The four-ship flight of Russian Yaks—Tommy couldn’t tell what model—had flashed in line formation through the airspace Butternut Flight had just vacated, a game of aerial chicken Tommy had seen them play before. In fact, in those weeks he’d liaised with that Russian squadron in Vienna, he’d practiced it with them as a member of their team. Whether the Yaks were aiming to skim over or under the jugs was a moot point now: They may be a little nuts, but they’re not suicidal.
“Anybody think they got shot at?” he asked his flight.
In rapid succession, three high-pitched voices, stressed from the tension of combat, replied, Negative.
“Excellent,” Tommy replied. “Okay, let’s open up the turbos a little and catch up to those bastards.”
“What if they break and go solo?” It was Jack Parrish’s voice.
“They won’t fight that way,” Tommy replied, “not as long as our formation’s intact.”
Tony Jansen added, “I sure hope somebody’s watching the fuel.”
“Keep your drawers on,” Tommy replied. “Everybody’s watching the fuel. We’ve got a couple of minutes to play with.”
The Yaks did Butternut Flight a favor; still in line formation, they began a slow right turn to the south, cutting the distance the jugs needed to fly to catch up. Closing on the Russians now, Tommy identified their aircraft as Yak-9s.
I know a little something about those ships. Even flew one a couple of times when I was with the Russians. If you ask me, these guys are running for home. They’ve had all the fun they’re going to have with us. Probably got the word we were in the area from those ships I buzzed. They’re figuring we won’t chase them over Polish airspace…
And they’re right. But maybe we’ve still got one chance to spook them a little.
Once they’d closed to five hundred yards, Tommy said, “That’s close enough.”
But watching the Yaks’ sloppy, widely spaced formation gave him an idea.
“Don’t follow me,” he told his flight. “Stay this far back and hold your line.”
Then he nudged Eclipse right into the middle of the Russian formation.
As the ships bobbed up and down, he got a glimpse at each of the four Russian pilots. The one on the far left—the flight leader, he presumed—was giving him the thumbs up sign. Then the other three were doing the same.
Tommy returned the gesture, first to his left, and then to his right. It was a shame, he thought, that they couldn’t see his mocking grin beneath the oxygen mask. He’d worked with Russians before; he knew from hard experience that the gesture meant something very different for them than it did for Americans.
Then, he pulled Eclipse straight up and over in an Immelman Turn, leaving the Russians and reversing direction back toward his own flight. She was still inverted as she whizzed passed the jugs. Rolling her level, Tommy said, “Okay, boys…break it off. Let’s go home.”
Butternut Flight was more than grateful for those runway lights at Bremen. Even though the sky still glowed with the pale pink of dusk, the surface of the earth was shrouded in darkness. The lights of the city itself and the Weser River docks twinkled off their right wingtips as they turned, one at a time, to final approach. The airfield would’ve been indistinguishable, nothing more than a random patch of darkness, without that ribbon of white lights outlining the runway.
Tommy would land last. “Once you’re down,” he told his flight, “watch real carefully for the turn-off. Remember, the taxiways don’t have lights. Pay close attention to where that follow me truck is leading you. Use that landing light of yours for all it’s worth.”
It wouldn’t be the first time a pilot—even a highly experienced pilot—made a perfect night landing only to put a wheel or two off the taxiway on his way to the ramp and get mired in soft or rutty ground.
He breathed sighs of relief as each of the three ships landing before him reported they were safely on the ground and taxiing to the ramp. It was Tommy’s turn to land now: My boys did good. Let’s hope I don’t mess up. It’s been a while since I’ve landed in the dark.
A few minutes later, Eclipse was down safe and sound, too, and being guided into her parking spot. Tommy’s pilots were gathered and waiting for him as he climbed from her cockpit. Tony Jansen spoke for the puzzled group: “What happened when you horned into that Russian formation, boss?”
“Not much. We just exchanged friendly gestures.” He displayed a thumbs up.
“Ah, c’mon,” Jack Parrish said. “I’ve got a hunch it was more like this…”
He was holding up a middle finger.
“A little cultural lesson for you guys,” Tommy replied, as he made the thumbs up again. “To a Russian, this means fuck you. They shot their thumbs at me, I shot them one right back.”
Bobby Lescault asked, “So who won that little skirmish, boss? Us or them?”
“Nobody won,” Tommy replied. “That was just the warm-up.”
Chapter Seven
Dwight Eisenhower was not a happy general. It wasn’t even 1000 hours yet, but he was already lighting up the first cigarette from the day’s third pack. His personal physician had taken his blood pressure two hours ago. The reading wasn’t good: 185 over 105. Screaming high, the doc had noted. And that was before the message from General Marshall in Washington had come off the teletype at his Frankfurt HQ. He didn’t want to think what that BP reading might be now.
