Jack called Billy. Billy told him to sit on his hands. Ted called in the bombers from the ground. “Morris cashed his check,” he said. “Plane is a total wreck. Grease it.” Two passes and the area was a smoking crater. Close by, the Bristol was still on the ground.
Everyone would find out later that Morris had gone radio silent about two minutes after the pilots on the ground had gotten the call to scramble. The Delta Doll had been limping at the tail of the flight back from Mutter’s Ridge, and Porter Vaughn—flight leader of first squadron—had dropped out of formation to check on him. He’d called flight control to report that the Doll was trailing smoke and losing altitude, pilot unresponsive. Thirty seconds later, he’d called in again to say that Morris had rolled over and was down, no radio contact. Ted had given the order to pull the extra planes out of the lineup. He’d grabbed Billy straight off the strip, muscled a ground crew into hauling the Bristol out of the longhouse and into drag position. They’d primed her, thrown off all weight they could manage, dumped in a hatful of gas, and put her in the air. The thought was that if Morris was still alive, he could be loaded into the gunner’s seat and Ted could hobble home in the damaged Fokker. If the Doll was inoperable, he could ride on someone’s lap. And if both plane and pilot were unrecoverable, the order would be to bomb both to keep them out of the hands of the unfriendly indigs who’d crossed the river before dawn at the now-unguarded ford and were currently headed their way.
Jack and Carter circled and circled, doing a crossing-eight pattern above Fenn, who was in a holding pattern above the bombers who’d gone in low and slow so as not to accidentally splash Billy, Ted, or the Bristol with their drop: HE and incendiary five-pounders, laid out by hand. The bombers were lugging their way back up to altitude, still fat with bombs, and with each passing minute, everyone was expecting to see the Bristol climbing back into formation. But it didn’t. And then it didn’t again. On each turn they were disappointed, further confused. The unfriendlies were split now into two distinct groups, the forward of them quickly outpacing the rear. Carter called down for permission to break and hit the advancing troops, but he was denied.
“Remain in position, guys,” Billy radioed back. “Chief’s orders.”
So they circled some more. Carter fished the spotting scope out of his jacket and took a look out toward the river at the enemy advance. The rear group was indig infantry, jogging along in rank, nests of spear-tips glittering in the sunlight. The forward was cavalry, riding under the whip.
He called Billy again. “Billy, those are horses coming your way, you know.”
“Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious. But we can see them just fine from here. Simon says stay put.” Over the radio, Carter could hear him racking the bolts on the Bristol’s machine guns.
Two more times around, he told himself. Then we go in anyway. Carter switched channels to talk to Jack and told him the same. Jack agreed.
They made one circle. Roadrunner carried two .303s in the nose cowling, which he primed and racked, plus a block-mount cannon. He cleared the plug from the external breech, lifted a five-round clip of 37 mm RDX explosive shells from the magazine box, and dropped it in. Carter knew all too well that the failing of the cannon was that, when the shells ejected, they hit him right in the knees and then rattled around loose on the floorboards, always in danger of fouling the pedals. It was an imperfect weapon system, but pulling the trigger was like firing a beer bottle filled with dynamite, so there was that. Just one round would flatten a small house, so one picked targets with a certain amount of discretion. Carter knew that he had to hate something and want it blown to small pieces quite badly to justify the pain and bother of going to the cannon. He knew that the popcorn guns would settle up anything short of a serious loathing just fine.
He popped the safety catch off the cannon’s trigger.
But then, as he and Jack came around through their second and final turn, Jack spotted the Bristol airborne, punching a hole through the cloud of dust and smoke raised by the bombing. It was struggling to gain altitude, clawing at the air. Jack cut his turn outside and dropped back into position. Carter followed through onto his wing. Across a gap of sky, he looked over at Jack and Jack shrugged.
Ted’s voice broke in over the radio. “Home, gentlemen,” he said. “Jackrabbit, I have the lead. All wings fall in. We’re going into refit and lockdown till I say otherwise. Until we find out what the fuck is going on around here, no one flies.”
Not another word was said by anyone until every plane was safely back on the ground. They made best speed for the airfield behind the Bristol, but that wasn’t very fast. Billy’s plane was sluggish and off-balance. It waggled discomfortingly in the crosswinds. Once they were down, the pilots found out that this was because Billy and Ted were carrying Morris’s body with them. He’d been thrown from his plane in the crash and vaulted partway up a tree, still attached to part of his seat. Ted had kept Billy on the ground while he’d gone up to cut Morris down, then rode the whole way home with the corpse in his lap, Morris’s head pillowed against his shoulder.