While the
The arcing line of tracers converged on the glowing circle, and, suddenly, it appeared as if the Allied plane’s nose was engulfed in fireworks. Sparks and tongues of fire enveloped the Swordfish, metal and fabric shredded by the assault. The propeller was torn apart, and the radial engine exploded as if it was a fragmentary grenade. Burning fuel and hot oil rolled over the exposed pilot and gunner. The Swordfish’s controlled dive, which matched the
The Fairley winged over, spiraling ever faster, as it burned like a meteor. Lichtermann began to level the
When Ernst looked up and across the fifty-foot trailing edge of the port wing, the fear he had been too distracted to acknowledge hit him full force. Smoke trailed from both nine-cylinder engines, and he could plainly hear the power plants were misfiring badly.
“Captain,” he shouted into the microphone.
“Shut up, Kessler,” Lichtermann snapped. “Radioman, get up here and give me a hand. Ebelhardt’s dead.”
“Captain, the port engines,” Kessler insisted.
“I know, damnit, I know. Shut up.”
The first Swordfish that had attacked was well astern, and most likely had already turned to rejoin the convoy, so there was nothing Kessler could do but stare in horror at the smoke rushing by in the slipstream. Lichtermann shut down the inboard engine in hopes of extinguishing the flames. He let the propeller windmill for a moment before reengaging the starter. The engine coughed and caught, and fire appeared around the cowling, flames quickly blackening the aluminum skin of the nacelle.
With the inboard engine producing a little thrust, Lichtermann chanced shutting off the outside motor.
When he kicked on the starter again, the engine fired immediately, producing only an occasional wisp of smoke. He immediately killed the still-burning inboard engine, fearing the fire could spread to the
Tense minutes trickled by. Young Kessler resisted the urge to ask the pilot about their situation. He knew Lichtermann would tell him something as soon as he could. Kessler jumped and hit his head on an internal strut when he heard a new sound, a whooshing gush that came from directly behind him. The Plexiglas canopy protecting his position was suddenly doused with droplets of some liquid. It took him a moment to realize Lichtermann must have calculated the
“How are you doing down there, Kessler?” Lichtermann asked after cutting off the flow.
“Um, fine, sir,” Kessler stammered. “Where did those planes come from?”
“I didn’t even see them,” the pilot confessed.
“They were biplanes. Well, at least the one I shot down was.”
“Must be Swordfish,” Lichtermann said. “It appears the Allies have a new trick up their sleeve. Those didn’t come off a CAM. The rocket-assisted motors would tear the wings clean off. The British must have a new aircraft carrier.”
“But we didn’t see any planes taking off.”
“They could have seen us coming on radar and launched before we spotted the convoy.”
“Can we radio this information to base?”
“Josef ’s working on it now. The radio’s still picking up nothing but static. We’ll be over the coast in a half hour. Reception should clear by then.”
“What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Stay at your station, and keep an eye out for any more Swordfish. We’re making less than a hundred knots, and one could sneak up on us.”
“What about Lieutenant Ebelhardt and Corporal Dietz?”
“Didn’t I hear that your father’s a minister or something?”
“Grandfather, sir. At the Lutheran church in our village.”
“Next letter home to him, have him say a prayer. Ebelhardt and Dietz are both dead.” There was no more talk after that. Kessler continued to stare into the darkness, hoping to spot an enemy plane but praying he didn’t. He tried not to think about how he had just killed two men. It was war, and they had ambushed the
Kessler knew he’d never be able to look his grandfather in the eye again.
“I can see the coast,” Lichtermann announced after forty minutes. “We’ll make Narvik yet.” The
Fate chose that instant to deal her final card. The outboard port engine, which had been humming along at half power and keeping the big reconnaissance plane in trim, gave no warning. It simply seized so hard that the propeller went from a whirling disc providing stability to a stationary sculpture of burnished metal that added a tremendous amount of drag.
On the flight deck, Lichtermann slammed the rudder hard over in an attempt to keep the
Kessler was thrown violently against his gun mount, and a loop of ammunition whipped around him like a snake. It cracked against his face, so that his vision went dim and blood jetted from both nostrils. It came at him again and would have slammed the side of his head had he not ducked and pinned the shining brass belt against a bulkhead.
