NOW 2

Chapter Two

The former capital of Germany was in effect a state within the state. Partitioned between a British, a Commonwealth, a Polish and formerly also a French sector it was not officially part of the Federal Republic of Germany, the only part of the country at least officially still under the occupation statutes. Because of this members of the Bundeswehr were not allowed in while wearing the uniform, and should the Federal Republic of Germany ever feel the need to institute National Service, registered citizens of Berlin would be exempt. As it was the representatives that the city state of Berlin sent to the Bundestag in Frankfurt only had observer status, so it cancelled itself out. What military there was belonged to the Allied Berlin brigade, a mostly representative formation of units that was used by all the Governments involved to rotate units through so that they could get some experience in overseas deployment. Representing the Commonwealth of Australia was at the time the Royal Queensland Regiment. The Lance Corporal belonging to it wore the uniform with pride and was glad that it had been the turn of his Regiment for the current 12 month deployment to Berlin. His Father had been part of the 'Great Race' when units from eight Allied Nations had raced each other to be the first to hoist their Country's flag on top of the Reichstag.

He had a photograph of the occasion to hand like most allied soldiers that entered the city and was now standing in front of the building in Question. It had been heavily damaged in the Battle of Berlin, but the Germans had been refitting it, with the exception of the dome that had been blown by British Engineers in 1947 and that had yet to be replaced. Other than that it was as good as new and served part as conference centre, history museum and tourist trap. He had taken the tour already and today he was exploring the parts openly accessible on his own.

The museum was on the two lowest floors, with each of the corners having rotating exhibitions about one thing or other in German history, and right now it was the Battle of Berlin. The life-size representation of the photograph everyone knew was there and he passed the model of the final assault on the building carried out by the.... a bang outside distracted him, but it turned out that a man had merely accidentally pushed over a sign. Shaking his head, the Lance Corporal turned back to the model and inspected it closely. Judging by the reports he had read, it was fairly accurate. He never noticed the trench-coated figure following him as he made his way through the remainder of the museum.

As the Lance Corporal stepped outside, he stopped at a nearby news stand and bought the 'Berlin Chronicle', the British/Commonwealth Forces newspaper for the city and walked down Charlottenburger Chaussee[1] past the Allied Victory memorial and into the Tiergarten. This time of the year it was empty of all but the most hardened, so the Corporal's favourite bench was empty and he sat down to read the newspaper, his stalker remaining in a distance just large enough to remain unnoticed. After five minutes, the man began to feel the cold and wished that his prey were moving again, wondering how an Australian could develop such a tolerance for cold weather. When the Corporal rose and walked on, in the general direction of the Polish sector the man followed and decided that in the streets of the sector his plan would be too difficult to carry out.

He rushed the man from behind, and the Australian Lance Corporal never knew that something was wrong until the knife penetrated his heart.

Three hours and a near Heart Attack by an old lady later a group made up of Australian and British Military Police and Civilian German City Police was standing around the Body. The British had only been called because it was technically in their sector even though the Germans had taken over jurisdiction with the signature of the Sovereignty Treaty of Amsterdam that had officially ended the occupation period in 1959. The German in charge was looking over the shoulder of the Medical Examiner who was inspecting the body.

“What can you tell me, Hans?” he said in a thick Berlin accent that was like Gaelic for the British MP from Glasgow who had majored in German.

For the benefit of the Allied soldiers present, Hans spoke English when he replied: “He's dead less than two-three hours at most. For one Rigor mortis hasn't set in yet, though that might be partially due to the cold, and secondly the body temperature indicates this. Killed by a knife to the heart, knife likely wiped in the hair of the victim and, oddly enough, his shoelaces cut off. ”

The Policeman turned to the Allied Officers.

“It seems that it was the same man.”

“Well,” the senior British MP said, “I can't say that I am surprised, Hauptkommissar. When we found that body outside the gates at Gatow six months ago most of us had a bad feeling.”

