Kat and Die Wolfsschanze

by Michael Beals

  She glanced at Dore. He shook his hand. Perhaps he’d gripped the Sten gun too far down the barrel. The sough of heavy breathing and the soft padding of feet. Stirling’s men were running at a crouch towards the planes. It alarmed her how easy they were to see. Even in the shadows beneath the wings, she could see them. She glanced at the Control Tower and scanned the airfield. Nothing moved. Two guards appeared and strolled casually across the apron. She aimed the gun at one of them. They were oblivious to what was going on only yards away. She shot another look at Dore. He too had seen them and aimed his Sten gun.

  It would be a mistake to shoot them if they didn’t have to. If the guard’s bodies were spotted, all hell would break loose. She searched for Stirling’s men. A group of five were heading back towards the dunes. Both Kelly and Stewart appeared, running at a crouch. Two more men came into sight, followed by another two. She bit her lips as four more men headed into the dunes. One more to come. What the hell was Stirling doing? Suddenly she saw him. He was limping. He must have hurt himself.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, she got to her feet and headed into the desert. They’d done it. Within thirty minutes, the night sky would light up. She felt like giggling. Abruptly, a colossal blast almost sent her flying. Seconds later, another plane exploded. Stirling warned them, on warm nights, the pencil fuses could go off prematurely. She ran faster. Her pulse racing now. The guards were Waffen-SS. Their first reaction would be to run Stirling’s men to ground. They’d have halftracks capable of forty-five miles an hour. And they’d be prepared. The SS was here because of Stirling, the Phantom Major. They would hunt him down. The SS would hunt them all down.

  CHAPTER 4

  Kat was pulling up one of the markers when the sky lit up, and she stood there for a moment, gazing at the flickering glow on the horizon. Every so often, she saw headlamps in the distance, so she didn’t stay long, the Germans were after them. If they were using Kübelwagens, it wasn’t a problem… if they were using Sd.Kfz. 250 halftracks, they wouldn’t be hindered by the sand, and they would outrun them. It would be light soon. If they were in radio contact, in the next hour, the Germans would use Messerschmitts, and then they’d be screwed.

  Stewart jumped in with Dore and took off. Kelly limping, he jumped in the Jeep with Kat. She floored the accelerator in a spray of sand. They were the last in the convoy, and it would have been easier if Kelly pulled up the markers, but he’d fallen from the wing of a Messerschmitt and gashed his knee. Now it was only the two of them. She drove faster. If she lost the convoy, it might be hard to find them again. She couldn’t even see the tire tracks in the moonlight, and Stirling was doing twenty-five miles an hour, almost twice the recommended speed in these conditions. It was hard to blame him. He’d already lost too many men.

  Kelly twisted around. “How much head start d’you think we’ve got?”

  “Hard to tell!” she yelled. “A little over a mile, I think. I’m hoping they’ll split up!”

  “Why would they do that? All they have to do is follow our tire tracks.”

  “We won’t always be leaving tracks. Any moment now, we’ll be on hard ground again. Then they’ll have to decide which way we went, in the dark.”

  “So we’re okay.”

  “Not necessarily. If the German’s are using halftracks, they’re faster than us. They can also cut through the dunes.”

  “Fine. We’ll ambush them.”

  “What!”

  “It’s dark. They won’t be able to see us. All we have to do is shoot the driver.”

  “If you were Jock,” she yelled, swerving around a sharp bend, “I might consider it! But you’re not Jock, and you’re wounded! Trust me, Sam. It’s easier to lose them.”

  They flew past a rocky outcrop, the Jeep shuddering and jinking as it navigated the uneven surface. They were leaving the safety of the dunes behind. In another forty minutes, the moon would set, leaving the land to descend into darkness. With only the pre-dawn sky to see where they were going, it would be difficult.

  “I think I saw the convoy!” Kelly yelled. “Go faster!”

  “This is madness, Sam. I’m already doing thirty miles an hour. If I blow a tire, we’re screwed.”

