Once More the Hawks (2 page)

As the machine lost height and touched down, Dicken taxied slowly to the parking area. To enable Babington to dismantle the cameras and hide them in their luggage, he pretended to check his engines. As Babington signalled that everything was done, he switched them off and turned. Babington was pointing.

‘Trouble,’ he said.

It seemed as if their fears of German suspicions were only too true because a squad of jackbooted, helmeted soldiers armed with rifles was doubling towards them. But, as they opened the door and began to climb out, the soldiers lined up in two ranks and the sergeant slammed to attention.

‘Heil Hitler!’

The barked command, part of the elaborate choreography of the dictatorship, came with clicking heels and raised arms.

Dicken responded briskly. Britain was not yet at war and it was of vital importance that he should be looked on as friendly. Then, as they started to walk between the lines, a familiar stocky figure appeared, its raised arm distinctly lacking in enthusiasm.

‘Erni Udet, by all that’s holy!’

Dicken’s face broke into a smile at once. He had flown more than once with Ernst Udet, the best of the German pilots who had survived the 1914 war. It had been Udet’s circus which had shot him out of the sky late in 1918 and, at the time, limping around half-blind and full of holes and believing he would never fly again, he had cursed the fact that he had ever met him. But, meeting again in America, England and Germany since the war, they had become fast friends because Udet, much preferring carousing to fighting, had more than once dragged Dicken round the night spots of Berlin in a shattering pub crawl. He was an uncomplicated happy-go-lucky soul who had made and lost more than one fortune and more than one woman, and Dicken had first met him in person as an unemployed young air ace restless in the peace of 1920, juggling plates and driving a motorcycle round a night club near the Budapestherstrasse. He was a shallow, cheerful individual who hated the politicians of the iron-fisted dictatorship that was now stringing the streets of Germany with red swastika banners, crowding its squares and street corners with brown-shirted thugs, and filling the hours of darkness with torments for intellectuals, Socialists and Jews. But Udet was a German, too, and he had been trapped. Because he was international, as well known as an aviator in America as in Europe, he had resisted for years the blandishments of Hermann Goering, the head of Hitler’s newly-born air force, but it was as an aviator that Goering had finally ensnared him and now he carried the rank of a major-general. He had, Dicken reflected, done better than Dicken himself.

He was in full uniform and was beaming with pleasure. ‘I thought you vould like a guard of honour,’ he said cheerfully in his accented English. ‘And now I am a general I can order you one. Tonight, Dicko, there will be a magnificent
grossstadtbummel
– the best pub crawl we’ve ever had.’

‘What about Customs?’

As Dicken spoke, Udet gestured at a large black Mercedes and shook his head. ‘All that is arranged,’ he said.

They were driven to the Adlon Hotel where a private room had been set aside. It seemed full of uniformed men but Udet himself didn’t seem to have changed much. Despite his brilliant record between 1914 and 1918, he was an unwarlike man and his smile was as friendly as ever.

‘We’ve arranged a special suite,’ he said. ‘Goering vants to meet you. He’s boss of all industry in Germany now, of course, and in addition, he’s an old flier like us.’ He passed over a long flute of German Sekt, the sparkling Rhine wine the Germans drank as champagne. ‘How are you enjoying being a civilian?’

Dicken shrugged and Udet smiled. ‘About as much as I am enjoying being back in uniform,’ he said. ‘They got me in the end, you see. They said my name was needed to boost German aviation so I couldn’t say no because I’ve always insisted aviation’s the only thing I’m interested in.’ He gestured with his glass. ‘But I’m not a major-general, Dicko. I’m a flier pure and simple.’ He held up his hands. ‘These are my antennae. I feel an aeroplane. I’m part of it when I fly. I am a seat of the pants flier. I can make an aeroplane talk. And what have they done? Put me in charge of Luftwaffe production of which I know nothing. I think I have put my head in a noose. I persuaded them to build dive bombers.’

Dicken frowned. Dive bombing was a new concept of aerial warfare. First tried in 1914 against Zeppelin sheds at Friedrichshafen, it had been developed by the RAF to a fine art by the trench strafing of 1918. They had used SE5s then, because they were strong and could pull out of a dive without leaving their wings behind; but most of it had been done with Camels, because they went down like a stone and, if they didn’t fly out of their wings, went up again like a lift. The American Marines had improved on the method against Nicaraguan rebels with great success in the Twenties and had later demonstrated their skill at air displays across the States where Dicken and Udet had first seen it used. Since then it had been developed by a number of nations including the French and the Swedes, but the RAF had become obsessed with long range heavy bombers and, though there had been a lot of disagreement, they were still only toying with the idea.

