Grenville looked up from the map, his face curious. “You don’t know what it is?”
Barrett grunted his disgust. “No. They’re as tight as a bull’s arse in fly time about it. But it’s obviously important—they’ve got an elaborate plan worked out to kid Jerry we don’t know it’s there and are flying over that way by accident. Davies has had it all worked out, and gave it to Bergman yesterday. In a few minutes we’ll go and have a talk with him—he’s with Adams at the moment. I called you in to talk about the crew. Davies said he’d like you to go yourself—the job’s that important. But I said I’d like a word with you first.” “Why?” Grenville asked.
Barrett looked slightly uncomfortable. “It seems a rather dicey show to me. They don’t want to send an escort for fear of making Jerry suspicious, and yet if it’s that important he’s bound to be on the alert. I don’t fancy losing my Squadron Commander on some bloody mountain-top—not when I’ve got twenty-odd other pilots I can send.”
“They aren’t likely to keep a constant patrol at 30,000 feet,” Grenville said.
“If you go, mind you stay up there,” Barrett grunted. “If you can’t see anything for shadows, never mind. Come back and let ’em organize something else. If you go lower they’ll get you, as sure as hell.” He paused, frowning heavily. “I asked Davies why they couldn’t use a Spit for the job. He says they’ve tried twice, but drawn a blank each time. It seems this building is difficult to spot from the air unless you’ve someone with you who knows the landmarks. So we have to use old Popsy and take Bergman along as guide.”
Grenville started at the Norwegian’s name. “He’s not going along, is he?”
Barrett nodded. “That’s the point of the idea. He leads you over the building and tells the photographer when to press his button.”
Grenville’s face set. “To hell with it! I took him with me on the strike, I don’t want him again. Particularly on a job like this.”
Barrett stared at him. “But I thought you said he did all right on the strike.”
“That was different. That was at night, in filthy weather. There wasn’t a chance of fighter interception. But this will be in daylight. What happens if a patrol jumps us and I’ve no rear gunner?”
Barrett nodded his agreement. “You’re right, of course.” He stroked his moustaches thoughtfully. “You couldn’t manage without Hopkinson, could you? Let Bergman go in his place and take your regular gunner along?” -~
Grenville’s voice was uncompromisingly curt. “No; I couldn’t. Let him keep out of this. We don’t take staffplanning officers with us when we prang a target, do we? If we did we’d soon need Bombays instead of Bostons. Let Bergman do as the others do—give us the gen and then leave us alone. We’ll get the photographs.”
Barrett scratched his head. “I know how you feel, Roy. But I can’t get round the orders. We haven’t much of an argument, anyway. Two Spits have already failed on their own. We might do the same without Bergman.”
“Then you can count me out,” Grenville said abruptly. “I don’t want Bergman with me.”
Barrett nodded. “All right, that suits me. As far as I’m concerned you’re down with a heavy cold. Right— now who do you suggest? Milner?”
Grenville was silent, his face moody. Barrett stared at him, repeating his question. Grenville shook his head. “Milner’s down with the ’flu. I got word just before I came in.”
“Who else, then? Young? Gillibrand?”
Grenville gave a harsh laugh. “Gillibrand! Are you trying to kill the bod? Gillibrand would probably go down and run his wheels over the bloody thing to see what it was made of.”
Barrett was growing impatient. “What about one or two suggestions, then?”
Grenville made his reluctant decision. “All right; I’ll go,” he said abruptly. “But keep him grounded in the future. We’re not a transport squadron.”
In spite of his previous remarks, Barrett looked relieved. “I suppose it is just as well,” he admitted. “There’d probably be a hell of an inquest if anything happened and they found you hadn’t gone with him. O.K. then, that’s settled. You go on the first favourable met. report. Now come on over to Adams and Bergman and get the gen.”
* * *
Bergman and Adams were sitting over a pile of photographs and a map of Norway when Grenville and Barrett arrived. Adams had been fully briefed on the plan, and it was he who gave the details to Grenville.
