Battle Climb

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Down here they would be most difficult to spot and the Magister would lose the least time on approach and landing. Their course took them well to the west of their objective, a feint to mislead the enemy. They planned to go three miles inland before turning.

  The Channel looked calm but uninvitingly cold in the • grey light, growing perceptibly lighter by the minute. The French shoreline showed murkily, a frothy line of wash along the beach.

  A photographic reconnaissance Hurricane had taken pictures of the farm and an area of many miles around it the previous day, so they knew what landmarks to seek. Upton, in the lead, picked out their turning point and a few seconds later the voice of the controller at Longley confirmed it. He wheeled his section round. In the Magister, Maidment had no radio contact with the Ops. Room and obediently followed. Red Section wove their protective pattern in the rear.

  Upton began to tingle with the anticipation of perpetrating the ultimate impertinence and insult on the enemy: a snatch from right under their noses. He searched the sky for hostile fighters, half-hoping some would appear. But the Magister would be most vulnerable on the ground; better hope they wouldn’t show up just yet.

  But behind them, flak positions began to fire. Shells burst far astern, tracer from heavy calibre machine-guns twinkled closer.

  The farm appeared, the bright glow of the bonfire clear and welcoming, smoke pouring densely from it and drifting diagonally across the field.

  The Spitfires drew away from the Magister and began to orbit the field in two loose lines astern.

  Along the road from the direction of Aigres, coming towards the farm, were two motor cyclists.

  “Two and Three, stay there,” Upton ordered. He brought his flaps up and dived.

  Dust rose under the motor cycles’ wheels. The riders carried sub-machine guns slung across their backs, and, heads down, were travelling fast towards the farm.

  Upton brought his ring sight to bear on them, aimed off a trifle to allow for their speed, and pressed the firing button. The Spitfire shook with the recoil of eight guns, the two motor cycles spun, tumbled and slithered off the road. The sergeant and corporal of military police flew into the air, riddled with bullets, their clothes in rags, what remained of flesh and bone all shredded and pulped.

  The Magister landed and Upton saw a man running towards it, his Mae West conspicuously yellow against the grass. Well, at least Roy had kept it with him, even if he wasn’t bringing back his parachute, he thought cheerfully.

  Taylor climbed into the front seat and at once the Magister turned back the way it had come. In a few seconds it was airborne.

  On the way to the coast the flak was ready for them, but the Magister stayed barely above the treetops and gave the gunners scant time to bring their’ sights to bear or to hold them. The Spitfires climbed above the range of the machine-guns and weaved so that the predictors could not be effective.

  Over the Channel four Me 109s tried to catch them, but gave up when Red Section, with the advantage of height, dropped on them and knocked three of them down.

  Soon after landing at Longley they were at readiness.

  TWELVE

  Lothar Kreft lay abed with his arms folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He had drunk heavily the previous night and was paying for it with throbbing temples and a dry mouth.

  He despised himself for giving way to his coarsest instincts but excused it on the ground that he did not join in with the others often enough and this had been an exceptional occasion.

  It was the custom on the Geschwader to have a wild party in the mess after a disastrous day. It was a morbid, Teutonic way of greeting the deaths of their comrades but the rest of them deluded themselves that it was all just part of the mystique of flying and the tradition of warfare. Kreft admitted to himself that fear, unhealthy sentiment and the German cult of doom and bravado were responsible. Part of the inverted celebration was the custom of criticising their superiors with immunity while the party was in progress. In that, he had joined without reservation. He was remembering some of the impromptu verses he had contributed to the denigration of their commanders, and it made him smile.

  He had been out twice, both times so heavily escorted that the British fighters had not even put him off his aim, for they had concentrated on the higher-flying Heinkels and Dorniers. But, for all that, he was not looking forward to going through it again.

  He knew he must.

