The Lion and the Baron
A Misfit Squadron Novel
December 1940
Simon Brading
Cover artwork by Jack Tindale
Misfit Squadron badge by Ian T. Brading
This book is a work of fiction. While ‘real-world’ characters may appear, the nature of the divergent story means any depictions herein are fictionalised and in no way an indication of real events. Above all, characterisations have been developed with the primary aim of telling a compelling story.
Published by Sea Lion Press, 2019. All rights reserved.
Author’s Note
This is the second of two short books which bridge the events in “The Russian Resistance” and the upcoming novels in the series.
Warning! This novel contains spoilers for “The Russian Resistance” and is meant to be read after it.
Prologue
The noise was the first thing he became aware of, through the unnatural fog clouding his mind. It was a very familiar sound, the drone of a steam-powered aircraft engine, and as a pilot it should have been comforting, but there was something not quite right about it, something that disturbed him.
All engines had their own note, their own distinct timbre, and someone like him, who had been around aircraft engines all their lives, was easily able to identify them just from hearing them.
Even in his dazed state it took him only a few seconds to recognise them.
The engines were Prussian. Fischer-Bergs. And that was bad news.
It wasn’t bad because Prussian engines were bad, on the contrary, they were among the best, most efficient, steam-engines in the world.
It was bad because he was British and Britain was at war with the Prussian Empire.
The mists reached out for him, trying to drag him back down into the darkness, but something prickled at the corner of his mind, some feeling of urgency, of something left undone, of imminent danger for himself or for another, so he resisted, trying to claw his way back to the light.
Gradually he became aware of another sound over the near-constant drone of the engines, an occasional clinking noise, and with it came a delicious and distinctive smell, one that brought back memories of past visits to Munich and Berlin.
Curious, he opened his eyes, but immediately squeezed them shut again with a groan when the sudden light sent a bolt of pain to his temples.
‘Guten Tag, Lord Drake! Are you hungry?’
The final vestiges of the drug-induced haze fled at the unwelcome voice and the memories of the last week came rushing painfully back.
Chapter 1
We’ll talk when you get back.
Gwen’s words echoed in Drake’s head as he flew his Harridan through the freezing air above Northern Muscovy, his hands and feet automatically making the small adjustments required to hold formation with the flight leader while his mind was elsewhere.
He’d heard variations of the phrase from various women over the last five or six years and he knew that it could mean anything, from something wonderful, like a promise of delights, to something awful, like a scare or an ending. He also knew that the only way he would know for sure what it meant was to wait and hear what she said.
That hadn’t stopped him from going through every possibility in his mind over and over, though, and he’d imagined himself alternately slapped and kissed more than a dozen times since takeoff. It was starting to get a bit repetitive, but for some reason he just couldn’t stop.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Even though he’d heard that she’d joined Misfit Squadron and known they were going to be joining the mission to Muscovy, he hadn’t been prepared for her to walk into the ready room on the Arturo and memories of childhood had come flooding back. At the same time, he’d felt intimidated by her new status as a hero of Britain and become quite flustered. He’d made something of a fool of himself and he felt his cheeks heating despite the cold as he remembered how he had tried to make more of his own role in her becoming a pilot, acting as if he were still that self-important 9 year-old.
He hadn’t let that first disastrous encounter put him off and during the weeks they’d been at Vaenga he’d taken every opportunity to hint at how he felt about her. She hadn’t taken much notice, or at least hadn’t recognised his advances as such, and only had eyes for her American roommate, Kitty. Frustrated, he’d become more overt in his approaches, but to no avail.
Finally, things had come to a head at a party when, on impulse and after a couple of vodkas too many, he’d as good as proposed to her. Predictably, she hadn’t leapt at the offer, but neither had she turned him down. Instead she had promised to think about it.
In hindsight that had probably been the best outcome he could have hoped for; he’d placed her on a pedestal during their years apart and idealised her until somehow over the years she’d become the love of his life, but she hadn’t done the same - she’d even fallen in love with and married another man.
He was convinced that he could win her, though; he’d seen something in her eyes that morning, a gleam that made him think that he was going to like what she had to say.
We’ll talk when you get back.
He smiled at the sweet sound of her voice in his mind and decided to replay one of the more pleasant daydreams, the one where Gwen accepted his proposal and they took a couple of days leave in a picturesque house near a frozen lake...
‘Enemy in sight! Teacher flight, full emergency throttle. Now!’
Squadron Leader Rosaline Pemberton’s voice came over the private frequency, startling Drake out of his reverie and he berated himself for having gotten so distracted in the middle of a combat zone. He slammed his throttle through the gate, then slotted lenses in place over his goggles and scanned the sky, twisting in his seat, trying to spot the enemy aircraft. He could find no sign of them and for the umpteenth time he lamented the fact that regulations stated he had to use the cheap RAC-issue lenses, wishing, as always, for his own Swiss-fabricated set.
He thumbed his transmit button. ‘Two here. I don’t see them, Leader.’
‘Twelve o’clock low, Two. That damn fool Baryshnikov is going straight for them.’
While it was indeed Wolfpack Squadron’s job to intercept incoming Prussian aircraft, that morning they were supposed to be on a training flight.
