The French fighters arrived soon afterwards. Murnau came to realize that the reconnaissance pilot who survived six weeks was blessed with rare ability and luck. At altitude he enjoyed the illusion he was moving at a respectable pace until some Frenchman came speeding at him in a Nieuport. At that point he was the cornered stag; he sweated, panic kicked at his stomach, and he could only stay his easterly course home and summon every trick he knew to shun the fusillade of bullets. Each time, he had no idea how he survived. Sometimes the attacker was exceptionally unskilled or else his fuel ran low, or his guns jammed, or his ammunition gave out. Sometimes, after they rolled to a stop back at the airfield, their machine shot to pieces, he had no explanation.

And combat maneuvering was more dangerous than enemy bullets: simple banks sheared away wing struts or tore out stay wires at their roots. He watched a friend’s machine during one maneuver break up in the sky as if dispersing into its component parts.

He put in for transfer to a fighter squadron. In his petition, he pointed out that he’d bring to his new task a special cunning. The former reconnaissance pilot understood his victims’ plight, and could anticipate their thinking. It was no coincidence that so many aces were ex-reconnaissance men, since only the fittest had lived to pilot single-seaters in the first place.

In the meantime his unit tried every formation: the line, the echelon, the vee. One observer carried a carbine with a gramophone nailed to the stock in the hopes of terrifying the enemy. In their mess they collected the sheared propeller blades from their own wrecks. They carved the walnut and mahogany into tobacco jars or mounts for clocks. Observers got the shivering fits, and there was a great deal of drunkenness. A pilot was found outside the mechanics’ quarters before dawn, drunkenly shouting, “Give me an airplane! I can’t stay on this earth any longer!”

And yet when his transfer came through and he was asked by his commanding officer if he was ready to fly alone, he wanted to answer, “I’m too afraid.” But standing there, he swallowed one kind of cowardice so that he could avoid another.

He was assigned to Jagdstaffel 4, outside Sivry. He’d be flying an Albatros D of a very advanced design. The fuselage was of semi-monocoque construction covered in plywood instead of fabric, for reinforced strength. It had a shark’s profile. It was outfitted with a 160-horsepower water-cooled Mercedes engine. He took it up for some trial spins and was exhilarated.

Everyone had started to paint their machines in individual ways. Murnau had his finished a midnight blue, top and bottom. The Jasta symbol on the fuselage was a fanged serpent. Behind it he had painted H. E.-D.