  Dragging himself out of bed, he sat on its edge for a few moments while his spinning head cleared. It had been an effort, as he knew the whole day ahead would be an effort. It was becoming daily more difficult to accept the insistence of the High Command that Britain was foundering and must surrender within the next two or three weeks. Where was the evidence of the degeneracy which, before the war, Germany believed had British youth in its grip? Their Ambassador in London, the egregious von Ribbentrop, had reported that treachery and communism were rife among all classes, that the nation was bent on self-indulgence and pleasure, was physically and morally weak. Well, if the lads who were flying Hurricanes and Spitfires were traitors, communists, pleasure-seekers or weaklings, he wondered how strong, selfless patriots behaved!

  Whatever sort of day they had, he must make up his mind not to be dragged into the party that followed it. He would have to attend, and he would enjoy making up fresh scurrilities in verse about the Field Marshals and Generals who led them by the nose; with, he believed, blinkers on their own eyes. But drink he must indulge in sparingly. It simply was not worth having a head and stomach and mouth like he had this morning. Moreover it made him ashamed in a way that had nothing to do with boozers’ gloom and everything to do with his aesthetic sensibilities.

  At the airfield, Voss greeted him with bright eyes, his fat cheeks shining healthily. Voss had the answer: routine, religion and lack of imagination. Voss was regular in his habits and conscientious in his duties: he derived greater pleasure from doing his job well than from its results in damage to the enemy.

  These were the thoughts in Oberleutnant Kreft’s head as he returned his radio operator’s greeting and walked at his side to take a look at their Stuka. It was like making sure the dog went out into the garden for its morning pee, Kreft thought. He was sure it meant no more than that to Voss. He wished that, to himself, it didn’t mean a vision of that fuselage and those wings suspended in space, under his hands, with flak bursting around them; but there was the compensation that he also had a mental picture of his bombs bursting and flames leaping. Perhaps, he wondered, I am a pyromaniac without knowing it.

  After a while he joined the other crews and resigned himself to an hour or two at the card table in the benign sunshine, before he could stir himself to do anything better. If, that was to say, they were given so much grace before some paranoid megalomaniac with badges of high rank encrusting his uniform decided to launch them against England once more.

  If some crystal-gazer had warned him that the Luftwaffe would fly 1,715 sorties against England that day, he would not have doubted it. If the information had been added that they were destined to lose 45 aircraft, he would have said “Is that all?”

  ***

  Werner Hintsch had gone to Hiltrud the evening before with the zest of an athlete who has won a hard race or a tough game: euphoric, still supercharged with adrenalin. He was impatient to tell her about it.

  He had dined in mess, at his commanding officer’s behest. The Staffel had done well and Siegert intended to celebrate it in comradeship. As soon as he could, he had left, telephoned a warning to her and had himself driven to the chateau. Both had dined already but they had gone to their favourite restaurant, where an orchestra played for dancing on Saturday nights. He had rented a room upstairs. And at last he could unburden himself to her, growing as excited in the recounting as he had been in the heat of action. He simply had to tell her every detail of how he had shot down two Hurricanes and damaged a Spitfire so badly that it had been forced to abandon the fight with all
its ammunition expended before it could get in a position to shoot him down.

  “Why did you let it get away?” she asked.

  “Because our bomber boys were having a rough time and I had to do my job, protecting them.”

  She wiped his forehead with her scented handkerchief. “Don’t excite yourself so, darling,” she said gently. “Don’t dwell on those things. It’s not good for you.”

  “Aren’t you interested? Or perhaps you think I’m boasting?”

  “Of course I am interested. “ She kissed him. “And of course you’re not boasting: if you can’t tell your sweetheart about such things, whom can you tell? I love to listen to you and I’m so proud of you; and proud that you want to tell me. But you’re so tense, darling: think of something else now. “

  He woke to the new day with his body relaxed and his mind calm but determined to chalk up more kills before the day was over.

  It began with an emergency. He had to stay behind while a Schwarm was ordered off in haste to intercept a reported raid by low-flying Spitfires.

