The Berlin Escape

by Warren Court

  The Berlin Escape

  By Warren Court

  The Berlin Escape

  Copyright © 2021 Warren Court

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For Tina and Katherine

  1

  September 1934

  Rain pelted the fuselage of the RWD-9 in a steady beat. The Polish airplane bucked with the wind, its small wiper worked overtime to clear the deluge from the windscreen. Then, suddenly, the handsome four-seater plane was through the storm and the moon and stars were visible once more. The river shone like a silver ribbon below. Lights from farmhouses and quaint villages dotted its banks.

  The plane turned away from the river and headed north, over farmland and vineyards, until the rise of two hills appeared in the distance, exactly where the pilot was told they would be. A dark, flat field surrounded by tall pine trees on all sides appeared in the distance. As the plane approached, signal lights laid out in the shape of an inverted L became visible.

  The pilot eased the nose of the high-wing, strut-mounted plane down and reduced the throttle. Slowly the ground rose up to greet it. The signal lights, smudge pots of burning fuel, grew brighter and closer. The pilot squinted at the approaching grassy airstrip, hoping it was just grass, clear of potholes and rocks.

  There was the bump of the forward fixed wheels as they hit the ground, a slight rise and then another bump. The pilot eased the throttle back further to bring the aircraft fully down. The plane rushed towards the wall of pine trees at the far end of the field. The pilot ran the length of the field, slowing before reaching the edge of the forest and then spinning the tail around for a takeoff.

  Aubrey Endeavours removed her leather flying cap and shook her curly auburn hair loose. She looked longingly at the thermos of coffee and yawned. There wouldn’t even be time for a sip. She would have to wait until she was safely on the ground again in Belgium.

  The plane’s motor throbbed in perfect pitch and she checked her fuel levels. Half a tank left; plenty to get her across the border. She was well chuffed with this little airplane. Unfamiliar with it when she’d taken off from Mokotowskie Airfield, Warsaw, twelve hours earlier, she was now very comfortable. She and the machine were becoming fast friends.

  Aubrey was competing in the air-rally portion of the Challenge International de Tourisme. Since 1929, Poland, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia and other European countries started meeting to compete and to showcase planes capable of carrying two or more passengers, the intent being the advancement of commercial air travel. There were several phases to the competition: short runway takeoffs and landings, fuel consumption trials, and the final competition, a grand rally around Europe and North Africa.

  This year’s host nation, Poland, was the start and finishing line for the rally that saw nineteen flyers touching down in Germany, Belgium, France and Spain, then going on to Casablanca and across the desert to Tunis. From there the racers headed north to Sicily and the Italian boot before weaving their way up the Balkans to arrive back in Poland. It was a ninety-five-hundred-mile endurance race that pushed men, and one woman, and their machines to the edge.

  This was not Aubrey’s first air rally; she was a seasoned aviatrix from America. She’d flown her Sopwith Camel biplane in countless rallies and races and performed stunts from coast to coast.

  But her flying career had been cut short when a sudden vortex of wind had forced her down into a farmer’s field in Ohio two years ago. Aubrey had spent six weeks in hospital with a fractured pelvis, a broken arm and concussion. Her beloved Sopwith had suffered even more; it was totalled and sold for scrap. And without the funds to purchase another plane, she was grounded.

  Then this opportunity to participate in the European air rally had fallen into her lap. At last, a chance to get behind the stick again. She’d leapt at it.

  But there were strings. A return to air racing and, potentially, a whiff of her former fame and winnings were not the real purpose. No, she was putting the borrowed Polish plane down in this field in western Germany for an entirely different reason.

  Aubrey scanned the surrounding forest and then checked her watch. He had to be out there; who else would set the smudge pots ablaze? Their flickering flames were already dying down. Then she saw him break cover, dressed in a dark jacket and pants with a tan cap on his head. He came running at the airplane head on, straight at the propellor.

  “No!” Aubrey screamed, as she saw what was about to happen. She’d seen propellor strikes before; they were horrific. Traumatizing to the witnesses, brutally fatal to the victims. The man pulled up short of the spinning propellor and ran around the tail end of the airplane. The RWD-9, a four-seater passenger plane, had two sets of doors. The man got into the rear passenger seat.

  Aubrey didn’t look at him. She was concerned with several sets of moving lights that were rippling through the trees to one side of them: vehicles were descending on the area. Given the clandestine nature of the pickup, she could only surmise they were bad news. When she heard the rear passenger door slam shut, she pushed the throttle forward and the plane started bounding down the makeshift runway.

  Amidst the blur of trees passing by, she could see silhouettes of men moving towards her. She saw flashes, presumably from guns, but heard no shots over the sound of the RWD’s engine. Then the glass on one of the side windows was punctured and a bullet whizzed through the cockpit, narrowly missing her. Aubrey didn’t have time to react. The band of forest in front of her was rapidly approaching. The plane reached takeoff speed and seemed to want to go airborne all on its own. Aubrey had to pull the yoke back ever so slightly to allow the plane to leap upwards into the air. The tandem set of controls in the empty seat next to her moved as well, as if some invisible pilot was helping.

