Down in the square, Dockerby heard and waved the others forward. Men poured across the open space, now safe from the invisible sting of the high window. Emmet jogged up the stairs a minute later and looked at the two bodies in the room. He let out a long breath. “You ever think about doing something quiet when the war’s over?” he asked. Tex shrugged, wiping sweat from his brow with a filthy sleeve. “Maybe ranch work,” he said. “Usually no snipers hiding in the tall grass.” Hickman laughed, a short, surprised bark. “You sure about that?”

  Dockerby appeared in the doorway. His face was smeared with soot; a fresh tear scored the edge of his sleeve where a bullet had found fabric but not skin. “Good work, boys. Captain says the French are coming up on our right, and recon says the Huns are pulling their last units out of the dockyards. We keep pushing, block by block. City’s not ours yet, but it’s getting there.”

  Tex moved to the window and looked out. The square below was alive with movement, with medics, runners, squads peeling off down side streets. Smoke curled from a distant warehouse, where someone had set crates alight. Over the rooftops, to the south and west, he could see a slice of water, gray under the low sky, and beyond it, nothing. No German masts, no great hulls. Just an empty, uneasy sea. “Saint-Nazaire,” he said softly. “Didn’t think I’d march into a port on this side of the ocean.” Emmet clapped him on the shoulder. “First time for everything, Tex.” “Don’t get used to it,” Dockerby said, already turning back toward the stairs. “Next time it’ll probably be raining, and the bastards will remember to leave more than a couple of sharpshooters.”

  Tex smiled thinly, checked the action on his rifle, and followed his sergeant down, back into the tangled streets where the Big Red One moved like a slow, relentless tide, house to house, corner to corner, driving the last shadows of the German Army out of the suburbs and toward the sea.

  14th French Infantry Division

  Penhoët Shipyard Works, April 26th, 1915

  The platoon surged forward into open space and across the broken ruins. Cren ran after Max, boots slipping on shrapnel-strewn concrete. The smoke was choking, thick with burnt dust and scorching metal. Every few seconds, the Maxim spat another probing burst into the haze, but it didn’t find its mark.

  From the shadows to the left came the sharp, distinct crack of a Mauser. A French corporal pitched sideways, blood spraying across a beam. “Sharpshooter!” someone shouted. Max cursed under his breath. “They’ll have nests everywhere.”

  The platoon dove behind a long assembly bench, its surface scorched and half-melted. Moreau pointed at the catwalks above. Two figures moved up there. They were German riflemen, shifting between cover spots.

  The French opened fire. The exchange lit the rafters with flickering fire, bullets whining off girders high above. Cren tried to aim, but his vision blurred around the edges. Each shot, each muzzle flash, shook his damaged senses. It felt like someone hammering at his skull from the inside. He pressed his back to the bench, teeth clenched.

  Another shell, distant but heavy, landed somewhere in the city. The vibration rolled through the steel floor like a shuddering wave. Cren’s fingers went numb. He tasted blood. “Philippe,” Max said sharply, “look at my hand.” He held two fingers up. Cren locked onto them, breathing raggedly but steadying. “We move on the right. Stay low. The Maxim’s firing lanes can’t cover that angle.”

  Roux signaled the same. The French squad broke toward the right flank, using a line of toppled girders as cover. Each girder was as large as a tree trunk, warped by heat, full of hiding places and potential enemy ambushes.

  A German rifle cracked. Chips of concrete flew. Max pressed against a vertical beam. Cren followed, heartbeat pounding. Muzzle flashes blinked from behind a stack of crates to their front. “Grenade,” Max whispered. Cren nodded, fumbling for his F1. His fingers trembled uncontrollably. The pin slipped once before he managed to grip it. The sound of metal sliding free seemed impossibly loud. He lobbed the grenade over the crates.

  The explosion shook the hall. When the smoke cleared, two German bodies lay sprawled amid splintered wood. For a moment, Cren felt almost weightless with relief. Then the Maxim roared again, but closer this time, because the Germans had repositioned.

  Bullets carved long grooves into the floor, ricocheting sparks into the gloom. A man two places ahead of Cren was hit in the throat. He dropped to his knees, hands clutching the wound, blood gushing between his fingers. Roux snarled. “We can’t get near it like this! We need to flank!”