  Nevertheless, she accelerated to thirty-five. They were on hard ground now, and the tire tracks disappeared. All they went by was the lie of the land, a series of V-shapes on the horizon where Kelly last saw the convoy. They were driving on a vast plain, dunes behind them, dunes ahead. If they could reach the next series of dunes, maybe they could disappear. The Germans might even turn back. Except when she glanced behind her, two pairs of headlamps were winding their way through the dunes.

  “Hey! Pull over at the next lot of dunes.”

  “Are you crazy!” she yelled. “If they’re halftracks, we could be facing eight to ten Waffen-SS soldiers, and trust me, they know what they’re doing!”

  “Ya? According to Jock, so do you. He said you’re hot stuff with a bazooka.

  “We don’t have a bazooka!”

  “Well, that’s the thing!” he yelled, clinging to the screen frame as they bounced through a dip. “We actually do.”

  Slamming on the brakes, she twisted around in her seat. Hidden in the shadow of the floor well, were two bazooka rockets, their launching tube neatly taped behind the rear seat. “Holy crap, Sam! Why didn’t you tell me? We could have taken them out ages ago.”

  “No, we couldn’t. We didn’t have a decent vantage point, but once we reach the next lot of dunes, you’ll be firing onto a flat plain.”

  “And this suddenly occurred you?”

  He laughed his Kelly laugh. “Not really. I knew no one would agree, so I put the bazooka and rockets into the Jeep while everyone slept. I saw this place on our way to the airfield.”

  “What, you expected the Germans to follow us?”

  “It was a possibility.”

  Now she knew why she wanted Sam with her. He never stopped thinking. Accelerating to a reckless forty miles an hour, she headed for the dunes. They didn’t have long. The Germans nearly reached a dune. The only question, could she do it? Did she have enough skill with a bazooka to hit a moving target? What if she missed? Sam brought only two rockets. They were driving on sand now. In the next thirty seconds, they would be in the dunes. They needed to find a vantage point that wouldn’t strand the Jeep’s axle-deep in soft sand.

  “There!” Kelly yelled, pointing to a ridge of sand that curled away from the road. “It’s a perfect vantage point.”

  Skidding to a stop, they leaped from the Jeep, grabbed the bazooka, both rockets, and scrambled up the side of a high dune. The moon sinking towards the horizon now and a pale wash of gray formed in the morning sky, but the plain still black as pitch. Thank God the Germans were using headlamps.

  Lying on his stomach, Kelly peered over the rim of the dune. The Germans were on the plain now, and they were moving fast. “Kat, can I suggest something?”

  “So long as you do it quickly.”

  “When I was in dogfights, I couldn’t just point my guns wherever I wanted. I needed to aim the whole plane at a moving target. I needed to judge where my target would be when my bullets reached it, and it’s not easy.”

  “What are you saying? That you want to fire the bazooka?”

  He looked back at her. “I read the manual. I’d like to try. If I fuck it up, you fire the next one.”

  “You read the manual?” She stared at him in disbelief. “And now you’re experienced enough to fire a rocket at a moving target hundreds of yards away?”

  He shrugged. “We have two rockets. What’s the worst that could happen.”

  “Well, for one, we could be machine gunned to death!” She stud
ied him for a moment, “fine. Go ahead. Give it a go.”

  With a flourish of excitement, he Settled the launcher on his shoulder. He aimed it twenty feet ahead of the leading halftrack. Kat pulled out an M6A1 rocket painted olive drab with yellow writing out of its container while Sam squeezed the trigger a couple of times making sure the battery ready light on the left side of the stock lit up.

  Kelly told Kat as he aimed the bazooka, “this thing’s good to go, load it up.”

  Kat placed the rocket into the tube, pulled the safety pin, seated the rocket, turned on the electrical connection, moved away from the back-blast and said, “your hot and good to go.”

  Kelly looked over his shoulder and said, “I’ve been trying to tell you that for ages.”

  Kat slapped him over the head, “just fire the damn thing!”

  It wasn’t that simple. The Halftrack was moving fast, which meant Kelly needed to continuously adjust the aim of the bazooka.