Murmurs of agreement and the nodding of heads all around confirmed to everyone watching that these men knew it all. The Hauptkommissar was well aware that he was dealing with professionals who had been doing this sort of thing at least as long as he had. He went on: “Mind you, Captain, at the very least we know that he has a broad spectrum of victims, and while that doesn't help us right now we can be sure that it isn't one of the usual suspects.”

“Very true, Hauptkommisar. That won't keep the General from asking questions again.”

“Nor the Mayor.” the German said as both men were very familiar with pushy superiors.

“What do we know for certain then?” asked the senior Australian present.

“Not much I'm afraid. You can have our file of course, but here's the gist of it, because you said yourself you were only recently transferred here. Six months ago, at the gates outside RAF Gatow we, or rather the RMP found the body of a supply sergeant of the British Army. At first we thought he had been done in by his associates as we knew him to be bent. Two days later a man almost ran over a dead body lying in the Kochstraße. Then nothing for almost two weeks, and then we found two bodies on the same day, one not to far from here, on the other side of the Chausee and one near Tempelhof Airport. It was then that we realized it was all the same guy...Since then six more bodies have surfaced, all the same way, all British and Commonwealth personnel. All we found out that the murderer is about 1.67 metres tall[2], male and likely to have blonde hair.”

Having been raised on a steady diet of Sherlock Holmes novels the Canadian MP replied: “Better than nothing I suppose. Still, blondes aren't exactly rare in this country.”

“Well, we know all the murders were committed in and around Berlin, so that's something at least.”

Little enough though it was, and all the men present doubted it was enough.

~*~---~*~

He felt as if he was back at the Pictures in Quebec City watching a war-time Biggles film when he saw the the dogfight below him, even though Wing Commander Bigglesworth had recently graduated to Jet Aircraft. I/JG 71 was, along with their Canadian instructor flying over the assigned training area. German military aircraft weren't allowed into Polish Airspace so usage of the Allied Air Combat School east of Warsaw was out. Instead the Germans had designated a huge part of the sparsely populated areas around the base as a training area where all but the most low-level flight could be trained. After two days of going up and observing the combat tactics he saw quickly that while the Germans were trying hard and were obviously very professional pilots a visit to one of the Imperial Air Combat Schools couldn't be avoided, especially if the Germans really wanted to make good on their promises to pull their weight within the Alliance.

Right now however he watched as they used tactics that were good but not outstanding and more than one a pilot still made a beginner's error. For obvious reasons the Luftwaffe was mentally stuck with the tactics of the late war period and the advent of Airborne RDF, guided missiles and super-sonic jets had basically outpaced the knowledgebase of the Luftwaffe. True, they were good in close combat, and Charette wouldn't have expected any less with Marseille in command, but they were lacking in the sort of medium and long-range combat that had become the norm in the last ten years. True, the Swift wasn't the best possible aircraft for that even though the Mk. VII the Germans had bought was RDF equipped, it was neither a Lightning or an Arrow and would most likely not serve with the Luftwaffe for too long, being an stop gap for at least a couple of years.

JG 71 Swift

Even so, the tactics the Germans used were by far too concentrated on closing the range. After the initial salvo of Red Flash tactics was to get into medium to short range and fire missiles, but the German pilots tended to forgo that and close to gun range. This had the potential to be very bad if the enemy followed the British or American playbook as they would try to gun missile engagements and use missiles at comparatively great distances. The biggest problem though was the lag of big-unit training. Western and central Europe was far too densely populated to do any kind of exercise of the scale that was needed, mainly because civilian air traffic over Germany had virtually exploded when the Allies had relinquished Air Sovereignty in 1953; for example the great Moscow-Warsaw-London route went right over central Germany, and the indeed very complicated politics behind the formation of the new Armed Forces made it nigh-on impossible to get any level of legislature to sign off on a no-fly zone. Plans to establish a low-flying school at Goose Bay in Canada had so far fallen flat, mainly because the Canadian Government was still not fully convinced of Germany's democratic credentials and also because a a quarter of Canada's independent deterrent was stationed there.

