Operation Afterlight, page 32
No doubt. And no time to waste.
“Bravo One, take all Bravo callsigns. Get clear over the sea and then climb for home.”
“Roger, Colt Leader.” Kittinger needed no second invitation. His Mosquito peeled away and raced south, skirting the smoke-shrouded city, heading for England with the survivors of B Flight in his wake.
Durban kept his attention on the clouds above. With the bombs gone, the full power of twin Merlins powered them upwards. There were more smoke trails now. “Alpha One, what’s your status?”
“Not good,” Barton said. “Alpha Five bought it.”
Durban took a deep, shuddering breath. Another one lost. They had achieved success, but they hadn’t finished paying the price for it. “All Alpha callsigns, you are cleared to jettison your bombloads.”
“Already done, boss,” Barton said. “I gave the order the moment you called AFTERLIGHT.” There was an edge to his voice. Too late for Claiborne and Ball.
“Roger,” Durban said. “Disengage and head for home.”
“Not an option right now. They’re all over us up here.”
The radio net exploded in Durban’s ears. Loss, pain and absolute terror mingled into a single deafening shriek. It filled his ears, drowning out the sound of his straining engines.
“Get your bloody finger off the transmit button,” Barton yelled. The radio net fell silent.
Above them, the clouds parted. A burning mass of wood and metal rushed towards them. Durban tugged on the controls, ready to evade, but the Mosquito was already past them. The flames had already turned the wings and rear fuselage into a ball of flame. Now they had reached the cockpit, the men inside responding to Barton’s cry for discipline, even in their dying agony.
“Machin and Tucker are gone,” Barton said.
To Durban’s right, Grant flinched. His face looked drawn with exhaustion and pain, the front of his overalls spattered with watery vomit, eyes welling with tears. But he kept his gaze not on the plummeting wreckage but on the sky, gaze roaming, searching for fighters. Good lad.
Visibility shrank to nothing as they passed through the clouds, raindrops briefly plastering the windscreen before being carried away in the rushing air. Then they were through and into the blue sky above. Durban blinked against the sudden sunlight.
Utter carnage awaited.
All was confusion. Aircraft of three air forces darted about the sky at full pace, weaving and diving as the dogfight spread out to cover several thousand feet of altitude. In less than five seconds, Durban counted twenty aircraft. The four remaining twin-engine Mosquitoes were obvious, bigger than their enemies but just as fast and deadly.
Less than two thousand yards ahead, a Yak dropped onto the tail of a Mosquito, but before Durban could even radio a warning the grey, square wing tipped shape of a Messerschmitt Bf-109G closed in its turn on the Yak, sending lines of tracers smashing into the Russian’s tail and cockpit. The Yak rolled over and dropped towards the waiting clouds, a single thin stream of oil hanging wormlike behind it.
“Barton, get your people below the cloud and head for home,” Durban said, turning behind the 109G. “I’ll cover for you.”
The German pilot had made the fatal error common to so many new pilots, flying straight and level to admire his success rather than immediately evading in case of pursuit. At max power, Durban needed only a second to judge the lead on the 109 and fire a brief burst. The Mosquito’s heavy shells did the rest, breaking the 109 in half behind the wings.
He didn’t make the same mistake as the German. Instead, he already had the Mosquito in a tight turn without waiting to see, or even caring, if the enemy pilot wrestled his way out of his stricken aircraft. Instantly spotting a Yak turning away from them, he fired again. The Gods of War clearly had his back. At least one of his speculative shots dinged the underbelly of the Soviet fighter. A puff of smoke hung in the air behind the Yak as it flew on. Then, with startling ferocity, flames engulfed it from nose to tail.
Behind them, a dark shape dropped into place. He twisted to get a better look at it and saw relief on Grant’s face. “Looks like we picked up a shadow, sir,” he said.
“Ready when you are, Colt Leader,” Barton said, his Mosquito falling into place on their wing.
“Johnny, plot us a course for home,” Durban said. “Alpha One, we’re going home. Try to keep up.”
