Flight of Eagles, page 16
He stretched and lit a cigarette and Julie Legrande drove up in the Jeep. ‘Hello there, jump in quickly,’ she said as the rain started. ‘It doesn’t look good, does it, for the mission?’
‘Lousy met report.’
‘The forward forecast was good.’
‘It might change later tonight. How are you anyway?’
‘Fine. I hear the Yanks are after you.’
‘So they tell me.’ He was totally indifferent.
‘You’re stubborn, aren’t you?’
‘No, just bloody-minded, as you say.’ She turned into the top of the village High Street and Harry added, ‘Where are we going?’
‘You can settle in at the manor later. The Lysander won’t be here for an hour. I just heard. I’m needed at the pub. Lunch for the lifeboat crew and I’m sure you could do with something to eat.’
‘That suits me. How do you manage about the lifeboat crew? I thought all the villagers were turfed out of here?’
‘They were, but things have changed. It’s still top secret, but the crew live in the cottages and their families are dispersed locally. Farms, villages, that sort of thing. The men take turns seeing them at weekends.’
‘Isn’t that risky from a security point of view?’
‘You obviously don’t know lifeboatmen. They’re probably the most disciplined men you could find anywhere. Usually they’re unpaid volunteers. In this case, they get paid, because they can’t follow their usual occupation.’
She pulled up outside the Hanged Man and Harry got out and looked up at the sign. ‘That’s nice. A Tarot symbol. Where did you get that?’
‘I painted it myself.’
‘Is Tarot a hobby of yours?’
‘Tarot isn’t a hobby, Wing Commander.’
‘Maybe you could give me a reading,’ Harry said and tossed his flying jacket into the Jeep.
‘It’s not possible. I know too much about you,’ she said and she turned and led the way in.
A log fire burned brightly in the open fireplace. There were eight men in there, four playing cards, one by the fire reading a newspaper, the others drinking beer at the bar.
‘Come on, Julie, we’re starving,’ someone called.
‘Don’t fuss. I was down earlier. The pies are in the oven and the potatoes and cabbage. Satisfied?’
The man reading the newspaper called, ‘You leave her be or I’ll belt you one.’ The rest of the crew laughed.
Someone said, ‘You tell him Zec, that’s the way.’
They all looked curiously at Harry and Julie took him over to the fire. ‘Zec Acland, the coxswain.’
Acland was thirty-five, an intensely attractive human being, full of energy and with a tanned seaman’s face. He looked what he was, a fisherman bred to the sea since childhood.
‘Wing Commander Harry Kelso,’ Julie said.
‘Ah, the Hurricane pilot.’ Zec held out a hand as hard as granite. ‘By God, boy, is there any medal you’re missing there?’
‘I bought them as a job lot in Camden Market in London,’ Harry told him.
‘Ah, well, you would, wouldn’t you?’ The rest of the crew laughed and Harry put the jump bag carefully on the table and sat down.
Zec was immediately curious. ‘Something special in there?’
‘A bear,’ Harry told him and lit a cigarette.
Everyone stopped talking and then someone laughed. ‘A bear?’
‘I see, a mascot?’ Zec said.
‘No, more than that. He flew with my father in the First War and he’s flown with me every mission in this.’
Again, someone laughed and Julie went behind the bar and pulled two pints. ‘I was a Navy man myself,’ Zec said. ‘No room for mascots on torpedo boats.’
Julie put the two pints on the table. ‘The wing commander sank the Orsini.’
The room went quiet and it seemed as if everyone was looking at Harry. Zec said, ‘You did that?’
‘That’s right.’
‘A lot of sailors went down in that one.’
‘Seven hundred and forty-eight.’ Harry tasted his pint. ‘That’s good. Did I do something wrong?’
‘We’re all sailors here and most of us have done time in the Navy. Sailors are sailors, Wing Commander, irrespective of their country, it’s always that way. The sea has always been the common enemy.’
‘The war, the war, the bloody war,’ Julie said.
‘That’s about it. Not your doing, Wing Commander, the war’s doing. Was the bear with you?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Let’s have a look then.’
