Читать книгу Flight of Eagles - Jack Higgins, Justin Richards - Страница 12

Max sat on the terrace of their country house with his mother, and told her all about it – the flying, everything – and produced photos of himself and Harry in flying clothes, the aircraft standing behind.

‘I’m going to fly, Mutti, it’s what I do well.’

Looking into his face, she saw her husband, yet, sick at heart, did the only thing she could. ‘Sixteen, Max, that’s young.’

‘I could join the Berlin Aero Club. You know Goering. He could swing it.’

Which was true. Max appeared by appointment with Goering and the Baroness in attendance, and in spite of the commandant’s doubts, a Heinkel biplane was provided. A twenty-three-year-old Luftwaffe lieutenant who would one day become a Luftwaffe general was there, named Adolf Galland.

‘Can you handle this, boy?’ he asked.

‘Well, my father knocked down at least forty-eight of ours with the Flying Corps. I think I can manage.’

Galland laughed out loud and stuck a small cigar between his teeth. ‘I’ll follow you up. Let’s see.’

The display that followed had even Goering breathless. Galland could not shake Max for a moment, and it was the Immelmann turn which finished him off. He turned in to land, and Max followed.

Standing beside the Mercedes, Goering nodded to a valet, who provided caviar and champagne. ‘Took me back to my youth, Baroness, the boy is a genius.’

This wasn’t false modesty, for Goering was a great pilot in his own right, and had no need to make excuses to anybody.

Galland and Max approached, Galland obviously tremendously excited. ‘Fantastic. Where did you learn all that, boy?’

Max told him and Galland could only shake his head.

That night, he joined Goering, von Ribbentrop, Elsa and Max at dinner at the Adlon Hotel. The champagne flowed. Goering said to Galland, ‘So what do we do with this one?’

‘He isn’t seventeen until next year,’ Galland said. ‘May I make a suggestion?’

‘Of course.’

‘Put him in an infantry cadet school here in Berlin, just to make it official. Arrange for him to fly at the Aero Club. Next year, at seventeen, grant him a lieutenant’s commission in the Luftwaffe.’

‘I like that.’ Goering nodded and turned to Max. ‘And do you, Baron?’

‘My pleasure,’ Max Kelso said, in English, his American half rising to the surface easily.

‘There is no problem with the fact that my son had an American father?’ Elsa asked.

‘None at all. Haven’t you seen the Führer’s new ruling?’ Goering said. ‘The Baron can’t be anything else but a citizen of the Third Reich.’

‘There’s only one problem,’ Galland put in.

‘And what’s that?’ Goering asked.

‘I insist that he be kind enough to teach me a few tricks, especially that Immelmann turn.’

‘Well, I could teach you that,’ Goering told him. ‘But I’m sure the Baron wouldn’t mind.’ He turned. ‘Max?’ addressing him that way for the first time.

Max Kelso said, ‘A pity my twin brother, Harry, isn’t here, Lieutenant Galland. We’d give you hell.’

‘No,’ Galland said. ‘Information is experience. You are special, Baron, believe me. And please call me Dolfo.’

It was to be the beginning of a unique friendship.

In America, Harry went to Groton for a while, and had problems with the discipline, for flying was his obsession and he refused to sacrifice his weekends in the air. Abe Kelso’s influence helped, of course, so Harry survived school and went to Harvard at the same time his brother was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Luftwaffe.

The Third Reich continued its remorseless rise and the entire balance of power in Europe changed. No one in Britain wanted conflict, the incredible casualties of the Great War were too close to home. Harry ground through university, Europe ground onwards into Fascism, the world stood by.

And then came the Spanish Civil War and they all went, Galland and Max, taking HE51 biplanes over the front, Max flying 280 combat missions. He returned home in 1938 with the Iron Cross Second Class and was promoted to Oberleutnant.

For some time he worked on the staff in Berlin, and was much sought after on the social circuit in Berlin, where he was frequently seen as his mother’s escort, and was a favourite of Goering, now become all-powerful. And then came Poland.

During the twenty-seven-day Blitzkrieg that destroyed that country, Max Kelso consolidated his legend, shot down twenty planes, received the Iron Cross First Class and was promoted to captain. During the phoney war with Britain and France that followed, he found himself once again on the staff in Berlin.

