The Dog Who Could Fly (24 page)

At dawn the following morning Ocelka’s car once again raced around the perimeter track. With a lack of available ambulances, the chaplain had cooked up a plan with Ocelka to go and fetch Robert themselves. He’d driven all through the night in the wing commander’s vehicle, and now here they were, with a bandaged, stiff, and bruised Czech airman riding in the car’s rear.

In the silence after the driver cut the engine, you could almost hear those gathered around Antis holding their breath. The car door opened and Robert stepped down, supported by the ever-resourceful chaplain. At the sight of Antis he almost ran the short distance toward him. He sank to the ground beside his dog.

“Antis, you fool, why didn’t you go inside?” His eyes were blinded by tears as he spoke. “Why didn’t you let your friends take you in?”

The dog swung his gaze toward the voice, his exhausted, traumatized eyes trying to focus on whoever it was had come to speak to him. While the voice of this visitor seemed familiar, the smell was strange—a mixture of disinfectants and hospital wards, not to mention overcooked hospital food. Robert spoke again, whispering reassurances in the dog’s ear.

“Antis, my boy, it’s me. It’s me. It’s Robert. I’ve come to get you.”

For a long moment the glazed eyes stared at the strange-smelling figure beside him, with its head swathed in bandages and features half obscured.
Is it really you, Dad? Is it really you?

“It’s me, boy, it’s me.”

The voice finally seemed to do the trick. A tongue flicked out and licked his master’s face, tentatively. Through the lint and the
iodine Antis could just detect that familiar taste and smell—his master. It was true then. Robert had returned. The master he had presumed was gone had returned from the dead to claim him. Antis tried to climb into Robert’s arms, but he was too exhausted to manage it.

Instead, the wounded airman picked up his dog, and cradling him in his arms, he carried him to the waiting car.

Sixteen

T
he chaplain drove Robert back to Norwich Hospital, where both man and dog mended remarkably quickly. C for Cecilia took longer to put back together again. The only sign of Robert’s injury was a pink scar on his forehead, but Cecilia, it seemed, had suffered more long-term damage. From now on the aircraft’s heater would cut out above ten thousand feet. High-altitude bombing runs were to prove more than a little chilly in the future.

It was late June by the time C for Cecilia was scheduled to fly her first mission after her forced landing at RAF Coltishall. The aircraft had been grounded for several days, and the crew was itching to get airborne again. The target for that night was a crucial one—Bremen, a city in the northwest of Germany with a key industrial and port complex on the River Weser. The port—lying some thirty-seven miles inland—harbored hardened U-boat shelters, a Focke-Wulf aircraft factory, plus the AG Weser and Bremer Vulkan shipyards.

This was to be no ordinary sortie. Using every warplane available to Bomber Command, a thousand-aircraft raid was planned, employing Halifax, Stirling, Lancaster, Blenheim, Whitley, and Mosquito
bombers. But by far the largest component of the aerial armada would be made up of Wellingtons—some 470 of them, of which 311 Squadron was to contribute all twenty of her aircraft from East Wretham.

But unbeknownst to all, one dog was also going to be flying on that thousand-aircraft raid. As soon as Antis saw the bomb trailers being rolled out and C for Cecilia being bombed up for the coming mission, he sensed that something was afoot. Having suffered acute—some would argue life-threatening—separation anxiety as a result of Cecilia’s last, all but abortive mission, the dog of war was determined not to be left behind again, to wait and suffer alone.

At seventeen minutes past eleven C for Cecilia took to the skies, but none of the crew were any the wiser that they had a stowaway aboard. The massive formation of aircraft formed up over the Channel and set a course for the target. But no sooner had Cecilia climbed above ten thousand feet than her heating system failed. Seated in the forward gun turret, Robert chewed on handfuls of raisins, to keep his blood sugar up and to help ward off the freezing air that began to seep into the warplane.

In any case, Robert had bigger worries on his mind than the cold. For the first time ever Antis had been nowhere to be seen as they had completed their preflight checks and taken to the air. Capka had commented on his absence, and Robert had sent Adamek to search for the dog, but he was nowhere to be found. He’d been there with Robert at their room in Manor Farm as he’d collected his flight gear. He’d accompanied his master to the aircrew roll call that preceded every operation. But somewhere between there and takeoff Antis had gone to ground.

