“The Escadrille been buzzing you again?” I asked.
“Every night, right after midnight Every morning now. And, the last week, noons. I try not to come over. I tried for three days.”
“I know. I missed you.”
“Kind of you to say, son. You have a good heart. But I know I’m a pest, when I have my clear moments. Right now I’m clear and I drink your hospitable health.”
He emptied his glass and I refilled it.
“You want to talk about it?”
“You sound just like a psychiatrist friend of mine. Not that I ever went to one, he was just a friend. Great thing about coming over here is it’s free, and sherry to boot.” He eyed his drink pensively. “It’s a terrible thing to be haunted by ghosts.”
“We all have them. That’s where Shakespeare was so bright. He taught himself, taught us, taught psychiatrists. Don’t do bad, he said, or your ghosts will get you. The old remembrance, the conscience which doth make cowards and scare midnight men, will rise up and cry, Hamlet, remember me, Macbeth, you’re marked, Lady Macbeth, you, tool Richard the Third, beware, we walk the dawn camp at your shoulder and our shrouds are stiff with blood.”
“God, you talk purty.” Bill shook his head. “Nice living next door to a writer. When I need a dose of poetry, here you are.”
“I tend to lecture. It bores my friends.”
“Not me, dear buster, not me. But you’re right. I mean, what we were talking about. Ghosts.” He put his sherry down and then held to the arms of his easy chair, as if it were the edges of a cockpit.
“I fly all the time now. It’s nineteen eighteen more than it’s nineteen eighty-seven. It’s France more than it’s the U.S. of A. I’m up there with the old Lafayette. I’m on the ground near Paris with Rickenbacker. And there, just as the sun goes down, is the Bed Baron. I’ve had quite a life, haven’t I, Sam?”
It was his affectionate mode to call me by six or seven assorted names. I loved them all. I nodded.
“I’m going to do your story someday,” I said. “It’s not every writer whose neighbor was part of the Escadrille and flew and fought against von Bichthofen.”
“You couldn’t write it, dear Ralph, you wouldn’t know what to say.”
“I might surprise you.”
“You might, by God, you might. Did I ever show you the picture of myself and the whole Lafayette Escadrille team lined up by our junky biplane the summer of ‘eighteen?”
“No,” I lied, ‘let me see.”
He pulled a small photo from his wallet and tossed it across to me. I had seen it a hundred times but it was a wonder and a delight.
“That’s me, in the middle left, the short guy with the dumb smile next to Bickenbacker.” Bill reached to point.
I looked at all the dead men, for most were long dead now, and there was Bill, twenty years old and lark-happy, and all the other young, young, oh, dear God, young men lined up, arms around each other, or one arm down holding helmets and goggles, and behind them a French 7-1 biplane, and beyond, the flat airfield somewhere near the Western front. Sounds of flying came out of the damned picture. They always did, when I held it. And sounds of wind and birds. It was like a miniature TV screen. At any moment I expected the Lafayette Escadrille to burst into action, spin, run, and take off into that absolutely clear and endless sky. At that very moment in time, in the photo, the Red Baron still lived in the clouds; he would be there forever now and never land, which was right and good, for we wanted him to stay there always, that’s how boys and men feel.
“God, I love showing you things.” Bill broke the spell. “You’re so damned appreciative. I wish I had had you around when I was making films at MGM.”
That was the other part of William (Bill) Westerleigh.
From fighting and photographing the Western front half a mile up, he had moved on, when he got back to the States. From the Eastman labs in New York, he had drifted to some flimsy film studios in Chicago, where Gloria Swanson had once starred, to Hollywood and MGM. From MGM he had shipped to Africa to camera-shoot lions an
d the Watusi for King Solomon’s Mines. Around the world’s studios, there was no one he didn’t know or who didn’t know him. He had been principal cameraman on some two hundred films, and there were two bright gold Academy Oscars on his mantel next door.
“I’m sorry I grew up so long after you,” I said. “Where’s that photo of you and Rickenbacker alone? And the one signed by von Richthofen.”
“You don’t want to see them, buster.”
“Lake hell I don’t!”
He unfolded his wallet and gently held out the picture of the two of them, himself and Captain Eddie, and the single snap of von Richthofen in full uniform, and signed in ink below.
“All gone,” said Bill. “Most of’em. Just one or two, and me left. And it won’t be long”—he paused—”before there’s not even me.”