They dived at full speed for the cover of the clouds. A mile ahead and two thousand feet below, the three other surviving Mosquitoes of A Flight were already well on their way to the coast, avoiding the stricken city of Pillau while they headed for the sun that was rapidly sliding towards the Baltic Sea.
His neck ached from all the twisting, and Durban winced as he checked behind them. “Looks like our German and Soviet friends are too busy killing each other to think about chasing us,” he said, feeling a surge of satisfaction. The guilt would come later, when he sat down to write the letters to families. Five aircraft, ten good men. A heavy price. “How’s that course coming, Johnny?”
Grant said nothing.
“Johnny?”
The navigator jumped as if suddenly woken. “Sorry, sir. I was thinking about Stahl.”
Eleven men, Durban reminded himself. Eleven good men had died today. “I know, Johnny,” he said. “But I need that course.”
“He was just sitting there.”
“He chose this, Johnny. He knew what he was doing.”
“I don’t, sir. What was he pointing at?”
Durban remembered the peaceful composure on Stahl’s face as the bombs fell. He could have been sleeping, but for the outstretched arm. Pointing the way across the bay, towards the waiting grey shape…
“The bloody U-78,” he said, cursing himself. In the exultation of striking the primary and the urgent need to support the beleaguered A Flight, he had forgotten it. Bloody fool. Too busy congratulating himself to realise the mission was not over. “How is our fuel state?”
“Not great,” Grant said. “We used a lot in the climb and dogfight.”
“Can we make it home?”
“Yes, sir. But only if we go now.”
Something about Grant’s voice made him think of another navigator, another night.
I’m sorry, Clive.
Durban looked down at the instruments, at the controls in his hands, at the burning city of Pillau already slipping past them beyond their starboard wingtip. Ahead lay the Baltic Sea and the way home. A gentle climb, cruise power at maximum altitude, and they could slip unmolested across the top of Denmark, protected by their speed and the darkness of the approaching night.
But only if they had the fuel.
“Understood,” Durban said. “Give me the course.”
“Sir?”
“What?”
“We can’t leave yet. Not without the U-78.” He paused. “That’s what Stahl would have wanted.”
Durban wanted to shout at him that Stahl was dead, just like Clive Lampeter. That he didn’t want to write any letters to the family of John Grant in Barbados. That he’d already killed one navigator by fighting when he should have run, and he would not kill another. But a stronger emotion overwhelmed his anger.
“Thank you, Johnny,” he said, and hurled the Mosquito into a turn to the north.
Barton followed. “Where are you off to, boss?”
“The submarine,” Durban said. “Head for home, Don.”
The Australian’s Mosquito kept pace with them. “Not a chance. You don’t have any bombs.”
“Neither do you. I ordered you to jettison them.”
“You ordered A Flight to jettison them. Me? I never trust a Pom to do an Aussie’s job.”
Bloody Australians. “Fine,” Durban snapped. “We don’t have the fuel left to mess around, so we’re going to do this fast and first time. I’ll go first and see if I can draw off some of the flak for you.”
“Wait,” Grant said, “what?”
“You sink the thing and we’ll go home. Got it?”
“Piece of cake,” Barton said.
The flak crews had every reason to believe that the raid was over. Perhaps that was why it took them several seconds to man their weapons again. Durban pulled out of his dive two hundred feet above the water and was already halfway to the target before the first gun opened fire. In an instant, all other guns followed suit, and the sky ahead vanished in a blur of smoke and tracer, almost blotting out the sight of the submarine, no longer at the dock where they had left it but heading across the harbour towards the deep access channel out to the sea.
“They’re diving,” Grant said.
Durban’s teeth clenched painfully. The navigator was right. Already the body of the submarine was below the surface, with only the sleek shape of the conning tower left to betray it. Another minute and they would be gone, concealed within the protective depths of the sea, off to South America or wherever men who had just perpetrated the greatest evil in human history would retire.
465 Squadron had already stopped the evil. One last task to be accomplished.
Ignoring the flak and the sound of shrapnel peppering the airframe, Durban lined up his sights and fired. Shells stitched a line across the water’s surface, then converged on the tower. He saw the sparks of metal on metal.