Harry took Tarquin out and got up and put him on the bar. No one laughed. There was silence and then one of the sailors, built like a brick wall with tangled hair and beard, spoke for all of them.
‘Why, you marvellous old bugger. I declare, I’ve never seen the like.’
They crowded round and Julie leaned across the bar. ‘What a darling. Can we leave him here for a while?’
‘Sure,’ Harry said. ‘As long as he’s back in the bag for the flight tonight.’
‘Nowhere you’re going tonight, boy,’ Zec told him. ‘It’s going to get worse before it gets better.’
‘Munro isn’t going to like that,’ Harry said and at that moment the door opened and Munro, Molly, Jack Carter and Grant entered.
‘Wonderful smell, Julie my love,’ Munro said. ‘Just in time for the pies, are we?’
Late that evening, with the rain drumming against the windows of the manor, they gathered round the map table in the library. There was a large chart before them of the Cornish coast stretching across the Channel to France.
Munro said, ‘There’s the target, two miles outside this village, Grouville. As you know, Grant, one pick-up, a Colonel Jobert, immensely important to General de Gaulle. The Gestapo have dogged his heels for weeks. We must get him out.’
‘Yes, but the original plan as I understood it, envisaged bright moonlight so that Wing Commander Kelso could shadow me with no trouble around midnight and the met forecast now shows no hope of any improvement.’
Zec Acland turned from the fire, lighting a pipe. ‘Wrong as usual. I’d say winds four to five and driving rain will kill the fog around three-thirty to four o’clock. Forty-five minutes’ flight for you over there, in and out. You’ll have a clear moon fading into dawn. As long as your passenger can wait, you’ll be able to get him.’
‘The voice of experience,’ Munro said. ‘We have radio contact. I can move the pick-up time forward, no problem.’ He turned to Harry. ‘That suit you?’
‘Absolutely,’ Harry said. ‘But I would point out that it will be dawn which means we’ll be highly visible.’
‘That’s what you’re there for,’ Munro told him. ‘Now that’s settled, let’s have dinner.’
Zec was absolutely right, for there was rain with the wind and the fog cleared, then the rain stopped and a half moon was plainly visible in a clear sky. At the airfield, Grant took off first, the Lysander lifting up into the sky and turning out to sea.
Originally these planes had housed two 20mm Hispano cannons on each side of the undercarriage and the fairings on the wheels had housed a .303 Browning machine-gun, but that had been in the days when it was a reconnaissance aircraft. Modified for Special Duties, it was now unarmed and usually flew so low that it followed its course by landmarks on the ground, often flying below radar height.
Harry gave Grant fifteen minutes then took off, levelled at 2000 feet and went after the Lysander at 300 miles an hour, closing upon it in no time at all. He found the Lysander way below, went down himself and swept by, rose again to 2000 and then took up station.
They passed the French coast, moved inland and there was the target, bicycle torches laid out in an L-shape in the usual Resistance manner. Harry circled and Grant went down, the dawn already coming up.
At the airfield at Fermanville twenty miles away, Max and two others, duty pilots on the night shift, were playing cards when the alarm sounded.
The controller said calmly, ‘We have traffic, we have traffic. Two targets. Scramble at once and I’ll give you the co-ordinates.’
Max and his friends, already dressed for flying, were out of the door and running across the apron to where their three ME 109s were waiting. Max took his parachute from the sergeant, pulled it on and then his flying helmet. A moment later as flight leader he took off first and the others followed fast.
As the day dawned, grey clouds swept in and rain hammered against the canopy. At 3000 feet Harry flew through broken cloud, turning in wide curves, aware of Grant far, far below and then a couple of miles away, an ME 109 emerged from low cloud and pounced on the Lysander.
Harry went down. The Hurricane could do four hundred miles an hour in a dive. He was aware of movement to starboard, knew that meant another 109, but couldn’t afford to play games. The Lysander was of primary importance. He came up behind the first ME, his four Hispano cannons thundered and he blew most of the tail off the other plane. At the same time, a second ME came in from starboard and fired cannons that raked the Hurricane from stem to stern. Part of the cockpit and the windscreen disintegrated and a splinter ripped Harry’s left cheek. He banked, rolled as the second ME flashed past, fired his cannon instinctively and the Luftwaffe plane simply blew up.