‘The flying artillery we saw in the States?’ Dicken said.

Udet gestured. ‘It will work, Dicko.’

‘Will it have to, Knägges?’

Udet grinned at his old nickname because it was odd to call a German general Titch. Then his smile died. ‘Would the British fight, Dicko?’ he asked. ‘If it came to a fight?’

‘They don’t want war, Erni, but they’ve put up with a lot: Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia. Albania. Does your Führer intend to go into Poland?’

Udet’s face was bleak. ‘He might.’

‘Then I think we would.’

There was still no certainty that they hadn’t run into a specially prepared trap. Dicken was certain that Udet wasn’t part of any plot against him but he’d let it drop that the hangar into which the big all-metal Lockheed had been pushed belonged to the Gestapo and they knew it would be thoroughly searched. There was nothing to indicate they had carried cameras because they were safely in Babington’s luggage, but there was always the possibility of the moving panels being discovered and questioned.

The dinner that had been arranged for the evening seemed to include half the top brass of the Luftwaffe. In addition to Udet there was Sperrle, one of its leaders; Milch, Goering’s deputy; Bruno Loerzer, one of Udet’s contemporaries in the Imperial German Air Service of 1918; Bodenschatz, the great Baron von Richthofen’s old adjutant who was now Goering’s chief of staff; and Wolfram von Richthofen, the baron’s younger cousin who now commanded one of the Luftwaffe Fliegerkorps. This time the uniforms all belonged to the Luftwaffe and the wearers had all spotted the Lockheed and were eager to talk about it.

‘I would like a flight in it,’ Udet remarked. ‘To see how it works. To see what the United States are producing.’

Goering arrived late and once again there was the complicated choreography of Nazism, with everybody clicking heels and raising their arms. Though his large head was handsome, Goering’s appearance was spoiled by his stomach and double chins and the decorations that appeared to have been hung all over his person like wassail balls on a Christmas tree. ‘Chest trouble.’ Udet whispered. ‘Too many medals.’

The Reichsmarschall greeted Dicken warmly as an old opponent but there was a calculating look in the pale blue eyes. ‘I have been looking at your aircraft,’ he said. ‘It compares well with our German Junkers. Have the British abandoned biplanes yet? There seems to have been a fixation about biplanes in England.’

Dicken forced a smile. ‘Oh, we have the other kind now, Herr Reichsmarschall.’

Goering smiled back but he hurriedly changed the subject as if he had no wish to hear of the potential of any power but Germany. ‘I’m having my home, Karinhalle, photographed,’ he said. ‘We’re using your film.’

As he turned away, Udet’s voice came in a murmur. ‘He doesn’t want war,’ he said. ‘But he’s having a private air raid shelter built just in case. He thought England wouldn’t fight but now I’ve told him what you said he’s not so sure. He says Ribbentrop, our Foreign Minister, is in Moscow, trying to line up the Russians on our side.’

‘Think he will?’

Udet shrugged. ‘It doesn’t seem to follow our Party line, nor theirs either, but if half Poland’s the prize, then it’s a possibility.’

The following morning, they took off from the Tempelhof with Udet alongside Dicken and Babington in the rear of the machine. From 2000 feet it was quite easy to see the new airfields that were springing up and they duly recorded them by the simple procedure, while Udet admired the view or commented on the layout of the instrument panel and the handling of the machine, of Dicken reaching casually under his seat and pressing the hidden button.

Beneath them they could see the whole layout of the German capital and, finding themselves over what was clearly a new airfield, Dicken pretended to shield his eyes from the view.

Udet laughed heartily. ‘Berlin’s a splendid city,’ he said. ‘Built on the formation of the German Empire in 1870 to become the capital of a great European nation. It’s a symbol of German pride.’

‘It would be a pity to see it all destroyed, Erni.’

‘That would be impossible.’ Udet’s voice carried conviction. ‘Berlin’s too far from any enemy airfield.’

