Buffy left around midnight and after that it was a long, cold, lonely night. I got up before dawn and went out to the ledge, just as it was starting to get light down in the valley I heard some jet engines start. At first I couldn't see where they were and then I saw a flash of light in the trees near the end of the runway closest to us, a minute later and I saw the dark shapes trundle out on the runway, barely visible in the shadows of the valley. Then I saw pale flames shooting out of their engines as they accelerated down the runway and climbed away. It was the first time I'd seen flames coming from their engines, then I realized it was like the exhaust from our engines, during the day you couldn't see the pale flames that were produced.
I waited on the ledge until it was full light and scanned the slopes below me but saw no sign of Buffy. I went back to the cave and fixed myself a simple breakfast. The fire was down to coals so I let it continue to burn. I put the small pot we used for coffee and hot chocolate directly in the coals; hopefully it would still be hot when Buffy got back. I started to read the operations manual, trying to make the time pass faster, but I found myself staring off into space listening intently for any sound of Buffy returning.
It was nearly noon before I heard faint footsteps outside and then Buffy wearily crawled through the entry way. She got through and stood up but she nearly fell down as she staggered toward the fire. Her clothes were covered with snow and it looked like her pants were almost frozen, they crackled as she moved, "Buffy! What the hell happened to you?"
She didn't respond to me, she got to the fire and looked down at the dead coals, "Shit!"
I went over to her and drew her back toward the ledge, I could feel her body shivering even through her heavy leather flying jacket and I could hear her teeth chattering. I sat her down on the ledge and then started taking her clothes off of her, she tried to help but she was very clumsy. As I stripped off her pants I could tell that they had been soaked and then frozen, her long underwear was wet and nearly freezing. I stripped her out of all her clothes and then helped her into the bed and wrapped her in the silk and the blanket.
I went to the fire and got the pot of water, it was still warm, not hot but it felt warm to my touch so it should help. I went to our food stores and found a packet of hot chocolate mix and added it to the water and stirred it up. I brought it over to Buffy, "Drink this!"
She started to sip it and then gulping it down. She'd finished about half of it and then slowed down some, "What the hell happened to you?"
She shook her head, "I left much too early, spent half the night lying in a hideout and nearly froze. Then it took forever to sneak back out and then when I finally got clear the damn ice broke on a stream I was crossing and I went in up to my waist!"
Her teeth were still chattering every once in a while and she went back to sipping the hot, well warm, chocolate. "Buffy, I think we can risk a small fire, I can get you something really hot in a couple of minutes."
She shook her head, "No, we aren't going to start to take any chances, Barb."
I went back to the fire and got the leftover steak and peas I'd saved for her, it was cold but she needed to eat. Her Slayer body had kept her alive and functioning through conditions that probably would have incapacitated or killed a normal human, but it had to be kept fueled to do its job. I brought the plate over, "Buffy, eat this."
She shook her head no, "Too cold out there."
I looked down at her; she'd finished the drink and was now huddled under the covers with only her face exposed, and probably only that so she could see me. I put the dish down and started cutting up the steak, I forked a piece of meat and held it out to her. With a start she looked up at me and then opened her mouth and I shoved it in. When I'd finished feeding her I put the dishes away. I came back to her and looked down; I could still see chills running through her every ten or fifteen seconds, her body shivering and her teeth chattering.
I started stripping off my clothes, removing everything I had on except for my panties. "Open up, its cold out here!"
She opened up the covers and I crawled in next to her and then pulled the covers completely over us. I took her in my arms and pulled her tight against me, gasping as her cold skin came in contact with mine. I rolled her over so I was lying on top of her, covering her as much as I possibly could, I tried to hold my weight off of her but her arms went around me and pulled me down, "Buffy, I can't support myself like this!"
"Barb, you're just a feather, just lie on me."
I relaxed and settled onto her, tucking her under me and trying to warm her. As the time passed I finally started to feel her skin warm to mine. After about half an hour she started squirming a little and I eased up, she rolled me over until I was on my back and she was lying half on me. Buffy snuggled close and I held her tight, then I felt her slowly relax and drift off to sleep.
Evening came; I'd drifted in and out of sleep all afternoon while Buffy slept in my arms. As it grew dark outside I slipped out from under the covers and started putting my long underwear back on, 'Hey! What happened to my nice warm blanket?!"
"Buffy, I'm not your blanket!"
"Aw… Barb…" I pulled up the pants and drew on the top, "Hey, why are you getting dressed?"
"Because it's cold out here!"
"That's why you should stay in here… without the clothes!"
"Buffy… don't you want some dinner."
Her expression went serious as she thought for a moment, "Choices… choices… always putting the tough questions to me, aren't you?"
I stuck my tongue out at her, "I think you'd snuggle with me twenty-three hours a day if you got the chance, and eat the other hour."
Her expression went dreamy, "Now wouldn't that be heaven! And I bet she'd break down within a week!"
"Buffy!"
She looked at me seriously, "Riding you too much?"
I thought about it, "Maybe a little… besides we do need to eat."
I got the fire going and dinner started, Buffy stayed in bed for a while and then started to get out. I'd checked her clothes while I'd been working, "Buffy, you should stay covered up, all your clothes are soaked and they won't be dry until morning."
"Shit!" She threw off the covers and hopped out of bed and slipped her feet into her boots and grabbed the big water pot, "back in a couple if I don't freeze to death!"
"Buffy? We don't need water that bad, besides I can go get it."
"Nature calls, I've got to go out anyway."
She was back within five minutes, she plopped the pot down, nearly full of water now, and crawled back into bed and pulled the covers around her. "I'll leave the rest to you, if you don't mind."
"I've got it, you just stay warm."
We had a nice dinner and talked for a couple hours. There wasn't enough light to comfortably read the manuals so we just talked about what we had learned and then other things as they came up. Buffy was usually an engaging conversationalist but this evening she seemed distracted, she lost the thread of the conversation several times and seemed lost in her thoughts. I was a little worried that she might be ill, coming down with something after nearly freezing to death, "Buffy, are you okay?"
She started and looked a little sheepish, then grinned at me, "Fine, just got some inner thoughts that seem to be distracting me tonight."
"Want to tell me about them?"
"No."
It was such an abrupt negative that I was startled, "Buffy, you can always talk to me about anything. You know that!"
"Not this… not yet…"
We went to bed a little later, her clothes were still wet and I decided to be fair and indulge her a little so I stripped before I joined her. 'Right, Barbara Thompson, like this is a real difficult thing you're doing, it's such a taxing job to have to snuggle with a nude Buffy.' We were both lost in our own thoughts as we drifted off to sleep.
The next morning I woke at dawn to an empty bed, outside I heard our morning jets taking off. I'd come to the conclusion it was a CAP (Combat Air Patrol) the German's were running since they seemed to launch two of the jets right around dawn every morning when the weather was clear. I looked out through the cracks and saw the lightening sky was clear blue; I only had about ten minutes before I needed to make sure the fire was doused.
