by Ted Bell
His first recon picture would not be for the military analysts at Whitehall in London, it would be for his mother. He intended to take a picture of their home from the air, have it framed, and present it to his mum on Mother’s Day. Most of the tower was enwreathed in roses now, and it would make a splendid picture, he thought.
He circled the lighthouse a few times looking for the best altitude and angle. It was a sunny day, with puffy white clouds, and he knew the picture should be lovely. Flying about fifty feet above and beyond the lighthouse, he reached for the silver shutter release button and pressed it three times. One of them at least would be perfect, he thought.
The first part of his mission complete, he turned the plane right, coming to a heading of 270 degrees, due west. He climbed to two thousand feet, exhilarated by the mere notion of what he was doing. Aerial espionage in the service of his country. Sure, the soldiers had all gone and most of the island people would probably evacuate.
But Nick McIver planned to stay and fight.
His next stop was Saint Peter Port on the nearby island of Guernsey. The great rocky cliffs and green rolling meadows of this large neighboring island were already visible across the blue channel waters. Saint Peter Port hove into view. It was built on the slope of a hill, with tier upon tier of tall red-roofed houses clustering down to the water’s edge. The houses were a mixture of French Provincial and English Georgian, with gardens high-walled against the constant winds.
On the southern side, the town was protected by a great green height on which Fort George was situated. It was the largest of the four Victorian naval forts built in the 1850s. This was a period when HM Government had been much worried about its relations with France, just six miles across the water.
Descending to one thousand feet, he made his first pass over the town’s harbor. It was filled with ships of every description. Troop ships, merchantmen, even cinnamon-sailed fishing vessels, silhouetted against the irregular houses which lined the quay. The shutter release, right next to his altimeter, seemed to be working perfectly as he clicked off a dozen or so shots of the crowded harbor from different angles.
Along the quay, a massive queue of people stretched all the way back along the High Street and into the main square at the center of town. Carts and farm trucks stacked high with luggage; countless children and their parents waiting patiently in line to board the waiting vessels that would ferry them back to England.
He dropped down to a hundred feet and buzzed the crowds along the quay. Many of the children looked up and pointed at the funny-looking biplane, delighted by the sight of the old relic from another war. Surely, Nick thought, none of them had ever seen such a craft outside of their history books.
He waggled his wings as he flew over their heads, and he saw many of the adults look up and smile at him, many of them even cheering and clapping their hands at the sight of a British warplane, even one as ancient as the Sopwith Camel, roaring just above their heads.
Nick leaned over the edge of his cockpit and smiled down at them, flashing Churchill’s Victory V with his right hand. Then he put the Camel into a steep climb and, not without regret, turned eastward for home. He hadn’t encountered any U-boats or German spy planes, not yet anyway, and he thought he’d gotten more than enough shots of the harbor to satisfy Commander Hobbes’s requirements.
Did he really have to end this adventure so quickly? He took a quick look at his watch. He’d been gone only an hour. He had plenty of time to do a little exploring on his way home. He decided to go south along the Guernsey coastline, see what it looked like from the air. Who knows, he thought, maybe he’d even spy something interesting to photograph along the way?
He was content to simply fly along the coast, experimenting with his rudder and ailerons, using every second to get a better feel for flying the pugnacious little plane. But his mind was much clouded with worry. If all those children were leaving Guernsey, what about his own family? Especially his mum and his sister Kate. He had no doubt he and his father could manage living under German authority, but weren’t all the women and children living on Greybeard Island at greater risk?
If, as Hobbes had mentioned, England determined to later retake the islands by force, why, that would mean all-out war then, wouldn’t it? There were sure to be civilian casualties, and he was certain the Germans would show the islanders no mercy. What if they bombed the lighthouse? Or threw them all in prison? What if—
He looked down expecting to see the rocky shoreline and saw nothing but open water. By not concentrating on what he was doing, he’d veered far off course. He was now flying a heading of almost due south, far out over the Gulf of Saint Malo! Clouds had drifted in from the west, big white puffy ones that looked to have rain in them.
