Rose Under Fire

Page 10

I remember standing through a roll call in the dark, at the end of a twelve-hour workday when I’d been so behind that I didn’t get to stop to eat, and being so cold it hurt, and someone behind me started to cry. And then I started crying too, and in ten seconds the whole block was crying. And they shut us up by threatening us with the dogs, and then they made us stand there for another hour – just those of us who were crying. Everyone else, thousands of them, went to bed, but Block 32 was still standing there trying not to cry while we all slowly froze to death.
But I don’t remember what it felt like to be that cold. Isn’t that crazy? I can’t imagine what it felt like. And it couldn’t have been more than a few months ago.
The strange thing is, nothing about the past winter has taken the edge off the memory of my last ATA ferry delivery, the day I took off from Camp Los Angeles in France and landed somewhere near Mannheim in Germany.
I’m going to write it down. I’m wide awake and I’m sick of thinking over and over about the last twenty-four hours’ worth of disaster. Maybe if I think hard about last September, I will be able to forget about today for long enough to let me go to sleep.
Uncle Roger left Camp LA before I did. The RAF pilot arrived in the Spitfire I was supposed to take back to England and we swapped planes; I stood next to the mechanic who telephoned Caen to say I might land there to refuel. I wonder if Caen ever looked for me. Maybe everybody thinks I ran out of fuel over the English Channel.
I remember that flight as if I had the map sitting on my lap with the route outlined in china pencil and a great big ‘X Marks the Spot’ over Épernay. That is where I met the flying bomb. Was it aimed at Paris? Was it one last attempt to destroy Paris? It must have been air-launched, but I don’t know where it was heading. It was too far inland to be aimed at London. I think about this a lot . . . Where that bomb was heading. Other than on a collision course with me, I mean.
I thought it was another plane at first. It looked like another plane. I had a perfectly clear view of it as it came slowly closer and closer, seeming to hover in the same spot just ahead of my wing tip, an unbudging speck in the distant sky like a little black star, or a bug. It didn’t scare me. I assumed it was an Allied plane because I was over Allied territory. So I did exactly what Maddie said she’d done when she saw a flying bomb in the air – I waggled my wings at it. And of course got no response.
I thought, gee whiz, the pilot must be looking at his map – or blind – or asleep – Or there isn’t any pilot.
I should have made a steep turn to get out of its way. This is what I dread telling Daddy. That I went after it on purpose.
I was so sure it was headed for Paris, beautiful Paris. Still intact. And if this bomb hit its target there would be a gigantic crater, broken glass everywhere, dust, summer trees that looked like winter, just like London – I couldn’t stand it.
I pushed the Spitfire’s nose down and went into a screaming downhill dive to gain speed, and the bomb sped straight on about a hundred feet over me. I glanced up and saw it, huge, in silhouette for a fraction of a second, a black cross of wings and fuselage blotting out the sky. Then I thrust on full power and pulled out of the dive in a climbing turn.
Then I was chasing it.
I wasn’t thinking about engine pressure or fuel or anything – I was just hell bent on getting every extra second possible of power and speed out of that Spitfire. And yard by yard, I gained on the bomb.
I must have been going 400 miles an hour. But it didn’t feel fast. It felt like getting your teeth pulled.
‘Come on – come on –’
I talked to the plane like it was a racehorse. I couldn’t hear a thing with full power; I couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice.
‘Come on – nearly there!’
And then I’d overshot it. Getting the speed right was the hardest thing I have ever done – probably the best flying I have ever done too. I overtook the bomb four times before I found that sweet place on the throttle that let me scream along beside it in the air. And then I got my wing under the bomb’s wing on the first try. I didn’t even touch it. I saw the bomb wobble in the air and I thrust full power on again to get out of its way. Then I looked back over my shoulder and saw the bomb tip down gently, gently into a spin, just like Celia’s Tempest.
I let out a scream of nerve and fury and exhilaration, and cut the power and set up the Spit for a straight and level cruise, and began to battle the first wave of guilt.
Do you have ANY IDEA how much fuel you just wasted?
I didn’t even see the stupid bomb hit the ground – I was so busy trying to re-establish myself in real life. It must be what Superman feels like after racing through the sky after a speeding locomotive and then ten seconds later peering at the world through Clark Kent’s near-sighted glasses.
How much fuel have I wasted and where the heck am I?
How much fuel have I wasted and where the heck am I and did I damage the engine?
I was starting to panic. I knew I had to calm down, so I began to orbit – long, lazy ovals over rolling French crazy-quilt fields and woods. I was too high to see where my bomb hit – or maybe I was already too far away to see it. I knew I had to figure out where I was and how to get to Caen from there. I’d been relay-racing with the bomb for about a quarter of an hour, which meant I was now ironically south-west of Paris, about halfway between Paris and Dijon – that bomb wouldn’t have hit Paris anyway. I thought and scribbled on my map for ten minutes while I circled. I knew that all the time I was circling I was wasting still more fuel, but I needed to get it right.
