Eagles at War (13 page)

Lyra felt as if she had a box seat at a satanic opera as the camera focused on a workers' housing district in the loop of the Thames. There were strong fires in the center of the district, the flames fanning outward like a prairie burning. The cameraman switched to a telephoto lens, and the widening flames loomed suddenly closer with a frightening clarity of detail—a pub sign, blanched white in the inferno, hung above a row of grotesquely crumpled bodies, arms charred black, reaching upward, tiny babies still pressed in their mothers' arms. Then the camera focused on the outer wall of an apartment building just as it shook like aspic and collapsed. The facade tore away abruptly, suddenly injecting an oddly human note into the film. In the layered floors, each one identical to the one below, she could see the exposed sawtooth stairwells, the remains of kitchens, sinks still fastened to the surviving wall, pictures hanging at an angle, bathtubs and toilets suspended on stubs of floor. Another explosion collapsed the building completely.

The projector clattered to a halt. Lyra leaned forward and closed her eyes, determined that she would do
anything
to end the war, no matter what was asked, no matter whom it affected, even Helmut, even her parents; it didn't matter, the war must end.

Caldwell turned on the lights, then sat down beside her. "I'm sorry, Lyra, but I wanted you to see the real effects of what the Luftwaffe is doing. It's not brave battles between young athletes—it's a systematic, squalid killing of the innocent. I hope you never experience it."

"You've made your point. How can I help you?"

His voice softened, became almost paternal. "There is one issue that I need information on above all others, one I'm sure Helmut either knows about, or can find out about." Caldwell began a technical explanation of the jet engine, and Lyra put up her hand.

"Stop. I know I can help. Helmut is directly involved in the German jet engine program, working with a man you may know—Bruno Hafner."

Caldwell rocked back in his chair—it was impossible, Bruno was dead. He hesitated for a moment, then got up and poured drinks as he struggled to get control of his voice.

"Of course I knew Bruno Hafner. I bought airplanes for the Air Corps from his company years ago. But I thought he was dead."

"He was badly wounded in Spain, but he's recovered enough to drive Helmut crazy trying to get the jet engines working."

The news was a tremendous blow to Caldwell. Hafner would be a formidable enemy, amoral, absolutely ruthless, and an expert in manufacturing sophisticated aircraft. Recovering his poise, he asked, "What do you know about the program? Does Helmut talk to you about it?"

"He talks of nothing else. Helmut's monomaniacal about the jet plane, says it will be Germany's savior. I'd far rather have a woman rival than this utter dedication to a machine. And he's still flying combat—the work he does for Hafner is all extra duty. He is burning himself out."

"What does he say about it?"

"He won't talk about what happens in combat—for some reason that's private. But he tells me about his test work. For example, he was at the Heinkel factory at Marienehe earlier this month, and saw a prototype jet fighter fly. He was not too impressed, said its range was far too short. Messerschmitt apparently has a better plane in the works."

Germany had already flown one jet fighter and had another ready to go! It was almost as unbelievable as Hafner being alive.

"Do you know when the Messerschmitt jet will fly?"

"Ah, this is tricky to explain. Helmut flew a version of the Messerschmitt—they call it the 262—about ten days ago. But it was a special airplane—the two jet engines weren't installed. Instead, they had put a piston engine, with a propeller, in the nose, just to test the airframe."

It sounded absurd to Caldwell. "The jet engines weren't installed?"

"No, and he doesn't think they'll be ready for a year or more. They are having tremendous problems—the engines keep breaking apart. They just explode and burn on the test stands. Once a piece of burning metal landed on Helmut's shoulder. It burned right through his epaulette."

Caldwell felt partial relief. If Josten preferred the Messerschmitt, and it wasn't going to be ready for a year, then he could allow McNaughton some development time.

"Do you know Hafner?"

"I've met him. He's a hideous sight, scarred and crippled, but obviously brilliant. To tell you the truth, he frightens me. When we talked he somehow conveyed that he knew
everything
about me. It wasn't anything he said; it was the intent way he stared, with his eyelid drooping at half mast."

"Hafner was always well informed. Be careful with him."

