Drops of Glass

Drops of Glass A Tale of Magic in the Great War The Shards of Lafayette Book 1 Kenneth A. Baldwin Copyright © 2023 by Kenneth A. Baldwin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Published by Eburnean Books, an imprint owned by Emberworks Creative, LLC. www.eburneanbooks.com To Massimiliano You were a friend when the world was dark. Contents The Crimson Inkwell 1. The Curse Marcus 2. Enhanced Repair Measures Jane 3. Polished Rounds Marcus 4. Drops of Glass Jane 5. Red Eagle Fallen Marcus 6. A Meeting of Strangers Jane 7. Boelcke’s Goggles Marcus 8. Pilot Wanted Jane 9. Where the Germans Are Marcus 10. The Gotha Jane 11. A Shot in the Dark Marcus 12. In American Hands Jane 13. The Salmson Marcus 14. The Magic of Flight Jane 15. Clairmarais Marcus 16. The Man Who Killed the Baron Jane 17. Thief in the Night Marcus 18. The Blue Flyer Jane 19. Mistakes Marcus 20. Reprimand Jane 21. Broken Soldier Marcus 22. The Albatross Jane 23. Far From Home Marcus 24. The Belgian Jane 25. City of Noose-bearers Marcus 26. Albert’s Song Jane 27. Make It Worth It Marcus 28. Trapped Jane 29. Wir Sind Stark Marcus 30. Shards Jane 31. Motorrader Marcus 32. Bleu, Blanc, Rouge Jane 33. Ace of Aces Marcus 34. Nieuport 17 Jane 35. Upward, I Fly Marcus Gervais Raoul Lufbery The Crimson Inkwell Review About the Author The Crimson Inkwell Get Book One in The Luella Winthrop Trilogy For Free! She wanted a better life. She got a magical pen. Click Here to Get Your Free Copy Chapter 1 The Curse Marcus Now heaven be praised That in that hour that most imperiled her, Menaced her liberty who foremost raised Europe’s bright flag of freedom, some there were Who, not unmindful of the antique debt, Came back the generous path of Lafayette. -Alan Seeger- He hadn’t heard me, he hadn’t seen me, and with a squeeze of my finger, he would fall from the sky. Sweat beaded under my leather flight helmet. I’d trained for these moments. A German single-seat pursuit plane, sitting defenseless under my nose, and the new Vickers twin machine guns rested in front of my cockpit, just offset, begging to be put to use. Pull the trigger a quarter of an inch—that was all it took—and I’d open my scorecard at long last. The boys on the ground would welcome me back a hero. But I had never killed a man, even after two years at war. I was cursed. At first, it was natural. Every soldier enters the war without a kill, and each man looked forward to the day, macabre and twisted as it may sound. Some, the foolish ones, looked forward to it like a birthday or a ballgame. Others looked forward to it with dread like a trip to the dentist, but we all looked forward to it in some way. Because we all wondered. The questions were relentless: Will I freeze up? How will I do it? What will it feel like when I stick a bayonet through a German and save the world? Precious few of us wondered whether we’d be the ones left dying slowly in a trench or trying to crawl from a ravaged tank or burning fuselage. And now, with a pull of my trigger, I could wonder no longer. I only had to bring myself to squeeze my finger a quarter inch. After a time, it got awkward for those of us still unsullied. New boys coming over to the war would ask how long we’d been out here—then inevitably for our number. This was especially true among pilots, who reveled in their records of downed planes. Every pilot knew two numbers: their confirmed kills and the true number of their kills. My two numbers were the same. Zero. I shifted my hands nervously on the joystick. Come on, Marcus. Take the shot, already. Soon, the other soldiers talked about me as if I had the influenza, and each had their own prescription for me to bag my first Boche. Lead your gun to take distance and speed into account. A swig of bourbon didn’t do any harm. Wait to shoot until you’re sure your rounds will strike the kill box on the enemy’s fuselage. As if I didn’t know. Then the tips melted away, replaced with clumsy explanations that somewhere I’d been cursed. And that belief inspired them to see me with rage-inducing reverence. Marcus, take the damn shot. Descending from above as Luf had taught me, cloaking my Nieuport single-seater in the sunlight, I had settled in behind this poor German pilot like a cat in the night. But like always, my brain would not stop thinking. Why hadn’t he seen me? The idiot. The foolish idiot. Was he a new pilot? Had he not been trained properly? Didn’t he know that you must always look about you, scan the sky, pay close attention to those terrible blind spots? My rudder pedals protested against my feet, and the joystick jostled as the wind caught my wings and rudder. Nature tried to pull me off course, tried to stop the violence before it happened. Just a squeeze, little German. That’s all it will take, and you will die. If you’re lucky, one of the machine gun rounds will hit you, so you don’t fall in flames with your machine. The flames would lick your skin and bubble it and the worst fate you could imagine would be to survive the crash. A quarter inch. That’s all. But I had never killed a man, no, not after two years at war. Suddenly, the pilot shifted his head back and forth. He seemed to mock me. His engine screamed in my direction, taunting me,