“No. They don’t exist. I will get hold of the best guesses.”
“Thanks. Will you stay here overnight, sir?”
“I would like to. If you don’t have a room, I’m sure there would be a hotel in Metz or Nancy.”
Thomas explained why that might not be a good idea.
“I saw you had an armed guard to the gate, and a thirty-hundredweight set up with a Bren mounting. Gun’s inside the gatehouse in the dry, I presume.”
“It is. The men are all trained with it, as well. The French police seemed to suggest we might be attacked, sir.”
“It has happened elsewhere – the occasional shot fired at soldiers. Sniping from a distance. One or two deaths but little of significance. One fuel dump burned – but that might have been negligence rather than arson. It’s wise to be alert. I am glad to see you are. When will you brief your pilots?”
“After breakfast, at oh eight thirty. I’ll have a word with the Armourer now.”
“Why?”
“I will want him to load appropriately, sir”
Curtis was used to evasive answers – he met them often in his trade. He demanded that Thomas come clean.
“We normally load ball, sir, with one round in eight tracer. There are ‘special’ tracer rounds as well – explosive under a different name for the benefit of the Conventions. I want to use some of our supply tomorrow.”
“Do they make so great a difference?”
“Rifle-calibre machine guns are of limited value against metal-skinned aircraft, sir. We should have cannon or fifty-calibre guns at least. Cannon shells will rip straight through canvas and wood biplanes, often doing no significant damage, and the deadheads at the Air Ministry can’t understand why we want more powerful guns. The Red Baron didn’t need them, you know!”
“I shall pass the word, Squadron Leader Stark. I can at least talk to the bodies at the top - and they listen to us. We know where all the politicians’ bodies are buried.”
“I expect you buried a lot for them!”
The scowl told Thomas that was no witty comment.
“I can give you one in three, Thomas. That’s all I’ve got without stripping out the full belts I have made up.”
“Load the full belts then, Peter. Could be a busy morning coming up.”
Wag was hovering nearby, taking pains not to listen to the conversation.
“You will be in a spare plane tomorrow, Thomas. Your engine is close to its hours and is on the list to strip down next.”
That was a minor irritation – every plane felt just a little different, but the Engineer held the whip hand when it came to releasing planes to fly. If he said a Hurricane was grounded, there was no appeal – or not if the squadron leader possessed any sense.
“She’ll be right, Wag. Roll out whichever you need to.”
“Too right, cobber!”
The mockery was unfailing whenever Thomas allowed the least Australianism.
Thomas sat down with Curtis after they had dined, examining the charts and deciding on the optimal course.
“Best not simply to come back on a reciprocal, sir. We’ll have given any ack-ack batteries a wake-up call and they could be waiting for us. Found out in Spain it was best to come back on the shortest route, in case we were carrying damage – which we were only too often towards the end!”
They decided that it would be best to take off ten minutes earlier and loop to the south, over the high hills and then drop down to the valley of the Rhine and return over lower ground.
“The flatter the terrain, the more likely the military is to site bases there. More airfields; more defences for barracks. We shall be leaving faster than we came.”
“We thought at HQ that you would go in and out by the shortest possible route.”
Thomas jerked upright.
“Who did you discuss this with, sir? Too many damned Fascist sympathisers there for my liking!”
“Oh, come along now, Stark! There may have been one or two who showed a little fellow-feeling for Mosley, but nothing more!”
“The squadron ran into a set of German trainers when we were blown north by a stronger than expected wind. We had HQ on the telephone hours before our report reached them. Most indignant, too, that we should shoot Germans down. The same when Red Flight ran into a Ju52 over French soil a couple of weeks ago. Who knows about this raid, sir?”
“I had to clear it with Air Commodore Branksome, as a courtesy. Nothing he could say as it was initiated from London, but he must be told what his own squadrons are doing.”
“I wish you had not, sir.”
“Nonsense, Stark! A man of his standing will not be a traitor whatever his political beliefs must be – and I only have your word for that!”
“As you wish, sir. Please do not mention the course I propose for the squadron.”
