‘They’re chucking out stuff we don’t need. Making the plane lighter.’
One of the large fifty-gallon drums clanged noisily and a jet of fuel instantly spurted from a hole near the bottom.
‘Shit!’ shouted Hans. Their eyes met.
That could have been an end to us all.
Schröder looked up towards the entrance. American soldiers were streaming past the barricade and hunkering down behind the sandbags, firing towards the tents. None of them seemed to have turned towards the planes out on the strip yet. He looked to his left, down to the far end of the strip. He saw about twenty of them emerging from the treeline onto the open field. They were four, maybe five, hundred yards away, and from the hand gestures of the officer leading them, they intended to make their way up the strip towards them. He saw several wisps of blue smoke issue from their guns, and a moment later several dozen more bullets whistled by above them, most harmlessly inaccurate at this range. However, one of the large fuel drums was hit on the side, with a loud metallic clang; the bullet glancing off but producing a small shower of sparks. Schröder watched them flying lazily through the air, biting his lip with relief when the sparks winked out on the rain-moistened grass.
Another hit like that, and it was all going to go up.
‘I think now is probably a very good time for you boys to leave,’ he said to Stef and Hans. ‘You two better report back to Max.’
Both young men nodded eagerly, stood up the drum they’d been pouring fuel from and began to make their way back towards the B-17, ducking as more bullets whistled up from the far end of the landing strip.
Koch watched as one of his men, Dieter, took three hits in the chest and was thrown onto his back. His legs scissored in the mud beside the tarpaulin-covered crates as he struggled for breath. His other men dropped to the ground as still more bullets thudded into the crates and the ground around them.
Koch decided their little enclave of boxes of tinned food was good enough. ‘All right, that’ll do. Get your heads down,’ he shouted to the nine men with him. They scrambled across the ground, each finding a safe place behind one of the small stacks.
The enclave formed an arc of two- and three-crate piles around the fuel truck, like half of a mini Stonehenge. Each pile offered decent enough cover for one or two men lying down from the right side of the strip only. If the Americans were prepared to take their time and work their way across the landing strip to the left-hand side and then proceed up the strip towards them, Koch and his men would be successfully flanked, and their hard cover would be useless to them. For now, though, it seemed the Americans were prepared to continue the fight from behind the cover of the sandbags near the entrance and the comparative safety of the far end of the strip.
Koch stuck his head above his pile. He looked for Büller and his men. They were no longer near the entrance, and he hadn’t managed to see which way they had retreated. His other squad leader, Schöln, was curled up behind the next pile of crates along.
The young captain cupped his hands. ‘Schöln! Did you see where Büller and his men pulled back to?’
Schöln pointed towards the large canteen tent, and Koch looked for them amongst the mess: overturned wooden tables, the large iron urns, still steaming with tea and coffee, and the enormous catering pans and serving plates, now knocked to the ground, their contents of scrambled egg, bacon and sausages spread across the decked floor of the canteen. Amongst this chaos, he saw some movement and a tuft of blond hair.
Good man, Büller, excellent position.
From where they were, Büller and his boys would be able to keep the Americans further down the strip from advancing up towards the planes. It was open terrain, and they would be exposed to any fire coming from Büller’s squad and have no cover to dive behind.
The other main group of men by the sandbags near the entrance seemed in no hurry to move in on them either, content to lay down intermittent fire on Koch and his men, now safely tucked behind the crates.
Excellent. It seemed like a temporary stalemate that might last a few more minutes. That would be enough.
But then there were the GIs he’d seen spreading out to the right of the dirt track and heading into the dense foliage and bracken of the woods. They would surely soon emerge from the line of trees that bordered this end, the top, of the strip.
