Hornet Flight (48 page)

“Bring the revs down to about sixteen hundred,” she said. “We'll get just below this cloud.”

“Why not stay in it?”

“It's difficult to fly in cloud for long. You get disoriented. You don't know up from down. The instruments tell you what's happening but you don't believe them. It's how a lot of crashes happen.”

Harald found the lever in the dark and drew it back.

“Was it just luck that the fighter turned up?” Karen said. “Maybe they can see us with their radio beams.”

Harald frowned, thinking. He was glad to have a puzzle to take his mind off the danger they were in. “I doubt it,” he said. “Metal interferes with radio waves, but I don't think wood or linen does. A big aluminum bomber would reflect the beams back to their aerials, but only our engine would do that, and it's probably too small to show up on their detectors.”

“I hope you're right,” she said. “If not, we're dead.”

They came out below the cloud. Harald increased the revs to nineteen hundred, and Karen pulled the stick back.

“Keep looking around,” Karen said. “If we see him again, we have to go up fast.”

Harald did as she said, but there was not much to see. A mile ahead, the moon was shining through a gap in the clouds, and Harald could make out the irregular geometry of fields and woodland. They must be over the large central island of Fyn, he thought. Nearer, a bright light moved perceptibly across the dark landscape, and he guessed it was a railway train or a police car.

Karen banked right. “Look up to your left,” she said. Harald could see
nothing. She banked the other way, and looked up out of her window. “We have to watch every angle,” she explained. He noticed that she was getting hoarse with the constant shouting over the noise of the engine.

The Messerschmitt appeared ahead.

It dropped out of the cloud a quarter of a mile in front of them, dimly revealed by moonlight reflected off the ground, heading away. “Full power!” Karen shouted, but Harald had already done it. She jerked back on the stick to lift the nose.

“Maybe he won't even see us,” Harald said optimistically, but his hopes were immediately dashed as the fighter went into a steep turn.

The Hornet Moth took several seconds to respond to the controls. At last they began to rise toward the cloud. The fighter came around in a wide circle and pitched up to follow their climb. As soon as he was lined up, he fired.

Then the Hornet Moth was in the cloud.

Karen changed direction immediately. Harald cheered. “Dodged him again!” he said. But his underlying fear gave a brittle tone to the triumph in his voice.

They climbed through the cloud. When the glow of moonlight began to illuminate the swirling mist around them, Harald realized they were near the top of the cloud layer. “Throttle back,” Karen said. “We'll have to stay in the cloud as long as we can.” The aircraft leveled. “Watch that airspeed indicator,” she said. “Make sure I'm not climbing or diving.”

“Okay.” He checked the altimeter, too. They were at 5,800 feet.

Just then the Messerschmitt appeared only yards away.

It was slightly lower and to the right, heading across their path. For a split second, Harald saw the terrified face of the German pilot, his mouth opening in a shout of horror. They were all an inch from death. The fighter's wing passed under the Hornet Moth, missing the undercarriage by a hair.

Harald trod on the left rudder pedal and Karen jerked back on the control stick, but the fighter was already gone from view.

Karen said, “My God, that was close.”

Harald stared into the swirling cloud, expecting the Messerschmitt to appear. A minute went by, then another. Karen said, “I think he was as scared as us.”

“What do you think he'll do?”

“Fly above and below the cloud for a while, hoping we'll pop out. With luck, our courses will diverge, and we'll lose him.”

Harald checked the compass. “We're going north,” he said.

“I went off heading in all that dodging about,” she said. She banked left, and Harald helped with the rudder. When the compass read two-fifty he said, “Enough,” and she straightened up.

They came out of the cloud. They both scanned the sky in all directions, but there were no other aircraft.

“I feel so tired,” Karen said.

“It's not surprising. Let me take control. Rest for a while.”

Harald concentrated on flying straight and level. The endless minor adjustments started to become instinctive.

“Keep an eye on the dials,” Karen warned him. “Watch the airspeed indicator, the altimeter, the compass, the oil pressure, and the fuel gauge. When you're flying, you're supposed to check all the time.”

