Death Ray

by Craig Simpson

  Nils arrived and sat in the co-pilot’s seat next to me. ‘OK, Finn?’

  I swallowed hard and nodded.

  He strapped himself in and we hooked up the radio sets in our flying helmets to the control panel so we could still communicate once the engines were running. He checked Loki had done the same, then turned to me. ‘I’ve grabbed a few hours on her, Finn. All-night flying, too, so we should be fine. We’ll run through the pre-flight checks together. Shout if you think I’ve forgotten anything.’

  Nils was asking me! But I knew the drill. Dozens of times in the past I’d helped my father check over his plane before setting off. ‘Flaps and rudder, first,’ I replied hesitantly.

  ‘Yes, Finn. Flaps and rudder controls first.’

  While he checked them, I cast my eyes over the instrument panel: the altimeter, airspeed indicator, oil pressure and temperature gauges. ‘I’ll set the controls for takeoff,’ I said. Reaching forward, I got to work, talking through my actions. ‘Opening throttles and adjusting the carburettor air-intakes to their start positions. Main ignition and magneto switches on … As Roberts has already run the engines the oil temperature is OK. No need to let her warm up.’

  ‘Good.’ Nils sat back and cracked his knuckles. ‘Port engine first please, Finn.’

  I hit the starter switch for the port engine and we both peered out of the cockpit, watching the propeller blades begin to turn amid a loud whine. The engine spluttered into life, spewing puffs of black smoke. The blades spun faster and quickly became a blur. Nils adjusted the throttle slightly. A minute later the starboard engine hummed loudly too. Nils slid open the cockpit, stuck an arm out and signalled for the plane to be untied. Then he flipped a switch that looked new to me. ‘That’s the IFF we were talking about, Finn. For God’s sake always make sure it’s on otherwise you’ll have Spits on your tail before you know it. Well, this is it. Next stop France!’

  He reached for the throttles and shoved them to their maximum positions. The hum of the engines rose to a whining din and then a frenetic howl. Everything shook and rattled. Slowly we moved forward, away from the slipway, out into the open water. According to the weather reports, the wind was north-westerly, gusting about fifteen knots. We headed away from land and, easing the throttles slightly, Nils used the rudder to turn her into the wind. Then full throttle again. She shook and rocked violently as she smacked and cut through the slight swell. We gathered speed rapidly. The din of her howling engines was ear-splitting. Our ground speed reached forty miles per hour. Then fifty, sixty, seventy. At eighty miles per hour we pulled back our columns. ‘Gently does it,’ I muttered under my breath. The rocking, wallowing and wave-smacking gradually subsided as the plane lifted slightly. Then, like some great bird almost too heavy to fly, she rose clear of the water. The pounding ceased. Everything was suddenly smooth. We were airborne.

  Climbing fast, Nils reached forward and made some adjustments. Then he set us on a tight left turn towards the southeast. Checking the compass, I made a note of the time and our airspeed on my copy of our maps.

  ‘I’m going to take her to five hundred feet, Finn. Let her settle and make sure everything’s OK, and then we’ll drop to fifty feet.’

  ‘I remember Dieter telling me that at cruising speed we need eighty-five per cent power,’ I said.

  ‘As we’ll be going in so low we’ll take it nice and steady. We won’t push the engines so hard.’

  Levelling off at five hundred feet I gazed out of the cockpit. It was a full moon and there was just a little broken cloud. I could see countless stars, and the sea stretched out before us like a shimmering silk carpet.

  ‘Everything all right, Loki?’ I said into my mouthpiece.

  ‘Yeah. When are you going to switch on those lights?’

  Nils reached out and flipped a switch. ‘They’re on now. Can you see them?’

  I leaned forward and peered at the sea in front and beneath us. There were two barely discernible oval shapes of pale light on the surface, far ahead of us and some distance apart. ‘Here goes,’ said Nils. He throttled back and pushed his control column forward. The plane’s nose dipped and we descended. Keeping one eye on the altimeter and the other on the patches of light beneath us, I saw the ovals gradually move closer together, growing smaller and brighter. It felt like the sea was rising up to swallow us. Instinctively I braced myself.

