Aces by T. E. Cruise Page B

Froehlig objected. “You’ll be shot up before you leave the
     ground.”
    Goldstein looked at Bodenschatz. “Sir, will you help?”
    “But how can I?”
    “Your motorcycle sidecar, Sir. It has a machine gun. If you were to ride alongside my Fokker, affording me covering fire until
     I was airborne?…”
    Bodenschatz’s dark eyes lit up. He grinned and quickly nodded. “Herr Sergeant, I’ll be beside you when you need me.”
    Goldstein ran toward his airplane, with Froehlig keeping up beside him. “Your helmet and goggles—” the corporal began.
    “No time for them,” Goldstein muttered.
    “The windchill,” Froehlig protested.
    “Heiner, look on the bright side. It’s going to be three against one, assuming I can even take off. I’ll probably be
dead
before I feel any discomfort.”
    As they reached the idling airplane Froehlig reached out to grasp Goldstein’s arm. “Good luck, Hermann.”
    “Thanks, my friend,” Goldstein smiled, and then he was hoisting himself into the cockpit. He quickly buckled himself into
     his seat as Froehlig pulled the chocks from the wheels. As the Fokker began to roll Goldstein slapped open the throttle and
     steered for open ground.
    Goldstein, squinting against the engine exhaust smoke, looked up over his shoulder. The Fokker was bouncing and jolting its
     way along the rutted field. The Spads would spot him any second now.
    He saw Spad No. 17 break off strafing the fuel lorries, luckily, before any of the Spad’s bullets could ignite the petro.
     The Spad came around onto Goldstein’s tail, with the other two stacked above it, still acting as lookouts as they patiently
     waited their turn to shoot German fish in a barrel.
    Goldstein smiled grimly. At least he’d succeeded in drawing the enemy away from the vulnerable fuel deposit and the hangar
     tents. He didn’t think the Frenchies could resist his decoy maneuver. Blowing up fuel lorries or parked airplanes was important
     work, but destroying a
piloted
airplane, even if it was still on the ground, would count as a kill on a pilot’s record.
    Goldstein waited for the last possible moment before turning his Fokker into the wind, so abruptly that his triplane’s wing
     skid scraped the ground. The Spads overshot him. He heard their Vickers guns, and saw their rounds kicking up mud, but no
     bullets hit his airplane. Goldstein had his throttle wide open, the Fokker was rattling along fit to jar the teeth out of
     his head, but it would still be another minute before he would be going fast enough to get airborne.
    The Spad pilots would know that as well, just as they’d know that now he
had
to remain on a straight course if he wanted to reach takeoff velocity. All the Spads had to do was get behind him and use
     their machine guns to nail him down.
    Goldstein again peered over his shoulder. The Spads were closing in. He saw orange fire licking out from the barrels of No.
     17’s twin Vickers. The mud was erupting in molten spurts all around his Fokker. He hunched down in his seat and waited to
     get shot. Where the hell was Bodenschatz?—
    Thanks to his own engine making such a racket, Goldstein didn’t hear the motorcycle until it had pulled up alongside his airplane.
     Bodenschatz jauntily waved and then hunched over his sidecar’s Parabellum and began firing short bursts up at the offending
     Spad.
    Goldstein never expected Bodenschatz to do any damage; all he’d wanted was for the adjutant’s gun to buy him a little breathing
     space. Goldstein watched what was happening in his rearview mirror and couldn’t have been more shocked when Spad 17 began
     spewing black smoke, the thick oily clouds effectively shrouding his Fokker, preventing the other Spads from accurately returning
     fire.
    Goldstein heard Bodenschatz bellow, “Good God, I’ve got a kill!” He watched in his mirror as Spad 17 banked steeply onto its
     side and then nosedived, its prop biting into the mud. The Spad erupted in thunder and