Airman (Part 1)

In April 1916, Gaelic hero Cúchulainn was fighting a mighty foe like none other before

Cúchulainn strikes off their heads, and those dripping heads he impales on the prongs of the upright pole. His chariot is graced with the bleeding heads of his enemies; beautiful white birds he has which in the chariot bear him company, and wild unbroken stags bound and tethered to the same. Among the aerial clouds over his head are visible the virulent pouring showers and sparks of ruddy fire which the seething of his savage wrath causes to mount up above him.
The Táin Bó Cúailnge

‘Sheppard’s image of the death of the mythic warrior hero Cúchulainn was meant to link cultural nationalism to political independence… an inspired act of appropriation, because Sheppard had not created his Cúchulainn as a monument to Easter 1916.’
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: – The Death of Cúchulainn, by Oliver Sheppard” Irish Times

I know that I will meet my fate
Somewhere in the clouds above
W.B. Yeats, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death"

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Cúchulainn, he of the wild eyes, saw his enemy creeping out of the sun like revealed tongues of dark flame. The greatest warrior of the Red Hand gestured then to his wingman Laeg and banked left to approach them from above.

The enemy had not yet seen them. There was time enough to recite his death-poem.

I am a stag in the moonlight, 
                                                sang Cúchulainn,
I am the wounded stag at bay
High indeed my crown of antlers
High my ire and my thirst for death

He opened the safety locks on the twin 7.92mm 08/15s machine guns and commenced his dive on the enemy Sopwiths like a hawk swooping on a flock of tame geese. The long hair of him streamed out like a pennant behind. His savage laughter hung in the air with nobody but him to hear it.

Their first attack downed two of the enemy with sharp bursts of hollow-point lead upon their upper fuselage. Cúchulainn watched the head of one man burst like a ripe peach as he screamed past and down, still laughing. Still nobody to hear.

Now they were lower than the remaining two Sopwiths in the enemy flight. These had scattered left and right, and were circling sharply upon their assailants.

Cúchulainn twisted his aircraft like a skein of silk, like a plait of lustrous hair, to slip from the path of the onrushing enemy. He saw that Laeg was doing the same. G-forces pressed hard on his skull like the thumbs of giants.

The parabellum rounds whisked round and past his aircraft, whistling sadly at their failed tryst with death. One or two passed harmless as starlings through the canvas fuselage.

Now it was his assailant's turn to pass below; Cúchulainn snapped his Albatros around and as it screamed in protest, noble steed whinnying at a rough brute tug of the rein, he aligned himself with the tail of the Sopwith.

He squeezed the trigger at the predestined moment. The slugs found their ordained way into the Sopwith's tail assembly which flew apart like a shoal of fish at a shark's passing. The aircraft started spinning to earth and left a spiral wake of smoke, braided thread of the mist breath of a dying god.

Cúchulainn looked round and saw that his wingman had chased his own foe far off into the west. He banked his Albatros and dipped after the falling Sopwith.

He landed in the meadow over from the crash site. Smoke rose from where the enemy plane lay crumpled and dead, but the pilot rose up in the foxgloves and limped towards him.

"Is it yourself, Cúchulainn? Cursed the day that brought me to cross your flightpath, for now I must take your life, and that grieves me sore."

"Is it yourself, Bricriu Nemthenga? Trickster supreme, your wiles have availed you nought this day. Indeed it is I have outwitted yourself, and brought you down in this meadow garlanded with buttercups, poppies and bluebells."

Bricriu unfurled his cape, resplendent blue as the deep sky. He threw off his flying helmet and his raven mane flowed out. He spat.

"It is from Seoirse King of the Saxons that I have my plane, which you have so discourteously destroyed at this place."

"'Twas fate and the ballistics of guns that would have it so," said Cúchulainn. "Lay not your wrath upon me."

"Have I flown the straits from Skye, the island of Scathach Sorceress of Weapons, the Shadowy One, the Dark Sister, only that you might shoot down my aircraft like a lowly churl? It dishonours me, and I will have my vengeance upon your blood. I swear by what my people swear by, your head shall adorn the fuselage of the next fighter I fly."

Now it was Cúchulainn who spat. He spread out his cape, bright vermillion as the blood of a fawn spilled on snow.

"It is from Liam, Emperor of the Alemanni, that I received my fine warhorse, my Albatros D-III. The heads of eight foes, brave men all, dangle from her fuselage, as you may see. Those are only the ones whose heads I could take from the wreckage. Five men more were burned up like embers ere I reached their crash sites. Thirteen men in all have I slain in aerial combat above these green fields of the Ulaid."

"There shall not be a fourteenth," snarled Bricriu. "Here you will die, Dog of the Ulstermen."

Bricriu dived to his left as he drew his Webley service revolver. Three shots rang out but Cúchulainn performed the salmon leap and the bullets whined like discontented whelps as they failed to strike their mark.

He himself carried no firearm, trusting to the short sword of Nipponese forging that he carried in his belly sash. He leapt forward onto his foe, as the man struggled with a jammed round.

