The Military Megapack, page 50
Illvers threw the right, and Meader was measuring it, fading away from it and sliding in fast. He hooked a left to Illvers’ belly, and then he was brilliant with a right to the eye and another right to the eye and then a left to the mouth and a right to the jaw.
And then he straightened Illvers with another right to the jaw, while he drew his left arm back, as if he was reaching for a sack of flour. And he brought the left around, somewhat in an overhand punch that crunched against Illvers’ chin and knocked him unconscious.
They were coming from the lounge. They were running toward Illvers. They were looking at Illvers and they were looking up at Meader, but they were not saying anything. Someone went to get water for Illvers.
Meader was wiping the side of his mouth and looking at the blood on his palm. He saw Flight Lieutenant Limm-Gawes moving toward him.
“Too bad,” Limm-Gawes said.
“Rather.” Meader pulled a hand across his mouth, looked again at the blood on his palm.
“Perhaps you ought to go to the infirmary.”
“Oh, it’s all right.”
“I’m sorry, Meader,” the flight lieutenant said. He waited for a reply. When he didn’t get it, he said, “I hope you are, too.”
“Not entirely,” Meader said. He speared coldness from his eyes and turned and walked quickly down the corridor. He went up to his room and closed the door. He washed out his mouth with cold water. He put a few strips of tape across the knuckles of his right hand. He drank a glass of cold water and then he grabbed an engineering textbook and spent almost an hour reading and figuring out several problems. He stood up and took another drink of cold water. He lit a cigarette. He left his room and walked downstairs and down the corridor and saw the thin border of light around the door of Bersbee’s room. He knocked on the door. He waited, then knocked again. He waited. He knocked again and waited again and then he turned the knob and opened the door and walked in.
Bersbee was sitting at a table. His back was to the door. A light glowed over the table. One side of the table was stacked with papers. As Meader walked slowly toward the table he could see numbers and symbols and diagrams on the papers. Clustered about the table were drawing instruments, a slide rule, a textbook on higher mathematics, a work on logic, a pamphlet headed, “The Philosophy of Statistics.”
And coming closer, almost leaning over Bersbee’s shoulder, Meader could see that the man was working on a problem that started out with a trigonometric diagram but then veered into an involved progression of equations and formulas that he could not understand.
He said, “What do you call this?”
* * * *
Bersbee shuddered, then whirled. He saw Meader, standing there, and he backed away, as if he were shocked and frightened. Then he stood up, and his face was white. He said, “Get out of here.”
“I want to talk to you,” Meader said.
“I’m busy,” Bersbee said. He shook his head, and then put his head in his hands. He raised his head and said, “Get out, get out.”
“I want to talk to you,” Meader said.
“What do you want?” Bersbee was quivering. His face was now very white. He sat down and leaned an arm against the table and murmured, “What is it? What is it that you want?”
Meader nodded toward the table. “Explain that,” he said.
Bersbee looked at the table, then at Meader. His eyes bulged for an instant, as if a great rage was working upon him. Then he was weak, and his shoulders were slumped, and wearily he said, “I can’t explain it to you — nor to anyone else around here.”
“Just why?”
“You’d never be able to understand me. You don’t know enough mathematics. Look, I want you to get out of here — now.”
Meader said, “Your flight tactics — all of them — they’re based on these plans?” He pointed to the papers on the table.
“Get out of here.”
“Based on statistics,” Meader said. “And then you apply your conclusions to mathematical deduction. And somewhere along the line you manage to fit in a bit of psychology. Stimulus and reaction. You go into a vertical left turn. and you know just what the enemy will do. And therefore you immediately know your next offensive move.”
“Get out!”
“You do most of your fighting up in this room, with the slide rule and the books and your brain. The rest is easy. You don’t take any chances. You’ve got this thing figured out to a point where it’s almost impossible for Jerry to hit you. Do you realize what that means? Do you realize what a wonderful thing it would be if you could teach this stuff to the rest of us?”
