ATTILIO MICHELUZZI
it’s a Bristol of ours, snooping on the Kraut lines!
Quite the effort! The best seats are always in the balcony!
To think, those guys up there have never even seen the mud of the trenches…
True, but someone has to take those planes up in the air, right?
Foster! With this fog, I can’t see a thing! Go lower!
We’re already too low! I can’t descend below 1,000 feet!
Hey!!! Those are Germans! They haven’t noticed they’re right on top of them!!!
Foster! Watch out! There’s three!
But the black-crossed hornets number more than three…
Will that shut your trap? How do you like the mud now, Mortimer?
Look! There’s six, closing in on him!
Hurrah! Hurrah! That Camel!!
The Krauts are leaving!
Foster, do you still assert that the Sopwith that saved you was devoid of national insignia?
Yes, I saw it clearly. Before flying off, it turned toward us. The pilot waved.
a Bristol 2B shakily heads home. A little gray Camel vanishes into the fog… and the skies are clear once again.
Saint-Omer, France, one hour later…
This story doesn’t hold up, Österkamp! The Tommies don’t send planes into the air without insignia!
That Camel seemed made of fog, Herr Oberst! All gray, hard to see.
in Bruges, occupied Belgium, one hour later…
Welcome back, my child. What will the war bulletins say tomorrow?
Sluis, Neutral Holland, fifteen minutes later.
Did you fly back over the sea?
Call from Sector X Operations Command, Sir: They categorically rule out the possibility of having an unmarked Camel!
Then what, Foster? A ghost plane?
The two Albatroses that wound up in flames between the Huns’ line and ours in Langemarck are no ghosts-and I didn’t shoot them down!
Certainly, Nung. I glided through the fog like a trout in a mountain stream.
Can you explain to me how six imperial aircraft fighters were taken down by a single enemy plane?
That was a reservist squadron without combat experience. They only just arrived, Herr Oberst! That someone burst through the fog, and by the time they disappeared back into it, two imperial Albatroses were left burning between the two army lines, my old Nung.
And you, Shapiro? Happy to see your mistress?
Two weeks later, Deutsche Feldflieger Abteilung, Base 7.
All it takes is a border… Death and suffering on one side, life and peace on the other… is all this fair? Moral?
The answer hides deep in the hearts of men, my child.
Birdwood, I don’t believe in anonymous benefactors!
Two weeks later, at Base No. 7 of the Royal
He intervened three times in two weeks, getting two of our planes out of trouble!
At night, in Sluis, someone plays Schubert on the piano. Just thirty miles to the west, the cannons boom and people die… But all under the same moon…
Two weeks later, Deutsche feldflieger Abteilung, Base 7.
Meyer! I don’t believe in the phantom nemesis! I demand this issue with the unmarked Camel be resolved!
Four planes lost in two weeks! Whoever it is, he’s got good aim!
Petra, my child, you’re playing a game that’s dangerous, and a bit unfair… Don’t you think you’re taking advantage of this country’s hospitality?
My limits are quite obvious, aren’t they?
When will they begin to suspect that the ghost plane is based in Neutral Holland? When the fog stops being in our favor…
You’re stubborn like your father, my child…
Yet wily like an Oriental… and gracious like my mother, right, Nung?
Ready the car, Nung. There’s a reception tonight at the German consul’s in Breda… I’ve been invited.
“Wily like an Oriental”… You said it!
Your mother was a special woman, Petra. My admiration for her was boundless…
Who the devil is flying so low?
I officially forbade ground-grazing on base!
I don’t understand it, Sir.
The pilots of the Deutsche feldFlieger Abteilung ask their counterparts in the Royal Flying Corps to reveal the identity of the clever British pilot ashamed to fly under the colors of his own flag. Sincere regards.
Signed: Hauptmann Ritter Von Schleich, Staffel 4 Commander
That bastard, whoever he is, has put us in an untenable situation, Brown. it is utterly absurd!!!
Yet that “bastard” saved four of our men’s lives, Sir…
An enemy “Pfalz” fighter, Sir. it came out from behind the woods and dropped this message before the anti-aircraft came into action…
This is a disgrace!! Brown, communicate somehow to these men that there doesn’t exist a single British soldier who wouldn’t readily sacrifice his life for the honor of his flag! And add Colonel H.V. Stammers of the R.F.C. knows as much as they about the ghost Camel: in other words, nothing!
That means that after shaking his hand to thank him, I’d give him the old one-two -- if I ever get my hands on him at all, that is!
Very sporting of you, Sir…
it’s a fighting day, Shapiro. Your mistress is up in the sky…
Meanwhile, 50 miles south…
Get down! Get down! Watch out for that Fritz! He’s firing low!
There it is! it’s the ghost Camel! Look! He’s going to take him down!
I’ll match you, all right? No way! it’s a done deal: the Camel flies like an ace!
He’s trying to lure me toward his lines… Too easy…
Two-to-one he takes it down in less than two minutes!
it’s going up in smoke… it’s over!
I told you. that one flies like an ace!
Out with the money, boys! One minute, 35 seconds!
Later, British rear area, Sector 9.
Did you hear the latest? Seems that the ghost Camel landed next to the Fritz it just took down. it doesn’t “seem,” that’s what happened. A friend of mine is an artillery spotter in that sector. there was thick fog in no man’s land, but they saw everything…
He stopped long enough to get a souvenir, and he took off again under a barrage of fire from the Fritz…!
Just in time, Petra. I haven’t seen it come down like this in years-and in mid-August…
50 miles fArther north
The good Lord is about to turn on the big tap in the sky, Nung. those trenches about to turn into a hell of water and mudThink of the half-million poor fellows stuck in them!
I’ve always said it: the Fritz lack two fundamental senses: sport and humor! Bah. in this case, my friend…
These aren’t from gunfire! What happened today, Petra?
See this? it’s a German pilot’s helmet. I touched down to scoop up a little souvenir for when I’m old!
Touched down? You landed? Oh, my child…
…But I’m here with you now, am I not? isn’t that what counts?
One day, your father told me: Nung, I know I can trust you like I do myself. Watch over Petra, as long as you want to… What can I tell him now?
That the great flood is coming! Hurry inside, Nung!
The Germans took it as an attack and started shooting at me.