The Wing Commander’s Hell: RAF Pilot vs Red Baron | Supernatural Horror Comedy (Episode 259)

Episode 259: The Wing Commander’s Hell – RAF Pilot vs the Red Baron

Wing Commander Montgomery Fortescue faces his personal trial in Hell as Lucifer’s supernatural game continues. Transported to a storm-ravaged version of Montrose Airfield in Scotland, Monty is reunited with his oldest battlefield memories — twisted into something far more dangerous.

With Luck by his side, he confronts:

• possessed war airships from his past
• supernatural storms controlled by Belphastus
• and finally… the legendary WWI flying ace Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron)

As reality bends and Hell’s rules break down, Lucifer intervenes with another bizarre delivery from Amazombie, providing Monty with the ultimate weapon — his beloved Bristol F.2 Fighter aircraft.

What follows is a high-stakes supernatural aerial duel filled with:

• dark humour
• historical fantasy
• supernatural horror
• and classic British wit

Perfect for fans of:

• werewolf podcasts
• dark fantasy audio drama
• supernatural comedy
• Lucifer mythology
• WW1 aviation stories
• Red Baron legends

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Transcript

Wing Commander Montgomery Fortescue…. Supposedly retired but obviously not. 

Ah, I’m in my supposed hell.

Does not seem so in this case.

Scotland… thee Montrose airfield… again.

The first RAF base well before the RAF existed. 

(Sigh)

You never forget your first airfield.

(Sigh)

No… 

Not in the way you never forget your first lover… 

It’s far less embarrassing thing than that.

But in the way you remember before the mind bothers to. 

The wind and weather here had a personality. 

Well, of course it did, it was the old Scottish weather and off the North Sea wind, was it not?

This bladdy miserable making wind didn’t merely blow; it objected to your simple presence.

The good green gods' own ground was another thing.

It had that reassuringly treacherous quality of being technically solid while remaining philosophically unopposed to utter bogginess.

I found myself strolling across this far-flung grassy patch arm in arm with my Luck, which is exactly the sort of thing one should do when one discovers one has arrived in a… supposed Hell. 

No sense giving it the satisfaction of a frightful, frightened reaction.

‘Bit lively, what?’ I remarked to her, glancing skyward.

‘The weather what?’ I validated.

Luck nodded her perfect, freckled features as she squinted through the biligerent, blustery breeze at the horizon. 

‘Oh yes. The sort of air that wants to have a conversation with your wings. Possibly an argument.’ 

She said.

I looked at Luck.

Look lucked at me.

We looked at each other.

She never failed to impress, and we had known each other for an awfully long time by now… by then… by…there?.

Normally, the people I know fail me at some point.

People always tend to do so.

It is inevitable with most relationships.

Never her.

She had never let me down.

Not once. 

Although, was she a person… erm, a people… No, no, person was right?

She was not one…

I scratched the stubble that had grown on my chin.

Another damn thing to contend with when this bladdy thing was all over.

Well, that I would hopefully get to contend with when this bladdy thing was all over.

Was she human?

Harumph, Today… erm, perhaps not a today, but a now, I would argue, for yes.

I mean, apart from those green glowing eyes wotisits. 

Eyes

Not very human, those. 

‘I'm a personification.’ The lady said.

‘Yes… I get lost with these pronouns.’ I told her… in a quandary as to what I even meant.

Thankfully, the weather worsened as a distraction from me babbling nonsense.

That was done by Belphastus… me thinks.

Because he had all the subtlety of a man rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic with a sledgehammer.

A strange description of the workings of the man's mind, but apt in this case. 

I like to think I am unsinkable.

‘The Titanic sank, ' said Luck, reminding me that she could read my thoughts.

‘Ah… yes…’ I reconsidered.

‘Quite… so… Harumph.’

And then the sky collapsed.

Erm… yes… it collapsed into what I would perceive as intransient rain.

Not rain as one usually experiences it, you understand. 

Even in Scotland.

This was rain with nasty intent. 

Rain that had been bladdy briefed. 

Maybe… even evil rain, what?

