The Kingdom of the Air Read online

He walked forward a few paces and loosed a couple more shots, this time taking great chunks from the garden ornament and feeling rather satisfied with himself. Shooting lions! Hah! Who’s the predator now?

  Lucas was a great believer in the survival of the fittest, but he had his own variation on the Darwinian theme. Years ago, at boarding school, he had been bullied mercilessly by rugby–playing seniors who despised him as a cocky little dandy. Lucas had understood at the time that he was one of the weak, but he endured term after term of torment because he believed that in the modern world, brute strength was not the main requirement for survival.

  Different adaptations to the environment were required. There had to be a new notion of ‘the fittest’ and Lucas lecherous

  fostered cunning as an alternative to strength. It had progressively served him well as good investments will over time. Now the schoolyard bullies were probably getting butchered by the Germans in North Africa, while he occupied a country estate and drank someone else’s scotch. It was remarkable, really, that war had given him the best opportunities of his life.

  Lucas fired another shot and pitted the eye–socket of the lion. The seventh bullet tipped the animal from its plinth. He tried to keep shooting, only to realise he had emptied the magazine.

  Looking proudly at the ruined lions, he absently scratched his backside with the pistol.

  ‘Telephone for you, Mr. Moreling.’

  With a start, he turned to see his secretary. She was willowy with auburn hair, wearing a light summer dress in pastel yellow despite the late hour. Lucas watched the shadows shifting around her thighs as she approached. ‘What’s that, Anne?’ He saw a blush rise up her fair neck and flood her face. She had seen his lecherous look and it made him smile. He would never grow weary of unsettling shy people. She was good sport, this one.

  ‘Ah, the telephone, sir. For you.’

  ‘Oh.’ His nose had begun to drip in the cool air and he wiped it with the silk sleeve of his smoking jacket and followed her back towards the house, still taking great interest in the way the light fabric moved around the shape of her legs. The phone call had better not take long. But maybe it was something big; something worthy of his intellect. He walked straight through to the study, unmindful of the grass clippings that he was shedding on the Axminster carpet. A black bakelite telephone sat on a sideboard. He picked up the handpiece. ‘This is Moreling.’

  ‘Major O’Donnell, sir. Home Guard.’ It was the prim voice of an older man trying to be important.

  Lucas almost hung up. Anything involving the old codgers in the Home Guard was bound to be as dreary as porridge. ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Sir, we are informing all local operations that there is a manhunt happening in the vicinity. A Luftwaffe pilot was shot down not long ago on the moor. We have found the wreck of his Messerschmitt and the blighter’s parachute, but he seems to have got away for now.’

  ‘So you haven’t found him yet?’ Lucas yawned. A Hun on the run. Hardly newsworthy for the Special Operations Executive.

  ‘We’re assembling a whole battalion to form a perimeter, sir. We’ll get him.’

  ‘Sounds like good sport for the Home Guard. Enjoy the hunt, Major. Release the hounds!’

  ***

  Josef stopped jogging for a moment to fold back his glove and look at the luminous dial on his watch. It was ninety–six minutes since he’d hit the ground. He had covered maybe twelve or fifteen kilometres through the difficult terrain, but not all in the right direction. And not all along a radius from the crash-site, so the search area might not be as large as he had hoped. Back in Normandy, the staffel would have landed long ago. He hoped they would have at least toasted his memory before turning in for the night.

  Rivulets of sweat poured down his flanks despite the coolness of the night air. He had blocked out the pain in his ankle, but he was already starting to stumble with fatigue. Perhaps he wouldn’t reach the coast by dawn. Josef slowed and started looking for a stout stick to walk with to ease the pressure on his ankle. But the wretched moor yielded nothing. He paused to unwrap a strip of biltong from his pocket. Tearing off a piece of the dry, salted meat with his teeth, Josef chewed and walked.

  There was one other item in his pocket: a small canister of tablets marked Pervitin. They had been handed out liberally by the officers. They were stimulants. German infantry had been issued with them for the invasion of France and soldiers had told stories of how they could fight all night without tiring because of the wonder pills.

