The Killer

'My father discriminates between a sportsman and a shooter. A shooter hunts for fun. My brother is, at heart, a shooter. Lothar loves to fly, to take risks. A sportsman hunts for the kill. I find my prey and I kill him, quickly. Each makes me stronger.'

Baron von Richthofen, going against instinct, made a genuine attempt to explain. Theo lagged behind them, saying nothing. Poe knew he remembered the instance when the Baron had chosen to play with his prey rather than kill, quickly. Albert Ball's observer still rankled with Theo.

'When I have killed an Englishman,' Richthofen continued, 'my hunting passion is satisfied for a quarter of an hour. Then, the urge returns ...'

They walked by the lake shore. The day was overcast. All three vampires wore heavily peaked caps and dark glasses. Replete from a night's stalking, the Baron was more expansive than in earlier interviews. Theo had suggested Poe might find Richthofen more forthcoming outside the castle. To a huntsman, being within walls is like premature burial.

An animal was following. Poe heard its quiet rustle in the long grass. It was some sort of small dog. The Baron had also noticed their hanger-on and darted the occasional hungry glance at its position.

Last night, Richthofen had stalked and killed four times during a three hour flight. His bag was an RE8 spotter, a French Spad, a Sopwith Camel and a British observation balloon. Six men were truly dead, four of them vampires. The Baron's score was increased by three victories. Balloons were reckoned separately. The Frenchman, Nungesser, had had a high score. This victory, which the Baron gave equal weight in his official report, would be remembered as one of his greatest.

'How would you rate your night's work?'

'It was good hunting. I drank from all but one of my kills.'

'Which is more important to you, the feeding or the killing?'

Poe regretted the question. It prompted Richthofen to throw up his guards. At first, Poe had thought the Baron genuinely baffled by such probing; now, he realised Richthofen merely measured his words, taking care to say nothing that might alert an Air Service censor.

The dog, a sad-eyed white beagle, emerged from the grass and padded over towards them. The cur must be surviving on dead men's scraps.

'The victory counts,' Richthofen said, at last.

'And what is a victory to you?'

Richthofen turned away and looked out over still water.

'And what is a lake to you, poet?'

It was an indifferent lake. Murky but not reeking, unbeautiful but not grotesque. A British fighter had come down in it the night Richthofen let Ball's observer away. Wreckage had been dredged out and fixed to the trophy wall in the castle. The body of the pilot had not been found.

'I can't tell you, but I can tell you what feeding is to me, what the blood of women means . .

'Women,' Richthofen snorted.

Theo looked up, killing a smile.

'I do not apologise for my nature,' Poe said. 'Though I have been, of necessity, a soldier, I am not a killer by inclination.'

'My brother claims he would prefer to be a lover than a fighter. But he lies to himself.'

'To me, the act of vampirism is a tender communion, an assuagement of solitude, a reaffirmation in death of life ...'

'You lose me, poet. Do you not kill?'

Poe was ashamed. White, dead women haunted him. Teeth and eyes and long, long hair.

'I have killed,' he admitted. 'When I was a new-born, especially. I did not understand the nature of my condition.'

I am a new-born. I have been a vampire for only eight years. Professor Ten Brincken tells me I change constantly.'

'But you become more a killer?'

Richthofen nodded once. He drew a pistol from a leather holster and fired once, smartly. The beagle, surprised, was pierced through the head. It kicked, gouting blood from its ears, and lay dead.

'Absurd dog,' Richthofen said, suppressing a shudder. For some unknown reason, he found the harmless animal as repulsive as a plague rat.

Theo was alarmed by the casual kill. The shot resounded, assaulting Poe's sensitive eardrums. A flight of ducks burst from a clump of reeds. The dog-blood smell pricked Poe's red thirst. The animal was repulsive, but he remembered the sweetness of Gigi. At Malinbois, warm women were sometimes provided for the fliers. Poe hungered.

'My country requires I be a killer,' Richthofen said. 'I do my duty.'

in centuries to come, you may change greatly. Your country's requirements may change, freeing you from duties. You may become a lover too.'

Richthofen, mild and cold and pale, looked directly at Poe. 'I have no centuries to come. I am a dead man.'

Poe looked at Theo, puzzled.

'I was given to understand that you turned without passing through death? You yourself told me so.'

The Baron looked disgusted. 'I do not mean that, poet. I am a truly dead man. All of us in JG1, we are dead men with temporary use of our corpses. It is likely that we will not survive the war.'

Theo's lips pressed in a serious line. He exhaled smoke and tossed the last of a cigarette into the lake.

'It's Nungesser. You drank his blood. You think his thoughts.'

The tiny coal of the cigarette hissed.

I think my own thoughts, Kretschmar-Schuldorff. But you are right. The Frenchman was like me. He knew he was dead.

Each victory for him was a reprieve. When I killed him, he was not surprised. He had known death would catch up with him eventually. I knew that as I tore his throat out and drank his hot blood.'

'Do you deem those you defeat your comrades?' Poe asked.

'The tragedy of war is the pitting of like against like. We fliers have more in common with those we fight than with those for whom we fight. I shall most likely die in the air. Oswald Boelcke, my teacher, died in the stupidest of accidents. All of us, us so-called heroes, die. We fall from the sky in flames. Only the plodding dogs will survive.'

Poe thought of Goring totting up everyone's score, of Ewers pestering officials for advancement, of Ten Brincken taking measurements, of Kurten and Haarmann tending their master's guns. He thought of Edgar Poe stooping to the writing of propaganda.

'Professor Ten Brincken claims he will make you invincible.'

'He follows us with callipers and a stop-watch, prattling of measurements and science. He has never been in the air. He cannot know. There is no science up there.'

'What is there?'

'You're the poet. You tell me.'

'I can't make poetry of what I don't know.'

Richthofen took off his dark glasses. His eyes did not shrink in the sunlight. His face was set like marble.

'Up there, in the night sky, is war. Eternal war. Not only with the British and French, but with the air. The sky does not wish us in it. Us, the presumptuous ones, it kills. It takes the Boelckes and the Immelmanns, the Balls and the Nungessers, and dashes them to the earth. We shall never be its creatures.'

He did not look up as he spoke.

'After the war, then what?'

For the first time in Poe's experience, Richthofen laughed. It was a brief bark, like a branch snapping.

'"After the war"? There is no "after the war".'