Max kicked the ball back to Stef and looked at his watch. It was half past five. The sky was overcast, and the pallid grey light had begun to make it difficult to see the football. It was time again. He looked towards the bunker and spotted Rall standing near the entrance. He pointed to the sky and Rall gave him a thumbs-up.
The old boy’s got sharp eyes.
‘Okay, lads, playtime’s over. Time for another spin.’
The men headed back inside the hangar towards the B-17. Max ducked underneath the fuselage, hoisted himself up through the belly hatch into the bombardier’s compartment and then climbed the ladder up into the cockpit. Pieter followed behind him, squeezing his stocky body awkwardly through.
‘Max, am I flying this thing tonight?’
Pieter was desperate to get as many hours as possible on the bomber before the mission date. Both men had discussed the flight schedule of the mission and Max would be flying the plane through the most hazardous portion of the journey, across southern Germany and France. Once they were across the French coast and over the Atlantic, Pieter would take over and allow Max some rest.
Pieter needed more time at the controls.
‘Think you can handle take-off?’
He grinned. ‘Of course.’
‘Well, make sure it’s a tidy one, the Major’s got his eye on us.’
The pair of them slipped on their thick sheepskin flight jackets and flying caps and sat in their seats. Max lifted the oxygen mask to his face and spoke into the interphone. ‘Hans, Stef? Are you boys dressed and ready?’
‘Yeah,’ said Stefan.
‘Waist-gun port and starboard check, ready to go,’ answered Hans.
Max fired up the engines and gunned the throttle several times. He turned to Pieter. ‘Okay, let’s run through this in order. Set the aileron, elevators and rudder trim tab controls to zero.’
Pieter found the tab controls easily and reset them. ‘Aileron, elevators, rudder to zero.’
‘Okay, test the wing flaps.’
Pieter tested both sides full up and full down. ‘Check.’
‘Okay, Pieter, next?’
‘Test the propeller pitch, test the super-chargers?’
Max nodded. ‘Yes.’
The engines roared momentarily. ‘Check.’
‘Okay. You can take her out and taxi to the end of the strip.’
Pieter signalled to one of the ground crew and the chocks were pulled away from the wheels. The B-17 eased forward and rolled out of the hangar, across the grass and up onto the tarmac of the strip at a sedate pace.
‘A little, faster, Pieter. The less time we’re down here on the ground the better.’
He nodded, eyes locked firmly on the ground passing them by outside. He opened the throttles slightly and the bomber lurched as she picked up some speed. As the end of the strip approached Pieter eased back and swung the plane round.
Max patted his shoulder. ‘Looking good. Now remember, a hundred miles per hour and we’re off the tarmac, ease her away but get the speed up there as quickly as possible, all right?’
Pieter nodded and licked his lips.
‘Relax. Now remember what do you need to do next?’
Pieter closed his eyes, recalling the take-off procedure they’d read from the translated USAAF training manual.
‘Tail wheel lock to ON.’ He fumbled for the switch and found it.
Max smiled reassuringly at him. ‘Go on, Pieter… she’s all yours.’
Pieter tentatively eased his foot off the brake and adjusted the manifold pressure. With a face locked with concentration he began to open the throttle. The four Wright Cyclone engines roared angrily and the bomber shuddered forward along the strip. Pieter kept one eye on the cockpit window, watching the concrete race past to ensure they were steering a straight line down the strip and not drifting to one side or the other, and one eye on the speed indicator. As the bomber approached a hundred miles per hour they felt the force of lift pulling the bomber up, and Pieter began to ease up on the control column.
‘That’s good, Pieter.’
The tyres swiftly cleared the ground, and the plane pulled up quickly to an altitude of several hundred feet in only a few seconds. Pieter retracted the landing gear and, a minute later, at an altitude of 700 feet and an IAS of 150 mph he eased the throttle back to 2300 rpm by adjusting the propeller pitch controls.
‘Excellent. You’re a natural, Pieter,’ Max said generously. ‘Much better than my first attempt.’
Pieter sighed with relief. ‘I think I’d rather fly an H-111 than this huge bastard. She feels bloody heavy, like a Tiger tank wearing butterfly wings.’
Chapter 22
11 a.m. 18 April 1945, the port of Bergen, Norway
He watched the submarine as it gently came to rest, parallel to the concrete side of the pen and about thirty feet out. On her narrow foredeck half a dozen men waited for a rope to be tossed over to them, and aft beyond the conning tower another six men waited. Their eyes were screwed up against the brightness of the day, and the crisp morning air had them rubbing their hands and stamping their feet to keep warm.
Koch watched as the ropes were tossed across and the men grabbed hold of them and began pulling. The U-boat gently began to drift towards the concrete wall of the pen.
The crew looked unpleasantly like so many tramps, many of them sporting scruffy beards, all of them wearing uniforms that were smeared with oil and sweat stains. Koch wrinkled his nose, even from twenty feet away the faint stench of their body odour reached him; it reminded him of a stale meat pie.
‘Strange little mole-men, aren’t they, sir?’ said Feldwebel Buller, one of Captain Koch’s men.
Koch nodded silently; he was reminded of the Morlocks in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine — pallid man-like creatures that lived below ground amidst a cavernous world of arcane Victorian technology. Actually the comparison wasn’t a bad one. The Morlocks always stayed below ground, but every now and again they would surface to kill and cannibalise one of the beautiful, peaceful surface-dwellers. In the early years of the Atlantic war, these men had most definitely been the Morlocks, striking ships with impunity, dragging them down to the ocean floor. But now? Now they were being hunted like rabbits.
‘Go easy, Buller, we’ve got to spend a week or two with these men. Let’s remember to be polite,’ said Koch.
Koch curled his lip in disgust, as the meat pie smell grew stronger. He’d endured a lot of things for his country, many hardships, discomforts and hazards. He certainly wasn’t relishing the prospect of being jammed into this U-boat with fifty of these submariners and thirty more of his own men. It was going to be an extremely unhygienic and claustrophobic few days. The misery that lay ahead of them could be best conceived by considering one simple logistical fact. Eighty men… one toilet.
‘Yes, sir, polite, sir.’
Koch found himself wondering if this was it… The Mission.
The Mission… the one that would make a difference, the one he’d been waiting for since signing up three years ago. He had been on perhaps a dozen important undertakings, all of them pretty dangerous. The worst had been in Greece, fighting in the hills and taking a heavily defended base camp of General Mavros’ communist guerrillas. But that, and the others, were merely skirmishes in a campaign, one of many small-scale engagements that would have no real impact on events beyond it. This one… this felt different.
The war was at an end, and yet he had received these orders out of the blue.
Nobody now was being sent out to attack anything. Every command decision was about retreat and
