In early April on a sunset patrol, seven Nieuports howled down at them from out of a cloudbank. They had no chance to outrun them. On the first pass, tracers speared out in all directions, and everyone broke up or down, right or left, whipping around to bring guns to bear. He lost track of Allmenröder. No one held a straight course or steady bank for more than a second. His ears grew accustomed to such noise that he ceased to hear it; he flew in a deafening silence.

He was singled out for special attention by a silver aircraft with a black bat behind its roundel on the fuselage. They chased each other’s tails, losing height, whirling like the cups of an anemometer, their wings banked almost all the way over, craning their necks at each other across a diameter of a few hundred feet.

Finally, with his superior horsepower, Murnau closed the circle. They continued to turn in a near-vertical bank. Each time, the Frenchman’s skill in throttling back allowed his craft to sideslip out of the gunsight. With each turn they lost altitude. Finally they soared between two tall trees. The Frenchman had nowhere to go. He pulled back completely on his stick. His lower wings sheared off and his Nieuport folded and tumbled forward end over end into the roof of a barn. Murnau flew through the explosion and a piece of debris holed his upper wing.

The sky around him was empty as he ascended, the fighting having moved off in another direction. There was cloud cover to the west.

He flew home alone, watching for pursuit. One hand was shaking. He didn’t know how to feel. It was as though a boy with whom he’d been playing had killed himself on a dare.

He was washed and dressed when Allmenröder finally straggled in, delighted to hear about his success. That evening at mess he toasted Murnau and two others who’d scored victories.

The French pilots, he reported with annoyance, had singled him out for combat even before some of the greenhorns. The next day, he had his mechanic paint across his top wing Have You Forgotten Me?

They flew more patrols. Without reinforcements, it was only a matter of time. Things came apart very quickly. One morning they lost three fledglings in a single swoop. Murnau had his tail shot off and crashed into a shallow stream. He rode back to the aerodrome in the back of a truck, the driver taking the turns at top speed while he looked out at the fog and black sky. The mist was broken from time to time by the flashing of the guns.