Hellfire (2011)

by James Holland

  ‘Maybe not, but I’d hate her to think I’m not pulling my weight. Or you, for that matter.’

  Ewa smiled. ‘Forget it. It’s hardly the world’s worst crime, is it?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Tanja. Then, looking at her watch, she added, ‘I must get going.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll still like him?’

  ‘I don’t know. Doesn’t really matter if he can get us some more supplies, does it?’

  ‘And if he pays for lunch.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, have fun. I’ll see you later.’ Ewa winked and walked on.

  As Tanja crossed the road, her heart was still hammering. She was certain Ewa had suspected nothing – after all, why should she? – but that didn’t stop her worrying. Thank God Ewa had not seen her stepping into the shop. Come on, pull yourself together. She reminded herself that she was following all the right safety procedures, and that the chances of anyone ever catching her out were surely small. She sighed. It was always like this: the rational side of her brain forever in conflict with the part that produced intense panic and fear.

  By the time she reached the Continental, her heart rate had slowed and her panic had evaporated. She stopped briefly to check her makeup in her compact mirror, then sauntered into the canopied restaurant at the front of the grand old building. She scanned the faces and saw a hand waving in the air.

  ‘Well done, you made it.’ Harry Rhodes-Morton stood up as she drew near.

  ‘Of course.’ She smiled, offering her cheek. ‘I was never going to pass up the chance of lunch with a handsome cavalry captain.’

  Rhodes-Morton grinned and his cheeks reddened. He helped her into her chair, sat down opposite her and nodded to the waiter.

  ‘Champagne?’ he said, turning back to Tanja.

  ‘Oh, Harry, how lovely!’ said Tanja. ‘Are we celebrating something?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Well, I suppose so. It’s our first lunch together, after all. And it’s a new start for Eighth Army too. A new commander, and Jerry and the Wops held at Alamein. All our chaps think the same – that this time we really will send Rommel packing. And I rate Gott. I reckon he’s got what it takes, you know?’ He held up his glass.

  Tanja lifted hers. ‘So who are we toasting?’

  ‘Would it be too forward to toast us?’

  ‘Yes, definitely. We’ve only just met.’

  Rhodes-Morton blushed again. ‘Of course. How about to General Gott and Eighth Army, then?’

  ‘All right.’ Tanja smiled. The champagne was ice-cold, sparkling and delicious. General Gott. She wondered where he was now. Ah, well, it was out of her hands.

  As it was, General Gott was fit, well, and looking forward to a couple of days’ leave in Cairo. The last time he’d been there had been in April, some weeks before the Gazala battles; four months in the desert was a long time, and although he was well used to living in a tent, everyone suffered their fair share of privations, generals included. The lack of running water, latrines that were no more than a hole in the ground, and the millions of flies were the same for all ranks. Even in the last war, for all its ghastliness, Gott had never spent more than a few weeks without a hot bath; and only in summer, during an offensive, had flies been anything to worry about – even then their numbers were nothing compared to those in the Western Desert.

  Even so, Gott had been determined to brief his new corps and divisional commanders who had, until the previous momentous day, been colleagues but were now his subordinates as well. Confidence was low. They had taken a hammering since the fighting had begun at the end of May. Eighth Army’s battle plans had failed spectacularly. The Gazala Line had been overrun, British armour decimated, and Tobruk had fallen – Tobruk, a coastal town of smashed buildings with a wrecked harbour of half-sunken ships, but a town in which much British pride had been invested. Although Rommel and his Panzer Army had been held at Alamein, there was no disguising the depth of the defeat.

  Some had already been moved on, replaced as the Auk was being replaced. The PM and General Brooke had broken the news to Corbett, Dorman-Smith and Ramsden, but all the divisional commanders remained. There were personal tensions between them and national tensions too. Eighth Army might have been British in name, but in reality it was a polyglot force of Indians, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans as well as British. Gott understood that these tensions needed ironing out, and fast. The new commander needed to clear the air, and if that meant delaying his leave by a few hours, then so be it.