In those euphoric days, with Europe in its grasp, everything seemed possible to Germany. Max’s mother was at the very peak of society and Max had his own image. No white dress jackets, nothing fancy. He would always appear in combat dress: baggy pants, flying blouse, a side cap, called a Schiff, and all those medals. Goebbels, the tiny, crippled Nazi propaganda minister, loved it. Max appeared at top functions with Goering, even with Hitler and his glamorous mother. They christened him the Black Baron. There was the occasional woman in his life, no more than that. He seemed to stand apart, with that saturnine face and the pale straw hair, and he didn’t take sides, was no Nazi. He was a fighter pilot, that was it.

As for Harry, just finishing at Harvard, life was a bore. Abe had tried to steer him towards interesting relationships with the daughters of the right families, but, like his brother, he seemed to stand apart. The war in Europe had started in September. It was November 1939 when Harry went into the drawing room and found Abe sitting by the fire with a couple of magazines.

‘Get yourself a drink,’ Abe said. ‘You’re going to need it.’

Harry, at that time twenty-one, poured a Scotch and water and joined his grandfather. ‘What’s the fuss?’

Abe passed him the first magazine, a close-up of a dark taciturn face under a Luftwaffe Schiff, then the other, a copy of Signal, the German forces magazine. ‘The Black Baron,’ Abe said.

Max stood beside an ME 109 in flying gear, a cigarette in one hand, talking to a Luftwaffe mechanic in black overalls.

‘Medals already,’ Harry said. ‘Isn’t that great? Just like Dad.’

‘That’s Spain and Poland,’ Abe said. ‘Jesus, Harry, thank God they call him Baron von Halder instead of Max Kelso. Can you imagine how this would look on the front page of Life magazine? My grandson the Nazi?’

‘He’s no Nazi,’ Harry said. ‘He’s a pilot. He’s there and we’re here.’ He put the magazine down. Abe wondered what he was thinking, but as usual, Harry kept his thoughts to himself – though there was something going on behind those eyes, Abe could tell that. ‘We haven’t heard from Mutti lately,’ Harry said.

‘And we won’t. I speak to people in the State Department all the time. The Third Reich is closed up tight.’

‘I expect it would be. You want another drink?’

‘Sure, why not?’ Abe reached for a cigar. ‘What a goddamn mess, Harry. They’ll run all over France and Britain. What’s the solution?’

‘Oh, there always is one,’ Harry Kelso said and poured the whisky.

Abe said, ‘Harry, it’s time we talked seriously. You graduated magna cum laude last spring, and since then all you do is fly and race cars, just like your father. What are you going to do? What about law school?’

Harry smiled and shook his head. ‘Law school? Did you hear Russia invaded Finland this morning?’ He took a long drink. ‘The Finns need pilots badly, and they’re asking for foreign volunteers. I’ve already booked a flight to Sweden.’

Abe was horrified. ‘But you can’t. Dammit, Harry, it’s not your war.’

‘It is now,’ Harry Kelso told him and finished his whisky.

The war between the Finns and the Russians was hopeless from the start. The weather was atrocious and the entire country snowbound. The Army, particularly the ski troops, fought valiantly against overwhelming enemy forces but were pushed back relentlessly.

On both sides, the fighters were outdated. The most modern planes the Russians could come up with were a few FW190s Hitler had presented to Stalin as a gesture of friendship between Germany and Russia.

Harry Kelso soon made a name for himself flying the British Gloucester Gladiator, a biplane with open cockpit just like in the First World War. A poor match for what he was up against, but his superior flying skills always brought him through and as always, just like his father in the First World War, Tarquin sat in the bottom of the cockpit in a waterproof zip bag Harry had purchased in Stockholm.

His luck changed dramatically when the Finnish Air Force managed to get hold of half a dozen Hurricane fighters from Britain, a considerable coup in view of the demand for the aircraft by the Royal Air Force. Already an ace, Harry was assigned to one of the two Hurricanes his squadron was given. A week later, they received a couple of ME109s from a Swedish source.

He alternated between the two types of aircraft, flying in atrocious conditions of snowstorms and high winds, was promoted to captain and decorated, his score mounting rapidly.

A photo journalist for Life magazine turned up to cover the air war, and was astonished to discover Senator Abe Kelso’s grandson and hear of his exploits. This was news indeed, for Abe was now very much a coming man, a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s kitchen cabinet.

So, Abe once again found a grandson on the cover of a magazine, Harry in a padded flying suit standing beside one of the ME109s in the snow, looking ten years older than when Abe had last seen him and holding Tarquin.

