Read Chapter 4: BOMBS IN THE DARK

The aerodrome dissolved into white beams, black shadows and noise.

Luc saw the saboteur only once: a dark shape cutting between two parked SPADs. Then a bomb struck beyond the southern hangar. Earth and splinters filled the air. Luc threw himself flat.

A second explosion ruptured a stack of fuel drums. Flame rose so quickly it seemed the ground had opened.

Men shouted names. Someone screamed for extinguishers.

Luc pushed himself up and ran toward the Nieuport. The engine panel hung open.

The thread he had trapped in the latch was gone.

Inside, he found the control rod to the throttle linkage. Its retaining pin had been partly withdrawn.

Three more millimetres and vibration would have shaken it free.

The engine would have continued running.

The throttle would not have responded.

A pilot attempting to land could have found himself unable to reduce power.

Not guaranteed death. Just another accident.

Vautrin appeared, blood on one cheek from a shallow cut.

"Did you see him?"

"No face. Mechanic's coat. Medium height."

"Half the field."

"He knew which machine."

Another bomb landed near the cemetery. Crosses jumped in the soil.

"We need to move Number Six," Luc said.

They pushed it with two riggers toward the far hedge. The raid lasted eleven minutes. A lorry burned. One tent disappeared entirely. Two ground crew were wounded. A cook named Martin died beneath a collapsed wall.

By dawn, everybody spoke about the bombing.

Nobody spoke about the Nieuport.

Luc showed Perrin the half-withdrawn pin.

The sergeant's face changed.

"You were right."

"That does not make me happy."

"It should make you careful."

Perrin summoned Besson without explaining why.

Besson was forty, broad-shouldered, with hands scarred by machinery. He listened as Perrin asked who had access to the maintenance area at night.

"Everyone with legs," he said. "Since the raid?"

"Before."

"I was asleep until the siren."

"Who can confirm?"

"Marchal. We share a tent."

Marchal confirmed it.

Luc asked about Girard's fuel filter.

Besson frowned. "I inspected the aircraft at sixteen hundred the day before. It was clean."

"Your signature appears again at four in the morning."

"Then someone forged it. I was asleep."

Perrin looked at Luc.

The list of suspects grew instead of shrinking.

That afternoon Captain Delorme announced the bombing had damaged two aircraft beyond immediate repair. Patrol schedules would be reduced.

"We cannot allow enemy action to lower standards," he said. "Every machine will receive double inspection. Lieutenant Cazeneuve will supervise maintenance documentation until further notice."

Luc felt something tighten in his stomach.

Cazeneuve smiled at the mechanics as though doing them a favour.

After the briefing, Vautrin found Luc.

"Convenient."

"Too convenient."

"You think Cazeneuve?"

"I think he now has legitimate access to every maintenance card."

"And before?"

"As deputy commander, he already did."

They needed evidence that could survive an inquiry. In wartime, suspicion was cheap and accusations against officers expensive.

Luc began keeping a second set of notes in a pocket ledger. Every adjustment, every person near Number Six, every replacement part and delivery crate. He marked bolts with paint invisible unless the cowling was removed. He measured fuel before and after refilling. He learned which clerks carried blue pencils.

Vautrin did his part by listening.

Pilots talked more freely to pilots.

Within three days he returned with fragments.

Cazeneuve had debts before the war. Delorme's family had political connections. Valette believed squadron victory confirmations were being manipulated. Two pilots transferred out after disputes with command. Fabre had written a complaint shortly before his death.

"Where is the complaint?" Luc asked.

"Missing."

"Naturally."

"There may be a copy in group headquarters."

"Can you get it?"

"Without explaining why? Perhaps."

Before he could try, Lemaire was nearly killed.

He took off just after sunrise on 23 April. Luc was watching Number Six when Lemaire's SPAD lifted from the field.

At perhaps eighty metres, the aircraft rolled sharply left.

The wing dropped.

Luc knew at once it was not a normal turn.

The SPAD entered a spin too low to recover.

It struck a ploughed field beyond the road.

Men ran.

The machine did not burn.

Lemaire was alive when they reached him, trapped in the wreckage, blood running from his nose.

"Controls," he gasped. "Aileron—stuck—"

Then he lost consciousness.

Luc crawled beneath the broken wing.

The left aileron cable was intact.

The right cable had jumped its pulley.

He examined the guard plate meant to prevent exactly that.

Two screws were missing.

One lay in the fuselage floor.

The other was gone.

The remaining screw had been loosened.

A deliberate act would take less than a minute.

Luc backed out of the wreckage.

Cazeneuve stood ten paces away.

His face showed horror. Real or performed, Luc could not tell.

"What happened?" the lieutenant demanded.

Luc held up the loose screw.

"An accident," he said.

For the first time, he saw fear in Cazeneuve's eyes.