He pointed to a cross on the map. “You hit the coast here at a point eight miles north of Utvik as near 10:15 as possible. The time factor is very important, as you’ll see in a minute. You must be over 30,000 feet as you come in. . . .” His myopic eyes lifted to Grenville’s set face. “That’s one of the points I raised with the Air Commodore. Can you keep over 30,000 feet with a crew of three?”
Grenville shrugged. “Davies can’t have it both ways. If I must carry passengers, I obviously can’t get so high.”
Bergman caught the black glance thrown his way and guessed its cause. He sat in uncomfortable silence. Barrett met Adams’ eye and broke in hastily.
“I’ve told Townsend to take everything that’s movable out of Popsy. We think she should make 30,000 feet, perhaps a bit more.”
Adams nodded and looked down at his map again. “After crossing the coast you make straight for Hjelme-stad, this small town here. The Germans have recently opened out an ordinance factory in Hjelmestad; we’re hoping they’ll assume this is the target for your reconnaissance. Allowing for your reduced airspeed we estimate it should take about five and a quarter minutes to reach it. You circle it once as if taking photographs, then start back south-west along this track,” and his finger pointed at a pencilled line on the map. “That leads you right over and parallel to the Svartfjord which, as you’ll notice, runs in a southwesterly direction before turning west to the sea.
“Your track will take you along its first eight miles,” Adams went on. “The building is here—right at the end of the fjord—but they want as many photographs as they can get so go on taking them until the fjord turns away. To avoid suspicion, you don’t follow it but keep straight on and hit the coast here.”
“What are the Focke-Wulfs doing during this time?” Grenville asked.
Adams felt the embarrassment he always felt when discussing the ways another man should risk his life. He coughed to hide it. “That has all been considered in the time factor. We estimate you won’t be over land more than fourteen minutes. Provided you aren’t detected before you reach the coast, that gives you a fair escape margin. We know Jerry has got some of the very latest Fw 190 A-6’s at Voss and Herdla, but even with them he can’t reach 30,000 feet in that time. Yoü should make it fairly comfortably.”
“You haven’t got any performance figures on these new Focke-Wulfs yet?” Grenville asked.
“No; but however good they are they can hardly get up to 30,000 feet in much under twenty-five minutes.”
“It’s cutting it pretty fine,” Barrett said anxiously.
“It is and it isn’t,” Adams said. “Fourteen minutes over the coast is a fairly generous estimate—it may take even less time.”
Grenville was studying the map and its detail. “Why is 10:15 so important? Couldn’t we go in earlier?”
Adams shook his head. “There’s a very special reason for that. At this time of the year, the sun never reaches to the bottom of the Svartfjord. But there is a large glacier covering one of the mountains that overlooks the building. Because of its angle, between 10:15 and 10:45 it reflects the sun downwards just like a large mirror. It should give sufficient light for a photograph.”
Barrett’s mouth had dropped open. “Who the heck thought of that one?”
Adams motioned to the silent Norwegian. “It’s Lieutenant Bergman’s idea. And one of his men over there has checked it for us. It works all right provided the weather is fine.”
Barrett’s face was full of admiration. “That’s really smart. Lord, the brains that go into
the business . . . ! O.K. Now let’s all go over and see what Townsend is doing to old Popsy.”
* * *
Two days later a favourable report was received by wireless from one of Bergman’s operators in Norway. That night P Popsy, a Boston with more powerful engines, took off on the first leg of her journey. She refuelled at Sumburgh, where her crew had breakfast, and took off again in daylight. It was a bright winter morning with a cloudless sky. A day when war seemed an impossible nightmare.
Grenville did not force the Boston up and they were half-way across the North Sea before she reached her maximum ceiling. At 29,800 feet she did not yaw too badly—a better height than he had dared hope for. And he might squeeze another 1000 out of her before they reached the Norwegian coast—her fuel load would be lighter then.... To reach that height P Popsy had been stripped of everything not needed for the job in hand. All her armour had gone as well as her four front guns. Apart from the two Brownings in the rear turret, she was defenceless, relying on nothing but surprise and height to bring her safely through.