  Most important, he was conscious that the ongoing spat between himself and Dan Pienaar, the Afrikaner commander of the 1st South African Division, needed to be resolved. They had to put aside their differences. Eighth Army needed to gel once more, to fight as one. Pienaar had been the last to arrive at Eighth Army’s Tactical Headquarters and their conversation had taken longest, as Gott had suspected it would – that was why he had postponed his flight back to Cairo.

  Now, however, at a little after half past two, his last meeting was over. Some plain speaking and an apology had achieved his goal. The air had been cleared. He and Pienaar had even shared a joke or two before they had launched into a series of planning conversations that had certainly renewed Gott’s confidence.

  Seeing Pienaar’s staff car rumble off in a cloud of dust, Gott felt both relieved and invigorated. He was only a week short of his forty-fifth birthday, yet just a few days ago he had felt washed-out – physically and mentally. Command was an exhausting business, but doubly so during defeat. When the Prime Minister and General Brooke had visited him, he had confessed as much to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and had wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to get some new blood in. He had even suggested it might be time for him to be sent home. He had begun to think about seeing his wife and children again – God only knew, it had been a long time since he had glimpsed their sweet faces.

  But he had not been sent home. He had been promoted and made Army Commander, initially a daunting and forbidding prospect, but now it excited him, and seemed to have infused him with new energy and purpose. More tanks were on their way – new American models – as were more men, more aircraft, more vehicles. In the flush of bitter defeat it was easy to view matters from a half-empty cup but, he realized, there was now much in their favour. Rommel had been held: his lines of supply were over-extended and the RAF were making a damn good fist of ensuring that as little as possible reached the front. In contrast, Gott’s own supplies had a comparatively short distance to run. Not only was there now no reason why Rommel could not be held, should he attack again, there was also every reason to believe the Panzer Army could be defeated once and for all. It was ironic, but the run of defeats had given them the chance of ultimate victory.

  Gott smiled to himself, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then turned to one of his ADCs, hovering beside him. ‘Right, Whitworth,’ he said. ‘I think it’s safe for me to go.’

  ‘That’s good, sir,’ said Whitworth, a young captain and Guardsman. ‘The Bombay should be touching down at any moment.’

  Gott looked at his watch. ‘Gosh, yes – we’d better get a move on. We don’t want to keep it waiting.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Gott disappeared into his tent, grabbed a small suitcase, then strode out towards the waiting car. He would be at Heliopolis in under an hour, and safely ensconced at Shepheard’s in two. A bath, a nap, then drinks and dinner.

  As Tanja Zanowski proffered both cheeks to Lieutenant Rhodes-Morton after a delicious lunch at the Continental, a young nineteen-year-old sergeant-pilot was approaching the roughly cleared landing ground at Burg El Arab, some thirty-five miles along the coast, west of Alexandria. It had not been an easy flight. There was always plenty of turbulence over the Western Desert, but it was generally worse in the middle of the day, especially when it was sizzling hot and you were flying at only fifty feet off the deck in an ageing Bristol Bombay transport plane. Still, it was better to risk a sudden lu
rch and drop twenty feet at the hands of swirling thermals than it was to be shot down by marauding German fighters.

  Sergeant Pilot Jimmy James eyed the landing ground, which was only just visible, thanks to the lines of old fuel cans marking out the strip and a few camouflaged tents and vehicles. Away to his right was the village of Burg El Arab – a cluster of mud-brick houses. The desert, as ever, looked impenetrable, sun-blasted and bleached. After a tight circuit over the landing ground, James brought the Bombay in to land with a light bump. Then came the familiar jolting as he taxied towards the few tents at the far end, and turned the aircraft ready to take off again. That was the golden rule: never switch off the engines. Keep them running, ready for an almost immediate departure.

  James climbed down through the hatch in the cockpit floor and strode towards the operations tent to report to the duty operations officer, Flying Officer ‘Jonah’ Whale. Lorries and ambulances were already hurrying out to the waiting Bombay. Speed was imperative: the cargo was unloaded, then mailbags, personnel and wounded men were hoisted into the aircraft. The aim was to be airborne again in five minutes or less.

  ‘You need to switch off,’ Whale called, as James approached.

  ‘What?’ James replied. ‘You know we’re not allowed.’

  Whale shrugged. ‘It’s orders.’

  ‘Orders from whom?’