“You’re talking like a fool.” Bersbee was quivering and trying to light a cigarette. “Why did you have to come in here? Why did you have to —”
“You can’t keep this to yourself any longer,” Meader said. “You’ve got to explain it to the rest of us.”
“No, I can’t do that. It gets more involved every day. If you know anything at all about statistics and higher mathematics you’ll realize that the deeper I get, the more difficult my problem becomes. As soon as I arrive at a solution, another one, twice as complex, comes up. It’s getting so that I can scarcely understand it myself. It’s getting so that the whole thing is becoming a carousel, going around faster, faster, too fast for me. I want to get out of this. I want to get out. Maybe if I’d stopped a month ago, or two, or three, it would have been all right, and I could have explained my findings to the rest of you chaps. But now it’s impossible. I don’t know what I discovered two months ago. I’m always going forward, getting deeper and deeper. That’s why I — I can’t sleep, I can’t even taste what I eat. I — I’m getting so that I —”
“Steady on,” Meader said. He quickly lit the cigarette that Bersbee was trying to light. He put it between Bersbee’s lips. Bersbee took a long drag and tried hard. But the cigarette was falling from his shivering lips and he looked at the cigarette on the floor and then he let his head fall into his arms. The slide rule and a lot of papers were falling to the floor. Bersbee was weeping convulsively.
“This is my fault,” Meader said. “They told me to leave you alone.” He turned and walked to the door. He looked at Bersbee, who was weeping, who pounded his fists against the table-top, who blindly reached for the papers and the books. And then Bersbee was crunching the papers and the books, tearing, ripping, throwing the scraps from him, bringing his head into his arms, weeping in long, hoarse gasps that became longer, hoarser, until he was like a child who purposely tries to cry so hard that he won’t be able to catch his breath. At the end of a choking gasp he raised his head and looked at Meader. But it was as if he was seeing nothing, and once again his head went down against the table-top and he was weeping.
“They told me to leave him alone,” Meader murmured. He started to open the door. He was telling himself that his stubbornness, his dogged individuality, had been to blame for all this. He was telling himself that he would have to make it up to Bersbee. He started to go out of the room. He turned, wondering why he turned, wondering why he was walking back toward the table, not listening to Bersbee, not looking at Bersbee, but looking at those papers not yet born. He was gathering them up. He was taking the books, the pamphlet. He was at the door again. Bersbee was weeping loudly. Meader didn’t hear him. Meader was thinking about the statistics and the higher mathematics and the application of certain formulas to aerial combat maneuvers. He was hurrying upstairs to his room.
* * * *
In the Dispersal Hut the adjutant answered the telephone call. It was from Fighter Command Headquarters. Luckerson was watching the frown on the adjutant’s face. Luckerson was flipping his cigarette to the floor and treading on it. Hackedorn was getting up from a soft chair and adjusting his lifebelt. Bersbee threw away an unlit cigarette. Bensing muttered a short prayer that he always muttered when he saw the frown come to the adjutant’s face. Illvers stood up. Litchington stood up. Meader stood up.
The adjutant put down the phone and said, “It’s a scramble.”
They were out of the Hut, running across the field. The signal had already reached the ground crews, and motors were whining. Meader was tightening the chin-strap of his helmet and as he climbed into the Hurricane he turned and looked toward his right, toward Bersbee’s plane. Bersbee was hesitating. He was slow in putting on his helmet. Meader was thinking of what had happened last night. He was telling himself not to think about it. He saw Bersbee climbing into the plane. He was telling himself that it would be all right. Everything would be all right.
He closed the glass cockpit roof, and then he was sending the Hurricane across grass, sliding into a crosswind take-off. As he pointed into steep climb, the earphones inside his helmet were buzzing, and he heard, “Eleven Heinkel mediums, escorted by twenty-plus Messerschmitts, approaching Portsmouth — height 16,000 feet — your vector 140 — bend it 30 right.”
And then Limm-Gawes’ voice was crackling the code words. The squadron widened out in echelon, reached 10,000 feet and kicked up past the 300 miles-per mark, continued to pick up. Meader was hunched, rigid for a minute, relaxed for a minute, rigid again, then completely relaxed as he remembered the first formula he had worked out from the papers.
