by Aeryn Leigh
"Okay then." She dropped altitude, the city large on the horizon, until they were at a little over twelve hundred feet. Paris. The Messerschmitt Me-262 screamed in the sky, but the city, like most of Occupied France, dark due to blackout, yet the moonlight illuminated everything in the city. "It will be coming up soon on our right," she said, banking the aircraft. Searchlights shone up, trying to find them. A few did, but such was the rate of their travel they broke free.
"There it is," said Amelia joyously. "And look, The Arc of Triumph".
Ella held the fighter in a tight, banked turn, still at full-throttle, and made two more laps around the Eiffel Tower.
She listened to her child in joy and amazement, and revelled in this moment of happiness, everything else forgotten. At the end of their third circuit, she levelled out, and fled west across the city, and once clear into the relative space of the suburbs beyond, dropped to tree-height to avoid radar detection, and made like a scalded jaguar for the Bay of Biscay.
Chapter Twenty
Got Her
Colonel Grieg listened to the radar control tower. The stolen Me-262 still pinged, it's homing radar sending out a location beacon every two minutes. The beacon started just over thirty minutes ago. Fighter squadrons were scrambling to intercept the jet fighter, but with delays. The night frenetic with activity, a veritable shooting gallery of the naked exposed bomber stream, resulted in time lost as aircraft re-armed and re-fuelled.
He knew she'd try for England, the only logical place to go, so on that hunch, had hauled the FW-190 as high and fast as it would go. The latest model FW-190, the D9 variant, built for speed and high-altitude, it shot through the night sky.
There she was, right at the coast. He pointed the aircraft's nose down and accelerated to the airframes operating limit. Thirty thousand. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight and falling.
Chapter Twenty-One
Damage Inc.
The American USAF Boeing B-17E bomber saw a crap time of it too. The Damage Inc. and her crew of ten, tagging along for the Nuremberg mission as a 'training exercise' in night-time bombing, wondered again about the sanity of their superior officers, the general sanity of the war, and finally, the mental state of their own damn selves.
Captain Lucius James Jr. looked through the Plexiglas cockpit window, and marvelled once more about the bright, shining moon that danced across the back of his right-hand leather glove, the one that nursed the throttles back and forth as they hunted for fuel.
Go along men for a night-time mission, his temporary flight commander had said to him, his co-pilot Jimmy Watts, and their navigator, Daniel Broadwater — it'll be a right royal show as the Brits would say.
Damn ninety-day BTO wonder.
Lucius saluted, thinking yet again this directive a means of removing an unwanted problem, all in one fell stroke. Nobody knew exactly what to do with them. The three of them, after being dismissed from the private briefing, walked back across the British field to the little hut which housed them all, and informed the rest of the crew of the night's upcoming adventures.
And here they were. Holding the bag.
"We're supposed to be here for the war effort selling bonds," said Daniel, "and they send us on a night-time mission." His face crumpled. He looked out once more through the sextant and made a new bearing, and wrote it down.
"You mean just look pretty for the cameras?" said Jimmy, looking at Lucius with a grin. "Ain't nothing wrong with being pretty."
"Ah blow it out your barracks bag," Daniel said. There was a pause, then laughter from the front of the bomber.
Daniel by far was the looker of the whole crew, and a mean swing dancer to boot.
On the way to Nuremberg, right at the tail end of nearly eight hundred bombers ahead of them, they marvelled at how the RAF aircraft, each with a white contrail behind them, pinpointing their location, looked just like a daytime formation of US bombers on a daylight raid. And then, the night sky, which was supposedly safer than day, had turned into, continued to be, a murder zone.
Captain Lucius, by that point, had also misinterpreted orders as well, and taken the B-17 as high as she could with bombs and fuel, to about twenty-two thousand feet.
When they had arrived at Nuremberg, at the end of the bomber stream, the city and target a mess of green flares, searchlights and explosions, fires strewn over miles and miles, all covered in cloud. The bombardier, Eugene Curtiss, and Daniel, couldn't agree on the right target, so after a second pass, with still no visual confirmation of target, Lucius ordered Eugene to make a judgement call and drop their bomb load.