After landing Charette retreated into the Office he had been allocated and began to formulate his daily report. The last week had been like this, a series of exercises laid on for his benefit so that he saw what needed to be done. Having been an instructor at the Canadian Fighter School and at RAF Boscombe Down (through the Empire Air Training scheme) this had become apparent after the first day, but one needed to present more than circumstantial evidence if one was to convince one's superiors, two sets in his case. This was the sixth such report he was writing, so it did not take him more than twenty minutes to get it to paper on the typewriter on his desk. He signed it, placed it in an envelope and locked it in the Office Safe before stepping outside and walking across the street towards the Officers Mess and entered.

Upon stepping inside he was almost instantly signalled over to where Colonel Marseille and his second in command were sitting. Since the three of them were scheduled to fly tomorrow no Beer was handed out, but the men weren't in the mood for drinking anyway.

“Well Squadron Leader, how are my men doing?”

Knowing that this particular Officer valued honesty because it could mean the difference between life and death for his men it was expected that Charette was giving an honest opinion.

“To sum it up, you use outdated tactics and fail to make the most of the means at your disposal.”

He cared enough about his work to explain.

“Basically your pilots often close and seek a gun engagement when they could instead use their remaining missiles. I believe that it's possible that they see the missiles as a backup for the guns when these days it's the other way around, Sir.”

When no reply was forthcoming Charette felled compelled to continue for some reason. “Mind you, that's hardly surprising given how it worked out with the last Luftwaffe.”

To describe what followed as an awkward silence would be an understatement. Luckily for Charette only the other men at the table had heard what he had said and he could see how they tried to reign in their emotions as the three men stared each other down.

Marseille was clearly enraged, but equally obviously tried not to show it.

“Well, we have to train some more then, especially with the Minister for Defence coming to visit tomorrow.”

While he still felt that he had nothing to be ashamed of, Charette still decided that it was the best to conduct an orderly retreat and so he left the mess behind.

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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?

Up next: We go abroad!

[1]Quite obviously there was no 17^th June rising in 1953.

[2] About 5' 6''.

NOW 1

The nerve of war

He turned off the television set in disgust. A time travelling Police Box that was larger on the inside and held four people? How ridiculous. That would never fly and the BBC would never see that money again. Mind you, he was glad that he could get any non-German stations even on the biggest RAF base in Germany.

Squadron Leader Laurent Charette, RCAF, rose from the comfy chair in his temporary quarters at RAF Nordholz and looked at the clock on hanging on the wall over door to the small kitchen unit. It was set to local time, but since he had been in-country for three weeks now it wasn't much of an issue. The flight he was to take farther eastward was going to leave in twenty minutes and he would need at least ten of that to cross the base over to where MATC[1] was running the hub for Northern Europe until all this was moved to RAF Neubrandenburg next March. Nordholz was to be wound down, the eventual fate of the installation to be left to the German Government.

He heaved his Bergen over his shoulder and after making sure he hadn't forgotten anything stepped out into what passed for winter weather in Northern Germany. As a native of a small village north of Quebec City he refused to call the rainy slush falling from the sky anything but that, but at least he didn't have to use snow shoes to get to his post every morning as he had during his tenure at the Alaskan border.

“Squadron Leader Charette?” a voice said with a strong accent that placed the speaker somewhere in the Midlands of Britain.

Charette turned and saw that he was spoken two by a Pilot Officer. “I've been ordered to tell you that there is a change of assignment, Sir.”

Charette was beyond hoping to get a transfer back to Air Defence Command, Canada's equivalent to RAF Fighter Command. So instead he simply accepted his new orders and for once he was not sure if he was to laugh or to cry, he was to take an RAF Swift to an Airbase in Silesia, while it was colder, it also meant that he would have to actually interact with Germans, and that he could well do without. Thus informed he turned to the pilots quarters to get his hands on a flight suit.

