Battle Climb

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  “Very neat and very bold. Also damned insulting.”

  “Exactly what I said.”

  “What do you intend to do about it?”

  “The squadron is based at Longley,” von Brauneck said with meaning.

  “Aha! So you think the time has come for us to execute Plan Angel?”

  ***

  Arthur Goldsmith had been up since 4.15 a.m. His alarm clock had momentarily disturbed Maidie, but he had quickly silenced it and crept off to brew himself a pot of tea and sit by a window with his field glasses trained on Longley aerodrome.

  The senior Intelligence officer had been in for a drink the previous evening, and asked for a word with him in private. Arthur, all agog, had taken him into the sitting room and as soon as the door was shut, asked “Good news?”

  “The best possible. I have permission to tell you this, Arthur, in view of all your years of Intelligence work: they’re fetching Roy Taylor back tomorrow morning at first light.”

  “Does that mean a secret landing in France?”

  “That’s right. Ronnie Maidment is going to fly a Magister to bring him in, and six Spits are going to escort it.”

  Arthur beamed. “Bloody marvellous. Wish I could go along.”

  “We can’t afford to risk you, old boy, you’re far too valuable. Another thing, for your ears alone: remember that amusing character who was staying here in the spring two years ago, von Brauneck?”

  “Baron Otto! Will we ever forget him? Maidie thought he was a scream. He sent us a Christmas card in 1938: but not last year! Although I wouldn’t have put it past him to send one through Switzerland or some other neutral country: he had enough brass neck. What about him?”

  “Just that he’s a lieutenant colonel commanding the equivalent of a fighter wing; about thirty-five miles south of here!”

  “I never knew he was in the Luftwaffe. He talked about private flying a lot, as you remember. Well, well, fancy that: Baron Otto von Brauneck, eh? Cheeky beggar. You couldn’t help liking him though, could you? He spoke marvellous English and all those stories he used to tell about his British pals: Lord This with an estate in Yorkshire where he used to go for the grouse shooting, and Lord That in Scotland who used to invite him for deer stalking... and his Welsh friend whose accent he used to mimic so amusingly... used to go salmon fishing at his place.”

  “Yes, he was an entertaining cove. And now he’s got about a hundred and fifty Me 109s under his command; and he flies right over our heads almost every day. What d’you think of that?”

  Arthur shook his head in wonder. “Makes you think, doesn’t it? Well, I must say I’d find it hard to hold a grudge against him: he was always good company and a perfect gentleman. If he got shot down and walked in here, I’d gladly give him a drink.”

  “With his nerve, he’d probably order — not ask for — a bottle of Bollinger and tell you to put it on the slate until the Armistice.”

  “I’d probably do it, too,” said Arthur. “Maidie had a soft spot for him: he flew himself over to Paris one day while he was staying here and brought her back an enormous bottle of Chanel Number Five. When she tried to insist on paying for it, he said no, he’d smuggled it through Customs just for the fun of it, and it had hardly cost him anything. It’s hard to reconcile a bloke with his sense of fun being on the wrong side.”

  “That’s what makes types like him so dangerous, Arthur,” the S.I.O. said. “It was probably one of his pilots who shot down Roy Taylor.”

  “In that case, the laugh will be on him when we get Roy back tomorrow.”

  And now it was tomorrow and he was on edge with excitement and gratification about his own contribution to the escapade: without the information he, or rather one of his pigeons, had provided, the rescue mission would never have been initiated.

  He heard the Spitfires take off and saw them pass over his roof: a deliberate tribute to him, he knew: although no one but the station commander and the S. I.O. knew of his Intelligence role; but one of them must have arranged it. He saw the Magister among them but the buzzing of its little engine was drowned. He raised his cup in a toast to success.

  Three-quarters of an hour later the same noise swelled again and three Spitfires roared in, their gun covers, as he could see through his binoculars, blasted off. His nerves gave a quick jump as he had a momentary fear for the safety of the Magister and the success of the operation. But there was the Magister now, bright yellow in its trainer livery that there had been no time to camouflage; and three Spits with wheels and flaps down slowly circling above it.