  Max scanned the hall and pointed upward. “Craneway,” he said to Philippe. “Overhead. We take it from above.” Cren looked up. The overhead crane platform ran like a suspended road twenty meters above the hall floor. A narrow ladder clung to one of the pillars, partly hidden behind a fallen beam. It led up into darkness.

  Cren’s stomach lurched. The height alone terrified him. But worse were the vibrations that trembled through the structure. Each blast, each gunshot, made the beams shudder like the ribs of some dying animal. “Max, I can’t … ”“You can,” Max said, not unkindly. “And you will.”

  A shout erupted behind them. A French machine-gunner opened fire with a Chauchat, spraying the Maxim’s position to buy time. The Germans answered with a brutal rippling burst that shredded an entire section of cover.

  Moreau yelled: “Someone get that gun!” Max looked at Cren. “Go.” Cren exhaled once, then ran. He slid behind a low stack of steel plates and reached the ladder. The first rung was bent. The second was slick with oil. His hands shook uncontrollably as he climbed, but he climbed anyway.

  Halfway up, a German rifle cracked from below. The bullet punched through the plate behind his leg, showering him with hot splinters. He nearly slipped.

  Another explosion shook the shipyard as the American guns pounded German positions further into the city. The tremor travelled up the ladder, rattling every bolt. Cren clenched his teeth, fought down the rising panic, and climbed.

  When he reached the crane platform, the hall spread beneath him like a broken cathedral of rust and flame. Smoke drifted in grey sheets. Muzzle flashes flickered from behind leaning hull frames. The Maxim blazed again, spitting red sparks into the air.

  Cren crawled along the crane rail, hugging the metal, trying not to look down. He reached the point directly above the Maxim nest. Three Germans worked the gun, with one firing, one feeding belts, and one watching for flankers. Their faces were grim, resigned. They had the look of men who knew this was their last stand.

  He pulled the pin on his last grenade, his hands shivering, with a mix of dread and focus, and then let it fall down below. The grenade clinked once on the gantry and then landed in the midst of the three German machine gunners.

  Then a violent blast tore through the nest. The gunner vanished in a spray of dust, steel shards, and a bloody red mist. The feeder collapsed backward, screaming until a French rifle silenced him. The observer tried to crawl away without his legs before Roux’s men finished him with bayonets.

  A shout rose from the French lines. “Avancez! Avancez!” The 14th surged forward, rifles blazing. German riflemen fell back through the inner doorways, firing desperately. A few tried to climb the scaffolding, but were cut down before they could reach cover.

  Cren climbed down the crane ladder with shaking limbs. Every rung felt like it might give way, every vibration like a hammer strike against his skull. But Max was waiting where he had left him. “You did it,” Max said simply.

  The Penhoët Shipyard Works was far from secured, but the French were on the up and advancing, while the Germans continued to reel back in retreat.

  Air War above St-Nazaire

  Zeppelins, fighters, barons, pilots; April 26th, 1916

  From far above the Loire estuary, the battlefield looked like a broken mosaic of fire, smoke, and streams of fiery bullets crisscrossing everywhere. The morning haze faded gradually as the April sun climbed, revealing the shell-scarred fields around Savenay, the burning outskirts of Saint-Nazaire, and the glint of the river slicing through mud and ruins. Entente divisions pressed forward in waves, French and British troops advancing across shattered timbers and broken warehouses, while the last German rearguards clung stubbornly to the northern avenues of the city. Entente naval guns, now that the German fleet was gone to the bottom of the sea, boomed from offshore, their shells raining over the peninsula. The entire land trembled under the weight of artillery.

  If the war on the ground was a true maelstrom of death, fire, and explosions, the one above it was as epic. High above all this, two giants floated, helping the German artillery fire accurately at the advancing Anglo-French and U.S. forces.

  Zeppelin LZ-88 hovered over Saint-Nazaire, its silver surface glowing faintly. Below it, German reserve regiments attempted to hold the docks long enough for their comrades to withdraw inland. Inside the forward gondola, Lieutenant von Kessler peered through his binoculars, adjusting their focus until the French infantry near the Penhoët yards came into sharp view. The wireless operator beside him tapped out messages without pause. Von Kessler said, “Artillery request from General Loebnitz is in. Give them correction left three hundred, add two hundred, then fire for effect.” A few moments later, six German shells screamed across the sky and erupted precisely where French troops massed near the wrecked slipways. Von Kessler nodded in satisfaction. “Maintain position.”