Ahead, he could see a green smudge on the horizon. That had to be the coast of Brittany and Normandy! There were sure to be enemy planes in the skies over France, and not reconnaissance flights either. No, there’d be Messerschmitts manned by deadly Luftwaffe pilots only too happy to blow him out of the sky.
He banked hard to his left, set a northeasterly course. He soon saw the distant cliffs of Greybeard on the horizon and set his course for home. Just fly the plane, he told himself. Feel every vibration coming from the aeroplane. Listen to every sound coming from the big Bentley engine. Learn those sounds, memorize them, so that if you ever heard a false note, you’d immediately know what the problem—
What was that? There was a boat below. Too big to be a local fishing boat, too small to be a destroyer or battleship. She was off to his starboard side and steaming along at a leisurely pace toward the coast of Brittany. An unaccompanied boat headed for France. It was unlikely to be English, Nick thought, easing the stick forward and going into a dive down through the clouds. He’d do a flyover, have a look, and if she was anything interesting, he’d snap her picture.
Not wanting to alarm the crew aboard her unnecessarily, he kept his altitude deliberately high, about five hundred feet. A few moments later he was directly above her. She was German military, all right, with cannons mounted on her bow. Along each side were racks holding great black spherical objects, perhaps fifty inches in diameter, with many protrusions. At the stern, men on both starboard and port sides were rolling these spheres down metal ramps and into the sea.
Between the ramps, snapping in the breeze, a large red flag with black stripes and a black swastika on a field of white.
She was a German minelayer. She was mining the waters off France with contact mines. He’d studied enemy mines in some detail when he’d first begun to help his father and the Birdwatchers monitor U-boat traffic in the channel. These were German electromagnetic mines, each containing almost 700 pounds of high explosives. Those protrusions were called Hertz horns, and they would detonate the mine upon contact with the hull of an enemy ship.
Nick maintained his northerly heading, thinking the situation over. He had to get a picture of this minelayer at work, no question. This could be vital military information. But he didn’t like the look of those naval cannons on the bow or the swivel-mounted fifty-caliber machine guns visible on either side of the bridge. Some of the sailors had smiled up at him and even waved their caps at him on the first pass. Would they be as friendly if he made a second one? Perhaps they would. Few of the young German sailors aboard would even recognize the aircraft as being British.
And, after all, a silly-looking biplane from another era, made of sticks and cloth was hardly a threat to a heavily armored German warship.
He banked right and flew south once more, staying high and well away from the minelayer. He pressed the shutter button once or twice to ensure that it was still functioning and getting pictures of the mine layer’s position relative to the coast of France. A few minutes later, he initiated a wide, sweeping turn that would bring him back on a course that would intercept the German vessel from dead ahead.
This time he would fly over her at a much lower altitude. He’d keep the index finger of his right ha
nd on the shutter button the entire time, shooting as fast as the camera would allow. He used his long white scarf to wipe the oil from his goggles, adjusted them, and watched the boat’s bow wave draw ever closer. He soon found himself looking right down the barrels of the ship’s deck guns, his wheels almost skimming the wavetops!
He intended to pull his nose up just as he crossed her bow, clear her amidships smokestack, and get his pictures at a very low level.
Now! He pulled back on the stick with his left hand and began repeatedly pushing the silver button with his right. He was dimly aware of a strange thumping noise beneath his feet, when suddenly he realized they were shooting at him! Rounds were striking Commander Hobbes’s leaden shield. And being deflected! If they weren’t, he’d most certainly be dead by now.
He cleared the minelayer’s stern, went to full throttle, commencing the steepest climb possible. Rounds from the German machine guns were whistling overhead now and all around the cockpit. He saw many holes appearing in his overhead wing, mostly on the starboard side. Then a lucky bullet struck a wing support strut and caused it to buckle, collapsing a small part of his upper starboard wing.
