Armageddon - Leon Uris

“This is Big Easy One. We are at fifteen hundred.”

“Maintain that altitude until further advised.”

Nick and Stan worked down the prelanding check list.

“This is Jigsaw,” an airman named Ed Becker said, wondering why he had come to Germany, why he was sitting before this luminous green scope being thrust into the role of the Lord. Turn left Heading 337.”

“Left Heading 337,” Stan repeated after Scott’s execution.

Fire wagons, ambulances, crash trucks tensed in readiness as the fog began to fall close to the ground.

“This is Jigsaw,” Ed Becker said. “You will land on left runway two seven. Wind fifteen knots northwest, cross winds from right, altimeter three zero zero three.”

“Roger. Altimeter three zero point zero three.”

The NCO behind Ed Becker handed him further weather.

“Big Easy One this is Jigsaw. Ceiling one hundred feet, visibility one eighth of a mile.”

“Oui vey,” Nick whispered.

Stan pretended he didn’t hear the transmission, kept working around Scott on the control panel.

“Ask them if they have the high-intensity lights to maximum?”

“This is Jigsaw calling Big Easy One. Lights are on full. You are over Wedding Beacon. Turn right to a heading of ninety degrees, maintain fifteen hundred feet.”

“This is Big Easy One. Right ninety degrees, altitude fifteen hundred.”

Fog-entombed Tempelhof grew deathly silent. The theodolite measuring the ceiling tried vainly to pierce the thickening fog. Airman Ed Becker studied the blip on the radar screen with a growing ache in his chest and back. The blip was approaching the base leg.

“This is Jigsaw. Turn right to a heading of 180 degrees, maintain fifteen hundred feet, perform prelanding cockpit check.”

Stan repeated the instructions.

The clock in the dark room ticked, ticked, ticked. Strange glows cast from the screens put an eerie color on their drawn faces. The blip inched along the scope.

“This is Jigsaw. You are approaching final leg.” Ed Becker calculated a correction for wind drift. “This is Jigsaw. Turn right to a heading of 276.”

Ed Becker’s job was done.

“This is Jigsaw. Stand by for final controller.”

Master Sergeant Manuel Lopez of San Antonio had Big Easy One in the precision scope.

“This is Jigsaw calling Big Easy One,” said a mixture of Texas drawl and Spanish. “How do you read me?”

“Loud and clear.”

“This is Jigsaw. I read you five square. You need not acknowledge further instructions.”

Everyone in the shack gathered behind Sergeant Lopez’s chair. His job was to keep the plane on proper azimuth, an imaginary line in the sky that ran to the beginning of the runway to keep the craft at proper glide.

“You are a little right of center line. Correct five degrees left to 270.”

The blip on the precision scope was now in dead center, heading at the runway.

“Big Easy One, you are on center line six miles from touchdown and approaching glide path.”

The million-candle-power krypton lights could not force the fog to yield.

“Big Easy One, ten-second gear warning.”

Nick pushed the gear handle. The nacelle doors reopened and the plane shuddered as the gear extended.

“You are in the glide path. Begin descent at 550 feet per minute.” Lopez watched the glide scope as it settled high. “You are above glide path one hundred feet, increase your rate of descent.”

The flaps were set. Stan and Nick had completed the final check and reported to Scott. Nothing left now but that voice and Scott’s nerves. Scott focused himself on the instruments, thought of, but gave up, the idea of a stick of gum. The other two looked outside into nothing. Stan flicked on the wipers. No light at all.

“This is Jigsaw. You are cleared to land. You are four miles from touchdown ... you are drifting slightly below the glide path ... adjust rate of descent up twenty-five feet ... turn right to 272 degrees.”

Beat ... beat... beat... beat ...

“Big Easy One this is Jigsaw. You are one mile from the end of the runway approaching GCA minimums and coming up on the cemetery. You are on center line, excellent rate of descent ... you are a quarter of a mile from touchdown ... you are on the glide path ... on center line ... you are fifty feet above glide path over the runway. Take over and land.”

Lopez closed his eyes and prayed.

“I see the lights!” Stan cried.

Scott saw the runway lights rush by! His speed was high due to excess turbulence and altitude at the end of the runway. He had all the power off. Big Easy One cannonaded far down the runway.

Scott shoved the nose wheel down and as it bounced hard on the runway he started gingerly hitting the brakes as the plane careened, slipped closer to the end.

They hit the overrun. Scott plied the brakes as hard as he dared. Big Easy One halted two feet from the railroad track siding.

They sat for several seconds. Stan took off his earphones and got out of his seat. “Wise guy,” he said.

“Smart ass,” Nick said.

The fog was so thick that the FOLLOW ME jeep which drove them to Operations became lost en route and ended up in the old Luftwaffe pistol range two miles on the other side of the second runway.

“Sorry, Captain Davidson, no takeoffs after dark with three engines, no three engine takeoff from Tempelhof. No way to fix a fuel leak at Tempelhof.”

“I know that, goddammit. I helped write the manual. I want the first ride back to Rhein/Main or Y 80.”

“Sorry, Captain Davidson, operations are closed down.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Go to sleep, I think, sir. We’ve arranged quarters for you and your copilot at the Columbia Club and your engineer at Transit Airmen’s Quarters. We trust you will be comfortable.”

“Dammit, I’m supposed to start my leave tomorrow.”

“It is ceiling zero. And please bear in mind that Berlin is blockaded by land and sea. I suggest that you do not try those routes.”

“All right, wise ass, I want to phone Wiesbaden.”

“Sorry, Captain, you need a priority to get a phone line out of Berlin.”

As he left in utter defeat he turned at the door at the harassed young officer. “I don’t like you,” Scott said.

Chapter Thirty-four

HHDEGAARD FALKENSTEIN HAD a lightness of heart and a happiness she had never known before Scott picked her up.

Things are on the way, he thought, as they drove into the countryside.

She had not been into the villages and forests for longer than she cared to remember. She had never traveled with this feeling of wonderment. How lovely it was. How lovely Scott Davidson was. Hilde’s eyes glowed with the discoveries that came from her daring to open locked doors.

At the end of the first day’s drive they decided to stop for the night at Rombaden, about halfway to the Bavarian Alps.

Over the Landau River from the city, the Four Seasons Hotel had rooms available to American officers. Hilde remembered being in Rombaden once with her father in the early days of Hitler. It was a big Nazi city then.

The Four Seasons was a bit seedy from the lack of upkeep and new replacements and the uniforms were threadbare, but there was still a touch of the old elegance.

Scott was warm. Scott was understanding. He brushed away all awkwardness by taking separate rooms on different floors.

Dinner was only adequate, but the aristocratic service made her feel like a queen.

They drove across the bridge to Rombaden and for the next hours engaged in pub-crawling along the wild and reputed Princess Allee filled with the bawdy, the singing, the risqué.

They were happy crossing back over the Landau to the hotel. Off the lobby a great fire roared in the seventeenth-century fireplace and they sipped cognac, which Scott knew the bar could find if they really wanted to.