  Far to the north, a second Zeppelin (LZ-92) drifted near twelve thousand feet, crawling steadily across the sky. Korvettenkapitän Althaus observed the thickening clouds and the faint glimmers of aircraft rising far below. “Any sign of Entente scouts?” he asked. “Not yet,” replied the observer. “Clear to the south.” Althaus shook his head. “They will come. They must come. We deny them their advances if we deny them their sky.”

  (…)

  The Entente fighters were already on their way. At the muddy airfield near La Chapelle-Launay, Escadrille MS 26 lifted into the air, Nieuport 11’s and 17’s rising in a steep spiral. Armand Bonnier tugged his goggles into place and adjusted the tiny bead sights on his fuselage. Ahead of him, Roland Garros flew a slightly newer Nieuport 17, its engine whining at full strength as he climbed. Bonnier called into the wind, “Garros, do you see them?” Garros pointed upward without turning his head. “Two Zeppelins. One above the estuary, one further north. Command says they must fall.” Bonnier muttered, “They’re as large as churches. Not easy prey.”

  Behind them, British B.E.12 fighters and Sopwith scouts from No. 39 Squadron climbed more slowly. William Leefe Robinson scanned the sky as he climbed and murmured, “Command wants the air cleared today. Very well.” Behind him, two American volunteers — Raoul Lufbery and Victor Chapman of the Lafayette Escadrille, kept tight formation. Chapman called, “Think we’ll bag a Zeppelin?” Lufbery replied, “Only if the Germans don’t reach us first.” He was right to worry, because to the northeast a darker German formation rose in response.

  (…)

  Richthofen led Jasta 11 upward in a steady, lethal climb. His blood-red Fokker Dr. I triplane flashed like a flying blade. Behind him flew Göring, proud and overeager, and several other young pilots eager for glory. Richthofen raised a hand, signaling readiness to intercept. Göring grinned as he tightened his gloves. “Now we begin,” he said. The German fighters banked west, aiming directly for the Entente squadrons rising toward the Zeppelins.

  (…)

  The first clash occurred at 9,000 feet. Garros saw the German formation approaching and pointed to Bonnier. The two groups converged in seconds. Sparks flashed, machine guns rattled, and the sky erupted into chaos as the fighters wove, rolled, and dove. Garros dodged a burst from a Fokker, then fired a short stream that grazed its fuselage. Bonnier dove under a German fighter, pulled behind its tail, and fired until smoke trailed from it.

  Below them, Robinson struggled to maneuver his heavier B.E.12 as two DR.I’s dropped on him. Chapman fired on the nearest and drove it off, while Lufbery chased the second.

  Over the estuary, the fight blossomed into a tangled mass of aircraft, with silver Nieuports twisting like sparrows, and heavier Fokker fighters cutting sweeping arcs through the blue. And above them, the two Zeppelins drifted like silent sky behemoths.

  (…)

  Bonnier soon found himself facing Göring. The German fired early, bullets whipping past Bonnier’s cockpit. Bonnier rolled sharply, letting Göring overshoot. He came up behind the German, fired, missed, and circled for another pass. Göring climbed, and looped sloppily, nearly stalling. Bonnier grinned. “Too bold, Boche.” But then a crimson flash streaked across the sun. Richthofen arrived. His burst tore across Bonnier’s left wing, shredding canvas. Bonnier swore and broke off as Göring righted his machine behind him. Göring called, “Merci, Herr Rittmeister!” Richthofen did not reply since he couldn’t hear anyway; he was already diving toward Garros.

  (…)

  Garros saw the red triplane plunging toward him like a flaming arrow. Richthofen’s presence made his pulse quicken, but he steadied himself and rolled into a dive. The two aces circled each other, their maneuvers tight and precise. Garros fired once; the Baron evaded effortlessly. Richthofen fired, bullets snapping past Garros’s cheek, splintering his cockpit frame. Garros banked sharply and dove low over the outskirts of Saint-Nazaire, dragging the German ace after him, buying time for his fellow pilots.

