Operation Highwire (Closed, Excalibur Only)

[Morrdh]

Charlie got to work on freeing another of the captives, as he cut the ropes he reassuringly said. "We'll have ya outta here in a jiffy mate."

---

As the Beaufighters of Beer Flight dove down upon the German fighters and opened up with their cannons, Flight Lieutenant Morgan called out over the radio. "Get some in Ace Flight, tally ho."

[The balkens]

Michael was dazed and almost surprised to see alix again.
"yes and I can still fight if that's what you meant."

Michael smirked at her, he was obviously glad to be in friendly company.

[Kouralia]

As Charlie went to work, Smythe stood up and brushed some of the dirt off of his trousers from where he'd hit the floor shortly after coming throug the door. That done, he holstered his revolvers and then slid the small Finnish hunting knife from where he'd strapped it to his fore-arm. As Alix went up to the other end of the plane to have some polite words with the pilot - after Smythe's companion offered some words that would earn him an incredible bollocking from Smythe if it weren't for the RAF pilot's recent commission.

Stepping forward he moved over to another of the pilots and drew the bag off of his head, to see who it was, before he went to work cutting at his bonds. "Don't worry, sir." The Colour Serjeant said, trying to affect a calm and reassuring tone while undertaking a commando raid on a moving plane over occupied France at tens of thousands of feet in altitude. "Everything's gone down really rather well, you'll be back in God's Own Country shortly!"

[Monfrox]

Samantha watched from above as the plan went into action. "Couldn't get me to do that even if you paid me..." She thought to herself. She noticed the arrival of more fighters. "Oh great, more party crashers. Let's get 'em, boys." She dove down from high and lined up a shot wide around it, causing the pilot to pull left. "Oh it's a roller coaster now, asshole!" She said as she followed him around. She plugged away at him but wasn't connecting shots. She followed the fighter off until she finally downed it and came back around. "Let's mop up the rest, now."

[Kassaran]

Jonah watched from the peak of his high yo-yo the Catalina go streaking down past a Wellington, parts of the wreckage slammed into an engine, setting it ablaze and significantly damaging the craft. Turning back to the heat of the battle now, he gained a significant amount of speed and dove upon the Bf-109's that now had engaged the same squadron that Samantha was in. Watching as her craft tore off after a bf-109, he lined up along their main formation line (now significantly spread out) and fired a few dozen rounds, hearing his cannons suddenly run out of ammunition, he sighed. At least he hadn't been shot down, flipping right to loop around from the front, Jonah could see two of the remaining seven Messerschmitts in the formation were pulling away, one leaking massive amounts of engine fluid and smoke from the underside, and the second missing a significant chunk f rudder. Pulling in harder, he strained against the G-Forces until it seemed everything had gone black.

Fight it, fight it you bloody sap! Come on, fight it you worthless piece of sh- the world became visible once again, and Jonah had managed to slot himself right behind the two Messerschmitts that had pulled off. Lining up on the tail of the Messerschmitt leaking fuel, he let of a loose peppering of HE-APT rounds and cheered slightly as he witnessed the fuel stores ignite. Even though it had self-sealing fuel tanks, the line connecting the two must of been what had been punctured, because sure enough, the plane's underbelly ripped open, belching out a wad of black, acrid smoke, before keeling over into a violent spin.

Snapping his attention now on the last one of the pair of Messerschmitts he had engaged, Jonah tapped his left rudder-pedal and watched as his craft bumped and jumped around, but refused to go left. Whatever those Krauts had done, they had managed to take Jonah's ability to move left easily away. Going into a slight banking turn instead, Jonah pulled his goggles down over his face (expecting a certain amount of debris to come flying back), and let loose another set of bullets into the tail assembly and watched as the rudder fully separated, and then slammed into Jonah's windscreen. Though the glass had cracked significantly, the rudder itself had not gone through. Pieces of glass peppered Jonah's lap and struggling to maintain control over his aircraft, he pulled up and off of the ailing fighter, Rudder still being held firmly in place.

Moving to slot in behind the now damaged Wellington, Jonah recognized it to be Doug and Kaya's bird. Moving up on their left wing, he made sure to keep his distance, as craft usually were sucked in behind the larger craft if not wary of said space. Waving his hand, he tried to get the attention of the two pilots to ascertain the situation and get an idea of whether or not they had sustained any significant injuries. Mind you, this was no easy task with the remnants of a rudder stuck protruding into the cockpit of his fighter by eight inches (easy) and was sticking out by twelve or more (easy). As he kept his craft level, he didn't notice another bf-109 that had pulled away from the main group and was now coming in behind him.

[Morrdh]

"Oh I'll ruddy kill him when we get ba-..." Grumbled Kaya when she saw the state of Jonah's plane, then paused we she spotted the German fighter lining up behind the Spitfire. "GUNNER! BANDIT SEVEN O'CLOCK!"

She then ran up to the cockpit and called to Stanford. "Doug, cork it! Jerry on our tail!"

[Kassaran]

Jonah watched as one of the gunners up top began to swivel and one of the crew members inside began to run towards the front, probably to get a better look, Jonah thought smugly. Then a ripping sound tore through his cockpit and another bullet ripped past his ribcage through the place his arm would of been if he hadn't been waving. The airframe of his craft shook vehemently and he peeled down and away. A cannon round detonated just behind the reinforced armor plate Jonah was in front of and the force of the explosion dented the metal. Pulling back on the throttle, cutting his engine, he flipped into a flat tailspin, maneuvering just like he had with Stanford the past week. The sudden force of deceleration almost threw his forehead into the piece of Messerschmitt lodged in the windscreen.

Pitched against the side of his cockpit, he could hear the sound of the airframe straining and attempting to fly apart, but maintaining his senses in the disorienting position, he focused on the altimeter and its slow spiral descent. The bf-109 overshot, probably just as stunned about the maneuver as Jonah had been, but Jonah increased engine to the throttle and tipped backwards, raising his nose and forcing the wing on the right to tip more in its favor, pulling Jonah out of the spin about fifteen hundreed feet below his last location. We watched as the Wellington peeled away and raced for the clouds, or at least towards cover. The Messerschmitt however knew Jonah was wounded, and began to chase him through the countryside.