  ‘Almost there.’ Loki’s voice crackled through my earphones. ‘That’s it! Fifty feet. Hold her nice and steady.’

  Nils levelled the plane. Again I noted the time and our airspeed – ten minutes past eleven and one hundred and fifteen miles per hour. The prevailing wind was at our tail now. I calculated the time to our next change of course, which wouldn’t be until we approached the French coast, and got Nils to check my sums. He nodded approvingly. I set about plotting our position and route on my map.

  ‘Do you think they’ve picked us up on their radar?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Guess we’ll soon find out, Finn. We’ll either find a Messerschmitt on our tail or have Fritz challenging us on our radio. Fingers crossed though.’

  I recalled the hours we’d spent studying the aerial photographs of Rochefort while compiling our flight plan. From what we could see of the structures that were supposedly Fritz’s new-fangled radar system, they looked totally different to the huge tall aerial towers Nils said lay at the heart of our system. All we could make out were some small dish-like objects and rectangular grids arranged in a triangle, although it was hard to tell exactly what shape they were from the angle the photographs had been taken. ‘Are they absolutely sure there’s a radar installation at Rochefort and not something entirely different?’

  Nils nodded. ‘Everything seems to point to it. I had a bit of a chat with one of the experts from Worth Matravers last time he visited the brigadier at Mulberry House. There’s a theory to explain why our boys are getting intercepted so early once they approach the coast. They think Fritz’s system has three parts: two accurate but short-range devices – one to track our planes and the other their own fighter aircraft; and a single long-range device that they use as an early-warning system. As soon as they see us coming, they get their fighters into the air and wait until we show up on their short-range system. At that point they can track us accurately enough to talk their fighters into intercepting us.’

  ‘The bastards!’ I shouted into my mouthpiece.

  Nils laughed. ‘Don’t underestimate them, Finn. Their Nachtjagd is pretty formidable.’

  My German was good enough to know he was referring to their night fighting. Unfastening my harness, I turned to look back at the others – lit by the glow of a feeble red lamp, they were sitting quietly with their backs to the fuselage, staring blankly ahead, lost in their own thoughts. ‘Luc’ briefly looked in my direction but, solemn faced, quickly looked away. It wasn’t long now, I realized, and there was no going back. I refastened my harness and pulled the straps tight.

  Nils began fiddling with the dials of our radio. Since we were under orders to maintain radio silence I was puzzled. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Adjusting the frequency to see if we can pick up Fritz’s transmissions. If anyone’s up here with us we stand a good chance of hearing them.’

  Having flown with the Special Duties squadron, I knew this wasn’t the first time Nils had made forays into France. ‘Had problems before?’

  He nodded.

  I gulped. ‘What can we expect? Will the coast be lit up by searchlights?’

  He shook his head. ‘Fritz doesn’t care about anything other than his industrial heartland. Close to cities like Hamburg and Bremen they drench the night sky with beams of light, creating a so-called Lichtdom or cathedral of light. It’s about twenty miles wide. Our chaps just fly round it. On the coast, Finn, I don’t anticipate seeing more than the occasional searchlight, and that’ll only appear if they hear us and get twitchy.’

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I took my turn on the controls. Keeping
to fifty feet proved even harder than I’d expected. I repeatedly had to make small adjustments every time Loki yelled into my ears that we were too high or too low. Sweat formed on the nape of my neck and trickled down inside the collar of my leather jacket. I found myself gripping the column so tightly my knuckles looked like they were about to explode.

  Then it happened. Without warning a distorted, faint voice crackled over the radio. A German voice … And he was talking to us!

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nachtjagd

  THE HAIRS ON the back of my neck prickled. ‘Bandits, Loki! Can you see them?’

  ‘No, Finn. They must be on our tail. Being this low, we’re sitting ducks.’

  ‘Keep your eyes peeled.’

  Nils reached down and switched off the lights in the wing tips. ‘Hold her steady, Finn, while I try to get him off our backs.’

