Fleming had already thrown off his straps and was scrambling out through the flight deck door, past two ashen-faced engineers who would shortly assist him in dismantling the 163 and crating it up for the return journey. As long as the paratroops could stave off whatever the Germans threw at them over the next few hours. Fleming jumped on to the concrete floor of the hangar and the crackle of machine-gun fire, punctuated intermittently by the dull crump of a mortar explosion, echoed around the immense building. It was the first time he had heard the enemy, but far from experiencing the nausea of fear that should have gripped him, he felt exhilarated and drawn to the action.
Jewell was striding over to him, his right hand extended as if he were a long-lost chum spotted at a cocktail party. But as the Colonel drew close, Fleming noticed that the eyes that had sparkled the day before looked tired, the face drawn. Jewell’s handshake told him that things were not under control. The initial bravado could not hide the anxiety.
“Morning Fleming. Glad you made it. I’m sorry we couldn’t get the whole airfield cleared for you as planned, but we judged it safe enough for you to make an approach and landing. It turns out that there’s a bigger garrison in Rostock town than we anticipated, but I think we can hold our position long enough for you to get your contraption out of here. Provided the Russians behave themselves, that is.”
“Russians? What do you mean, Russians?” Fleming had to shout to make himself heard over the second York which had safely arrived at the hangar and was being positioned just behind the first aircraft. He thought he might have misheard what Jewell had said.
“According to prisoners, the Russians broke through the German front lines last night and are now only about seven kilometres from here. The reason the Germans haven’t thrown the book at us is because they’re more preoccupied with stemming the Red Army’s advance westwards. It’s a bloody irony that we’re pinning the Germans down at the far end of the airfield, while I’m actually praying that their troops don’t throw in the towel and let the Red Army catch us on what the Russians see as their territory.”
“Christ, how long do you think that gives us?”
“Impossible to say. It could be a day, it could be two hours before they’re here. You’d better get your men to take that aircraft apart and loaded up on the Yorks as quickly as possible.”
Jewell led the way to a corner of the hangar that had been cordoned off by a large screen.
The sight of the 163C took Fleming’s breath away. Up close, it did not seem to retain any of the qualities — the short, moth-like body and the stubby wings — that he had recognized in the reconnaissance photographs. It was beautiful in the way a racing car was and quite the opposite of its operational sibling, the squat and ugly 163B, even though the relationship between the two was obvious. Fleming found it hard to believe that this graceful machine was the same as the one that had almost destroyed the mind and body of the B-17 gunner in the hospital bed at Horsham St Faith.
Walking round the aircraft, he remembered the bomb and his fear and how he had almost called Staverton on the spot, so acute was his concern at the thought of a rocket-powered fighter-bomber going into production in Germany. The 163C was clean.
It was then he spotted the slight protuberance beneath each wing. He threw himself under the aircraft, like a mechanic at a garage, and saw the hardpoints, the mechanisms that held the ordnance in place until the pilot triggered the release of the weapon. A bomb had been there; it had simply been removed during the night.
He scribbled out a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Jewell.
“Colonel, I need this message transmitted to a man at Kettenfeld called Bowman. It’s very important. Could one of your men handle it?”
Jewell nodded. “Consider it done,” he said. “Just concentrate on getting that thing packed up and out of here.”
At least it was smaller than Fleming thought it would be. As long as they could get the wings off cleanly and the fuselage into two halves, front and back, the 163C would fit into the Yorks with room to spare. But dismantling the aircraft quickly, and without damaging it, would prove to be a bitch, of that Fleming was sure.
And there were only seven kilometres between them and the Red Army.
Fleming never thought he would find himself praying for the Wehrmacht to hold its ground.
Dismantling the 163 was taking far too long, so Jewell’s find was the answer to a prayer.
Fleming looked up from his work on the aircraft’s wing root as the colonel came towards him, a motley selection of individuals in tow. Several paratroopers walked behind holding guns to their backs, but the prisoners did not look like soldiers to Fleming. There were five altogether. Two of them were no more than twenty-five years old, while two more were in middle age, the last in his late sixties. They looked confused and frightened.
“They’re scientists,” Jewell said to Fleming. “My men caught them skulking in one of the outbuildings behind the hangar.”
Fleming wiped some hydraulic fluid off his hands onto his trousers. The Komet was a mechanical nightmare. The fuselage was made of metal, the wings of wood. Without carefully removing the skin covering the aerofoil sections first of all, it was impossible to find the main pins that held the wings in place onto the fuselage. And tearing the wing panels off too suddenly could ^cause untold damage. It was slow, backbreaking work.
“They’re the engineers and scientists who were working on the Komet when we landed here this morning. I thought you might need a little advice on how this thing should be taken apart.”
Fleming laughed.
“Colonel, what makes you think these men are going to assist us in taking away their latest secret weapon? Just how politely do we have to ask them?”
“We don’t have to ask them anything. They’ll do it. They know that the Russians are about five kilometres from here and I gave them a choice. Either they help us dismantle this thing so that we can all get away before Joe shows up, or we leave on our own and tie them up for the Russians to find. I think you’ll find they’re actually quite eager to help.” A thin smile spread under Jewell’s well clipped, greying moustache.
The eldest scientist stepped forward from the rest of the group, casting an anxious glance back at the corporal in charge of the prisoner detail who was still training his Sten on them. The other four Germans seemed to be willing him forward, urging him to act as their spokesman. His English was halting, more through nervousness, Fleming thought, than because his grasp of the language was poor.
“We will work for you, but only because we do not want to go with the Russians. If we take apart the Komet, you must promise to take us with you. We know what the Russians will do with us.”
Fleming looked at Jewell and nodded. The corporal, seeing the sign, pre-empted his colonel’s command and ushered the Germans over to the rocket fighter and watched, eyes darting from one to the other. Unlike Fleming, the corporal did not appreciate the threat of Soviet techniques in persuasion.
With the assistance of the technicians, it took just under half an hour to remove the Komet’s wings. Fleming was pleased with their progress.
“What next, Doctor Hausser?” He turned to a frail but dignified man, the most senior of the scientists.
“We need to get the Komet off the ground… on jacks.” The old man stammered as he searched for the right words. “The skid must be raised into the belly and the wheels removed if the Komet’s fuselage is to fit in the transport aircraft, I think.”