“Good. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Right. Boss, uh-oh.”
In the cockpit, Niemczyk decided that the words he hated most in the English language were ‘uh-oh.’
“What’s the problem?”
“Airborne emissions boss. Fug-220 Liechtenstein. A night-fighter. Signal is above threshold; he’s after us.”
“Time to go home.” Liechtenstein probably meant a He-219. A thoroughly nasty beast; fast and heavily-armed. Radar wasn’t that good, not up to the standard of the American fighters, but the German night-fighter crews knew their business. Bad Brew II was in trouble. “Engines full emergency power. Where is he coming from?”
The RB-29C had four radar receivers; one in the nose, another in the tail, one in each wingtip. A skilled operator could use those to get a rough directional cut on the radar source. Bad Brew II had a very good operator indeed. “He’s behind us, Sir, off to port.”
“How far out?”
“From echo strength, I’d say 15 to 20 miles. Perhaps 25. Want me to jam him boss?”
“No. Keep the tricks for later. Tell me when he’s dead astern. We’ll make him work for his dinner.”
At this altitude, the RB-29C could manage 390 miles per hour, subject to the engines overheating. If the books were right, the He-219 could manage 416. That gave it a 26 miles per hour speed advantage. The night-fighter wouldn’t catch the fleeing reconnaissance aircraft for 35 minutes at worst, 45 minutes at best. The battle would take place anywhere between 250 and 300 miles north of here. The same books said He-219 had a range of 960 miles. The question was, where had he come from? Just how much fuel did he have left?
“Cloud level is at 20,000, Jan.”
“OK, we’ll head for it. How thick?”
“Weather braniacs said a 5,000 foot layer. There’s a hell of a storm system running through. It’s not too bad here, but Kola is getting really pounded.”
“That gives us some room to breathe.” Niemczyk put Bad Brew II’s nose down and watched the speed build up. 395mph. That put the Heinkel behind them between 40 and 55 minutes away from closing to gun range. Anywhere between 260 and 360 miles north of their present position. There was another catch. Bad Brew II carried a lot more fuel than the fighter behind her, but supplies weren’t limitless. If she ran at full power too long, she would run out of fuel also.
It was a strange sensation. The individual minutes seemed to drag by, yet every time Niemczyk looked at the instrument panel clock, the hands seemed to have jumped forward. “Where is he?”
“Dead behind us. Estimated two, perhaps three miles; no more than that. May be less.” They were already in the cloud layer, the gray-white shroud clung to them. The enemy radar could still see them, but the crew on the fighter would be searching for the dark shadow of the bomber. The RB-29C had an edge there. Its bright silver finish didn’t have much of a shadow. In the air, it tended to be shadows people saw, as dark patches on a light background. Contrary to myth, matte black was a very bad color for a night-fighter.
“Everybody to an observation panel. Watch for the slightest shadow.” Originally the B-29 had had multiple remote controlled turrets with their gunners in blisters. The RB-29C had discarded them and the blisters had been replaced by flat, transparent observation panels. “Mickey, you’re the most likely to see him first. Yell out at the slightest hint. Just don’t fire.” The twin .50 caliber tail guns were Bad Brew II’s only armament. There was a big argument about ammunition for them. Some crews carried heavy tracer loads in the hope that streams of fire would scare off a night-fighter. Niemczyk thought that was insane; tracer pointed both ways and revealed the bomber’s position as clearly as a neon signpost. Bad Brew II carried not a single round of tracer.
“Shadow, behind us.” It was Donovan in the tail turret.
“Drop chaff. Jam that radar now.” Niemczyk waited until the chaff cloud deployed and the jammer in what had once been the bomb bay was pumping out energy. Then he hauled Bad Brew II around, breaking left as hard as the airframe would allow. Behind them, the faint shadow in the mist passed their tail. Niemczyk was already reversing the turn, putting Bad Brew II on a parallel course to the fighter, falling behind it. Then, he saw something weird and unexpected. Streams of light headed up from the ghostly shadow in the cloud. Tracers? Upwards?
“You see that Jan? He’s got cannon firing upwards. What the devil is he playing at?”
“That’s new. Logical though. Cannon like that will gut a bomber. The braniacs need to know about them. They were probably firing on an estimated position when they lost us.” In front of them, the shadow faded into the mist. Niemczyk thought carefully. He must know we aren’t in front of him, that means we must have turned. So he’s going to turn as well, right or left? Did he think we turned right or left? We went left, will he guess that? Mentally, Niemczyk flipped a coin, then broke right. The longer he could keep the fighter from picking him up again, the better. On instinct, he pulled the stick back and started a slow climb. The speed dropped. The laboring engines drifted even closer to the red danger zones on the temperature gauges. The R-3350 was not the most reliable engine ever built. Just how long could they take this abuse?
“No sign of emissions. He hasn’t picked us up yet. Wait, I’m getting sidelobes. No main pulse, just sidelobes.”
“Feed jamming energy into them. Try and make him think we’re heading northeast and diving.” In fact, they were heading northwest and climbing. Once again the minutes were ticking past. Bad Brew II broke out of the cloud layer, allowing her silver skin to shine in the feeble light of the new moon. Niemczyk cut the engine power back to cruise allowing the needles on the temperature gauges to drop a little away from the danger zone. Their speed dropped to 250 miles per hour as a result. In his mind, Niemczyk saw the night-fighter maneuvering, circling to try and pick up its target again, diving in the belief that the target had dived away from him, trying to gain separation. Then, he’d have come out the cloud layer below and realized he’d been fooled. That would put him at 15,000 feet and Bad Brew II was at 22,500. The He-219 was underpowered. It had a climb rate of around 1,800 feet per minute. The fighter would take four and a half minutes to regain altitude. By the time it got out of the clouds, it would be another 20 miles behind them. If they were lucky.
“There it is!” The waist observer had seen the dark shadow of the night-fighter, silhouetted against the white of the cloud layer. “Behind us, 235 degrees. At least eight, nine miles away. Not as good as Niemczyk had hoped, the night-fighter pilot must have realized early what had happened and made a good guess on his target’s course. Still, Bad Brew II’s engines had cooled down a little and that allowed him to go back to full power. Behind them, the He-219 started to follow, then broke off and curved away, heading south east for home. Niemczyk breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief and turned northeast, for Iceland and his home base. He had a long, long story to tell to the debriefers who hadn’t believed that the Germans sent night-fighters out after single bombers.
CHAPTER THREE: COLD WIND RISING