Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2)

by Charles S. Jackson

  Whittaker’s boot slipped on one of the lower tower supports as he searched for solid footing, causing him to cling desperately to the girders and release a gasp of fright that was almost an outright cry of fear. With one last, solemn glance down at the patch of burnt grass below, he cleared his mind of any thoughts other than simply making it to ground level safely and continued his slow, nervous climb down.

  Sixty-four kilometres west of the Outer Hebrides, the St Kilda archipelago was a small, rocky cluster of lonely, windswept islands that seemed almost cast adrift amid the upper reaches of the North Atlantic. Settled at least as early as the Bronze Age, the common use of Nordic place names suggested a Viking influence in the archipelago’s history, although no physical evidence to prove the theory had ever been uncovered.

  The islands had for many years fallen under the control of the Harris branch of the Clan MacLeod, but it wasn’t until the First World War that native St Kildans first experienced regular contact with the outside world. A Royal Navy signal station had been constructed on Hirta not long after the declaration of the war and in May of 1915, a German U-boat shelled the island after delivering a warning to the local inhabitants. The signal station was destroyed and some other buildings damaged but no loss of life resulted. The Royal Navy responded to the belated threat by installing a single four-inch gun emplacement overlooking Village Bay – an installation that would never fire a shot in anger.

  The resultant increase in contact with the mainland following World War One accelerated the slow movement of the tiny community toward a money-based economy, reducing its self-reliance and forcing it to further expand its contact with the outside world. The population – small already – fell dramatically after the war as many young men left the island and four more fell victim to influenza around the same time, leaving just thirty-seven inhabitants by the end of the 1920s.

  Successive crop failures and a build up of lead and other pollutants in the soil due to years of intensive farming were followed in 1928 by another death, this time from appendicitis. That final loss of life formed the catalyst for the remaining thirty-six members of the community to be evacuated to the mainland at their own request, the final departure being completed on the 29th of August, 1930. The islands had remained abandoned ever since.

  Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters looked on in frustration, squinting through a large brass refractor telescope mounted upon a sturdy tripod atop the summit of Mullach Mòr; the huge, stony hill placed roughly at the centre of the main St Kilda island of Hirta. Eighty-four years old, he was generally considered by all who knew him to be amazingly fit and sharp of mind for a man of such advanced age. There were a select few – men like Direktor Hegel or Reuters’ aide and close friend, Generaloberst Albert Schiller – who knew the real reasons for his remarkable physical and mental state, although none of them were likely to openly discuss the subject.

  Right at that moment however, with the icy gales of the North Atlantic blasting up the hillside and whipping past him with all the ferocity of the Arctic Circle (which was far too close to their current position for his liking), Reuters imagined he was feeling just about every single one of those eighty-four years. The current project they were working hard to complete on that otherwise uninhabited island chain in the Outer Hebrides had been plagued with bad luck, accidents and terrible weather, and the subsequent delays in schedule had become significant enough to have required his personal interference.

  With war continuing in North Africa and basically the entire continent of Occupied Europe to manage, the Reichsmarschall’s time was desperately needed elsewhere. There was also the matter of an upcoming trip to the Far East, initially at the request of the Japanese Prime Minister Tōjō and endorsed by the Führer, although ‘insisted upon’ would’ve been a far more appropriate term in Reuters’ opinion.

  The ‘good will tour’ was scheduled for November/December and there was still much preparation to be fitted in around the multitude of other pressing duties that were part and parcel of the daily routine of the Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht. There was little need for it to be pointed out that the Reichsmarschall could ill afford to waste any more time on that desolate, abandoned archipelago than was absolutely necessary.

  Mullach Mòr rose 360 metres above sea level at the centre of Hirta, overshadowed by the imposing stature of Conachair, towering less than a kilometre away to the north-east with its summit wreathed in an unforgiving layer of grey clouds. Behind him, a large concrete bunker had been partially dug into the rocky earth with large vision slots facing out toward Soay and the north-west. A cluster of antennas and video recording equipment were mounted across the structure’s broad, flat roof, all also pointed to the west, while thick power and communication cables left the rear of the bunker and ran away down the eastern slope toward the ocean, staked securely to the earth at regular intervals along their entire length and wrapped in a thick cover of lead shielding.