The opening sections of the message were the usual discourses on occupation policies and demobilization goals. But the final section had been the killer:
The president is deeply concerned over the concessions and accommodations you have made—and continue to make—to the Soviets. As has been stated previously, it is the intention of this government to let Lend-Lease accommodations to the Soviets collapse of their own weight by removing our logistical support. We can expect no compensation in any form to support the continued maintenance of this equipment, as the Soviet economy is, as you are well aware, quite distressed, more so than any of the other victorious Allies. It is not desired that said equipment be returned to the US inventory as that equipment would be excess to European theater demands, and the costs of refurbishment and transport to the Pacific theater from Europe—crossing not one but two oceans—are not within economic reason.
Now that this logistical support has been removed, however, it is obvious that security of parts and supplies applicable to Lend-Lease equipment is sorely lacking, in fact, practically nonexistent by your decree, and, in all likelihood, contributed to the loss of at least one American life, as noted in your daily report of 11 Jul 45.
The president attributes these problems to policies based on wishful thinking rather than hard political realities, and he wonders whether some other American military governor might be more suited to the realities of a divided postwar Germany. Our British friends remain convinced that the Soviets are intent on increasing their already excessive footprint on the Continent. That would, of course, be as unacceptable to this government as it is to Whitehall. Therefore, we must reduce their capacity to do so. The president does not intend to win the war only to lose the peace.
I suggest you emulate the British by taking a harder line in all matters involving the Soviets immediately.
Eisenhower flung the message onto his desk, wondering who might be the some other American military governor President Truman was suggesting. He drew a blank for a brief moment, and then it hit him like a blow to the gut:
Oh, no...please tell me he’s not talking about George Patton. Really, Patton? The only American general who’s made no secret of his willingness to fight the Soviets…to push those “Mongol savages” all the way back to Moscow, which he’s said—out loud—any number of times? He’s more fanatical about taking on the Reds than Churchill.
Surely the president has heard the deluded drivel that constantly spews from George’s mouth about the decency of the German people and his admiration for the German military? Hell, he sounds more like a Nazi
than the Nazis sometimes.
And those ridiculous speeches he made on that latest war bond tour back in the States! Like when he told an assembly of Gold Star Mothers that men killed in combat were often fools…
And those remarks equating Jews and communists.
Don’t tell me this deluded, jingoistic narcissist is just what Truman’s looking for to run all of Allied-occupied Germany. Hell, I still haven’t seen him do anything worth a damn as military governor of Bavaria.
But Eisenhower realized that his problems ran deeper than fending off being replaced by George Patton. Washington wanted him to be tougher in his dealings with the Soviets. On that score, he could think of nothing that would have a greater effect than to immediately cut off the steady flow of gasoline he’d been providing them.
Winston Churchill rarely graced the government chambers of Whitehall before 1200 hours, and if he did, he would be in a foul mood from lack of sleep. He was a night person, spending the nocturnal hours writing his papers, plowing through stacks of books, letters, and government documents, and consuming brandy and cigars in prodigious amounts, rarely retiring until dawn. The military leaders waiting in his office this mid-July morning were expecting the usual impatient, inattentive, and bleary-eyed curmudgeon the 1000 hour had always offered them in the past.
This morning, to their surprise and relief, was proving to be different. Armed with the information that had been brought to 10 Downing in the middle of the night, the Prime Minister already knew the Soviet battleship Arkhangelsk had sunk in the Baltic late yesterday. That news had made him positively gleeful.
What made it even sweeter was the Arkhangelsk had—until last year—been HMS Royal Sovereign, a British battleship built in 1916 and transferred to the Soviet Navy, providing additional firepower for the Soviet naval forces protecting the Arctic convoy routes so vital to Stalin’s war effort. Outmoded and cantankerous, the Royal Navy had been well rid of her, and when eventually returned to British hands she would, in all likelihood, have to be scrapped.
“Just one question, Admiral Cunningham,” Churchill said. “We’re quite sure this is the Arkhangelsk that’s gone to the bottom?”
“Positive, Prime Minister,” Cunningham, the First Sea Lord, replied. “A Yank pilot has provided photographic proof. We could read her name across the stern, and the superstructure was unmistakably hers.”
“So our submarine sunk the bloody old girl after all,” Churchill gushed. “Do we know if they were trying to run her back to Saint Petersburg on a temporary repair—and the repair failed? Or was she taken out of the harbor to be scuttled?”
“We don’t know, Prime Minister. Either is possible. But we know for certain she was not attacked by us or the Yanks since our submarine torpedoed her. As you know, after that attack, photo recon captured her berthed at Gdansk Bay.”
“What are the Russians saying?”
“Absolutely nothing. They don’t publicly discuss embarrassments.”
“And we are taking the added precautions we discussed to prevent their submarines from doing the same thing to us, are we not?”
“Of course, Prime Minister. We’re tracking the locations of every submarine in the Soviet Baltic fleet. There will be no surprises.”
Churchill turned to Field Marshall Brooke, the Chief of the General Staff, and asked, “And the Yanks? How are they taking the news?”
