Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse by Deighton Len

Author:Deighton, Len [Deighton, Len]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007546503
Amazon: B00EH18VB8
Goodreads: 19530312
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-09-26T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

The huge Freya radar aerial swung gently, smelling the cold wind that blew from England. It stopped, began to swing back and stopped again. Willi Reinecke called to August Bach down the length of the dimly lit T hut. ‘First contact, sir.’

And so the battle began: three groups of men using every device that science could invent began to grope around the blackness like gunmen in a sewer.

August hurried up the wooden steps to the plotting-table platform.

‘Logged at 00.35 hours,’ said the clerk.

‘Near Lowestoft. An extreme-range contact,’ said August. ‘Congratulations, they are not even over the British coastline. The Freya is working well tonight.’

‘They seem to have stopped the jamming lately,’ said Willi.

‘Since we made the wavelength band wider. They can’t jam the whole width of it.’

‘And it’s the tuning.’

‘“And it’s the tuning,”’ said August smiling. ‘I said “Congratulations”.’

‘I’ve told the FLUKO,’ said the telephonist. ‘They hadn’t had a previous contact.’

‘Good,’ muttered August. He put his protractor on the map. He knew all its bearings like the palm of his own hand but still he put his protractor on it as he gave his instructions. Willi admired that sort of thoroughness, especially in an officer.

‘The red Würzburg to sweep from Ipswich to Yarmouth, 270 degrees to 290. Don’t tell them the range or they won’t try so hard.’

‘Lowestoft,’ said Willi, looking at the map. ‘That’s well north of the usual route. Perhaps they are going to Berlin.’

‘Too early to say yet. Perhaps they are routed south and that one is a few miles off course. That would account for it. We’ll have to wait and see, Willi.’

Soon Willi said, ‘You’re right, sir, you’re right. He’s turned almost due south.’

‘They’ll assemble over Southwold,’ nodded August. ‘They are creatures of habit, the British.’

Out in the cold among the windswept dunes the crew of the red Würzburg became newly alert. They knew that the Freya had twice the range of their equipment, but the Würzburg had a narrower beam and was therefore more precise. It could ‘see’ one aeroplane and tell its altitude and so bring the night fighters into contact with it. The Freya gave an early warning but the Würzburgs made the kill.

‘The Nachtjagdführer is giving us two Ju88s from Kroonsdijk,’ said Reinecke. He was still on the phone. August nodded.

‘Let’s hope it’s a pilot we’ve worked with before,’ said Willi.

‘When that fool let the Tommi escape last Wednesday I could have killed him,’ said August. ‘He must have been right on top of him.’

‘The blips superimposed,’ said Reinecke disgustedly.

The T hut was the centre of the Himmelbett station which August commanded. Nearby there were other huts: billets, Mess hall, motor-transport garage and the radar machines themselves. As well as the Freya there were two identical Würzburgs: great bowls, seven metres across. One (blue) to record a night fighter and the other (red) to follow the passage of one of the RAF bombers. Inside the T hut two plotting-clerks sat hunched underneath the big wooden platform that dominated the interior. Each of them wore headphones and was in contact with a Würzburg.

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