If rain can be evil.

It came down in thick, punishing waves, the clouds rolling in to smother and cover the sun as though it had farted and perhaps followed through in a quiet moment at a formal dinner party.

I buttoned my coat against it.

The rain that is.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s what my beloved Scotland does.’

Luck laughed, which I felt was entirely the correct response to my statement. 

I liked her laugh.

Her amusement was welcome and a reward, so I continued on the theme.

‘Give it a moment. It’ll get bored and turn to something else, possibly worse.’

Another laugh.

‘On the bright side, it keeps those dam midges at bay, what?’

We encamped for a moment companionably as we battened down our layers of clothing, as the storm did its absolute best to be taken seriously.

‘They are meant to find this bloody unpleasant, not a challenge,’ said Belphastus, somewhere between the thunder and his own expectations.

It was somewhat disconcerting that I could hear the fellow in my mind. 

Maybe he could hear me.

That would be a thing, what?

I know what.

Let me try and co-communicate with the bleeder.

‘Oh, it's unpleasant but also a challenge.’ I said, grooming my wind-weary moustache. 

He heard.

Good.

Luck also seemed to be hearing our words.

She did not question what I was saying, but just gave me a supportive smile as I delivered my lines.

‘Terribly inconvenient this wind and rain, what? Ruins the old barnett.’ I continued.

‘I find that it’s very character-building,’ added Luck.

‘Not that you have to build such, my dear.’ I replied, bowing and kissing the back of her gloved hand.

‘You are a personification of Luck that does not lack character.’ I remarked.

A bit whimsical of me, but if it were to help Belphastus’s’s’s’ss’’s irritation, then ballyhoo to that.

It did.

Irritate Belphastus, that is.

He was clearly feeling underappreciated, and I'd say he was a little more annoyed.

As a response, he turned the inclement weather up a couple of notches on the old bilidgerentedness scale. 

The wind sharpened… yes, bally good description there writers, it sharpened into something with edges. 

Trying to cut through our tied-down layers.

The rain perked up, too.

It stopped its dreer delugenal downpour and began traversing the sky somewhat sideways. 

Adding personification and such tosh that certain writers expound to a non-living thing like the weather…

‘Ahem.’

‘Oh, not in your case, my dear.’ I reassured Luck

…We could say that the rain did this with obvious, alarming enthusiasm, to become the sort of storm that would make other men with that presupposition to such abhorrent things, write trite poetry or pointless apologies.

For men without those unhelpful qualities, it just made them bladdy run for shelter.

I, not being either sort of man, vague I know yes, held the lady next to me a little more supportively and then leaned into all the sky had to give us, smiling.

‘Now that’s more like it. Some bladdy proper weather, what?’

Luck grinned. 

‘Proper flying weather.’ She said, to which I had to laugh in response.

I mean to throw the old canvas-bound kite up into this was not the move of any sensibly minded flyer.

But…

… Well, I was not such a renowned aviator due to my commonsensical approach to flying.

You could say I flew on the coattails of my inspiration.

Luck herself

I let go of my mirth.

A laugh was released that was stolen away by the ravenous wind.

‘Indeed. If one survives such a tempest as this, then one earns one’s tea, what?’ I told the young woman.

In my mind, I heard Belphastus make a noise that suggested a being reconsidering several life choices, most of them involving us.

I could not see him, just hear him, but in my imagination I could see him striding about the Professor's drawing room with an inclement temper.

‘Fine,’ he snapped. ‘Let us see how you like meeting your memories.’

Ah, my confidence at my attitude to the weather was somewhat subdued. 

Ah, that, I must admit, was a more interesting move on his part.

Maybe he was a little more intelligent than I had thought.

Then they came out of the storm like sins remembered too late…

Those bally possessed airships from my past.

Airships, yes… erm, Zeppleny things, but wrong. 

Those undignified drifting beasts of my earliest flight years.

These things writhed. 

Their skins bulged and split, lightning crawling across them like something alive and deeply unpleasant. 

Which, frankly, they were.

The ropes beneath them twisted and dangled like tentacles, reaching, searching. 