The Cornish coast was fifteen miles away, the Lysander at 800 feet making for home. Grant, looking up, had seen it all. He also saw two other things. That the Hurricane was trailing smoke and that a third ME had appeared from the clouds.
‘A miracle,’ Colonel Jobert cried. ‘I’ve never seen such a thing.’
‘He’ll need more than a miracle now,’ Grant told him and called Cold Harbour over the radio. ‘Estimated time of arrival fifteen minutes, but Hurricane badly damaged. Suggest you launch lifeboat.’
Max, on the outer edge of the sweep, had seen the action from afar, and knew great flying when he saw it. He watched one, then two, go down, then he swept round, rolled and came in for the kill, aware of the Hurricane trailing heavy black smoke. He came up behind to finish it off and it was the Lancaster all over again.
As the Hurricane slowed, Max throttled back and took up station to port. He had a secondary channel designed to eavesdrop on the RAF frequency and used it now.
‘Hey, Tommy, you fought a great fight, but it’s time to go or you’ll end up like burnt steak at a barbecue.’
Harry, hanging in there, didn’t need to recognize the voice, although he did. Every instinct in his entire being told him who it was.
‘Hello, Max, it’s been a long time.’
‘Dear God, Harry, it’s you,’ Max said and the Hurricane started down.
‘Do you think you can make the coast?’ said Max.
‘It’s not likely, but I’ll give it a try.’ Harry’s face was hurting. ‘Hard to hold this lovely bitch. How’s Mutti?’
‘For God’s sake, Harry.’
‘Tell her to take care. The way I hear it, Himmler’s just waiting for his chance.’
‘Watch it, Harry, watch it! Pieces of your fuselage are breaking away.’
Zee Acland’s voice came over the radio. ‘This is lifeboat Lively Jane out of Cold Harbour. We’re on our way, Kelso. Give me your position.’
At that moment the radio started to smoke and went dead.
The sea was heaving, the wind, force four and freshening, as the Lively Jane pressed on at top speed, bouncing over the waves. She was a forty-one-foot Watson type boat, weighed fifteen tons and was powered by two thirty-five horsepower petrol engines. She carried a crew of eight and in rough weather could take fifty people on board. She was also of the self-righting type, which meant that when she capsized, she was supposed to come up again. The men were all at their stations and Zec was at the wheel in the rear cockpit. Molly stood beside him in oilskins and a yellow life-jacket, a medical kit beside her on the deck.
‘Is there a chance, Zec?’ she cried.
The Lively Jane veered sharply to port, taking a mountain of green water and she fell to her knees. He hauled her up with one hand. ‘I’ve enough to do here without having to look out for you. Get below with that box of yours, girl, and pray.’
She did as she was told and Zec varied the speed and fought on.
‘Flames, Harry, I can see flames.’ Max had throttled right back and kept station. ‘You’ve got to go, old boy, or you’ll burn.’
That was always the fighter pilot’s worst nightmare. Harry was at 1500 now. ‘I guess you’re right. It’s been nice talking to you, Max. Let’s try to make it not so long next time.’
Folkestone all over again. He snapped the link on the jump bag, pulled back his canopy and unfastened his seat-belt. The smell of burning was terrible, the flames licking around his flying boots. He flipped the Hurricane over and fell out.
Zec Acland’s voice came over the channel again. ‘Are you there? Can you give me your position, Wing Commander?’
Max cut in. ‘Listen to me. This is your friendly local Luftwaffe pilot here. He’s just jumped. Now take down his position.’ He gave it and went into a steep dive, following the parachute as it descended to port.
It was raining again now, blowing in from the Atlantic and the carpet of waves and foam below was terrible to see. My God, he thought, he’s had it. They’ll never see him. And then it came to him, the one chance, and he reached for the dye bag on his left knee and pulled it free. He yanked back his canopy and went down.