  ‘Air HQ. You’ve got a VIP coming.’

  Inside the operations tent, James took off his helmet and wiped his brow. ‘Jesus,’ he said.

  ‘I know. Sorry, but orders are orders.’

  James looked at his watch – 1438 – then glanced towards his second pilot and signalled to him to switch off. ‘Damn, damn, damn,’ he muttered, pacing up and down the stony sand outside the tent. Switching off the engines was a worry in itself. They quickly overheated when stationary in this kind of heat and could be bloody difficult to restart. Scanning the skies, he slapped at several flies that were buzzing around his sweating face, then strode back towards the Bombay.

  ‘You’d better get the wounded off again,’ he told the ground crew, who had just finished loading a number of stretchers on board. ‘We don’t want them to die from overheating in there,’ he added, as one of the erks rolled his eyes with irritation.

  James glanced at his watch again. It had been a frustrating day already. At six that morning he’d reported to the flight commander’s tent at Heliopolis to be told he’d not be flying until after eleven. That was unusual in itself, but then eleven had come and gone, and still he’d not been ordered to take off. At noon, they’d been told to take a quick lunch, but an hour later, they still hadn’t been given the go-ahead. Not until two that afternoon had James been given the orders to take off for Burg El Arab. Now it seemed it was a VIP who had caused all the delay.

  He watched the wounded being unloaded, then ambled across to the ops tent once more, still scanning the skies above him. Was that a faint buzz in the distance? His heart lurched. Nothing. Just a vast empty expanse of blue. A phone rang in the ops tent and a few moments later, Whale called, ‘They’ll be here in a short while. It’s Gott, by the way – General “Strafer” Gott. He’s the new commander of Eighth Army.’

  Good God. James nodded acknowledgement, then ran back to the Bombay. He’d no sooner ordered the wounded on board again than two Humber staff cars drew up in a cloud of dust. A number of people got out, but he spotted the new army commander, who walked briskly towards the waiting plane.

  ‘Are you the captain?’ he asked James.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ James replied, suddenly conscious that he looked hot, sweat-streaked and – he had left his flying helmet on his seat. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he stammered, ‘but I can’t salute you without a cap.’

  Gott smiled. ‘Don’t worry about that, my boy.’ He glanced up at the ageing Bombay. ‘Are you ready to go?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We’re just starting up the engines now.’ No sooner had he said this than the twin propellers whined and clicked, then spluttered into life, whirring loudly, kicking up clouds of dust and rocking the airframe.

  Gott turned towards the hatch just behind the wing, while James hurried forward to the cockpit. Clambering in, he glanced at Mackay, his co-pilot, wiped the sweat from his face, then hurriedly put on his helmet and plugged in his radio leads.

  ‘Engine temperature’s already rising horribly,’ Mackay said.

  James glanced at the dials. Damn it. ‘Well, let’s get going quickly then,’ he muttered. Glancing down from the cockpit, he saw the ground crew signal his clearance to take off. He opened the throttles, the Bombay began to roar and shake, and then they were speeding over the rough ground. James eased the control column towards him and the violent shaking stopped. The shadow of the great plane eased away and they were airborne. He breathed out heavily and glanced again at his dials. Engine temperature was still dangerously high. Christ, he thought. This is not good. And yet he had levelled out at just fifty feet – they were barely off the desert floor, and he dared not go any higher. They were within easy range of any roaming enemy aircraft. It was the middle of the afternoon and he had been stuck on the ground for more than half an hour. This really is not good. Sweat trickled down his face and back.

  ‘Make sure you keep a sharp watch on the engines,’ he told Mackay. ‘If one of them seizes from overheating, I’m going to need to gain height quickly for cooler air.’

  ‘I’m on it, Jimmy,’ said Mackay.

  James looked at the air speed. One hundred and forty. The desert spread either side of him. Far away to his left, he could see the vivid turquoise of the Mediterranean. Up ahead, nothing but bleached desert.

  Suddenly there was a loud bang, a whiplashing noise and his starboard engine stopped dead.

  ‘You fool!’ James shouted at his co-pilot. ‘I told you to—’

  ‘But look!’ Mackay screamed.

