Eagles at War

by Boyne, Walter J.

  Josten horsed his Messerschmitt around, glancing down to the blinking red warning light. There was just enough fuel to make it to France. He trailed Galland, pushing over in a maneuver he knew the carburetor-equipped Hurricane could not follow. Diving, he realized how right the man had been the night before. All the preparation—and then no time to fight. If they'd had drop tanks they could have finished off the other Hurricane and perhaps protected the bombers for another half hour. He thought of them, plunging toward London, prey to the fighters being called down from beyond the Messerschmitt's range limits. It was outrageous! You couldn't fight today's war with yesterday's technology! Things had to change!

  Turning back to reengage, Bandfield saw the two German fighters fast disappearing. He watched them go, at once ashamed to have been beaten so soundly—losing three out of four in a single attack was inexcusable—yet suffused with the unbelievable sense of vitality in being once again a survivor.

  All of Spain's old combat fears and hatred welled over Bandfield. He had scarcely known Keeler or the Poles, but to lose them in a single mission seemed incredible, especially to just two enemy fighters. He set course back to Northolt, cursing the Germans, cursing the Hurricane.

  We're going to have to come up with something a lot better than this, he thought. Wonder what Roget has cooking?

  *

  Wright Field/September 15, 1940

  "Holy shit!—oops, sorry, Gracie." Hadley's priceless secretary, Grace Davidson, had joined him from California, and she strongly disapproved of bad language.

  "Look at these, Gracie. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your life?"

  Grace took the pile of proposals from him and began sorting them out in preparation for the meeting.

  "Very nice, Hadley, but let me get these separated and put in folders before you lose everything."

  "You do that, hon, and make sure we get a new file cabinet with some decent locks. That stuffs all top secret."

  Roget had never liked paperwork before; now all he did was plow through reams of it, enjoying every moment. It wasn't the usual "you stamp my drawings and I'll stamp yours" review process that had suffocated him years before at Wright Field. Caldwell's project amazed him as its details unfolded before his information-greedy eyes. Even better, Caldwell continually called him in for advice on other projects. The two men shared a rare ability to envision the flow of air over an aircraft, all of it, not just over the wings and fuselage, but over the little details—struts, radiators, even rivets. It was what Tony Fokker had meant when he said, "You've got to see the spray." Only if you could "see the spray" could you tell if a design was really excellent. Too many people fixated on an individual element—the engine, the wing—and forgot that it is the whole airplane which flies.

  Gracie was filing the evaluation of the response to the Request for Data R40C—Operation Leapfrog, an innocuous-sounding government inquiry that had detonated a charge of dynamite under the imagination of American aviation manufacturers.

  Everything was in the file—sleek twin-boom pushers, crazy "tail-first" airplanes, flying wings—all the things Caldwell had said should be experimented with. Impatient with her calm methodic approach, Hadley shuffled down through the pile of folders and pulled out one marked "McDonnell Aircraft Company, St. Louis, Model 1."

  "This is the one, Gracie, believe me. Nobody else thinks so, but just look at this beauty."

  The airplane was a twin-engine fighter, conventional in everything except for the sinuous beauty with which its wing, fuselage, and engine nacelles were melded together.

  "Lookee how this thing curves together, no angles; hell, it's built better than you are, Gracie—no offense. If they get the right engine for this little hummer, it's a winner. I'll bet they'll know what to do with jet engines when we get them some. You keep your eye on this outfit, Gracie, they are going places."

  "You're going places, too. You're supposed to be at a meeting with Caldwell in Building 12 in ten minutes. You've just got time to walk over there; I put a copy of the new contract in your briefcase."

  "Bless you, Gracie, I'm glad someone can keep me squared away. Be sure you stick that folder on the McNaughton jet in with the others."

  Bless old Henry Caldwell, too, he thought as he walked. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be here having all this fun. But the designs he carried tucked under his arm disturbed him. They were unusual-looking, but none projected the blazing potential he'd hoped to see. Maybe it wouldn't matter—not with the North American job coming along.