Racing as fast as he possibly could towards the ground on a shallow dive, he knew the Messerschmitt wouldn't have a problem catching up, so going inverted, he pulled back on the stick, pitching his nose towards the ground, and like two eagles, they dove in tandem, one chasing another, in a death-defying dive that would end with possible disaster if something were to happen. Jonah could feel the Spitfire's control surfaces beginning to become sluggish, and the engine itself began to stutter, a sign the carburetorwas about to flood. Cutting off his engine from the fuel-feeds using the purge lines, he watched as his propeller became feathered and worked against the massive force building up against his airframe. Shaking like a leaf on a tree branch in the strong Savannah wind, Jonah held on for dear life, watching as his altimeter continued to drop over the hillsides of South-Eastern France.

Behind him, through the periscope glass mounted to the top of the cockpit, he could make out the Messerschmitt beginning to suffer from the same problems. Straining against the massive weight building up, he began to realize he was blacking out, so beginning to pull out, he slammed onto his rudder and elevators, straining for some ounces of control and the near sheer drop. Behind him, the Messerschmitt was too. Looking at his altimeter, it read thirty-eight hundred feet, the hillsides below, if he had read the map right, would be less than two thousand feet below, and in roughly eight seconds, he would slam into them if he didn't pull out.

As the air became denser, his speed began to drop, and little by little, straining against the exhaustion and weakness he felt all over, he pulled back on his stick vigorously pumping the rudder pedals and attempting to wiggle the craft's wings out, he understood what was happening, but he had the atmosphere to his advantage. Below him, through his windscreen, a small village began to become visible, his nose angled for a small cottage at the edge of the town. He pulled harder, and harder, nothing responding, or so it seemed. Looking at the altimeter, he began to get the direness of his situation as the altimeter slowly closed the gap between the French countryside and the two plummeting pilots. A huge wave of exhaustion swept over him, but fighting it, suddenly, he felt a pop, as his rudder controls became free of the bullet that had wedged itself into the small place between the vertical tail assembly and the rudder. Starting the engine, it quickly reached optimal pitch variance and spun up to speed, roaring as the last bits of fuel were used and he carburetor was filled with fuel to disperse once more.

Flipping the nose up, his Spitfire screamed out a victory cheer as it buzzed the small village going close to three hundred miles per hour. How it was holding together, he didn't care to know, it was only because it had that he was still alive. The Messerschmitt following him hadn't been so lucky as it wasn't able to respond in time and crashed into the field outside the village, leaving a rut about three-quarters of a kilometer long and an even further stretch of debris. The Messerschmitt had essentially fallen apart due to the extreme forces of pulling out of the dive behind Jonah and in response, Jonah had been victorious without ever getting a bullet into the craft. However; unfortunately, the pilot had survived the violent crash, and was now beginning to get out of the craft. Looking back as he passed over a hill a little ways away, he could pick out the smoke column from the crashed aircraft and decided he'd try and call that another victory, if it would be accepted. Now leaking smoke from his engine, it had however survived the vicious start-up at the end of his dive and it was now propelling him along at about two hundred feet off the deck, and he was on his way home, hopefully moving fast enough to avoid being further intercepted.

[Goram]

Stanford wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, as he prepared to put the bomber into a potentially fatal dive. Kill or cure, as the old adage went. As the bomber began to adopt a nose down attitude, the airframe vibrated and a cloud of white smoke shot out of the burning engine cowling. Seconds later, the flames were snuffed out of existence.
Quite why the fire extinguishers had simply gone off, after Kaya's repeated attempts to get them to work, Stanford wasn't quite sure. However, he wasn't going to question their good fortune. His relief was short, however.

Doug, cork it! Jerry on our tail!

The Flying Officer reacted without thinking. He knew the battered bomber would not be able to take the strain of corkscrewing. To do so would risk ripping the entire port wing away at the engine. He chopped the throttle to the remaining engine, whilst applying full rudder. The move was intensely risky, putting an immense strain on the tail section - a fact to which the rear gunner would gladly attest. Despite the risk, the effect of the manoeuvre was akin to that of the hand brake of a car. The bomber bled off air speed, slewing to the right as it did so. With the rattle of the twin .303 machine guns only a distant noise, Stanford looked momentarily up, just in time to see the underbelly of a 109 as it shot over the Wellington at a range of barely 20 feet. The evasive move had worked, but the bomber now teetered on the point of stall. Stanford eased the nose down, trying block out the distraction of the nose guns that were now traversing and letting off rounds at a tremendous rate. He reapplied full power and watched as the air speed indication crept slowly up.

---

The pilot of the 109 cursed violently as the rifle calibre rounds whizzed past and through his machine. It had seemed to him that the lumbering bomber had just stopped, as if someone had thrown out an anchor. Of course, the Messerschmitt that had been doing roughly 280 miles per hour simply shot past the British machine, without being able to fire a single aimed shot. Now, the shoe was on the other foot as the nose gunner of the Wellington hammered away at him.

The pilot decided that enough was probably enough. He had been lucky not to collide with the British bomber, it was clearly being flown by someone who was quite mad. The intercom was now blaring with transmission from his comrades. They had been jumped by more British fighters and were now attempting to retreat as fast as possible. The interception had been a disaster, losing at least a half dozen aircraft for only one victory in reply. Thus the 109s fled, hoping the Englanders would be too short of fuel to pursue. If they did pursue, however, the joke might well be on them. The German pilots would attempt to draw them out into flak concentrations, in an effort to avenge their fallen allies.

---

"Wimpey One to all callsigns"

Someone, presumably the navigator, was on the radio at Stanford's behest.

"We've sustained serious damage. We're going to try to returning to base. Escort would be appreciated if at all possible."

[Grenartia]

Samantha watched from above as the plan went into action. "Couldn't get me to do that even if you paid me..." She thought to herself. She noticed the arrival of more fighters. "Oh great, more party crashers. Let's get 'em, boys." She dove down from high and lined up a shot wide around it, causing the pilot to pull left. "Oh it's a roller coaster now, asshole!" She said as she followed him around. She plugged away at him but wasn't connecting shots. She followed the fighter off until she finally downed it and came back around. "Let's mop up the rest, now."

"Roger Wilco, Twelve. Lets mess up some Messerschmitts. " Jimmy said, moving from his position beneath the German transport to engage the fighters.

Jonah watched from the peak of his high yo-yo the Catalina go streaking down past a Wellington, parts of the wreckage slammed into an engine, setting it ablaze and significantly damaging the craft. Turning back to the heat of the battle now, he gained a significant amount of speed and dove upon the Bf-109's that now had engaged the same squadron that Samantha was in. Watching as her craft tore off after a bf-109, he lined up along their main formation line (now significantly spread out) and fired a few dozen rounds, hearing his cannons suddenly run out of ammunition, he sighed. At least he hadn't been shot down, flipping right to loop around from the front, Jonah could see two of the remaining seven Messerschmitts in the formation were pulling away, one leaking massive amounts of engine fluid and smoke from the underside, and the second missing a significant chunk f rudder. Pulling in harder, he strained against the G-Forces until it seemed everything had gone black.

