The Last Flight Read online

  But the longer you fly the better you get, and Donald is safe as the bricks in our house. I have told him about you and he says to tell you, ‘Lucy, you sound wonderful. Will you marry me when you are old enough?’ I told him, ‘She wouldn’t marry a man who wears a kilt.’

  I can spot a German fighter three miles away now – unless they fly between me and the sun. I know what to look for, and I can warn Donald and hurry for home.

  Donald has learned that you never fly in a straight line for more than 20 seconds. He weaves around the sky like a Bathtub butterfly so he’s hard to hit from the ground or from the air.

  He can even fly the old Deathtrap like a fighter if he has to. We got a German Albatros on our tail the other day. When that happens you should never ever run for home. The German is quicker and he’ll catch you, and you make a lovely target flying in a straight line.

  I was twisting around with my machine gun when the Albatros attacked. But the German was a wise old bird and he dipped under our tail where I couldn’t see him. Donald shouted, ‘Hold on to your hat, Alfred.’ Then he twisted the rudder and dived suddenly to the right. And just in time.

  The German guns were rattling away – shooting at the place where we had been two seconds before. The Albatros roared past and climbed steeply. I knew he wanted to attack us from the front but I had the machine gun ready.

  I had never seen an Albatros like it. It was painted red from nose to tail, except for the large black crosses on the wings. Lucy, it was the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen himself! And I realised, if I could shoot him down then I’d get enough medals to decorate your doll’s house from chimney to garden.

  I crouched. I waited for him to turn. I have never felt so much fear and excitement. But just as he began to make his attack he stopped and dived away suddenly towards the ground, with a Sopwith Camel on his tail. Our fighters had arrived to save the Red Baron from my deadly shooting.

  They say the Baron has shot down more than twenty of our planes now. But he won’t shoot down Alfred Terence Adams and Donald James Stewart. With my shooting and Donald’s flying, we are just too good.

  I have been told my leave starts on Saturday 7th of April. Five weeks and I’ll be hugging my little sister. I will take the troop train to Calais, cross the English Channel, then take the train to London. I may have time to visit the shops and buy you a little something.

  In your last letter you said the greatest present would be to see me come home safe. Don’t worry. I will.

  All my love

  Alfred

  Chapter 6

  Biffs and Baron

  Somewhere in Germany

  1 June 1917

  Dearest Lucy

  Here I am, alive and well, but a prisoner in a German camp. I hope you got a message from the Red Cross to say I had been captured and that you have not been too worried. I am safer here than I was when I was in the fighting, and I’ll be home as soon as we have won the war.

  The German guards tell me the great British attack in spring was a failure. They seem like good men, with families back home. But of course they are sure they are winning this war.

  You will want to know how I came here. I remember my last letter said I would never be captured. Well, I was. It was on 5 April and we set off at 11 am.

  I told you about the Dawdling Deathtrap machines we flew? Well, now we have something much better. It is a two-seat plane called a Bristol Fighter, though all the airmen call them B-Fs or Biffs. It’s even faster than an Albatros. Here’s what it looks like:

  Six Biffs set off that morning. I sat behind Donald in this machine so I could take pictures over the side and I had a Lewis machine gun to look after us.

  The trouble is, they never gave us time to practise in the new machines. Six of us set off that morning, full of hope. Four would be shot down. It was a disaster.

  It was a bumpy ride with a gusty wind and Donald was struggling to control all that speed and power. The old Bathtubs used to chug along together but these Biffs were all over the sky.

  We hung around on the British side of the lines and found just four Camels to look after us. The big attack was coming any day now and there weren’t enough Camels and pilots to shelter us. The Germans have a new way of fighting. They fly in a big group they call a ‘Circus’ – but Manfred von Richthofen is no clown. It was just our luck that we were flying in his part of the sky. And it was bad luck that the sun was shining that morning.

  Donald gave the signal and we headed off to the German side to take our photos. We were too fast for archie in our new planes. By the time the shells exploded we were half a mile away. And then the archie stopped.

  It stopped because the German gunners knew there were German planes in the sky. Before I could reach for my machine gun I saw a smoking Camel spin past us, shot down. Then the Red Baron’s Circus was among us. They came out of the blinding sun, invisible till they were on our tails.

  They were painted in a rainbow of colours. Swooping and shooting and climbing and tumbling and spitting lead bullets. ‘Time to go home,’ Donald cried. But he forgot the main rule of air war… don’t turn and run.

  ‘We’ll be an easy target,’ I called back.

  ‘This Bristol is too fast for them,’ he said.

