Breakthrough (The Red Gambit Series) (92 page)

The
fire fighters
swarmed over the fuselage and inside, bringing out the gunners and navigator, laying them
down
gently and covering them with their jackets.

More personnel
now arrived and set to with helping. Others, members
of the 21st
, lifted a jacket here and there, confirming the identity of a dead comrade.

A wave of laughter grew throughout the responders, causing anguish with the
bomber crews, who sought out tho
se responsible for the disrespect.

Intending to right the wrong, the survivors of the 21st could only add to the growing sound
s of laughter
as, one by one, they became aware of Istomin.

Carrying signs of his close encounter, the blackened Senior Lieutenant was sat on the steps of a nearby equipment hut, sharing a bottle of vodka with the two
air force personnel
who
usually
inhabited it.

All three men sat there quietly praising fate for her benevolence, two for having survived the death they anticipated as the aircraft bore inexorably down upon them, one for being inside the blazing coffin all the way to the end.

The pilot had no boots, his bare feet
a contradictory
pink
set
against the more common black and brown
of his ensemble
.

The
trio
bore more than a passing resemblance to the ‘three monkeys’ of old, especially as Istomin massaged his head in an effort to relieve the headache brought on by the tension of his experience.

The doctor who checked him shortly afterwards also
humorously
observed that the heavy machorka tobacco he had obtained from the ground crew, combined with the vodka they liberally imbibed
,
probably also contributed.

However,
in seriousness,
he plainly put the headache down to the five inch gash in the back of Istomin’s head, courtesy of the final lurch, the white of the skull plain for all to see before twenty-nine stit
ches pu
lled the flaps back together again.

The commander
of the Donauworth airfield
, a Colonel old enough to be his grandfather, wrote
a
report
that
would accompany him back to his base
,
once the transport arrived.

Two of the Tupolev’s had already flown on, the
crashed
aircraft
cannibalised to get the other damaged aircraft back to
their
base.

Whilst
Istomin
waited for transport
,
he was accommodated in every way, the whole base treated him like a celebrity for his skill in landing the ravaged aircraft.

A liberated US army jeep was placed at his disposal and his first journey took him back to the equipment shed, where he found his new ‘friends’ and shared the same pleasures as before, but under more relaxed conditions.

Together
,
the three strolled towards the silent and cold
ravaged
metal that had once been the sleek Tupolev.

Curiosity took over
,
and they questioned the evidence of their eyes.

So, the counting started.

Istomin
pulled rank, insisting that his total of three hundred and seven would be the official total of holes in his
aircraft and his
report, the two deferring to him
with exaggerated gravity
,
but continuing to speak of two hundred and ninety-one as the definitive figure.

“
Either way Comrades,
the lady brought me home safely against the odds.”

A bottle did the rounds, each man toasting the fine aircraft in cherry brandy, although the two
Air Force men
confessed later that they celebrated her stopping powers in the
slide more than her aerodynamic prowess.

“Perhaps, Comrade Starshy Leytenant, perhaps you should write and tell them
,
eh?”

Momentarily confused, Istomin screwed his face up.

The Serzhant passed over the bottle to the other man and moved to the silent airframe, tapping on each word as he spoke.

“
For the Soviet liberation of Oryol from the Fascist hordes, as named by the
People of
Or
yol.”

Istomin hadn’t flown out with the rest of his men because of his head injury
,
and the problems it had brought with it.

Those problems manifested themselves now as his brain could not comprehend what the Serzhant meant.

“Sir, the good people of Oryol bought and paid for that fine aircraft
,
and entrusted it to you.”

The fog in Istomin’s mind started to clear.

“Comrade Starshy Leytenant, their efforts gave you a good aircraft, one that brought you home when others wouldn’t have.”

“I understand, Comrade Voronov.
You are right.”

The three wise monkeys shared another drink together, pausi
ng only to pour a small amount over
the aircraft’s unofficial name.

“To Tanya!”

And with the sound of the tribute ringing in their ears, the three said their goodbyes.

Casualties among the medical personnel
and their
wounded
charges
had been extreme, the targeted attack on the Castle wiping out the sick and the fit in equal measure.

‘Camerone’ suffered few
serious
casualties
in the bombing
attack
, but five
legionnaires
were killed by a delayed explosion as they dug deep in the rubble to rescue trapped medical personnel.