"I think there is a better way for us to communicate. I have an old family friend who works here at the Legation. He's a monarchist and absolutely hates Hitler. I don't want to involve him, but he could get messages to your Legation, if you have a man you can trust there. They could meet here at the Grand."

Caldwell agreed quickly, his mind still trying to digest the import of Hafner being alive and working on the jet engine.

*

Above Minsk, Soviet Russia/June 29, 1941

The greatest invasion in history surged forward in an irresistible
feldgrau
tide. The immense Axis army—162 divisions, three million men—rolled forward from the Arctic to the Black Sea, driving great enveloping armored probes to trap the massed Russian forces. Just as Western Europe and the Balkans had fallen, so would Russia, the ancient enemy of the East. Adolf Hitler's
blitzkrieg
tactics were all-conquering.

Helmut Josten led his
Schwarm
of four Messerschmitt Bf 109Fs in a tight circle, protecting the little Fiesler Storch that hung below, immobile as a hat on a wall. The slow-flying Storch, a fabric-covered high-wing reconnaissance plane, was the aerial podium from which the maestro, General Heinz Guderian, orchestrated his Panzer divisions. Guderian didn't like to fly—was often airsick, in fact—but the distances in Russia were so vast that he couldn't operate out of a tank command post as he had when he raced through France.

The calm of the escort mission was a relief for Josten and his men, who had been flying five and six close-support sorties a day since the invasion started on June 22. On that first day, thirteen hundred Luftwaffe planes had flown more than four thousand missions, striking tirelessly behind the Russian lines, destroying bridges, railways, even not sparing the trains that were trundling toward the German border, still carrying supplies for the Reich. The Luftwaffe attacked everything that would permit the Russians to escape to fight another day. Airfields were priority targets, and the first collation of reports showed more than eighteen hundred Soviet planes destroyed against only thirty-five German losses.

Josten didn't know how many he himself had shot up on the ground—forty, fifty, perhaps more, planes of all kinds, ancient Po-2 biplanes, huge four-engine ANT bombers that looked like winged moving vans, and the ubiquitous flat-nosed I-16 fighters. Each one shot up on the ground was one less to dispose of in the air. Yet it was strange—once he had sought nothing but victories, now he resented the time he spent in the air, away from the jet project. There was so much to be done and so little time. Hafner was even more demanding than Galland.

He looked at the battle below, realizing that the extent of the Russian catastrophe was possible only because of an incredible contradiction of ideas. The military buildup was tremendous, completely out of scale with any German estimate of Russian strength. Yet the Russian military had submissively presented its neck to the Germans like a pekinese to a wolf, ignoring all the warning signs of war. They had left their airplanes lined up wing tip to wing tip, uncamouflaged, with only negligible flak to defend them, letting the Germans strip their air power from them like skin from a tangerine.

Josten had shot down Russian planes even more unsportingly than Galland had popped-off pheasants back in France. The Russians were unbelievably brave, incomprehensibly stupid. Their bombers were usually the twin-engine SB-2s that had been proven so vulnerable in Spain and in Finland, or the freakish-looking single-engine SU-2s; neither plane had the speed or the guns to defend itself. It was reinforcement of the lesson he hoped his leaders had learned over England: the quantity of planes wasn't nearly as important as their quality.

Yet with it all, Josten felt a deep stirring of unease. Two days before, his unit had been shifted to the south, where von Rundstedt's armies had needed additional air support. As he had flown the two-hundred-kilometer flight, he saw the full magnitude of the German effort. For miles behind a front that ranged the breadth of Russia there were columns of trucks, horses, artillery, all the impedimenta of war. The number of horses amazed him. The
Wehr
macht
was supposed to be mechanized, but most vehicles were horse-drawn. Still, it seemed incredible that all the tremendous quantities of materiel could have been squeezed out of a Germany so impoverished that bread was now two thirds wheat and one third bran. There was no fat left for the nation to feed upon. This first attack on Russia must not fail; there would be no second chance. The quantities of men and materiel the Germans were overrunning was enormous—but the Russians had a much larger base to draw from. Could the gigantic German war machine endure and prevail?

