by Aeryn Leigh
So far so good.
By now the entire Squadron were on-board their aircraft, and finishing engine checks.
Nothing to do but wait for the green flare from the control-tower, signalling to start the mission. Inwardly, Squadron Leader John and his crew prayed for a red flare, that the mission had been cancelled. As did most of the Squadron. The ball of worry in Laurie's stomach felt like lead.
The sun long gone by now, the night was clear, the half-moon overhead bright. No cover.
Behind him, and down the cockpit's ladder, Andrew and Thomas were near each other. Andrew pushed his slide rule back and forth repeatedly, looking at the charts and map in front of him. It was a long route, taking them from England over the North Sea and then across the Belgian coast for Nuremberg, almost in a straight line, four-hundred miles of occupied territory and German homeland, the whole way bristling with air defences like a rabid echidna.
Sweet Jesus, he thought.
Bear looked at the radio set in front of him and carried out another check of the equipment. It had worked the previous eleven checks, but he checked it again just to be sure while he stroked his red goatee.
Separate to the rest of the aircraft, isolated, James and Mick had a clear view of the world around them, in front of the machine-guns they operated. They checked their turrets movement, and too, waited.
The green flare soared up into the sky, curved over, and then floated as it returned to Terra Firma.
So, this is it, thought Laurie. He wondered about Skippy, glad she was back safe in the barracks, and would have a fine litter of pups. She deserved it, the furry bugger.
He looked at his watch. 9:16pm. The first bomber began its take-off; they were fourth last. One after the other the big machines thundered down the runway, swollen and heavy, and rose into the moonlit sky.
"Alright fellas, our turn," said Laurie into his throat mike. With Tom's help, he pushed the four throttles partway open, and kicked the rudder pedal to the left, manoeuvring the bomber until they were lined up straight, and then nodding to Tom, pushed the throttles all the way forward. The four supercharged V-12 Merlin's snarled in response and the Lancaster surged forward, even with all the dead-weight.
And Laurie found himself smiling, even in response to the rest of him.
Flying, we're flying.
Thirty tons of metal, mammals and hope sped down the runway. With a tentative little skip into the air, Hade's Express reached take-off speed, Laurie eased back on the control stick, and then they were up. He retracted the undercarriage, applying the brakes briefly to make them stop turning, and started the long climb to the designated height of eighteen thousand feet, to their position in the middle of the bomber stream.
Ten minutes later, Andrew took another calculation and informed the squadron leader to make a course correction. They were now past five thousand feet, and so now every man on-board switched on their flying suit, the electrical coils warming their bodies as the air grew colder and colder.
All they could smell was oil.
"Perfect weather for a beer," said Mick, from the tail of the aircraft. Mick was the kind of person who could drink beer anywhere, with any excuse. He scanned the sky, eyes alert, through the open window of the turret where he'd removed the plexiglass sheeting for better visibility. Even if it froze his nuts off.
"I'd rather be home with a shandy myself," said James. He had an almost unobstructed view of the heavens above from his vantage perch. The sky was clear, the stars twinkling overhead.
"A shandy?" said Andrew, stopping his pen across the ruler. "What, with lemonade and all?" He continued drawing the line, then took another reading of the stars with his sextant
Mick sighed. "But only kids drink that." They'd had this argument before.
"Better than that horse piss you call Melbourne Ale," James said with a smile. He hated most local beers, and being from Melbourne, that ruled out quite a lot, since there wasn't much else to drink. But diluted with lemonade, then yes, that was acceptable, and besides, you could still dance and enjoy yourself without looking like a complete prat by the end of the evening.
"Will you both cut it out?" said Andrew, sounding exasperated. There was a pause. "Besides, you're both off your rocker. Whisky lads, whisky is the name of the game."
Laurie listened, unperturbed by the chatter. He'd been on enough missions with them to know this was their way of venting some nervous energy, but still, if they didn't shut up in another five, he'd end the conversation.
