other aerial cruiser and pass it in a few minutes. I could make out her flags; a large tricolor flew from the mainmast amidships, and a blood-red ensign fluttered from the stern.
“She’ll follow us for a while, but we’re coming up on Saarbrüchen in a quarter hour. She’ll turn back for home rather than go deep into German air space,” Harding declared.
“Is that red flag some sort of naval ensign?” I asked.
Harding snorted.
“Not by a long shot. She’s flown by La Garde Rouge, the Commune’s pet bully boys.”
“The Commune?” I repeated.
“Mr. Fargo is not conversant with recent European political history,” Thomson explained. “He’s from . . . the west.” He turned to me. “The Commune took control of the French government in 1871, during the war with Germany.”
“You’re a cowboy, Mr. Fargo?” Harding asked. “You must be a cowboy who lives in a bloody cave if you’ve never heard of the Commune.”
Right, the Paris Commune. But in my world it had lasted—what?—a couple weeks?
La Garde Rouge— the Red Guard. I wondered how “red” those French really were. Wasn’t Karl Marx still wandering around somewhere?
“No shooting today, though, right?” I asked.
Harding turned and looked at me for a moment before answering.
“No, Mr. Fargo, not since ’85. The politicians will yammer a while longer before we start shooting at them again. Soon enough, though, I’ll wager.”
He turned back ahead, and in a couple minutes we passed abeam of the French cruiser, close enough that I could see the expressions on the French officers as they returned the salutes of our officers—proper but unsmiling. There was as much recognition over there as there was here that the next time they saw each other it might be through powder smoke and across a bloodstained deck.
That might explain why we were getting so much help from the Germans—nothing like a common enemy to make the children play well together.
I looked around the wheelhouse.
“Where’s Gordon?”
Conroy exchanged a look with the other officers and Thomson cleared his throat before he spoke.
“I imagine Captain Gordon is still abed. He had quite an evening.”
The three of us had eaten in the small officers’ mess, but I’d left right after dinner and turned in early. In the week we’d spent in England getting ready to leave, I’d gotten back in the habit of rising before dawn and running. This morning I’d taken my run on Intrepid ’s deck, round and round the superstructure. Two miles before breakfast had done wonders for my attitude. But by the time I’d left the officers’ mess the night before Gordon had been tipsy, and was still going strong.
“Well he’s got ten hours to sleep it off before we land in Munich and find out what the Bavarians know,” Harding said. “Do you suppose the young gentleman can be persuaded to rise before sunset?”
Damn. Munich in ten hours? The stately progress of the flyer had lulled me into a false sense of complacency. There would be things I would have to do, things I never thought I’d do again, things I dreaded doing, but would have to do. I needed to get my head squared away about that, and time was running out.
I had a mental checklist I’d been making. Gordon wasn’t on it. If Gordon couldn’t make the world safe for Bonseller and Lord Chillingham’s England, it was no skin off my ass. If I managed to do what needed doing, that England wasn’t going to be around much longer anyway.
It wasn’t my world. It would sure as hell take more than one pretty sunset to make it so.
Nine hours later we dropped down through the scattered clouds to find the Bavarian countryside below us, afternoon sunlight sparkling off the rivers and making the wooded hills and fields spreading out to either side seem to glow with life. The snow-peaked Alps rose to our right above nearly invisible clouds on the horizon and, like Intrepid , seemed to float impossibly in the air. The ground
“She’ll follow us for a while, but we’re coming up on Saarbrüchen in a quarter hour. She’ll turn back for home rather than go deep into German air space,” Harding declared.
“Is that red flag some sort of naval ensign?” I asked.
Harding snorted.
“Not by a long shot. She’s flown by La Garde Rouge, the Commune’s pet bully boys.”
“The Commune?” I repeated.
“Mr. Fargo is not conversant with recent European political history,” Thomson explained. “He’s from . . . the west.” He turned to me. “The Commune took control of the French government in 1871, during the war with Germany.”
“You’re a cowboy, Mr. Fargo?” Harding asked. “You must be a cowboy who lives in a bloody cave if you’ve never heard of the Commune.”
Right, the Paris Commune. But in my world it had lasted—what?—a couple weeks?
La Garde Rouge— the Red Guard. I wondered how “red” those French really were. Wasn’t Karl Marx still wandering around somewhere?
“No shooting today, though, right?” I asked.
Harding turned and looked at me for a moment before answering.
“No, Mr. Fargo, not since ’85. The politicians will yammer a while longer before we start shooting at them again. Soon enough, though, I’ll wager.”
He turned back ahead, and in a couple minutes we passed abeam of the French cruiser, close enough that I could see the expressions on the French officers as they returned the salutes of our officers—proper but unsmiling. There was as much recognition over there as there was here that the next time they saw each other it might be through powder smoke and across a bloodstained deck.
That might explain why we were getting so much help from the Germans—nothing like a common enemy to make the children play well together.
I looked around the wheelhouse.
“Where’s Gordon?”
Conroy exchanged a look with the other officers and Thomson cleared his throat before he spoke.
“I imagine Captain Gordon is still abed. He had quite an evening.”
The three of us had eaten in the small officers’ mess, but I’d left right after dinner and turned in early. In the week we’d spent in England getting ready to leave, I’d gotten back in the habit of rising before dawn and running. This morning I’d taken my run on Intrepid ’s deck, round and round the superstructure. Two miles before breakfast had done wonders for my attitude. But by the time I’d left the officers’ mess the night before Gordon had been tipsy, and was still going strong.
“Well he’s got ten hours to sleep it off before we land in Munich and find out what the Bavarians know,” Harding said. “Do you suppose the young gentleman can be persuaded to rise before sunset?”
Damn. Munich in ten hours? The stately progress of the flyer had lulled me into a false sense of complacency. There would be things I would have to do, things I never thought I’d do again, things I dreaded doing, but would have to do. I needed to get my head squared away about that, and time was running out.
I had a mental checklist I’d been making. Gordon wasn’t on it. If Gordon couldn’t make the world safe for Bonseller and Lord Chillingham’s England, it was no skin off my ass. If I managed to do what needed doing, that England wasn’t going to be around much longer anyway.
It wasn’t my world. It would sure as hell take more than one pretty sunset to make it so.
Nine hours later we dropped down through the scattered clouds to find the Bavarian countryside below us, afternoon sunlight sparkling off the rivers and making the wooded hills and fields spreading out to either side seem to glow with life. The snow-peaked Alps rose to our right above nearly invisible clouds on the horizon and, like Intrepid , seemed to float impossibly in the air. The ground
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