Stalemate (The Red Gambit Series) (38 page)

Picking up a pencil, Patton drew a cross on the map, his actions leaving no doubt that he had just sorted the problem of where the Russians would come.

“Here is where they will focus, and here is where they will aim at,” the pencil drawing a thick arrow all the way to the sea.

Eisenhower leant forward, his eyes taking in the simple pencil line, hi
s mind already hearing the base sounds of battle, the screams of the dying, and the screams of the living.

“Can you get Alexander on the horn please
, George?”

Patton was on the phone in a second, brusquely ordering a connection through to Field
Marshal Alexander’s headquarters.

Eisenhower took the
proffered receiver.

“Harry, it’s Ike.”

Clearly, Alexander had heard a buzz.

“Yes, I can confirm that to you now. General Strong has just informed me.”

Eisenhower listened politely, not caring to interrupt the Englishman in full flow, using the moment to get another cigarette going, oblivious to Patton’s displeasure.

“I agree. Try this one on for size
, Harry. The Soviet reinforcements that have been spotted in Bavaria aren’t reinforcements for the German Front. They are new units with a different purpose.”

Patton opened another two windows
, whilst Alexander said his piece.

Eisenhower patiently let the British Field
Marshal finish.

“Well
, it makes perfect sense to me. They move the new Army up, shaping like a wave of reinforcements, until they are ready. One swift oblique movement, and they fall on the Alps to the south.”

“Just think about it
, Harry. We have weakened your forces in favour of Germany, and now the Italians have done an about turn. They will hit you on a broad front, and find a weakness, but our best guess”, he acknowledged Patton with an inclination of the head, “Is that their main axis of advance will be from Innsbruck, Trento, Brescia, aimed at the Mediterranean at Genoa.”

Eisenhower stubbed his cigarette out furiously, unusually irritated by the Field
Marshal’s reply.

“Yes
, I do know that, Harry, and they are good troops too. But no matter what, that enemy force in Bavaria can turn and descend on Innsbruck before we have a chance to reinforce.”

Alexander
clearly wanted his units back.

“No, that’s not possible
, Harry. They’re either in harm’s way, or needed. None will be coming back to you. Use the Spanish and the Germans to thicken up your force.”

The conversation was drawing to a natural close until the line went
dead, the silence enforced by a sneak air raid on Alexander’s headquarters, one bomb knocking out the telephone communications centre on which 15th Army Group heavily relied.

Eisenhower returned the receiver to its cradle.

“Air raid in progress. Lost the line.”

Eisenhower too
k another look at the map, almost reminding himself of the precarious nature of the position.

“Ok George, I gotta get back to manage this thing. I will get your men disengaged when I can so that you can sort them out.”

“General, my boys are spoiling for a fight. Hell, so am I. We are sick and tired of running, so just give us a chance to fight back and kick some Commie ass soon!”

The two exchanged formal salutes and Eisenhower returned to his vehicle for the drive back to the airfield
, where his aircraft waited to take him back to Versailles.

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

If you poison us, do we not die?

And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

William Shakespeare

616 Squadron RAF, or rather, what was left of it, was airborne on an interception mission. Soviet bombers had been spotted by a returning flight of ground attack aircraft, and the Meteors had been quickly redirected onto an interception course.

Flight Lieutenant de Villiers, the de facto Squadron commander, led his six jet fighters forward into yet another air battle.

His war so far had been exhausting, mission after mission stacking up, sleep and relaxation becoming rarer beasts by the day.

Like the rest of his flight crews, he was tired
, but he understood that every Allied pilot was the same. Every Allied flyer also understood that they had to be in the air, because air power was all that was presently holding the Soviets back.

Baines, as usual, spotted the enemy aircraft
, flying in close formation at roughly twenty-five thousand feet, some five thousand feet below the rapidly closing Meteors.

“Gamekeeper, Gamekeeper,
nine bandits at ten o’clock low, four engine bombers, type Polikarpov Eight’s.”

Six pairs of eyes took in the unusual sight of a group of the
Soviet Union’s only four engine bombers.

The PE-8’s had been retired before the end of the
German War, but the Russians never threw anything away, and so the venerable old birds were brought out to play the greatest game once again.

“Gamekeeper, Gamekeeper, Blue-One calling, line astern formation, rear approach.
Starboard turn, then port wheel. Attacking now.”

The Meteor responded as de Villiers applied more power, the twin jet engines pushing him in a fast turn to starboard until he reversed stick, and started to haul the fighter round to port. His turn was timed to bring him perfectly in line behind the rear bomber.

“Gamekeeper, Gamekeeper, Blue-two. Escort fighters down low. Our Spits are all over them.”

The Meteor’s cannon pumped out their shells as De Villiers pressed the button, every single 20mm missing its target.

The Polikarpov was travelling at less than half the speed of the Meteor.