Vodka was where it was at. He laughed to himself, despite himself, and then grimaced at the realisation he'd laughed.
I'm getting old.
As the bomber climbed into the sky, higher and higher, her squadron leader saw the other bombers up ahead, far into the distance reach eighteen thousand feet, operational ceiling height, and then saw lines of white, begin to trail off the wing-tips of each plane.
Jesus.
He spoke into his mike, cutting off the conversation, which had descended into the pitfalls of home-brewing. "Our boys are leaving contrails up ahead." There was silence, as everybody absorbed this. Contrails meant a big fat blinking arrow saying, 'We Are Here'.
Bear broke the silence. "Mission is still green light, Sir.”
Squadron Leader John nodded to himself in his seat. "Roger that." They were now at fourteen thousand feet.
"Bugger this," said Tom, his guts suddenly churning with a dire need to evacuate his bowels. "I'm going to use the lav." He looked at Andrew, who nodded. The chemical toilet was in the rear section, along with empty beer bottles to piss in, all in a low, open wooden crate that also contained spare flight suits, weapons, and other unofficial add-on luggage. It was not military regulations.
"Contrails be damned." Tom made the awkward hop over the wing spar, a giant metal span that divided the fuselage in two.
It was a right royal bastard to get over in hurry, doubly so if the plane was on fire or spiralling out of control. He hopped over the span, and holding onto the sides of the Lanc's fuselage, made his way down to the crate. Dropping his flight suit flap, he squatted over the small, metal toilet.
The crate barked.
Tom jumped six foot into the air, having a coronary.
"Jesus, fuck!" he yelled.
Laurie heard the bark even up front. No, no, no, he thought. It can't be. "Tom, what is it?"
It must be the communications system playing up.
"It's the bloody dog," Tom said, pulling his pants back up. "The bloody dog is on the plane."
"What dog?" said Laurie, strain in his voice. "One of the village mutts?"
"No," Tom said, his voice lowered. "Skippy, Sir.”
The world dropped from below Laurie. How in God's name did that bitch get on his aircraft?
"Andrew? You didn't check the crate?" he said. He shrank into his chair, staring at the contrails up ahead, through the glass windshield that reflected some of him back, illuminated by the moon.
"Ah, no, I'm afraid. We need to turn around," said Andrew.
"No, we can't,” interjected Thorfinn. "The Old Man cannot risk another LMF. He'll say we did it deliberately."
"A Lack of Moral Fibre discharge for not taking a pregnant mascot back to safety? The Wing Commander's quite fond of that dog," said Andrew. "Even though it's not his dog."
"He'll still have Laurie's head," said Bear. "Either way."
"Only if he finds out about it," said Laurie with resignation.
Which path to go. Turn around and be cleaning latrines for three months then discharged to work coal mines, stripped of his pilot’s licence. Or pretend the dog was never on-board, keep going, finish the mission, get back to base. He could trust the crew to keep this to themselves, either way. But she's pregnant. And a living creature. Defenceless up here.
"Tom," said Laurie, injecting calmness into his voice for their benefit, "is the spare oxygen tank and mask there. It hasn't been chewed up by her, has it?"
Skippy loved chewing. A l
ot.
"Still here and in one piece," said Tom.
"Right then," said Laurie, "I want you to hook up the mask around her muzzle as best as you can, and plug in that flight suit and wrap it around her. "Thorfinn, go help Tom out." He felt sick now, and noticed his arms, holding onto the control stick, weighed heavy.
He needed to fly. It was the only joy in his life, except for animals, the only thing that kept the insanity at bay, just out of reach of the camp-fire's light, but was always there, waiting, watching.
"I cannot and will not make this decision alone, gentlemen," he said at last into the radio intercom. "There's seven of us, so no tie. We've got another five minutes or so before we need to make a decision, one way or the other." And then he thought, why am I even putting this to a vote? I'm the Squadron Leader. Aren't I? He sat in the command chair, the pilot's seat, paralysed.
By a fucking animal.
