On Her Majesty's Behalf

by Joseph Nassise

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Allied Aircraft

  Over London

  VERONICA FOUND HERSELF mesmerized by the twisting, churning flames as they crept over the edge of the engine cowling and began their inexorable march toward her. The forward motion of the aircraft was fanning the flames with all the oxygen they could ever want, and it wasn’t long before the entire front of the aircraft was a blazing pyre.

  She knew she was going to die; it was just a question of whether the fire or the fall would get her first. After all the fighting, all the running, it was going to end like this. It didn’t seem fair, and yet she just couldn’t seem to summon the will to do anything more than stare deep into the fire and wait for the end.

  She might have sat there until the end if the plane hadn’t suddenly whipped over on its side and plunged straight down toward the ground below.

  Thinking her pilot had just lost complete control, Veronica screamed, “Freeman! Do something!,” before realizing that the dive hadn’t been an accident at all, that Freeman was doing something and that was trying to get them down as close to the ground as possible before the fire consumed the entire aircraft.

  Their dive was so steep that the plane began to shudder and shake around her, leaving Veronica to think that they were going to break up in midair long before either the fire or the crash killed them. She squeezed her eyes shut and began praying with everything she had, desperate to live and absolutely unable to do anything about it; the helplessness was probably the most infuriating thing about the entire situation in her view. If she was going to die, she at least wanted to go out her way, for heaven’s sake!

  The plane lurched abruptly upward, rattling and shaking so hard that Veronica thought it must be held together solely by the pilot’s sheer force of will, and then it settled down to fly smoothly once more.

  She opened her eyes only to find Freeman holding the stick with one hand and beating at the flames, now only inches from the cockpit, with his flight coat. The shoulder of his shirt was stained deep red with blood and she found herself wondering just how he’d managed to get the coat off while wounded.

  She was still pondering that question when something swam into view ahead of Freeman. When she focused on it, Veronica could see the five arches and iron expanse that made up Blackfriars Bridge looming ahead of them. Freeman must have seen it at that moment too, for he suddenly tossed the jacket, itself now fully ablaze, into the waters of the Thames less than fifty feet below them and grabbed the stick with both hands. He nudged it forward slightly and the plane responded by lurching for the river below like a whale too long out of water.

  Freeman hurriedly corrected the error and Veronica looked on in amazement as he flew the plane right through the rightmost arch of the bridge, mere yards above the water. She knew it would have made a hell of a sight, had anyone been around to see it—­an American biplane with its nose ablaze and the Queen sitting rigidly in the backseat roaring beneath the bridge like a wounded raven searching for a home.

  As soon as they were clear of the bridge span, Freeman turned and shouted back to her. “Hang on! I’m going to try and put us down!”

  Down? Here? In the middle of the Thames?

  They were coming in fast, too fast to land, something that was obvious to someone with even her limited knowledge of aeronautics, but that didn’t stop Freeman from bouncing the belly of the aircraft off the surface of the river several moments later. There was a loud crash—­Probably the landing gear, Veronica thought—­and then Freeman pulled the plane a few dozen feet back off the water.

  It only took Veronica a few seconds to realize that not only had Freeman managed to put out part of the fire that was currently consuming the front of their aircraft, but he’d also slowed them down significantly.

  Perhaps even enough for them to land!

  For the first time since smoke had begun pouring out of the engine, Veronica allowed herself to hope that she might live through this flight after all.

  She’d overheard Freeman boast that he was the best pilot the Allies had. Looks like he’s going to get his chance to prove it.

  The Southwark Bridge came into view ahead of them, or rather, what was left of it. More than one German bomb must have struck it dead on during the barrage several days before for it was little more than a crumbled heap of iron and steel, but given their current height and lack of control that was probably for the best. Freeman steered for an open area and sailed over the top of it with only a few feet to spare.

  Ahead of them was a nice wide expanse of the river with nothing on it until the London Bridge a few hundred meters farther downriver.

  It seemed the perfect place to try to land.

  A good thing, too, for at that moment the plane engine gave up the ghost, seizing with a loud crash.

  “God save us,” Veronica said as Freeman brought the plane down toward the river for the last time.

  There was a loud hiss as the belly of the aircraft bounced off the surface of the Thames for the second time and then fire finally reached Freeman’s cockpit and there was nothing more he could do but put the plane into the river and hope for the best.

  Veronica had a split second to brace herself, and then the biplane struck the water a final time. There was a tremendous crash as the lower wing was shorn away and then the Queen’s head slammed against the edge of the cockpit and darkness quickly followed.

  IT HADN’T TAKEN Burke and his men long to deal with the dozen or so shredders that had rushed their makeshift runway, giving Freeman time to get his aircraft into the air. They’d watched as Freeman had waggled his wings in farewell and had headed out over the city, only to freeze in horror as the sound of a German heavy machine gun had split the morning air and the plane was forced to take evasive action, carrying it out of sight.