And then, it had all started to go wrong. Climbing to twenty-seven thousand feet for the long flight back, an anti-aircraft shell took a chunk out of the port wing, and with it, the Number Three Wright-Cyclone radial engine.
An Me-110 night fighter had then come up from below, firing some new cannon which slanted upwards, taking more chunks out of the bomber. The ball gunner sorted that fighter out quick smart, the fighter pilot hesitant to come back again at the bomber, covered in defensive machine-guns, even more so than normal, but now the bomber struggled in the high, thin air, forcing Lucius and Jimmy to fly lower over the next hour. The huge hole in the port wing must have done something to the Number Four engine fuel supply lines, which alternated between too much fuel and too little, so their height and speed dropped lower still.
And all around the American bomber, the scene of Allied bomber after bomber shot down on the long, lonely flight back to England played out in the darkness, each flare of light and explosions signalling mortals death.
"What's that to our ten o'clock?" said Jimmy. Lucius peered down to look. Eugene, up front in the nose, got there first.
"It's a Lancaster," he said. "In bad shape, too." The RAF bomber had only three engines running, its left tailplane missing, and only half an aileron flap, and riddled with bullet holes, flak and cannon fire.
"It's only a few thousand feet below us," said Lucius. "Let's team up and get home together?" he said to Jimmy. Jimmy nodded. It made perfect sense to double their defensive fire power. Jimmy got out the signal light-gun and started messaging the British plane.
Over in the Lancaster, James, sitting in the hammock-like leather sling in the upper turret saw the silver American bomber descend towards them, its entire tail and wing-tips bright red.
What the bloody hell are you doing out here? He keyed his radio. “Sir,” he said, "it looks like we might have an escort home courtesy of the Yanks."
"Fantastic." Andrew couldn't tell whether it was sincere or sarcastic.
"And they're signalling," said Thorfinn. The pinprick flashes of light turned on and off. Shortly, he had the full message. "Requesting to form up on our port wing at a height of three thousand feet."
Two were much better than one, and the American bomber bristled with armaments, he concluded. "Signal him back," said Laurie, "we'll raise altitude to meet him." Thorfinn sent the message, and received an acknowledgement in turn.
"Come on girl, up a little higher," Laurie whispered, coaxing the aircraft to the altitude, and then, the two crippled bombers side by side, flew over what remained of Occupied France.
Mick, peering through the pane of Perspex that he'd removed months ago, for better visibility, looked out at the earth travelling past, like sitting backwards in a train carriage, shivered, and rubbed his hands together.
Almost home he thought, and then added to himself, well not really home, since home was Australia, and that being ten thousand miles away, meant he still was in the shit hole of Europe. Again.
Fuck it. Being a concreter back in the suburbs of Brunswick, Melbourne, an utter crap part of the city but still his birthplace, and plenty of access to all the pubs a man could wish for, and his souped up '23 Ford he'd hacked the back off to carry his tools — now that was living. Better than this lark. Although killing Nazi’s sure made up for it. Almost.
"What an utter dogs breakfast," he said. "How much longer now, Andrew?"
Andrew took another sextant reading, made another note. "We'll be coming up on the coast in about seven minutes." He so wanted to get up and check on Skippy. He fidgeted in his seat. But being the navigator, duty came first.
Guide the crew home. He made yet another calculation, which he'd been doing almost every minute, for the entire duration of the flight. What an utter disaster for the RAF tonight, indeed. He eyed the corner of his notepad. Fifty-seven ticks counted out the number of bombers lost, seen from their bomber alone.
Laurie fretted. He couldn't get Tom out his mind, praying the chap landed safely, unconscious as he was, and had gotten help from the French town. And the dog! The bloody dog. Christ almighty. He glanced over, the other bomber on their four o'clock, struggling as they were against the almighty head-winds.
"Fighter on our six," yelled Mick and James, simultaneously. Mother of God it was moving.
