Grand Alliance (Kirov Series)

by John Schettler

That night German artillery opened a five minute barrage across the tense polish frontier, firing one shell for each and every bomb reported. Telephones jangled all the way to the Kremlin, but when the details of the report came in, Sergie Kirov ordered no reprisal. But the level of tension ticked up yet another notch, and Karpov was only just beginning his aerial reconnaissance of Germany. From Berlin he flew another 800 kilometers northwest to overfly the German harbor at Kiel that evening, lingering there all night until cloud conditions were favorable for good photographs the following morning. There he documented the presence of the German battleship Tirpitz, and something else in the slipways that he thought the British would take particular interest in. On the 12th of February he was looking through a high powered telescope at what appeared to be construction of a new aircraft carrier.

  “This will get the attention of the Royal Navy, and I will soon prove my usefulness. Now we will see what they have in their trouser pockets at Bremerhaven before we cross the North Sea.”

  “You aim to overfly England next sir?”

  “How else can I visit London, Captain Bogrov?”

  “But if you mean to land there we’ll have to radio ahead and make arrangements.”

  “In due course.”

  “But the blitz, sir. I realize the Germans have been winding down their air campaign over England to transfer planes to the Mediterranean, but it could be very dangerous if we get caught in the midst of a big air duel. Suppose the Germans are bombing tomorrow.”

  “You worry too much,” said Karpov. “I will radio ahead after lunch and obtain the necessary clearance. I wanted to see what intelligence we could gather first, and we’ve seen a good deal. I have photographed the German troop dispositions on the Polish frontier, Berlin’s airfields, their two biggest harbors. All of this will now be my ticket to an audience with the British.”

  “You mean to say they don’t know about this trip already?”

  “They will learn everything they need to know this afternoon, Captain. Concern yourself with the operations of the ship. I gave Tyrenkov instructions and he will handle the initial negotiations.”

  Bogrov was silent, and a bit sullen for a time. He had been watching the barometer and altimeter closely, and wished they could get the airship down to a lower altitude. Thus far Tunguska had performed flawlessly. Her fluids had remained sound and the engines were running smoothly. And they had only used about 20% of their fuel to cover all this distance, so he had no worries there. But something about this unexpected jaunt, about the quickness in Karpov’s step again, the glint in the man’s eye, made him feel very uneasy. He looked at the weather report again, noting the front that was slowly building over the North Sea. They might have thunderheads building and rising well above 50,000 feet, which was the maximum safe ceiling for Tunguska.

  “We may run into some bad weather if we move west,” he said, making one last veiled protest in the weather report. Karpov paid him no mind.

  For his part, Karpov had no scruples about his operation over Germany, and no fears about his imminent visit to England. He was demonstrating a power and capability that no other person on the earth had at that moment, and this was something that fed directly into that unfillable well of recrimination within his darkened soul. Later that evening he was satisfied with his photography of Bremerhaven, and gave the order to steer due west for another 300 kilometers before turning southwest for the coast of England near Norwich. Headwinds began to pick up, and they could not make more than 70 KPH, but Karpov was not concerned.

  It was then that they ran into the storm.

  The light was fading and they remained at very high altitude when forward spotters, and even the Topaz operators, reported a formation of black storm clouds ahead. Bogrov did not like the look of them, and immediately suggested they alter course.

  “We must be 3000 meters above them, said Karpov, squinting through his field glasses.”

  “Aye sir, they look to be up just over 10,000 meters, but some of these storms can go much higher, and there can be nasty surprises if we run into one, updrafts exceeding 120KPH, turbulence, wind shear, ice, not to mention lightning.”

  “We’ve good lightning rods installed,” said Karpov.

  “Yes sir, but we also have those nice expensive radar sets on the nose and brow of the ship, and they’ll do the same. It will be a rough ride, but at least the moon is up, and still almost full, so we’ll have some light when we make the coast—if we make the coast.”

  Karpov heard the warning in the man’s tone. “Carry on for the moment. If this storm climbs any higher, we can always take an evasive course.”