The seven Hurricanes reached 20,000, closed into V formation, and then started to slant downward. They came up again, went over the 20,000 mark, and then Meader could see the enemy planes. In the grey blankness that was Portsmouth he could see smoke. He could see points of fire.
Limm-Gawes was flipping the final directions. Then he was saying, “Tallyho!” and it was every man for himself.
The Englishman went down in vicious, spearing dive, cutting through the Nazi formation, ignoring the frenzied underside bursts offered by the Messerschmitts that tried to form a protective sheet above the Heinkel bombers. The Hurricanes pulled out of the dive, broke through again, regained their altitude advantage, and repeated on the dive. A bomber was going down. A Messerschmitts was going down. A bomber was wallowing like a sick whale. It was in flames and it was going down. Another Messerschmitt was going down. A Hurricane was going down.
Meader peeled off from two Messerschmitts and fell on the tail of a Heinkel. He got swastika in his sights and he punched the gun-button, saw the eight lines of flame searing into the rudder, the tail assembly. He sneaked in closer, jumped slightly, and when he came down this time he found the cockpit of the Heinkel. The German plane went into a spin and Meader peeled off again from the two Messerschmitts, who were very hungry for him.
He feinted a dive, carved it into a loop, and as he came up, he saw the Messerschmitts change course and lunge for a Hurricane that was alone, over to the left.
It was Bersbee.
The Nazi planes spread wide.
Meader watched. He was telling himself that he wouldn’t have to go down there. Bersbee could handle this. He wouldn’t have to go down there, because Bersbee had a formula for this sort of thing, and interference would be a hindrance rather than an aid. Interference would spoil the beauty of the thing. He wanted to see how Bersbee was going to handle it. A triangle was in motion, with two points closing in upon the third. The situation was now in the stage of A, and rapidly advanced to the stage of D. Meader was remembering the formula, telling himself that now Bersbee would work it back to the stage of B, feint to the right, attack on the left, continue the attack to bring the situation to a stage of G.
But Bersbee wasn’t working it that way. He was making a mistake. Either that, or he had new ideas. He was in a dive, and his defensive tactics were frantic and poorly timed. Like a novice he was pulling out too soon — he was pulling out much too soon.
“Wait — wait —” Meader leaned forward, aimed his Hurricane toward the German planes that now lunged at Bersbee.
They had Bersbee. They were pitching bullets into him. He was crippled. He was twisting. He was smoking, and the Hurricane was whistling and trying to stay up there. Flames were crawling over it.
“Jump,” Meader said. “Why don’t you jump?”
Even as he said that, he knew that Bersbee would not jump. He watched the ignited plane sizzling toward earth, and then he saw that the two Messerschmitts had joined with a third, and were converging on Illvers, over to the right. He waited — waited until they were in the position that called for him to work the third formula he had learned from Bersbee’s papers.
The Germans had Illvers in a trap when Meader sliced through, placing the situation in the stage of E.
In the lounge of the Officers’ Mess, Bensing was placing a new needle in the phonograph.
Illvers and Litchington were talking to one of the new men. Illvers leaned forward earnestly, gestured with his silver tankard, still full, although the beer had been poured five minutes ago. The new man was nodding slowly as Illvers said, “You understand now? You understand why we want you to steer clear of him? You see, he’s got to be left alone. He’s just got to be left alone. Not a single question. Not even a hello, unless he says it first. He’s downed 31 planes. He’s saved Limm-Gawes. He’s saved Hackedorn, and Bensing. He’s saved me three times. Did you hear that? Three times. I’d die for him. Any of us would. And the least we can do is to see that he’s left alone. I realize that this sort of thing is somewhat out of bounds, but I do hope you’ll be decent about it and if —”
The phonograph whined once and was quiet. Hackedorn was quiet. Illvers was quiet, looking at his beer and then drinking it. Someone got out of a soft dark green leather chair, moved away quickly.