They wore the storm they created as a crown, and the sky bent itself around them in quiet surrender.

I felt something rather unexpected.

‘Good Lord,’ I said, brightening, ‘it’s them.’ Understated.

Luck followed my gaze. ‘Oh yes. It’s them… Old friends of ours?”

‘Yes… Well, in a manner of speaking, what?’ I said. 

‘They would not be the first friends who tried to kill me. The prior lesson they taught me was very formative.’

‘Same,’ She smiled.

I waved at one, which felt polite but, in hindsight, embarrassing. 

‘I’d wondered what became of them.’

‘We never did get to grips with the bastards if you remember. Bladdy Simon took them down with that Cthulhiun krakeny thing before we even got a shot in. I’ve often wondered what would’ve happened if we’d had a proper run at the blighters.’

Luck nodded her approval.

‘Depends, I suppose, whether or not luck is on your side.’ She said before giving me a conspirator's wink.

‘Good show. Tally ho, chaps. Here we bloody come then.’ I said. 

I must add with some bladdy enthusiasm.

‘It’s getting time for us to hit the crease, my dear.’

***Writers mumble***

‘What? Who doesn’t get a cricketing reference?’

***mumble***

‘Ah… well, yes. Bless them. They don’t have the erm… the mental faculties for a game that takes five days and has breaks for tea and lunch.’

‘Okay…What should I replace ‘to hit the crease’ with and why?’

***mumble***

‘I beg your pardon, it could be misconstrued as me doing what to Lady Luck?’

***mumble***

‘Only for those with disgusting minds.’

‘Philistines, all of you, what?’ 

‘Not a single gentleman among you writer chaps.’

‘Bladdy airy fairy word artists.’

‘Okay… How about…’

‘It was time to get right up amongst them.’

***mumble***

‘What do you mean that that could be misconstrued too?’

‘Perhaps a suggestion then.’

***mumble***

‘Okay… Literal. 

‘How it should be.’

***Pause***

‘Ahem. It’s time for us to fight the ruddy bastards.’

‘That okay?

***mumble***

Glad you bladdy approve. 

Make an inuenedo out of that, you bounders.

‘You are supposed to be afraid,’ echoed in my head as Belphastus insisted the un sistable.

‘Afraid of what? I said I was confused.

‘My dear fellow, I’ve been somewhat bored for nigh on six decades now. This is practically a reunion tour.’

My Luck laughed like a timpany of bells, and I realised with a small, satisfied certainty that whatever Hell this was meant to be, it had already gone slightly off-script for the hell presenting representer.

Talking of whom

Old Belphastus had become very quiet.

Which is always worrying.

‘Very well… Let us try something a little more… shall we say… personal.’

He said, with the careful precision of someone deploying their final argument.

And then the sky violently changed.

Again.

Well, not changed, but had the unaddable suddenly added to it. 

He came out of it not like a memory, but like a certainty.

He came out of it because usually he would come out of the sun, which was his bladdy best tactic for attack.

There was no sun.

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen.

Not easy for me to say or to remember.

Better known to history as the…

The Red Baron. ‘Duh duh daaaaah’

First World War German flying ace. 

Even now, one must take a moment. 

In fact, everything took a moment in this reality.

Yes, let's consider this a reality of sorts.

Anyway, in this reality, I took a deep breath to let this sink in.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, the moment and breath was not taken out of fear.

Goodness me, no.

Not out of fear, no, but out of professional courtesy. 

I did not fear the Baron. 

I recognised something in him that made me think.

The man, the legend that flew that red triplane, was, quite simply… bladdy good at it. 

‘That is English understatement for an incredibly skilled pilot.’ Helpfully explained Luck as if I needed a translator.

He was not merely skilled, not merely lucky… though he had enough of that to be as irritating as I… but he was possessed of that rare, crystalline clarity in the air.

He saw the sky as I did.

A series of decisions already made. 

He had eighty confirmed victories, and one suspects several more that simply hadn’t had the decency to be counted by observers.

He had begun his career, as many do.