Abe read the account of Harry’s exploits with pride, but also sadness. ‘I told you, Harry, not your war,’ he said softly. ‘I mean, where is it all going to end?’ And yet, in his heart of hearts, he knew. America was going to go to war. Not today, not tomorrow, but that day would come.

Elsa von Halder was having coffee in the small drawing room at her country mansion, when Max arrived. He strode in, wearing his flying uniform as usual, in one hand a holdall, which he dropped on the floor.

‘Mutti, you look wonderful.’

She stood up and embraced him. ‘What a lovely surprise. How long?’

‘Three days.’

‘And then?’

‘We’ll see.’

She went to a drinks table and poured dry sherry. ‘Do you think the British and French will really fight if we invade?’

‘You mean when we invade?’ He toasted her. ‘Of course, I have infinite faith in the inspired leadership of our glorious Führer.’

‘For God’s sake, Max, watch your tongue. It could be the death of you. You aren’t even a member of the Nazi party.’

‘Why, Mutti, I always thought you were a true believer.’

‘Of course I’m not. They’re all bastards. The Führer, that horrible little creep Himmler. Oh, Goering’s all right and most of the generals, but – Anyway, what about you?’

‘Politics bore me, Mutti. I’m a fighter pilot, just like this fellow.’ He unzipped his holdall, produced a copy of Life magazine and passed it to her. ‘I saw Goering in Berlin yesterday. He gave that to me.’

Elsa sat down and examined the cover. ‘He looks old. What have they done to him?’

‘Read the article, Mutti. It was a hell of a war, however short. A miracle he came through. Mind you, Tarquin looks good on it. Goering heard from our Intelligence people that Harry got out to Sweden in a Hurricane. The word is he turned up in London and joined the RAF.’

She looked up from the article, her words unconsciously echoing Abe Kelso’s. ‘How will it all end?’

‘Badly, I expect. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have a bath before dinner.’ He picked up his bag and went to the door and turned. ‘Twenty-eight Russkies he shot down over Finland, Mutti. The dog. I only got twenty in Poland. Can’t have that, can we?’

There were at least thirteen American volunteers flying in the Battle of Britain in the spring and summer of 1940, possibly more. Some were accepted as Canadians – Red Tobin, Andy Mamedoff, Vernon Keogh, for example, who joined the RAF in July 1940. The great Billy Fiske was one, son of a millionaire and probably the first American killed in combat in the Second World War, later to be commemorated by a tablet in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. And others bound for glory like Pete Peterson, a DSO and DFC with the RAF, and a lieutenant-colonel at twenty-two when he transferred to his own people.

Finland surrendered on 12 March 1940. Harry flew out illegally in a Hurricane, as Max had told his mother, landed at an aero club outside Stockholm, went into the city and was in possession of a ticket on a plane to England before the authorities knew he was there.

When he reported to the Air Ministry in London, an ageing squadron leader examined his credentials. ‘Very impressive, old boy. There’s just one problem. You are an American and that means you’ll have to go to Canada and join the RCAF.’

‘I shot down twenty-eight Russians, twelve of them while flying a Hurricane. I know my stuff. You need people like me.’

‘A Hurricane?’ The squadron leader examined Harry’s credentials again. ‘I see they gave you the Finnish Gold Cross of Valour.’

Harry took a small leather box from his pocket and opened it. The squadron leader, who had a Military Cross from the First War, said, ‘Nice piece of tin.’

‘Aren’t they all?’ Harry told him.

The other man pushed a form across. ‘All right. Fill this in. Country of origin, America. I suppose you must have returned to Finland to defend your ancestral home against the Russians?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Ah, well, that makes you a Finn and that’s what we’ll put on your records.’ The squadron leader smiled. ‘Damn clerks. Always making mistakes.’

Operational Training Unit was a damp and miserable place on the edge of an Essex marsh. The CO was a wing commander called West with a wooden leg from 1918. He examined Pilot Officer Kelso’s documents and looked up, noticing the medal ribbon under the wings.

‘And what would that be?’

Harry told him.

‘How many did you get over there?’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘It says here you’ve had considerable experience with Hurricanes?’

‘Yes, the Finns got hold of a few during the last couple of months of the war.’

‘All right, let’s see what you can do.’

West pressed a bell and the station warrant officer entered. ‘I’m going for a spin with this pilot officer, Mr Quigley. Set up my plane and one of the other Hurricanes. Twenty minutes.’