Thorfinn joined Tom at the crate. He crouched down and in the moonlight, could see the German Shepherd, curled up underneath the flight suits and in between the spare woollen blankets stored there. "A right comfy nest then, huh?" he said. It was quite cold now, they could see the breath coming out of Skippy's muzzle in the high-altitude.
"What do you think?" said Tom. "I'd rather not get a LMF if it's all the same." He'd done up his flight suit now, and was standing over them.
Thorfinn looked up. "Frankly, if we turn around because of the dog, we are really in the shit. Unless the Old Man said it was his idea alone to bring the dog aboard, which is a fifty/fifty bet anyway it'll work, then the solution is to keep going."
"We don't need five minutes," said Mick over the radio, from the tail. "She bloody well hitched a ride, she can be our mascot for us and get the job done. Anyone have a problem with that and I'll nut 'em when we get back." It was the loneliest position in the whole aircraft, isolated and unable to leave his turret for the duration of the trip. "Bloody hell, I need a beer."
James and Thorfinn voiced their agreement, then Laurie spoke into the intercom.
"Right then. We keep going," said Laurie, shaking his head clear.
"We need to move her up front, somehow if we can. It's less prone up there. Give me a hand, will you?" said Thorfinn. He moved his right hand towards her head. She growled. Not the wary kind, but the kind of growl that says, move my nest, and lose your opposable thumb.
Chapter Fourteen
Skippy
Skippy laid in her bed that afternoon, wishing that the humans around her would just let her be. She could feel the pups inside kicking around, and the humans coming in and out of the wooden room smelt of fear and stress. They stank of it, even as they made short staccato sounds which they usually made when they were less stinky of fear and worry. And then her tall one had come in, the ones the others sounded Laurie. She liked them. But with the tall man, there was always the smell of, well death, the awareness of it radiating from him. Even when she met him as a pup.
Her pack leader.
It seeped from his pores, his breath.
Her instincts told her that this Alpha of the pack knew it was approaching its swansong. It would be all decline from here soon. And then his hand had reached out, stroking her head and fur, and the pack was safe and whole again.
She was the Enforcer of the pack, and always had been, since a pup. And then, she was alone again, all the humans leaving the structure. The nest didn't feel right now. It wasn't safe anymore. She got up, stretching, her hind legs extended as far as she could. Shaking herself, she padded her way to the door, and nudged it open with one huge paw. It would be sundown soon.
Safety. Security. Skippy tilted her nose up, sniffing the air. There it was. She padded after it, keeping out of the way, in the shadows, as great lumbering steel and iron and wood monsters rumbled past, as more humans rushed past this way and that. No one paid attention to the dog, or if they did, not for long, attending to their own duties.
She had followed the scent, until she came to the monsters. There amongst them was her own monster, in the long, dark shadows of sunset.
Now she could be safe. She dodged around machines carrying large metal eggs, her paws in the green grass. Hiding low until all but her pack leader went into the monster's belly, she'd jumped up the ladder, slunk to the crate, found the blankets that smelt of her pack, and snuggled in tight in between them, falling asleep with exhaustion.
Chapter Fifteen
Another Perfect Day
In the end, they did manage to move her and the crate in front of the great metal spar that ran across the fuselage like a low highland wall. Thorfinn managed to fashion a mask from the spares, tying it around her muzzle, and with an oxygen bottle attached, the flying suit zippered open around Skippy, around and under her, the eighth member of the crew was mission-ready as best as they could manage.
"All set sir,” Thorfinn said into the radio, returning to his post, and plugging his own flight suit electrical cord back into the socket to get warmth back.
"Cheers mate," said Laurie. They had now reached eighteen thousand feet, and the staging area over the North Sea.
Bear adjusted the wireless radio set, transcribed it onto his notepad, and spoke. "Green light to go, sir,” he said.
Andrew gave Laurie the next lot of calculations, and H for Hade’s turned and followed the rest of the bomber stream, somewhere down the end of the long, snaking line. They crossed the coast of Belgium, and headed towards Nuremberg.
