by Aeryn Leigh
"Enter," said an unfamiliar voice. She walked in. Commander Breikhart stood by the window, stroking his Cocker Spaniel's head. A Luftwaffe colonel sat in the commander's chair, an Iron Cross with all the pips on his breast dress jacket. A seasoned veteran.
"Fraulein Ella, good to see you," said the colonel, from one professional to another.
Ella saluted.
"This is Colonel Zimmerman" said Commander Breikhart. "He will be supervising today's flight."
"Colonel," said Ella.
Colonel Zimmerman looked down, pulling a folder from the satchel lying on the oak desk. "We have never met, but you're quite the propaganda hero. There are posters of you on the Eastern Front." He looked back up from his papers and watched her blush. "I see from your flight history you have logged over seventy-five hours in Me-262's, and over two-thousand in propeller planes,” he said, "with only one accident from flying sixteen types of test aircraft."
He looked at Breikhart.
"That is rather an impressive record, even for a woman." His eyes narrowed and looked back at her. "Unfortunately, Colonel Grieg is not so happy, and wants to see you back in more, let's say, traditional roles as befitting a true lady of the Reich, given the times."
"I see," said Ella.
"From one pilot to another," said the colonel, "we need all the experienced pilots we have. If I had my way, you'd be flying combat missions, not just ferrying aircraft, staff and conducting test-flights. The Russians have no qualms about women flying in combat. Heh. Even with old biplanes, their tenacity and courage on the Eastern Front, has been… remarkable."
He paused again, looking out through the half-shuttered window.
"But that is neither here nor there. Report to medical for pre-flight check-up, and I will see you out there. Good flying. Dismissed."
Ella saluted them both, and left.
Once she had gone, Breikhart spoke. "How is the Eastern Front going by the way?" The commander had never left Germany. The dog thumped its tail on the floorboards, wanting more attention.
The Colonel sighed, hands running through his grey hair. "We are bleeding without a tourniquet."
Chapter Eight
The Angels Push
The hospital at the airfield, small and cosy, smelt of anti-septic and alcohol and the faintest trace of burnt flesh. Ella sat on a bed behind a screen in one of the waiting rooms while the doctor examined her mouth and throat with a tongue depressor. The Luftwaffe doctor puffed on his cigarette, put the flip-top lighter back in the top pocket of his white lab coat, then took her blood pressure.
"How are you feeling?"
"Well and eager to fly."
He tapped a rubber mallet against her knees, testing her automatic reflex action. Each leg jerked in turn. "Hmm. You can stand up now."
That was worrying, she thought. Doctors that 'Hmm'.
She stood, straightened her clothes. "All good?"
"Yes, Miss Gruder, all good." He wrote a note on her file, and passed it to her. "Give it to Miss Stevenson on the way out, will you." The doctor sat back down in his chair, stubbed out the cigarette, then lit another.
"Doctor,” she said, and closed the door behind her.
She walked up to Miss Stevenson, her desk by the hospital's front door. Ella handed the folder to her.
"Thank you," said Miss Stevenson, her hair done up in the latest German fashion, twirled an errant lock that fell out of place. She resumed typing, the typewriter clanging with every return key.
Ella looked around, making sure that they were alone, then said quietly, "Can I have some more? I've run out."
Without stopping typing, Miss Stevenson whispered, "There are none left. My supplier cannot get any more. The factory in Munich got hit last week."
"None left?"
This couldn't be right. How could she go on without the barbiturates? It's my magic bullet against the anxiety attacks. Scheisse.
"I'll see what I can do, but it will cost you more. If I can." Her calloused fingers didn't stop.
Ella forced a smile. "Thank you."
Miss Stevenson paused, twirled the lock back into place, looked at her, and simply said, "Sorry."
Breathe, she told herself. Breathe.
She made her way to Hanger VII, its main door open, and the black and grey Me-262 sat outside, a mechanic polishing the front surfaces of the plane with a rag.
“Good morning, Beautiful,” she said to it, almost in a whisper. “We are going to have no problems today, are we?”