Alone in his turret, Bergman felt stunned by the immensity of the sky around him. He had never been at this height before and the experience was overwhelming. The congealed sea below looked like blue ice, without a wrinkle. The vast dome of sky was a cold pitiless blue and the sun brilliant, making his eyes ache in spite of his smoked glasses. The cold was intense, far worse than he had expected, and his hands and feet were in agony. Yet, in spite of the pain, he felt drowsy, lulled by the steady numbing roar of the engines and the gently swaying motion of the aircraft in the rarefied air. Behind him the exhaust gases of the engines were streaming out like the wake of a ship.
He remembered Grenville’s warning and roused himself to keep watch below. If an enemy ship spotted them, it would wireless the coast for fighters, and if a patrol got up in time to meet them it would be curtains. But there was nothing below but the vast, empty sea.
In the pilot’s seat Grenville was running over the plan of action. Provided they were not spotted on the way in, it seemed all right. You had to hand it to these people: they were thorough. That business of the glacier—that was clever. God—what a game it was. The tricks and the counter-tricks....
He shut his eyes tightly, then opened them again. His dashboard seemed blurred. His artificial horizon, altimeter, air-speed indicator, pressure gauge, temperature gauge, oil gauge—rows and rows of indicators and gauges and all quivering and indistinct. ... It was this intense cold, affecting his nerve centres. His legs had a bone-chilled ache that was spreading up his back— he longed to stand up and stretch himself. He turned his oxygen full on for a moment and the instrument panel cleared.
He peered sidewards, looking down the immense void to the flat, formless sea below. Weather perfect so far. ... There was a band of mist down there at ten o’clock but it didn’t seem to stretch far. It had better not. Any mist in the fjord or a cloud haze above it and they’d had it, glacier or no glacier....
Hoppy’s voice came through the intercom, as cheery as always. “A couple of degrees off course, skipper.”
Grenville swore. These damned navigators—they should try flying a kite dead on course. He checked with his compass, saw Hoppy was right, and swung the Boston gently to port. TTiey droned on, a speck of dust in an immense blue void....
At first it looked like a low-lying cloud, clinging to the edge of the sea. Five minutes later it became a snow-covered jagged coastline, looking like the outflung leg of a sea monster from their height. Grenville checked his course, swung slightly to port, then spoke to Bergman, with whom he had not exchanged a dozen words since leaving Sumburgh.
“That’s your bay, isn’t it, dead ahead? We go over it and straight on to Hjelmestad, right?”
Bergman checked the landmarks. “That’s right, Roy. Straight ahead on this course.”
“Keep your eyes open,” Grenville warned him. “Particularly in the sun.”
Bergman stared about him until his eyes watered, but they seemed alone in the enormous void. The sunken mountains drew nearer, painfully slowly from that height, until at last they crossed the coast. Bergman experienced all the bitterness of the exile as he stared down. Below was his homeland, and yet for him to set foot on it was a desperate venture. His bitterness against the Nazis served his body like fuel, steeling it against the crippling cold.
The alert would have sounded now and German fighters would be leaping off from their snow-covered airfields. Yet the mountains of the Antarctic could not have looked more desolate than those that passed slowly under their wings as they approached Hjelme-stad.
Bergman was tense in his turret, timing their flight from the coast to the town. It was just five minutes and eighteen seconds when Grenville spoke to him again.
“I’m starting to circle it now. O.K.?”
“O.K., Roy.”
The town was partly camouflaged under its covering of snow. From their height it looked little more than a hamlet squatting between two mountain ranges. They took a wide circle over it, their condensation trails and exhaust gases forming a gigantic ring. They had been flying so long now that the roar of the engines had faded into a neutral background. Bergman felt he had lost all contact with the earth and was floating bodiless in the vast, silent stratosphere.
Grenville’s voice brought him back to reality. “I’m turning off now for your fjord. Let Hoppy know when he can get cracking.”