Once he had signed the orders he directed his steps over to where No.79 Squadron was preparing to move operations to RAF Krakow, where they would share accommodations with HQ RAF Continental Command. This particular Swift was still wearing RAF markings, but that wouldn't last. The plane Captain stepped around the nose of the fighter where he had been working on the 30mm cannons and noticed the Squadron Leader approaching, identifying him as Canadian by the presence of the Canadian Military ensign on his helmet.[2]

[IMG]http://i513.photobucket.com/albums/t338/britwank/swift.jpg[/IMG]

A No.79 Squadron Swift during better weather.

“Squadron Leader, she's well and ready to go, Sir.”

“Thank you Warrant Officer.” Charette said and nodded at the Crew Chief.

“She's filled to the brim with petrol but unarmed. As you can see no missiles and we just emptied the cannons too, Sir.”

Being a pilot to the core, Charette walked around the aircraft and inspected it personally, not as a sign of disrespect but because this was what pilots did before taking any aircraft up, while the Warrant Officer stowed the single and surprisingly light Bergen in the baggage container below the belly that was already partially filled with the documentation for the aircraft, for she would change owners once arriving at the Airbase. After signing the handover papers and filed the flightplan, Charette settled himself in the Martin-Baker ejector seat and waited as the crew strapped him in. He checked the belts and then put on his helmet.

The crew retreated to a safe distance and the RR Avon Turbojet of the Swift spooled up.

“Tower, Amber 1-5, request permission to taxi to Runway one.”

“Amber 1-5, Tower. Permission to taxi to Runway one, wait for traffic to clear.”

Charette taxied the fighter to the end of the runway, where at the parallel one a Coastal Command Shackleton was taking off. Once the Naval Patrol Aircraft was clear, he keyed the Tower.

“Tower, Amber 1-5, request permission for take-off.”

“Roger that, Amber 1-5. Wind is 3 knots from 348, cloud cover at Angles 9. No other traffic in your area, permission granted.”

He pushed the throttle forward. Since he wasn't flying a Hunter[3] or, god forbid, the over-aged F-86 or F-94 the East Japanese were using and the load was light the Swift left the tarmac in less than two thirds of the usual distance. Once airborne he climbed above the cloud cover and contacted the air-traffic control centre at the civilian airport near Hamburg. The German controller there assigned him a corridor at a height not usually used by civilian aircraft and Charette settled in for a short and boring ferry run while the Swift headed east.

As he left Berlin behind to his north, the weather cleared and Charette could see that there now was a snow cover on the ground that would be increasing in thickness the farther east he went.

He checked his fuel state and saw that he was still almost half full, and after looking on his map he decided that it was time to contact the base operations to get a vector for landing.

“Sprottau Airbase Tower, this is transfer flight Amber 1-5, request vector for final approach.”

“Amber 1-5, this is Sprottau Tower, we have you on our scopes at ten miles out, come left to 299 for final approach on Runway One. No other traffic in your area, runway clear.” came the reply by a German accented voice.

He turned as directed and began his descent. As he broke through the cloud cover, he could see the lights of the Airbase and the runway in the evening gloom, with the runway right in front of him, requiring only minor course corrections as the tower guided him in to touchdown.

Once he came to a halt at the end of the runway, a 'Follow Me' Land Rover painted in the German interpretation of olive green appeared and guided him to a Hardened Aircraft Shelter, which was something Charette was hardly surprised about. The Russian Republic might have turned inwards and towards the mess of states that was post-Soviet China, but the Poles had rebuilt all their airbases with HAS units as a matter of cause after having their Air Force destroyed on the ground from the east and the west and they were taking no chances. That a British... no, German airbase this close to the Polish border had them was obvious as it would be used to support the Polish and other Allied Armies in the east in case war against Russia could not be avoided.

