I became dimly aware of my batman standing over me, holding a wet cloth, as I swallowed the hot air around me. My shirt was wet with the desert sun turning my tent into an oven, the heat wrapping the whole of my body as a glove.
"What time is it?" I asked as I gingerly sat up, putting a hand to my dripping forehead.
"Nine o'clock, sir," he deadpanned, "Brief in half an hour."
I took the towel from him and rubbed it on my head, letting it rest on my neck. I noticed he had placed a small bag on the crate I had taken to use as a night table and nodded to it.
"A liter of water, aspirin, and some bread," he admitted.
"You're a good man....could you pull out my clothes?" I asked as I pulled the empty bucket from under my bunk and began relieving myself.
"Yessir," he said as he began unpacking my trunk with fresh laundry, "I heard you had a rather late night."
"And so I did," I said back, stiffly.
Saying nothing more, he left my tent and I set about washing in a basin and shaving, cutting myself rather badly on my chin. The sting of the styptic pencil took some of the attention from my headache, though, and I washed down the four aspirin with as much of the liter bottle as I could. Taking small bites of the bread, I made my way to the briefing tent, making it with five minutes to spare.
Still, I was late by the looks of the room, and sat towards the back. Hans and his flight had taken the front seats, while my would-be flight was sitting apart from each other. Both newly arrived, they might not know each other's name....and Schiller wasn't exactly popular with his
comraden. He didn't help himself much by popping up like a cork and nearly knocking over another pilot in his rush to sit next to me, moonfaced as a schoolboy with a crush.
Guten morgen, Herr Oberst! he said too loudly.
"Shut up," I murmured back, my head pounding. This was going to be a rough mission, regardless of what the enemy might or might not throw at us.
Hans turned in his seat and smiled, winking at me, and then pointed to his chin, as if to tell me I had something stuck to it. I gave him a hand signal the Italians had taught me, which made him laugh.
The Operations officer stepped forward to signal the beginning of the briefing, stepping back for the Intelligence officer. Several pilots groaned as he pulled out his notes.
"The weather today is hot," he began, to mock gasps of shock, "with intermittent cloud cover over the target area with a base ceiling of 1,200 meters, reaching to 1,600 meters. Winds are light to moderate in a westerly direction.
"Enemy activity has been light through last night and no fighters have been seen this morning at all. It is possible that the British are either holding their aircraft in an effort to establish local air superiority or to intercept our bomber flights returning from the front."
We all sat up, leaning forward, silent. Could it be that our "spy" had finally gained some common sense - or at least had someone else work up his briefing notes?
"It is also my personal opinion that it is also highly likely that our - and our brave allies' - efforts in the air, on the ground and at sea have crippled their supplies to where they are unable to launch sorties at all."
Ah ha! Somebody is working up his intelligence briefs for him, and from the sound of it, he doesn't like it!The Operations officer stepped forward:
"This morning's mission is to escort the Italian Breda bombers over the coastal river area, where the Stukas will just be finishing up. They report no fighters present. Oberst Jedermann will command a flight of three - himself, Schiller, and Ganz. Hans will take his flight of four to the south, patrolling here (he pointed at the map to a region that would place him well outside of supporting range to us) in case the British try to sneak in to attack the bombers on egress.
"Rendezvous with the bombers will be here. They will be flying over at 1000 hours, and Jedermann's flight will take off and join, flying at 1,200 meters."
"And if we are met by strong enemy resistance?" I asked.
"There is a flight of Italian fighters that may be able to come to your assistance. The priority is the safe return of the bombers. If you have to, draw the fighters to the south and then try to disengage."
"Clear," I said, nodding.
Schiller tried to whisper to me through the rest of the brief, and I kept shushing him - I was keen to know where everyone else was and what they would be doing.
Afterwards, we gathered together outside of the briefing tent, waiting for the truck to carry us to the aircraft.
"Ganz," I greeted, "welcome to Afrika. Stay tight, keep off the radio if you can, and don't do anything stupid. Call for help if you need it, and don't get greedy. Keep your head on a swivel.
"Schiller, stay on my wing unless otherwise told to do otherwise. I have a bad feeling today that has nothing to do with my hangover.
"I want to take a close look at these Breda's when we begin, so don't be suprised if I fly ahead to check them out. Just join up; they'll be going slow to give you a chance to catch up to me."
"Let's give them hell!" Schiller said enthusiastically.
"Let's just fly the damned mission and get home, okay?" I groused back. The sun on the sand was hurting my eyes, and I was actually looking forward to breathing in the metal tasting oxygen from the mask in the Messer.
