Flight of Eagles, page 12
So he told her.
‘What do you think will happen?’ she asked.
‘That little idiot Goebbels will have to rescind the order.’
‘You think so?’
‘Definitely. It suits Himmler to make him look like the fool he is, especially in the eyes of the Führer.’
‘And the Baroness?’
He shrugged. ‘She was always strong-willed and the von Halders have been used to getting their own way for centuries.’
‘Times have changed.’
‘Try telling her that.’
‘But Max von Halder is your friend.’
‘So what do you want me to do, put my head on the block?’ he asked her with some violence. ‘Go on, get on with your work.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re a good man, Bubi, in entirely the wrong job.’
That same evening, at the White House in Washington, Abe Kelso’s limousine delivered him to the west basement entrance. The Secret Service agents knew him, of course, but with respect for protocol he produced his pass.
‘The President is expecting you, Senator,’ one of them told him. ‘I’ll show you up.’
The Oval Office was in half-darkness, with only a table light on the desk and there seemed to be papers everywhere. The air was heavy with smoke and Roosevelt sat behind the desk in his wheelchair, a cigarette in his usual long holder.
‘There you are, Abe.’
‘Mr President.’
‘How do you think the war’s going?’
‘Up and down. Poorly in Italy.’
‘That was a slick one, the way that SS guy Scorzeny and those paratroopers grabbed Mussolini from the mountaintop where he was being held prisoner. Shows the world Hitler still has a long arm.’
‘Churchill told the House of Commons that it was the most outstanding commando raid of the war.’
‘Winston was always generous, but he was right.’
‘What can I do for you, Mr President?’
‘Well, Abe, top secret, but the Allies will land at Anzio, south of Rome, in January.’
‘The German army in Italy is one of their best and Kesselring is arguably the most successful general they’ve got. It could be tough,’ Abe said.
‘I expect it will. Eisenhower and Montgomery will move to London in January to prepare for the invasion of France. I want you to go over, Abe, as my private fact-finder. I’m telling you now so you can have plenty of time to clear your desk.’
‘At your command as always, Mr President.’
‘Good, and remember, the reason I gave you unofficial ambassador status is so you have muscle. I know you don’t have a specific function, but it makes you Priority One at all times for travel or whatever.’ Roosevelt pushed an envelope across. ‘You’ll find a presidential warrant in there, signed by me. That should impress even Eisenhower.’
Abe put it in his pocket. ‘Anything else, Mr President?’
‘I don’t think so. What about your grandsons? How are they?’
‘Well, the one we don’t mention is now a half-colonel in the Luftwaffe. Medals up to his eyes.’
‘And the other? Harry, isn’t it?’
‘A wing commander, also medals up to his eyes.’
Roosevelt frowned. ‘You mean he’s still in the RAF? Abe, we’ve been in the war quite some time. Don’t you think he should be with the Air Force?’
‘Quite a number of people have suggested it, but he doesn’t seem to see it that way.’
‘Then I think you should change his mind, Abe. Speak to him when you’re over there. Tell him it’s the Presidential wish.’
‘As you command, Mr President.’
‘Excellent. Now push me into the sitting room and I’ll mix you one of my celebrated Martinis before you go.’
In Berlin, Goebbels gave in and ordered the release of intermarried Jews, so Rosa was reunited with her Heini. Elsa was ecstatic the day Max, in Berlin for a staff meeting, joined her.
‘Isn’t it wonderful? We’ve beaten that little Nazi bastard.’
‘For now, Mutti, only for now. You must take care.’
‘I’m not afraid of these swine.’
The telephone rang. She answered, then held it out. ‘For you.’
‘Max, it’s Bubi. I knew you were here to have dinner with Galland. Can you spare five minutes?’
‘Of course.’
Max replaced the phone and turned to his mother. ‘Bubi. He’s in the bar and wants a word.’
‘I’ll join you when I’ve changed my frock,’ she said and went into the dressing room, where Rosa waited.
