Operation Afterlight, page 29
The Wing Commander didn’t wait long to turn, just time enough for his wing tips to be free of any risk of clipping the sea. Then he was banking to port, trying to put some room between the Mosquito and the Siegfried. Kittens followed in his wake. Barton went to starboard instead. Probably to put some doubt into the minds of the Siegfried’s gunners and force them to split their firepower, Grant thought, though pure truculence seemed just as likely. The result was the same. The gunners made their decision, and a stream of rounds rose in a seemingly leisurely climb into the sky before hurtling by either side of the Australian.
A barrage of foul epithets filled Grant’s headphones.
“Keep this network clear, please,” Durban said calmly.
Alpha One disappeared behind a greasy pall as two 88mm shells exploded, then re-emerged, somehow unmarked. Enjoying every drop of the luck that had deserted Bravo Four.
“Colt Leader to Alpha One, are you hit?”
“We’re fine. Permission to engage the bastard?”
“Negative, Alpha One,” Durban said. “Hold above the city. Kittens, do you see anything?”
“There’s heavy incoming fire to the north, Colt Leader. Multiple impacts, possible 105mm artillery. Looks like the Russians are making a push down the isthmus towards the city.”
Or what remained of it. Even though Grant was looking down from three thousand feet and still climbing, the patchy smoke from ships, burning buildings and exploding flak couldn’t obscure the destruction. Too many gutted structures to count, their once impressive edifices now rendered skeletal. Artillery had reduced entire city blocks to rubble. Burned and abandoned vehicles dotted the debris-choked streets.
He wished they could climb further, through the clouds, up to the clear air of high altitude where the Earth became just a blur of colour below. Anything to make the scene beneath them seem less real.
“Roger,” Durban said. “Any sign of a signal?”
A long pause. Shells from the distant Siegfried still pumped into the sky, barely in range now and dwindling, but that still left more flak positions below. One by one, they were joining the fray.
“Negative, Colt Leader,” Kittens said. “Lots of smoke, but nothing that stands out.”
“Keep looking.” Durban glanced at Grant. The face was impassive, but the eyes betrayed his true thoughts.
There was no signal.
Chapter Forty
Pillau, 16 April
Stahl had long since become inured to the sounds of Russian artillery. What was another shell among hundreds that fell every day? This was different, though. A sharp crack, rather than the dull thud of a bomb. Then more. A staccato rhythm echoing across the bay. Sirens wailed, and more guns joined in.
He looked to the south first, where the air raids normally came from, covering his eyes against the sunlight trying to break through the cloud. Nothing there. No Russian bombers, nor any flak bursts.
The hum of aero engines drifted on the breeze, struggling to be heard over the roar of the guns. Getting louder now, as he turned to face the sea.
Now he saw them. Small dots, almost like insects or motes of dust on the western horizon, except for two that grew larger as he watched, climbing. Then a third, heading off to the side, drawing the fire from the flak ship in the harbour. A little way down the waterfront from where Stahl sheltered behind a wrecked staff car, another heavy anti-aircraft gun joined in, adding its own lethal contribution to the hail of steel reaching towards the intruders. The gun position must have been a few hundred metres away at least, but the roar as it belched its first huge shell upwards was near-deafening.
Mosquitoes.
His heart gave a sudden jolt, and he felt a small twinge in his cheek muscles as they broke into an unfamiliar smile.
They had got his message.
He heard shouts and dropped to one knee behind the long bonnet of the Mercedes. The red pennant on the front snapped in the breeze despite the jagged shrapnel rent ripped through the centre of the Swastika. Three more soldiers emerged from the warehouse to join the two already on sentry duty. He chanced a longer look to confirm their weapons and uniforms. It was a risk, but not much of one. They were too busy watching the pair of Mosquitoes banking a few thousand feet above them to notice the dirt-smeared face watching them from the waterfront.