Harry plunged into the waves, went under, inflated his Mae West, surfaced and fought to get rid of his parachute. He went into a trough, the waves so high that he couldn’t see beyond, then rose in a crest to see a bleak dawn landscape under dark storm clouds.
The ME 109 was over to the left several hundred yards away and only a few hundred feet up. He wondered what his brother was playing at and then Max throttled back to virtually stalling speed and came in incredibly at a hundred feet. Obviously judging his moment, Max leaned out of the cockpit and dropped the dye bag. It fell only fifty feet to one side of Harry and the yellow stain started to spread.
Harry struggled towards it and Max increased speed, pulled back the column and climbed to a thousand and there, only a mile away to the north, was the Lively Jane.
Some of the crew shouted in dismay as the black plane with the Luftwaffe crosses and the swastika tailplane flew over.
Max called over the radio. ‘Lively Jane, listen to me. He’s a mile due south of you. I dropped my dye bag, so look for the yellow stain. I’ll circle him till you get there, and get it right or I’ll blow you out of the water.’
‘All right, you bastard. I don’t know what your game is, but we’ll be there,’ Zec replied and Max turned away. Zec was so involved in the hunt that it took a moment for the penny to drop: was that Luftwaffe pilot speaking English?
God, it was cold, colder than Folkestone in water all the way from America. Harry went down in the troughs, bounced up on the waves like a cork, the jump bag on its strap following him.
‘Not good, old buddy, not good at all,’ he said, pulling the jump bag close, and then he was aware of the roaring of the engine and looked up.
Max came in low and waggled his wings, then circled and came in again.
‘Silly damn fool,’ Harry whispered. ‘Go on, get the hell out of it, Max, while you still have enough juice.’
The yellow stain was enormous now, dispersed by the motion of the waves and he floated almost in the centre and then, as he was tossed high again, he saw the Lively Jane a hundred yards to his left. He went down, was thrown high and the lifeboat was suddenly there, turning broadside.
God, but he was tired. He tried to strike out and then it was on top of him. Two of the crew tied to lifelines jumped into the water and got him between them, a ladder was thrown over the side and hands reached down and hauled him over the rail. A moment later he was on his knees in the rear cockpit, vomiting salt water.
Molly was there, crouched beside him. ‘Your face, it’s bad. Let’s get you below.’
A voice crackled over the speaker of the radio. ‘Hey, you got him?’
‘Yes, thanks to you,’ Zec said, ‘whoever you are.’
Harry put up a shaking hand. ‘Give me the mike.’ He grabbed it. ‘Max, it’s me.’
‘I love you, Harry.’
‘And I love you. Remember what I said. Tell Mutti to take care.’
The ME 109 turned away, climbed high into the sombre sky and fled like a departing spirit.
One of the crew pulled Harry up and Molly had an arm around his shoulders. ‘Who in the hell was that?’ Zec demanded. ‘What was he playing at? He sounded American.’ He frowned. ‘Hell, he sounded like you.’
‘Well, he would,’ Harry said. ‘That was my brother Max, my twin brother.’
In the medical room at the manor at breakfast time, Harry, in a robe, sat back, the morphine injection Molly had given him taking satisfactory effect as she examined his left cheek.
‘How bad is it?’
‘Could be worse.’
‘Hospital?’
‘Show a little faith. I’m a truly great surgeon. Anyway, this is just Casualty Department stuff. Now keep still while I stitch you up. Ten should do it. You’re going to end up with a really interesting scar, Harry, the girls will love it.’
‘Get lost,’ he told her.
‘I’ve no intention of getting lost. Now shut up and keep still.’
After a while the door opened and Munro looked in. ‘Can I join you?’
‘Look and learn,’ Harry said. ‘Obviously Grant and the colonel made it back.’
‘They certainly did and proceeded onwards to London after refuelling. Jack went with them. The colonel was ecstatic. Said you were a hero extraordinaire and intends to ask de Gaulle to make you a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.’
‘Oh, no,’ Harry groaned.
‘Brace yourself. I’ve just spoken to Teddy West and gave him the full details of the entire operation. He told me he’s recommending you for the immediate award of a bar to your DSO.’