Griffin 'Timberman' Huey, manning the cramped tail turret on the B-17, chanted to himself the name of his children repeatedly. Behind them, he saw something, a tiny speck of grey and black, something moving God-awfully fast, rushing up to meet them. "Bogey on our 7 o'clock," he said, traversing the turret.
Jesus, it was one of those new Nazi jet-fighters.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Wrath
The Me-262 jet fighter screamed over the French countryside. Ella could see the vast, black ocean ahead of her, they were so close now. Amelia snored behind her. She looked at the night horizon, free of objects, blinked, and when her eyelids opened, was no longer free.
Two black dots, above her, getting bigger. Ella craned her neck forward.
Oh. An RAAF Avro Lancaster trailing smoke, and on its wing tip, an also damaged American B-17 Flying Fortress, headed away from her at her two o'clock.
Oh.
How nice.
Just coming back from an evening stroll out in the countryside, eh? Pass the cigars, old boys.
How quaint.
Wie schön.
Nice night for a bit of indiscriminate murder.
It welled up inside her, lava bile searing. The horror of finding her partner dead – her beautiful lover – My beautiful Helena — it all came crashing back down, smashing the amphetamine sideways and tiredness and hope away.
Her brain broke. Felt it snap inside her skull.
The twisted metal necklace around her neck came alive. It felt like it weighed a ton and it was searing her skin, dragging her under. She screamed with the pain.
Amelia jerked awake. "Mummy, Mummy, what's wrong?" she said, heart racing. Ella didn’t respond, bound up in the maelstrom, rage and hate now overcoming her mind, overcoming all rational thoughts, her rage which bubbled underneath her daily life unspoken, smouldering. But now it had fuel. Ignited. She didn’t notice her teeth making her tongue bleed. Pulling on the control stick and kicking the rudder pedal hard she turned the aircraft towards the Allied bombers. Her leather-clad thumb flicked the safeties off. Ella's head was pumping blood madly, scenes dropping in her vision like a macabre theatre show. All she could see in front of her is the architect's will the instruments of her partners, of her family's Immolation and Cremation.
Amelia’s voice, tiny from the back seat, became more urgent. "Mummy, Mummy, what are we doing? Why are we heading towards those planes? Mummy, Mummy, I don't feel safe, Mummy." The eight-year old was crying, pleading with her mother to stop but only a small part of Ella's mind actually heard this — all she could see was fire. All she could see was vengeance — The Wrath of the Gods personified — she was Valhalla's handmaiden; hell, made manifest. She cranked the throttles open wide to emergency combat power and the two turbofans scream in response. Towards the bombers, the Me-262 flew like a curved flaming ball to their flanks, now ignoring her training, ignoring all basic combat prowess and even before optimal firing range she pull the trigger —
and the four thirty-millimetre cannon's banshee's hail of Hell vomits towards the B-17, towards the Lancaster. All this happens in seconds only now she is going so fast that she overshoots. She doesn't register the ping—ping—ping of three .50 and .303 calibre bullet holes into her aircraft. Only half way through a banking turn coming around for a second pass does the red-hot rage that was so close to smothering her dissipates as fast as it came. She is made aware of her daughters screams and wails of terror from behind her, and memories of her lover’s embrace on a warm quiet Sunday morning before the war; before the Nazi's ruined everything. Scenes of love flood back in, extinguishing hate.
"Mummy" said Amelia through tears, "I thought we were supposed to be helping them not hurting them, please stop Mummy?"
Ella kicks the rudder pedal so hard it felt as if her foot went through the sheet metal behind, and turned the Me-262 away from the bombers. Her breaths were hard, fast. What have I done what have I done what have I done screams Ella's mind. Her voice creaks. "Hey munchkin, it's ok, it's ok, I am sorry I scared you, ssh, ssh, now" and tries to console a sobbing Amelia behind her, the terrified child clutching the cat and teddy bear hard to her chest, wanting to be back home in bed, warm, safe, with Victoria. Anywhere but next to her mother lost in rage.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Down To Hell
The German jet-fighter tore right through them, passed so quickly that the gunners on each bomber managed only a micro-burst of defensive fire before it vanished. Compared to the two Allied bombers, the Me-262 had overtaken them at six hundred and forty miles per hour, as if they'd just been standing still waiting for cake.