He had to get out of this deadly fire and soon. He eased the joystick forward going into the steepest dive he’d ever attempted, twisting and turning all the way down. When he was within a few yards of crashing into the sea, he pulled out of the dive and leveled off, flying just above the wavetops for a moment. Suddenly he started climbing again, gaining enough altitude to execute a series of barrel rolls, as he made for the safety of the towering white cumulus cloud just above him.
He was worried about that starboard wing. Fabric was beginning to tear away under the strain of his violent maneuvers. More struts could likely give way. Take it easy, he reminded himself, take it easy.
He cleared the cloud layer, leveled off, and took a quick look down over his shoulder at the German minelayer, hundreds of feet below and continuing on her course toward the coast of Brittany.
He was clearly out of range of the ship’s fire now and his plane was still basically intact. If he was lucky, the wounded Camel would hold together long enough to get him back to Hawke Field in one piece. He flew on, keeping a watchful eye on the damaged wing. It seemed to be getting worse, and he reduced his airspeed to a minimum.
“Nelson the strong, Nelson the brave, Nelson the Lord of the Sea,” he whispered. It was both a tribute and a prayer to his long dead hero, Admiral Lord Nelson.
What was that old expression he’d heard his father say so many times? Oh, yes. Flying home on a wing and a prayer.
13
DEATH FROM ABOVE
· Guernsey Island ·
After completing her customary surveillance tour of the harbor, Fleur de Villiers leaned her bicycle against the stone wall just up the hill from Monsieur de Lupin’s French bakery shop. She quickly descended the cobblestoned street and hurried inside. She wanted to get her last bit of shopping done and then get herself home and home quickly.
Wild rumors were flying all over the island that the German invasion was imminent. Still, she’d seen no trace of any panic. The countryside was somnolent as usual. It was all business as usual in town. A stream of covered farm trucks lined the quay, filled with ripe tomatoes ready for shipment across the Channel to England.
She hadn’t really wanted to go into town.
But she’d invited Lord Hawke and a small group of acquaintances, plus some literary friends, for a smallish dinner party at Fordwych Manor this evening. Cook, as she headed out the door, had informed her that she was all out of bread and caviar. Cook could bake some sourdough biscuits of course, but there wasn’t a baguette on the island that could hold a candle to those baked by her old friend from Paris, Monsieur Jean-Paul de Lupin.
She found him and several other customers gathered around the old wireless, listening breathlessly to the sonorous voice of the BBC announcer. From the somber looks on their faces, the news was grim.
“Jean-Paul, mon cher,” she said, patting him on the back to gain his attention, “what on earth is going on?”
“Zut alors! Les Jerries are coming!” he said, and put his finger to his lips to silence her and turned back to the radio.
“We all know that, but when?” she persisted.
“Now!” he said, turning to her. “RAF spotter planes have reported German troopships en route to Guernsey carrying at least two battalions! Sacre bleu! Two battalions!”
“Whatever for?” Fleur said. “There’s nobody here left to fight them. All of our own troops left us in the lurch, remember?”
“Mais certainement, madame! But London is saying the Germans aren’t aware that the islands have been demilitarized. They think our soldiers are still here, and they are coming here spoiling for a fight!”
“Well, then, grab the sharpest breadknife in that drawer and hurry down to the beach. I’m sure you’ll find someone there happy to accommodate you if you wish to fight.”
“Baroness, with all due respect, this is no joking matter, I assure you.”
“You’re right, monsieur, of course. But one must maintain one’s sense of humor in times of trial. Cheerfulness in the face of adversity. That’s my motto. Now, give me four of your best baguettes, and I’ll let you get back to your invasion.”
“Take them! Take as many as you want. No charge. I’m closing the patisserie. I won’t sell to these barbarians who have stolen my country, who even as we speak are bombing women and children across the water! Non! Never! The honor of all France is at stake.”
