"Robertson-WendyDarling" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

Planes were brought back from the front-- but not Fifty-sixth Squadron. Aircraft
went straight from the factories to Home Defense, despite howls from the RFC
brass, who hated the notion of even a single flier escaping the carnage in
Flanders. Fortress London was ringed with airbases, balloon aprons, and
anti-aircraft guns, which merely forced the raiders to return by night. People
learned a new phrase to go with Gotha -"the bombers moon."

At first there were parties in the Underground, people drinking and joking long
after "All Clear." Bobbles had to be sent down to drive them back out onto the
streets. As moonlit nights dragged on, the parties ceased, sanitation
overflowed, tube stations reeked, trains stopped running, fights started -- the
poor of the East End, always in the path of the bombers, took to sleeping in the
Essex countryside. Wendy herself never sought cover, not expecting a bomb would
get her until she did what she meant to do. At night she strolled past omnibuses
abandoned in the middle of wide thoroughfares, like wrecks on a moonlit sea
bottom. Walking was the only way to get about. There was not a taxi to be had,
or a light to be seen except for the stab of searchlights and the flashes of
anti-aircraft batteries. Thousands of shells were thrown into the night sky by
blinded and deafened gunners, firing until their barrels were red hot despite
torrents of water pumped over the guns. Some nights falling shells caused near
as many casualties as bombs --but they had yet to bring down a bomber.

In Flanders a new push was on, full of blood and fury. Wendy had no worry of it
winning the war before she got her whack in. Ryan had written her, "the
brightest lights on our general staff are best fit for bucketing out latrines --
this is another absolutely brilliant scheme to move the mud about, and kill
countless boys."

She did not see Ryan again until he tipped her that he would be visiting a
French aerodrome near Dunkerque. Wendy took the cross-channel steamer to France.
The French did not mind their fliers getting female attention. Wendy was
feverishly entertained by the Third Escadrille of Les Cigognes, the Storks. The
RFC acted as if it was ashamed of its airmen, but the Aviation Militaire took a
Parisian approach to pilot morale -- the top French and American fliers were
grouped in special escadrilles, with special insignia and first rate fighters.
Nothing was too good for Les Cigognes -- cases of champagne, pretty blonde
mistresses, a pet lion cub that Wendy got to play with. Pretending to be
entranced by her school-girl French, they gave her the Cook's tour of the
aerodrome, hoisting her into the cockpit of a high-compression Spad to feel the
controls, escorting her through the hangars, explaining the workings of a
motor-cannon.

Wendy noted stacks of aerial grenades, asking what they were for. Her guides
assured her they were for "Le Boche." They pantomimed pulling the pins and the
bombs exploding. Wendy nodded. "Pour le Boche."

Right on schedule Ryan arrived. He had come to show Les Cigognes what an SE5
looked like, so the Storks wouldn't shoot them down by mistake. While the men
inspected the British fighter- running its engine and shouting comments -- Wendy
picked up her bag and walked casually back to the hangar. Opening her valise,