Laurie couldn't believe what he was seeing, nor could Tom and Thorfinn thirty minutes later. The clear, brilliant skies illuminated the passage of every aircraft flying ahead of them, contrails bright, and indeed, from their own Lancaster.
As far as their eyes could see, fires on the ground and in the air, and explosions, once a minute, as a bomber took a direct hit and exploded in a puff of smoke and fire, seven tons of high explosive and aviation fuel igniting in a terrible flash.
"That's fifteen," said Andrew, noting another bomber destroyed with a tick in his log. Their bomber thundered on, the drone of the engines at least comforting, a known quantity in contrast to the carnage that awaited them soon. He took another reading, made a calculation with his slide rule, and informed Laurie that they were over Charleroi and due another course correction.
Laurie saw the slaughterhouse that awaited them, made a decision. "Andrew," he said, "I'm taking us up to twenty-two thousand feet."
"Mis-interpreting orders again, Laurie?” said Bear with a chuckle.
"Okay Squadron Leader," said Andrew, making new adjustments. "Makes sense given what's out there."
Laurie eased back on the control stick and the altimeter crept up, as he took the bomber up to as high as they could go loaded with bombs and fuel as they were, trying to lose their own contrails. From the new height, they watched the mass of bombers leaving white lines behind them, saw another explosion.
Andrew made another tick. And another. They flew on.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Laurie's mouth felt dry. Another course correction now, and so began the final leg south to their target. Something flashed by them fast, from beneath, and the world went white as the Halifax below them and to their left exploded. Fireballs of burning material fountained out, as vision returned, Hade's Express buffeting from the shock-wave.
Mick said a silent prayer.
He hadn't even seen the fighter until the very last moment, and then it was gone, replaced by the retina frying image of the bomber disintegrating. "I think the German's might have a new kind of weapon," he said into the radio. "Something that fires up from below."
"Ah hell," said Thorfinn. "Just what we need."
In her nest, Skippy began to take laboured breathes through the ill-fitting mask.
"Nuremberg should be coming up now,” said Andrew. "Pathfinders will have laid down green markers."
Laurie looked ahead, and on the horizon, saw cloud. Lots of cloud, over what should be Nuremberg.
Now there's cloud.
&
nbsp; He laughed without mirth. Another tick. Fires scattered everywhere, and green flares, poking through breaks in the cloud. And other green flares now, but over ten miles away.
The whole operation was turning into an unmitigated cluster-fuck, thought Laurie.
Tick.
Confusion now ruled, as bombers attracted to the greatest concentration of lights began their bombing runs. Adding to the mix now, strong westerly winds started to blow them off course.
In the slaughter, in panic and despair, some bombers crews were jettisoning their bombs minutes before reaching the target, others critical seconds early, as anti-aircraft shells exploded like God's happy clapping either side without respite, spooking aircrews with already shattered nerves.
"Where are we?" said Laurie.
Andrew muttered under his breath. "Another three minutes sir,” he said.
"Opening bomb bay doors,” said Tom, the whole Lancaster now his territory of expertise. The bomb-aimer lay prone, his head and upper torso looking out the clear Perspex nose of the aircraft, out through the bomb-sights. Through the complex mechanism, he could see the city skyline, the puffs of fire from the ground that were anti-aircraft batteries firing, explosions, wayward falling bombs creating more explosions, and one large grouping of green flares.
There. There was Mama.
He radioed Laurie to adjust course to match, and now, finally, the Avro Lancaster started its bombing run.
Sixty seconds. The pocket-watch clicked as the brass hand ticked around, Tom ignoring the flak shells bursting below them. Most of the shell's timers were set a few thousand feet below them, where most of the bomber raid were operating, but a few burst near them, rocking the aircraft.
Fifty seconds. He lifted his face off the bomb-sight, and wiped the sweat away, even up here in the freezing cold, and looked into it again. The green flares played hide and seek in the clouds below.