  The storm did climb higher, an unusual monster that continued to billow up and up with angry black fists of clouds, sewn with fitful flashes of lightning. It was a ‘trop buster,’ a storm that was so high that it broke into the troposphere, where the cumulonimbus clouds began to flatten out at the top in the classic anvil shape. By the time they realized what was in front of them, the storm itself was too wide to circumvent. They were going to have to ride it out, and the ominous rolls of thunder grumbled in the sky as they approached.

  “All hands, secure for rough weather,” said Karpov, cursing his bad luck to hit a storm of this size.

  The view panes were frosted over around the edges, but they were feeding a low current to the center of the glass where they had embedded tiny filaments of wire to heat the surface and allow for some visibility. The airship was shaken by stiff winds, the duralumin airframe shuddering an squeaking as the wind put unusual torque on the structure. At one point a hard jolt shook the ship, and a crewman in the aft section reported a rivet had broken on one of the beams securing the tail and rudder section. The engineers rushed down the long central aluminum mesh walkway, their boots clattering on the metal grating as they went. With their oxygen masks on, they looked like grim, ghoulish figures, the demon crewmen of a phantom ship.

  Karpov went into the interior of the massive airship, leaving the heated cabin and venturing down the cold, drafty walkway. His breath came up short in the chilled, thin air, but he thought he could brave the environment, wanting to show his men the iron strength of his will. It was then that he heard an odd thumping on the canvas high above, beyond the bulbous gas bags, and realized they must be running into hail or ice. The ship careened on the wind, a strong gust nearly knocking him from his feet as he gripped a nearby beam to steady himself. When he reached the aft section he could see that the engineers were busy applying a tough canvass restraining belt around the intersection of several duralumin beams where the rivet had failed.

  “It’s moving too much to try and get another rivet through, sir. We can’t drill under these conditions and welding is out of the question. So we’ll secure it this way and hope it will hold.”

  “Carry on, Chief,” said Karpov, and as he turned to head back, Tunguska shuddered with another impact and a loud boom. He saw what looked like greenish blue lightning running along the interior framework in eerie streaks of Saint Elmo’s fire. It was a weather phenomenon where luminous plasma formed in a coronal discharge. It could center on the tip of any sharp object, like the high mast on a ship, but he had never seen anything like this before. A strong thunderstorm could generate more power than a nuclear detonation, and produce very strong magnetic fields.

  When Karpov made it back to the control gondola, he saw that Bogrov’s face was white with apprehension. His men were battling the control wheels, straining to turn them this way and that as they struggled to keep the ship level and stable, fighting the heavy winds. Karpov took one look at the compass and saw the needle was spinning wildly around in jittery circles.

  “We’ve blundered into ice, just as I feared,” said the Captain, “and we’ve been hit by lightning at least twice. I’ve lost the number six engine aft and rudder control is very loose right now. This could get bad, Admiral.”

  “Should we get lower?” Karpov really did not know much about the aerodynamics of the airship. He w
as a commanding officer, but not a real Zeppelin Captain here. He had no sense of how to maneuver the ship in these circumstances, and was relying on Bogrov.

  “We’ve no say in the matter now. We’re icing up too bad and getting heavy. The gas bags are filled to the bursting point, and yes, I’d advise we let the ship descend.”

  “Then take her down, Captain.”

  The air seemed to have a strange smell of ozone, ionized by the storm, and the strange glow infused every region of the ship now. Tunguska’s bones were tingling with an eerie magnetic fire, infusing the metals that had been mined in the place that gave the ship its name.

  “Candles of the Holy Ghost,” said Karpov, using an old seaman’s name for the effect he was seeing. When Charles Darwin had first noted the effect while cruising on the Beagle, he had described it thusly: ‘everything is in flames—the sky with lightning—the water with luminous particles, even the masts are pointed with blue flame.’ Karpov had seen it aboard Kirov, but under circumstances that gave him a chilling warning of grave danger here. Saint Elmo’s Fire was usually a fluorescent blue or violet color. The strange luminescent green rippling along the inner framework of the ship put a bad feeling in his gut.

