Stahl clutched at the rent in his cheek, moaning as blood oozed from between his fingers and he tried futilely to rise once more. Ritter was after him in an instant, drawing back his right foot and sinking the toe of his boot into Stahl’s side as three ribs snapped like twigs under the impact and the man released a horrible, gurgling scream. He was about to receiving a second kick as Meier threw both arms around his CO and dragged him back.
“Leave him, Carl – it’s not worth it!”
“Get off me!” Ritter snarled wildly, struggling and vainly lashing at the fallen man with his right foot.
“It’s not worth it, Carl…!” His exec bellowed in his ear, the words finally breaking through the pilot’s rage and bringing him back under the command of his own senses. Meier felt Ritter’s muscles and body relax as the uncontrolled anger was finally placed in check, and he released his CO. Ritter took several deep breaths.
“I’m all right now, Willi…I’m all right…” There was a long pause, silent save for the moaning of the agonized Stahl on the ground. For what seemed an age, Ritter considered the pistol he still held in his hands as if wondering whether to use it or put it away. In the end, he dropped the magazine from the butt before removing the live round from the chamber and re-inserting it into the top of the magazine, which he then slipped back into the butt and slammed solidly home with the palm of his left hand.
“What a shame there’s no cartridge for this…” he said softly, his eyes burning into the man on the ground as he raised the pistol to aim at Stahl’s face. He ‘dry-fired’ it to release the cocked action, bringing forth a dull ‘click’ as the pin fell on an empty chamber. “I suppose someone else shall have that ‘pleasure’.” He turned to Meier, whose heart (much like the prone Stahl’s) had missed a beat as the pistol had ‘fired’ despite ‘knowing’ that the chamber was empty. “Take this creature to the base infirmary and keep him under guard. When the medic had finished with him and the lieutenant over there, have the Herr Doktor come down here and perform autopsies.” He paused for a moment before adding: “Have one of the nurses come down to care for the child inside…if possible, find one with experience with children.”
At that moment, something that had been gnawing at the edge of his consciousness suddenly sprang to the forefront of his mind. He stepped forward toward the small group that stood about the wounded but alert Lieutenant Schmidt. Ritter singled out the next ranking tanker there – Milo Wisch.
“You – unteroffizier – there was a boy who also lived at this house. What’s happened to him?”
“We…we had him in custody…” Wisch informed, not wanting to speculate on what might’ve happened to the child had that single shot not come out of the darkness. “An unknown sniper fired at us from the darkness and killed one of our men holding him. He escaped…” He paused before continuing. “…I didn’t see which way the boy ran after that…”
Ritter’s searching and accusatory glare swept the group with more power than any searchlight, but the reactions were all the same. No one had seen where the boy had gone in the chaos that followed the shot. He turned his gaze back to Wisch.
“I know you!” Ritter said suddenly, making the man flinch. He took in the faces of all the tank crew, including the wounded officer, that statement suddenly encompassing all of them. “You men crew the panzers at my airfield!” He didn’t wait for confirmation, instead addressing his next commands to Wisch and Schmidt together. “Obersturmbannführer, you’re going to need medical care. While that’s being attended to, I expect this NCO here to take the rest of your crew and carry out a search for the boy.” His gaze turned back to Wisch now. “You’ll report personally to me at thirteen hundred hours tomorrow: the duty officer will be expecting you and will know where to find me. Is that understood?”
“Jawohl, Herr Oberstleutnant!” Wisch snapped immediately, coming to attention and presenting the ‘zeig heil’ Nazi salute that was the standard of the SS.
“Next time you see me,” Ritter hissed, his voice soft and acidic as he refused to return the gesture, instead leaning in to within centimetres of the man’s face. “…you’ll show your respect with a proper Wehrmacht salute; not that Nazi filth. Is that understood?”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heels and stalked back into the house, not able to look at the bodies of the dead there as he returned to the main bedroom and stood staring down at the crying child. Alone there save for the baby in the cot before him, tears began to stream down his cheeks as Lieutenant Colonel Carl Werner Ritter finally allowed the personal pain within him to rise and take over.
“There…there…” he spoke in soft, broken words between sobs, reaching down almost in reflex to check that the cloth nappy the child wore was still clean, at the same time noting the child was a boy. “It’s all going to be all right, little fellow…”
With a confidence and fluidity that only came with experience handling newborn children, he folded the cot blanket snugly around the child to protect it against the cold of the night and scooped it up into his arms. As he held the boy close, staring down through tears with pain-filled eyes, Ritter rocked him slowly back and forth for a few moments until the crying finally subsided. Finally provided with the comfort he was seeking all along and completely exhausted by his own screams, the child almost instantly fell asleep as the pilot cradled him in his arms.
Ritter stood where he was for a few more moments, making sure the child was properly asleep before carefully carrying him out into the hallway and down to the kitchen. He pulled a chair away from the table there with one hand and dragged it closer to the crackling wood stove that was the only source of warmth in the house. Carefully lowering himself to the chair and never allowing his attention to stray from the sleeping child he held in his arms, Ritter again began to rock gently back and forth, this time humming the tune of a soft lullaby through sobs that still shook his body as tears continued to fall.
