by David Evans
Pressure on the controls eased. For the first time since the attack began, Col. Werner Ruperle began to believe they would make it. Then smoke and flames began to billow up from the wing root and inside the cockpit.
“One-oh-nines! One-oh-nines!” The panicked voice had an accompaniment of gunfire.
Immediately he heard it, Wendall Foxworth swiveled his head and jinked his Hurricane in an attempt to search the sky. He saw them then, high above, peeling off in a breath-catching maneuver that held his gaze until the lead plane loomed frighteningly large in the canopy panes of Wendall’s cockpit. He could clearly see the green, yellow, and white bands painted on the spinner of the three-bladed prop. In a rush of clarity, Wendall dropped his port wing and gave full left rudder.
His Hurricane began to dive. Twin streams of 7.9mm bullets from the Messerschmitt’s MG 17s, and 20mm cannon shells from the three MG FF/Ms burned through empty sky above, where he had been three seconds ago. Gulping air, his forehead awash in sweat, Wendall brought the nose up, leveled his aircraft, then turned to starboard. Right! The German had overflown him. He shoved in full throttle and pulled the stick back into his crotch. The Rolls Royce Merlin III engine screamed at him as its twelve cylinders churned the propeller through the air.
Wendall almost made it. Had he gotten to the top and made his loop, he would have come up behind the Me-109. Instead, another Messerschmitt caught him in his climb. The cruciform, forty-foot wingspan of the Hurricane made a perfect target.
Hammer blows rammed into the Hurricane. Wendell’s radio exploded in front of him and he felt a tremendous burst of pain in his left thigh. Flames leaped up between him and the instrument panel. Smoke began to fill the cockpit.
“Get out! Get out!”
Wendall did not realize that it was he screaming aloud until he had hit the canopy release lever. The greenhouse rolled back smoothly a ways, then stopped. Wendall put the Hurricane in level flight, oblivious to the danger of the prowling Me-109s. He reached up with both hands and shoved backward. Nothing happened. He pushed harder. It yielded a precious six inches.
Wendall put the wounded aircraft. In a shallow dive, descending at about 300 feet per minute. He unbuckled his harness and stood upright. Instantly he collapsed as new, hot pain shot through his left leg. He looked down and saw his trouser leg saturated with blood. Desperately, he tried again. This time he let his arms take the load.
His head raised into the slipstream. Oddly, the wind did not seem to roar as he had expected. Then he remembered his headset. Sheepishly, he reached back down and disconnected his throat mike and earphone cables. Then he levered himself up out of the cockpit. He swung his good leg over the side and sprawled ungainfully down the fuselage. With a last look back, and a prayer, he let go and fell free of the trailing edge of the port wing.
Like the black shadow of death, the tail empennage flashed overhead. And then Wendall was alone in the sky, falling through the madcap swarm of contesting aircraft. He counted to four, then pulled the D-ring handle of his parachute. It deployed smoothly and opened with a sharp crack and crotch-jarring tug. A brief cloud of white formed from the static-resistant powder the factory invariably packed in the older chutes. Wendall checked the canopy then looked down.
The ground did not seem in any hurry to rush up at him. Then he recalled, the last time he had looked at his altimeter, it registered 8,670 feet. He had over a mile and a half to fall. God! Would he drift out over the Channel?
No, his mind told him, wind’s from the southeast. Another thought chilled him. Like many pilots, Wendall had heard stories of German fighter pilots following a pilot down in his chute and machine-gunning him while he hung helpless in his harness. One fellow from 53 Squadron had claimed to witness such an act of barbarity. The sounds of battle had drifted far off now. Even so, Wendall nervously looked around him in all directions.
Not a Hun in sight. He looked down again. The ground was coming up a hell of a lot faster now. Training took over and Wendall pulled his belt free. Quickly, he fashioned a tourniquet for his shot-through leg. That accomplished, he wondered if his kit bag had one or more field dressings in it. He could do nothing until he got to the ground, but he would need help quickly when he did.