Under the watchful eyes of the instructors the thirteen Harridans had headed east, away from the front lines, to carry out basic manoeuvres so that the four pilots, who’d arrived only hours before, had a chance to get to know their new Harridans before being thrown into the fight. Since it was a training flight and not a combat sortie, Pemberton was in charge, and her orders had been very clear - in the unlikely event that an enemy should appear, Baryshnikov was to take his squadron to safety and not engage.
Drake wondered what the enemy were doing so far from any worthwhile targets, but when he looked in the direction Pemberton had indicated he was horrified to see the sun glinting on the river that marked the border with Norway and the front line - not only was Captain Sergei Baryshnikov contravening Pemberton’s orders and moving to engage the enemy but, while Drake had been daydreaming about Gwen, the man had reversed course and deliberately gone looking for them.
There was a sharp crackle as Pemberton switched to the channel they shared with the Muscovites. ‘Wolfpack Leader this is Teacher Leader, disengage, repeat, disengage and return to base.’
There was no answer, though, just silence, and Drake smiled wryly, knowing full well that the headstrong Baryshnikov was either ignoring her or too busy shouting at his pilots to take any notice.
They were much closer to the gaily-coloured Harridans of the Wolfpack now and Drake went cold when he finally sa
w what had gotten Pemberton in such a flap.
The aircraft that the Muscovites were rushing headlong to engage were bright red - it wasn’t just any old Prussian squadron the Wolfpack were attacking, but the Crimson Barons, the best pilots the enemy had, equipped with the best aircraft. And the damn fool hadn’t even kept his height advantage but had descended from their patrol height and led his men and women straight in at treetop level to where the Prussians were attacking the ground forces.
The result was utterly predictable and the three instructors were forced to watch, helpless, as the Muscovite Harridans began to fall from the sky, the new pilots, whose names Drake hadn’t even had a chance to learn, the first to fall.
‘What are we going to do, Skipper?’ asked Betsy Howard, her uncertainty clear in her voice. Of the three, she was the most technically brilliant and was able to get the best out of even the worst student, but she lacked real combat experience, having been an instructor before the war and then kept off the front lines to continue her job.
Pemberton had a hard choice to make. Their orders from the Ministry for War were clear, they were not to engage the enemy while in Muscovy because their ability to train pilots was far more important to the war effort than the few kills they might make, but if they didn’t do something before too long, there wouldn’t be anybody left to train. Ordinarily, she was a real stickler for the rulebook, but Drake was fairly sure she wouldn’t abandon pilots they were responsible for and allow them to be slaughtered.
A single glance across to Pemberton gave him all the confirmation he needed; the cold composure that had earned her the nickname The Ice Queen from her students in Britain was gone and in its place was a white hot fury, evident even beneath the breathing apparatus and goggles covering most of her face.
Pemberton answered Howard with a snarl. ‘Bugger this for a lark! Teacher flight, pick your targets and engage. Let’s hope the bastards are low on tension and ammo so we can get at least a few of these girls and boys home.’
The three Royal Aviation Corps pilots drifted apart as they swooped, giving each other room to manoeuvre while still maintaining an invisible thread between them - the instinct and understanding that weeks of working together had developed.
Straight away Drake saw his chance when two of the red machines crossed in front of him, chasing after the same Harridan, playing with it, supremely confident in the outcome. He banked after them, fully intending to disavow them of that conviction. He lined up on the leader of the pair and squeezed the trigger on his stick, giving the enemy aircraft a full three-second burst from his twelve machine guns. The immense recoil from the guns slowed his Harridan noticeably, but the effect on the Baron’s Blutsauger was far more pronounced and it folded up as if it were made of paper and dropped like a stone.
He switched his aim to the other machine, but, lesson learnt, it jerked away from him and disengaged from the Muscovite aircraft. He turned to follow it, but tracers shot past his canopy and the Harridan lurched as something impacted on his right wing, tearing a large hole in it and obliterating the lion of the roundel. He threw the machine into desperate manoeuvres, spiralling down out of the sky until he was only feet above the canopy of the forest, then put the machine into a maximum rate turn, craning his head to look for his attacker.
There were two of them - two Blutsaugers had followed him down and were firmly stuck on his tail, one behind the other.
He held the turn, watching the relative angles and was relieved when he saw that the Harridan was out turning them. It was only by fifteen or twenty degrees per second, but that was more than enough to ensure not only his survival, but his victory. His vision narrowed with the G force and he shouted his annoyance at stupid regulations which prevented him from wearing the flightsuit his parents had bought him on his eighteenth birthday, the effort serving to force blood back into his head.
With each second that passed the two machines slowly traversed his canopy, seeming to move backwards as he gained on them. The worried faces of the two Prussian pilots stared back at him across the wide circle the three machines were describing in the air and he grinned in satisfaction, knowing he would be able to take at least one more of the Barons out of the fight and maybe the war.
The rearmost Prussian fighter swam lazily across his windscreen, approaching his sights, and he curled his finger around the trigger in anticipation.