Max sat in the corner booth and sampled the champagne cocktail Bubi had ordered. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Max, you’re my friend. We flew together in France before Dunkirk. You saved my life on at least one occasion.’
‘So?’
‘So I’m putting my career in your hands and very probably also my life.’
Max frowned. ‘What is this?’
‘Your mother. Her involvement in the Jewish protest has gone down like a lead weight in the wrong quarters.’
‘You mean the Reichsführer?’
‘There’s more. I don’t know all the details, but there’s an investigation of disaffected army officers, people who wouldn’t shed tears if the Führer met with an accident. There have already been two failed bomb attempts, I’m told.’
‘But how does this affect my mother?’
‘She’s keeping the wrong company. Look, Max, I’m sure she’s not involved personally, but friends of hers are. She could go down with the ship.’
He was agitated and Max said, ‘All right, Bubi. I take the point and I’m grateful.’
‘Do me one favour. If you try to warn her, don’t tell her the tip-off came from me. When the Baroness talks, she talks loudly and if you want to punch me in the mouth for saying that, do it quickly because I’ve got to go.’
Max grinned. ‘You’re perfectly right, Bubi, and I’m still grateful.’
‘I’ll see you soon,’ Bubi told him and left.
Max ordered another glass of champagne and thought about it. There was no sense in locking horns with her. He’d have to be more subtle.
A moment later Galland came in and sat down. ‘Is your mother joining us?’
‘Yes.’ Max waved to the barman. ‘But I want a word before she does. All this staff work, all these inspections in France. I’m bored, Dolfo.’
‘Listen, you dog, I’m well aware that you’ve been flying yourself down to the French coast. ME109s, a Junkers 88S last week. No crew, just a delivery pilot and you took over.’
‘I have to keep my hand in.’
‘So do I.’ Galland grinned. ‘Be patient, Max, after Christmas. Let’s say January and I’ll put you back on fighters, night or day, your choice.’
‘Now you’re talking.’ Max jumped to his feet as his mother entered the room.
Later, on the balcony of her suite, the French windows open to the cold night air, he smoked a cigarette and looked out.
‘No RAF tonight,’ Elsa said as she joined him.
‘I saw the met report for England. The Lancasters wouldn’t be able to land when they got back. Heavy fog.’
‘Thank God. It’s good to have a night off. It’s been bad lately. Are you going back to France soon?’
‘In the morning.’ He hesitated. ‘Mutti, there’s a lot of loose talk going around these days, suggestions of plots by staff officers against the Führer.’
‘How pleasant if one of them succeeded.’
‘Don’t be silly, Mutti. Just be careful who your friends are and, please, no more performances like the Jewish protest. That’s really asking for it.’
‘I’m Elsa von Halder and I do as I please.’
‘That’s such arrogance,’ he said, angry now. ‘Don’t you realize what these bastards are like? They’d string you up without a thought.’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ she said, yet there was something new in her eyes.
‘When they arrest one they arrest all,’ Max said. ‘That means the staff at the estate, good old Rosa and the Black Baron, hero of the Luftwaffe. We all go down the same road to hell because of your stupidity.’
‘Max, you’re exaggerating.’
He went and picked up his Schiff and pulled it on. ‘I’ll stay at the air base tonight. I’ve got an early start.’ He walked to the door.
‘Max!’ she called.
He opened the door and went out.
Sarah Dixon found life considerably more interesting at Baker Street with SOE than at the War Office. For one thing and in spite of the fact that her duties were administrative, she did get to see who was who. Munro for example, Jack Carter and others. One day West came in with Harry Kelso.
‘That wing commander,’ she said to a woman called Madge Smith in the canteen. ‘I heard him speak and he sounded American, but the flash on his uniform says Finland.’
‘Oh, that’s Kelso, Harry Kelso. A real ace. He sank that Italian cruiser, the Orsini, and you’re right, he is a Yank.’
‘Then why isn’t he in the American Air Force?’
‘I don’t really know. He’s Air Vice Marshal West’s aide, I know that and he does courier work for Munro.’
‘Courier work?’