The room was very quiet as Meader walked toward the chair.
KILLER ACE, by David Goodis
The German plane came hurtling out of the sky like a pain-crazed eagle. Trigger fingers jabbed death-filled lead through the air four thousand feet up. Von Krim’s mouth twisted in a devilish grin. He looked like Satan himself as he dove for the Englishman’s tail, traced a pattern of dots up the fuselage, and then shrieked in eerie delight as that death-line reached the cockpit. The English pilot slumped down in his seat, his brain riddled by bullets.
But a moment later von Krim’s grin faded. There was a determined note in the whining, buzzing Spitfire behind him. He twisted uneasily in his cockpit, turned his head—and saw crimson flames spurt from the guns in the ship fifty yards away. He felt the slugs whistle by his cheek. He ducked low, and dove.
The Englishman dove also. Von Krim banked. The Englishman did likewise. Then the Hun went into another dive, twisted sharply and rolled out, zooming up and above the Englishman. Then he came down on him almost vertically, his guns barking.
Von Krim’s screech blended with the sound of his guns, as he saw the second English boy go down—dying a death of horror in a flame-filled plane.
Then the German waved his arm, and signaled the three remaining Boche to head for home. But the two Englishmen—the only two remaining out of the original seven who had started out that morning—had other ideas about the matter.
They were fighting like madmen. The tears in their eyes were not tears of fright or horror. They were tears of sorrow, tears of rage, tears of vengeance. But the English flyers needed more than sobs to combat the ruthless von Krim and his squadron of devils.
The English planes were fast, but they weren’t as fast as the Messerschmitts used by von Krim and his flying hellions.
That fact proved itself in the next few moments. One by one, in quick succession, the Boche took their chances on the two English flyers. It was four against two now. Grinning like a madman set for the kill, von Krim zoomed his ship to gain more altitude. Then he aimed his ship as if it was an arrow, and dove like a bullet at the first of the now faltering Spitfires. The outcome of the battle was decided.
For the Nazi now repeated what he had done exactly thirty-three times before. He sent snarling slugs of death into that ship, and then soared upward. His screech of triumph carried over and above the angry roar of the motor.
But there was one Englishman left—an Englishman only because of the outfit he flew for. Dane Kern was as American as ham and eggs. He had been studying at Oxford when the war broke out—had been there as a student of advanced physics. And because he was scientifically minded, planes fascinated him. He had joined the Royal Air Force not so much because of a love for the British, but because the war would give him a chance to play around with planes. He knew his ships, he knew his flight and attack methods—and most important of all—he had guts. And he was showing that now to the German pilots.
Kern acted the coward on purpose. He wanted them to think he was grounding the plane, giving up the fight. He kept on losing altitude. Then he looked up to see a Boche slowly gaining on him, saw the German signal him to ground. He pictured the Nazi’s face wreathed in smug triumph.
“Oh yeah?” he muttered grimly, and zoomed his ship up like a streak, made a complete loop and came down hard and fast on the German’s tail. Both his guns barked their message of death. The Boche never knew what happened. He dove a hundred feet to the ground, and when he spilled out of the cockpit he was a corpse.
That was all Kern wanted. That one last German. He knew he wouldn’t have a chance with the three others, particularly when von Krim was one of those three. So now he streaked for home, even as the Boche flyers started down after him.
They chased, grim determination in their eyes. Looking back, Kern figured that he was about done. They were gaining on him too fast. But suddenly the ground artillery began hurling shells at the Boche as they passed over the English coastline. Von Krim had a special dislike for Archies. He signaled his men home.…
The commander and the adjutant and the rest of the men were waiting for him on the home tarmac. Dane Kern couldn’t see their faces but he knew what expressions those faces held. He was coming back alone. Seven had gone out that morning and only one was coming back.
If this had been the first time, it wouldn’t have been so tragic. But this was just a repetition of what was happening to Commander Russell’s flyers day after day. It wasn’t even a fight anymore. It was a slaughter.