In the cavalry… horses, mud, the general indignity of terrestrial warfare. 

Before discovering that the sky offered a much cleaner sort of dirty killing.

There, in the sky, he became something close to… How would I describe him… a flyer? 

In fact, he became eponymous.

He was the flyer.

To me, a flyer who was my worthiest and most deadly opponent because he was… inevitably invincible.

For me, that is.

Of course, there were… embellishments to his story.

Rumours, mostly. 

Whispered things in mess halls and dim corners. 

That somewhere along the line. 

Somewhere between victories and legend.

Apparently, he had encountered something older at some point.

Something nocturnal. 

Something like Dracula, though one suspects even Dracula might have taken notes from this man about being on the wing. 

Whether bitten, blessed, or simply improved upon, the Baron had acquired that faint, unsettling edge that one doesn’t learn in training.

Not that we had training in those days. 

As I thought all these thoughts, he landed his plane lightly as the maelstrom around him tried to do all it could to destroy it and him.

‘Well, that’s rum luck, what?’ I said, genuinely pleased. 

‘This is a turn up for the old books.’

Luck glanced between us. ‘You know him?’

I smiled at her. 

Was she being her tricky self?

‘What? You don’t know him, my dear?’ I questioned. 

The Baron had seemed to have been very lucky in my mind.

It would be somewhat bizarre if she had not known him.

‘Never laid eyes on him before.’ She said, with her emerald-green orbs of not eyes. 

‘But you have.’ Not a question from her this time… a statement of fact. 

‘Oh yes, rather,’ I said. 

‘We tried to kill each other quite often for quite a few years.’

‘Never quite managed it.’ I ruminated.

‘It was all very sporting, actually,’

‘Gentlemanly even.’

‘Airbourne chivalry and all that good chappedness nonsense.’

‘Knights of the sky duelling on our flitting steeds.’

‘Very… trite.’

I again scratched at the old stubbly chin in consideration of this statement.

I considered it.

Then, I stopped doing so out of a lack of my realisation.

‘I had rather thought that you had been there for many of those… erm… contests, my dear?’

‘You know, watching one's back and all’

She shook her head and shrugged apologetically.

‘Ah.’ I said, a little taken aback at the fact that I had done all those things on my own.

‘What do you think he wants?’ She asked me.

I returned to the when and now from the past and then. 

Turning to the plane and the contents of its cockpit as it rolled up jauntily beside us.

And there he was, just as I did not remember him.

The Baron.

He inclined his head, just slightly. 

Professional acknowledgement.

Belphastus in my head sounded hopeful again. 

‘Yes, Wing Commander… Now you suffer the old memories of loss!’ He ejac……

I am not using that word to describe his bloody riposte in front of a lady.

***writer mumble***

Yes, I suppose he is the kind of scoundrel that would use such verbiage.

Okay… he… my apologies, not my words here, listeners. 

He ejaculated.

***pause***

Disgusting

‘Ahem, ejaculated.’

Ahem, back to the story.

Belphastus thought he had me with the Baron.

A partial fool, our Belphastus, what?

‘Good heavens, man, no, I don’t suffer those memories,’ I said, not masking my evident excitement.

‘Because now we might get too… fight.’

There was a pause.

Then a new voice, smooth as sin and considerably better dressed, drifted in.

‘Thought you might need this.’

The rain stopped. 

The wind stopped.

Everything just stopped, and the hangar doors on the hangar that had not been there a mere millisecond ago opened.

This was not as shocking as you might have thunk it. 

I mean, I should have been somewhat perturbed by this sudden appearance, but in reality, the building that had just appeared had always been there if you catch one's Rourkesdrift. 

A huge, outlandish modern sign was attached to the side of the hangar. 

A sign so large and insipidly coloured that, if there were life on Mars, the Martians would definitely have approached their local galactic planning department to ask for it to be removed, as it was a pesudopodic eyesore as seen from their homeworld. 

Out on a proposterous hand-drawn cart of sorts was brought  a huge canvas-covered object. 

The things bringing it were the zombies from Amazombie.