  Arthur had long finished his pot of tea. He indulged himself by pouring a double whisky. Raising the glass, he murmured “Here’s mud in your eye, Baron Otto von Brauneck. It really is one in the eye for you. Bad luck to you and all the rest like you.”

  ***

  Hercule Pelegrand passed a morning of much anxiety. He was too far away to hear or see the rescuing aircraft, but he did hear and see the four Me 109s that took off at dawn; and knew what must have caused them to do so. Activity at the local airfields did not usually begin until much later, for the R.A.F. was in no position to raid, so the enemy saved their petrol and stayed on the ground instead of wasting it on unnecessary defensive patrols.

  He and Berthe were both up betimes and prowling restlessly about, wondering what could have gone wrong. But very soon one solitary 109 reappeared, and although they waited at a window for a sign of the others, none came.

  At eight-o’clock their son telephoned, as arranged, from the café in his village. His voice trembling with excitement, he spoke the words they had arranged to confirm that all was well: “Pierre (his son) has completely recovered from his illness.” But Hercule knew that there was something more his own son was longing to tell him and could not. He was familiar with the tone, the suppressed delight, and dared not ask. He did venture “Any more good news?” But his son said, hesitantly, “No... nothing more that you won’t be hearing about anyway.” It was as far as discretion would let him go.

  As always, however, news came to the Bar des Sports first, before anyone else in Aigres heard it.

  A delivery man who brought supplies to the town pharmacy every week and always dropped into the cafe for a glass of beer, came hurrying in at mid-morning, his face alight with pleasure and good tidings.

  “Guess what happened just down the road this morning: I had the devil of a delay at a road block; the place was seething with military police.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the hamlet beyond which lay the farm of young Pelegrand.

  Hercule felt his insides turn to jelly. “Military police? Where? Why?”

  “About twelve kilometres along the road, just beyond St. Estephe... the Boches were in a foul mood... searching everyone... but as for why…” The delivery man chuckled. “It seems the R. A.F. was over this morning and one of them chanced to spot a couple of M.P.s on motor bikes... two blokes I’ve seen in here, come to think of it, a sergeant and a corporal... nasty bits of work…”

  “Well, so what happened?” Pelegrand said impatiently, feeling as though he could throw this oaf’s beer in his face.

  “What happened was that the R.A.F. lad gave them a burst with his guns and... pouf!... nothing left of the two Boches... or their machines.”

  Pelegrand pushed the glass of beer across the counter. “Here, this is on the house.”

  This unwonted generosity and good fortune were too much for the van driver. Such things usually happened only at Christmas. “Your very good health... and Madame’s...”

  Berthe asked “What were the two M.P.s doing there in the first place?”

  “No one has a clue,” the delivery man replied smugly. “The Boche are obviously baffled.”

  Later in the morning when the bar was temporarily without customers, Berthe said “Suppose they examine the field and find the marks of an aeroplane there?”

  “There won’t be any,” Hercule assured her. “I told him to turn his cattle loose to graze as soon as
the aeroplane had taken off. And to spread straw over the spot where he lit the fire. There won’t be any sign at all of what happened.”

  His confidence was justified. But that afternoon they had two visitors.

  One of them was a military police lieutenant, the other, in plain clothes, did not identify himself; and did not need to: the appearance and demeanour of the Gestapo were already well known in France after more than two months of occupation by the Nazis.

  It was the Gestapo man who did most of the talking. “From information received, from a senior officer of the Luftwaffe, it is clear that a British pilot who was shot down in this neighbourhood three days ago was sheltered by local sympathisers... collaborators with the enemy. We know that he was picked up this morning by a British aeroplane. We do not know who hid him or exactly where the aeroplane landed. But two military policemen were murdered... shot by the R.A.F., obviously in the course of their duties... it is clear that they must have been on their way to prevent the rescue and arrest the guilty parties.”