As I went over to it I saw a good bed of coals and the last of some fresh wood burning down, Buffy must have stoked it up before she left. Half an hour later I had breakfast just about ready as Buffy slipped back into the cave, "Morning, Barb."
"Feeling better?"
"Yeah, all recovered."
We finished breakfast and Buffy cleaned up. Then we started working on the Me-262 manuals but Buffy seemed distracted, finally I asked, "Not into it today?"
She nodded her head, "I'm going to go out to the ledge."
"Want some company?"
She thought for a moment, "Sure… tired of your manuals?"
"Our manuals, Buffy, but yeah, I've been concentrating on them pretty heavily."
We went out to the ledge and watched the valley below us. There wasn't much activity, we saw a couple of planes take off and then come back an hour later. By then we had every plane identified, at least we hadn't seen any planes with markings we hadn't seen before for the last couple of days. There were nineteen of the Me-262s stationed on the field below, what I assumed was a full squadron with spares.
By mid-afternoon I was tired of lying on the rock, besides Buffy had not been interested in conversation, she was still lost in her thoughts, "Buffy, I'm going to head in, I think I'll try something different for dinner tonight."
She looked up, startled a little; then glanced around, "Awfully early for dinner, isn't it?"
"This is going to take a couple of hours to cook if I can pull it off."
"Oh… I'm sure you will… are you going to need some help?"
"No, you just work out whatever it is you're thinking about."
I went in and started working on dinner. Low clouds had come in during the afternoon, so low that the bottoms of the clouds were at our altitude. I could start the fire now; any smoke would be lost in the clouds. Since I had a couple hours before dinner time I decided to try to do a stew, something different from what we had been eating. Besides, I could use some of the less desirable cuts of meat. I got out the second biggest pot and cut up some meat and potatoes and threw them in. I added dried peas and some water and started it boiling while I took some of the K-ration crackers and broke them up as fine as I could before adding them to the stew as a thickener.
Buffy came in just at dusk and sniffed, "Smells good, whatever it is."
"Just a stew, but I think it might be good, and something different from steak or roast."
It turned out pretty good and we enjoyed having something different. Buffy seemed to have gotten over whatever it was that had been bothering her, although I did catch her giving me long looks a couple of times. She cleaned up after dinner, using the water that was left in our big pot to wash the dishes we'd used and then went out and refilled the big pot with water.
After she was done she joined me on the ledge, sitting and watching the fire. The cave was warm from the fire burning constantly for the last three hours; it was comfortable sitting there in our long underwear. I caught another of Buffy's long looks, "Would you please tell me what it is you've got going on in that devious little mind of yours."
"Barb!"
"And if you're trying to come up with some new way to get me to sleep with you, to have sex with you, it's not going to work. I haven't made up my mind yet."
She shook her head violently, "It has nothing to do with that project."
"Buffy, I am not a project."
She snorted, then shook her head, "No, Barb, you are not a project, you are my love."
"Buffy!"
She shrugged her shoulders, "You are - I can't help it."
I looked at her for several minutes, "Buffy, I love you to…"
"I know, just not in the same way."
I shook my head, "No, I think I've realized it is in the same way. But I can't get past the physical part, at least not yet."
She smiled at me, "Okay."
I looked at her, our eyes met and I stared into her eyes, lost in thought, finally I shook my head and broke contact with her eyes before I became completely lost. I decided I should change the subject, I looked at the floor for a minute until I came up with a new subject, or rather returned to the earlier one, I looked back at her and asked, "So what were you thinking about?"
She looked at me for a long time, I was about to say something when she spoke, "I think we need to get the information we've gotten back to our people. I don't think we can sit on it all winter."
I thought about it for a moment and nodded in agreement, "Yeah, I think you're right. I can prepare you a bunch of food, enough for a couple weeks at least. Plus we've got more than a weeks' worth of K-rations left, will that be enough to get you through the mountains?"
"Barb, I am not leaving you here alone!"
I shook my head, "Buffy, there is no way I can travel in this kind of weather. Besides slowing you down way too much I couldn't survive in it for that long, especially if a storm came up. I'm better off staying here until spring and then trying to make it out; I think I'll be able to get to Switzerland."
She shook her head, "I think there's another way, a way to get both of us out."
I looked at her in surprise, "How the hell do you think we can do that?"
She looked at me for a long time, "You know those two planes that take off at dawn every morning?"
"The CAP?"
She nodded, "Yeah… I watched them launch yesterday morning."
"You mean from nearby?"
"About thirty feet."
I stared at her in shock, "Buffy?! What the hell were you thinking?"
She shrugged her shoulders, "I wanted to see how they did it."
"Why?"
Instead of answering she changed subjects again, "Barb, do you think you could fly a 262?"
Caught off guard I immediately shook my head no. Buffy raised an eyebrow and looked at me quizzically; I started to think about if and after several minutes reluctantly nodded yes, "Yeah, they don't seem to be that hard to fly. Certainly not any harder than going from a Texan to a Lightning and I did that just fine. Why?"
"They're our ride home."
I stared at her, I know my mouth was hanging open, finally I recovered enough to speak, "Buffy, there is no way we can sneak onto a German airfield and get one of those planes started and take off! It's impossible! It takes a ground crew of three or four to get a plane like that going!"
"Actually they use three men, but that wasn't what I was planning for us to do."
I shook my head slowly, "What the hell are you planning?"
She changed subject again, or so I thought, "I watched them the other morning. They've got two tents set up in those trees where they position the ready aircraft. The big one has the ground crew in it, six guys the morning I watched. In the smaller tent are the two pilots and a private, an orderly I guess."
"About half an hour before dawn they got a phone call in the officer's tent, they have a field telephone set up in there. It was a short call, the orderly answered it, at least I think it was him, he said 'Rot bare it' or something like that, then about ten seconds later he said 'Jawohl'"
I had to think about what Buffy said for a minute, 'rotte' was German for a 2 plane element, 'bereit' was the root for 'ready', so it would make sense as 'Rottebereit'. I explained to her, "Buffy, I think 'rottebereit' means 'Ready element' and 'Jawohl' means 'Yes sir'."
Buffy nodded in understanding, "Then he got the pilots up, the ground crew must have heard it also because I heard them start to move around in their tent. Then everything quieted down until just before dawn when the pilots came out of their tent and headed for the planes and the orderly came out and rang a bell a couple times. The ground crew came pouring out of their tent and headed for the planes. The pilots got in the planes and the ground crew did something at the front of each engine and then I could hear the engines start to wind up, after half a minute there was a 'whumph' and the engines lit off. The ground crew pulled the chocks and then cleared the area and they flew away."
I didn't know where this was leading to, "They were starting that little gas engine on the front of the jet engine that is used to start it. That's all very interesting but nothing we couldn't have learned out of the manuals. So?"