  Burke turned for the nearest tree, intent on getting a better vantage point, but Corporal Williams beat him to it, scrambling up the trunk and disappearing into the branches above.

  When he came back down, Burke could tell the news wasn’t good from the expression on his face.

  “Tell me,” he said, steeling himself for the worst.

  “They’re hit but still in the air for now.”

  Burke kept his face carefully blank, but hope bloomed in his heart. They were still alive!

  “What do you mean ‘for now’?”

  Williams winced. “There’s a lot of smoke streaming from the engine. No way they can make it back to France like that.”

  Burke knew he was right; the minute word got out, every German fighter pilot within fifty kilometers would be angling in, trying to get an easy kill off the crippled aircraft.

  Williams’s next words told Burke he wasn’t going to have to worry about anything like that, however.

  “Last I saw they were in a steep dive. It looked like Major Freeman was trying to get them down as quickly as possible.”

  Sergeant Drummond was already unfurling his map. “Show me,” he said, spreading it out on the grass.

  Williams looked it over for a moment and then pointed to an area northeast of their current position, over the Thames River. “I could see the bridges in the distance so they were around here somewhere.”

  Drummond and Burke exchanged glances. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” the sergeant asked.

  Burke nodded. “We don’t have any choice. Our mission was to rescue the Queen. If Freeman manages to get the plane on the ground, they’re going to need our protection all over again. Especially with the German commando unit still out there somewhere.”

  He turned to the others. “All right, saddle up and get ready to move out. Williams, get on that wireless and let HQ know what’s happened. Tell them to get the airship to hold position above the city until they hear from us. I want the rest of you locked and loaded—­that German squad is still out there somewhere, and it
sounds like they’ve brought in some heavy firepower to boot.”

  Five minutes later they moved out, threading back through the park the same way they had come earlier that morning. The machine-­gun fire had clearly come from north of their position, so Burke had decided to head east, following Kensington Road until it reached Grosvenor Place, skirting the grounds of Buckingham Palace until they reached Victoria Street, which would take them back to Westminster Bridge. Hopefully the route would steer them clear of the German patrol and allow them to reach the Thames with a minimum of delay. From there they could follow the river until they located the plane or Freeman and the Queen if circumstances forced them to leave the plane behind.

  They stopped for a short break in the shadows of the Westminster Bridge, in sight of the Reliant. Burke stared across the water at the hatch that stood open near the boat’s conning tower, the same hatch he and the rest of the men had exited less than seventy-­two hours before, watching it carefully. When he didn’t see any activity after several long minutes he turned, caught Williams’s eye, and gestured him over.

  Burke pointed across the water at the motionless hulk of the submarine. “If we can get aboard the Reliant, can you get the engines started?”

  To his credit, Williams didn’t rush in with an answer but gave it some serious thought. Once he had, he said, “A diesel engine’s a diesel engine, I suspect. I don’t see why not.”

  “What about the controls? Can you handle those?”

  “If you’re just talkin’ about driving it down the river, then yes, sir, I can, with the help of one or two other men up on the bridge, but I don’t think I’m capable of getting that thing to dive, at least not if you want her to come back up again.”

  It was no more and no less than what Burke expected. He had no intention of diving the boat, at least not unless their survival demanded it and then only as a last-­ditch Hail Mary sort of move, so he was okay with Williams’s response.

  Then again, knowing Williams’s way with machinery, he had little doubt that the young corporal could figure it out if circumstances required it.

  Now all they had to do was retake the boat.

  He sent Williams away, called Drummond over, and explained what he wanted to do.

  Drummond was frowning by the time Burke finished. “Any of your guys driven a submarine before?”

  “Nope.”

  “Any of them served aboard a submarine before?”

  “Nope.”

  “Any of them have . . .”

  Burke cut him off. “Nope.”

  Drummond sat back. “So let me get this straight. You want us to go over there, clear out any shredders that might still be hiding inside the boat, and then, with a crew that’s barely spent any time inside of a submarine before, never mind actually driven one, use it to make our way upriver until we locate the Queen.”

  “And her pilot,” Burke said.

  From the look on his face Drummond must have thought he was nuts, so Burke was surprised when the other man’s face lit up with a smile.

  “Bloody hell, Major, that’s just crazy enough that it might work!”

  “Let’s hope so, because I’m sick of walking back and forth across this city, I’ll tell you that.”

  The idea of fighting shredders in the narrow confines of the submarine didn’t thrill either man, but it seemed a better alternative than marching endlessly up and down the streets of central London with the Germans in hot pursuit. Taking to the water might buy them some time and would certainly keep the enemy’s hounds from tracking them.

  Burke gathered the men together, explained what they were going to do, and had them retrieve the rubber lifeboat they’d used to make landfall what felt like weeks ago.

  With the men loaded into the boat, they headed for the Reliant.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The Tower

  London

  VERONICA AWOKE TO water splashing across her face.