Piers sat in the front cockpit, its canopy open. "Good Morning, Miss Gruder." He called out, seeing her mouthing words to the aeroplane then continued his final inspection.
"Good Morning, Piers" said Ella. Walking around the aeroplane, she conducted her own pre-flight inspection. The front engine covers were on each intake, and no start-up cart anywhere.
Only a Kettenkrad, the stumpy half-tractor, half-motorbike, sat nearby. And Pier’s personal machine, she noticed, observing the unofficial modifications hanging off the rear engine, discretely camouflaged. Is that a mid-twenties Mercedes-Benz supercharger poking out where the air intake should be? That’s new. He finally stopped talking about it and did it.
Being head mechanic had its perks. Motorheads. We’re all mad.
Piers climbed down, gave Ella the thumbs up sign, and talked to the mechanic. Ella checked the ailerons, flaps, rudder, all the external control surfaces, and then it was time. She climbed up onto the plane, and eased her way into the front cockpit.
Home again. She pulled on her flight helmet, and tuned into the air-base's flight control. On went her lucky gauntlets.
"Magdeburg Control, this is Tiny Swallow, over," she said into the microphone, the leather flap hanging to one side of her face.
"Proceed to the assembly area Tiny Swallow." The reply squawked in her helmet. She looked out, and signalled Piers. He and the mechanic jumped onto the Kettenkrad, started it, drove it around to the fighter's nose, stopped, and reversed.
The mechanic swung out from the tractor and attached a steel pole to the front wheel strut, and then the little half-motorbike half-tank, which upon Amelia's first viewing thought was just the cutest thing ever, asking Ella for one, towed her past the hangers towards the assembly area.
Ella grinned at the memory.
They went past other aircraft taxiing the other way, back from their own missions. Some were intact, others had chunks missing, ragged holes in fuselages, wings, and tails. They arrived at the assembly area. Ella saw the colonel, sitting in a Fokker-Wulf FW-190, and heard his voice in her headset.
"I will be part of your escort today," he said. The colonel probably needed flight time to keep his rating, she thought. "Myself and three others will cover your take-off and landing. I cannot spare any more."
Four escorts were good enough, better than none.
She watched them take off, in pairs, whilst checking her instruments and controls, her aircraft preparing for flight. She fastened her helmet securely. Piers and the mechanic removed the flat intake turbine covers, and replaced them with a conical mesh grille on each side. Pier's unhooked the half-track, and motored away, waving.
She gave the signal to the mechanic to start the engines. He walked around to the port engine, stood in front of it, reached inside, and pulled on an O-ring cord, like a little lawn-mower. The two-stroke motor started, turning the turbine blades over to a few hundred rpm. He repeated it again with the starboard engine, and on the second pull, both turbines were spinning. The mechanic moved away and joined Piers.
Ella applied the brakes, and gently pushed both throttles forward with her left hand, bringing them up to eight thousand seven hundred rpm, then back to four thousand. Then she pushed the button on the top of each throttle lever, and diesel fuel was added, flame spitting out of each exhaust.
Oh, how they roar.
She taxied to the start of the runway. The colonel and the others circled high overhead.
The radio crackled in the af
firmative.
She was clear to take off. Brakes on, throttles to full. Ella took a deep breath, touched her necklace with her right hand, and exhaled.
Released the brakes.
The angels pushed.
Tiny Swallow raced down the runway, and almost by itself, flew up into air.
She rides.
Ella had only enough flight time for fifteen minutes, fuel was in low supply at this stage of war. She passed her escort, flying higher and higher, the buildings tiny dots below, slowly advancing the throttles all this time, until she passed six thousand rpm, where now, she pushed them to go faster, her thumb holding down the fuel ignition button on top of each throttle.
Ella tried not to scream in joy, her enthusiasm and heart singing.
This was life. This is what is it is all about.
The sacrifice, the blood, the pain.
This.