The air-raid cut short the exchange between Knocke and Kowalski, the former moving off to attend to his units and organise the rescue efforts with no thought for the GRU officer.

Kowalski, satisfied he had got his message across, departed the area to report to his superiors.

It was sometime before Knocke had an opportunity to discuss the day’s
events with De Montgomerie, and specifically report that the GRU
probably
had another source within the Legion Corps.

The location had proven to be perfect, the sole occupant of the
island being
a lighthouse keeper for the Ca
nadian government, whose
understood that his
continued
existence was all about his usefulness at keeping the constant white light alive in orde
r to
not attract undue attention.

The few families that had once lived on what
was
actually two small islands joined by a small spit of land had long departed, leaving behind buildings whose apparent dereliction was only cosmetic, the secret Soviet base
now
flourishing behind peeling paintwork and advancing flora.

The submarines that were savaging the eastern seaboard replenished here, sinking to the bottom during the day, only
rising to
the surface when darkness hurled its protective cloak over them.

The woods provided more excellent cover
,
and the base easily accommodated the personnel from the other Soviet
mainland
base
, threatened
when a US Army unit moved in dangerously close
. Their presence alone
forced it to swiftly close
, and, as yet, the
US
had no idea that they had even been there
.

What could not be squeezed into the submarines was dragged into the water and sunk, leaving no trace that the base had even existed, save for the deeply buried body of the old man who had so surprised the landing party on the day they arrived.

The disadvantage was clearly the increased travel time to intercept southern state routes, but the undersea wolves found themselves close enough to
Boston
and
New York
to ensure that there were rich pickings for everyone.

A
ll was activity once the sun set, the imminent arrival of a supply boat stirring the base into action.

The normal routine was for approaching submarines to surface and use the lighthouse for a bearing, ensuring precise navigation into the small
south side
harbour.

This evening
s
visitor was a unique craft, the only one of three sisters to taste the open seas.

Once U-1702, the type XX U-Boat had been a stop-start project for the Kreigsmarine, a project finally brought to completion in a
G
erman shipyard under the watchful eyes of Soviet overseers.

She was a ‘Milchcow’
, a supp
ly b
oat, capa
b
le
of
carrying
fuel, munitions, fresh foods and any number of the requirements of the clandestine base.

Schnorkel equipped, U-1702, or
the Morž as she was now known, had nearly completed her maiden voyage from her Baltic home to the eastern seaboard of the
Americas
.

Deliberately
riding
low in the water,
her tanks only partially blown,
the Morž was being guided into the harbour by her nerv
ous captain, the closeness of the enemy and the vulnerability of his vessel testing his firmness and resolve.

Around the conning tower, the watchers kept watch, eyes glued to binoculars, ears pricked for the sound of an approaching aircraft, all ready to drop into the dark hatch in a moment.

The lighthouse’s constant light drew the
Milchcow
for
ward with its promise of safety, the projected Atlantic storm starting to make itself known with the increasing wind and milky grey hue to the moonlit sky.

The
Starshina
of the watch stiffened, his ears gently suggesting that they had heard something out of the ordinary, such as a buzz of a bee or the hum of an engine, but the suggestion withered as quickly as it arrived, the brain scolding the ears and poi
n
ting to the nothingness in
the relative silence of the choppy sea.

K-136 was in some difficulty
, one of her engines doing nothing but adding dead weight, even though the mechanics were doing their best to get the dormant lump of metal back on line.

The hint of a storm added to the concerns as K-136 struggled to get back to base.

Naval Lieutenant Carlton E. Wetherbridge was nursing his fragile craft steadily northwards to try and make the emergency base at
Barrington
, accepting that, for tonight,
Yarmouth
was beyond him and his crippled charge.

That the approaching storm
gave
him some advantage and
started to give him a push was immediately overridden by the failure of the second engine and the total silence which accompanied
its
loss.

Running on battery power one of the wireless operators continued his running commentary to the Yarmouth Operations room, the K-136 sinking lower and dropping below the cloud cover and into the surreal grey light of the impending storm.

“Errr Skipper, there’s something ahead of us.
I caught a look in the sweep of the lighthouse.
”

The voice belonged to
Royston
James, the crew’s youngest
officer and co-pilot of K-136.