Part 6 (2/2)

Deitel turned to see three of the newcomers and Rucker extending smoking pistols in the direction where the SD man lay, now well and truly ventilated.

”d.a.m.n, Kid, you walloped the h.e.l.l out of that kraut,” Rucker said to one of the men with him when the roar of the shots died. It was a boy who couldn't have been more than seventeen.

”Figured four to one wasn't really fair for an old man like you,” Kid Boyington replied.

Another of the newcomers grabbed Deitel's shoulder roughly and glared.

”So this kraut is with you, Fox?” the man asked Rucker. To Deitel, he sneered, ”That it, Hans? You with Fox?”

Rucker pulled the man away from Deitel roughly.

”Yeah, Lindy, he's with me. Mind your manners,” Rucker said. ”Oh, and his name is Kurt. Dr. Kurt von Deitel. Don't forget it.”

Rucker put a hand on Deitel's shoulder and smiled through the blood dripping from his nose. ”Thanks, Doc. Taking a bullet like that. Didn't think you had the heuvos.”

Deitel smiled back.

Wait. What?

He looked down at his body and noticed the hole in his suit jacket just below the breast pocket. Gott! I've been shot! He must have been in shock since he didn't feel it yet. Frantically he tore off his jacket, but there was no blood on his white s.h.i.+rt.

”Clean miss,” Rucker said, ”but not for lack of you trying to catch the thing.”

Deitel felt his legs go and he sat straight down on the cool sidewalk. Now the adrenaline came, way too late.

”You know,” Rucker finally said, picking up his cowboy hat from the ground and easing it back on his head, ”Here I thought you were just some anemic little fancy boy from the dandy side of Germany.”

”Um, thank you?” Deitel said, still processing what had just happened.

”But you got some big bra.s.s ones clanging down there, don't you?” Rucker said, yanking Deitel to his feet. ”C'mon. First round at Dutchy's is on me.”

Deitel was still shaking from the adrenaline rush, staring off into the distance. He got his bearings and stood.

”Will . . . will there be tacos?”

CHAPTER FIVE.

Dutchy's Bra.s.s Monkey Austin Texas Freehold The beer was cold, the bluegra.s.s trio was loud, and the logs in the brick oven were flaming. The sign outside read DUTCHY'S BRa.s.s MONKEY, and there was in fact a bra.s.s monkey as the centerpiece of the bar.

There was also a real monkey. It smoked cigarettes.

A sign above the door said FLIARS ONLY, but they'd let Deitel in, and he was still wondering about the spelling. The walls of Dutchy's tavern told the whole history of heavier-than-air aviation in pictures, old advertis.e.m.e.nts, and actual aeroplane parts. It ran from Glenn Curtiss's first powered flight in 1901 to the transoceanic pa.s.senger planes of today. The ceiling fans were made from the early wooden propellers that were used until 1917. There was no place for lighter-than-air memorabilia. Most notably absent in the bar was anything relating to the history of airs.h.i.+ps, which rose to primacy in the late 1800s and even today were the dominant form of air transport for both people and goods.

Fliers weren't fond of airs.h.i.+p men and vice versa.

A wing from a 1910 civilian biplane-all wood frame and canvas-decorated the wall above the water closets. The tabletops were made from pieces of high-test aluminum composites salvaged from more modern planes. The alloy was the Brazilian discovery that changed airplane design and construction fundamentally, especially in the closing days of the Great War.

Pictures of individual pioneers in flight engineering and flight itself were cast about on the walls. Here Curtiss. There the Wright Brothers. On a shelf apropos of nothing was an old hand crank from the dawn of the biplane era. Of course, there were pictures of aerial squadrons from the wartime Texas Volunteer Group, set amid rather raucous graffiti that served as a memorial to downed fliers.

Deitel found two pictures of the 315th Mighty Fireflies. In the first there were ten men-including Rucker-posed in front of a Curtiss Hornet biplane. It was dated August 1917. The second showed eleven men posed in front of a Curtiss Dragonfly, one of the first combat monoplanes. It was dated February 1918. Only five of the men from the first picture were in the second; the survivors looked like they'd aged ten years.

Centered over the bar was an engraving on a stone slab. Even Deitel recognized it-the commandments for aerial combat as written by the very first man to master aerial combat, German ace Oswald Boelcke.

DICTA BOELCKE.

1. Try to secure advantages before attacking. If possible keep the sun behind you.

2. Always carry through an attack when you started it.

3. Fire only at close range and only when your opponent is properly in your sights.

4. Always keep your eye on your opponent and never let yourself be deceived by ruses.

5. In any form of attack it is essential to a.s.sail your opponent from behind.

6. If your opponent dives on you, do not try to evade his onslaught but fly to meet him.

7. When over the enemy's line, never forget your own line of retreat.

Deitel felt a little mauled and manhandled by all the hearty backslaps and the drinks they kept pus.h.i.+ng into his hand. He'd asked for schnapps and got Tennessee whiskey. He'd asked for a lager and got Tennessee whiskey. The four men who'd come to his and Rucker's rescue in the alley were all telling loud stories with bold and boisterous laughs. They all seemed to welcome him in their rough way-except the one they called Lindy, who still glared at him whenever their eyes met.

Claire Chennault was the oldest of the group, probably in his mid-thirties, so they all called him Pappy. All but the youngest of this group, the fifteen-year-old mascot they called Kid Boyington, had served together in France-Jim Doolittle, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Lindy. They wore leather flight jackets over their civilian clothes, with patches that proclaimed 3RD TEXAS VOLUNTEER AIR GROUP-MIGHTY FIREFLIES.

Chennault's booming voice cut right through the noise of the bar and the band's volume.

”. . . when from nowhere this red Fokker triplane buzzes the aerodrome-we don't know what happened to the spotters. Anyhow, it drops Rucker's boots and cap. We all figured the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was the one what shot the Fox down,” he said, clapping Rucker on the shoulder. ”So Lindy here, who just arrived over from Dallas, gets on the thirty-caliber machine gun, and as the kraut flew back over to dip his wings, he opened up on the Fokker, smoking him.

”Which wasn't kosher,” Chennault added for Deitel and Boyington's benefit. ”But he was seventeen and a greenhorn.

”We're all standing around shocked at what just happened. Captain Blackadder, our Royal Air Corps liaison, is cursing a blue streak at Lindy. And then when we hear this voice from overhead yelling, 'Don't shoot me, you miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!' we look up and there's Rucker floating down, a bottle of the Baron's cognac in one hand, and the Baron's Dachshund cradled in the other. In his socks and not much else.”

The whole table roared even though it was apparent they'd heard the story dozens of times.

”He taken Baron Richtofen's favorite plane, his best hooch, and his dog,” Chennault said. They were all laughing so hard they were banging the table and wiping tears.

After another round of drinks and stories and, eventually, when the other fliers cleared off, Deitel finally had a chance to ask what the h.e.l.l had happened in the alley.

”It was a Gestapo bag team,” Rucker explained. ”They would have gunned me down and taken you away. It's pretty clear now-whatever is going on with the information you brought us, the Gestapo and the SD know something. Just not sure what or how much.”

The prospect was frightening, but weighed against duty, was a small matter.

”How does an armed SD team get into Texas?” Deitel asked.

”Probably by way of the Union States. Brought in by members of the Texas Bundists,” Rucker said.

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