In the shelter itself a Swift already painted in German camouflage and markings with a curious yellow 14 painted on the nose was standing, and his own was placed besides it. As the German ground crew in classic Luftwaffe blue swarmed around the new arrival, Charette looked over at the other aircraft. Somewhere in his mind he knew that he had seen that type of marking before, but for the moment his knowledge failed him, and in any case he had work to do. Reigning in his own feelings he unbuttoned himself from the ejector seat and climbed down the ladder that had helpfully been provided. He had to admit, these Jerries were professionals, but even so he saw signs of the long years that the very idea of a German Air Force had spent in the wilderness.

The maintenance crews that were probably checking the avionic systems of the other jet moved slower and more deliberate than any Canadian or British mechanic would have, and in the back he could see a group of men standing around a...(he wracked his brain for the rank insignia the new Luftwaffe had adopted) ...Stabsfeldwebel[4] teaching them something. The rank had no direct equivalent in the Commonwealth Air Forces but was somewhere between a Flight Sergeant and a Warrant Officer.

At the foot of the ladder a young Lieutenant was waiting and saluted crisply.

“Squadron Leader Charette?”

Charette returned the salute and nodded. “Yes, Leutnant.”

“Leutnant Goldschlager at your Service, Sir.” the Officer said in accented but otherwise impeccable English. “The Commodore regrets that he cannot meet you in person, but he is on the phone with the Ministry of Defence. He has told me to guide you to his Office, Squadron Leader.”

There was no personal feeling in either his face or his voice, but Charette had had enough contacts with The Powers that Be to know how his guide felt. Some things never changed, no matter where you went. He opened the container and shouldered his bergen over one shoulder and signed the paperwork with the other.

“We have a Landy waiting outside, Sir.” Goldschlager said after waiting patiently for the Canadian to finish.

“Lead on then, Lieutenant.” Charette replied, but before he had taken six steps he stopped and looked over at the other Swift in the shelter.

“Whose plane is that, Lieutenant?”

Goldschlager looked at the nose of the fighter and smiled. “That's the Commodore's crate, Sir.”

Again, that memory that wouldn't come. Pushing that out of his mind, he instead followed the German outside where indeed a Luftwaffe Land Rover was waiting. The Lieutenant got behind the weel and Charette in the passenger seat. As they drove off and headed down the taxiway towards the group of buildings that contained the Command centre and the Tower he closed his eyes and placed his head against the headrest. He could already tell that this would be a long assignment.

The base buildings were standing on the grounds since the late 1930s, but they still did their job, the newest addition to this was a control tower that was a remnant of the early occupation period when Allied Command had frantically tried to hold off several big Soviet counterattacks in Poland.

Once they arrived at the main administration building, Charette stepped inside. His Canadian Uniform drew a few funny looks but no audible comment from the staff except for the Feldjäger[5] Sergeant standing in beside the Commodore's door.

“He's waiting for you, Herr Major.” the German said, translating the Canadian rank into the German counterpart. “But I would wait if I were you.”

Before he could elaborate on that the door flew open and a fuming black haired man wearing the uniform of a Luftwaffe Colonel came racing through it. He saw the Sergeant and the Canadian Officer sanding there and stopped immediately.

“You are the Canadian Officer who'se coming I was told about, I presume?” he said.

Charette watched as the German's face went from barely restrained anger to friendly couriosity.

“Squadron Leader Laurent Charette at your service, Colonel....”

“Marseille, Hans-Joachim Marseille.”

Now everything made sense. The yellow fourteen on the Swift he had seen had indicated the name, and Charette mentally slapped himself for not associating it with one of the biggest Fighter Aces of World War Two, right up there with Douglas Bader, Erich Hartman or Alexander Pokryshkin, and very much a legend in his own time. It did make sense in a way. If one did create Armed Forces from nothing, why not fall back on existing talent, especially when said talent had been extensively vetted by the occupation authorities.