The stick juddered under his hand, but it wasn’t vibration from his guns and he swore as a series of huge holes appeared as if by magic on his wing, jerking him almost completely out of the turn with the heavy impact, and he flinched involuntarily as a third enemy aircraft screamed past him, almost close enough to touch.
This machine wasn’t completely red, though; its nose was checked black.
Gruber.
Drake forgot about the two Blutsaugers in the face of the much greater threat and put his Harridan onto its other wing to pursue their leader, who was racing away at top speed only feet above the tree tops, the empty branches swirling and grasping in his wake.
Drake had been going relatively slowly during the turn so Gruber pulled away steadily at first, but with the Harridan’s new Rentley-Joyce spring once more at full emergency unwind the gap soon stopped widening, then slowly began to close.
As Drake chased the red and black machine he kept his eyes roving around the sky, making sure that none of the other Barons were trying to get the drop on him, but they were all engaged with the instructors and what remained of the Wolfpack, who appeared to be holding their own a bit more.
The Harridan closed to extreme firing range and Drake smiled grimly as he moved his finger back over the trigger, but he didn’t open fire; at that distance the streams of bullets from the machine guns would be converging and most, if not all, of the rounds would go to waste. He waited, biding his time as he crept slowly closer to Gruber’s aircraft.
At six hundred yards he knew he was still beyond optimal firing distance, but he was getting impatient and he knew he had plenty of ammunition to spare so he took a deep breath to steady himself, then slowly applied pressure to the trigger, as if he were a sharpshooter.
In the same instant he fired, Gruber disappeared.
For a split second he was unsure what had happened, but then he saw that the endless sea of tall trees ended suddenly ahead at the river and realised that the Prussian aircraft had ducked behind them, gaining cover temporarily, moving so fast he had missed it in the space of a single blink. That wouldn’t save Gruber, though, because when Drake reached the same point there would be nowhere left to hide and he would be an easy target.
It was less than a third of a mile to the cliffs at the edge of the river and Drake’s Harridan covered it in only slightly more than a second, but when the last of the tall trees disappeared below him Gruber’s machine was no longer in front of him, but already far away off to one side - the Prussian had known that his pursuer would lose sight of him momentarily and had taken the opportunity to throw his aircraft into an impossible turn that would have torn the wings off anything other than a biplane. Drake kicked his rudder to slew his Harridan and gave him a quick burst, but it was a futile gesture made out of frustration.
He knew there was no way he could match Gruber’s manoeuvre, so he didn’t even try and just went into a steep climb, substituting his greater speed for altitude to put him outside of Gruber’s reach so that he could turn safely before coming back.
He used the opportunity to search the sky again, making sure nobody was waiting to pounce, but there was nothing except for the solid white of clouds. They had left the rest of the fight far behind. There was nobody to swing the balance in favour of either of the combatants.
He grinned and glanced at his instruments. His airspeed had come down considerably and it was almost time to turn back.
Although if Gruber had made his escape that would be no great loss...
Several heavy thuds shook the Harridan and he looked up in shock to find his rear view mirror fi
lled with red and black checks.
‘How in the...?’
That was all he could get out before the wing of his aircraft separated from its fuselage and he was slammed sideways. His straps brought him up short before his head could hit the canopy, but they dug into him painfully as the Harridan spun, plummeting towards the trees below.
He had only seconds to get out before he hit the ground and he fought to get to the canopy release, his arms many times heavier than they should be. With a supreme effort he found the latch and the glass shot back. It shattered as it slammed into the stops and showered him with glass, but he barely noticed because he was already struggling to undo the straps holding him to the Harridan.
One more second was all he needed.
He didn’t have it.
We’ll talk when you get back.
The last thought that crossed his mind as his aircraft hit the tops of the trees and began tumbling sickeningly was regret that he would never know what Gwen’s words had meant.
Chapter 2
The afterlife was cold.
He remembered thinking that afterwards, a long time afterwards, because his next thought wiped that one out of his mind.
Ow.
Drake couldn’t remember ever having been in so much pain before. Not when he’d fallen out of the big oak on the estate, nor when he’d been forced to land in a convent’s wheat field and the sister superior had chased him with a stick for destroying a large part of their crop.
Not even when he’d seen Gwen with Kitty...
However unwelcome it was, though, at least the pain, told him he was alive.
He opened his eyes, wondering how he had survived and couldn’t help but laugh, even though it hurt and made him gasp for breath.
The Harridan had a well-deserved reputation for being robust and forgiving of even the most inexperienced pilots. It wasn’t nearly as skittish as the Spitsteam and would stay in the air well after sustaining damage that would have knocked the more temperamental aircraft out of the sky. Drake had seen Harridans make it home with half a wing missing or with very little in the way of tails and even when one of them did crash - like when the pilot was too injured to carry out a safe landing, or insisted on trying to put the aircraft down without using the undercarriage (something that happened far too often) - all was not lost and many pilots still survived even the worst prangs due to one special design feature, the Hawking Cage, a framework of reinforced metal around the cockpit which enclosed the pilot in a protective shell. (It also reportedly acted as a Faraday cage and protected the pilot against lightning, but Drake had never heard of anyone being silly enough to go up in a thunderstorm to test that hypothesis.)
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