  He had waited on the airfield as anxiously as anyone while Hauptmann Siegert’s deputy personally led the hunt. He joined the group around the radio listening to the exchanges between the pilots and with ground control.

  It was Emil Festner who had said, with satisfaction, when the deputy Commanding Officer came back alone: “Now he knows it can happen to anybody.”

  Later there had been news that a Spitfire had killed two military policemen, but nobody knew what they were doing on that road or where they were going. They were Field Security policemen, with a roving brief and not bound to report their suspicions or movements to their officer until they had solid evidence to bring about an arrest and conviction: which, in the work they did, meant execution.

  “I can’t say I feel much about a couple of military cops being blasted,” said Hintsch.

  “They’re all as bad as one another, whatever they call themselves,” Festner agreed. “The ordinary ones prey on their comrades, and the fancy ones batten on the civilians. But I wonder why a Spitfire thought it worth wasting ammunition on a couple of insignificant targets like them?”

  “Perhaps they were looking for the chap you shot down,” Hintsch suggested with a touch of malice.

  “Funny ass.”

  “D’you think he was incinerated when the Spitfire burned out?”

  Festner paled. “God! I hope not. I wouldn’t want to do that to anyone.”

  “I know what you mean: it seems cleaner if an aircraft explodes in the air, or even just catches fire. I don’t like to think of any airman being killed or injured once he’s on the ground.”

  “Unless we’re strafing an airfield,” said Festner with a grin.

  “Well, that is different. Then, they’re legitimate targets. Particularly if they’re trying to take off.”

  “You know, Werner,” Festner said with mock seriousness, “you should write a book on the morality of war.”

  Angily, Hintsch retorted, “There is such a thing as chivalry, let me remind you.”

  “Which doesn’t extend to military policemen?” Hintsch was riled and impatient. “They’re not air

  fighters, damn it. You know what I mean, precisely.” Siegert interrupted their wrangling. “What’s this all about?”

  “I was just saying I hope the pilot of that Spitfire I shot down wasn’t still in it when it hit the ground and burned to ashes.”

  “Does that worry you? I’m much more concerned about the three of our chums who went down when they were bounced this morning.”

  Festner’s expression changed. “Yes, I suppose you are perfectly right.”

  ***

  Oberstleutnant Otto von Brauneck had his orders from his Jagdfliegerführer. Another day of almost total commitment of his force. But there was just enough margin to allow him to keep something in hand for emergencies: by which he meant the last extremity that he had discussed and planned with Sepp von Handorf.

  He sat in the back of his Mercedes and contemplated the lovely part-profile of his driver.

  He didn’t sit next to her when he wanted to think; she distracted him too much, even though she was his cousin.

  He simply had to see Bull Siegert about that morning’s massacre. No use mincing words: three out of four destroyed was mayhem. They’d only lost one pilot, it was true, thanks to the excellent rescue arrangements in the Channel. But three Emils lost was bad enough. Worst of all was that the boys had been bounced like that. He must make up his mind quickly about Siegert’s second-in-command. Was he cracking under the strain of responsibility and combat?

  Hiltrud had a faint smile on her lips. She was really keen on that handsome Werner Hintsch, no doubt about that, von Brauneck reflected. She just lived for the hours or minutes she could spend with him: even a glimpse of him was enough to make her sparkle as she was now.

  There was something decidedly odd about that Spitfire raid this morning. The flak sites had reported a smaller aircraft with them. That could mean anything or nothing. He did not trust anyone’s aircraft recognition outside the Luftwaffe; and even then a lot of mistakes were made, friendly aircraft were shot down in error. It happened on both sides: he had seen British ships and land batteries fire at Hurricanes and Spitfires.

  It was possible that the British had made a daring expedition to pick up the Spitfire pilot whom young Festner had shot down a couple of days ago: if they had, good luck to them; he could only admire their nerve and deplore the inefficiency of the military police, S.S. and Gestapo who were searching for him. It was no business of the Luftwaffe’s. Such a rescue was right up his street; he would love to do something like that.