  The eastern slope of Mullach Mòr swept steeply down to Village Bay and Am Baile, formerly the only major settlement of the archipelago prior to its evacuation. Most of the abandoned buildings of Am Baile dated back to the 1860s and were of a style known as ‘Black Houses’. Homes were generally constructed of double dry-stone walls with wooden rafters and a roof of thatched turf, cereal straw or reeds. Doors were low and narrow, while windows were small and usually never numbered more than one or two per dwelling at most. Chimneys weren’t usually fitted, and smoke was instead allowed to filter through the roof itself. There was also an assortment of other buildings that included the remains of three separate churches, one dating back to the late 17th Century.

  Having lay deserted for over a decade since the departure of the last of St Kilda’s original inhabitants in 1930, the township was now a thriving ‘community’ once more, this time filled with Wehrmacht and RFR research personnel. Large diesel generators provided power for the makeshift installation at Am Baile that now added dozens of army tents of various sizes, filling every open space between the existing buildings and going some way at least to providing accommodation for the hundreds of workers and military living there for the duration of the project.

  Several heavy transport vessels lay anchored in Village Bay itself, with lighters and smaller landing craft ferrying men and equipment back and forth from the shoreline. Further out to sea to Hirta’s immediate south-east, off the coast of the small island of Dun, the amphibious assault ship Albert Schlageter also lay at anchor, seemingly dormant save for the occasional, infrequent lift off of a helicopter or reconnaissance patrol. The ship had arrived just the day before, having steamed directly from Kiel at full speed at the request of the Reichsmarschall himself after being diverted from its original destination of North Africa within hours of its leaving port.

  He turned momentarily at the sound of footsteps behind him and was presented with a senior Wehrmacht NCO carrying a large and bulky, field-grey-painted radio handset with an almost ludicrously-long whip antenna protruding from the top.

  “Radio message for you, Mein Herr,” the young sergeant announced quickly, snapping crisply to attention as he drew near. “Grossadmiral Dönitz calling directly from Berlin…!”

  “Danke, oberfeldwebel,” he replied with a forced smile. Extending his hand, he accepted the offered radio and immediately raised it to his ear. “…Reuters…” he stated with cold simplicity, well aware he required nothing more by way if introduction.

  There was a short pause as he took in the information being provided at the other end of the relayed transmission, nodding unnecessarily here and there in acknowledgement throughout.

  “Yes, Karl… I understand, thank you.” He said finally, the faint smile on his lips now almost genuine upon receipt of some welcome news. “You’re clear that I want both U-1401 and -1404 stationed off Alexandria by the end of this week…?” Another short pause, then: “Ausgezeichnet…! Well done! Thank you again, Karl… Reuters out…”

  The Reichsmarschall returned the radio and
provided a cursory salute before once more turning back toward the distant island of Soay, the NCO instantly forgotten. He lowered his head and stared through the telescope once more, the optics just powerful enough to pick out the tower at the top of Cnoc Glas in those conditions from a distance of around 3,500 metres. He couldn’t see Whittaker or the others from that distance as they carried out their careful climb down, but he knew they were there all the same: he’d given the order himself to abandon work for the afternoon. Reuters released a long, exhausted sigh of resignation and straightened his body once more, rising to full height and ending the movement in a long stretch that went some way to relieving the vague ache developing in his lower back.

  The cloud cover was as solid and unrelenting as it had been for the better part of a week, and even if the sky had been completely clear, the dangerous wind gusts would’ve made the safe operation of helicopters all but impossible. He’d been present when they’d lost the chopper the previous week, and it’d been on his orders that the aircraft had attempted the dangerous manoeuvre in the first place. In several towns across Germany, it would now be the duty of other officers to deliver the terrible news to mothers, fathers, wives and siblings regarding the loss of the aircraft’s crew on that fateful day. He’d been forced to make those visits himself a few times as a younger officer and he felt some deep personal guilt as he recalled how terrible those times had been.