"So… the pilots didn't say one word to the ground crew. By the time the ground crew got to the planes the pilots were in the cockpits with the canopies closed, the crew chiefs gave them a 'wind them up' signal," Buffy demonstrated holding her hand above her head with one finger pointing up and making a fast circle.
"Once the engines were going the pilot gave a signal to pull the chocks," again she demonstrated, making a fist with each hand with her thumbs sticking out and then waving them to the side, the same signal we used for our ground crew to pull our chocks. "The ground crew pulled the chocks; they only chock the wing wheels, and then ran off to the side and held them up. The one strange thing they did was the two guys between the planes ran around the nose, not behind the planes, to get clear. And all of them got a lot further off to the side than our guys would have."
I nodded in understanding, "The exhaust from the jets! Just like we stay clear of our props and usually go behind an aircraft, they want to stay clear of that exhaust so they go in front. Interesting, but how does that give us a way home?"
"If we took the pilots place the German's would start the planes for us and we can just fly home!"
My jaw dropped so far I'm surprised it didn't break. My mind was running in circles, screaming about crazy Slayers but I couldn't say anything. Finally I managed to squeak out, "Talk about a Xander plan!"
"It is not a Xander plan!"
I shook my head, "Buffy, be serious! You can't possibly believe we could get away with something like that?"
Buffy scowled at me for a moment, "Barb, I've thought about this for a long time. I think we could pull it off, or at least give it a try."
"And get ourselves killed or captured? I thought you wanted to get the information we've got home! We can't do that if we're dead or POWs!"
"I think we can do it! Could we discuss it without all the disbelief? Just give it a try?"
I pulled in my panic and tried to think about it rationally, finally I got my mind to stop jumping from crazy to impossible and started to think, "Okay… tell me your plan in detail and I'll shoot it… I'll try to shoot it down."
Buffy nodded, "It's not that complex, we sneak down to the airfield and get into the hiding place I found and wait until an hour or so before dawn."
I held up my hand to stop her, "You almost froze to death the last time you tried that and you're a Slayer, what makes you think I'd survive?"
"I nearly froze trying to get back because I fell in a river. The other mistake I made was getting into the hiding place much too early, we'll time it better so we're only in hiding for an hour or so."
"If you're concerned about the time then why so early?"
"Other Germans start moving around closer to dawn, I want us well concealed before any activity starts up."
I nodded in agreement, "Okay, go on."
"About an hour before dawn, half an hour before they are due to get their wake-up call I'll sneak into their tent and take care of the pilots and the orderly."
"How will you take care of them? And why so late?"
Buffy looked at the floor, I could see she was upset but I wasn't sure why, then she raised her head and looked me in the eye, "Uh… I think I have to break their necks. I don't know of any other way that doesn't risk one of them waking up while I'm taking care of the others. I can't just try to make them surrender; if one of them yelled or fought back it would make too much noise."
"You think you can break the neck of a grown man that easily?"
Buffy pointed up to the wall on the far side of the fire where two large antlers from the stag stuck out of fissures in the rock, our clothes hanging on them, "I really don't think a man's neck is any stronger than a four hundred pound stag's."
I gulped a little, most of the time I forgot that Buffy was a killer by design, normal humans didn't have a chance against her unless they shot her, and they had better make sure they hit her the first time because she wouldn't give them a second chance. "So you think you can take care of all three of them without alerting anyone?"
"I think so."
"Buffy, I'm hearing doubt in your own voice."
She shook her head, "I know I can do it, physically that is. It's just that I've never killed a human before… not bare handed or even face to face." She shook her head harder, "No, I can do it… have no doubt about that… I just won't like it."
"Okay, so now you've killed the pilots and the orderly…"
"You come in and we wait for the call, once it comes you answer it and then we get ready."
"I can't speak German well enough to pass as a native."
"Two words? Over a field telephone at seven in the morning? How closely do you think they'll be listening?"
I thought about it for a minute, "Okay, maybe I could do it."
Buffy nodded, "You can - no problem. We get dressed in the pilots clothes, they wear baggy coveralls over their uniforms and their leather flying jackets, helmets, oxygen masks, we'll have so much stuff on no one will notice. Besides all they'll ever see of us is with us hunched over in the cockpits. We'll make it as early as we dare, I've heard them takeoff as early as fifteen minutes before dawn. Under the trees the light is dim enough at that time of the morning they won't notice even if they look right at us."
"They're going to notice when they see us running toward the plane, especially you unless they're pilots are midgets!"
Buffy stuck out her tongue at me; then continued, "They'll never see us running toward the planes."
"And how are you going to accomplish that? You said the orderly rang the bell when the pilots started toward the plane."
"I'll ring the bell, but I won't ring it until after you are at your plane climbing in the cockpit. Then I'll ring it and run to the other plane, I'll be in it before they are even out of their tent."
"Buffy?"
"Yes, I can run that fast!"
"What if the ground crew come out of their tent before the bell is wrung?"
Buffy shook her head no, "I don't think they do that, from what I saw part of the whole exercise was a training drill, they're treating it like an emergency launch. They don't even have covers over the cockpits and only minimal covers on the jet intake and exhaust, not like the rest of the planes which have cockpit covers and tarps covering the entire engine when they're put to bed for the night."
"Okay, but what about the orderly, won't someone notice he's not there."
"He went back into the tent immediately after he rang the bell, maybe his job is to man the phone in case they get cancelled. Or maybe he cleans up after the pilots, I don't know. All I know is he didn't come back out until ten or fifteen minutes after the planes took off when he and the ground crewmen all left the area, I think they were going to breakfast. I don't think anyone will notice if he's not around when they come out of their tent, they were all concentrating on the planes."
"So, we actually get them in the air, then what?"
"We fly to England."
"Buffy, those planes don't have much range."
"I thought you said maximum range is over 600 miles?"
"Just over 1000 kilometers, about 650 miles."
"Munich to London is less than 600 miles."
"And how far south are we of Munich?"
"Not that far, and I bet we're as far west as we are south. We can make it to somewhere in England, anyway."
"And what if something goes wrong?"
Buffy thought for a moment, "Anytime up until we, I, kill the pilots we can abort, just slip back into the woods and disappear, no one would ever know. Even after I kill the pilots if we haven't actually rung the bell we could probably still get away, but there is more of a chance they'll come hunting for us. But even if they did I think we'd have a good chance of getting away, they aren't going to be expecting two downed American pilots are hiding in a cave near the top of this mountain. They'll be searching a lot lower and in more populated areas. The real danger time will be less than five minutes, from the time I ring the bell until we're taking off."
"The biggest problem is that if we abort after killing the pilots I don't think we'll ever be able to try again. That's why I want to wait until as late as we can to do that. If the weather goes south and we can't fly I don't want us to have ruined our chances."
I thought about all she had said, all that she had planned out. It actually sounded as a somewhat reasonable scheme, until I thought about what it actually meant we'd be doing and then my mind went bonkers again. I reined it back in, "What do you think the German's will do when they figure out what we've done?"
"They'll go ape-shit."