  The previous year, the British Air Purchasing Commission, desperate for more fighters of any caliber, had asked Caldwell if he would object if they contracted with North American Aviation to build Curtiss P-40s for the RAF. The P-40 was already obsolete, but a new plant could begin building them with a minimum loss of time. Caldwell had been inclined to agree, but in January Hadley had dragged him out to Downey, California—the site of the old Roget Aircraft plant—to talk to the head of North American Aircraft, Dutch Kindleberger, about a new design. Roget had brought with him all the data from the labs of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, back at Langley, and opened the meeting with an unwelcome bombshell.

  "I've got the dope on a new airfoil Dutch should use—we've got to break away from the 1930 airfoils being used on the P-40."

  The NACA had developed a whole series of brand new airfoils, thinner at the front than usual, with the thickest section farther aft. They promised to add both speed and range to airplanes using them.

  Caldwell, mildly irritated that Roget had grabbed the leadership of the meeting from him, objected immediately.

  "I've read those same damn reports, Hadley. Building a laminar flow wing calls for production tolerances beyond the capabilities of most companies. I don't want to buy fifty of these things, I want to buy five hundred, maybe five thousand."

  The big numbers stirred Kindleberger, who was anxious to please Caldwell, and annoyed with Roget's trying to tell him which airfoil to use.

  "We've got a good airfoil of our own, Hadley. I don't think we need laminar flow."

  Roget shook his wild white hair, rolled his eyes to heaven, and raised his voice a few decibels. "You guys aren't listening. If you build this airplane, it's going to have to have a laminar flow wing to get the speed and range you want. Don't tell me you can't build it, Dutch. I've been talking to your best guys, Edgar Schmued and Ed Horkey, and I know they want to use it. You can build it, you're the best in the business."

  In the end, he'd prevailed. Now the XP-51 was supposed to make its first flight before the end of the month—and everybody would see that he'd been right!

  Dayton was suffering one of its dry summers, and the scanty patches of grass the Corps of Engineers had tried to plant were parched brown. A single tree struggled to survive in front of the laboratories of the Materiel Division, an example to the row of shriveled shrubs gasping along the curb. To Roget's left, dust rose from the grading being done for the new hangars and the Armament Lab's gun range. The whole field was in an ordered turmoil as new roads and buildings shot up, a reflection in miniature of America's industry springing into life, shaking off the decay1 of the Depression.

  Overhead a steady procession of aircraft spaced themselves to come in to land, all taking care to avoid the construction work going on for Wright Field's first paved runway.

  Damn, a paved runway, who would have thought it? He remembered, as he always did, that it was at the far end of the same field where Charlotte Hafner had crashed and burned in the Hafner bomber.

  Roget walked into Building 12 and took the stairs two at a time up to the conference room by Caldwell's office. There was a steady roar that shook the glasses on the sideboard. He ran to the window and saw the huge Boeing XB-15 turning downwind. It was a good omen, for Caldwell was waiting to talk about its even bigger successor, the Boeing Model 345, the super secret XB-29. Roget wondered if anyone could build an airplane so advanced.

  *


  Dayton, Ohio/January 15, 1941

  It was as wet and cold as only a midwinter storm in Ohio can be. The wind-driven clouds, overladen with moisture gathered over Lake Erie, were beginning to glaze the landscape below with a gravely dangerous mixture of sleet and freezing rain.

  Clarice and Hadley were back in Salinas to settle on the sale of some property they held, and the Bandfields were alone in the big red house on Kettering Place, glad to have the place to themselves for a change.

  Little George's first birthday party had gone well; the baby didn't know or care what was going on, but four-year old Charlotte was happy to blow the candles out, monopolize the conversation, and in general be the star of the show. When the last bedtime song had been sung, the last glass of water delivered, and the last prayers said, Bandy went down to the living room. Patty's Christmas present had been a console record-changer from Sears, and he was busy stacking it with new records—"The Last Time I Saw Paris," "All or Nothing at All," "Taking a Chance on Love"—heavy stuff, he figured. With the kids in bed, the Rogets gone, some wine and sweet music, he felt he might have a chance at a little loving. He'd built a fire earlier and now stoked it to battle the moaning winds that sucked heat from the walls and windows.