She radioed in. "Beginning throttle test exercises now." She reached fifteen thousand feet, levelled off, and threw the aircraft around. Hard banking turns, dives, barrel rolls, either increasing or decreasing throttle in each manoeuvre. The automatic throttle regulator held, whereas earlier tests under the same actions resulted in flame outs and compressor stalls.
A successful test.
The time flew as much as she did. Her radio burst into chatter.
"Tiny Swallow, we have bogeys inbound. Return to base at once," said Commander Breikhart's voice from the two-way radio cart.
Ella swung her head around, checking her sixes. The colonel's fighter swarm of four FW-190's were heading east, climbing hard. She radioed the colonel. "Do you need assistance, colonel?" Her fighter, although armed with four 30mm cannons, had no ammunition on board.
Her fuel gauges tipped over the first red line.
"Negative, Miss Gruder. Return to base."
She thumbed the transmit button in response, and banked hard, turning towards the airfield’s runway. She saw the pack of Allied fighters, seven black specks, engage her escorts. They swept through the colonel's formation, heading towards her.
Her jet fighter, the first of its kind, was fast. Faster than anything the Allies had, but, and it was a big but Ella ruminated, woefully slow and vulnerable upon landing and take-offs.
She began her approach down flak alley, the column of anti-aircraft batteries extending like a pair of straight bunkered lines from the runway. The Allied fighters persevered, black puffs all around them, the German fighters in pursuit, but still over a kilometre away. Ella took a quick glance over her right shoulder, and saw that they were red-nosed P-51D's. Mustangs. Crap. She had to trust in the Luftwaffe crews manning the flak batteries, and reduced her throttles down to 290km/h, her approach speed.
And there she flew, slow, cumbersome, and a sitting duck.
The American pilots only could manage one pass she thought, before the FW-190's caught up. Ella sat sober, trying not to remind herself how little armour her aircraft had.
She tried to breathe.
Her right hand quivered on the control stick, itching to pull the plane around and flee. She could outrun them, after all. But no fuel.
Nine-hundred metres from the runway now, and the flak stopped behind her.
In that moment, the Allied fighters opened fire. Her aircraft shuddered with multiple hits as the supercharged fighters thundered by repeatedly. Jaws locked together, she felt her aircraft disappearing in concussive chunks as if hit by jackhammers, Ella threw every muscle into holding the airframe steady.
Lower and lower she flew, and then all rushed past.
She was still alive.
The Allied fighters used their momentum to strafe the airfield, shooting anything and everything on their flight path, and then raced for home at tree-height, the FW-190's screaming past her in pursuit.
The port engine blossomed into flame. She closed the fuel pump to it, adjusted the rudder's trim wheel compensating for the skewed power, and the fire went out. She lowered the undercarriage wheels, getting a green light from the main wheels. The front nose refused to go down. Switching to manual, her thumb pressed the backup oil-pressure reservoir to lower the wheel.
Nothing happened.
Jesus fucking Gott Christ.
She hammered on the switch. Still nothing.
She toggled her radio mike. "Control, the front undercarriage is not extending. Can I get a visual confirmation?"
"Affirmative," said Breikhart. "It is still up. A fire truck is on standby Tiny Swallow."
"Wait," she said. She wasn't going to lose the plane, verdammt.
We have lost too many.
"Tell Piers to get his baby tank, I'm going to try that idea of ours, the piggyback."
"The what?"
"Just tell him. He'll know what to do. I'm looping around for another pass."
Breikhart didn't respond.
The fuel lights flared on and off. Vapours now.
Her heart pounded. She aborted her landing, and came around for another pass, slowly circling the airfield, seeing the smoke, explosions, and chaos the Allied fighters had wrought, willing there to be just enough diesel in the tanks.
Ella saw Piers on the half-track, gunning hard for the end of the runway, waving to her.
Okay then, let's do this.
She flew out, the Me-262 shuddering and yawing when she wasn't flying straight, and then brought the plane around for a second attempt. Only a hundred meters or so above the ground, flaps up, as she flashed past the fence line that separated airfield from wheat field.