“I don’t think you have to lecture me on security, Stark!”
“Sorry, sir, I did not intend to do so. I have been meaning to send a letter to Nancy asking him whether he has heard anything about the man.”
“How do you know that name?”
“Friend of my father’s, sir. The Old Man married Nancy’s sister in late August.”
“Did he now? Of course, that Stark – the name is not so uncommon, I did not put two and two together.”
Being of a known family changed Thomas from an obscure, alarmist middle-ranking officer to being a man whose concerns should be addressed.
“Maybe, Stark… It seems hard to imagine, you know. Thing is, there’s damn all I can do tonight and here. No communications with London. The telephone don’t work nine tenths of the time and is insecure when it does and your radio cannot reach England. I hope you are wrong.”
“No doubt we shall see in the morning, sir. It looks as if it will be dry, so we shall be going. Rod!”
As expected, Rod had returned to his office in case he was needed. The existence of a strange officer in conclave with the boss would almost certainly demand work of him.
“Breakfast for seven-thirty tomorrow. Briefing for eight-fifteen. Take off at five past nine. Wag knows that I want thirteen kites for the morning and Peter has loading in hand. Close down the field for tonight – nobody on or off from now.”
“Right, Thomas. Most is in hand already – I closed the gate an hour ago. It seemed like a good idea.”
“Flying in loose formation at about ten thousand feet, gentlemen. The local training aircraft seem to like three thousand metres so we might stand out less. We are hunting a specific target and will not turn aside for chance-met contacts. Keep an eye out for bandits, however. There is reason to suppose there is at least one squadron of Me 110s in the general area. If they haven’t been sent to Poland, it might be that they are second rate, newly formed and still not fully operational. If we meet them – and I shall do my best to avoid them on the way in – remember they have a tail gunner as well as a massive punch in the nose guns. I am told that the best way of dealing with them is to kill the tail gunner from below and then go for the cockpit.”
They muttered gravely, heads nodding.
“The target is a formation of Ju 52s, carrying a whole battalion of German soldiers as an exercise in mobility. We wish to persuade them it is not a good idea. Go for the trimotors first if there is a dogfight.”
They shook their heads sadly – they would have preferred to attack fighters, given a choice. More prestige in a fighter kill, they thought.
“Green and Blue Flights will go down to the Junkers if they have an escort. Red Flight will follow me to keep the fighters off your backs. The word from on high is that this is a very important mission and we must do our best to carry it off.”
“Is killing plenty Nazi bastards. Is good.”
“Quite right, Jan. The only good Nazi is…”
There was a mass shout of, “A dead one!”
Then they laughed, perhaps embarrassed to show enthusiasm.
“Is that normal for fighter pilots, Stark?”
“What, the desire to kill the enemy? Yes. The newspapers talk of sportsmanship and chivalry in the sky, but the reality is that fighter pilots are psychotic killers – they have to be to do the job. Every Hun we shoot down is one who can’t kill us. Dog eat dog, up in the sky, sir. It’s not pretty or elegant and it is certainly not a game. Talk to one of the old hands from the Western Front, sir, and they will tell you they made their scores by sitting high in the sun, diving onto an unsuspecting tail and then disappearing. The best corpse was one with a dozen holes in the back.”
“And you have a score of twelve, Stark?”
“Fourteen now – I got two of the trainers.”
Curtis said nothing but the distaste was clear on his face.
“I’ll wait for you to come back, if you don’t mind. Then I can carry a report directly to London. I can be at Calais by the middle of the night and in the office for dawn. I have two drivers with me and a big Humber staff car with a pennant that will get it past any slow convoys.”
“What pennant, sir? I thought they were reserved for generals.”
“Cowes Yacht Club. The redcaps just see the piece of cloth fluttering in the wind – they don’t look to see what it says.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Gathering Clouds
All thirteen aircraft left the field in good order, engines behaving, nothing falling off as they took to the air. Thomas inspected the three Flights, memories of occasionally haphazard ground crews in Spain still live, sure he would find nothing wrong here but uneasy and unable to settle down to flying. He decided that being in a different machine was upsetting him.