The warrant officer, without a flicker of emotion, said, ‘Right away, sir.’

West got up and reached for his walking stick. ‘Don’t let my leg put you out. I know a man called Douglas Bader who lost both in a crash and still flies.’ He paused, opening the door. ‘I got twenty-two myself in the old flying Corps before the final crash so don’t mess about. Let’s see if you can take me.’

Those in the curious crowd which assembled to stare up through the rain were never to forget it. At 5000 feet, West chased Harry Kelso. They climbed, banked, so close that some in the crowd gasped in horror but Harry evaded West, looped and settled on his tail.

‘Very nice,’ West called over the radio, then banked to port and rolled and Harry, overshooting and finding him once again on his tail, dropped his flaps and slowed with shuddering force.

‘Christ Almighty,’ West cried, heaved back on the control column and narrowly missed him.

Harry, on his tail again, called, ‘Bang, you’re dead.’ Then, as West tried to get away, Harry pulled up in a half-loop, rolled out on top of the Immelmann turn and roared back over West’s head at fifty feet. ‘And bang, you’re dead again, sir.’

The ground crews actually applauded as the two of them walked back. Quigley took West’s parachute and gave him his walking stick, then gestured towards Kelso.

‘Who in the hell is he, sir?’

‘Oh, a lot of men I knew in the Flying Corps all rolled into one,’ West said.

In his office, West sat down, reached for a form and quickly filled it in. ‘I’m posting you immediately to 607 Squadron in France. They’ve been converted from Gladiators to Hurricanes. They should be able to use you.’

‘I flew Gladiators in Finland, sir. Damn cold, those open cockpits in the snow.’

West took a bottle of brandy from a drawer and two glasses. As he poured, he said, ‘Kelso – an unusual name, and you’re no Finn. I knew a Yank in the Flying Corps called Kelso.’

‘My father, sir.’

‘Good God. How is he?’

‘Dead. Killed in a motor accident years ago.’

‘That fits. Didn’t he use to fly with a bear?’

‘That’s right, sir. Tarquin.’ Harry picked up the bag that he’d carried out to his plane and back, took Tarquin out and sat him on the desk.

West’s face softened. ‘Well, hello, old lad. Nice to see you again.’ He raised his glass. ‘To your father and you and brave pilots everywhere.’

‘And my twin brother, sir.’

West frowned. ‘He’s a pilot?’

‘Oberleutnant in the Luftwaffe, sir.’

‘Is he now? Then all I can say is that you’re in for a very interesting war, Pilot Officer,’ and West drank his brandy.

607 Squadron was only half-way through its conversion programme when the Blitzkrieg broke on the Western Front on 10 May. In the savage and confused air war that followed, it was badly mauled and took many casualties, the old Gladiator biplanes being particularly vulnerable.

Harry, flying a Hurricane, put down two ME109s above Abbeville at 15,000 feet and although neither of them was aware of it, his brother shot down a Hurricane and a Spitfire on the same day.

The squadron was pulled back, what was left of it, to England and Dunkirk followed. Harry, awarded a DFC and promoted to Flying Officer, was posted to a special pursuit squadron code-named Hawk, near Chichester in West Sussex, only there was nothing to pursue. The sun shone, the sky was incredibly blue and everyone was bored to death.

On the other side of the English Channel, Max and his comrades sat in similar airfields on the same deck-chairs and were just as bored.

And then, starting in July, came attacks on British convoys in the Channel: dive-bombing by Stukas, heavier stuff from the Dorniers and Junkers, protected by the finest fighter planes the Luftwaffe could supply. The object of the exercise was to close down the English Channel and the RAF went up to meet it.

So Harry Kelso and his brother, the Black Baron, went to war.

The air battles over the Channel lasted through July and then came the true Battle of Britain, starting on Eagle Day, 12 August.

Hawk Squadron was based at a pre-war flying club called Farley Field in West Sussex – grass runways, Nissen huts, only four hangars – and it was hot, very hot as Harry and the other pilots lounged in deck-chairs, smoking, chatting or reading books and magazines. Two weeks of boredom, no action, had introduced a certain apathy and even the ground crews working on the dispersed Hurricanes seemed jaded.

The squadron leader, a man called Hornby, dropped down beside Harry. ‘Personally, I think the buggers aren’t coming.’

