Plague Ship (Oregon Files 5)

Static was a common enough problem, working this far above the Arctic Circle. Charged particles striking the earth’s magnetic field were driven to ground at the poles and played havoc with the radios’ vacuum tubes.

“We’ll mark our position,” Lichtermann said, “and radio in our report when we get closer to base. Hey, Ernst, well done. We would have turned away and missed the convoy, if it weren’t for you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Pride was evident in the boy’s response.

“I want a better count of the convoy’s size, and a rough approximation of their speed.”

“Let’s not get so close that those destroyers open up,” Ebelhardt cautioned. He had seen combat firsthand and was flying second stick now because of a piece of shrapnel buried in his thigh, thanks to antiaircraft fire over London. He recognized the look in Lichtermann’s eye and the excitement in his voice. “And don’t forget the CAMs.”

“Trust me,” the pilot said with cocky bravado, and wheeled the big plane closer to the slow-moving fleet ten thousand feet below them. “I’m not going to get too close, and we’re too far from land for them to launch a plane at us.”

CAMs, or Catapult Aircraft Merchantmen, were the Allies’ answer to German aerial reconnaissance. A long rail was mounted over the bows of a freighter, and, with a rocket assist, they could launch a Hawker Sea Hurricane fighter aircraft to shoot down the lumbering Kondors or even attack surfaced U-boats. The drawback to the CAMs was that the planes couldn’t land back aboard their mother ship. The Hurricanes either had to be close enough to Great Britain or some other friendly area for the pilots to land normally. Otherwise, the plane had to be ditched in the sea and the pilot rescued from the water.

The convoy steaming below the Fw 200 was more than a thousand miles from any Allied territory, and even with the bright moon a downed pilot would be impossible to rescue in the dark. There would be no Hurricanes launched tonight. The Kondor had nothing to fear from the mass of Allied shipping unless it strayed within range of the destroyers and the curtain of antiaircraft fire they could throw into the sky.

Ernst Kessler was counting rows of ships when winking lights suddenly appeared on the decks of two of the destroyers. “Captain!” he cried. “Fire from the convoy!”

Lichtermann could just make out the destroyers beneath his wing. “Easy, lad,” he said. “Those are signal lamps. The ships are sailing under strict radio silence, so that’s how they communicate.”

“Oh. Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just get as accurate a count as you can.”

The Kondor had been flying a lazy circle around the flotilla and was passing along its northern flank when Dietz, who manned the upper gun platform, shouted, “Incoming!”

Lichtermann had no idea what the man was talking about and was a beat slow in reacting. A perfectly aimed string of 7.7mm machine-gun rounds raked the Kondor’s upper surface, starting at the base of the vertical stabilizer and walking up the entire length of the plane. Dietz was killed before he could get a shot off. Bullets penetrated the cockpit, and, amid the harsh patter of them ricocheting off metallic surfaces and the whistle of wind through rents in the fuselage, Lichtermann heard his copilot grunt in pain. He looked over to see the front of Ebelhardt’s flight jacket covered in blood.

Lichtermann mashed the rudder and pressed hard on the yoke to dive away from the Allied aircraft that had come out of nowhere.

It was the wrong maneuver.

Launched just weeks earlier, the MV Empire MacAlpine was a late addition to the convoy. Originally built as a grain carrier, the eight-thousand-ton vessel had spent five months in the Burntisland Shipyard having her superstructure replaced by a small control island, four hundred and sixty feet of run-way, and a hangar for four Fairley Swordfish torpedo bombers. She could still haul nearly as much grain as she could before her conversion. The Admiralty had always considered the CAMs a stopgap measure until a safer alternative could be found. As it was, the Merchant Aircraft Carriers, or MACs, like the MacAlpine, were to be used only until England secured a number of Essex Class escort carriers from the United States.

While the Kondor loitered over the convoy, two of the Swordfish had been launched from the MacAlpine and flown far enough out from the fleet that, when they climbed into the inky sky to ambush the much larger and faster German aircraft, Lichtermann and his men never knew they were coming. The Fairleys were biplanes, with top speeds barely half that of the Kondor. They each carried a Vickers machine gun, mounted above the radial engine’s cowling, and a gimballed Lewis gun in a rear-facing cockpit.

The second Swordfish lay in wait three thousand feet below the Focke-Wulf and was nearly invisible in the darkness. As the Kondor dove away from the first attacker, the second torpedo bomber, stripped of anything that could slow it, was in position.

A stream of fire poured into the front of the Kondor from the Vickers, while the second gunner leaned far over the rear cockpit coaming to train his Lewis gun on the pair of BMW engines attached to the port wing.

Coin-sized holes appeared all around Ernst Kessler, the aluminum glowing cherry red for an instant before fading. There had been only a few seconds between Dietz’s scream and the barrage that swept the underside of the Kondor, not nearly long enough for fear to cripple the teen. He knew his duty. Swallowing hard because his stomach had yet to catch up with the plummeting aircraft, he squeezed his MG-15’s trigger, as the Fw continued to dive past the slower Swordfish. Tracers began to fill the sky, and he aimed the 7.92mm weapon like a fireman directing a stream of water. He could see a circle of little jets of fire glowing in the darkness. It was the exhaust popping around the Fairley’s radial engine, and it was there that he targeted the withering fire, even as his own plane was continuously hammered by the British craft.

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 Kondor’s, became an out-of-control plummet.

The Fairley winged over, spiraling ever faster, as it burned like a meteor. Lichtermann began to level the Kondor. Kessler could see the flaming wreckage continue to drop away. It suddenly changed shape. The wings had torn loose from the Swordfish’s fuselage. Any aerodynamics the mortally wounded aircraft had possessed were gone. The Swordfish dropped like a stone, the flames winking out when the wreckage plowed into the uncaring sea.

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 Kondor’s fuel lines, and throttled back the damaged outside motor to save it for as long as he could. With two engines functioning properly and a third running at half power, they could make it back to base.