"Buffy? Seriously…"
"I am being serious; they'll go ape-shit! But that's not going to happen for a long time. We'll be in England before they can do anything."
"I wouldn't be too sure about that."
"They have to figure out someone has stolen their planes, where we're going, contact other airfields to get planes up to intercept us, and if they aren't Me-262s they aren't going to be able to catch us. And they've got to do it all in less than the two hours it will take us to get to England!"
We talked, and argued, long into the night. I couldn't shake her conviction that her plan was feasible, and the longer we talked the more I came to believe she was right. It was outrageous, totally insane, and therefore would be completely unexpected and just might work. I thought back to our air base, there were times when we thought the Germans might attack and we had aircraft ready to launch at dawn. If we'd ever decided to launch them and by the time the ground crew got to the planes the pilots were already in them, buckled up with canopies closed and ready to take off? I didn't think our ground crew would have noticed if they were the wrong pilots.
It was late, I was tired and my brain was getting fuzzy. "Buffy, let's sleep on it, it's time to get to bed."
"Okay, Barb."
I threw on a few more branches and crawled into bed after Buffy. It took a while, my mind still going over Buffy's crazy plan, but I finally went to sleep.
In the morning Buffy was quiet while I fixed breakfast and we ate leftover stew. Outside the wind howled and we were buried in clouds. It wasn't snowing at our altitude but I suspected it was below us. Buffy was patient until breakfast was over and we had cleaned up and done the other morning chores. We were settling in for another day when she finally broke down, "You've slept on it, have you come to any conclusions?"
I looked at her steadily for a couple of moments, then I nodded, "Okay, it just might work."
"Yes!" she hissed as she pumped her arm up and down a couple of times.
"But…"
She looked at me warily, "But what?"
"If it doesn't work and we get away, you promise me you'll head out over the mountains on your own at the next break in the weather. I'll stay until spring, late spring, and then I'll try to get to Switzerland."
She thought about it, "If it doesn't work and we can't try again, then okay."
Reluctantly I nodded in agreement, "L'audace, l'audace, toujour l'audace."
Buffy looked at me quizzically, "What?"
"Audacity, audacity, always audacity."
She thought for a few moments, "Well, it's worked pretty well so far."
We spent the day quizzing each other on the Me-262, making sure we knew exactly what we had to do to get the planes started and in the air. The ground crew would start the little gasoline engine to wind up the jet turbines; it was our responsibility to get the plane's electrical system turned on so the fuel pumps were running and the ignition system activated. When the turbine reached the proper speed we, the pilot, would open the throttle to let the fuel flow and hit the ignition button. If everything went well the engine would come to life.
By late afternoon the storm and passed and the sky was clear. Buffy and I spent the last hour before sunset out on the ledge watching the airfield and the sky to the northwest, it remained clear and the activity on the airfield appeared normal. As the sky darkened I looked at Buffy lying next to me on our stone lookout perch, "Tonight?"
She looked at the darkening sky to the northwest, "Yeah, might as well get it over."
I inched my way back to get out from under the roof Buffy had built, once clear I only had to wait for a moment for Buffy to join me. We walked back together to the cave and I started fixing dinner. I raided our limited larder and put together a feast, or as much of one as I could manage, venison steak, roasted potatoes, reconstituted dried peas, k-ration hard biscuits followed by a desert course of malt balls and a chocolate bar.
While I fixed dinner Buffy had organized our gear for the mission, we'd be wearing our uniforms and carrying all our weapons. In addition she went through the K-rations and got out a couple more chocolate bars, some dried sausage and hard candy for each of us. While we ate I thought about what we were going to be doing, or trying to do, and the probable consequences. In the back of my mind there was a nagging worry that some disaster was going to happen.
We finished dinner and I watched as Buffy washed the dishes and put them away. When she finished I went over to her, "Let's get cleaned up."
"What?"
"Let's get cleaned up. If the German's catch one of us let's not look like we've been camping in the mountains."
"Okay."
I took our big water pot and filled the next two biggest pots from it, but that still left it half full. I took the small towel Buffy had been using to clean the dishes and dumped some water from the big pot into a smaller pot and rinsed out the towel. The pot of water had been sitting by the fire so it was pleasantly warm. Once I got the towel as clean as I could I wrung it out and put it in the large pot.
I stripped off my long underwear along with the rest of my clothing and hung it on the antlers to let it air. Buffy copied me until we were both standing naked by the fire. I took the towel from the pot of water and looked at Buffy for a moment before I started washing her shoulder. She froze and I could feel her watching me as I slowly washed her arms and back. I dipped the towel in the water, "Lift your arms, Buffy."
She raised her arms and I washed off her sides. I rinsed the towel again and came around to her front and continued washing her. I was as gentle as I could be as I ran the cloth over her breasts, I was startled a little when her nipples hardened under my hand but I continued, acting as if I hadn't noticed. I washed her entire body, forcing myself to touch her most intimate places without reacting.
When I finished with her I stood up and held the cloth out to her, "My turn, Buffy."
"Barb?"
"Go ahead, Buffy."
She washed me with the same detached but extreme awareness as I had washed her. I concentrated on feeling her hands on me, touching every part of my body. When she finished I took her hand and pulled her after me as I went up to the fire, we stood side by side as the fire dried us.
Once I was dry I turned to Buffy, still holding her hand, "Buffy, let's go to bed."
She nodded and followed behind as I went over to the bed we had shared for the last six weeks. I had finally made up my mind, whatever the consequences I wasn't going to risk never having known Buffy completely. I pulled down the covers and got into the bed, Buffy got in beside me, "Are you cold?"
She shook her head, "No… Barb…"
I dropped the covers to the side and leaned toward her, watching her eyes until our lips came together and then I closed my eyes and just felt her against me. She returned my kiss and I probed her lips with my tongue until she opened her mouth. A long time later I finally had to break the kiss, oxygen was becoming an issue, but I had felt that same electrical tingling sensation I had felt the two times she had kissed me in the Savoy back in London.
I pulled myself a little off of her body, enough that I could look her in the eye, "Buffy, you're going to have to tell me what to do… I don't know how two women are supposed to make love."
She looked at me wide eyed for a moment and then she smiled shyly, "Like I have any experience?"
"You're the one that was so… enthusiastic about this."
"I've seen movies… I even talked a little with Willow about it… I guess I can lead a little. But Barb, tell me if I do anything you are uncomfortable with or anything you don't like. But other than that I think the basic rule is just to care about each other and do what feels good."
"Okay, Buffy."
Hours later, when my mind finally started working again after being overwhelmed by the sensations Buffy had created in me I decided that whatever happened I was happy. Buffy was snuggled in my arms and I had never felt better. I felt her move slightly against me, "Buffy, are you awake?"
"Uh huh."
"I thought you didn't have any experience."
"I haven't, not with a woman."
I shook my head, "It sure didn't feel that way."
She rose up until she could see me and I could see her, "Well, I haven't… other than myself of course."