  Patty came in, hair pinned up and bundled into her old pink housecoat, fuzzy slippers slapping as she walked. Bandfield's desire ebbed a little; it was clear Patty didn't have loving on her mind tonight.

  She nestled beside him, slipping under his arm as he continued to poke the fire.

  "Do you realize this is the first birthday you've ever been home for either child?"

  He kissed her absently on the side of the head and said, "Come on, now, this is the way fights start. I know I've been gone a lot, but it's not like I have a regular job. If Caldwell says go, I have to go." There was a welcome spurt of flames from the grate, and he added another lump of "smokeless" coal, gleaming black anthracite, the best you could buy.

  "And it's not like he stays at home. He's on the go himself, all the time. He's off to Europe again."

  "Sure, but he's a widower and his kids are grown up. How long before you leave again?"

  "I'm not sure; he wants me to take an A-20 and drop down through Central and South America, to try to see what the German airlines are up to. Just show the flag, the usual stuff."

  He poured wine, and they settled down on the battered couch that Hadley Roget had insisted be brought out from Salinas. It had been his only request—demand, really, for he was serious about it—and they had reluctantly given in. It was a big wooden-framed leather couch, the kind seen in the offices of ancient law firms, and the years hadn't treated it kindly. Clarice had tried to get rid of it more than once, but Hadley had always objected. Now it sat, tattered leather concealed beneath cotton throws, creaking in every joint as Patty snuggled tight and asked, "Did you ever think about what would happen to the children if one of us crashed?"

  The question was cogent. Bandy was testing the newest aircraft, fighters and bombers, and Patty was flying around the country in a "civilian" Seversky P-35. Hap Arnold had called her "the best recruiter in the business," and she was always in demand at rallies to sell war bonds.

  She pressed him. "What would you do if I were killed?"

  "Jeez, Patty, let's not talk about stuff like this. I was hoping to get a little loving."

  "You always want a little loving. But let's talk for a minute. If you get killed, I know I'll never marry again." Patty had lost her first husband in a racing accident.

  "Well, it's pretty simple to me. If I get killed, you'll have to stop flying. The kids need somebody to take care of them. But if you got killed, I couldn't stop flying, not while there's a war on. So I guess you're the one who'd better stop."

  "I wish I didn't think you were so right."

  He kissed her, and she pulled away.

  "You know the problem with you is that you don't need anyone, not me, not the kids, no one, not as along as you have your airplanes and your job."

  "That's wrong. I need you and the kids a lot. It's just that men and women are different. It goes back to caveman times—the man had to be out in front with a club, fighting off dinosaurs, while the woman stayed by the fire with the kids."

  "God, your knowledge of psychology is about as good as your knowledge of anthropology. There weren't any dinosaurs by the time the caveman was running around with his club."

  "You know what I mean. And how about you? How much do you need me, when you're always off flying to sell war bonds?"

  "It's different—I need you all the time; when I'm away, I ache for you. When you're gone, you probably never think about us."

  "How'd we get into this? I spend a lot of money for new records, dig out the last bottle of claret from my trip to England, and you want to fight about who needs you. I'll tell you what I need, and that's a little of you."

  He tugged at the tassel-corded belt that held her robe together. It came open, and he saw that she was nude.

  "You little devil. Here I've been thinking I was going to seduce you, and you're way ahead of me."

  "That's the way it's been all along. You never catch on, do you?"

  He was tender with her at first, but the wine, the Rogers' absence, the kids all being tucked up in bed fast asleep, and the stark beauty of her body, recovered so swiftly from George's difficult birth, excited him.

