Talking with Allmenröder, he began to understand flight itself as a new manner of perception: whereas the old way had been to look from a stationary point at objects before you, here you moved through and swept across the image. The act of taking aim was itself a geometrification of seeing, by technically aligning ocular perception along an imaginary axis. The French called it ligne de foi—the faith line. What sort of image could the photographer record with such an advantage? What sort of image could a motion picture record?

When the weather let up, they took off in the pre-dawn murk for patrols over enemy territory. Allmenröder stuffed his pockets with cake, which he ate aloft by the handfuls. On sunset patrols, Allmenröder and Murnau were always the last to land.

While everyone else was safe on the ground, they climbed to six thousand meters above their airfield to view the spectacle. The russet and violet spread in great streams across the sky, north, south, east, and west. Thousands of square miles of cloud plain were luminous with the setting sun. No explorer of the Poles had seen such a breathtaking and unbroken expanse. It was Reinhardt’s Kuppelhorizont. Allmenröder and Murnau in their rackety little machines saw and touched that kind of happiness. Murnau thought, We’re not only actors in a bloody conflict; we’re also the first spectators of this magic, pyrotechnic fairy-play.

Eventually he told Allmenröder about Hans’s death. Allmenröder had assumed something of that sort. He’d had a special friend, too, whom he could not bring himself to name.

They began to notice on their patrols a few lone aircraft who kept an eye on them but turned and ran if approached. They had names for them, based on their markings: Skull and Crossbones, or Blue Fin, or Yellow Wheels. They had particular affection for a clumsy two-seater they called the Flying Pig. Its crew was so incompetent that they refrained from shooting at it. Frightening the crew was, however, considered fair sport. Whenever approached, the poor Frenchmen began a series of spastic turns and maneuvers, opening fire from absurdly long range.

On leave in Cologne, they had a card made at a printer’s that they could hand out when cornered:

PLEASE!!!

Do not ask us anything about flying.

You will find the usual queries answered below:

1. Yes, we are part of a pursuit squadron.

2. Sometimes it’s dangerous, sometimes it’s not.

3. The higher we fly, the colder it is.

4. We notice that by freezing when it’s colder.

5. Flying height, 2000–7000 meters.

6. Yes, we can see things at that height, though not so well.

7. We can’t see through a telescope because it shakes.

8. Yes, we’ve dropped bombs.

9. Yes, we’ve downed enemy aircraft.

10. Yes, we’ve seen the loss of many friends.