“Okay.” He forced himself to look at the dashboard every minute or two and he found, contrary to what his instincts told him, that the aircraft did not fall to earth as soon as he did so.

“We must be over Jutland now,” Karen said. “I wonder how far north we strayed.”

“How can we tell?”

“We'll have to fly low as we cross the coast. We should be able to identify some terrain features and establish our position on the map.”

The moon was low on the horizon. Harald checked his watch and was astonished to see that they had been flying for almost two hours. It seemed like a few minutes.

“Let's take a look,” said Karen after a while. “Pull the revs back to fourteen hundred and dip the nose.” She found the atlas and studied it by the light of the flashlight. “We'll have to go lower,” she said. “I can't see the land well enough.”

Harald brought the aircraft down to three thousand feet, then two. The ground was visible in the moonlight, but there were no distinguishing elements, just fields. Then Karen said, “Look—is that a town ahead?”

Harald peered down. It was hard to tell. There were no lights because
of the blackout—which had been imposed precisely in order to make towns hard to see from the air. But the ground ahead certainly seemed to have a different texture in the moonlight.

Suddenly, small burning lights began to appear in the air. “What the hell is that?” Karen yelled.

Was someone aiming fireworks at the Hornet Moth? Fireworks had been banned since the invasion.

Karen said, “I've never seen tracer bullets, but—”

“Shit, is that what they are?” Without waiting for instructions, Harald pushed the throttle forward all the way and lifted the nose to gain altitude.

As he did so, searchlights came on.

There was a bang and something exploded nearby. “What was that?” Karen cried.

“I think it must have been a shell.”

“Someone's firing at us?”

Harald suddenly realized where they were. “This must be Morlunde! We're right over the port defenses!”

“Turn!”

He banked.

“Don't climb too steeply,” she said. “You'll stall.”

Another shell burst above them. Searchlight beams scythed the darkness all around. Harald felt as if he were lifting the aircraft by willpower.

They came around 180 degrees. Harald straightened out and continued to climb. Another shell exploded, but it was behind them. He began to feel they might yet survive.

The firing stopped. He turned again, flying on their original heading, still climbing.

A minute later they passed over the coast.

“We're leaving the land behind,” he said.

She made no reply, and he turned to see that her eyes were closed.

He glanced back at the coastline disappearing behind him in the moonlight. “I wonder if we'll ever see Denmark again,” he said.

The moon set, but for a while the sky was clear of cloud, and Harald could see stars. He was grateful for them, as they were the only way he could tell up from down. The engine gave a reassuringly constant roar. He flew at five thousand feet and eighty knots. There was less turbulence than he remembered from his first flight, and he wondered whether that was because he was over the sea, or because it was night—or both. He kept checking his heading by the compass, but he did not know how much the Hornet Moth might be blown off course by wind.

He took his hand off the control stick and touched Karen's face. Her cheek was burning. He trimmed the aircraft to fly straight and level, then took a bottle of water from the locker under the dashboard. He poured some on his hand then dabbed her forehead to cool her. She was breathing normally, though her breath was hot on his hand. She seemed to be in a feverish sleep.

When he returned his attention to the outside world, he saw that dawn was breaking. He checked his watch: it was just after three o'clock in the morning. He must be halfway to England.

By the faint light, he saw cloud ahead. There seemed to be no top or bottom to it, so he flew into it. There was also rain, and the water stayed on the windshield. Unlike a car, the Hornet Moth had no windshield wipers.

He remembered what Karen had said about disorientation, and resolved not to make any sudden moves. However, staring constantly into swirling nothingness was strangely hypnotic. He wished he could talk to Karen, but he felt she needed sleep after what she had been through. He lost track of the passage of time. He started to imagine shapes in the cloud. He saw a horse's head, the hood of a Lincoln Continental, and the moustached face of Neptune. Ahead of him, at eleven o'clock and a few feet below, he saw a fishing boat, with sailors on deck gazing up at him in wonderment.

That was no illusion, he realized, snapping back to full consciousness. The mist had cleared and he was seeing a real boat. He looked at the altimeter. Both hands pointed up. He was at sea level. He had lost altitude without noticing.