Wendall sighed and looked down again. A stunned second later, he hit the ground like a sack of wet garbage.
Eight hundred meters to go now. Knuckles white on the controls, Col. Werner Ruperle fought to keep his severely wounded aircraft in a slow glide toward the English countryside. He preferred this to a water landing. He had one dead man aboard and three wounded. Make that four, he reminded himself.
Not until he had fought his burning, creaking Me-110 clear of the scramble of enemy aircraft did Col. Ruperle realize that the burning, stinging sensation across his back represented a bullet path from a British machine gun. He had come so close, he did not want to gamble with drowning or sharks. Even if it had to be a wheels-up landing, he saw it as better. Ahead he saw a wide, brown ribbon of cleared dirt. Never a good student of history, Werner did not recognize it as an untouched segment of an ancient Roman roadway that reached northward to Hadrian’s Wall. It looked like a perfectly good runway to him. His hands went to the gear lever.
A little lower. He had already lowered the damaged flaps. They vibrated violently as air tore through the bullet holes. Now the gear. The hydraulic pumps groaned and thumped, but the wheels did not come down. He was committed now. He recycled the control. Still no Gear Down light.
Five hundred meters, 205 mph airspeed. Throttles back. He had already dumped fuel after the extinguishers had put out the fires. Four hundred. Three hundred. Line it up. Easy, easy, now. Two hundred.meters. Throttles forward. Nose up. Easy.
“Fritz, get on the controls. We’re going to hit hard.”
“Ja. Something tells me we will hit too hard.”
“No time to go around. We’re almost dry on fuel.”
“Ja, ja,” Fritz answered nervously. “One hundred meters.”
They lapsed into silence then while the leading edge of the wings flashed over the edge of the bare strip. With a start, Col. Ruperle saw that the brown “earth” was in fact precisely made brownstone cobbles. He eased the nose to almost a stall. A minute later he cut the throttles and flared out.
The wings settled first. Sparks flew in showers and metal ground away as the Me-110 skidded along on its belly. The propellers made contact, bent backward, and Col. Ruperle’s hands flew to cut the engine switches. Groaning and shrieking, the aircraft continued along the Roman road. Stone that had withstood the ravages of the ages turned to dust and rose in a curtain around the disintegrating Messerschmitt. Slowly it lost forward momentum.
With a final groan, it settled, quivering, to the ground. A silence so profound it made Werner Ruperle’s ears ache descended upon them. They had made it. Col. Werner Ruperle solemnly made the sign of the cross, offered a prayer of gratitude to God and the Virgin Mary, then got the hell away from the destroyed aircraft with all the speed he could muster.
Time: 0950, GMT, November 1, 1940
Place: M-43 Highway, Coventry to London, England
Samantha Trillby started out for London at ten minutes to ten that morning. She was well into the country when the air raid sirens went off in Coventry. She puckered her mouth in a grim moue a bit later when she saw the black blossoms of antiaircraft fire through the rearview mirror.
They were coming a lot closer to Coventry this time, she thought. A squadron of Spitfires snarled by low overhead, followed by two of Hurricanes. Abruptly they climbed steeply to engage the advance columns of the enemy, Samantha drove a little faster. With the window down, she could hear the machine-gun fire. A chill clutched her spine. They were going to Coventry this time.
What for? There was nothing there worth bombing. Another question burned through her. Had there been enough warning? Who would survive? Nervously she began to chew
her lower lip. Far above her and some distance behind, another flight of bombers, this time Ju-88-A’s, ran into the furious resistance that had plagued Col. Ruperle’s squadron.
Unseen by Samantha, one of the Junkers, shot to hell, struggled furiously to escape the deadly circus that spun around them. One engine was afire, thick smoke trailed behind. Following regulations, in the same manner as Col. Ruperle, the pilot gave the order to lighten his craft by dumping his bombs.
During the time it took him to reach this decision, he had turned completely to the south and flew over the road to London. This time.when the bombardier salvoed the stick, the safety wires had been attached to their tethers. As the bombs fell free they aimed themselves.