Fight it, fight it you bloody sap! Come on, fight it you worthless piece of sh- the world became visible once again, and Jonah had managed to slot himself right behind the two Messerschmitts that had pulled off. Lining up on the tail of the Messerschmitt leaking fuel, he let of a loose peppering of HE-APT rounds and cheered slightly as he witnessed the fuel stores ignite. Even though it had self-sealing fuel tanks, the line connecting the two must of been what had been punctured, because sure enough, the plane's underbelly ripped open, belching out a wad of black, acrid smoke, before keeling over into a violent spin.

Snapping his attention now on the last one of the pair of Messerschmitts he had engaged, Jonah tapped his left rudder-pedal and watched as his craft bumped and jumped around, but refused to go left. Whatever those Krauts had done, they had managed to take Jonah's ability to move left easily away. Going into a slight banking turn instead, Jonah pulled his goggles down over his face (expecting a certain amount of debris to come flying back), and let loose another set of bullets into the tail assembly and watched as the rudder fully separated, and then slammed into Jonah's windscreen. Though the glass had cracked significantly, the rudder itself had not gone through. Pieces of glass peppered Jonah's lap and struggling to maintain control over his aircraft, he pulled up and off of the ailing fighter, Rudder still being held firmly in place.

Moving to slot in behind the now damaged Wellington, Jonah recognized it to be Doug and Kaya's bird. Moving up on their left wing, he made sure to keep his distance, as craft usually were sucked in behind the larger craft if not wary of said space. Waving his hand, he tried to get the attention of the two pilots to ascertain the situation and get an idea of whether or not they had sustained any significant injuries. Mind you, this was no easy task with the remnants of a rudder stuck protruding into the cockpit of his fighter by eight inches (easy) and was sticking out by twelve or more (easy). As he kept his craft level, he didn't notice another bf-109 that had pulled away from the main group and was now coming in behind him.

Jimmy emerged from underneath the German transport to see a 109 lining up on a friendly Spit, one that apparently had a rudder stuck in its cockpit. "That's one lucky bastard" Jimmy said to himself, "but not for long if I don't do something."

However, before he could move to intercept, the friendly had begun to maneuver.

Jonah watched as one of the gunners up top began to swivel and one of the crew members inside began to run towards the front, probably to get a better look, Jonah thought smugly. Then a ripping sound tore through his cockpit and another bullet ripped past his ribcage through the place his arm would of been if he hadn't been waving. The airframe of his craft shook vehemently and he peeled down and away. A cannon round detonated just behind the reinforced armor plate Jonah was in front of and the force of the explosion dented the metal. Pulling back on the throttle, cutting his engine, he flipped into a flat tailspin, maneuvering just like he had with Stanford the past week. The sudden force of deceleration almost threw his forehead into the piece of Messerschmitt lodged in the windscreen.

Pitched against the side of his cockpit, he could hear the sound of the airframe straining and attempting to fly apart, but maintaining his senses in the disorienting position, he focused on the altimeter and its slow spiral descent. The bf-109 overshot, probably just as stunned about the maneuver as Jonah had been, but Jonah increased engine to the throttle and tipped backwards, raising his nose and forcing the wing on the right to tip more in its favor, pulling Jonah out of the spin about fifteen hundreed feet below his last location. We watched as the Wellington peeled away and raced for the clouds, or at least towards cover. The Messerschmitt however knew Jonah was wounded, and began to chase him through the countryside.

Racing as fast as he possibly could towards the ground on a shallow dive, he knew the Messerschmitt wouldn't have a problem catching up, so going inverted, he pulled back on the stick, pitching his nose towards the ground, and like two eagles, they dove in tandem, one chasing another, in a death-defying dive that would end with possible disaster if something were to happen. Jonah could feel the Spitfire's control surfaces beginning to become sluggish, and the engine itself began to stutter, a sign the carburetorwas about to flood. Cutting off his engine from the fuel-feeds using the purge lines, he watched as his propeller became feathered and worked against the massive force building up against his airframe. Shaking like a leaf on a tree branch in the strong Savannah wind, Jonah held on for dear life, watching as his altimeter continued to drop over the hillsides of South-Eastern France.

Behind him, through the periscope glass mounted to the top of the cockpit, he could make out the Messerschmitt beginning to suffer from the same problems. Straining against the massive weight building up, he began to realize he was blacking out, so beginning to pull out, he slammed onto his rudder and elevators, straining for some ounces of control and the near sheer drop. Behind him, the Messerschmitt was too. Looking at his altimeter, it read thirty-eight hundred feet, the hillsides below, if he had read the map right, would be less than two thousand feet below, and in roughly eight seconds, he would slam into them if he didn't pull out.

As the air became denser, his speed began to drop, and little by little, straining against the exhaustion and weakness he felt all over, he pulled back on his stick vigorously pumping the rudder pedals and attempting to wiggle the craft's wings out, he understood what was happening, but he had the atmosphere to his advantage. Below him, through his windscreen, a small village began to become visible, his nose angled for a small cottage at the edge of the town. He pulled harder, and harder, nothing responding, or so it seemed. Looking at the altimeter, he began to get the direness of his situation as the altimeter slowly closed the gap between the French countryside and the two plummeting pilots. A huge wave of exhaustion swept over him, but fighting it, suddenly, he felt a pop, as his rudder controls became free of the bullet that had wedged itself into the small place between the vertical tail assembly and the rudder. Starting the engine, it quickly reached optimal pitch variance and spun up to speed, roaring as the last bits of fuel were used and he carburetor was filled with fuel to disperse once more.

Flipping the nose up, his Spitfire screamed out a victory cheer as it buzzed the small village going close to three hundred miles per hour. How it was holding together, he didn't care to know, it was only because it had that he was still alive. The Messerschmitt following him hadn't been so lucky as it wasn't able to respond in time and crashed into the field outside the village, leaving a rut about three-quarters of a kilometer long and an even further stretch of debris. The Messerschmitt had essentially fallen apart due to the extreme forces of pulling out of the dive behind Jonah and in response, Jonah had been victorious without ever getting a bullet into the craft. However; unfortunately, the pilot had survived the violent crash, and was now beginning to get out of the craft. Looking back as he passed over a hill a little ways away, he could pick out the smoke column from the crashed aircraft and decided he'd try and call that another victory, if it would be accepted. Now leaking smoke from his engine, it had however survived the vicious start-up at the end of his dive and it was now propelling him along at about two hundred feet off the deck, and he was on his way home, hopefully moving fast enough to avoid being further intercepted.