The four men loading their truck could not tell him where Loading Area D23 was. Nor did they much care, even after he persuaded them that a senior officer had tasked him to carry a message. The best they could do was to make a vague and sullen gesture to where the peninsula curved around to form the eastern end of Pillau’s great harbour. Stahl had thanked them and left before they could grow any more suspicious. He must have passed twenty warehouses, most with soldiers outside, all of them more than large enough to accommodate a few dozen scientists and their unholy work.
Until he had reached this one and stopped. The soldiers who emerged from inside to gawp up at the circling aircraft merely confirmed what he had suspected straight away. Like their colleagues on sentry duty, they wore Waffen-SS fatigues and insignia. Slung across their chests, they carried the latest model Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle. These weren’t the unshaven reservists or beardless children that half-heartedly stood watch at the other buildings.
This was it. This was where Götterdämmerung waited.
A few hundred metres away, the gentle waves of the protected Vistula Lagoon caressed the dark grey hull of the U-78. She bobbed gently at what looked like an electricity supply pier. Several crew members stood on her deck. Some wore the overalls of mechanics. Final sea checks, Stahl thought. Two others, standing by the 20mm anti-aircraft gun on the deck with their heads bowed in conversation, wore the smart coats and hats of officers. They, too, were looking up at the sky, where the Mosquitoes flew higher now, drifting in and out of sight among the lower tendrils of cloud.
The U-78’s diesel engine was running. Which meant it was preparing to depart.
Two soldiers laughed and disappeared back into the building. Maybe they took the visitors for reconnaissance aircraft. Whatever they were doing up there, they certainly seemed to pose no threat. It appeared the various flak crews around the harbour area agreed, for the anti-aircraft fire became noticeably less intense, almost desultory. Three soldiers remained outside the warehouse now, watching the sky, talking in low voices. Stahl strained to make out the words but couldn’t, not above the still wailing sirens and the intermittent shell fire.
He should probably get clear, he thought. In his excitement at locating the building, he had forgotten the danger he was in. And yet still the Mosquitoes remained aloof, their engines a constant hum, but the aircraft themselves only occasionally visible in the overcast above the Lagoon. Remaining out of range.
To the west, over the Baltic Sea, he saw the rest of the attack force circling above the horizon. Waiting.
Waiting for what? The warehouse had to be struck now, with Götterdämmerung possibly only minutes from release, the U-78 standing by, ready to take the scientists to safety.
The target was right there.
And they didn’t know it.
Chapter Forty-One
Above Pillau, 16 April
“Colt Leader to Control. DINGO.”
Durban let his thumb slide off the R/T switch. Three times he had spoken the word into the radio, to be relayed via the British Embassy in Sweden. He didn’t expect a reply, but he could imagine what they would make of it back at Charney Breach.
All this way for nothing. Maybe less than nothing. The target remained unlocated. Bravo Four was gone. Barton and Finny had almost joined them. Clear daylight showed through a gash in Durban’s own left wing where a long-range flak shot had almost pegged their range. No damage to their flight controls, thank God, but the next cloud of shrapnel might do more than scuff the woodwork.
The city lay off his wingtip, engulfed in carnage. Columns of smoke rose from the harbour to the northern suburbs, where it became a single roiling mass of burning buildings and exploding artillery. German ships had laid down a smoke screen to hide their positions, concealing large swathes of the harbour and reducing the waiting flak ship Siegfried to a lurking dark shadow. Only the warehouses near the docks seemed miraculously, mockingly intact. Durban could make out at least twenty likely locations, most untouched since the last photo-reconnaissance pass. Two or perhaps three showed signs of damage severe enough to rule them out as safe locations for the SS to use, and therefore knock them off the target list. Seventeen left, then. More than he had aircraft, even if he wasn’t looking at a minimum of two aircraft for a successful strike. One to break it apart with HE, a second to incinerate the contents with napalm. Preferably three or four, to be sure.
That meant they could strike a maximum of six targets from the seventeen, assuming perfect accuracy from both lead and trail aircraft.
Durban grimaced. Five targets. Bravo Four had been one of the six HE-equipped aircraft.
