A Thousand Suns

Chapter 44 Mission Time: 6 Hours, 9 Minutes Elapsed

Büller emptied the clip of his MP-40 and ducked back down just as the sandbag above him shuddered under the impact of half a dozen bullets. ‘Jesus Christ!’ The sand from the shredded bag above him cascaded down onto his head and shoulders. He wiped it irritably from his face and spat out grit from his mouth. ‘Fucking sand.’

‘Büller, we’ve got to pull back now!’

‘Shut up, we’ll run for it when I say so.’

He turned back to see how Koch was doing. They had managed to pull out some of the crates and stack them in twos and threes a few dozen yards in front of the fuel truck, but it was clear they needed some more time to place a few more positions either side in order to build a semi-circle of positions to cover their flanks.

‘Another few minutes, boys,’ he shouted above the din.

The Americans in front had crept forward, moving from tree to tree. They were now only between twenty or thirty yards away. He’d attempted to keep a mental total of the number of casualties they had inflicted on the Americans. So far he’d seen three, possibly four kills, and maybe another six wounded, it was hard to judge. Two of his men were dead, both instant kills, both head shots, another had been hit in the shoulder, and although it didn’t look fatal, the lad could do little more than lie behind the sandbags and hand ammo clips to the other three of his men as they called out for them.

They had done a good enough job slowing them down here at the front, but it was clear the soldiers that had fanned out across the fields either side of the dirt track would soon be emerging from the trees and bushes surrounding the airfield and entering the fray from all angles. The only thing that could sensibly be done in that event would be to pull back and take cover amongst the motley assortment of huts and tents around the canteen. From there they could take pot shots at the Americans as they made their way across the open field towards the planes. If nothing else, that would force them to the ground again. It would slow them down once more.

Büller decided that was the best they could do for now. Their ammo was running low and the increased silences between their volley fire were proving dangerously encouraging to the Americans. They were close enough now to risk a dash across the open ground. Perhaps they’d lose a man in the process, but they’d be able to vault over the sandbags and shoot Büller and his men like dogs in a pit.

He leaned across to the young lad with the shoulder wound. ‘Right, we’re leaving, Erich. You stay put and make sure you keep your hands away from any guns when they get to you, okay?’

The young lad nodded.

Büller tapped the other three men, and pointed towards the canteen. ‘I’ll give you covering fire, head for the canteen, we’ll pick ’em off from there.’ The three men nodded.

‘Right, off you go,’ he said quickly, before lifting his MP-40 up above his head and firing indiscriminately over the sandbags. The three men, keeping their heads low, sprinted away from him, as a fusillade of return fire thudded into the sandbags above Büller. He heard some of the Americans shouting above the noise of their weapons, and, a moment later, just as Büller was preparing to fire another clipful over the top, they directed their fire at the three fleeing men. Büller felt the displaced air as the bullets whistled over him and a dozen divots of wet soil flicked into the air either side of the fleeing men. One of them, Werner, fell forward, punched hard by a hit in the small of his back, he flopped down with a muted grunt, face buried in the mud, and writhed from side to side for a few moments before another bullet thudded into his prone body to settle the matter. The other two men weaved erratically until they reached the loose arrangement of tents, pursued by raking lines of flying soil.

‘Fuck this,’ Büller muttered. He readied himself to fire off the clip in his gun, his last clip. Once he’d emptied it he would run after the other two, and hope that he wasn’t as unlucky as Werner, now lying motionless on the muddy ground amidst a growing pool of blood.

He winked at Erich. ‘Remember, let ’em see your hands clearly. I’ll see you later after we’re done here.’ He propped his gun over the top and emptied the clip before leaping to his feet and running for the canteen as a barrage of bullets peppered the ground behind him.

Schröder was struggling. Like the others, he’d been ferrying five-gallon drums to and from his Me-109 for the last twenty minutes. His spent arms and legs felt like useless lengths of rubber, and his breathing was laboured and ragged from the physical exertion. Gasoline fumes hovered above the small, muddy patch of ground in the midst of the gathered planes, shimmering and undulating like a heat haze. The pilots were all drenched in gasoline, spilled from the drums as they chaotically scrambled to refuel as quickly as possible. The five soldiers who had been drafted in to assist them had no sooner started to help them carry the fuel drums than they were called away by Koch to assist pulling crates out from under a tarpaulin nearby to form a makeshift enclave of cover around the fuel truck and the bomber.

He had no idea how full his tanks were, he’d lost count of the number of five-gallon drums he’d emptied into the wing tanks, and it would take too much valuable time to climb up into the cockpit and take a reading of the fuel gauge. He decided it would be best to just keep filling up until Max and his boys were making ready to go. That thought in his mind, he looked towards the bomber. He could see no sign of Max beside the fuel truck, but then he caught sight of movement beneath the belly of the bomber. Max was underneath the plane working on something.

Fine time to be doing repairs.

