The lieutenant looked at the body hesitantly, sensing a trick in Malenkoy’s question. He answered nervously and in a low voice, worried that Malenkoy would show him up in front of his troops.
“About one metre seventy-five, sir.”
“That’s what I was worried about. It means, then, that we have at least one man still on the loose.” Malenkoy once more saw the figure standing astride in the middle of the road. He had been tall and broad across the shoulders. This… thing by his feet had been a much smaller man. He winced at the thought of having to report the news to Nerchenko at HQ. A platoon was hard enough to locate in a densely forested area twenty times the size of Moscow, but one or two men would be next to impossible.
Malenkoy heard the rough cough beside him and saw the sergeant with the Order of the Red Star pinned on his quilted telogreika who had been standing there for the last few minutes, not daring to interrupt the thoughts of his senior officer. Malenkoy turned to face the lieutenant, who was holding some documents up to him.
“Yes, Comrade Starshina, what is it?” He had tried to hide the weariness in his voice.
“One of my men found these, Comrade Major. They were in a pocket on that man over there, sir.” He pointed to the broken body of Wood. “They’re the papers of a Red Army Rifles major.”
Malenkoy took the bundle of documents and began to leaf through them. The face in the photograph, slightly obscured by a large bloodstain, was someone he knew. It belonged to Paliev. So that was how Yuri Petrovich had met his end, poor son of a bitch, ambushed by this outfit. There had been much speculation among his comrades back at HQ as to what had happened to Paliev since his disappearance a few days ago.
At least this was one piece of positive news that he could bring back to Nerchenko. Rumour had it that the General had been very upset by the loss of his personal aide.
Even though it was still about ten miles away, Fleming could see the column of smoke billowing up from the airfield and he braced himself for the reception they would receive when they came into Rostock.
Sitting on a jump-seat behind the co-pilot on the flight-deck, he craned his neck for a glimpse of their escort, eight heavily armed Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers. Four of them hung slightly back on the York’s starboard beam, each aircraft lumbering under the weight of the sixteen air-to-ground rockets racked beneath the wings. Just behind the fighters, Fleming could see the second Avro York. It was an ungainly looking thing, but was the only aircraft the Allies possessed that could accommodate the principal parts of the 163C without a major dismantling operation on the rocket fighter. If they ever made it into Rostock, and provided the 163C was still there, both transport aircraft would be needed to ferry the German rocket fighter’s partly dismantled components back to Kettenfeld and on to Farnborough.
Fleming’s headset crackled.
“Jewell to Metal Bird, Jewell to Metal Bird. Believe we have you in visual contact. Do you receive? Over.” The voice was clear, the signal strong. Fleming prayed that the landing and the storming of the airfield had gone to plan.
He held his mask up to his mouth and shouted back over the roar of the two propellers whose tips cleared the cockpit wall by mere inches on either side of him.
“This is Metal Bird. Can confirm we are ten miles down range of Rostock. Do we have clearance to come in? Over.” This was the moment that would determine whether they went into the furnace whose smoke and flames now filled their field of vision through the York’s windscreen.
“Jewell to Metal Bird. Land on first thousand yards of runway. I repeat. Only use the first thousand yards of the runway. Enemy still has far side within range of mortar and small arms fire. Once you are down we will put up a smoke screen to shield you on taxiway to hangar.” The pilot gave a thumbs-up to show that he had understood the instruction. There was now only one more thing Fleming needed to know before he could authorize their descent. He dipped the transmit button, but Jewell came back before he could send the message.
“Metal Bird. Thought you would like to know we have found the 163C and it is intact. I repeat, 163 OK. But situation critical here. Get down as quickly as you can. Jewell out.”
Fleming had no time to praise the fact that the 163 was still there and in one piece. He tapped the pilot on the shoulder and stabbed his forefinger down in the direction of Rostock. The pilot nodded and pushed the control column forward and the plane’s nose dropped, momentarily exerting the effects of negative gravity upon his stomach.
It was time to start the diversion for their landing.
Fleming twisted in his seat. The Typhoons were level with the right-hand window of the cockpit.
“Metal Bird to A and B flights. You heard Jewell. The enemy is concentrated in the eastern end of the airfield. They’re all yours.”
The Typhoons peeled away in a shallow dive, heading for the far end of the runway at over 400 mph. Fleming watched the leader down to fifty feet, saw the flashes under the wings as the rocket motors ignited and the projectiles sped away from the rails towards an invisible enemy. Eight web-like threads of smoke stitched their way through the sky, pulling the Typhoon after them, until the aircraft disappeared into a pall of black cloud that belched from something burning brightly on the ground below.
The runway grew before their eyes until it filled the entire windshield. Several hundred yards to port, through the smoke, Fleming could just make out the white tops of the Baltic waves as they lapped at the wide, dune-filled beach bordering the airfield. Between the beach and the runway were two immense hangars and a group of outbuildings. Fleming refrained from pointing out their quarry to the pilot who was keeping one eye on the runway and one on the far perimeter fence where the enemy’s forces were concentrated. The co-pilot turned to Fleming and signalled that he knew where to head once they touched down and had slowed to a speed where they could turn the aircraft off the runway.
They were now down to fifty feet. The pilot wrestled to keep the aircraft steady in the strong crosswind before dropping the wheels down hard on the tarmac. The two crew stood on the brakes, which immediately transmitted a juddering protest through the whole airframe.
Fleming caught a needle of light out of the corner of his eye and watched in a trance as a line of tracer curled out from a group of trees to their right, but the gunner had not accounted for the deflection and the shots went wild. As he watched the source of the machine-gun fire, holding his breath for the second burst, the copse disintegrated in an enormous explosion. The shock-waves rocked the York and his earphones filled with the cries of the Typhoon pilots who had scored one more kill in their quest to keep the York’s approach to Rostock free from ground fire.
The York slewed left and right off the runway centreline as the crew fought to slow the aircraft enough for a violent turn down a slip-road that led to the two hangars. Fleming’s heart missed a beat as he saw smoke pouring from the hangar area, the thick clouds swirling and expanding as they were pushed across the airfield by the breeze coming off the Baltic. But the hangar complex which housed the 163 had not taken a hit. Fleming could make out Jewell’s paratroops as they activated smoke canisters during the most vulnerable part of the York’s journey, out of reach of the protection afforded by the buildings and clawing its way painfully slowly along the exposed taxiway.
Fifty yards ahead, a soldier leapt in front of the York and signalled for the pilot to head towards the second and larger of the buildings. Then the immense doors slid open and Fleming could make out the figure of Colonel Jewell within, his stocky frame dwarfed by the interior of the empty hangar. He was gesticulating wildly, beckoning for the York to taxi towards him. The co-pilot looked at his captain who shrugged before inching the throttles forward and coasting the transport aircraft inside. Switches were thrown and the propellers spluttered to a stop.