‘Special Duties flights out of Tangmere and Croydon or down to Cold Harbour. That’s a base we have in Cornwall.’
‘How interesting,’ Sarah said.
Even more interesting were the events of Tuesday afternoon. Madge Smith said, ‘Be a love, take this file to Nelly in the copying room. Five copies. It’s on the chit.’
On her way through the downstairs corridor, Sarah had a quick look. There was a covering letter to some War Office department, a map of Cold Harbour, details of aircraft normally there, flights on two levels. Lysander drops to France and flights by Lysander from London’s Croydon base to Cold Harbour, with pilots listed. Harry Kelso was mentioned.
She couldn’t believe it, went into the copying room and found Nelly, a middle-aged grey-haired woman, stacking sheets.
‘They want this fast, Nelly. Five copies.’
‘God, what a morning I’ve had. Run off my feet. I haven’t even had a chance to go you-know-where.’
‘Well, go now. I’ll start this lot for you.’
‘What a dear you are.’
She rushed out and Sarah ran the sheets through one after another, placed them together, folded them and put them in the inside pocket of the jacket. Then she started on the five copies, was almost done when Nelly appeared.
‘Just about through.’
‘Bless you, I had a smoke while I could.’ The final sheet went through and she stapled the copies. ‘There you are, dear, and give Madge my love.’
It was four days later that Joel Rodrigues delivered the report to Trudi, who took it in to Hartmann at once. Bubi read it with awe on his face and held it out to her.
‘We’ve struck gold. Read that.’
She went through it quickly. ‘Good heavens, what a coup and did you note the name of one of those Special Duties pilots?’
‘Harry Kelso.’
‘Will you tell the Baron?’
‘Of course not, but Himmler, yes, if only to show what great work we do. Tell Rodrigues to send a signal back to his brother in London. Tell him to inform Mrs Dixon we must have all information possible.’
‘Of course,’ Trudi said and went out.
Max was flying a Junkers 88S from Berlin to a coastal base called Fermanville. The Junkers usually had a crew of three – a pilot, navigator and rear gunner – but on delivery jobs it was just the pilot. He shouldn’t have been doing it, but like Galland, he couldn’t resist the chance to fly.
Near Le Touquet at 0200 hours, he crossed the coast in scattered cloud with a half moon. Visibility was fair as he called the night fighter base at Fermanville and gave his position.
‘Who are you?’ the ground controller’s voice crackled in Max’s headphones.
‘Colonel von Halder delivering a new black bird for you.’
‘Have you a crew?’
‘No.’
‘What a pity, Baron. I have a target.’
‘Give me the position and I’ll take a look.’
‘Steer nought-six-seven degrees. Target range five kilometres.’
The Junkers moved out of the cloud and Max saw the prey up ahead, a Lancaster bomber, smoke feathering from one of the starboard engines.
He called in, ‘I have visual sighting.’ Then he closed.
It was very badly damaged, so badly that the rear gunner’s turret had disappeared. He went down five or six hundred feet into cloud and came up at the rear, but below the stricken bomber. As he closed, he moved underneath. The JU88S had a pair of twenty-millimetre cannon mounted to aim upwards at an angle. When fired, it would rip out the belly of the target.
Max looked up, aware of the immense damage, and thought of the carnage he would cause in there, the cold wind whistling through the gaping holes in the fuselage, the dead and the dying. And for some reason, surprising even to himself, he thought: No. It was enough. He banked across, aware of the pilot over there, clear in the moonlight. He raised a hand in salute, then flew away.
He landed at Fermanville, taxied to dispersal and got out as the ground crew came forward. The intelligence officer, a major named Schultz, stood there smoking a cigarette.
‘What happened, Baron, what was it?’
‘A Lancaster and trailing smoke. I caught a glimpse, but then he was into heavy cloud. With no navigator and no one to operate the Lichtenstein set, there was no way I could follow him.’
‘Better luck next time.’
Max walked towards the officers’ mess, his boots drubbing the tarmac, depressed, weary and disturbed. A sitting duck and he’d let it go. Why? He’d never done such a thing before, always gone for the kill.
