“Don’t play games with me, Colonel. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it by now. No, you need me, because you don’t know what to do about a certain gentleman who is threatening to roll several thousand tanks and millions of men across Europe. Oh yes, you’ll tell me that you’re negotiating and that there is a diplomatic solution to this mess, but you know as well as I that the Russian is a conniving bastard. He’ll promise you one thing and then do the bloody opposite. I know the Russian, Colonel. I’ve lived with him. Yes, literally. Gazing up at the stars from my beautifully proportioned, shit-filled trench outside Stalingrad, I could hear them talking to each other. Sometimes we’d throw cigarettes to them — yes, we were that close. Then all we’d have to do was wait for one of them to crawl into no-man’s land, fire a star-shell and put a bullet up his arsehole. Five minutes later and, hey-ho another one would pop up, only to be dropped like the first by one of my snipers. All for one lousy cigarette.” He chuckled. “From time to time we’d take them prisoner. Some wouldn’t even blink as we put revolvers into the back of their heads and pulled the trigger. Others would try and do deals, side with us, denounce Stalin, offer their services.”
“Have you quite finished?” White-Smith ground the stub of his cigarette under his heel.
Herries laughed. “Ah, the English stiff upper lip. It makes you feel good to be back.”
“There are some things about the area we need to know,” White-Smith said, trying to contain his anger. “The dummy build-up at Chrudim, for inst- “
“Didn’t I make myself clear to you?” Herries banged his fist on the table. “No more information until you’ve got something for me. When do I get out of here?”
“You’ll be leaving here shortly.”
“Just like that, I suppose.”
“We’ll give you a new identity, of course. Effectively, you’ll be able to start a new life, Herries. I hope you make a better job of it this time.”
Herries snorted. “What do you know of my life?”
“Quite a bit, actually,” White-Smith said.
“Get to the point, damn you. When do I get out of here?”
“There are certain conditions you must observe before we release you.”
“Such as?”
“We want to know the names of all the members of the British Free Corps that you came across during your training and operational service.”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult,” Herries said smiling. “I find your conditions acceptable.”
“Then you can start by telling us what you saw at Branodz. And leave nothing out. Every detail could be important.”
Herries reached across the table and took a cigarette from White-Smith’s pack. “My dear Colonel, I thought you would never ask,” the traitor said.
Kruze waited until his altimeter read ten thousand metres before shutting down the twin Walter motors and levelling off. The roar of the rocket engines gave way to an eerie whistling as the wind sped by his clear bubble canopy at over 500 mph.
The North Welsh coast and the familiar outline of the island of Anglesea slipped past below him. He had travelled the width of the country in just over half an hour and he still had well over half his fuel left. He double-checked the
T-Stoff and C-Stoff gauges and scribbled down the figures on the scratch-pad strapped above his right knee. Test the range, he’d been told, push the aircraft to its limits. Well he’d done that all right. The Komet was proceeding swiftly and silently towards the coast of the Irish Republic and now Kruze was getting nervous. Marlowe was nowhere in sight.
He put the stubby fighter into a wide turn to the left, searching the revolving scenery before him for a trace of his escort. Marlowe had been despatched to the rendezvous point half an hour before he took off. The Spitfire pilot was to serve a dual purpose. He was to act as chase-plane, monitoring the performance of the Komet from the outside. He was also fighter-escort and guardian. With only a handful of people on the ground aware of the demonstration, Kruze did not want to be bounced by an over-zealous pilot from Fighter Command. He decided to break radio silence.
“Sunflower, this is Kingfisher. Can you hear me? Over.”
Farnborough came back to him on medium strength.
“Go ahead, Kingfisher.”
“Any sign of Hummingbird? I’m getting lonely up here.”
The controller’s voice crackled in his headset. “He should be with you any moment now. Slight icing problem. Keep calm, Kingfisher.”
Kruze glanced out over his wing but could not see very much. The asbestos suit and the protective headgear were severely hampering his freedom of movement. He craned for a look over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of something rising up through the clouds to meet him. It was either Marlowe or someone with rather more hostile intentions. Kruze drew comfort from the knowledge that his rocket motors could get him out of trouble in the blink of an eye. All he had to do was make sure he was not caught on the hop.
He deployed the air brakes momentarily and the speed dropped further still. He was now registering just under four hundred knots.
He hauled the Komet round in a tight circle to bring him into a position to meet the other aircraft. Suddenly a Spitfire broke through the intermittent cloud, its green-grey camouflage prominent against the patchy carpet of cumulus and the shining sea below.
Moments later, the sleek shape of the Spitfire slid alongside the 163, fifty feet off its starboard wing tip. Marlowe gave the Messerschmitt a visual inspection, paying particularly close attention to the area around the tail where the Walters’ searing hot gas had blasted out of the two tiny rocket exhaust ports. The Spitfire weaved round to the other side, where Marlowe carried on with the examination. At last he gave Kruze the thumbs-up.
Kruze went through one more instrument check before satisfying himself that all was safe for the next part of the evaluation, a high speed power dive to find the Komet’s critical Mach number. Marlowe was to try and follow him down for as long as possible. Only if he spotted any problems from the chase plane was he supposed to break the strict radio silence and warn the Rhodesian.
Kruze flexed his fingers before grasping the throttle with his gloved hand. Despite the altitude, he felt hot and sticky under the numerous layers of clothing and the protective hood. He was tempted to tear the whole cumbersome apparatus off his head, but the suit would perhaps just give him time to take to his parachute if anything went wrong. Perhaps.
Concentrate. Use the fear. Feed off it. Work the adrenalin to your advantage.
He eased the throttle forward.
Marlowe saw smoke belch from the 163’s exhaust ports. By the time he reacted, the rocket fighter was rapidly pulling away from him in a shallow dive.
Kruze relayed the progress into his microphone, even though no one could hear him. It was partly force of habit, partly a way of keeping his nerves in check.
“480 mph. Smooth ride. Turbine pressure looking good. No buffet. I’m opening up the motors to eighty per cent.” Calm, steady tones. Like the voice of the bomb disposal expert, Kruze thought. At any moment a split second away from total annihilation.
Concentrate.
Marlowe was losing him. He held the 163 in his gunsight as best he could, flipped off the safety catch above the firing switch on top of the control column and pressed the exposed red button. Within the wings, the gun-cameras whirred into life, catching the motions of the rocket fighter as it receded from view.
“550 mph. Still looking good. All instruments appear normal.” Kruze continued to talk into his microphone.
Buffeting shook Marlowe’s aircraft. At first the motion was barely perceptible, then it grew in intensity as the speed built up and the air that rushed to meet the Spitfire could not get out of the way of its long graceful wings. Marlowe’s plane rocked with vibration as it reached its critical Mach number. He pulled the nose up and let his speed fall off, but continued to monitor the Komet by tracing its path of smoke down towards the sea.