Staverton was not an easy man to please, but each of them would have followed him to the gates of Berlin and back if necessary.
Kruze found Broyles berating a young fitter for neglecting some minute detail in maintenance procedure on the Me 110. The sergeant, old enough to be Kruze’s father, if not his grandfather, saw the Rhodesian out of the corner of his eye and dismissed the trembling aircraftman with a hard, but paternal clip to the head.
Broyles wiped the grease from his hands onto his overalls. The lined, leathery face creased into a smile.
“I suppose you’ve been bending another of my bloody aeroplanes, Mr Kruze.”
Kruze pulled a packet of cigarettes from his flying jacket and tossed it to Broyles, who plucked it eagerly from the air. The big man appreciatively sniffed the bitter-sweet smell of the Lucky Strikes.
“Pipe down, Chief. A bit of tweaking here and there and she’ll be as good as new.” He took a cigarette from the pack returned by Broyles.
The chief snorted.
“Mr Kruze, sir, Jerry don’t build aeroplanes like we do.” The chief’s voice was laced with good-natured sarcasm. “Besides, when you go popping rivets and bending undercarriages, I can’t very well get on the telephone to Herr bloody Goering and ask him to send over a few bleedin’ spare parts, can I now?”
Kruze laughed. “Course you can, Chief. You’d scare the crap out of him and have the parts by morning.” He clapped his arm over Broyles’ shoulder and walked him over to the hangar door. The air outside was still as they strolled away from the sounds of activity within the maintenance shed towards the Junkers. Standing before the aircraft Broyles whistled above the gentle pinging noise of the two still Jumo engines as they cooled in the damp air.
“Sweet Jesus, there’s furrows on the skin where the wings have bent,” the chief said, burying his face in his hands. Kruze knew that this performance, though reflecting the concern of any maintenance sergeant at the repair work ahead, was also tongue-in-cheek. It had developed into something of a ritual.
Kruze patted the nose of the Ju 288.
“I’ve got about six seconds of gun-camera film in here needs developing. Get one of your boys to take it over to photographic would you, Chief?”
“Yes, Mr Kruze. Got him, did you?” Broyles nodded to the distant form of the Spitfire.
“Yeah, I got him all right.”
Broyles grunted satisfaction. “There’s a bit of justice for you.”
“What’s that, Chief?”
If there was one thing Kruze had learnt about Broyles, he didn’t pull any punches.
“I had Mister Fleming in here half the night sticking his nose in my business. That Spitfire was serviced perfectly, the manifest said so. Only Mister Fleming wouldn’t have any of it. Kept getting us to check it over and over again. You should hear what my men have to say about him, the bloody stuffed shirt.”
“Steady, Chief. He’s had a rough time of it.”
Broyles shrugged. “I dare say, Mr Kruze. But why doesn’t he just stay put in that place of his up in London? Put him near an aircraft and he’s trouble.”
“That’s enough, Chief, I get the picture.” Kruze realized it was a half-hearted admonition. His own view of Fleming wasn’t that different from the seasoned old engineer’s.
The chief scratched his head as he watched the tall Rhodesian amble over the debrief centre on the other side of the field. Funny bugger, Kruze. Wasn’t like the rest of the officers, thank God.
Air Vice Marshal Algernon Staverton, head of the RAF’s Enemy Aircraft Evaluation Unit, the EAEU, was standing with his back to the door, staring out between the peeling window frames towards the black maintenance sheds when Kruze entered his office.
There was damp in the air, but Kruze had become used to that during the long English winter. Staverton turned slowly when the door was closed behind the Rhodesian. The brightness outside made the lines of the Old Man’s silhouette appear even more gaunt than usual, Kruze thought. Staverton was hardly a man you could like, but his reputation as an RFC flier and the tough, efficient way in which he ran the EAEU made him someone to respect.
Staverton’s career had been somewhat oddball. The Old Man had established the top secret EAEU with little help from his RAF superiors, who in early 1941 believed there was not much value in setting up a costly unit to test captured enemy aircraft. Staverton, then only a group captain, persuaded them otherwise. Since then, the reputation of the EAEU — and Staverton — had grown in classified circles.
Four years later, and Staverton’s knowledge of enemy aircraft and Luftwaffe operations had made him the nation’s leading expert in aerial intelligence. Recognition of his expertise came in early 1944 when he was recruited onto Churchill’s small team of special cabinet advisers.
In the months preceding the Normandy landings, interpretation of enemy activity had never assumed such vital importance and Churchill wanted the very best advice from men who answered directly to him. Staverton was a natural for the job. Promoted to air vice marshal to give him equal status with the two other specialists, a major general from British Army Intelligence and a rear admiral from its naval counterpart, Staverton was reputed to be every bit as uncompromising with his superiors in Whitehall as he was with his pilots.
AVM Staverton had been allowed to retain command of the EAEU, even though, by rights, it should have passed to a younger man upon his promotion to Whitehall. He now divided his time between a dark basement office in the Air Ministry and the EAEU’s headquarters at Farnborough.
The AVM scarcely concealed his ambition. There were few pilots in the EAEU who doubted he would advance to air chief marshal before the war was out. Provided he did not put too many backs up in Whitehall, that was.
“Well, what happened up there?” Staverton gestured Kruze to the chair in front of his desk and sat down himself.
“The Ju 288’s good, there’s no question about it. For a big aeroplane it’s manoeuvrable — tight in the turn, good roll response, rugged… It’ll all be in my report.”
Staverton nodded.
“And Wing Commander Fleming, how did he do? Will we be seeing your Junkers on his gun-camera?”
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet, sir.” Not exactly a lie. “He followed me all the way down from thirty thousand feet to the deck, where he must have had me in his sights for a few seconds…”
“And then he had a problem.” Staverton probed with the skill of a surgeon. “We heard something over the intercom. Sounded like trouble.”
“It looked as if he had a block in his air-supply system. A touch of hypoxia, I reckon. It seemed to clear as soon as he got down on the deck.”
Staverton waited till the rumble of a bomber taking off had subsided.
“You don’t think it was a touch of something else? After all, Robert has been through more than most of us.” Staverton’s blue eyes were cold. “He’s an extremely brave young man, but anyone who’s suffered as he has can only expect to recover slowly. Piet, if you think he’s been pushed too far, you have to tell me.”