As the luckiest bastard Jimmy had ever seen up to this point began heading home, he kept a lookout for any Jerries looking to finish him off, and seeing none, started looking elsewhere.

Stanford wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, as he prepared to put the bomber into a potentially fatal dive. Kill or cure, as the old adage went. As the bomber began to adopt a nose down attitude, the airframe vibrated and a cloud of white smoke shot out of the burning engine cowling. Seconds later, the flames were snuffed out of existence.
Quite why the fire extinguishers had simply gone off, after Kaya's repeated attempts to get them to work, Stanford wasn't quite sure. However, he wasn't going to question their good fortune. His relief was short, however.

Doug, cork it! Jerry on our tail!

The Flying Officer reacted without thinking. He knew the battered bomber would not be able to take the strain of corkscrewing. To do so would risk ripping the entire port wing away at the engine. He chopped the throttle to the remaining engine, whilst applying full rudder. The move was intensely risky, putting an immense strain on the tail section - a fact to which the rear gunner would gladly attest. Despite the risk, the effect of the manoeuvre was akin to that of the hand brake of a car. The bomber bled off air speed, slewing to the right as it did so. With the rattle of the twin .303 machine guns only a distant noise, Stanford looked momentarily up, just in time to see the underbelly of a 109 as it shot over the Wellington at a range of barely 20 feet. The evasive move had worked, but the bomber now teetered on the point of stall. Stanford eased the nose down, trying block out the distraction of the nose guns that were now traversing and letting off rounds at a tremendous rate. He reapplied full power and watched as the air speed indication crept slowly up.

---

The pilot of the 109 cursed violently as the rifle calibre rounds whizzed past and through his machine. It had seemed to him that the lumbering bomber had just stopped, as if someone had thrown out an anchor. Of course, the Messerschmitt that had been doing roughly 280 miles per hour simply shot past the British machine, without being able to fire a single aimed shot. Now, the shoe was on the other foot as the nose gunner of the Wellington hammered away at him.

The pilot decided that enough was probably enough. He had been lucky not to collide with the British bomber, it was clearly being flown by someone who was quite mad. The intercom was now blaring with transmission from his comrades. They had been jumped by more British fighters and were now attempting to retreat as fast as possible. The interception had been a disaster, losing at least a half dozen aircraft for only one victory in reply. Thus the 109s fled, hoping the Englanders would be too short of fuel to pursue. If they did pursue, however, the joke might well be on them. The German pilots would attempt to draw them out into flak concentrations, in an effort to avenge their fallen allies.

---

"Wimpey One to all callsigns"

Someone, presumably the navigator, was on the radio at Stanford's behest.

"We've sustained serious damage. We're going to try to returning to base. Escort would be appreciated if at all possible."

Seeing the 109 shoot past the Wellington, Jimmy opened his Spit's throttle to full, and climbed high while executing a right bank, so that he'd be facing the 109's left broadside, and opened up with his cannons once he was in range. He'd been aiming for the cockpit (and he did, indeed hit it, seeing a splatter of blood), with the bonus that with the angle he was coming in at, he'd also pepper his enemy's tail, thus hindering his maneuverability, if the Jerry had even survived.

"Sword Eleven to Sword Twelve, requesting permission to babysit Wimpey One till we get back home, over." Jimmy radioed.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Michael was dazed and almost surprised to see alix again.
"yes and I can still fight if that's what you meant."

Michael smirked at her, he was obviously glad to be in friendly company.

"No, I asked you if you could walk. Christ, Zilorski, if we have to fight at this point, we're really in trouble."
She helped him to his feet. He didn't seem too beat up to stand on his own, and she let him try.
"And, weirdly enough, your brother over there helped bail you out - meet the new Sword Eight. I guess Command decided they had to keep a Zilorski in the squadron, no matter what. Say hi. We'll be home as soon as possible, assuming everything goes as planned. So...just relax for a little while."

As Michael took to his own two feet once again, she could see one more of the prisoners had yet to be freed from their bonds, the rest of the assault team being indisposed freeing the rest or double-checking the plane for any Germans still lurking about. Of considerably lighter heart now that she knew that they were right and that they hadn't played a bad hunch, she dashed over to lend her assistance.
"Hold still for just a moment, all right?"
She quickly went through the same routine, cutting the bindings off of their feet and hands, before removing the hood. She was entirely unprepared for what confronted her once she did so.
"Oh my God..."

[The balkens]

Michael nodded at Joshua and brushed passed him.

"hey!" Joshua said. "good to see you again, little brother!" "yep. You too." Michael replied.

[Goram]

Stanford eased the control column to port, swinging the nose onto the heading that the navigator had hastily provided. There was no telling where exactly they were in France, though the navigator was doing his best to nail their position down, but at least they knew which way England lay. At best, they had 100 odd miles of enemy air space to cross before they made it out over the English Channel. Even then, they would not be safe. Crossing the French coast at low altitude would attract flak like flies to a rotting piece of meat. The threat of running into fighters en route was an ever present danger that all would have to be alert to as Stanford knew he no longer had the air speed to attempt anything overly fancy. Anyway, he wasn't sure how much punishment the old bomber could take. He felt sure that his last do or die stunt had pushed the air frame to it's limits. Anything more may well cause the Wellington to break up in mid air.

His eyes were largely inside the cockpit, frantically checking the instruments every few seconds. The airspeed indicator was dead, Stanford assumed that the pitot tube had been shot away at some point, but that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that the bomber seemed to be bleeding off altitude at a slow but steady rate. With the weight of the specialist equipment that the bomber had been forced to carry for this operation, the one engine that the Wimpey still had was unable to provide enough power to maintain straight and level flight. The fact that Stanford was having to apply virtually full left right aileron to prevent the damaged wing inducing an unrecoverable roll, that would eventually become a fatal spin, to port did not help matters.

"Pilot to crew,"

He began. To say he was scared didn't quite cover, he hoped it wouldn't be overly apparent in the tone of his voice. The average RAF bomber pilot had roughly 200 hours experience before he began operations. By dint of necessity, Stanford had a touch over 25. Now, he was being asked to bring a critically damaged Wellington and her crew home alive.