But the explosive shells, oh the explosive shells.
Both aircraft rang as if struck with a mighty hammer, and the airframe a gong, such shudders unworldly.
Laurie watched horrified as the right canopy punctured and a shell burst the far instrument console apart, metal and glass splinters shattering in all directions. He could feel warm blood trickling down his temple.
"Anybody see it?" Laurie yelled, then saw it himself, banking in the distance for another pass.
"Yes," said James, turning the turret now manually trying to lock on, the hydraulics shot.
Daniel slumped in the navigator’s seat, not responding. "Danny,” said Lucius. Still nothing.
"It's coming around again," said Eugene, "son of a bitch." He started to depress the trigger, but then watched the fighter break off the attack.
"Eugene get up here and look at Danny. Now," Lucius said. The fighter had broken off, and headed north. They were now passing the seaside coastal towns of France, and the English Channel awaited.
Mein Gott.
What have I done.
There was no going back now.
Oh hello, can I please seek asylum, and sorry about that shooting incident. An accident, really.
Ella tried not to vomit. Now she flew on automatic, still heading for Brest.
Look up and right, said the voice in her head, turned it without conscious direction. A yellow-cowled German FW-190D-9 fighter dove towards her, six thousand feet away, glinting in the moonlight.
"Miss Gruder," said the unmistakable voice of Colonel Grieg, "turn back to Germany now. I won't lie, it won't go easy for you. But if you surrender, your child will be spared."
Her heart thumped.
"It would be a shame to see Amelia go and join the nanny, wouldn't it?" Five thousand feet.
"I want to be with Victoria," said Amelia, pleading from the rear.
"No, you cannot," said Ella, croaking and blinking away the tears. "You can't Amelia, you can't."
"No matter where you go, or what you do, I will always find you." said Grieg. "Surrender."
Fear drank in all of her will, gloating. Can't go home. Can't go to England. Four thousand.
Maybe death wasn't too bad. All it would take would her to point the nose down and a merciful end to them all.
The SS would not touch Amelia.
Would never touch her again.
Three thousand now.
"I'm sorry Amelia," Ella sobbed, t
ears pouring. Her right hand tried to push the control stick forward, but something pushed back, her hand shaking in the effort to and fro.
Move damn you move.
The bombers. The bombers, said the voice. Find them. Her hand moved, not down, but hard into her gut on the right. Her feet swung, rudder on, swinging the Me-262 around and back into the English Channel.
Colonel Grieg swore.
"Bogeys on our three o'clock," shouted James. "Will they just right royally bugger off?" The jet fighter was back, a turbo-prop German fighter hard on its tail. Orange streaks of tracer rounds emerged. James boggled at the sight. "The FW is firing on the jet." The Me-262 tried to shake off its pursuer. At its current momentum, it'd be right through them very soon.
Skippy started barking frantically, howls that got louder and louder.
The hairs on the back of Laurie's neck rose. His stomach then lurched, he couldn't work out why.
"What is it girl?" said Andrew. He looked at Bear, turning knobs on his wireless set.
"I've lost contact with base," said Bear. “Sir, my set is down." Maybe some shrapnel damaged it, he thought. He failed to notice the blood trickling down his forehead.
"Two inbound," said Robert, on the B-17's top turret, into his radio mike. "But Lucius, the second bogey is firing at the first."
"Shoot them both," said Lucius.
"Shoot them both," said Laurie.
Damn them both.
"What the hell is that?" said Thorfinn, looking in the opposite direction of the incoming fighters. Where there had been clear sky seconds ago, a sheer wall of grey storm stood now, lightning flashes within, swirling the ocean beneath it. Laurie and the crew looked at the vision transfixed in awe. No chance of outrunning it. They would hit it in moments.
