The S.S. man marched up and down, inspecting the prisoners. Then he stepped before them and, looking at them intently, spoke to the officer.
“You are now in vot used to be Latvia,” announced the Hauptmann. “You have been brought from Germany because your services are needed by the Reich!”
He paused and listened to the S.S. man, then went on. “In accordance with international law,” he said, “you will be paid for this work, which will be concerned with leveling ground for an airport here. When you are through with that, you will be sent on to other places. Of course,” he leered, “being prisoners of war, we will be the ones to decide where you work—and how much you get paid.”
“International law!” One of the British pilots stepped forward and spoke heatedly. “That only applies to common soldiers. Each one of us is an officer! We’re entitled to—”
“Sie ruhig!” snarled the Hauptmann. “Shut up! You take orders here, not give them!”
The S.S. man spoke quickly, and the Nazi officer nodded. “Come on,” he growled. “Come with me!”
He led the way to and through a gate in the barbed-wire fence, where a squad of Nazi soldiers waited to fall in behind the captives, directing them on through war-battered streets of some small village. Halladay, lifting his nostrils, could smell the sea not too far away. The dull rumble of big guns had died out, submerged in the nearer noise of an awakened countryside.
They came out onto a rubble-paved road. Early as it still was, the load was bearing much traffic. Long lines of men and women trudged along it, fright and terror and despair in their faces, great sacks on their backs. They stepped cautiously along the side of the road, scrambling off it in confusion when the mighty mechanized trucks and tanks of their conquerors sped by. As far as the eye could see along the road they stretched, little clustered knots of people, in twos and threes, all bound in the same direction—away from the front.
Looking at them, seeing the grim resolution that waited patiently beneath the mask of fear on each brawny peasant face, Halladay wondered with a thrill what these people were like by night. War-weary refugees in the daylight, would they become the secret saboteurs and guerilla fighters that made the night hideous for the Nazi Wehrmacht when the sun had set?
“Haltmachen!” roared the Nazi Hauptman. Halladay, with the others, stopped and looked around. He tried not to listen to the Hauptmann’s harangue which followed, but the gist of it penetrated his soul-deep weariness. An airfield was to be constructed here, and they were elected to construct it.
The area was pretty well suited for a field at that, Halladay thought. Surrounded by trees, fairly level, down in a slight valley with hills surrounding, more or less concealing it from view. Then he looked more closely at the “trees.”
Camouflage!
Just visible, under green-splotched netting, in the shadows, loomed the outlines of Nazi planes—four of them. Three were huge Focke-Wulf Condors—the mighty troop transports that had played so important a part in the last summer’s campaign. The fourth was even larger—and it was a weird ship!
Halladay looked at it, blinked, and looked again. Like a bat it looked, like some strange bat from the swamp-world of the past. Almost a hundred and fifty feet it stretched from wing-tip to tip, and it was High as a two-story building. And it looked as though it were almost all one great wing, in which were set four huge propellers, with a tiny tail trailing behind. Its nose poked sinisterly out of the camouflage, as though it were looking for trouble.
Then there was no more time for looking around, or for idle thought. The Hauptmann gave sharp orders, then walked off, leaving them guarded only by a squadron of Nazi soldiers. They were issued shovels by a bleak-faced old man in ragged black civilian dress—another war-prisoner, it seemed—and fell to work, unwillingly and slowly.
Halladay thought for a second of resisting, of staging a sit-down strike or actually of trying to rush the handful of bored guards. But his better sense prevailed. Shooting unarmed men was Nazi sport. Cheerfully would they execute him or any other who tried resistance, as a spur to the others.
WHEN the sun was high in the sky and Halladay’s stomach announced it was past noon, they were marched back to their barbed-wire home for “lunch.” Halladay was accustomed to tightening the belt a notch or two in lieu of that extra helping now and then. He was used to going a little hungry when the ration cards ran out—but he wasn’t used to this! Food in England might be a trifle scarce—but it was clean. A little sickened, he stared down into the greasy bowl of Lord-knows-what that was his lunch. He sniffed at it tentatively, and shuddered. Then, with grim purpose, mechanically he raised the broad spoon to his mouth, chewed rhythmically, and swallowed. Like an automaton he repeated the process until the meal was done. When he had finished, he felt emptier than before—and sick besides. But he had to keep his strength up, and so he had to eat.