  There’d been a few fleeting breaks in the weather in the days since – enough for the smaller, lighter MH-3E helicopters stationed at Am Baile to assist in completion of the tower itself – but they’d been forced to wait for the arrival of the Albert Schlageter for the project to proceed further. Of the thirty aircraft stored within its hangars, twelve were MH-16A medium transport helicopters identical to the one lost atop Soay the week before. The MH-16 was a twin-rotor aircraft powered by a pair of 18-cylinder BMW radial engines and capable of lifting twenty-five fully-equipped combat troops into battle.

  The heavy-duty hook beneath the centre of its fuselage was also capable of lifting up to 3.5 tonnes of cargo – a weight that was far in excess of anything possible using the smaller but far more numerous MH-3 models. It was that lifting ability that was desperately needed, and since the Schlageter’s arrival there’d been no respite from the weather to allow a return to safe flying operations. Prior to the accident, Reuters had been as eager as the rest to push his men to their limits in the name of success but the loss of those five good men on the summit of Cnoc Glas had changed all that. The Reichsmarschall couldn’t in good conscience bring himself to wantonly sacrifice any more lives in such a reckless manner: he’d not see another commanding officer forced to knock on another unsuspecting family’s door as the bearer of bad tidings without good reason.

  “Called it off for another day, Kurt…?” Albert Schiller enquired as he approached and stood at Reuters’ right shoulder. So lost was the man in his own thoughts that he’d not noticed Schiller’s arrival at all, and the sound of a voice directly beside him almost caused Reuters to flinch in surprise.

  “What else can I do in this verdammt weather?” Reuters growled plaintively, hands on hips as he released another sigh of frustration and spat angrily at the earth by his feet. “The tower’s ready… the pilots are ready… the bloody device is ready…” he raised an accusatory finger and jabbed it in the general direction of the hazy shape of Soay in the distance “…and here we are, stuck with our hands stuffed in our bloody pockets as we wait for just a little calm weather and – God forbid! – perhaps the barest hint of sunshine. Scheisse…!”

  “Our weather reports for Scotland suggest we should have exactly that within the next twenty-four hours or so, Kurt – you need to relax and have a little patience.”

  “‘Patience’, you say?” Reuters almost laughed out loud at the thought, although there was little humour in it. “Those ‘weather reports’ you’re referring to might well suggest some lovely weather ahead for Glasgow or Edinburgh… perhaps even bloody Inverness… but where exactly in those wonderful records of ours that we’ve relied on so heavily for the last nine years does it actually carry weather charts for this Godforsaken spot we’re standing on right now?” The dry tone of sharp sarcasm filtered into his words as he gave a faint, mirthless smile. “I must remember to thank our esteemed Abwehr for suggesting this place as a test site. ‘Out of the way’… ‘secluded’… ‘away from prying eyes, but still within a few hours’ flight of civilisation’… I wonder if anyone writing those reports ever actually set foot on this crusty little shitpile…? I don’t blame the locals for asking to be evacuated: I’ve only been here ten bloody days, and I can’t stand the fucking place already…!”

  Papa… Papa… I want it… I want it…!

  The faint words – thoughts – of a child echoed unbidden in Kurt Reuters’ mind accompanied by a short, sudden wave of nausea that caused him to sway slightly, his step faltering on the uneven ground.

  “You all right, Kurt?” Schiller asked quickly with a faint frown, laying a steadying hand gently on his commander’s shoulder as the older man immediately regained his footing.

  “What…? Who…?” Reuters turned to stare at his friend, eyes glazed as it took a second or two before recognition finally returned. “Albert…? Yes… yes, Albert… I – I’m fine…” He shook his head savagely, trying to clear his thoughts and raising a hand to rub at his eyes as his shoulders sagged visibly. “I’m fine,” he repeated, this time with more conviction. “Just tired, I think… a lot of long days and short nights with little so far to show for it.”