  The forest passed beneath her and she breathed a sigh of relief. A quick course change to point them straight at the Belgian frontier, and then she could relax. The vacant field and the men shooting at her were left behind them as they climbed higher, passing through a bank of clouds. Then suddenly they were floating on a carpet of fluffy white cotton with the moon above to light the way. All was good in the world.

  The wind whistled in through the bullet hole in the cockpit. She felt bad about that. This plane wasn’t hers. It was a loaner from the manufacturer in Warsaw. She was familiar with these European air rallies, but had never dreamed of flying in one. American airplane manufacturers had toyed with the idea of entering a team, but it had never progressed beyond whimsical ideation. And besides, if they did put a team together, it would inevitably be an all-male team.

  The age of the sensational female aviatrix was quickly coming to a close. Aubrey could see the writing on the wall. The barnstormers and wing walkers had long since vanished. There were no more records to achieve; Lindbergh had conquered the Atlantic. Amelia Earhart, an acquaintance of Aubrey’s, had done the same thing as the first female. Now, the far reaches of the continents had been reached by airplane, and the age of commercial air travel was upon them. Her beloved father had quipped that, eventually, a pilot would have no more prominence in society than a bus driver. And there weren’t a lot of female bus drivers around. And if there were, no one noticed them.

  She thought of him now, back on the family farm in Michigan, dealing with demons he’d brought home from the Great War. A heroic flyer in his own right, he’d returned a decorated but defeated man, the spark in his eye gone, his ambition and drive sapped by horrors experienced on the Western Front where he commanded a squadron of French-built SPAD fighters.

  But he would be proud of her now, although he wouldn’t admi
t it, of course. Instead, he’d give her a verbal hide-tanning for being foolish enough to get hooked up in this crazy scheme to pluck a stranger out of Nazi Germany. But secretly, he would be proud of her bravery and skill.

  She speculated who it was exactly she had tucked into the seat behind her. Was he a spy, a man on the run? This had all come about so quickly. One moment she was sitting in her father’s study in Michigan; the next, she’d been on a steamer bound for Europe. She’d landed in Danzig and was delivered to Warsaw with some of her former celebrity reinvigorated. The Poles had been gracious; they celebrated strong women. The German participants seemed aloof, except for one pilot named Albert whom she’d briefly talked to. He’d shown her a picture of his infant son and wife.

  She had at first been anxious about the presence of Germans. She’d expected the jackboots, skull and crossbones of the SS. But these men were flyers, first and foremost. They wore the blue uniform of the newly formed Luftwaffe, Hitler’s air force.

  Their planes looked fast. The Bf 109s were sleeker and more modern-looking than the other planes. But she did eventually see swastikas painted on them. That hideous design sent shivers down her spine. Like most Americans, she’d watched the newsreels in movie theatres. Most of those newsreels showed sporting events or beauty pageants, and the crowds soaked them up. Occasionally, though, they gave viewers a glimpse of what was going on in the world and who was shaping events. Like that demonic-looking man with the strange moustache who seemed to have a whole nation entranced. She’d read about the rising tensions in Europe, the ambitious leader of the Third Reich and his thoughts on racial purity. She’d read of the ever-increasing rules, harsh laws that were further marginalizing and isolating the minority population in Germany.

  When she encountered these sons of the Reich on that Polish airfield, she was tempted to share her thoughts on the matter. But she remembered what she was there to do, how important it was. And her job wasn’t to win any air race. No, her real mission, now halfway complete, was of far greater importance.

  Now that the plane was levelled out and heading in the right direction, she could glance back at him. He was shrouded in the dark confines of the tiny cockpit, his arms across his chest, his head lowered. A slight gurgling sound came from him; the man was fast asleep. She was astounded; they’d just been shot at. Maybe he’d been waiting in the forest a long time and was exhausted. He was now safely tucked away in the airplane, with a competent pilot at the controls. Should she take his slumber as a compliment?

  But who was he? Aubrey, face it, she thought. You’ll probably never know. The man who had arranged the whole thing was a complete mystery to her. Why should this “package,” as he’d described the human being she’d just rescued from the clutches of the Nazis, be any less of an enigma?

  But at least she knew the identity of that first mystery man: it was her uncle, Arthur Colins.

  There was a slight bump of turbulence, enough to wake her passenger.

  “Coffee here if you want it,” she called back to him. He gave a grunt of a reply, and a withered hand reached between the forward seats to retrieve the thermos.

  “Danke.”

  “Good thing we got out of there when we did. They were shooting at us.”

  “Yes, a good thing,” the man replied.

  “Who were they?”

  She heard the man slurp some coffee and then the thermos was returned.

  “I said, who were those guys with guns—Nazis?”

  No reply.