  Nils explained over the radio to the German pilot that we were on a special mission – at least that bit was true! We had prepared for this situation and our response was based on several things in our favour. First, we were in a German Heinkel in Luftwaffe colours and markings, albeit the wrong ones for this area; our plane actually belonged to a Luftwaffe squadron based in Norway, not northern France. Second, we were flying low and slowly because we had engine trouble and so were limping home. Third, we spoke reasonable German, Nils more or less fluently, so we reckoned that would help convince the enemy. While I frantically scanned the night sky, Nils spoke to the pilot, trying to sound natural and reassuring, telling him that everything was otherwise fine, or, as the Germans say, Alles in Ordnung. Unfortunately the rather suspicious enemy didn’t buy it for some reason and kept mentioning something about our Zwilling, which had me baffled. I knew was that Zwilling was German for ‘twin’ but as far as I could tell, he was saying our Zwilling wasn’t on, whatever that meant.

  Remembering something, Loki came to our rescue. ‘Finn, when we flew that first time with Dieter Braun, his navigator mentioned to me that a special system was fitted to the plane. I think he called it something weird like Zwilling and, although I didn’t understand everything he said about it, I reckon it sounds a bit like that IFF system you mentioned earlier, Nils.’

  ‘Thanks, Loki.’ Nils began frantically scanning the instruments.

  It hadn’t occurred to me that the Germans probably had a similar system. If there was one, then there had to be some controls for it. Nils located a small group of switches to his left and, reaching out, said that he might as well try them.

  ‘Wait!’ I said, grabbing his arm. ‘It would look rather odd if we suddenly turned it back on. Can’t we say it’s broken?’

  ‘Good point. Let’s give that a try.’ He flipped the transmission switch on the radio and proceeded to inform the enemy that our Zwilling was totally kaputt, that we’d been hit by flak over the English coast and that it had screwed up some of our systems.

  A few heart-stopping moments of silence were eventually followed by the pilot’s reply. It began with a groan of sympathy, followed by, ‘Kein Wunder! So ein Peck!’

  ‘Above us at two o’clock!’ Loki yelled into our ears. I looked up to my right and saw the silhouette of a small plane. My mouth went so dry I had trouble swallowing. At first I assumed she was a Messerschmitt 109 but then I saw that she was too small and her wings were tapered like those of the Hurricane. ‘What is she?’ I asked.

  Nils gazed at her a moment. ‘Looks like one of their new Heinkel 113s, Finn. They’re even faster than the Messerschmitt 109. No way can we outrun or outmanoeuvre her.’

  ‘Want me to blast her to hell?’ Loki called out.

  ‘No, Loki,’ Nils snapped. ‘Wait. I think we’re OK.’

  The enemy kindly offered to escort us. Nils set about dissuading the pilot, saying we hadn’t far to go and that we were fine as we were. He was getting nowhere, however. Just as I was thinking that we’d dug a mighty big hole for ourselves and that Loki might be forced to have a go with his machine gun, the enemy pilot suddenly said, ‘Es tut mir Leid, aber wir haben noch eine Freya Detektionsmeldung empfangen … Gute Reise … Wiedersehen.’

  Without further explanation his plane turned sharply left, cut across our path and disappeared into the night. I felt even more choked. Freya Detektionsmeldung empfangen – he’d made another Freya discovery. What on earth did that mean? I turned and saw Nils staring at me, his eyes narrow and questioning.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Loki exclaimed through our headphones. ‘Told you, Finn. I said they knew we were coming. They were looking for Freya.’

  Nils angrily unfastened his mask. ‘You told him?’ he snapped at me.

  I removed my mask too. ‘Yes. It just slipped out. Sorry.’

  ‘Do the others know?’

  ‘No … Well, only Max – I mean Luc.’

  He shook his head at me in disappointment.

  ‘But I still don’t get it,’ I said. ‘What does it mean?’

  Nils looked up at the night sky in exasperation.

  ‘Do we turn back?’ I asked.