They flew to the southeast, towards the mountains of the Vosges – small things, the highest less than five thousand feet - but rough country. In many ways it was like the foothills behind Port Moresby - but lacking the rain forest. It was still no land to go down in. Crossing the Rhine, they swung in a broad curve to the north climbing slowly and conserving fuel. Forty minutes saw them within distant sight of the target area.
“Red One. Bandits green twenty at angels twenty-five. Over.”
“Green One. Bandits due north, angels fifteen. Distant. Over.”
“Blue One. Bandits red ten, angels fifteen. Over.”
He stared at the three sets of specks, decided the most distant might be trimotors but could not be sure. He was certain that the nearer sets were Me 110s, twice their own number.
“Thomas. Got them. Twin engines green and red. Mes. Turn into red bandits conforming to me. Over.”
“Red One. What about Junkers? Over.”
“Thomas. Sod ‘em. Over.”
Thomas opened his throttle to maximum, tight against the gate. There was a reserve of emergency power still available if he pushed the lever over the gate, but such high revs could quickly damage the engine, and must be reserved for absolute need.
“Thomas. Flights form sections. Over.”
They would fight in pairs, the wingman covering his leader’s tail.
The turn had taken them distant from the squadron to starboard; they would have a tail chase with a tiny speed disadvantage, the Me 110 slightly faster than the Hurricane in level flight. They could be ignored for a couple of minutes. The high squadron to port were novices – they had taken the bait and were diving steeply into the Hurricanes as they closed the distance.
Thomas tightened the turn and increased the rate of climb and the Mes responded, their speed increasing in their power dive, steeper and steeper.
“Thomas. Squadron break left!”
The six pairs followed Thomas and clung tight to his tail as he reversed the turn after a few seconds, closing on the starboard quarter of the still diving, heavily unresponsive Me 110s as they tried to pull out and turn.
“Thomas. Single pass!”
He hauled the Hurricane round in as tight a turn as he could manage without blacking out, saw the tails of a Me 110 coming into his sights, the tail gunner trying to heave the twenty-seven pounds of his MG 15 against the force of turn and dive, unable to bring it round in time. A short burst shattered the turret windows and blew the gunner backwards. A longer, five second burst crawled up the fuselage and into the cockpit. The Me tumbled into an uncontrolled fall to the ground. He saw one other in flames, a burst into the wing tanks, at a guess.
“Thomas. All Flights break off. Form on me. Angels five. Course south west. Over.”
Radio discipline was excellent. Not a word spoken. He looked around as he pushed his plane onto the course for home. All of Red Flight. Three of Blue. Two of Green. Green would have been last to engage, would have found the Mes readier for a fight.
“Red One. Bandits dead ahead, angels two, climbing. Single engine. Over.”
“Thomas. Got them. Me 109s. Follow me. Over.”
The 109 had a speed advantage but was less agile at low level. Wiser to go in and attempt to pass through them. If these were novices too, then they had a chance. Thomas looked behind him, saw the better part of twenty Me 110s chasing but hardly gaining on them. The nearest were a good three miles distant, would not close for the better part of five minutes; time enough, probably.
“Thomas to Control. Over.”
There was a chance that the tower at Nancy would hear him.
“Control to Thomas. Over.”
“Thomas to Control. Jumped by two squadrons Me 110, short of target. Lost three. Downed some, numbers unknown. Returning. 109s climbing to our front. Over.”
The 109s were closing fast, two miles distant and lower by a thousand feet. Thomas banked and twitched left and right in a quick ‘S’, hoping to put them off their aim.
“Thomas. In and kill. Tally-ho. Over.”
The tally-ho let the squadron off the leash to fight and pull out and go back in as they wished. There was small gain to running from the faster fighters. Best to kill some and drive others away before turning back to course. Thomas pointed as directly as he could at what seemed to be the leader of the enemy squadron, holding fire as he grew larger in his windscreen, thumb on the button, waiting for the opponent to twitch.