"I can't maintain altitude. Jettison the grapple guns, dump anything that isn't absolutely necessary."

[Monfrox]

"Take 'em, Eleven. Make sure the other newbie makes it back in one piece too." Samantha said back, tailing a 109. "We're down two fighters, and there's still a lot of them out there. I think we'll be having to resort to shouting curses before we get back across the channel. Sheesh!" She said as she made her shots while conserving her ammunition.

[Goram]

An hour or so later

Navigator to pilot. Stokes here Skip. By my calculations, we ought to be out over the French coast in roughly ten minutes.

The voice of the young navigator echoed out of the speakers in Stanford's thin leather helmet. The communications gear that was forced upon all air crew by necessity was vital, but Stanford hated it. The cloth oxygen mask was the same one that had seen him through the Battle of Britain and that he had somehow managed to retain through Operation: TAURUS. In the back of his mind, he knew he should put in for a new one. This one was old, worn and still had dark brown spots, where his dried blood had soaked into the fabric. The worst of it, by far, was the smell. It smelt of sweat, of fear and above all, it reminded him that death was always just a shot away. Death was a combat pilot's constant companion and Stanford had leant, during the first days of combat over Dunkirk, to switch off emotion when it came to the death of comrades. They weren't dead, they'd simply bought it or got the chop. No one ever used the word "dead". However, he'd never been able to shake off the feeling that his own demise could be seconds away. The events of the previous operation had brought that home to him in spades.

The navigator's words were echoed almost immediately by the Chief Technicians familiar voice, that came from the nose turret.

Nose gunner to pilot. Stokes is right, I can see the coast Skip.

Stanford steeled himself for what was almost certainly coming soon. The bomber had dropped down to roughly 5,000 feet, after having to dump all unnecessary weight. The low flying and slow target would make for the dream target for a German gunner, who's monotonous job probably involved nothing more than sitting in the gun emplacement, smoking, talking about the local French girls and longing for the day that an RAF aircraft filled the sights of his weapon.

Glory be

A voice came over the air, Stanford recognised it to be the tail gunner

Almost home now lads, and not soon en-

An almighty bang filled the aircraft as the sky filled up with puffs of black smoke, as flak floated up at them. Stanford tested the rudders and got no response. Presumably, something had hit the tail of the bomber.

"Pilot to tail gunner, you all right back there?"

No reply came back across the intercom

"Pilot to tail gunner, you all right back there?"

He repeated, a little more tersely, a few seconds later.

"Stokes, go and check he's all right."

Oh Jesus Christ...

The words floated quietly across the intercom. That could mean only one thing and the entire remaining crew knew it.

He's gone Skip. Lofty...he's just gone

Stanford couldn't see what the navigator was looking at, but by the tone of the man's voice, that was no bad thing. The bomber had taken a direct hit from a 37 millimetre, high explosive round. The shell, travelling at roughly 2,500 feet per second had impacted the underside of the rear turret and exploded. The resultant blast and heat wave had obliterated the turret. All that remained were the double doors, now completely jammed open, of the Nash & Thomas FN-10 turret and half the breech of a browning machine gun, that had somehow managed to remain in the remnants of it's mounting. The remains of the gunner were horrific beyond belief. Pieces of what once had been a living, breathing man had been blow back through the open doors into the aircraft and virtually all of the remaining surface had been covered in the dead man's blood. Perhaps more importantly, for the survival prospects of the remaining crew, was that the shrapnel from the bursting shell had shredded the tail to the point where the rudder was virtually useless.

Flak of varying calibres continued to float up at them, thick and fast, but by the grace of God the Wellington was spared any more serious damage. The airframe shook violently as Stanford took it out over the English Channel. The lumbering aircraft was almost home, almost safe, but it still had many miles of open water to go before it flew again over England's green and pleasant land.

[The Two Jerseys]

On board the German transport

Talbot turned the doorknob and pushed - in actuality, more like threw - the door open and briskly stepped inside the room. The entire room was pitch black save for a single table lamp, which cast its light over a blonde in a WAAF uniform as she peered into a stereoscope.

Could it be...?

"Ellie!" he called out.

No response.

It's definitely her...maybe she can't hear me over...what is that, the ventilation fan? He was referring to the droning noise that was reverberating through the room.

"Ellie!" he called out again.

Still no response.

Perplexed, he began walking towards the table. He quickly stopped in his tracks and looked around.

There must be someone else in here, sounded like a filing cabinet being shut...

"Hello? Who's there?" he called out.

No reply.

What the hell is going on here?

He continued walking to the table, coming to a stop directly in front of it. "Ellie, it's me, Geoff," he said once again in a loud voice.

She still made no response, merely sat there and adjusted the photographs under the stereoscope as she looked into it. More sounds of filing cabinets being slammed shut echoed across the room.

Talbot slammed his fist on the table as he leaned over it. "Damn it, Eleanor, why don't you say something?" he yelled at her.

She looked up at him with an innocent - yet in Talbot's opinion, oddly seductive - look on her face as she reached over and grasped his wrist. "We'll have ya outta here in a jiffy mate," she replied in her soft, smooth voice, showing a slight smile as she finished speaking.

What?

---

Suddenly, everything turned blindingly bright. Talbot winced at the sudden onset of light and blinked repeatedly as he tried to regain his vision. In the process, he instinctively moved his hands; his situational awareness came rushing back.

The Jerries were taking me somewhere...must have been one hell of a Mickey they slipped me...that droning, it's real, it's...aero engines! And my hands are untied...and my feet!

His vision had returned enough to enable him to make out that he was sitting on the floor of a transport, and that there was a figure standing in front of him who wasn't paying particular attention to him.

All right, Fritz, it's payback time!

Talbot slowly moved his feet around the man's ankles, then suddenly jerked his legs to one side; he managed to catch the German and send him tumbling to the deck. He quickly rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up, using his legs to launch himself at the German; falling on top of the man, he wrapped his left hand - his right arm was useless at this point due to his shoulder wound - around the man's throat and began squeezing as hard as he could.

"Die, you motherfucking Jerry scum!" he snarled as he choked the German; suddenly, his vision came fully into focus. His eyes widened as he saw the man, and he quickly released his death grip on his throat.

"Fodder? What the bloody hell are you doing here?" he yelled.