  She lifted her head, sputtering to get rid of the mouthful of the stuff she involuntarily inhaled, and opened her eyes to find herself sitting waist-­deep in water amid a crumpled pile of wood and cloth. Her gaze fell upon the red, blue, and white roundel hanging in front of her and she realized with a start that the water was the Thames and the wreckage was all that was left of Freeman’s plane. That’s when the whole sorry event came back to her.

  They’d apparently survived, if the fierce pain she was feeling where the safety straps were digging into her shoulders was any indication. She shifted position, loosening the pressure enough that she could reach down below the seat to unhook first the left-­hand strap and then the right, freeing her from the belts’ hold. With the pressure relieved she was able to straighten up a bit in her seat and take a look around.

  She could see immediately that the plane had come to rest in the shallow water near the north bank of the Thames. The nose and wings were a crumpled mess, but the main portion of the fuselage had remained reasonably intact. Freeman was in the cockpit in front of her, slumped over the instrument panel, unmoving. From this angle she could see that his face was above water, so he wasn’t in any immediate danger of drowning, but she wasn’t able to discern the extent of his injuries.

  Looking downriver she could see the square face of the Tower of London looming on the edge of the left bank and, just beyond it, the wide bulk of the Tower Bridge spanning the Thames. She knew there were government offices inside the tower, perhaps some with food and water, and she knew that was where they had to go.

  But first she had to tend to Freeman and get him out of the aircraft.

  The twin cockpits were only separated by a narrow stretch of fuselage no more than a foot in width and Veronica knew she would have no trouble clambering from one to the other, but when she moved to do just that, the wreckage of the plane suddenly lurched sharply to the right, sending her sprawling in a heap against the front cockpit wall.

  When she tried to regain her footing, the plane shifted position again, sliding another foot farther into the river.

  With dawning horror the truth of the situation finally sank through her still fuzzy thought processes. The whole plane was slowly being pulled by the current out into deeper water. If that happened, they were in serious trouble.

  A glance at Freeman showed him still unconscious. If she didn’t get him free of his safety straps before the plane went under, he was going to drown before she could do anything about it. She knew she had to act and act fast.

  Move, girl!

  Ignoring the movement of the aircraft beneath her, Veronica scrambled over the short divider between the two cockpits and hauled Freeman back against his seat from behind. Blood covered the front of his shirt from a wound high on his shoulder. He groaned when she moved him, and she took that as a good sign.

  At least he wasn’t dead yet, she thought. Being stranded in this place alone was not something she wanted to experience.

  The cockpit was already half filled with water, and it was growing deeper by the moment. She reached down beneath the surface and began tugging on the straps that kept Freeman secured to his chair. Her actions caused the tail of the aircraft to start sliding around, away from the bank, and she knew in just a few moments they’d be broadside to the flow of the river. At that point the current would yank them out into deep water where, given the condition of the wreckage, they’d sink pretty darned quickly.

  She had to get them out of here!

  The straps weren’t cooperating, though. She tugged and pulled, but something must have gotten twisted up in the crash because she couldn’t get them to move at all, never mind slip off the hooks that held them in place. A closer look showed they were pulled taut across Freeman’s chest as well, so much so that she would have had trouble trying to slide her fingers beneath either strap.

  The wreckage chose that moment to lurch several more inches into
deeper water.

  You’re running out of time!

  Her hand bumped up against something attached to the outside of Freeman’s boot, and when she drew it out of the water, she found herself holding a wide-­bladed combat knife. The moment she recognized it she went to work, using the blade to cut through the straps that held Freeman in his seat.

  It was tough; the material was reinforced to withstand the heavy shocks of flying, never mind being waterlogged from sitting in the river, but she kept at it, sawing furiously. When the first strap parted with an audible snap, she turned and started on the second one.

  That’s when she noted that they were adrift.

  The current was slowly pulling them simultaneously away from the bank and downriver. At the same time the front of the aircraft was sinking below the surface, the weight of the engine dragging it down toward the bottom.

  She had a few seconds, at most, to get them out of here.

  “Come on! You bloody stupid sonofa—­”

  The knife cut through the final section of the belt. Without hesitation Veronica grabbed Freeman by the jacket and pulled him with her over the side of the cockpit, into the water.

  When she surfaced seconds later, one arm wrapped around Freeman’s chest from behind to help keep his head out of the water, Veronica saw that she’d been just in time. As she watched, the tail of the plane tipped upward and then quickly sank beneath the waves as the weight of the engine dragged the rest of the wreckage to the bottom of the Thames.

  Not that Veronica was immune to the current; far from it, in fact. Even as she watched the plane sink she was being carried steadily downriver, Freeman still held tight against her upper body, and she knew that if she wasn’t careful, she’d be carried right down the Thames estuary and out into the sea. Drowning in the English Channel was slightly more attractive than getting eaten alive by shredders, but only slightly. She wasn’t going to go out that way if she could help it.

  Her only option was the tower.

  Long used as both a prison and a place of execution, the Tower of London was infamous for its long and bloody history but it had the one thing she needed right now above anything else—­a way out of the river.