Ghosts of the Empire

by Justin Sheedy

  Today they were to bomb the British ships massed off Dieppe, then if possible strafe the Canadians just offloaded onto the beaches all up and down the coast. Secret amphibious raid? Pathetic. Luftwaffe and Wermacht Command had known about it in ample detail for days now, for weeks, said some. For Franz, it felt like pay-back on the British for 1940, back in their so-called ‘Battle of Britain’ when it seemed the Brits had known every single Luftwaffe move in advance. Franz had been in the nose of a Heinkel 111 in that campaign, the campaign that all except fanatics in the Luftwaffe agreed should never have happened: Not our natural enemy. Even The Führer himself had said this of the British. No, the war in the West should have stopped with the French: It had not been expected that the British would keep resisting and still they were two years later… No, the Russians were the Reich’s natural enemy. And of course the Jew yet the Jewish question seemed to have been solved – That was something for Germany at least…

  Personally, Franz had no particular problem with the Jews; when just a small boy he had had some playmates in the street who were Jews and they had all got along quite naturally, all the lads in that street… As for Jews now, well, quite simply Franz didn’t know any; they weren’t there anymore… Not for the first time since childhood, Franz considered how peculiar it was that young children got along with each other no matter what, no matter their different backgrounds, until they learnt not to, until taught they ought not. Though as he was thinking this Franz realised something wrong with the aircraft. Something very wrong…

  The first thing Franz knew about it was that he was looking up from the cockpit floor at a body poised behind a machine-gun. But the body was a tailor’s shop dummy that stopped at the neck. Behind his machine-gun. That didn’t make any sense. Until, even over the noise of the Dornier’s engines which were rising in pitch now, the frantic screams of Scheckter and Schiller made Franz realise that the headless body up at which he looked was his own. He saw the sky up through the top of the glass-house for a moment, but then the cockpit floor, the sky, the floor, the sky as his head rolled, rolled, rolled towards the front of the aircraft in its death dive.

  Brozek had ripped 611 right through the middle of the German formation – to scatter them and the bastards had, Mick saw, in all directions. Dorniers – going by their twin tail-fins – he wasn’t sure; he’d never seen one in the air before and it had been so quick: He’d managed a decent burst at one of them and shot past, but one pass only; if their top-cover was there it’d be coming down on 611 from behind right now. Mick quick-checked left and right to ensure Green Section still with him – Yep, good lads… Just as the lightbulbs started sailing past his cockpit and he transmitted: ‘GREEN SECTION, BREAK!’

  Mick whipped his Spitfire into a hard left bank. The command meant Green 2 bank with him, Green 3 and 4 out right. As Mick wrenched, wrenched through the bank, a young voice came over his headphones: English, upper class…

  ‘Green Leader, Green 2. I’ve taken a few hits, sir. What d’I do?’

  Mick peered up into his rear vision mirror, in it a white propeller spinner bobbing, blue-grey and olive camouflage: Green 2 still flying; still had control, but damaged. Through their hard left banking curve Mick transmitted, ‘Green 2, Green Leader. Roll left, dive down and away, piss off home. If a bandit comes after you, I can get him. Out.’

  ‘Sorry, sir…’

  ‘GO!!’ In the mirror Mick saw his wingman roll and drop away, just as another lightbulb shot close by his own cockpit. Still pulling through the bank, into the upper edge of Mick’s mirror now crept a red propeller spinner and the unmistakable angles of a Focke-Wulf 190 about a hundred yards directly astern. Points on its wings and engine began to rapid-flash.

  His wingman very clearly off the hook, Mick threw his Spitfire into an earth-bound barrel-roll, about 5000 feet directly down ahead a spiraling coastline, earth and ocean, beaches and ocean speckled with dots, some burning. He checked the mirror: red spinner still there, spiraling clumps of cloud ahead now growing, nearing, some whipping past. Entering one Mick cut the left barrel-roll, throttled back, rolled right, edged back on the stick: Come out of the cloud where the bastard won’t expect, shallow the dive, right-curve it round, come back round and find the bastard and kill him.