[Kassaran]

Somewhere Along the French Coastline
Jonah had been flying for a short while now, having crossed a massive amount of distance through pushing his engine to it's operational limits. It was shot and would have to be repaired anyways as far as he saw it. With two confirmed kills that day, one damaged, and one lost to terrain, he'd been able to elude the Luftwaffe, so far. Scanning the skies, he could not see a single plane in sight, though the giant piece of Jerry in his windscreen and the fractures along the glass of the cockpit from the warping weren't helping his case. Every once in a while, the engine would begin to sputter, but would quickly regain its pace. Though so slight most untrained aviators wouldn't notice it, jonah recognized it for what it was. A hole had been sprung through the main coolant lines and the fuel-dispersion system. When the pistons every oh so many rotations ran out of excess fuel, they'd flood the carburetor, to the point Jonah was forced to bank or turn slowly to allow for the pump system to kick back in. He had so far flown almost to the coast of France when he noted flak in the distance. Not aiming for him, but for what he could only assume were friendly aircraft. Dropping low, he lined up on a row of the AAA batteries along a small hedge and closed the distance.

Remembering he had all of two hundred probable .303 rounds left, he had to make them count, so pulling a slight lead, and accounting for his gun convergence of 400 meters ahead, he held position. Shortly after aligning, he could see the AAA become more dense as more and more flak opened fire. You wanna shoot at something, shoot at me you sons of Berlin! Die! he screamed in his head as he opened fire, watching as his HE-AP rounds hit the first two emplacements dead on in their ammunition storage, causing white-hot arcs of tracer-fire and cannon shells go off, one of which detonated close to Jonah's craft, shaking it and revealing to Jonah the state of his plane altogether. Though he had dealt a lot of damage, the third gun in the lineup now had him dead-to-rights, but for some reason, they didn't open fire. As to why, Jonah would never know, but he moved quickly for the Channel, reaching the open waters of it and angling to head straight across until he'd found a nice little farm or field across the way to set down in. His fuel indicator was running low, and worse, his airspeed was indeed dropping, slowly, but surely. As if to make matters worse, Jonah watched as a chunk of his wing's skin ripped away. In direct response to that, Jonah pulled hard left on his stick, counteracting the sudden drag co-efficient on his aerodynamic structure.

Praying to God above, he began to hope he'd see his sister again, but now alone, separated, and without cover, he was prey to whomever found him first. Looking out to his port however, he saw something inspiring... a small British vessel. Not military, but definitely flying the British Jack. Feeling a sudden twinge of pain in his rib-cage, he could feel where one .303 round had definitely embedded itself just below the skin and wedged itself between the individual ribs of the ribcage. Taking his left hand off the throttle, he reached over and gingerly felt the area under his jacket's armpit, feeling for the hole that would reveal the general location of the bullet. Wincing in pain as he found it, he snapped his focus back on the mission at hand. Proceeding onwards to the West, following the sun, he decided to move in favor of his speed and dropped his overall altitude, now sitting at about one hundred and fifty feet over the Channel. It was to be a long flight home, but jonah had a feeling he might just make it before his luck ran out.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Good God, what did they do to him?
As her stunned gaze beheld the face of the now-freed Captain Robert Page, multitudes of details, some obvious and some more subtle, stood out to her. The most obvious, perhaps, being that they'd shaved him bald, right to the skin, and recently too - right to the point where it looked like he'd been bald as a newborn his entire life. Where he'd normally been clean-shaven, or cultivated some fairly well-groomed stubble (which she'd always fancied looked quite dashing, but that was her editorializing and was really neither here nor there), his facial hair had been left unattended, forming the beginnings of a ragged sort of beard not at all unlike one you'd expect a beginner desert hermit to sport.

Those two factors by themselves would have been quite the shocking sights, but it went on to even greater lengths. His entire head was cut and bruised like she'd never seen anybody's done before, visible even through his new beard growth, with some of the cuts ragged, and some clearly cut with a purpose, some shallow, and some...really, really deep. The bruises combined to make his whole visage a veritable rainbow of artistically-applied blunt-force trauma, in bright reds, dull purples, jaundiced-looking yellows, sickly browns, and a massive, painful-looking black ring over his left eye. But none of these things were what caught her attention the most - indeed, not only did it stick out more than any of these other injuries, but actually served to identify Page better than anything else, despite all of these combined injuries making him almost facially unrecognizable otherwise.

What stuck out were his eyes.

It seemed to Alix that his normal, dark blue eyes had been replaced or transformed, sometime during his captivity, into a pair of outlets for a painfully bright blue flame burning right through his brain, out of his nerves, to the open sockets. It was so intense, it looked for all the world like some headache-inducingly bright electric-azure shard of some tropical ocean had been shoved into place in his skull behind his eyeballs, reflecting and exploding out for all the world to see. It was horrifying - set within his battered face, it wasn't just unrecognizable, it was barely human. There were so many mixed emotions in there - anger, confusion, fear, hate, sadness, and even a crushingly desperate tinge of hope - that it was difficult to even look at.

And then the moment passed. The horrible look in his eyes vanished as he realized what was going on, and came to his senses, to Alix's relief.

---

(Authorial note: cont'd directly from The Battle of Evermore, so you know you should probably read it and stuff 'cuz i spent a lot of time on it and it's important and stuff)
- and then there was light again, as the darkness in front of his face was pulled away.

"Oh, my God..."

As he awoke from his stupor, Page had the oddest feeling that he'd just had some kind of very intense dream or experience that he couldn't quite remember, unique from all the other navel-gazing memories and daydreams he'd lost himself in in the last few weeks - something on another level altogether. The emotions he'd evidently been feeling, and the nonsensical words and images in his mind from the assumptive aftermath of this strange mental event were still swirling around his memory, yet he couldn't actually get a handle on them. He felt like hell, inside and out, but he just couldn't remember why. And then he remembered what was happening in the real world, right in front of him.

For the first time in a long while, he took quick stock of his surroundings in the real, physical world. He was on the ground - a ground apparently made of metal, as opposed to the concrete of his cell. Yes. This was indisputable. He was making progress with the task of assessing his surroundings, despite the pounding, screaming headache he just realized he had. Terrific. Continuing on this winning path, he was on his knees, but his arms and legs were free now, which was definitely anomalous. His captors were nowhere to be seen, which was also definitely progress, there was a roaring in his ears that definitely betrayed that they were in transit, likely in some kind of cargo vehicle, bound for...Berlin. Right. And imminent, humiliating death upon arrival. Of course. Old hat stuff. there was movement at the corner of his vision, but he wasn't going to stretch himself to dealing with that right now.

