mission was going to come to a messy end.
Go now or not at all.
He set the tail-wheel lock to ON, and turned to look at Pieter.
‘We’re going,’ he said as he eased his foot off the brake and opened the throttle. The plane’s four powerful engines roared angrily at 3000 rpm, and the bomber began to roll forward down the grass strip, hungrily consuming the distance between it and whatever consequence lay ahead at the end of the strip.
‘Stupid damn thing’s stuck!’ Koch shouted aloud as he fumbled with the door handle, lying flat across the seats with one foot still down on the accelerator. He pulled hard enough on it to crack the ceramic handle, but the door remained closed.
‘Shit!’
The driver-side door had taken a volley of bullets, which had dented and buckled the metal outside. The truck was still bouncing along on suspension that had given in while the truck’s hood and cabin rattled and clanked with the impact of small-calibre bullets raining in. He quickly stuck his head up to snatch a glimpse through the shattered windscreen. They were no longer ahead of him; he was now amongst them. Both the passenger- and driver-side windows exploded as bullets whistled in from the left and the right of him. He instinctively dropped back down onto the passenger seat as bullets slammed into all sides of the cabin. He looked down at the stick grenade in his hand.
Five… six…
For a moment he considered throwing it out through the passenger side window and aborting his plan to detonate the truck. But then there was the bomber to think about. Already he could hear it approaching, its engines roaring loudly, pulling the giant plane rapidly towards him, the truck and the American soldiers.
No, the truck needed to go up. There wasn’t time now for foolish indecision.
He smiled, it might not have been a Gran Sasso, but today’s fun and games had done the regiment proud.
… Seven… Eight…
He was intrigued about the last thing the pilot had said to him. The thing they were doing was going to win the war for Germany… so, it wasn’t just an escape plan for some cowardly general. The pilot hadn’t seemed like the kind of man who would part on a lie.
… Nine…
He was curious, though — how a single stolen American bomber was going to do that, win them the war.
… Ten…
Ahead, Max could see the fuel truck slowing down amongst the American soldiers. It had almost come to a full stop when it was suddenly ripped apart by an immense explosion.
‘Bloody hell,’ Pieter muttered, instinctively bringing his hands up to cover his face.
A brilliant ball of flame rolled upwards into the grey overcast sky, while flaming gasoline rained down around the carcass of the truck.
‘We’re going to fly through that!’ cried Pieter.
‘Over it, if we’re lucky,’ answered Max through clenched teeth. He checked their speed; they were running at seventy miles per hour, not fast enough yet. She would lift only over one hundred miles per hour, and they were rapidly running out of strip to achieve that speed.
‘We’re going to hit that bloody thing!’ Pieter shouted.
There was nowhere for him to go with the throttle, and all four engines were screaming at full capacity, the ailerons were fully extended in the vertical position, there was nothing he could do but watch the fireball race towards them and hope to God that the plane lifted off before they smashed into the remains of the fuel truck.
Fifty yards to go.
Some of the Americans had been caught by the blast and had suffered the same agonising end as Schroder’s men earlier. The majority, it seemed, had been far enough away to escape that, but nonetheless had been thrown off their feet by the blast. Max watched as some of them had their wits about them to scramble to their feet and grab their weapons in a last-ditch attempt to shoot out the canopy glass and prevent the plane from taking off.
He felt his face contort in anticipation of the bullets that awaited them as they approached the raging wall of fire.
Twenty yards left.
Max checked their speed, ninety-two miles per hour. He sensed the plane beginning to pull upwards, her giant wings grabbing hungrily at the air and forcing it under them.
‘Hold on!’ he heard himself shout as the burning chassis of the fuel truck raced towards them and disappeared from view beneath the nose of the plane. For the briefest moment the cockpit of the plane was immersed in the churning column of oily flames below.
Max felt the landing gear smash into something below, and the plane shuddered violently as it cleared the smoke.
‘Shit!’ Pieter shouted once more.
The plane was now at one hundred miles per hour; the lift beneath her wings and the hot air of the inferno below pushed the plane upwards. He felt the lift and pulled back on the yoke. The bomber’s nose rose and they were off the ground and climbing steeply.
Scholn watched the B-17 recede to the west, tailed closely by three of the Messerschmitts. The sporadic fire from the Americans had ceased. It seemed everyone, through unconscious collaboration, had agreed to momentarily suspend the fight in order to watch what happened to the bomber as it had charged down towards the flaming truck. Now it was away, it appeared that normal business was ready to be resumed.
Koch’s order had been to surrender once the planes were up. The few men that were left were probably ready to do that now; he knew he was. They’d given a good account of themselves, and more importantly the job was done. The planes had made it away.
The gunfire hadn’t started up yet; it was silent save for the gentle hiss of drizzling rain, and to his right, the crackling fire amidst the burned carcasses of the 109s. He decided to take advantage of this lull.
‘Okay, lads, put your weapons down,’ he shouted, his voice echoed loudly across the airfield.
The men huddling behind the crates nearby did as they were ordered, clearly relieved that this particular skirmish was over. He raised his hands above his head and slowly raised his head above the crates.
A single shot rang out, thudding mercifully into the ground nearby and he immediately heard the sharp voice of an officer calling a ceasefire.
Scholn slowly got to his feet and shouted loudly in heavily accented English, ‘We surrender!’
There were no further shots, and one by one the men near him rose from behind their crates, hands raised unequivocally. He saw movement from the canteen and movement from the hangar doorway. Only a single man emerged from the canteen, and three others from the hangar. Scholn totalled up the survivors. There were twelve of them left. Twelve out of the original thirty.
He thought there would have been more.
One of the American soldiers stood up from behind the sandbags and walked slowly across the grass towards Scholn, his rifle raised warily. From the uniform and rank insignia Scholn could see he was a captain. The American came to a halt a few feet away and studied him silently for a full minute, his jaw working hard behind sealed lips on a piece of gum. He shook his head and tutted like an adult admonishing a child.
‘I mean… what is it with you guys? The war’s over, and yet you people still insist on giving us a hard time here.’
He shook his head once more, ‘Jeeeezz…’
Chapter 46
Mark brought the Cherokee to a halt. Devenster Street was empty save for a man walking his dog, and,