“Glad to meet you, Sir.” he said, and it was only a half-lie, after all he was still a Fighter pilot to the core.

“Likewise, Squadron Leader.” Marseille said. “Shall we go into my Office?”

The Office was decorated like most representative military rooms, the German black-red-golden Flag with the Federal Eagle on one side of the desk, with the Allied Pact military flag on the other, a few pictures amongst the papers on the desk and at the wall to the right of the door a colour photograph of a younger Marseille in front of a Fw-190 with the prominent yellow fourteen on the fuselage.

“Please be seated, Squadron Leader.”

Once seated, the German Officer quickly replaced the receiver on the phone and then cut around the pleasantries.

“I assume you know why you are here?”

Charette nodded. “Yes, Sir. I did fly the transfer of another Swift to your Squadron and are now to act as an instructor for especially your younger pilots. Air Combat Manoeuvres, Intercept tactics, that sort of thing.”

“That about covers it.” Marseille replied. After a few moments and no more words, Charette couldn't help but study the man on the other side of the table. He was one of the few acceptable, meaning politically not embarrassing, Officers in the young Bundeswehr, that had raked up such impressive combat records during World War Two.

“It's hard you know.”

Charette pretended he had listened and simply asked: “How so, Oberst?”

“Well, your side quite obviously won the war, but when you dismantled the Wehrmacht the tradition and a whole lot of the professional pride we had in those days didn't go away. There are not a few people who find it very hard to ask the British of all people for help in re..no..in building the Bundeswehr.”

Marseille paused and looked over at the picture of his old crate.

“Mind you, I'd still love to track down the pilot of that Spitfire. That was some nice bit of flying I must say, even though he gave me this one.”

He reached up and removed the cap he was wearing, revealing a long scar across his forehead. When Charette smiled in spite of himself, Marseille put his cap back into the 'correct' angle and then went serious again.

“What I am saying is this, Squadron Leader. JG 71 'Richthofen' was the first Wing to become operational. As it is, this new Luftwaffe stands on very shaky political ground. Heck, the majority of Germans are against us rearming in the first place, and this thing is likely to cost Erhard the election in '64, so everyone and their aunt is watching this unit! The last thing I need is some bloody stupid ex-Hitler Youth wanna-be pilot who thinks he is better than you because he flew a D-9 for a few hours. I ask you as one pilot to another, don't let them get to you, and if anyone tries either clean their clock or send them to me. If you don't mind my saying so, and it's nothing personal, but even though I'd rather do without you I am a soldier and I intend to do my assignment as well as I can, and I can't do it without you pulling on the same string.”

Charette let that sink in. “I can do that, Sir.” he said and was perfectly honest. He might be a German, but Marseille seemed to be a good Officer, and that was what was supposed to be counting.

“Well in that case we are finished here. Goldschlager will see you to your quarters, Squadron Leader. Dismissed.”

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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?

The date of course is Saturday, 23^rd November 1963, just after the end of 'An Unearthly Child', the first part of the very first Doctor Who Serial. I can truthfully claim not only to have seen it (I found it on the Internet in 2009) but also to own a pdf of the script.

When I started writing OTS the next one after that was supposed to be one set in South-East Asia, but around that time I decided I had the urge to write something where ze Germanz are the good guys for a change.

[1] Military Air Transport Command, part of the RAF since the mid-50s.

[2] Bog standard Maple Leaf Flag as we know it. The Canadian national flag ITTL 1963 and 2011 is this one:

[IMG]http://i513.photobucket.com/albums/t338/britwank/Kanada1.png[/IMG]

Before you pepper me with questions, it will all be explained in due time.

[3] ITTL a pure CAS aircraft. At first seen as an interceptor, but the delays with the Swift allowed it to be fitted with an afterburning Avon variant, thus the Hunter was re-engineered into a CAS aircraft.

[4] Literall translation is Staff Sergeant.

[5] Military police.