Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse. Len Deighton

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СКАЧАТЬ see him.’

      ‘We’re very close, five hundred metres.’

      ‘Got him,’ said Löwenherz, and at the same time Mrosek also gave a yell. Eight yellow dots of exhaust flame pinpricked a horizon across the darkness.

      And because all primitive rituals, especially those concerned with death, have their own vocabulary, Löwenherz reported his sighting to Bach with the words ‘Kettle drums, kettle drums’.

      ‘Lancaster bomber,’ said Mrosek, whose task it was to identify the targets before an attack.

      ‘You beauty,’ said Löwenherz.

      Flash Gordon was a mild man, small in stature, humble in origin and quiet of voice and yet within him was growing a hatred of Binty Jones that he wouldn’t have thought possible. Hardly a day went by without a jibe or a word of sarcasm and now most recent and hurtful of all was Binty’s scorn of his turret modification. If Binty had publicly recognized what a fine idea it was, then the Gunnery Officer might have ordered the turrets of all Squadron planes to be similarly altered. Who knows, it might have been called the ‘Gordon panel’. Invented by a gunner named Gordon, people say he was one of the greatest gunnery experts the Air Force ever had.

      Although Flash Gordon never told real lies, he had come to realize that sometimes a white lie can be necessary for the sake of mankind’s progress. If telling a lie was the only way of having an excellent modification incorporated into Warley Fen’s aeroplanes then a lie wouldn’t stand in his way. In ten minutes I’ll do it, he thought, but changed his mind. There would never come a quieter time than now: that fighter scare was over and they were quite alone in the sky.

      ‘Fighter, fighter. Corkscrew port, go!’ said Flash Gordon. Without bothering to use the sights, he opened fire into the blank darkness. Lambert, obeying instinctively the command that any crew member was empowered to give, flung Creaking Door into a vertical bank and let it drop through the air like a slate.

      Binty Jones, not to be outdone by his colleague, also fired his guns. Curves of tracer hosepiped across the sky as Door fell faster than its turrets could turn.

      ‘My God,’ said Löwenherz as the tracer came towards him. Instinctively he shied away, while Door’s eight exhaust flames tipped vertical and slid out of sight under his nose. The little .303 bullets that the Tommis fired were seldom fatal against the solidly built Junkers, but still Löwenherz found it impossible to fly through them.

      ‘He’s seen us,’ said Mrosek. Löwenherz swore. He followed the bomber down, trying to bring the flame spots up past the windscreen again, but now that he was higher than the bomber he no longer had the advantage of the moonlit clouds.

      Lambert was following the classic manoeuvre of the corkscrew and chanting its litany as he went, to warn the crew: diving port, climbing port, roll, climbing starboard, diving starboard, roll, diving port, climbing port …

      Many times Löwenherz had seen such an evasive pattern. Four or five times he had been able to execute identical manoeuvres in formation with his victim and kill him while they danced together. He could not do it this time. For a corkscrew can be executed in such a leisurely fashion that it occupies ten miles of air-space (some pilots corkscrewed like this the whole journey) or it can be the brutal wing-wrenching, back-breaking manoeuvre that Lambert now put into effect.

      ‘Lost contact,’ said Sachs.

      ‘My fault,’ said Löwenherz.

      The night fighter’s Li C1 airborne radar projected only a narrow cone of signals straight ahead (between 60 and 30 degrees to be precise). Löwenherz waggled his aircraft through a horizon-searching series of manoeuvres. It was no use. He switched on the radio transmitter.

      ‘Announcement,’ said Löwenherz. ‘Katze One, contact lost.’

      ‘Katze One,’ said August, his voice still badly marred by the jamming, ‘Order: steer 200 degrees.’ August looked at the plotting-table and saw that the blip that was Creaking Door was at the extreme edge of his sector. ‘He has luck, that Tommi,’ said August. ‘If he’d turned the other way we’d still be able to go after him.’

      ‘There are plenty more where he came from,’ said Willi.

      In Creaking Door Lambert had stopped corkscrewing. His hands were trembling; so that Battersby would not notice he kept a tight grip on the controls. Suddenly the pain in his back and shoulder, unnoticed during the time of danger, returned with new ferocity. ‘Give me a course for Noordwijk, Kos,’ said Lambert.

      ‘086, Skip,’ said Cohen. Always the perfect navigator, he had been keeping the calculation fresh while waiting for the question.

      ‘Now do you believe in my clear-vision panel?’ Flash Gordon asked the world at large. He had waited long enough for a word of congratulation or thanks.

      ‘Bloody good show,’ said Lambert.

      ‘I don’t believe you saw anything,’ accused Binty Jones.

      ‘A damn great night fighter, man. In fact, I think I may have hit him.’

      ‘Balls,’ said Binty. ‘There was nothing there.’

      ‘Then why were you firing?’ asked Flash. There was no reply. ‘The Gordon clear-view panel, I’m going to call it.’

      ‘Just an old-fashioned liar with old …’ Binty began the fourth verse of the song.

      ‘For Christ’s sake belt up, everyone,’ said Lambert.

      S Sweet had lost headway by the wind error back at Lowestoft and Door had been turning and corkscrewing over the ocean so that by midnight, German Time, while both Sweet and Lambert were eight miles short of the coastline, Tommy Carter in Joe for King and Fleming in The Volkswagen had reached Noordwijk, turned and were four miles along their final leg for the target. About midway between them – two miles off Noordwijk – Löwenherz was moving back over the sea. Twice he had passed within one hundred yards of Joe for King. For a few seconds his wingtip was only twenty feet from the tailplane of a Halifax but none of the crews had spotted these near-misses and to them the sky seemed vast and empty.

      Noordwijk-aan-zee is a holiday resort on the coast of Holland. In 1943 the sand was criss-crossed with barbed wire, and steel spears were hidden in the sea. The hotels had become convalescent homes and military offices and the wide sea-front that in peacetime was crowded with holidaymakers was guarded by armed sentries. The lighthouse stands on the modern esplanade and now its shaded light was switched on while the convoy moved past. The flak-cruiser Held

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