He shoved aside the cup of watery “coffee” that accompanied the stew and strode out into the dirty few square yards of bare ground that they were allowed for an exercise yard. Clouds were bunching up over the hills to the north. Halladay regarded them as he fumbled out his one battered cigarette and regarded it thoughtfully for the hundredth time.
“Looks like dirty weather,” said McIlwraith, coming up behind him. Halladay intercepted McIlwraith’s covetous gaze at the cigarette and put it away hastily. Some other time, he thought resignedly.
Then, struck by a sudden thought, Halladay glanced again at the approaching thunder-clouds. He looked around to see that the guards were not near, and spoke hurriedly in low tones to McIlwraith. For the remainder of their ten-minute rest period they were engaged in animated but inaudible conversation. . . .
LIKE an actor with a keen sense of drama, the cloud-burst timed its entrance perfectly to match the instant they returned to the field they were working on. Even while they were being issued again the long-handled shovels the first warning drops came down, and when they were ready to begin work it poured down in earnest.
The Nazi guards, cursing, stared about bewilderedly for minutes, unsure of what to do. Then, seeing that their valuable labor-slaves were being drenched and realizing what harm could be done to their health, they ordered the British captives to run under the screening of camouflage.
Water leaked through, but not with the teeming velocity of the downpour outside. The guards huddled under the huge wing of the great all-wing plane Halladay had noted. Now closer, he saw from the identification numbers on its tail that it was a Junkers G-38. . . .an experimental model, no doubt, he thought. Apparently either intended as a bomber or a troop-transport, more likely the latter.
Halladay took a tentative step toward the wing of the great batwing plane himself, watching the guards. They didn’t seem disposed to keep him away, so he took another, and more. He was followed by others of the pilots, trying to avoid the damp, until the whole group of them, fifty and more, were huddled under the one great wing.
Halladay squatted on his haunches near the base of the wing, one of the great engines bulging out a good six feet over his head, and stared out at the little mudspouts that the rain drops made when they struck. He took out his cigarette again, from force of habit. This time though, he stuck it in his mouth and slapped his pockets for a match. He had none. He looked around for a likely prospect to ask for one, then suddenly froze under the chill of a sudden discovery.
A gas-truck was standing empty, only a few dozen feet away. It was possible—it was almost certain, that these planes had been fueled not long ago! He looked hastily away, and at the field on which they had been working. Rutted it was, pitted it was with holes several feet deep, and with boulders strewn about it. But these planes had landed there, obviously—and perhaps they could be taken off!
Trying to look as unconcerned as though no sudden, savage hope were stirring in his veins, he strolled idly to the end of the wing, peered at the great Condors ranged side by side next to this behemoth of the air. And his heart sank as he noted thi
ngs that put a chill on his hope. Two of the Condors were held up by scaffolding and heavy-duty jacks where the wheels should have been, their landing gear obviously being repaired after having been damaged when they were set down on this rough field. The third, the nearest, had the nearest engines covered with a tarpaulin, sign that they too were being repaired. Possibly repairs had been completed. . . . possibly any of those could be made to fly. But he wasn’t sure, and the penalty for an attempt at escape which miscarried was—death.
One thing his quick inspection had told him. The guards which shared the shelter of the great wing with them were the only Nazis in sight. Even the gasoline truck was deserted. That struck him as odd, until he remembered the great crated planes he had seen unloaded from the train in which he had come. Those would need to be assembled, would need every available technician.
He looked again at the great G-38, longingly. And he made his decision! Quickly, but without the appearance of haste, he made his way to McIlwraith’s side.
“McIlwraith,” he said urgently. “Listen to me. . . .” He spoke in low tones, ending with: “This is the chance we’ve been waiting for!”