The Me opened fire, the recoil of his own cannon driving him slightly off line. He tried to correct, heaved too hard on the stick and opened his banking plane to a burst from Thomas.
Thomas swore as he sprayed the engine of the Me, in front of the cockpit, missing his target. Smoke suddenly poured out of the engine and the pilot bailed out – well before he should have in Thomas’ opinion. He could still have pulled himself into a firing position and had time, just, to jump afterwards.
“Thomas break right!”
He heaved on the stick and dived, belting the throttle through the gate. A 109 passed over his head, lines of tracer seemingly inches above his canopy. There was another to the left, the wingman, probably. He brought his nose up and on line, fired at eighty yards, saw a sparkle of hits along the fuselage and then his guns stopped, empty.
“Thomas out of ammo. Breaking off. Squadron go home. Over.”
He dropped to fifty feet, treetop height, and turned his nose towards the town of Nancy, trying to look in front of him for tall buildings, behind for pursuit, above for diving Mes and to both sides for the rest of the squadron. He saw very little. He reduced his speed. He had been too long on emergency power already.
“Red One to Thomas. Huns turning back at border. Over.”
“Thomas. Glad they can obey orders. Squadron to go home individually. Don’t waste time trying to form up.”
He risked climbing to three thousand feet to see where he was, spotted the forests north of Nancy and the Moselle in the distance and turned his nose to the field.
“Thomas to Control. Permission to pancake. Over.”
“Control. Runway clear. Wind westerly at five knots. Over.”
The landing was as easy as ever and he taxied to the hangars as normal, waiting for the mechanics to signal him to switch off.
“Wag, I pushed her through the gate and held her there for three minutes.
Violent manoeuvring and high speed for thirty minutes.”
“I shan’t give you another one of my new machines to play with if you’re going to treat them like that, Thomas!”
Idiot came across to demand a report.
“Bugger off, Idiot. Wait till they’re all in. We’ve lost several. Where’s Major Curtis?”
“In the tower, sir. He said I should find out what has happened – better he should be out of the way, he said.”
Thomas watched them down. Five landed, one of them, David, he thought, showing damage and bouncing hard. The doctor ran towards him.
They made their reports, pooling their knowledge of what had happened. Hank was the sole survivor of Green Flight. He had seen Chuck explode into flames and go down, no parachute. Up and Jean were simply missing, as far as he knew. David and Tex from Blue Flight had spotted Cas and Mate go down, had seen no signs of the pilots. Jan had watched Rubber collide with a 110 and go down with it while Chas had seen Blank take to his parachute, but thought he might have lived.
Idiot summed up.
“Lost seven, one perhaps surviving. Claimed, five kills and six damaged. Five aircraft returned with minor damage, pilots uninjured. One written-off for spares, pilot slightly hurt. I will check the cameras on the five planes that have them.”
They scowled and plodded silently to the mess for coffee and comfort. Thomas headed for his office and Major Curtis.
“Bounced by two squadrons, the third, the 109s, responding to the action, I presume. One squadron so high that it had to have been waiting for us – not sent up after reports by their observers. They were there and ready. Had they been experienced, we would all have gone down. Squadrons still working up, I think – they’ll know better next time.”
Major Curtis refused to sit – he did not have the time, he said.
“They knew you were coming, Squadron Leader Stark. You flew into an ambush. The information might have come from my people in London or from the few people over here who knew about the operation. Two of my department are located in Paris and could have had access to the details. Both have shown themselves trustworthy in the past. Other than them, Air Commodore Branksome was asked not to divulge any details of the operation, even to his own staff – he might, possibly, have mouthed off to his own trusted aides. He could have unwittingly disclosed the existence of the plan in drunken boasting to a lover or in a brothel or such. He might have contacted the enemy. I am going to London now and will have investigations in hand by dawn. The London people are clean, I think. I am sure there is nobody reporting to Berlin; as for the tales that some are loyal to Moscow – just fairy stories, I am quite certain.”
The Gathering Clouds (Innocent No More Series, Book 1) Page 28
