A Future Arrived (41 page)

“Bloody hell,” Jolly swore.

Derek shifted his position, boosting the engine to come up on Jolly's right side and slightly back.

“Let's go down, Green Two … take a look-see.”

“Righto, skipper.”

They dived as one back into the clouds. Derek watched his instruments, seeing nothing through the windshield except gray vapor that turned darker the deeper they flew into it. Eight thousand feet … seven … five … the airspeed indicator needle quivering close to four hundred.

“Level off at three zero, Green Two.”

He pulled out of the dive at three thousand feet in thick sheets of scudding cloud. The sea and obscured patches of coastline below. Not a sign of Jolly Rodgers, only his voice in his ear over the R.T.

“Where the hell are you, Green Two?”

“Over the drink, Skipper. Herne Bay below me … I think.”

“Then you're off course. Blast it to hell.”

A weary acceptance in Jolly's voice. There was always something going wrong in the squadron's vintage Hurricanes. All the new models had been shipped over to France. The Auxiliaries were stuck with the ones that had been issued in the summer of 1939. A leak in Barratt's glycol lines … and now a compass out of whack. It would have been all right if he hadn't lost the leader in the clouds. On his own unless he could spot him. He eased the stick forward and dropped to twenty-five hundred feet. Visibility less than two miles. Not a hope. He eased the plane down to a few hundred feet over the sea. Clearer there … five miles at least, but no sight of Jolly. He kept the coast of Sheppey Island to his left and streaked toward the mouth of the Thames.

The Heinkel III was a surprise. All he saw of it was a shimmer of sunlight off its bulbous glass greenhouse of a nose. The rest of the big twin-engine bomber seemed to blend into the haze. They came at each other on a collision course at a combined speed of over six hundred miles an hour. He yanked back hard on the stick and shot up and over it, feeling the blood drain from his head and his jaw drag down, cutting into the chinstrap of his helmet.

“Green Two to Green Leader,” he said thickly. “Bandit … am chasing.”

“Shoot the bugger.”

He rolled up and over and leveled out close to the water. The Heinkel was a long way ahead of him … a speck heading toward Margate. He slammed the throttle through the seals and the big engine howled at full revs, pushing him hard against the back of the seat as the plane surged ahead. He turned the firing button from safety and switched on the gunsight. “In pursuit now, Skipper … five miles off Margate … heading almost due east … compass going crazy.”

“Good hunting,” said Jolly Rodgers sadly, far away off Sheerness.

He was gaining rapidly on the bomber now. Two miles … a mile. The German's flight seemed leisurely. Was it possible the pilot had not even noticed the near collision? It had all taken place so quickly … a flash out of the mist. Or if he had been aware, perhaps he thought the fighter was miles behind him. He nursed stick and rudder, dropping so close to the sea that the prop was kicking spray behind him. But he was slightly below the Heinkel and to its left. Be difficult for the ventral gunner to spot him and he had the sun behind him, a pallid disk in the west.

Nine hundred yards. Too far. He wanted the fuselage and the engines fully within the lines reflected on the windshield. Four hundred yards minimum. Coming up too fast now with the engine on full boost. Ease off the throttle. Jig right … whip in on the beam. Now! He pressed the firing button and felt all eight guns shudder, the recoil slowing the plane, a stench of cordite drifting up from the wing roots. The tracer hosed under the belly of the bomber, well forward. Clean miss. He pulled back on the controls and zoomed over, catching a fleeting glimpse of a pale face staring at him from the teardrop bubble of the top gunner's position. He rolled and came around for a frontal approach. They were firing now, the streams of orange smoke slashing around him. The Hurricane shuddered and he could hear the snap of metal and wood, the shriek of wind across ripped fabric. The right engine and the bomber's nose filled the sights and he jammed his finger on the button and saw his fire thudding home. Chunks of plastic from the nose whipped away, boiling off in the windstream. Control column hard into his stomach—up and over in a gut-wrenching climbing turn to the right. When he leveled off, the Heinkel was below and ahead of him, staggering now, weaving back and forth with black muck vomiting from the right engine. He closed and gave it another long burst, holding his thumb down until he could hear the hiss of compressed air and the clank of empty guns. The bomber dipped its shattered nose to the sea and slammed into it, raising a geyser that slapped salt water against the windshield as the Hurricane swept through it, turning toward the coast and home.

S
QUADRON
L
EADER
P
OWELL
, a well-known barrister in civilian life, smiled broadly as he hung up the phone. “Impeccable confirmation, Ramsay. The Margate lifeboat crew went out to the spot but there were no survivors. Congratulations. You bagged the squadron's first kill. I'll see that you get another ring on your sleeve for it. And Sergeant Cooper tells me your crate's a writeoff. It's a wonder your left wing didn't fall off on the way back. Someone on that Hun crew was a bloody good shot.”

The thought began to nag at him as he raced toward London on his motorbike, his kit dumped in the sidecar. Seventy-two hours' leave. No plane for him to fly yet anyway.

Someone on that crew
… In the excitement of it all he hadn't given a thought to it, but the adrenaline was out of his blood now. He was heading for London—drinks, a decent meal in a good restaurant—and out in the North Sea, entombed in a crumpled bomber, were the bodies of the men he had killed. Men of his own age, probably. Men who, except for that brief moment of bad luck, would have been heading off somewhere themselves tonight—into Wilhelmshaven or Emden, to drink beer, meet some girls.

“Poor bastards,” he whispered against the cold wind.

T
HERE SEEMED TO
be a feverish air of excitement about the town, an expectancy left unsaid. Hitler on the move at last. The end of the “phony war.” There seemed to be more people than usual in the city and he failed to get a room at the Strand Palace. Not wanting to spend time checking the other hotels, he went to the Portland in St. James's Square, one of the three clubs where his grandfather had membership, and checked in there.