The radio crackled. Barton’s voice. “Where the hell is the signal?”
“We’ve only been here six minutes.” It seemed like so much longer. “We have to give him more time.”
“Bandits,” Kittens said. “Due east. Angels eight and descending.”
Durban turned the nose, stared, methodically scanning the sky from eight thousand feet downwards.
“I see them, sir,” Grant said, pointing.
“Tally two,” Durban confirmed. A pair, dropping from the clouds in close formation. Small. Single-engined. He’d hoped it might be merely a bombing raid, not that the city needed any more chaos right now. “Likely Soviet fighters,” he said. “Remember, they are supposed to be our allies. Don’t start shooting until they do.”
“Should we jettison drop tanks, boss?”
“Go ahead, Kittinger. All callsigns, follow suit once you reach a safe height to do so.” Grant had already transferred the fuel under air pressure from the unwieldy drop tanks into the outer wing tanks, and ditching their weight and drag would restore some of the Mosquito’s manoeuvrability. Durban had no illusions that they could out turn a modern Russian fighter, though.
The shapes came closer. Durban turned towards them. “Kittinger, Barton, stay here and watch for that signal.”
“You’re going out to meet them?” Grant’s voice seemed a little high.
“Let’s find out their intentions.”
At a mile away, he turned north, keeping the Mosquito level at three-thousand feet. The fighters, still descending, turned to an intercept course. Not dropping behind, he saw, but trying to get directly alongside. They didn’t know who he was yet. He could be friendly. Whatever that word meant.
He waggled his wings, almost inviting them to come closer, not trying to evade but keeping the Mosquito in a gentle turn. The fighters were only a few hundred yards away now. “What are they, Grant?”
“Yaks, sir. Yak-3, I think.”
“Damn.” He’d held on to some hope they might be one of the older models, or even a ground attack aircraft like the IL-2 Sturmovik. The Yak-3 was about the best fighter the Soviets had. Well-armed and powerful. A pure dogfighter. The certainty of German technological superiority had long ago died on the Eastern Front, and the Yak-3 had been the final nail in that casket.
It looked a lot like a Spitfire at three hundred yards, Durban thought, except for the huge red star on the tail. He had heard stories from pilots who had flown both. Some said the Soviet aircraft was the superior.
The lead Yak drifted even closer, following the Mosquito’s gentle turn to port. The pilot looked hardly young enough to shave, let alone fly a high-performance fighter. Durban could see the puzzled expression on his face, the way he looked at the Mosquito’s British markings in disbelief.
“Give him a wave, Johnny.”
Grant raised one hand. After a few seconds, the Yak pilot did the same, his mouth hanging open.
“I think he’s a friend,” Grant said.
“Where is his wingman?”
Grant twisted in his seat. “Above and behind. Four hundred yards.”
A perfect firing position.
The young Yak pilot’s face went cold, and he broke sharply to starboard.
Clearing the way.
“Jettison tanks,” Durban yelled.
He flung the Mosquito to starboard, following the lead Yak. A ripping sound drowned out the engines, like a chainsaw in his ears, but the sudden turn had caught out the trailing pilot. Instead of hitting a helpless Mosquito, his two Berezin autocannons sent streams of 20mm cannon shells into empty airspace. Grant, straining against his straps, sought to keep sight of the lethal fighter behind them. Durban fumbled for the wing tank jettison button, and the Mosquito gave a pleasing upward lurch as the dead weight of the drop tanks fell away. The controls felt a little lighter as he brought the nose swinging around until the lead Yak-3 hung in the centre of his armoured windscreen, four hundred yards ahead.
Good aircraft, Durban thought. Poor pilot. Probably expected his wingman to have already taken care of us. Too inexperienced to watch his six. His mistake.
He fired.
For an instant it seemed, ludicrously, like the drop tanks had dragged themselves back onto the wings, such was the braking power of the recoil from his four cannon and four machine guns. The Yak-3 broke apart, the same lightweight construction that made it so manoeuvrable now nothing more than flimsy. Wings and tail section spun away to the sides. The nose kept in a straight line, the weight of the engine taking it on an arcing path towards the waiting Vistula Lagoon with what remained of the pilot still strapped in behind it.