Robert tried to shrug it off. Maybe it was to be expected, after his dog’s long and traumatic vigil during the previous mission. Antis had doubtless had a bellyful of it all. Still, his dog was if nothing else an animal of habit. It was odd—and somewhat disconcerting—not
to have seen him in his regular place by Adamek’s tent waiting for Cecilia to get airborne and for the aircraft’s much-longed-for return. There was nothing to be done about it now, Robert reasoned. He was sure to get his answer when they touched down at the end of tonight’s mission.

Robert focused his mind on the dark skies to their front. They would soon be over the German coast and danger beckoned. Feeling a touch on his elbow, he turned, expecting it to be the navigator with some comment or other, but he could see the man bent over his charts. Puzzled, Robert gazed into the darkened belly of the aircraft, and in the dim glow cast by the orange light next to him he caught sight of a familiar shape—a German shepherd lying prone on the floor.

He shook his head and looked again. Surely it couldn’t be. It had to be the effects of the altitude playing tricks on him. And yet there he was. Antis must have somehow crept aboard their aircraft and stowed away, being careful to remain hidden until C for Cecilia was almost over her target. Recovering from the shock, Robert tried to take in all that he was seeing. His dog’s flanks were heaving, his lungs desperate for breath, which was very likely why he’d alerted Robert to his presence. They were climbing to sixteen thousand feet and Antis was having increasing trouble breathing in the thin, oxygen-starved atmosphere.

Taking a massive gasp himself, Robert unstrapped the oxygen mask from his face, bent, and pressed it firmly over his dog’s muzzle. He watched anxiously as the dog took a few deep breaths of the life-giving oxygen, before eventually his breathing seemed to settle down to something like normal. Feeling his strength returning, the stowaway dog clearly figured some kind of apology was in order. He raised himself unsteadily and offered one of his paws for Robert to shake.

Ignoring it, Robert pointed sternly at the floor. “Get down and stay down, boy, I’ve got work to do.”

Robert grabbed his spare radio headset so he could keep in touch with the rest of the crew while Antis breathed from the oxygen mask. The mask contained his main radio pickup, and he could only imagine that he and his dog were going to have to share oxygen for the remainder of the flight. A few moments later he heard a squelch of static in his earpiece, signifying that someone was coming up on the air.

“Robert, have you gone to sleep down there?” Capka, their pilot, queried.

“No. Why?” Robert replied.

“Sounds like you’re snoring your head off. What’s going on if you’re not snoozing?”

Robert suddenly realized what Capka had to be referring to. Antis’s labored breathing sounded something like a man asleep on duty, and it was being broadcast live via the oxygen mask’s microphone!

“Well, as it happens we have an unexpected passenger. A four-legged one at that—”

“What the hell? Who? Don’t tell me it’s Antis? That’s why we couldn’t see him back at base . . .”

Where 311 Squadron’s mascot was concerned, there was little that could surprise the crew of C for Cecilia anymore. It seemed as if they had an extra—and somewhat illegal—crew member aboard. So be it. For the raid over Bremen at least, Antis had become the seventh member of 1958-C’s aircrew.

“Keep him close by your legs,” Capka warned Robert. “We’re almost over Bremen and the ack-ack’s getting worse. I’ll need to fly evasive action, so we’ll be thrown around a little.”

They began their bombing run at fifteen thousand feet, an altitude where the dog needed the oxygen. Robert had no option but to continue operating without it, for he couldn’t keep switching the mask with his dog. He needed his hands free to operate the guns. At first he
seemed able to cope just fine, but then his heart started to race and beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead.

He was reaching down to grab the mask for a few desperate breaths, when a series of explosions burst in the night sky just beneath the aircraft. Cecilia reared and shuddered as the blast waves pounded into her underside. Searchlights swept the heavens, combining with the moonlight to turn night into an otherworldly blue-white glow. Below, the Bremen docks were a mass of flame, testament to those aircraft that had dropped their bombs before them.

