“Let them burn through all their hell-weapons,” Kesselring had said, and the Gruppenkommandeurs had leapt to obey.
Galland stepped out from under the camouflaged tent – another source of complaints was that the pilots had to sleep in tents – and stretched. There was a crick in his back and he rubbed it, watching as dawn rose. For once, there was no need to fly in rising sunlight; the British radars could track them in any light and there was no need to make life unnecessarily difficult for the German pilots. He smiled; it was difficult enough as it was, even with the new medal. It had been intended for a new SS regiment, but instead any pilot who downed a jet aircraft – and had it witnessed – received a special medal.
With such baubles armies are led, Galland thought, as he lit a cigarette. Seconds later, it fell from his fingers as a streak of light blasted across the sky and slammed into the pilot barracks – where no pilots slept. A second missile exploded in midair, scattering little… things over the runway. He stared as the Jagdgeschwader’s pet mascot, a German terrier – ran over to paw at one of the little spheres; the explosion blew the little terrier into tiny chunks of blood and gore.
“Achtung,” he bellowed, waking the pilots who had managed to sleep through the air raid. “Everyone watch for those bastards…”
He broke off. One of the pilots had stepped too close to one and peered down at it. Seconds later, his leg was blown off and his face was scarred. “Everyone keep well away from them,” he howled, as a medic began to tend to the wounded pilot, who would never fly again.
“Herr Gruppenkommandeur, why can’t we make them detonate?” A pilot asked. Galland stared at him, and then smiled.
“Why not?” He asked. Carefully, he picked up some gravel and threw it at the closest one he could see, detonating it. The blast wave whipped at him, tearing holes in the dirt track that they called a runway, but he was unarmed.
“Everyone off the runway,” he ordered, as some of the army units who were supposed to be guarding the airfield arrived. “Richter, you and Kruger start detonating the others. It was your idea, so you can carry it out.” He stared over at the ruins of the main building. “Moller, you come help me splice a line into the field telephone cables; I have to report to Field Marshall Kesselring, and I have the strangest feeling that using a radio is going to be extremely unsafe around here – so don’t!”
Leaving Richter and Kruger to detonate the little mines, for he suspected that was what they were, he headed back to the telephone cable, where Moller connected the spare telephone to the cable. Calling Kesselring proved to be difficult; he wasn’t surprised. He would have been astounded if Jagdgeschwader 27 had been the only target of the attack.
“Heil Hitler,” he said finally, when he finally managed to get through to Kesselring. It had taken nearly thirty minutes; time spent waiting and watching the pilots detonating the mines before using a bulldozer to smooth the rubble. “Field Marshall, the British attacked the airfield of Jagdgeschwader 27 and…”
He listened in growing disbelief to Kesselring’s list of other targets that had been hit by the British. By and large, the fighters had survived the experience, but nearly a hundred bombers had been wrecked by the air raid. Radio stations, the handful of radar stations, and several targets of opportunity – including the German Embassy within Paris – had been hit. Kiel Shipyard had been pasted; targets within Germany itself had been hit quite badly.
If this is forcing them to expand their arsenal, Galland thought grimly, will there be anything left of us by the time they run out?
Kesselring started to issue orders and Galland nodded grimly. Jagdgeschwader 27 and the other air groups were to prepare to launch a second air raid on Britain. The pressure had to be maintained, Kesselring insisted; the winner would be the one who held up under pressure.
Chapter Thirteen: Ancestral Manoeuvres
RAF Lyneham
Wiltshire, United Kingdom
17th July 1940
I wonder if I’m being foolish, Ambassador Ernst Schulze thought grimly, as he waited for the guard to open the cell. RAF Lyneham was not a normal RAF base; among other things it provided a secure place, free from the press, for hostages to relax after being freed. Now, it was playing host to a Nazi; Hans Mayer. He glanced up at the window; the dark-haired man, so chillingly like his photograph, was sitting at a table, playing with a pack of cards.
He shook his head. Germans of his era were discouraged from learning about the Nazis, but they knew too much about them. The Internet providers in German were more welcome to share pornography than Nazi information – let alone far-right propaganda – but they could do nothing about sites in America. Every young German looked on the sites, wondering about the last time the world had paid attention to Germany and German power was feared by the world.
Schulze shivered. Showing an interest in Nazism was a career-wrecker in Germany, but as Ambassador he’d been able to do some private research. The results of his research on Mayer himself now lay in his pocket; as soon as he’d heard that the British intended to allow him to meet with the Nazi ‘representative’ he’d looked him up.
“Are you ready?” The guard asked. “He’s been well-fed, which is more than the bastard deserved.”
Schulze nodded. A number of German pilots who’d crashed on British soil had been lynched; several after shooting several angry British civilians. Two days of extremely brutal combat – the reconnaissance pictures from Kiel had been shocking – were taking their toll on both sides. The Germans had managed to bomb London twice; they’d even managed to hammer an RAF base, RAF Odiham. Civilian airports had also been pounded, along with docks and suspicious-looking buildings within the target zone.
The British, even under Sir Charles Hanover, had kept their targeting to military and industrial facilities. The Belgium and the Netherlands docks had been pounded – several of the ‘invasion ports’ had been hit with FAE weapons and transformed into infernos – and German communication links had been struck with cruise missiles. Factories within the Rhineland had been struck, damaging the German war effort, but they were so much easier to rebuild than the 2015 industry.
“I suppose I am,” Schulze said, wishing that he really were ready. Countless Germans had planned meetings with the Nazis, safe in the knowledge that they would never happen, but what did one say to one of the demons that had almost destroyed the fabric of Western Civilisation?
The cell door opened. Mayer looked up as Schulze stepped through, lifting an eyebrow. Schulze had half-expected him to give the Nazi Salute; instead he just smiled quizzically at him.
“Guten Tag,” Schulze said, and took a seat on the opposite side of the table. He studied Mayer, aware that the Nazi was studying him, and shook his head; the Nazi didn’t seem like a monster, but a disciplined soldier. He passed over the single sheet of paper, already knowing what it said.
Mayer, Hans. Born; 23/04/1910. Joined German Army, 1929. Joined Nazi Party, 1932. Transferred to German Army Intelligence, 1936. Stationed in France, 1940-1943. Transferred to Germany, Berlin Station, 1943-1944. Executed on suspicion (no proof was ever discovered) of involvement with the July Bomb Plot. Buried, unknown location.