I reached up and kissed her softly on the lips, stopping the kiss before it went too far, "I don't know if I'll survive once you get some experience."
She grinned down at me, "You aren't a slouch yourself, you know."
I had felt her body's responses to what I had done and knew I had pleasured her, "I try."
Buffy took me in a tight hug; we held each other for another minute or two and then released each other, "About time to get this show on the road."
I nodded in agreement and we both got up and started dressing.
Half an hour later we crawled out of our cave, I imagined for the last time. We had taken a couple of minutes to stash everything we were leaving behind and to set a fire in the hearth. If we had to give up or something went wrong and one or both of us managed to make it back to the cave we wanted it easy to set up shop again, especially if we were hurt or exhausted.
We were dressed in almost all the clothing we had, the only thing we were not wearing were our flying helmets. We had our long underwear on under our wool pants and shirts and topped with our leather flying jackets, the holes in Buffy's pants and shirt patched as well as I had been able to. I hadn't been able to do anything to the holes from the shrapnel in her flying jacket, but they were small tears that were hardly noticeable. They hadn't opened up any in the six weeks since we had been shot down and she had been using the jacket regularly since then. We both had our scarves wrapped around our necks, not so much for the cold since they were thin silk, but hopefully we would be flying soon and would need them to protect our necks from the sheepskin lining of our jackets. I couldn't really believe we were going to try to steal a couple of Me-262s from the Germans!
Buffy lead us down the mountain slope in a path that kept us mostly on rock until we were at least a mile from the cave and well down into the forest. Fortunately we had an almost full moon so there was a lot of light; coupled with Buffy's whispered directions I didn't have any problems navigating the descent. When we finally ran out of rock we were in deep forest, we avoided the sparse patches of snow so we would leave as little trail as possible.
Three hours later we were on almost flat land, descending only a slight slope through a pine forest that was beginning to thin out. I thought we must be getting close to the valley floor; the ground was almost completely picked clean of dead branches and stray brush. Buffy's hand reached over and softly gripped my arm and then she came to a stop. I matched her as she crouched down and pointed in front of us, twenty feet away I could see the forest came to an end. It looked like a dirt road ran across our path and on the other side the forest started up again.
I looked over at Buffy, a dim shape in the shadows of the forest and when she saw me looking at her she took her hand off my arm and raised her finger to her lips. I nodded in understanding and she got up in a partial crouch and started moving slowly and silently toward the road. I followed as quietly as I could manage, not as silently as her but I made no noises any louder than the surrounding rustling of the forest. Buffy stopped again behind a tree bordering the cleared area beside the road; I stopped behind her and waited. She was motionless for at least a minute and then made a forward gesture with her hand, then stepped out of the tree line and walked calmly across the road.
I followed her, wondering for a moment why she wasn't running. I decided she thought we were going to make less noise if we just walked, besides if anyone saw us in the dim light and the shadows maybe they would just dismiss us as someone out early. If we were running and someone saw us they would know something suspicious was up. Still, it was nerve racking to be strolling across the road; as we entered the forest on the other side I felt myself relax a little.
We continued to move silently through the forest and a couple minutes later we came to a high barbed wire fence, it towered over our heads and curls of concertina wire topped the fence. Buffy had mentioned the airfield had a perimeter fence but she had made it sound like it was trivial, some kind of boundary marker I had assumed, not this monster!
Buffy turned parallel to the fence and started following it, keeping in the trees about ten feet away. We'd walked for a couple of minutes when Buffy reached back and took my hand; she led me about ten feet further into the woods, away from the fence, and then lay down quietly behind a cluster of small pines. I lay down beside her and she looked over at me and then gently placed her finger on my lips and then pointed down the fence in the direction we had been going. I looked in that direction and about two minutes later I started to hear something and then I saw movement coming toward us. A German soldier came walking desultorily along the inside of the fence. Every once in a while he would raise his head and look around but the rest of the time his head was down and he was looking at his feet.
We stayed in our hiding place for a couple of minutes after he passed and then we got up and started moving in the opposite direction. A minute later and we came to a small depression that ran under the fence, it was only about six or seven inches lower than the land around it but the fence posts were on the high ground on either side leaving a gap a little less than a foot under the bottom strand of barbed wire. Buffy crouched down in the depression and gently brushed the accumulated pine needles aside, making almost no sound.
Once they were clear Buffy had me lie on my back and slowly wiggle under the fence, she held the barbed wire up a little higher giving me just enough room. Once I was through I held the wire for her as she slipped under the fence. She turned back and carefully spread the pine needles and other debris from the forest floor under the fence until there was no sign of our passage. She lead me away from the fence about twenty feet and then we lay down behind a cluster of small bushes, thirty seconds later I heard the footsteps of the German soldier approaching again.
We lay in hiding until he had passed and then rose up and followed behind him, ten minutes later we went into hiding again as he came back toward us. Once past we started moving again, we had only gone another hundred yards or so when Buffy veered away from the fence and headed deeper into the forest. After a couple of minutes more she slowed her pace until we were barely moving, I noticed the forest seemed to be thinning. We came to a pile of brush, dead branches, and other stuff and Buffy lead me to a small hole near one end. She got down on her belly and crawled silently into it, reluctantly I followed.
I only had to craw a couple of feet and I felt Buffy's boot in front of me, I could just barely make out her form lying on the ground, dim light coming from in front of her silhouetting her slightly. I could see her hand waving me forward and I crawled up next to her, the space just large enough for us to lay side by side. She pointed ahead of us, through gaps in the branches and debris I slowly put together a picture of what was in front of us.
I could make out a shape of angels and edges about a hundred feet away and a little to our left, an Me-262 sideways to us, facing out through a gap in the trees to an open field, the airfield. I could barely make out the second plane another fifty feet past the first. Closer to us and deeper in the woods were two tents, the smaller one closer to us, only about fifteen feet away and set back further than the larger tent. There was a gap of about twenty feet between the two tents; the larger tent was about fifty feet from the tail of the nearest 262.
Buffy wriggled a little beside me and then she was pulling the German pack she'd stolen on her commissary raid off of her back and slipping it in front of us. She silently opened it and got out the canteen we'd stashed in it along with a couple of pieces of roasted venison. She got out one of the pieces of meat and offered it to me, I shook my head no - my stomach was too tied in knots to think about eating. She shrugged her shoulders and started eating, occasionally taking a sip of water. Eventually I relaxed enough to drink some water as we lay on the ground waiting for time to pass.
It was below freezing and I could feel the cold of the ground seeping through my clothes as we lay there. I tried moving silently to keep from stiffening up, I guess I attracted Buffy's attention because she turned toward me and wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close to her. I felt her lips on mine and acquiesced to her kiss, and then started to participate in it. The remainder of our wait passed quickly with the distraction of Buffy's passionate kisses, I think if she had kept it up for a little longer we would have made love with just the kisses. I decided it was something we were going to have to try sometime in the future.
