Great War seemed so vague now. He had certainly fired hundreds of
rounds in anger, but one was never really sure.about the killing.
Not until the charges came, anyway the terrible, bloody, heroically
insane assaults of flesh against steel. He had almost been killed-he
remembered that clearly enough-by a bullet in the left lung, one of
three wounds he'd taken while fighting in the famous List regiment.
But he had survived, that was the important thing. The dead in the
enemy trenches ... who knew, really?
He would kill tonight. He would have no choice. Checking the two
compasses strapped to his left thigh, he took a careful bearing, then
quickly returned his eyes to the horizon indicator. This close to the
surface of the sea, the water played tricks on the mind. Hundreds of
expert pilots had plowed into the waves simply by letting their
concentration falter for a few moments. Only six minutes to Aalborg, he
thought nervously. Why risk it? He climbed to one thousand feet, then
leveled out and craned his neck to survey the sea below.
Waveless, it receded before him with the gentle curve of the earth.
Except ... there ... dead ahead. He could see broken coastline ...
Denmark! He had done it!
Feeling a hot surge of adrenaline, he scanned the clouds for fighter
patrols. If one spotted him, he decided, he would sit tight, hold his
course and pretend to be a straggler from an early raid. The hard,
empty northern land flashed beneath him. His destination was a small
ancillary strip just short of Aalborg air base. But where was it? The
runway ... his special cargo ... where?
A thousand feet below, the red flash of railway flares suddenly lit up
in parallel lines to his left. The signal! A lone green flare
indicated the proper direction of approach. The pilot circled wide
until he had come 180 degrees, then began nursing the Messerschmitt in.
The strip was short-no margin for error. Altimeter zero. With hated
breath he felt tentatively for the runway. Nothing... nothing...
whump!-the wheels dropped hard onto concrete. The plane shuddered from
the impact but steadied fast. Cutting his engines, the pilot rolled to
a stop thirty meters beyond the last two flares.
Before he could unfasten his harness, two ground crewmen slid the canopy
back over his head. Silently, they helped him with his straps and
pulled him from the cockpit.
Their rough familiarity startled him, but he let it pass. To them he
was just another pilot@n a somewhat irregular mission perhaps, operating
solo from a practically deserted strip south of the base-but just a
pilot, all the same. Had he removed his flying helmet and goggles, the
crewmen would have exhibited quite a different attitude, and certainly
would not have touched him without permission. The pilot's face was
known to every man, woman, and child in Germany indeed to millions across
Europe and the world.
Without a word, he walked a little way off the strip and unzipped his
suit to relieve himself. There were only the two crewmen, he saw, and
they had been well briefed. From a battered tank truck one pumped fuel
into the plane while the other toiled with special fittings beneath the
Messerschmitt's left wing. The pilot scanned the small runway. There
was an old sock-type wind indicator, a pile of scrap parts left from
pre-war days, and, several yards down the strip, a small wooden shack
that had probably once housed some Danish mechanic's tools.
It houses something quite different now, I'll wager, he thought.
Zipping up, he walked slowly toward the shack, alert for any sign of
human occupation. The sleek black bonnet of a Daimler jutted from
behind the ramshackle building, gleaming like a funeral hearse. The
pilot slipped around the shack and peered through the windshield of the
car. Empty. Remembering his instructions, he wound a long flying scarf
around the lower half of his face. It made breathing difficult, but
combined with his flying helmet, it left only his eyes visible to an
observer. He entered the shack without knocking.
Darkness shrouded the interior, but the fetid air was pregnant with
human presence. Someone, not the pilot, lit a lantern, and the room
slowly revealed itself. A major wearing the smart black uniform of
Himmler's SS stood less than a meter from the pilot. Unlike most of his
type, this representative of Himmler's 'elite corps' was quite fat.
He looked more accustomed to the comforts of a soft billet like Paris
than a battle zone. Behind him, a thinner man dressed in a leather
flying suit sat rigidly in a straight-backed wooden chair.
Like the pilot, his face was also draped by a scarf. His eyes darted
nervously between the newcomer and the SS man.
'Right on time,' the SS major said, looking at his watch.
'I'm Major Horst Berger.'
The pilot nodded, but offered no name.
'Drink?' A bottle appeared from the shadows. 'Schnapps?
Cognac?'
My God, the pilot thought. Does the fool carry a stocked bar about in
his car? He shook his head emphatically, then jerked his thumb toward
the half-open door. 'I'll see to the preparations.'
'Nonsense,' Major Berger replied, dismissing the idea with a flick of
his bottle. 'The crewmen can handle it.
They're some of the best from Aalborg. It's a shame, really.'
It is, the pilot thought. But I don't think you're too upset about it.
I think you're enjoying all this. 'I'm going back to the plane,' he
muttered.
The man in the wooden chair stood slowly.
'Where do you think you're going?' Major Berger barked, but the man
ignored him. 'Oh, all right,' Berger complained. He buttoned his
collar and followed the pair out of the shack.
'They know about the drop tanks?' the pilot asked, when Berger had
caught up.
'Ja. '
'The nine-hundred-liter ones?'
'Sure. Look, they're fitting them now.'
Berger was right. On the far side of the plane, two ground crewmen
attached the first of two egg-shaped auxiliary fuel containers to the
Messerschmitt's blunt-tipped wings. When they finished, they moved to
the near side of the aircraft.