The submarine kept descending, the conning tower seeming to melt into a bubbling white froth.
“Hold on,” he shouted, banking low across the water, his wingtip barely above the surface, so that he could see how every gun in the harbour followed them. All their focus was on him.
None was on Barton.
As Durban watched, the second Mosquito released its two bombs. They plunged into the water, straddling the submarine.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the water exploded up in two columns as hundreds of pounds of Amatol detonated. Trapped between the hydraulic shock of both blasts, the U-78 stood little chance. Intensified by the weight of the water, the expanding shockwave struck the hull. It didn’t collapse it – they were too close to the surface for that, and the water pressure not enough – but something towards the rear must have given way. Not by much. Not enough to let a human being swim to safety. Just enough to let tens of tons of sea water break in.
As the Mosquitoes climbed to safety, already leaving behind the swarm of shells that followed them like enraged wasps, Durban managed a last glance back at the submarine. The conning tower lurched backwards, the bow breaking the surface again as water flooded into the rear compartment, bubbling the surface with escaping air. Then fuel, spreading in a dark smear.
The U-78 disappeared into the ice-cold water of Pillau harbour, a fitting tomb for the terrified scientists drowning within her unyielding shell.
“BATHTUB,” Durban said into his radio, unable to hold back the smile that crossed his face. They turned west, still climbing. “How about that course, Johnny?”
Grant stared at the fuel gauge. Then, slowly, he turned to Durban and shook his head.
Durban sighed. “Understood.” He thumbed his R/T switch. “Barton, it seems I’ve left us a little short of juice. Why don’t you head home and run the debrief for me?”
“Ah, Kittens will handle it,” the Australian said. “He isn’t too bad at his job, for a Kiwi. Besides, Finny here just told me we don’t have enough fuel to get back either. What’s that, Finny? You liar. You’ll never believe this, boss, but my rotten bloody navigator claims he told me that ten minutes ago. Fancy swapping? I’ll trade him for Grant.”
“No chance,” Durban said, looking at Grant. The youngster seemed barely awake now. Durban kept the R/T open. “You okay, Johnny?”
“Yeah, sir. Just a little tired.”
“I’ll bet.” With a gentle nudge of the controls, he turned them northwest. He didn’t need a map for that. “Don’t worry. You’ll get plenty of sleep in Sweden.”
“Sweden?”
Barton’s laugh filled their headphones. “I always wanted to go to Sweden. I hear it’s lovely this time of year.”
“Let’s find out,” Durban said, reaching out to squeeze Grant’s shoulder.
Behind them, in the onrushing gloom of the coming night, the still blazing funeral pyre of Götterdämmerung cast a pale glow over the still waters of the harbour.
Epilogue
Staverton St Mary, 8 May 1945
Someone was torturing the piano, filling the room with a discordant sound that could only be loosely described as music, but no one seemed to mind. The King’s Ransom was full, Germany had surrendered, and the party was in full flow.
Kittens met them at the door, shaking their hands. Anita gave Grant a hug, kissing him on the cheek before showing him the engagement ring on her hand and bursting into tears. That seemed only to draw the attention of everyone else, and with it a bombardment of cheers and handshakes and enough slaps on the back that they propelled Grant to the bar whether he liked it or not.
“Johnny Grant,” May shouted, abandoning a pint mid-pour to bustle over to him. She leaned over the bar, clasped her chilly hands around his face and kissed him full on the lips. “Don’t get any ideas, young man,” she admonished him. “I’m greeting everyone like that tonight.”
“I promised I’d come, May,” Grant said, struggling to raise his voice above the tumult. “I promised I’d come the night the war ended.”
“And you’re late,” she said. “Where have you been until now?”
“Sweden.”
“In Wiltshire?”
He didn’t know quite how to answer that, but suddenly Finny was there with his arm around Grant’s shoulders, Barton watching on with an avuncular grin.
“Oi, May,” Finny demanded, “where’s my kiss?”