  It was a difficult ride down, taking all the skill that Bogrov had to manage the inflation and prevent a major gas bag from collapsing as the pressure changed. Helium expanded at high altitude, and contracted as they descended. He had to manage a careful balance but his crew was skilled, and the ship began to stabilize at lower altitudes.

  They could see the tall angry storm off the starboard side of the ship, and Bogrov turned to try and avoid plunging into the billowing column again. Evil twisting wind spouts seemed to curl and form at the fringes of the column, and the bridge crew was deathly quiet as they watched.

  “Land ahead!” a watchman finally called out the sighting, and Bogrov rushed to his navigation chart.

  “Damn if we haven’t been blown another fifty kilometers southwest,” he said, moving his puckered eyes from the charts to the view panes, now wet with rain. “That’s England there, sir,” he pointed. “And we’re at no more than 5,000 meters now and still descending. I’m releasing helium from the reserve and we should level off soon.”

  “You may keep us low,” said Karpov. “I doubt if we’ll run into any British fighters at night, and in this weather.”

  His prediction was on the mark, except on one count. They descended lower and there was no sign of any other aircraft in the sky, and there was soon no sign of the rain or storm they had just come through either. But they were too preoccupied to notice this at that moment. One of the forward Topaz radars had been hit by lightning, and was no longer functioning, and reports were now coming in from all over the ship.

  “We were lucky,” said Bogrov as he tallied the damage. “But she’s a good ship, Admiral. Tunguska came through well enough. What we need now is a little time to catch our breath. Then I can see about that number six engine aft and everything else on this list. We can try making some of these repairs in flight, but it would be much better if we could find some high ground down there and anchor the ship in place. This storm seems to have moved well out to sea, and quicker than I thought. Not a sign of any rain now, and it feels much warmer, strange as that sounds. There should be cold air behind that front. Well sir, we can certainly get down to ground level now.”

  “As you wish, Captain,” said Karpov. “Find us an nice bald hill somewhere with a tall tree and we’ll anchor there. But the locals will get an eyeful, won’t they.”

  They would.

  Chapter 36

  It was late that night and the train had just made its brief stop at Hoveton & Wroxham, a humdrum bywater of Norwich. Tom Willers had been on holiday to the north, visiting relatives in Walsham, and was now riding his motorbike home in the dead of night. He could have waited until morning, but he had promised to be back by midnight, and was running late. So when his late supper was finished he bundled up and gave it a go, ready for the short twelve kilometer ride south to Wroxham. He had had one too many nips at the bottle that night, but it would keep his blood warm for the ride, or so he dimly reasoned.

  Tom was well known in these parts, and well off to have his own motorbike to ride about at any ungodly hour of the day or night. He putted along, taking a side road to the bridge at Wroxham over the broad sloughs of the River Bure. In modern times the area would berth many boats near a place called Summercraft, but these were not modern times, at least not times Karpov would describe that way.

  The night was wreathed in misty drifts of grey clouds, and the moon was not yet up. It was a cold, lonesome time, even for May, and no time to be out, but he was almost home. He reached the bridge and started across, when the front lamp on his motorbike suddenly went out. So he coasted to a stop to dismount and have a look, not wanting to ride the rest of the way home in the dark. It was then that he saw it, catching something out of the corner of his eye, a dark shape above him that blackened the stars.

  “Now what in bloody hell?”

  Tom Willers looked up, stricken with fear to see a massive shape in the sky above him, huge and threatening, like a great behemoth of the night. Then, to his great surprise and discomfiture, he was suddenly illuminated by a blinding white light. It was a dazzling display, lingering on the bridge where he shivered by his motorbike until the light moved on, searching along the winding road ahead.