Lichtermann held the plane steady for a few seconds longer but knew it was a losing battle. The
“Kessler, get up here and strap in,” Lichtermann shouted over the intercom. “We’re going to crash.” The plane shot over a mountain guarding a fjord with a small glacier at its head, the ice dazzlingly white against the jagged black rock.
Ernst had his shoulder straps off and was bending to crawl out of the gun position when something far below caught his eye. Deep in the cleft of the fjord was a building constructed partially on the glacier. Or perhaps something so ancient that the glacier had started to bury it. It was difficult to judge scale in his brief glimpse, but it looked large, like some kind of old Viking storehouse.
“Captain,” Kessler cried. “Behind us. In that fjord. There is a building. I think we can land on the ice.” Lichtermann hadn’t seen anything, but Kessler was facing backward and would have had an unobstructed view into the fjord. The terrain ahead of the
“Are you sure?” he shouted back.
“Yes, sir. It was on the edge of the glacier. I could see it in the moonlight. There is definitely a building there.”
Without power, Lichtermann had one shot at landing the plane. He was certain that if he tried it out in the open, he and his two remaining crew members would be killed in the crash. Landing on a glacier wouldn’t be a picnic either, but at least there was a chance they would walk away.
He muscled the yoke over, fighting the
The big aircraft carved through the sky, coming back on a northerly heading. The mountain that had hidden the glacier from Lichtermann’s view loomed ahead. He silently thanked the bright moonlight, because, at the mountain’s base, he could see a field of virgin white, a patch of glacial ice at least a mile long. He saw no indication of the building Kessler had spotted, but it didn’t matter. The ice was what he focused on.
It rose gently from the sea for most of its length before seeming to fall from a cleft in the side of the mountain, a near-vertical wall of ice that was so thick it appeared blue in the uncertain light. A few small icebergs dotted the long fjord.
The
“Hang on,” he said. His throat was so dry the words came out in a tight croak.
Ernst had climbed from his position and had strapped himself in the radioman’s seat. Josef was on the flight deck with Lichtermann. The radio’s dials glowed milky white. There were no windows nearby, so the inside of the aircraft was pitch-black. At hearing the pilot’s terse warning, Kessler bent double, wrapping his hands around the back of his neck and clamping his knees with his elbows, as he’d been trained.
Prayers tumbled from his lips.
The
He didn’t know what was better, being alone in the hull of the plane and not knowing what was happening outside or being in the cockpit and seeing the
There was a crash below where Kessler huddled, and a blast of frigid air shot through the fuselage. The Plexiglas protecting the forward gunner’s position had been blown inward. Chunks of ice that were being shaved off the glacier whirled through the plane, and, still, it felt like they were not slowing.
Then came the loudest sound yet, an echoing explosion of torn metal that was followed immediately by the rank smell of high-octane aviation fuel. Kessler knew what had happened. One of the wings had dug into the ice and had been sheared off. Though Lichtermann had dumped most of their gasoline, enough remained in the lines to make the threat of fire a very real one.
The plane continued to toboggan across the glacier, driven by her momentum and the slight downward slope of the ice. But she had finally started to slow. Having her port wing torn off had turned the aircraft perpendicular to her direction of travel. With more of her hull scraping against the ice, friction was overcoming gravity.
Kessler allowed himself a sigh. He knew in just moments the
Captain Lichtermann had done it. He relaxed the death grip he’d maintained since the shouted warning and was about to straighten in his seat when the starboard wing tore into the ice and was ripped off at the root.
The fuselage rolled over the severed wing and flipped onto its back in a savage motion that nearly tossed Kessler out of his safety belts. His neck whiplashed brutally, the pain radiating all the way to his toes.
The young airman hung dazed from his straps for several long seconds until he realized he could no longer hear the rasping scrape of aluminum over ice. The
“Captain Lichtermann?” he called. “Josef?”
The reply was a whistle of cold wind through the downed aircraft.
Kessler rummaged through a cabinet below the radio and found a flashlight. Its naked beam revealed the body of Max Ebelhardt, the copilot, who had died in the first instant of the attack. Calling out for Josef and Lichtermann, he trained the light on the inverted cockpit. He spotted the men still strapped to their seats, their arms dangling as limp as rag dolls’.