Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air Page 11

  “It’s my plane,” Udet said.

  Lewis couldn’t help looking skeptical, and Udet shook his head.

  “No, really, this is my project. My choice, my recommendation. My decision how to show it. And anyway I doubt our leader will mind our allies seeing what we can do.”

  Are we allies now? Lewis thought. He wasn’t sure. “What about the Air Marshal?”

  “Göring understands,” Udet answered. “Are you coming, or not?”

  “I’m coming,” Lewis said, and ducked under the rope that separated the Stuka from the admiring crowds. Udet climbed up onto the wing, and Lewis followed, impressed by the long line of the cockpit canopy. The plane was a two-seater, the engine forward of the pilot’s seat, pilot and gunner back-to-back, with a machine gun mounted in the back canopy. Visibility looked to be excellent from both seats.

  “Take the back seat,” Udet said, and Lewis climbed carefully in. He found the safety belts and fastened them, then put on the headset that was hanging ready. A moment’s search found the jack, and he plugged in to hear Udet talking cheerfully in German, presumably to his mechanic. Lewis looked around, picking out the few familiar features. He had begun as a rear-seat gunner in the last war, but this machine was so far beyond the Salmson 2 he and Robbie had flown that he could hardly recognize the fittings. The machine gun looked to be about an 8-mm, which would certainly be useful, and for once there looked to be room to store a few extra belts or magazines.

  “Segura.” Udet’s voice crackled in his headphones. “Are you squared away?”

  Lewis checked his belts reflexively. “I’m in.”

  “Close the canopy, then, if you would, and I’ll start her up.”

  Lewis tugged his half of the canopy closed. He definitely liked having the chance to get out on his own if anything went wrong, though he doubted anything would. Udet was here to show off the machine, not to get anybody killed.

  The engine coughed to life, puffs of smoke drifting past the cockpit, and then the rhythm steadied as Udet adjusted the fuel mixture.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  The Stuka moved slowly forward, turning toward the hangar doors under the pressure of engine and rudder. Lewis’s headphones were full of the conversation between Udet and the tower as they rolled out into the milky sunlight. Scattered clouds at five thousand feet, solid cloud at twelve, the tower said, winds negligible: an excellent day for flying.

  “My plan is to do a couple of dives,” Udet said, as much to Lewis as to the tower, “and then come in. Half an hour, no more.”

  “Very good, Junkers 87,” the tower answered. “You are cleared for takeoff.”

  They were very nearly at the end of the runway, and Udet turned the Stuka onto it, swinging around so that they would be taking off toward the tower and the watching crowds. Lewis felt the power build, heard the engine’s pitch change, and the Stuka bolted down the runway. It was fast, faster than he’d realized, and in that moment the tail came up and Udet pulled back on the yoke, lifting the Stuka neatly into the air. Lewis swallowed an exclamation of pure delight, and Udet’s voice sounded in his ear.

  “Ok. We’ll climb out to the south, then do a couple of dives.”

  “Sounds good.” Lewis’s mouth was dry, the adrenaline pumping through his system as though they were in combat already. The ground dropped steadily away from them, the airport and the city shrinking to toys and then to mere shadows and folds in the rising ground. They passed through a wisp of cloud that surrounded them like fog for an instant and then vanished: five thousand feet, Lewis thought. Not a spectacular rate of climb, but then, Udet wasn’t pushing her. Overhead, the clouds came closer, a pale ceiling that shone like the inside of a seashell. That meant it wasn’t very thick, but Lewis hoped Udet didn’t plan to dive through it. Beneath them, the city was fading out into the darker green of woods and then the steeply unfolded hills toward the island’s center.

  The pitch shallowed, still climbing but not as steeply, and Udet spoke again. “She’s nice, huh? Easy to fly.”

  “She seems it.”

  Udet leveled off not far under the cloud deck. Lewis braced himself for turbulence, but none came, the Stuka droning steadily south. The mountains rose beneath their wings, and after a bit, Udet made a shallow turn back toward the airport.

  “We’ll have to do it over the runway. It’s all for the show.”