‘They’ll come,’ Harry said and offered him a cigarette.

Some of the pilots wore flying overalls, others ordinary uniform; it was too hot for anything else. On his right shoulder, Harry wore an embroidered insignia that said Finland. Beneath it was a shoulder flash of an American eagle with British and American flags clutched in its claws.

‘Very pretty,’ Hornby said.

‘Got a tailor in Savile Row to run them up for me.’

‘What it is to be rich, my Yankee friend.’ Hornby tapped the jump bag at Harry’s feet. ‘Tarquin in good fettle?’

‘Always. He’s seen it all,’ Harry told him.

‘Wish you’d lend him to me,’ Hornby said, just as they heard a loud roaring noise nearby. ‘Bloody tractor.’

‘That’s no tractor.’ Harry Kelso was on his feet, bag in hand and running for his plane as the Stukas, high in the sky above, banked and dived.

His flight sergeant tossed in his parachute. Kelso climbed into the cockpit, dropped the bag into the bottom, gunned his engine and, roaring away, lifted off as the first bombs hit the runway. A Hurricane exploded to one side, smoke billowing, and he broke through it, banking to port, carnage below, four Hurricanes on fire.

Harry banked again, found a Stuka in his sights and blew it out of the sky. There were four more, but they turned away, obviously considering their work done, and he went after them. One by one he shot them down over the sea – no anger, no rage, just using all his skill, everything calculated.

He returned to Farley Field, a scene of devastation, and managed to land on the one intact runway. He found Hornby lying on a stretcher, his left arm and his face bandaged.

‘Did you get anything?’

Harry gave him a cigarette as an ambulance drew up. ‘Five.’

‘Five?’ Hornby was astonished.

‘Stukas.’ Harry shrugged. ‘Slow and cumbersome. Like shooting fish in a barrel. They won’t last long over here. It’s ME109s we need to watch for.’

There were several bodies on stretchers, covered with blankets. Hornby said, ‘Six pilots dead. Didn’t get off the ground. You were the only one who did. Was it this bad in Finland?’

‘Just the same, only in Finland it snowed.’

The stretcher bearers picked Hornby up. ‘I’ll notify Group and suggest they promote you to flight lieutenant. They’ll get replacements down here fast. Let’s have a look at Tarquin.’

Harry opened the bag and took Tarquin out. Hornby managed to undo a small gilt badge from his bloody shirt and handed it over. ‘Nineteen Squadron. That’s where I started. Let Tarquin wear it.’

‘I sure will.’

Hornby smiled weakly. ‘Those Stukas? Were they over land or the Channel?’

‘One over land.’

‘What a pity. The bastards will never credit you.’

‘Who cares? It’s going to be a long war,’ Harry Kelso told him and closed the ambulance doors.

On the same day, Max and his squadron, flying ME109s, provided cover for Stukas attacking radar stations near Bognor Regis. Attacked by Spitfires, he found himself in an impressive dogfight, during which he downed one and damaged another, but nearly all the Stukas were shot down and three 109s. It was hurried work, with no drop tanks, so that their time over the English mainland was limited, and they had to scramble to get back across the Channel before running out of fuel. He made it in one piece, and was back over Kent again an hour and a half later, part of the sustained attacks on RAF airfields in the coastal areas.

That was the pattern, day after day, a war of attrition, the Luftwaffe strategy to destroy the RAF by making its airfields unusable. Max and his comrades flew in, providing cover to Dornier bombers and Harry and his friends rising to meet them. On both sides, young men died but there was one problem: the Luftwaffe had more pilots. As Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, commander-in-chief of Fighter Command once observed, it would be necessary for the RAF’s young men to shoot the Luftwaffe’s young men at the ratio of four to one to keep any kind of balance and that wasn’t likely.

So it ground on until 30 August, when Biggin Hill, the pride of Fighter Command, was attacked by a large force of Dorniers with great success and Max was one of the escorts. On the return, many Spitfires rose to intercept them and since the 109s needed to protect the bombers, too much time and too much precious fuel were used up over England. By the time Max finally turned out to the Channel, his low fuel warning light was already on.

At that same moment over the sea near Folkestone Harry Kelso shot down two Dornier bombers, but a lucky burst from one of the rear gunners hit him in the engine. He sent out a Mayday and dropped his flaps, aware of a burning smell and calmly wrestled with the canopy. He’d lost an engine over the Isle of Wight the previous week and parachuted in from 2000 feet, landing in the garden of a vicarage where he’d been regaled with tea and biscuits and dry sherry by the vicar’s two sisters.