Fleur took four baguettes from the wooden basket and put them into a paper sack. She left a fiver on the glass counter by the cash register and waved good-bye to M. de Lupin. Then she pushed through the door, stepped into the street, and turned left to walk up the slight hill to where she’d left her bicycle.
That’s when the first bomb exploded.
She had the unique sensation of flying through the air and being slammed against the brick wall of the building that housed Monsieur de Lupin’s bakery. She must have been unconscious for a few moments because when she came to, she had no idea where she was or how she’d come to be there. For some reason, she was covered with dust and there were a number of shattered cobblestones along with a bag of four baguettes in her lap.
Down the hill, some twenty feet away, was a huge crater in the street. The front of Monsieur de Lupin’s shop no longer existed. It was just a ragged hole in the middle of a brick building. She tried to get to her feet but felt unsteady and sagged against the wall. Her face felt sticky, and when she put her hand to her face, it came away dripping with blood. She had to make it back to the shop, to see if there were any survivors she could help.
Using the bomb-scarred wall to keep herself upright, she moved slowly down the slight incline until she reached what remained of the shop. Bracing herself for what she might see, she leaned out and peered inside. There was no one in there who needed her help.
There were five or six bodies inside, some intact, many of them simply torn apart. Great, jagged slabs of plate glass had been blown inward and caused most of the horrific carnage. She saw Monsieur de Lupin, or what was left of him, sprawled atop a marble counter strewn with loaves of freshly baked bread. For some unknowable reason, the wireless on the cupboard shelf was unharmed and she could still hear the BBC reporter talking about the impending invasion of the Channel Islands by thousands of German soldiers.
“It is no longer impending, you damn fools,” she heard herself saying to the radio, possibly out loud.
She leaned back against the wall, took a deep breath, and tried to compose herself. Nothing, no bones anyway, seemed to be broken. She obviously had a sizable cut on the side of her head, just above her right ear, and it was bleeding rather heavily. She removed her white cotton jersey, rolled it up, and tied it tightly round her head. It would be good enough to get her home, she thought.
Another bomb rocked the harbor. This one struck one of the many farm trucks queue
d up to offload tomatoes, totally obliterating it. She was aware for the first time of the deafening roar of the masses of German Heinkel bombers in the skies above. Waves of them, and now more and more bombs began to fall, and fiery black smoke began to stream upward into the pure blue sky.
The tide was low, and the hysterical mob rushed for the only available shelter, underneath the pier. This saved hundreds of lives, but many others were not so lucky. Some of the farmers and their families took shelter under their vehicles only to be crushed when the fires started and the vans and trucks collapsed. The dying victims’ blood mingled with the juice from hundreds of crates of tomatoes.
The Germans seemed to be targeting the trucks lining the quay. Why murder defenseless farmers and their families? She saw fighters strafing poor men in lifeboats. She watched one truck after another explode in flames, heard the cries of the dying and the injured until she could bear it no longer.
The Germans clearly intended to reduce her little town to a heap of rubble, and if she was to survive, she had to get out to the countryside and home.
By some miracle, her old Raleigh had survived to fight another day. Fleur gathered what strength she had left and worked her way slowly back up the hill toward the bicycle, one hand on the wall for support. The Raleigh was covered with dust but clearly usable. She bent down and pulled up her socks, which were sagging about her ankles, and climbed onto the stalwart Raleigh.
She walked her bicycle along the cliff walk by Fermain Bay. It was a lovely walk with a rugged path that wandered up and around the headlands. At a fork in the pathway, where a gently winding lane led eventually up the wooded hills to Ford-wych Manor, she stopped her bicycle in the lane and stood quietly, watching the endless line of German soldiers in gray-green uniforms go goose-stepping by. They seemed to be coming from the airfield where Junkers aircraft were landing, unloading troops, and returning for more.