Read Online B for Buster by Iain Lawrence - Free Book Online Page B

along over factories and buildings, across a silver ribbon of the river. I saw target markers tumbling in a cascade of crimson and green. And everywhere were the searchlights, weaving back and forth, flailing across the sky like the legs of a terrified spider.
    They didn’t seem at all like beams of light. They were solid things that would knock us from the sky if they touched us. They were the death rays that even Superman was scared of.
    â€œTen minutes to the target,” said Simon.
    â€œRoger.”
    A band of searchlights guarded Düsseldorf, slashing at us with those white-hot rays. And from their middle rose a single blue one that never moved, that stood erect like a column in the air. The night fighters would be swarming toward it, wheeling round that pillar of light.
    â€œHello, hello. The welcome wagon’s here,” said Lofty. A light washed over us. I heard a shell go whistling by and the
whump
of another exploding ahead. I smelled the powder, and felt the kite shiver as we flew through the shattered air.
    â€œBomb doors open,” said Lofty.
    The whistle of air that was always with us became a terrible scream. I huddled in my little space, with my eyes closed and my teeth locked.
    â€œShe’s all yours, Shakespeare,” said Lofty.
    â€œOkay, Skipper.”
    Here we go,
I thought. For the next minute and a half we could do nothing but fly straight across the target at a steady speed and a constant height. Forget the searchlights; forget the flak and the fighters; just put the bombs on the target or the op wouldn’t count.
    I couldn’t stop shivering. I held my head and closed my eyes, and with every lurch and shake of the plane I was afraid that something had hit us, that our wing was shearing off. I kept thinking of that man snagged to his falling machine, and I was certain that the same thing would happen to me. Yet Will sounded nearly as calm as Lofty. He lay on his glass floor, looking straight down at the searchlights, straight into the gun barrels, but there wasn’t a hint of fear in his voice. “Left, left,” he said. Then, “Right a bit. Steady, Skipper. Steaaaady.”
    I wanted to get out of that machine. I felt that I
had
to get out before it was too late.
    â€œLeft, left.”
    Flak exploded beside us, then above us. A terrifying rattle sprayed across the fuselage, and I screamed into the intercom, “We’re hit! We’re hit!”
    Ratty shouted, “Where?” and Buzz cried, “Corkscrew. Go!” Then Lofty hollered, “Shut up! Everyone shut up!” He said, “It’s just cartridges. Empty cartridges.” They were spewing from the turrets of the bombers up above us.
    â€œSteady,” said Will. “Left, left. Steady now. Steaaaady.”
    There were bombers all around us, covering acres of the sky. I prayed that one of
them
would get the chop instead of us—that
all
of them would get the chop so long as we were safe.
    Lofty clicked on. “Kid, get ready with the flash.”
    â€œRoger, Skipper.” My hands fumbled with the buckles and connections. My legs wobbled as I climbed to the cockpit. I closed my eyes and groped through it, not wanting to see all of the sky through those greenhouse windows. I stepped down toward the flare chute and bumped right into Buzz’s legs. His shoulders were above me, his head in his turret.
    When I got to the chute I plugged myself back into the oxygen and intercom. I took a flare from the holder, and waited for Will.
    Come on, come on,
I thought. The fuselage was a horrible place to sit out the minutes. A dark and lonely tunnel, it stretched back to the tail, where a door led to Ratty’s rear turret. The coldness ran right to my blood and my bones. I was afraid that my fingers would freeze, and that I wouldn’t be able to drop the flash at the right time. When the bombs fell away they would start our camera running. If I released the flash too