  The two Pelegrands felt sick with fear.

  The Gestapo agent continued: “As a warning to others, the Reich has taken a just reprisal. One member of the household has been taken from every farm within a radius of five kilometres from the scene where our two comrades were wantonly killed.”

  Berthe, in anticipation of what was to come, slumped to the floor in a faint. Hercule, kneeling at her side, raising her head, tears running down his cheeks, heard the man say: “Food has to be grown to feed you people, to prevent you being a burden on the Reich... and so that food can be sent to Germany also... so where there is only one adult male in a farm family, we have spared him. I have to inform you that your six-year-old grandson was shot an hour ago.”

  Von Brauneck’s gloating over the Gestapo, the S.S. and the military police had quickly borne evil and far-reaching results.

  And total war meant, however jocularly, to Sergeant Tom Dellow, refusal to exchange his brine-encrusted uniform for a new one!

  THIRTEEN

  Starting with the mad rush to catch the Spitfires, and the loss of three Me 109s, the day promised to be another one that the Luftwaffe would never forget.

  At 10 a.m. the Stuka Geschwader received its first operation order. Kreft and Voss were still playing cards. When an orderly came to tell the crews that they were wanted in the briefing tent, both of them stood up resignedly: they had become accustomed to being sent out on the first task every day.

  But they were not among the nine crews whose names were read out. Voss, perversely, his pilot thought, looked offended. “What have we done wrong?” he asked. “I thought we were supposed to be one of the best crews on the Staffel.”

  “Wrong,” Kreft told him. “The best. Perhaps the job isn’t hard enough for chaps of our calibre.”

  Voss was not amused. “I don’t like it. I like to start early, then I know that if there isn’t much on I’ll finish early.”

  “No chance of there being nothing much on, in these times. We’re sustaining an all-out effort; or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “If they want to get it finished, they should send the crews with the best records for finding their targets and for bombing accuracy.”

  This amused Kreft: neither navigation nor bomb aiming was the province of a radio operator-air gunner. But he was appreciative of Voss’s loyalty: as far as Voss was concerned, everything they did they did as a crew and shared the praise or blame. He said, “Perhaps there are more worthy things to come, Fritz. Be patient, my friend.”

  They went, anyway, to listen to the briefing. Other Staffeln in their Gruppe were also providing aircraft. The large scale of the raids was being maintained. One of the targets was the radar station at Ventnor, on the southern tip of the Isle of Wight.

  “We put it out of action four days ago,” Kreft commented. “Can’t have done the job thoroughly. Stubborn, aren’t they, the Tommies? I hope the boys make sure they can’t repair it so soon this time; if at all.”

  “No wonder we’ve been left out,” said Voss glumly. “It’s about the easiest target one could wish for: right down there, well away from most of the fighter bases, and not having to cross the coast of the mainland to reach it.”

  “I told you, Fritz, it’s not worthy of our calibre.”

  Voss was not in the mood for jokes. He had a firm belief that luck played a great part in an airman’s survival. Being detailed for the first operation of the day had become, for him, an item of faith: things always seemed to go best for him when he and Kreft flew the first mission. He replied, “Perhaps someone won’t be able to take off: last-minute magneto trouble or something.”

  “Then they’ll give them another aeroplane, that’s all. Anyway, we aren’t even reserve crew for this one. Don’t be such a fire-eater, Fritz. Be grateful for a fine sunny morning and a chance to win some money at cards.”

  Voss felt rather proud at being called a fire-eater, so he grinned ruefully and subsided into a chair to watch the others set off. He could not keep his mind on the game until they had gone. And then he found that he was still absent-minded because he was clock-watching for their return.

  Werner Hintsch left his friends and went across to sit with Hiltrud in the Mercedes while von Brauneck was in Siegert’s office.

  “It seems like days instead of hours since I saw you, “ he told her with a loving smile and quietly although there was no one to hear.