She reduced the throttle as much as she could, trying not to stall with only one engine, but more speed had to wash off if her plan was to work.
Had to work.
Piers, riding the half-track motorbike, had a trailer attached. He could see Ella to his left coming in, as he twisted the throttle all the way open.
He was mad. She was mad.
He rode along the fence line, and judging her rate of descent, threw his centre of mass out to the right and stopped the right-hand side tracks with the steering brakes. The bike did a power-slide, bucking up, trying to throw its rider, but Piers held on.
He wasn't just a mechanic. Three-time champion of the Magdeburg-Wittenberge Luftwaffe cross-country rally, on his souped-up Kettenkrad, before fuel-rationing stopped all the fun.
Piers was now pointing in the direction Ella was coming in. As he opened the throttle as far as he could, the extra horsepower and lowered final gearing spun the speedometer past the red, the needle hitting the stop, the cut-off exhaust howling, the supercharger whining like a banshee. He’d have to strip the motor down after this.
The vehicle bumped up and down on the grass while he reached into his tunic pocket, pulled out a red smoke flare, and lit it.
Ella saw Piers coming from her right, closer and closer, until he turned, and she could barely see him, the front fuselage hiding him from sight. Her Valkyrie tilted back, the airspeed washing off.
There was the red smoke, now, in front.
She was only ten meters or so above the ground now, the runway just fifty meters ahead.
Follow the smoke. There he was, just to her left.
Piers hit the smoother runway, on the left side, and looked over his right shoulder.
There she was. How she was keeping it in the air, he didn't know. It looked wounded, but salvageable. That is, if it didn't go nose first into the tarmac and explode.
But the aircraft was coming in fast, too fast. She would pass him for sure.
Ignoring the flashing red bulbs all over her cockpit's instrumentation, feathering the control stick with her right hand, the throttles with her left, she lost some more speed, and then touched the tarmac. The plane balanced like a wheelbarrow full of jelly, wobbling, but she kept the nose up. She touched the brakes. Softly, softly. Her airspeed decreased. 160. 150. 140. It wasn't going to be enough. The airplane lifted, and then dropped on its horizontal axis. 110, 100.
Red smoke filled her vision.
He ha
d to be close. Please Piers, please.
Piers swung directly in line of the jet aircraft. At her current speed, she would collide in moments. He threw the flare away, pulled out his Luger, and fired into the air.
At the pistol shots, Ella killed the starboard engine, and pulled the stick back one last time, the nose pointing to the sky. She looked transfixed at the airspeed gauge. 100, 95, 90. The nose fell forward and hit.
It landed on the half-track's trailer.
Full of used, damaged parachutes, it held the fighter's nose above the ground.
Piers felt the aircraft land on the trailer. Her speed was still slightly higher than the fast-track could go. It jolted the machine forward, skidding, swerving, but he held it. A fire-truck sped towards them from the right, sirens wailing. Ever so gently, he eased off the throttle, and together they slowed until, using his half-track as a brake, they stopped.
Piers thought he was going to have a heart-attack. He reached behind and pulled the pin holding the trailer on, and gunned towards the fire-truck, stopping just behind it. He jumped off and ran towards the fire-truck that now disgorged its crew, hoses unfurling. "Cover the plane," he said, touching the burn scars on his face by reflex. Piers had a phobia about exploding jet planes.
Ella toggled the Master Control switch to off, and opened the canopy as fast as she could. She saw Piers run towards the fire truck.
They had done it. Her beautiful Valkyrie was full of holes, part of her mind thought rationally, as she exited post-haste, and joined Piers at the truck. She hugged him. "We did it," she said. "Wonderful driving by the way."
Piers smiled. "We did it."
The jet exploded.
Chapter Nine
Leapfrog
Across the other side of the city, Colonel Grieg stopped at the concentration factory camp, outside Magdeburg, on his way home for lunch with his family. He got out of the black staff car whistling, and saluted the guards. Behind the barbed wire, a line of prisoners was playing leap-frog in front of their barracks. Not by choice.