  Now they were distributed to aircrew for long–range missions or escape and evasion situations such as this. Leutnant Brandt spoke highly of the effects. Josef fingered the little canister. No, not yet. Save the Pervitin for when you need it. It always helped to know there was something in reserve. Like having a fuel safety margin on a cross-country flight.

  Josef pushed on, jogging as much as possible. Twice, he came across farm buildings on the edge of Dartmoor and skirted around them to avoid the inevitable dogs. It wouldn’t take the Hound of the Baskervilles to wreck his plans. Any old farm mutt could betray him with a sharp bark. With all the detouring, he reckoned he had to move three kilometres sideways to gain two towards the coast.

  Overhead, a skein of heavy cloud rolled across the night sky, cutting off the moonlight. Josef scowled. Where had the clouds been when he needed them two hours ago? He staggered on through the dark and nearly blundered into a stone monolith that reared out of a heathy knoll.

  When moonlight next spilled over the landscape, it revealed the massive stone. It was unnaturally upright and deliberately placed. It was some kind of idol erected by ancient moor–dwellers who had nothing better to worship than granite. He shuffled on through the night, glancing over his shoulder continuously. Perhaps those forgotten clerics knew something he did not because he had nothing to have faith in other than his own stubbornness.

  He was following a fence made of stacked stone when he heard the familiar low rumble of a truck engine. On the other side of the fence was a road, and the vehicle was headed this way. He dropped to the ground and pressed himself against the foundation of the wall. A small tumbled–down section gave a view of the road as it climbed away to the south.

  The vehicle approached, growling as it dropped down a gear and laboured up the hill without headlights. In the gloom, it looked like a cattle truck, but there were no calves on their way to market tonight.

  Sitting on the tray of the truck were a dozen British soldiers. The Tommies were huddled in two rows, facing each other with rifles held upright between their knees. One of them drew on a cigarette. It glowed as he inhaled, momentarily revealing a broad face under the rim of his helmet.

  Josef had always thought the English helmets looked silly, like upturned soup bowls. But stupid helmets or not, these were the men who had the job of hunting him down. Right now, it was harder to mock the enemy. The truck rumbled past, a mere body length from where he lay against the stone. He held his breath and tried not to cough as a warm drift of exhaust smoke filled his mouth and nose. Then the truck was gone beyond a crest and the noise of the motor faded. Josef coughed and spat the acrid taste from his mouth.

  They must have seen him bail out. But perhaps his exact landing point had been obscured by the terrain. They were probably fanning out from the wreck. He could picture the charred and twisted fuselage of his 109, and it made him hate the British gunners even more. Dreckfessers! Some nights they could blat away for hours and hit nothing at all, but tonight they had brought down White Five. It was a disgrace for a fighter pilot to be shot down by flak. Josef couldn’t believe dumb gunners had brought him down—he had training, skill, and more than that, intuition. They were just firing hopefully into the night.

  Josef stood and pressed on, slowly building up to a jog. West and south; west and south until he made the coast. That was the plan. Although he now conceded he would not get there by dawn.
He estimated about four hours of darkness remained and made the decision to use two of them to keep covering distance and then to allow two to find somewhere to lie up during the day.

  He descended into a broad valley where a stream and rail–line ran in parallel. Pausing with his hands on his knees, panting, he took in the scene. The place was familiar. The rail line had been the target of last night’s bombing mission. Where it had only taken moments in the air to fly from the target to the moor, it had taken half the night to cover the distance on foot.

  Josef had studied maps of the area. He’d flown several sorties over Devon—photo–reconnaissance missions and bomber–escort missions. Every flight meant careful study of the charts and memorisation of navigational aids. He knew that this rail line wound south and west towards Plymouth through a wide swathe of land that was largely deserted. It was just what he needed. He could follow the line and make good distance, before swinging due south and heading for the coast well before he reached major settlements. The rail line was built on a deep bed of ballast, which meant he could stay out up of the damp, boggy ground that could soak and ruin his feet. It didn’t matter how fit or fast you were if your feet were damp and blistered pulp.

