Dry Heat

Kurt

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a novel excerpt

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by Michael Wood

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There was a certain understated beauty to the North African coast, but it was only apparent in the evening light. As the sun set in the West, the whole world seemed to become bathed in a brilliant orange glow, as though the sand and stones of the land below turned all at once into a sea of embers. At ground level, the effect was beautiful; at twenty-five hundred meters, it was breathtaking.

At the controls of a twin-engine Messerschmitt scything through the dry desert air, Sergeant Kurt Tressler felt like he had the best seat in the house. The glimmering expanse seemed to stretch into eternity, the vast, tangerine dunes broken up only by the occasional rocky hill. Off his starboard wing, the sea of sand meandered on into an almost-certain infinity, but off his port, three more aircraft held a tight formation with his own.

“It’s almost perfect,” Kurt said to nobody in particular, the straps of his oxygen mask digging into his cheeks as he spoke, “Almost.”

Behind him, a man with a Bavarian rumble spoke up, “Was that directed at me, or are you talking to yourself again?”

Without turning, Kurt chuckled, “Would you feel better if I said it was directed at you, Schmidt?”

The rear gunner paused for a moment, and Kurt smiled as he pictured Schmidt shaking his head in mock-sympathy as he had done so many times before, “I’ll only feel better if you fly smoothly today, Herr Feldwebel; you’re hosing the cockpit out if your flying makes me sick again.”

The temptation to jerk back on the aircraft’s yoke briefly crossed Kurt’s mind, but he wisely declined it. As much as he loved to poke fun at his comrade’s expense, that was a line he wasn’t about to cross. Instead, he turned to scan the horizon ahead, looking for anything that resembled a British bomber. On a good day, the fairly large, four-engined “Halifax” could be spotted from hundreds of miles away, even as nothing more than specks in the midday blue. As the sun set, however, the darkening sky became better and better camouflage for low-flying aircraft. Kurt knew that his formation had only precious few minutes left to search for their quarry before they were forced to turn back, and the thought of returning to the airfield with full belts of ammunition put a bad taste in his mouth.

Thumbing the microphone at his throat, Kurt adopted his best ‘flight leader’ voice, “White flight, what is our status?”

There was a pause, then a voice came over his set in response; it was young and earnest, and he recognised the fellow as the freckled rookie from Stuttgart in the number two aircraft, “White Two- nothing yet! Tommy bastards are probably running scared!”

WThe rookie was a good kid, but listened to the propagandistic drivel their commanders tended to spew a little too eagerly. Kurt gave himself a mental note to have a word with the kid about it, maybe over some smuggled alcohol, then replied, “Jawohl, Two, keep me updated.”

Peering back at his flight, Kurt knew he had a decision to make soon. If they stayed where they were, returning home would be difficult without natural light, but the possibility of contact was still there. He knew that he would be chewed out for wasting fuel and forcing the ground crews to light signal fires at the ends of the runway, but if he could eke a few destroyed bombers out of the sortie, perhaps the fury from his superiors would be lessened…

“White flight!” He barked into his mic, “We’re going to stay on-station for fifteen more minutes, then turn for home- you give me a Boston or a Halifax before then, I’ll buy the beer!”

Over the radio, a cheer erupted, a couple of the Messerschmitts even waggling their wings in pantomime delight. Kurt grinned, then turned back towards Schmidt, “How do you like that for motivating the men?”

Schmidt merely chortled, “That’s a lot of money you’re offering to part with, Herr Feldwebel.”

Kurt shrugged, “All in the name of the cause, mein kamerad.”

The aircraft flew onwards for what felt like an eternity. Though Kurt checked his watch again and again, counting down the minutes until they would have to give up the hunt, he silently hoped for each one to last a little longer, that they’d have something to show for their efforts. By minute eleven, however, the sun was halfway down the horizon, and Kurt knew there was little sense in continuing on. Sighing dejectedly, he reached for his radio… just as White Two burst into flames.

Moments after the sudden explosion of light and moments before he heard the unmistakable roar of Merlin engines, Kurt saw the rookie’s eyes widen. The youth brought up his arms to shield his face from the flames engulfing the cockpit, but in that very same moment, White Two simply vanished, replaced by a billowing cloud of scorched debris.

“Break break break!” Kurt sputtered, before dropping the Messerschmitt’s port wing and diving. He couldn’t hear a response from his wingmen, but as he turned back towards the group, another crippled fighter dived towards earth. Following the bright streams of tracers raking its fuselage, Kurt laid eyes on one of their ambushers- and his heart froze.

It was a sleek, single-engine fighter with elliptical wings and distinctive red-and-blue roundels on each wing. Every line of its fuselage was a curve, with a taper even to the housings for the cannons in each of its wings, and even as it followed the other Messerschmitt down, shredding its corpse with fire, it looked more like some bird of prey than an aircraft.

“Spitfires! Sohn einer Hündin! Goddamn Spitfires!”

Behind Kurt’s back, twin machine guns chattered angrily, his tail gunner already responding to their attackers in kind.

“Goddamn right they are!” Schmidt growled, his words punctuated by flashes from the guns’ barrels, “Could have been following us this whole time, waiting for the light to fade!”

In the mirror above his controls, Kurt could see the Spitfire on his own tail billowing black smoke from its engine cowling. Another burst of fire from Schmidt, and a bright red stain spurted across the British fighter’s cockpit.

The poor bastard probably didn’t feel a thing. Kurt knew the same couldn’t be said for the crew of White Two.

“Good fucking hit!” Kurt barked back, “I’m bringing us to the deck, hold on!”

The Messerschmitt plummeted earthwards, the desert below drawing closer and closer. When sand filled the windscreen ahead, Kurt pulled back on the yoke, as hard as his straining arms would allow. The g-forces were like an elephant on his chest, and Kurt could feel his dinner trying to work its way into his throat, but he kept on fighting. As the Messerschmitt leveled out, there was a dull thud behind them; without someone with a pulse at the controls, the Spitfire only had terrain to stop its descent.

Kurt fumbled for his microphone, hoping that his maneuver had been enough to dissuade any other pursuers, “White Flight! White Flight! Break contact and return to base immediately!”

There was a long silence. Over the radio, Kurt could only hear low static and his own, shaky breathing.

“Scheisse…” he muttered, before turning to Schmidt, “I don’t think anyone else made it. Tommy bast-”

Had he kept his eyes forwards, perhaps he would have seen the second Spitfire. Instead, Kurt only heard the THUMPTHUMPTHUMP of Hispano cannons and felt the scorching heat of high-explosive rounds detonating all around him.

And then the world went black.