Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [97]
The world was closing in on her.
Guernsey was visible now, a coastline on the horizon. It had taken them longer to get there than they had expected.
‘That’s odd,’ the Doctor said. ‘I just can’t find their transmissions on any of the German frequencies.’
‘Has the big air-raid taken place yet?’ Chris wondered aloud.
‘Which air-raid?’ The Doctor was puzzled.
‘You know, the one that Picasso drew about. I saw the painting once on a simtour of an Overcity Seven art gallery. It looked like a transmat accident at a dairy farm.’
‘You’re thinking of Guernica,’ the Doctor assured him.
Then, suddenly, ‘Bandits, twelve o’clock low.’
Half a dozen black dots were heading in their direction, over the sea.
‘Steinmann must have phoned through to Guernsey,’ the Doctor muttered. ‘I’ll try to find their frequency.’
The squadron was slow to react to them. Chris began working through his options. ‘This plane isn’t armed, is it?’
‘No.’ He hadn’t thought so: the operational requirements for this plane required speed and stealth, so Hartung had kept armament and armour down to a minimum. It wouldn’t be a problem: air to air combat wasn’t a precise science yet, and it ought to be possible to scatter the squadron by flying straight at them. Chris increased his speed. It would take them a while to regroup. They were still on a collision course.
The Hun squadron leader was determined.
It’s logic really,’ the Doctor was saying. ‘How can you shoot down a plane that you can’t see?’
They can’t see us.
The planes were one hundred feet away; they were heading towards Munin with a combined speed of a thousand miles an hour.
‘They can’t see us!’ Chris shouted, pulling the stick hard down. If they can’t see Munin, they won’t dodge out of the way.
Munin pulled up, but it was too late. One of the other planes had banked down, to avoid him, catching the wing of his colleague. There was a mid-air explosion, that caught a couple of the others, and forced another down. They had been flying low over the sea, and had nowhere to go.
The Doctor was staring back; Chris kept his eye fixed on his instruments.
‘They’ve all gone, haven’t they?’ Cwej asked quietly.
‘All but one. That wasn’t the worst of it. Chris, those planes were Spitfires.’
A young Leutnant, one that Steinmann recognized from Guernsey, was at the door. He watched the lad talk to Keller.
It must be a message for him. Sure enough, the two men came over and the Leutnant saluted him.
‘Oberst Steinmann, we have found a bag near the crash site. Hauptsturmführer Rosner thinks you will want to see the contents.’
He handed over two hardback books. Steinmann examined them: the titles were in English: Diary and Advice for Young Ladies. Intrigued by why Rosner would think them important, he opened up the first book.
Being the Latest Volume in The Diaries Of Professor Bernice Summerfield. If lost, please return to The House, Allen Road, Canterbury, England, Northern Hemisphere, Earth, Sol Three, the Mutter’s Spiral, the Universe. Sorry I can’t be more specific, I’ve forgotten the postcode — please refer to sketch.
The little picture underneath included a stylized map of the solar system with big arrows pointing to Earth, a passable line drawing of a naked man and woman, along with various pieces of astronomical data.
Steinmann began flicking through. Summerfield’s neat handwriting filled about half the pages. Every so often an accomplished sketch, a rough map or a diagram would break up the text. Many pages had little sticky notes overlaid on them — presumably Professor Summerfield went back over her diaries regularly and ensured they were accurate. The last thirty or so pages contained pictures of German uniforms and sketch maps of Guernsey. Steinmann turned back through the book. Her earlier illustrations were more fanciful: there were pictures of trolls straight from a pantomime and sinister insect-like