The High Calling (17 page)

“Howdy there, Parker.”

“Brodie, what in the world are you doing here?” Parker asked. “Did you come over to see Katherine?”

“Well, I plan on doin’ that, but mainly I wanted to get in this here war. I come to sign up in your outfit.”

Parker stared blankly at Brodie. He remembered then the man’s background and said rather shortly, “The RAF is a little different from stunt flying. I know you’re good at that, and I know you’ve had experience flying against the Germans in Spain. But the discipline is strict here. I’m not sure you’d be happy.”

“Oh, I can do what I have to do,” Brodie said breezily. “As a matter of fact, I already signed up and got myself assigned to your squadron.”

Parker stared at Brodie with incredulity. “How in the world did you manage that?”

“Didn’t seem to be too much trouble. They’re takin’ fliers from everywhere now. Lots of ’em from Canada. As a matter of fact, I flew over with three of those Canadians. When I told the officer who was recruitin’ that I knew you and wanted to be in your squadron, he was happy to do it.”

Parker looked at the American reluctantly, but then he did need fliers. And he had seen Brodie in action. “All right,” he said. “We’ll have to get you some uniforms, and then I’ll take you through some training.”

Brodie laughed. “I thought I’d done all the trainin’ I need to do.”

“Things are a little different here. You need to get acquainted with our planes. You’ve never flown a Spit, have you?”

“Nope. But if it’s got two wings and an engine in it, I reckon I can fly it.”

Parker was afraid that trouble lay ahead, but everyone was
desperate for experienced pilots. “All right, but I must warn you, Brodie, there are no stars here. We fight as a unit.”

“Shore, that’s fine with me,” he said with a grin. “I just came over to help. I thought I’d try for the record.”

“What record?”

“Shootin’ down planes. How many have you shot down, by the way?”

“Five.”

“Anybody beat that?”

“Yes. Several.”

“Well, just lead me to one of them Spitfires and show me the Germans, and I’ll set about breakin’ the records.”

Parker found the American’s self-confidence refreshing. He laughed shortly and said, “All right, but you can’t fly dressed like that. Let’s see about getting you a flight suit and a dress uniform. But first I’ll introduce you to the rest of the squadron.”

“Shore. That suits me.”

Most of the pilots were in the rec room, and when Parker walked in followed by Brodie Lee, he saw their eyes light up as they took him in. “This is Brodie Lee,” Parker announced after everyone had quieted. “He’s from America, and he’ll be flying with us. Brodie, this is Bernard Cox.” He indicated a small man with bright blue eyes. “Bernie wants to be a painter when the war is over.”

“Paintin’ houses?”

“No. Painting pictures.” Bernard grinned. He was a fantastic pilot and asked innocently, “Have you ever been up in an airplane?”

“One or two.”

“This is Sailor Darley.” Parker waved toward a tall, strongly built man with a wrestler’s shoulders and a big neck. “He was a sailor at one time, so he claims, but he can shoot straight.”

“You look like a cowboy,” Darley said. “Did you bring your lasso so you can rope these German planes?”

“No, but I brought armament, all right.” Brodie reached
inside his coat and pulled out a revolver. Everyone dodged slightly as he waved it around. “Been wantin’ to try it out on one of them Germans.”

“Put that thing away, Lee. It’s against the law.”

“Don’t you fellows carry guns?”

“Not pearl-handled ones like that,” Parker said.

“Pearl-handled! This here’s
ivory.
Only a two-bit gambler in a New Orleans dive would carry a
pearl
-handled shootin’ iron!”

“I suppose that’s true enough.” Parker continued around the room, introducing the rest of the squadron. When Zarek Dolenski was introduced, he declared, “You’re a cowboy and that’s what I will call you.”

Parker grinned. “Call him anything you want, but when we’re in the air, watch out for him.”

“That’s right. I’m here to save you fellows, so take good care of me.” A laugh went around the room, and Archibald Kent-Wilkins, leader of Green Flight, shook his head. “What have we done to America that they send us a thing like this? I knew we should have won that ruddy war against the Colonists!”

****

Her day at the mission had seemed interminable, and Meredith Bryce was so exhausted she could hardly hold up her head. It had also been hot, and her uniform was crumpled and sweaty. Another half hour and she would be off duty.