‘Max!’ he shouted across to him as he returned to the central stash of fuel with his empty five-gallon drum. Max couldn’t hear him above the increasing din of the skirmish over by the entrance to the airfield.

‘What the hell is Max up to?’ he shouted to the two young men holding the fifty-gallon drum for their fellow fighter pilots. They both turned towards the bomber and spotted him working busily with a wrench on the belly turret.

‘No fucking idea,’ said Hans.

Stef saw one of the waist-guns topple out of the plane and land heavily on the ground below. A box of ammunition followed it out a moment later.

‘They’re chucking out stuff we don’t need. Making the plane lighter.’

One of the large fifty-gallon drums clanged noisily and a jet of fuel instantly spurted from a hole near the bottom.

‘Shit!’ shouted Hans. Their eyes met.

That could have been an end to us all.

Schröder looked up towards the entrance. American soldiers were streaming past the barricade and hunkering down behind the sandbags, firing towards the tents. None of them seemed to have turned towards the planes out on the strip yet. He looked to his left, down to the far end of the strip. He saw about twenty of them emerging from the treeline onto the open field. They were four, maybe five, hundred yards away, and from the hand gestures of the officer leading them, they intended to make their way up the strip towards them. He saw several wisps of blue smoke issue from their guns, and a moment later several dozen more bullets whistled by above them, most harmlessly inaccurate at this range. However, one of the large fuel drums was hit on the side, with a loud metallic clang; the bullet glancing off but producing a small shower of sparks. Schröder watched them flying lazily through the air, biting his lip with relief when the sparks winked out on the rain-moistened grass.

Another hit like that, and it was all going to go up.

‘I think now is probably a very good time for you boys to leave,’ he said to Stef and Hans. ‘You two better report back to Max.’

Both young men nodded eagerly, stood up the drum they’d been pouring fuel from and began to make their way back towards the B-17, ducking as more bullets whistled up from the far end of the landing strip.

Koch watched as one of his men, Dieter, took three hits in the chest and was thrown onto his back. His legs scissored in the mud beside the tarpaulin-covered crates as he struggled for breath. His other men dropped to the ground as still more bullets thudded into the crates and the ground around them.

Koch decided their little enclave of boxes of tinned food was good enough. ‘All right, that’ll do. Get your heads down,’ he shouted to the nine men with him. They scrambled across the ground, each finding a safe place behind one of the small stacks.

The enclave formed an arc of two- and three-crate piles around the fuel truck, like half of a mini Stonehenge. Each pile offered decent enough cover for one or two men lying down from the right side of the strip only. If the Americans were prepared to take their time and work their way across the landing strip to the left-hand side and then proceed up the strip towards them, Koch and his men would be successfully flanked, and their hard cover would be useless to them. For now, though, it seemed the Americans were prepared to continue the fight from behind the cover of the sandbags near the entrance and the comparative safety of the far end of the strip.

Koch stuck his head above his pile. He looked for Büller and his men. They were no longer near the entrance, and he hadn’t managed to see which way they had retreated. His other squad leader, Schöln, was curled up behind the next pile of crates along.

The young captain cupped his hands. ‘Schöln! Did you see where Büller and his men pulled back to?’

Schöln pointed towards the large canteen tent, and Koch looked for them amongst the mess: overturned wooden tables, the large iron urns, still steaming with tea and coffee, and the enormous catering pans and serving plates, now knocked to the ground, their contents of scrambled egg, bacon and sausages spread across the decked floor of the canteen. Amongst this chaos, he saw some movement and a tuft of blond hair.

Good man, Büller, excellent position.

From where they were, Büller and his boys would be able to keep the Americans further down the strip from advancing up towards the planes. It was open terrain, and they would be exposed to any fire coming from Büller’s squad and have no cover to dive behind.

The other main group of men by the sandbags near the entrance seemed in no hurry to move in on them either, content to lay down intermittent fire on Koch and his men, now safely tucked behind the crates.

Excellent. It seemed like a temporary stalemate that might last a few more minutes. That would be enough.

But then there were the GIs he’d seen spreading out to the right of the dirt track and heading into the dense foliage and bracken of the woods. They would surely soon emerge from the line of trees that bordered this end, the top, of the strip.

That damned treeline was dangerously close to the parked fighters and the fuel dump in the middle. With hindsight, Koch decided, it would have been smarter of Schöln’s squad to have driven the fuel truck halfway down the strip and left it there, along with the large fuel drums, well away from the treeline that surrounded the airstrip and any other covered positions that the Americans could use to their advantage. But then, the planes, particularly the American bomber, would still need to taxi up to this end of the strip to have enough running distance to get off the ground, the planes would still be vulnerable from shots coming out of the wood.

His thinking turned out to be timely.

From the trees he caught sight of flickering muzzle flashes and puffs of blue-tinged smoke. The bastards were aiming for the fuel drums.