As a pair of the base guards led the moaning Stahl away, Willi Meier issued a few short, sharp orders to the others to secure the area. As the rest of the troop dispersed to carry out his commands, he turned his attention back to the wounded Schmidt, who by this stage had dragged himself to his feet and was leaning against the front of one of the trucks as Milo Wisch carefully applied a more effective combat dressing to the wound in his arm.
“You’ll need you get that looked at…” Meier observed with some compassion, nodding at the wound.
“I’ve had worse…” Schmidt replied honestly with a dismissive shake of his head, almost managing a thin smile “…I’ll live. Your CO’s got some guts, and that’s the truth!” He observed, changing the subject. “Jumping in balls and all like that on his own.” There was a certain amount of grudging admiration in those words…and also a certain amount of guilt. “…Something that should’ve been taken care of ‘in house’…” he finished softly with no small amount of shame.
“He shouldn’t have needed to jump in,” Meier agreed, then adding: “Hard to take charge though with a slug through your arm…” Under the circumstances, the XO was willing to cut the wounded lieutenant some slack.
“What’s that about?” Schmidt changed the subject again, nodding his head in the direction of the farmhouse, still feeling guilty and not willing to let himself off the hook quite so easily. From where they stood, all could see straight through the open back door and the seated figure of Carl Ritter beyond, cradling the sleeping child.
“Carl has a wife at home…” Meier answered sadly, staring at the scene inside the house with the others. “…Once he had a family.” He took a breath and allowed the statement to sink in. “Lost his boy ‘to crib death in Thirty-Six while he was in Spain…wouldn’t have been much older than the child in there…”
“Scheisse…!” Schmidt cursed softly, and spat at the ground in disgust. The war had kept him away from his own family for months now, and every mail call was a desperate wait for the next letter from his wife and more news of the d
aughter who was his unashamed pride and joy. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how he might cope with the concept of the loss of his own child.
“…Shit indeed…!” Meier agreed, nodding slowly.
Inside, Ritter continued to hum that gentle melody as the little boy slept in his arms. The tears had ceased, finally, and instead his face was now a cold, hardened mask completely devoid of emotion. The wild, righteous rage he’d felt earlier had now coalesced into something dark and fathomless…something he’d never before experienced in his thirty-five years…something that began to churn and fester in the pit of his stomach.
HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage
Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands
The Orkneys lay just a dozen kilometres or so off the North coast of Scotland. Comprised of a multitude of islands at the north western edge of the North Sea, three major land masses of the group – Hoy, South Ronaldsay and Mainland (the largest) – surrounded the naval base HMS Proserpine: the huge natural anchorage of Scapa Flow that was the home of the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet.
It was a windblown and desolate place to the large part with fishing settlements being the main areas of habitation dotted about the islands. It was also a place of much historical note and some of the oldest recorded settlements in the British Isles could be found in the Orkneys. The islands were comprised predominantly of low hills and grassed expanses where sheep and goats were often the only variation to a largely treeless, unwelcoming landscape. The only real exception was that of the island of Hoy, the western half of which rose to high hills and cliffs on its western side. St. John’s Head, on the west coast, was the highest vertical cliff in Britain and towered hundreds of metres above the surface of the ocean.
From his excellent vantage point in the Lightning’s rear cockpit, Trumbull had enjoyed the flight north across the darkened British countryside. He’d been more than a little surprised however to find their destination lit up like a veritable chandelier upon their arrival. Never having visited Scapa Flow previously, he knew little actual detail about the place but the little he did know had suggested a base far less comprehensive that the massive land-based installation they were now circling above.
“Icebreaker to Harbinger: come in please.” The call came within seconds of the jet arriving over the base’s airspace.
“That’s our cue,” Thorne quipped conversationally as he keyed the transmit toggle on his radio. “This is Harbinger receiving you loud and clear, Icebreaker. How the hell are ya, mate?” It seemed to Trumbull in that moment that Thorne might actually have been intentionally accentuating his own accent.
“Coping, old chap – coping. How’s our friend?”
“Safe as houses – the pickup went as smooth as silk…mostly... A couple of those Flankers we were worried about did try to gatecrash though…” As he spoke these words, Thorne was bringing the F-35E in over the airfield proper, his speed dropping away dramatically.
“Glad you managed to show them the door, old man…” The radio voice countered jovially. “I’d have been rather upset if these last twelve months had been wasted!”
“And it seems like only this morning we parted!” Thorne chuckled, knowing only he and the man at the other end of the radio would get the in-joke. “Mind if I park this bastard down there near the hangars there? She’s chewed quite nicely through what little fuel I’ve got left…”
“Wherever you can fit her in, Max – go right ahead.”
HMS Proserpine lay on the east coast of the island of Hoy by the small village of Lyness, opening onto the south-western edge of Scapa Flow, while close by lay five smaller islands within the Flow itself: Cava, Faro, Flotta, Switha and Risa. Anchorages for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, destroyers and smaller warships lat between the string of islands and the coastline itself and stretched from Gutter Sound in the north-west down to Switha Sound in the south-east. Beyond the string of islands in West Weddel Sound, corralled by Caro, Faro and Flotta, lay the main fleet anchorage in the deeper sections of the Flow.