Finally she finished washing the dirty cups and saucers and was reaching up to put them onto a high shelf. She was not a tall girl and was stretching as far as she could when something suddenly slapped her across the backside, and a cheerful voice said, “Hey, lemme help you with that, sweetheart.”

Meredith whirled, red-faced, toward the man who had taken liberties with her. “Keep your hands to yourself!”

“Why, sorry about that. I heard you Brits liked gestures of familiarity.”

She wanted to crack him across the cheek but settled for a verbal tongue-lashing. She knew he was American by the few words he had said and by his outlandish costume, including high-heeled boots and a cowboy hat.

“Hey, don’t blow your top. I’m looking for Kat Winslow.”

“She’s not here now.”

“Well, I’ve gotta find her. What’s your name?”

“None of your business.”

“I’m Brodie Lee. You work with Kat. She must have told you about me.”

As a matter of fact, Kat had mentioned Brodie’s name and showed her a picture. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow when she’s on duty.”

“Wait a minute. I know who you are. Kat sent me a picture of the two of you.”

Meredith could see the man wasn’t going to leave without getting some information. “My name is Meredith Bryce.”

“That’s right. That’s the name. Look, Merry—”

“My name is Meredith, not Merry.”

“That’s a right pretty name.”

“Thank you, but you need to leave now.”

Brodie protested, but finally Meredith succeeded in getting him out of the building. She was agitated over his familiarity with her and was glad when she could finally leave herself.

A light rain was falling as she left the mission. She opened her umbrella and walked the three blocks to her flat. She went inside and ran up the stairs to the second floor. “Kat, are you here?” she called.

“Yes, I am.” Kat came into the living room from a door that led to the kitchen. “Did you remember to bring the milk?”

“No, I forgot the bloomin’ milk. Let me tell you—”

A staccato knock on the door broke in, and Kat started. “Who can that be?”

“I have no idea,” Meredith said. She opened the door and there stood Brodie Lee.

“Hi, Merry,” he said. He looked over her at Kat and said,
“Hey, Kat, there you are.” He brushed by Meredith, walked right up to Kat, and kissed her soundly.

She struggled to free herself. “Brodie Lee, what are you doing here?”

“I’ve come over to win the war for the limeys.”

“Well, you haven’t changed,” Kat said, shaking her head but smiling at the same time. “This is my flatmate Meredith.”

“Oh, sure. We met down at the mission.”

“You followed me home!” Meredith exclaimed, her face pink with anger.

“Yep, I believe I did. I’m pretty hungry, Kat. Why don’t you take me out to dinner?”

“I’ve already got dinner fixed.”

“All right. Don’t mind if I do,” Brodie said with a grin. “I could at least help you set the table.”

Kat laughed. “You’re impossible. Well, I think I’ve got enough for the three of us.”

Meredith stared at Brodie. She knew that Kat had a liking for the man, but she had seen nothing so far to admire in the crass American.

“Why don’t you be a gentleman and leave.”

“I’d rather be just like I am and stay, Merry.”

Kat shook her head. “You can’t insult him, Meredith. It’s impossible. Why don’t you go ahead and take your bath? I’ll have supper on the table by the time you get finished.”

****

“And so I figured I might as well come over and join up. According to what the radio said, Hitler’s gonna be comin’ this way. I thought I could be part of the welcoming committee.”

“You can’t just up and join the RAF,” Meredith broke out.

“Oh, I already done that. I’m in Eagle Squadron.” He winked at Kat. “Lord Parker Braden is my squadron leader for now.”

“What do you mean ‘for now’?”

“Oh, I figure I’ll be leadin’ the guys myself after I’ve put in a little time.”

“Why, you egotist!” Meredith said loudly.

“No, I’m a democrat.”

The visit proved to be a long one, with Brodie doing a great deal of the talking. He finally was ushered out by Kat, who avoided his attempts to kiss her. As she shut the door, he said, “I’ll be seeing you around, sweetheart—you too, Merry.”

“He is impossible!” Meredith exclaimed.

“You’d better watch out for him, Meredith. He can charm the birds out of the trees. Every girl in my hometown was crazy about him when we were kids. And since then he’s acquired that romantic glow of being a pilot.”

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’d just like to take a pin and puncture a bit of that egotism!” She sighed and said, “Well, we are in trouble if that’s the best that America can send over here to help us.”

