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

Author:Richard Fox [Fox, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Triplane Press
Published: 2014-12-20T07:00:00+00:00

Otto looked up from the trench, and watched as the all-red Albatros pursued an English Sopwith triplane. Sunlight glinted in the air, reflecting from the brass cartridges falling from the German plane. Otto watched the casings fall to the ground, just a few dozen yards into no-man’s-land.

The Sopwith pitched over and corkscrewed to the earth, trailing black smoke. Cheers erupted from the rest of the soldiers in Otto’s trench, and he took a chance.

The soldier slithered into no-man’s-land and crept toward where he saw the brass fall. He kept his belly on the ground, pulling himself forward like an infant that hadn’t mastered crawling.

A patch of red poppies grew around a shattered wheel, an artifact of some long-lost horse carriage that ferried ammo or artillery during the early days of the war. A single brass cartridge lay in the poppies, and Otto reached out and grabbed it. It was still warm to the touch and smelled of freshly struck gunpowder.

A childish giggle escaped from him as he turned around and slunk back to his trench. Less than a dozen yards from safety, Otto got sloppy and lifted his head up. A bullet snapped past his head, followed by two more that smacked into the dirt beside him.

Otto scrambled the last few feet and fell head over heels into the trench as English bullets chewed into the sandbags along the trench line.

Otto lay on the wooden planks of the trench floor, staring into the sky.

Sergeant Haas leaned over him, blocking out the sun. “Otto, what the hell were you thinking?”

Otto held up the casing and smiled. “It got it! Straight from Richthofen’s gun!”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.