Eleven Eleven by Paul Dowswell

Author:Paul Dowswell [Dowswell, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Historical, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, General Fiction
ISBN: 9781408826232
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Eddie checked his watch. An hour had passed. Clearly the Huns were not sending any of their men up this autumnal morning. He felt his chances ebbing away. Four Huns. It wasn’t enough. Then he remembered the attack on Aulnois and took a quick look at his map. The village was a couple of kilometres away from the town of Saint-Libert and just south of a dense forest. He was sure he had flown over that earlier. It would be easy enough to spot, even on a day like this.

He dived away from the blue vista back through the clouds and into the gloom of a dismal November day. Eddie had a good sense of place and direction and quickly spotted the forest and the church tower close by. He looked at his watch. 09.55. The attack was due at any moment.

A short burst of artillery fire blossomed on the ground beneath him, and he wondered about the wisdom of flying too close to that. What an ignominious end – to be hit by your own artillery on the last day of the war. Plenty of pilots he knew had been shot down by their own side in the previous few months.

The bombardment around the village had stopped now and Eddie could see tiny ant-like figures emerging from an embankment to the west. He swerved down, determined to come in alongside them, and when he discovered where the Germans were entrenched, he would fly in low and drop his eggs. He smirked at the term – another British colloquialism his squadron had picked up.

He put his Camel into a steep dive, and felt the familiar surge of excitement that came with the manoeuvre. His speedometer was touching two hundred miles per hour. A Camel could barely make one hundred twenty five in level flight, so diving like this was as fast as anyone could go. It was amazing. At this speed you could get from New York to Boston in an hour . . . it was even faster than a train.

Eddie levelled off behind the first wave of American soldiers, searching the horizon for any sign of the enemy. He was surprised to hear his engine stutter, and was startled to see a trail of black smoke emerge from the left-hand exhaust vents. Had his own soldiers been firing at him?

Whatever had caused that black smoke had come and gone. Maybe it was a faulty fuel mix, a misfiring valve – it could be lots of things. The engine roared on without interruption – no hint of distress in its insistent thrum, and the stick still felt responsive in his hand. The Camel was flying fine; he should just press on. He felt lucky. Maybe there would be a Hun plane up here for him after all, and maybe he would bag his fifth yet.

But there was still the attack below to attend to. His CO was going to wonder what the hell he was doing up here this morning.

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