Kill the Dragon

Winthrop sat in Albert Ball's chair, staring at nothing. The mess was crowded but quiet. The new-born Cundall hands were playing cards. Some elders were toying with a plump French girl, exciting tiny squeals from her. She called herself Cigarette, and was shared like a smoke in the trenches, passed from mouth to mouth.

Since Ginger had passed on the rumour that Richthofen was truly dead, Winthrop felt like an exorcised ghost. There was no earthly reason for him to remain with Condor Squadron, but he was bound here. Ball and Kate were with him still, and his red thirst - worse, his red hunger- was rising, making him feel like a drunkard for raw meat.

His stomach was not improving. He could keep down only small amounts of very undercooked beef, swimming in blood. When sick, he disgorged alarming amounts of ground-up red meat.

The scabby necks of filles de joie like Cigarette had a fascination for him but he knew he could not drink warm human blood. He wished profoundly to be free of the dizzying taint that swarmed inside him, colouring his mind red.

If only he could kiss Kate again and set things right.

A shadow fell on him. Allard had appeared.

'Confirmation of our victory. The Germans have made an announcement.'

Your victory,' Winthrop admitted. 'You finished the Boche.'

'It was a Richthofen but not the Richthofen.'

Winthrop's blood leaped.

'We killed Lothar, Manfred von Richthofen's brother. No insignificant ace. Forty victories.'

The Bloody Red Baron lived. The job for which he had transformed himself was not finished.

'I see what lurks in your heart, Winthrop. You are pleased. You want this prize for yourself.'

Winthrop did not try to blind the American with talk of all for one and one for all and winning the war and seeing it through.

'You may yet have your chance at the eagle,' said Allard. 'And maybe at greater prey.'

Winthrop was stricken with shivers.

Cigarette yelped through giggles. Allard glanced at the girl, not approving. She was in the lap of Alex Brandberg. His mouth was fixed to her breast.

Winthrop excused himself and got up, reaching for stirrups fixed to the timbers for Albert Ball.

'I need air,'he said.

It was March the 20th, official spring. In France, the weather was wintery. Winthrop stood outside the farmhouse, breathing cold air, concentrating. He still needed his vampire blood. The sense of purpose filled him again. But he was ailing. Every time he tried mentally to get above himself, to sort out Ball and Kate and the rest of it, he was paralysed. His mind was shrinking, intent merely on survival and murder. There was more, but a red mist hung over it. What separated him from the troglodytes? Or from old killers impressed into uniform?

Two orderlies struggled through the kitchen door, a long bundle between them. Winthrop smelled blood. The men carried Cigarette, drained unconscious. They left the girl in a lump against a fence by her bicycle.

Winthrop went over to see. The orderlies withdrew, wiping their hands as if they had disposed of something messy. The girl's shawl was wrapped about her. Banknotes rolled into a cigarette-like tube were tucked into her bosom. A spatter of rain, like tears, brushed Cigarette's face. Red-rimmed eyes sprang open. She reached for the money and pushed it deeper into her bodice.

He made no motion to help her. She would not thank him.

With experienced fingers, Cigarette felt the bites on her throat and bosom, wincing as she probed ragged tears. She wrapped her shawl about her throat like a field dressing. The wool was spotted with old bleeding. She got deliberately to her feet, strangely dignified, like a drunkard doing his best to seem sober. She held the fence with one hand until she steadied. Her contemptuous gaze took in Winthrop, the farmhouse and the airfield. She was not squealing and giggling now. This girl could not hate the Boche more than she hated the Allied pilots who bled her for money.

He tasted blood in the rain.

Cigarette mounted her bicycle and pedalled off, leaning low over her handlebars, skirts tucked away out of the spokes. Did she have a family to feed? A husband? Children? Or was she a camp-follower, going wherever there were soldiers?

His sudden concern for the girl troubled him, then he realised it was the Kate in him. The rain washed it away. Only a fool stood outside in the rain when he didn't have to.

At sunset, Allard called a briefing. Winthrop knew at once that it was a serious matter. The board with details of the squadron's disposition was wiped clean. A large-scale map of the region hung from the wall. And Mr Croft sat by the captain, face unreadable.

Winthrop sat in Ball's chair, near Bertie and Ginger.

'Mr Croft would like to talk with you,' Allard said.

This was unusual. Winthrop could not recall the intelligence man actually saying a word.

Croft stood, bowing slightly to the room, and began, Gentlemen, conflicts of which you were not aware are taking place. A secret war, if you will. We have gulled the enemy. We have allowed him his knights of the air. We have helped build up the legends of men like Richthofen, have encouraged the enemy to trust in them, to prize them above their worth. It has been costly, but - as you will soon understand - a vital strategy.'

As Croft rasped, Winthrop burned. It was impossible to like this man. What he seemed to be suggesting was dreadful, that the Allies sacrificed good men like Albert Ball and Tom Cundall simply to lull the Boche into overvaluing their shape-shifting killers.

'You know that JG1 are stationed in Schloss Adler. On your last patrol, you brought back intelligence that a Zeppelin was moored above the castle.'

A great fuss had been made of that tid-bit.

'It is unusual for such machines to venture near the front. This is the flagship of the enemy's aerial fleet, the Attila. It is the position from which their commander-in-chief will observe their planned offensive.'

Winthrop remembered the black bulk of the thing.

'Are you saying Dracula's in that Zep?' Lacey asked.

Croft, annoyed to be questioned, continued. 'This is the endgame we have been manoeuvring. We have drawn Dracula out of his lair. We have brought him within our reach.'

Winthrop understood what Allard had meant by 'greater prey'. There were eagles in the sky, almost as common as sparrows. But there was also a dragon, the dracul.

'When the attack comes, it will be the purpose of this squadron to bring down the Zeppelin. Once the head has been cut off the beast, the body will wither. This single stroke will mean victory.'

'All very well, old thing,' said Algy, 'but we've nothing that can climb as high as a jolly Zep. One's eyes turn to iceballs in the upper climes.'

'He will come down to us. Lord Ruthven understands his arrogance. The Graf von Dracula loves this toy, this flying machine. He will want to be close enough to see his armies sweep across the lines. He feels secure in his guards, his shape- shifter aces. That childish overreaching will be the end of him. You men will assassinate Dracula.'

'I've always fancied a spot of Zep-busting,' Bertie said. 'Damned unsporting things, the Zeps. Bombing civilians and that sort of show.'

'This is not sport,' Croft said. 'This is war. In this instance, this is murder. Make no mistake.' 'What about dear old JG1?'

'Kill them if you must and if you can, but do not pursue any private campaign against them. The priority is the Zeppelin and Graf von Dracula.'

'Once Dracula's killed, will it be over?'

'This is his war. Without him, the Central Powers will collapse.'

'Without Dracula, who'll there be to surrender?'

Croft shrugged. 'There will still be the Kaiser. Without Dracula, he will be a lost child.'

Ruthven's man was convincing but his voice was hollow, his focus narrow. Croft said this was not sport but talked of endgames as if a continent of mud were a chess-board. From the air, in the air, Winthrop knew there was no order. Without its head, the beast might thrash until nothing was left alive in the jungle. All Europe might become a country of troglodytes. Winthrop could not think of that. He could think only of hunting hunters, of stalking eagles and dragons.

The telephone rang and was in Allard's hand. The captain listened, nodded, and hung up.

'It has begun,' he announced.