  Aubrey was more than a little perturbed. After all, it was her neck on the line. That bullet could easily have hit her. There had never been any mention of guys with guns. The adrenaline rush of the clandestine landing and hurried takeoff under fire was waning, and now she had time to reflect. What was it all for? She’d asked Uncle Arthur for some details, but he had politely but firmly told her that she had no need to know.

  When her uncle had first come to her with his proposition, she’d hardly been able to believe it. She would be entered into the rally, a guest of the Polish government. The Poles knew of her exploits. She would be given a plane to fly. But any offer of a mechanic to fly with her, which was standard, should be politely refused, Arthur told her. She would fly alone.

  The two of them had sent her father to bed and then pored over a map of western Germany. Landmarks were identified, instructions given. Arthur had made her repeat them over and over: Fly west from Bonn for two hours up the Rhine River. At the Edelweiss Bridge follow the eastern tributary for another hour. Find the town with the Gothic dome in the centre and then turn northward. Look for the two hills like giant burial mounds in the distance: she couldn’t miss them. The field would be right in front of her.

  He’d explained the signal lights and how they were arranged: three lights in an inverted L if everything was fine. Three lights in a straight line if all was not well. Somebody might have a gun to the man’s head. Aubrey asked why? What had he done? Her uncle did not answer.

  None of the material Arthur had shown her could travel with her. He didn’t have to tell her why; this was spy stuff. It confirmed for her that Uncle Arthur was involved in espionage. Her father, in one of his lighter drinking moments, before the screaming night terrors, had mentioned that Arthur worked for G2, Army Intelligence, during the war. And that he’d never really left it after the Armistice.

  The drone of the aircraft and twelve hours of flying began to take its toll. Aubrey had forgotten what it was like to fly long distances alone. No one to engage in conversation to keep the senses alert. She looked down at the thermos. Why not? She needed fuel as well. With one hand she spun the cap off the thermos and put it between her thighs. There was a bit more turbulence than in a flat spot of smooth flying. She poured some coffee.

  The thudding sound of machine guns and the lines of tracer that tore into the aircraft jolted her from the task, and hot coffee spilled onto her thighs. She winced as the fighters that had just shot at her flew by. They dove in front of her, banked to the left and started to rise.

  Aubrey threw the thermos into the footwell of the cockpit, cranked the yoke to the right and dove. The whistling sound from the punctured fuselage was louder now, and she found the controls slightly sluggish. A quick glance to the right and she saw a stitch-line of bullet holes in the cockpit.

  She whipped her head around crazily, looking for the two fighters. She had seen ones like them when she’d refuelled at Tempelhof Airport outside of Berlin. Heinkel 51s, the latest fighter planes of the Third Reich. Menacingly efficient biplanes with large, narrow bodies and Art Deco styling. The top wings pressed tight over the cockpit. The muzzles of twin machine guns visible. They had looked like hawks on that runway, waiting to take off after prey.

  And now the hawks were here, and she was the prey.

  Aubrey pushed the yoke forward and banked over to the left. She dove for the clouds; the pillowy blanket rushed up at her. There was more firing; the Heinkels had speed and obvious firepower, but her civilian plane had agility. This was one contest she was not prepared for, but it was the one contest she had to win.

  Aubrey spiralled the aircraft downwards and was engulfed in whiteness. The windscreen was slick with water in an instant. She heard the man behind her gasp once. She pulled back on the yoke just as she punched through the bottom of the clouds. The German countryside was rushing up at her. Or was it already Belgian dirt she was about to embrace? The thoughts of crashing again were planted firmly in her mind. She summoned superhuman strength to regain control of the aircraft and pulled it back up level, just two hundred feet from the ground. She looked around wildly, but the confines of the enclosed cockpit robbed her of vision. Where were the Heinkels?

  Aubrey brought the plane closer to the ground and heard the passenger shout something in German. She had no time discuss her tactics with him. She was going to suck the contours of the land and try to vanish in them. The plane was painted a dark blue on top, and she hoped it would help her blend in.
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br />   No such luck: her plane shuddered as the heavy rounds impacted its skin, and she heard something snap and pop on her starboard side. The engine shuddered, and she pulled the yoke back to gain height. She barrel-rolled and swung around in a one-eighty, and then saw the second plane coming at her. He’d overshot, and tracer rounds reached out, searching for her. They went harmlessly past and kicked up soil in a farmer’s field.

  Aubrey kept the plane in a tight turn, scrambling for altitude while avoiding stall speed. The engine groaned and sputtered under this manoeuvre and she was forced to level off to regain speed. She spotted the two black shapes of the Heinkels out in front of her and turned towards them. They were circling too, trying to spin around and line up another pass. Another good one like they’d just had and she was done for.

  The distance closed. The planes were still in their turn to the left, one in front of the other. Probably the most experienced pilot was leading the second. Or maybe the master was letting a newbie get his first kill? Aubrey moved into their slipstream and positioned herself behind the rear of the second fighter. If she’d only had guns herself, she could fire at them. Maybe just scare them off. Or, if necessary, send them hurtling to the ground in a fiery wreck. But she had no guns, just her intuition and two thousand hours of flying time.