  Shallowing the dive, right-banking wide out over the sea now Mick craned hard right, inland, to where the German should be…

  Nothing. Just a layer of low cloud extending inland.

  Still curving, curving, throttle full on again now, Mick checked his mirror.

  Red spinner.

  Rapid-flashing.

  The cloud layer dead ahead and slightly above, almost overhead now, Mick throttled back, right off, flaps down, and shot up INTO the cloud layer. Blind within it, he put his flaps up, throttled full forward, rolled upside-down, pulled out of the climb, diving upside-down back out of the cloud and rolling upright again. Cloud layer patchy for a bit up ahead, he scanned hard up ahead between the patches for where his target should now be…

  Nothing. Just patches of blue sky then more cloud layer.

  He checked the mirror.

  Red spinner. 50 yards back.

  A lightbulb sailed past on the right.

  The joystick handle ripped from Mick’s right hand as something smashed into the left wing – regaining his grip it was limp, the Spit entering a sick left roll of its own accord. A loud bang out front and his bullet-proof windscreen shattered as, from under the instrument panel, clear liquid gushed freely onto Mick’s flying boots and all over his trouser legs. It took only an instant for the smell to waft up harsh in his nostrils.

  PETROL.

  Mick’s left arm fully quivered up to his glove as in a single movement he unlocked and wrenched the perspex canopy back over his head – Spit still rolling left, a rush of petrol now over the whole left side of the cockpit and his flying jacket. With his right hand he ripped off his leather helmet with goggles, mask, oxygen and radio cords still attached, shoving it all like a tangle of snakes down between his knees. He pulled the pin on the locking mechanism of his seat straps, threw them off, clutched the lip of the now open cockpit with one hand, with the other a strap of his parachute harness, got one boot up on the lip of the seat and was about to heave for dear life when he never got the chance: Still rolling, as the petrol fell straight up so did he. And out through the open canopy.

  Limbs flailing in the sudden nothingness all around him, he saw his Spitfire corkscrewing away from him minus half a wing – 20 yards, 50 yards, 70, when it burst into flames, and into pieces – no sound of explosion; only the rushing of wind in his ears. As he passed into the line of thick black smoke the plummeting fireball trailed behind it and out into clear sky again, Mick saw the earth towards which he was falling all in shadow under the cloud layer. Yet the earth was a blur, not so much for the murky light as for the brutal force of the wind in his eyes. One thing he could make out was a fire burning far below – the end of his Spitfire, he presumed.

  Maybe 2000 feet below? 1500?

  JESUS!

  THE RIP-CORD!!

  Feverishly he grabbed for its D-handle, found it, gripped it, and very bloody firmly pulled it.

  The next thing he sensed was a mad flapping of seagulls all up his back, his neck and his ears. Then came a single, fat smack directly above him, a tightening around his groin and up his torso, his stomach dropping soundly within it, and settling. Suddenly the wind no longer so violent in his ears or in his eyes, he looked up.

  Numberless white lines fanned to the circumference of the giant, white silk dome whose interior billowed and fluttered right above him – and he could hear it fluttering now, the sound of the wind much softer in his ears, and letting in other sounds…

  Aircraft sounds.

  Aircraft sounds getting louder.

  Fighter aircraft sounds.

  Coming from his 1 o’clock position.

  Squinting to focus, Mick saw it. The speck. The speck so very quickly growing.


  Growing into the round radial front and rather short, angular winged form he’d hoped it wouldn’t grow into…

  A Focke-Wulf. Coming straight for him. Red spinner.

  Dangling helpless in his parachute straps, there was nothing else for it. Mick squeezed his eyes shut tight.

  They remained shut tight as the noise hounded in… in… in…

  And with the smoothest whistling roar shot straight past.

  He opened his eyes, struggling in his ’chute harness to try and crane back left over his shoulder after it when more engine noise bore in from 1 o’clock, and louder this time, a lightning ship-ship-ship of tracers ripping past him through the air! With a rapid chatter of machine-guns two aircraft tore past in a fury of blue-grey and olive…

  Mick fully craned now – narrowly in time to see the Focke-Wulf in a high-speed curving dive away to the right, two Spitfires hot on its tail… They were –

  THEY WERE CHASING THE BASTARD OFF!!