That damned treeline was dangerously close to the parked fighters and the fuel dump in the middle. With hindsight, Koch decided, it would have been smarter of Schöln’s squad to have driven the fuel truck halfway down the strip and left it there, along with the large fuel drums, well away from the treeline that surrounded the airstrip and any other covered positions that the Americans could use to their advantage. But then, the planes, particularly the American bomber, would still need to taxi up to this end of the strip to have enough running distance to get off the ground, the planes would still be vulnerable from shots coming out of the wood.
His thinking turned out to be timely.
From the trees he caught sight of flickering muzzle flashes and puffs of blue-tinged smoke. The bastards were aiming for the fuel drums.
A moment later one of the large fuel drums erupted. The gasoline-fuelled explosion set off the other large drums. Together they produced a large, bright orange mushroom cloud of flame that wafted lazily up into the sky, slowly turning to black smoke.
Max felt the explosion before he heard it; it was like a hot punch between his shoulders. He turned to see the flame cloud drift upwards. The ground where the drums had been was a sea of flames six or seven feet high, and, swimming through it, arms lashing out, he saw several men staggering to escape the flames.
Stef, Hans.
They’d both been handling one of the large drums.
He watched with horror as several men on fire from head to toe staggered around amidst the inferno before collapsing to their knees, and then with agonising slowness to the ground. He hoped they were dead at that point, rather than enduring the unimaginable agony any longer.
The last he had seen of his lads, they had been holding one of the large fuel drums. The blast would have killed them immediately.
He hoped.
He forced his mind to switch to practical matters. With Stef gone, he’d have to handle the navigation himself. He had undergone basic training for navigation, and had, as a matter of habit, always gone through the flight plan with his navigator before every sortie. The skills were a little rusty, but he could just about get them there. Stef had done the hard work finding their way to this small airfield.
Pieter would fly, and he would navigate. The mission could still be completed.
An image of Stef’s face, stretched and contorted by the heat, flickered across his mind. He screwed his eyes shut, pushing the image away. There were fifteen hours of flying time ahead of them. There’d be plenty of time to torment himself and grieve for those two later.
The sea of flames had spread towards several of the Me-109s. He watched as one of Schröder’s pilots scrambled up onto the wing of his plane and into the cockpit, as the flames licked hungrily underneath its belly. The pilot had managed to start up the engine and the plane had begun to roll forward, away from the fire, when it exploded. Two other planes followed suit and exploded in a chain reaction, one setting off the other.
The initial eruption had damaged several of the planes parked closest to the fuel drums, and with the other three destroyed, Max could only count four planes as yet undamaged. He feared, as he watched more of Schröder’s men succumb to the flames, that there were now even fewer pilots left than planes.
He heard Pieter calling out, he didn’t hear the words, but there was a distinct tone of relief in his usually gruff voice. Max loosened the last retaining bolt on the belly-gun blister and it clattered heavily to the ground. He emerged from beneath the bomber’s belly to see Stef and Hans loping across the grass, ducking low to avoid the bullets that passed over the top of Koch’s improvised defences.
He an
grily slapped them on their backs as they passed. ‘You two stupid bastards gave me a scare.’ He hastily gestured for them to get inside. ‘We’re leaving, we’ve got as much fuel as we need,’ he shouted, his voice struggling to compete with the deafening gunfight and the roar of the nearby fire.
He waited until Hans had scrambled up through the hatch and then stuck his head up inside. ‘Pieter!’ he shouted, his voice now beginning to sound hoarse, punished by the fumes of the smoke that was gathering around the plane. ‘Start the engines. I’ll be up in a second.’
He heard Stef shout, passing the message up to Pieter in the cockpit as he ducked back outside. He dropped down and made his way on all fours across to Koch’s position.
‘We’re going now,’ he shouted.
Koch turned round, his face a picture of overwhelming relief. ‘About bloody time.’
Max pointed down to the far end of the strip at the Americans who were spread out across it, currently laying down fire on Büller and his men holed up in the canteen. They were going to prevent any of them taking off with the promise of a devastating wall of small-arms fire on any plane stupid enough to rumble down the strip towards them.
‘I need them moved. They’ll shoot us to shreds before we can get off the ground.’
Koch looked down the strip. There were twenty to thirty of them spread out across it, most of them kneeling on the grass or prone. ‘I’m not sure how we can shift them. I’ve only got a few men left here . . . what am I supposed to do?’
‘They’ve got to be moved, we can’t take off otherwise.’
The young captain looked around. He had seven men here; amongst the overturned tables of the canteen there were a few more men; inside the hangar with the prisoners were perhaps a couple more. He looked back at Max; ready to shake his head and tell him it couldn’t be done when his eyes rested on the fuel truck.
Max followed his gaze. He could guess what the man was thinking. ‘Yes, good idea.’
‘You get your plane ready to go,’ said Koch.
Max held out his hand. ‘Thanks. You and your men have done us proud.’
‘Last skirmish of the war . . . wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Let’s just hope whatever it is you’re up to is worth it,’ Koch said, grabbing his hand.
‘It’ll win us the war.’
Koch’s eyes widened, and Max smiled reassuringly. ‘Trust me . . . this has been worth it.’
A volley of bullets peppered the ground near both men, and Max decided it was time to move. ‘We’ll turn, and then you’ll hear the engines rev up for take-off speed. That’s us ready to go.’
‘Understood. You’d better go now,’ Koch said, offering Max a hasty salute. Max returned the gesture and then headed back towards the bomber’s belly hatch at a sprint. He pulled himself up inside and clambered through the bombardier’s compartment to the cockpit.
‘What took you so bloody long?’ said Pieter.
Chapter 45
Mission Time: 6 Hours, 12 Minutes Elapsed
8.17 a.m., an airfield outside Nantes
Koch watched as the B-17’s engines roared to life and all four propellors began spinning. Almost immediately the plane began to roll forward on its wheels. It turned in a tight arc, around one hundred and eighty degrees, to face down the strip towards the GIs, who, even now, were getting ready to deliver a withering barrage of small-arms fire for the plane to hurl itself at.
Koch watched as three of the remaining, undamaged Me-109s began to move too. They pulled away from the flames, which had now subsided a little, and moved to one side to allow the bomber the room to manoeuvre.
He got to his feet and waited for a lull in the firing before scurrying across to Schöln’s stack of crates. He slid down beside him as Schöln finished off firing a clip to give him a little covering fire.
‘Lovely weather for it,’ he said, grinning at Koch.
‘I’m driving the fuel truck down towards those men,’ he said, pointing to the Americans at the bottom of the strip. ‘We need them moved before the planes can take off. Have you got any grenades?’
Schöln shook his head; he called out to the man on his right. ‘Erich . . . you got grenades?’ The man shook his head. ‘The captain needs grenades, pass it on.’ The man nodded and the message was passed down the line.
Koch could have kicked himself. On his orders, they had shed a lot of their heavier field equipment from the U-boat prior to climbing aboard the dinghies. He’d wanted them to travel light. They hadn’t been expecting this kind of action today. He’d ordered one or two of his men to keep hold of a couple, just to be on the safe side. He hoped that one of those men was here.
His luck was in, and a moment later he watched as several grenades were tossed gingerly from one man to the next until finally Schöln handed him three. ‘Is that enough, sir?’
Koch nodded. ‘That’ll do.’
The bomber had turned round and was now facing down the strip. He heard the engines rise in pitch, the pilot’s sign that they were ready to go.
‘Pass this along, I want you all to lay down covering fire on the sandbags while I go for the truck and start it off down the strip. It’s still half full of fuel, and enough shots on target by those bastards over there and it’ll go up like a torch,’ he said, pointing to the Americans by the sandbags, maintaining intermittent fire on them, keeping Koch and his men on the ground behind the crates.
‘Yes, sir, covering fire.’
The truck was only about thirty feet back from Schöln’s position; Koch decided it should be relatively easy to get to the driver’s cabin and start her up. Once the truck started rolling, the movement would attract everyone’s attention and it would quickly become the Americans’ favourite target. He hoped the covering fire would last long enough for him to drive the truck out of range of those bastards up at this end of the airfield.
‘Schöln . . . make sure you keep their heads down as long as possible so I can get the truck away, all right?’ The man nodded. ‘Use up your ammo if you have to, but keep it going as long as possible.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right . . . pass the order on.’
Schöln bellowed the instructions out to the other men nearby, while Koch took a moment to steady his nerves. Running for the truck would be nasty, but bearing down on the men at the far end of the strip in a vehicle still carrying several thousand gallons of aviation fuel while they all concentrated their fire at him . . . that was going to be even nastier.
‘We’re ready when you are, sir,’ said Schöln as he slid another magazine into his MP-40.
Koch slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Once the planes are up, the job’s done. You make sure you boys surrender, right?’
He nodded.
‘Fine. Then I’ll see you and Büller later.’ He got to his feet, crouching, waiting for a pause in the sporadic fire of the Americans. The pause came, and Koch rose quickly, sprinting towards the truck. He reached the door to the cabin only a few seconds later, having attracted no shots whatsoever.
Just you wait until this thing begins to move.
He tugged the door open and pulled himself up inside. Despite the half a dozen or so dents and bullet holes in the vehicle’s engine hood, she still started easily. He threw the truck into gear and the truck began its journey towards the far end of the strip.
‘He’s off!’ said Max.
‘What’s he going to do?’ asked Pieter, leaning forward in his seat to look down from the cockpit window.
‘I think the plan is to drive it down there and blow it up. If nothing else the smoke will hide us from them until it’s too late.’
‘Shit, we’re taking off through smoke? What if we hit something?’
Max shrugged. ‘There isn’t much else we can do.’
‘True.’
‘Let’s just get ready.’
Koch threw the truck into third gear and pushed the accelerator to the floor. The truck’s suspension bounced him up and down without mercy
as the wheels found the occasional dent and bump in the grass strip. Over the laboured whine of the engine he could hear the splashing of gasoline in the fuel tank behind the cabin. Ahead he could see the enemy soldiers pointing towards the truck, bringing their weapons to bear on him. Some of them started firing, but the range as yet was still far enough that most of the shots were off-target. With one hand, Koch pulled the three grenades out of the hip pocket of his camouflage jacket and laid them on the scuffed and torn leather of the passenger seat. He put the truck up another gear, and the whine of the engine dropped to an unforgiving moan that rose in pitch as he pushed the accelerator down again. The truck rolled over another small bump; its flaccid suspension bounced Koch out of his seat and the three grenades up into the air. Two landed back on the passenger seat, the third clattered onto the floor of the cabin. Ahead the Americans were now close enough to fire on him, and in well-trained unison, under the orders of an officer, they let rip.
Koch lay down on his side, still holding the steering wheel with one hand as the windscreen imploded and showered him with glass. He heard the engine hood and the radiator grill clang and shudder as a multitude of bullets began to shred the front of the vehicle. He stole a quick look over the dashboard. The men ahead of him were now the size of a thumb at arm’s length, no more than forty or fifty feet away.
Now’s as good a time as any.
With his knees he held the steering wheel, with his hands he grabbed one of the grenades, unscrewed the cap and grabbed hold of the fuse-string inside the handle.
Here we go.
He pulled on the string, and the grenade’s fuse commenced its ten-second burn. He dropped it on the passenger seat and reached for the handle on the driver-side door.
From where they were at the top of the strip, it looked like the truck was now almost amongst the soldiers at the bottom. Max wasn’t sure if the young captain had intended to blow the vehicle up or simply drive it through to distract them momentarily. If he’d intended to blow it up, Max thought, he’d have done it by now. Whatever his plan, he decided it would be best that they start their way down the strip now and take advantage of the distraction and confusion the truck was currently causing.