With a single blow his head was stricken off. Cúchulainn let his blood water the green fields of the Ulaid, gathered up his head by the strong black locks, and returned to bind up a ninth trophy to the fuselage of his two-winged fighter.

At the aerodrome of King Conor Mac Nessa, there was much rejoicing at the news that Cúchulainn had taken the head of the warrior Bricriu Nemthenga, known as an unscrupulous trickster and betrayer of his clan. Moreover, that he and Laeg had downed four enemy fighters was esteemed as a great feat of arms, and worthy of the praise-song of druids.

There was a great feast that evening, held in the banqueting hall of the King of the Ulaid. Trophies of aircraft wings and the severed heads of their enemies adorned the walls. Fires roasted whole pigs on spits, the serving wenches rushing here and there with flagons of mead and cuts of meat on wood platters.

A bard strummed a lute, singing of how Cúchulainn's mighty Albatros had fallen like an eagle on the fierce buzzards of the enemy Sopwiths, how they had contested in grim opposition, and how finally the hero of the Ulstermen had descended to the grassy fields to duel hand to hand with the devious Bricriu. It was a fine song.

Cúchulainn sat at the king's right hand on the royal dais, enjoying the champion's share of the meats. The head of the fallen Bricriu was set at his feet. In his left hand was a horn of mead, in his right a joint of roasted pork. He chewed with satisfied grace, driblets of fat running down his chin.

He nodded then with benign approval at the praise-song of the druid at the foot of the dais:

He outflies all men in battle,
With valour commencing the dogfight,
             Heart of heroes,
Strong stone of wisdom,
                  Red in anger,
Bright of eye to all women. 

A long red drop of blood,
A fury rising to the clouds,
A proud high shout of victory,
A wail that scatters spectres.

King Conor stood now and called for silence. The chatter of warriors and the barking of dogs and the squealing of handmaidens whose fair forms were being fondled by the greasy hands of heroes all ceased now as the leader of a hundred mighty airmen began his fair speech:

"Great warriors and pilots of the Ulaid! It is known that Emperor Liam, the Caesar of the Alemanni, supplies us with aircraft to fight our ancestral enemies the Dál Riada of the Scottish Isles. He does this as part of his great struggle with King Seoirse of the Saxons, who in turn gives planes to the Dál Riada that they may continue to raid our lands."

There were hoots and catcalls at the very mention of these foemen and their childish pretension to violate the lands of the Ulaid. Cúchulainn gave the head of Bricriu a kick and sent it spinning from the dais. The valorous airmen of the tribe of Conor Mac Nessa roared with laughter. The King held up a hand for silence and went on:

"The Albatros D-III fighters have served us as fine war steeds until now. They hold strong enchantment in their wings, despite the coming of the Albatros D-V, an ostensible upgrade but lacking the true war spirit, and which displays considerable buffeting in sharp turns. “

The assembled warriors nodded and cawed out their consent, death-thirsting crows picking on dry bones.

“The Pfalz model, noble ox, is robust but sluggish, and ill-suited to warriors as graceful as the blood herons of the Red Hand Branch. No, of all the aircraft that the puissant Caesar of the Alemanni has gifted us, none has the elán, as the Frankish men say, of the Albatros D-III... until now, that is, my warriors, until now!"

The hall was filled emptily with breathless anticipation. None spoke as King Conor strode to the edge of the dais and addressed them further:

"We all hear that the foe will now be flying Sopwith Dolphins, well-named craft, for they are such nimble and graceful fighters that even our beloved Albatros must groan to keep up. But an emissary of Caesar Liam has flown in to us today, wafting tidings in advance of a shipment of new aircraft, evading the warships and the blimps of the Saxonish King. He flew in on a new warhorse for us, a chariot of death that will serve us well. My champion Cúchulainn will fly the first of these aircraft, which has been painted blood-red in his honour. Behold, my children who thirst for yet fresher blood, behold, I say: the Fokker Dreidecker!"

The large doors of the banqueting hall were swung open. To the roaring acclamation of the gathered warriors, oxen hauled on ropes and the new fighter was wheeled in, flanked by attendants bearing flaming torches. As the King had said, it was painted vermillion to match the cloak of that great hero Cúchulainn. It had three wings not two.

It was the most beautiful thing Cúchulainn had ever seen.

He had bathed in the sparkling brooks of Glen Cam while nuzzled by five soft maidens, as the moon was setting and the sun coming up, when the stags ambled by and the tears of the Pleiades dropped from the sky.

He had paused on the cliffside at Muileann na Buaise, where the strange honeycombs of granite thrust into the sea, as the ocean storm raged and threw lightning spears into the winds.

But nothing was as sublime to his eyes as the three-winged blood-red beast of slaughter set before him now in the torchlight.

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NEXT TIME - Cú Chulainn flies against the mercenaries contracted by the Saxonish king and encounters a sin from his past that threatens to open a rent in the future.