  He was nearly right. It was faster than an Albatros. But not when that Albatros was diving from high above us. We were still two miles from the British lines when the red plane swooped from the sun. I fired my machine gun but a bullet jammed in the barrel. We were helpless.

  I could see the Red Baron’s eyes behind the goggles as he aimed and fired. The bullets zipped over our heads before he roared past. But one had hit the engine and a blue-white flame appeared before the engine stopped.

  We were drifting like a paper glider. The Red Baron turned in a circle and came on our tail again. ‘Will we make it?’ I asked as the wind whispered through the wires.

  ‘Not if our red friend shoots us again. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel,’ Donald said.

  I have to be honest, Lucy. I started to say my prayers. I thought of you and said goodbye to you in my mind.

  Then an odd thing happened. The Red Baron sat on our tail and followed us down.

  As we flew over the German lines the enemy soldiers opened fire with their rifles. We’d heard stories that Germans gave extra food to any soldier who killed a British airman.

  Donald saw a flat stretch of road behind the German trenches. He brought us down and we bounced along and rolled to a stop. As I got out, Donald jumped down from his seat and ran to the front. He drew his pistol and fired at the fuel tank till it split. Petrol poured out.

  The German troops stopped firing and I heard the throb of an aeroplane engine. The Red Baron was landing behind us.

  ‘We need to set fire to the plane,’ Donald said and drew a box of matches from his pocket.

  The German pilot had stopped but left his engine running. He drew a pistol and ran towards us. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘Stop or I shoot you.’

  Donald threw his pistol to the ground. ‘You can’t shoot a man without a gun,’ he laughed, and pulled a match from the box.

  Manfred von Richthofen pushed up his goggles. His ice-blue eyes turned on me. He shrugged and pointed his gun at me.

  ‘Stop, or I shoot your friend. He has a gun.’ I did. It was still in its leather pouch.

  Donald threw down the box and the matches spilled in the road. He looked sour and defeated, but he had chosen to save my life. ‘You’re not bad, Donald,’ I muttered. ‘For a Scotsman.’

  Von Richthofen strolled across. He had cropped fair hair and a gaze like steel. He bared his teeth in a cold smile and held out his hand to Donald. They shook hands. ‘Welcome to Germany. You will be our guest until we have won this war.’

  ‘Your guest till we win the war,’ Donald said, his gaze as hard as the Red Baron’s.

  The Red Baron shook his head slowly, pointed his pistol at us and waved towards the trenches where a dozen German soldiers
had a dozen German rifles pointed at us.

  We walked towards our captors. ‘He could have blown us out of the sky,’ I muttered. ‘Why didn’t he? Is he such a good sport?’

  Donald laughed bitterly. ‘No, Alfred, it’s the new Bristol plane. The Germans want to capture a Bristol in one piece and see what makes it so good. They have it now.’

  ‘And us?’

  ‘The war is over for us,’ Donald said with a sigh.

  And so it is, Lucy. I am in the German prison camp now. The Red Cross will carry our letters. But I am safer than I have ever been, except for the terrible food. The Germans are short of food. It isn’t guns and planes that will win this war, Lucy. It is hunger.

  I’m 21 today. I hope Donald and I get to spend my 22nd birthday with you. Keep praying for me. I’m sure it works!

  Love

  Alfred

  Epilogue

  The Great War was the first war to see aircraft used. At first they would fly over enemy armies and photograph their positions or to bomb them. Then the defenders sent fighters to shoot down these spy planes. War in the air had begun.

  Photographer Alfred Adams was born 1 June 1896 and became an observer in the First World War, taking pictures over enemy lines. He was shot down by the famous ‘Red Baron’ Manfred von Richthofen over France, along with his pilot Donald Stewart, on 5 April 1917. They landed across enemy lines and both survived as prisoners of war. They were the Red Baron’s 36th victims.

  The big spring attack started four days later on the snowy morning of 9 April. Two and a half million massive shells smashed into the German trenches in that one week near Alfred’s airfield – but the British failed to break through. The war went on another year and a half.

  Manfred von Richthofen went on to shoot down eighty enemy planes before he was brought down by a bullet from a soldier on the ground, a year after Adams and Stewart were captured.

  The Red Baron never lived to see Germany lose the war in November 1918.

  This electronic edition published in August 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing

  Text copyright © 2013 Terry Deary

  Illustrations copyright © 2013 James de la Rue

  Cover illustration © 2013 Chris Mould

  First published 2013 by A & C Black

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  eISBN: 978-1-4081-9169-9 (e-book)

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