  Still again was he wrenched back to his 1 o’clock; Jesus Christ – Another one… Though this one he could make out quite clearly: a Spit coming down from slightly higher, a rather quick wing-waggle and it shot past. Past his 10 o’clock where, from out towards the Channel coast, Mick now caught distant but mighty crumps of heavy artillery. And saw the pyres of black smoke clearly long risen: a battle going on out there and very bloody badly for someone…

  Below he saw the earth much more distinctly than before though still in shadow: open countryside, wooded areas, a village some way off, in the mid distance a fire burning. Occupied France. Occupied by Germans on especially high alert this day – and probably very bloody trigger-happy given the Canadian amphibious landing that had just been thrown against them. But how many Germans how close? Had anybody seen him bale out? Was somebody watching him floating down this instant? Whatever awaited it was all less than a thousand feet below Mick now and coming up fast to meet him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mick hit a green meadow with a single, loud grunt of pain, rolling heavily in a tangle of parachute cords towards the mass of silvery-white silk now bubbling out over the grass. Gather y’chute, bundle it up; enemy eyes’ll see it a mile off! Scrambling to his feet he immediately fell right over again – a delayed shock of hurt shooting up through his legs via pelvis to spine. His first parachute landing? More like waltzing off a fast-moving truck! Yet he regained his feet, staggered, steadied, gathered the ’chute, gathered, gathered, gathered, bundled and squatted down low, peering about him in all directions…

  Only to realise that he wasn’t alone.

  No.

  He was, in fact, fairly surrounded.

  By weird-looking black-faced sheep. About a dozen of them at a glance. The nearest not ten yards off. Not making a move. Not making a sound. Just looking at him. And quietly chewing. As one let out a bleat Mick saw the column of black smoke rising high into the mid-morning sky – a few miles off by the look of it, probably from the crash of his Spit, he couldn’t see for sure; not over the horizon of high hedgerow bordering the meadow, as it did on three sides, on a fourth, about fifty yards off, forest.

  He bolted towards it, his arms a mad flurry of highly unsuccessful bundling out front of him as he went. With the sound of flying boot ripping fabric every other stride he near tripped full forward at least once, what felt like a vast trail of silk flying in his wake as he went: Reaching and entering the forest, indeed he had to pull yards of it in behind him, in out of the daylight. He then gathered it up as best he could and clambered further into the forest – until in near-darkness from the thickening foliage all around and above him. Before his eyes had even adjusted, he bundled the whole wretched mass of the ’chute a final time, let it drop as one, stood as still as he could, and listened.

  He felt it as well as heard it: a heavy sort of hush. On the skin of his ears and on the back of his neck, the atmosphere all around him was close, in his nostrils cool and sweetly musty. Nothing moved. Or made a sound over the pounding of his own heartbeat. As one eye stung with liquid he realised he was sweating profusely, scraping his forehead with the back of a glove before pulling them off, letting them fall. He undid the straps of his Mae West, shed it, unlocked his ’chute harness release disc, all straps falling away. Unzipping his flying jacket and moving to shed that too – it reeked of petrol – he felt the hardness of the pistol within the left-hand pocket, so loosened the jacket but kept it on unzipped. Undoing two top buttons of his battledress, he felt the cool of the forest now about his neck.

  The forest all around him was turning gloomily visible: a carpet of wet fallen leaves, bracken ferns, moss-covered tree trunks. He looked straight up, only the dimmest hint of the day outside glimmering down through the leaves. From not far off came a single, curious bird chirp. A moment later one more distant as if in answer.

  But then came another sound.

  A low, steady burr.

  Also distant – from the direction of the meadow – and with the menace of an approaching wasp.

  As it became the drone of an engine in Mick’s ears, suddenly it became louder, and shifted up a note.

  A motorcycle.