“Gamekeeper, Gamekeeper, second pass, throttle back, speed 300.”

The line of jets circled again, the sky inky and smudged from the smoke of the sole victim of the first pass, still in formation, but full of men who knew they were on borrowed time.

De Villiers lined up on a different aircraft
, and was rewarded with pieces of its wing flying off, as the cannon shells exploded on contact.

Circling for a third run, the South African checked the enemy formation, immediately spotting that nine had become seven,
three of which were smoking badly.

The
Soviet bombers turned, staying tight, but bleeding off height, desperately calling for assistance, as scared pilots tried to find some way of staying alive for another minute.

De Villiers selected the nearest aircraft, smoking badly and clearly in great difficulty.

Enough of his cannon shells hit the lumbering bomber to ensure its death, port wing and engines flying into pieces.

“Crew, bail out!”

Voitsev, the pilot, shouted the order, unsure who was still alive
, or who was like his co-pilot, so recently transformed into a lump of warm and bloody meat.

The PE-8 had a crew of eleven
, and he was determined to hold the dying bird steady long enough for them all to escape.

H
e knew his own fate was already sealed.

The Flight Engineer had rushed into the rear of the aircraft
, and Mladshy Leytenant Voitsev could hear him shouting at the crew above the rush of air through the increasingly numerous holes.

Another attack silenced all sounds of the man, as more 20mm shells hammered through the fuselage, killing and wounding
a number of the escaping crew.

Three managed to get out, their white canopies marking their escape. The rest lay dead or incapacitated inside the PE-8.

All except Borlovski, the dwarf, an airman so small that his Comrades had to give him a lift up to get in the large bomber, a fact they kept to themselves for fear of losing their talismanic gunner.

Borlovski knew the Polikarpov was dying
, but he was determined to get one last shot off before jumping to safety.

The wheel of jet fighters came round again.

Borlovski was a fine gunner, one of the best in the 25th, and he had learned from his previous misses.

The 20mm ShVAK cannon rattled as he took on the lead Meteor.

Everything started to go wrong in the same second.

The noise was instant and loud.

Gauges went bad, airspeed fell away, and controls went sluggish.

De Villiers knew his aircraft was doomed, his peripheral vision registering the surge
of yellow on his starboard side, where 20mm cannon shells had smashed into the turbines in the starboard engine, transforming it into shrapnel. Flying metal that, in turn, smashed through more of the engine and escaped the nacelle, only for much of the sharp metal to find a home in the fuselage beyond.

The South African didn’t even feel the two pieces
that buried themselves in his right thigh, the white hot metal cauterizing the wounds as they lay in his flesh.

Escaping fuel enlarged the fire in the ruined engine
, and the Meteor fell lazily away to starboard, the controls barely giving De Villiers a response, let alone any vestige of control.

Ditching the canopy, the heat from the fire was immediately apparent
, and the wounded pilot did not hesitate to part company with the dying plane.

The silk blossomed
, and the South African watched with fascination as the rest of his Squadron avenged him, knocking the surviving PE’s from the sky in two more passes.

De Villiers examined the ground beneath his feet, realising very quickly that it teemed with life, ants moving all over, until, the lower he got, the ants transformed themselves into uniformed men with guns; and lots of them.

The damaged aircraft still managed to fly, almost kept in the air by the will of Voitsev and Borlovski.

The gunner had made his way through the fuselage, reaching
the cockpit, where he was able to confirm that he and Voitsev were the last living occupants of Silniy-Two-Two.

Responding to the pilot
’s request, Borlovski plugged up the holes, stopping the wind whistling in.

In so doing, he ensured his pilot could start to feel his hands again.

He also killed them both.

The ventilation had
constantly purged the fuselage of fumes, the fuel tanks being amongst the casualties of the Meteor attacks.

A small fire had been extinguished
, but, beneath the grey exterior, smouldering continued.

The fumes from the aviation spirit built up
slowly, until the balance of vapours and oxygen was perfect, and all that was needed was a source of ignition.

As the Polikarpov flew low, it occasionally encountered obstructions.

Voitsev did not see the church steeple until very late, and he hauled urgently on the stick, causing the used fire extinguisher to drop off the map table where Borlovski had placed it. It struck the smouldering area, uncovering it, disturbing it, and sending a small, but concentrated, plume of sparks upwards, where the perfect mix of fuel vapour and oxygen waited hungrily for a source of ignition.

The PE-8,
Silniy-Two-Two, exploded violently and catastrophically, transforming itself into small pieces of metal in the blink of an eye. The largest pieces, the engines, raced each other to the ground, pursued by a myriad of smaller bits.

On the ground below, closely packed and moving swiftly, part of the supply train of the 6th Guards Army was deluged in life-taking metal and burning fuel.

Scores of horses were killed and maimed, their handlers equally ravaged.