‘That’s lucky.’

They trundled over to us with the trundling hand cart until they got somewhat uncomfortably close to us.

The lady and I stood staring at this enefable approach. 

I mean, what else was there to do? 

Everything else had stopped.

The first zombie took off his flat cap and turned eyeless sockets towards me. 

‘It’s right bloody dark ere in it.’ He stated.

The other zombie reached and grabbed the shoulder of his coworker's boiler suit.

‘Ya need yer eye in Bert.’ It said.

‘Oh aye,’ replied, I assume, Bert, as he reached down and fumbled in his pocket to grab something.

He continued to fumble until he found what he was looking for and slipped it into an empty socket.

‘It still seems bloody dark, Bert, ’ Bert said to the other erm… Bert.

‘That’s a pickled egg, Bert, ya got there, ya daft bat.’ The other Bert  laughed, who wasn't the Bert with the pickled egg in his eye but the other Bert, who was holding on to Bert’s shoulder.

The other… Bert, the one we have now established as pickled egg Bert, laughed along with him.

It was strange listening to two zombies laugh. 

It was a dry laugh, like the laugh that a tomb of the ancient desert would have if it could laugh. It sounded somewhat uncomfy.

‘EEEE we do have a laugh at AM A ZOMBIE, don’t we Bert?’

‘Each days an adventure of sorts int it, Bert.’ He said as he rummaged in his pocket.

‘Give us a mo.’ He said to me.

He went back to rummaging through his pockets.

‘Nope, it's gone. Must have bloody eaten it instead of the bloody egg.’ He admitted.

‘Thought it were right tasty.’ He laughed.

‘Ere, Bert, can you do the honours until I get another eye?’

‘Aye.’ Said the other Bert.

‘Aye,’ as in a Northern dialect, yes, not eye as in an eye, eye.

Pickled egg Bert passed the clipboard to the other Bert, who somehow put glasses on a head that had no ears or nose.

He followed the writing with a finger, a spare finger that was not his own.

‘Package for Wing Commander Montgomery from Lucifer Morning Star x’, he read.

‘That’s me, old chap.’ I replied.

‘That’s him… oh dear.’

The zombie stared at me.

Then.

‘That’s ageist, that is.’ Retorted the reading, Bert.

‘What is, old chap?’ I asked him.

‘No old chap.’

‘He said it again.’ Remonstrated the… erm glasses-wearing Bert.

Pointing the spare finger at me.

‘He’s assuming I'm old because am a zombie.’

‘Clever int it? AM A ZOMBIE.’ said the pickled egg, Bert.

‘No, it’s bloody not,’ said Glasses.

‘No… AM A ZOMBIE’s clever Bert.’ Continued egg eye.

‘I ought to report this to AM A ZOMBIE HR. I bet you’re a bloody liveist to aint yeh, eh.’ He quickly added.

I think he was somewhat angered, but with a lack of facial expression due to his face being… well, hard and crumbly, and a lack of tone in his voice, I could not tell.

I was confused.

Time passed.

Then thankfully.

‘Shush,’ said Eggy Bert, turning to where the glasses zombie wasn’t.

‘There’s no need for that. This isn’t Thatcher’s Britain no more, Bert.’ He told the empty space where he thought the complaining clipboard holder was. 

‘She was a bitch.’

***PAUSE***

I wish I could say I saw the chastised Zombie think about this, but who can tell if a Zombie is thinking? 

Eventually, I got a ‘Sorry about that, Sir’ from the pickled egg Bert, thinking it was facing me.

‘We have this for you.’ He said, pointing at where the package wasn’t either.

‘Am sorry…’ said the clipboard-holding zombie as it came forward in a storm of halitosis, apologies and crumbly skin.

‘I was a union man in my… former life.’

‘Been a rough afterlife. 

‘Could you sign here, please?’ It asked almost nicely. 

I signed on the line and handed the pen back to him, which he tried to place behind an ear several times before remembering he did not have any ears and put it in his pocket. 

The eggy zombie bowed at no one.

‘Please remember to give us a rating at AM A ZOMBIE Won’t you?’