Wobbling through the air, the 4,960 pounds of explosives dropped in irregular lines down the highway. Their proximity fuses fired and the bombs erupted in a blinding, searing flash. The first ones to detonate disintegrated Samantha Trillby and her car.
Time: 1130, GMT, November 1, 1940
Place: Offices of MI-5, Bayswater Road,
London, N.W. 1, England
Brian Moore fidgeted through the morning, well aware that Coventry was being obliterated. Where was Samantha? At eleven-thirty, the first reports began to arrive from surrounding communities that had not been hit in the raid. The city’s entire center had been laid to waste, including St. Michael’s Cathedral and the Grey Friars’ Church. The statue of Lady Godiva had been damaged. Brian’s mouth tasted of bitter ash.
Noon came and the bad news continued to pour in. Brian had a pork pie and chips sent up from the canteen. He ate without tasting it. He began to pace the floor after he abandoned the half-eaten meal. He left the office for court at one-thirty and was back at three. At three-thirty, the intercom buzzed discreetly.
“Sir Hugh is on his way to see you, sir,” Sally Parkhurst informed him.
“I’ll see him at once, of course.” A dread premonition washed over Brian.
Sir Hugh Montfort entered a minute later. The expression he wore alarmed Brian further. Montfort’s greeting was brusque. He crossed directly to the sideboard and poured single malt into two glasses, handed one to Brian.
“Sit down,” the deputy director of MI-5 commanded. When Brian settled himself uneasily, he went on. “I’m sorry to have to bring you this news. A German bomber salvoed its bomb load after being badly shot up. They landed on the highway from Coventry. Some of them hit a car.
“From what could be found of it after, mainly the license plate, it has been identified as belonging to Samantha.Trillby.” Sir Hugh drew in a deep breath and sighed it out heavily. “Oh, goddamn it to bloody hell, Brian, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
Although anticipating it for nearly an hour, Brian sat in stunned silence. She must have been meant to die in Coventry, he painfully reminded himself. In a sinking funk he also acknowledged that his earlier intervention in her torture and murder only bought her a little more time. Bitterly he accepted what hundreds of Temporal Wardens before him had been compelled to embrace. The Time Paradox always cleared up any glitches.
Yet he could not help but feel guilty about it. He had put her on that road, the rebel portion of his mind mocked him. Who was to say that if she had not been ordered out of town that she would have died there? Brian sighed roughly to suppress a groan. Then he realized that Sir Hugh looked at him oddly.
Brian forced himself to confess. “I ordered her here today. I knew we could not save everyone. But… we are—were—in love. I couldn’t help trying.” He downed his whiskey and held out the glass for another.
When Sir Hugh had replenished their drinks, he reached out and lightly touched Brian’s shoulder. “I want you to know I received the message only a moment before coming down here. It wasn’t the purpose of my visit. You are to be decorated for your excellent work with the Cordise case and the roundup of so many Nazi spies. The affair will be tomorrow. White tie and tails. It’s hardly the time, but congratulations anyway.”
Brian struggled to quell his bitter grief. “Thanks, awfully.”
Time: 0730, GMT, November 2, 1940
Place: Regency House, Office of the Head of MI-5,
London, England
According to his instructions, Brian Moore reported to the office of Lord Walter Cuthbert-Hobbs first thing the next morning. He felt miserable in his formal attire. His night had not been a good one.
He drank too much alcohol and passed out in the living room of his apartment. Only to wake with an aching neck at a little past midnight. He went to bed, only he could not sleep. He got up and paced the floor. His eyes burned and stung. His throat ached. At last, his grief and nature eased the soreness in his eyes. Brian sat on the side of his bed and sobbed quietly. He went into a deep, healing sleep around two-thirty in the morning. The turmoil of his sorrow left him ill-prepared for what he encountered in the office of the director of MI-5.
“We’re going to Buckingham Palace,” Lord Walter told him.
Brian’s eyebrows elevated. “Whatever for?”