The airfield and attendant structures lay a thousand metres or so west of the main naval base and comprised a large rectangular area covering quite several square kilometres. There were clusters of buildings and hangars to the south-east of the area while an incredibly long concrete runway stretched away to the north-west a little more than three thousand metres. As they circled in slowly above the landing area, Trumbull noted a number of heavy and medium AA emplacements on the far side of the runway, their gun crews following the aircraft with their sights as it halted completely and hovered over a broad concrete area at the near end of the strip, close to three gigantic hangars.
The subsequent landing was just as impressive from inside the aircraft in Trumbull’s opinion, and seemed a great deal more straight-forward watching from inside than it’d appeared from outside. The jet remained steady on its pillars of exhaust, lowering smoothly to the concrete below as Thorne gently drew back the throttle and eased down the power. A trio of Fleet Air Arm ground crew appeared immediately with a set of wheeled steps, pushing them up to the side of the Lightning as Thorne began to shut down its powerplant and unstrapped himself from his seat. The canopy rose above them with a whine and Thorne dragged the helmet from his head to reveal a shock of medium-length dark hair with just the hint of grey about it. He clambered from the cockpit and climbed down to the ground on those steps, stretching and running his hands through his hair as Trumbull awkwardly followed him.
“Good to see you, Maxwell,” one of the group clustered there ventured. The man appeared to be in his late forties and wore the red tabs and rank of an army brigadier. Neither man saluted; they embraced instead, and Trumbull could’ve sworn for a moment that he caught the glint of tears in the officer’s eyes. “I was scared you weren’t going to make it for a while there…”
“No chance of that, mate,” Thorne reassured, not quite as solemn but also sensing the magnitude of what they’d accomplished. “Only this morning, remember?”
“It’s been a year for me!” The brigadier exclaimed as they parted fully and he grasped the Australian’s shoulders at full arms’ length. “…A whole bloody year!”
“A lot longer than that for both of us, I reckon,” Thorne observed sombrely…thinking that for him it really had only been that morning they’d seen each other last. “Better get onto the LDV too, by the way…the crew of one of those Flankers managed to eject and they’ll be wandering about the Dorset countryside right now up to all sorts of shit. I want those arseholes caught ASAP and brought up here for interrogation: who knows what they might be able to tell us!”
“Bluddy ‘ell…!” The remark came from beside Trumbull as the two NCOs who’d pushed up the steps regarded the jet before them with awe. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir…” the sergeant added as he realised the squadron leader was watching them.
“That’s quite all right, sergeant,” Trumbull reassured with dry sarcasm, clapping his arms about himself at the wind that whipped about the airfield on that cold, coastal night. “That’s just what I thought!” He gave a bemused smile, repeating silently to himself: yes, that’s just what I thought!
A second later, he realised that Thorne and the officer were now walking off together across the concrete taxiway, heading toward a control tower that stood a few hundred metres away. He darted forward in order to catch up, joining step with them a metre or two behind.
“How’re we going for time?” Thorne inquired as they walked. “With all the extra carry on I’ve been a good deal longer than expected.”
“Somewhat, yes…” the other man nodded, consulting a wristwatch. “We’ve about twenty minutes, I’d say…enough time to get to the tower and have a grand seat.”
“Excellent!” Thorne stated emphatically, and the RAF pilot could hear the anticipation in the Australian’s voice. “The Raptor should be able to cope in the unlikely event anything else unpleasant turns up. I’d hoped to get back with enough time spare to top up my tanks and be up again t
o escort them in…” he threw a cocked thumb back at Trumbull “…but ‘Muggins’ here buggered all that up…” Which returned attention to the squadron leader as they walked on. “Nick, this is Alec Trumbull – Squadron Leader Trumbull, may I introduce Nicholas Alpert – brigadier, it appears.” He gestured to the tower they were approaching. “If you’ll bear with us we’ve some important things to prepare for and we’re on a tight schedule. You’re welcome to tag along, but we won’t be able to answer any questions until we’re done. Okay?”
“I can wait, I suppose…” Trumbull replied dubiously, noting the honesty in Thorne’s tone. He could wait…for a little longer.
The tower rose a good twenty metres above the ground and the stairs to the top were a fair climb at any pace, leaving all three men breathing heavily. The platform itself was large and well set up – fully glassed and enclosed from the elements – while a pot-bellied stove crackled in one corner providing a little heat. Even in summer, Trumbull had no doubt it might get quite cold at night in such an exposed position, particularly near an ocean so close to the Arctic Circle.
“Only about five or six minutes now, I’d say…” Alpert advised as they stood in the tower, staring out at the long, well-lit runway “…if they’re on time…”
“Yeah, well they’d better fuckin’-well turn up on time!” Thorne growled, tension now also starting to show on his face. “You lot displaced ten minutes before I did!”
“…And they certainly jumped okay again after I bailed out,” Alpert stated, trying to reassure them both. “Lit up the sky like Blackpool on a Saturday bloody night…they’ll be here.”
England Expects (Empires Lost) Page 12