  “Well come on then, ‘Old Man’,” Schiller clapped a firmer hand on his CO’s shoulder. “The ‘fun’s’ over for the day and I think we could all use some rest. Sounds to me like you need a nice cup of hot coffee, and I have it on good authority there’s a group of officers on the Schlageter who know where they can lay their hands on a grind of excellent quality. I’m sure they could find it in their hearts to accommodate the Reichsmarschall himself and brew something up for us.”

  September 24, 1942

  Thursday

  It was well past noon the following day before the weather had abated enough for flight operations to recommence. Although an unbroken cloud cover remained right across the entire horizon, it had lifted sufficiently to allow clear visibility above the summit of Cnoc Glas. More importantly, the wind had also eased to the point of almost non-existence, making it safe to fly helicopters again in close proximity to the tower. Having become somewhat stagnant during down time brought on through execrable weather over the preceding days, the tower construction site, the bunker area and the main Wehrmacht camp down at Am Baile were now hives of activity once more as a result.

  On the flight deck of the Albert Schlageter, Felix Böhm busied himself with his final, pre-flight checks as ground crew finished their own maintenance and fuelling of his Focke-Achgelis MH-16 troop assault helicopter. Böhm wasn’t particularly happy about his aircraft having been chosen for the mission however he’d not have wished the dubious honour on any of his colleagues either, so the whole thing was largely academic. Part of his displeasure revolved around the fact that almost every piece of equipment considered non-essential to the upcoming flight had been summarily stripped from the aircraft.

  Even such ‘minor’ items such as extra life jackets and first aid kits had been removed by the deck crew, leaving barely the shell of an operational aircraft in their wake. Like most pilots, Böhm with good reason considered the aircraft assigned to him to be his ‘baby’ and he was therefore quite overprotective of it. Böhm had flown the smaller NH-3 model with the 1st SS Flieger Division prior to being posted to the Schlageter, and although his aircraft had suffered battle damage of varying severity on occasion he’d always been able to bring them home in one piece. Be it pragmatism or superstition, Böhm was certain that his rabidly protective attitude toward his helicopter had been a contributing factor in many safe returns to base.

  At just twenty-six
years of age, Felix Böhm was already an experienced veteran and had flown helicopters of varying types throughout his career with the Waffen-SS. Of medium height, he was a man of broad, welcoming features and a solid, stocky build he’d developed as a teenager while helping out in many of his father’s steel mills. His hands and arms still carried scars left over from scrapes and burns he’d received at those foundries and he wore them with all the pride one would expect from a man completely unafraid of good, honest hard work. No great comedian himself, he nevertheless enjoyed hearing a good joke and therefore relished the company of the rest of his Kaffeeklatsch compatriots. Any lack of sharp wit on his own part was more than compensated for by good overall intelligence and a broad general knowledge and a good conversation with Böhm was often the highlight of a more serious evening ‘get-together’.

  The MH-16E, nicknamed ‘Mixgerät’ (or ‘Mixer’) by their crews due to their unusual appearance, were incredibly useful and versatile aircraft. Already strapped into his pilot’s seat, Böhm was just completing the last of his instrument checks as he unexpectedly heard footsteps ringing against the metal floor of the main cargo area behind him, and as he turned his head he caught sight of Berndt Schmidt and Milo Wisch, their beaming, mischievous faces staring back at him from the other side of the bulkhead hatchway.

  “Might I enquire as to what you two think you’re doing here?” He snapped sharply, all professionalism and the undisputed commander of everything that occurred within his own aircraft. “I’ve no authorisation for passengers on this flight, and more to the point I’ve just had every piece of excess weight stripped out of the poor girl in preparation for take off. The last thing I need is to have several hundred useless kilos dumped straight back on just because I now have to haul your well-shined asses into the sky with me!”