  Cannon and machine-gun tracers were whooshing past the cockpit and over the wings. Flames leaped from the starboard engine, thick smoke billowing.

  Christ. James felt paralysed, unable to think clearly, or move. His hands were glued to the control column and he was vaguely conscious that all sound had gone. A strange, unknown streak of yellowish-green seemed to enfold him, then run down the back of his head and through his body. His paralysis vanished.

  ‘Get your head down, Mac,’ he shouted, ‘and get the medical orderly.’ The cockpit was filling with smoke. He pulled back the Perspex window catch, then saw the port engine stop. Cursing, he pulled back the stick, hoping he might use what remaining speed he had to gain some crucial height. An enemy fighter plane hurtled past, then another. Black crosses. Frantically, James glanced around him. He could see at least two more and they were still firing. More bullets and cannon tracer whooshed past, clattering across the wings. A fuel tank was punctured. A hundred feet, a hundred and twenty. The ground still looked frighteningly close. He gasped and glanced backwards. His wireless operator had been badly hit in the arm. There were a few flames now between the cockpit and the main body of the plane, but Mackay and the medical orderly managed to get past the bulkhead into the cockpit behind him.

  ‘Get all the wounded off the stretcher hooks,’ James ordered, ‘and lay them on the floor.’

  While the two men battled their way back into the fuselage, James watched as six Messerschmitts flew on, disappearing into small black dots ahead of him. The Bombay had no power at all; it was gliding. Scanning forward, James saw that the desert sloped slightly downwards in a long, gradual descent. The ground looked far from even and there was also a difficult cross-wind, but he was able to glide the stricken aircraft lower and lower. Closer and closer came the desert floor until James tensed. A moment later, the wheels touched.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Please, God.’ The Bombay hurtled onwards, running forward down the desert slope, speed barely decreasing.

  ‘Everyone’s all right,’ said Mackay, behind him. ‘We’ve got them on the floor.’

&nb
sp; ‘I can’t get the damn tail down,’ muttered James. ‘The cross-wind’s too strong.’

  ‘What about the brakes?’

  ‘I daren’t use them. Not at this speed. It’ll tip us over.’ He grimaced, the muscles in his arms straining as he gripped the stick. ‘Damn it, this is hard. Like driving a ten-ton truck through sand.’ Smoke was still swirling around the cockpit, but there were flames now too. A sickly smell of burning hair and skin reached James’s nose and pain now coursed through him.

  But the Bombay was at last beginning to slow. ‘All right,’ he gasped, ‘get back there again, and take off the door. Make sure it’s completely off its hinge, and when I give the word, drop them out on to the sand.’

  Smoke choked his lungs. His gloveless hands were reddening and blackening and he could feel his face burning – but then, with horror, he saw the Messerschmitts coming back, low, like a small swarm of wasps. The bastards! They’re going to attack again. ‘Why?’ he said out loud. The Bombay was down, it was clearly never going to fly again, and aircraft on both sides knew better than to hang around once an aircraft had been destroyed.

  ‘Skip?’ It was Mackay, with the medical orderly.

  Ahead, the Messerschmitts were speeding ever nearer.

  ‘Stand by!’ James called. ‘Get the hatch on the cockpit floor open!’

  Mackay nodded. ‘We’ve told them what to do back there.’

  ‘Get the wireless operator out through the floor first, all right?’ shouted James, looking back behind him into the main body of the Bombay. He could see Gott – the general raised a hand in acknowledgement. Thank God.

  A whoosh of air and dust blasted into the cockpit as the hatch opened, fanning the flames further inside. James cried out in pain, but they had now hit some softer sand, and as he kept the control column close into his stomach, the Bombay slowed. Thirty miles per hour, twenty-five, twenty.

  ‘Now!’ shouted James. He slid off his seat and, as he did so, the enemy fighters opened fire again, bullets and cannon-shells tearing into the cockpit. The instrument panel disintegrated, bits of glass and metal shattering and zipping around the narrow confines. James crouched, then saw that the heels of his boots were on fire. Around him, the Perspex was melting. He needed to get out, and fast – Mackay and the wireless op are out. Good – but he knew he had to make sure the general was safe. If I can just get into the fuselage…