Eventually Buffy pulled apart from me and pulled up her sleeve to expose her watch, the radium numerals and hands glowing softly showing us it was 6:30 in the morning, an hour until sunrise and time to get this show on the road. She started inching her way backward, slowly making her way out of our hiding place. This was the first of a series of very risky steps we had to take, and it was one that she was doing on her own. We had argued a long time about this, but she had finally just put her foot down, 'Barb, I'm a lot better on my own! You are staying in hiding until it is done!'
I felt her give my foot a last pat as she inched her way out of the hide, a few moments later I saw her moving silently across the cleared ground to the small tent. She reached the front of the tent and crouched by the flap for several minutes and then slipped silently inside. I watched the tent, listening for any sound, finally after about five minutes I heard a very soft rustling. It was so soft that I wasn't even sure if it came from the tent or just the breeze ruffling some branches. A minute later there was another sound, this one a little louder; the sound of a twig snapping as far as I could tell but I could see no movement anywhere. Another minute passed and there were some more quiet rustlings, almost like someone turning over in bed. A minute later Buffy's hand came through the tent flap and waved me toward her.
I crawled backward out of the hide, bringing the small pack with me, until I was clear. I rose stiffly to my feet and walked quickly but silently across the clearing to the front of the tent, as I came up Buffy silently lifted the flap so I could duck inside. As soon as I was inside I came to a stop, there was a faint light coming from the dials of a large radio receiver sitting on a small table.
The tent was about ten feet by twenty feet and had walls about five feet high on either side. There were three poles going down the center of the tent, one by the flap I had come in, one in the center, and the last at the back wall. Poles down either side came up to meet the slanting roof and the vertical sides. At the far end of the tent were two cots separated by some small tables and a hanging rack of some sort. Each cot held a motionless form covered with blankets. On the side opposite the table with the radio was another cot against the sidewall, when I looked that way I saw the terrified eyes of a young man, more of a boy really. He was trussed up like a turkey, his hands tied behind his back and his ankles tied together and then pulled up with another piece of rope almost to his hands. A cloth of some sort was tied across his face, the material stretched tightly in his mouth, gagging him.
I looked at Buffy and she shrugged her shoulders a little, and then mouthed something to me, I thought it was 'too young,' but whatever her reason for not killing him I nodded in agreement. Buffy dropped to the floor made of rough wooden planks and sat cross legged; I sat down next to her. We didn't want to start to do anything until the alert call came; she hadn't heard any movement from either tent until that call had come.
I could feel the tension building in my body, I carefully got the canteen out of the pack and took a long sip of water and then handed it to Buffy. The next hurdle was going to be up to me, I had to take the call and hope no one realized they weren't talking to a German, nor a man. This was one of the risks that I thought was the worst, partly because I didn't think I sounded much like a German soldier and also because this was totally on me. I wanted to get up and pace, to move around or something but we had to stay silent.
Finally the field telephone jangled harshly, I reached it as it completed the second ring and jerked it off its receiver and held it to my ear and mouth, "Rottebereit!" I got out. I hadn't spoken in over six hours and my voice was hoarse and raspy. On the other end I heard a string of German, I managed to make some of it out, it sounded like course and time information followed by wind speed and direction and then some numbers, local barometric pressure I guessed, and ended with what I translated as 'take off at 0730', then the voice went silent. With a start I realized I had to respond, "Jawohl!" I said and then the line went dead.
I looked at Buffy and she grinned at me as she gave me a thumbs up. On the desk by the phone was a goose neck electric light and I turned it on. I glanced at my watch, it was a couple of minutes before 7, and then whispered quietly to Buffy, "Takeoff at 7:30."
She nodded, looked at her watch, "Than should be early enough, it'll still be plenty dark out there. Alarm at 7:20, ten minutes to get off the ground?"
I nodded in agreement. Buffy got up and headed toward the back of the tent between the two bunks. With the light on I could see the still forms underneath, each covered with a blanket. Buffy started leafing through the uniforms hanging on the rack between the bunks, after a minute she turned to me and shrugged her shoulders and held up her empty hands.
When Buffy had spied on the previous launch the two German pilots had worn baggy coveralls over their uniforms, it was one of the things we had counted on. I looked around but could not see anywhere the coveralls might be stored. Buffy went over to where the young orderly was lying on his cot, his terrified eyes watching her movement.
She looked up at me and jerked her head; I came over until I was standing next to her. She spoke in a whisper, "Tell him if he makes a sound over a whisper I'll do terrible things to him and then snap his neck."
It took me a moment to translate her threat into German; his eyes went even rounder as I told him. Buffy gripped his shoulder and squeezed, I could see him try to pull away and tears came to his eyes as her fingers dug into him, "Ask him if he understands that I can do it!"
Before I could translate that his head was nodding emphatically, Buffy eased up her grip on his shoulder. She rolled him onto his back and then sat on his chest, it couldn't have been comfortable for him with his arms under himself and his legs bent backward. She slowly eased off the gag around his head, gripping his jaw with one hand, her fingers digging into his skin. "Ask him where the coveralls are?"
"There are none, Fräulein." he answered in heavily accented English before I could phrase the question.
"Shit!" Buffy hissed under her breath, she looked over at the uniforms hanging on the rack and then back down at the orderly, "Which plane did the Captain fly?"
He was startled and blurted out "White six."
Buffy looked hard at him for a couple of moments and he cowered under her gaze, then she nodded at me and I went and looked out the tent flap and saw a large white '6' on the rear fuselage of the closest plane. I turned to Buffy and nodded; she put the gag back in his mouth and tied it securely.
We went over to the hanging rack between the two cots, Buffy pointed to the uniforms on the right, "He's just about your size, and he was the pilot of the closest plane."
I nodded in agreement and started stripping off my outer clothes. Once down to my long underwear I pulled on the dark blue wool pants and the light blue shirt and then tied the black neck tie. Fortunately it did not appear that they wore the normal uniform tunic when flying, the only thing remaining on the rack was a black leather flying jacket with shoulder boards with three pips indicating a Captain, or more correctly a Hauptmann. I started to put the jacket on when Buffy reached up and stopped me. She took something from off the table next to the right hand cot and then as she reached toward my neck I saw the red, white and black ribbon of the Knight's Cross, "Can't go out without this."
"Buffy!?" I whispered, not wanting the thing around my neck.
She shook her head, "It's too noticeable, that's something they would pick up on immediately."
I held still as she put the cloth around my neck and hooked it at the back, then she worked the cloth ribbon under my collar and over the tie until just the metal cross was hanging at the front of my throat. She patted my shoulders, smoothing out the cloth, and then stepped back. I pulled on the black leather jacket and zipped it up, everything fit reasonably well. I didn't bother with trying to change my boots, if anybody got close enough to notice them it wouldn't matter. On the table were two flying helmets and goggles, at least we would have them to conceal our features. There wasn't any way they would be flying without them since the helmets had integral earphones and throat mikes to connect to the plane's radios.