As Guderian's Storch was gliding in to land, he saw a flicker on the horizon and grew instantly alert. The flicker changed into dots, then crosses; three aircraft were coming, Russian fighters flying in their old-fashioned V-formation, He called, "Russian fighters, due east, altitude about two thousand meters." His
Schwarm
climbed behind him, each man mentally checking off his victory score. Josten was disappointed that there were only three; at best he could run his victory string to forty, perhaps forty-one. The thought made him laugh—a number of pilots already had scores approaching the legendary heroes of World War I, von Richthofen and Udet. Who would ever have believed it?

He led his Messerschmitts toward the oncoming Polikarpov I-16s, stubby little monoplanes that he had fought against in Spain, wonderfully maneuverable but dangerously unstable. He signaled and they dove to the attack.

The I-16s formed up in a line-abreast formation to meet the attack. Josten noted with satisfaction that the Russians began firing at far too long a range, the mark of the amateur, their cowlings lighting up with the fire from the 7.62 ShKAS machine guns, with slower bursts coming from the 20-mm ShVAK cannons mounted in the wings.

The explosion of the number three Messerschmitt killed Josten's satisfaction as it tossed his own aircraft into a vertical bank. To his left, the fourth Messerschmitt was pulling up with a huge cloud of white smoke pouring from the radiator. These Russians were sharpshooters! Stunned, Josten and his wingman flashed through the enemy formation, breaking all the tactical rules by separating. Josten dove to the left, cursing himself for letting the Russians get the advantage. He was followed by the lead I-16 as the other two Russians raced toward his wingman, Balzar, now desperately turning to rejoin.

Josten soon realized that the Russian pilot was better than anyone he'd fought since England. They danced a strange aerial polka, the Russian continuously turning, snaking his stubby nose around on a schilling to try to bring his guns to bear, Josten climbing and diving, using his superior speed to seek an advantage. He gasped with the physical exertion—the strain of the G forces pressing him into the seat, the enormous effort required to pull the stick back, the broiling Russian summer compounded by the heat pouring back from the straining engine. As they circled the sun sent dizzying semaphore flashes off a lake below each time they turned. Sweat drained from him, and he would have given his wings for a drink of water.

The Russian was elusive as an eel, using the instability of the I-16 to tumble out from under his sights, then magically reappearing in a firing position behind. Perspiration soaked Josten, and his breath came harder. Off to his right, where his wingman Balzar should have been, there was nothing but a huge cloud of black smoke.

The I-16 turned into him again, all guns blazing, and Josten squirmed down into his seat. The two planes hurtled head-on together, closing at nine hundred kilometers an hour, neither willing to give way. He tried to hide behind the engine as he pumped shells into his enemy. The round green snout of the I-16 grew larger, pieces beginning to break off it as his cannon shells hit home. A tremendous explosion drove hope from his consciousness as his Messerschmitt disintegrated around him, slinging him into space. He felt the rush of wind, saw the whirling earth and sky exchanging places, and realized that he was alive. He hesitated, wanting both to slow down and to get some distance from the battle before pulling the rip cord.

The harness straps slammed together in his crotch and across his chest as the parachute opened. As he drifted down, the green Russian I-16, streaked with oil and showing lots of battle damage, circled around him like a shark about a wounded whale. He could see the pilot's face and waved to him. There was no response, and the I-16 pulled away in a sharp turn, then reversed to bear down on him, bullets crackling from its cowl guns. What a shabby way to go, he thought, bracing himself for the impact of the bullets.

Somehow the Russian missed, and as he turned to attack again Balzar came thundering down from behind, guns blazing. The startled Russian overcontrolled and his I-16 spun out, Balzar falling behind to snap shoot at it all the way down. Josten was still watching the combat as his feet hit the ground near a German flak battery.

Aching from the jolt of the parachute opening and embarrassed at his defeat, he was gathering up his parachute when Balzar flashed by overhead, waving his wings to signify a victory. Well, he thought, I owe him a drink for this one. We'll have to have a "birthday party" tonight to celebrate being alive.

Galland came into Josten's mind again. He should have seen this. If the Russians have many shooters like this last one, We are in for a long war.