  ‘Too late,’ he replied. ‘There’s the French coast, Finn. And if we were to turn round now they’d know something was up for sure.’

  Straight ahead I could see the horizontal grey smudge of a line: the tall cliffs of France. We were almost there. And Nils was right, we had to press on. To turn round now, with the enemy so close, would look suspicious, and undoubtedly they’d be swarming all over us like flies around a rotting apple within minutes. I squeezed my eyes shut and said a quick prayer. Then I opened them again, took a deep breath and said, ‘Right, Nils. Let’s do it.’ I checked the time and our airspeed, then calculated our position. ‘Turn parallel to the coast heading east. We should see the river estuary in about five minutes.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  A Rough Reception

  WE FLEW IN the shadow of the cliffs. They lay to our left, towering above us almost within touching distance. In the moonlight they looked like a solid black wall. The wind was stronger than forecast too, and seemed to be drawing us towards the cliff face as if we were caught in the strong pull of a magnetic field. Having to continually adjust our position, we knew that one slip and in the blink of an eye we would become little more than a mangled wreck encased in a ball of flames. I didn’t like the way we kept lurching from side to side either, everything not securely bolted down rattling as if jittery with nerves. For once I wished I was one of the others, huddled against the fuselage in the crawl way, oblivious to the risks we were taking.

  ‘There’s the river, Finn.’ Nils pointed.

  I saw the estuary ahead, a broad sweeping gap in the cliffs where the sea seemed to be eating into the land. Nils turned away from the coast and then set us on a gentle turn so that we ended up approaching the river head on. The waterway curved and snaked inland, slowly narrowing to little more than a twisting sliver of silver. It reminded me of a snail’s slimy trail. Nils leaned forward and turned our wing lights back on. ‘I figure we need all the help we can get going in so low. Better tell the others, Finn. Less than ten minutes to landing.’ He flashed two handfuls of fingers at me to make sure I’d understood.

  I climbed out of my seat and headed back, stretching out my arms and pressing my hands against the plane’s fuselage to steady myself. Four pairs of eyes looked round at me expectantly. I crouched down. ‘Ten minutes, give or take,’ I shouted. In the dim glow of the small red lamp I was startled by just how scared Freya looked. She had never looked this fearful. Never! Her knees drawn up, she hugged her suitcase against her chest. Amélie, full of nervous energy, was fiddling with a crucifix on a slender gold chain about her neck, while Jacques stared as if held in a hypnotist’s trance. Only Max, or should I say Luc, responded to my message. He nodded, smiled at me, and held out a hand. I leaned forward, grasped it tightly and shook it. He said something to me but I didn’t catch it over the din of the engines. So I just smiled back. As I turned to head for the cockpit, Freya stopped me, calling out, ‘Finn!’

/>   I crouched back down in front of her, so that our noses were almost touching. ‘Finn, I just wanted to say …’ She hesitated. ‘Take care of yourself. I love you two, both of you. You and Loki.’ She kissed me on my cheek.

  Overwhelmed, I reached out and hugged her tightly. ‘I’ve got the easy bit,’ I said. ‘Your father would be so proud of you. And you’re going to be just fine. I know it. Max here has promised to look after you. Isn’t that right, Max?’ He didn’t hear, so I shouted at him, ‘Isn’t that right, Max? You’ll see Freya’s still in one piece when we come to pick her up.’

  Max gave a thumbs-up.

  ‘See! Told you.’

  Freya managed to force an unconvincing smile onto her lips.

  ‘Loki and I love you too,’ I said, squeezing her.

  When I was back in my seat, we prepared for our tricky landing. ‘About four miles to the rendezvous,’ said Nils. ‘Keep your eyes peeled for their signal. Green light and we’re OK, a red one and we’re out of here before you can say Gute Nacht, Fritz. Once we land, I want you and Loki to go and help the others. Arm yourselves with a couple of Stens and stay out on the floats until everyone’s safely in the boats and heading for the river bank. Then get back into the plane double quick. I don’t want to be here a second longer than is necessary. I’ll keep her engines running just fast enough to hold our position against the flow of the river.’