This was different. That was the Channel down there, already the grave of hundreds of airmen, the English coast ten miles away. He reached for Tarquin in the jump bag. He’d arranged a strap with a special clip that snapped on to his belt against just such an eventuality, stood up and went out head first.

He fell to a thousand feet before opening his chute, then, the sea reasonably calm, he went under, inflated his Mae West and got rid of his parachute. Tarquin floated by him in his waterproof bag. Harry looked up into a cloudless sky. There was no dinghy to inflate – that had gone down with the Hurricane. He wasn’t even sure if his Mayday had got through.

He floated there, thinking about it, remembering comrades who’d gone missing in the past week alone. Is this it? he thought calmly and then a klaxon sounded and he turned to see an RAF crash boat coming up fast. The crew were dressed like sailors, in heavy sweaters, denims and boots. They slowed and dropped a ladder.

The warrant officer in charge looked down. ‘Flight Lieutenant Kelso, is it, sir?’

‘That’s me.’

‘Your luck is good, sir. We were only a mile away when we got your message.’

Two crew members reached down and hauled him up. Harry crouched, oozing sea water. ‘I never thought a deck could feel so good.’

‘You American, sir?’ the warrant officer asked.

‘I surely am.’

‘Well, that’s bloody marvellous. Our first Yank.’

‘No, two actually.’

‘Two, sir?’ The warrant officer was puzzled.

Harry indicated his bag. ‘Take me below, find me a drink and I’ll show you.’

Max, down to 500 feet, raced towards the French coast. On his left knee was a linen bag containing a dye. If you went into the sea, it spread in a huge yellow patch. He’d seen several such patches on his way across and then he saw the coast east of Boulogne. No need to do a crash landing. The tide was out, a huge expanse of sand spread before him. As his engine died, he turned into the wind and dropped down.

He called in his position on the radio, with a brief explanation, pulled back the canopy and got out, lit a cigarette and started to walk towards the sand dunes. When he got there, he sat down, looked out to sea and lit another cigarette.

An hour later, a Luftwaffe recovery crew arrived in two trucks, followed by a yellow Peugeot sports car driven by Adolf Galland. He got out and hurried forward.

‘I thought we’d lost you.’

‘No such luck.’ Galland slapped him on the shoulder and Max added, ‘The plane looks fine. Only needs fuel.’

‘Good. I brought a sergeant pilot. He can fly her back. You and I will drive. Stop off for dinner.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

Galland called to the burly Feldwebel in charge. ‘Get on with it. You know what to do.’

Later, driving towards Le Touquet, he said, ‘Biggin Hill worked out fine. We really plastered them.’

Max said, ‘Oh, sure, but how many fighters did we lose, Dolfo – not bombers, fighters?’

‘All right, it isn’t good, but what’s your point?’

‘Too many mistakes. First, the Stukas – useless against Spitfires and Hurricanes. Second, the bombing policy. Fine – so we destroy their airfields if possible, but fighters are meant to fight, Dolfo, not to spend the whole time protecting the Dorniers. That’s like having a racehorse pulling a milk cart. The strategy is flawed.’

‘Then God help you when we turn against London.’

‘London?’ Max was aghast. ‘All right, I know we’ve raided Liverpool and other places, but London? Dolfo, we must destroy the RAF on the South Coast, fighter to fighter. That’s where we win or lose.’ He shrugged. ‘Unless Goering and the Führer have a death wish.’

‘Saying that to me is one thing, Max, but never to anyone else, do you understand?’

‘That we’re all going down the same road to hell?’ Max nodded. ‘I understand that all right,’ and he leaned back and lit another cigarette.

Harry was delivered back to Farley Field by a naval staff driver from Folkestone. Several pilots and a number of ground crew crowded round.

‘Heard you were in the drink, sir. Good to see you back,’ a pilot officer called Hartley said. ‘There’s a group captain waiting to see you.’

Harry opened the door to his small office and found West of the false leg sitting behind his desk. ‘What a surprise, sir. Congratulations on your promotion.’

‘You’ve done well, Kelso. Anxious couple of hours when we heard where you were, but all’s well that ends well. Congratulations to you too. Your promotion to flight lieutenant has been confirmed. Also, another DFC.’