“In your dreams, David Finnegan. What can I get you, lads?”
“Four beers please, May,” Grant said.
“Better make it eight, Johnny,” Barton said. “By the looks of it, we’re playing catchup.”
As if to prove the point, Hick appeared, drenched in spilt beer. With a gleeful roar, the huge Rhodesian swept Grant up in a big bear hug, then dropped him and repeated the same feat for the startled Finny. He might have gone for the hat-trick, but Barton simply stared at him. “Squadron Leader Barton, sir,” Hick mumbled, and stumbled off into the crowd.
Barton shook his head. “Where’s Andy got to?”
Grant picked up two pints and scanned the pub. Durban had been with them when they came through the door. He’d been a different man in Sweden, confident and carefree, first overawing the soldiers who had arrested them at Stockholm-Bromma Flygplats and then charming the nurses who had given them their medical examinations. Only as they left the DC-3 that had brought them home and drove through the Norfolk countryside from RAF Northolt had he become withdrawn.
He could guess why.
“I’m not sure, sir,” he lied.
“Well, go find him, mate,” Barton said, reaching out to tousle Grant’s hair. “Before his beer gets warm.”
Edging his way between half a dozen aircrew and locals, Grant passed through the archway towards the common room at the back, where the piano lurked. No sign of Durban, but Danny Bramante bore the guilt for the brutalising of the piano; his navigator, Gardiner, was doing his best to drown out the music with a falsetto rendition of some or other Vera Lynn song. Plenty seemed to enjoy it enough to join in. Nurse Claire, her cheeks flushed with joy and eyes glistening with tears, broke off her singing long enough to embrace Johnny. She gave him a friendly wet kiss on each cheek, followed it up with a more than friendly squeeze of the backside, then instantly forgot him as Bramante began a new tune.
Grant looked down at his uniform, flown out especially by the crew of the DC-3. It was damp with spilt beer. He doubted he was the only one.
A thin hand took his and shook it, and Grant looked up into the face of Bony Wright. They didn’t quite see eye to eye. Bony’s eyes were far too blurred and off focus for that. “Welcome back, Johnny, welcome back,” Bony said.
“Thanks,” Grant said. “Have you seen the Wing Commander?”
Bony burped. “He’s outside, I think. Look, would you be a chap and give him this?” He clumsily pushed a folded piece of paper into Johnny’s shirt pocket. “I was supposed to give it to him myself, but…” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve had a drink, Johnny.”
“No worries, Bony,” Grant said. “I’ll handle it.”
Bony shook his head, blinking. “Handle what?” Eyes almost rolling into the back of his head, he reeled off towards the piano.
Grant reached the double doors that led outside into the beer garden.
Durban was there, a cigarette in his hand. He was not alone.
“Sorry, Ma’am,” Grant said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“That’s ok, Johnny,” Sarah Lane said with a smile. “It’s good to see you, too.”
“Here’s your pint, sir.”
“You should be thrilled to see her,” Durban said, taking the glass. “Without her pulling some strings at SOE, we’d still be waiting to be repatriated with the other internees.”
“That was you, Ma’am?”
“It wasn’t as hard as you’d think,” she said. “We’ve worked with Swedish Intelligence on and off for years. Between their newfound fear of the Soviets and Prime Minister Hansson’s desire to ingratiate himself with the victorious Allies, neutral Sweden is far less neutral than it might appear.”
“Johnny,” Durban said, “would you mind giving us a minute?”
“Of course, sir.” Grant paused. “It was good to see you, Ma’am.”
She smiled again. “Take care of yourself, Johnny.”
With a respectful nod to the Wing Commander, he pushed open the doors. The party hadn’t subsided a jot. It was louder and more crowded than ever. Half the squadron clustered around the piano now. Barton had shoved Bramante aside and was proving to be a far, far better player. Kittens and Anita stood arm-in-arm, her head on his shoulder, watching Claire with amusement as she exchanged a passionate kiss with Finny. The New Zealander saw Grant and gave him a fond smile.
