NOW 1

The nerve of war

He turned off the television set in disgust. A time travelling Police Box that was larger on the inside and held four people? How ridiculous. That would never fly and the BBC would never see that money again. Mind you, he was glad that he could get any non-German stations even on the biggest RAF base in Germany.

Squadron Leader Laurent Charette, RCAF, rose from the comfy chair in his temporary quarters at RAF Nordholz and looked at the clock on hanging on the wall over door to the small kitchen unit. It was set to local time, but since he had been in-country for three weeks now it wasn't much of an issue. The flight he was to take farther eastward was going to leave in twenty minutes and he would need at least ten of that to cross the base over to where MATC[1] was running the hub for Northern Europe until all this was moved to RAF Neubrandenburg next March. Nordholz was to be wound down, the eventual fate of the installation to be left to the German Government.

He heaved his Bergen over his shoulder and after making sure he hadn't forgotten anything stepped out into what passed for winter weather in Northern Germany. As a native of a small village north of Quebec City he refused to call the rainy slush falling from the sky anything but that, but at least he didn't have to use snow shoes to get to his post every morning as he had during his tenure at the Alaskan border.

“Squadron Leader Charette?” a voice said with a strong accent that placed the speaker somewhere in the Midlands of Britain.

Charette turned and saw that he was spoken two by a Pilot Officer. “I've been ordered to tell you that there is a change of assignment, Sir.”

Charette was beyond hoping to get a transfer back to Air Defence Command, Canada's equivalent to RAF Fighter Command. So instead he simply accepted his new orders and for once he was not sure if he was to laugh or to cry, he was to take an RAF Swift to an Airbase in Silesia, while it was colder, it also meant that he would have to actually interact with Germans, and that he could well do without. Thus informed he turned to the pilots quarters to get his hands on a flight suit.

Once he had signed the orders he directed his steps over to where No.79 Squadron was preparing to move operations to RAF Krakow, where they would share accommodations with HQ RAF Continental Command. This particular Swift was still wearing RAF markings, but that wouldn't last. The plane Captain stepped around the nose of the fighter where he had been working on the 30mm cannons and noticed the Squadron Leader approaching, identifying him as Canadian by the presence of the Canadian Military ensign on his helmet.[2]

[IMG]http://i513.photobucket.com/albums/t338/britwank/swift.jpg[/IMG]

A No.79 Squadron Swift during better weather.

“Squadron Leader, she's well and ready to go, Sir.”

“Thank you Warrant Officer.” Charette said and nodded at the Crew Chief.

“She's filled to the brim with petrol but unarmed. As you can see no missiles and we just emptied the cannons too, Sir.”

Being a pilot to the core, Charette walked around the aircraft and inspected it personally, not as a sign of disrespect but because this was what pilots did before taking any aircraft up, while the Warrant Officer stowed the single and surprisingly light Bergen in the baggage container below the belly that was already partially filled with the documentation for the aircraft, for she would change owners once arriving at the Airbase. After signing the handover papers and filed the flightplan, Charette settled himself in the Martin-Baker ejector seat and waited as the crew strapped him in. He checked the belts and then put on his helmet.

The crew retreated to a safe distance and the RR Avon Turbojet of the Swift spooled up.

“Tower, Amber 1-5, request permission to taxi to Runway one.”

“Amber 1-5, Tower. Permission to taxi to Runway one, wait for traffic to clear.”

Charette taxied the fighter to the end of the runway, where at the parallel one a Coastal Command Shackleton was taking off. Once the Naval Patrol Aircraft was clear, he keyed the Tower.

“Tower, Amber 1-5, request permission for take-off.”

“Roger that, Amber 1-5. Wind is 3 knots from 348, cloud cover at Angles 9. No other traffic in your area, permission granted.”

He pushed the throttle forward. Since he wasn't flying a Hunter[3] or, god forbid, the over-aged F-86 or F-94 the East Japanese were using and the load was light the Swift left the tarmac in less than two thirds of the usual distance. Once airborne he climbed above the cloud cover and contacted the air-traffic control centre at the civilian airport near Hamburg. The German controller there assigned him a corridor at a height not usually used by civilian aircraft and Charette settled in for a short and boring ferry run while the Swift headed east.

As he left Berlin behind to his north, the weather cleared and Charette could see that there now was a snow cover on the ground that would be increasing in thickness the farther east he went.

He checked his fuel state and saw that he was still almost half full, and after looking on his map he decided that it was time to contact the base operations to get a vector for landing.

