Call to Duty (7 page)

He reached across the table and took her hand, hoping that she was in remission again. But his inner alarm warned him otherwise. How much longer? he wondered. He knew he could go on without her but life would lose most of its luster.

As usual, Tosh Pontowski refused to give in to her disease. “Press conference today?” He nodded a yes. “L’affaire Courtland no doubt.”

“Can’t hide much from you, can we?” Pontowski observed. Charles, his valet, entered with a tray holding his lunch.

“Courtland will turn this against you,” she said, watching him eat. “He knows he must discredit you if he is to defeat the candidate you endorse in the next presidential election.”

“I know,” he answered. “No matter what we do, he’ll claim it isn’t enough. He’ll work the sympathy angle for all it’s worth.”

“Then you must defuse it,” she counseled. “Recall your own escape.”

“But I was never in captivity.”

“No, but you were wounded, frightened, and pursued. It was a near thing. Build on that.”

Matthew Zachary Pontowski leaned back in his chair and recalled when he had indeed been a terrified, desperately wounded fugitive.

1943
RAF Church Fenton, England

The battered Austin ground to a stop in front of the mat-black Beaufighter. “Right, sir,” the driver said, “here you are.” Zack Pontowski and Andrew Ruffum clambered out, dragging their flight gear with them. “Good luck,” she added before crunching the gears and driving off. Zack drew himself to his full six feet and sniffed the cold January night, waiting to feel any strange tingling sensations that might warn him about this particular aircraft they were going to fly tonight. Nothing unusual assaulted his senses and he relaxed.

Sergeant Newman was waiting for them with two other aircraftsmen of his ground crew. “She’s in tip-top,” he told them. Both men could hear a sadness in his voice.

“Not happy about the conversion?” Zack asked. The first of the squadron’s new Mosquito aircraft and their crews would arrive at Church Fenton the next day and the Beaufighters and their aircrews would depart. But the ground crews would remain. Zack and Ruffy had the dubious distinc
tion of flying 25 Squadron’s last mission in Beaufighters before the conversion. The sergeant gave a shrug that could have meant anything and took Zack’s parachute to load it in the cockpit for him. He passed it up the open forward escape hatch in the belly of the Beau. Ruffy was already scrambling up the entry ladder in the hatch behind his position. Zack lit a cigarette, knowing they had some time before engine start Newman rejoined him and also lit up.

“Think you’ll like the new kites?” Zack asked.

“They say the Mosquito is bloody fast with those big Merlins,” Newman answered. The Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that powered the new Mosquito fighter-bomber was already a legend among the ground crews.

“I’d like a shot at flying one of them,” Zack allowed.

“The Beau’s an honest lady,” Newman said, loyal to the very last.

The American pilot had to agree with him. The Beaufighter was a sturdy, aggressive, and reliable aircraft and the blunt nose reminded him of a crouching bulldog as it sat on its conventional landing gear. But you had to be strong to fly it, since the mechanical flight controls were heavy and unassisted. The plane was like the British, Zack thought, as he studied it in the dark, his eyes moving down the fuselage and stopping at the shapely tail fin. Well, I always have liked pretty behinds, he thought.

He stubbed out his cigarette and climbed in after Ruffy, working his way past Ruffy and up the catwalk of the dark, tunnellike fuselage. His flashlight reflected off the breeches of the four 20-millimeter cannons mounted below floor level. They were each loaded with a sixty-round drum of ammunition, which Ruffy could replace in flight. He climbed through the pair of armor-plated doors that led into the pilot’s compartment. He always left the doors open, hoping it would make Ruffy feel not so alone in the bowels of the fuselage. Then he settled into the center mounted seat and went through the cockpit check that would lead to engine start, taxi, and takeoff. He was very methodical in his approach to flying.

Ten minutes later they were holding short of the runway and waiting for the green light that would clear them for takeoff. The light blinked at them from the tower and he eased
the throttles forward. He was careful on the lineup for the Beau had a tendency to swing on takeoff. He rolled forward to straighten out the tail wheel and slowly eased in the power. By using coarse rudder, he kept the tail straight. Then it lifted and he eased in full power. The main gear came unstuck and they lifted skyward, reaching into the clear dark night.