  (…)

  While the dogfight raged, Robinson climbed toward the enormous bulk of Zeppelin LZ-88. He remembered that kind of silhouette looming above him, as he’d fought the damned things over London earlier in the war. The airship was a floating city of gas and steel. “Good God,” he whispered, still not accustomed to something so big hovering in the air. Behind him, Chapman and Lufbery climbed as well, though their engines strained under the effort. But Jasta 11 had spotted their intent. Göring wheeled his fighter and dove toward them, showing the others the way.

  (…)

  LZ-88’s crew saw the threat approaching. Von Kessler shouted, “Enemy scouts low on the starboard side!” The machine gunners there opened fire immediately, lines of bullets sweeping white lines in the cold sky because of the condensation. The Zeppelin vibrated as its engines roared, increasing altitude. Ballast bags were cut loose and tumbled into the wind. Slowly (agonizingly slowly), the massive ship began to rise.

  Below it, Chapman climbed carefully, firing at the gondola until his rounds bounced off the armored plates. A burst from the Zeppelin’s machine-gun cupola stitched holes across his tail. “Damnation!” he cried. Lufbery climbed beside him, firing whenever he could, though his rounds also failed to pierce anything vital. Neither man was armed with anything that could really harm the big airship.

  Robinson steadied his B.E.12, leveled off, as he was armed with Buckingham incendiary bullets, a new weapon that had been developed by the British Army as the Zeppelins continued to bomb London on a weekly basis.

  The Buckingham incendiary bullet, introduced by the British in late 1915, was the first practical ammunition designed specifically to ignite Zeppelins. It was a modified .303 rifle and machine-gun round with a hollow copper base filled with a flammable phosphorus compound. When fired, the sudden rush of air across the bullet’s base exposed the incendiary mixture to oxygen, causing it to flare white-hot on impact. Unlike ordinary ball ammunition, which simply punched harmless holes through hydrogen bags, Buckingham rounds created sparks, heat, and burning fragments capable of igniting leaking hydrogen or setting the internal framework ablaze. They were typically used alongside tracer and armor-piercing bullets in mixed belts to increase their effect. By April 1916, they had already accounted for several German airship losses, including LZ-37, LZ-33, and LZ-85, proving that Zeppelins, which were once thought invulnerable, could burn spectacularly when struck by these new fiery projectiles.

  Robinson shoved the throttle forward, and his B.E.12 surged upward through the turbulence, the engine rattling as he closed on Lufbery and Chapman climbing ahead, who were unloading their regular .303 bullets. The two were having no real effect, trading bursts with the gunners aboard LZ-88, their tracers streaking harmlessly across its armored gondolas. Robinson banked left, slipped into their wake, and shouted over the engine’s roar, “Hold steady, boys!” though they couldn’t hear him. He toggled the feed mechanism, feeling the Lewis gun judder as the mixed belt advanced: tracer, armor-piercing, then the deadly Buckingham incendiaries.

  He lined up the Zeppelin’s belly in his sights—the swollen, gray undercurve of LZ-88 filling his view like a mountainside. The B.E.12 bucked as he squeezed the trigger. A stream of rounds tore upward. The incendiaries flared white as they left the barrel, nearly invisible in daylight but unmistakable in effect. They struck the airship’s skin with tiny flashes, each one biting through fabric and framework, showering sparks into the gas cells.

  For a breathless second, nothing happened. Then Robinson saw a faint glow bloom along the forward envelope. “There it is!” he muttered. Another burst, and a line of fire raced across LZ-88’s flank like a fuse catching fast. Lufbery banked away, Chapman dove clear, and Robinson held his course as the giant began to sag, flames licking outward in spreading ribbons.

  “Direct hit!” Robinson shouted. Von Kessler yelled, “Fire in cell three!” The crew raced forward with fire retardants. The blaze sputtered, nearly dying. Until Chapman dove in and fired another burst. The flame caught again, spreading rapidly. Within moments, the forward gas cell burst into a column of fire. The Zeppelin sagged, twisted, and nose-dived toward the marshes. Von Kessler whispered, “Wir sterben…” Then the captain shouted, “Abandon ship!” but it was too late. LZ-88 broke apart and crashed in an enormous fireball east of the port.