McIlwraith nodded, slowly, then with determination. “Right,” he said. “Very well then—hop to it!” And he began to move among the other men, speaking to them quickly, avoiding any gestures which might attract attention, while Halladay did the same. And the rain, dwindling now, was still loud enough in its pattering to hide the sounds they made—until it became loud and ominous, the low voice of fifty enraged men.
THE Nazi guards never knew what hit them. There were rocks on the field—and there were expert marksmen among the British flyers. There was a dull thunking sound of rocks meeting Nazi skulls, and two of the guards dropped. Before the others could level their rifles and recover from their consternation, the horde of British pilots were silently upon them. They were overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers, and when the mob drew back seven dead Nazis lay on the ground.
They tore the camouflage netting off the craft.
“Come on,” Halladay cried. “Anybody got any idea how to pilot this blasted crate?” Nobody answered. “All right, then—I’ll take a crack at it myself. Now get in!”
The crowd swarmed in, shoving each other up into the body of the craft, rushing forward until they found the great troop compartments in the thick wings of the craft. Fifty British airmen swarmed into that immense craft, and it held all of them, with room to spare.
Halladay took command of the situation and ordered them all into the troop compartments, allowing only McIlwraith and two others he knew slightly to remain with him in the control cabin. And they made the disheartening discovery—armament the big ship had none. The only weapons they could muster, should they be attacked in the air, were the three sub-machine guns and four rifles the Nazis guards had carried. A pitiful assortment—about as valuable as that many sling-shots! One thing, then, they had to hope for—that nobody would attack.
Halladay took a look at the unfamiliar instruments and groaned. He pointed at them, spoke to McIlwraith. “You know a little German—what do these things say?”
While McIlwraith was flying to decipher them, he poked around, looking for the starting button. For that he didn’t need a label; he found four of them, one for each motor, neatly arranged in a row before him. With a curse and a prayer, he stabbed one with his forefinger. If it shouldn’t start—
But it did! And Halladay shouted in pure joy, while the fifty soldier’s of the air gave vent to their emotions with one cheer. Each motor started, droning loud and clear as those of any plane he’d ever piloted. He found the gas controls, heard McIlwraith report that the fuel tanks showed “full,” slowly coaxed the motors, one at a time, to full roaring life—and decided he was ready.
Awkwardly, like a great sting-ray feeling its way through the dense growth at the bottom of the sea, the huge G-S8 nosed its way out into the slackening rain. The big drops, coming slowly now, bounced off the metal wings of the Junkers with a sound like machine-gun fire. Halladay cast an eye at the glow toward the horizon and decided that the rain would be over shortly. There was no great wind—flying conditions, for his purpose, were ideal!
He gave the mammoth engines full blast, and they snorted and took up the challenge. Without wheel chocks, the plane could pick up speed only slowly—but to have used chocks meant that one man would have been left behind, at least.
Gathering speed, the Junkers raced across the bumpy field, groaning and jolting and protesting. Then, when the road and its ditch and fence were ominously close, Halladay eased back on the stick—and they were airborne!
There were loud shouts of jubilation from the troop compartments as the big plane began its steady climb for altitude. Slowly it moved and slowly, its best speed less than 150 m.p.h. But Halladay brought it around in a long, sweeping up-curve, and it was headed for the battle lines, for the friendly territory that lay beyond them, thundering along toward freedom and the chance to fight again!
THEY could not have hoped to escape detection. The nearer they got to the front, the more dangerous their position became. They were above the clouds now, with a white fleecy flooring below. But suddenly they saw black specks breaking through the white a mile or less ahead, and Halladay swore.
“Only one chance,” he groaned. “We’ll play hide-and-seek a while.” And he eased off on the controls, and let the G-38 drop into the cloud-tops. They were flying through utter blackness, coming out from rain and wracking air-currents suddenly to find brilliant sunshine. And each time they came out momentarily, the black dots were somewhere around, hovering, darting toward them as soon as they were visible.