  Josef clambered up on the stone ballast, where there were no puddles or bogs. The raised rail line would also provide something to hide behind if necessary. He set off, treading on the timber sleepers because the gravel crunched loudly underfoot.

  III

  In the greyness before the dawn Josef limped on, his ankle throbbing. He turned up the collars of his flying jacket. The cold air hurt all the way down to his lungs but he moved on steadily between thick fingers of fog that clung to the lowlands.

  He had given up counting paces and had little idea of the distance covered. In the last hour, the rail line had crossed open countryside and the sun was about to devour the mist and expose him. Trains would start operating if the line had not been successfully damaged. And even if it had been damaged by the bombers, repair crews would be scouting the line at first light. Either way, he needed somewhere to hide.

  Up ahead, blockish forms broke the dim skyline. Buildings perhaps, rising out of the mist. But there was something irregular about the structure that confused him. Slanting shapes. Lines out of plumb. He had planned to find a natural hideout. A hollow tree or a cleft in a rock—somewhere unlikely to attract a visitor. But perhaps he had better take his chances here. It was nearly sun–up.

  Josef moved warily towards the structures, seeing more definition with every step. There were walls, or partial ones, paired with piles of rubble. Then in a rush of recognition he knew he was looking at the results of last night’s mission. These were the buildings hit by the Stukas.

  There had been three buildings: a small brick station with a single platform south of the track, a brick signal box, and a timber cottage that probably served as the station master’s residence. Of the three, only the station remained standing. The cottage had been all but flattened by the bomb blasts and the signal box was mostly reduced to rubble. Just one corner of brickwork defied gravity. A semaphore gantry tilted over like a lurching drunk trying to get home.

  The track itself had been hit by a series of bombs that blew craters in the ballast, twisted the rails and flung sleepers around as though they were a scattering of twigs. He remembered seeing this happen from a thousand metres above. Banking hard in the Messerschmitt to observe the Stukas doing their work, it had looked precise and almost elegant. A well–orchestrated raid. Here at ground level he could see the chaos and destruction.

  The early morning sun was burning away the mist with every minute. He could see more of the place now, and he was more exposed. But it looked deserted. Even before it had been destroyed, it had been just an insignificant little waypoint on the line. The tactic was to sever the supply line at a place it was least defended and could least easily be repaired. He approached through the thinning mist, removing the glove from his right hand and unclipping the flap on the holster where the Walther sat on his hip.

  The station was still standing, but the bombs from the Stukas had made their mark. It was scorched black in places and the brickwork was pock–marked from shrapnel. It was a simple structure with a ticket booth and office at one end, a waiting room at the other and an archway through the middle that linked the roadway to the covered platform. The smashed windows were dark eye sockets that wept shards of glass. The door to the ticket booth had been blown off its hinges. The corrugated iron awning over the little platform sagged. On the far side of the ruined track, a goods van had been tipped onto its side by the blast.

  Josef scanned every direction, ensuring he was alone. There were places to hide amongst the wreckage. Under rubble. In the toppled goods van. But was this the best place? Surely people would come. The line would be inspected any time now. Repair crews would arrive. No. This was not an option. He would have to keep moving and find a better hideout, but he decided to take a moment to scavenge whatever could be of use. He tried to get some water from a brass tap on the corner of the station, but it was broken and gave him nothing.

  Then he saw it. Lying flat on the ground in the archway was a bicycle. Nearby, a station master’s rain cape somehow managed to remain hanging on a peg. It might work to cover his Luftwaffe flying suit as he moved towards the coast. It might also provide some shelter from wind and rain if the weather turned nasty. He snatched it from the wall and picked up the bicycle to check it over. It had been knocked to the ground, but appeared to be undamaged, the glossy black paintwork merely covered in a film of dust. The wheels were straight and spun true. The brake worked. This could be an idea. But where was the owner of the bicycle?