  She responded enthusiastically and they drove together, moving more and more violently, gasping for breath, whispering hot endearments into each other's ears. He asked, "Are you ready?" and as she screamed yes, Roget's old couch gave up the ghost to their flailing, disintegrating in a crash of splitting leather and flying splinters.

  They climaxed, laughing, amid the wreckage of the couch, then lay side by side gasping with pleasure and amusement.

  "Did the earth move?"

  "No, but the goddamn couch sure did!"

  It was fun until they heard Charlotte's voice piping from the doorway: "What you doing? Why you wrecking up the couch?"

  ***

  Chapter 4

  Stockholm, Sweden/April 28, 1941

  Palms sweating with nervousness, Countess Illeria Gortchakov forced herself to breathe deeply. She feigned interest in the small white-painted steamers bobbing at the quay below, staining the harbor sky with the ugly soot-laden black clouds of smoke. The passengers, mostly countryfolk from the north, scurried busily about with their rough bundles of luggage.

  Breathing deeply made her feel better, as if Swedish air was cleaner than Germany's. She had just left the German legation, located only a few hundred yards from the hotel, between the National Museum and the Royal Automobile Club. The legation had a more relaxed attitude than she was accustomed to in Berlin, and she had been pleased to find some old family friends working there.

  She was in Stockholm for a secret meeting with Henry Caldwell. To make her clandestine work easier, she had long ago acquiesced to a highly placed "special friend." It had not been difficult to persuade him to send her on a bogus mission to "check on propaganda material"—he thought she simply wanted a vacation and was happy to indulge her.

  In the bitter four days after Kristallnacht in 1938, she had grown close to Henry Caldwell, who stayed at her side, using his position to try to wrest an answer from the obdurate German bureaucracy about the identity of the SA storm troopers who had harassed them. In the process the scale of the pogrom became obvious and she had steeled herself to fight the regime. Caldwell had sensed her feelings and bluntly asked her to spy for him. When she accepted, she volunteered that she was half-Jewish.

  Surprised, Caldwell asked, "Does Helmut know of your background?"

  "Yes—he wants to work out something for us, he's even talking about marriage. They won't let him."

  "Of course not. If he even files the necessary papers, you'll be exposed. He shouldn't risk that."

  "I agree. It would be impossible."

  Caldwell had taken both of her hands in his and looked straight into h
er eyes. "Lyra, I want you to understand that espionage carries the penalty of death by beheading in Germany. And they would accuse Helmut as well."

  "I realize that."

  She still loved Helmut, responding physically to him as before, but it was increasingly difficult to accept his premise that he could be both a good human being and a good Nazi officer. His vision of technology saving Germany, at the same time somehow purging it of the Nazi regime, was overcast by his inveterate patriotism. Now all he really wanted was for technology to win the war.

  In the three years since Kristallnacht she had communicated with Caldwell on five occasions. Each time he had initiated the contact, via a coded message in an advertisement in the Berliner Tageblatt. It was a primitive system, but it worked. And each time he had made a trifling request for innocuous information that he must have already had, or could readily have determined from open sources. She gradually realized that it was a testing and an incriminating process; he was seeing if she were sincere and, at the same time, gaining control over her. She'd already done more than enough to be accused of treason. The Gestapo was not fussy about whom it charged, nor about the validity of the charges.

  Three floors above the veranda, Henry Caldwell had left his room door ajar, then gone back to adjust the motion picture projector he had borrowed from the American legation. He had arrived two days before from an abortive mission to Finland. The Finns had been very courteous, but their burning desire for revenge was obvious even as they refused his offer to supply McNaughton Sidewinder fighters. It was obvious to Caldwell that they were planning another war with Russia—and that could only happen if Germany invaded the USSR.

  In Helsinki, he'd listened to more of the wild rumors on the progress of the German jet engine program. McNaughton was developing a jet engine and aircraft of its own design but had run into enormous problems keeping the turbine blades from melting from the fierce internal heat. Caldwell had to find out if the Germans were having problems, too.