LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

unfold it. Himmel spread the map and glanced down at the ninth square of the H and M reference. Of course Löwenherz was right. Himmel smiled; the big plane was flying perfectly. In the mirror he saw Löwenherz look over his shoulder.

      ‘Is this gun loaded?’ asked Löwenherz.

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘I’ll test it while we are over water,’ announced Löwenherz.

      Behind him he heard a burst of firing as he tested the gun. What a good thing the ground crew had loaded it. They often didn’t bother, for in the night fighter’s war these little machine guns, swivelled round by the radar man, weren’t much use. Himmel could smell the sour cordite fumes and tightened the oxygen mask against his face. They were circling Deelen when their airfield control called them to say that Kokke’s Junkers had returned to Kroonsdijk with a technical fault. Leeuwarden airfield would supply an aircraft for them to test the airborne radar. They must go to Ameland, an island off the northern coast of the Netherlands.

      It was Löwenherz who first saw the plane below them. It was only when you saw another aircraft in the sky that you realized how fast you were moving. It was a white biplane, an Arado 66 with a red warning streamer flying from its wingtip. It seemed a long time since Löwenherz had flown his first solo.

      ‘See that, Himmel?’ said Löwenherz. ‘Below to port?’ The little trainer crawled across fields of ripening rye and dark fir woods.

      ‘He’s going well, sir, steadier than I was.’

      ‘And steadier than I was too,’ agreed Löwenherz. ‘Come round behind him; perhaps I can pick him up on the radar.’

      ‘He’s very low. I think we’ll get ground echoes,’ said Himmel, but he put the plane’s nose down and came round to creep up behind the pretty machine that was popping along merrily like a toy.

      ‘I’ll put the Kurier dead ahead,’ said Himmel, using the code word for enemy aircraft. The little white biplane had become an enemy bomber, for in what magical rites and rituals do we not manufacture an enemy from clay or wax. Or even from wood and fabric. The doll that looks like your enemy is called by his name. Stick pins into it and set it alight and believe that those same misfortunes will befall the ones you hate. Pretending it was dark, the two men acted out their game, stalking after the white quarry with all the skill that their years of war had taught them.

      Himmel’s head twisted and turned like an anxious sparrow’s. Veteran fighter pilots survived by scrutinizing every sector of the sky regularly and Himmel never rested his eyes on one thing for more than a moment. Victor Löwenherz, on the other hand, with some effort of willpower concentrated solely upon working the radar. As far as he was concerned the plane was under Himmel’s control. His father had always boasted that he could ride better, shoot better and even groom the horses and polish the equipment better than any man under his command. Similarly Oberleutnant Löwenherz was proud of his skill on the radar sets. Of course it was all very simple when your pilot was steering at the machine ahead for a test. In the black of night when the pilot relied solely upon his radar man’s guidance it was very different. He adjusted the controls again but the elevation tube was a mess and the range tube was almost as bad. It was closing far too fast. Himmel throttled back and even used some flap, but the old biplane was so slow that Himmel had to break away to port and come round behind him again.

      In his mirror Himmel saw Löwenherz crouching close to the three radar screens. He said, ‘You’re right, Himmel, the ground echo at this height just wipes out the elevation blip. We’re probably scaring the fellow half to death.’

      And scaring me too, thought Himmel. Here we are, perhaps the two most responsible and experienced pilots on the Staffel, compiling a blueprint for an air disaster: low altitude, speed close to stalling and formating on a strange aircraft. An accident investigation board would pillory both of us should anything happen.

      Himmel rolled the little control wheel to close the flaps. He pushed the yellow throttle-knobs and the engine note modulated from baritone to tenor. It was a relief to open up the motors. The Richards were powerful machines but the heavy radar equipment and clumsy aerial array on the nose made them only too easy to stall. He made a wide arc round the little white biplane so that it wouldn’t be thrown around by the propwash. Himmel smiled as they passed, for the pilot had been so closely concerned with holding his horizon steady that he noticed the Junkers now for the first time. He stared in amazement at the huge black machine and its secret radar aerials. Then the white biplane dipped as the pupil began looking for his airfield.

      The Junkers climbed steeply and continued north, skirting Leeuwarden to the west and continuing out to sea. To starboard lay Terschelling, one of the largest islands in the Frisian chain. The weather was excellent except on the far northeastern horizon where ice crystals of cunimbus clouds reached miles into the air and wore the dark skirt of falling rain. They continued over the Frisian Islands and out into the North Sea. Flecks of cloud made shadows on the water below them and sometimes there were shreds of white stratocumulus large enough to swallow the plane for a moment.

      A few miles out they saw a coastal convoy. Keeping well clear of the wrecks that litter this coast, but inside the minefields that protected it, the convoy was making good progress through the calm sea. The Junkers was low enough to see the seamen moving on the decks and some of the old coal burners were making columns of smoke tall enough to reach them. They were a battered collection: half-painted funnels, rusty winches, dribbling scuppers and misplaced hatch-covers. Some of the deck cargoes were only half covered and a deck party was working feverishly on the tarpaulins. Himmel wondered why they bothered. The grimy condition of the coasters was belied by the fresh rain that had glossed their decks and given their hulls the polish of old jackboots. Two freighters had deck cargoes of honey-coloured fresh timber looking good enough to eat. There were Danes and Dutchmen; ancient coastal tankers low in the water, and at the front two French cargo liners making down the coast with machinery and chemicals. They were sailing the routes they had always sailed, some since before the first war. Strange that now they should have German naval destroyers, frigates and UJ boats fussing around their formations and German aircraft protecting them from the determined attacks of RAF planes. Stranger still when some of those RAF planes were manned by Frenchmen, Dutchmen and Danes. Two UJ boats – converted trawlers of about four hundred tons – detached themselves from the convoy and hurried to the rear. Now the convoy began changing course, but kept convoy discipline and good formation. Each wake was scratched crisp and white upon the azure ocean. It was a beautiful sight, enhanced by the red-and-yellow lights that climbed higher than the masts. The light cruiser was covered in winking lights as though every seaman aboard was sending a message to the plane, as indeed he was. Suddenly there was an explosion.

      ‘They’re firing at us,’ yelled Löwenherz, but his voice was drowned by the fierce bangs of the shells bursting around them. Now Himmel knew what was under the tarpaulins: guns. A near-miss rocked the aeroplane and wrenched the port wing upwards. He didn’t correct. He let the aeroplane skid down in a violent sideslip. Each exploding shell hung a new black smudge in the sky but the old smoke did not disappear, it slowly turned brown and the air around them was blotched with smelly smoke like a three-dimensional disease. The plane dropped through the bursting shells until the extra lift of the down-pointing wing, and the Junkers’ lateral stability, flattened it into straight and level flight just a hundred feet over the wave-tops.

      Now they were within range of the flak ship’s 3.7 cm guns and even the multiple 2-cms. The pom-poms added a new descant to the bass rhythms of the heavies. Himmel let down even lower until they were only ten feet above the water. The sea was a different colour close to: a cold steely grey flecked with dirty spumé. Broken timber and refuse pockmarked its heaving surface, and so did the splashes of flak shells.

      Himmel moved the throttles forward and, with touches of rudder, danced across the wave-tops low enough for spray to mottle the windscreen. The ship’s gunners were aiming off skilfully. Their yellow lights spanned the water to make a fairy bridge between aeroplane and convoy. Soon they were far enough away for the bridge to fall into the water behind them. Himmel reset the trim wheel and pulled the nose up into a gentle climb.

      Ahead was Holland.

Скачать книгу