Desperately, Halladay shifted course, squirmed and twisted through the layers of cloud, trying to throw off the ominous black attackers. But each time they came out, the black ones were closer.
And the clouds had other surprises for them—bursting clumps of a.a. fire that needed no eyes for its aim, automatic anti-aircraft guns that found their targets by great mechanical ears, and the uncanny accuracy of machines. By ones and twos the bursts rose before them, always before them. There was one thing that saved them: They were flying a Nazi plane. The Nazi gunners were reluctant to shoot them down, the Nazi pilots recognized them and were worried, but not certain. The flak that burst before them was intended to warn, not to kill—but each time the bursts grew closer, and each time the little wasps that buzzed searchingly above darted at them with more savagery and less bewilderment.
And each foot that they thundered over toward the front wiped out more bewilderment in the Nazi minds, and replaced it with the dim beginnings of certainty—certainty that this ship was stolen!
Halladay was worried, and then almost resigned. “There’s nothing we can do,” he said, tight-lipped. “We’ve made a good try. What happens now is up to the gods. Unless—has anybody any ideas?”
He glanced quickly at the others clustered around him. They shook their heads, each man grim. “No?” He smiled—not a smile of pleasure; there was death in that smile. “I thought not. We—”
He stopped abruptly, and wrestled the controls as they broke cloud again, sending them back into the dark, almost safe heart of it.
“Did you see it?” McIlwraith was crying. “Did you see them up ahead?”
“Sure,” said Halladay, puzzled. “More planes. What—”
“It was a dog-fight!” McIlwraith swept on. “A fight—that means our planes are near! Do you think—” His voice stopped. That was the final grim irony. There were planes up ahead that could help them, fast Spitfires and deadly American P-40’s that could chase off the attackers and convoy them to safety. If only.
But there was no way, no way at all, to get the help that was in sight. And that was the final irony, the last torch set to their hopes.
And then the clouds ended, with a sudden blast of sunlight that spelled doom, without leaving a wisp of vapor to hide it. Far below was the hideous brown waste that war makes of a coun
tryside, and the clouds were no more, leaving it bare beneath them.
For a second of consternation, Halladay almost spun the controls that would send them plunging back into the cloud, there to soar about aimlessly till suspicion grew to certainty in the Nazi minds, and the a.a. fire would come that would, send them hurtling to earth. But a sudden flare of inspiration stopped him, and he was galvanized into activity.
“McIlwraith!” he yelled. “Get the men with the guns—station them in the observation blisters! Hurry—three of them with rifles right here, the others in back and on top. Don’t ask questions. Do it now!”
McIlwraith, trained to quick response, stifled his questions and rushed to obey. Halladay, trying not to see the black dots that were racing down on them, tipped the Junkers over in the steepest dive he could afford, sent it hurtling down to the earth below.
And then he pulled out, straining the fabric of the ungainly ship as much as he dared, leveling off a scant hundred feet from the ground.
Through a corner of his eye he saw that McIlwraith had returned, had a rifle in his hand.
“Get somebody to man the radio,” Halladay snapped. “See if you can raise those Russian planes. If we’ve got somebody who speaks their language, fine—otherwise try English and German and whatever anybody knows!”
And that was all the conversation he had time for. Hedge-hopping requires full attention from the pilot, and Halladay, handicapped doubly by unfamiliar controls and a frightfully sluggish plane, needed the eyes and senses of three pilots.
THEN the black specks were mere spots no longer, but were fast, lethal Messerschmitts, darting down on them from overhead. Halladay took a quick look at them and began praying fervently—praying that his hunch had been right, praying that the stories he had heard were true—praying most of all that the Nazis had devised no new answer to this mad strategy he was trying’.
Flak was bursting about in grim earnest, now—but nowhere near the ship! Far to either side it blossomed, and overhead, but it was clear that only the greatest of luck could give the Nazi guns a taste of this ship. Far too low it was, too close to the guns for them to aim at it!
Collected Short Fiction Page 88
