly appeared in the aircraft’s body inches from Green’s front. Desperately, he swung the Lewis gun toward the attacking German and fired a quick burst. His shots must have been close, for the German pilot rolled his aircraft away and took a few seconds to compose himself before joining with his mate to renew the attack.

      The cloud bank was now thirty seconds away, and Rosher was extracting every last ounce of power from the Sopwith’s engine. The German pilots, sensing their quarry might yet escape them, redoubled their efforts. The first aircraft now attacked from above while the second came from the Sopwith’s starboard side. Rosher was faced with the decision of continuing his flight, leaving his fixed machine gun out of the fight and Green with two enemies attacking from different directions, or he could turn and fight.

      There was really never any choice. At thirty seconds’ distance, the cloud bank might just as well have been a hundred miles away. Rosher knew he would have to fight. He threw the Sopwith into a diving corkscrew manoeuvre, spoiling the German’s immediate attack, and then desperately pulled his machine around in an effort to gain the tail of one of his opponents. Green could only hang on, but then as Rosher desperately tried to steady the Sopwith for a shot at the first German aircraft, for a fraction of a second the other German was in the Lewis gun’s sights and Green fired a prolonged burst. The German pilot shook as the stream of bullets struck him and tossed him into the corner of his cockpit; the nose of the German aircraft dropped and it began a long dive toward the ground. The other German pilot immediately broke off his attack and followed his stricken comrade. Rosher resumed his climb toward the safety of the cloud bank. The brief battle was over.