into the night.
It was playing on his mind, the fact that Rall appeared to have been outranked at this late stage. With the Major’s hand at the helm, he had begun to feel confident that the whole operation had a reasonable chance of success. There was a humourless common sense to the Major, a rigid backbone of efficiency and straight talking that Max had known in some of his previous commanding officers, and he had grown to trust those qualities without question. Now to see the Major sidelined by this civilian, at this final hour… it was unsettling.
It was cold enough to blow out a cloud of condensation. Max sighed and watched the small plume of steamy breath quickly disperse in the night air. He remembered being a child and doing that on a winter’s morning, pretending he was grown up and smoking a cigarette, holding a pencil haughtily between two fingers and puffing on it like a little gentleman of leisure.
‘Cold night, eh, Max?’ said Pieter as he slipped through the gap between the hangar’s sliding doors to join Max outside.
Max nodded silently.
‘You all right?’
He smiled at Pieter. ‘I’m all right, you go and check on the other two. We should be ready to go any time now.’
He watched his co-pilot trot back into the hangar. His crew were in good spirits, ready to get this thing going; all three of them, it seemed, certain that the right choice had been made to volunteer. Schroder and his men too looked eager to mount up and fly into whatever destiny awaited them. It seemed as if only he was having any misgivings.
Those overheard words were playing on his mind. Something was wrong, there was disagreement between Rall and this civilian.
What is the risk in using this weapon?
There was a risk, then. Something that rendered the bomb hazardous to Max and his crew? Perhaps this new explosive formula was unstable and could blow up inside the plane? It wouldn’t be the first time that an unready weapon prototype had taken lives on its first run. In fact, he’d heard of quite a few test-run disasters recently, unofficially, of course, gossip amongst the officers.
It was yet another thing to worry about, though, as if fighting their way across France wasn’t enough. But, in the end, Rall’s justification was right. If they managed to get all the way to America and drop this bomb on New York, then there would be millions of German lives saved. The Major’s common sense cut through all the shit. A rational transaction.
What is the risk…?
Perhaps the Major’s concern was for his men, for Max and his crew. That would explain it. The Major would undoubtedly feel strongly that Max and his men should know exactly what they were handling, especially if this formula was volatile, prone to blowing up before its time. Max suspected it might be something along those lines, a concern for his airmen that had triggered the angry exchange he had overheard.
All of a sudden, the lights in the hangar were turned out. Moments later, the large sliding doors were wheeled noisily back. By torchlight Max watched as a tractor towed the B-17 out into the open and returned inside the hangar to pull out the fighters one by one.
Pieter and the others emerged from the hangar and joined Max outside.
Max turned to his crew, his troubled mind for now wiped clean of ill-placed worries. ‘You gentlemen ready to go, then?’
Pieter yawned and nodded, his face momentarily shrouded by a cloud of vapour. Max knew him well enough to know the yawn was a nervous gesture. Despite the affected sleepy demeanour he knew Pieter was alert and anxious to begin.
Stef shook his head vigorously. ‘Ready as ever, sir,’ he answered with the slightest hint of tension in his voice.
Hans nodded silently, smoking what was probably the last cigarette on the airfield.
‘Good.’
Schroder and his men emerged from the darkness inside the hangar. He heard Schroder’s crystal-sharp accent as he finished telling a story that provoked a roar of laughter from his men.
Battlefield laughter.
Max knew the sound well enough, the hysterical laughter, the fluttering of nerves. Before every mission, it seemed almost anything could be funny, and afterwards the same things barely solicited a smile.
‘Where’s Max and his merry men?’ he heard the fighter pilot call out.
‘Pompous idiot,’ Pieter grumbled as Schroder’s voice cut across the general murmuring.
Max nudged Pieter gently. ‘Behave.’
Schroder picked Max out of the dark and wandered over. ‘Well, Oberleutnant Kleinmann, I presume the finest bomber crew in the Luftwaffe is ready for its final sortie?’
‘Perhaps that should be the last bomber crew?’
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’ Schroder cast his eyes around the group of men. ‘This must be all that’s left of our airforce now. The only operational squadron.’
‘The final flight of the Luftwaffe… that has a nice poetic ring about it,’ said Max.
‘Well, it has been a brief but enriching experience this last week. I wish you and your men the best of luck. Perhaps I’ll join you in America after the war and we’ll toast the mission and Major Rall.’
‘You can buy the first round, then,’ replied Max.
Schroder laughed and slapped his shoulder. ‘You can buy the last.’
From the entrance to the underground bunker the civilian emerged, flanked by two of his SS guards. Behind them, emerging a few seconds later, Major Rall came out, walking slowly.
The laughter died down as Max and the others watched them make their way across towards the hangar.
‘Who is that man?’ asked Schroder with a hint of distaste in his voice.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Max.
I’d feel a lot happier if I did.
The civilian and his guards approached the men gathered outside the hangar, watching the last of the Me- 109s being towed out onto the tarmac. The men quietened down, as the Major finally drew up alongside the civilian.
‘Men, this is Doctor Karl Hauser. He is the weapon’s designer. I believe he has a few words he wants to say,’ Rall announced flatly.
‘Thank you, Major. I’m not sure how much the Major has told you about the weapon you have there in that bomber. But it is a new type of weapon, a brand-new technology that we have beaten the Americans in developing. ’
Hauser turned to Max and his crew.
‘When you gentlemen release that bomb over New York, you will be telling the world that we are still a force to be reckoned with.’ He offered the men a smile. ‘And, of course, you will be making history.’
Several of Schroder’s pilots cheered.
‘I know you men will find a way to get this bomb to New York. The Fuhrer has asked me to personally convey his admiration and his gratitude to you all for volunteering to carry out this dangerous mission. We have this chance, gentlemen, this one chance, to pull a victory out of the ashes…’
Major Rall looked around the pilots listening, in good spirits, to the Doctor’s speech. The very same speech Hauser had just been practising down below in the bunker. The man’s pomposity, the gestures, the language, reminded him of another man who had brought disaster upon them all, for the sake of his vanity. Rall was reminded of the Hitler of four years ago, on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia.
The conclusion was now crystal-clear in his mind. Doctor Hauser was every bit as dangerous. The man had finally conceded, out of sheer arrogance, perhaps aware that there was little the Major could now do to stop things, that there was much more than a slight chance that the weapon’s blast could be infinite, incinerate everything. He had admitted that, and then summoned his SS guards into the room to escort them both out onto the airfield. The significance of that gesture wasn’t wasted on the Major.
One foot out of line now, and he would be a dead man.
