Another attack silenced all sounds of the man, as more 20mm shells hammered through the fuselage, killing and wounding a number of the escaping crew.
Three managed to get out, their white canopies marking their escape. The rest lay dead or incapacitated inside the PE-8.
All except Borlovski, the dwarf, an airman so small that his Comrades had to give him a lift up to get in the large bomber, a fact they kept to themselves for fear of losing their talismanic gunner.
Borlovski knew the Polikarpov was dying, but he was determined to get one last shot off before jumping to safety.
The wheel of jet fighters came round again.
Borlovski was a fine gunner, one of the best in the 25th, and he had learned from his previous misses.
The 20mm ShVAK cannon rattled as he took on the lead Meteor.
Everything started to go wrong in the same second.
The noise was instant and loud.
Gauges went bad, airspeed fell away, and controls went sluggish.
De Villiers knew his aircraft was doomed, his peripheral vision registering the surge of yellow on his starboard side, where 20mm cannon shells had smashed into the turbines in the starboard engine, transforming it into shrapnel. Flying metal that, in turn, smashed through more of the engine and escaped the nacelle, only for much of the sharp metal to find a home in the fuselage beyond.
The South African didn’t even feel the two pieces that buried themselves in his right thigh, the white hot metal cauterizing the wounds as they lay in his flesh.
Escaping fuel enlarged the fire in the ruined engine, and the Meteor fell lazily away to starboard, the controls barely giving De Villiers a response, let alone any vestige of control.
Ditching the canopy, the heat from the fire was immediately apparent, and the wounded pilot did not hesitate to part company with the dying plane.
The silk blossomed, and the South African watched with fascination as the rest of his Squadron avenged him, knocking the surviving PE’s from the sky in two more passes.
De Villiers examined the ground beneath his feet, realising very quickly that it teemed with life, ants moving all over, until, the lower he got, the ants transformed themselves into uniformed men with guns; and lots of them.
The damaged aircraft still managed to fly, almost kept in the air by the will of Voitsev and Borlovski.
The gunner had made his way through the fuselage, reaching the cockpit, where he was able to confirm that he and Voitsev were the last living occupants of Silniy-Two-Two.
Responding to the pilot’s request, Borlovski plugged up the holes, stopping the wind whistling in.
In so doing, he ensured his pilot could start to feel his hands again.
He also killed them both.
The ventilation had constantly purged the fuselage of fumes, the fuel tanks being amongst the casualties of the Meteor attacks.
A small fire had been extinguished, but, beneath the grey exterior, smouldering continued.
The fumes from the aviation spirit built up slowly, until the balance of vapours and oxygen was perfect, and all that was needed was a source of ignition.
As the Polikarpov flew low, it occasionally encountered obstructions.
Voitsev did not see the church steeple until very late, and he hauled urgently on the stick, causing the used fire extinguisher to drop off the map table where Borlovski had placed it. It struck the smouldering area, uncovering it, disturbing it, and sending a small, but concentrated, plume of sparks upwards, where the perfect mix of fuel vapour and oxygen waited hungrily for a source of ignition.
The PE-8, Silniy-Two-Two, exploded violently and catastrophically, transforming itself into small pieces of metal in the blink of an eye. The largest pieces, the engines, raced each other to the ground, pursued by a myriad of smaller bits.
On the ground below, closely packed and moving swiftly, part of the supply train of the 6th Guards Army was deluged in life-taking metal and burning fuel.
Scores of horses were killed and maimed, their handlers equally ravaged.
Part of the bomber’s port wing came to ground on a spot occupied by the Colonel commanding of the 6th’s Supply units, where he was deep in conversation with a communist party member of the Army’s Political Council.
It was some days before the bloody mulch was recovered. The two men buried together, for fear of putting the wrong headstone over the wrong pieces.
De Villiers hit the ground hard, the jarring contact bringing his thigh wounds to the forefront, causing him to yelp aloud.
All around him, guardsmen from the 2nd Guards Rifle Corps gathered, some with curiosity as their motivation, others with more sinister intent.
A young Major strode into the group and spoke loudly, causing the majority to lose interest in the new arrival.
The four men he had detailed scooped up their prisoner, and marched him swiftly to the rear.
According to plan, and to the second, the five Achgelis took off and immediately turned towards their target, intent on describing a straight line above the cold waters of the Baltic, all the way to their destination on mainland Europe.
Törget and Rossiter watched them go, silently and without excitement, both men wholly aware of the risks involved, and the possibility that none of the men they had just watched fly away would ever return.
The fuel issue had been resolved satisfactorily, so much so that the point of take-off had nearly been changed.
However, Rossiter had introduced some nasty, but necessary, changes to the plan, and that still meant Gotland as the nearest point.
The impending move to centralise the ‘guest’ families had knocked Savitch back. He immediately understood that his days with Greta were numbered.
So he made the most of the time her had, spending his evenings and nights in her company, sometimes not returning to his billet until the dawn was already spreading itself across the dewy ground.
Tonight, he was indulging in his favourite ‘Troika’, and Greta Knocke was performing with all her normal enthusiasm and flair.
He had already taken her once, orgasming noisily, fantasising about fertilising the woman, as he spent himself in her moist depths.
The second party of the troika was recently completed, his hands gripping her head as she moved her mouth around him, accepting his gift.
The third section of the Troika gave him so much pleasure; its significance, the domination, the subservience, all being much to his liking.
Greta, face down over the dressing table, moaned. He knew not whether it was pleasure or pain, and cared not a jot either, as he slid himself into her anus and commenced a deep and rhythmic thrusting, his large penis, hard and unforgiving with her soft female flesh.
Each Achgelis had been adapted quickly, converting to the specific needs of the mission.
Three men onboard each, rather than two. On three of the Achgelis were women, or more correctly, a woman and two girls, making the one-way trip from Sweden to the mainland.
The pilots, now over land, throttled back, and looked for the sign.
The Police Station was illuminated as promised and a small bonfire pointed the way to the selected landing zone, where the agent had placed four metal buckets, the contents of which burned brightly enough to describe a square inside which the five helicopters could safely land.