The Kingdom of the Air

by C. T. Wells

  Acclaim for The Kingdom of the Air:

  ‘From the fiery first chapter, through the high-stakes excitement of electrifying air combat, twisting spy plots and the dark domain of the WW2 French Resistance, C.T. Wells takes you on a sky-high thrill-ride that never lets you down. Great characters and a historically-based story, The Kingdom of the Air is an amazing read; superbly written, it soars from page to page, from impossible, heart-wrenching situations to a surprising climax. Adventure fans and history buffs will revel in this recreation of one of the darkest times in world history. C.T. Wells delivers!’ – Peter Greene, Director of The Adventure Writer’s Competition, author of Warship Poseidon

  The Kingdom of the Air is a seamless blend of war story, adventure tale, and literary novel, the likes of which I have never seen. From those first pulse-pounding moments over the English Channel to an ending that will leave you guessing, Luftwaffe pilot Josef Schafer will take you on a perilous flight through the deadliest war in human history. Suit up, strap in, and check your flaps. It’s going to be a hell of a ride. — Jeff Edwards, bestselling author of Sea of Shadows and Dome City Blues

  The Kingdom of the Air

  Published by Rhiza Press

  PO Box 1519 Capalaba QLD 4157

  www.rhizapress.com.au

  © C. T. Wells, 2016

  Cover Design by Production Works

  Layout by Rhiza Press

  Print ISBN: 978-1-925139-66-2

  Kindle ISBN: 978-1-925139-67-9

  Epub ISBN: 978-1-925139-68-6

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry :

  Creator: Wells, C. T., author.

  Title: The kingdom of the air / C T Wells.

  ISBN: 9781925139679 (ebook: kindle)

  Subjects: War stories, English.

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  For Samuel, Asher and Josiah

  1940. The Battle of Britain has begun.

  I

  The moon had sided with the British. It lay low and full and treacherous, painting the underside of the clouds with a milky wash. Against this pale backdrop, the aircraft fleeing England were a dark swarm, easily spotted by vigilant English eyes.

  In the cockpit of his fighter, Josef Schafer scanned the sky around him. He could make out the distinctive profile of the Stuka dive bombers out in front. To either side he could see the shark–like Messerschmitt fighter–escorts just like his own. It was light enough to see the black swastikas on their tails. But he wanted darkness, wanted to be swallowed up in the night for the deadly minutes until they crossed the channel, even if it meant flying by instruments alone.

  Tonight, though, there was no forgiveness. The moon was low and bright and the other pilots would all feel the same—eager for the coast.

  The voice of the staffelkapitan came over the radio. ‘This is White Leader. Heading One–Seven–Zero. Repeat. One–Seven–Zero. Hold formation.’

  The warplanes swung south, and Josef kept his wingman’s position through the turn, other fighters well spaced around him. Out in front, the Stukas banked and he saw the empty bomb racks on their bellies. They had already dropped their payload in a series of precise, linear explosions that severed a British rail line supplying the naval shipyards of Plymouth. Josef and the other Messerschmitt pilots had circled above, guarding against the British fighters that could be scrambled to intercept at any moment. But none had come, and the Stukas laid their trail of destruction unmolested by the RAF.

  Now the objective was simple: Get back to France in one piece.

  Josef flicked his eyes across the instruments. Fifteen hundred metres of altitude. Three hundred and forty kilometres an hour. It felt slow keeping station behind the Stukas. The Messerschmitt 109 could fly much faster and he fought the temptation to open the throttle and run for it.

  He checked the gauges. Fuel level. Oil temperature. Water temperature. Manifold pressure. He listened to the steady growl of the twelve–cylinder Daimler–Benz engine in front of him. Everything was good. He heard his own breathing, magnified in the oxygen mask. Steady. According to the flight chart, they were now over Dartmoor. A thousand square kilometres of almost uninhabited, desolate moor lay below. It should mean there were fewer eyes watching the sky. Fewer anti–aircraft defences. They just needed to make the distance to the coast without being—

  Josef’s hopes were shattered by white starbursts of flak that seared his eyes and left him blinking. Anti–aircraft gunfire ripped the night apart. Lines of glowing tracer started whipping through the sky, seeming to curve like tentacles because everything was in motion.

  The radio barked with instructions from the staffelkapitan. The German planes started jinking erratically to throw off the gunners. Powerful spotlights below and in front of the formation made hard shafts of light that slashed across the night, seeking targets. He banked hard to starboard, careful not to smash into the fighter off his wingtip.

  Josef wrenched the stick back to port and the nimble plane responded to his command, twisting evasively through the English sky. But the cockpit suddenly lit up and Josef knew he had been caught in the harsh beam of a spotlight. The Messerschmitt shuddered with the impact of shells. There was a rippling series of jolts through the port wing and fuselage as metal sliced through metal. He felt the stick go slack and the fighter was suddenly unresponsive. White glycol smoke streamed from the nose. The cooling system was shot and worse, the airframe was vibrating. The plane could break up at any second. There was only one option now.

  Joseph keyed the radio transmit button. ‘White Five to White Leader. I’m hit. I’m hit. Bailing out now.’

