Alex Scarrow - A thousand suns

Truman turned to Donovan. ‘Have your man there, Wallace, put together a complete report on the Germans’ efforts to make one of these bombs. They may not have been able to make one, but I’d like to be sure they haven’t left something that the Russians can pick up and use, especially if they are likely to be a worry in the future.’

Donovan nodded and made a note.

Then the meeting was adjourned. Wallace watched as Truman dismissed them all, and they filed out of the conference room in an awkward silence.

Wallace’s eyes focused on Chris as his mind swiftly travelled sixty years back to the present.

‘Are you all right there?’ asked Chris.

Wallace smiled tiredly. ‘I’m just tired.’ He looked back down at the photographs he still held in his liver-spotted hands. ‘A bit of a shock seeing these, and, I’m on some pretty strong medication. It takes it out of you.’

‘So what is this all about?’ Chris asked, frustrated that the old man had yet to reveal anything that he hadn’t already known.

‘Are these all the pictures you have?’ Wallace asked, looking up from them and ignoring Chris’s question. ‘Some of them are not very clear.’

‘It was very muddy down there, but yeah, I’ve got others. I’m going to do another dive down there and see if I can get some better shots. But, of course, it would help if I knew what to get better shots of.’

‘Yes, I understand. But you need to be careful, Chris. Very careful. There could be people watching me, following me. I’ve been very careful, coming down to meet you, and I’m sure, for now, we are alone. But we do need to be discreet.’

‘What people?’ asked Chris.

Wallace put a finger to his lips. ‘Just be careful who you talk to for now.’

The old man looked down at his watch. It was nine o’clock.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m feeling pretty beat up and tired. I’ve done a lot of travelling today and I could do with some sleep. I think the excitement has taken it out of me.’

‘What? You can’t leave now!’ blurted Chris.

‘I’m sorry. I’m tired and I find it hard to concentrate these days when I’m tired. My mind isn’t as sharp as it once was.’

Chris looked at the old man’s face and noticed for the first time how pale and unwell he looked. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and he wobbled uncertainly as he pushed the chair back to stand up. Chris found himself instinctively helping him out of the chair and up onto his feet as if he were a dutiful grandson to the old man.

‘My legs get so stiff if I sit down for too long,’ he muttered in a voice that sounded weak and thin.

‘Well, can we meet tomorrow for breakfast then?’ Chris asked as he helped the old man into his windcheater.

‘Yes, yes of course. I should like to come out on the boat with you, if you’re planning on another dive… you know, to see where she went down.’

‘Okay, sure. I’ll organise that, but we can do breakfast tomorrow?’

‘Of course. I’ll be a little more with it, I hope,’ Wallace said with a worn smile.

‘So, where are you staying?’

‘I booked into a place just along up the street. A nice little place, Joe and Jan’s I think it’s called.’

Chris knew of it. It was a quaint boarding house with an old-style colonial porch on the front.

‘Okay then, Mr Wallace, I’ll come by and pick you up tomorrow morning and we’ll go and find somewhere quiet to have something cooked.’

Wallace nodded. ‘Don’t come knocking before nine o’clock.’

Chris would rather it be earlier. As it was, he was going to have a hard enough time waiting for the rest of his story.

‘Nine it is, then. Can I help you out — ’

Wallace shook his head. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a little stiff and tired is all. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’

Chris watched Wallace leave the bar. He noticed Wallace studying the street outside in both directions before finally shuffling out into the night. The old guy seemed genuinely twitchy. Chris wondered whether he should have warned him about the two men he had spotted down by the jetty, but then decided the old man looked anxious enough. Giving him something extra to worry about would probably finish him off, by the look of him.

‘Not a well man,’ Chris muttered.

8 a.m., 28 April 1945, an airfield south of Stuttgart

‘So then, from Lyon I’d suggest we make sure we give Paris a wide berth, duck down and cross over, say…’ Max’s finger traced across the map, ‘just north of Limoges.’

‘Okay,’ said Stef, scribbling down the course direction from the previous waypoint.

‘You got that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Max yawned and stretched in his seat, arching his tired back. His wrist smacked against the bulkhead as he stretched his arms. ‘Ouch, shit,’ he said, rubbing it. ‘There are so many damn edges and corners in this thing. I don’t know how many times I’ve clumped my head or knees against something.’

Stef grinned and pulled his ginger fringe back from his forehead to show a small scab. ‘I forgot to duck climbing up the ladder into the cockpit.’

‘You idiot,’ laughed Pieter.

Max leaned forward once more to study the maps. ‘It’s basically a dog’s leg. South, out of Germany into Swiss airspace, and then a shallow north-westerly climb across France. What’s the total distance?’

Stef flattened the map out and measured the distance along the sequence of waypoints he’d plotted across the map.

‘About eleven hundred and sixty miles in total to Nantes.’

‘And we’re talking another four thousand and five hundred across the sea. That’s five thousand, six hundred and sixty miles all in,’ said Max.

‘We should tell Major Rall six thousand miles,’ said Pieter.

‘Agreed… let’s have a healthy margin.’

Max noted the figure and would inform the Major later on how much capacity the extra tanks inside the bomber would need to have.

‘Over France, we’ll fly at close to ceiling, then once we’re out to sea, we should take her down to about ten thousand to conserve fuel.’

‘All right,’ said Pieter. The Atlantic would be his part of the flight.

Max looked at both of them. ‘All right? That’s the route, then. I’ll take it over to Rall for him to look over. I’m sure he’ll be happy to give this his approval.’ He looked at his watch. It was gone one o’clock in the morning. The Major would be awake still and keen to get this information.

‘I’m going to piss off, get some sleep, I’m all in,’ said Pieter yawning.

Max nodded. ‘Fine, go get some rest. We’re doing another practice flight tonight.’

Pieter stood up and climbed forward through the bulkhead out of the navigator’s compartment.

Stef began inking in the waypoint headings on the map, tidily circling the clusters of numbers on the map and labelling each pocket of information with a waypoint number. He was a tidy, efficient navigator.

‘Good work, Stef.’

The lad looked up and smiled. ‘Thanks, sir.’

His gaze lingered on Max, as if there was something more he wanted to say.

‘What’s up?’ he said to the boy.

Stef put down his pen. ‘I was wondering, sir, do you ever get nervous? It’s just that you never seem to be worried or scared, you know, before a sortie.’

If only.

Every man felt it as the time ticked away, and Max knew he was no exception to that rule. The growing sense of dread, those pre-battle nerves, it affected them all… just in different ways. Some men it made feel nauseous, others terribly thirsty. Many of the men he’d commanded in KG-301 suffered a desperate need to shit just before the planes were ready to leave the ground; some of his men had even confessed to feeling sexually aroused just before it was time to go.