The two men settled into the normal and very predictable routine that had marked every flight since their first patrol when they had downed the Junkers. Zack and Ruffy had taken more than a fair amount of good-natured kidding about how gravity had done their job for them. But their sector had been quiet since then and they were itching for action to prove everyone wrong. But again, it was a quiet night. “Looks like another bust,” Zack said, wiggling his cold toes. The heating system on the Beau was not up to the job and his feet were always numb from the cold at altitude.

“Woodbine Twenty-four”—the radio/telephone came alive as the GCI controller detected an intruder on his radar set—“this is Falcon, bandit for you. Turn to zero-eight-five and climb to Angels one-eight. Buster.”

“About time,” Zack grunted over the intercom as he hauled the Beau around to its new heading and shoved the throttles forward.

“That heading’s going to take us to the extreme eastern side of our area,” Ruffy said, warning him that they would be far out over the North Sea.

“Pull out all the stops on that magic box of yours,” Zack answered.

They were climbing through sixteen thousand feet when Ruffy called out, “I’ve got him on the nose, range six miles, a little above us. Level off.” The navigator had performed a small miracle on the Mark IV radar set by getting a contact at that range.

“Contact,” Zack called over the radio, telling the GCI controller that they were painting the bandit on their radar. He switched the guns to “fire” and selected the machine guns.

“He’s flying level,” Ruffy said, “but weaving back and forth through about sixty degrees. Off to your port side, should be coming back now. Range two miles.” They were in a tail chase and closing.

“No joy,” Zack said, straining to get a visual sighting
through the windscreen. He caught a flicker of an exhaust at his eleven o’clock. “Tallyho! Got him!” He eased the throttles back a notch and slowly closed from the right, working into a position directly astern the bandit. In the darkness, he could make out the distinctive profile of a Junkers 88: twin-engine, cigar-shaped fuselage, blunt nose, and big distinctive glasshouse canopy. Despite his previous engagement with a Junkers, Zack had a healthy respect for the aircraft and knew that in the hands of a skilled pilot, it was a worthy adversary. He closed, matching the Junkers’s turns, fully intending to gun the unsuspecting fighter-bomber out of the moonlit sky before the German knew he was there. There was nothing glamorous or chivalrous in what he was doing.

Suddenly, the Junkers rolled up onto its right wing and turned hard to the right. Then the nose of the German aircraft started to swing around directly onto the Beau. There was no doubt that the crew had seen them. Zack hauled back on the yoke and zoomed as he slammed the throttles full forward. He gained a slight advantage in altitude and then turned hard into the Junkers as the German pilot reversed his turn and broke back to the left. “Gotcha!” Zack shouted. The German was turning his tail to them and had to be a green and inexperienced pilot to turn away like that, solving Zack’s problem.

“Oh, shit!” Zack grunted as the Junkers rolled violently back to the right as Zack tried to follow him. It had been a deliberate feint and the German pilot was proving himself to be anything but inexperienced as he aerobatted the Junkers, rolling back to the left and crossing behind Zack’s tail. He had spit the Beau out in front of him.

“Hard left!” Ruffy shouted over the intercom. Zack wrenched the Beau around to the left as hard as he could, laboring at the heavy controls, not able to hold his altitude. Sweat was running down his face in the cold cockpit. A stream of tracers reached by them on the left and slightly above. Only Ruffy’s command had saved them. Zack hardened up his turn as he descended and pulled back into the fight. The Beau could outturn the Junkers if he was strong enough. Now they were in a descending, turning engagement, each on the opposite side of the circle, canopy to canopy. “We need to get away from this bugger,” Ruffy shouted over
the intercom, acknowledging what Zack was thinking. They might be in a faster and better-turning aircraft, but there was no doubt the German was the better pilot.

Zack continued to descend and turn, coming more and more to the Junkers’s tail with each full circle. He planned to take the fight down to the deck, just above the choppy surface of the North Sea, and then take a snap shot at the German as he broke out of the turn. He would outclimb the Junkers and hide in the night.

Again, the German pilot surprised Zack by rolling out and flying straight ahead, still in a shallow dive, pushing the Junkers for all it was worth. “You son of a bitch!” Zack roared with exaltation as he fell in behind the German. “He’s lost sight of us,” Zack told Ruffy.