When we finished dressing I looked over at Buffy, her clothes were much too large for her, I hopped nobody ever got a good view of her or the game would be up. Buffy took our uniforms and folded them and put them in the back pack she had been carrying, but when she came to our leather flying jackets I knew they would be too bulky to fit. Buffy looked from them to the pack and back again a couple of times and then reluctantly shrugged her shoulders. She took a moment to hang the jackets up on the rack we'd taken the uniforms from. Buffy was going to use the back pack as a seat cushion, she didn't want to have to try to mess with adjusting the seat in an aircraft that was supposed to be set up for her, or at least the pilot she was supposed to be.
I took the leather flying helmet and put it on and then tucked my hair up under it before fastening the chin strap. I took a pair of goggles and adjusted the strap until they held snuggly in place on my forehead. Buffy had donned her helmet and goggles and we spent a minute checking each other over, I tucked a couple stray wisps of blonde hair under Buffy's helmet and then nodded to her. I'd kept out my flying gloves and drew them on; they were black leather and close enough in appearance to the ones on the table that I wasn't going to deal with ill-fitting gloves. I glanced at my watch and saw we still had five minutes to go. Buffy held out the canteen from the pack and I took a drink of water and then gave it back to her.
The waiting was getting to me so I started walking slowly around the open area of the tent, trying to keep the tension from freezing me. Finally Buffy called out softly, "Barb, time to go."
I nodded to her and started to walk toward the entrance to the tent, then stopped and turned to her and pulled her into my arms. I leaned down as she tilted her head up and our lips met, I only kissed her for a couple of seconds but it was enough to calm some of my nerves. I let go of her and walked to the front of the tent, Buffy reached around and pulled the flap to the side, we both looked around for a moment, no one was visible, then Buffy whispered, "Go!"
I went out of the tent at a fast jog, heading for the closest plane. I swung around the left wing and came up to the outboard side of the left engine nacelle and raised my foot high to get the toe of my boot into the small boarding step, I reached up to the hand hold on the top of the nacelle and pulled myself up. Once on top of the wing it was three quick steps to the cockpit, I lifted the canopy swinging it over toward the far side of the aircraft. I was just lifting my leg over the cockpit coaming when a sudden loud clanging of a bell startled me, Buffy had rung the alarm!
I continued my movement, stepping into the cockpit and then dropping down into the seat. I grabbed the handle on the inside of the canopy and swung it back over my head, latching it in place. If anybody recognized me know I was royally screwed, trapped in a small cockpit I could not get out of very fast. I started to notice movement outside of the plane, Buffy was already climbing into the cockpit of the other plane as the ground crew came pouring out of their tent. I concentrated on the inside of my plane, slipping on the seat belt and shoulder harness as I glanced over the instrument panel. I grabbed the oxygen mask from the side of the cockpit and slipped the strap around my neck and let it hang in front of my face, it would help conceal my features - I just hoped it was something the pilot I was replacing normally did. I plugged in the radio cord and then glanced around; the ground crew was almost to my plane.
I flipped on the master electrical breaker and checked the other breakers as the plane started to come alive. Instruments started glowing softly and I could hear some pumps start up and then stop, fuel pumps pressurizing the fuel lines. I glanced outside and saw one ground crewman at the front of each engine, the third man was standing back a little on the left side, he gave a 'wind-up' signal with his hand and I gave a sharp nod. The two ground crewmen, one at the front of each of my engines, reached in and did something and then there was the sound of a small motors revving up. I looked at the tachometers on the right side of the instrument panel and waited for them to start to register, I could hear the turbines winding up but they barely moved.
Then I remembered, 'Shit, Barb, think!', the tachometers had two different scales, one for starting and one for normal operations. I reached out and turned the small knobs to the lower scale, immediately the needles swung around. I watched as the turbines neared their starting speed, the one on the left a little ahead of the right turbine. It reached the mark and I inched the left throttle forward until I felt it click into the starting detent, the fuel pump whined and I waited for a couple seconds and then pushed the left ignition button. A moment later there was a 'whumph' from the left engine and a jet of flame shot out the back of it, lighting the area with a red orange glow. Another flare of flame from Buffy's plane let me know she had an engine started. My right engine had reached starting revs and I slid its throttle forward, waited two seconds, and hit the right ignition button and was rewarded with another 'whumph'.
I watched the engine instruments come to life, oil pressure climbed on both engines and then held steady, exhaust gas temperature was rising. The turbines increased their pitch as they wound up and I could feel a vibration go through the plane, almost like the shiver of an excited horse. I switched the tachometers back to the normal operating range and watched as the turbines reached idle speed. I eased the throttles back slightly and the pitch dropped slightly in response. I glanced over at Buffy's plane and saw both her engines were running. A shiver of anticipation crossed with dread ran through me, maybe we would get away with this fool stunt.
I was keeping my attention on the inside of the cockpit, trying to ignore the German soldiers standing ten feet away. I did not want to make eye contact with any of them and have them realize I wasn't who they thought I was. I glanced out quickly, the two ground crewmen were waiting patiently outboard of either engine, the third man stood out by the left wing tip. I moved the control stick making sure all the control surfaces responded, then put my feet on the rudder pedals and worked them. I put my toes on the brakes and pressed down firmly. I stuck my hands up, fists clenched with my thumbs sticking out, and waved them outward a couple of times.
The two ground crewmen by the engines disappeared under the wind and then reappeared a couple moments later holding the wheel chocks up in their hands. I nodded my head and returned my attention to the cockpit as the one crewman on the right ran around the front of the plane and joined the other two now standing about twenty feet off to the side of my plane. I glanced over toward Buffy's plane and saw the two ground crewmen on the left of her plane running around it.
I gave them another fifteen seconds and then started easing the throttles forward with my left hand and released the pressure on the brakes. The turbine whine increased and as I moved the throttles past the starting detents I felt a slight jerk and I was rolling. I gave her just a touch more throttle and we were rolling at a moderate walk, I saw the three ground crewmen off to the left of my plane come to attention and the one in the middle raised his hand to his forehead. I didn't know what to do but decided I had a role to play and raised my right hand in a quick salute.
I rolled toward the runway, off to my right and a little behind me Buffy's plane followed along. When we reached the cleared area beside the runway I gently applied some right brake and she swung around until we were paralleling the runway, Buffy followed along behind. As we neared the end of the runway I gave her some left brake until I had swung onto the runway and turned 180 degrees. I applied both brakes and throttled back a little, slowing my roll so Buffy could swing around and get in position off to my right. I pulled the flaps down to the takeoff position and waited impatiently until Buffy was on the other side of the runway and just a little behind me.
As soon as she was in position I released the brakes and started sliding the two throttles forward. The turbine whine increased and I felt myself being shoved softly backward, she accelerated slowly down the runway, much more slowly than I was used to in a Mustang. But the speed kept increasing and then I felt her controls start to bite and she became lighter and the rate of acceleration was increasing more quickly. We were three quarters of the way down the runway when I eased back on the stick and she lifted smoothly into the air.