“Second Yak is on our tail,” Grant called.
Durban had already pulled hard on the controls, tipping the Mosquito into a banking shallow dive. It was too much to hope that both Yak pilots were fools, and they weren’t. The Yak followed, smaller and faster, already on them, like a shark harrying a whale.
A killer whale, Durban thought grimly, but that wouldn’t help at all if they couldn’t get the bastard off their tail. Tracers whipped through the air. Too high again. That error would soon be corrected.
“COMRADE,” he said into the radio. As if HQ needed more bad news.
“Two more bandits to the east,” Grant said. “Three miles.”
Durban took his word for it. The Yak three hundred yards behind him deserved all his attention. “All callsigns,” he called, “watch your sixes. Barton, take A Flight up to ten thousand feet and hold off the Soviets.”
“Roger,” Barton said.
More tracers. Compared to the Yak, the Mosquito was a big aircraft, and Durban suddenly felt every square foot and every pound of its mass. Not that their size would help much if they were hit. A single HE shell in the right spot would effortlessly spread them across the Lagoon that now waited only three hundred feet below.
He kept descending, twisting in his seat, watching the Yak as much as he did the looming waves, knowing they were going to die. There was an inevitability about it. The revelation did not surprise him.
It had always been inevitable. He had just hoped he could complete the mission first.
“Kittinger,” he said calmly, “keep watching for that signal. Take over the strike if I’m hit.”
A strangled groan burst from Grant’s lips.
Fifty feet now, heading towards the city again. No room left to manoeuvre. Just like the approach, the mission ending the same way it had started. He turned for one last look at the Yak.
It had gone.
Just a cloud of water hanging in the air in their wake.
“Splash one,” Barton said. The Australian didn’t conceal the smugness in his voice. “You’re welcome.”
“Thank you, Don,” Durban said. “Now get to ten thousand feet, like I ordered.”
“Yes, sir.” Alpha One pulled up into a tight climb, following the distant shapes of seven other Mosquitoes towards the clouds and the incoming Soviets.
A sound like air escaping from a punctured tyre hissed from Grant’s lips.
“You ok, Johnny?”
The young man nodded. The forced confidence of a man about to vomit.
“Bravo One to Colt Leader. Nothing seen yet.”
“DINGO,” Durban acknowledged, sending the message to London. Wondering if he sounded as hopeless as he felt. Climbing, he looked once again towards the warehouses. Too many to strike.
“There’s good visibility up here,” Barton said, sounding disappointed, “but the second pair of bandits appear to have turned and run. I guess they didn’t like the odds.”
“They will like them more when they come back with their friends,” Durban said. “Keep your eyes peeled.”
“Obviously,” Barton grumbled, and fell silent.
A Flight’s Mosquitoes had mostly vanished above the clouds, with just a single aircraft dimly visible through one of the scattered gaps in the grey coverage. Out to sea, Durban could make out the rest of B Flight, circling while they waited for a word that would never come. Bravo One remained loyally over the city, constantly changing altitude and heading, heedless of the occasional flak burst or stream of tracers that sought to end his vigil.
And still the warehouses waited. Pristine. Nondescript. There might as well have been a thousand of them. “I don’t suppose you see anything, Johnny?”
They had been lucky so far. Only one lost aircraft, just two letters to write. Right now, they could make it home, clear the target before more Soviet fighters arrived. If they ditched their bombs in the sea, they should have plenty of fuel.
“No, sir,” Grant said. A pause. “There’s not going to be a signal, is there?”
They could head home. All it would take was one word, aborting the mission, sending them all on their way back to England. No one else needed to die.
At least, not until Götterdämmerung did its work. But, he knew now with awful certainty, there was nothing 465 Squadron could do to prevent that.
“No,” Durban murmured, “I don’t believe there is.”
Chapter Forty-Two