I guess Daddy would say I had my head down in the cockpit for too long. He’d say I didn’t keep enough of a lookout. It’s true I didn’t see them coming. But I don’t think I could have done anything about it even if I had.
I didn’t know what the intercepting planes were. I knew they were German and I could tell they had jet engines, but I didn’t have a clue what kind of plane they were. They were in Luftwaffe camouflage, with black crosses on their fuselages and swastikas on their tailplanes. Their engines hung down from their wings like bombs. I’d never seen anything fly that fast.
I know now that in German they’re called Schwalben, swallows. They were Messerschmitt Me-262s. Those planes did fly just like a couple of swallows, great big enormous swallows with jet engines strapped under their wings. The first one came at me from below and behind, and the other from above and behind. They corkscrewed around me with their engines roaring and suddenly they were gone, one of them breaking left and the other right – but I was still in my wide, slow orbit and they came screaming back at me, one passing me on each side. It was exactly like watching swallows flying.
I did two things. I levelled out and headed north-west, straight back towards England as fast as I could go, and I flashed every single light I had – landing lights, nav lights, cockpit floodlights – and I pulled the flares out, something I’ve never, ever done before, to let them know I wasn’t armed. They came at me again and one of them settled on my tail – I could see him over my shoulder as I tried frantically to urge the speed up and flash lights with the same hand. I was so afraid he was going to blast me out of the sky that it took me a while to notice the other one flying calmly ahead of me, deliberately keeping pace with me. He wasn’t aggressive. He just flew along and let me set the speed. He was so close I could see the pilot’s head in the cockpit. After a moment he rocked his wings at me: ‘HI.’
I let go of the lights and kept my hand on the throttle. I pushed the control column gently from side to side. Light touch, one finger, trained in me from the age of twelve. ‘HI’ yourself.
God.
He made a wide, level turn to the left, practically a U-turn, and headed off back in the other direction.
I actually sobbed aloud with panicked relief, praying that I would never see him again, that I’d never see another Luftwaffe aircraft in my whole life. But then I glanced back over my shoulder and the other guy was still there, stuck to my tail.
‘GO AWAY!’ I screamed pointlessly at the sky.
In about a minute the first guy was back in exactly the same deliberate position ahead of me and to my left, and when he knew I was watching he rocked his wings again.
And I figured out what he meant: ‘FOLLOW ME.’
‘No no no,’ I sobbed at the indifferent sky.
I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to rock my wings to answer him and let him know I was ready to follow his instructions. But I didn’t. I wasn’t ready to follow his instructions. So I just kept flying stubbornly straight in the direction I was heading and ignored him.
And the other guy, the one flying behind me, fired at me.
Actually, he fired into the empty sky above me. Just one burst, a warning shot of automatic cannon fire. He didn’t hit me; I didn’t feel it in the airframe like I felt the hailstorm last summer, but the shock of the sky erupting around me had the same effect as being punched in the stomach. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. My hand forced the throttle automatically, but I couldn’t make the Spit go any faster.
The pilot in front of me rocked his wings a third time – last warning.
I was gasping for air now. I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t outrun them and I couldn’t fight them. So I had to go with them.
I took a shuddering breath and rocked my own wings again: ‘I’M COMING.’
The pilot ahead of me made another long, lazy U-turn. This time I turned after him. The pilot on my rear end followed me around. I could see them wave casually as they passed in the air.
We lined up in formation flying straight and level in the wrong direction, with me in the middle, one hand shaking on the throttle and one hand shaking on the control column, both feet shaking against the rudder pedals, half-blinded by tears and terror. I tried to imagine the report I’d have to file. Controlled flight into terrain was all I could think of. That’s what they call it when you’re flying in a cloud and you crash into a mountain you didn’t see – controlled flight into terrain.
We avoided overflying cities. We avoided overflying camps and troops. We flew high over the front and then over the German border, which was marked on my map as the Siegfried Line. We crossed the Rhine north of Mannheim, where my map stopped. But I didn’t. I kept flying, with a pair of Luftwaffe jets escorting me deeper and deeper into Germany.
I flew with them for 200 miles. They kept taking turns to zip ahead of me and circle back. There was always one of them with me, behind or ahead.
After the first fifteen minutes, once I got used to the whole nightmare weirdness of what was happening, there wasn’t really anything for me to do except keep the Spitfire pointing in the direction they chose for me, and try to figure out where the heck we were and where the heck we were going. I realised this was the most important thing I could do – exactly what you’d do if you accidentally flew into a cloud. Pay attention to your heading, the time and how fast you’re going, so you can turn around and find your way back.