As we climbed away from the airfield I cleaned her up, raising the gear and flaps while keeping her in a gentle climb. We had a long way to go and I didn't want to burn any fuel I didn't have to. I kept my acceleration a little slow until Buffy caught up and passed me; then I moved across and got into positions off her right wing. I saw her glance over at me as I pulled into position, I could see her grin and then she gave me a big thumbs up. All I could do was shake my head and mouth 'crazy Slayer', she grinned back at me. Then we were passing through 12 thousand feet and I strapped the oxygen mask in place, it took me a couple of minutes to get the thing fitted to my face and secure. We continued our climb and settled on our west-northwest course to England.
As we settled in my body started shivering in reaction, we had pulled it off, something I had never really believed we would be able to do, and now we were headed home. I tried to breathe deeply without hyperventilating, not a good thing to do on oxygen, and calm my shaking body. I realized that in all the combat flying I had done I had never been as scared as I had been for the last hour. Not being able to relieve the stress in any way, having to maintain the outward calm, the tension had been almost unbearable.
We reached twenty thousand feet and settled into the most economical cruise the Me-262 had, a little over three hundred miles an hour, much faster than I was used to. It would take us about two hours to reach England and freedom!
An hour and a half later and I was starting to calm down when Buffy's voice filled my earphones, "Bandits!"
I looked ahead and moments later I saw the black dots, the more I looked the more I saw. It looked like there was a wall of them in front of us. I slid the throttles forward, ever aware that I had to change their settings slowly or I could flame out an engine, and followed Buffy as she started climbing and accelerating. While I was sure we could outrun the planes ahead of us, probably even climb higher than they could go, we didn't have the fuel to do it and make it to England.
We continued our climb and I saw what Buffy was aiming for, there was a thin patch a little higher and to the north of our course. A half dozen puffs of smoke erupted from the nose of Buffy's plane, it took me a moment to realize she was test firing her guns. The Me-262 was armed with four 30mm cannons, slow firing compared to our machine guns but one round from those guns could destroy a fighter, four or five would knock down a four engine bomber. They had a relatively low muzzle velocity, combined with the speed of the Me-262 you had to be a good shot to hit anything and you didn't have much time to shoot, but if you did hit something it was probably going down.
I swung the gun sight out of its stowed position off to the right and locked it in place in the center of my windscreen. I turned on the armament panel and charged each of the four cannons. I flipped the safety cover off of the firing button on the top of the stick for the top two cannons; it rotated around to the front of the stick and formed the trigger to activate the firing button for the outer two cannons. I squeezed the trigger momentarily and heard the heavy thump/thump/thump of the cannons firing; they sounded like a heavy pneumatic hammer. The lights on the armament panel winked as the guns fired indicating they were operating correctly. I pressed the top button and the upper two cannons did their thump/thump/thump and jets of flame flashed out of the nose in front of me and puffs of smoke shot out and then disintegrated in the wind streaming past me.
It had only taken me a few seconds to arm and test fire the guns but in that time we had closed much of the distance to the fighters in front of us. There must have been a couple hundred fighters blocking our way, the opening Buffy was heading for seemed to be closing rapidly. Suddenly Buffy's wing flew up and over as she started a banking dive to the left, I followed behind her trying to keep my position. The fighters in front of us started to react, some turning toward us and others, now out of position, trying to reverse their courses.
I should have known Buffy was only feinting; she never wanted to do what the enemy expected her to do. As our dive increased so did our speed, we were rapidly closing on them. Two miles out and Buffy put us in a hard climbing turn back toward an area where our rapid course changes had created confusion in the German's neatly ordered groups. As we screamed in I realized Buffy wasn't trying for one of the holes in their formation, she was heading right for what looked like a squadron of Focke-Wulf 190s.
She shifted our course slightly as we neared them and then her guns were firing, looking through my gun sight I saw a 190 and squeezed the trigger and pressed the button and all four cannons began firing. In half a second the enemy plane was below my sight and I let up on the triggers, then my shells reached it and it seemed to disintegrate. As we flashed through the first flight I saw two other planes had been Buffy's victims, both were disintegrating as they tumbled through the air.
We were past the next two flights of the squadron before we could react, but a plane from the final flight filled my sight and I fired again. The heavy cannon rounds hit the outer wing, I wasn't used to the drop the low velocity shells had, but the wing blew apart as I walked the fire toward the fuselage, blowing the plane to pieces. I saw his wingman's fuselage break in half as Buffy's rounds slammed into it just behind the cockpit. I let up on the triggers and we were through! Then I glanced above us, diving toward us was another flight, far enough in front of us that they were going to be able to make the intercept, I pressed the transmit button, "One o'clock high!"
Buffy immediately reacted, or maybe she had already seen them, because we started a climbing curve directly toward them even before I finished transmitting. Then Buffy increased our rate of climb even more and her cannon were firing, I watched in fascination as the shells arced away from her in a long lazy curve and came down on the leader's wingman. I think only two shells hit the plane's wing but it was enough to blow the wing off the plane and send it tumbling across the sky. The other planes in the flight dodged to avoid the wreck in their midst and Buffy put us back in a diving curve. By the time they recovered we were streaking past them. In front of us I could only see clear sky.
I looked behind us and I could see the three 190s still chasing us, further behind them I saw the dirty yellow of a German parachute, evidently Buffy's last victim had survived. A strange voice filled my earphones, it had the cadence of the high class clipped British English we were used to hearing among the RAF pilots but it was subtly accented, "Colonel Summers?"
After a moment I heard Buffy respond, "Yes?"
"I guess congratulations are in order, Colonel, and you too Major Thompson. This is quite a feat you've accomplished."
"Who is this?" Buffy asked.
"Oberst… Colonel Adolf Galland, Geschwaderkommodor, ah… commanding officer, JG 26."
After several seconds Buffy responded, "Ah… well, sorry we can't play some more."
"I am sorry also that we cannot 'play' as you so artfully put it. Good luck, Colonel… and Major."
I looked back at the 190s losing ground behind us. The lead 190 rocked its wings several times then all of them turned away in a diving decent. I turned back forward and looked over at Buffy; she was looking around and after a couple moments caught my eye. I lifted my hands in a 'what the hell' expression and she thought for a moment and then shrugged her shoulders; I couldn't see much of her face under the oxygen mask and goggles but I thought I saw a twinkle in her eye and imagined she was grinning from ear to ear.
I turned my attention to what was in front of us and I saw a wide expanse of water, we had reached the coast.
Foot Note: If you want to see an Me-262 flying take a look at the You Tube clip "Me 262 Flys Again", the first half is of a two seat version, the second half starting about 1:40 is of a single seat version like Buffy and Barb stole (link is watch?NR=1&v=RYXd60D_kgQ if it is working).
Thanks to 'Stormbirds at War' website for the detailed descriptions of Me-262 cockpits and instruments, if I got anything wrong it is completely on me.
