He stood with his hands on his hips wondering what he might have forgotten to pack. Thatcher had done his best, but it still looked like an eggbeater had been turned loose in his suitcase. For so long it had been Madelines chore. She would have had the spare set of briefs on top, followed by the extra uniform trousers, undershirt, and shirt. Done that way, he could dress more quickly, donning each item straight out of the case. She'd always had a wonderful economy with things like that, the simple practicalities that so often escaped Thatcher.
He went to his nightstand and lifted the small framed picture of Madeline. It had been taken in late '43 at a Christmas bash, only three days before the Heinkel, still laden with its bombs, had crashed into their Chelsea flat. It was the last picture taken of her, but that wasn't why he liked it. It was her demeanor, the effervescent spirit that had enveloped her during those last days, captured in a moment of irreverence near an overdone Christmas tree. Madeline had turned positively buoyant during some of the darkest days of the war. Only later did Thatcher find out why. Doctor Davies had come to the funeral to pay his respects.
"I'm so sorry for your loss, Michael It must have been doubly cruel given her condition."
"Condition, doctor?"
"Oh God — hadn't she told you?"
Thatcher had changed the subject, not wanting to hear any more. Yet the truth would not be put down. Days later he found it in the unopened Christmas card she had prepared for him — a horrible dagger preserved in a dressing table drawer in the rubble of 27 Kingston Street. Dearest Michael Let's enjoy our last Christmas alone. Congratulations!
She had been waiting, holding her most precious gift for the perfect moment. A moment she would never live to see. The loss of one life so dear had seemed unbearable. Yet the second, never even to be realized, had put Thatcher over the edge. He made every effort to ignore the thirst for revenge, but it was quite impossible. It was, he supposed, the essence of most wars.
As the Ordnance Officer for 9 Squadron, he was in charge of twenty-eight men who loaded bombs and bullets on the unit's Lancaster Mk II heavy bombers. It was not outside the purview of his job to tag along on flights, the intent being to verify the accuracy and performance of weapon systems. Prior to Madeline's death he had been aloft a number of times on maintenance test and training sorties. But never across the channel and into action.
His opportunity arose from a series of malfunctions — the new five hundred pounders were developing a nasty tendency to hang up, not releasing properly from their bomb racks. This created an inherently dangerous condition, and Thatcher suggested to the squadron commander that he should go along on a few combat missions to diagnose the problem. The commander was less than enthusiastic, but Thatcher had done his homework. He made a strong engineering case for solving the issue, and the commander had little choice but to approve his request for limited combat flight status.
The first five missions passed easily. He had watched the bombs on every release, finding one hang-up due to a broken lug. But Thatcher had still not gotten what he really wanted. He'd spent hours behind the guns, regularly volunteering to relieve the gunners from their tedious watches, and quietly hoping they'd get jumped while he was on the trigger. His chance finally came on the sixth mission. Over the target area, Bremen, they came under heavy attack from the air. The tail gunner took a round from an ME-109, killing the lad instantly. With the fighters still swarming, Thatcher took up the position and returned fire at the swooping machines. Unfortunately, while he knew the mechanics of the .303 Browning intimately, he'd never been trained to fire it at a moving target. He only knew from bar talk that you had to lead the target.
One after another, the Messerschmitts dove in with guns blazing. Thatcher responded in kind, forcing himself to fire in front of the fighters, hoping they'd crash into his own deadly stream. Pass after pass, bullets raked into the thin skin of the Lancaster. Smoke burned into his lungs and he heard crewmen screaming, but the huge beast kept lumbering ahead.
Finally, one of the Germans got impatient. Instead of a slashing attack from a high angle, the fighter pulled directly behind the Lancaster and closed in. Thatcher and the fighter pilot eyed one another straight on, no angular movement to complicate the firing solution — it was simply a battle of nerves as the much faster fighter closed in. At one hundred yards both began firing. Thatcher's bubble canopy shattered, and he fell back as bullets ripped viciously into his leg. There was blood everywhere, his own now mixed with that of the original gunner. His fate seemed sealed, but he clawed his way back to the station, praying the gun would still work in the next seconds. The Messerschmitt filled the sky as Thatcher squeezed the trigger, not even trying to reference the sight. An orange fireball erupted, enveloping everything, and shrapnel from the screaming fighter peppered the Lancaster's tail. It was the last thing he remembered.
The copilot later filled in the rest. The bomber had managed to lumber back and ditch in the English Channel. Thatcher, a tourniquet around his mangled leg, had been picked up with the three surviving crewmembers. Two months in hospital followed.
There, Thatcher was able to reflect on his actions. Madeline had been killed by the crash of a German bomber, shot down by a British fighter over London. He'd then found his own way to the fight, shooting down a German fighter over Bremen. Time and again he had wondered — had the remnants of that aircraft crashed into a building below? Perhaps, in the great circularity of war, killing a German soldier's pregnant wife? There were moments, disturbingly, when he hoped it was so.
These were the thoughts Madeline would have hated, but he couldn't shake them away. While on the mend, he'd been surrounded by others who had lost limbs or their sight. But Thatcher was sure he had lost his mind. He wanted nothing but to go back and shoot down another Messerschmitt. And another and another. He wanted nothing less than full settlement for the death of his wife and their unborn daughter — somehow he knew it had been a daughter. Thatcher couldn't sleep, and while his body mended, his soul festered.
His chance for salvation came by way of Roger Ainsley, one of his old professors from King's College. Roger had visited him at the rehabilitation center and offered a transfer to a new section — MI-19. It was part of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, responsible for interrogating prisoners of war. Thatcher, the nearly solicitor-at-law, saw it as an ideal means to his end. Uncover the worst offenders and hold them responsible. No bullets or explosions, but a guaranteed gallows for the deserving. And as the war in Europe ground to a messy stop, the time had come for accountability.
Thatcher slid the photograph carefully back onto the night-stand. He washed his teacup and put in on the drying rack. He then eyed a struggling, withered plant by the window. It was the only survivor, the rest of Madeline's crop having already fallen to rot under his care. Along with the once productive garden out back. She had turned it over to vegetables for the war effort. Now it was a horticultural disaster, a muddy tangle of weeds and vine.
Thatcher sighed. Perhaps he could salvage something when he got back.
His flight, the first available, would leave from RAE Farnborough in two hours. It was an American B-24 being repositioned to the Pacific theater. The third landing would deposit him at a place called Westover Field, a U. S. air base in Massachusetts. From there he would track down the crew of U-801. Alexander Braun might still be among them. Or perhaps not.
Thatcher would simply have to find out.