  Suddenly Josef sensed a presence somewhere nearby. He had come to trust such instincts in the air. He pressed himself into the brickwork of the archway and pulled the Walther from its holster. He leant out from the station’s wall and scanned the area on the opposite side to the railway line.

  The mist was nearly gone. There was a gravel yard and on the far side was the collapsed cottage. Beyond was open country with only the occasional copse of trees to break the drab landscape. He approached the ruined cottage, the gun held in two hands and tracking side to side with his eyes. The whole cottage had come off its foundations and was a now a pile of weatherboards, roofing tiles and framing timber clustered around a brick chimney which stood defiantly. Surely there was no–one ...

  A hand. A human hand covered in dust extended from beneath a section of wall. Josef grimaced. He was a pilot for a reason: you didn’t have to see the victims up close.

  Then the hand moved. Good grief, it was like a corpse clawing out of a grave. Fingertips scrabbling in the dust. He moved in closer and knelt down beside the exposed limb. There was someone struggling beneath the wreckage. It had been hours since the bombing. Whoever it was must have had a night of cold hell trapped in the rubble. He holstered the pistol.

  There was a groan. ‘… me out!’

  Without thinking, Josef grasped the hand and squeezed. It responded with a desperate grip.

  ‘I will get you out.’ He realised he would be seen. This was a big mistake.

  ‘Please…’ came a muted, desperate voice.

  Surely the man would be rescued soon. If he was conscious now, he would probably live until someone else got here. Josef squeezed the hand, then let it go.

  He turned from the rubble and gathered the rain cape under his arm and wheeled the bicycle from the station out onto the roadway. He set his eyes on the road ahead and then he hesitated. Josef had been a part of the raid that had buried the man. He was no different to the Stuka pilot who released the bomb.

  A moment later, he was tearing at the wreckage, hauling shattered roofing tiles from the pile. He dragged a torn section of horsehair plaster away and partially exposed the man below. Josef knelt beside the wreckage and looked into the filthy, wheezing face of a man aged about sixty�
�too old for war service. He was suffering badly. Dark, hollow eyes in a pale mask of dust. A heavy timber beam was pressing down on his chest, pinning him to the ground. He couldn’t get a full breath.

  ‘I will get you out,’ he assured the man.

  There was a nod of relief.

  Josef squatted and tried to lift the end of the beam, to ease the pressure on the man’s torso. It was no use. The weight of debris was too great.

  Josef exhaled slowly. He would have to shift the weight that was pinning the man. He started dragging more of the heavy roof tiles out of the way.

  The man groaned because of the disturbance above him. ‘Can’t breathe.’

  Josef flicked his eyes over the wreckage. How was he going to do this? He lowered himself to the ground so he could get a goodlook at the man. He wore a filthy railway uniform. It must be the station master; the man whose bicycle he had been about to steal. ‘I need to find something so I can get you out.’

  ‘Don’t leave me…’

  ‘I’ll come back.’ Josef stood and jogged back through the station. He needed a lever. There was a railway sleeper. No good. Too heavy. Soon his eyes fell on a steel bar next to the toppled goods van. Something like a crowbar, it must have been a tool for coupling vans, but it would do the job. He seized it and ran back to the man. He pointed at the beam. ‘If I lift this, can you crawl out?’

  The station master nodded.

  Josef slid the steel bar through the wreckage and got it beneath the beam. Then he heaved upward. He held it asthe station master grunted and squirmed his way out from the wreckage. As soon as he was clear, Josef dropped the bar. The beam and debris crashed to the ground.

  They both sat on the ground, exhausted.

  The station master had a gaunt, hatchet–like face. There were corpses that looked healthier. And he smelt bad. Perhaps he had fouled himself in the night. After many short sips of air, he spoke in a tight, thin voice. ‘My ribs. I think I’ve broken some ribs.’