  His eyes adjusted, and now he could see the dark mass above again, long, cigar shaped, with the faint drone of a whirring sound. He could also see that the light that had dazzled him was from what looked like a powerful searchlight, now fingering the ground beyond the river, and a second light flashed from its other end, so far from the nose of the craft that it seemed to stretch half way across the county!

  He was not the only one who saw the strange lights that night. Mrs. Turner of New Catton, Norwich, was near the window on the upper floor of her home, restless and unable to sleep. Her eye was suddenly caught by the brilliant columns of light, so bright that they illuminated the street outside as bright as daylight. She would later report the incident, saying that: “... I looked up and there I saw a big star of light in front, and a big searchlight behind... It was coming from the north-northeast, from the direction of the Angel Road School, and flying very low, so low that it would have touched the pinnacle of the school had it passed directly over it.”

  Others in Norwich reported seeing a similar strange shape in the sky that night, and a few minutes later, a man riding a bike in Tharston south of the main town said he saw a ‘torpedo shaped’ object in the sky, and with a powerful searchlight.

  Tunguska had come down to a very low altitude, and they were making a search in the dark for a place Karpov was fingering on his navigation map. There had been no suitable hills about as they had earlier hoped to find, but Karpov could see a place denoted RAF Coltishall, which would offer plenty of unobstructed space for the massive airship to hover in place, anchored by the buckets they might lower and fix to the ground. The base had been established in 1938, and would serve until sold off in 2010 after its closure in 2006. It would give them a safe place to stabilize the ship for the repairs they wanted to make, and they could also clear their arrival with the R.A. F. Karpov gave the order to try and raise the base on radio earlier, but they had no response.

  “I’m surprised they don’t have fighters up after us by now,” said Bogrov. “The storm is passing. Are the British pilots all asleep?”

  “I’m more surprised that they do not answer our hails. Are you certain the equipment was not damaged from those lightning strikes?”

  “It seems to be working, sir,” said a signalman. I can hear signals, though they all seem to be in Morse code.”

  ‘Well why don’t they answer? Signal in Morse then. We need to get this ship sorted out.”

  “Well we can’t even seem to find the damn airfield,” said Bogrov. “Where’s the moon?” He seemed somewhat disoriented.

&
nbsp; “It’s likely lost in that storm,” said Karpov.

  “Storm? Have a look out there, Admiral. Its settled down to a fine quiet night. But where is this airfield? It should be right in front of us.”

  “Are you certain these charts are accurate?” Karpov gave him an irritated look.

  “The best I could find on short notice, sir. That’s the river there that we were illuminating with our searchlights a moment ago. If I keep it on our left then the airfield should be no more than 5 kilometers northwest, but I can’t see a thing out there. There’s certainly no sign of air activity here.”

  “Well, there’s plenty of open ground about. We’ll just have to hover low and anchor in a field. Then get the engineers busy. I want to be over London at dawn, just as I surprised the Germans. Tunguska will be quite a sight over Big Ben, will it not?”

  “I can only hope we get a better reception than the Germans gave us. We’re fair game down here, sir. And their Spitfires are good planes.”

  But they saw no sign of aircraft, and heard no return to their radio hails. It was as if England had just gone to sleep, with only the faint snoring of Morse code over the airwaves, but that was not so. Tom Willers had been wide awake that night, as was Mrs. Turner of New Catton and Bob Thatch of Tharston, and the reports were soon coming in all over East Anglia. For Tunguska was not where Karpov thought to take it, at least not the hour and day he had hoped to arrive.

  Something in the awesome power and magnetic energy of that towering storm over the North Sea had found affinity with the bones of the ship, the odd flecks of exotic metals that had been smelted into the beams which made up the massive structure. The dancing fire and rippling light that Karpov had seen was the telltale sign of its power, and the ship was elsewhere for some time, until it finally settled into the here and now—but not the one they had left behind them at nearly 15,000 meters, with the shaking winds and battering ice of that massive thunderhead. It stood like a great anvil in the dark tormented sky, and the hammer of god had descended upon it, falling on the ship that carried something from another world in the core of its very structure.