  “It’s almost there… almost there… almost…” He pulled the trigger.

  A crackling roar and the bazooka’s rocket streaked towards the halftrack. In the seconds that followed, it looked as if the rocket would miss. However, the halftrack drove straight into it, erupting in a ball of fire that roiled into the dawn sky. The halftrack exploded again as the fuel tank erupted. No telling how many men had been aboard, but two survived. Screaming and engulfed in flames, they ran for their lives.

  Kat began loading the second rocket. Kelly waved her down. “Save it, Kat. The other halftrack’s leaving, and we should be leaving too. If we don’t make camp in the next hour, we’ll be defending ourselves against Messerschmitts.”

  The sun cleared the horizon just as they reached the Moghra Oasis. Stirling’s Jeeps parked in their usual place beneath the palm trees, but the only person they could see was Dore. He sat on one of the trucks drinking coffee from a baked bean can and smoking a cigar. Kat smiled when she saw him. It was just like Jock to be waiting for her.

  “You missed all the fun!” she yelled as they climbed out of the Jeep. “We’ve got a new hotshot on our team!”

  When she told Dore what happened, he was horrified. “I’m sorry, Lass. I had no idea. I knew you were pulling up markers, but I thought you’d catch up. We were only doing twenty miles an hour.”

  “Bullshit! You were doing more than that. I was doing thirty.”

  Lieutenant Lewes appeared. He’d removed his shirt. Still wearing the keffiyeh, he looked weird with his desert boots and rolled up football socks. Taking a sip from Dore’s coffee, she told Lewes what happened.

  When she’d finished, she said, “We should carry bazookas, Jock. They’re really cool, and they weigh half as much as a Panzerschreck.”

  He turned to Kelly. “So, you’re not just a pilot.”

  Kelly gave him a sheepish grin. “Just a fluke.”

  “Bullshit!” Kat exclaimed. “That halftrack must have been four hundred yards away.”

  “Ya, well…”

  The drone of a plane interrupted him. It came from the north and flying low, a single Messerschmitt cruising the desert. Stirling’s Jeeps were concealed beneath the palms and draped in camouflage, whereas Kat’s Jeep was still in the open. Starting it up, she drove it over to Stirling’s vehicles and dragged the camouflage netting over it. They watched the Messerschmitt circling overhead, disappear behind the hills and then reappear. And moments later, another Messerschmitt flew overhead. There were two of them, and they were combing the desert.

  “You think they’ve seen our tire tracks?” Kat asked.

  “Tire tracks aren’t visible from the air,” Lewes said, shaking his head. “But this is the most obvious place to look. We’re in the Qattara Depression, and there are a number of oases in this area. Don’t worry. They’ll give up in a minute.”

  “They must have seen the halftrack we blew up.”

  “I’m sure they did. It’s not going to help them. The western area of Egypt is enormous.”

  She wondered how wise it was to make a second base camp. It wouldn’t be so easy to find another hidden gorge. Stirling had been lucky. One thing she was sure of, they were going to steal a couple of planes. They were lined up along the runway, easy for the taking. If Kelly and Capetti could climb aboard without being seen, they only needed to create a distraction. If they could blow up two or three planes, it would look as if German pilots were trying to rescue them. Only one problem, they’d be landing on an unfamiliar landing strip in the dark. They’d need rows of Tilley lamps to guide them in.

  “So, you think we can find a suitable landing strip?”

  Lewes studied her for a moment. “You still want to steal planes, even after tonight?”

  “I don’t see why not. The Germans wouldn’t even be able to follow us. If they tried, we’d machine gun them from the air.” She gazed at him. “Of course, we’d need your help. If we’re out in the desert blowing up planes, we won’t be here to help them land.”

  Lewes laughed. “We wondered when you were going to realize that.”

  “But you’d be here… if our missions were on different nights.”

  Lewes grunted and scratched his neck. “I suppose it’s possible. I’ll talk to Dave about it. Are you sure you want to move to a different campsite? It would be a lot easier if you stayed here.”