What he was bound to deal with was the fact that he was almost nose-to-nose with somebody wearing rolled-up flight goggles, a stocking cap, and what appeared to be cobbled-together pieces of an RAF uniform combined with whatever other warmth-adding pieces of clothing happened to be around, then positively covering themselves in miscellaneous gear on top of that - and that this somebody was perhaps the one person he'd wanted to see most in the world these last few weeks. It was like a dream - so cruelly like a dream (in a lot of ways he didn't really feel like going into), and he would've consigned it to being a dream entirely were it not for all the pain he was in. He blinked stupidly as he realized the massive implications of what his senses were telling him, and began to piece together what must have happened.

"Oh...that's much better."

To his surprise, he was the one saying (rasping, really) those words.

He felt her hands pulling him to his feet, still trying to process what was happening. "Captain! Can you hear me? Thank God we found you. Are you all right? Can you stand up on your own? If you can't, we can help you-"
All these questions were too much for him to handle on anything more than the most cursory level, despite his legitimate best efforts. "Yeah...yeah, I think so-"
His head lolled around as he tried to get his footing, propping himself up against the wall. He could see other people inside...Smythe...somebody who looked like Michael and yet was not Michael...Charlie, for some reason on the ground...and there were others on the ground too...but it couldn't be...Talbot...Michael himself...and Pat. His hand flipped around in some sort of vague gesture encompassing all of the last three.

"I thought you all...were dead..." he croaked.

[Morrdh]

Charlie cried out as Talbot suddenly and viscously attacked him, finding himself being tripped over by Talbot's feet before the man tried to strangle the life out of him. But thankfully Talbot came to his senses before any serious harm occurred and asked, "Fodder? What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

"Trying...to...rescue...ye...lot..." Croaked Charlie as he rubbed his throat and pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Ye ruddy mad bastard."

"Oh, hey skipper..." Charlie added when he saw Page had been freed.

---

There was a glimmer of hop for Kaya as the Channel eventually came into sight, though it was short lived when the German flak opened and slowly returned when they cleared the German defences. But there was the realisation that they were flying low in a badly damaged and slow moving bomber, easy prey for any roving Jerry fighters. Plus it had been a rough trip so far, first the radio operator brought and now it seemed one of the gunners had as well.

In all the times she'd flown she had never so much wanted to be back on firm earth so much.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Charlie cried out as Talbot suddenly and viscously attacked him, finding himself being tripped over by Talbot's feet before the man tried to strangle the life out of him. But thankfully Talbot came to his senses before any serious harm occurred and asked, "Fodder? What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

"Trying...to...rescue...ye...lot..." Croaked Charlie as he rubbed his throat and pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Ye ruddy mad bastard."

"Oh, hey skipper..." Charlie added when he saw Page had been freed.

The Captain couldn't help a small, painful laugh seeing what had happened to Charlie. "Good to see you, Flying officer. Guess I shouldn't have written you guys off so quickly."

Page's eyes scanned the interior of the plane as he leaned against the wall, trying to get some feeling back in his already-weakened legs and arms while simultaneously trying to piece together exactly what was going on.
"Where the hell...are we? Some kind of...cargo train, or something like that? And how the goddamn world did you track us down?"
Alix made her way back to the cockpit as she responded to make sure their unwilling pilot wasn't up to trouble. All of this was happening so fast, it was hard to get a coherent response together.
"That last question's a very long story, but to answer the first one, you're onboard a Junkers JU-89 transport somewhere above Northern France, bound for Berlin. It took us a while - and I'm sorry about that, we did the best we could - but we managed to track you down and get ourselves aboard here. We've got a tame German flying the plane - he knows the cost of starting any trouble. The rest of Excalibur's maintaining fighter cover outside. You're on your way home, believe me."

This was all rather too much for Page to take, and he sort of slumped back to the ground, trying to wrap his head around this sudden, total change of circumstances. Alix was about to try and get him upright again (probably better for the circulation and that), when she saw a furtive movement out of the corner of her eye from the cockpit. She drew her pistol.
"HEY - What are you doing in there, you Kraut bastard-"
But it was too late. As Alix rushed back up, he'd grabbed the copilot's microphone, and was gibbering madly into it.

"This is Grun One! We've been hijacked, I repeat, we've been hijacked! There are British forces onboard the aircraft, they've killed the-"

---

Valledeseine Airfield, near Rouen, France
"We confirm that all contact has been lost. I repeat, transport Grun-One is not responding to any transmissions."
The voice of Berlin in his ear: "Keep trying. That's an order."

The controller, sitting with a phone clutched to his ear at his desk at the tower, trying to direct his underlings to simultaneously keep up transmissions with the beleaguered and to redirect any Luftwaffe forces in range of the situation, all non-verbally and with one hand, couldn't ever recall handling a situation this bizarre. It had been an ordinary day directing fighter patrols around Northern France, until he had been informed that some special, ultra-important high-speed transport run from Southern France was entering his area of supervision - and that it was already under heavy RAF attack.

He'd responded with all due alacrity and creditable skill, marshaling the reserve fighter flights that immediately came to hand, and bringing in whatever he could cadge from other zones to converge on the target with a quickness. And that...hadn't worked. From the fragmented reports that were coming in, there was no less than a whole Spitfire wing around that transport with an entire squadron of RAF heavy bombers in support with purpose unknown. But what really gave him a strange feeling was what the bombers were reported to be doing up there - firing off wires into the transport, people crawling from the bombers and actually breaching the transports...privately, he suspected that whoever reported that one was maybe suffering from hypoxia, but that was all the info he had. And now the transport wasn't talking back, and his phone was ringing off the hook with calls from Berlin from Command, wanting to know what was going on in the skies over France in excruciating detail and impossible precision that he didn't have and couldn't give.

"Sir, it's almost certain they were shot down and crashed. If there's no radio contact-"
"High Command is not going to accept anything short of visual confirmation. Either get contact, or get something out there that can get a pair of eyes on."
He was getting fed up. "I'm telling you, Sir,-"

Suddenly, his radio on the desk lit up.
"This is Grun One! We've been hijacked, I repeat, we've been hijacked! There are British forces onboard the aircraft, they've killed the-"

Then the line went dead again.