“Sprottau Airbase Tower, this is transfer flight Amber 1-5, request vector for final approach.”

“Amber 1-5, this is Sprottau Tower, we have you on our scopes at ten miles out, come left to 299 for final approach on Runway One. No other traffic in your area, runway clear.” came the reply by a German accented voice.

He turned as directed and began his descent. As he broke through the cloud cover, he could see the lights of the Airbase and the runway in the evening gloom, with the runway right in front of him, requiring only minor course corrections as the tower guided him in to touchdown.

Once he came to a halt at the end of the runway, a 'Follow Me' Land Rover painted in the German interpretation of olive green appeared and guided him to a Hardened Aircraft Shelter, which was something Charette was hardly surprised about. The Russian Republic might have turned inwards and towards the mess of states that was post-Soviet China, but the Poles had rebuilt all their airbases with HAS units as a matter of cause after having their Air Force destroyed on the ground from the east and the west and they were taking no chances. That a British... no, German airbase this close to the Polish border had them was obvious as it would be used to support the Polish and other Allied Armies in the east in case war against Russia could not be avoided.

In the shelter itself a Swift already painted in German camouflage and markings with a curious yellow 14 painted on the nose was standing, and his own was placed besides it. As the German ground crew in classic Luftwaffe blue swarmed around the new arrival, Charette looked over at the other aircraft. Somewhere in his mind he knew that he had seen that type of marking before, but for the moment his knowledge failed him, and in any case he had work to do. Reigning in his own feelings he unbuttoned himself from the ejector seat and climbed down the ladder that had helpfully been provided. He had to admit, these Jerries were professionals, but even so he saw signs of the long years that the very idea of a German Air Force had spent in the wilderness.

The maintenance crews that were probably checking the avionic systems of the other jet moved slower and more deliberate than any Canadian or British mechanic would have, and in the back he could see a group of men standing around a...(he wracked his brain for the rank insignia the new Luftwaffe had adopted) ...Stabsfeldwebel[4] teaching them something. The rank had no direct equivalent in the Commonwealth Air Forces but was somewhere between a Flight Sergeant and a Warrant Officer.

At the foot of the ladder a young Lieutenant was waiting and saluted crisply.

“Squadron Leader Charette?”

Charette returned the salute and nodded. “Yes, Leutnant.”

“Leutnant Goldschlager at your Service, Sir.” the Officer said in accented but otherwise impeccable English. “The Commodore regrets that he cannot meet you in person, but he is on the phone with the Ministry of Defence. He has told me to guide you to his Office, Squadron Leader.”

There was no personal feeling in either his face or his voice, but Charette had had enough contacts with The Powers that Be to know how his guide felt. Some things never changed, no matter where you went. He opened the container and shouldered his bergen over one shoulder and signed the paperwork with the other.

“We have a Landy waiting outside, Sir.” Goldschlager said after waiting patiently for the Canadian to finish.

“Lead on then, Lieutenant.” Charette replied, but before he had taken six steps he stopped and looked over at the other Swift in the shelter.

“Whose plane is that, Lieutenant?”

Goldschlager looked at the nose of the fighter and smiled. “That's the Commodore's crate, Sir.”

Again, that memory that wouldn't come. Pushing that out of his mind, he instead followed the German outside where indeed a Luftwaffe Land Rover was waiting. The Lieutenant got behind the weel and Charette in the passenger seat. As they drove off and headed down the taxiway towards the group of buildings that contained the Command centre and the Tower he closed his eyes and placed his head against the headrest. He could already tell that this would be a long assignment.

The base buildings were standing on the grounds since the late 1930s, but they still did their job, the newest addition to this was a control tower that was a remnant of the early occupation period when Allied Command had frantically tried to hold off several big Soviet counterattacks in Poland.

Once they arrived at the main administration building, Charette stepped inside. His Canadian Uniform drew a few funny looks but no audible comment from the staff except for the Feldjäger[5] Sergeant standing in beside the Commodore's door.

“He's waiting for you, Herr Major.” the German said, translating the Canadian rank into the German counterpart. “But I would wait if I were you.”

Before he could elaborate on that the door flew open and a fuming black haired man wearing the uniform of a Luftwaffe Colonel came racing through it. He saw the Sergeant and the Canadian Officer sanding there and stopped immediately.

“You are the Canadian Officer who'se coming I was told about, I presume?” he said.

Charette watched as the German's face went from barely restrained anger to friendly couriosity.