Between the aircraft and the target lay a series of cleverly camouflaged barrage balloons. They were tethered to the earth in the hope that the warplanes might stumble into their cables or the balloons themselves, with catastrophic consequences. But the sky over Bremen tonight was awash with light, and the barrage balloons were clear for all to see, as was their target. With bomb doors open, Cecilia released her payload over the Bremen oil refinery and turned for home. Lightened of her 4,500 pounds of bombs, the Wellington seemed to leap forward and become more responsive and eager to Capka’s touch.

But still the flak tore up the air all around them as the German gunners threw everything they had at the mighty air armada. Cecilia shuddered and slewed about as Capka tried to steer the safest course through the bomb bursts. With Antis gripped firmly between his knees, Robert kept his eyes on the heavens, searching for the enemy’s nightfighters that he knew must be lurking out there somewhere.

Antis’s face was lit a harsh white as a searchlight flicked across their path, but his eyes fixed upon his master’s face appeared remarkably cool and untroubled. As long as his master remained calm, the dog took his lead from him. As for Robert, he found himself drawing extra strength and resolve from the brave German shepherd grasped between his knees.

Suddenly, the stark silhouette of a twin-engine Messerschmitt Bf
110
Zerstörer
—Destroyer—rolled out of the heavens, its guns sparking white-hot as it opened fire. Robert recognized the warplane instantly, for it was the Luftwaffe’s foremost night fighter and a formidable adversary. But he was equally quick, his hyped-up senses enabling him to swing the guns around and meet fire with fire. The twin streams of bloodred tracer from his Brownings rocketed across the intervening space as the
Zerstörer
hammered fire into the Wellington from its 20mm cannons.

For an instant C for Cecilia rocked under the impact of the heavy rounds, but Robert held his aim and kept firing, and moments later the Messerschmitt rolled gracefully and vanished into the darkness. Keeping his eyes glued to the skies in case it should return, Robert reached a reassuring hand for his dog. Antis responded instantly, moving closer to his master and resting his warm muzzle on his knee.

Having survived the night fighters, ground fire, and the threat of barrage balloons—not to mention a stowaway—C for Cecilia made it safely back to No. 311 Squadron’s East Wretham airbase. Just as the first rays of dawn broke over the flat expanse of the runway, the Wellington put down with a hard bang, bounced a couple of times on the uneven grass, then trundled to a stop on one side of the runway.

There waiting at the dispersal area was chief ground crew Adamek, who’d spent a very worried night wondering what he was going to tell Robert about the whereabouts of the squadron’s much-loved dog. Never before had Antis missed C for Cecilia’s takeoff and landing, and Adamek and his men had spent most of the night searching for him. They were convinced something terrible must have happened to 311 Squadron’s impetuous mascot.

Before the Wellington’s engines had come to a full stop, the side door swung open, and the first thing to appear was the furry streak of a four-legged creature. Antis leaped out, touched down, got blown off his feet by the back blast from the Wellington’s twin propellers, regained his feet, and practically jumped into Adamek’s arms. Bouncing
and prancing about, Antis went through an extra-ebullient and noisy war dance for joy, completing several wild circuits around the aircraft—only this time he had been truly a part of C for Cecilia’s crew.

As Robert and his fellow airmen descended the ladder they couldn’t help but laugh at their dog’s crazed antics. Antis whirled around on the spot like a dervish, rolled onto his back and wriggled like a snake, then set off again for another whistle-stop circuit, grass flying from his paws and forming a haze in the crisp early-morning light. No doubt about it, this had been an extra-special homecoming—and for no one more than Antis, who had practically suffocated to death up there on the roof of the world.

Antis knew from Robert’s laughter that he had been forgiven his temerity in sneaking onto the aircraft and stowing away, but had Adamek forgiven him for going missing during that long night’s operation? The stocky little Czech corporal stomped over and grabbed Robert’s arm.

“So that’s where the little devil was!” he exclaimed. “You had him hidden in the Wellington all along! We’ve been up half the night searching high and low for the little so-and-so.”

Robert shrugged. “We were none the wiser, not until he needed some of my oxygen and came out of hiding!”

Antis could tell from Adamek’s tone of voice that he was more relieved than angry. The dog sprang toward the stocky Czech, getting up on his hindquarters so he could give Adamek a good lick around the face. In return Adamek grabbed the big, powerful dog in a massive bear hug so as to welcome him home.