  He chuckled and Hiltrud glanced at his image in her driving mirror. “What’s tickling you?” she asked. She sounded offended. He knew why: she was brooding about their heavy loss in the early morning and thinking that it could have happened to Werner.

  “Just a thought, that’s all. A little light relief for a sombre morning.”

  When they reached the airfield Hintsch was sitting with a group of other pilots in shirtsleeves, smoking his pipe while he lay back in a deck chair, eyes closed, tanning his face. Vain young devil, thought von Brauneck. But one look at him should comfort Hiltrud: he looks as solid as rock, indestructible, and brimming over with self-confidence; and completely at ease.

  Siegert was the first to rise to his feet, the rest hastily following him. The C.O. came forward to greet him and he returned the salute in his usual airy way; but he had deliberately set his face in a stern expression: for the benefit in particular of the Oberleutnant who had been leading the Schwarm which suffered so badly at dawn.

  In the Staffel commander’s office he asked for an explanation. The crestfallen officer who had seen all three of his companions shot down three hours ago offered no excuses. “We were ordered off with no previous warning, sir, as you know. Fortunately our engines had already been run up, otherwise we would not have caught them...”

  “They caught you,” von Brauneck interrupted.

  “We could not have caught up with them, I meant, sir. Anyway, as they were flying so low we did not have to waste any time on climbing. We went straight at the four we could see and three more came out of sun and right on top of us.”

  “But they were not all Spitfires?”

  “No, sir, one was a small two-seat light aircraft. I don’t know the type, but it must have been some sort of trainer or communications type.”

  “Were both places occupied?”

  “Yes, sir, both cockpits. The man in the front seat had no helmet on, he was bare-headed: but he was wearing a yellow life vest.”

  Von Brauneck looked at him with raised eyebrows and then at Siegert. “Didn’t you think that odd?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So do I; damned odd.” He discussed the attack and defeat for a few moments, then dismissed the Oberleutnant. When he was alone with Siegert, he said “You know what this means, Bull, don’t you?�
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  “It did occur to me that when a pilot bales out he takes off his helmet; unless he has plenty of time to disconnect his oxygen tube and radio lead.”

  “Clever man. And the Spitfire pilot for whom every-one — everyone except the Luftwaffe — has been searching did not have time for anything except to tear his helmet off: he was well alight, according to Festner.”

  “Damned audacity,” said Siegert with grudging admiration and a wry grin.

  “A damned insult, too. We’ve got to get even with the Tommies.”

  “We know where they came from, sir: as you already know, Festner saw the markings; and so did the boys this morning: same squadron both times.”

  “It would have to be, wouldn’t it? They wouldn’t expect someone else to come and pick up one of their pilots. So, that confirms it.” He rubbed his hands together. “Wait till I report this to the Jagdfliegerfiihrer: he’ll play hell with the Police... and the S.S. and Gestapo. I’m actually quite pleased the Englishman got away: it’ll do them a world of good to be hauled over the coals for not finding him. And it gives us a further motive for carrying out a little plan I have been preparing with Major von Hohndorf.”

  “That sounds interesting, sir. I hope my Staffel will be included?”

  “You can count on that: you have a vested interest in it, old boy.”

  Von Brauneck’s next call was at the airfield where Sepp von Hohndorf kept his Staff Flight. Von Hohndorf greeted him with a mocking smile.

  “I hear your boys were caught with their pants down this morning, Otto. “

  “We weren’t the only ones: the British made fools of the Police, too... and the S.S... and the precious Gestapo.”

  “How come?”

  “We know which squadron that pilot belonged to whom Festner shot down the other day when the weather was dirty. The Spitfires that... er... rather shook us this morning came from the same one. There was a two-seater light aircraft with them: therefore they must have come to pick up their pal. The passenger had no flying helmet on; but he was wearing a yellow life jacket: Q.E.D., I think you’ll agree.”