“Squadron Leader Laurent Charette at your service, Colonel....”

“Marseille, Hans-Joachim Marseille.”

Now everything made sense. The yellow fourteen on the Swift he had seen had indicated the name, and Charette mentally slapped himself for not associating it with one of the biggest Fighter Aces of World War Two, right up there with Douglas Bader, Erich Hartman or Alexander Pokryshkin, and very much a legend in his own time. It did make sense in a way. If one did create Armed Forces from nothing, why not fall back on existing talent, especially when said talent had been extensively vetted by the occupation authorities.

“Glad to meet you, Sir.” he said, and it was only a half-lie, after all he was still a Fighter pilot to the core.

“Likewise, Squadron Leader.” Marseille said. “Shall we go into my Office?”

The Office was decorated like most representative military rooms, the German black-red-golden Flag with the Federal Eagle on one side of the desk, with the Allied Pact military flag on the other, a few pictures amongst the papers on the desk and at the wall to the right of the door a colour photograph of a younger Marseille in front of a Fw-190 with the prominent yellow fourteen on the fuselage.

“Please be seated, Squadron Leader.”

Once seated, the German Officer quickly replaced the receiver on the phone and then cut around the pleasantries.

“I assume you know why you are here?”

Charette nodded. “Yes, Sir. I did fly the transfer of another Swift to your Squadron and are now to act as an instructor for especially your younger pilots. Air Combat Manoeuvres, Intercept tactics, that sort of thing.”

“That about covers it.” Marseille replied. After a few moments and no more words, Charette couldn't help but study the man on the other side of the table. He was one of the few acceptable, meaning politically not embarrassing, Officers in the young Bundeswehr, that had raked up such impressive combat records during World War Two.

“It's hard you know.”

Charette pretended he had listened and simply asked: “How so, Oberst?”

“Well, your side quite obviously won the war, but when you dismantled the Wehrmacht the tradition and a whole lot of the professional pride we had in those days didn't go away. There are not a few people who find it very hard to ask the British of all people for help in re..no..in building the Bundeswehr.”

Marseille paused and looked over at the picture of his old crate.

“Mind you, I'd still love to track down the pilot of that Spitfire. That was some nice bit of flying I must say, even though he gave me this one.”

He reached up and removed the cap he was wearing, revealing a long scar across his forehead. When Charette smiled in spite of himself, Marseille put his cap back into the 'correct' angle and then went serious again.

“What I am saying is this, Squadron Leader. JG 71 'Richthofen' was the first Wing to become operational. As it is, this new Luftwaffe stands on very shaky political ground. Heck, the majority of Germans are against us rearming in the first place, and this thing is likely to cost Erhard the election in '64, so everyone and their aunt is watching this unit! The last thing I need is some bloody stupid ex-Hitler Youth wanna-be pilot who thinks he is better than you because he flew a D-9 for a few hours. I ask you as one pilot to another, don't let them get to you, and if anyone tries either clean their clock or send them to me. If you don't mind my saying so, and it's nothing personal, but even though I'd rather do without you I am a soldier and I intend to do my assignment as well as I can, and I can't do it without you pulling on the same string.”

Charette let that sink in. “I can do that, Sir.” he said and was perfectly honest. He might be a German, but Marseille seemed to be a good Officer, and that was what was supposed to be counting.

“Well in that case we are finished here. Goldschlager will see you to your quarters, Squadron Leader. Dismissed.”

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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?

The date of course is Saturday, 23^rd November 1963, just after the end of 'An Unearthly Child', the first part of the very first Doctor Who Serial. I can truthfully claim not only to have seen it (I found it on the Internet in 2009) but also to own a pdf of the script.

When I started writing OTS the next one after that was supposed to be one set in South-East Asia, but around that time I decided I had the urge to write something where ze Germanz are the good guys for a change.

[1] Military Air Transport Command, part of the RAF since the mid-50s.

[2] Bog standard Maple Leaf Flag as we know it. The Canadian national flag ITTL 1963 and 2011 is this one:

[IMG]http://i513.photobucket.com/albums/t338/britwank/Kanada1.png[/IMG]

Before you pepper me with questions, it will all be explained in due time.

[3] ITTL a pure CAS aircraft. At first seen as an interceptor, but the delays with the Swift allowed it to be fitted with an afterburning Avon variant, thus the Hunter was re-engineered into a CAS aircraft.

[4] Literall translation is Staff Sergeant.

[5] Military police.