Cuthbert-Hobbs smiled broadly. “Well, it seems that not only are you receiving the Order of Valor, which I put you in for, but the King and Prime Minister have agreed. They have arranged for you to be invested with the Cross of St. George.”
Deep inside, Brian Moore/Steven Whitefeather could not believe this. “I—I don’t deserve this. I did nothing more than anyone else. I c-can’t accept.”
“Modesty becomes you, old chap. But don’t carry it too far. The PM is particularly pleased with your resolution of the Cordise matter, and of nabbing the German agents sent to assassinate him. King George is rather pleased by that, also. There’ll be no fanfare or front-page stories in the Times, you understand. Matter of fact, you’ll not be able to wear the medal or its pip until after the war. Oh, by the way, that friend of yours, Lady Wyndamire? She’s coming along. So, shall we head for Buckingham?”
Brian Moore managed to hide his surprise until he had a moment alone with Dianna Basehart in what they called a cloakroom in the palace. It had as much square footage as Brian’s entire apartment. When the door closed behind them, he turned to her, his consternation clear on his face.
“How did you manage this?”
Dianna gave him a coy smile. “I didn’t. Sir Hugh knew I was staying at the King’s Court, and must have told Lord Walter. He sent me a most persuasive invitation.”
“Oh, really? Engraved and all?”
Mischief danced in Dianna’s eyes. “No. Two big, burly Coldstream Guards.”
Brian chuckled. “That’s our Lord Walter all right.”
“This is quite something, you know. I don’t know another Warden with a George Cross.”
To her surprise, Steven Whitefeather blushed. “I’m not sure I should accept this one. Awards of the George’s Cross are recorded you know. Sooner or later, I’m going back. It will look damned funny for a holder of the Cross of St. George to disappear completely.”
Dianna patted his cheek. “You can always arrange a ‘tragic, untimely death’ by an accident. Now, let me get your white tie straightened.” She reached out and tweaked it into place.
Cloaked in solemn pomp, the ceremony went off without a flaw. Champagne and finger food followed. The King even deigned to partake in a toast to the new hero. Brian dutifully replied with one to King and Country. While he nursed his second flute of bubbly, Sir Hugh approached him.
He bent close to Brian’s ear in a confidential manner and whispered, “This only came in before I left for the palace. Some of the lads have rounded up a German plane crew. Landed it on the old Roman road, They were waiting right beside it, made no trouble at all. The thing is, a search of the aircraft showed that they had dumped their bomb load.”
Fire blazed in Brian’s eyes. “Those bastards. I want to be in on questioning them.”
“I thought you might. We’ll finish up here
and go on over, what?”
Time: 1440, GMT, November 2, 1940
Place: Interrogation Room, Corby Barracks,
Northamptonshire, England
At first, Colonel Werner Ruperle could not figure out why the intense young man who had joined his interrogators took such a vicious dislike to himself. The youthful Military Intelligence type snarled his questions, insulted him and his fellow officers and crew, cursed and threatened them with physical harm. When the questioning got around to the reason for the forced landing, the colonel got the first inkling of what drove the man in white tie and tails.
“You did not complete your bombing run before you were hit, did you?” When Werner hesitated, the agitated interrogator turned red in the face and got down close to shout. “Answer me, goddamn you!”
“Have off a bit, chum,” an older agent urged.
“I’ll have an answer out of this bastard,” the offensive one growled.
“Go easy, Brian. There is the Geneva Convention.”
Brian straightened and turned away a moment, took a deep breath. Then he spoke over one shoulder. “We found your bomb bay empty.”
Col. Ruperle spoke calmly. “Yes, we salvoed after we took serious damage. A flight of Hurricanes engaged us at quite some distance from the target. My bombardier was killed in the first strafing run. And the aircraft was on fire after the second. I turned out of formation, the controls sluggish, flames and smoke everywhere. We were too heavy, I could not control it. So I had my copilot go down and salvo the load.”
A furious rage seized Brian Moore then. He bent toward Col. Ruperle with foam flecks at the corners of his mouth. “And you just managed to line up nicely on a car leaving Coventry, didn’t you?”
