Cold War

When they collected the weather report for their return trip, they were warned that a thunderstorm was brewing. It wasn’t anything particularly dangerous, just a “heat storm,” the Met officer said. Under normal circumstances they could have flown around it, but because they had to stay in the corridor they were going to have to fly through it. Furthermore, without patients, they were not given precedence over the Airlift freighters and spent fifty minutes in the take-off queue. By then the sky was dark and the first, thick drops of rain fell on the cockpit windscreen. With Kiwi at the controls, Emily reached forward to activate the windscreen wipers.

The skies remained dark the entire flight, although the thunderstorm never materialised. Apparently, it had passed to the north of them. Then suddenly, just twenty minutes short of Berlin, the aircraft was abruptly and violently shaken by turbulence.

Emily yelped involuntarily, and, embarrassed, confessed to Kiwi. “Sorry! I’ve never encountered air turbulence as abrupt and bad as that before.”

“I hate to tell you this, Emily, but that wasn’t turbulence. It was flak.” He pointed to the distinctive puff of brown-black smoke just ahead but to the right of their track.

Emily’s mouth went dry and then the Wellington was shaken a second time. Another puff of smoke erupted on their left as the nurse put her head through the curtain to ask in a panicked tone what was happening.

Emily replied it was just Soviet “war games” and they were not in danger. She persuaded her to go back into the fuselage and strap herself in.

When they were alone again, Kiwi informed her, “On the assumption that they are aiming to miss us, I am not going to take evasive action but will hold altitude, course, and speed. That way they’ll know where not to shoot.”

As a third burst of flak rattled the aircraft, however, they could hear the nurse calling on God’s help.

“I’d better go back and see if I can calm her down,” Emily suggested and started to unstrap herself.

Kiwi held her in place with a firm hand on her arm. “Nothing is going to calm her down and there are no patients back there for her to upset. It’s better for you to stay where you are.”

She looked at him blankly.

“You need to be ready to take over the controls if I get injured.”

“But if they’re not aiming at us—” Emily started.

Kiwi cut her off. “Shrapnel from a near miss can pierce the fuselage. The exterior is just linen and glue, remember? The aircraft is in no danger. It’s designed for this. But a big piece of shrapnel could easily take off my foot, hand, or head.”

Or mine, Emily added mentally, and she drew a deep breath to steady herself. The flak was still going off about three hundred feet ahead of them at 15-second intervals. It mockingly marked a corridor for them.

Emily became so transfixed by the corridor between the black puffs of smoke marking the flak bursts that she only gradually became aware of voices in her earphones. Evidently, they were within range of radio transmissions from Berlin air traffic control. A voice crackled, “… Roger, Gatow Control.”

A second voice followed. “Rafair 038, Wilco. There’s a white Wellington with red crosses all over it two thousand feet below and a mile ahead getting bracketed by it.”

A third voice came in, “They’re picking on the smaller, lower and slower aircraft.”

“Moby Dick, can you read me?” Emily recognised Assistant Section Leader Hart’s worried voice. Before Emily had a chance to answer, Hart urged anxiously, “Come in, Moby Dick!”

Emily had the horrible feeling that Robin was in the tower. They would have told him incoming aircraft were reporting flak and he would have gone up to hear the radio transmissions for himself. Taking the mic, she answered in a voice pitched to sound completely relaxed, “Gatow Control, this is Moby Dick.” Stretching to look down and confirm their position, she added only marginally prematurely, “We’re passing into Berlin airspace now. No damage or injuries.” Silently she added, “This time.” She hoped fervently that Robin would not ground her. Far from putting her off flying, the flak highlighted the character of the enemy they were facing and reinforced Emily’s commitment to keep flying patients out of their clutches.