Harry went to the cupboard, found whisky and two glasses. ‘Shall we toast each other, sir?’

‘Excellent idea.’

Harry poured. ‘Are we winning?’

‘Not at the moment.’ West swallowed his drink. ‘We will in the end. America will have to come in, but we must hang on. I need you for a day or so. I see you’ve only got five Hurricanes operational. Flying Officer Kenny can hold the fort. You’ll be back tomorrow night.’

‘May I ask what this is about, sir?’

‘I remembered from your records that you flew an ME109 in Finland. Well, we’ve got one at Downfield north of London. Pilot had a bad oil leak and decided to land instead of jump. Tried to set fire to the thing, but a Home Guard unit was close by.’

‘That’s quite a catch, sir.’

‘Yes, well, be a good chap. Have a quick shower and change and we’ll be on our way.’

Downfield was another installation that had been a flying club before the war. There was only one landing strip, a control tower, two hangars. The place was surrounded by barbed wire, RAF guards on the gate. The 109 was on the apron outside one of the hangars. Two staff cars were parked nearby and three RAF and two Army officers were examining the plane. A Luftwaffe lieutenant, no more than twenty, stood close by, his uniform crumpled. Two RAF guards with rifles watched him.

Harry walked straight up to the lieutenant and held out his hand. ‘Rotten luck,’ he said in German. ‘Lucky you got down in one piece.’

‘Good God, are you German?’

‘My mother is.’ Harry gave him a cigarette and a light and took one himself.

The older army officer was a brigadier with the red tabs of staff. He had an engagingly ugly face, white hair and wore steel-rimmed spectacles. He looked about sixty-five.

‘Dougal Munro. What excellent German, Flight Lieutenant.’

‘Well, it would be,’ Harry told him.

‘My aide, Jack Carter.’

Carter was a captain in the Green Howards and wore a ribbon for the Military Cross. He leaned on a walking stick, for, as Harry discovered a long time later, he’d left a leg at Dunkirk.

The senior of the three Air Force officers was, like West, a group captain. ‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on, Teddy,’ he said to West. ‘Who on earth is this officer? I mean, why the delay? Dowding wants an evaluation of this plane as soon as possible.’

‘He’ll get it. Flight Lieutenant Kelso has flown it in combat.’

‘Good God, where?’

‘He flew for the Finns. Gladiators, Hurricanes and 109s.’ West turned to Harry. ‘Give your opinion to Group Captain Green.’

‘Excellent plane, sir. Marginally better than a Hurricane and certainly as good as a Spitfire.’

‘Show them,’ West said. ‘Five minutes only. We don’t want to get you shot down.’

Kelso went up to 3000 feet, banked, looped, beat up the airfield at 300 feet, turned into the wind and landed. He taxied towards them and got out.

‘As I said, sir,’ he told Green. ‘Excellent plane. Mind you, the Hurricane is the best gun platform in the business and, at the end of the day, it usually comes down to the pilot.’

Green turned and said lamely to West, ‘Very interesting, Teddy. I think I’d like a written evaluation from this officer.’

‘Consider it done.’

Green and his two officers went to their staff car and drove away. Munro held out his hand. ‘You’re a very interesting young man.’ He nodded to West. ‘Many thanks, Group Captain.’

He went to his car, Carter limping after him. As they settled in the back, he said, ‘Everything you can find out about him, everything, Jack.’

‘Leave it to me, sir.’

Harry gave the German pilot a packet of cigarettes. ‘Good luck.’

The guards took the boy away and West said, ‘I know a country pub near here where we can get a great black-market meal and you can write that report for me.’

‘Sounds good to me.’ They got in the car and as the driver drove away, Harry lit a cigarette from his spare pack. ‘I asked you were we winning and you said not at the moment. What do we need?’

‘A miracle.’

‘They’re a bit hard to find these days.’

But then it happened. London was accidentally bombed by a single Dornier, the RAF retaliated against Berlin, and from 7 September, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to turn on London. It was the beginning of the Blitz and gave the RAF time to repair its damaged fighter bases in the South of England.

In a café in Le Touquet, Dolfo Galland was playing jazz on the piano and smoking a cigar when Max came in and sat at the end of the bar.

‘That’s it, Dolfo. The rest is just a matter of time. We had the Tommies beaten and our glorious Führer has just thrown it all away. So what happens now?’

‘We get drunk,’ Dolfo Galland told him. ‘And then we go back to work, play the game to the end.’