Eagles at War (34 page)

He closed again, firing, walking his shells from the wing root up into the cabin until his guns went silent, out of ammunition. The bomber flew on.

Josten was exhausted. He banked away, thinking, That's enough. Back to Mizil to refuel.

In the fight, Lee's plane had been slowed by hits in the right outboard engine and he had slipped back to the number two position, following another B-24 into the clouds, the rest of the formation behind him. The copilot had been wounded, and the navigator was leaning over him, fastening a compress to his wounds.

They were burrowing along right at the top of the cloud layer, the barely masked sun filling the cockpit with a luminous incandescence. He reached up over the windshield to press the number four engine feathering button; it was going to be a long ride home.

*

Wolf's Lair, Rastenburg/August 20, 1943

There was a rare twenty-minute interval between conferences. Adolf Hitler cradled his head in his hands on his hard camp bed, waiting for Dr. Theo Morell's injections—Vitamultin-forte, Pro-stakrinum, and glucose with iodine—to take effect.

A groan slipped through his enveloping weariness. Assailed by every detail of the war, great and small, there was no longer anyone to turn to. He was so terribly lonely. Even the indispensable Bormann was just an automaton who could carry out decisions but not make them.

And there was treason everywhere! Like a dark spot on an apple, the rot had started with the Luftwaffe's failure over England. Since then it had spread everywhere, a soft brown canker contaminating even his intelligence services. How could the
Abwehr
have been so wrong about Russia's strength if it were not treasonous? This year had begun with the catastrophe at Stalingrad and, impossibly, gone downhill since then, one disaster after another, on every front. Even the U-boats were no longer effective; they were losing almost twenty a month, the irreplaceable crews gone forever. This last month had been an endless buffeting by incompetence, betrayal, and sheer misfortune.

He stretched, rubbing where Morell had placed the comforting needles. The problems in Italy had forced the diversion of forces from Russia, even as the Communists surged forward after their victory at Kursk. Germany could have recovered after Stalingrad, but now Orel was gone, and Belograd, and with it the Second Armored Army, wiped out, a year's tank production totally obliterated. And the bombings—Hamburg destroyed, thirty thousand killed, hundreds of thousands homeless—a complete catastrophe. Why had there been firestorms in Hamburg but not in London, or Coventry? No basic difference in construction—must be the mix of incendiaries and high explosives.

The only positive news had been the feeler from Stalin on a separate peace. What an intoxicating thought! It was a difficult decision. The peace could only be temporary, of course, but it would split the Allies, and give the Army a chance to rest and refit. A tantalizing prospect, one only he could pursue.

But it was impossible without a victory first. One couldn't deal from defeats! If he could stop the bombing and repel the inevitable invasion, then perhaps he could come to terms with Stalin, the only man on the continent—in the world!—worth dealing with. The jets were the key to both problems.

His changing mood reflected the effects of the daily injections that stiffened his will and resolve like steel rods in concrete. He rose, his legs only slightly unsteady, to consult the appointment calendar on the desk. Done in "Fuehrer Type," bold-faced and double-spaced, it showed only two more entries. The first was: dinner/LEUTNANT WALTER FRENTZ/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER; the second: hafner/ploesti/jet aircraft.

Hitler groaned. No one obeyed orders. The flak had achieved a great victory at Ploesti—more than forty of the bombers shot down, and the damage to the refineries was all repairable. But the jet fighter! How could the idiots have employed it there, and only one of them? Had they never heard of the tanks on the Somme?

Bormann's discreet rap sounded on the door. Time for dinner.

The mood was distinctly different from their last visit to the Wolf's Lair; the smartly dressed aides always sniffed how things were going to go, serving as weathervanes for the Fuehrer's mood. This time there had been no offer of food or drink: the barometer was clearly falling.

Hafner and Josten sat quietly, lost in their thoughts. Hafner tried to assess what would happen. The lone jet had performed well under the worst possible tactical conditions, a low-level engagement. He'd shot down three of the bombers and damaged a fourth. If he'd had even ten 262s with him, it would have been a slaughter.

The ground defenses had been marvelous, no question, and
Generalmajor
Gerstenberg had received a personal call from the Fuehrer congratulating him on the success of the flak batteries. Josten had sent a coded report directly to Goering on the results of his flight. Instead of congratulations, he'd gotten a rocket from the Fuehrer's headquarters, ordering him and Hafner to keep silent about the battle, and to be ready to report to Wolfschanze immediately. They'd made the trip twice, and each time Hitler had been too busy to see them, trying to patch things up in Italy and on the Eastern Front. Hafner hoped he wouldn't see them again tonight.

Josten's thoughts were of an entirely different nature. Lyra, due to deliver soon, was doing well and, characteristically, not complaining at all. He knew he wouldn't be able to get away to be with her; if he stayed alive, he'd probably be pushing an old Heinkel around on the Russian front. Well, that's the way it was for most German women; the war didn't stop so husbands could go home. Her letters were cold, but she wrote that she was not afraid, that the people at the Legation were taking care of her. At least she was out of the bombing.

The imperturbable, fat-faced Bormann, a classic gray eminence, glided in on eerily silent feet. He didn't speak, only nodded curtly to the door leading to the conference room.

Hitler was leaning over a map examining a sector of the collapsing front, a far different figure than his newsreel image. Wearing unfamiliar spectacles, his right eye monstrously enlarged by the six-inch-diameter magnifying glass, he had the disordered appearance of a cathedral gargoyle. They waited, Josten standing at attention, Hafner sitting straight up in his wheelchair, Bormann silent by his master's side.