A moment later one of the large fuel drums erupted. The gasoline-fuelled explosion set off the other large drums. Together they produced a large, bright orange mushroom cloud of flame that wafted lazily up into the sky, slowly turning to black smoke.

Max felt the explosion before he heard it; it was like a hot punch between his shoulders. He turned to see the flame cloud drift upwards. The ground where the drums had been was a sea of flames six or seven feet high, and, swimming through it, arms lashing out, he saw several men staggering to escape the flames.

Stef, Hans.

They’d both been handling one of the large drums.

He watched with horror as several men on fire from head to toe staggered around amidst the inferno before collapsing to their knees, and then with agonising slowness to the ground. He hoped they were dead at that point, rather than enduring the unimaginable agony any longer.

The last he had seen of his lads, they had been holding one of the large fuel drums. The blast would have killed them immediately.

He hoped.

He forced his mind to switch to practical matters. With Stef gone, he’d have to handle the navigation himself. He had undergone basic training for navigation, and had, as a matter of habit, always gone through the flight plan with his navigator before every sortie. The skills were a little rusty, but he could just about get them there. Stef had done the hard work finding their way to this small airfield.

Pieter would fly, and he would navigate. The mission could still be completed.

An image of Stef’s face, stretched and contorted by the heat, flickered across his mind. He screwed his eyes shut, pushing the image away. There were fifteen hours of flying time ahead of them. There’d be plenty of time to torment himself and grieve for those two later.

The sea of flames had spread towards several of the Me-109s. He watched as one of Schröder’s pilots scrambled up onto the wing of his plane and into the cockpit, as the flames licked hungrily underneath its belly. The pilot had managed to start up the engine and the plane had begun to roll forward, away from the fire, when it exploded. Two other planes followed suit and exploded in a chain reaction, one setting off the other.

The initial eruption had damaged several of the planes parked closest to the fuel drums, and with the other three destroyed, Max could only count four planes as yet undamaged. He feared, as he watched more of Schröder’s men succumb to the flames, that there were now even fewer pilots left than planes.

He heard Pieter calling out, he didn’t hear the words, but there was a distinct tone of relief in his usually gruff voice. Max loosened the last retaining bolt on the belly-gun blister and it clattered heavily to the ground. He emerged from beneath the bomber’s belly to see Stef and Hans loping across the grass, ducking low to avoid the bullets that passed over the top of Koch’s improvised defences.

He angrily slapped them on their backs as they passed. ‘You two stupid bastards gave me a scare.’ He hastily gestured for them to get inside. ‘We’re leaving, we’ve got as much fuel as we need,’ he shouted, his voice struggling to compete with the deafening gunfight and the roar of the nearby fire.

He waited until Hans had scrambled up through the hatch and then stuck his head up inside. ‘Pieter!’ he shouted, his voice now beginning to sound hoarse, punished by the fumes of the smoke that was gathering around the plane. ‘Start the engines. I’ll be up in a second.’

He heard Stef shout, passing the message up to Pieter in the cockpit as he ducked back outside. He dropped down and made his way on all fours across to Koch’s position.

‘We’re going now,’ he shouted.

Koch turned round, his face a picture of overwhelming relief. ‘About bloody time.’

Max pointed down to the far end of the strip at the Americans who were spread out across it, currently laying down fire on Büller and his men holed up in the canteen. They were going to prevent any of them taking off with the promise of a devastating wall of small-arms fire on any plane stupid enough to rumble down the strip towards them.

‘I need them moved. They’ll shoot us to shreds before we can get off the ground.’

Koch looked down the strip. There were twenty to thirty of them spread out across it, most of them kneeling on the grass or prone. ‘I’m not sure how we can shift them. I’ve only got a few men left here… what am I supposed to do?’

‘They’ve got to be moved, we can’t take off otherwise.’

The young captain looked around. He had seven men here; amongst the overturned tables of the canteen there were a few more men; inside the hangar with the prisoners were perhaps a couple more. He looked back at Max; ready to shake his head and tell him it couldn’t be done when his eyes rested on the fuel truck.

Max followed his gaze. He could guess what the man was thinking. ‘Yes, good idea.’

‘You get your plane ready to go,’ said Koch.

Max held out his hand. ‘Thanks. You and your men have done us proud.’

‘Last skirmish of the war… wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Let’s just hope whatever it is you’re up to is worth it,’ Koch said, grabbing his hand.

‘It’ll win us the war.’

Koch’s eyes widened, and Max smiled reassuringly. ‘Trust me… this has been worth it.’

A volley of bullets peppered the ground near both men, and Max decided it was time to move. ‘We’ll turn, and then you’ll hear the engines rev up for take-off speed. That’s us ready to go.’

‘Understood. You’d better go now,’ Koch said, offering Max a hasty salute. Max returned the gesture and then headed back towards the bomber’s belly hatch at a sprint. He pulled himself up inside and clambered through the bombardier’s compartment to the cockpit.

‘What took you so bloody long?’ said Pieter.