“Quite positively, Prime Minister,” Brooke replied. “They agree with our desire to prevent any Soviet naval action against the Baltic ports and are preparing to take a more aggressive posture with the Soviets across the board.”
“Brilliant,” Churchill replied. “I imagine that blunt little Truman fellow has put General Marshall right about how to handle the Russians. And Marshall will put Eisenhower right, since we all know he’s the mug who’s bloody responsible for this cocked-up mess in Germany in the first place. But mark my words, gentlemen…once this election is counted and that noisy Attlee and his Labourites are shuffled off and out of the way, the Russians are in for a serious reckoning. We’ll push them right out of Germany. And Poland, too.”
The military staff rolled their collective eyes. It would fall to Brooke as chief to throw cold water on Churchill’s grandiose plans once again; they’d lost track of how many times he’d had to do it before. “Begging your pardon, Prime Minister,” Brooke said, “but nothing has changed since this was last discussed. Any plans for offensive actions on the ground against the Soviets, be it Operation Unthinkable or any other such plan, are—”
Churchill interrupted, his good humor collapsing like a popped balloon. “I trust, my good field marshal, that I am not about to hear the word fantastical again?”
“Would you settle for unworkable instead, Prime Minister? Or perhaps impossible? Because nothing has changed to alter the assessment of this board.”
“But our numerical disadvantage of which you continually claim, Field Marshall, is something I consider fantastical. Between our forces, the Yanks, the Polish divisions still at our disposal, and hundreds of thousands of fit ex-Wehrmacht troops who can be rearmed overnight—”
It was Brooke’s turn to interrupt. “Monty has stated flatly that it would take a year or more to organize and train these various forces for such a new mission. In addition, Prime Minister, he doubts that many of those numbers you speak of exist at all. Especially when demobilization plans are taken into account.”
Churchill’s reply was thunderous: “Then perhaps our Monty is no longer the man for the job. The word expeditious has never been in his vocabulary.”
But the Prime Minister knew that with the general election still going on—the election which would determine whether his Conservative Party would remain in power as it had throughout the war—it would be unwise for one hero of that war to sack another. Especially if that hero was planning to win an election. Once the vote was finalized in the next week or two, there would be plenty of time to make the necessary adjustments to his commanders and staff.
Of that, the officers in the room were well aware.
Chapter Eight
It seemed a waste to spend the entirety of such a lovely day indoors. “Let’s take our lunch outside,” Sylvie Bergerac told her OSS colleague Mirka Dubinski. “I could use some fresh air.”
As they passed through the doorway to the spacious lawn of the IG Farben Building, Sylvie added, “Don’t look yet, but pay attention to that man who was sitting at the next table. I’m sure he was trying to listen to everything we said.”
“Hmm…I hadn’t noticed,” Mirka said. “Perhaps it’s a good thing we are speaking French, then.”
“Maybe he speaks French, too. It seemed to me he was following our conversation very closely. I think he was jotting notes.”
Mirka took a quick glance. “Oh, merde,” she said. “I think he’s following us.”
“Let’s give him a test,” Sylvie replied. “We’ll sit on one of those benches over there. If I’m right, he’ll choose a bench close to us.”
They sat down. He did, too.
Now that he was seated adjacent to them, they could see the patch on the sleeve of the well-worn military field jacket he wore over civilian clothes. “I’ve seen that patch before,” Sylvie said. “It’s the one American combat correspondents wear.”
“So he speaks English, then?” Mirka asked.
Sylvie nodded, noticing the newspaper the man carried was the English-language International Herald Tribune. It had resumed publication in Paris as soon as that city was liberated last year.
“We could speak German, I suppose,” Mirka suggested, “and see if he follows it.” They were running out of common languages. She was teaching Sylvie to speak Russian, but any mastery of that language wasn’t likely for quite a while, long after the assignment for which they were training was underway.
“Good,” Sylvie replied. “Let’s talk about him in German and see if we get his attention. Make it as filthy and personal as we can.”
It onl
y took a few moments to realize he didn’t understand anything they were saying. None of the outrageous things they’d said had raised so much as an eyebrow, not even the estimations of his penis size and the odds it was circumcised. That didn’t stop him from approaching them, though.
“Excuse me, ladies,” he said in English, “but I’m amazed at how effortlessly you shift from one language to another. You must be translators here at USFET. Am I right?”
“You are correct,” Mirka replied, lying with a smile. Then she introduced Sylvie and herself.
“Glad to meet you,” he replied. “My name is Jim Pearson. I’m a correspondent for the Mutual Network back in the States. Let’s see now...Mirka—that’s Polish, right?”
“Not necessarily. But in this case, you are correct, Mister Pearson.”
“And Sylvie…are you Swiss?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, you speak French…and I heard you speaking German. It just seemed a logical assumption.”
“Logical, perhaps, but incorrect. I’m French.”
“Paris?”
The finality of her no was like a door being slammed closed. Pearson changed the subject.
“Gee, you gals must hear some fascinating stuff working at this headquarters.”
This Fog of Peace (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 4) Page 7