  A snatch of the staffelkapitan’s voice came through on the radio, but Josef was already tearing off the oxygen mask and unplugging the radio leads connected to his leather flying helmet. He clutched at the canopy eject lever and the plexiglass was jettisoned away into the night.

  The cold wind howled through the cockpit. Smoke poured from the Messerschmitt’s sleek nose and swirled back in a choking, blinding haze. But the inside of that darkened cockpit was like a part of him and he clawed at the harness release by his right thigh. He had to get out fast. Bloody flak! It was impossible to struggle out of the cockpit against the slipstream, but he had to go before the fighter folded in on itself.

  He tried to roll it to starboard. It should have snapped over on its back, but it was slack, and he could feel the airframe deforming. Loss of aileron control. He threw the stick back to port. This time the fighter obeyed. It made a lumbering roll, finally inverting.

  Josef let go of the stick, tumbled out of the cockpit and into the night.

  The freezing windrush tore at his eyelids and blurred his vision, but Josef glimpsed his blazing plane shooting across the void above him. Then it was gone from sight, leaving only a bright scar hanging in his vision. He tumbled and flailed at the sky, not knowing up from down.

  His life vest was flapping furiously. There were deafening cracks as flak shells went off around the Messerschmitt. He willed himself to function. He was trained for this. Extending both his arms, Josef arched his back and levelled himself face–to–earth. Now the moonlit moor stopped spinning and he tore at the D–ring on the rip cord.

  There was a vicious snap of silk and cord as the canopy filled with air. Josef’s body was wrenched almost to a halt, and the webbing harness bit his thighs as it took hi
s weight. He floated in the dark and caught sight of his Messerschmitt once again. It plunged away to the north, flames engulfing the nose as it arced earthward like a meteor. Josef winced as White Five vanished beyond some barren hills. It was like the death of a friend.

  Turning away, he wiped the wind–tears from his eyes with the back of his glove. He scanned the world beneath him. The position of the anti–aircraft battery that had crippled the Messerschmitt was given away by a nexus of spotlights and tracer. He twisted in his harness to fix its location in the landscape below. Why was it there, in the middle of nowhere? There was just moorland for kilometres all around. Maybe Luftwaffe Command had overused this flight path, pushed their luck by routing too many bomber groups through here. So the English had caught on and deployed mobile air defences.

  The gun battery was still spewing flak at the formation. The German aircraft were almost out of range now, but the British gunners were probably jubilant at having brought down a fighter and they were shooting up the sky with abandon. His comrades’ planes diminished to specks as they flew south to safety. Josef cursed the British gun–crew who had got lucky. He wanted to yell at his comrades, but what could they do? He shivered in the cold night air, drifting there alone like a jellyfish on the tide.

  Overhead the plump curve of parachute silk seemed to glow in the moonlight. Surely he had been seen. They could shoot him out of the sky right now: easy meat. Swinging beneath the canopy while the enemy took aim. Jerking as the shells tore through flesh and bone. But even if they didn’t shoot, the English would come for him on the ground.

  The flak battery was still a couple of kilometres further south, so he might have a head start on a search party. He would make a run for it if he had half a chance. But inside a minute, his altitude would be zero and his groundspeed reduced to running pace. It would be touch and go.

  It was time to start thinking like a fugitive. He had to use the remaining time in the air to make use of his vantage point. It was rural countryside below, on the edge of Dartmoor. Time to get his bearings. Navigate. Josef could just make out the channel to the south. It was a distant, dark ribbon on the horizon, silently declaring he was deep in enemy territory.

  Josef needed a plan. He would zig–zag south and west on foot, avoiding the enemy troops. He would run for hours if he had to. Then he would try to find any kind of boat that could be used to make it back to France. It couldn’t be more than forty kilometres to the coast. In theory, it would be possible to make it there before dawn. Perhaps the British would start searching further north where the Messerschmitt had gone down, but the almost–luminescent parachute might mean he would be surrounded as soon as he touched down.

  The ground was coming up fast. It was undulating country with occasional rocky tors looming out of the moor. No buildings to be seen. No people yet. Somewhere to the right was a road running north–south.

  He was coming in sideways and the wind looked like it would take him into a rocky ridgeline. Josef tensed himself for impact and his leather boots scraped over the uppermost granite teeth of a tor as he was carried beyond the ridge and into the moor beyond. He came down heavily and tried to roll with the impact, but his left ankle went into soft ground. It twisted under him. The silk settled on top of him, then swelled and fluttered downwind.

  Josef gritted his teeth and sat up. For a fleeting moment, sitting on solid ground felt like a victory. He drew in deep lungfuls of moist English air and shook his head to clear it. He had survived being shot down. At least he was alive. But if he wanted to be alive and free he had better get moving.

  Josef got to his feet and tested his weight on the ankle. The pain was sharp but he exhaled with relief. It held. It was sprained, not broken. It had to work; that was all. And it would be worth the pain to get away from here. The shrouds of the parachute tugged him off balance as the canopy tried to keep travelling with the breeze. Josef hit the quick release on his chest and the parachute webbing fell away from his body. He grabbed at the shrouds and hauled the silk into a bundle. Then he limped towards the rocky skyline, looking for somewhere to hide the white silk.