  Had to be Germans; must have seen him come down – now hunting for him, and coming very rapidly this way…

  Mick dropped to one knee on the parachute silk, patted the left of his flying jacket, felt the pistol against his ribs. Ripping open the press-stud pocket, he drew out the weapon, its anti-slip handle grip rough-textured in the squeeze of his right hand. Lowering it carefully in front of him, his left hand felt the smooth, rounded metal of its chamber cylinder and trigger guard ring. The whole thing cold and hefty in his hands, he tried to open the chamber cylinder, remembered how, flicked a switch: The Webley’s long barrel tilted downwards ahead of a hinge, chamber cylinder opening upwards behind it, six brass shells now dimly visible. He closed and locked it shut, and switched the safety catch to ‘OFF’.

  What the fuck he was going to do with it against a German armed with a sub machine-gun he hadn’t faintest. And by the sound of it there was a German motorcycle on most determined approach – He could swear it was coming across the bloody meadow! No other thought even remotely presenting itself, he now raised the pistol out to full arm’s length in his right hand, left hand supporting, and, squinting along its sights, took aim into the trees.

  Just as the forest canopy above him was physically swept – Mick knew a flat-out Spitfire when he heard one, so too the rapid thudding of 20mm cannon fire! Yet these sounds quickly faded, distant snatches lingering, dying. There seemed silence for a moment, then only noises of the forest: Bird calls. Left. Then right. Far. Near… Mick strained for anything more of the motorcycle…

  Nothing…

  Except the faintest sort of crackling sound. The crackle of burning.

  A dull thump. The sound of hollow metal buckling. A tinkle.

  Then from the same direction came a rustling – Mick dropped flat on his stomach – a rustling of foliage – from within the forest! Flattening too the ’chute silk, straps and Mae West as best he could, from the musty, damp earth below the level of the bracken he gripped the pistol tight and listened hard.

  More rustling… And what sounded like careful footsteps. Maybe 20 yards off? If that. And working closer. Holding his breath – petrol fumes off his jacket something awful – as delicately as he could with the thumb of his right hand Mick cocked back the firing hammer on the pistol. The click it made seemed deafening.

  The careful footsteps halted. The sound of a single sniff.

  ‘You are English,’ came a voice, urgent, hushed. ‘I am unarmed.’ A female voice. ‘You have a gun; I heard it… I am a friend… I saw you come down from the sky and you are English. It is safe, but not for long!’ The voice now quickened. ‘I am Française. But you must come out immédiatement ou il faut que je parte!’

  Beneath the bracken, Mick fully sweated: Christ, was that French or German?! A female voice, that was something; no women in the German Army �
�� not as far as he knew… But even if French she could be a French woman about to signal a squad of German soldiers right behind her…

  He rose from the bracken, slowly, and pistol-first.

  To see he was face to face with a very young woman not ten feet away in the forest: Yes, she looked like a French civilian; straight, dark hair halfway down a darker trench-coat, muddy boots beneath the whiteness of her knees.

  The revolver at full arm’s length and aimed directly between her bright, terrified eyes, he did the only thing he could.

  ‘I’m an Australian,’ he said. And very, very steadily lowered the pistol. ‘My name is Mick.’

  She seemed to take a moment before breathing again. ‘We must GO,’ she then whispered. ‘ TRÈS vite…’

  Uncocking, pocketing the pistol, Mick drew up a length of parachute silk from the bracken. ‘What about all this?!’ Then a bit of strap… a Mae West flap…

  ‘Bring it!’ she pleaded, making her way closer. ‘Bring it all!’

  ‘Shouldn’t we bury it or something?!’

  ‘BRING-IT,’ she seethed. ‘And be cer-tain – I will help you.’

  Once Mick had the ’chute gathered up, the girl with the harness, straps and Mae West together in one great tangle, she darted looks this way and that like a squirrel. ‘This is all?!’

  Mick double-checked. ‘Yes…’

  ‘Tu es cer- tain? C’est très important!’

  ‘Yes! …NO!’ Tranferring the whole parachute to under one arm, he squatted down, patting around under the bracken with the other. And brought up one, then two flying gloves. ‘Right,’ he nodded to her. ‘That’s it.’