  She clutched his hand tightly and smiled back. She knew more than most girls of her age about men, and there was no doubt that the look in his eyes was genuine. He loved her; if only because she provided a refuge from the reality of his present life, on which she knew he had only a tenuous hold. War was the ultimate hothouse for all human emotions. She acknowledged that, but believed she saw in his look a more substantial affection than just the kind that danger and a desire to compensate for it put into a man’s heart and mind. She was well aware of her beauty and that most men desired her. She knew she was good company, she believed that she was gentle and feminine in her treatment of men of whom she was fond. But she asked herself if Werner would have felt so loving if they had met in normal times. She had had four lovers, the first when she was sixteen, but had never loved before; she had fallen temporarily in love with each of her previous men: and they had not all been mere boys: the first two had been boys of eighteen, it was true, but after them there had been a forty-year-old fashion designer, and the last one was twenty-eight, a brilliant photographer.

  What had started as an escapade based on glamour, physical attraction and admiration had fast matured into respect and a love which entirely fulfilled her. Werner was a hero, a man of whom to be proud and to show off to her women friends and her family. He had an Iron Cross, first class, and must soon win the greatly coveted Knight’s Cross. His name was well known in Germany and so was his face: the newspapers made much of him; among many others, but none the less he was in the forefront of public esteem and adulation. It was fashionable to have a famous sweetheart, and perhaps that had had a lot to do with the way she had, she confessed, thrown herself at him at that first meeting in Paris two months ago. Not all highly decorated heroes were handsome, but Werner was and that made it all the easier to fall for him. It had not taken long for her to begin loving him truly: he was a gentle lover and an honest man. They shared many interests, they had the same limited sense of humour and he came of good family: everything had fallen into place without any calculation on her part. She had not, at first, looked on him as a suitable husband. She had had no thoughts of marriage, at her age. But now she knew that if he did not soon ask her to become engaged to him, she would suggest it herself. There was one undeniable good thing to be said for being in uniform and for the status of women generally in the Third Reich, she told herself: a girl could take certain initiatives without being guilty of bad manners or making a young man like Werner feel embarrassed.

  “I wish I could kiss you,” she whispered.

  He laughed. “Do
you want to destroy my image? Look how my mechanics are watching us; while they pretend not to. One public kiss would undermine my powers of discipline.”

  She grimaced lovingly. “It might, on the other hand, enhance their respect for you.”

  He stroked the back of her hand, smiling. “That is the most conceited pronouncement I have ever heard.”

  “Go and ask them.”

  He laughed again. “They know well enough that you are my girl.”

  She was looking past him towards the Staffel commander’s office, determined to take a kiss if there was a second or two of freedom from observation: but here came her boss.

  “Out you get,” she said. “And me, to open the door for Cousin Otto. “

  Climbing out, he said over his shoulder: “Sec you this evening.

  “Telephone me as soon as you are stood down. If you are very late, I’ll have dinner and you can dine in mess. If you’re early, let’s go out and eat somewhere.”

  “Fine, darling, but I don’t think we’re likely to be stood down early today: the pressure is really on. We’re going to wipe out the R.A.F. Fighter Command: aeroplanes, pilots and radio direction finding system, lock, stock and barrel.”

  ***

  Ann had had a comparatively restful night watch. There were enough girls on each watch to allow them to take at least two hours’ sleep in the rest room at any time, and when there was no activity only a skeleton crew was needed: which allowed them all to sleep for as much as four or five hours.

  When she came off duty she felt more inclined for fresh air and exercise than sleep; she also wanted very much to see Clive. Instead of taking to her bed she bathed and changed and set off on her bicycle to ride round the perimeter track.

  From some distance away she saw several people lying on the grass or in deck chairs outside each squadron’s crew room. Various acquaintances waved or called to her as she cycled past the first one, but she waved and called back without stopping. Her eyes .were on the next group, and she easily made out Clive’s lanky figure and fair hair where he reclined on the grass with a cushion under his head.