“I don’t know about that. He’s a good pilot.” She started toward the kitchen, but a thought came to her. “But he’s not much for discipline. I don’t know how Parker will handle that.”

****

Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the German armed forces, scanned the faces of his officers whom he had called into a special meeting. “The führer has decided that a landing in England is possible,” he said tersely, “provided that air superiority can be attained. All preparations will begin immediately.”

Laughter went up around the room, and one of the officers said loudly, “It will be as the British pilots say—a piece of cake.”

“It will not be unless we gain air superiority,” Keitel said soberly.

Colonel Multz shook his head. “The RAF will be in no
position to stop us. They lost a great many planes and pilots in France. It will be a walk-over!”

The Luftwaffe was indeed the key to the invasion of Britain. The action would begin with an intensive air attack, and in Hermann Göring’s view, this would be all that was needed to subdue the island nation. At this point Hitler had his eyes fixed on the Soviet Union. He would have been glad to have reached an agreement with Britain—on his own terms. He had been somewhat sobered by Admiral Erich Raeder’s view that a land invasion would be very difficult, considering Great Britain had the strongest navy in the world. Nevertheless, Hitler’s directive number sixteen stated, “As England is unwilling to compromise, I have therefore decided to begin to prepare for and if necessary to carry out an invasion of England. The code name will be ‘Operation Sealion.’” He added further, “The air attack that must destroy England’s air superiority will start on a day we’ll call ‘Eagle Day.’”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The High-Flying Cowboy

Most of the world viewed the oncoming confrontation between Britain and Germany as a David and Goliath battle. The Luftwaffe had taken on the aura of an invincible force. Every distinguished visitor to Germany was filled with stories of the invincibility of Göring’s air force. These visitors returned to their homes with dire predictions.

One of them, Charles Lindbergh, toured the air stations and factories of Germany and on his return issued a gloomy prediction. He stated that he felt German air strength was greater than that of all other European countries combined. Germany had the means to destroy London, as well as Paris and Prague, if she wished to do so. England and France together did not have enough modern equipment for effective defense or counterattack.

Lindbergh’s words were shored up by the ease with which the Luftwaffe wiped out the Polish air force in May. The might of such an air force no longer seemed arguable. How could Britain possibly expect to win against an enemy reputed to have forty-five hundred first-line aircraft, while the Royal Air Force had no more than twenty-nine hundred?

But though the odds were overwhelming, the struggle was not as one-sided as it seemed. Britain could compete favorably in the quality if not in the quantity of planes. Also, Britain possessed something new that would change the whole course of the war—the all-seeing eye of radar. Besides, the British would be fighting on their home ground. Any British pilot
shot down that safely parachuted out could return to action, whereas the German pilots would be imprisoned until the end of the war.

Perhaps one of the factors that ultimately helped the British in this conflict was the inadvertent help they got from the mistakes made by German industry. Hitler claimed that to speed up their production of aircraft would unnecessarily alarm the German population, who had been repeatedly told they would see a string of easy successes. Hitler assigned the secret task of procuring planes and developing new models to General Ernst Udet, a hard-drinking, happy-go-lucky World War I ace. Udet was an excellent pilot, but as an administrator he was a total failure. He created a monstrous bureaucracy in which it was almost impossible to get a decision made. This slowed down the production of fighter planes and ultimately gave Britain the edge she desperately needed.

One other factor worked in the favor of the British forces. Göring and his men were the victims of tremendous overconofidence. Encouraged by past successes, the intelligence reports they received told them that the RAF would only put up a feeble air defense. Göring, always arrogant, accepted these reaports at face value, which proved to be a fatal miscalculation.

Churchill placed a sixty-one-year-old Canadian-born newspaper publisher, Lord Beaverbrook, in charge of Britain’s aircraft building program. Beaverbrook galvanized the production of airplanes, moving at once into a seven-day week, and announced that there would be no work stoppages. To collect the aluminum to build the planes, he sponsored a drive to persuade the women of Great Britain to donate their pots and pans, as well as anything else made of metal, to the industry. In the months that followed the evacuation at Dunkirk, British workers built more than four hundred new fighters for the RAF. These planes were produced not only in factories but in small garages and workshops. Planes were also beginning to flow in from Canada and the United States.