‘Just shut up a sec,’ he muttered as he watched the van shrink into the distance. It was beginning to turn round, but its size, and the relatively narrow width of the street, meant that it had to do a two-point turn, buying them a few more seconds.
‘Mark, get us onto the interstate and then we’ll take the next turning off. I really don’t give a toss where that takes us!’
‘You got it,’ replied Mark, his trademark demeanour of calm once more returning. Chris was glad that Mark had a cool head in a tight situation, and that it was him behind the wheel right now. If Chris had been driving, they undoubtedly would have hit every street lamp and post box on the way out of town.
He continued to watch the van through the rear window until, turning the corner at the end of Devenster, he lost sight of it. Then he looked down at the old man, still lying prone across the back seat. ‘We ran into those bastards a little earlier. I think they were looking for you.’
Wallace said nothing. Chris couldn’t tell if it was unmitigated relief or abject fear that had rendered the old boy speechless.
Chapter 47
Mission Time: 6 Hours, 22 Minutes Elapsed
150 miles across the Atlantic
Max heaved a sigh of relief. The coast of France had been left behind them. The only hint of its presence being a thin, grey line on the horizon, the thick cloudbank that had seemed to end where the Atlantic started. The heavy skies seemed to be for Europe only, blue skies for the rest of the world.
They had been flying on a steady course of two-seventy degrees, due west, at an altitude of 4500 feet, just low enough that they’d been able to do without the oxygen system.
Max was certain that the Americans would have scrambled several squadrons of fighters to deal with them. They surely had to have some stationed near enough to the airfield they’d just left to easily intercept them before they flew beyond fighter range. All of them had kept a silent vigil, scanning the skies behind them intently for the first signs of an avenging Vee-formation.
‘That was bloody hairy,’ said Pieter over the interphone.
Hans was the first to reply. ‘Whose piece-of-shit idea was that?’
‘Well it’s not like we had a lot of choice,’ Max replied wearily. ‘Given the way things turned out, it was lucky we did.’
‘I’m sure there must’ve been an easier way,’ grunted Hans.
Stef’s voice piped up. ‘Sir, I’ve been doing — ’
‘For Christ’s sake, Stef, you can call me Max now.’
‘Yeah,’ added Pieter, ‘I reckon you’ve earned that by now, Baby Bear.’
‘Ahh, shit, Pieter, can you stop calling me that!’ answered Stef, his boyish voice rising angrily.
Max nodded. ‘Cut him some slack, eh?’
‘Thanks, sir… Max.’
Pieter cast a sideways glance at him. ‘Aha… the boy’s finally learning.’
‘He’s old enough to fiddle with his balls and scratch his arse now,’ Hans added helpfully.
‘Hans, you’d know, wouldn’t you?’ said Stef.
‘What’re you talking about?’
‘You’re always scratching and rubbing your arse.’
‘Not all the time!’
‘Errr… you do, Hans; we’ve all seen you at it. You can never leave your arse alone,’ contributed Pieter.
‘It wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t sniff your fingers afterwards.’
‘Yeah? Well, you little red-haired weasel-boy, when we’re done today I’m going to ram my fist down your throat, then you can taste it for yourself and see.’
The rest of his crew laughed lightly. Max smiled; it was good to hear the banter pass to and fro between them once more. It had been a while since he’d heard them fool around like that. He looked out of his side window to see Schroder’s fighter out to one side maintaining a steady position a hundred yards out from their port wing- tip.
He switched to radio. ‘How’re things with you, Schroder?’
‘Fine… fine.’ His voice sounded flat, neutral. He knew Schroder was dwelling on those of his men he had lost back on the ground. Certainly they had not long been acquainted, and in no way was it the pilot’s fault that they had been caught in that explosion. But as the leader of a group of men it was his burden to feel responsible for them.
‘That was a close-run thing,’ said Max.
‘Yes, very hectic.’
‘I’m sorry. You lost a lot of good men, Schroder.’
‘Yes… the best.’
‘That’s never easy.’
‘No.’
Schroder didn’t elaborate, but Max knew he was replaying the appalling scene in his mind. The churning sea of flames, those men flailing slowly in agony… unpleasantly slowly. When he replayed that image in his mind, it struck him that some of those poor bastards had been struggling for thirty seconds before they’d succumbed. It had probably been one of the worst things he’d ever witnessed during this war. And that was saying a lot.
‘We needed to make that stop, it was necessary, Schroder.’
‘You think so?’
‘If it hadn’t been for that airfield, this mission would be over. That would have been an end to it. We’d never have made it across on the fuel we had.’
‘Well, maybe, we’ll see if it’s all been worth it when you’ve dropped your bomb,’ Schroder replied tersely.
Right now it sounded like he wanted to be left to himself.
Max couldn’t blame him. In the sky, one on one with a squadron of American fighter pilots flying their superior P51s, Schroder and his men had magnificently displayed their skill, their experience and courage, taking only one casualty while inflicting nine. On the ground, amidst the confusion, he had lost nearly all of his men to a single well-aimed bullet.
‘What’s your fuel situation?’
‘Not bad… let me talk with Gunter and Will.’
Just three of the fighters had managed to make it off the ground, bursting through the wall of flames above the fuel truck, only seconds behind them. Just three. If they came across another squadron, Max didn’t fancy their chances.
‘We all have about the same amount of fuel, approximately a quarter of a tank each… we didn’t have time on the ground to fill up properly.’
‘That gives you about two hundred miles before you need to go back. I’ll have Stef call out a warning at one hundred, one-fifty and final warning at one-seventy-five.’
Schroder was some time responding, but he eventually came back just as Max was about to repeat his last message. ‘Fine.’
Max had suspected the landing was going to be risky. They all had. But none of them suspected it would be that bad. Rall, starved of good local intelligence, had been forced to make an assumption that there would not be troops stationed close enough to respond so quickly to the airstrip being taken.
It had been bad luck. Koch’s men had done well to keep the Americans at bay for so long. He hoped the young captain had managed to bail out of that fuel truck before it went up.
‘Max!’ Hans shouted over the interphone. ‘We’ve got some coming in on our four o’clock!’ Pieter leaned forward and looked out of his window, craning his neck to look backwards.
‘He’s right, looks like about six or seven of them, fighters… I can’t see what type.’
