James Rouch - Sky Strike

Cover illustration: Harrier GR3.

Initial production of this type, 92 aircraft, all for the RAF to be used in the tactical support role. At the outbreak of war two squadrons were stationed at

Gutersloh in Germany. Less than half the serviceable aircraft were at dispersed sites at the time of the Warsaw Pact attack. Despite heroic efforts by ground and air crew, all of those remaining at the airfield were destroyed on the ground.

The surviving Harriers inflicted heavy losses on the Soviet advance in the first few days, though the number of sorties flown by No 3 Squadron after the fourth day was severely curtailed due to the difficulty of fuel and ammunition resupply over roads choked with refugee traffic, or by air due to WP intruder missions aimed specifically at such efforts.

It is generally acknowledged that had another squadron been available and the supply situation not been bedevilled by years of political penny-pinching, then the WP advances in the Northern and Central Sectors of the Zone could have been halted perhaps as much as fifty miles short of the point at which they eventually stalled.

Engine: Rolls Royce Pegasus. Max speed: Mach 1.3 in dive, 737 mph in level flight. Weapon load: any combination of cannon and rocket pods, free fall cluster munitions, laser guided iron bombs, super-napalm or air-to-air missiles up to a total of 8,000lb (Conventional take-off) or 51000lb (Vertical lift).

…and in conclusion… this committee recognising that the battlefield of the future will be dominated by the guided missile… it is recommended that the production of manned combat aircraft be stopped as soon as is possible under the terms of existing contracts… and that all new projects, at whatever stage of development, be cancelled immediately.

The above is taken from the last page of a consultative document, one of several, considered prior to the final drafting of the British Government’s Defence White Paper published in April 1957 that declared manned combat aircraft to be obsolete.

This document was circulated among senior Air Ministry Staff, who were invited to append their comments. On this particular copy, now in private hands, the only note, pencilled alongside the conclusion in the margin, and alleged to be in the handwriting of an air commodore, is ‘ balls ’.

At the outbreak of World War III, taking the Warsaw Pact and NATO totals together, there were more than 5,300 manned combat aircraft in Central Europe, with over 9,000 in reserve and second-line units, with the Warsaw Pact out-numbering NATO by more than two-to-one.

She was struggling, trying to push him off, but he wasn’t going to stop, not now. Christ it was hurting, the fastener of his zip was biting into the base of his iron-hard erection and the lace trimming on her knickers was like sandpaper against its sensitive tip.

‘Can’t you wait? At least let me get them down… this is no good for me… you’re making me wet…’

He had to finish, had to; he’d waited so long and now, as he’d been afraid it would, it was proving difficult. ‘Just keep still.’ His face was in her hair and his every laboured breath was saturated with the blended scents of perfume, deodorant and hair lacquer.

There wasn’t enough room on the back seat of the Opel, he could only thrust an inch or so at a time, or his feet became entangled in the door pull or ashtray. It hurt, he’d be sore for days, but he had to finish.

Managing to push forward a fraction, he felt his penis slide on the silk-like material to the shallow smooth valley between her thigh and crotch. Suddenly he knew he could do it, could feel his body priming itself as he rubbed harder and harder and faster and faster; Now, it had to be now… now…

‘I don’t like this, let me… oh you sod, you dirty sod. You’ve done it all over me, it’s running down my leg. Get up, get off me. No, stop, you’re dragging my dress through it… have you got a tissue..? be quick. You rotten sod, what a mess… it’s all between my legs…’

Somehow Libby half-turned, opened the car door and backed out. Before he walked away he threw her his handkerchief. He didn’t want to, but he saw her, by the pale illumination of the interior light. She’d pulled herself to a slumped position against the far door and was holding up her skirt and parting her legs. Grabbing the folded white linen she shook it out, bunched it and wiped the slow white avalanche from the hem of her underwear, and from among the stray strands of pubic hair escaping beneath it.

Well, he’d done it, and he hated himself for it. Not because of her, she’d been keen enough to leave the Naafi and go off with him, not because of the discomfort he experienced as he tucked his fast-shrinking self back into his clothes, there’d been several times in the last couple of years when he’d made it that bad himself by exercising it: no, he hated himself for having done it at all. He’d betrayed Helga, broken the impossible promise he’d made to himself when he’d heard she was among the millions of civilians trapped by the Russian advance.

He didn’t look around when he heard the door slam, or when he heard her approaching. A small fist half-heartedly punched him on the arm. ‘That wasn’t fair, not after getting me going. Are you going to have a proper go? I don’t mind, if you let me get ready this time.’

‘No, no, I don’t want anything else… I’m sorry, I can’t explain, I just needed it that way, just once.’ So the Zone hadn’t made him totally sub-human, yet. There was still some decency in him if he could summon up an apology of sorts for an easy pick-up like her. ‘Look, I’ll make it up to you, give you some money for some new things if you like.’

‘Alright, I’ll let you, seeing as how that’s the least you can do. You must have stained them, you did a load, it went everywhere, I’ve never seen so much. What are you looking at?’

From the high ground, southern Germany stretched away into the night, marked randomly but liberally by the lights of farms and villages, and occasionally gashed by the beams from vehicle headlamps. But far short of the invisible horizon the sprinkling of white and yellow pinpoints ended abruptly, as though a black sheet had been draped over the landscape beyond.

That’s the Zone isn’t it? I don’t like being this close, gives me the shudders.’ Libby resisted the urge to push her off when she wrapped her arms about him. ‘Yes, that’s the Zone.’

In the far distance a star shell burst and made a bright oasis for perhaps thirty seconds as the parachute-suspended fiery ball of magnesium drifted to the ground.

‘Are you going back in there?’

‘Yes, soon.’

‘Is it as bad as they say? Do you have to go?’

‘It’s worse actually, far worse, but I don’t have to go, I want to go, want to.’ Now he felt her move away, as though she were suddenly afraid of him. Perhaps, perhaps he was no longer human after all.

TO: HEADQUARTERS-GROUP OF SOVIET

FORCES GERMANY – ZOSSEN-WUNSDORF FOR: THE SPECIAL ATTENTION OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL ALEKSEEV DEPUTY COMMANDER – AIR DEFENCE – EASTERN EUROPE