Behind him Bergman saw the distant coastline tilt and wheel round as the Boston banked on to her new course. Mountain range after range slid below them, the fjords looking like pieces of bent silver wire threaded through them. Checking the landmarks was not easy for Bergman: they looked vastly different from this height than from the ground. But with the aid of a map he and Adams had studied earlier he saw they were now approaching the upper reaches of the Svart-fjord.
He gave rapid instructions to both Grenville and Hoppy. Almost imperceptibly the Boston swung a few degrees to starboard. Bergman craned his neck sidewards. Two parallel mountain ranges, separated by a thread of silver were sliding towards them. One mountain-peak was shining with a brilliance that made it stand out even from the surrounding snow. Bergman grabbed his mask.
“There it is! Straight ahead. If you watch you’ll see the sun shining on the glacier. See it! If we’re correct, it should be reflecting enough light downwards for us to take the photographs. The building is right below it.”
Grenville was silent. From his cockpit ahead of the mainplane, he could see something the Norwegian had missed—a thin film of strato-cirrus that was drifting slowly in over the fjord. It was no more than two miles wide and tenuous enough for the ground to be seen hazily through it. But it was more than enough to fog the camera plates. Hoppy confirmed this a moment later.
“That cloud’s going to ball things up, skipper. Can’t we drop under it?”
Grenville cursed. Hardly a wisp of cloud all the way from the Shetlands, and yet there had to be one drifting right across their target. He eyed the strato-cirrus, making rapid calculations. It looked at about 24,000 feet —6,000 feet below them. Not far, but it was those last few thousand feet that counted. Fighters would be swarming up now like tiger fish from the sea-bed. They would reach 20,000 feet quickly but from then on their power curve would begin to fall away. If he dropped lower he was playing right into their hands.
He spoke sharply to Bergman. “Now look! Forget the security stuff for a moment. We can go under that cloud, but it’s going to be a gamble. We might make it, but so might the fighters. And if they get above us, it’ll be curtains. Can this job wait for another day? Does it matter so much if a kite comes here under escort.”
“We want to avoid that if possible, Roy. It’ll give too much away.”
“Then this thing is important enough for us all to risk our necks?”
“It’s terribly important, Roy.”
“So you’d like me to go down and chance it.”
“I’d like you to, yes.”
Without another word Grenville pushed the nose of the Boston down. He did not dive steeply, they were still a mile or two from the end of the fjord and he did not want to make his descent conspicuous. The altimeter needle swung slowly round the dial—29,000 feet... 27,000 .. . 25,000. .. . Grenville’s teeth were clenched and his hands sweating. The Focke-Wulfs would think he had gone crazy....
At 23,500 feet they reached the cloud, passing through it in a second. It was useless for concealment, yet would silhouette them perfectly to the climbing planes. There was no flak, a favourable sign. Jerry was not suspicious of their intentions and did not want to disclose the importance of the building below. Grenville straightened out and, following Hoppy’s instructions, began tracking over the target. A few seconds later Hoppy began taking his photographs. Grenville, certain now that the building below was their ultimate target, stared down curiously.
The mountains flanking the narrow Svartfjord were clearly of great height. On its western side, right at the end of the fjord, was a bulbous-topped mountain capped by the glacier Bergman had pointed out. The glacier was easily distinguishable by its mirror-like brilliance. Directly below it, at the bottom end of the enormous cul-de-sac, Grenville could just make out a dark building through his binoculars. Although dwarfed by his altitude it was clearly one of considerable size. Surrounded on three sides by precipitous mountains, with its only ingress the deep and narrow Svartfjord, it looked completely impregnable.
Grenville could make nothing of its purpose. Slowly it fell behind them as they droned on. Grenville lifted his eyes, stared ahead. Some eight miles from the building the fjord turned sharply at thirty degrees to head straight for the sea. At this point it was joined by a tributary from the east, a deep gorge that split the flanking mountains and poured a stream of fresh water into the salt water of the Svartfjord. Trained in observation, Grenville studied the gorge almost unconsciously as it passed beneath them.
633 Squadron Page 9