  “It would, wouldn’t it? It was Major Stirling who thought we should camp somewhere else.”

  “Ya, well Dave thinks we’re a bunch of hooligans.”

  They’d almost given up looking for a suitable airstrip when they found the wadi. Ten miles from Stirling’s camp and uncomfortably close to the lake, it wasn’t perfect, but you could easily land a Messerschmitt there. And if they cleared some of the scree beneath a rocky overhang, it could be possible to conceal the planes. As always, Stirling was skeptical. If the Germans flew low enough, they would see them, but it was worth the risk. In all the months they’d been blowing up planes, no one thought of stealing them, and in all likelihood, the Germans would think they flew to a British airfield.

  He thought the Germans would replace the destroyed planes within 24 hours. There were several German airfields along the Egyptian coast and they’d only blown up 30 on the last mission. The only thing he didn’t know what the replacements would be. They might be Messerschmitts, or they might be Focke Wulf 190s. Kelly was delighted at the possibility. He’d always wanted to fly an FW 190.

  “I can’t imagine why,” Lewes said. “They’re a bugger to fly. Apart from continuously adjusting the trim, the early models were prone to engine failure.”

  “Yes, I know, but only when you’re flying full bore. The engines tend to overheat.”

  Lewes blinked at him. “You’ve flown a Focke Wulf?”

  “No, but I studied them. Anyway, we’re only flying thirty miles. I’m sure we’ll manage.”

  Kat told Stirling’s men that Tilley lamps would be used to guide the pilots in. She expected a degree of resentment from Stirling’s men. When they discovered that Kat’s Rats intended stealing planes, they thought the idea brilliant. Paddy Mayne was ecstatic. He complained about conventional warfare being predictable and boring.

  “I’ve never understood why we don’t just sneak in there and shoot the fucking pilots,” he said when he raved about the whole idea. “Stealing the bloody planes is the next best thing and a fantastic idea.”

  “We are not shooting the pilots,” Stirling said, sternly. “They’re just kids.”

  “Ya, and they kill hundreds of our men,” Mayne retorted. “If I had my way, I’d bomb their fucking billets and have done with it.”

  Back at the camp, Stirling called a meeting. Last night began th
e new moon, which meant they’d only have another two days of moonlight, then it would be a month before the next full moon. If they were going to give the Germans a severe headache, they didn’t have much time to do it. Ideally, they should run two missions on the same night, but the next German airfield was a four-hour drive, which would mean moving camp.

  Dore held up a hand. “Ya really think they’ll replace all those planes in 24 hours.”

  “Yes, I do,” Stirling said. “The Germans are incredibly efficient.”

  “Then we don’t need to drive to the next airfield.”

  Stirling frowned. “We don’t?”

  “Of course we don’t. Some of your men will be needed to set off the landing strip, and they can’t be in two places at once.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  Dore let out an impatient sigh. “If Lieutenant Kelly and Major Capetti can navigate in moonlight, once they’ve shot up the planes we couldn’t blow up, they can fly west and attack the next airfield from the air. It’s perfect. We’ll be destroying German fighter planes using their own damn fighter planes.”

  “That’s bloody brilliant!” Paddy Mayne cried.

  “It’s not so bloody brilliant,” Stirling retorted. “You have to learn to fly a new fighter plane. It’s not like a car. You can’t just get in and drive the bloody thing. If Kelly and Capetti manage to start those planes and actually get them off the ground, in the dark, they’ll be flaming lucky to be able to land them again, let alone launch an aerial attack on an airfield they’ve never been to before, and then find their way back to the Moghra Oasis.”

  Kat exchanged looks with Stirling. He was right. It was a very tall order. But, she thought, if they managed to land them at the Moghra Oasis...

  “You’re right, Major. We couldn’t possibly do all that on the same night.” She gave him a foxy grin. “But we could do it another night. And the Germans wouldn’t know what the hell was happening. If you do your usual bombing raid, we could fly in and destroy the rest of the planes.”