Instinctively, he pulled the stick back, lifting the nose, but as he did so he heard Karen's voice in his head saying,
But never raise the nose too sharply, or you will stall. That means you lose lift, and the aircraft falls out of the sky.
He realized what he had done, and remembered how to correct it, but he was not sure he had time. The aircraft was already losing altitude. He put the nose down and pushed the throttle all the way forward. He was level with the fishing boat as he passed it. He risked pulling the nose up a fraction. He waited for the wheels to hit the waves. The aircraft flew on. He pulled the nose up a little more. He risked a glance at the altimeter. He was climbing. He let out a long breath.

“Pay attention, you fool,” he said aloud. “Stay awake.”

He continued climbing. The cloud dissipated, and he emerged into a clear morning. He checked his watch. It was four o'clock. The sun was about to rise. Looking up through the transparent roof of the cabin, he could see the North Star to his right. That meant his compass was accurate, and he was still heading west.

Frightened of getting too close to the sea, he climbed for half an hour. The temperature dropped, and cold air came in through the window he had smashed out for his improvised fuel line. He wrapped the blanket around
himself for warmth. At ten thousand feet, he was about to level off when the engine coughed.

At first he could not figure out what the noise was. The engine sound had been steady for so many hours that he had ceased to hear it.

Then it came again, and he realized the engine had misfired.

He felt as if his heart had stopped. He was about two hundred miles from land in any direction. If the engine failed now, he would come down in the sea.

It coughed again.

“Karen!” he shouted. “Wake up!”

She slept on. He took his hand off the stick and shook her shoulder. “Karen!”

Her eyes opened. She appeared better for her sleep, calmer and less flushed, but a look of fear came over her face as soon as she heard the engine. “What's happening?”

“I don't know!”

“Where are we?”

“Miles from anywhere.”

The engine continued to cough and splutter.

“We may have to land in the sea,” Karen said. “What's our altitude?”

“Ten thousand feet.”

“Is the throttle fully open?”

“Yes, I was climbing.”

“That's the problem. Bring it back halfway.”

He pulled the throttle back.

Karen said, “When the throttle is on full, the engine draws air from outside, rather than from within the engine compartment, so it's colder—at this altitude, cold enough to form ice in the carburetor.”

“What can we do?”

“Descend.” She took the stick and pushed it forward. “As we go down, the air temperature should rise, and the ice will melt—eventually.”

“If it doesn't . . .”

“Look for a ship. If we can splash down near one, we may be rescued.”

Harald scanned the sea from horizon to horizon, but he could see no ships.

With the engine misfiring they had little thrust and lost altitude rapidly.
Harald took the axe from the locker, ready to carry out his plan of hacking off a wing to use as a float. He put the bottles of water in his jacket pockets. He did not know if they would survive in the sea long enough to die of thirst.

He watched the altimeter. They came down to a thousand feet, then five hundred. The sea looked black and cold. There were still no ships in sight.

A weird calm settled over Harald. “I think we're going to die,” he said. “I'm sorry I got you into this.”

“We're not finished yet,” she said. “See if you can give me a few more revs, so that we don't splash down too hard.”

Harald pushed the throttle forward. The engine note rose. It missed, fired, and missed again.

Harald said, “I don't think—”

Then the engine seemed to catch.

It roared steadily for several seconds, and Harald held his breath; then it misfired again. Finally it burst into a steady roar. The aircraft began to climb.

Harald realized they were both cheering.

The revs rose to nineteen hundred without missing a beat. “The ice melted!” Karen said.

Harald kissed her. It was quite difficult. Although they were shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh in the cramped cabin, it was awkward to turn in the seat, especially with a seat belt on. But he managed it.

“That was nice,” she said.

“If we survive this, I'm going to kiss you every day for the rest of my life,” he said happily.

“Really?” she said. “The rest of your life could be a long time.”

“I hope so.”

She looked pleased. Then she said, “We should check the fuel.”

Harald twisted in his seat to look at the gauge between the seat backs. It was difficult to read, having two scales, one for use in the air and the other for on the ground when the aircraft was tilted.