‘You get it, don’t you. AM A ZOMBIE.’

‘We are Zombies, you see, and we deliver like Amazon.’

‘AM A ZOMBIE.’

‘Clever, int it?’

I had no idea what the poor old… I mean, the dead chap.

I mean chap was going on about, so I nodded.

Which would not help him know whether I got it or not.

Because he was trying to use a pickled egg as an eye, he could not see me nod.

‘Yes… well thanks.’ I told them.

‘Yes… well thanks.’

Bert… erm, glasses then came and took pickled egg Bert by the shoulder, turning him around and steering him back towards the giant doors behind them.

Both Luck and I just stared at them as they walked nonchalantly back to the hangar.

When they reached it, they entered and then disappeared. 

No, not just the Zombies, the whole thing. 

Zombies, hangar and all.

I turned to Luck with a somewhat of a quizzical look as to what had just happened. 

Luckily, she had the same look as the look I had while looking at Luck.

‘That’s a huge package, Wing Commander,’ she winked.

She shrugged, bemused and walked over to the canvas-covered item on the trailer.

I followed, and she turned back towards me, smiling, and holding the canvas.

‘May I?’ She asked.

I nodded my agreement.

‘Of course, my dear.’  

She quickly whipped away the canvas, which then dissolved into the still air.

‘Ta daaa!’

***pause***

My goodness, what a glorious sight.

‘Thank you. I did my hair.’

Luci Morningstar must have summoned my weapon of choice for such an adventure, and reality and AM A ZOMBIE obliged by delivering a rather lovely Bristol F.2 Fighter, all wood, wire and quiet menace.

‘I say.’ I gasped.

‘You say what?’ the devil asked.

***pause***

‘He can not say anything at the moment, Luci; he is struck dumb because of the stupid contraption you sent him.’

‘Stupid contraption…’ I quickly reacted, then redacted, as I realised this was Luck's effort to pull me out of my dumbstruck state and make me an active participant in what was currently happening. 

‘Ah, bravo.’ I conceded to the green-eyed Goddess.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Do try not to scratch it, the war museum wants it back,’ Lucifer added.

I beamed at the delightful little kit before me. 

‘Mag…nif…i…cent.’ I said, sounding out each perfect little syllable of the only word that could actually report how I felt about the little F.2 Fighter. 

Turning, I offered Luck a hand to climb onto the wing. 

‘After you, my dear.’

‘Why, thank you, sir.’

‘Co-pilot’s seat.’ 

‘Best bladdy view in the house for my best bladdy lady.’

She took my offered arm, stepping up with easy confidence as though boarding a death-defying aircraft in Hell was precisely how she’d planned to spend her afternoon.

Probably was, knowing these god types and what they know about guff.

‘My favourite machine gun. Yay!’

Once she was in, I lowered my undercarriage into my position.

I sank, shuggled and snuggled, finally settling into the pilot’s seat, hands finding the familiar places for them. 

The flying machine hummed with that peculiar promise only a good aircraft does.

Across the field holding a salute, the Baron waited. 

***Click***

The weather switched back on.

Above us, the nightmare airships writhed.

Behind it all, Belphastus fumed.

‘Oh, do stop sulking, Belphastus,’ Lucifer said mildly.

‘You gave him his Hell as you thought it would look.’

‘Little did you know that a desk with paperwork in GCHQ is Monty’s Hell.’

‘I know. No… I really do know.’

‘I change me mind then… I want to change…’

‘Oh no, my dear… erm… undear… my... never mind you're not my anything.’

‘The game is on.’ 

‘You took your metaphorical hand off the pieces.’

‘They must be played as stands… erm, flies?’

‘It warms my heart, if I had such a thing, that you thought a man like Monty… would quail at this.’

‘Your idea of his…. Hell.’

She was bally correct.

This was wonderful.

I grinned as I pushed the throttle forward.

‘Right then,’ I said as the plane started forward.

I saluted the Baron as his plane moved in response.

‘Let’s see if we can finally settle this.’

‘Tally hoo!’