Excerpt from the new book

I thought I would share the following from the new book, tentatively titled Night Flight:

It was the glint of light from bare metal in a copse of wood that revealed the Bolshevik column. Snaking through the trees, they would have remained invisible if not for the weapons the column carried. Harry’s port side wingman saw it first and banged on his plane’s fuselage with his hand and waived to Harry. About a mile ahead of the flight and slightly to their left a long line of horsemen were emerging from the ridge line copse of trees. Bare and leafless in the frigid air, the trees, probably birch from their spindly shapes, provided no cover for the horsemen. The line was making slow progress in what looked to be waist-deep snow. Any moment now and they would spot the planes and try to make it to the cover of a deeper ravine on the north side of the ridge. For the combined force of Fokkers and Spads it would be a classic job of strafing.
Harry signaled to his flight and the left wingman, a young man from Warsaw, a banker by trade, named Hultzsch slowed slightly and expertly tucked himself into the tail end position behind the Spads. Harry was impressed; the kid seemed to be getting the hang of it. He’d have to mention it to him later. Now it was time for business. Harry charged his guns and pushing the throttle ahead started a long wingover to bring the sixteen machine guns of the two flights down into a line aimed at the head of the cavalry column. It was almost going to be like attacking a train. The steaming horses and their riders, struggling through the deep snow could not maneuver. At the top of the turn, Harry straightened out and pushed forward. In his sight were the column’s commander and the blood-red Bolshevik banner.
The leader of the column must have seen something in the sky for he looked up just as Harry corrected his descent. It was too late for the men in the front of the column. Harry tapped the firing bar and the Spandaus began to fire. In a second, several of the lead riders were hurled from their saddles and the red banner spun off into the air. As Harry leveled off over the troop he released the four fifty pound fragmentation bombs from their under wing positions. The bombs, plunging through the snow to detonate threw up columns of black dirt as they released shards of metal into the space around them. Men were thrown from their mounts as their horses were struck.
Harry jammed the throttle ahead and began jinking the airplane as he climbed upward. He wanted to get to at least five thousand feet to be sure he was out of small arms range. Behind him one plane of the Polish attacking force after another fired into the scattering Russians and decimated the column. In less than three minutes the attack was over. Harry circled above as the rest of the group joined on his wing. Below, the dark greatcoats of dead Russians scattered among slaughtered horseflesh punctuated the bright snow scene. Red blood trails from wounded men and animals spoked out from the blackened bomb craters. Wounded horses and men, stunned from the speed of the attack were struggling in the snow to find some place to hide. There were a few desultory shots from riflemen crouching behind the naked trees and firing wildly into the air. A lone horse, its flanks glistening with blood was dragging a sledge with a heavy machine gun strapped to it through the drifts, the sledge snagging branches and rocks as the poor creature stumbled to its death. As Harry made wide circles over the scene a thought that had been simmering in the back of his brain took shape. The men below, dead and dying on some nameless ridge, so far from anywhere, no one would know. There would be no markers, no notice in the records. Their loved ones had seen these men off to battle, but like so many of the fallen, in all the wars in history, they died unsung and unnoticed. It was the way of the world, the way of war, he thought, and for himself, when would it be his turn? To die in some nameless place having fallen from the sky, was that his fate?