  “Of course.” Lewis rested his hands on the machine gun’s stock, fingers slipping automatically into position. As he’d expected, he had an excellent view of the sky around them, and he swung the barrel through its arc, testing the coverage. If this were real… Not a machine it would be easy to sneak up on, that was for sure. “What kind of forward weapons to you have, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Not settled,” Udet answered. “Machine guns in the wings is the current plan, or maybe cannon. And of course this is not the only dive bomber under development. Heinkel has a prototype, too.”

  Jesus. “Are you expecting to use them?”

  “No, no, no. No one wants another war. These are — they are testing a theory, yes? We build them because we can.” Udet paused. “And, of course, we’re still catching up after Versailles.”

  And that was true enough, though you could certainly argue that Germany had gotten exactly what it deserved. He said, “I think I’d prefer machine guns myself.”

  “Me, too. Better for ground attack, too.”

  They were coming back up on the airport, the beacon on top of the tower bright even in daylight, and Udet cleared his throat. “I should warn you, the dive can be a little rough — physically, I mean. But there’s an automatic mechanism to pull us out, so even if you black out, we’ll be all right.”

  “What if you black out?” Lewis asked, and Udet laughed.

  “Or if I black out. Don’t worry. Ok, Tower, this is Junkers 87. We’re ready to begin our run.”

  “Junkers 87, you are clear to go.”

  “Thank you, Tower.” There was a pause before Udet spoke again. “Ok. Here we go. I am setting the pull-out altitude. Compressor is at automatic, dive lever engaged.”

  Lewis felt the airspeed drop, and the Stuka rolled through 180 degrees, seeming to hang upside-down for a heart-stopping second before it pitched downward. The engine was still close to full power; he was pressed into his seat staring up at the clouds that fell away from him as though he’d been dropped out of the sky. His hands were like lead resting against his thighs; he opened his mouth to breathe and felt as though there was a stone on his chest. The color leached from the cockpit, his vision fuzzing at the edges, and still the Stuka dove, not vertical, it had only been vertical for that moment, but still impossibly steep. He struggled to turn his head, to see how close they were to the ground, but an invisible hand pinned him to his seat.

  The Stuka shuddered, the engine pitch changing as the angle eased, and the pressure lifted from his chest. The nose came up, and they lifted away from Boccadefalco’s runway, heading back south toward the mountains.

  “You all right back there?” Udet asked.

  “I’m fine.” Lewis shifted in his seat, reassuring himself that he could move. “Remarkable.”

  “Want to go again?”

  “Oh, yes. Absolutely.”

  He was ready for it this time, or as ready as he could be, braced for the roll and the dive, and this time though his vision blurred and the colors vanished, he was able to imagine what it would look like from the front seat. This was the unexpected weapon, not against other planes, but against men on the ground — Patton, he thought again, Patton’s plan to go over the fortifications, not around them. And with a machine like this — it would be close to unstoppable.

  Udet made a decorous landing and taxied back to the hangar, letting his mechanic chock the wheels and settle the plane as he ran through the shut-down list. Lewis pushed back the canopy and undid his harness, but waited until Udet was done before climbing out. He could still feel the dive in
his belly, the muscles tight and sore from the pressure of gravity, and Udet gave him a sympathetic grin.

  “Yeah, I know, it hurts a little. But it’s worth it.”

  “It’s a hell of a plane,” Lewis said. He held out his hand. “Thank you. That was — I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

  They clasped hands on the tarmac, Udet still grinning, the hunter’s light fading from his eyes. “I thought you’d see it. God, I wish I was younger —”

  He stopped abruptly, shrugging, and Lewis swallowed his own first words. You think there’s going to be a war. That was not a question he could ask, not of a serving officer in another country’s army, who might well know something of his government’s plans. “It’s gorgeous,” he said instead, and meant it.