The city seemed to be full of uniforms. Germany had always enjoyed smart tunics and caps and even the most junior officials wore them, but at that moment every hotel seemed crammed with them and they were obvious in every street. Another party was held in the evening at which Udet produced half a dozen wartime fliers, one of them a man Dicken had shot down during his last desperate fight with Udet’s Staffel. He was plump and balding with a deep scar on his face, acquired as his machine had crash-landed. But there was no apparent resentment and the atmosphere was cheerful, though the next morning as Dicken and Babington waited to pick up the receipts for the film they had brought the city seemed to have changed. The newspapers were full of fabricated insults to Germany by Poland and tension seemed to have mounted. From the front of the hotel, they could see squads of troops marching by, the sound of their feet ominous and loud. Staff cars carrying the Nazi swastika kept passing.

‘Faster than yesterday, don’t you think, Bab?’ Dicken said.

Babington’s face was grim. ‘It’s a bit like sitting on a gunpowder barrel with the fuse burning,’ he agreed.

That evening the city was plunged into darkness as blackout exercises were carried out but inside the hotel little seemed to have changed except for the fact that the uniforms seemed suddenly fewer and the men wearing those they saw were edgy and worried. When Udet arrived he was in civilian clothes and looked depressed. ‘We’ve signed a non-aggression pact with Russia,’ he said immediately. ‘They wouldn’t sign anything like that unless they intended to use it. I’ve been told to stand by. They didn’t say what for but it seems pretty obvious to me.’

Dicken frowned. ‘It’ll mean war, Erni.’

Udet’s shrug seemed defeated. ‘Ribbentrop doesn’t think so,’ he said. ‘He says Britain’s too decadent to go to war over Poland.’

‘Tell him not to be too sure.’

Udet gestured. ‘For the love of God, Dicko, you can’t get at Poland except through Germany! How
can
you help her?’

There was considerably less friendliness in the hotel by this time and even a few overt sneers, and the following evening the expected telegram arrived – ‘Mother ill.’

That it was time to leave became obvious the next day when Udet arrived once more.

‘I think you’d better go, Dicko,’ he said. ‘I can tell you now in strict confidence if you give your word of honour not to pass it on, that orders have been prepared for the march into Poland. I’ve just learned.’ His eyes were watching every face as if he felt people might read his lips. ‘It was due to take place in forty-eight hours but I’ve just heard the order might have to be withdrawn. Some problem over that oaf, Mussolini. You’d better disappear while you can.’

‘What about you, Knägges? What will you do?’

Udet frowned. ‘There’s a lot to do,’ he said. ‘Too much for old Knägges.’ His frown deepened. ‘Dicken, tell your people that all our dive bomber units have been re-equipped with Stukas. They’re rugged aircraft. They’re accurate and can pinpoint their targets. We have a lot of them and they’ll be difficult to stop because their crews learned their job in the Spanish Civil War. They come down like a cartload of bricks.
Wie ein Klavier aus dem fünfsten Stock
. Like a piano falling from a fifth-floor window. What have you got?’

Not much, Dicken thought. The heavy bombers the RAF was banking on weren’t yet ready and so far there wasn’t much else. Even the Cooper bombs that were still being used might as well have been made by the Dundee marmalade factory of the same name for all the use they were. Since their puff went upwards, they were more danger to the crew which dropped them than to their intended victim.

‘Oh, we’ve got a few,’ he said.

‘Hawker Harts?’

Dicken gave the German a quick look. Nazi intelligence was known to be good and it was true that up to February that year dive bomber training was still being carried out in the old adapted biplanes. They could achieve good groupings but the pilots had to cheat by going as low as they dared, a habit that might exact a nasty penalty under war conditions.

Another cable arrived later that evening, indicating that ‘Mother’s health’ was failing rapidly, but when they drove out to Tempelhof the following morning they found it impossible to unearth anyone who could give the authority to let them leave, while the officials they approached were noticeably hostile.

‘The VIP treatment’s beginning to wear a bit thin,’ Babington commented.

Would anybody miss him if he didn’t make it, Dicken wondered. There was no one dependent on him, no one who would be concerned if he failed to appear.

As he thought about his dead wife, he frowned. His had never been an easy marriage, because Zoë Toshack, as she had always preferred to call herself rather than use her married name, had been an airwoman very nearly in the same class as Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson. Nearly, but never quite, and her last desperate attempt to reach the ranks of the immortals had been her undoing. Dicken had learned of her death while in India. As if it were a token of atonement for the years of misery she had caused him, with the exception of the house at Deane in Sussex where she had been born, she had left him all her wealth. He still hadn’t managed to touch it.