  Somewhere off to the west he heard the chugging of a motor. He dropped on top of the white parachute silk to stop it billowing up and beckoning the enemy, ignoring the stab of pain as his ankle flexed.

  Josef dragged the leather glove off his right hand with his teeth and pulled his pistol from its holster. The Walther had a purposeful weight about it, but it gave him little comfort as he levelled it in the direction of the road. He strained to hear the vehicle above his own rapid breathing.

  Steady, steady. He could feel the tremor in his hand and willed himself to be still. In the sky he had the steady hands of a fighter pilot. But here, lying on the cold, damp earth with the bog odour in his nostrils, he was a hunted animal—something at the bottom of the food chain.

  The sound of the vehicle receded into the distance. He had to move quickly now. They were definitely coming for him. The pistol was clenched in his hand. What was he thinking? Maybe it would be better to just raise his hands and surrender if it came down to it. He’d always imagined he would fight his way out if stranded behind enemy lines, but the thought of taking on a squad of rifle–toting Tommies with a pistol and eight bullets was ludicrous.

  Some of the experienced pilots in the squadron didn’t even bother with a sidearm and the discomfort it could cause in a cramped cockpit. A pistol is nothing but an illusion of situation–control, Hauptmann Langer, the staffelkapitan, had said. The only person you’re likely to shoot with a pistol is yourself. Maybe it would be better to ditch it. An unarmed man might get a better reception if he ran into the locals. Then again, it might be just what he needed to commandeer a boat of some description. It could be persuasive at close quarters. He holstered the pistol and put his flight glove back on.

  He stood and carried the silk bundle to the rocks, wrapped the parachute in its shrouds and stuffed it in under a shelf of rock. He wore an inflatable yellow life–vest over his leather jacket. It would be a liability. He tore it off and jammed it amongst the rocks with the parachute, and then scraped up handfuls of peat to throw over the bright material. The equipment was not well concealed. Someone walking the moor may well see uncovered bits of silk if they happened to look this way. But there was no time to bury it properly.

  He just had to get moving. Increase the search radius. They would find the wreck of the 109 soon enough and work from there. Josef made some rough calculations in his head. If he was currently three kilometres from the crash site, there were over twenty–seven square kilometres of search area. Every kilometre he distanced himself from the plane would add exponentially to the search area. A five kilometre radius would mean more than seventy–five square kilometres to cover. A further five kilometres would make it something over three hundred square kilometres. Maybe they could narrow it down by working out the wind–direction and parachute drift. But now he was over–thinking the situation. He just had to move.

  Josef trotted away from the rock–capped ridge, favouring the sore ankle. He remembered a story from when he was a boy. Papa had once told him that Zulu warriors could run fifty miles in a day if they had to. Josef believed it was possible. To reach the coast, he would have to do about half of that in one night. He took his bearings from the same treacherous moon. And then he ran, south by south–west.

  II

  Lucas Moreling tottered out of the conservatory of Sloane House with a double scotch in one hand and a silenced pistol in the other. It was late, but he was almost nocturnal by habit, so it was high time for some drinking and distraction. He was bored enough to be half–drunk already.

  Reports and briefings and tedious intelligence intercepts had caused him to drain the first third of the bottle at his desk. He sniffed at the air, filled with the scent of freshly cut lawn, and ambled out into the garden in his pyjamas, silk smoking jacket and slippers.

  Morelin
g inhabited a country estate requisitioned by Winston Churchill himself as one of several to serve the newly–formed Special Operations Executive. It was known affectionately to Moreling and his cronies as ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’. The type of warfare suited him immensely. However, there was nothing ungentlemanly about his standard of living.

  Moreling considered the pistol in his right hand. He had been briefed on the new weapon by an SOE weapons expert and he hoarded the facts in his memory. It was an Argentinean Ballester–Molina with the serial number removed. It came highly recommended. It fired the same hard–hitting .45 round as the American Colt but with the added advantage of not being linked to an Allied force. Fitted with a silencer, it was the perfect handgun for his growing network in France: a network whose task, in the words of the Prime Minister, was ‘to set Europe ablaze’. The pistol in his hand was as untraceable as it was deadly. Perfect. He thumbed off the safety.

  Lucas took a swig of scotch from the crystal glass and surveyed the gardens of the mansion. He selected a target and levelled the pistol. There were two alabaster lions, miniatures of the famed statues of Trafalgar Square, adorning the steps that led to a raised rose garden. Their pale surfaces shone in the moonlight. Lucas sighted on the lion on the left.

  He fired from about twenty paces. There was no cracking report, just a suppressed discharge of gases and the clack of the automatic’s slide. But there was no sign that he had hit the statue either. He scowled at the pistol as though it were its fault and not his own unsteady hand. Perhaps the bulky silencer had caused some imbalance. He fired again. This time a chunk of the lion’s mane spun away into the roses. With a smile, he quaffed the last of the scotch and discarded the glass on the lawn. He tried a two–handed grip and concentrating so hard that his tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth, he fired at the other lion. And missed.