“Gunner!”
“Sir?”
“D’you hear the lieutenant? Six German fighters. Six, on the port bow.”
“I heard the lieutenant, sir.”
“Dutertre! Have they seen us?”
“They have, Captain. Banking towards us. Fifteen hundred feet below us.”
“Hear that, gunner? Fifteen hundred feet below us. Dutertre! How near are they?”
“Say ten seconds.”
“Hear that, gunner? On our tail in a few seconds.”
There they are. I see them. Tiny. A swarm of poisonous wasps.
“Gunner! They’re crossing broadside. You’ll see them in a second. There!”
“Don’t see them yet, sir.... Yes, I do!”
I no longer see them myself.
“They after us?”
“After us, sir.”
“Rising fast?”
“Can’t say, sir. Don’t think so.... No, sir.”
Dutertre spoke. “What do you say, Captain?”
“What do you expect me to say?”
Nobody said anything. There was nothing to say. We were in God’s hands. If I banked, I should narrow the space between us. Luckily, we were flying straight into the sun. At high altitude you cannot go up fifteen hundred feet higher without giving a couple of miles to your game. It was possible therefore that they might lose us entirely in the sun by the time they had reached our altitude and recovered their speed.
“Still after us, sir.”
“We gaining on them?”
“Well, sir. No.... Perhaps.”
It was God’s business—and the sun’s.
Fighters do not fight, they murder. Still, it might turn into a fight, and I made ready for it. I pressed with both feet as hard as I could, trying to free the frozen rudder. A wave of something strange went over me. But my eyes were still on the Germans, and I bore with all my weight down upon the rigid bar.
Once again I discovered that I was in fact much less upset in this moment of action—if “action” was the word for this vain expectancy—than I had been while dressing. A kind of anger was going through me. A beneficent anger. God knows, no ecstasy of sacrifice. Rather an urge to bite hard into something.
“Gunner! Are we losing them?”
“We are losing them, sir.”
Good job.
“Dutertre! Dutertre!”
“Captain?”
“I ... nothing.”
“Anything the matter?”
“Nothing. I thought... Nothing.”
I decided not to mention it. No good worrying them. If I went into a dive they would know it soon enough. They would know that I had gone into a dive.
It was not natural that I should be running with sweat in a temperature sixty degrees below zero. Not natural. I knew perfectly well what was happening. Gently, very gently, I was fainting.
I could see the instrument panel. Now I couldn’t. My hands were losing their grip on the wheel. I hadn’t even the strength to speak. I was letting myself go. So pleasant, letting oneself go....
Then I squeezed the rubber tube. A gust of air blew into my nose and brought me life. The oxygen supply was not out of order! Then it must be.... Of course! How stupid I had been! It was the rudder. I had exerted myself like a man trying to pick up a grand piano. Flying thirty-three thousand feet in the air, I had struggled like a professional wrestler. The oxygen was being doled out to me. It was my business to use it up economically. I was paying for my orgy.
I began to inhale in swift repeated gasps. My heart beat faster and faster. It was like a faint tinkle. What good would it do to speak of it? If I went into a dive, they would know soon enough. Now I could see my instrument panel.... No, that wasn’t true. I couldn’t see it. Sitting there in my sweat, I was sad.
Life came back as gently as it had flowed out of me.
“Dutertre!”
“Captain?”
I should have liked to tell him what had happened.
“I ... I thought ... No.”
I gave it up. Words consume oxygen too fast. Already I was out of breath. I was very weak. A convalescent.
“You were about to say something, Captain?”
“No.... Nothing.”
“Quite sure, Captain? You puzzle me?”
I puzzle him. But I am alive.
“We are alive.”
“Well, yes. For the time being.”
For the time being. There was still Arras.
Thus for a minute or two I had the feeling that I should not pull through; and yet I had not observed in myself that poignant anxiety which, people say, turns the hair white in an instant. I began to think of Sagon, of what Sagon had said when, two months earlier, we had gone to see him only a few hours after he had been shot down behind our own lines. What had gone through his mind when the German fighters had surrounded him and nailed him to the stake.