But they both read near to “Empty.”

“Hell, the tank is almost dry,” Harald said.

“There's no land in sight.” She looked at her watch. “We've been in the air five and a half hours, so we're probably still half an hour from land.”

“That's all right, I can top up the tank.” He unbuckled his seat belt and turned awkwardly to kneel on his seat. The petrol can stood on the luggage shelf behind the seats. Beside it was a funnel and one end of a length of garden hose. Before takeoff, Harald had broken the window and passed the hose through the hole, lashing the other end to the petrol inlet in the side of the fuselage.

But now he could see the outside end of the hose flapping in the slipstream. He cursed.

Karen said, “What's the matter?”

“The hose has worked loose in flight. I didn't tie it tight enough.”

“What are we going to do? We have to refuel!”

Harald looked at the petrol can, the funnel, the hose, and the window. “I've got to put the hose into the filler neck. And it can't be done from in here.”

“You can't go outside!”

“What will it do to the aircraft if I open the door?”

“My God, it's like a giant air brake. It will slow us down and turn us left.”

“Can you cope with that?”

“I can maintain airspeed by putting the nose down. I suppose I could press down on the right rudder pedal with my left foot.”

“Let's try it.”

Karen put the aircraft into a gentle dive, then put her left foot on the right rudder pedal. “Okay.”

Harald opened the door. The aircraft immediately veered sharply to the left. Karen pushed down on the right rudder pedal, but they continued to turn. She eased the stick over to the right and banked, but the aircraft still went left. “It's no good, I can't hold it!” she cried.

Harald closed the door. “If I smash these windows out, that will almost halve the area of wind resistance,” he said. He took the wrench from his pocket. The windows were made of some kind of celluloid that was tougher than glass, but he knew it was not unbreakable, for he had knocked out the rear window two days ago. He drew back his right arm as far as he could and hit the window hard, and the celluloid shattered. He tapped the remaining material out of the frame.

“Ready to try again?”

“Just a minute—we need more airspeed.” She leaned across and pushed the throttle open, then eased the trim lever forward an inch. “Okay.”

Harald opened the door.

Once again the aircraft veered left, but this time less sharply, and Karen seemed to be able to correct with the rudder.

Kneeling on the seat, Harald put his head out of the door. He could see the end of the hose flapping around the petrol access cover. Holding the door open with his right shoulder, he stretched out his right arm and grasped the hose. Now he had to feed it into the tank. He could see the open access panel but not the filler neck. He got the end of the hose positioned roughly over the panel, but the length of rubber in his hand constantly flopped around with the movement of the aircraft, and he could not get the end into the pipe. It was like trying to thread a needle in a hurricane. He tried for several minutes, but it became more hopeless as his hand got colder.

Karen tapped his shoulder.

He drew his hand back into the cabin and closed the door.

“We're losing altitude,” she said. “We need to climb.” She pulled the stick back.

Harald blew on his hand to warm it. “I can't do it this way,” he told her. “I can't get the hose into the pipe. I need to be able to hold the other end of the tube.”

“How?”

He thought for a minute. “Maybe I can put one foot out of the door.”

“Oh, God.”

“Let me know when we've gained enough altitude.”

After a couple of minutes she said, “Okay, but be ready to close the door as soon as I tap your shoulder.”

Facing backward with his left knee on the seat, Harald put his right foot out through the door and onto the reinforced strip on the wing. Holding his seat belt with his left hand for security, he leaned out and grasped the hose. He ran his hand along its length until he was holding the tip. Then he leaned out farther to put the end into the pipe.

The Hornet Moth hit an air pocket. The aircraft bucked in the air.
Harald lost his balance and thought he was going to fall off the wing. He jerked hard on the hose and his seat belt at the same time, trying to stay upright. The other end of the hose, inside the cabin, broke free of the string holding it. As it came loose, Harald involuntarily let go of it. The slipstream whisked it away.

Shaking with fear, he eased back into the cabin and closed the door.

“What happened?” she said. “I couldn't see!”

For a moment he was unable to reply. When he had recovered, he said, “I dropped the hose.”