“Not bloody likely,” Ruffy shot back. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

But Zack ignored him and he triggered a long burst from the six .303 Browning machine guns in the wings. He watched in amazement as the line of tracers passed harmlessly to the left side of the Junkers. “What the…” The German was skidding his Junkers slightly to the right in the dive, destroying any tracking solution for his pursuer. Zack was learning how to dogfight the hard way.

“We’re a long way from home,” Ruffy said. He wanted Zack to turn away and let the Junkers escape. But again Zack ignored him and the sudden tingling sensation of approaching danger that shot through him. He wanted to nail the coffin shut on the German in front of him. He sent another burst of machine gun fire toward his adversary.

A line of flaming golf balls reached up from the surface of the North Sea toward the Beaufighter. “Oh, Jesus!” Zack yelled as he hauled back on the control column and pumped the rudder pedals.

“Flak trap!” Ruffy shouted. Both men could see the source of the tracers: a long low shadow in the water. An E-boat. The Beau rocked violently from two hits.

“Ruffy! You okay?” There was only silence from the rear of the plane. Zack shouted it again. Silence. “God damn you to hell,” he gritted as he caught a glimpse of the Junkers off his left wing. He had lost sight of the E-boat in the dark, but he knew roughly where it was and he could avoid it. He was
positive that the Junkers and the E-boat were working as a team and had led them into a trap. Zack tested his flight controls and the sturdy Beau responded. A killing rage he did not know he possessed took hold of him and he flew straight at the Junkers and selected cannons. His right thumb came down hard on the firing button and he felt the plane shudder as the twenty-millimeter cannons fired. The German pilot saw the tracers coming at him and broke into Zack, but it was too late. The Junkers came apart as Zack held the button and emptied the four cannons into the dying aircraft.

“My God!” came from behind his right shoulder. Zack twisted around to see Ruffy standing in the well behind the pilot’s seat. Relief flooded through him. “Sorry, mate,” Ruffy said. “Took a bit of damage in the back. Should be okay but don’t get too enthusiastic on the controls.”

“How come you didn’t answer my call?” Zack asked.

“Intercom panel shot to hell and I was busy with a fire.”

“You okay? Not hurt?”

“Should be okay.” It was Ruffy’s way of saying he was slightly wounded.

“I want to nail that fuckin’ E-boat,” Zack said.

“Always love to return favors,” Ruffy agreed. “Give me a moment to reload and strap in. By the way, we are a bloody long way from home.”

“Any idea where we are.”

“Over the North Sea.”

“I was hoping you could be a little more specific,” Zack said.

“A vector of two-six-five for one hundred thirty-five miles should get us back to Church Fenton,” Ruffy told him and disappeared through the pair of open armor-plated doors behind the cockpit. Zack could feel him move around through the controls as he reloaded the sixty-pound ammo drums on each of the four cannons. Then Ruffy was back, standing behind him.

“When you want me to reload, fly straight and level and wiggle the tail a bit for a signal.” He disappeared again and this time closed the armor-plated doors.

Zack turned back in the direction of the E-boat, scanning his engine instruments and playing with the throttles and pitch control. All responded as normal. He carefully moved
the flight controls and, again, all felt okay. They may have taken battle damage but the Beaufighter was living up to its reputation as a flying tank. He set up an expanding-square search pattern, still determined to find the E-boat before low fuel forced him to return to base.

On the third leg, he found it. The boat was moving fast through the water, heading to the southeast. “Your turn,” he muttered to himself and dropped down onto the deck for a strafing run. He bore down onto the E-boat’s four o’clock position, jinking back and forth in short, sharp turns. Tracers erupted from the stern of the boat when a gunner momentarily caught sight of him. The rounds passed harmlessly to the left, wide of the mark. Then he stabilized and walked a burst of the twenties across the E-boat. Then he was off, jinking as hard as he dared, worried about the damage they had taken from the first engagement. A line of tracers passed harmlessly behind them.

As he came around for a second run, he could see a fire spreading behind the wheelhouse. “You are going to buy the farm,” he promised the E-boat as he rolled in. This time, two batteries opened up at him and he broke off. “You are one tough son of a bitch,” he said to himself. He checked his fuel gauges and calculated he could make one more run. He climbed to five hundred feet and circled to the bow of the E-boat, hoping the fire amidships might mask him from the aft battery.