The Unicorn in Albemarle Street, Jolly Rodgers had told him. The RAF had taken it for its own. He dropped in there after a particularly satisfying meal in an outrageously expensive restaurant. It was one of the older London pubs, all warm woods and etched glass, and was jammed with people, the atmosphere opaque with tobacco smoke. There were some men standing at the bar that he knew from his days with the Cambridge University Air Squadron. They were, they told him, flying Spitfires out of Hornchurch, but hadn't done anything yet except training ops. Something prevented him from mentioning his afternoon kill. That pale face staring up at him from the gun blister … the shambled mess of the nose where the rest of the crew would have been. Four to five men on that plane. Dead on the bottom of the sea. He ordered a pint of bitter and shot the breeze.

“I say, Ramsay,” one of the pilots drawled. “There's an absolutely smashing blond WAAF over there who can't seem to keep her eyes off you.”

“Don't be daft.”

“I mean it. I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eye. She hasn't stopped staring since you walked in.”

He ventured a glance. Two WAAF sergeants seated at a table. A tall, dark-haired woman and a slender, petite blonde with a small, oval face and large blue eyes. Those eyes met his own in a cool, contemplating stare. He looked away.

“Probably thinks I'm someone else.”

“Maybe she's an air marshal's bit of fluff looking for a good time.”

Derek took a swig of beer. “She doesn't strike me as a bit of fluff.”

“Only one way to find out, old boy. Direct and vigorous pressing of attack—that's the fighter pilot's creed. Come on, I'll toss you for the blonde, but, quite frankly, I don't care if I lose. I've always had a passion for tall, dark, beautiful sergeants.”

They walked over, carrying their drinks. The pilot from Hornchurch bowed with stiff formality. “Good evening, ladies. May I take the liberty of introducing us. I am Pilot Officer Terrible Tommy Blythe, the scourge of the Luftwaffe, and this gentlemen is Pilot Officer Derek Destruction Ramsay, the only man who can fly upside down and backward. May we have the honor of buying you a drink?”

The dark-haired girl laughed. “You may. I'm Judy … Judy Davis. Are you really a
terrible
Tommy?”

“I like to think so.”

“How marvelous! Do pull up a chair and sit down.”

The blonde stared gravely at Derek. Then she smiled. Warm and faintly sad. “I thought it was you, Fat Chap. Do you remember me? Valerie A'Dean-Spender.”

A group of pilots back from France on leave burst noisily into the pub waving bottles of champagne and it became impossible to talk without yelling. Derek impulsively took Valerie by the arm and led her out. Terrible Tommy was deep in mouth-to-ear conversation with the lovely brunette.

They brushed through the blackout curtain to the dark street.

“That's better. My God, what a racket.” He turned to her in the gloom. “Valerie! I can hardly believe it.”

“I recognized you instantly … or at least I felt reasonably certain it was you. You haven't changed that much, Fat Chap—except for the broken nose.”

“Cricket ball … after I left Burgate. But, look, there's so much to talk about. Brown's is across the street. How about a brandy or something?”

“I'd love it.”

“What about your friend?”

“Judy seems to be in good hands. We're not really together, I just gave her a lift into town.”

He took her arm and they crossed the street to Brown's Hotel and into the small, quiet bar where he ordered two cognacs. She hadn't changed that much either, he was thinking. A nineteen- or twenty-year-old woman, but the same elfin delicacy and luminous eyes. Pest, he had called her in those days. Not a name he would use now.

“What drew you to the RAF?” he asked. “And what are you doing … and where?”

Her laughter was bright, musical. “One thing at a time. I joined up because I was bored doing nothing. I'm stationed, very comfortably I might add, in Bushey Heath. I work for Air Intelligence. Decoding … translating German radio intercepts … that sort of thing.”

“How interesting. To be frank, Val, you never struck me as being much of a scholar.”

“No, I was too busy being … a
pest
. Remember?”

“I didn't want to bring that up.”

“I left Burgate just after you did. That would have been, let me see, nineteen thirty-three. My mother had remarried and won my custody in court. We went to live in the South of France—at Villefranche near Nice—and I was packed off to Switzerland to go to school.”

“Like it?”

She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Hated it—at first. I mean, after the marvelous freedom of Burgate I felt I was in an all-girls' prison. But I grew to enjoy it and I learned a great deal … German, Italian—French, of course—and music.”

“Do you play?”

“Piano. Not concert quality, just well enough to brighten parties.”

He grinned foolishly at her. God, but she was pretty. “I bet you're invited to a lot of them.”

“More than enough.”

“Have a boyfriend?”

She frowned at her drink. “I'm married.”

“Oh.” He looked at her left hand. It was ringless.

She noticed the direction of his glance. “I don't wear a ring. We separated a year ago.”

“And what does he do?”

“He's in the army at the moment. A captain of Tirailleurs.”

“French?”

“Yes … from Tours. His family is in the wine business.”

“What's he like?”

She shrugged and drank some of her cognac. “Handsome. Very Gallic—also weak and family dominated. Qualities I ignored when he was rushing me off my feet in Cannes one winter. I was just eighteen and rather dotty with love and failed to notice the little flaws in his character. He must be quite useless in the army. His father was a great admirer of Franco and Hitler. Raymond dotes on his father's every word, so I imagine he shares some of his views, although he never expressed them to me.”

“What made you leave him?”

“Something quite simple, actually. We lived in Paris. I was out shopping one day and stopped by his office. He'd neglected to lock the door and I found him naked with a woman. He became very angry with me. Said it was not a wife's business and that I had no right to drop by like that. I left him that evening and came to England … three months after my wedding.”

“And took the king's shilling.”