Shards of canopy glass peppered Patch's face, dragging red lines across his skin. The wind howled against his goggles, trying to rip them off. Patch gripped the yoke control with both hands, trying to pull his Spitfire out of its death-dive. Below the Channel waters churning, behind two Messerschmidt cranking out round after round of machine-gun fire.
Patch put the Spitfire into a roll and watched the enemy fire draw staccato lines into the Channel below. But the Jerry's adjusted quickly and now Patch could feel their rounds chunking into his tail section. Suddenly the whole plane shook as an enormous plume of smoke erupted from his burning tail-fin.
On shore, a BBC radio man watched the air battle intently.
The canopy continued to disintegrate around Patch as his plane continued to speed towards the water. Another 30 seconds and Patch would have to eject. But just yesterday, the Jerry's had machine-gunned two Brits in their parachutes. The war was heating up.
The only option left to Patch was to try to out pilot the two behind him. If he could keep his plane together all the way down, he might get them to follow him right into the drink.
The howl of the cold air filled Patch's ears and he strained through it listening for the German guns. Both planes were still on him.
The yoke shook in Patch's hands as the tail-fin burned off completely. Now Patch was without steering. On the fast approaching water, Patch watched the shadow of one German peel off his pursuit. Either dodging the tail section or dodging Patch's tactic having witnessed another doomed Brit use it before.
Another section of canopy glass tore into Patch's forehead, sending a stream of blood into his eyes. But Patch smiled wide at the wall of dark blue in front of him, knowing at least he had got one of the bastards.
On shore the BBC man reported in grim tones that another Spitfire was down in the Channel, but before he could finish his sentence a speeding Messerschmidt quickly followed suit.
Originally posted on August 8, 2006 on Myspace.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment