by Peter Watt
‘You head back now, you will be in time to take your lady out tonight,’ Errol said, standing and stretching his well-toned body. He reached inside his trouser pocket and retrieved a small silver item. ‘I just happened to have one of these spare,’ he said passing Lukas a small lapel pin in the shape of a penis and testicles and inscribed ‘FFF’. Lukas took the offered gift and broke into a broad smile. He was aware what it was and also what the inscription meant.
‘Flynn’s Flying Fornicators,’ Lukas said with a chuckle.
‘Or a word like fornicator,’ the actor replied. ‘You never earned it in the traditional way of my friends but it has the word flying in it so I think it should act as a talisman for a pilot. Keep it close when you go flying into the wild blue yonder in search of Nazis, young Lukas.’
Lukas thrust out his hand as the growl of the approaching car engine grew louder. ‘Take it easy cobber, and watch out for those who have no appreciation of what an Aussie can do when let loose in Babylon.’
Errol took the hand and gripped it firmly. ‘You take it easy over there. Give my regards to the pretty meris around Moresby. Lukim you behain, wantok.’
Lukas nodded and turned to stride back to the aeroplane waiting to return to LA. ‘See ya, cobber,’ he responded as the big black car arrived at the tin shed. A thin, nervous-looking man of Spanish appearance, in a sweat-stained white suit, stepped from the car to greet the famous actor.
Four hours later the heavens were taking on a beautiful mauve haze as Lukas climbed to a height above the rugged tree-covered mountains below his aircraft. He was fighting a headwind and wished that his co-pilot had been able to make the trip with him. But Billy had been taken sick and Lukas was forced to make the flight alone. Had Billy been at the controls it would have allowed Lukas a chance to catch up on some sleep before landing at the airstrip just outside LA.
Lukas had great faith in the aircraft. It was one of the new, all-metal passenger planes capable of transporting ten passengers and its silver skin reflected the night sky. Either side of him growled a big nine-cylinder Pratt & Whitney radial engine, each delivering 450 horsepower. A state of the art aircraft and it was no wonder the famed aviator Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot, Jim Noonan, had opted to use the same model for what became their ill-fated flight in 1937 when they disappeared somewhere in the Pacific. Lukas did not think that the plane had been at fault. More like weather or poor navigation, was his opinion, although a few pilots he knew complained that the long, broad design of the nose impaired forward vision. But Lukas did not agree with their opinion. He loved flying the Electra.
The Australian glanced routinely at the plane’s control board and noted that all the dials were reading as they should. He was cruising at 10,000 feet on his slow descent to LA and maintained a good speed of 158 knots. Ten minutes north-west lay Hollywood and soon he would see the first bright lights on his horizon. Although it would be a night landing this did not concern Lukas as the skies were clear and the wind kind to those who travelled its currents.
He had time to pleasantly anticipate his meeting with Veronica tonight as it was going to be a very special rendezvous. He would be telling her that he was leaving the States to return to Australia where he would enlist in the RAAF for military service, and he pondered the meeting now with some trepidation. How would she react to his announcement? It was the only patriotic choice he had when his country was at war. But her country was not and his news may not be seen in the same light as his own good intentions.
Lukas glanced down once again at the glowing rows of gauges. It was time to commence his descent and radio the control tower at the airstrip. As he looked up to establish a landmark for the approach into LA airspace his whole world exploded. In a split second he saw a dark shape hit the perspex cabin window and then felt as if his head had also exploded. Immediately his aviator’s mind registered a bird-strike. The wind howled through the blasted window and tore at anything loose in the cabin. Terrified, Lukas suddenly was aware that the mauve skies had turned black – completely black. With horror, he realised that he was blind. He touched his face and felt shards of the window as well as something wet – blood. The stinging throb in his head was overpowering his ability to think but he instinctively knew that his left wing had dropped. The aircraft commenced to roll over and spin down. Blind or not he forced back on the controls and rudder to level out before the descent became an uncontrolled spiral into the earth below.
Miraculously, Lukas could just see the faint shimmer of stars through the smashed window. He was regaining his sight – at least partially in the right eye. His training caused him to take control of his terror, forcing it to subside. The gauges registered that the aircraft was still functioning and it seemed the worst damage was to the smashed windscreen and himself. He reached for the radio and broadcast a mayday. It was answered by a familiar voice at the airstrip control tower.
‘What damage you got?’ the male voice asked calmly.
‘Cockpit windscreen gone – I only have partial vision – seems I took a bird-strike,’ Lukas replied, keeping his own voice calm. ‘I might have some trouble landing in the dark.’
‘I think I see you to the south-east at about 6000,’ the controller came back. ‘That means you are on course to land. I am alerting the right people now to make sure you get in safely.’
‘Roger,’ Lukas answered and wiped with the back of his ungloved hand at the blood flowing into his good eye from the severe cut somewhere on his head. The wind was biting cold but Lukas was hardly aware of it as he desperately sought the landing lights to line up for an approach. There they were! Exactly where they should be. But he also realised that he had lost his binocular vision. He could see the lights beckoning to him but not judge the distance with his usual accuracy.
‘Lukas, you need to get your undercarriage down now,’ the voice crackled in his ears. ‘You are coming in low and fast.’
Lukas glanced at his altimeter but could not read it. It was a blur. He knew he must rely on the little sight he had to make the landing. ‘Get her up and circle round for another attempt,’ the controller called out over the airwaves.
Lukas could hear a note of panic in the man’s voice. Something was terribly wrong. Lukas reached for the gear lever to let down the undercarriage and felt an overwhelming sense of relief when he felt the shudder and whirr of the wheels coming out of the bays. But now the lights seemed to be rushing at him and at the last moment the young Australian aviator was aware that he had misjudged the distance and in seconds he would be touching the concrete airstrip at a speed far too fast for a safe landing.
The aircraft hit the strip with its spinning wheels. They burst on impact and the plane somersaulted into the air to come down on its back, skidding sideways off the strip and into the paddock adjoining the airfield. Lukas did not feel the plane come to a stop. Nor did he hear the distant wail of a siren approaching.
FIVE
Captain Featherstone was wearing a crisp, white naval uniform when Karl wandered into the room designated as the officers’ mess in the hotel. It was adorned with traditional silverware and one or two old trophies taken in foreign campaigns from the days of Queen Victoria’s rule. The young British officer stood with a gin and tonic in one hand speaking to a major from the English army on the headquarter staff supplying the forward units in Syria. Karl felt a little uneasy being in the mess, which was now filling with high-ranking officers sporting the ribands of the last war on their chests. They were mostly English but there were also a couple of Free French officers.
‘Come and join me, old chap,’ Featherstone called when the major moved away. Karl breathed a sigh of relief at being recognised by at least one of the mess members. ‘What will your poison be?’ he asked when Karl was at hand.
‘G and T will be fine,’ Karl said, and the Englishman signalled to a waiter hovering at the edge of the officers by pointing to his own drink. The waiter understood and went to fetch two drinks.
‘G
ot your kit squared away?’ Featherstone asked politely.
‘Not much to square away,’ Karl replied. ‘But the quarters are excellent compared with what I left behind in Syria.’
‘If you were wondering,’ the English officer said, ‘I heard your chaps did well in their attack on the froggy fort and not too many casualties to your platoon. I will obtain a report for you tomorrow, if you like.’
‘Thank you, sir, it would be very much appreciated. I guess I feel a bit guilty about leaving them when I did,’ Karl replied.
‘If it is any consolation, you had no choice,’ Featherstone said sympathetically. ‘We need you here for a little while.’
The waiter returned and both men took the drinks from the silver platter the waiter held in one hand. Featherstone drew out a packet of cigarettes and offered Karl one. ‘No thanks,’ Karl replied.
The Englishman lit his own and inhaled the smoke. ‘That’s right, you don’t partake. Bad habit,’ he said with a sigh. ‘But one has to have some vices.’
Karl glanced around at the rapidly filling mess. The noise level had risen a little but the atmosphere was comfortable. It was hard to imagine that only mere miles north his men were probably once again digging in.
‘I normally do not talk shop in the mess,’ Featherstone said, leaning towards Karl. ‘But matters have taken a sudden turn and I am going to brief you on why you are here. Sadly, I am not at liberty to tell you what the sudden turn has been – Secrets Act and all that. You are probably aware that this campaign has appeared somewhat confused in its strategic objectives.’
‘Strategy is not something mere lieutenants worry about much,’ Karl grinned. ‘Just the tactics of staying alive on the battlefield whilst doing our best to deny the enemy his life.’
Featherstone smiled at the Australian’s pragmatic approach to his rank and role in the war. ‘Well, to put it in a nutshell, it’s a damned mess and the bottom line is that we are really here to help the bloody French on the insistence of that jumped-up chap de Gaulle, who insists that Lebanon and Syria must be secured. From our point of view the nationalists in Iraq are more of a problem. They could invite the Germans in if they seize power and the oil must remain in our hands at all costs. But I am digressing,’ Featherstone said, realising that he could easily launch into a geo-political dissertation on Middle Eastern strategy of no consequence to the Australian’s mission. ‘We have a problem here in Jerusalem with a Nazi spy ring and we need you to do a bit of undercover work to identify the ringleaders. I have suggested that a German-speaking officer might be passed off as an escapee from one of our POW camps. As it is, an officer did escape but was killed by the Jewish militia working with us and you just happen to have an uncanny likeness to the man that was killed, who, by the way, was also born in Munich. Needless to say I am not really asking you to volunteer for what could be a dangerous job but really ordering you as a soldier of the King to do your duty.’
‘I kind of gathered that,’ Karl replied. ‘I will do my best so long as I am guaranteed a return to my unit when the job is over.’
‘You will have that, old boy, and the gratitude of His Majesty to boot – well, at least British intelligence, anyway,’ the Englishman said with a wry grin and offered his hand. ‘As we chappies say in the navy, welcome aboard.’
With a sense of irony, Karl realised that before he even finished his drink, he was now officially a spy – whether he liked it or not.
Fully briefed on his mission and suitably supplied with the relevant documents and accoutrements of a German bomber pilot on the run from the British, Karl sat at a table outside a coffee shop in the old part of Jerusalem. The only thing British intelligence had been able to glean from their reports was that this particular coffee shop had something to do with a German intelligence network. They knew that the shop belonged to a shady Corsican by the name of Pierre Cher. It was also known that Cher, a swarthy, solidly built man in his forties, had travelled from North Africa at the outbreak of the war and settled in Jerusalem. He appeared to be married to a woman not known to the British and had a daughter around seventeen years old. Although a French citizen, the coffee shop owner was suspected of being pro-Nazi on the Vichy side. Featherstone had decided not to intern him and his family in the hope that the Corsican might lead them to others involved in espionage and sabotage. After all, Featherstone had snorted, Corsica had also produced Napoleon Bonaparte and his damage to European stability in the nineteenth century was well-known to the English.
Karl wore a shabby, ill-fitting suit stained with dirt. He was unshaven and bleary-eyed – to all intents and purposes a shady character himself. The sun was hot and in the distance Karl could hear the call to pray from one of the many minarets in the old city. He gazed around at the predominantly Arab people passing him in the narrow street surrounded by walls of stone, and wondered how many other races of people had walked such streets throughout history and become conquerors: Assyrians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs – and even Australian soldiers from the Great War.
‘Coffee, monsieur?’ a woman’s voice at his elbow asked, interrupting Karl’s musings on history, a subject he loved very much. Karl glanced up at the young woman and was struck by the stunning blue eyes that stared back at him from behind the veil. He guessed her to be in her late teens.
‘No speak French,’ Karl replied.
‘Do you speak English?’ the girl asked.
‘Nein, bitte, a little only,’ he replied and the eyes frowned.
‘You are German?’ she asked bluntly in heavily accented German, glancing around to see if they were being overheard by the other patrons who sat sipping the thick, dark coffee and playing backgammon on battered boards.
‘Yes, I am German and need help,’ Karl answered.
The girl understood his plea for help and hovered uncertainly as if mulling over a problem. Then, without a word, she turned and walked away to disappear inside the dingy coffee shop. Karl felt the sweat running down between his shoulder blades and wondered whether he had convinced the girl – or was she going to speak to someone who might do him harm? Alone, unarmed and without immediate support he had good reason to feel the prickles of fear. Spying was a dangerous game at any time – let alone wartime – and he was a complete amateur at this form of warfare.
After a few minutes a man appeared at the door and beckoned him inside with a subtle nod of his head. Karl could see that the man was of Latin appearance and had an air of menace about him that made Karl even more nervous. He had come to the coffee shop unarmed as per his instructions from Featherstone who had also instructed him that they would not be able to provide a cover force in this area of Jerusalem. Too many Arab eyes to inform whoever was working against the British in the twisting and narrow alleys of the old city, he had explained cheerfully.
Karl walked warily into the dimly lit, smokefilled room. It was occupied by Arab customers who gave him hardly a glance.
‘You are German?’ the man asked in badly accented German.
‘I am,’ Karl replied, and glancing around the room with its old stone arches he was surprised to see that it was much bigger than he first appreciated in the dim light.
‘Why do you tell me this?’ the Corsican asked with a hint of hostility. ‘If you are what you say I should inform the British immediately.’
‘I identified myself because the girl spoke French – I can only hope that you are a Frenchman loyal to Petain and the Führer. If not, I will pay for my mistake.’
‘Who are you?’ the Corsican asked without dropping his air of hostility.
‘I am pilot officer Karl Harmstorf. I was shot down with my crew three months ago while serving with the Italians over Lebanon. I was taken prisoner by the British but escaped a fortnight ago and was able to make it to Jerusalem because here I thought I might have more chance of getting back to Germany.’
‘Why would you think that, Herr Harmstorf – if that really is your name?’ the Corsican asked with his arms folded across his
broad chest.
Karl shrugged. He would play the man who had lost all hope. ‘I have come to the end of my tether, Mr …’
‘Normally I do not give you my name,’ the Corsican answered. ‘But you would probably find out anyway as this is my coffee shop. My name is Pierre.’
‘Monsieur Pierre, I came to this part of the city because the odds are you are a patriot to France and therefore might help me escape the British.’
‘Or hand you over to them,’ Pierre said, but with just a little less hostility. ‘In the meantime, you put me in danger with the damned British by being here. My daughter will take you to another place until I make up my mind about you, Herr Harmstorf.’
Karl felt a sudden sense of relief. His acting had paid off – at least he hoped so. But then he felt a foreboding sense that the young woman might also be taking him to his death. What if the Corsican had decided that he was not what he claimed to be? He could end up with a bullet in his head on the outskirts of the city. How could he make contact with Featherstone?
‘You appear a bit apprehensive about my proposition, Herr Harmstorf,’ Pierre said.
Karl sensed the menace behind the question. ‘I have not slept or eaten in a long time,’ he quickly replied, rubbing his face. ‘That is all.’
Pierre signalled to the girl hovering in the background. She moved forward and the Corsican spoke quietly to her in French. Karl had no doubt that he was the subject of the briefing and wished that he could speak French.
‘You come with me,’ the girl said to Karl in English. ‘Come.’
Karl nodded and followed her to a back entrance to the coffee shop. Whatever happened in the next few hours would decide his fate. Either he eventually returned to his battalion to fight a war where the enemy was clearly defined, or he possibly ended up in an unmarked grave, never to be seen again, buried in a land far from his beloved Papua and family.