The huge biplane bombardment aircraft was staggering in towards its landing . . . or crash, whichever. The long fuselage was tublike, with open circular pits for the pilot and copilot, and others for bombardiers and gunners. Between each of the long wings were four engine pods, each pod mounting a puller and pusher set. The undercarriage settled towards the ground, struck dust from the packed earth. Gravel spurted. On the second impact, the splayed legs of the big wheels spread further, the whole plane sinking closer to the ground as it raced across the runway. Then the bottom touched in a shower of sparks and tearing of wood and fabric. Half the lower part of the fuselage abraded away as it gradually came to a halt, spinning around like a top once or twice before it did. Rescue teams raced out, bells ringing, although the props didn’t quite touch the earth and nothing caught fire . . . this time.
“Got that?”
“Yes, sir,” the Protégé replied, and began the complex process of changing a reel of film.
Gerta pulled her uniform cap off, crumpling it in her hand. That was the only outward sign of her rage; she sternly repressed the impulse to throw it down and stamp on it.
The squadron commander came over to her open-topped car. “I understand completely, Brigadier,” he said. “Will your film do any good?”
“Well, I can now confirm with visual aids that we lose ten percent of those things in normal operations with each mission, not counting enemy action. When I think of how many fighters or ground-attack aircraft we could have for the same resources—”
“Just get them to stop telling us to fly these abortions,” the man said. He was very young, not more than twenty-five; turnover in the bomber squadrons was heavy. “It isn’t that we mind dying for the Chosen, you understand—”
“—it’s just that you’d like it to have some sort of point,” Gerta finished for him. “I’ll do my best. Porschmidt has a lot of friends in high places.”
“I’d like to take them to a high place—over Santander City or Bosson, and dump them off with the rest of the bombload.”
Gerta nodded. “If it’s any consolation, we’re doing some things that are smarter than this.”
“It couldn’t be worse.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
John Hosten gripped Arturo Bianci’s hand. “You’re still alive,” he said.
The guerilla leader looked closer to sixty than the forty-five or so John knew him to be. His once-stocky frame was weathered down to bone and sinew and a necessary minimum of muscle, and the dense close-cropped cap of hair that topped his seamed, weathered face was the same silver as the stubble on his jaw.
“Not for want of the tedeschi trying,” he said. The smile on his face looked unpracticed. “They’ve had a high price on my head these sixteen years.”
He led John back into the cave. It was deep and twisting, opening out into broader caverns within and spreading out into a maze that led miles into the depths of the Collini Paeani. An occasional kerosene lantern cast a puddle of light; now and then an occupied cave showed men sleeping under blankets, working on their weapons, or stacking crates and boxes under waxed tarpaulins. There was even a stable-cavern, where picketed mules drowsed in rows and fodder was stacked ten feet high against one wall. The caves smelled of old smoke, dirt, and damp limestone; there were underground rivers further in, rushing past to who knew where.
“Big operation,” John said.
“One of many,” Arturo said. “We try not to put too much in one place, in case there is an informer or the tedeschi are lucky with a patrol. More and more come to us. The tedeschi take more land for plantations, and always there are more labor drafts. If a man is marked down for the camps or the factories in Hell”—he used the slang term for the Land—”he can only escape by coming to us.”
“Or by volunteering for the army, or the police,” John pointed out.
The guerilla leaders face went tight as a clenched fist. “Some do. And of those, some are our men, to be spies, and to wait for the day we call. The enemy do not much trust units they raise here, nor do they dare mix them much with Protégés from the Land.”