Neither man spoke as Hitler lectured. "The British introduced tanks on the Somme in 1916, a handful, and with no plan to exploit them! They failed, utterly, and lost the surprise factor for the rest of the war. That's what you've done at Ploesti with the jet! I wanted to save them, to use them to repel the invasion, but no, you knew better. And you went into battle with only one. How stupid!"

"A broken wreck of a man and an idiot major deciding how to run the war! Is this the pretty pass that Germany has come to? I should have Galland's neck for this, and yours, too!"

His manner changed abruptly, as he moved bits of paper around on the tabletop. "Two things have saved you. One is that I cannot find it in my heart to be angry with people who want to fight. God knows we have few enough of them left now."

He was silent, seeming to reach within himself for the strength to speak.

Hitler paused, visibly shaken that the bombing might have snatched his vengeance weapons from him. Then, his voice strong, he said, "Hafner, the only thing that might save us is the microfilming you've done on the plans for the secret weapons. How far along are you?"

"My understanding is that we are almost completely up to date; General Dornberger's men at Peenemunde have been very conscientious."

"Despite all the mistakes, you've convinced me on the jets. I've already told Speer to give it top priority over everything, even the tank and submarine programs. I will instruct Messerschmitt and Junkers to take your advice on the 262 program—but I want you to concentrate primarily on the reconstruction of the V-weapon program. The jets can save us from defeat, but only the V-weapons can give us victory."

***

Chapter 10

Dayton, Ohio/August 24, 1943

More than three hundred mourners were gathered in the red brick Christ Church on Dayton's West First Street.

In the end, the little that was left of Clarice had expired peacefully. Patty and Hadley were with her, and through his tears Hadley observed that it wasn't so much a death as a subsidence. She had really died weeks ago, when the Clarice of old, so formidably vital, had been transformed with appalling speed into a frail mummylike creature whose weak voice spun an unceasing stream of incoherence, until grinding into silence the day before she died.

Surprisingly, it was Hadley who had insisted on a big funeral; Clarice had always said she wanted to be quietly cremated and forgotten. But Hadley was bereft, guilt-stricken over the years that he'd worked too hard and paid too little attention to her and, Patty knew, totally apprehensive about life without her.

The turnout from the base was large; most had never known Clarice, for the Rogets rarely went out and never entertained, but Hadley was a popular figure, and they were there to support him.

Clarice had never gone to church a day in her life, but Hadley had arranged with the base padre, Father Tedesco, to have an Episcopal service in Dayton—the newly built base chapel wasn't quite ready yet. Patty looked around, quietly gratified that the church was filled with flowers, mourners, and the powerful aura of Clarice looking down from above, irritated as hell that her instructions weren't being followed.

Patty's thoughts turned to Bandy, who felt bad that he could not be on hand to support Hadley. He was in California at Muroc Dry Lake, conferring with Jim Lee and getting ready to fly the first production McNaughton jet. Then he was off to Lockheed to try to expedite progress on their jet fighter. He'd had another tremendous battle with Caldwell.

Yet the stress of the last six months—the war, Clarice's illness, everything—had served to cement their marriage. Patty had made the transition from aviatrix to full-time parent and nurse gladly, even with some relief. Her flying career now seemed like an achievement of her childhood, worthwhile, but just a part of the past. Doing double duty with Clarice and the kids was hard work, but in the process she had become more of her own person, less a captive to her flier's image.

Sitting on Patty's left, Caldwell realized that it was a shame that Clarice had to predecease Hadley, who needed her a great deal more than she needed him. It had been the same with Shirley. He wouldn't be a major general if it hadn't been for Shirley's help. And he wouldn't be where he was—in deep trouble over the McNaughton failures—if her death hadn't triggered the wild, late-blooming adolescence he was suffering.

He nodded his head as if in prayer and let his mind run over the file of reports he'd digested that morning. The appearance of the jet at Ploesti was ominous—no one knew how many more there had been, but even one was a bad sign. Lee had managed to struggle back to Benghazi on three engines, and he'd been smart enough to caution his crew not to talk about the attack. The intelligence officer had immediately sworn Lee and his crew to silence and forwarded a top secret report to Headquarters. Both the Eighth and the Fifteenth Air Forces were already shell-shocked from the flak losses; there was no need to introduce a new terror until more was known about it. But the timing had been perfect; Caldwell had just put together a beautiful briefing for both Arnold and Eaker, stressing the importance of hitting the jet factories. Eaker was going to take the matter up with Bomber Harris and get the RAF involved. It would buy McNaughton time, even though Hap Arnold was already asking nasty questions about how the Germans could have jets in the war and the USAAF couldn't.

Arnold wasn't the only one hammering on him. Bandy was being troublesome. They'd had a donnybrook when the performance figures on the Merlin-engine Sidewinder had come in. It was impossible to understand—the plane Jim Lee had tested had shown tremendous improvement, but the production models were deficient. The top speed was up about five miles per hour, but the range was little better than before. Worse, it wouldn't even fly with the big new aux tanks—they tore up the airflow around the stabilizer and made an already marginal airplane completely unstable.

The ugly scene in his office with Bandfield two weeks before replayed in his mind, as it had a hundred times already.

"What the hell is the matter with you, Henry? Have you sold your soul to McNaughton?"

"I've told you before, Bandy, mind your own business. You haven't come up with a goddamn thing on the long-range fighter. You crashed the Curtiss and you tell me the P-38 won't handle it."

"You stupid fucker, you're sitting on the answer. The goddamn P-51 will do the job, and you're sending all the engines to McNaughton. I keep telling you, Henry, people are saying you're either crazy or on the take."