‘What’s happening to you, old boy?’ he asked himself softly in English.
The mess was empty except for the group commander, a colonel named Haupt. They went back a long way. He was drinking coffee at the bar.
‘Here we are again, Max. What happened up there?’
Max gave him the same explanation and ordered coffee and a schnapps.
Haupt said, ‘Not much you could do with no navigator or rear gunner.’
‘Yes, that Tommy’s luck was good. I hope he makes it back.’
‘From bombing the Reich?’
‘All right, I take your point.’
‘Galland isn’t going to be pleased when he hears you’ve made another flight like this.’
‘You’ll tell him, of course.’
‘I have to.’
Max shrugged. ‘He’s got broad shoulders. I saw him in Berlin. He’s promised me fighters again in January.’
Haupt frowned. ‘Max, you’ve done enough and more than enough. Dammit, man, it’s a miracle …’
He hesitated and Max smiled. ‘A miracle that I’m here at all? True enough. Not many left from the old days. Someone told me only twenty per cent of those who flew in the Battle of Britain are still around.’ He smiled again at Haupt. ‘And you and I are two of them and Dolfo makes three. There’s also my brother, of course, but we don’t mention him.’
He ordered another schnapps and Haupt said, ‘Why do you still want to carry on, Max? With your record, your title, you could have a permanent staff job.’
‘It’s what I do,’ Max said. ‘Flying is what I am. My father flew Bristols for the Royal Flying Corps. Back home in Boston after the war, he bought one and kept it at a local airfield. When Harry and I were ten, he strapped us into the rear cockpit and took us for a flight. Nothing was ever the same after that. When we were sixteen and I went back to the States to spend time with my brother, we learned to fly with another old RFC pilot and we were good, Colonel, damn good from the start.’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing else but flying was important to me after that.’
Haupt nodded. ‘I understand, but do you know what’s really interesting about your story, Max? The fact that your father, an ace over the Western Front in 1917, was still flying the same fighter plane years after the war. Why was that?’
‘Come in, Doctor Freud.’ Max nodded. ‘I take your drift. The high spot in his life and he couldn’t let it go.’
‘So it would seem. I’d let go now, Max, if I were you, while there’s still time.’
Max thought about it. ‘Maybe you’re right. Anyway, I’m due at Abbeville tomorrow. I’ll get some sleep.’ At the door he hesitated. ‘Tell me, do you ever feel tired? I mean, really deep down tired? As if you were at the end of something?’
‘Yes, we can all feel like that. It’s been a long war,’ Haupt said gravely. ‘Go on, go to bed, Max.’
The door closed. Haupt sat there, an expression of gloom on his face and said to the barman, ‘Give me a cognac, I could do with it.’
The first time Munro asked Harry to fly him and Carter down to Cold Harbour by Lysander, it was a bad flight. The New Year was starting, and there was heavy cloud and slate-grey rain slicing across the Cornish landscape. They went in at a thousand feet and below was the Cornish coast, the inlet of Cold Harbour, the quay with a naval craft moored beside it.
‘Isn’t that a Kriegsmarine E-boat?’ Harry said as he circled.
‘That’s right,’ Munro told him cheerfully. ‘Secret project and nothing to do with you. It’s a mind-your-own-business sort of place this, Harry. You’ll see.’
‘What about the villagers?’ Harry asked as he started to go down.
‘Moved them all out, old boy,’ Carter told him. ‘Still use the pub, that’s the Hanged Man, for base personnel. A lady called Julie Legrande runs it for us. She’s also housekeeper at the manor. Ah, you’ve got a good view. Grancester Manor.’
Grey stone, a couple of towers, all very imposing with a walled garden running down to the river. A lake.
‘Nice,’ Harry said.
‘We keep the Joes there overnight. That’s what we call the agents we deliver to France. Julie looks after them. She used to be in that line of work herself.’
Harry concentrated on landing, as he skimmed across the manor with its lake and dropped down on to a grass runway with a wind-sock at one end.