  He made his way back toward the part of the hangar where the Dart was parked, amazed to see when he checked his watch that he’d been gone less than an hour. It felt like days — like decades, like a lifetime, what had been just words in Hawaii made absolute and concrete. If he had one of those planes… He could see it perfectly, screaming down on targets that would barely have time to fight back — and how would he take it out, if he had the Dart, fighter against bomber? The tail gunner was a problem — the Stuka was most vulnerable in the dive and the pull-out, but the tail gunner covered an intimidating arc of sky. He thought he could have kept firing through the haze, maybe not as accurately, but well enough to keep fighters at a distance —

  “Lewis! Where the hell have you been?” Henry stopped. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” Lewis shook himself back to the moment. “Sorry, Henry. Udet offered me a ride in the Stuka, and I went.”

  “Oh.” Henry gave a sudden, rueful smile. “Well, yes, who wouldn’t? What’s it like?”

  “Good and scary, and I mean that every way you can take it. If Germany wants to go to war — that’s going to be a real problem.”

  “We’ve got good planes,” Henry said. “The Dart’s damn good.”

  “We’re going to need better,” Lewis said.

  Alexandria, Egypt

  December 30, 1935

  It was well after dark before Iskinder returned. Jerry had given up pacing as too painful and taken up chain smoking instead before there was the soft knock on the door of the flat and Willi went to open it.

  “I was getting concerned,” Jerry said as Iskinder came in, an understatement if there ever was one.

  Iskinder lowered himself tiredly into one of the chairs at the table, glancing at Jerry’s full ashtray. “M. Claudet says he can’t do it,” he said. “The weapons are here and in a warehouse by the lake, but Claudet says he can’t arrange for their transport to Ethiopia. He won’t fly into a war zone. He says he won’t risk his plane.”

  Jerry blew a long stream of smoke, then stamped out his cigarette in the burgeoning ashtray, suddenly tired of the taste of tobacco. “I thought you had a deal.”

  “So did I.” Iskinder looked grave. “So did the Emperor. But Claudet says circumstances have changed. The Italian Air Force has air supremacy, and they’ve interdicted flights in and out of Ethiopia. They’ve also taken the main airfields, such as they are. Claudet says he’d have nowhere to land if he did fly the weapons in, and if he were caught smuggling, who knows what would happen?”

  “But how can it be smuggling to take weapons to the Ethiopian government? Ones they bought and paid for?”

  “That doesn’t matter anymore,” Iskinder said tiredly. “Jerry, don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter that the Emperor is the legitimate ruler. Nobody knows what’s going on in Ethiopia, and nobody cares. The Italians have the power, and might makes right.”

  Willi went into the kitchen, abruptly making coffee.

  Jerry took a deep breath. He could see exactly what Iskinder meant, but that didn’t mean he had to accept it, had to accept that there was simply nothing he could do. And in fact there was. There was a solution, one so startlingly simple that it was amazing Iskinder hadn’t thought of it, but then Iskinder hadn’t been in Hawaii last summer. “What about a sea plane?” he said.

  Iskinder blinked. “A sea plane? One of those little two seaters? Jerry, I don’t see…”

  “Not a two seater. A full size cargo plane.” Jerry got up, his weight on his cane. “A brand new flying boat with the capacity to carry everything you’ve got and more. And as to where to land it — even I know the Blue Nile rises at Lake Tana. Who needs an airfield? Any large enough lake or river will do. It could even land on the Nile.”

  “The Nile cuts through gorges in Ethiopia,” Iskinder said, “But I take your point. Lake Tana is certainly broad and smooth. And there are other lakes.” He looked up at Jerry, something like hope rekindling in his face. “But where am I going to get a sea plane?”

  “Alma and Mitch are showing one this week in Palermo,” Jerry said triumphantly. “They’ve got Consolidated’s new Catalina at an international air show.”

  “In Italy,” Iskinder said. “Which is a thousand miles away. Across open water.”

  “The Catalina can do that. It has that kind of range.” Jerry paced around the table, leaned briefly on Iskinder’s shoulder. “They were testing it in Hawaii last summer for use in the South Pacific. It’s supposed to be able to fly from Australia to India with only one fueling stop. The Catalina can do Palermo to Alexandria easily.” Jerry mentally crossed his fingers. Surely that was true.

  Iskinder’s eyebrows rose, and Jerry saw eagerness tempered by caution. “But the plane doesn’t belong to Alma and Mitch.”