The truck arrived, and in short order we were in our aircraft, dutifully lined up on the packed runway. Schiller lost all of his bravado at the sight of them, and looked positively sick as he climbed unsteadily into his seat. No time for second guesses, I ordered to start engines and we were idling at five minutes to rendezvous.
I spotted the Italians coming over the airfield and immediately asked for clearance to take off, then quickly catching up them:
Odd looking aircraft, but distinctive, which should help in case something might go awry. For all my bluster about the Italians shooting wildly, it would not do for me to shoot one of them down!
The push to the front was serious, and I dipped my right wing to look at the lager by which our forces were staging from and heading out:
Climbing high to the right, then cutting back left over the bomber formation, I looked back to see my starlings a full two kilometers back!
"Rejoin," I cursed at them, getting a contrite "Vitamine!" from Schiller. My airspeed was low, accounting for my maneuvers, and they cut the distance easily.
Fading towards the coast, I watched the shadows of the Breda's against the sand, then turn towards the cliffs, and finally across the river to drop their bombs. Quite a bit of chatter, but they seem to have struck their targets:
Straightening out, I lead the flight south, thinking to cross the second line of clouds before us, turn towards the coast, and then back towards the base, keeping watch over the bombers and hoping we'd not be met by the enemy.
Of course it was not to be, for no sooner than I looked up I saw four black dots on the horizon. I called for reinforcements and told my flight to engage.
The Hurricanes had better sense than to take our cannon fire head on, and so sought to simply climb up over us:
The two on the left were a miss to me, but I had designs on the right pair. Closing range of two hundred meters, sixty degree deflection blind rising, I guessed at the location of the number wingman, using the leader as a guide, and pulled the trigger:
Bad luck, I only got a chunk of his wing!
Cursing, I rolled high and right, seeing him dive in a spiral, most likely in a panic, and his number one moving left. The first pair had gone right, and I gave pursuit. The wingman broke left at my approach, but his number one went the other way, leaving him unprotected.
Tommy, I thought to myself,
I think he meant your German right!Closing, I began with machineguns, two hundred meters, twenty degree deflection:
He slipped to get a look back, but this only slowed him and showed him that I had his measure:
He tried to dive away, but it gave me the near zero deflection shot I was looking for at a scant 100 meters...I let fly with the cannon and an elevator fluttered away from him:
I pressed the attack, guns and cannon, until his plane was no more:
I could see his flight lead in front of me, crossing to my left at fifteen hundred meters, and prepared to engage when I heard Schiller's voice on the radio, small and weak.
"Help me, somebody help me!"
Looking around, I saw a 109 with two Hurricanes in close pursuit to my north at around a thousand meters higher than I.
"Schiller, break right, they're firing!"
"Please...I need help!" he cried, pleading, and I growled under my mask.
"Break right and low, Schiller! Right-And-LOW!" I yelled.
And yet he flew in a climbing arc, presenting an open target for the Englanders:
"Oh, God, why won't you help me! I need help!"
"BREAK RIGHT, SCHILLER, DO IT
NOW!" I screamed, and amazingly enough, he did so, straight at me and under my plane.
I savagely ripped my plane to the left to clear his six, watching him do the one thing that he shouldn't.
"Mother...." he wept into the microphone.
As he climbed straight up.
"ROLL RIGHT," I shouted, "RIGHT AND DIVE, HE'S GOT YOU!"
The Hurricane was within fifty meters, no doubt throttling back and slipping to gain the killing blow onto Schiller, but I had a shot. I might hit Schiller, but probably not.
One hundred and twenty five meters, closing at fifty kilometers per hour relative, eight hundred meters per second muzzle velocity...he would be clear when the bullets and cannon arrived to push the Hurricane off of him.
Careful aim, tiniest of squeezes on the triggers, no deflection....
The Hurricane exploded.
I had killed Schiller.
I should have known better. It had happened before...the cannon had ripped through half empty fuel tanks and ignited the fumes inside to where a fireball ripped the Hurricanes into shreds. At that distance, the Hurricane acted as a huge flak burst, tearing Schiller's plane apart as well.
And I had killed Schiller twice over.
Once by putting him on my wing when I should have grounded him after his demonstration of complete fear, and then with my own guns.
My mouth opened to howl but no sound came out. I blinked hard away from the blast, willing myself not to look at the burning debris of two planes streaking to the ground, as I saw four dots on the horizon just as I heard the warning of incoming fighters to the west.
There would be no time to mourn or to chastize myself, as this fight had only just began...
[second half of the mission later this week. OMG I'm such a softie, I've been putting off writing this AAR as I didn't like what happened!]
[The darned .ntrk file has one "position drift and correction" in it. Of course it's where I kill Schiller - in the actual mission the crosshairs are on the explosion, but it's so dramatic I couldn't leave it out]
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