---

*Crunch*
The wet, snapping impact of Alix Colt-whipping the German pilot right in the left temple was loud enough to actually be heard throughout the entire aircraft, causing Page to wince in involuntary sympathetic pain.
"I thought you said he was tame!"
"I thought he was!" Alix called back, chagrined over her miscalculation, readying her weapon for another blow, "But apparently I gave this useless little piece of shit more credit than he deserved! Isn't that right, you fucking-"
<<Stop!>> The German screamed, holding his hands up in a futile effort to block another blow, his forehead bloody and his eyes visibly disoriented. <<I'm sorry! I was stupid and I made a mistake! I swear I won't do it again! I don't know what I was thinking->>

---

"Grun One, come in!"
No response.
Command in his ear again: "What the hell was that, Hauptmann?"
"Transmission from Grun One, sir - it says they've been hijacked. It sounded like there was a struggle, the transmission was cut off."
"You're sure they said 'hijacked'?"
"Yes, sir."
"Confirmed. Stand by for further orders."

A few minutes of agonized waiting. Then, a different voice.

"Hauptmann, this is General von Sporrenburg of the Waffen-SS. That transport plane is carrying our cargo, and is flying under our jurisdiction. As such, I am now ordering you to dispatch whatever fighter craft you have at your disposal to intercept that transport, and shoot it down. Do you understand me? If it's been hijacked, it cannot be allowed to land anywhere, under any circumstances. It may as well be carrying plague, for all the damage it could do if it slips out of our hands. Am I understood?"
"Understood, sir."
The line went dead.

An aide ran up. "Orders, sir?"
The controller pinched the bridge of his nose. "Get whatever's left of that weird SS fighter unit that came back in from that attack, they should be refueled by now. Tell them to launch, then intercept and destroy that transport at all costs. I'll get the radar boys to vector them in."
"Right."

[Morrdh]

"OK, OK." Muttered Charlie as he got back to his feet. "Got an idea or two 'bouts how the heck we're gonna get outta this mess."

"First, need somebody who speaks German to get on the radio and ask fer emergency landing clearance. Shoot a line 'bouts how you've regained control of the aircraft or something, keep Jerry guessing 'bouts what the hell is actually going on."

"Secondly, does anyone remember the Met report from the briefing? If there is enough cloud cover we could use that and then belt it to the Channel."

"And lastly, probably an idea that we offload our German guest...least we don't get any more trouble from the bugger."

[The balkens]

Above the transport

"weiss Squadron, this is Weiss one. We have just received new orders." Dietrich now knew why they were called back up into the air.
"high command has seen fit to shoot down that transport that we were escorting earlier. Let us not disappoint them."

Dietrich rolled over and dived once more. His engine screamed as he moved his craft in to a head on course with the transport. he aimed his weapons at the cockpit. Then, he fired.

[Monfrox]

Samantha had been flying tight with the squadron when she heard Dietrich's engine scream from above. "What are they...oh no..." She thought as she quickly guessed what they were about to do. They were going to pull a contingency and try shooting down the transport itself before it got back. She gunned the engine and banked. There was little time to do anything else, let alone think. Everything she did was on instinct. "Haaaaagh!"Samantha pulled the stick hard right and Spitfire zoomed over into the line of fire between Dietrich and the transport. "Dang it!" She shouted. Time seemed to slow for a few short seconds as she looked up at the 109 while she passed in front of it. The moment was short-lived. Bullets ripped through her plane. Smoke poured from in front out of the engine cowling. Glass from her canopy shattered as her Spitfire continued to list off to the right, still somewhat in the previous turn.

[Kouralia]

"I think that's probably a good idea." Smythe said, glaring toward the cockpit. "That is unless we're going to get off of this transport pretty shar-" He stopped, throwing himself aside as bullets tore through the transport from above and strained engine notes were clearly audible. "Bloo..." the SNCO said, stopping the curse short as he began to pull himself up. "And, I think that's probably our best option at the moment..."

[Goram]

The flight across the channel was as quiet an affair as can be expected in a crippled aeroplane. In the distance, and closing slowly, Stanford could see the Isle of Wight. He had not expected to have drifted so far East, but with the damaged sustained and virtually all of the cockpit instruments U/S, it was hardly surprising. The sight of the Island was welcome, however, for more reasons than one. Firstly, it was heart warming to see the English coast hove into view. Secondly, Stanford knew of an airstrip in the area.

Royal Navy Air Station Lee-On-Solent had been established in 1917, as an offshoot of the seaplane installation on the Calshot spit. Lying slightly to the west of Portsmouth, the station was home to the the Headquarters of the Flag Officer Air and was currently known, in Navy service, as HMS Daedelus. All of this, however, was elementary to the heavily damaged bomber. All that mattered to them was that the station had a runway that was just over 1,400 yards long. It was a somewhat shorter than the strip at Tempsford, but it would have to suffice.

As the Wellington made land fall over the Isle, Stanford reached for the gear switch. He operated the switch, moving it from "UP" to "DOWN". He waited several painful seconds, expecting something to happen, but nothing did. Stanford desperately flipped the switch again, first up and then down, praying that the hydraulic system would kick in. What Stanford couldn't know was that a stamp sized piece of shrapnel had cut through the hydraulic lines, making the powered turrets and undercarriage completely inoperable. The only reason they had not found this out before, was one gun position had been completely destroyed and the gunner in the other had not tried to operate his weapons. If he had, he would have found that the turret failed to traverse even a single degree.

This latest disaster left Stanford with a dilemma. Ordinarily, a hand crank would be used to lower the wheels. However, this would take some time and the bomber was coming up fast on the field. He closed his eyes momentarily, deciding on a course of action, before keying the intercom.

"Pilot to crew, abandon the aircraft. We cannot lower the gear and I'm going to try to take her in...I'm going to attempt a crash landing. No sense you chaps being here for that."

The bomber was still over the Isle of Wight and Stanford knew that gave the remnants of his crew a chance. More to the point, it gave Kaya a chance. In crash landing the bomber, he ran great personal risk. If he bailed out now, he would surely live but he knew that was impossible. If he took his hands of the controls, the bomber would roll. He'd never make it to the escape hatch, the centrifugal forces inside the rolling, and eventually diving, aircraft would see to that. Besides, he was the pilot. It was his duty to stay with the aircraft and give the others a chance to escape. He could not simply abandon them in an effort to save himself. No. He must stay with the aircraft to the bitter end, regardless of what that was.

[Calizorinstan]

Pat awoke in the Ju-88 with a groan. He had not any idea where he had been, ever since the last he had known, he had been brutally knocked out by one of the Nazi SS interrogators. And he saw the Captain, Page and Zikorski. He then heard shouting in the front of the cockpit and hurried up front and panted. "Sorry Cap, I was out like a lightbulb. Do you need any help tying up the prisoner?"