  “They can borrow it, surely. An additional trial or something,” Jerry dismissed that problem as trivial. “Alma and Mitch will come if we ask them to. And they can get you and the weapons to Ethiopia.”

  Iskinder’s brows reached maximum height. “Smuggling machine guns into a war zone when the Italians have air supremacy?”

  “This is Alma,” Jerry said. “I’ll cable them tonight. It’s not too late for the telegraph office to be open. They’ll have it first thing in the morning.” Willi was gaping, but Willi didn’t know them half as well as he did.

  “If anyone can outfly the Italian Air Force, it’s Mitch,” Iskinder said.

  Jerry picked up the phone to call for a cab to the telegraph office. “You haven’t seen Lewis,” he said.

  Palermo, Italy

  December 31, 1935

  It was cold and blustery at breakfast, and Mitch eyed the rain-streaked windows with a mix of annoyance and relief. At least it had waited until the last day of the show to sock everyone in. They’d had more good days than he’d expected, and he thought they’d done of good job showing off the Catalina. There was nothing important scheduled for today except another open house and a memorial for French flyers who’d been killed on the opening day. And then tonight there was the big closing ball that was going to double as a New Year’s Eve party. He had to admit he was looking forward to that. He sipped at his coffee, enjoying the bitter heat, and Stasi smiled at him across the table. The children were dining in the room, under the careful eye of young Elena, who had certainly earned the lavish tip Mitch was planning to give her. It was nice to have a few minutes to themselves.

  “So, darling,” Stasi said, “no flying today?”

  “I wouldn’t think so.” Mitch glanced at the window again, assessing the lowering clouds and the steady downpour. “Looks like it’s settled in for the duration.”

  “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to come round the museums with me. There’s the most divine little palazzo just full of lovely things.”

  “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.” Mitch felt the corners of his mouth quivering. He could just imagine the sort of thing that had caught her eye.

  “Oh, but, darling, I’d have you there to keep me honest.” She fluttered heavily mascaraed lashes in his direction.

  “I don’t reckon I’m that good,” Mitch said, and won the flicker of a smile before she put her hand to her bosom.

  “Darling
, I’m shocked!”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Sorley,” Foster said from the doorway. “Mr. Sorley.”

  Mitch bit back a sigh and Stasi relaxed, reaching for her coffee. “Good morning, Tiny. I’d say we’re not flying today.”

  “No, sir. Mrs. Segura was getting the forecast, but it sure don’t look good.”

  The meteorologists at the Boccadifalco Tower had been sending over the forecast twice a day for the duration of the show, a courtesy Mitch had to admit was extremely convenient.

  “I wouldn’t think you’d need a professional forecaster to tell you that,” Stasi said, and Foster gave her an earnest look.

  “No, ma’am, but it might clear later.”

  Not likely, Mitch thought. Not before evening. He looked toward the door, and saw Alma and Lewis coming toward them, Alma frowning at what looked like a telegram. “Everything all right?”

  She looked up quickly, blonde bob falling nearly into place, and managed a smile. “It’s from Jerry,” she said, and held out the slip of paper. “He’s all right, but —”

  Mitch took it, scanned the blurred print while Lewis seated her and the waitress brought coffee and menus. BEST MAN HERE STOP NEEDS TO BORROW PLANE STOP CAN YOU HELP QUESTION MARK

  “What the hell?”

  Lewis held out his hand, and Mitch passed it across. Stasi leaned sideways to read over his shoulder.

  “Iskinder,” Alma said. “That’s who he has to mean.” She stopped. “Tiny, I’m sorry, this is company business. I need you to go fetch the forecast from the desk — I got distracted when they handed me this — and take about half an hour doing it.”

  Foster blinked, but pushed his chair back obediently. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Iskinder,” Mitch repeated. Of course, the man who provided the wedding ring was generally the best man, and Iskinder had been the one who’d come up with a ring in Venice seventeen years ago. “Why in hell would Iskinder want to ‘borrow’ a plane?”

  “Our plane,” Alma corrected. “A sea plane. Though where he’s taking it —”